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marthawells) wrote2025-12-10 01:46 pmaskamanager_feed) wrote2025-12-10 06:59 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 whose friend hired them but wasn’t paying what they had agreed on? Here’s the update.
I’m happy to say that the outcome of the conversation with my now former boss was positive and I didn’t expect it to end as well as it did. Thank you, Alison, and everyone who provided helpful feedback.
I respectfully brought up with my friend what she was thinking to do in terms of the summer when the days were longer and I told her I needed to know what she was thinking to figure out my finances. I also said I was expecting the benefits and the pay we had discussed. I wanted to see what she would do / if it would change anything before making my final decision to leave. Instead, this led to her changing my pay once again and paying me by the hour instead of by the booking, both of which were not what we had first agreed upon. I was supposed to be paid a salary amount we had discussed when she was hiring me. I realized it was time to have the conversation to leave.
I ended up telling her that I was no longer able to work for her as I required some stability in my life financially and I was not receiving the pay and benefits that we had initially discussed. I also told her that I valued my time as I had given up many weekends and worked sometimes seven days a week at both jobs and it affected me financially, as well as my health. I said I understood if it was difficult in the beginning but that as time went on, I realized that she wasn’t capable of holding her end of the deal and I had to consider my well-being as well.
Surprisingly, she took it well. I was expecting her to try to convince me to stay, but I think she realized it herself too that she was stringing me along. She admitted that it was a lot to ask of me to be on call and how it affected my life. I’m a bit wary of how genuine it was, though.
In the aftermath, we still talk and are amicable but I have made my boundaries clear and I have been all the better for it. She did ask if she could reach out to me if she was ever in a tight spot and needed an extra hand, and I left the door open to that but only on my terms. I have not gone back to help as of yet, I’m focusing on my primary job and enjoying some free time. I’m realizing that running yourself into the ground for an extra check isn’t always worth it!
Some questions that came up in the comments:
- I hadn’t ever signed a written work agreement (though looking back I should’ve). Lesson learned. But she was my “friend” or so I thought and I didn’t think it through as I should have.
- She did lure me away from my previous job with promises of the same pay plus benefits and that I would be hired as a full-time employee from a government program incentive she had received to start her business. She had kept saying “by February” or “by March” I would be officially “hired,” but come May/June nothing had happened yet.
- I am currently living and working in Greece so things are a lot different than how it is in the U.S. and perhaps other countries.
- This was a part-time gig but she was treating it as full-time. At the time, I heavily relied on a second job to stand on my own two feet here.
- The boss of the job I worked at before I started working for my friend happily would take me back in a heartbeat. He is a kind and genuine man and very straightforward, almost the polar opposite of my friend.
- I am a private English teacher here. That is my full-time job that I have focused on building here on my own. The job my friend hired me for was focused on tourists and highly seasonal and dependent on weather, among other things. It was for horseback riding tours in the area. I had years of experience riding and training horses and it was what I did as a hobby.
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sage) wrote2025-12-10 12:27 pmmetafilter_feed) wrote2025-12-10 06:00 pmrachelmanija) wrote2025-12-10 10:07 am
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recthething2025-12-10 09:55 amrunpunkrun) wrote2025-12-10 09:45 amaskamanager_feed) wrote2025-12-10 05:29 pmA reader writes:
One piece of your advice I’ve made use of many times is to think of a person struggling in their role as “miscast.” It’s not like they’re a terrible person or failing on purpose, they’re just in the wrong role for their skills. When the conversation turns to ending their employment, I can be kinder and more compassionate, as you’ve written, even when they have frustrated me greatly throughout their time with us.
But I worry I’ve gotten stuck when the reason someone is being let go for attitude. I’m thinking of a time, a while back, when I fired a person who no one could stand to work with — arrogant, smug, judgmental, and no self-awareness whatsoever of the way they came off. This person had middling skills, but the reason they were let go was the “no jerks” policy, not because they weren’t right for the role. That’s not being miscast, so how should I approach that sort of termination meeting? It’s probably about to happen again, and I don’t want to be a jerk to somebody who’s getting fired and will stop being a problem for my team soon. But they’re not miscast — they’re a jerk! How on earth do I “kindly” tell them so?
I answer this question — and two others — 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.
Other questions I’m answering there today include:
The post how to fire a jerk appeared first on Ask a Manager.
metafilter_feed) wrote2025-12-10 04:37 pmmetafilter_feed) wrote2025-12-10 04:31 pmmetafilter_feed) wrote2025-12-10 03:58 pmmetafilter_feed) wrote2025-12-10 03:21 pmaskamanager_feed) wrote2025-12-10 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 who was miserable in their PhD program and just wanted to teach but didn’t think they could drop out? Here’s the update.
I regretted sending my letter in to Alison about three seconds after I hit the “submit” button. I was convinced that I was just whining, that there wasn’t anything that could fix this situation, and it was my job to just grit my teeth and get through it. Hearing from so many of you that you’ve been where I am, that you were miserable too, and that things were okay for you if you left, was just … thank you all so, so much.
I took on board all of your advice (and shout-out to those of you who mentioned education recruiter Carney Sandoe, I’d never heard of that!), and made a list for myself of things to try. I talked to other members of my committee, as well as my PI, about moving projects and labs as well. After quite a lot of deliberation, and a heavy conversation with my PI, I have decided – I might try to squeeze a tiny, inconsequential paper out of data I already have, and if so, I will get my Phd. Regardless, I will not be asked to do lab work anymore – and if I don’t get a paper, then I will master out.
My PI mentioned that, when I’d made the decision to leave, I immediately looked like 20 pounds had come off my shoulders. I feel like I’ve finally stepped out into the sunlight for the first time, after being shut in a dark room for ages on end. I keep waiting for someone to drag me back in, to tell me that no, you don’t get to have this kind of happiness, or that this has all somehow been a mistake. But it keeps not happening, and I keep feeling like breaking out into song and dance every time I realize that I’m still free from lab work!
And, now that I don’t have to do lab work anymore, I’m free to network my butt off! I’ve had informational interviews with adjuncts, private school teachers, public school teachers, program directors, and I’ve joined, like, three new professional networks now! I’m applying for jobs, I’m doing classroom observations to see what kind of teaching I like and don’t like, I’m gathering certification to help with my teaching skills – I’m doing the work! I’ve been fighting self-accusations of laziness for so long, as I found it so difficult to convince myself to do lab work, but it turns out, I can do things in a timely manner, I can put in effort, I just can’t do it around something that is actively hurting me!
Even better, because my PI is an amazing person, he’s allowing me to stay in his lab until this coming May (I’m getting paid for my teaching work, so he doesn’t need to use grant funding on me), and he’s supporting me in using as much time as possible for my teaching development! Also, for the course I’m TAing for now, I’ve told the professor that I’m interested in teaching, and that I’d like more responsibility in course design elements – and he’s letting me design the active learning activities for discussions now! I’ve also been playing around with making an intro biology course in my free time for a while (as in writing learning objectives, making slides, etc), and he’s offered to review my learning objectives and lesson plans for that too, if he has time, to give me feedback!
Speaking of which, someone asked me what I liked the most about teaching in the comments section – though I do absolutely love my students, and seeing them grow, I think my favorite part is the course design. I love creating a logical flow of information, I love when I make something as complicated as Bio clear and goal-based, I love seeing my students’ eyes light up when they realize that they know what they’re expected to learn, I love when the way I explain something just clicks, and finally a student understands why they’ve been asked to learn something, and how they can grow on their terms, get the skills they want, and that I’ve managed to help them on their journey. This, combined with some other elements from observations and interviews, tells me that K-12 teaching isn’t for me, as the curriculum is often dictated to you, instead of being in your control. But making goals, being organized, and clear communication are also very transferable skills – more evidence that there’s such a wider world out there for me than I realized!
Many in the comments also mentioned that mastering out is not failure, and I wanted to thank you all so, so much for that as well, because that is not the message I am getting from coworkers and friends. There’s very much a vibe of “we were all fighting the same war, now you’re abandoning us to go surrender to the enemy?!” and one of my work friends has decided to make it his mission to get me to stay no matter what (I don’t know why – we’re not in the same lab – I guess he just thinks I’m making a horrible mistake?). My family is also … not pleased, shall we say. Someone pointed out that I’m rather blind to the world outside academia, and that is more true than you know – nobody in my family has below a masters. No one. When I started reading Alison’s column, I was astonished that there were people who got jobs with just a bachelor’s, because everything I’d been taught said that the only point in getting a bachelor’s was to get a master’s, that anyone who stops at a bachelor’s is doomed to failure. Even though I am getting a master’s, it’s not viewed the same way – I know I have a few uncles who went to get a PhD, and when they mastered out, they stopped being invited to family events, which I don’t want to happen to me. My niblings are mostly matter-of-fact about it, but my parents are very visibly disappointed with my decision, and with the holidays coming up, there’s going to be a lot of dodge-the-conversation-topic with grandparents and cousins.
But I don’t care. If leaving this program can have this many people angry with me, and I’m still this light, and this happy, and this productive, then it’s more clear to me than ever that I’m doing the right thing. I have Internet strangers at my back, my bosses support me, I’m doing work I love, I’m supporting my students, my niblings have my back, and I’ve managed to respond to every comment and complaint from friends and family with confidence and enthusiasm. I don’t know what will happen next for me – maybe I’ll be unemployed for a year, maybe I’ll get a job at some company I’ve never heard of, or maybe I will be teaching as I wanted to be. But it’s my decision, and I get to decide to be free.
The post update: I’m miserable in my PhD program appeared first on Ask a Manager.
askamanager_feed) wrote2025-12-10 02:59 pmIt’s round 2 of the Worst Boss of 2025 voting. In the first round we narrowed the pool from eight nominees to four (see results here). The four winners from round one are paired off in two match-ups below, as we move closer to declaring a winner.
Voting is now closed. The results in this round were:
1. Repulsive Rivals – The Nominees:
2. A Loathsome Line-up – The Nominees:
The post vote for the worst boss of 2025: round 2 appeared first on Ask a Manager.
metafilter_feed) wrote2025-12-10 02:49 pm