Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/open-thread-december-12-2025.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32114

It’s the Friday open thread!

The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to take your questions to other readers.

* If you submitted a question to me recently, please do not repost it here, as it may be in my queue to answer.

The post open thread – December 12, 2025 appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/open-thread-december-12-2025.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=32114

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/my-company-wont-call-me-doctor-or-lord-new-boss-knows-im-job-searching-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=30583

I’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.

1. My company won’t call me Doctor or Lord

I was hoping that you could help me with a question I have regarding the use of honorifics in workplace documentation. I have recently acquired a new honorific, and my employers are refusing to use it on the documents that I have requested it be used on. I have legal documents that also show that my title is a fully legal one and can be used on official government documents up to and including my passport. Is there anything that I can do to get my employers to use it?

Specifically, I have a doctorate and I am also legally a Lord, meaning that I should therefore legally be entitled to either go by Lord LastName or Dr. LastName. My employer has already referred to me as Lord LastName in several documents as well as Dr. LastName in others, but they are now refusing to use either of them in any documents and on a display board that displays pictures of members of staff and their names underneath for visitors to familiarize themselves with. My passport actually also has my name as Lord FirstName LastName, which irks me that it can be used on important legal documents and yet, my employer refuses to acknowledge it.

It’s up to your employer to decide which honorifics they use across the board. If they use Doctor for other people with non-medical doctorates but not for you, you have a valid objection. If they don’t use it for anyone, that’s a choice about their culture that they’re allowed to make. The same goes for Lord.

I’m guessing you’re not in the U.S. and I can’t speak to how this would play in another country’s culture, but I can tell you that in the U.S. continuing to push for this would mark you as out-of-touch and pompous. I’d let it drop. (2025 addition: pushing for “Lord” has almost certainly already done that! Your best bet now is to play it off as a joke.)

– 2020

2. Our annual fundraiser is based around a senior executive’s kid

I work for a large company with multiple locations all within an hour of each other. The board of directors and C-suite are very good at connecting with each location routinely and frequently. For several years we have worked with a national charity that grants kids who have been seriously ill or injured trips and adventures of a lifetime. Each location fundraises for a specific kid and makes it a bit of a fun competition to see who can raise the most money. This year, one week before we kicked off our fundraising campaign, the charity informed us our kid was the child of one of the C-level execs. The child is in remission from cancer. The charity thought it was awesome to “bring home” this connection. Instead, most location managers were turned off at the thought of working so hard to raise a few thousand dollars from hourly employees to effectively give it to a C-level that makes 10 times our income. My location manager was the only one to initially speak up and share her concerns. By the end of the workday, we had “postponed” the fundraising at our location. As of now, no other locations chose to fundraise for this particular child/family.

Do you think my manager made the right move in pulling out of this fundraising? She and I spoke in depth about this and I told her that I personally would not be comfortable donating to C-level’s family but would also feel pressured to do so, or to encourage others to do so, to make sure our location had good numbers. If we looked stingy compared to other locations, we would have to be concerned with how the C-suite interprets that. It seemed like a no-win situation. Were there other options or ways we could have responded?

I can sort of see where they were coming from originally — they figured that charity that feels personal also feels more meaningful and motivating, and the trip is going to the kid and not her parent — but the optics were bad. Asking hourly employees to work hard to raise a few thousand dollars for the family of someone who earns that amount in way less time than they do doesn’t look great. It also raises all the same issues that come up every other time money is being collected for a higher-up — the power dynamics mean that people feel inappropriately pressured to donate, worry that not donating may have professional repercussions for them, etc. A better way to do it would have been for your company to fundraise for a different kid working with the charity, and perhaps for your exec to speak firsthand about the good work for the organization is doing and how meaningful it is to his family.

If it’s an option to instead fundraise for a kid unconnected to your company or for the charity in general, you might suggest that.

– 2018

3. My new boss knows I’m job searching because I interviewed for a job with her

About six months ago, I applied for a job and made it to the final round in which I interviewed with my potential teammates. I didn’t receive an offer but would have accepted if I had.

For the past few months, my company has been searching to fill the vacant role of my manager and I have been involved in the hiring process and interviewed several candidates. I received a request to hold an interview and recognized the name as someone I had interviewed with months ago. I walked into the interview, and she immediately asked if I had interviewed for the position as she recognized me. We had a good rapport and she asked me if I was still searching. I told her not as aggressively as I was before, as my old manager wasn’t a good fit here (she was asked to leave) and there are a lot of changes on the horizon and I am waiting to see if they come through. This wasn’t a total lie, but in my opinion there’s about a 1% chance of these changes coming anytime soon. After the interview, I was nervous I was a little too honest with her about the state of the department and our team.

Last week, she accepted the position. I’m feeling in an odd place. It feels awkward that she knows I’m not very happy here. I’m partially excited and scared that she will want to have a frank conversation about it. Or accidentally slip to someone that I was searching at some point. Quite frankly, I’ve been unhappy here for a while and I’m not even sure I want to stay in this industry. My current grandboss/temp manager is aware that I’m not thrilled but I think she attributes it to being understaffed, and I don’t believe she thinks I am job searching. So how do I navigate this going forward? Just have a conversation with her? Ignore it?

Ooooh, that’s awkward. I’d wait a few weeks for her to get settled into the new job and for you to start forming a relationship with her that’s based around your current work. Then, at some point, you could consider saying to her, “I feel a little odd about how we first met, and I wanted to let you know that while I was looking around six months ago when I interviewed with you, I’m not actively looking now that Jane has moved on.” It’s going to be plausible that you were looking because of your former, now-fired manager.

That might not be 100% true, but you are not obligated to tell your current employer that you’re planning to leave, and doing it can be to your detriment. (You can be pushed out earlier, have your name put on layoff lists because they figure you’re leaving anyway, etc.) You’re in a weird situation through no fault of your own, and you’re allowed to protect yourself here. Also, “not actively looking” doesn’t mean “would never accept an interview for the right job.”

– 2018

4. Random strangers stop in our office and ask me to look up information for them

I work in a front office as an administrative assistant for a nonprofit (my job entails a lot more than just handling front office inquiries, and I never have any free time as my work load is pretty heavy). We are in a high-volume walking and public transit traffic location where a lot of people with no association with our organization find themselves in our office needing help with one thing or another. (We’re talking probably 10-15 people per day, in addition to people who are associated with us).

I of course assist when I can, but a large percentage of people coming in are asking things I have no knowledge of and I find myself acting as a personal online researcher to find addresses, phone numbers (restaurant locations, concert ticket sales in the area, places to park, etc.). What’s more frustrating is many of these people come walking in with their smart phones in hand but don’t think to search on their own.

I’ve spoken about this with my boss and she completely supports me putting some boundaries with people not associated with our organization, but I still meet resistance. A woman came in the other day looking for a phone number and address for an organization down the street from us (with her smart phone in hand) and I tried to deflect her request by suggesting she could get that information on their website. She replied, “Yeah, but I don’t want to look it up on my phone, can’t you look it up on your computer?”

Am I alone in thinking that people should be doing their own online searching if they’re capable? I understand if it’s a person who’s not as comfortable with technology, or does not have a smart phone, but I’m talking people who seem confident with it, and have a smart phone but are weirdly triggered by seeing me at a front desk and immediately forget they have a computer in their hand capable of all the things that I would be able to do for them.

Nope, you’re being perfectly reasonable. It’s ridiculous that people are expecting a business they have no connection to function as their personal search engine.

You just need to be firmer and stick with it. When a stranger asks you to look something up for them, say, “I’m sorry, I’m right in the middle of a project and not able to help you with that.” If someone pushes, say, “I can’t stop what I’m doing, but we have good cell coverage here if you want to try looking it up on your phone.”

– 2017

The post my office won’t call me lord, new boss knows I’m job searching, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/my-company-wont-call-me-doctor-or-lord-new-boss-knows-im-job-searching-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=30583

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/update-my-boss-says-my-salary-research-is-wrong-coworkers-wont-answer-their-phones-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34801

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers.

1. My job wants me to hit up everyone I know for money and other help

So it’s been a bit of a twisty path since I wrote in. I’ll start by thanking Alison and the commentariat for really helpful advice.

The small group meetings with the explicit purpose of sharing our personal contacts and their locations kept being postponed. Casual discussions about the principles of the project continued during other meetings, and I began to lay the groundwork suggested in the advice and discussions along the lines of “of course” I’ll have a think about it, but it may not be appropriate.

At one of these meetings when our CEO was speaking, I caught some side-eye from a few coworkers and spoke to them separately afterwards. It turns out they were especially opposed to the idea of going in pairs to social groups to proselytize, and the idea of mixing work/personal boundaries.

Then it all got a bit mysterious because the consultant, who I never did manage to find anything shady about, vanished from the project and was never spoken of again by the CEO. There was quite a lot of speculation among our little band of rebels.

So then the individual meetings got put back on the table but in a different way. Basically we all got together one day in small teams and mapped out local groups — crucially not our personal contacts but publicly available information around groups like community centers, faith groups, seniors’ meetups and so on. Stuff that’s easily findable on Facebook and so on.

But then it all kind of fizzled out. I believe our management team reached out to some targeted groups and made a few useful connections, but we were never again asked to hit up our personal contacts, for which I was profoundly grateful! But a nice side note is that I now count two of those rebellious coworkers as personal friends — and in a note of irony, one of them comes along to my book club. (But we don’t talk about work there!)

Thanks again, really appreciated Alison and everyone taking the time.

2. My boss says my salary research is wrong because our benefits are so great

Thank you so much for publishing my question about my salary negotiation gone wrong! I love reading updates on your site, so here’s mine: about two months after the promotion, my manager called me into her office out of the blue and gave me a 5% raise! She also gave me a copy of my supposed “total compensation” in writing. It consisted of my new annual salary, plus the bonus I got last year, plus the total reimbursements I’ve received so far this year (which was wrong, by the way), plus the total employer match on my retirement contributions (which is not vested yet and I’ll forfeit when I leave). Ha! As one commenter mentioned, I think the company is trying to identify “total cash compensation,” but this doesn’t seem like an accurate way to achieve that.

The reason for the delayed response? The position I was promoted into didn’t exist at this company before, and from what I can gather (the office is an open floor plan and we hear things), executive management has had some difficulty determining an appropriate salary band for me, because there was no one else in the company in a comparable role. Instead of telling me that they needed time to consider, though, I got an immediate “no,” followed up months later by “here’s part of what you asked for,” with no explanation of why.

Unfortunately, I’ve found this to be a frustrating pattern of communication with my manager. Any time I try to voice concerns or dissenting opinions, she shuts me down in the moment, then comes back a day or two later and suddenly agrees with me. It’s also been really challenging trying to succeed in a job that’s new to the company (I know this work was being done by someone before me, but no one here seems to know anything about it, so I’m just making it up as I go). Like most of your letter writers, the issue I wrote in about is really just the tip of the iceberg. I took on the promotion because I saw an opportunity to step up and take on an important responsibility that had been dropped, and I wanted to take a more active role in addressing our team’s stressful workload. Instead I’m frustrated and demoralized trying to adapt to the new senior-level position without any guidance or support.

I appreciate the small salary bump I got, but I’m planning to start job searching in a few months (when I can say that I have six months of experience in the new role). Fortunately this role is highly desired in my industry and I think I have a good chance of finding somewhere with better management and an established team where I won’t be trying to invent my own job description, which has been an exercise in futility since the day I started working here.

3. My coworkers won’t answer their phones, ever

Thank you for your advice back in March on my colleagues not answering their phones, and thank you also to the commenters who provided additional ideas. I appreciated the reality check. Unfortunately I was unable to take a lot of the advice because it centered around asking my supervisor to intervene, and he is one of the main culprits. At the time I wrote, when things were quite bad, he was asking me to return most of his voicemails not obviously from the bank or a very high-ranked VIP. This led to things like me calling someone back to ask what they wanted, them explaining a problem I couldn’t possibly help with, and me explaining they would have to speak with my supervisor — which is obviously what they had tried to do. Very awkward.

Things are a little better now, mainly because a new person was hired — who also doesn’t really use the phone, but who is taking over a lot of work that was overwhelming everyone else, so in turn, people are more on top of their email inboxes. A lot of the phone calls were really people frustrated by lack of email response, so we get less of that now.

Another thing that happened is we simply alienated the customers who wanted constant contact by phone, which rightly or wrongly, was simply unrealistic for the team that we have. So we don’t work with those customers anymore, thus fewer calls. And finally, most staff got a tiny bit better about agreeing to set up phone meetings or otherwise speak on the phone — maybe 20% better? In total, I get far fewer calls that aren’t for me, without the problem having ever been fully solved.

Like a few of the letter writers I have seen on your site, I tried to solve one small thing I thought I could solve but really, it’s a larger set of issues.

Thanks again for your help, and for the site as a whole. I have learned a lot over the years, and appreciate the humor too.

4. I heard a rumor that an exec is harassing multiple women, but no one wants to make an official complaint (#3 at the link)

I did pass along the report of harassment to both our HR and Legal departments, and they seemed to take it seriously from what I could tell.

HR leadership let me know that they were going to conduct an investigation. I was later informed that it was complete. I was not told (nor should I have been) the findings, or whether there were consequences for anyone.

All I know is that everyone has remained employed. I have not heard any further complaints, and so I hope nothing further has occurred.

Thanks for your advice and for that of your readers.

The post update: my boss says my salary research is wrong, coworkers won’t answer their phones, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/update-my-boss-says-my-salary-research-is-wrong-coworkers-wont-answer-their-phones-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=34801