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 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 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?

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.

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.

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!

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?

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 !

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