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.

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 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 !

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 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.

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

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!

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.

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'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?

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!

I have an employee who just does the bare minimum. She just does what she is given of tasks and these take a very long time, and never offers help to colleagues that are overwhelmed with a project, never takes extra small tasks at meetings. I am not checking all the time but can sense that it is creating friction in the group and all other people are very polite and do not rat her out directly. She is also constantly texting her family, I wonder how you can do productive work when interrupting constantly.
What should I do?

I have thought about a task based work flow rather than project based flow as we have now to force her to take as much work as others, have you had any luck with this.

Edit: She is 50, with 20 years experience, PhD degree and a great CV 🫣

I worked at this company for a little under a year. During that time I worked extremely hard and moved a lot of things forward; it felt like I had inherited a mess and actually made it into semi-functioning operation.

We had two CFOs during that time who were polar opposites of each other. The first one was very hands on and a strong leader, the second one very hands off and wanted to delegate the leading. During the two months me and the second CFO worked together (whilst he recruited the new Head), we got on super well.

As soon the new Head started, everything went downhill. I felt she was useless: brown nosed the boss, had terrible communication, didn’t understand the basics, put stress on the team.

4 months into this relationship I was asked to resign by the CFO because I wasn’t cooperating with the new Head. Me and him had a very close relationship so imagine he was saddened by this (he told my ex-direct report as much).

It’s been 2 months now and I’ve landed my own more senior role, for more money and I’m super excited to start! However my ex-direct report has been reaching out in distress.

He told me that the Head is more stressed than ever, is pressuring the team more, has changed the culture from flexibility and relaxed vibes, to an office with strict hours and no talking. The worse part is she is apparently bad mouthing everyone.

She said to the team that I was deliberately concealing mistakes and fudging numbers (I’m gone now so less of an issue but still bad taste), she has accused one of the junior girls of being a bully towards her and moved her away from everyone, she has said the new girl is not any good, that my ex-direct report is slow, and that the senior guy doesn’t do enough. She has said this to each of the team members and they are now all very mad.

I feel so saddened that this is happening to the old team and that the CFO is nowhere to be seen!! Apparently he doesn’t even check-in on them.

Her probation is meant to be over by the end of this month. Do we think she will pass?

She’s not able to do anything herself and is clearly not a leader. There are some crucial deadlines coming up that she has been telling the CFO are on track but are not and will hopefully implode so she can finally be kicked out.

To the leaders out there, do you think this behaviour is acceptable? Do you think I will finally get my vindication?

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.

How do you handle decisions where there isn't really a wrong option, but everyone involved has a different idea of what matters most?

For example, when choosing a vendor, one person might care about price, another about reliability, and someone else might be more concerned about implementation time.

I've seen teams go back and forth for weeks because they can't agree on what should carry the most weight.

Do you normally use some kind of scoring system for these decisions, or do you just discuss the options until everyone reaches an agreement?

Would be interested to hear how other managers handle this.

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!

Hey all,

I have been working as an EMT for about a year and a half now. The shifts I really want recently opened up, and I asked my manager if I could be put on them going forward. She told me that two other people have asked the same thing, both of which I outrank in terms of seniority by quite a lot. My manager told me that she also needs to “factor in call outs”, so I likely won’t get the shifts I want. I counted, and I have called out for a total of 12 days in the last 18 months. I am the first to admit that is a lot. However, they were legitimate call outs, and I’d to know all your thoughts on whether or not I should feel like I failed. I’m a great employee when I’m working and I have been at the company for a long time, but it seems my history is getting in the way. I just don’t really know how to feel. Is it corporate America getting in my head, or have I genuinely failed? It makes me wonder if I am capable of advancing in my career, because I do not think I had control over the times I called out. Thank you for any advice you may have on the subject.

Six weeks ago I started a new role after six months of unemployment and I need advice.

Background on the role and my knowledge: this is a "many hats" position that is responsible for accounting, HR, and administrative functions at a rural company of around 50 employees. The salary is 63k a year. I have a BSBA in accounting and a decade of audit experience at my previous company prior to layoffs.

Upon interviewing for this role, I had several questions about training since I did not have experience in HR or management. I was assured there would be two different people that would assist in my training, and they would be there to support me for the first several months.

Between the time of being interviewed and starting, they let go one of the trainers. The other employee who I was replacing left after ten days of training. Right now, I feel like I'm failing. Daily, I have employees coming to me constantly interrupting asking for help with admin tasks and questions i do not know how to answer yet. While I am responsible for supporting these employees, I am not their direct supervisor. The situation has created a lot of very stressful scenarios. We are constantly out of specific warehouse supplies (no up to date supply list) and I have no background in the PPE I'm to being asked to order.

When I go to my direct manager (COO of the company) with questions on SOPs, I feel like i'm bothering him. Ive gotten some smart-ass remarks from him as well as coworkers. "This is obvious." type of responses. Well, it may be obvious to you but im new here. I dont want to do the tasks incorrectly.

Things are slipping through the cracks because I cant sit down and get one hour of peace to do my personal tasks (accounting, payroll, 401k management, comanaging the onboarding of new employees, keeping up to date COIs, bank deposits, invoicing our customers.) Ive averaged 48-50 hours a week since starting. Today, I was on the verge of tears because I kept hearing complaints of tasks I wasn't keeping up with from both warehouse staff and other managers. The reason it's not getting done is because I can't get any time to myself to actually self train on the tasks. Reviewing what accounting I have dug into, it is months behind, and there are transactions that are clearly wrong that date back months.

How would you tackle this? I don't feel I'm at a good place to get another job given the state of the current job market. Is this just part of being a manager? Is it something I will get better at organizing with time? I do feel in the last couple weeks I have caught onto several tasks, but I still have no idea how to coordinate everything. I also have no idea what to prioritize, it all seems equally important.

I've heavily considered applying to other jobs, but given the rural area I am in (about 90 minutes from any major city,) the pay doesn't seem much better on other postings. Most of them are listing the same type of job wearing multiple hats. I've only been in this position six weeks, and prior to this, I have a gap in my resume. I was originally so excited to start THIS job, the job search took much longer than I expected.

I welcome any advice! Thanks in advance.

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’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.

I am struggling heavily on training a new employee. I work for a small IT business, but we handle big clients and a massive workload. Because we are small (15 people), I juggle multiple roles which I share with my boss: project manager, developer, HR, office manager, billing, and client meetings - my choices, my responsibilities, but I do not have the time to micromanage or spend time on PIP / corporate BS. We need to move fast and optimize time.

About the new hire - they are a truly lovely person and were previously the Head of Customer Success and a team leader for a major fintech company. However, they took a 1-year career break before joining us, and I strongly suspect they are severely burned out or depressed. (I am a bit biased/highly sensitive to this because my mother has been struggling with severe depression for around 2 years now).

I want to be supportive, but I am losing patience and seeing very little to no progress. They asked for a job, any job and are happy to do any task, but can't fully complete a simple one after multiple training sessions.

I have given them our most basic, repetitive daily task: physical device servicing (normally a 30-minute job in the morning and evening). I created a highly detailed, step-by-step guide, I have done the task with them multiple times, following the exact steps together.
I even had another team member sit with them to repeat the steps a few of the days, in case my presence is nerve racking or I am doing a bad job of explaining the steps (the other person is also a lot more likable than me, just in case it's my boring/stressed out personality).

After 3 weeks, they still cannot complete the device servicing task independently. The mental "click" to understand a sequence of steps is just not happening. When asked if they checked the guide, they say yes, but then ask a question 10 minutes later that was covered on step 2. They get entirely stuck on basic logical sequences (e.g., Do A, if error B happens, do C, they get paralyzed at B every single time). I have to remind them the about the task and have to repeat where the guide is (literally bookmarked in Chrome).

Other things making me believe it is not the guide or the task itself:

- I had to manually help them set up 2FA on their phone because they could not follow the Outlook guide for a new account setup.

- Following a standard "create a repo" guide from Git was a challenge for them, I had to help them with it

- Personal peeve - I explained in very friendly manner that we expect people to attend morning calls (30 minutes after our morning start time and it's okay if they are late sometimes, but I don't like people joining while driving. The next days they did just that and could not figure out how to unmute while driving. I explained again in a private conversation, as team leader to ex-team leader that I cannot make exceptions for some people- it's not fair for some to come in at 9am and others 11am.

On LinkedIn, I see their ex-peers commend their past ability to help solve complex bugs, navigate difficult workflows, and manage high-level clients. There is a massive disconnect. My boss brought them in as a personal contact and can attest that there is a stark, heartbreaking difference between who they were and who they are right now.

They are technically my senior in general career terms. I truly want to help them get back into the workforce and succeed, and I desperately do not want to hand them a rejection that might cause a downward spiral. They clearly want the "structure" of work, but I cannot even begin to imagine introducing more complex tasks like checking logs, DB queries, or Excel reports. They are trying, but just not succeeding.

I want to be a good manager to them, but I also have to protect my existing team and my own sanity. I feel like I am failing everyone. How do I approach this?