It’s a special “where are you now?” season at Ask a Manager, featuring updates from people who had their letters answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers.
1. My coworker starts every question with tediously long rambling and apologies
I did have a conversation with Lee about their behavior, and it got a little better. They can now handle the office hours on their own so I don’t have to ride along anymore, so I’m less exposed to it. I am also better at tuning it out in the meetings we do have together.
Unfortunately, there are some bigger issues that are taking more of my worry-bandwidth with Lee. They are having trouble managing some of their neurodivergent behaviors, which causes them to drop balls and feel behind on work, which causes them to either shame-spiral (ignoring questions, requiring multiple pings, then apologizing extravagantly) or they work extra-hard on projects where they feel more in control (but might not be what is most important, and which sometimes drags in other coworkers to look at the new shiny thing). They are very excited about some new tools and spend a lot of time tweaking them to get an output that would have been much, much faster to do manually, and in some cases actually give wrong output. I believe they are just not happy with their new responsibilities (because I see them constantly trying to take on tasks that are more aligned with their previous role), and I think they may be looking to transfer, but unfortunately there are not a lot of openings in our company for their old role.
Because I’m so irritated by this (I live with several neurodivergent people so I think work previously was my “safe space” away from these behaviors), I have been making a point to praise Lee when I see them do something good, and to cut them off when they apologize for something that needs no apology. I also told them straight-up that excessive praise makes me very uncomfortable. I have noticed as well that I’m starting to get an “oh jeez, what now” reaction when Lee proposes something (because usually it’s either way out of our team’s boundaries or requires a lot of special processing/maintenance) so I’m making sure to take a breath and focus on the actual proposal and not my irritation.
The last thing I’m trying is … not caring, lol. I’m at the point now where I could, theoretically, retire (I’m not, because I have a relative who needs a lot of expensive medical care which I help out with, and I also like my work’s health insurance). So I decided that I’m no longer caring about stuff like terrible writing, crappy AI outputs, or taking up clients’ time with rambling. The clients can complain to Lee’s manager if they care. When Lee proposes more wheel-spinning projects, I’ll ask them to get our manager’s approval to prioritize it ahead of our other work. I’m going to do my job well and focus on places where I can make a bigger difference. If my manager comes back to me and tells me that it is, actually, my job to care about those things, then I’ll start. But I can’t care more than the company does, and I don’t think they care!
P.S. For the commenters who were very focused on Lee’s gender … it doesn’t matter. That’s why I used “they”. 🙂
2. My employee curses at me and management doesn’t care
Looks like I may have left out a few facts in my original letter: I reported the incident to my manager (who did not seem to care) after having a meeting with Jane to discuss her behavior. But yes, I agree that I had been ineffective at managing Jane for years, since she continued her rudeness no matter what I said or did.
Another fact I left out: When Jane was placed on a PIP two years ago, my manager was angry that I reported Jane’s rude behavior to HR and senior leadership during our calibration meeting (which was how the PIP ensued). My manager said that I made her look bad because she never told her bosses that there was an issue.
Fast forward to six months ago: Jane once again crossed the line — yelling at me because I was going on PTO. I told her she was out of line and ended the call because she was getting out of control. But this time I told my manager that I was contacting HR (essentially, skipping over her) because I had had enough and we had reached a hostile work environment situation. She finally agreed that this woman had to go. When I met with HR and senior leadership, they were aghast and Jane was fired. I do think my manager had to deal with consequences as a result of her letting this go on for so long, and because of that, I don’t think she will ever be in my corner.
I am glad, however, that I am no longer miserable at my job (and these days, still employed).
3. How do I explain I’m staying remote when everyone else has to return to the office?
I would like to say thank you for the advice. There was a lot of interesting feedback, and some people who were in similar situations to me offered comfort, reminding me it was okay that I don’t appear disabled, especially on camera. It was comforting to hear. Invisible disabilities do exist — and it isn’t just me.
Unfortunately, before I heard from you, my manager told me I needed to alert people before it became a situation. She asked me to tell the team, and the method was my choice. So I sent everyone a DM as politely as I could. I tried to make it as casual as I could, and attempted a joke about asking people to send me their cubicle decorations (no one has taken me up on this offer). I got the standard canned responses.
RTO is going about as badly as people thought, if I am honest, and then there was a re-org. Apparently 75% of the larger team has remained remote, supposedly to the higher-ups’ disappointment, and my new manager as well as one other team member remain remote while the remaining three of the new team go in-office. They may be slightly disgruntled about this, which I understand. My new manager asked our small team to introduce themselves, and when it came to me there was a very awkward moment where she asked where I am. I tried to be chill and just say “I am also remote” like my coworker did, but he is in another state, so when she asked to clarify, I kind of just blurted out that I have medical accommodations. It was a little awkward, and I still don’t know if that was what I was supposed to say.
I want to thank everyone again for their advice, because even though I couldn’t use it in that specific moment, I still think about it, and in the times it has come up since, it’s still been helpful. I had another teammate ask me about it and I was able to use one of the suggested deflecting lines in that discussion. It’s so comforting to think about the people who do understand.
4. Should I tell the company that fired me to stop engaging with me?
I have a happy update. Thanks to the advice from you and your readers, I decided that it was best for my mental health to block my ex-supervisors and management from viewing my profile.
The happier part is that, after speaking up in their comment section (I was the only comment) about including me in their new video, the video with me in it was removed. A new video replaced it and still features most of the other departed employees, but thankfully I am not featured. The small stand I took also forced their hand to finally remove me as the outward-facing contact for the lab, so better 15 months late than never!
Thanks for posting my question. I think it helped heal me.
