Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/husband-says-its-inappropriate-to-dine-or-carpool-with-my-boss-bowing-out-of-a-cooking-competition-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34205

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My husband says it’s inappropriate to dine or carpool with my boss

I have a great relationship with my boss. He is incredibly supportive of my professional growth and is a good mentor. We work well together on projects and complement each other’s skills. We’ve built a great team and are very intentional about culture. Relationships are incredibly important in our field. Some context: He is a man, I am a woman, and he’s about 10 years older than me.

My husband hates my boss, and he’s not shy about it. He says my boss doesn’t look him in the eye or shake his hand when they run into each other at work functions. He always has something nasty to say about him. I don’t get it.

From time to time, my boss invites me to grab dinner after work events or carpool to things together. This sends my husband through the roof. He says it’s great that we work well together but there is no need to socialize outside of work. He’s convinced my boss is being inappropriate. I enjoy carpooling or grabbing dinner with my boss from time to time! It’s fun to unwind and socialize. We talk about work and non-work topics. I NEVER feel like my boss is being inappropriate or flirtatious. The relationship genuinely feels friendly. His wife is awesome, I like socializing with her too from time to time at work functions!

I know you’re going to ask how my marriage is. It’s okay. We’ve been married a while now, there have been bumps that we’ve tried to move past. I genuinely think he’s projecting his issues onto this situation.

But my question is about work. Is it inappropriate to get dinner with your boss and socialize? We’re not in an industry like sales where dinners or social outings are the norm. Our jobs are stressful and it’s just fun to unwind together.

It is absolutely not inappropriate. It’s a normal thing to do when you work with someone. You have a good rapport and good will toward each other, and you have a shared frame of reference (you know the same people, projects, industry, obstacles, etc.). When you’re leaving a work event together, it makes perfect sense that you might decide to grab a meal or a drink before heading home.

Your husband doesn’t even want you carpooling with your boss? I could almost excuse him feeling weird about the after-work socializing (although that would still be way too controlling of him), but objecting to driving together to work events takes this into a different territory of problematic.

Something is going on with your husband / your marriage. It’s not about your job.

2. Should I bow out of our holiday cooking competition?

For about a year, I have worked at an office job where I very consistently bring in baked goods or shareable food items. But I am not pressured to or criticized when I don’t.

My question is related to an upcoming holiday potluck where there is also a cooking contest. I won last year and got a gift card, which was great, but I’m debating if I should even enter this year. Mostly, I’m not sure that’s fair, because I have to imagine consistently bringing in items biased the judges in my favor. (It was anonymous, but I am of a cultural identity that is unique amongst my coworkers, so the flavor profile probably gave me away. Also, small office.) And there are other excellent bakers and home cooks as well, irrespective of whether I’ve brought more items in total and engendered good will that way.

But I don’t even know if I’d win again, so maybe it’s arrogant to assume I need to bow out? As you can tell, I’m overthinking this. But people are asking if I know what I’ll be making, and I’d like to have either an answer or a good excuse soon enough.

You don’t need to bow out! I don’t think you have an unfair advantage just because you bring in food more than your coworkers do; the judges presumably aren’t judging based on the entirety of your contributions over the whole year, but rather on the specific dish you enter into the contest. Moreover, if you do bow out because you feel it’s unfair to participate, there’s a risk of coming off as patronizing to your coworkers — as if you assume they couldn’t compete with you.

I do think that if you start winning the contest every year, it would be gracious to occasionally bow out and cite holiday baking fatigue or similar. But no need so far.

3. Employee says they think the feedback is unfounded … but then makes changes anyway

I have an employee who has been struggling with soft skills in their role — managing relationships with partners, navigating differences of opinion, openness to changing approaches, etc. These are non-negotiable skills for the role given our business model. They’ve been coached on this repeatedly, and we’ve seen some up and down improvement in the past year but it hasn’t been sustained. In their latest performance review, they were told they were not meeting expectations and a plan for correction has been introduced.

In conversations since then, their response has been to dispute the feedback, including things like saying the skills named aren’t requirements for the role (they are), hinting that this is just a matter of opinion and trying to ascertain whether “others” feel this way, and making comments that suggest the feedback isn’t “fair.” When I’ve said that this response is making me concerned about whether they’re taking this seriously — after all, how can you internalize and act on feedback you don’t think is valid? — they’ve said they can find the lesson in anything and they’re committed to working on it. They do seem to have taken the feedback seriously and made changes, but historically that has then been followed by regressions. Given that they’re disputing the feedback but at the same time acting on it, what do you recommend I do?

They can think the feedback is unfair, but if they’re making the changes you want, that’s ultimately the most important thing. Care more about what they do and less about what they think (unless/until what they think starts coming out in disruptive ways). It’s not that the fact that they disagree doesn’t matter — it does, partly because it suggests lack of alignment between the two of you about the fundamentals of the job, and that’s likely to play out in other ways too — but ultimately what matters is what they do.

If they regress again like they have historically, you’d address that at that point (and really at that point should probably conclude that they’re not well matched with the job). Ideally the formal performance plan would have been explicit that the changes need to be sustained over the long term and you won’t start the process again from scratch if they backslide. If it didn’t, then at whatever point the plan is completed, you can remind the employee of that (while also recognizing that they’ve done a good job in building the skills you asked for, assuming that’s the case).

4. I feel guilty about getting my coworker’s job after they were let go

I was offered my coworker’s job the day after they were let go, and I don’t know how to feel about it. I feel guilty but I also really wanted this promotion. I don’t know how I feel about my boss firing him and hiring me in the span of about 12 hours.
Do you have any advice?

It can be weird to feel like you’re benefiting by someone else’s misfortune, but that’s not the right way to look at it! Your coworker presumably was going to be let go regardless and there are all kinds of things that could have been happening behind the scenes, including your coworker simply not being suited for the work after having been given opportunities to improve. You’re not required to turn down a promotion on principle or out of solidarity with someone else.

Realistically, you might not be able to logic your way out of feeling weird about it for a while because that’s how minds work, but if it helps, you’re not wrong to accept the promotion, regardless of the reasons it was available. (I would have a different answer if you, like, set them up unfairly in some way, but I’m assuming that didn’t happen.)

5. We can’t request accommodations until after planned surgeries are over

A few years ago, I had orthopedic surgery. It was scheduled a few weeks in advance and I knew after the surgery I’d be in a brace for a period of weeks, with requirements to ice frequently and physical therapy exercises multiple times per day. I was given restrictions on how far I could walk and what I could lift. I stayed with my parents during this time because I needed a lot of help as I rebuilt the muscle. In advance of the surgery, I requested a temporary accommodation under the ADA to work remotely the entire time I was in the brace. I received a letter from HR saying my request did not fall under the ADA as it was temporary, but nevertheless they supported allowing me to work from home, and my request was granted for the specified date range. My letter was very specific that if anything changed, I had to submit new paperwork and go through a new approval process.

A work friend of mine is now having a similar procedure and asked me how to submit the paperwork to work remotely as she recovers; she said she already talked to her boss, who was fully supportive and just asked her to make the accommodation official. Turns out, our HR department has now changed the policy so that an accommodation can’t even be requested until after surgery because “how can your doctor know what you will need?” and “you won’t need the accommodation until after the surgery.” Both of our procedures were relatively predictable (e.g. you’ll be in a brace for 4-6 weeks and physical therapy will likely last X months) and my friend isn’t requesting the accommodation start until the day of her surgery. HR has also told her they need to decide if her post-surgical medications preclude her working. Again, the post-surgical protocol across these procedures are pretty standard and no one is on very heavy painkillers and certainly not more than a week or so. Our work involves typical office computer work, and public-facing work is pretty minimal and scheduled in advance.

My guess is this new policy falls into the category of “crappy but legal” to make someone worry about submitting paperwork for an accommodation as they try to recover from surgery. But I’m very curious to get your reaction to this.

This is ridiculous, and it’s probably legal. Ideally she can get all the paperwork together and ready to go before her surgery and have her boss file it for her the day of, but there’s no reason it should need to be done that way, and they’re just creating more headaches and stress for employees at the exact moment they’re least equipped to deal with it. Any chance your managers want to band together and push back?

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https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34205

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/my-coworkers-have-a-crush-on-my-boss-and-are-taking-it-out-on-me-2.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34134

I’m off today so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2020.

A reader writes:

I’m the executive assistant for a small company. I’m the direct support for the VP of human resources, “Dave,” who is very charismatic and likable and a generally nice guy. He’s also very good looking. However, he’s very professional with great business boundaries. I enjoy working with him.

Two managers in particular, “Karen” and “Nancy,” need to meet with him all the time. All. The. Time. Their departments aren’t undergoing any HR issues, they don’t have any staffing needs, and they’re not hiring or firing anybody right now. They call to schedule multiple meetings a week, drop by to see if he’s available for 1:1s when his schedule doesn’t have a single second free, and call him multiple times a day. Dave always routes them back to me to take a message or schedule them with him. Nancy gets angry with me when I tell her he’s not available and blew up at me last week that I’m “not his chaperone.”

Dave has noticed it and so have a few other execs. Dave’s been very clear about making both of them go through the same process other staff members go through to schedule with him. Just the same, other staff have started calling them his “fan club” and me the “bouncer.”

When I was working with the other assistants and operators on a training, word about his “fan club” had gotten around and one person mentioned that Karen calls me names and tells the other staff I’m in love with Dave and don’t want other women near him, which is why I never let her schedule with him. She even showed me a few emails in which Karen advised her department support professional to go over my head to see Dave and that I wasn’t the “keeper of his zipper.”

I’m not sure how to approach this. I’m more angry than I am embarrassed. I’m also bothered because the support staff report to me, and some of my staff have reported both Nancy and Karen as being difficult to work with and unpleasant in other aspects of the day-to-day, not just in regards to the Dave thing. Where do I start with this?

This is so gross!

If Karen and Nancy were simply trying to meet with Dave all the time, that would be annoying but manageable. Even then, though, at some point Dave would probably need to shut it down more firmly than he has. (Not that he’s at fault here! It sounds like he’s managing an uncomfortable situation pretty professionally — but needs to hear how it’s gone off the rails.)

But this is more than Karen and Nancy trying to get a weird amount of Dave’s attention. Blowing up at your for doing your job, calling you names (!), spreading rumors that you’re in love with him, and ever uttering the words “keeper of his zipper” in a work context is … ugh, so over the line and gross and violating. To you, and also to Dave.

It’s time for you to talk to him. It’s going to be awkward and uncomfortable, and you need to do it anyway. (Remember that the awkwardness is 100% on Karen and Nancy, not you.) He needs to know the full extent of what’s happening, how out of control it’s become, and how it’s affecting you.

If you’re hesitating to do that because it feels uncomfortable or you don’t want to burden him with this or you feel like you should be able to deal with it yourself … you still need to talk to him, for three key reasons. First, he deserves to know what’s being said about him so he can decide for himself how he wants to handle it. It’s not right to let this happen behind his back without informing him. Second, as your boss he needs to be aware that you’re being harassed and mistreated. Third, as the VP of HR, he has a professional obligation to intervene and ensure this is shut down — his job in the company requires it (and there’s a point where not acting will make people question HR’s competence, and how seriously HR would take it if someone else were facing similar issues).

So talk to Dave. Tell him all of it — the name-calling, the yelling at you, the rumors, the undermining you, all of it. And I’m sorry to say, you’re going to have to repeat the “keeper of his zipper” line because that makes it clear just how over the line this has become.

You can tell him you’re embarrassed to have to repeat all this, but it’s important that you tell him it’s happening, and that you tell him it’s at the point that HR needs to intervene and shut it down.

If Dave is as great as he sounds — really, even if he’s only sort of okay — he’s going to be grateful you told him and will deal with it so you don’t have to. It’s his job! Let him have the info he needs to do it.

The post my coworkers have a crush on my boss … and are taking it out on me appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/my-coworkers-have-a-crush-on-my-boss-and-are-taking-it-out-on-me-2.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34134

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/i-made-a-gift-guide-for-each-employee-on-your-team.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34598

If you’re the boss, finding the right gifts for your employees can be fraught with questions: How much do you spend? Should you spend the same amount of money on each person? And if you don’t know someone well, how do you make sure they like the gift while still keeping it professional?

For the record: managers don’t have to give their staff members gifts, but it’s a nice gesture if you want to do it, and in some offices it’s expected. (Although here is your obligatory reminder that because of the power dynamics involved, gifts at work should flow down, not up. Managers should never expect or encourage gifts from employees.)

A while back, New York Magazine asked me to put together a gift guide for bosses buying for employees, and I’ve updated it for 2025.

You can read it here.

The post I made a gift guide for each employee on your team appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/11/i-made-a-gift-guide-for-each-employee-on-your-team.html

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