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metafilter_feed) wrote2025-12-17 07:03 pm
askamanager_feed) wrote2025-12-17 06:59 pmHere are 15 of my favorite stories you shared about holidays at work over the past month.
1. The succulent
For several years I managed a team who were all at individual satellite offices. During my site visits over the holidays, I gave them all little gift baskets which included a small, fake succulent (most of the offices didn’t have windows). On a subsequent visit about six months later, I found out that one employee had been watering hers every day, and was proud to show me how healthy it still looked.
Fortunately, she thought it was hilarious when she found out it was artificial, and it brought the whole team a lot of joy.
2. The panda onesie
Our new vice president, after a tumultuous and unpopular first year in her role, hosted a holiday party for her whole division at a local upscale steakhouse. We received no less than six emails leading up to the party getting ever more specific about the dress code. First it was just holiday sweaters. Then, the mandate that our sweaters be “Company Name-Licious,” and somehow increasingly downhill from there in service of taking a perfect photo for the holiday card we send out annually to stakeholders.
My director, who after over 20 years at the institution announced his early retirement right before the party (largely because of said vice president’s shenanigans), decided to go out with a bang. Right before we were all corralled together for the carefully cultivated “look at our happy work family having fun photo,” he slipped out of the dining room and returned dressed in a full-body adult pajama panda onesie. Nobody said anything as the picture was taken, but the looks exchanged were priceless!!
Maybe the vice president didn’t have the verbiage on the spot to publicly ask one of her directors to change out of panda pajamas. (Understandable. Who among us is prepared for that?) Maybe she thought he would say “just kidding,” change, and her prize photo would go on (He didn’t. Fully committed to the bit). Needless to say, the photo didn’t make it to the holiday card, but remains a cherished memory for those of us our legendary director left behind.
3. The harp
A couple of years ago, my boss had a Very Fancy Christmas drinks at his house, complete with musicians, waiters, the lot. It was also my third day on the job as the (then) youngest person at the company, and I proceeded to get absolutely hammered.
I woke up the next morning remembering a couple of bad incidents – including kissing my boss on the cheek to say goodbye and spilling wine all over the carpet – but the worst blow came about six months after the party where I was informed that at one point I’d tried to play the harp. Until that point, I would have sworn up and down that I’d never touched a harp in my life.
The next one is tomorrow, so wish me luck.
4. The cover story
Fifteen+ years ago, I worked with Ben and Jen, who were clearly having an affair. She reported to him, he was married, and they were “best friends.” At our holiday party, they disappeared. I walked through the parking lot with a coworker and we saw them in his car fully making out. To our credit, and my surprise, we didn’t say anything at the time. She was later fired for stealing money, and he quit a few months later. A few years ago, another former colleague ran into Jen who proceeded to joke about how “funny” it was that we all thought she was sleeping with Ben, “even though they weren’t.” My friend said, “Someone saw you making out at a holiday party.” Jen didn’t even miss a beat and responded, “I guess I have to change my story.”
5. The putt putt course
I worked in a law office where, at the holiday party (basically, hors d’oeuvres in the conference room on a Friday with our comprehensive bar open to all comers), someone set up a 36-hole golf course that wound through the entire firm. We were given putters, a ball (which we marked with a colored Sharpie), a scorecard, and then set out to drive for show and putt for dough — well, presents. This after we’d all had a few. Technically, many, many more than a few.
Those who’ve worked in law offices know the litigators are always ready to party, but that transactional lawyers, at year’s end, are laboring to close deals that clients want done for tax reasons. This means there’s usually a group of transactional lawyers and their harried staff grinding away while everyone else is carrying on at the holiday party. This was no different, except that the transactional teams were confined to the offices on the floor below the main floor of the firm. This is relevant because the putt-putt setup required you to pick up your ball and take the elevator down to play middle 12 holes of the course on the floor below. Which seemed okay until some drunken associate banked his golf ball off a window, knocked over a transactional partner’s coffee cup, and soaked the latest contract draft. Nearby, two boisterous litigation partners got into a loud, not-so-friendly argument about whether the rules allowed gimme putts.
Before the scene could descend further, a mature paralegal who had been with the firm since before dirt was a baby, strode through the offices, quietly removed putters and balls from all involved, and firmly instructed anyone who wasn’t on the transactional team to return to the conference room upstairs. She then locked the office suite’s doors behind us and, for good measure, hung a “golf course closed” sign on the exterior door.
Later, I heard that the senior transactional partner gifted her a $250 bottle of single malt.
6. The elephant dung
Our CEO is big on eco-friendly type gifts from charities. Frankly I would have been fine with them donating to literally anything in my name, but last year we got statues of rescue elephants made out of elephant dung. Not fresh, but like sculpted like clay and fired but no thank you. I’m not a big elephant or figure person and I’m an even less bigger shit person so that was fun. I’m excited to see what we get this year. Coprolites? Stationary made out of poop (that’s a thing)? Can’t wait.
7. The Funko Pop interrogation
One year during a white elephant exchange at our staff party, I “stole” a Funko Pop from a coworker, who proceeded to throw a fit and grill me for an entire afternoon about why I needed it, what I was going to use it for, did I even know what it was, etc., etc., etc…
8. The revenge
My team was pretty fractured. We had a manager who was your BFF until you became the Bad Employee, and everything in the job/company/world became Bad Employee’s fault until they quit in defeat. The manager’s friends in real life were on our team and were never the Bad Employee. She was a middle-aged Regina George.
At one point Regina had left her zoom camera on unintentionally and she looked a mess. Hair in a bun, brown stained tank top, no makeup, just rolled out of bed. She was also vaping with an obviously THC vape pen.
Jacinta, the current Bad Employee, took a screenshot of Regina during this meeting and just kept it in her pocket for MONTHS.
Secret Santa meeting arrives and Regina opens her gift, from Jacinta, and it’s a custom printed coffee mug. With the photo of Regina on it.
When Regina opened the box she said, “Oh a coffee mug?” and her face went through several shades of red and horror.
But the COO attending the Secret Santa meeting with us said, “Oh a cute coffee mug? How fun! Let everyone see!”
9. The MLM
I had a student bring me a gift. His mother was in an MLM that sold adult products. She had sent me some highly inappropriate “toys” and “lotions” with a card that said she’d love to have a party for me and “all my teacher friends.”
Fortunately, I did not open this in front of the student and I’m hoping he never knew what was in the bag.
10. The decorations
I was working in a newsroom at the time, and there were no accepted rules of behavior in a place where the photogs routinely slept on the floor so they could be first to the scene when the police scanner started popping off in the middle of the night.
We all had assigned desks, and at Christmas everyone got a small fake tree and we had a “decorating contest.” Except that I thought it was lovely decorating and bought ornaments and tinsel … only to find that it was a deranged decorating contest.
One of my coworkers topped her tree with the decapitated head of a one-eyed doll. Another got a box of donuts and stuck them all over the tree, leaving them there until they petrified. Others included cursed promotional items that got sent to us, like a tape measure specifically for measuring bust size, a body-positive doll who was naked and posed suggestively with the Grinch, and a rubber giraffe.
These decorations stayed up until March. God, I miss that place.
11. Sharlene
We had Secret Snowflake. There was a $25 cap, but we were meant to gift our Secret Snowflake something every day of the work week, so it was impossible to keep to the limit and no one kept to it. I would spend a minimum of $50-100.
Anyway, there was one person, “Sharlene,” who thought she walked on water because her wedding went viral on TikTok. On her Secret Snowflake gift form, all of her gifts were designer brands. We were teachers. No one could afford that list. Not even admin. The unfortunate soul who did pull her name sent a student to deliver the first gift (a very nice, non-designer candle in Sharlene’s purported favorite sent). Sharlene sent the child back with the message to deliver: “I don’t accept trash. Give me cash or what I asked for or don’t bother.”
Sharlene didn’t receive anything for the rest of the week.
12. The hard partiers
In the early 2000s, I worked for a call center for a major auto manufacturer. When I started there, it was very professional, but as time went on there became more and more of a hard-partying culture. Cue the Christmas party: at a lovely hotel, unlimited beer and wine/cash bar for hard liquor, company discount on renting rooms overnight so no one drove drunk. Not being much of a party person, I left after dinner, but I heard the next week that they closed the party down earlier than planned due to drunken shenanigans. We were invited to choose somewhere else for the party the following year.
You’d think that would have caused some reflection on the next year’s party plans, but instead the whole thing just moved to a different lovely hotel. This time there were arrests for lewd behavior in the hallways/stairwells. The year after that there was a single ticket for beer and wine and no cash bar.
13. The misunderstanding
The White Elephant gift exchanges I did with friends were always jokes, you’d bring something that you had lying around and/or thought would be funny. That was always my understanding of the term. My first year at a job, I had two White Elephant gift exchanges, one with friends and one with coworkers. Nobody overlapped to both groups, so I decided to get two copies of the same joke gift to bring to both places: a framed, autographed photograph of my then-girlfriend and I.
The white elephant group with my friends found the photo a hilarious gift, it got stolen multiple times, and the person who ended up with it actually hung it on their wall for a couple years.
The work group brought nice gifts and so the person who opened my photo was completely baffled. Everybody gave me a weird look and I tried my best to stutter out an explanation of, “Uh, yeah, White Elephant means joke gifts.” Made up for it as best as I could by trading it back in exchange for an actual gift so nobody got stuck with it, but even so, people definitely were not thrilled.
Next year’s email announcement of the gift exchange did not include the term “White Elephant” but did include detailed instructions about acceptable gifts.
14. The tree decorating contest
I worked for a large museum. One year, management announced that each department would be given a miniature (12 inches) tree to decorate to showcase their work. All the trees would displayed at the staff Christmas party and a winner would be announced. The winning tree would be displayed at the main ticket desk and the winning department would get a catered lunch.
The Restoration department went all out making a toolbox themed tree. Multiple senior staff, all dedicated and experienced craftspeople, worked on it over lunches for two weeks. One of them brought in jeweler’s tools from home to make the metal parts, like the saw blade. Handles were painted and varnished. Someone even braided embroidery floss to make tiny garlands. The end result was exquisite.
At the Christmas party, everyone was oohing and ahhing over it, and the staff responsible were very pleased with themselves. It was far and away the most beautiful and an obvious labor of love. When it came time for the winners to be announced, the much-hated director of HR stood up and announced that the Visitor Services department had won! They had decorated their tree by cutting faces out of museum brochures and sticking them into the branches. It was pretty clearly a last-minute and low-effort project. To make matters worse, the head of Visitor Services stood up and made a speech like she was accepting an Oscar. In her speech, she talked about how much she loved Christmas and broke down into tears. She then tried to lead us all in song while sobbing (happy?) tears of emotion. I am Jewish and was already quietly annoyed at attending an explicitly Christmas-themed work party, but I was definitely not the only one confused and uncomfortable. She was crying too hard to really sing clearly and everyone was just looking at each other, not knowing what do. Eventually the head of HR came up and led her away and restarted the party.
After, debate raged about whether visitor services’ tree had been chosen because the department was much smaller than restoration, and therefore cheaper to buy lunch for, or HR had just thought having a “we love our visitors!” themed tree in the lobby was a good marketing move. Restoration was widely agree to have been robbed. When the Christmas tree contest was announced the next year, most of Restoration refused to be involved. Department head said that we couldn’t hand in an empty tree, but that he wouldn’t begrudge an extremely minimal effort. A couple of the younger guys in the department decided to lean aggressively into the “Die Hard is a Christmas movie” trope. They stuck a lego helicopter and a paper cutout of Bruce Willis into the branches, and then made a paper tree skirt with stamped red footprints. I believe they had to be talked out of making a “Yipee-kay-yay mother-f***ers” banner. It was displayed at the Christmas party with all the other trees, and everyone knew it was an F-you to management, but it still won an honorable mention. Apparently, the department head told HR that if Restoration didn’t win something there would be riots. Additionally, in an apparent act of blue-collar solidarity, the Security department had decorated their tree with American flags because “we’re very patriotic, and it was never specified WHICH holiday the tree should be decorated for so we obviously chose the 4th of July.” Restoration refused to display the honorable mention certificate in the department break room, and the tree decorating contest was not held again.
15. The petting zoo party
My employer has historically had their holiday parties at local attractions — the zoo, a brewery, etc. The parties are never great, but at least you don’t have to cook dinner and there’s dessert. Last year, the party was also at a local attraction that isn’t just a petting zoo, but I would say that’s what most people remember it as.
The email invite did not say whether or not there would be animals at our party, so I emailed to ask. No. Too cold for the animals. Sure. My coworkers and I generally enjoy a good time, so we decided to go.
Dear reader, we should have taken our cue from the animals. This holiday party was not a good time, in any way, shape, or form. Turns out the attraction had a drive-through Christmas lights thing open to the public, and it was very popular. For unknown reasons, one of the two roads that led to the attraction was completely blocked off. We party-goers had to make our way along with the rest of the masses down one very long, very dark road. It took me 20 minutes to go less than a quarter of a mile.
After parking, we were told to take the tram up to the place where the party was being held. It was winter in the midwest, and bitterly cold. The tram departed as I was walking up, and I had to wait in the open air for 10 minutes for another tram. A tram that had no windows or doors. That drove very slowly over a surprisingly long distance so that we too could see the Christmas lights. That was playing Christmas music from a Christian radio station that had ads in between the songs advocating for the pro-life movement.
We were finally deposited outside the venue, which turned out to be a large, enclosed tent with some space heaters inside. Warmer after the tram ride, but not warm. There was some food, but not a whole lot. There was some alcohol and hot (actually mildly warm) chocolate, but the hot chocolate quickly ran out. No desserts.
I sat bundled in my coat and scarf with my one coworker who had already arrived. Another coworker had decided to abandon us when she saw the traffic and went back home. A third was still en route, having tried to come via the road which was blocked off and was having to go all the way around the attraction to the other road. My coworker and I sat and mingled with other folks, ate our not-great dinner, drank our single cups of mildly-warm chocolate, and bemoaned the lack of desserts.
We decided we could not betray our third coworker and leave early, so we waited another 30 minutes for her to make it to the venue, and then another 20 while she ate her not-great dinner, bemoaned the fact that the mildly-warm chocolate was gone, and cursed the fact that there were still no desserts.
Our executive director stood up and gave a long-winded talk about how were such a great team and how this was such a great party. We left as soon as he stopped talking and took another tram, also open to the elements, an even longer distance on a more meandering route so we could see the rest of the Christmas lights. Someone must have complained about the radio, so there were no pro-life ads at least. It may have started raining? I can’t remember.
As icing on a cake that was not even provided to us, the employee newsletter that week gave a big kudos to our executive director and his staff for putting on such a great holiday party.
This year, presumably due to budget cuts and not complete embarrassment for last year’s effort, our holiday party has been relegated to a staff potluck during lunch next week. Since there is no room large enough to host us all, chairs will be scattered throughout the floor in conference rooms, the staff lounge, and some odd seating areas tucked in random corners. There is no sign up list, you can bring whatever you want — a complete free for all and complete disaster in the making. There will be no animals to pet, again, but at least it will be properly inside.
The post the tree decorating contest, the panda onesie, and other deranged stories of holidays at work appeared first on Ask a Manager.
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fancake2025-12-17 11:16 amaskamanager_feed) wrote2025-12-17 05:29 pmA reader writes:
People in my office frequently come into work very obviously sick and many times get other people sick. Most people do not have the ability to work from home with the work we do. We’ve sent a firm-wide message telling people that we prefer that sick employees stay home, as to stop the spread to the rest of the staff. Unfortunately, this didn’t make much of a difference. I understand that people want to save their paid time off for more enjoyable times, but it’s not fair to the coworkers to whom they spread their germs. (We also offer six paid sick days, separate from vacation and personal leave.)
What else can we do?
I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.
The post how can we stop people from coming into work sick? appeared first on Ask a Manager.
umadoshi) wrote2025-12-17 12:42 pm
scruloose and I are a few chapters into the audiobook of System Collapse.scruloose and I have finished season 2 of Silo!scruloose might be into. It does have Gideon the Ninth, which they might get a kick out of, but that's a significantly longer book, and we already had to check Network Effect out twice to get through it.askamanager_feed) wrote2025-12-17 03:59 pmIt’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.
There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.
Remember the letter-writer wondering whether to write a list of rules so a colleague, Paul, would treat them decently? Here’s the update.
I’ve recently taken a step that commenters had advised — leaving the group.
Getting Paul to leave (your excellent advice) wasn’t an option, though perhaps me leaving will push things in that direction. I alerted five people to why I was leaving, and a number of them seem to be realizing that the group has to address the “missing stair” of Paul. So we’ll see what happens! But for now, my stress level is definitely lower, and I can focus on other organizing work that is also meaningful to me. It was the right decision for me at this time to just leave the org. That’s the tl;dr. For the full story…
After I wrote to you (and you and the commenters affirmed for me that I was not going to be able to write a list of rules that would solve my Paul problem), I decided to step away from my leadership role in the org and also change other commitments I had made so that Paul had as little reason as possible for interacting with me within that org. Magically, Paul somehow still managed to get involved with the things I was doing, even though they were part of different committees. They also kept trying to contact me through third parties.
A long-distance partner of mine came along to one of the org’s activities and Paul was pretty weird about it. That reminded me about one of our early interactions where Paul ignored my boundaries: when they kept asking me to see a movie (over and over and over) despite me repeatedly declining. Perhaps obviously, I came to believe that despite what Paul had claimed about this being about “our friendship” … it really wasn’t about friendship for them.
In theory, if the group eventually was able to create a code of conduct then Paul’s behavior could be addressed, so I hoped all summer that would move forward; however, Paul has long resisted a code of conduct, and they remain in leadership (and have been in that role longer than anyone else by a wide margin).
Meanwhile, Paul and I also have another community in common, and Paul hung around me there a lot, especially standing behind me and watching me – so much so that a friend who knew nothing about the situation started asking me why that guy was staring at me so intently. All this escalated when Paul emailed me asking for mediation again. They also sat right behind my family at two different events, continuing this pattern of being really close (and specifically *behind* me). I told Paul I wasn’t interested in mediation and that I was leaving the org to hold the boundaries I needed. I also outlined those boundaries: don’t contact me, on any platform, including through third parties, don’t hover behind me, and don’t sit behind/near me and my family. Paul said they had never wanted me to leave the group but would honor these requests. My spirits started to lift, perhaps they were finally hearing me – and then at another event Paul sat about ten feet behind my family. They met my eyes when I walked into the room to join my family, and it was clear they knew what they were doing. So I told people within our other shared community as well.
It’s been interesting to see how the two communities have responded, and some of that is because the one is “non-hierarchical” (in theory — but Paul has a lot of power!) and the other has clear leadership. It’s definitely proving you and the commenters right that the problem with the one org is that someone like Paul is allowed to stay and there’s no mechanism to get them out. In the non-hierarchical org, people are interested in addressing the Paul situation, but there’s no clear path to do so. I’ve left the org, so don’t really know what’s going on. I’m not guessing anything will happen quickly though. The other org immediately set up a meeting with me and someone else Paul had harassed, took our statements seriously, started crafting a harassment policy (since it didn’t exist), and gave Paul a warning. I’m still part of that org and feeling very supported there.
Thanks again for the opportunity to think through these boundary issues with you and the great commenter community! It really helped me to feel clear about my decisions as I’ve navigated this situation (so far). Hopefully Paul loses interest in me and the org that I left is able to find a way toward dealing more effectively with this kind of behavior. At least I’ve brought it more to the surface as a problem by finally naming the missing stair.
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metafilter_feed) wrote2025-12-17 04:02 pmmetafilter_feed) wrote2025-12-17 03:22 pmdarkjediqueen) wrote in fan_flashworks2025-12-17 09:30 ammetafilter_feed) wrote2025-12-17 01:24 pmlucy_roman) wrote in fan_flashworks2025-12-17 01:37 pmlucy_romanmetafilter_feed) wrote2025-12-17 10:25 ammetafilter_feed) wrote2025-12-17 08:01 ammetafilter_feed) wrote2025-12-17 07:22 ammetafilter_feed) wrote2025-12-17 06:10 ambluerosekatie) wrote in smallfandomfest2025-12-16 10:02 pmsholio) wrote2025-12-16 08:09 pmaskamanager_feed) wrote2025-12-17 05:03 amI’m on vacation. Here are some past letters that I’m making new again, rather than leaving them to wilt in the archives.
1. Employee missed work because of birthday drinking
An employee I manage called out today due to being hospitalized over the weekend for alcohol poisoning. The employee went out to celebrate their birthday over the weekend and overdid it on the partying. I realize this is out of work conduct; however, it is affecting the employee’s job because they called in to work. Do I have a leg to stand on if I have a serious conversation with the employee about their judgment and how this type of behavior could negatively effect their employment with our company?
If it just happened once, leave it alone. People are human and make mistakes, and until there’s evidence that this is part of a pattern, there’s no reason to assume that this person hasn’t learned their lesson (or even that there’s more to the story that you don’t know). I mean, the person ended up hospitalized. They probably realize it’s a big deal.
When someone makes a mistake and it’s clear to them that it’s a mistake and they’re already set on not repeating it in the future, there’s no need to lecture them about it. (The exception to this would be if the work day they missed as a result was particularly crucial – – like if they were supposed to be presenting at an important client meeting that day, in which case, yes, a serious conversation would be warranted.)
– 2019
2. My manager scratches his butt before high-fiving us
I am a supervisor for a retail store and work with a sales manager who is very big on high-fives as motivation. However, I have seen him many times scratch his butt and then go to high-five someone. If it was a one-off scratching a small itch, that would be one thing but it’s happened many times and it’s a full-on scratch (leg straight and into the crack scratch). The first time he tried to high-five me after I saw this, I hugged my hands to my chest and said I have a germaphobia about high-fives and getting sick. I do have a slight germaphobia (12 years in retail will do that) so it’s not a full-on lie, but the issue is now when my staff do something I can’t high-five them without him noticing. Is there another way to deal with this?
Do you have the kind of relationship where you could just be straightforward? As in, “I saw where your hand just was! No thanks.”
If not, then you’re going to have to stick with the germaphobia story, which you’ve already put out there anywhere. And yeah, that means you can’t high-five others.
But also, why is he prefacing all his high-fives with a butt scratch? This is weird indeed.
– 2018
3. My colleagues are late every week with edits to my work
As an executive assistant to the director of my division, I am responsible each week for a report on our major contracts. I gather information from various managers, consolidate their updates onto one document, and edit the updates so that the verbiage is clear and consistent. This report takes most of the week because there are always questions that my boss wants answered, as well as a lot of editing required on my part. Each Thursday I send the final draft to everyone and request initial edits by 1 p.m. on Friday. I NEVER get responses on time. They eventually turn them in, but it’s usually an hour or more past deadline. These edits really consist of a few sentences per contract and no more.
I have tried to talk with management, to be a pest, and to move the deadline back and no matter what it’s turned in late. Please advise if you have a strategy for dealing with this. I have no authority over these people other than as the representative of my boss, and that clearly holds little weight.
They might actually need more time. Even though their edits are only a few sentences, they presumably have to read the whole thing and might need to chase down answers from their own staff, and they may have work that’s legitimately a higher priority that day.
If they’re getting their edits to you just an hour past the deadline, you might just need to mentally adjust the deadline in your head and think of it as being 2:00 rather than 1:00, if your own workflow will allow for that. If it won’t, then you could try sending their sections to them earlier if possible (if you’re able to send their piece of it before the entire document is ready), or talking to them to explain why you need it on time and what the impact is if you don’t get it (preferably an impact that it’ll be clear matters to your director rather than just to you, since they’re more likely to prioritize that). If that doesn’t work, you might need to talk to your boss about the timeline being too tight for people to turn around their edits in time. She might actually agree that they’re right to be prioritizing other things, or she might decide to use her authority to push them to prioritize this — but at that point, where you’ll have exhausted everything you can do on your own, that should be her call to make.
– 2018
4. Applying for a job with someone who asked me to leave a college job
In college, I wrote for a collegiate chapter of a national website. The national version of a website has an open position which matches my skillset pretty well. My one hesitation is that I was asked to leave the college chapter after a year. My editors sent me an email asking me to leave, citing a mutual feeling of disrespect and disinterest. I completely understood where they were coming from as I was unable to attend chapter meetings and keep up on my articles because of several group projects for my major, a volunteer position, a part-time job, and other obligations. Basically, I had too much going on and one thing was bound to fall through the cracks. Unfortunately, it was the website.
I fully accept that my overbooking is to blame for what happened and regret it deeply. I loved my time with the publication and still admire their work even after my spectacular screw-up. I really want to apply for this job because it’s one I could potentially really thrive in. One of the editors from my collegiate chapter works for the national website. After she asked me to leave, I did apologize and we have gotten along well when we’ve seen each other. While there is no lasting anger on my end, I’m not sure how she feels. Part of me wants to reach out and apologize again as well as give her a heads-up that I’m applying.
Should I even apply to this job? If I do apply, should I address this issue in my cover letter? How would I best go about explaining the situation? And what’s your opinion on reaching out to my former editor? I don’t want to seem like a selfish jerk but I also can’t stand the idea of someone hating me (even if I do kind of deserve it).
Yeah, that might be a deal-breaker, unfortunately. Having the person who had to ask you to leave now working at the place you’re applying … is not great for your chances. (Although it could also depend on how long ago that was and what you’re done since then.)
I wouldn’t address this in your cover letter; that’s way too much focus on your downsides for a cover letter. But I do think that if you’re considering applying, you’d need to reach out to the editor who asked you to leave and let her know. Acknowledge that you were overextended in college and took on too much, and say that you’ve learned a lot since then and are hoping to be able to demonstrate that if you get an interview. If you just apply without contacting her first and acknowledging what happened, it’s going to look tone-deaf or like you’re oblivious to why it matters.
Honestly, there’s still a good chance it’ll remain a deal-breaker, but that’s likely your best shot at it.
– 2019
5. How do I explain in an interview that I don’t like working with other people?
I’m an entry-level worker looking to move into a new job. Most entry-level positions are very customer-oriented and I really DO NOT like working with people. I am introverted, but more importantly, I have bad social anxiety. Dealing with people regularly would lead to exhaustion at best, panic attacks at worst. Either way, it would be awkward for everyone.
I don’t want to disclose having social anxiety in an interview, but I want to make it clear I want very limited customer interaction. I know that just saying “I don’t like people” or “I don’t want to handle customers” would get a bad reaction. Is there a way to spin it into something neutral or even positive?
For what it’s worth, I can be cordial with other people, like coworkers. I’m just a withdrawn person and would like to work independently.
First and foremost, make sure that you’re doing your best to screen jobs well before you apply, and make sure that you’re only applying for things that already look like pretty solitary jobs. Then, in the interview, ask about it directly: “My sense from the job posting is that this is relatively solitary work, without a ton of interaction with others. Is that correct?” Assuming they say yes, you can say something like this: “I know that a lot of people go stir-crazy in jobs without a lot of interaction, but I really enjoy working on my own so that element of the job is appealing to me.” For the right job, that’ll be appealing to the hiring manager; often the worry when hiring for solitary jobs is that the person will get bored or antsy for social contact, so hearing you say that you prefer working on your own is likely to be a plus.
– 2016
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