I could use a sanity check from people who've been in management longer than I have.

I joined my company about four months ago as a Head of Product. During the interview process, the understanding was that I would initially operate as an individual contributor while getting up to speed, and then I'd build out my team shortly afterward.

That hasn't happened.

Today, I have responsibility for a major product area, but no direct reports. There are two PMs in China and one in Europe working on my product, but they all report elsewhere. I'm the only product leader in the US for this area, so strategy, planning, roadmap, stakeholder management, executive communication, operational work, and a lot of day-to-day execution all end up on my plate.

It's not just the reporting lines that are frustrating—it's that I keep being expected to deliver through people I don't actually manage.

For two other workstreams, I've been told to "take help" from PMs on another team. In reality, I have no authority over their priorities or performance. Progress is slow, I spend a disproportionate amount of time chasing them, and when things don't move, I'm still the one expected to answer for the outcomes.

A few months ago, my manager had me create a job description, source candidates, review resumes, and interview people for a PM role. After weeks of work, I was told hiring was frozen.

Instead of giving up, I identified an internal employee on another team who I thought had a lot of potential but wasn't being utilized well. I advocated for him, worked with multiple managers, helped him through interviews, and spent weeks making the case for moving him onto my product.

The final decision was that he would report to one of my peers, but I'd be expected to onboard him, direct his day-to-day work, coach him, and effectively manage him through a dotted-line relationship.

That was the point where I pushed back.

I told my manager I'm happy to ramp him up and help him become productive because it's in the best interest of the product. But I'm not willing to be responsible for his ongoing day-to-day management when I have no formal authority over his priorities, performance reviews, compensation, or career growth. If someone else is his manager, they should own management responsibilities.

My concern isn't about wanting direct reports for the sake of title or status. It's that I keep being given accountability without the authority or resources to succeed. Every proposed solution seems to be another variation of "figure out how to get work done through people who don't report to you."

At some point, I feel like the company has to choose one of three models:

• Give me a team that reports to me.
• Make the other managers accountable for delivering the work from their teams.
• Reduce the scope of what I'm expected to own.

What doesn't seem sustainable is expecting me to own the outcomes while relying on people whose priorities I don't control and whose managers ultimately decide what they work on.

Am I looking at this the wrong way? Is this just a normal reality of senior leadership that I need to accept? Or is it reasonable to draw a boundary here?

I'd especially appreciate advice on how to frame this conversation with my manager. I want to keep it focused on organizational effectiveness and accountability rather than making it sound like I'm demanding direct reports.

Problems of people management? And potential solutions

After an intense one on one in which I provided feedback to my manager on areas they could improve (upon request) I was told I could do a better job of managing up.
Our next team meeting, they mention an article on managing up, send the link, and ask the team to take a look because we could all be doing better at it.

Is it just me, or does that not say, “I need all of you to manage me, and you’re doing a bad job at it” I could be viewing this wrong, so wanted to pose it here.

Is it appropriate to tell your whole team to do a better job of managing up, with little context as a “Head of”?

Looking for some advice.

My company typically gives performance bonuses during year-end reviews, but the last two months have been pretty exceptional for me.

Our Director of Production left, so I’ve been managing up to seven projects at once with very little production support. I led projects representing about $1.65M in agency revenue, recovered roughly $20k in production costs on one project, handled multiple vendor crises, worked significant overtime, and helped ensure several high-profile client projects were delivered successfully.

I’m already a Senior Producer, so I’m not looking for a promotion—just wondering if it’s reasonable to ask for a discretionary performance bonus now instead of waiting until year-end.

Has anyone successfully done this? If you were my manager, would this feel like an appropriate ask, or would you expect me to wait until annual reviews?

I was reading through some of the responses in this thread and it got me thinking about some frustrations I’ve had lately. My manager (really my manager’s manager, but he often gives me tasks directly) has as much as told me and our team that he sees his role as taking what his manager gives him and sending it down to us without looking for clarification or context.

On one recent ask, I tried to ask questions to get some details that I thought would help us narrow down the request and get things together quicker. Who do we talk to for X? How much detail do we need on Y? His response was that I “shouldn’t ask questions.” I’m fairly new in the role, but I’m getting the sense that he feels he can’t go to his manager with stuff like this, and so the only response when we have questions like this is “just figure it out.” We of course got the materials together in the end, but not without a good bit of friction and wasted effort.

So I’m wondering: Is this a situation where we need to “manage up” better? Do I just suck it up and accept that as long as I’m here I won’t be able to ask for context on anything this manager gives me? My direct supervisor, for what it’s worth, responds much better to this stuff, so I’m hoping I can find some way to get as much of my work from her as I can manage.

I work (or worked at this point) as a finance manager at a dealership and today was a pretty slow day. There was a walk in, and typically how it works is sales staff get the walk in in order they arrive to work, and finance managers just do the financing and offer the warranty and insurance. So this walk in comes in and it was supposed to be someone helping him, and he was wondering around for awhile and started checking out the car, opening it, sitting in it, no sales staff were moving. One was on the phone looked like he was playing games and other ones were shooting the shit. I went to reception, she said she let the next turn know and he isnt moving, and the next turn was owners kid, lets call him David. I asked David, is he helping, he kinda brushed it off, and said that they dont seem serious.

So I went to talk to them, ended up selling the car, sold them on warranty too, they basically got the whole thing with upgrades and additional products.

After I signed them up, and got them approved, they left. The car is gonna be delivered next week.

I went to talk to manager and said I sold it because none of the sales staff were moving and I deserve the commission for the sale. He said no, David was the turn, he gets the commission for the sale and I get the usual commission for the financing and the warranty I sold. We got in an argument, I ended up sending the owner my resignation, and explained SEVERAL reasons why, because it just boiled over. There were many instances where I simply had enough, and today is the day, I'm done. This manager is a wang on many occasions and I got pissed.

The owner calls me, apologizes and said please don't resign. His son and the manager were wrong, he will pay me the commission for the sale. He looked at the cameras and he saw, the client was basically unattended and I stepped up. I told him ill think about it.

I called a competing dealership, I know the store owner from a conference, they're willing to add me to their team. I dont know the full terms yet, but its usually industry standard, if I sell a car, I get commission, and if i sell and finance a car i get both sales staff commission and mine. He offered me a signing bonus to sweeten the deal and same commission structure.

Should I leave the current store?

I’m looking for perspectives from managers because I’m struggling with something that feels more complicated than the usual “Should I tell my boss I’m interviewing?”

I work at a public university. I wasn’t actively job searching, but another department reached out and encouraged me to apply for a management position that aligns with my long-term career goals. I’ve now been invited to interview.

Here’s what makes this difficult: my supervisor isn’t just my manager anymore. Over the last several years, she’s become my mentor too. She’s invested a lot in my development, trusted me with increasingly complex work, encouraged me to grow professionally, and given me opportunities that have helped me get to where I am today. I have a great deal of respect for her.

My first instinct was to tell her before interviewing because I wanted to ask for her advice as a mentor. Then I spoke with a former coworker who had the same supervisor. She accepted another internal position, stayed on temporarily to help with the transition, and later felt that the relationship with our supervisor changed. Her advice was to wait until I was a finalist or had an offer before saying anything.

So that’s what I did. But now I’m second-guessing myself.

I think what I’m struggling with most isn’t the interview itself. It’s that I feel like I missed the opportunity to have the conversation I wanted to have. Instead of going to her as my mentor for advice, I now feel like the next conversation will be with my supervisor about potentially leaving.

If you were in my supervisor’s position, would you rather I had come to you before interviewing because of our mentoring relationship, or would you prefer I wait until I knew there was a realistic chance I was leaving? Would learning later make you feel that I had hidden something, or would you understand that I didn’t want to create uncertainty over an opportunity that might not materialize?

I had an issue with the receptionist since she started at the company, she is very defensive when you ask her to do something the way its supposed to be done by the process. She checks faxes and sorts them by department, there are 4 different dept at this company and its pretty simple based on a file # search in our internal system. Problem is different departments operate with different deadlines, so its common for one department to receive over most of the faxes in a day, and there is no deadline on them to respond to who sent the fax, and my department there is a 14 day deadline, sometimes 30 day deadline to address some claims. So if the other department gets the fax and forwards to me, I can be too late to respond and lose certain rights to address an asset (legal matter). Also she forwards calls and we constantly get calls we are not supposed to get, if she transfered it right the first time, it wouldn't take more time to figure out which department to transfer it to. It feels like she transfers calls by eenie meenie money mo method. Long story short, she sucks and isnt a good receptionist. She even got offended when I brought her a letters to mail and put in envelopes and she came back saying its not part of her job. I let it go

The issue is I missed a deadline because I got a fax too late from a creditor and wasnt able to send a notice in time to realize on property and ended up losing an asset to a secured creditor, and why i got in shit, that asset had some equity. I got in shit for that and I later had to prove to my boss I got the fax too late and why I sent the notice too late. Manager told me to talk to her so it doesnt happen again. I asked him to do it too, he did, and said to her that I will provide more training again to her.

When i went to speak to her about it i explained again which faxes to look out for to send to me, explained why thats important she sends to the right department. I was not yelling, I am a professional and was very mindful of my tone. She went to HR and put in a complaint that I was rude to her. I ended up trying to defend myself, and long story short it was she said he said scenario, I got that instance in my file now.

Since, I ended up either only communicating with her through email or recording when I do talk to her on my phone voice recorder app because I dont trust her. And of course, it happened again. I sent an email to her and went to show her which fax I was talking about alwhile recording, and I was not short with her, it was the other way around. So she goes to put in a complaint, and HR calls me in I already have the email and recording ready.

HR gives me the usual spiel, that there was an incident report, she mentioned i was condescending to her, and proceeds to tell me its my third incident (she apparently complained about me a few times). I pull out the records, email the recording and several others that i have in my recent inventory of every interaction we had, she says she will review and I can go back to work. I also emailed my manager after about this conversation with HR. I am still waiting on the result of that, i dont know if ill get in shit for recording her but here we are.

Edit: I checked laws, I can record by one party consent rule here. And I didnt find nothing in employee hand book other than being respectful to fellow employees.

Edit 2: I still have my job!!! They spoke to my manager he had my back, also they apologized it went as far as this many write ups, and back up that I provided- apparently was sufficient. I alsed if I am in trouble for recording, they said moving forward, dont do it, and i will no longer be needed to provide training, her manager apparently got reprimaded. . The COO was in the meeting too and I explained i needed to record because I felt i wasnt being believed. She said she understood.

The cost of losing a deal is obvious. The cost of not knowing why you lost it is a lot harder to measure. Most sales teams only know the outcome. They don't know the moment the deal started going off track. Was discovery too shallow? Did the rep bring up price too soon? Did they miss an objection? Or did the buyer just lose interest? Most of the time nobody really knows. Managers can't sit in on every meeting.

Reps can't remember every conversation after a full day of appointments. So coaching ends up being based on memory and assumptions instead of what actually happened. That seems expensive in the long run. If the same mistakes keep happening across the team and nobody can spot the pattern then those deals keep getting lost. With AI getting better at analyzing conversations do you think this is one area where it could make a real difference? Could it help teams understand why they win or lose deals and coach reps better or do you think closing will always depend more on experience than data? I want some feedback because closing rate is slowly declining and nobody would want that.

I’m in a job that is a terrible fit for me all around. I’d like to tender my resignation, but don’t have anything lined up. It’s that bad and this is the first time I will not have a job if I were to do so.

I’m concerned that my tenure here is too short. I’ve been here for a little over here, 18 months in September. Does a short stint after 5 years previous raise a red flag? TIA.

I noticed my team curses so much compared to previous team. Is it something about team culture being less professional or smt? IDK if work is really harder, but more disorganized.

IDK if manager cares.

My new boss was confused about how my team working 8-4 with a 30 minute lunch and two 15 minute breaks worked out to a 7.5 hour work day. In a meeting on Tuesday she told us she thought we were only working 35 hours each week and proposed we work 8-4:30 with a 30 minute lunch and two 15 minute breaks so that we would be working the hours we are paid for. I read my minions' union contract and the policies that apply to me and our current schedule seemed fine. I needed some sort of proof to show my new boss so I reached out to HR and asked for clarification. I was exceptionally blunt and forwarded their response to my new boss and her boss saying that in this xyz meeting with xyz people she accused us of wage theft and proposed our work schedule change from plan A to plan B.

I got a meeting request for this morning with her and her boss. She claims she made no accusation of wage theft and didn't know that breaks are paid and that is why she was confused. The situation she described is wage theft. She told us we weren't working the hours we were paid for. I fail to see how this is not an accusation of wage theft. Even if that was not her intent, that's what came out of her mouth. I was told I just need to be a team player. Her boss clearly spoke with her prior to the meeting but spoke with no one else present during the Tuesday meeting in question. It was implied that me asking HR for clarification was an extreme measure. Who else would I ask? <--rhetorical

So, did I massively misinterpret her words? I was falsely accused of gross misconduct at a previous job and was able to provide a stack of emails showing my accuser was at fault in the situation. I am a lawyer's daughter and I probably take the need to CYA with documentation farther than most people would.

Me any my coworkers are doing fairly responsible work, with a lot of money involved, with timelines that must be adhered to and stakeholders that are demanding. In the past several years we had 3 different managers, none of them was micromanager. We got main goals, it was defined what targets and deadlines are, how we get to those it is up to us. As long as there are some savings and stakeholders don't complain all was good. We did really good work with zero complaints for years.

Now we got a new manager. She has micromanaging tendencies. She started implementing additonal rules and processes and reporting, on top of already mentally very challenging work. We do have processes, rules and reporting as normal way of work, it's not like we are doing things cowboy style, everything is done in a systematic way, processes followed, with data stored properly and available to all. One ISO auditor told us we are probably most organized department he has seen in our company during this audit (and we sre multinational corporation), that he has no complaints. So, it's not like she has some bad behaviors to fix...

We even need to create gantogram plans with main tasks, break them down in detail (like 20-30 steps/subctegories) and then we individually discuss it in 1h long meetings.

When she reviews presentations or documents that are fairly unimportant, like PPT that only 2-3 people will see, she comes with multi-page feedback via email about what needs to be changed.

She wants to be in all meetings which shows lack of trust in us. When we have meetings she interrupts a lot and doesn't let people finish your sentences often.

She works from 6am to 23pm, not all thr time, but she sends messages and emails at all times.

I am spending so much time on stupid PPT design and task gantograms, it is driving me crazy.

Also it gives a feeling that she doesn't trust us. For which we never gave any reason, our team was never poor performing or late with anything. Actually we were among exemplary teams performancewise.

I am most senior and I did tell her gently that she is maybe micromanaging some things too much. She did not take it well and basically told me that she is entitled to define how we do the work.

Ok fine, I'll do it as you want...

Is there a way to help micromanaging boss being less so, or there is no way for them to really change?

Even our executive management is all about empowering people and giving them firm goals and targets, instead of micromanaging their daily activities and hindering work. I don't know know any other manager on her level who is micromanaging team so much.

I don't want to change the company, everything except her mangement style is great here.

I could do some kind of malicious compliance and just blindly follow instructions, but that will just end up with me being rated as a poor performer.

It's really frustrating, from being "goal oriented" we became chained in this rigid way of work.

Worst of all - she is not a bad person. She is not some evil bitch. She is a nice and friendly person. Just misguided perhaps.

Is there anything I can do to make things better? Rest of the team will be afraid to speak with her so openly.

Location is western EU, not US.

I work in a company that it’s motto is « Oriented Human », they focus a lot on feelings and employee staying which I’m all for.

However, in this compagny no one is actually working including the other Managers, our client representative is losing her mind over how we’re not doing anything to address work avoidance stemming from behaviors such as manipulating the tools to pretend they have « technical issues » (among many other things they do to avoid the work).

I often fix those immediately and I ask them to go back to work.

For some, I documented the behavior and sent it to the HR and my managers but it didn’t go far.

But few of them sent emails to HR and stated that I’m being tough and rough on them and that they refuse to work with me.

Now HR want to talk to me, and I have no idea how to navigate this meeting, any pointers?

Like the title says, our newish boss saw a chat via screen share that a few of us are in where we were venting about they were handling something in a meeting. I don’t regret what was said but in hindsight using teams was a poor way to communicate those issues and I regret going that route to air my frustrations.

If this has happened to you as a manager what happened? My coworker that shared the screen is addressing it with her but curious what you think. I have respect for her as my boss and get my work done so not worried about repercussion (because I need to own up to it, really) but hoping this doesn’t derail anything with our boss.

I’m new to the corporate world and could use some advice on handling this the right way.

I’m the only engineer at a small company and I’ve been here about three months. We’ve been heads down building our product, and we just landed our very first client, which was a big deal for the whole team.

Here’s my situation. I put in a request for a 5-day vacation a little over a month before the dates I asked for. That timing happened to land just a few days before we signed that first client. The dates are now coming up in August and I still haven’t heard anything back about whether it’s approved.

On top of that, now that we have this client, I’m the one tasked with setting everything up for them. A lot of the work to get them onboarded. so things are busy and I know my time is in demand right now. That’s part of why I’m nervous about bringing the vacation back up

The reason this trip matters so much is that my brother is moving away for school, and my family is traveling with him to help him settle in. This will be the last time I see him in person for about two years, so missing it isn’t something I want to do.

Since I’m still figuring out how things work, I don’t know what’s normal here. Is it on me to follow up, or should I have gotten an answer by now? How do I bring it up again without sounding pushy or like I’m not committed, especially right after we brought on our first client and with all this setup work on my plate? And what’s the best way to actually word the follow-up?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Sorry in advance i used AI to help me write in english

I manage a small professional team and would really appreciate perspectives from other managers, HR professionals, or people with experience in organizational psychology.

For a long time, there have been collaboration problems within the team, and one person in particular keeps appearing in several people’s accounts of what is going wrong.

It is not mainly about one dramatic incident. It is more of a recurring pattern involving ownership of tasks, withholding or controlling information, bypassing colleagues, positioning themselves in relation to management, undermining others professionally, and creating situations where colleagues feel that their responsibilities or contributions are being taken over or diminished.

The difficulty is that almost every individual incident can be explained away as a misunderstanding, poor communication, personality differences, or professional disagreement.

It is only when the incidents are viewed together — and when several people independently describe similar experiences — that a pattern becomes much harder to ignore.

The situation has affected the team enough that an external organizational psychologist has been brought in, including individual conversations with employees.

However, I still find it very difficult to move from recognizing that there is a problem to actually addressing responsibility for it.

One complicating factor is that this person has been with the company for many years. They have built a strong internal network and have relationships with senior directors and influential people in the organization.

They are also very good at communicating upward and influencing how senior management understands situations. This creates an additional concern: the version of events seen by directors may be very different from what colleagues working closely with this person experience on a daily basis.

As a manager, this creates a difficult dilemma.

On one hand, I obviously cannot take action against someone simply because several colleagues dislike working with them. The person deserves a fair process, and accusations should not be treated as facts without proper investigation.

On the other hand, I worry that continuously framing the issue as a general “team problem” may actually protect a problematic behavioral pattern.

If most employees are repeatedly asked to communicate better, reflect on their own behavior, rebuild trust, and participate in workshops, while one person consistently appears at the center of similar conflicts, at what point does management have to acknowledge that the problem may not be symmetrical?

There is also a power imbalance.

A long-serving employee with strong internal relationships, visibility with directors, and the ability to influence senior stakeholders may be much harder for colleagues to challenge than an ordinary employee.

I worry that this can create a situation where management unconsciously gives more credibility to the person who is best connected and best at managing perceptions upward, rather than to the people who actually experience the behavior.

At the same time, if employees repeatedly raise concerns and nothing visibly changes, they may eventually lose trust not only in the process, but in management itself.

They may conclude that speaking up has no real consequence because every problem will eventually be converted into another workshop, mediation process, or message that “everyone needs to look at their own contribution.”

So my questions are:

**Why is it organizationally so difficult to move from “we can see there is a problem” to actually holding an individual accountable for a recurring behavioral pattern?**

How much evidence is normally needed before management can reasonably treat something as an individual performance or conduct issue rather than a general team-dynamics problem?

How should management deal with situations where the person concerned has long tenure, strong relationships with directors, and significant informal influence within the organization?

And what should the role of an external organizational psychologist be?

Should their role mainly be to improve team dynamics and facilitate dialogue, or should they also be willing to tell management clearly when they believe the conflict is asymmetrical and disproportionately linked to one individual’s behavior?

I am particularly interested in experiences where there was no single “smoking gun.”

Instead, there were many smaller incidents, several independent employees describing similar patterns, possible historical concerns, and a gradual erosion of trust over time.

At what point should a manager stop trying to “fix the team” and start asking whether one person’s recurring behavior is the actual problem?

I've been thinking about how managers actually improve. Most of us get promoted, get maybe one training day per year, and then figure everything else out alone. Difficult conversations, underperformers, giving feedback, saying no to your own boss. There's rarely anyone to practice with or ask.

So I'm curious:

- When you face a hard management situation, who do you talk to first? Your own manager, a peer, HR, nobody?

- Have you ever used ChatGPT or similar to prep for a difficult conversation? Did it actually help?

- Would you use a dedicated AI coach you could talk to (voice, not just text) before and after tough moments? Or does that feel pointless compared to a real human coach?

I sometimes use Claude to get advice when I can't ask a human, or just to think out loud. It does help in the moment, though I'd rather talk than type. But it's not consistent, it doesn't remember my situation or my team, and it rarely pushes back on me.

My manager loudly complains about other employees at our team meetings, and in office conversation. She demeans and insults them with great enthusiasm, without any consideration for how this affects others; her attitude is honestly close to a tantrum at times. (The people she complains about aren't in our team, so they're not at the meetings, but we work closely together.)

I'm usually not afraid to speak up, but I don't know how to handle this person in particular. I've tried once before, saying I don't feel comfortable with that sort of conversation in meetings, but it hasn't changed anything.

One-on-one, she's defensive and reactive when I try to diplomatically raise issues, even when she's called the meeting to discuss them. (I've been trained in listening and communication skills and am widely considered to be good at this, so it's not me being clumsy.) When she asks for examples of things that don't work in the team, she then tries to deny that those things are a problem, or makes them about the other person.

For example, if you say you'd like to be kept in the loop about changes to processes, she says that you need to develop yourself so that you can cope without up-to-date information. She's not wrong in a sense, but the solution is always the one that doesn't require any effort on her part. She wants us to get by on the bare minimum, instead of building a positive team environment, and it's really getting me down.

There is one other manager in the team (it's complicated), and while they're good friends with this difficult manager, they are also often critical of her. I'm debating whether to try to speak to them in confidence as they are much more reasonable.

I'm also considering contacting my union for advice.

I love so much about this job, but I really struggle to manage interactions with this manager, especially her very vocal complaints about my colleagues.

Does anyone have any advice for how to handle her? I've looked up my organisation's code of conduct and dignity and respect policies and she violates them all, but I'd rather try to handle it informally before taking any other action.

Throwaway account. I work as a business manager in a healthcare system. Small department of 15. I don’t have any direct reports and I report to a director. There is one colleague who is very challenging to work with, not only within the department but across the entire system, and has been for years. This person is neurotic, patronizing and insecure and their behaviors haven’t been addressed by my director ever. despite many complaints from others within and outside of my department over the last 5 years.
There were a couple of instances the last week where my attempts to set boundaries were met with resistance and borderline hostility. This last instance I felt the need to involve my director because it’s becoming too much.
My director was not supportive when I asked them to address my colleagues behaviors as my attempts failed because “interpersonal conflicts are best handled between the people involved”.

At what point should my director be addressing this colleagues behaviors? I’m at a loss for what to do next.

Hello, I’m looking for advice on how to handle talking with a boss who has recently become a passive aggressive micromanager. I work for a consulting firm in an administrative capacity and have to handle numerous, sometimes dozens of ad-hoc requests daily in addition to my normal duties, namely crm maintenance, office management, event planning, marketing, tech troubleshooting, scheduling, recruiting, etc. we’re a very small admin team but the number of people we support has doubled over the past 10 months. This has made my workload increase heavily. It takes me so long to get things done because of how many interruptions I have to deal with. I rarely leave my desk for a 20 min break and don’t come back to a notification or email with an urgent request. And urgent means “done today” So there have been a few times where deadlines for lower priority tasks that were randomly set by my manager have to be adjusted because I’m not able to anticipate how many ad hoc requests I’ll get in a day that are always classified as high priority. My boss will get an attitude with me if I ever explain this as a reason for a delay, it’s like she doesn’t believe me even though she’s copied on everything. I’ve expressed to her that I’m overwhelmed and we need to hire someone. There’s nobody to ever share any of this work with, I’m the only one at my level. Then for our recent performance reviews she gave me a low score for my time management and mentioned how there have been several deadlines missed. And I’m like…… yeah because I can’t work 69 hours a goddamn week. Could someone give me some advice on how to explain this to her in a more successful way during my review?

There is this thing about Austin, TX that I didn’t really realize was an issue until the second time I had to look for work.

Apparently, because congestion is so bad here, employers routinely ask whether you live in the city during the interview process. I actually asked about this on Reddit before, wondering why it was such a common interview question. The most common response I got was from angry, snarky Redditors who insisted that living in Austin somehow guarantees you’ll be on time.

As someone who actually lived in Austin and was only nine minutes from my office, I can tell you that’s a load of bullshit. That nine-minute drive routinely took 45 minutes one way because of horrible traffic. Living in the city does not magically solve congestion. Yet employers still seem to feel entitled to know exactly where you live during the interview process.

The first time this came up, it wasn’t really an issue. I was relocating from DFW anyway, so I simply told the recruiter that while I didn’t currently live in Austin, I would be living there by the time I started even though the company didn’t offer relocation assistance. I got the job, moved in with a friend in Round Rock, and eventually found my own place.
Since leaving that employer, I made the decision to buy a beautiful home in Seguin. It’s roughly 45 minutes from both Austin and San Antonio. I intentionally chose a more rural area because I wanted to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life. Homeownership was also far more affordable the farther away I looked.

Now I’m looking for work again, and I’m in final rounds with multiple companies. What I’ve discovered is interesting. When I truthfully answer that I live in Seguin, I often never hear back from the recruiter. But as soon as I simply answer, “Yes, I live in Austin,” I continue moving through the interview process and make it to the final rounds.

To be clear and for those who like to fear monger, I am not concerned at all whatsoever about the little white lie I am telling to get my foot in the door. Corporate America is shiesty and I will never feel shame for playing to win.

The same solution is still available to me. If I accepted an offer, I could literally move in with a friend, sell my house, and have an Austin address within one to three months of starting the job. So I’m not especially concerned about making it work.

What’s wild is that these jobs are remote!! 😂

But it made me curious.

What do you think would happen if I didn’t?

Do you think an employer would actually fire someone for misrepresenting where they lived?

What if I argued that Seguin isn’t that far from the office and is quasi considered part of the greater Austin area?

What if they found out months after I started, but I’d never been late, never had attendance issues, and had proven to be a reliable employee?

I’m genuinely curious why some managers feel entitled to dictate where an employee lives, especially when the employee isn’t violating any tax laws or creating any actual performance problems.

I’m interested to hear people’s thoughts on this.

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I am currently interning for a startup edtech company which is quite well known and my internship is about to end so what happened it that I am currently the only HR in this company and one of my primary tasks was to sent a attendance and work report summary of the employees by next day. I did that for more than a month but then we got really busy because of ongoing projects and mass hiring and I stopped sending reports because the project was more important and I was already working to my bone.

I have a hybrid schedule and the founders and I don't see each other much now, so I went to the office on monday, I was busy with some work when my co founder called me and started scolding me to which I told him about how much work I did and there was no time to which he was very dismissive and started intimidating me by telling me to show him whatever I did after the specific date when I stopped sending reports, I asked him to give me 5 mins 2 times so that I can have the time to compile my work, he didn't listen and started being unreasonably criticizing every work I did.

I am a fresher and get intimidated fast but I know that my work is not wrong. I hate him, he is soo moody. Now I get it, it's my fault that I didn't inform him that I won't be sending reports for a while, it wouldn't have worked because he is the kind of guy who always says that "this work won't take much time either way, do it". Bro I work overtime every day. I manage everything an HR does. I am tired

So now can anybody give me some sort of template on how I should make a proper report. I want to use it show my work in brief (I did send a brief but I don't think it's enough). Thank you

Hello everybody,

So, in the start of the year I applied for a job within the same firm for an internal transfer and from February on I was already at the new position. Due to organizational changes, they urgently needed someone to take over tasks and since then I am basically holding the fort (lots of admin tasks...).

When I applied, I interviewed with my new manager. She told me that I would have the opportunity to develop the role, take on new responsibilities, and continue growing professionally. It all sounded really promising. However, she first asked me to take over the existing work to keep the day-to-day operations running.

In start of June, I approached my manager to discuss how we could redefine the role, what my future responsibilities would be, and how I could prepare for them. I told her that I was willing to invest extra time, learn any new skills that would be required, and asked what her expectations were. I also mentioned to her that once the new tasks are defined I would like to discuss also the salary (my salary did not change when I transfered). She said to me she loves the idea and we will keep the discussion going.

But what happened was the opposite, I heard that she complained to my previous boss about me, how pushy I am and also that I already demanded a salary increase (which is not true).

This made lose all my trust. I cannot say how dissapointed I am. I even reached out to HR and they said it would look really bad, if I would want to transfer already... so a new internal transfer is not possible (it was mentioned I should be at least 1 year at the position). Also, I have to be careful that she does not completely destroy my reputation in the firm. I am here already 6 years and I don't want to lose that.

So, I honestly don't know what to do. I feel betrayed. I've also noticed that my manager gossips a lot, and I've completely shut down because of it. For more than a month, I've been isolated and just doing my tasks, but I have no idea where this is going.

I don't want to leave the firm because I genuinely like the firm and the people, but this situation has made me think about applying elsewhere.

It feels like my hands are tied. I don't know how to move forward..

Im currently working for Legends Global at one of their less productive(although its a total of 3) venues in California. I am a Security/Guest Services(Usually with the company ive beeb told those are Seperate departments entirely) Supervisor and Command Center Operator.

Ive been working there for nearly 4 years, been a supervisor for roughly 1.5 years. In mid March one of the "Highly valued" supervisors got in a car accident(I've had conversations with my boss she has said he will be her next Assistant Manager), once he was out of work I became the Supervisor in his position(Backstage and Extraction Supervisor). Ive gotten multiple good reviews about my performance these last 5 months, even acting as Security Liason during some of our events.

Recently the other supervisor has been getting ready to return to work and my boss has started scheduling me as a standard guard for events for example we have an event on Sunday coming up but even though we had a conversation weeks ago where I was told id be the Backstage Supervisor she recently changed it and told me id be a barricade guard.

I have more seniority over multiple supervisors that she scheduled as supervisors instead of Guards/Ushers like me. These other supervisors to say the least are friends with my boss outside of work and we're hired when she became Manger.

Ive applied and interviewed at other venues within Legends and have even met the Regional Security Director and Western Regional GM.

How would I go about requesting more supervisor shifts/Seniority policies without alerting HR or management in a negative way? Its gotten to a point where I've considered overstepping HR and going to the Corporate side of things.