Kate

This post, CEO’s wife ruined my job prospects , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

I’m on vacation. This was originally published in 2017.

A reader writes:

I have been going through a very rigorous interviewing process for a permanent job in a firm where I have been undergoing a two-month post-college training program/paid internship which is very prestigious and only very few trainees are offered the permanent job. It would be my first proper job after finishing university. I have worked very hard during the training and have been very much appreciated by all colleagues. I have successfully passed all stages of the internal recruitment and have been told repeatedly by HR that I would definitely be offered the job. All that was left was to do a final interview with the company CEO and another director, scheduled for an early afternoon on Monday. However, everyone treated this as a mere courtesy meeting or just a sort of final formality.

On Sunday evening, I was travelling home on a packed train with my bike. Suddently, I was approached by a lady who asked me, rather rudely, to give my seat to a man, her father, who was travelling with her. Since I was sitting on a regular seat (not a seat designated for disabled passangers) and had to read some materials to prepare for my interview, I ignored her. Unfortunately, when I was getting off the train, I accidentally moved my bike in a way that it caught and left dirty stains on her coat.

I did not think much of this till the next day when I ran into the same woman and one of directors in the lift in my office building. It transpired that she is the CEO’s wife. She said nothing and did not acknowledge me, but it was very clear to me that she recognised me.

My interview that day went very well. However, I was not offered the job! I was given some feedback about the skills that I have to develop but that was all. I am not sure HR knows about the above as nobody mentioned it. The HR person who handled my recruitment was very surprised, in fact he was in shock about this. In any case, I am very disappointed as I am sure that this is the result of the said woman badmouthing me to her husband. I have worked so hard to get this job and feel it is extremely unfair to be rejected for something that has nothing to do with my performance and ability to do the job.

I am thinking that I should complain to HR and also should request the meeting with the CEO and the second director (who interviewed me) to explain myself, or maybe even to offering to pay for dry-cleaning or reimbursement of the ruined coat?

Don’t complain to HR. And don’t ask for a meeting to explain yourself. It’ll come across as if (a) you feel entitled to a job that you aren’t actually entitled to and which you might have ended up not getting for other reasons, and (b) you’re only offering to pay for the coat now because you think you lost the job over it.

It’s unlikely that this is about a dry cleaning bill. It’s more likely that this is about … well, character.

Ignoring someone who asks you to give up your seat to an older person who needs it is, frankly, pretty rude. If you had a medical need to sit there, it’s of course fine to explain that. But claiming the seat for yourself because you were reading and didn’t feel like standing is pretty crappy. And not even acknowledging the request is worse. There’s a social contract around this kind of thing — you give up your seat to someone who needs it more because of infirmity.

The bike thing was just icing on the cake. I don’t know how you handled it when you bumped her and stained her clothes, and if you were mortified and apologized profusely, okay — stuff happens that you can’t always control. But you don’t mention apologizing or interacting with her in any way.

If I were your interviewer and happened to be on that train and witnessed all of this, it would give me serious pause about hiring you. I’d worry that I had just learned something about your character (rudeness, selfishness, callousness) that in time would cause problems at work too.

This isn’t all that different from losing a job because you were rude to the receptionist. People care about how you behave to others. Sure, it’s not exactly the same as the receptionist scenario because the person you slighted was the wife of an employee, rather than an actual employee … but if they’re hearing it from a credible source, it’s fair game for it to matter to them.

You could certainly offer to pay for the dry cleaning now (framing it as “I realized that you’re married to someone whose coat I stained on the train and now that I know how to reach her, I would like to pay for the cleaning bill”), but you should offer it just because it’s the right thing to do, not because you’re trying to change the hiring decision.

The hiring decision probably isn’t changing. I know that must be hugely disappointing, but I really urge you not to see it as unfair. Rather, take it as a way to learn early in your career that manners and kindness matter, and that attempts to determine how important someone might be or might not can easily go awry.

Read an update to this letter here.

Whether you're a parent/guardian, teacher, babysitter, or in charge of entertaining young children for whatever reason, choosing a kids movie can be an arduous task. You don't want to be talked down to by a cartoon animal with a voice pitched so high it gives you a tension headache -- and frankly, kids don't deserve that either! Here are some movies for kids that adults can actually enjoy and love. You know, the G and PG-rated movies that don't make you feel desperate for adult conversation. (Or, if there are no children in your vicinity and you just feel like watching a kids movie because you've had a stressful day or just enjoy them, that is entirely your prerogative.)

These are also films that adults can enjoy not just because they themselves enjoyed them as kids. Nobody needs any help picking a Pixar movie or a Star Wars; universally beloved by adults and kids alike, you probably already have a favorite. You already know what kids movies hit all the right nostalgia. You have the franchises you're excited to share with little ones in your life lined up and ready to go. Also, while there are plenty of adults who rock out to "Frozen" and "Moana," parents with young kids might be sick of them by now ... so it's always good to have some fresh options.

Mouse Hunt

Gore Verbinski's 1997 slapstick comedy about two brothers who inherit their father's mansion only to be terrorized by a clever mouse living inside holds up shockingly well almost 25 years later. It's funny. It's weird. It's messy and gross. Kids can handle comedic portrayals of violence and death better than you think. It's actually kind of disturbing, but you'll be darkly chuckling at all the ways the brothers' plans backfire right along with the kids. 

Nathan Lane (who has major kids movie cred from "The Lion King") and Lee Evans make a great odd couple as the two brothers. "Mouse Hunt" can also serve as a kid's perfect intro to Christopher Walken, who shows up as a wacky exterminator, as a performer. One final suggestion? Queue this movie up when the kid (or kids) in question want to watch "Home Alone," but it isn't even close to Christmas. 

Spirited Away

Pretty much all of Hayao Miyazaki's beautifully drawn animated films for Studio Ghibli have a respect for children's intelligence that make them enjoyable watches for adults as well. "Ponyo" and "My Neighbor Totoro" will enchant really young kids. "Kiki's Delivery Service" is a witchy alternative to "Harry Potter" if you need one. 

"Spirited Away" is not just a mature story with gorgeous visuals, however; it's stressful and engaging to watch even as an adult! Chihiro/Sen, whose parents turn into pigs after the family wanders into a magical village, is almost constantly in danger. You'll be hooked by the many twists and turns the story takes, especially if you're watching for the first time. You'll love the relationship that develops between Sen and Haku, another trapped soul in the village. Adults could also, especially in Western society, do with a refresher course on the evils of greed as portrayed in "Spirited Away." It's a complex film that adults are guaranteed to love. 

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse

In the rare event that you avoided "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" when it was released in 2018 due to "Spider"-fatigue or the assumption that an animated film would be just for kids and not for you, a Marvel-loving adult -- correct that immediately. It's probably the best "Spider-Man" movie ever made, putting your Maguire vs. Garfield vs. Holland arguments to shame ... or at least putting them in a separate league. 

"Into the Spider-Verse" is joyous, and funny, and fun -- something we've lost in a superhero landscape so obsessed with being grim and dark -- but still poignant. There's something for everyone in this movie, because as it teaches us, anyone can be Spider-Man. Kids can giggle at Spider-Ham while you lose your mind over Nicolas Cage as Spider-Man Noir. There's a Miles Morales origin story for younger generations and a quarter-to-midlife crisis story for the grown-ups in the room. The animation is as inventive as modern comic books and the soundtrack is, like, genuinely excellent.

Belle

Amma Asante's 2013 film about an illegitimate mixed-race young girl raised in British high society feels like any other fairy tale or Jane Austen period piece when you're watching it. Dido Elizabeth Belle, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, is an outsider similar to Elizabeth Bennett or Fanny Price -- but different, of course, because she's not white. You're drawn to the relationship between Dido and her cousin Elizabeth. You're rooting for them both to find husbands. The film even becomes a bit of a courtroom drama, and exposes some aspects of 18th century British society that we don't often see in the lush costume dramas about the era. Then you learn that "Belle" is based on a true story, and it becomes even more fascinating. The film is kid friendly with a PG rating -- so maybe suggest this as an alternative the next time kiddos want to watch "Cinderella" or "The Princess Diaries."

The Parent Trap

While "The Parent Trap" is essentially about kids who are smarter than the adults in their lives and trick them into falling back in love, adults will still love it because it doesn't have that snarky tone that the precocious children on the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon often take. (You know the one.) It also doesn't hurt that this movie has an incredibly sexy adult cast. Modern day Disney romantic interests wish they could have an ounce of Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson's chemistry. 

It might actually be fun to have a "Parent Trap" double feature as a family, no pun intended. You can pair the 1998 movie with the 1961 original and then host a "talk back" with kids and adults where you compare and contrast the two versions of the film. See if they spotted any Easter Eggs or references to the original in the remake. 

School Of Rock

"School of Rock" is a sizzling satire hidden under a family comedy. While kids are giggling at Jack Black's antics, adults are watching a take down of our educational system and adulthood. That's not too surprising; the screenplay was written by Mike White, who is responsible for HBO's equally satirical "White Lotus." 

The film is about a burnout who gets kicked out of his band, takes a substitute teaching job under a false identity, and teaches the kids how to play music instead of long division so they can win Battle of the Bands. It's irresponsible and dangerous on paper, but the students are never really in any kind of peril -- which makes it low stakes for anxious adults and thrilling for kids who'd rather be rocking out at school. Plus, put this on and sharing your favorite bands with the kids won't make you feel quite so old, for once. 

Camp Nowhere

Maybe this is one you grew up watching, or maybe it's a hidden gem that adults can discover for the first time right along with the kids. Like "School of Rock," "Camp Nowhere" is about a bunch of kids who pull one over on their parents with an elaborate scheme and the help of one lovable adult scumbag — but it's set at camp, instead of school, and the scumbag is Christopher Lloyd. 

The message of both films is clear: Adults and kids alike all need structure, but nobody likes to be micro-managed. Not looking forward to the strict summer plans (military camp, computer camp, FAT CAMP) their parents have set up for them, a group of kids rent some cabins and hire an actor, Lloyd, to pretend to be the camp director. The kids in this are at times chaotic and at other times capable in a way that feels actually kind of reasonable. 

Stand By Me

The best thing about "Stand By Me" is that it's a funny and emotionally mature coming-of-age story that will make your heart grow three sizes. The second best thing about "Stand By Me" is that it's 89 minutes long. There isn't an ounce of fat on this film. If you're watching with kids, you won't be up too late or worried that they'll stop paying attention. 

If you've never seen Rob Reiner's adaptation of Stephen King's short story "The Body," it is about four close friends who set out on a weekend camping adventure to find a dead body in the woods. This leads to some shenanigans, a decent amount of conflict, and a lot of frank conversations about death and loss. All ages can relate. Also, not for nothing, but for an 80s movie it holds up pretty well -- save for one homophobic and some sexist and ableist slurs.

Son Of Rambow

You know Will Poulter from "The Chronicles of Narnia," "The Maze Runner," and "Black Mirror" but have you seen him in this early role? This British comedy is perfect for adult action movie fans ... but it's for and about little kids! The premise is simple: two boys become friends while trying to reenact and film scenes from "First Blood." 

As a coming-of-age film it's not typical or terribly predictable, though the DIY nature of Lee's amateur filmmaking may remind you of a Wes Anderson film. (The dry humor is similar to Anderson's droll signature style as well, though in this case that's more because it's a British film). The indie vibes make this a good one to recommend to adults and kids alike who haven't seen it and maybe haven't even heard of it. You'll turn the kids into hipsters in no time. 

Bugsy Malone

Speaking of kids re-enacting genres that are too old for them, and the temptation to turn your own kids into film snobs, "Bugsy Malone" is a gangster musical parody starring young teenagers. Instead of mass murder, the guns spout whipped cream, so the warring gangs essentially pie each other in the face. Sure, the kid in "Home Alone" loved watching old gangster movies, but if you don't necessarily want to bring gun violence into your living room, this is a nice alternative. 

It's goofy, and might remind you of "The Little Rascals" at times, but not in a way that is grating or obnoxious. For the filmography buffs out there, this is an impressive first feature for director Alan Parker, who went on to make "Mississippi Burning," "Angela's Ashes" and "Midnight Express" as well as Pink Floyd's "The Wall." The film also stars a young Jodie Foster and Scott Baio.

The Muppet Movie

You know how you'll be watching "Sesame Street" with kids and all of a sudden find yourself laughing at a pop culture reference or a joke that's clearly written for the adults in the room? Not in a sexual or dirty way necessarily, just something that would go over a kid's head. We owe that to Jim Henson and The Muppets. The running gag about Hare Krishnas in "The Muppet Movie" alone is something that adults will love and the average child will just absorb, or learn to laugh at because you're laughing. 

Kids (and many adults in 2021, to be honest) may not recognize all of the celebrity cameos in the 1979 film, but between all the other throwaway lines and references there's something for everyone. For children or newcomer adults, there is no better introduction to the world of the Muppets than their first theatrical outing.

Teen Beach Movie

You may have a favorite Disney Channel Original Movie from your own childhood, but if you're scrolling some of the more recent options consider "Teen Beach Movie," which is underrated and over-looked compared to the starry DCOMs like "High School Musical" and "Camp Rock." You wouldn't really expect a DCOM to obsess over something as niche as a sub-genre of light fare feature films that starred Frankie Avalon and former Disney kid herself, Mickey Mouse Club's own Annette Funicello, but it's kind of perfect for them. If you have Boomers in your family who grew up with beach party movies, or went through a phase of loving them yourself, you're guaranteed to enjoy this. 

"Teen Beach Movie" is "Pleasantville" meets "Schmigadoon" -- as an overachieving girl considers breaking off her summer romance with her vintage musical-loving boyfriend, the two of them get trapped inside his favorite flick. They deconstruct gender norms all while having a toe-tapping good time. 

The Secret Of Roan Inish

For cottagecore adults, try this Irish kid's film about a city girl who moves to the country, discovers a local legend tied to her own family history, and restores a whole village of old houses just for the fun of it. If you've ever felt the urge to go off the grid and work with your hands as a form of self-care, this one's for you. There's also a fantasy element to this coming-of-age tale. This film is about selkies, shapeshifters who transform into seals. 

It's based on a book -- "Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry" by Rosalie K. Fry -- if you're looking for book-to-film adaptations that aren't major franchises. This would be a great family book club culminating in movie night. You could also pair it with "Song of the Sea," an animated film about selkies, or for PG-13 audiences the swoony romance "Ondine" starring Colin Farrell. 

Wolfwalkers

Speaking of "Song of the Sea" and Irish coming-of-age films about shapeshifters, the animation studio behind both "Song of the Sea" and this film, Cartoon Saloon, is quickly gaining a similar reputation to Studio Ghibli for producing visually stunning and emotionally complex films for children. "Wolfwalkers," which was released on Apple TV+ in late 2020, is about a young English girl named Robyn living in an Irish village who befriends another outsider: a girl named Mebh who turns into a wolf at night and is looking for her mother. 

Soon Robyn becomes a wolfwalker too and fears that she will be persecuted by the town and her father. The stakes and emotions are high, and the animation is just breathtakingly beautiful. There's no denying that Disney and Pixar are still putting out quality films, but if you're kind of "over" the 3D animation and the way all of the characters kind of look the same these days, Cartoon Saloon is a refreshing change of pace. 

Matilda

Remember how nasty Roald Dahl books can get, and how much you loved that? One of the best adaptations of Dahl's work that really gets his method of telling stories to children without talking down to them is Danny DeVito's "Matilda." One of the easiest ways for a children's story to annoy tax-paying adults is by being overly cheerful, but Dahl's protagonists are almost always depressed, and Matilda is no exception. She has a horrible home life and a mostly horrible school life. As much as she likes to escape to fictional worlds in books, there is no fairy godmother or knight in shining armor coming to save her. She ultimately rescues herself. 

When Matilda reveals at the end of the film that she's been carrying adoption papers in her backpack just in case, you're actually relieved and thrilled for her. That said, this is not a grim or dark film. Rhea Perlman and DeVito's characters are the worst kind of people everyone has met, but hysterically funny and entertaining. 

The Iron Giant

In the first season of "Ted Lasso," the kindly coach hosts a movie night for his team as a bonding exercise and chooses "The Iron Giant." Soon ("around the 75 minute mark" to be exact, according to Lasso), the entire group is reduced to tears. That's the effect that Brad Bird's bittersweet animated film for has on adults. It's not as quippy or complicated as some of the Disney animated classics you may be more familiar with -- even the ones made by Bird himself, like "The Incredibles" and "Tomorrowland" -- though it is as thoughtful and intellectual as his later films. 

This one is a little more nostalgia bait-y than some of the picks on this list. You may have noticed that the titular Iron Giant has appeared in both "Ready Player One" and the "Space Jam" sequel. But unlike some films from the '80s and '90s that don't really hold up, "The Iron Giant" truly stands the test of time.

Paddington 2

It's not exactly a deep cut to say adults love "Paddington 2," but it's worth mentioning nonetheless. You could be the snobbiest film buff or the snarkiest comedian and still melt at this polite little bear. Do adults relate to the bumbling, accident-prone protagonist just trying his best? Are they smitten with the very English cast of human actors? Are they living vicariously through a world where empathy and community win? All of the above, likely.

If for whatever reason you've missed out on this unassuming juggernaut of a franchise, don't worry. You don't even need to watch the first "Paddington" film to follow and fall for the sequel, either. Paul King's sophomore adventure stands on its own. In it, Paddington's singular goal is to buy a birthday present and he ends up in jail. Jail! It's a bonkers premise for a children's movie that somehow works perfectly.

Read this next: The Best Animated Kids Movies You've Probably Never Seen

The post The 17 best kids movies that adults will also love appeared first on /Film.

The path to my heart is paved with cheese.

(via my bud Chris)

Something that has come up with friends recently has been the meal you eat alone, when no one is there to judge you or comment. Like the anonymous friend who loves her “wine and cheese:” drinking a glass of wine while she bites into a string cheese (bites, not pulls, that’s the key). This conversation is one that I relate to very much… and always love hearing other peoples’ answers!

What’s Your Fav “Secret” Dinner?

When it’s hot, I will literally eat a bowl of tomatoes (like one or two whole tomatoes cut up into chunks) with olive oil and some salt. I really, really love tomatoes.  And burrata or mozzarella if I have it. (But that isn’t weird… tomatoes + mozzarella is totally fine, borderline gourmet. It’s eating two whole tomatoes cut up that might be a little strange.

My weirdest one is that if I am feeling like a snackmonster sometimes I will eat a whole container of Whole Foods’ tzatziki dip with pretzels and veggies as dinner. I mean… it’s mostly greek yogurt? The best snack but a whole container does feel just a little excessive.

Least weird but still important to list: I’ve always loved breakfast for dinner. Nothing is more satisfying than making a homemade breakfast sandwich for dinner: an egg or two and cheddar cheese on a buttered English muffin. My friend Molly felt the same, saying she loves to make a few scrambled eggs (with as much cheese as possible) + some greens (to not feel like a total monster).

(Please, please… tell me yours… I’m so curious!)

The post What’s Your Fav “Secret” Dinner? appeared first on The Stripe.

Artist Heather Ross lives in Forestburgh, New York, with her husband, TC, and their daughter, Bee. “When we first walked in, this house was a ruin,” she says.… Read more

The post A Catskills Home Full of Storybook Charm appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

This post, I secretly moved people’s desks 2 inches and they freaked out, late-night work emails, and more , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. I secretly moved people’s desks two inches over and they freaked out

When I joined a new team several years ago, I was told by my new manager that I should move my things to their area on a different floor so I could sit with my team members, ASAP. Only they didn’t actually have a free space for me, and every table was occupied all the time.

I started asking people to get that done. I went to the office manager, who told me they could/would do nothing. I asked everybody on the floor how they felt about moving around teams — which already was happening every few months at that company, and since the floor I had to go to was now super full, there was enough room on other floors to hold several of the smaller teams, which everybody also said no to.

Nobody would budge. I spent an entire work week going around talking to people, trying to get a desk, all while my managers told me I had to move there RIGHT NOW or they would start to doubt my allegiance to the project, but would not do anything themselves to make that happen.

But hey, turns out there was actually enough room to seat more desks! If they were spaced a bit better, that should be doable! But a few people in the corner were steadfastly defending their space, which was almost twice as much as others had, whose backs were almost touching.

In all this stress, I hatched my plan: If I came in early and moved every row of tables 1-2 inches to the side, the added up space would allow us to squeeze in two more tables.

The day comes and people notice immediately. They get very angry and start blaming the cleaning crews. I confessed right then, and everybody was pissed at me.

How wrong was I? I do regret doing it, and wish there was a better way but it seemed like the only option. I feel like the anger I received is at least slightly out of proportion, and nobody ever said “finding a desk is not your job, your boss should be doing it” or “yeah, these people already here are not moving because they have seniority / a special deal / some other good reason and we must allow them to have twice as much real estate as everybody else.”

I don’t think you were wrong at all. What did your bosses expect you to do? You’d exhausted all other avenues, and they were threatening your job over it! And really, each person losing two inches is not an outrage when the alternative was you having absolutely nowhere to sit or getting fired for lacking the magical ability to conjure new space into existence. So no, you weren’t wrong. Your bosses were ridiculous and put you in an impossible position.

I do wonder if you went back to your bosses and laid it out really clearly: “I understand you want my desk in the X area. There’s currently no room there and no one is willing to move. The only options left that I can see are for me to sit in Y or Z instead or you could tell people they need to make room for me there. What makes sense?” If you didn’t do that, I would have advised it — but otherwise, this isn’t on you.

2. Sending work emails late at night

As a manager, new parent, and generally busy person, I work some strange hours. For example, yesterday I was online at 2 am (as my daughter woke me up during the night and I decided to use some time to clear my work inbox ahead of a busy Monday) and 10 pm (as I finished early to play with my daughter but needed to meet a deadline). I absolutely don’t expect these kinds of hours from my team or want to encourage people to work outside of hours if it doesn’t suit them, but sometimes these are the hours that suit me!

What can and should I do to make it clear that what I do isn’t what I expect from the team and that following my example won’t have any impact on my opinion of them or their performance? Working hours is part of my “welcome to the team” conversation and I do talk to each person about it periodically using phrasing like, “You may see some emails from me at strange times. This is because I don’t have a set working pattern and sometimes work early or late to allow me flexibility. I absolutely don’t expect anyone to reply to me or be checking their emails outside of their normal working hours so please work whatever hours suit you.” I feel like that’s clear but I just keep having “actions speak louder than words” going round my head.

I strongly recommend scheduling your emails to send during normal business hours! Write them as late at night as you want, but have them send the next morning.

I work strange hours too, and I used to send emails to my staff at all hours and think it would be enough to just tell them emphatically that I didn’t expect responses at that hour, that it was just my own preference and didn’t need to be theirs, and all the rest. I learned over time that it didn’t really work; people see you online then and worry it’s expected of them regardless. Or they happen to be up and online but not working, and then they see a work email come in from you on their phones so they decide they might as well answer it, and now other people are working at 2 am too. Or they don’t answer it but now they’re thinking about work at 2 am. It just creates pressure on people, no matter how diligent you are about telling them it shouldn’t.

Schedule your emails and it’ll be a non-issue. (Or, if you can’t schedule them, save them as drafts and send them the next day.)

3. How to quit at the same time as a teammate when we’re both going to the same competitor

After three years at my first post-college job, I’m ready to move on. My teammates and I have been consistently overworked for over a year, to the point where several of us have had mental breakdowns. The company doesn’t seem to care even as we repeatedly ask for help and more manageable workloads, so when an opportunity appeared to do a similar job at a competitor, I applied.

The work I do is a relatively new methodology, so there’s not a lot of people with the experience I have. I know from your blog not to assume you’re getting the job, but in all of the interviews I’ve had so far, the company has made it very clear they’re interested. I have a final interview coming up soon.

I feel a lot of guilt about quitting my job, even though I know I shouldn’t, but this is the first time I’ve left a job for a reason other than “I’m graduating.”

What complicates matters is that a teammate of mine applied for a different job on the same team at the competitor company and seems to be moving along in the process just as quickly. If one of us left, our whole team would be scrambling. Two people gone (and especially us in particular as the two most senior people on the team), and they won’t be able to function.

Assuming we both get the job (and I know that’s an assumption), what advice do you have for how we resign? Should we go to our shared boss at the same time? If one person goes first, how should we handle the conversations about replacing that person knowing we’re leaving too? Should we keep it a secret we’re going to the same place?

Definitely don’t jointly resign; do it individually. If the other person resigns before you’re ready to quit and you’re pulled into conversations about the plan for their absence, handle it exactly the way you would if you weren’t leaving. Until you have a job offer that you’ve accepted, you’ve got to proceed as if you’re not leaving (because you might not get the offer or you might not like the details of the offer). If you go second, it’s fine to say “I know this is bad timing,” but you also have nothing to apologize for. People leave jobs! It’s normal! Your company will make do. That would be true even if your company had treated you well, and it’s extra true when they haven’t.

You don’t need to keep it a secret that you’re going to the same place. You don’t need to proactively volunteer it if you think that will cause weirdness, but if you’re asked, there’s no reason you need to hide it. Do keep in mind, though, that some companies have people leave immediately without a notice period if they’re going to a competitor (still paying out their notice period unless they’re jerks), so plan for that if you think it’s possible.

4. How to find out a salary range

As a longtime reader (and occasional poster), I know one of your pet peeves is job listings that don’t include a salary range. A new law in Colorado addresses this and Lifehacker had an article today about how jobseekers can to use it to figure out what a job is worth no matter where they are, at least in the U.S.

This is a good tip.

5. The Mortification Week finale

I’ve been top heavy my whole life, and finally I had to have a significant breast reduction. I saw my body when they changed my bandages, and my new tatas were the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, even with all the stitches and drains. This was major surgery so I was on a morphine drip. For some unknown reason, my husband thought it would be fine, just fine, if he let me have my cell phone while I was stoned out of my skull.

It’s good that my boss and I are close, because apparently, he was my first call post-surgery. He knew what I was having done – it’s not something I’d be able to hide and I was out of work for a few weeks – but I don’t think he was ready for a call like this:

Him: Hey, how are you doing? I’m surprised [Hubby] let you have your phone.
Me: (slurring badly) I made him gimme it. I hadda call you. I quit.
Him: You what?
Me: (enunciating carefully). I. QUIT.
Him: …Wait… what?
Me: I juss gotta look at my new girls and they are FREAKING HOT. I don’t needa work for you annymore. Me anna girls gonna go work at HOOTERS.
[sounds of choking laughter coming through the speaker as my hubby realizes his mistake and grabs for my cell phone]

Don’t think this hasn’t been mentioned a time or two in seventeen plus years together.

And with that, we say goodbye to Mortification Week.

Let’s end with this quote from Cringeworthy: A Theory of Awkwardness by Melissa Dahl: “The things that make you cringe are usually the things worth sharing, because they can help others feel less alone. … Little humiliations can bring people together, if we let them. The ridiculous in me honors the ridiculous in you.”

I feel this sentiment by Martin Creed, Work No. 2210.

This post, this is why you need a good cover letter , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I wanted to offer some testimony on why cover letters are so important.

I am currently reviewing applications for several positions with a government agency. Our online application system doesn’t require a cover letter, but applicants can add them if they want. I have a relatively small pool of applicants and quite a few of them have varied work histories that don’t obviously lead to the position that they’re applying for. Reviewing these resumes, I keep thinking, “Huh, I wonder why this person applied for this job. What in their work experience do they think qualifies them for this job? Are they even interested in this job in particular, or just blanket applying to any job in our system?” For the few folks who have cover letters, these questions are usually immediately answered. Several times, I was about to dismiss an application based on not understanding how the experience in the resume would make them a good fit, but then I read the cover letter and it suddenly made sense — into the interview pile they go! In one case, the only four people who wrote cover letters are the only ones getting an interview. Some of them definitely wouldn’t have gotten an interview without the connections that they made in the letter.

Occasionally, a poorly written cover letter means that I don’t interview someone. If the writing isn’t good (and I need writing skills for the position) or if it’s extremely generic and doesn’t answer those questions that I’m asking, that might disqualify someone. But an honestly written letter that explains why you think your years as a llama wrangler actually have prepared you quite well for chocolate teapot design because of skills x, y, and z, and that you’ve always had a passion for hot beverages? As long as you proofread it, it’s almost certainly going to land you in the interview pile here.

Thinking back, one of my strongest employees now was someone who almost didn’t make the interview pile because of her odd work history but she had a really great cover letter, so we gave her a chance and she blew us away in the interview.

Anyway, just wanted to give some perspective to job hunters about why it’s worth making the extra effort to write cover letters, and what I’m hoping to get out of reading them on the other side.

Amen amen amen.

I get so many letters from people asking how they can stand out in a sea of applicants, and this is how. I suspect people are hoping for gimmicky tricks like “send a chocolate bar” or “take out a billboard with your picture on it.” You definitely should not do those things. (Please do not.) What you need is a compelling cover letter that doesn’t just summarize your resume, and you’ll be better off than 95% of your competition.

Aromatique Agave Pineapple: This is my number one summer candle, four years going. I would drink this candle if I could; it just smells juicy. I have these in every room of my house, and I don’t do that with any other scent in any season — this guy is my number one boy. My brother walked into my house recently when I had these lit and shouted “Why does it smell like the best year of my life in here?!” This scent is available in an entire range, from potpourri to room spray to wax melts to diffusers to several sizes of candle, but do not buy the room spray. I don’t know how such a lovely candle got translated to such a bad room spray but someone dropped that ball big time. But the candle scent is beautiful! You can get the votive sizes if you want them for bedside or bathrooms or just to make sure you like them before committing to a bigger size. These babies are always stocked on the shelves next to the escalators at Macy’s or Dillards, or you can find them on Amazon. If you get them from a department store, they’re almost always included in some 50% off sale which makes them extremely affordable.

KOBO Wild Tomato Vine – I love a tomato scent, but it has to be just right — I like it a bit more sweet than bitter. I’d love to smell Boy Smells’ Gardener. Same with Apotheke’s Tomato Tarragon. There are so many candles I want to smell in person post-pandemic! Jonathan Adler also has a pretty good tomato candle, but my favorite tomato is this one by KOBO. It smells like an actual tomato, it’s $28, and it comes in a plantable package that will actually grow brandywine tomatoes! What?? I know! This was my go-to summer hostess gift for years. This is the ideal kitchen candle from April to August.

If you love tomatoes so much then why don’t you marry them?! Or just try CB I Hate Perfume’s Memory of Kindness, which is a spray or roll-on scent made by the same nose that created Demeter Tomato but has more depth, notes, and longevity. It starts out pretty green but grows into a sunnier scent. There’s an element of wet dirt in this one but if you like the way tomatoes smell, that’s probably a plus for you, not a minus.

Jonathan Adler Champagne: I think the Jonathan Adler Pop candles are for the most part overpriced, but I have to say that Champagne (and the discontinued Earl Grey) smells fantastic. It does not smell like champagne because how could it, but it does smell exactly like its scent listing, which is delicious: pink grapefruit, raspberry, French cassis, violet leaves, rose petal, grape leaf. It also somehow smells fizzy, but don’t ask me how. It’s crisp and zesty, a great frou-frou summer scent — like a party in an air-conditioned beach house that’s way nicer than your actual house. My friend Sarah once texted me from an art show afterparty she ended up at a stranger’s house in the Hamptons just to let me know they had those giant $300 Jo Malone candles burning in the bathrooms. I’d take this candle over those things any day.

Apotheke From a Rooftop in August: Every August rooftop I’ve ever been on smelled like hot tar, weed, sweat, American Spirits, bottom shelf vodka, Lancome Juicy Tubes, and Boca burgers, and I would bottle that scent and huff it because being young on a rooftop in the summer is better than almost anything in the world. This candle’s ingredients are white amber, crisp vetiver (get your soggy-ass vetiver away from me) and cedarwood balanced with wild lavender and green apple, and is “inspired by the artwork of sun and surf captured by Matt Schwartz (a.k.a. She Hit Pause).” Ok? They’re going with a beach thing but then why bring the building into it? This candle smells… humid. It smells like the apartment of someone who has made occasionally doing burlesque their entire post-college personality. I know these aren’t compliments I’m giving here but I’m also not blowing out this candle either. It’s really growing on me. It’s got a languid, smoky, sweet spiciness that I can’t stay mad at. It comes in an iridescent glass that’s giving me late 80s Cherry 7Up commercial vibes? Look, these are just facts. You can do with them whatever you have to do.

Otherland Matchpoint: Ahh, my old nemesis the Tennis Ball Candle. (You should read Kelly Conaboy’s 2018 review of this because her candle reviews are some of the very best things on the internet.) This candle has tempted me from all over the internet every summer for years, and last week I finally broke down and bought it — and promptly returned it. This candle claims to smell like cucumber, freshly cut grass, and tennis balls, which are all things I’m into, but I had severe doubts about its ability to deliver and I was right to be leery. Like Kelly Conaboy, I also love industrial scents; I don’t play tennis and I’m not a golden retriever, but I get that the whiff from inside of a new canister of tennis balls is an experience that makes you glad to be alive. It’s easy to rep cucumber, and while the scent from a freshly-sliced cucumber is one of the best and most simple scents on earth, it’s hard to replicate unless you’re Hendricks Gin. No one seems able to capture the actual, delicate scent of cucumber (or watermelon); instead they’re translated into some overpowering scratch-and-sniff sticker simulacrum. People always want to pair cucumber with snoozy melon or sneezy aloe, so tennis balls are at least an attempt at a new and fun partner. But sadly, this candle does not deliver, not on any of its three counts. I don’t get rubber or cucumber or wet lawn: I get 90s shower gel. Less Wimbledon, more Bath & Body Works. This is strike three for Otherland with me. Their candles are just more style than substance; a candle made for Instagram but not for your nose. I feel like Otherland is the Tana French novel of candles for me: they never give a satisfying delivery on their premise, and I’m always annoyed with myself for giving them another try. The packaging on this candle is very cute, but that’s the only good thing I have to say about it. It’s a “great to give as a gift but don’t care for my house to actually smell like it” situation. A gift for someone you don’t truly connect with, maybe? Just buy them a can of tennis balls instead.

I am in awe of Yoann Bourgeois’s ability to create magic through dance.

“I want to have a big, beautiful, happy life, and let great art flow from that. I reject the idea that we need to be miserable, alone, and/or dysfunctional in order to make great work.”
– Casey Gerald

This post, my trust fund coworker bullies staff for being “poor” , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

We just got a new team member a few months ago, “Lucy.” Lucy makes no secret about it that she’s a trust-fund kid: private schools, Ivy League, owns a fancy horse, the works. She’s like a stereotype from a bad sitcom.

She’s in a role parallel with mine and we have to work together pretty frequently. We’re about the same age but I have a higher level of education (masters’s) and more time in our field than she does and this seems to annoy her. She always makes comments about “working hard” and “picking yourself up by your boot straps” and gets frustrated about “hand-outs.” She usually brings this stuff up in tandem with someone’s work she thinks is poor quality and it has nothing to do with the situation at hand — “Ted better fix this software glitch. Some people are just afraid of hard work and want handouts.” … “Laurie better not keep buying that Starbucks if she wants to save cash. Makes sense though with her work ethic.” Just awful, ignorant stuff.

We all live and work in a smallish city that’s been predicted to become a start-up boomtown but it’s very blue-collar and the median income is about $40k a year. The company we work for doesn’t pay more than $10 an hour at entry-level. None of us are making what we should be, but that’s a different story. I can’t help but feel like Lucy took a job here to lord her money over the poors. She makes it really clear she’s just gracing us with her presence and that she doesn’t need the paycheck.

In the beginning, it was annoying but now it’s downright baffling and infuriating. Our manager, “Sally,” hangs on her every word and has started mirroring Lucy’s socioeconomic ideas. Before Lucy came, Sally used to be very kind and well, normal.

People in our area struggled during the lockdown and a lot of my friends and family are in a financial bind through no fault of their own. My husband and I got by on luck and the skin of our teeth. Lucy overheard me make a comment about my landlord in conversation with another coworker and she gave me a disgusted look and said, “Oh my god, you still RENT? At YOUR age? That explains so much.” She then immediately ran to Sally and they spent the day whispering and looking over at me. For the record, Lucy owns three houses, two condos, and a beach house. There’s been rumbling that she’s given Sally keys to one of her vacation homes — a subordinate lending her expensive vacation home to her boss. That’s a problem.

Lucy and Sally now both make comments about people’s clothes, the cars they drive, and what they bring for lunch and have dismissed it all as obviously trashy or poor. Someone had ramen for lunch the other day and Lucy gagged and said, “Oh, gross.” It’s enough to make me start bleeding from the eyes, I’m getting so frustrated and angry. There is no reason for this kind of behavior ever. Is this a bad 80s movie?

Before I go to HR (because I have a lot of this documented), I want to make sure I don’t sound over-sensitive. I grew up poor and on food stamps. My husband was homeless as a teen. I’ve seen the drastic emotional, physical, and fiscal impact of poverty and am still recovering from it as an adult. To come to my place of work and hear someone like Lucy talk about her beach house and then call someone’s lunch “poor people food” makes me see red.

How can I approach this like a professional and not like my blood is boiling?

What the actual F.

Lucy is a terrible person and I want to banish her to a small and unpleasant island surrounded on all sides by oceans of ramen as far as the eye can see. (Although personally, I would love that island because ramen is delicious and eventually she would end up learning that out of desperation, so maybe that’s an insufficient penalty.)

And no, you are not overreacting or being overly sensitive.

It would be one thing if Lucy were just clueless — like if she were surprised to learn a colleague rented. That would still be quite obnoxious, but what takes this to a new level of awfulness is that she’s nasty about it. She’s gagging when someone eats inexpensive food. She’s giving people disgusted looks for renting and calling others trashy. She’s obsessed with the idea of “hand-outs.” She’s like a caricature of a villain in a teen movie, one that you’d roll your eyes at for being portrayed so unrealistically.

(Ironically, the only trashy thing here is Lucy’s behavior. She sounds like someone who thinks she herself is the epitome of class and taste, while daily showing herself to be classless.)

Has anyone tried calling her out on it? Like just saying, “Wow, you are really rude” or “What an grossly uneducated thing to say” the next time she makes one of these comments? If you haven’t, you should feel free to. Sometimes social shaming is warranted and effective. If nothing else, it might just feel good.

Of course, the more troubling part is that she’s sucked your boss into this now. If that weren’t the case, you could talk to your boss and ask her to tell Lucy to stop being hateful and obnoxious. But since Sally is apparently enjoying her proximity to wealth (or something?) in a truly screwed up way, you’re right to go to HR. I’m not normally a big fan of HR for interpersonal stuff — normally you should handle that stuff with the person directly or, if it needs to be escalated, with your boss — but in this case your boss is participating in really gross, classist, offensive behavior and has compromised her ability to effectively lead your team.

When you talk to HR, frame it this way: “Sally and Lucy have both been mocking employees’ clothes, food, and housing, and making fun of people for being what they consider poor. Some examples are X and Y, and this is happening daily. It’s made the working environment unpleasant and it’s difficult to trust Sally as a manager. I figured the company wouldn’t want this happening, especially from a manager. Is there a way for you to intervene and make it clear this isn’t okay?”

Sally and Lucy suck.

William Vale Hotel via Hotels.com

New York has been through a lot in the past year, but as things are opening up, the city is starting to, slowly, but surely, feel energetic again. It’s not going to happen overnight and it’s going to take some time for the “for rent” store signs to, well, not be for rent. But, if we don’t have hope or optimism, what do we have?

But I digress.

This post isn’t about what the city has been through, but rather, to share some recommendations of what hotels to stay at and where to dine in the city.

A couple of my girlfriends and I (all moms so all especially tired) are planning a night out. We brainstormed and figured that just going to dinner and coming home wasn’t enough. We wanted a nice hotel so we could have a few drinks, dance in our room, get ready and then head to a fun dinner.

Being kind of out of the loop of what’s happening, I do what I do, I turned to all of you to ask where we should stay and where we should dine. Of course, so many incredible recommendations.

Here are the suggestions that came recommended the most.

For a Night Out in NYC: Where to Stay, Where to Dine.

Stay at the William Vale (Williamsburg) and dine a Leuca or Lilia. For a spa day, go to Bathhouse. 

Stay at the Wythe (Williamsburg) for amazing views, dine at Lilia followed by drinks at Le Croc. For breakfast, walk up to Chez Mante for amazing pancakes.

Stay at the Greenwich Hotel, drinks at Bar Pisellino  and dine at Locanda Verde. Greenwich has an amazing spa, but AIRE spa is also nearby and open. You can also uber to any of the incredible restaurants in the West Village, like two personal favorites: American Bar (great martinis) or  L’Artusi.

Stay at the Equinox in Hudson Yards and dine at either Estiatorio Milos, The Edge or Electric Lemon.

Stay and dine at the One Brooklyn Bridge, especially as it gets warmer.

Also, you can stay at the brand new ModernHaus Soho where they have a rooftop restaurant and bar.

Stay and dine at the Baccarat Hotel for an amazing luxury experience. They’re also known to have a out of this world spa.

If you feel like I’m missing a hotel/restaurant combo, please let me know in the comments and I’ll add it in!

This post, how to fire a jerk, is it OK to drink with the team I manage, and more , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. How to fire a jerk

One piece of your advice I’ve made use of many times is to think of a person struggling in their role as “miscast.” It’s not like they’re a terrible person or failing on purpose, they’re just in the wrong role for their skills. When the conversation turns to ending their employment, I can be kinder and more compassionate, as you’ve written, even when they have frustrated me greatly throughout their time with us.

But I worry I’ve gotten stuck when the reason someone’s been let go is for attitude. I’m thinking particularly of a time, awhile back, when I fired a person who no one could stand to work with — arrogant, smug, judgmental, correcting others’ work, and no self-awareness whatsoever of the way they came off. This person had middling skills, no star, but the reason they were let go was the “no assholes” policy, not because they weren’t right for the role. That’s not being miscast, so how should I approach that sort of termination meeting? It’s probably about to happen again, and I don’t want to be a jerk to somebody who’s getting fired and will stop being a problem for my team soon. But they’re not miscast — they’re a jerk! How on earth do I “kindly” tell them so?

I think it’s still about being miscast! While there are no job where it’s okay to be an asshole, there are jobs where it matters more and jobs where it matters less. (Jobs where it matters less might be jobs with almost no interaction with others or jobs in companies that don’t care about jerks.) This is a job where it matters and a company where it matters, so the person doesn’t match the needs of the role and thus is miscast.

As for how to talk to them in the termination meeting: with respect and dignity, as with any firing. You’re not there to teach them a lesson. You’ve made a business decision, one that will probably be unwelcome news to them, one that might cause serious stress and upheaval in their life. That alone is reason to be kind, even if they themselves are not. (And hopefully this won’t be the first time you’re talking with them about the problems; presumably there have been conversations about the issues before now, and so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to them. If that’s not the case, that’s something to remedy first if at all possible.)

2. Is it OK to drink with the team I manage?

I am a recently promoted country director for a global organization, working in an African country with a very challenging security situation. My team is about 50 people and consists of both nationals of that country and staff members from across the world. Many of my staff are on the young side, with the majority aged 25-35, but I am particularly young for my role at only 27 and have been rapidly promoted after doing well in previous roles within this organization in two other countries. As country director, I am overall management responsible for everything to do with programs, security, HR, finance, etc. and I interact regularly with every staff member in a professional context, although only a subset are my direct reports.

My question relates to how I should socialize with my team. While this situation below might seem strange to your readers, it’s not abnormal in my field. Quite a lot of socializing in this sector revolves around the organization, and international staff are also obligated to live together in organization guesthouses. I like to have fun and I’m a pretty big drinker, and for these reasons, I don’t feel comfortable socializing with staff in situations where I (or they) could be drinking heavily. However, they invite me to events all the time, including birthdays, after work drinks, cultural celebrations, etc. and I don’t want to seem cold or aloof, particularly because I’m the same age or younger than many of them. In my previous (more junior) management roles, I have received extremely good feedback on my management style, and I have never struggled with the balance between social and professional relationships before. I did go to parties and drink with my staff in those roles, but I was not the country director then!

Is it acceptable to spend time with groups of staff outside of work, as long as there is no drinking? Is it okay to spend time with some staff, for example, the upper management team? If I socialize with some, do I have to socialize with all of them? Or should I avoid all interactions outside the office?

From what I know about this set-up, it’s just not governed by the same norms — in large part because you’re living together and you’re often going through an intense experience together. But while the norms are different, a lot of the same risks of blurred boundaries still apply (more so, in many cases).

Ideally you’d show up to some of these events, have a drink if you want one (but only one), stay for an hour, and then head out to let them have fun without you. That way you’re getting some bonding in and not seeming aloof, but you’re still maintaining some boundaries. Do be careful not to create the appearance of favoritism within your team; don’t go to the events of some people under you but not to other people’s. You want to be equal opportunity with your attention and time. (You also don’t need to show up every time! It’s good to give people, and yourself, some space.)

You also might find it interesting to talk with peers or people senior to you in your organization about how they handle this. Bring a critical eye to those discussions because you’ll probably encounter some philosophies/practices that aren’t wise to emulate, but it might be a useful discussion.

3. How can I tell a good employee she’s not likely to advance here?

I’m relatively new to a management role. I recently received an email from an employee wanting to discuss her future with the organization and opportunities for advancement. I responded that we will be reorganizing the team soon (which is true) and relying heavily on her input on what responsibilities she wants to take on (also true).

My issue is that it’s unlikely there will be any opportunities for advancement on our team. My organization is very hierarchical and positions are determined at an organization-wide level with little flexibility for job duties or pay increases. Her current position is at the bottom of the org chart and any opportunities to advance her up the org chart would probably be in a different geographic area. The organization has a culture of employees working here for their entire career and turnover gets even lower the further up the org chart people get.

This employee is very valuable and has a lot to offer. I’m just concerned that she’s looking to be promoted on our team, which is unlikely. We’re a small team and I’m unsure if the positions she would advance into will even remain after some impending retirements.

How do I let her know that I think she does have a lot to offer, but would have my full support looking for opportunities elsewhere and would serve as a reference if she needed it? I want to be honest and understanding of her concerns and desired career path, but I don’t want to seem like I’m pushing her out. I’m also happy to give her more responsibilities in the meantime, but that would likely not result in additional compensation or a promotion here. I can advocate for her, but those decisions aren’t mine to make.

Be straightforward with her! As in, “I want to be transparent with you that there isn’t a lot of room for advancement on our team because ___. You’re very valuable to us and play an important role here, but I recognize that at some point you might want growth that we can’t offer. I hope that’s not in the near future, but whenever it does happen, you’ll have my full support in looking at other opportunities and I’ll do whatever I can to help you at that point.”

Truly, the most supportive thing you can do is to lay it all out for her so she can make good decisions for herself with maximum information. You won’t seem like you’re pushing her out as long as you frame it this way.

But also — while there’s not room for her to advance on your team, is there more room somewhere else in the organization? If so, offer to support her in applying for internal roles too. (It sounds like those might be in other parts of the country, but don’t decide on her behalf that that rules them out; explain the situation to her and let her decide.)

4. How can I share information about a sexist interviewing experience?

I work in tech as an engineer and am a woman. A while ago, I received an email from a company about a job and interviewed with them. During the all-day interview, it felt more like the men (and only men interviewed me) explaining things to me rather than them actually trying to understand my professional experience. They gave me a job offer. The job offer was basically entry-level despite my many years of experience. The offer was 60% of my current base salary with no stock options, which I currently get a lot of. I did not accept the offer and told them why. To me this reeks of sexism. I want to publish this information so other women do not waste their time interviewing with this company. How and where should I do this? Is it a good idea?

Glassdoor is made for this kind of situation. Write up your experience and leave it as a review there!

5. Why is hold music so bad?

Not so much a question as a rant. Are companies aware of how suckage their call waiting music is?

I have to make multiple calls to various business (large and small) during the day and I rarely have a pleasant experience. The on-hold music blasts in your ear, not to mention the choice of music or giant amounts of static going on. I actually don’t mind gentle repetitive background music — just make it static-free, not high pitched or with whistles.

It’s really, really terrible. So you call, wait, put the music on quiet, but then the speaker suddenly comes on and doesn’t give you time to jack the volume back up. What gives? .

I don’t know what gives but googling it turns up a lot of interesting info, like that (a) supposedly people are more likely to hang up if you don’t play hold music, possibly because they think the line is dead, (b) people estimate their hold time as lower if you play them music and more if you don’t, and (c) classical music rarely sounds right over phone lines because it has to be compressed into a low-quality format to work. (This is a particularly interesting article about what companies look for in hold music.) Some companies, like Apple, give you the option to choose music or silence, which I very much appreciate.

This post, my coworkers said they’d write me LinkedIn recommendations — but never came through , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I am in a puzzling situation. I only have a few days left at my current job, and I am exchanging LinkedIn recommendations with a lot of colleagues. I ask people if that would be okay to do so before actually writing these to make sure that they are on board with that.

About a quarter of my colleagues though (including my bosses) very quickly “forget” that they agreed to write and exchange recommendations, just a few weeks after they enthusiastically agreed to do so.

This isn’t limited to my current employer. In the past I had similar encounters with people who agreed immediately, and then later behaved as if our exchange never happened.

What is going on here? Are people agreeing for show and hoping that I forget, or are they genuinely unable to remember and are then insulted when I mention that this is something we had planned?

The most likely explanation is that it’s just not a high priority for them, and so they’re either forgetting or they keep putting it off and meaning to get to it later but then never do. A lot of people finding writing recommendations to be kind of a pain and so they’ll drag their feet on doing it, especially if there’s no clear deadline.

For what it’s worth, LinkedIn recommendations don’t carry a ton of weight. Employers who want to know what other people think of your work will do reference checks … and will usually figure that a recommendation written for public consumption may not tell the whole story anyway. (Think of all the people you’ve worked with who were Not Great and yet still had a bunch of recommendations displayed on their page. Some of that, to be frank, is because of recommendation-trading endeavors like yours! So they just don’t hold a lot of sway.)

So your coworkers just might not put that much weight on them.

If that’s the case, they still shouldn’t agree to do it and then not follow through, but people are notoriously bad about this kind of thing. They agree in the moment because it sounds okay in theory (until it comes time to actually do it) or they feel put on the spot and don’t know how to politely say “eh, LinkedIn recommendations aren’t my thing” or they really do still mean to do it and just haven’t yet.

The other possible explanation — though it’s much less likely — is that they don’t want to write a recommendation for you because they have concerns about your work, and they don’t know how to say that politely. It’s one thing for a manager to convey that message — they’re charged with assessing your work and giving you feedback — but peers often won’t feel comfortable telling you directly if they don’t want to recommend you … and so you can get people agreeing but then never following through. Again, that’s less likely, but it’s a thing that happens so I’m including it too.

If you want to follow up with people, you could do a one-time, “Hey, realistically, do you think you’ll get to the LinkedIn recommendation? It’s okay if not, I just want to figure out if I should ask someone else.” That language makes it easier for the person to tell you if it’s unlikely to happen, so it’ll probably get you more honest assessments of how likely they are to follow through. (Although you’ll still get some people who say they’re on it but never do it, because that’s just how people work.)

After that one follow-up, though, I’d let it go. There are other more effective ways to lean on people in your network anyway (like asking for job leads in the future, a connection to someone they know, a real reference where they speak to a reference-checker, etc.).

This post, I’m about to be the manager of an employee who made my child cry , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I am about to take over in a management position for a nonprofit of which I am currently a client. The organization involves rendering a service to my children, so naturally, I hear a lot about the employees from my teenage daughter.

Recently, my child asked an employee of the organization a question which he misunderstood and became very defensive about. He was somewhat hostile and accusatory towards my child in front of several other children. My child cried when the conversation occurred and when telling me about the interaction, and she cried again a week later when I asked her some follow-up questions.

I felt that I couldn’t let my child handle it herself because of the unbalanced power dynamic and the intensity with which he responded to her question. This employee knows that I am going to be his direct supervisor in a manner of months, and he still was harsh and unfair with my child! This gives me serious questions about how he interacts with other children.

I took my husband with me when we had a discussion with the employee, because I wanted to be clear that I was coming to him as a parent and not as his future boss. I also wrote down all of my questions and had my husband make sure that I wasn’t asking “manager-employee” questions and that I stuck to “parent-service provider” questions. He was apologetic to my husband and me and to our child, and he admitted that he did not handle the situation well. He even became emotional when I explained to him what our child meant by the question she had asked (he had completely misunderstood).

As a parent, I am satisfied with the outcome. If I were his boss, I would have noted this incident in his performance evaluation (for any child).

On an unrelated note, there is another employee who is known to be pretty bad at her job. Thus far, she has been protected by management, but I am replacing the management who protected her. I have had other clients of the organization come to me and ask how I plan to handle her as they have not been pleased with her performance when working with their children.

Do these employees get a clean slate with their new boss? Do I just pretend that I don’t know about these serious gaps in performance? How do I handle knowing that two of my employees need to make some serious changes if the organization is going to advance?

First, was the incident between the employee and your child a misunderstanding that could have happened to anyone or a clear-cut case of terrible judgment on the employee’s part? If it’s not clearly the latter, be careful not to let your understandable protectiveness of your child affect how you’re assessing the employee before you’ve even started. Dealing with kids can be tricky — dealing with people can be tricky — and unless it’s clear that the employee was deeply in the wrong, I’d try to set it aside until you know him and his work better.

In fact, even it’s clear he was in the wrong, I’d still try to get to know him with an open mind. You owe him that as his boss.

Of course, you also owe a strong duty of care to the kids you serve and to the organization you’re working for. But you can meet that responsibility without coming in with preset conclusions about him or the other employee you mentioned.

The key is to do a ton of observation once you get there. This is a smart thing to do as a manager coming into any new job, but it’s especially critical when you’ve heard there are problems you’ll need to solve pretty quickly.

Look for ways to get to know people’s work by observing them in action. Sit in on sessions with kids, watch how conversations go, ask to attend meetings you might not normally be a part of, and so forth. Do this for everyone, not just the two you have concerns about, and explain you’re looking for quick ways to get steeped in the context of everyone’s work and how the team does things. Debrief afterwards too: “is there a history I should know about with X?” … “has Y come up as a concern before?” … how you decide what to do when Z happens” … etc.

Do this for a few weeks and you should learn a ton about how things are done in your new department and get a feel for areas you’ll need to take a closer look at.

That way, you’re not coming in primed to act on problems you’ve only heard about secondhand — you’ll be making your own observations. You might end up agreeing completely with what you’ve been told, or you might realize there’s context that changes things, or you might find other pressing problems you didn’t even know about (which could even intersect with the first set of problems in a way that will need to impact your approach).

From there, you’ll be in a better position to address whatever needs to be addressed, and you won’t be basing it on what happened with your own kid or what other parents have relayed.

Meanwhile, it might also be useful to address the situation explicitly with the employee who had the conflict with your kid. If he has any sense at all, he’s probably a bit freaked out that his new boss is someone who saw him mess up with her kid, to the point that she called a meeting with him about it. He might even figure he should be job searching. It would be good to clear the air by acknowledging the history and telling him it’s resolved and in the past and not something he needs to worry about now. You can say you’re going to be doing a lot of observation with everyone on the team, and that it’s an opportunity to show you how he likes to work with kids normally. In saying that, make sure your tone conveys that this is a good thing, not an ominous “I will be looking for further ammunition against you.” Obviously if you find problems, you’ll address them, but you don’t want to sound like you’re going in expecting them. You want to sound like you’re hoping to be delighted with what you learn. (And sometimes people rise to meet higher expectations when given the chance.)

This post, my boss is having an affair with our assistant — and I’m friends with his wife , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s the Thursday “ask the readers” question. A reader writes:

I work as a project manager at a small business (~25 employees) and have been in this role for more than six years. I was referred to the position through Katie, a friend from a hobby club I belong to. She learned I’d been laid off from my last position and offered to introduce me to her husband (John) who owns a consulting firm in my field. After a standard interview process, I was hired and have been here ever since.

About 18 months ago, we were looking for a new administrative assistant for the business. Instead of advertising the position like we normally would, John hired Tammy, the “daughter of a family friend.” She was supposedly a recent grad, very eager, would need some training, but would be a great addition to the team. From her first day, it was clear that she was not the right fit for the position. Her computer and communication skills were quite poor, she took forever to do basic tasks, was dressed inappropriately for an office, and played on her phone frequently. She was also coming in late or leaving early every day. Every attempt to provide her with instruction or feedback was met with confusion or eye rolling. Another manager asked her for help in stuffing envelopes for a promotional event, and she laughed in his face!

I went to John and asked him what exactly Tammy’s role was supposed to be since she was refusing to do much of anything. He said not to worry, he would have a word with her. The next day he told me he would be managing her directly from then on and if I needed something that fell under the assistant’s umbrella, I could email him and he would see to it that it was done. He had never taken over management of an assistant before this, and it felt like something was amiss.

Within a few weeks, it seemed clear that John is having an affair with Tammy. John has never admitted it to me, but they drive in together every day, have hours-long meetings in his locked office every afternoon, and whenever she is at her desk, she is shopping online or browsing social media. If anyone asks Tammy to do something for their team, she goes straight to John’s office and a few minutes later he sends a message that someone else will need to do that task. My emails to John regarding my team’s administrative needs just get ignored, and I wind up doing those tasks myself or handing it off to one of my team members (who have enough on their plate as it is). I’ve tried to talk to John about how this is impacting our workflow and how we really need a true assistant, but he snaps that these tasks are not so urgent that we can’t handle them ourselves within our own teams. John’s reliability as our CEO and decision-maker has plummeted as well, and morale is low.

I’ve been quietly trying to find another job since early 2020. Covid threw a wrench in those plans, and I have very few prospects at this time. My dilemma is what to do about Katie (my friend/John’s wife). I am very confident that they don’t have an open marriage. She truly thinks Tammy is an assistant at our workplace. I have not told her about the affair, partly because it’s not my business and partly because I need to protect my job. I am the only person at work who would possibly tip her off about this, and it would be obvious it was me if I were to tell her. I feel absolutely awful keeping this secret. I feel so guilty when she earnestly asks me how work is at our hobby group. What do I do?

Readers, what’s your advice?

This post, my coworker quit but our CEO is pretending he’s still here, having to pay to work at an event, and more , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My coworker quit but our CEO is pretending he’s still here

How do you navigate a situation where an employee leaves the company but management is pretending they still exist?

I have a colleague who worked for less than six months for my firm. He left because he was extremely dissatisfied by the micromanagement of our CEO and found a better opportunity. He agreed to stay on as a contractor until the company could hire someone to fill his position, but then he was offered less than he asked as a contractor and severed ties with the company completely.

I know all of this because this colleague called and filled me in, but our CEO is pretending he still exists and is contracting with the company. His email address is still active, and every time someone asks to have something done that was formerly his responsibility, the CEO responds with, “I don’t think we’ll have that done in time” or some other diversion tactic. Our CEO is a younger, pragmatic millennial and we are just emerging from start up status to full-fledged business, and so I believe he’s doing this because this employee was the first to leave the company in five years and he’s worried it might damage morale or make people question why this employee left.

This has been going on for months now. I’m the only one at the company that knows that this employee no longer works for us in any capacity, so he is often discussed in meetings and assigned tasks while I have to awkwardly sit in silence with this knowledge. Help! How do I handle this?

What on earth. Has it not occurred to your CEO that at some point people will figure it out, when the employee hasn’t been seen or heard from in months? Or when he talks to a former coworker, as people do and as actually happened? And why not … just replace him?

In any case, you’re not obligated to keep what you know a secret! The next time someone talks about assigning this guy work, speak up and say, “Oh, he no longer works with us!” That’s a completely normal thing to say in this situation! You don’t need to pretend it didn’t happen in an Emperors New Clothes kind of way — you can just speak up the same way you would if this weirdness weren’t happening.

Frankly, you’d also be doing your company a favor if you asked the CEO directly in front of others, “What’s the plan for covering XYZ now that Rupert is gone?” This wouldn’t be a gotcha; it’s a normal question to ask when someone tells you they’ve left! And you’d be doing the CEO himself a favor if you nudged him to deal with it like a grown-up — but given that this is someone who is engaged in an elaborate farce to cover up an incredibly routine part of doing business, you should first think through whether that’s likely to backfire on you or not.

2. I was required to pay to attend the event I was volunteering at

A few years ago, I worked for a medium-sized nonprofit organization that held a yearly fundraiser at a brewery. I volunteered to be on the fundraiser committee, and I spent a lot of time preparing for the event, including soliciting and collecting donations for raffle baskets, food/refreshment donations, attending meetings, creating decorations, etc. The fundraiser was on an evening outside of work hours, and committee members were expected to volunteer for one hour of the three-hour event, as well as set up and tear down.

During the planning process, I was informed that all committee members were also expected to pay the entrance/ticket fee for the event, even though we would be working half the night and not truly able to participate in the festivities. A few of my work friends also thought this was ridiculous. When I gently (and I believe reasonably) objected to paying to volunteer, I was met with criticism, and I think this tarnished my reputation a bit — not being a team player or caring about the mission. Upper level employees eventually decided to cut the ticket fee in half for volunteers. When I (maybe stupidly this time) still resisted to paying anything, volunteers were told that if we did not want to pay, we could not eat or drink any of the food or beverages provided to paying guests. We were not serving anything expensive like steak and there was no open bar — we had a buffet of appetizers and desserts, and a cash bar once you used your three drink tickets. They strictly kept track of which staff paid and how much they paid, and some veteran staff on the committee made a show of paying the full price. I had been so passionate about helping make the event fun and lucrative, and felt like my efforts were unappreciated. Several years later, and I’m still a bit salty about this. What are your thoughts?

Yeah, this is crap. First, you don’t charge people to attend the event they are working at (!). Second, you feed your volunteers, even when they’re employees. You should have been admitted for free, and you should have been fed and profusely thanked for your help.

3. Resigning when I never see my boss and don’t have his phone number

I’m working part-time in food services while in school. I realized I have to quit, but the issue is the boss is hardly is there. Like he will unexpectedly drop in for like 10 minutes twice a month. So I don’t think I can quit in person. So I thought then to quit over the phone but I don’t have his phone number either. Usually if we communicate, it’s over Facebook messenger. I don’t have his email either. The only thing I can think of is to message him to ask for his phone number and to talk. Is this what I should do? I’ve never had a job before this one, so I’m really confused and have been looking everywhere for an answer.

Do any of your coworkers have his number? I’d check with whoever runs things while he’s away (if anyone); that person probably has a way to reach him. But if that doesn’t work, then yes, send a message over Facebook messenger telling him you need to talk in the next day or two and ask him to call you or send you his number. And if that doesn’t work for some reason (like if he tells you to just use Facebook), go ahead and do it there. It’s ideal to resign in person or over the phone, but if there’s no practical way to do that in the time period you need, it’s fine to use the method you have.

4. When should a crafting business go on your resume?

I’ve recently started a new hobby making what my government considers a cosmetic. Because of the regulations around the product I make (I’m not American), I basically have to start a business in order to make it, with proper labeling and everything. (If I were making just enough for personal use, I wouldn’t. But even if I’m giving away/gifting my product, I’m required to follow the regulations as if I were selling it. And it’s really easy to make more of it then I could use in a year.)

I was wondering when you would advise people in a situation like mine to move their hobby of craft making to a business making crafts on their resumes? (Think making/selling lip gloss, soap, or lotions — things like that.)

If it’s a hobby, it probably doesn’t belong on there; typically you’d want it bringing in regular income first.

But if it does get to that stage: Will including it on your resume strengthen your candidacy for the jobs you’re applying for? If not, I wouldn’t necessarily include it at all (and it could use up resume real estate that might be better spent on other things). But if showing that you successfully marketed a product, handled invoicing, sourced ingredients, researched and followed regulations, and so forth would be a strength for the jobs you’re applying for, I’d include it once you’ve done it long enough — and in enough volume — that you can genuinely say you’ve done those things successfully, and can point to numbers that demonstrate that.

5. Are reference letters useful?

We learned recently that our entire department is being outsourced. While this has been tough to hear and I feel that the initial communication could have been made with more compassion, we have received the plan for the transition and it includes a nice severance if we stay until the transition is finalized. While I am planning on possibly staying until I earn the payout, I have started to reach out to recruiters that I have worked with in the past.

Since many in my department are talking about job hunting, the topic of references has come up. One team member mentioned that she has reference letters from her past managers. Is this a thing in the U.S.? I have been in the work world for 10+ years and have never asked for a reference letter to keep on file. Is this something I should do going forward?

It’s a thing some people do, but it’s a thing very few hiring managers want (with the exception of a few industries, like academia and parts of law). Reference checkers generally want to ask their own questions, and usually (although not always) they want to do it over the phone, where they can hear tone of voice and hesitations and ask follow-up questions. A generic letter that doesn’t speak to their specific questions and which was written knowing the candidate would read it isn’t very useful in most fields.

Illustrator Tomer Hanuka asked his students at the School of Visual Arts to draw pretend New Yorker covers looking forward to the end of the pandemic.… Read more

The post Pandemic New Yorker Covers appeared first on A Cup of Jo.

Hello! Yes it’s been three and a half months since I last updated this blog, but I’ve emerged bleary-eyed from my hibernation cave singing Susannah McCorkle’s “Waters of March” and I’m ready to talk spring scents.

BUT FIRST we have some old business to attend to: in my fall candle post, I sang the praises of Skandinavisk’s KOTO candle. This is my all-time favorite cozy candle, the one I automatically re-buy, but when I re-bought it this winter, it smelled different. I wrote the company and asked if maybe I’d received a weird pour or mislabeled batch but no: they’ve changed the formulation. They now only sell the “New Generation” of KOTO, and their explanation is “For this new collection, Skandinavisk tightened their house rules on fragrance creation to prevent the requirement of any environmental warning symbols on the finished product. In some cases, KOTO included, this has meant that the fragrance itself has a slightly different scent profile as before. For KOTO, the scent is less sharp, a little softer, but it should still do a similar job as the original after lighting.” Join me in pushing the “oh shit what bad environmental thing was in the original scent” thought to the back of your mind and mourning this lost friend. The new scent is fine! It’s fine. I wouldn’t buy it again but it’s fine. I just didn’t want anyone to have bought this based on my glowing review and think THIS was the hot guy I was raving about. He’s nice! He’s very nice. I’m sure your mom will love him.

So! It’s spring, and you want to smell like the new season, minus all the animal rutting, but indoors. Which traditionally means flowers, but I don’t really do florals for spring the same way I don’t do pumpkin for fall, so let’s get that out of the way. I like my spring scents fresh and clean. (I’m saving my tomato scents for the summer version of this post.) I also included more room sprays on this list because I learned a trick recently from my friend Rosalie where you spray a scent over your lamps while they’re on and it lasts longer? Lightbulb magic! It works! Can you believe we’ve been inside for a year!!!

Laundress No. 247 Home Spray: I don’t really care about The Laundress’ actual laundry products; I like my grocery store Persil Fresh just fine and don’t feel the need to get John Mayer involved. But I love their $10 No. 247 scent and I own it in the surface cleaner, all-purpose cleaning concentrate, and home spray. I actually buy the home spray three at a time and stash it in bathrooms and bedrooms. It’s just a very gentle, fresh, clean scent. It skews a little bit “baby” but in a totally inoffensive way. I would totally bathe in it if they made a body wash. I spray it on our ancient sofa before movie night and over our bed before we get into it, just to pretend like we’re way more genteel than we are (we are people who regularly find popcorn in our coat pockets).

Hearth & Hand With Magnolia room spray in Rattan: I am not personally into Chip and Joanna Gaines or any of their design choices but I will admit that some of their candles smell pretty nice for Target prices. This is a good bathroom spray. It’s a clean, light, lemony wood scent but a bit bitter, like the way a cocktail smells. They also did a handwash earlier this year called “Love” that came in a giant glass bottle and smelled AMAZING, but it sold out. Goddammit, Joanna! Quit shiplapping the universe and get this back on shelves.

Everspring: Speaking of Target, I really like this line. I buy their foaming hand soaps all year round (our faves are Mandarin & Ginger and the unscented, uncharacteristically). Their seasonal scents are nice too, but don’t bother buying them in candle form — they have zero throw. I had a hard time smelling it even if lit right next to me, but their hand washes are very nice and nicely priced too.

Redwood & Co Persephone: I am such a fan of all of Redwood & Co’s candles with gin involved. This new scent is like a light and lovely spring sister to Christmas Cheer, their candle that smelled exactly like a holiday party. This one has both pomegranate and gin so it smells light red and sparkly. You also read certain scents as colors, right?

Beauty Pie Reves d’Eze: This could be categorized as a summer candle but I feel like it hits harder for spring. You know that first day you notice that everything is finally but suddenly green and when you see it, it feels like you’d been holding your breath without realizing it? This candle smells like that. It smells green and fresh and very herbal. I get a lot more basil than mint. It has a strong throw even when unlit.

CB I Hate Perfume Wild Pansy: This is what spring actually smells like to me. It smells like wet grass, cold dirt, and the first flowers starting to poke through. It’s a very tender scent, and only sweet at the very end. It smells like playing outside as a kid in March and you’re wearing your winter coat but no mittens so your hands are frozen but smell like fresh, sweet soil when you come inside. I can’t wear anything floral but I love this — it’s very gentle and mossy. I’ve owned my bottle of this water perfume for over 10 years and it hasn’t gone off!

If you want to get fancy and need a non-groundbreaking fruity floral for spring, Diptyque Baies is not Queen Basic for nothing. It’s very bridal-shower-at-a-rich-lady’s-house, and while that scenario is my own personal hell, I definitely don’t object to my bathroom smelling like it. Consider the room spray instead of the candle.

Molton Brown Delicious Rhubarb and Rose Bath & Shower Gel: Wild Pansy perfume aside, this is as floral as I get. It’s more zesty than sweet. It smells like bathing in a nice rosé minus all the Scott-and-Zelda headache. They make it in a candle too but I prefer the shower gel — I think the candle would be too sneezy for me.

HerberryCandles Cilantro: You either love cilantro or hate it and I absolutely love it, but it’s very hard to find a true cilantro scent. I finally found a candle that nails it: just cilantro, all by itself, not having to share the spotlight with pineapple or some other assigned dance partner. I put this on our kitchen shelf and every time I walk by, my brain turns into a cartoon animal smelling a pie cooling on a windowsill.

Beauty Pie Clean House: I’ve reviewed this candle before. It’s a mainstay at my house year-round, but it’s especially nice in the spring. They recently upgraded the size and made the glass prettier, a fate I would have preferred for my old friend KOTO.

RIP/honorable mention: the very best “fresh cut grass” candle I’ve ever found was Votivo Deep Clover but they discontinued it. You can sometimes find the candle or room spray on eBay for ~$20 if you want to join me in being obsessive about it. (I bought one last week.)

my partner made a latchhook featuring JLP and our cat has claimed it

This post, my employees ignore my wife , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I own a small business, with about seven people working in our local office. My wife runs accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, and handles all the books. Besides my wife and me, there is my assistant and four IT techs. We are all within the 25-36 age range, with my wife and I the oldest.

We used to be in a very small office, so my wife would work from home. Early last year, we moved into a new office where there finally was space for everyone. But then Covid hit, so my wife only started working in the office in August. Besides her regular tasks, she also now takes care of things around the office such as ordering coffee, milk, etc.

My wife, my assistant, and I work in one area of the office, while everyone else works in a different large room. However, the other employees need to walk past our area a lot, especially when they come to talk to me. And we have to pass their area a lot when we go to the kitchen, etc.

My wife is very friendly. She walks into the office in the morning and says “good morning” and she is ignored. If she passes an employee and says “hi,” 95% of the time she is ignored. The only employee who says good morning on a regular basis is my assistant. But they have no problem coming to her to tell her that we need more milk, or if they have a business-related request. My wife says that “it’s ironic that the office that she feels the most uncomfortable in is her own office.” When she used to work at other offices, people were friendly with her. And the two of the employees who don’t work out of the office itself but stop by once in a while to pick up things do say “hi” to her when they walk past her office.

I thought at first that it may be because they are intimidated by the boss’s wife. But while she may not be the most outgoing person, she has a very easy, friendly personality. And shouldn’t they be more afraid of getting on the bad side of the boss’s wife?

To be honest, sometimes when she is under pressure for a deadline, she can be super-focused at work and not that talkative, but when she says a direct good morning, there should be at least a response.

It has reached a point where she does not want to come to the office anymore because of all the times she is ignored.

To add insult to injury, it happens with clients too. My wife sits in in the office just next to my office, with her door wide open. Directly outside my office is where my assistant sits. A lot of times, when clients visit me, they of course acknowledge my assistant as she is sitting right outside my door. But they almost never acknowledge my wife. This is even if my wife is standing near my assistant when they walk in. And a lot of these clients know that she is my wife. One morning, the client walked in, said “good morning” to my assistant, and completely ignored my wife who was standing four feet away.

Any ideas or suggestions? How can my wife be more comfortable in her own office? Why in the world is she being ignored?

I think you both are taking this far too personally!

The most likely scenario is that people are just focused on their own stuff, not deliberately freezing her out.

But it’s also possible that this is about the fact that she’s the boss’s wife. The social dynamics with the boss’s spouse are often going to be weird. That’s just the reality of having your spouse work in your business.

Or who knows, it’s also possible that they do dislike her! But since actively snubbing the boss’s spouse generally isn’t the smartest career move — and would take pretty bad judgment — my guess is people are just caught up in their own work. Maybe they don’t feel terribly warmly toward her, but that’s okay.

If I’m wrong and these are active attempts to snub her, then something has gone very wrong: Has she alienated them in some way or done something that’s made them feel their trust was violated? Has her tendency to be “super focused” translated as rude? I don’t know what it is, but if people are going out of their way to be rude to the boss’s spouse, something is going on.

But the fact that she feels clients are also snubbing her makes me think that no one is, and instead she’s just reading way too much into how people do or don’t greet her. It’s very unlikely that your clients are deliberately ostracizing her! It’s much more likely that they’re there to get some business done, and they greet your assistant because she is your assistant and sits right outside your office (and may have been the one to set up their appointment, etc.) but they don’t greet your wife because she’s not part of what they’re there for.

If this is not true about clients, that would mean your wife has somehow alienated them to the point that they are deliberately ignoring her, which would be an extreme response … and if your wife is pissing off both clients and staff to the point that they are pointedly freezing her out, you both need to figure out what’s causing that. But that’s probably not the case; it’s far more likely that your clients — and everyone else — are just focused on their own stuff, and she is taking that too personally.

Ultimately, you just can’t have this kind of social expectation or hurt feelings when you have your spouse working in your business. Bringing a spouse in only works if you’re both able to stay low-key about it and accept that the dynamic might be a little weird for everyone. If your employees are doing their jobs well and are reasonably pleasant to work with, they’re meeting their obligations to your business, and the best thing you and your wife can do is to not stress about greetings.

P.S. When Jennifer of Captain Awkward and I were looking at letters for our collaboration last week, she pointed out this could be a Sixth Sense situation, and that is worth considering as well.

This post, manager’s toxic positivity, why you can’t badmouth your boss in an interview, and more , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Manager’s toxic positivity is getting us down

I’ve been a high school teacher for about 15 years. Obviously, everything about education has had to be drastically adapted in the past year and many of us are still struggling to keep up with the constant changes in expectations, combined with our own family crises. My new principal sends daily emails dripping with toxic positivity, such as pointing out the beautiful weather that we should be thankful for, or encouraging us to take time to practice self-care. These instructions are starting to feel more like extra responsibilities, especially when coupled with “here are three articles I thought you’d all enjoy reading before tomorrow’s staff meeting.” I sort of understand that she’s trying to keep our spirits up, but honestly, most of us would rather just not get an email like that at all. It’s just one more thing to see in the inbox and have to read, you know?

In staff meetings, we’re put in breakout rooms on Zoom to share our self-care ideas with each other, when we’d rather discuss professional things like concerns about specific students’ progress (face-to-face discussions with colleagues, even remote ones, are so much more valuable than emails for this sort of thing), so we feel like it’s wasting and disrespecting our time. Our union representative for the school has the responsibility of bringing teacher concerns to the principal, and she forwarded an article about toxic positivity which clearly outlined several examples of behavior she was guilty of, with the tip that several teachers felt bombarded in this way by her emails. Since then, nothing has changed. Can you suggest some ways to deal with this?

Yeah, I’m thinking someone who thinks this is a good idea isn’t necessarily going to stop just because she hears secondhand (even from a union rep) that some people don’t like it; it’s too easy to dismiss as, “Oh, maybe a couple of people don’t like it.”

How receptive is your principal to feedback? Ideally you and other teachers would tell her directly that you’d rather use meetings to discuss work-specific concerns and you’re not finding the self-care break-outs helpful. I’d focus your capital there rather than on the daily emails (annoying as those sound) because in theory you can skip the emails or quickly skim them, whereas the staff meetings use significant time and sound excruciating.

As for how to deliver that feedback, it depends on how communication usually works there, but one option is for a group of you to raise it at the next staff meeting — maybe at the end of a meeting and framed as a request for the next one. One person will have to be the first to speak up, but if you decide ahead of time that others will chime in with agreement, it’ll probably have more of an impact than hearing it secondhand.

2. Why is it taboo to tell an interviewer you’re job-searching because of your manager?

I was reading an article this morning talking about how managers are the reason people leave jobs. Not the first time I’ve heard this or experienced it. If people are always leaving jobs because of their managers, why is it such a taboo to use it in interviewing as a reason why you’re leaving your job?

The big thing is that the interviewer doesn’t know you well enough to know if your assessment of your boss is reasonable or if you were part of the problem. For example, if you say your boss was a micromanager, maybe she managed you closely because your work wasn’t great and required a lot of oversight. Maybe you have unrealistic expectations of a boss or you’re a prima donna or impossible to get along with. (Think about some bad employees you’ve known and what complaints they probably had about their managers.) It’s not that interviewers don’t know there are legitimately bad bosses out there; it’s that they have no way of knowing what the other side of this particular story is. And while good interviewers will of course know your account could be entirely correct and objective, it raises enough of a question mark that they’ll have to wonder, and it’s not in your interests to have those sorts of questions hanging over you.

Also, rightly or wrongly, the convention most of us have been taught is that it’s considered indiscreet and a little tacky to badmouth a previous employer. So if you do, your judgment will feel somewhat questionable.

More here.

3. Did I cheat on this hiring test?

I am writing about an interview experience I had a few years ago that I think about often. I work (more loosely now, but strictly back then) with data, and I interviewed at a company that, after the initial phone screen, asked me to do an at-home Excel exercise and then come on-site the next day to continue the testing, all of which was based in Excel, and the finished product was a worksheet I submitted. The exam asked about some obscure macros and formulas, and I used the Help tool within Excel (you might remember him as the little paper clip!) during the exam to clarify some of the details of the formulas they were asking about. It was the kind of thing where you would need baseline familiarity with the concept to even set up the formula, which I had, but sometimes the correct order and definition of the variables needed a little bit of refreshing.

Was this a huge error? Could they “tell” somehow that I used the paper clip to help me? Would that have been construed as cheating? I had a hard time thinking so at the time because there is no planet on which someone would have to use Excel at work but wouldn’t have the help tool or even the broader Internet at their disposal. I think about it a lot because they completely ghosted me after this interview — which between the at-home and on-site portions took about four hours of my time (that is what it was anticipated to take), so it stung and felt like I completely wasted my time. And in fact, when I called the hiring manager to follow up about the position after many emails being ignored, he straight up hung up on me as soon as I said who it was on the phone.

Nah, that’s not cheating. You used the tools that were available to you through the program itself! That’s fine. And if for some reason they didn’t want you do that, they could have said so. I doubt they could even tell you did, but if they did see it and objected to it, they would have just concluded you didn’t have the expertise they wanted and that would that — it wouldn’t be cheating or something that would get you hung up on in outrage!

The hanging up, by the way, was incredibly rude (obviously), but it was almost certainly about him being caught off-guard/panicking/not knowing what to say to someone he’d been avoiding because he’s incapable of delivering a professional rejection (but very capable of being a jerk).

4. Will it look bad that I’m earning an upper-level nonprofit salary and married to a millionaire?

I am mid-level management at a nonprofit that has a religious slant. The organization pays well for the nonprofit world and the culture of the organization is not without its flaws, but the pros far outweigh the cons (and their handling of Covid has been amazing).

The issue at hand is that I am now engaged. My fiancé is a musical artist with a loyal fanbase and has earned a net worth in the lower level millions. He also lives a very modest lifestyle so what he’s been able to save and invest has garnered quite a bit in returns.

I am good at my job and have worked and will continue to work my way up in this company. I am worried about the optics from the public should anyone make the connection between me and my husband once we are married. I know I am well worth what I am paid, but all of us are worried about any possible backlash from me being married to a millionaire and making a higher level salary in a nonprofit organization.

Am I overthinking this? Is there a way to potentially spin this if someone investigates our financials and decides this seems wrong? I would hate for my presence to bring any negative press to an amazing organization.

Yes, I think you’re overthinking it. There are plenty of people working in nonprofits who are married to high-earning spouses or have family money; it’s not scandalous! In fact, it’s no one’s business. (Interestingly, it’s especially common among fundraisers, at least in some parts of the sector.)

Your salary is set based on your employer’s salary structure and the market rate for the work within your field. There’s no norm that organizations shouldn’t hire people who don’t “need” the money, and there’s no expectation that you should turn down a job or a salary for that reason either. Your salary isn’t a charitable gift from your employer; it’s appropriate compensation for the work you perform. Anyone who took issue with you being paid the same as others at your level simply because of your personal finances would be a real outlier.

5. How do I thank my manager without seeming like a suck-up?

Two members of my family died of COVID within a month of each other. Needless to say, it was devastating and I’m only now coming around to feeling somewhat “normal.”

My manager was TERRIFIC through the whole thing. Our official policy is three days of bereavement leave but she basically reduced my workload to no more than 1-2 hours a day for two whole months telling me “only do these tasks when your personal stuff is taken care of.” They were very easy and low priority tasks—much simpler than the complex tasks I normally do. I made my full salary during this time.

Long story short, I reached the point I was READY and excited to return to my regular work, which requires a high degree of concentration and thought and have pretty much gone back to being the good worker I was before.

During our 1:1’s, I’ve thanked my manager for being so helpful and understanding. Is that enough? I feel like I should do something more for her for being so exceptionally understanding during a really bad time for me but also don’t want to make her feel weird or seem like I’m being a suck up (reviews are coming up).

Just thanking her is enough! That said, was it like a one-sentence “thanks for being so understanding” or was it something a little more substantial? If the former, you could go back now and say something more substantial — or, even better, you could put it in a written note. Managing can sometimes be a relatively thankless job, and notes like that are often cherished for years. (I have a file of them that I look at from time to time, and it really does mean a lot.)

You’re not going to seem like a suck-up if you do that! It’s a gracious thing to do.

This post, update: my new team is taunting me because I have a nut allergy , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

Remember the letter-writer whose new team was taunting her because of her nut allergy? She had repeatedly found Snickers bars lined up on her desk, and her manager knew and wasn’t stopping it — and thus become a Worst Boss of the Year nominee. Here’s the update.

I just wanted to say a massive thank you for your advice. I genuinely was going to quit a job that I have been in for years and that I love over it. Your advice and comments from readers gave me the confidence to tackle it.

I did approach HR, who advised me to speak to my boss if I felt I was being bullied. Obviously that wasn’t feasible as the boss was fully aware of what was going on.

I scheduled a meeting with the head of site who is second-in-command to the CEO and laid out everything that been happening — the bullying, but also the toxic environment.

I was promoted to implement training and coaching because the department wasn’t performing and it was having a knock-on effect on other departments and ultimately customers. He wasn’t aware of any of the issues with the department — it’s a small department which has flown under the radar for years.

He promised me the situation would be investigated and to log every single incident in an email to him personally. I felt incredibly stupid having to send email after email listing the many incidents that occurred. But I logged everything.

He came in personally one morning to catch the person putting the nuts on my desk. She was fired instantly. It was the boss’s right-hand woman who believed she should have got the promotion not me, and this was her attempt to make me leave.

The boss was suspended pending investigation. It turns out that for the last four years, he has not been doing any paperwork — return to works, 1:1’s, PDP, CPD’s, nothing. During the investigation, they also looked into staff turnover and there have been numerous accusations of bullying which have been ignored and a high number of staff have quit. He resigned last week before they could fire him, and I know it’s unkind but I’m absolutely thrilled!

It’s been hard work making changes within the department. There has been some pushback and major changes have needed to be made. Two staff have quit because they now actually need to perform. But we have two staff from different departments and a new manager who are all incredible. The head of site has been incredibly humble about it, which I did not expect. He apologized and acknowledged this should have been picked up years ago and assured me that going forward the business will be putting more measures in place to ensure it can’t happen again.

This post, my employee told me “I prefer not to” when I tried to give him a new project , was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I am a senior manager in an industry highly affected by the pandemic (performing arts). Because we are affiliated with a parent organization, we have not suffered the same budget cuts as many of our peer institutions, and have been lucky to retain all of our benefits-eligible staff throughout at their pre-pandemic compensation. Of course, many people are under-employed or have been asked to pivot in new directions temporarily. We’ve been up-front that we can’t adjust compensation at the moment — but again, all of our peer institutions have gone through multiple rounds of layoffs, salary cuts, and/or furloughs, and no one is being underpaid for the field. Nor have any of the pivots been dramatic — no one is managing additional employees or budgets or anything.

Most people have been amazing and willing to learn new skills (figuring out how to adapt for a virtual environment). Some people (including me) have complicated caregiving situations at the moment, and we have been flexible and accommodating given the pandemic.

Today I got a response that really baffled me. I sent a cool opportunity to collaborate with a partner agency to a direct report of mine who I know is currently under-employed. (He’s non-exempt and has been clocking in for a shorter average week than he’s budgeted for. I’ve asked and this is not due to a change in his home schedule, but rather just due to not having as many projects as usual.) It would be working with people at his level doing something slightly beyond the scope of what he usually does for us, but in line with his existing skills and talents. It should not take more time than he has available, and of course would all be on the clock and paid. He replied “thank you for thinking of me, I would prefer not to.”

I don’t know what to do with this. “I would prefer not to” seems like … an incredibly inappropriate response? I would never have dared! The only thing I could think of is if one of the people at the other agency is someone he can’t work with, but even so he could have disclosed that.

Questions that are swirling for me:
– Is there some generational difference? Does he think he’s setting an appropriate boundary? (I’m GenX, he’s a Millennial.)
– Is it unfair for me to think that our employees should be grateful to still be employed and therefore jumping at the chance to do literally anything? I am not trying to be exploitative, but is this something where I’m wildly out of step with the norms?
– I think this reflects badly on him! Is that fair?

I think it’s possibly symptomatic of a larger disconnect, as I feel so fiercely loyal right now, given the disruption to our industry.

I wrote back and asked these questions:

1. Is he still being paid for full time work even though he’s working less than that?
2. How far outside his usual role is the project you suggested?
3. Is it anything that a lot of people find unpleasant/uncomfortable — like public speaking, sales, etc.?

The response:

1. He’s a part-time employee, budgeted for 25 hours a week. He’s currently working closer to 17 on average. In the first 6 months, we paid part-timers up to their schedule, though we are now just paying for time worked (but have encouraged things like professional development workshops and networking on the clock for those who are coming up short on hours). I am not aware of any other gigs or responsibilities on his plate.

2. It’s basically the same role, just on a different project. His regular job is running two programs, one of which is on hiatus entirely and the other of which has pivoted to virtual. I can’t imagine this project would require anything that he hasn’t done with the other programs.

3. Nope! No sales, no public speaking, nothing that raised a red flag for me at all — unless there’s something about the partner organization or a person there that I don’t know anything about, but I would hope he would have brought that up to me. And it would of course all still be virtual.

Okay, well, Bartleby the Scrivener is alive and well and working for you! This is very exciting.

I agree that a flat “I would prefer not to” when asked to take on a new project that you clearly have room for in your schedule is not usually a thing that’s done. It’s is fine to say “I would prefer not to because of X — is it something someone else could do?” or so forth. What’s weird here is the complete lack of anything else in his response.

Is this guy, by chance, very literal? Is he someone who’s normally not super forthcoming with context or details without prompting? If so, I’d just figure this is in keeping with what you already know about how he communicates. Odd, but not necessarily alarming.

Or, could your wording have given the impression that you weren’t saying “here’s a project I’d like to assign you” but rather “is this something you’d be interested in and excited about?” If it was the latter, maybe he just took at at face value and gave you a literal answer. (His wording would still be a little … sparse, but not everyone speaks Office really well.)

In any case, regardless of the explanation, the next step is the same — go back to him and talk some more: “I was hoping you’d be up for taking on the X project because of (reasons). Can you tell me a little more about why you’d prefer not to?”

Who knows what you’ll hear. Maybe he’s happy with his decreased hours and doesn’t want to add to them. Maybe he’s stressed AF right now and having to learn something new in the middle of it is more than he can take. Maybe he feels like his role has already expanded more than he’s comfortable with and he’s trying to set a boundary (unskillfully, but still). Maybe his family has an intense blood feud with the family of the person he’d be collaborating with. Or maybe he just misunderstood and thought you were gauging his interest level. Who knows — but ask. From there you’ll have a better idea of where to go next.

And it’s still your prerogative to just assign him the work if you need to, although you shouldn’t do that without finding out where he’s coming from.

To answer your questions:

– Is it a generational difference? I don’t know, it could be! I’m Gen X like you and a flat, context-less “I’d prefer not to” seems bizarre to me too. I think a lot of generational stereotypes are BS, but it’s true that there’s a trend toward younger employees advocating for themselves more … which is a good thing when it’s done well (the problem here is that it wasn’t). There’s also more discussion in the culture about setting reasonable boundaries with employers, although I don’t know that it’s really happening more in practice.

– Is it unfair for you to think your employees should be grateful to still be employed and thus happy to do literally anything? Well … yes and no. Being grateful for employment in an industry that’s facing massive cuts is one thing, but being grateful to a specific employer is a different thing — your organization isn’t keeping people employed out of altruism, but because it’s presumably good for your business. It does sound like you’re going out of your way to treat people well and you deserve kudos for that, but don’t fall in the trap of expecting employees to be grateful to the organization itself. That’s a recipe for all kinds of messed up dynamics where people feel pressure not to act in their own interests. And “happy to do literally anything” — I think that was probably hyperbole, but in general during circumstances like these most employees will be glad to be able to contribute productively as long as the work is reasonably within the scope of what they signed on to do. Some will be glad for opportunites outside that scope as well, but not always — and that’s not unreasonable.

If this is the same role your employee has been doing all along, just on a different project — and still virtual and within the hours he’s agreed to work — it sounds pretty reasonable to think he’d take it on.

– Is it fair for his response to reflect badly on him? Too early to say! Talk to him and learn more before you conclude anything.

– Is it symptomatic of a larger disconnect because you feel fiercely loyal right now, given the disruption to your industry? It could be! In situations like this, some people will respond like you have — with increased loyalty and a determination to work hard, given all that’s going on around you. Other people won’t — sometimes because they aren’t that committed to the industry to begin with, sometimes because they have other things in their lives they’re focusing on — and that’s okay. Both responses are legitimate; they’re just reflective of people coming from different places.

But talk to him and see what’s going on.

This post was originally published this past winter but I have updated it as I’ve taken quite a few new classes and it’s something that comes up quite a bit in today’s episode of Bad on Paper, which (in the spirit of back to school)  is all about the importance of being a lifelong learner. Becca and I had both separately renewed our Masterclass subscriptions and are huge fans of the platform… we both talk about our favorite classes in the episode but it’s one of my favorite ways to learn something new and they’re constantly adding new classes.

I have talked about Masterclass in my 2021 goals post and also on the podcast, but a big goal of mine is to spend a couple hours a week learning something new or exploring an interest. It can be any interest or random thing I’m feeling curious about, but I think that continuing to learn is so so important. For me, this looks like watching more documentaries, listening to educational podcasts, reading non-fiction, actually reading all those beautiful art books, and of course… MasterClass!

MasterClass Review

I love MasterClass – it’s been a great way to pass the time during quarantine, and I have learned so much from taking their classes.

What is MasterClass

MasterClass offers courses for students of all skill levels, across a realllllly wide array of interests: everything from screenwriting (Becca LOVED Shonda Rhimes’ class) to writing thrillers (Dan Brown has a course!), interior design to cooking (there are so many really specific cooking courses) and beyond. If there’s something you are even vaguely interested in, there is probably a MasterClass for it! A one year membership is $180 ($15/month but it’s billed all at once) and with that you get access to TONS of classes. There are a lot of online courses out there but in my opinion, MasterClass is the best one.

You can stream Masterclass video anywhere (I like to watch them on my TV) or even download the courses to watch them offline, and each course is also accompanied by a PDF workbook. There is literally everything you could ever want to learn about… from acting with Natalie Portman and comedy with Steve Martin to the nerdier more niche stuff (I’m kinda tempted to take Space Exploration with astronaut Chris Hadfield?).

And it never gets old: every month they add new classes. This month they added several new ones but I’m particularly excited to learn more about the science of sleep with Matthew Walker. Also: Art and creativity with Jeff Koons!

How MasterClass Works

Once you get a membership, you can take any class and watch Masterclass courses at your own pace. The classes feature pre-recorded content, broken down into short lessons. Each course is about 3.5 hours of video, which in my opinion is manageable enough to not be intimidating… but still enough time to go deep. On average, each course is about twenty lessons, and each lesson is about 10 minutes long. It’s easy to take one or two during your lunch break, or first thing in the morning to get inspired, etc.

One thing that Becca mentioned on the podcast today is that she knows a lot of people who will listen to Masterclass without the video… like you would for a podcast. You can’t do that for all of them (some are really visual) but it would work for a lot of the courses.

The Best MasterClass Courses

Here are a few of the best (in my opinion!) MasterClass courses. Note that this is just a quick list, and as I take more courses (I’m pretty hooked!) I will absolutely update this! (Please leave your favs in the comments section, if you’re a member!)

Effective Communication with Robin Roberts

A few of you suggested taking this course and I was so excited for it.. I am always trying to improve my communication skills, especially for the podcast and the interviews that we do there.  So I really enjoyed this course. I will say that (as with a lot of Masterclass courses) she definitely gets to the good stuff in the end. The segment on TV interviews was probably the most impactful for me when it came to purely tactical advice, as were the last couple segments about optimism. I love how she says that optimism is a muscle that gets stronger the more you use it!

Interior Design with Kelly Wearstler

This was the first MasterClass I ever took. I have several of Kelly’s books (and a lamp) and love her style and taste. I learned a lot from this, especially around creativity and defining your aesthetic.

Screenwriting with Shonda Rhimes

I will admit that I have not personally watched this one (and honestly I probably won’t, as it isn’t high on my list of priorities/interests) but Becca swore by this one up and down and said she learned so much from it before she wrote RomComPods. I will take her word for it!

Creativity and Leadership with Anna Wintour

I mean, talk about learning from the best. To get to get this level of access to Anna is very cool. She shares her management tips, decision making tips, and advice for developing your own personal brand and vision. I really loved this one.

Malcom Gladwell teaches Writing

Malcom Gladwell is one of my favorite writers (he wrote The Tipping Point and Blink, amongst other things) so I loved hearing from him. From research to character development to grabbing and holding your readers’ attention, this book has it all. I will note that Masterclass has a TON of writing courses, I hope to eventually take them all. There is creative writing with Margaret Atwood, writing thrillers with Dan Brown, writing with James Patterson, fiction and story telling with Walter Mosley, more story telling with Neil Gaiman… I could go on! If you want to up your writing game, MasterClass is definitely for you – you can learn from so many of the greats!!!

Bobbi Brown teaches Makeup and Beauty

I loved this one. Bobbi Brown is a genius when it comes to beautiful, natural makeup and her course taught me SO much, just in terms of skills and techniques to applying simple makeup. I loved the smoky eye tutorial in particular as that is something that’s always been challenging for me.

Cooking Techniques with Thomas Keller

Thomas Keller (the chef behind The French Laundry) has a couple different cooking technique classes with MasterClass. I took the class about meats, stocks, and sauces (making dad proud!) but there’s also a great one with vegetables, pasta, and eggs. I am big on the cooking technique classes as they really help you to up your game. Gordon Ramsey has a knife skills class and that is high on my list to take next!

Anna Wintour teaches creativity and leadership

I loved hearing from Anna. Whether or not you like her, she is both a creative visionary and a leader. I’ve always just been curious about her as a person so really enjoyed this. It’s incredible to hear how she makes decisions, nurtures upcoming talent, and built such powerful brands.

Bobbi Brown teaches makeup and beauty

If you ask me, this class alone makes a Masterclass membership worth it. Learning all the makeup basics and techniques from Bobbi Brown was invaluable. From foundation tips and tricks to more advanced stuff like editorial makeup, transitioning from day to night, or creating a statement lip. SO hands on and helpful, way better than Youtube if you ask me.

Sara Blakely teaches self-made entrepreneurship

I loved hearing Sara Blakely’s story. As the founder of Spanx she is actually the youngest female self-made billionaire… pretty incredible. I think anyone even thinking about starting their own business or brand could benefit a lot from this one!

Is It Worth It?

In my opinion, MasterClass is absolutely worth it. A one year long membership is $180. So broken down per month, it’s just $15 per month which is about the same as a Netflix membership. (And frankly, I would like to spend more time watching this and less time on Netflix… but I’m not always sure my brain is ready for that!) If you are disciplined and use it regularly, you can easily take a course or two or even three a month… maybe even more. That’s a lot of learning and a lot of access to some of the most incredible and inspiring people in the world.

I’ll add that it’s probably more valuable to certain interests and careers. Writing is a big one, as is FOOD and cooking. There are also a lot of great courses about entrepreneurship and finding your purpose.

It’s important to note that you can completely try before you fully commit. There is a 7 day free trial and also a 30-day money back guarantee too so if for some reason you are unhappy or hate it, they will refund you in full.

Have you tried Masterclass? What are your favorite classes?

DISCLOSURE: IF YOU BUY SOMETHING THROUGH MY LINKS, I MAY EARN AN AFFILIATE COMMISSION, AT NO COST TO YOU. I ONLY FEATURE THINGS I TRULY LOVE HERE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

The post MasterClass Review! appeared first on The Stripe.

We’re not quite into update season yet (that starts December 1), but I thought this letter was a good way to send us off into the Thanksgiving holiday.

This is from a reader who had commented on a post earlier this month about kindness at work, about her sister and nephew who both had Covid. Her sister, a single mom whose ex is behind on child support, couldn’t work while quarantining and wasn’t being paid. The reader had been assisting with her bills and groceries but had nothing left to keep helping with, and a kind coworker had offered some help.

Several other readers got in touch with me to ask they could help and sent along money. Here’s the letter I received on Monday.

Hello AAM community! This is an update to my post on “Kindness at Work” regarding my sister and nephew who both tested positive for COVID. My sister had been unable to work for a month due to quarantine, was struggling to pay bills, get necessities and I was out of funds to help her. A coworker had overheard part of our conversation and gave me a check for her, even though she had a daughter who had been sick and required several medical procedures.

First, I would like to say THANK YOU to all of those who offered my sister assistance. It was truly a blessing for them. With the assistance of the commenters and some additional resources, she was able to pay all of her bills, purchase groceries, get her medicine, get her heater fixed and has a small bit leftover in case anything comes up before she gets paid. She actually returns to work today and her manager is offering her as many hours as she feels up to through the holidays.

I took the morning off after the post and made some calls on her behalf. I called the nutrition department of the school district to inquire about any possible resources, as they had been giving out food boxes for student families during the summer. They have a program to deliver food boxes to student families who are in isolation/quarantine because of COVID. It is a mix of nonperishables and fresh vegetables. They call to let you know they are on the way, put the box on your porch and honk the horn. They were able to order some things online and have them delivered. They will get another box Tuesday or Wednesday. His high school is currently 100% virtual due to a COVID outbreak among the band (100 plus students tested positive), so he may or may not go back next week. He had been home for almost three weeks when that outbreak happened.

I also found out that although her employer does not participate in FFCRA, they have an emergency fund you can apply for. So I had my nephew take photos of her bills and email them to me. Then I put her on speakerphone (at home, not in the office!) and asked her the questions on the online application and typed in the answers. She was approved and they deposited the money into her account.

Using social media, I made contact with my nephew’s paternal grandmother. She said she doesn’t speak to her son much for various reasons and she was quite upset he wasn’t paying his child support. I explained the situation and she wired money to my sister. I gave her my nephew’s phone number (with his and my sister’s permission) and they are talking, texting and video calling each other now.

Things are definitely looking better for them. I don’t think I can sufficiently express my sincere appreciation for the help provided. My sister and nephew are extremely grateful and moved by the compassion that this community showed them. You are awesome people! I’m so glad that I found this site years ago when I wanted to know if I needed to buy my coworker a gift for her third wedding since I had bought gifts for the first two!

Alison- thank you so much for this site! This is not the first time your people have helped other commenters in need and I’m sure it won’t be the last. In case I haven’t said it enough, let me say it again- this is an amazing group of people!

Stay safe AAM community!

Me again. For more ways to help others, please consider donating (food or money) to your local food pantry or using any of the ideas here!

a happy ending was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

“Was Google’s decision to kill Google Reader actually the key turning point in the destruction of western civilization? Kills the decentralized web, gives rise to Twitter and Facebook becoming the algorithmic overlords. Maybe…”

- Vinay Gupta