It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and throughout December I’ll be getting updates from people who have had their letters answered here in the past. Here are five updates from previous letter writers.
1. Employee chews tobacco at his desk and during meetings (#3 on the link)
The advice helped!
I had to reinforce the policy before I got your advice, and I don’t think I was assertive enough as I noticed he was still doing it, but only at his desk. When I raised the issue for the second time, I took your advice to heart and told him, “That is not allowed on company property, only in the designated area and during breaks.” This time it worked as I haven’t seen it since!
This employee has a different personality, almost teenage-like. He doesn’t really seem interested in growing and learning, but he still wonders how to get more money. I’ve tried to follow the standard leadership routines to get him somewhat motivated: meeting with him weekly for 30 minutes, meeting monthly for 1 hour for feedback and goal reviews, talking about career aspirations, taking the team out for birthday dinners, etc.
I’m not sure if sometimes you just can’t create the connection and have to deal with the non-motivation. (He always has an excuse to work from home when he should be working in the office: back pain, moving, cold, headache, etc.; forwarding requests without actually looking at them first.)
Thanks again for all you do! Your advice is greatly appreciated!
2. Contact children of family friends about career opportunities
I’m finally answering the update call since my question resurfaced in the Refresh Inc. Archives!
So. About a day after I called, hung up, and hung up (and wrote to AAM), my girlfriend emailed me in a panic and said she had sent me the wrong number by one digit. Ah! Ahahahaha! It makes so much more sense now! (Although I wish I knew who I would have called instead…)
I then emailed her son the details, per Alison’s suggestion. He thanked me and then went on to pursue his own path as a thriving software engineer.
In the spirit of learning AAM, I haven’t made any cold calls or sent unsolicited career tips to friends’ kids since.
But… while it wasn’t a helpful career move for my friend’s son (or for the stranger I was completely robocalling), it ended up being a super fruitful path for me. Apparently I was excited because I had wanted this opportunity myself. A year later that opportunity arose. Since then, I have co-authored a book with the founder of the university program and helped him build a company to help people advance social justice and care/support for others here and around the world. He is by far the best boss I have ever worked for. I still can’t believe my luck.
Anyway, I hope you’re doing well. I am forever grateful that you have been @&!? during these more than 9 years. you have remained a voice of reason.
3. My old high school started a mentorship program and it sucks (#3 on the link)
In the end, I didn’t unsubscribe from the program. Whether or not my message to Alan had anything to do with it, I certainly no longer received messages from Allan asking me and dozens of alumni on a CC line to make the effort to reach out to students. I only received direct messages from students and alums interested in talking to me. Of course, Alan still posts on this site and uses some sort of tagging mechanism to invite any alumni to any event they host, even if it’s not in my geographic area or field. So I get a lot of e-mail that I honestly think is hardly better than spam from this program. So, good job letting the people you ask favors from do the work by sifting through the email to find out if the last message is an invitation to the Llama Grooming Meetup in Antarctica, or a child with enough courage had to ask for mentorship. .
But fast forward to…literally the day you sent me an email asking for an update, and I received an email from Allan, asking me to contact a high school alumni who is a COLLEGE GRADUATE, to talk to them about pursuing a graduate program in my field. I simply responded that I would be happy to talk to the student or another student, but that I prefer students to contact me if they are interested in talking to me. I don’t know if it’s my duty to correct Allan, and I don’t know if it would help. So… the program still sucks. But I feel reluctant to punish kids who may or may not want to go into a challenging field just because the management of this program sucks.
4. Colleague talks about his religion all the time
God really exists! My physical move into the office took longer than expected due to some hiring issues, after which the religious guy left the company within days of me moving into my new space. Sorry it’s not very climactic, but for me personally it couldn’t have been more exciting! And he left of his own accord, so I didn’t feel guilty for celebrating his departure internally. Thanks again for answering my question, but the problem resolved itself before I had to implement your advice!
5. What to do when colleagues keep missing scheduled meetings (#2 on the link)
Back in 2013, you answered a question about colleagues who missed meetings and failed to provide the information I needed to do my job. You and the commenters had excellent tips, but the problem came down to working in a dysfunctional organization that prided itself on being one big family, with gossip, black sheep, skeletons in the closet and all. I couldn’t get any information and I was criticized for going with my best guesses. Millions of dollars were at stake for projects that helped students and underserved community members. My writing was used as a model by one of our federal funders.
It got much, much worse. The new manager I mentioned in the comments was the fifth choice for that position. She didn’t understand my work. She placed me on a PIP with no end date and no measurable results or changes. She pulled out the job description I had written as proof that I had failed, even though a previous manager documented how well I had met all objectives. Etc. I was told that my communications were too brief, without examples, and then instructed to survey everyone I had worked with on projects. Fortunately, their reactions were positive. I asked for HR mediation with my manager, and we were told we just had different communication styles and maybe should get a Myers-Briggs or something.
I had been unhappy for a while and tired of work itself, but I had no idea what I wanted to do. Then a close family member almost died before my eyes, and I considered the idea of working in healthcare. I’ve been struggling with organizing on the never-ending PIP, trying to fund a few crucial projects that were dear to me. I also took advantage of my tuition benefits and took as many science classes as I could. Ironically, I was able to take a course for free that was funded by my own grant a few years earlier, and that caused me (eventually) to refuse to sign a horrific contract. I was begged and courted to stay on for another multi-million dollar project even though I wanted to be done with it. I doubted whether I should accept it. When I reluctantly contacted them with a time frame and high but fair consultancy fees, I was told they had decided to go with someone else (my stomach was in knots thinking about it). Before I left, I spent weeks trying to schedule time to offload my work. Just as I walked out with the box in hand, the person who would manage it showed up. I told the horrible manager that I hope she appreciated what I was talking about.
After more hard work and tougher classes, I was accepted into a competitive PA school, and I have been working in medicine for almost five years now. I love my specialty and the people I get to work with. Thanks to the ordeal, I have a much more realistic view of organizational and systemic problems and also understand what I can change and what is worth changing in my own situation.
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