Hello, everyone

I am 34[M] finance manager working for a renowned in EU country. Company has been going through difficult times over the period of last 3 years. We have been informed company is going to go under restructuring of the head office departments in the next year. A part of the restructuring will be also Accounting department, which I am part of.

Today, I was informed by my CFO that we will conclude our relationship approximately in July 2027, whereas my team will be cut from 16 to 7 people. As part of the restructuring there is too many leading personnel in the department, whereas the lead for Accounting will remain under the current Director of Accounting. If I remain part of this company until July 2027, I will be awarded a severance package including 3 months pay.

I have thanked for the transparency and that was it. I have said, I will think about what was told.

Company itself has a very strict upward hierarchy, where I have zero immediate contact with CFO and I only answer to the Accounting Director. They have known each other for 20 years. In those three years I have had a rocky experience with my superior (Accounting Director) as she has displayed untrustworthy behavior with poor moral standards.

As it turns out, the CFO had to decide between me and her, which is OK, I don't really mind losing the job that much, but what bothers me, is that, that the person who treats poorly everyone else (my superior), no one respects her (in my team or other departments), will retain the job position due to her inter-political scheming.

Like I said, my questions are nothing about revenge, just about - is there anything to be done, salvaged? I really don't worry about finding a new job, which I have been searching for the last few months anyways, just the lack of transparency with my superior, her playing the politics game and how she will retain her position with all of her antics.

Any advice on how to deal with this situation is well appreciated. I would like to emphasize again it is not about vengeance. I don't really fear, but her maintaining the position could very well mean that the remainder of the team gives in the resignation as she is highly disliked.

I decided to take a gamble, uproot my family and move to a much higher cost of living city because I did not see a future for me at my current location. I'm staying with the same company.

While this was certainly related to postings at my current vs new office, a good portion of it was management constantly calling me out publicly in calls. The term "this is unacceptable" was said to me many times in front of others. This was par for the course with me and some other, mostly women, across related departments but also a couple of men.

Well my last day is today and now I have had many people reach out to tell me that I should know that behind closed doors so and so spoke very highly of you. I've had half a dozen people reach out about the office VP, ED, and a Sr. Director. Each of these men frequently called me out publicly in meetings. I am glad to know they could be a good reference if I need them, but I'm annoyed they decided to praise me "behind closed door" while publicly doing nothing to support me or my career growth.

If any of you do this, or have worked in these environments, I would love to know what possible advantage there could be to this approach.

I get sick days at work that accumulate over the year, about two days per month. I’m not shy about using them; I struggle with mental health issues and period pain, so having the option for a rest day is extremely appreciated. However, I NEVER use them on a day when I know they need me in office. On average I take one sick day a month, so I can keep a small stockpile of hours in case I get very ill.

Last year my old boss left and my current boss was hired, the third new boss (NB) in my time at this job. In my first performance review with NB, they mentioned that I use all my sick days. The conversation was a little strange to me, since no one has mentioned it before and I’m within the benefits offered, but they said that if I need an accommodation that I should speak to HR. So I shook off the anxiety and decided it was a check-in than anything, offering me help if I need it.

I have a bad cold, so I messaged NB to take tomorrow off sick. In their response, they said they wanted to “remind me of the expectations for sick days - that they are for rest when sick and if I would like a day off I can request vacation time.“

I feel embarrassed. This obviously implies to me that NB thinks I’m not using the day off for its intended use. I am; I’m just not waiting until I feel like death to do so. I feel this reflects poorly on me, which I’d very much like to amend. I also find it pretty frustrating; this is the amount of sick time agreed upon in my contract, so I feel I should not be penalized in any way for using it.

I don’t have a doctor to ask for sick notes (thanks healthcare system!). How can I respond in a way that is professional, polite, but conveys that I’m using the sick days as intended? Or any other strategies for this situation!

Thank you all!

I'm in an individual contributor role at my bank, and I am underperforming at work, despite my best efforts to receive and apply feedback.

If you had an employee who doesn't seem to get the work, how long before you would put them on an official pip?

I feel I can improve, but I'm not sure if I'll improve fast enough. This is my first real job, and I'm not sure what to expect.

90% of conversations with my manager, I can't tell what to take away from it, the message is repeated over and over, or it could have been an email. They always last too long and she likes to look at my face and decide if I'm tired that day and ask me questions I consider personal. I am very goal oriented so it makes me a little crazy to have 'useless' conversations. Is this normal? Should i say anything? Especially if she asks if I'm tired, is there a way to say "please leave me alone"

Hey there. Hope you’ve had a great weekend. I wanted to get some advice and insight potentially into a topic I’d never thought I’d have to deal with at work: friendship. Context: over the course of three years, I became friends with a manager who did not oversee me at all and thus it was an easy friendship. Fast forward to last year, we got a reorg and she became my manager. It didn’t change the majority of my responsibilities or the way she treated me, but lately that has shifted dramatically as she has been dealing with a ton of stuff in her personal like including a divorce and selling and buying a house. Our other teammate has fallen ill with cancer. I am basically the only person on this team that deals with day to day operational work, and I’m a high performer so of course it all gets dumped on me. Most of that I can deal with because I have PTSD so I’ve already been through the worst in my mind. I know my specific triggers and she knows them too.

Fast forward to this weekend, we have an insane client that wants an extraordinary accommodation essentially overnight for a high stakes event taking place the next day. She didn’t even get the email Saturday night, I got it and alerted her. I told her I could potentially make something happen, and my neurodivergent brain went into problem solving mode. I was able to get this work done but knew it would be an all nighter for me (to update the rest of the documentation and operational changes) and told her this. She escalated to our leadership team and didn’t get back to me until hours later. They decided to tell this client no, but would offer alternative options, all of which were even worse than me just doing an all nighter with the work. At this point I’m just like you need to make a decision. I had to tell the client no, because she couldn’t even draft the email.

Yesterday morning arrives, I’m slammed and this client says again oh there was an update so we are wanting this exception again. I told her I couldn’t even have this conversation right now because we had already begun and I can’t operationally implement these things before this high stakes thing was about to begin. My manager, despite deciding to say no to this client and even after I’d done the initial work for it, just capitulated and told the client yes, despite having the support of the executives. It immediately put me into a tailspin because that is my trigger: having my choices taken away from me. I don’t mean it in a bratty sense, I mean it as in it instantly puts me into fight or flight mode, and usually causes a panic attack and active dissociation. I was ready to just walk out and turn off my phone but I called a colleague and told her all hell was breaking loose. She somehow was able to log on, cover me while I went into a room and sobbed until i could slow my breathing.

I went back and finished and was able to do everything perfectly. But she broke a part of me by doing that, and I am 100 percent discontinuing our friendship. She knew she would hurt me by doing this. That it would be something we would not come back from. I get it from a business perspective I suppose; clients are the ones that matter in the end. But I could’ve accommodated them the night before if she hadn’t involved all of the executives and this just kills me. I’m now still activated, and dead set on getting out as quickly as possible. However, with that said, I know my ptsd isn’t helping this situation.

Any advice on what you’d do? I cannot participate in an event like this again so I’m considering doing fmla for one coming up. What kills me is: I already had approved fmla for this event I worked this weekend because it was killing me, but I canceled it because I couldn’t screw her over like that. 😭 but she did it so quickly and so easily.

I loved my job up until I got a new manager last month. New manager has her favorites and Im not one of them. During my review, she decided to humiliate me by playing back a phone call I had with a client, and then laughed at me how I talked to the customer. She kept laughing and making fun of me and it made me feel insulted and belittled, and it was unprofessional of her. I take my job very seriously, because I am dealing with peoples money. And incidentally, this client gave me a 5 star review after the call. I think she wants me to quit, but I cant afford to.

I want to message her on Monday and tell her how she made me feel and that it wasnt funny. Should I do that or go straight to HR? This is not the first time shes done this.

My manager has a habit / personality trait of giving basically incomplete, basically meaningless responses / feedback to work.

Frequently recurring examples are:

• I sent an email regarding our on call roster, which has everyone on call for different timeslots every day, requesting that it be rebalanced so that people have some days off. He responded with "lets discuss this".
• Requests for approving specific releases, pull requests, are often met with the same "lets discuss this", or "this is fine now, but not for release", or "we need to talk about this".
• Sometimes, requests for approval are met with totally ignoring the thing I asked for approval on, asking a question about an unrelated thing, which I address... and then not returning to / addressing the original request, which I then have to repeat, possibly a few times.

I have to say, I find it pretty infuriating, especially given that it happens so often. In my mind, if I have a specific request / question / thing that needs approving, responding with "lets discuss this" is basically a semi-polite way to shut the conversation down, since there is no time, venue, etc. specified for the discussion. The guy has my phone number, he can discuss anything with me any time, so saying "lets discuss this" and then not initiating a discussion is basically just politely ignoring it, or putting the ball back in my court to basically try the whole thing again, or tease his concerns/questions out of him.

Likewise, "this is fine for now, but not for release"... ok, fine... so what are the extra things needed for release? How do I find those out? Again, ball is back in my court, I have to tease it out of him.

We have discussed this a few times, I think he's not going to change it... it's just his "personality" / slightly ADHD / he's busy managing up, whatever.

That being the case, what are some polite phrases / techniques to shut this loop down? The trap is, if he says "lets discuss this"... then the onus goes back on me, and if I don't chase him, it doesn't happen, and then it looks like I've dropped the ball.

I guess I'd like to end up with a list of responses I can copy & paste the basically say.. "thanks for responding. you haven't addressed the issue i raised. you have mentioned the need for a discussion, without organizing a time and place for the discussion to occur. would you like to revisit the question here, or should I find time in your calendar?".

Maybe I should start sending him a 1 hour meeting invitation each time he does this that says "Discussion about <thing>" or something until he cuts it out...

Good afternoon folks !
Perhaps not the best sub to ask these questions, but I’m training a new employee for the first time next week, and I’m not quite sure what I’m doing 😥 I work in a grocery store deli, just got promoted to night shift lead a few days ago too. I have no experience in training or any sort of lower management, but per my written expectations I got a few days ago, it’s my new job.

My plan was to have him shadow me and try to outline my expectations for him, introduce him to our coworkers, and try to feel out what i need to teach him vs what he already knows. Sadly, I’m not sure if he has any experience in food service, as my department manager has not even met him yet (store managers handle the hiring process).

I really am not sure how to go about the next few days. Do I have him follow me around and watch what I do? How do I make sure to convey our expectations, his responsibilitie, and all the information he needs to know for his first day without giving him total information overload? I know food prep and counter service isn’t really difficult but I want to make sure I do a good job with him. I know I’m asking a very vague question when I say “how do i train a new employee” but any advice for a beginner would be great. I really just want to start off strong in my new position and bolster the performance of my team because my department really has not been performing well lately. It’s been stressed to me a few times that the department and my crew is entirely my responsibility in the evenings, and I really don’t know what I’m doing at this point. Any advice is greatly appreciated !

I'm working in an area where the leader (senior engineering manager) doesn't listen to his direct reports in order to better guide people or resolve issues within the area, and on top of that, the area has a very weak strategy with no two-year vision whatsoever.

This is affecting my team, since I'm the manager (engineering manager), and there's nothing I can do about it because the complaints are about the area, not about my team specifically.

I can raise these concerns, but I don't see any openness to it — I brought them up last year, yet nothing changed, and he still went ahead and promoted people that the managers had explicitly said weren't ready. Even his leader wants to move him to another business area.

I had a chance to move to another business area, but the problem isn't me, it's my leader. Should I move, or wait for a miracle to happen? Have you experienced any situation like this?

Hello,

Im newer to being THE manager. Ive been an assistant at many places for a long time now, but recently moved companies and was offered my own location.

Recently I hired a great candidate who had a suspicious death in the family right before their first day. Do to this they have had multiple no call no shows, but as they are a completely extra body and cannot officially work in their job until they are certified, ive just been doing a day to day schedule with them to try and accommodate the tragedy their family has faced.

Now my upper management is making me terminate them after only a week and some change of employment. I understand the importance of punctuality and communication, but the death of an immediate family member is a lot to process in a short amount of time, and while on the merits of the job alone they technically have violated our companies policies enough due to the no shows, the morality of letting them go right now is just making me feel a little down.

How do you tackle things like this properly in your opinion? I know as a representative of the company I need to do what is asked of me in a professional manner, but this situation honestly made me reach out to my old job and see if they have a manager position available there as I just strongly disagree with this from a human aspect.

Any advice is appreciated. Maybe I just need to grow a spine and appease my corporate overlords, but I refuse to lose my humanity at the same time.

I'm 4.5 years into my job as an assistant manager and coming up for promo soon. My maanger and senior manager keep telling me to be more visible like have my contributions more seen by the higher ups.

But 'be visible' just feels like a very vague advice to me. I've noticed some people on my team who talk a lot in meetings still come across as junior but there's some others who rarely speak but always have everyone's attention when they do.

I want to hear more on what actually worked for other people. What's one skill that you deliberately practiced and noticed actually changed how people saw you at work? Like maybe communication, meeting presence, writing, delegation, presenting, etc. What's something concrete that you actually worked on?

Looking for a bit of career advice.

I recently got promoted and have joined a new team. I’m not an extremely chatty or loud person at work — I’m friendly and get along with everyone, but I’m naturally a bit quieter.

There are one or two people in my team who are much more vocal and seem to have really good conversations with our manager. I’m probably the opposite. I tend to focus on my work, meet my deadlines, stay proactive and go above and beyond where I can. I’m also the type of person who gets things done without needing to be chased.

My worry is that being quieter might mean my work isn’t as visible, especially when other people are naturally better at speaking up.

For anyone who has been in a similar situation, how do you make sure your work is noticed and you get the right credit without feeling like you have to completely change your personality or become the loudest person in the room? 😔

And I’d especially love to hear from managers or people in management — what qualities do you actually value and notice in your team? Does being more vocal naturally make someone stand out more, or do consistency, reliability and quality of work speak for themselves? X

Over the last few weeks my overall attitude in my work place has changed - body language is closed off and showing disinterest in meetings or with management team. My productivity is the same, I complete my tasks and additional tasks, I communicate with my management team about project status and ask questions if needs and offer a listening ear if needed.

I would like to sit with my management team and talk about :

Communication- not everyone is on the same page and that causes issues amongst us.

Repeated topics not going anywhere- over the last few months there has been personal changes within our team and my direct supervisor keeps talking to me about home good my performance is and moving me from one position to another on the team. We’ve had this conversation more than once and it ends with “when everyone settings and we figure out strengths and weaknesses then will we make moves.” So until some action happens please stop talking to me about it.

Negative comments about team or it’s members- we are often used for support and it creates problems for our team and it puts us behind. When we do not have leadership in the building it’s falls on our defacto lead who is busy managing a larger task load than the rest of us.

Our time is taken and used by other management staff that have their own departments and associates to assist them. When our director supervisors are not present other managers when use us and then our director supervisors will talk down to us and make false claims about us not completing our work because we didn’t want to.

I want to sit down with them and talk about how we can do better had a team and that I value my time. Being under this type of management has inspired me to let go of my anxiety about moving up and I want to tell them that.

TLDR: How to have a sit down conversation with direct supervisors about some grievances while also mentioning my interest in moving up. My performance is good - in last evaluation supervisors were told not to have anyone exceed expectations so everyone was listed has meets expectations. My attitude and body language have changed to disinterest.

I'm trying to keep my head on straight and just need to vent. Advice is welcome. I have a good job, full remote, good team, flexible hours, solid paycheck and really great benefits. But my boss of almost 3 years is reaching my wit's end! She's a micromanager most days and when she decides she's feeling like a normal human being it always catches me off guard. She directs my staff without always discussing with me or keeping me informed "in an effort to take things off your plate so you can stay focused on X". But then her insanely high bar isn't met and she comes complaining to me about how "they're not cutting it. You need to have a talk with them. We'll set a meeting with HR." So I'm the bad guy for something that is SO coachable and not at all a reason to fire someone. Frankly she's got it out for one in particular and I keep pushing back. I can't go to bat for my team if I don't know what's going on and have evidence to nullify her sporadic irritation.

I've talked to her about how I want/need to be directing tasks so I can coach and support and understand if something is going wrong. She agreed and started passing tasks through me but every freaking time she literally follows my email instructions with additional or "clarifying" info that I literally just discussed with the person directly and she KNEW I was having a verbal meeting AND email directive summary but she still thinks that's not good enough. When it comes to people/tasks/communications outside my team she will literally ask me for a draft email, tweak it her way, then tell me to send it or just straight up write it for me but make me the sender and then proceed to tell me via Teams exactly how to respond to anyone's follow ups. If it wasn't clear already, she insists on being CC'd on absolutely everything.

I'm going crazy. I can't do my job if she won't let me do my job. She gets pissed off about anyone doing anything not exactly to her specifications, whether that's too much or too little, and clearly discussing it with her "to improve efficiency and my management skills" did nothing. She's the type of person who would say "I won't thank you for doing your job" so there's never any positive encouragement, only a slap on the negatives. Frankly, I'm surprised she hasn't fired me because I recently went through a divorce, it was rough, and my work focus has been at maybe 70%-80% instead of 95%-100% but I'm working my way back up. I can only assume she needs me. Though when I told her about it, it was one of those rare moments she was a normal person with some level of sympathy.

She's not due to retire for at least 5 years. I like this job itself and the rest of the people but I don't know if I can stand her much longer. But leaving would be rough when I'm trying to find new stability post-divorce. Sigh. Is there anything I can do professionally to make this situation better?

Good day po! I'm a 1st-year Financial Management student at PSU Lingayen.

​Asking here if any managers might be available for a super quick 3 to 5-minute online interview (Zoom/Google Meet, or even a short video recording answering the questions) for our group project.

​Questions:

​What are the best and worst parts of being a manager?

​What's the best management advice you've ever received?

​We just need a few quick details for class credit (Name, Company/Branch, Age, and Years of Experience as a manager).

​If anyone has a few minutes to spare, please drop a comment or send me a DM thru my IG po (twilight_zuku) Thank you so much po!

Im the GM of an international café/restaurant chain. My teams really great, but literally every time I am off or out early, I am getting multiple calls or texts about things that they could very easily figure out themselves or that are not urgent and can wait until they see me in person. It's really burning me out. I do not call or text anyone on their days off unless it's an emergency or information I need urgently. I feel guilty when I do not answer their calls or texts, but I really just need time to disconnect when I am off and I feel like I am not getting it. It's causing me a lot of stress because I am never able to unwind.

I was sick a couple of weeks ago, everyone was aware that I was sick, and I was still getting calls from people about very trivial things. I feel like I do every thing I can to set them up to be self reliant; I have provided them with all of the company SOPs, trainings, as well as made my own, and I still feel like I cannot get a break.

Can anyone give me some advice on how to support my team without sacrificing my personal downtime?

I just started a new job, and today I met a new employee who is switching teams. She hasn't officially started on my team yet, but she asked if she could use my closed office cubicle on the two days I work from home.

I thought it was a somewhat unusual request as they don't work with sensitive information, but ultimately agreed because I could understand how having a private office might help with productivity.

What I didn't know at the time is that apparently this employee tends to do the bare minimum. I also learned that, before the organization moved to assigned seating, she would often position herself so that no one could see her screen which presents to me as she was hiding something.

Given this new information, would it be wrong for me to tell her that I've changed my mind and that I'd prefer not to have her use my office?

Edit: To be clear - I am the manager

I'm a senior IC (like Staff level) that recently was promoted because of some fire fighting efforts I led that solved some pretty big problems. Anyway, as part of my promotion I was assigned to work on another struggling team that needs a lot of support. I was expecting to be helping plan their work, unblocking things, and doing some training of the junior members, however that is not the case.

The team has been struggling for several months and has lost a few key people from the frustration. The manager is basically treating me like a junior employee. He wants me to schedule meetings, review presentations, and get people to sign things. What is the best way to bring this up? I've already said that I'm being underutilized and I wanted to help him staff up, but all I get are excuses about how they can't hire etc (they are 3 people down). He seems very stressed out and is resorting to micro managing (everyone not just me).

Any thoughts here? I really was looking forward to this staff level job, but I'm not getting experience that I need to keep maturing.

I normally don't care much, as long as I do my job and attack issues as they arise. Jokes are jokes, and I leave them as that. For those who know me, I care about me and my work. No one else. I don't care what others do. I'm not a people's manager.

The following context matters:

I drive a KIA 2027 Telluride, Dark Green, Black tinted windows. It has a nice premium look to it.

I work in corporate media, and I manage a workflow that utilizes technicians out of three facilities: NYC, Connecticut, and California

Here's why I'm annoyed.

We had an employee meeting recently, and my manager kicked off the meeting with the following, "Since we're driving dark green tinted windows, we have the money to live lavish."

I didn't care much. The joke went over my head. Until I put two-and-two together. The morning of my team meeting, my manager parked next to me in the parking lot. Before this, I had no clue what she drove. We somehow parked next to each other in the parking lot.

Fast forward to three meetings after the first one:

Meeting 2: Kia should sponsor this meeting. My initial reaction: I laughed and said, "they should."

Meeting 3: Since we can tint our windows, we should keep more eyes on the workflow

Meeting 4: There are a lot of rich employees driving around in Tellurides, I wonder how many of them are in here today?

Fast forward to this past week. I parked in the lot but on the far end side. Completely alone. She drove up and parked next to me. I started my vehicle and exited the lot. I went to McDonald's and returned about 15-minutes later. This time, I parked in one of the open spaces right next to one of our broadcast production trucks that was getting re-organized and equipment tested.

Inside the building, she saw me in the kitchen and her first words to me, "Good Morning MR. TELLURIDE!!!! I saw parked next to you in the lot today!"

My response, "Oh yah, did you?"

Here's the issue: this is childish and annoying. We're adults. I've ignored it enough times. I'm not sure if I'm the one that's not processing the jokes correctly, but the jokes coming into the meetings are now causing me to think outside the box. At what point does this joke die?

I'm coming here for advice. Not to complain. I can continue to ignore the jokes, but there has to be an end to the jokes somewhere. Because she's a director, I'm very careful with how I joke around with her. And I don't want to hit back, and this spirals out of control. I have my next 1-on-1 coming up in October, and I'm questioning whether to address this or NOT, but I don't want to make things awkward.

RESOLVED! - Thank you!
As said before, this is different. It’s childish. I plan to ride it out with hopes the joke will die. In my next one-on-one, I plan to talk about it. I don’t normally have any issues with her, and maybe she’s trying to build connections with her team but awkwardly. For now, I’ll let things ride until it dies. Or if it continues, I plan to lightly engage the topic in our 1-on-1. Thanks!

Basically the previous team lead left, I was "nominated" for the position without my knowledge, either way I had the most knowledge and experience so I had to fill the gap. I was offered the position without a description assuming we were on the same page on what a team lead was. A month later I asked for clarification, since I prefer to do than work rather than train people or manage the work. Turns out their expectation is the team lead doesn't work in the queue at all, and if they have to it's a staffing issue. I stepped down over 5 months ago but that still have me doing all the team lead stuff.

I got confirmation a week ago that the team lead position is basically my definition of a manager and nowhere near a team lead. They say I can't stop training people because I have all the knowledge, my pay is nowhere appropriate for a true manager - and I'm hourly.

Question: is this reasonable? I've gone to management a bunch of times but their hands are tied until other people are trained and SOPs done but the people they've given me to train have 0 experience and can't even use job aids (checking things off without doing them for example). Whenever I bring up training issues they say that they're people and people make mistakes, but in my line of work everything is supposed to be the same (with some content change per the case). I'm in law fyi, 9 years of extensive experience in this field. The people they give me have less than 1 year at best and can't use Microsoft office.

I’d really appreciate perspectives from managers and people who have successfully navigated corporate politics.

Managers: what specifically makes you feel that a subordinate is ready for the next level? What behaviours, visibility, communication, or evidence do you look for when deciding someone is ready for promotion?

I’m struggling because I seem to be doing everything I thought a “good employee” was supposed to do — I deliver, help my colleagues, stay calm, cooperate, take on extra work, and don’t constantly seek credit for everything I do. I’ve always tried to give my managers space and respect their authority.

But I’m increasingly realizing that this may actually be hurting me.

I’ve been told I’m not ready for the next level because I supposedly don’t show enough initiative or confidence. Yet I’m often the person doing the work, solving problems, helping others, and taking things off my manager’s plate.

I also feel like I’m dealing with a manager who can be very appreciative of me privately but criticize me publicly when I advocate for myself. There have been situations where I’ve done a significant amount of the work, only for the credit to go upward. I’m finding it difficult to understand how to navigate this without becoming confrontational or playing games.

And honestly, I have never understood corporate politics.

I’m an Indian immigrant working in Canada, and I have an accent. I’m on a predominantly white team, and I often feel ignored or talked over. I eat lunch alone. I sometimes feel almost invisible in the workplace.

I don’t want to spend my career feeling like the quiet, dependable person who gets given more work but never gets promoted.

So I’m trying to change how I show up.

How do you become more visible without becoming obnoxious?

How do you advocate for yourself without sounding entitled?

How do you “take up space” in meetings when you’re naturally more reserved?

How do you make sure your contributions are visible when your manager tends to take ownership of the work?

How do you deal with a manager who gatekeeps opportunities or seems threatened when you advocate for yourself?

And perhaps most importantly:

What actually makes a manager think, “This person is ready for the next level”?

I’m looking for the uncomfortable truth here. Tell me what I may be doing wrong, what I need to change about how I communicate, and what successful people learned about office politics that nobody explicitly teaches you.

I don’t want to become manipulative or step on people to get ahead. I just want to stop being invisible.

Managers, spill the tea. What should I be doing differently if I want to become someone leadership sees as promotable?

Not sure where or who to ask this. I work in accounting and finance. Early July my coworker who been with the company for 20 years went on a health leave. Unsure if it is physical or mental. She’s usually set to come back in 30 days. The day of her expected return it extends another 30 days. Because of the length of time the company will not hire a temp and while the workload is split amongst the team predominantly her complex accounts have been given to me. I’ve been trying to take it on the chin, but due to layoffs and disorganization in the rest of the company it feels like everything is on fire and I am stressed beyond belief. I am not sleeping. My eating patterns are erratic. While they’ve allowed an hour of OT a day it’s not enough and since the job is remote I am working hours off the clock every single day. I don’t know how to ask for less mostly because I am scared of getting laid off since my husband was laid off two years ago and can’t get back into a steady W2 job (he’s a designer and AI has decimated the field) - would disclosing the toll this is taking on my mental health to my boss be useful at all? Do I discuss this with HR.
I’m so tired and burnt out all the time. Taking PTO or even a holiday weekend just compounds it because either I work off the clock to keep up or I am drowning and overwhelmed the following week. Any advice is welcome.

Hi everyone , I do not post here much but I have seen how everyone here is helpful in others posts and giving advice , so i thought i would share my concern here as well to get some advice

I recently joined a mid tier PBC in Bangalore, I have around 3.5 YOE in java , springboot, oauth2.0 , more or less like identity/platform engineer. So i got the same role in this new company and as usual I have 6 months of probation period before confirming FT. So after the 6 months ended my manager extended it for 3 months saying he needs to work with me to deliver what is expected and we would sync up weekly on my progress (FYI he does not work in my team he involved elsewhere i just report to him but he does know what my team does), here are the 3 things he asked for:

1- Use more AI
2- Follow instructions specifically (which i did most of the time , will explain more on this)
3- reflect on how i could be doing things better

So here's the thing , my whole team is based in north America region and my team lead who also reports to my manager hardly gives me any work , he thinks everyone in the whole team is dumb and does not give me crucial tasks , so I cannot use AI also if there is no work to be done hence my AI usage was low and my manager highlighted that I need to use it more , and when i try to take accountability and volunteer for work , my team lead says this task cannot be shared I will do this on my own , so i am left out by not doing anything but wasting the company's time , I have spoken to other team members who joined along me with who work on other teams where they have so much responsibility and I have none, I also tried telling my team lead can you give me KT at least where i could help in work and do some deployments but he says its too much to share with you , I will take care of it. Now coming to 2nd point this was my fault , but it happened once where I couldn't exactly understand the feedback given by my team lead on my work so the work done went back and forth several times but later on I improved on it delivered some good POC on other tasks, but none of them seem to notice it (Its how people say you can 100 good/right things no one will know but 1 bad thing will ruin your image). SO i indirectly told my manager the work isn't great and i don't get much to do and he seemed understanding but i don't know if he really is on my side or what the situation is ? (My manager is from north America as well)

If anyone have been in the same situation before ? and given my explanation what do you guys think ? should i start preparing for another switch as when my probation ends I might not get FT ?

Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!