Posted by Ask a Manager
https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/updates-the-flirting-supervisor-boss-keeps-calling-me-his-assistant-and-more.html
https://www.askamanager.org/?p=35175
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. Supervisor is flirting with my wife
Well, the update is that I did have a conversation with my wife after several conversations before. The last one, I told her that the supervisor’s behavior towards her and her reactions to that behavior would be the end of us. She had a last conversation with him where he told her that he didn’t mean any disrespect, which I thought was bull but whatever.
Eventually I saw less and less interaction on camera but I still drove myself crazy wondering what was happening in places I couldn’t see. .. but I must have prayed to the right gods because he ended up putting in his two weeks and leaving back to his country. My wife and I haven’t had any arguments since this departure.
2. My boss keeps calling me his assistant (I’m not)
I’m glad I wrote in, as some reorganization meant we’re working with some new departments where introductions were needed – and I was again copied in on an email as referred to as “my assistant.” Your wording, and commenter suggestions, were so helpful in making me feel comfortable and confident addressing it – I replied asking him to use “deputy” or “colleague” in future, and referenced that especially in our organization it can cause some awkward or troublesome confusion as well. He apologized and said he would going forward – while he can be forgetful, I’m much more confident in correcting him if it happens again!
I also want to thank you for your note about the importance of assistants. I started in my current organization in a few different assistant roles so I know firsthand how vital they are, and now rely so much on several people in assistant roles! My concern was partially the gender dynamics at play; and partially that a large function of my job requires people to know they HAVE to come to me for certain things, which would not be a part of assistant roles at this org, so I was worried about confusion the particular intro would cause. But this place and every place I’ve worked would fall apart without assistants busting their butts off every day.
3. My boss keeps using WhatsApp, Signal, and texts to contact me (#4 at the link)
My update is a mixed bag. I didn’t follow your advice to talk to my boss immediately, as my field and employer were swept up in all the nasty fallout from this administration and the prospect of staying employed for all of us was precarious. It also wasn’t so easy to say I wasn’t on the apps because I wound up having to monitor them for updates that would affect our work (lots of group chats that my boss was also in with external partners to share intel on prospects of our govt funding agency collapsing, all the legal battles, etc.). But I did take your advice to just respond less quickly.
A few weeks after I wrote, we were all laid off. For context my “organization” is nestled within a larger institution so technically the parent org HR and legal call the shots, but our team has its very own weird culture. It made me laugh that a lot of commenters were asking about organizational policies, etc. when my workplace was such a Wild West.
Some of us got rehired, but my rehiring in particular had a technical glitch and was in limbo for some time. My boss didn’t have power in this scenario but also handled things pretty poorly — didn’t think to do any contingency planning for my absence, didn’t say anything when my layoff date came and went … only the next day she texted me to see if my work email still worked. When I responded that I wouldn’t be checking email as I was no longer employed, all she said was, “At least your email still works!” I wound up eventually getting reinstated shortly before my parental leave, and did mention to my boss that email was my preferred channel. She mostly respected that (she did say she’d text me important project news while I was out, though fortunately so far hasn’t). Of course HR screwed up paperwork for my leave and I wound up having to spend the first four weeks in back and forth with them to sort things.
I’m pretty bitter about how leadership incl my boss has handled everything, and my role has changed so much and many of the colleagues that attracted me in the first place to this job are gone. So I’m hoping not to return to this job, but with the field more than decimated it may be that beggars can’t be choosers.
In the meantime, I’m enjoying my wonderful baby and far prefer the sleepless nights to having my blood pressure raised by a crappy work situation where the boss texting me at 8 pm on a Friday is just the icing on the cake.
4. Our boss is MIA (#2 at the link)
Shortly after I wrote you, things turned around and our executive director started to schedule regular check-ins again and acknowledged that she had been struggling with her mental and physical health. I do think this had to do with the board finding out how bad things had gotten. There’s definitely still some resentment and broken trust with the team, but we have gotten back on track with most aspects of our work.
I ended up moving to a new state for unrelated reasons and am still working for the organization remotely. I would really like to leave and find a new job, but I have not had any luck so far. I am grateful for their flexibility in keeping me on but I also feel very stuck and stagnant in this role, especially after some of those frustrating experiences.
The post updates: the flirting supervisor, boss keeps calling me his assistant, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.
https://www.askamanager.org/2025/12/updates-the-flirting-supervisor-boss-keeps-calling-me-his-assistant-and-more.html
https://www.askamanager.org/?p=35175
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sdwolfpup) wrote2025-12-05 05:33 pm
![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
