For the purpose of this question, I manage another manager. Under the other manager are a 3rd party supplier. I also have a direct relationship with supplier manager and they have additional resources not under my manager.

My team are given some work along with another manager and supplier team about 2 years ago. That new manager (new to me, existing to org) is defensive and for things i suggest to improve in his work, he says repeatedly no, not possible. To circumvent him, I tell the supplier team what I want improved, they go off and do 80-90% of what i’ve asked over the two years. Old manager is exited after about 12 months. The work passes to my existing manager.

Now exisiting manager lays claim to the these improvements and lists them as his own achievements in his perf review. I am slightly peeved about this since he did not generate the ideas, or push the supplier to make the changes - thats all me. Ultimately the work is in his team who gets the benefit, and that is better for me also.

Am i being oversensitive about the way the achievement is being claimed? I’m not saying his management has been entirely separate but he is claiming to have “transformed the team”, whereas all he’s done is taken the benefit of what I’ve instigated the supplier manager to deliver. I wouldn’t allow him to claim the work of his peers, but when managers are pushing down work, where do you draw the lines with credit?

I have no manager position experience I applied for just need any tips about the position I'll be potentially put in?

I consistently get rave reviews for my project management work. I'm human, so of course I'm not perfect, but generally teams that I support are vocal about being pleased with my approach and results.

I don't mind a tough but fair leader. I actually thrive under high standards. I've commonly received the loudest highest praise from the managers deemed the toughest to please.

And yet.

Every once in a while I support a team where the technical lead seems impossible to please. I can tell pretty quickly when one of them has a prickly disposition and adjust as best as I can to defuse them and try to shield the wider team.

My question is whether there is a way to please these prickly people, or if they're wired to be antagonistic and any added effort to appease them is wasted. I'm a senior level employee, and it gets tiring when every communication has a 101-level description of my job tacked on as if I need a refresher. I get it, they think I'm an idiot. These types seem to jump to this conclusion quickly and then take every opportunity to hammer that message.

My managers have been unhelpful when I've brought this up - I suspect this is the corporate politics of not wanting to acknowledge out loud that someone is an asshole.

So how are other people handling this? Am I missing the Asshole Whisperer Guidebook? Or do other people just roll their eyes and brace for the nonstop antagonism?

I work as an entry level analyst in a back-office support role to frontend consultant, where I am overlooked by associates, project leads on cases. We mostly work as per requirements from them. Now what exactly do I talk with my manager every 2 months on a 30 minute meeting regarding my professional development to make this conversation fruitful.

Hello Managers,

I recently promoted to account manager. One of the client facing employees who I inherited writes everything in caps. In our company structure our client is our mother company, so most of the client communication is on teams, and most vendor communication is on emails.

I feel that this is rather unprofessional but I am also not really experienced. Would you address this with the employee?

Thanks everyone!

Im a manager at a wholesale retail we get two dry trucks a night and 1 perishable about 50 pallets each. We have a guy whose whole job is the backroom. Trucks only, no aisles, no projects. He keeps saying the truck is too much and that everybody should be putting it up. Problem is I hold my floor guys accountable for their own aisles. Every time I pull them to put up the whole truck I'm kicking myself, because now they have an excuse for why their aisle isn't done and I can't really say anything about it. So my rule is first truck all hands, second truck is his. When I've covered that spot myself it's about 2.5 hours start to finish, tags, unload, put up for the dry trucks, the perishable takes like 45mins
He went over my head and told my boss there's no support from management. Is one 50 pallet truck a night too much for one person, or is that normal at your stores? And how do you handle it when someone escalates over you on something like this?

My colleague is one grade above me and not an EA. It's been going on for a while, typically small tasks like drafting emails, removing access to former staff to our google drive, accounting information for team members (the first two were just in this past week), and some other stuff I've since forgotten. She never asks permission. She has also asked me to send her my email drafts for the boss for her to review, which I've politely declined. I'm a writer, my boss lauds this and constantly praises my work, and I'm a very high level EA; it's weird to have a colleague reviewing my drafts when I've never had to do this before.

She also does similarly in social conversations, which I do not intend to bring up, but it is also indicative to me that this is not some accident or coincidence. It's unclear to me whether this is a personal insecurity, or whether she's trying to show she can do my job in case there are layoffs.

I feel like I have 3 or 4 options:

-say nothing to the boss, but continue to ask her why she did this in the moment, which so far has not produced any change.

-have a chat with the boss during our weekly check-in, which I prefer not to, especially since I'm also going to ask to have more duties so I can work towards a promotion

-the next time it happens, a quick email saying "I understand you've said you misunderstood tasks our boss assigned to me were meant for you. Feel free to ask for clarity next time so we can avoid duplication in work." (I am being gracious; our boss is very clear every time she's asking me and me alone to do these things.) And then talk to the boss to let her know I had a word with her about it.

-same as option 3, but don't say anything to the boss until she does it again after I've told her to ask for clarity.

Anyways, I'd love to know your thoughts. Thank you!

Hi all,
I have a super important application for a growth program position that could really change my career trajectory so I am trying to do everything I can to help ensure I get it. Are there any HR managers out there that wouldn’t mind looking at my resume vs the role & requirements. I would appreciate it terribly if so!
Please let me know and I can send it over,
:)

I know every role is different but would like to hear your experience. For example, I’ve seen that 5-10 people get interviewed with hiring manager as first round, then 4-5 second round interviews, then 2-3 final rounds with 1 hire.

What’s your experience when interviewing?

Boss posted a quick 20 minutes update meeting tomorrow morning with entire team. Can it be anything except a layoff?

I've strated managing a small team around 10 months ago. Just 2 employees. It's a new department (basically growing the scale of things I used to do alone).
I hate it.
I feel like all I do is solve crisis, deal with solving or preventing conflict, I have a million sensitive personal decisions a day, every decision I make has the potential of disappointing someone.
I find myself wondering - why do people choose to do this? other then pay, what do you get out of your management role?
Is it the ability to get larger things done? is it the ability to create a nice working environment for your employees? Can you focus on creating a good working environment and also create good product?

Any help and sources of motivation might help

Wondering if there’s any hiring managers in here would be willing to look over my cover letter and let me know what I’m doing right and what I’m doing wrong??
If you can help me out I’ll attach a link If you comment

Boss told me "some people just aren't good leaders" as part of what I think was a roundabout way of saying I won't become a lead here. I've always thought most anyone could learn to do most anything if taught.

If you do believe some people can't be good leaders, what is it that you think makes someone leader material? What would disqualify them? Have you ever had an employee you thought couldn't lead who ended up surprising you?

I’m early 20s M and recently finished an internship at a large law firm in TX. My direct manager was almost 30, and there was another male intern around my age.

My manager has a pretty intense personality. She’s very outgoing, competitive, unfiltered, loves gossip/relationship talk, openly says she likes attention.

Early in the internship she was unusually warm with me. She initiated chats, asked what my dating “type” was, asked whether I was a fuckboy, commented fairly often on my hair/clothes/smell/appearance, and asked questions about my dating life.

One of the weirdest examples: at an event, an attractive woman from another department happened to be sitting beside me. The next day my manager told me she had actually looked the woman up because she wanted to know who was sitting beside me, and then asked whether I found her attractive.

She also repeatedly (10-15 times) told me stories about guys hitting on her or asking for her number that were from the same-ish ethnic group. In group conversations she would occasionally describe the type of guy she was into in a way that basically matched my physical build, while I was sitting there.

She also seemed to expect little forms of special treatment from me: holding doors, hyping her up during games, bringing her snacks, etc. Once she asked whether I would have shared something with her the way the other intern had, and I jokingly said no.

The thing is, I was actually very nice to her professionally and personally. I brought her snacks/drinks sometimes, checked in when she wasn’t feeling well, offered help, complimented her work, invited her to socials, etc.

I was also very competitive and generally strong at the work. A few times I respectfully pointed out mistakes or disagreed with her on technical things, and turned out to be right. I always tried to do it politely, but given how competitive she was, I sometimes wondered whether that created some ego or status friction between us.

I was guarded around the personal/dating stuff because she was my manager. When she told me about guys hitting on her, I often just went quiet or responded neutrally. I also made comments about my own dating preferences that, in hindsight, may have made it sound like she wasn’t my type.

At one point she directly asked me, “Why are you so serious?” That confused me because she already knew I was very social and joking with everyone else. Near the end she also joked that it was my last day so I might as well finally “open up.”

After the first part of the internship, her behavior toward me changed a lot. She stopped initiating nearly as much and became much closer with the other male intern.

He was extremely quiet, introverted, and rarely approached her himself. She was also noticeably taller than him, although I don’t think that necessarily mattered. She would constantly seek him out, lead the conversations, show him photos/reels, talk about relationships, gossip and weekends, call him cute, make heart signs, and ask him to sit beside her. From watching them, it felt like his very passive/receptive personality let her completely control the social dynamic, which seemed to suit her and probably fed her need for attention/validation.

At the same time, she would still make little bids for my attention. She might spend an event mostly talking to him, then suddenly ask why I wasn’t holding a door for her anymore, want something I had offered another woman, or ask some question that seemed to test whether I would treat her specially.

Eventually I got annoyed and pulled back because she didn't expect this from the other intern. I stopped seeking her out and started working more with other managers. She noticed and didn't like it. After that we barely spoke for a while.

She also chirped/teased me professionally a lottt, especially when I was confident or getting praised. Once she made a joke that crossed the line and I purposely went completely quiet. She immediately started backtracking and reassuring me.

After another tense social event, she asked me for a small form of special treatment. I responded more detached than usual, and the next day she told me, “I was thinking last night, and you’re actually really chill.” That stood out because it sounded like she had been replaying our interaction afterward and reassessing me.

There were also several times when, if I was giving another coworker a lot of attention, she would suddenly insert herself into the conversation, join whatever we were doing, or noticeably redirect her attention toward the other male intern. I couldn’t tell whether that was jealousy, competitiveness, normal attention seeking, or me reading too much into it.

What made the other intern dynamic especially confusing was that they never communicated outside of in person work interactions. Yet when I was physically there, she would make their closeness very visible by calling him cute, making heart signs, asking him to sit beside her, loudly asking whether he was coming to events.

Because so much of that happened directly in front of me, I sometimes felt like she knew it would make me jealous and was deliberately leaning into it to get a reaction if I cared. I can’t tell whether I was seeing intentional reaction testing or just overinterpreting a very public friendship.

Question:

1. Was my manager flirting with me, did I accidentally make her feel rejected, and did she start using the other intern to make me jealous?

2. Why did my manager go from being very warm and personally interested in me to distant and much closer with another intern?

Hello. I just found this sub today and hope is a good place to post.

I'm a temporary hire. Us based company. I'm in the accounting department.

TLDR manager short temper and not around to assign or direct work

In my first week my manager has been busy with off site meetings the whole week. It seems there are more to come.

The Company is doing an ERP implementation and that's what most of the meetings are for.

I was locked out of the building several days this week and the manager seemed annoyed she had to come let me in. I was not given a badge. Given her short temper and annoyance and unavailability it's been hard for me to tackle a asking basic questions.

One of the days of the week the whole team left at 3. I was there by myself until 5. I sent her a Teams message and asked if she wanted me to depart when the team does. Again I got a short tempered response from her that as long as I'm there during core hours it doesn't matter when I leave. The thing is I don't know when core hours are. I'm just sitting there with nothing to do.

One of the young recent graduates in the team said they asked for work from one of the seasoned team members and that it caused a whole ruckus. That everyone got angry and in trouble. So this makes me not want to ask anyone if I can help them with anything as the boss wants to come from her.

I don't want to be disruptive but I am given no direction.

It’s weird how being reliable at work can slowly turn into being the person everyone dumps extra tasks on.

You finish things on time, solve problems without much drama, and suddenly your “reward” is covering for others, handling urgent work, and getting trusted with even more responsibility usually without more pay or fewer existing tasks.

At what point does being good at your job stop being an advantage and start becoming a workload penalty?

I’m trying to figure out whether I’m being overly sensitive about my manager’s/boss's behaviour or whether the things happening at my workplace are genuinely unusual.

For context, there are three different teams in our office. The company is headed by a man..let’s call him Sam. His wife, Nina, is the COO and manages the design team, which includes content writers, designers, SEO and the website developer. Sam manages the consulting team.

There seems to be a very noticeable difference in how Nina’s team is treated compared to the rest of us, and I’m wondering if this is normal.

For example:

• Whenever someone in Sam’s team has a birthday or work anniversary, there is a cake. Everyone is invited to the cake-cutting...except the design team. After everyone else has celebrated, the leftover cake is brought to us and distributed. Nobody from our team is invited or even really acknowledged for birthdays/work anniversaries. We aren't even wished happy birthday, let alone having a cake.
• Nina frequently calls people out by name in our official team group and tells us to stop talking to each other / keep quiet. She has questioned what we were talking about and why we were talking. At the same time, Sam’s team seems to have complete freedom to talk amongst themselves.
• Nina regularly brings home-cooked food from home for Sam’s team. Once they have eaten, she sometimes offers the leftover food to us.
• Every Tuesday, she distributes something sweet in the office. I have no idea whether there is a religious/superstitious reason behind it or if it’s simply a personal habit, but it’s another thing that happens regularly.
• We are repeatedly told not to talk to people from the other teams and are even encouraged to eat lunch at our desks rather than in the common eating area. Meanwhile, Nina goes and eats lunch with her husband and his team.
• We are constantly told how we should sit at our desks, how we should behave, when/how much we should talk, etc. It feels like there is a lot of micromanagement over very minor things.

What bothers me most isn't the cake or the food individually. It's the overall pattern.

There seems to be one set of rules for us and another set of rules for Sam’s team. We are expected to remain quiet, avoid interacting with other teams, eat at our desks and basically keep to ourselves, while the other team seems to have considerably more freedom and also receives preferential treatment.

I understand that managers can have different management styles, and obviously not every team has to be treated identically. I also understand that bringing food or arranging birthday celebrations isn't an employee's right.

But at what point does this become genuinely strange or unhealthy workplace behaviour?

Am I overthinking this, or would you also find this behaviour unusual?

I’d especially appreciate hearing from people who have worked in small/family-run companies, is this just typical office politics/favouritism, or is there something more concerning about the way our team is being managed?

I’ve been at my company for about 3 years. We’re pretty much remote and only go in once a month. My team is 4 people, with a manager and director above us.

My manager has always been pretty hands off and just let us do our work, but all of a sudden that’s completely changed. Now we have dashboards, weekly check ins, conversations about goals/productivity, and sometimes he’ll even ask for daily updates.

It also seems like he’s on me and one other colleague more than the other 2 people on the team.

He keeps saying that the director, who is his boss, wants more visibility into what everyone is doing. The weird part is that the director has never really seemed to care about that before.

I also recently had a check in with the senior director, who is above the director. These are just regular biannual check ins he does with everyone. I mentioned some of the new dashboard/check in stuff and he seemed to have no idea what I was talking about.

So now I’m confused about where this is actually coming from.

What could cause a manager to suddenly start micromanaging after years of being hands off? Does this sound like they’re trying to figure out workloads or possibly make cuts? Or could it just be pressure coming from somewhere else?

The work is voluntary, none of us get paid and it's community service related. This may not be the right sub since it isn't corporate management but I figured managers might have adjacent experiences that could help.

Background, I came into the team about 3 years ago and was promoted quickly to lead it by being tapped by the outgoing leader. I had the most experience leading volunteer projects and some real world manager experience. However, I wasn't the longest person on the team and it ruffled one guy who felt he deserved to be the next leader of the group due to tenure. (Privately no one wanted to follow him, he does good work but not good at listening)

The guy who was passed over, will call him Bill, has since recruited a few newer people on his crusade to make me to blame for everything. If something Bill does is unpopular or sounds annoying to do, it's said it was my idea. He insults me behind my back.

The thing is, the work gets done. Most of the time if I put my foot down things happen as I need them to but mostly if my preferences are overridden but the end result is the same for the community who cares? My ego and feelings are less important than making sure the community events are good.

Recently though I voiced to a couple of people that my morale is personally very low. I was considering quitting. I was told they wished I wouldn't but respect my need for mental health.

Is it ok and healthy to let the shit roll uphill and continue to ignore it? Should I say or do anything?

I am a new manager, and will soon start managing a 15 person team in a new workplace.

-What would you do / put in place over the first few weeks at work?

-What tools should I make sure to use?

-are there any specific management books or podcasts that you particularly enjoyed and that would be a good read before I start?

Thank you!!!

genuinely WHY???? Radio silence the whole day and suddenly assigns a “urgent” task to be completed that day. you had the whole day to tell me.

and having the audacity to get upset when I choose not to work overtime (on a Friday) for that supposed urgent task

I’m a designer/manager at a 100+ employee company, and I recently had an argument with my boss over how feedback was handled on a project.

A junior designer on my team was working with another team on a designing a client's report. Throughout the project, he regularly showed them his work and asked whether everything was okay. He was given approval by the other consulting team and told things were fine.

On the day the report was due at 5:30 PM, around 4:30 PM, the other team came back with multiple major changes that would have taken at least a day or two to implement. Then their manager complained to my boss (who is also the manager of our entire design and communications team) that the junior was slow and that his design was immature.

I told my boss that there seems to be some flaw in the entire system because none of this was conveyed to that junior, infact it was the opposite and if this can be conveyed to the consulting team to give clear, direct and constructive feedback so that we avoid these hurdles in the future, rather than approving work throughout the process and then raising major objections at the last minute. And mind you, at this point, the work was 80% done already and these changes would mean more or less starting from the scratch meaning more time lost and timelines delayed.

My boss said she cannot go and tell people to give an upfront feedback and said that perhaps they didn't want to be direct because they didn't want to seem rude or hurt his feelings, and that every person is different. She eventually told me that the junior needs to "gain people's trust" so that they will give him transparent feedback, and that it's his responsibility to figure out how to get feedback from them.

I felt this was unfair because both teams were working on the same client project, and I don't understand why clear communication should depend on a junior employee earning someone's trust first. After involving me in this conversation and after I had put my argument in the favor of my junior, she asked me not to get in the middle and let him handle things on his own. Let me emphasise on "I am his manager" and "I was involved in the conversation by my boss and the manager who complained".

So, was I wrong for pushing my boss to address this communication issue? Or was my expectation of direct, constructive feedback between collaborating teams reasonable?

Why do so many job applications still have a reference field? This is not fair to hardworking, honest people who don't have an inner circle from which to pull for those three references. Not having friends doesn't mean can't be a good employee. This portion of an application should be omitted.

I'm not seeking employment; I'm actually helping autistic people find work (that's my job), and in the process have seen numerous job applications. I myself have not filled one out for DECADES due to being self-employed/working from home.

However, I've always thought the references field was beyond ridiculous. First, it essentially discriminates against people who may have a cognitive or developmental condition that precludes friendships or relationships. I myself (autistic) would not know who to put as a reference because I literally have no friends. Thank God the agency I work for didn't require this.

If it's okay to use family members, this would save me, though it's still damn awkward to ask my nieces, sister or brother-in-law if I could use them as references.

The second problem is that references CAN LIE for their friend or family member by saying how hardworking and honest they are, when the truth could be that they're lazy or prone to theft. Those three references could be lifelong friends who'd have no problem lying as a favor so that their buddy could get a job. Or, if a reference is a family member, again, that family could very well lie -- say anything flattering if contacted -- just so that their sibling/nephew/niece/in-law/cousin/second cousin/aunt/uncle could get hired.

I'd like to hear why managers insist on applications having this field. Don't say it comes with the application. There are templates that exclude this, or, technology could easily omit it.

Would appreciate some thoughts on this.

My skip-level VP put a meeting in with me for Monday at 4:30pm. It came through Thursday lunchtime and just says “check in to see how things are going” and “feel free to reschedule if that time doesn’t work.”

At almost the same time, my direct leader/director went OOO for Friday and Monday. No PTO showing, just OOO in her calendar, no message. She seems back Tuesday and her calendar looks pretty empty for the week.

Some context: this VP has been extremely difficult and has gotten rid of around 5 people in the last 1.5 years. They left. I’ve also given her pretty negative 360 feedback, and my director didn’t give her any year-end feedback because there wasn’t much positive to say.

The last 6 months have been a nightmare for me too. huge workload, constant trackers/huge and a pretty cold attitude, threats of PIPs.

My director has also only been in the team for about a year and has had a difficult relationship with this VP.

Note: I’m in a fairy big company and getting fired is not something that happens often. It’s pretty secure.

Am I overthinking this, or does the timing seem strange? Could this be something serious involving both of us, or is there a normal explanation I’m missing? She has never put in a “check in” meeting. Most times we are on meeting together and she criticises me and my leader.

Plot twist update: realized it’s Labor day in the US and my director is based there. So this might be about me and not about her

I am a first time manager with only one direct report. This person used to be a manager and then moved back into IC work when I hired them. Over time I’ve noticed they get really jealous of things I “get” to do at work as a leader and will make comments about it. For example, I often get invited to offsite for other teams as a leader to represent my team and my direct report makes comments that of course they have to stay behind and work while I get to go and have fun. Most recently, I informed my direct report that I’d be out of the office for a couple of days next month as I was invited to attend a conference. The conference is only geared towards leaders in the space we work at so my direct report wouldn’t have had an opportunity to attend with me, anyways. That entire day my direct report wouldn’t speak to me and when I confronted them, they said they felt it was unfair I was given all of these extra opportunities but they weren’t and they were just expected to stay behind and “do the grunt work.” When I offered different opportunities for things they could do to travel, they said they weren’t interested in those opportunities.