It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager, where all month I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are five updates from past letter-writers.
1. My company is having an unsafe holiday party (#2 at the link)
I had written to you last year about my employer hosting an in-person holiday party during a pandemic! I have a couple of updates.
First, the party ended up getting canceled after multiple employees got COVID beforehand. I was relieved, because I had told my manager I wouldn’t be attending because of a prior engagement and she seemed disappointed in me.
Second, after that my employer seemed to back off on in-person events and wanting to physically see people. I was hopeful that we were going to be allowing remote work after the pandemic was over; in fact, they sent multiple emails alluding as much. But only a few weeks ago, they held a conference call in which they said everyone needed to come back soon and they would never allow remote work again. They said our corporate culture was being destroyed and we weren’t efficient enough while working remotely. That felt like a lie, because we exceeded all of our metrics last year and were told it was one of the best years for our firm.
So now I’m considering getting a new job. I feel betrayed by the organization. Not a nice update, but I wanted to let you know!
2. I’m not getting interviews because employers think they can’t afford me
First, thank you for answering my letter. I believe I said in the comments that by the time you posted my letter I had already accepted a job for a local company. At the time I really needed a job, so I accepted one that used my skill set and allowed me to learn new things, has great benefits, has been testing COVID protocols well, and allowed for great networking opportunities. Although I took a significant pay cut from the job I was laid off from (a 55% pay cut), after 7 months, I was offered an intracompany transfer to a different position that more aligns with my project manager background, provided a raise of about 30% pay raise, and kept many of the same benefits. My new boss has also said that at fiscal year end my salary will be re-reviewed to bring me more in line with my capabilities.
I’m feeling much more confident in my newest role and more comfortable with my assigned duties! Your site helped me negotiate salaries for the two positions I’ve held as well as additional vacation time. My key experience there was: make the request and stop talking. Thanks for all of your continued help!!
3. Am I expecting too much when interviewing students?
I truly appreciate your response and every single comment from readers! The response was overwhelming, but also educational and -super helpful. I took every single comment to heart (I read all 600+) and, to be honest, I was feeling uncomfortable. I’ve been feeling burned out, anxious, and overwhelmed and I think my inner turmoil is showing. I am – or was – feeling very silly about my letter. I leaned into the discomfort and approached this as a learning opportunity.
I do want to respond to a few of the specific comments:
I typically wouldn’t have started the interview process this far in advance. I am not interviewing anyone else since he needs to lock in an internship way before I’d want to actually start the hiring process. I was feeling the pressure of having to decide without comparing him to other applicants. I will also likely be on maternity leave during his internship and since I can’t talk to anyone about this (except you all, I guess) I am worrying about how this affect my intern!
I heard and truly value your comments about privilege. I was a first-gen student myself, my parents did not have professional jobs nor did they go to college, and I went no contact with my dad when I was a freshman, so I don’t think I was coming to this from a place of privilege. I did have an awesome professor who was a bit of a mentor and I did use my resources (mostly, the internet) to prepare myself for these kinds of things, but I don’t and shouldn’t expect that everyone has the same instinct. I really appreciate the commenter who pointed out that “unconscious mastery makes things seem obvious that are really not”.
Since nearly all of you mentioned earbuds, I have no idea why they jumped out at me as being weird. I don’t personally see them very often in my virtual meetings (and I don’t watch the news), and, yeah, I was feeling really dumb.
As many of you suggested, I decided to extend this student some grace (I am extending myself some grace, too). I spent the rest of the day brainstorming and drafting a plan for what his internship could look like, leaving room for opportunities for professional development and started to map out how my maternity leave would affect him. I reached out to him to schedule a second interview and let him know my expectations in terms of dress code and engagement. The second interview went a lot better and we hired him, so wish me luck shaping a young mind!
I wrote in to learn and I definitely did, so thank you all for that!
4. My coworker is a dominatrix — and it’s fairly public on Facebook
I wrote a letter a few years ago about my dominatrix coworker. Not a very exciting update, but her former slave is now her wife and they’re running a small business together. Not sure about the sex life because it’s no longer mentioned on Facebook, but they seem very happy!
5. Friday good news (#1 at the link)
I wouldn’t think a “Friday Good News” needed an update, but it has been a wild ride since I shared my good news. My good news ended up turning into bad news, and then good news again!
I had a “very specific background and skill set” and didn’t think I would find a job during covid, and I was ecstatic when I found something directly in alignment with my background, and I got more money and PTO than I expected. Dream job, right?
Nope! The hiring manager left after a week and my team was tossed around between departments. Every manager tried to blindly take charge even though they knew nothing about our work. Basically, they were meddling rather than managing. There were many bad decisions that directly led to systematic failures. I was the only one with experience in managing this kind of special work, but I was treated like a dumb girl if I dared open my mouth. After 4 different managers, working 60-70 hour weeks, and enduring misogyny misery every day, I was about to accept a new job. Turns out, my whole team was equally frustrated and they were also job searching. A co-worker turned in their notice first and then THINGS HAPPENED.
Leadership suddenly realized how poorly things were being handled, and they made changes. Our executives called me one-by-one to apologize. They had been told that the major, company destroying problems weren’t a big deal. There was a lot of rosy info being passed through management to cover up all the problems, and every leader who called apologized for not looking deeper and for giving leadership positions to managers that weren’t ready for the responsibility. They moved those managers into roles that were better suited to their strengths, and we were given the responsibility of managing our own team.
I was so frustrated and miserable that I didn’t think anything could turn me around. But the honesty from my leaders and thoughtful changes that were put in place completely flipped my attitude. It’s only been a few weeks, but it is like a new job. My team has developed short term and long term goals, there is a new level of respect between colleagues, and I’m actually doing the work I love doing and doing it in a regular 40 hour work week.
My original Friday Good News was a bit premature. But I now have the great job that I thought I was walking into a year ago.