Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/updates-the-wall-of-shame-the-performance-review-restrictions-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=35180

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 office has a wall of shame with the names of people who are late or out sick

We had a Very Ballsy coworker bring it up in a staff meeting, demanding to know whether they preferred we infect all the people, children, and families we worked with every day in order to avoid being shamed for our own illness. (Yes, this was a preschool/daycare.) She also pointedly asked why *management* who called out sick or were otherwise not present were not included on the list.

They did the very performative “oh, we had no idea you felt that way, that’s not how we meant it AT ALL” and then got rid of the list. But I did overhear them grumbling in the office later that “it worked, though.” They wanted staff to be mad at each other for being over our child:teacher ratios, instead of complaining to management.

I’ve since changed careers, and while I’m still hourly, nobody shames me for taking a sick day anymore.

2. I can only rate one person on my team “exceptional” no matter how well they do

I took your advice to heart and started changing how I spoke about the ratings. My team doesn’t love the idea of forced ranking, but understands why there’s some limits. Handling the discussions at the start of the ratings period helped with the introduction, since it wasn’t tied to any negative feedback, and all in all it went well. In the meantime, my manager retired, and my team was assigned to a different supervisor, Lainey, with direction to grow our focus. My team is super excited because Lainey is setting up a lot of opportunities that are interesting to them and may even lead to promotions down the road. The excitement definitely helps drive motivation within the team. Finally, as I started writing this update, word came down that our ratings system was being adjusted and the new system will have a wider range of ratings, so there’s a good deal more nuance I can apply to my scoring.

I’m still frustrated that I can’t formally reward all of the passion and expertise that my seasoned crew brings to their work, but I’m happy that I was able to navigate them to a new understanding without destroying the trust we’ve built together over the years. Thank you for the assist in how to give my team the transparency they deserve.

3. I feel guilty about getting my coworker’s job after they were let go (#4 at the link)

I have a teeny tiny update to my question about getting taking a coworker’s job after they were let go.

After getting into the meat of their job and realizing how backed up they were, I uh, I get it now.

4. I don’t want to collect students’ dues anymore (#5 at the link)

A big thank you to Alison and all of the commenters for all of the advice. Looking back to when I wrote in, there was a lot of other stuff/drama that was feeding into my problem. All of the faculty in my department have very big feelings, and my supervisor and department were not on good terms with one another. My problem became another part of that. After a lot of back and forth between several offices, our business office was able to find a solution that theoretically will work. I say theoretically because we’ll try it out for the first time next semester. But, I’m optimistic it will work and I won’t have to handle any cash besides my own. I’m calling this a win.

This experience has also shown me how much I let myself get mired down in office drama. I’m working on trying to pull back from all of that right now. I also think it’s time to start looking for new opportunities.

Thanks again for Alison and everyone’s help!

The post updates: the wall of shame, the performance review restrictions, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/updates-the-wall-of-shame-the-performance-review-restrictions-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=35180

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