Arduinna

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/10/my-abusive-former-boss-is-my-new-editor-can-you-use-pto-to-go-to-al-anon-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=33551

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

1. My abusive former boss is my new editor

A beloved editor at my job left in July. This week, their replacement started — and it is Jane, my abusive former boss from five years ago.

Needless to say, I was extremely taken aback (and grateful I was working from home). I have decided to just wait it out and document anything bad that happens should it happen (as you pointed out in another post that I read yesterday, five years is a long time and maybe they changed). Jane won’t be my boss but can assign work to me.

But I don’t know how to talk to my coworkers about it when they ask about us working together before. I don’t want to poison the well against this person before I have any real idea what she’s like now, but I also am not someone who likes to be dishonest with people! Do you have a diplomatic script I can lean on? And yes I am looking for a new job!

Oh, no. On one hand, it’s true that you don’t want to poison the well and the relationship may be different now that Jane isn’t your manager … and there’s a risk that whatever you say could get back to people who you didn’t intend to hear it … but on the other hand, you probably feel some loyalty to the colleagues who are asking you about what it was like to work with her (and rightly so). In general, I think it’s fair to say, “She was tough to work for, but it’s been five years and the culture here and the reporting relationships are different. I’m keeping an open mind.” (For coworkers you’re very close to, you might say more.)

Also, the details of her abusiveness matter. Someone who pressured you with unreasonable workload demands/unrealistic hours requires different treatment than someone who, say, was verbally abusive and screamed at people.

Also, if you have decent rapport with your current boss, you might confide in her about some of your previous experience. Make it clear that you’re keeping an open mind, but there are some managers with whom you absolutely could share the details of your previous experience with Jane and ask for their help navigating it if those issues come up again.

2. I could hear my coworkers critiquing my work while I did it

My workplace recently required everyone to return to on-site work after 5+ years of most people being remote.

I work in a large room with others and we interact — I take your inputs and make outputs for someone else, etc. We are under some time pressure in that we have a set number of tasks to accomplish each day, but our workday has a lot of margin in it to make sure we can get done what we need to. In six years of working here, we’ve never run over or missed a deadline. Going back to all working in the same room has been a bit of an adjustment.

One day recently, I was tasked with a fairly complex set of inputs. Due to the complexity, I asked for a little extra time, and that was granted. However, a few people were waiting for me to finish and standing nearby. Conversation soon turned to ways to improve on what I was doing and how they could do it more elegantly and faster and how they would definitely have been done by now. I couldn’t see them, but it sure sounded like some eyes were being rolled. This was really distracting, and frankly demoralizing, since their tones were fairly condescending and I was already feeling pressured. Frankly, it made me slow down even more and flustered me enough that I made a few minor errors we had to go back and address later. However, I know the people in question well enough to be nearly 100% certain they didn’t realize I could hear them when they were saying these things. I expect they just forgot, hey, they aren’t on Zoom anymore where they can DM their complaints and no one is the wiser.

Is this “don’t talk crap about your colleagues when they can hear you; we aren’t all on Zoom anymore” worth bringing up in our weekly tag-up? I don’t want to be working in a big room where people are badmouthing their colleagues audibly, but I also think it might be a one-off and I’m being overly sensitive and don’t need to make a big deal about it since it’s over and done with. If it matters, the people in question are my peers.

If we could go back in time, I’d say to speak up in the moment. Even just “Hey, y’all, those comments are not helping me finish this — could you take that somewhere else?” probably would have gotten the point across.

Now that it’s passed, though, I don’t think you need to raise it since it’s only happened once. If it happens again, speak up in the moment — and if it keeps happening, then maybe it’s something to raise with the group more broadly. But I bet just addressing it in the moment if there’s a second round of it will take care of it.

3. Can you use PTO to go to Al-Anon meetings?

Is it legit to take leave to go to Al-Anon? I’m not worried for myself (I work too much anyway) but I wonder if it counts as medical/sick leave.

Good question. You could argue it’s similar to therapy, which is a valid use of sick leave, but it’s also a peer support program rather than a medical treatment program run by healthcare professionals. It’s certainly a health-related activity, though.

I think it’s legitimate, personally, although you’d need to read your own workplace culture to know for sure.

Practically speaking, they also probably wouldn’t know, if you just referred to it as a therapy appointment. I wouldn’t do it weekly, but every once a while? I don’t think it’s a big deal.

4. “Dear Sir or Madam”

I’ve read your guidance on the issue of “Dear Sirs” and how it is obviously outdated. I am curious about your take on “Dear Sir or Madam.” Without going into boring and irrelevant detail, there are many occasions in my particular line of work where I have to address a letter to an entity and I really do not have a contact name. There are a few other areas where we’ve (officially or not) moved to using they/their instead of a gendered pronoun. Using “sir or madam” is, obviously, binary. Am I left with “To Whom it May Concern” or is there another option?

To be clear, this isn’t true “correspondence” where I’m anticipating that an actual human being will reply, but I would still like to know that I’m not ignoring the identity of the ultimate recipient.

“Dear Sir or Madam” is better than “Dear Sirs” for obvious reasons, but in most fields it’s still going to feel pretty antiquated and stuffy. Often you can use a job title or department name (“dear hiring manager” or “dear editorial board”) or even the company name (“dear Taco Town”). If none of those work, personally I prefer “to whom it may concern” over “dear sir or madam,” but at that point it’s personal taste (and maybe with a nod to conventions in your field).

The post my abusive former boss is my new editor, can you use PTO to go to Al-Anon, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2025/10/my-abusive-former-boss-is-my-new-editor-can-you-use-pto-to-go-to-al-anon-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=33551