Ask a Manager

The manager writing in for advice sounds like an awful person. https://www.askamanager.org/ is an excellent site from which to learn the mistakes of others. I wish I'd read something like it twenty years ago! Avoid the in-the-moment pressure of dealing with these types of absurd situations by reading about them before one of them happens to you, because it will, eventually. Remember -- "forewarned is forearmed". Stay safe out there!

In the U.S., if an employer gives information about you that's factual, you'd have no grounds for suing them. If they fired the original poster, they'd almost certainly have the paperwork to prove it. If you want to learn more about these kinds of employment issues (from both the employer's and employee's point of view), I can recommend a couple of excellent blogs: - Evil HR Lady: http://www.evilhrlady.org - Ask a Manager: http://www.askamanager.org

I don't have any specific studies, but I have read about human cognitive biases in general (Thinking Fast and Slow, Freakonomics), have talked to pregnant women going through the interview process, and have myself interviewed as a pregnant woman over the past couple years. I've also read countless forums (Corporette posts[1], the excellent Ask A Manager[2] blog, Laurie Ruettimann [3] that talk specifically about workplace psychology in a non-clinical way. The hiring manager likes to think they are not biased, but they always are, in the same way all humans are. Be it by names in resumes [4], or because employees experience a "cultural mismatch", we are imperfect as humans and will judge a person just as much as we judge credentials or resumes. The best hiring managers will recognize that this is a Thing That Exists and try to actively overcome these biases. But the world is not made up of best hiring managers. It is made up of people who may or may not assume that because you are pregnant you will not do as much work, or they don't want to give you leave or deal with FMLA, or they don't want to deal with you potentially not coming back after your leave is over. This is a constant fear for women, this fear of being judged on our childbearing potential, and comes up over and over again in both motherhood forums and professional work forums, as well as more recently in the national conversation with the likes of Lean In, Anna Marie Slaughter, and others. I've had…

My favorite was the newly hired account manager for a web dev company whom the CEO found rummaging in the supply cabinet, looking for some URLs to show clients. https://www.askamanager.org/2021/10/the-controversial-calculator-the-h… (#19)

Just a meta-comment - if you're new to all this, it's good to know that management != leadership. If you're starting out, you'll want to learn both, and you'll need both. More practically, here's a fun blog where you can ask specific questions: https://www.askamanager.org/

Reddit was a bad habit for me, so I've resisted outright replacing it. (I basically haven't even looked at Lemmy.) I mainly read Hacker News more than I used to and started reading Ask a Manager[0] regularly. A big benefit of both is that they aren't "bottomless" like Reddit so I won't waste too much time on them. AAM fulfills my desire to learn about others' lived experiences, but the relatively narrow topic range means it becomes uninteresting if I read the archives for too long. [0]: https://www.askamanager.org/

There was a follow-up in 2022. https://www.askamanager.org/2022/02/update-my-best-employee-quit-on-th…

> everyone should get an opportunity to be a manager One way to test drive being a manager: read the Ask A Manager column (https://www.askamanager.org/) for a few days or browse the archives. Read the question submitted by the reader, consider how you would deal that problem, then compare your response with Alison's (and the commentors below.) Yes, most the problems are not technology or software problems. Some are downright silly. But that's largely true of software development, too.

There actually is a follow-up to this story that confirms that this person has not overcome her strong tendency to bully, her narcissism and her fixation on the victim: https://www.askamanager.org/2017/12/update-i-didnt-get-a-job-because-i… She rather pities herself at length than putting some effort into admitting and reflecting on the wrongdoings. Similarly to the ‚probably was awful to her’ in the first letter, her fallout (obviously retraumatising the victim at her anniversary) which got her thrown out of a restaurant and blacklisted in the industry gets a short sentence worth of description. I hope for the victim that she could avoid that person.

I, as an individual employee, would never buy a disinfection robot for my office. If someone did, it sounds like the sort of poor understanding of role boundaries that would end up on https://www.askamanager.org/

Newsletters http://levelup.thekua.com/ https://softwareleadweekly.com/ http://www.techmanagerweekly.com/ https://wherewithall.com/ Blogs https://randsinrepose.com/ https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/ https://www.theengineeringmanager.com/ https://www.askamanager.org/ https://increment.com/ https://devtomanager.com/ Conference https://theleaddeveloper.com/ Other Resources http://lenareinhard.com/engineering-management-reads/ https://github.com/LappleApple/awesome-leading-and-managing Previously: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21712194

I'm a regular reader of Ask a Manager (https://www.askamanager.org/), and one thing that comes up over and over is how both managers and employees will avoid awkward topics ranging from trivial ("your breath smells") to consequential ("you need to step up or you'll be fired!"), to the point of going to extremes like quitting the job, just to avoid having a genuine conversation with somebody. And I'm guilty of this too. I used to work with a dude who did not brush his teeth and used to wear the same clothes for a week in a row -- and I don't think anybody ever said a word to him, they just edged away quietly.

The update is far more delicious than the original: http://www.askamanager.org/2016/07/a-coworker-stole-my-spicy-food-got-… I'm not sure that the original advice given was ideal. I'd recommend consulting with a lawyer first before giving any information to HR given that OPs job was at risk. But I'm happy for OP that it all worked out in the end.

There's an update to the original post. What a lovely ending to the story. http://www.askamanager.org/2016/10/update-a-coworker-stole-my-spicy-fo…

My sense is that it's just a good way to annoy people whose job isn't hiring. At best, you're risking annoying someone who is busy (and your email being deleted with no reply), at worst, you're actively penalizing yourself if you are demonstrating that you aren't willing to go through the standard hiring process that the company uses. (For other terrible ways that job applicants try to "stand out", Ask A Manager is a veritable goldmine[0]). [0]: http://www.askamanager.org/2013/06/a-job-applicant-stopped-by-with-a-p…

That's a pretty good article, but if anyone is looking for a less ideological take here is another: http://www.askamanager.org/2012/09/do-what-you-love-is-not-great-advic…

The core purpose of collecting resumes is to determine which candidates are most worth bringing in for an interview. A candidate who understands the business purpose of what they are doing and is capable of calibrating their task to best meet that need and gauging the outcomes of how well it did so is infinitely more valuable than one who just blindly does whatever task with no knowledge or understanding. Skillsets are more than just a list of technologies you've worked with. "Deployed our core application to Kubernetes": Cool you once saw a Dockerfile and Kubernetes YAML.Like every single other applicant. I don't even know from this if you have a basic understanding of Kubernetes. "Deployed our application to Kubernetes for better server utilization and resiliency increasing our uptime by 20% while reducing cutting our server costs by 10%". This person at minimum has some idea of how to configure Kubernetes for application resiliency, knows how to measure and maximize hardware utilization, knows how to measure and minimize downtime, and probably knows enough about Kubernetes to provide advice about when to use it and when not to. Maybe the first person does too, but they did nothing to show it. > It is not to make wild assumptions about how someone is probably incompetent because they put put 'GIT' or 'JAVA' No one said wildly incompetent. > every project they have worked on(good luck getting all that on one page) Don't put every project on your resume. Pick the most…

> I've though about working in a Amazon warehouse. There's one near me. But they don't get health benefits for 3+ months. Have to do intense manual labor etc. I think you need to focus on your priorities here. As I understand you're currently jobless and obviously have no health benefits, and are on the verge of becoming homeless. Doing three months of "intense manual labor" to get a paycheck and health benefits is (in my view at least) far preferable to being homeless and penniless. My perception of your reply is that you think the Amazon warehouse job is beneath you; does homelessness appeal more? Seriously, at this stage, in the very short run, your number one priority should be to avert homelessness, and do whatever it takes. I know you mentioned back pain, but if the Amazon warehouse isn't your thing, there should be something else you can do to tide you over. More broadly as lot of commenters have very kindly offered to talk to you and help you in various ways. That is an immense gift! Make use of it, and don't make them regret offering their assistance. You're in a bad place mentally right now, but you're young, you're not stupid and you can get out of this, but you need to be willing to put in the effort. Asking the question here is a very good first step. Lastly, you may also want to visit Ask A Manager [1] which has a lot of good advice on cover letters, resumes, interviewing, etc. It's not tech-specific, but most of the advice applies universally. Good…

I'm a professor and have worked in industry. Let me break down the issues a bit on the education side, first. Almost always by year 4+ most PhD students are fatigued and starting to get very weary. I was definitely one of them, and at times I did feel like my supervisor wasn't helping my career development or giving me enough mentoring. He is a wonderful, kind, and creative person and he spent 1-2 hours per week with me, but for whatever reason I still felt this way. I eventually decided I felt that way because he didn't make his expectations for me finishing and tailoring those expectations to my career goals clear up front, and very few advisors do so. The first thing I did when I became a professor was write up an expectations document, and when students want to join my lab I walk them through it, and even then we do a trial run if they still want to. I think this helps a lot. Each semester I review career goals, progress to graduation, etc. with a student, and we include things like publication targets, internships, etc., depending on career goals. I think of my PhD students as my apprentices, and it is my job to get them to be strong scientists and to help them achieve their career goals, as long as they put the work in. Once I became a professor I was much more understanding and sympathetic to my own advisor. Until you have the job, you don't really understand the challenges. All that said, I've seen very bad advisors who exploit students, fail to mentor them well,…

Oops this is the first post here on Ask a Manager https://www.askamanager.org/2024/02/i-was-rejected-because-i-told-my-i…

Concentrate on how this affects your work, specifically, and take that to your manager. Then let it go. https://www.askamanager.org/2014/10/how-to-deal-with-a-lazy-coworker.h…

https://www.askamanager.org/2018/01/i-paid-for-fake-references-is-it-r… You're not alone!

There’s lots of stories of this happening. Especially once video interviews have become common making the grift easier. Example: https://www.askamanager.org/2022/01/the-new-hire-who-showed-up-is-not-…

Reminds me of this insane story from Ask A Manager: https://www.askamanager.org/2022/01/the-new-hire-who-showed-up-is-not-… I figured it had to be rare - how many people are brave enough to pull that off? Can't believe this is something people running into more. I don't know if this is good news or bad for someone like me that's actively looking and not having much luck. Disappointing that fake people can get further.

Deja Vu? This exact question and set of circumstances was Asked previously. Ahh, yes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30150343 Which referenced: https://www.askamanager.org/2022/01/the-new-hire-who-showed-up-is-not-…

Interesting timing. The Ask a Manager blog just yesterday published a guest post by someone who tracked down one of the commonly cited statistics that drives the supposed myth. The research does not debunk the claim itself, though both the author and the blog runner share their own comments about the veracity of the claim. https://www.askamanager.org/2020/10/your-job-application-was-rejected-…

I just found something very indicative of the current times: in Ask A Manager (a blog about work where the owner answers questions from her readers) someone is afraid that not working during the evenings or the weekends is going to hurt their job prospects. The article has been published today. https://www.askamanager.org/2019/07/can-you-advance-professionally-wit…

Alison's "Ask a Manager" blog usually has sound advice for example: https://www.askamanager.org/2017/11/should-i-tip-off-my-coworker-that-… maybe some other relevant discussion here: https://www.askamanager.org/category/layoffs

This feels like a made-up story designed to attract clicks. Even more with the happy ending update. There are more unlikely stories on the same site, like this one: http://www.askamanager.org/2017/05/im-in-a-dominantsubmissive-relation…

Be sure to read the update at the bottom of the article: http://www.askamanager.org/2016/10/update-a-coworker-stole-my-spicy-fo… Looks like the situation worked out fairly well in the end.