doing a video training from bed, I can see an X-rated scene from my office window, and more — Ask a Manager

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.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

1. An employee showed up for a video training while lounging in bed and smoking

I appreciate that you took time to graciously answer my question, and I am grateful to the readers for their comments as well.

Since I am not “Wynn’s” manager, but do have some influence as a more senior person who provides training and limited supervision, I escalated my concerns to my manager, “Jim.” I did my best to be as fair as possible in my assessment since I did not know if there was an accommodation made for Wynn. Jim listened to me but did not comment on next steps beyond instructing me to let him know if I see anything else concerning. He later shared with me that Wynn is often unreliable, blaming their lateness on a variety of issues — alarm didn’t go off, car breaking down, repeated pet and family difficulties, etc. An additional major issue with Wynn rose to what I would consider a “put them on a PIP” offense and I was informed that Wynn got additional coaching from management about it. Jim seems to be at a point of frustration with Wynn over these issues and my concerns about the training session are less pressing than those.

I’m afraid I have no resolution to offer you or the readers yet. Wynn continues to arrive late at times and makes missteps in communication and job performance. However, beyond sharing my observations on the impact to our organization, I have no authority to make changes. It’s a management issue more than a “me” issue. Maybe Wynn is already on a PIP? It’s not in my job description to know and I am content with that.

My organization is looking to hire an additional manager to help with quality and ongoing training. If Wynn works with this new manager, maybe they will make the changes and growth needed. I hope that Wynn improves and can thrive at our organization. I will keep you posted.

I am very thankful to you and the wisdom you’ve shared in your blog. Your tips on resumes and cover letters helped me get the job that I am in now. It is a perfect blending of the two very different fields I have worked in and, despite the issues that prompted me to write in, I am happy in my work. You have made an impact on many people!

Yours,
“I haven’t seen a mattress recently!”

2. Can we tell clients work didn’t get done because our old manager sucked? (#4 at the link)

Firstly, I’m grateful your commenters for pointing out that I was looking for the wrong thing. I wanted accountability so much because in my previous workplace — where I am now is basically okay, the previous place was a hellscape — featured a boss who could not be trusted about anything, and I think I’m still getting over his nonsense even eight years later! (If I’d known about AAM when I was working at that place, he would have been the source of seven or eight letters on his own.)

Zephaniah is not fondly remembered except by a few clients for his “easy-going” attitude. We’ve largely repaired the damage he caused and things are under control, though this is entirely from what we did on the ground to fix things. We’ve also had a change in leadership — big boss decided to retire early and the board chose not to give demi-boss her role so he moved on as well. It’s still too early to really say what the new big boss is like but a lot of the resentment stemming from former big boss’s management style is gone. I did have one conversation with my division lead where he outright admitted that the leadership chose to manage Zephaniah out rather than actively handle his incompetence directly because “that’s how you fire people here” (it’s not). So while we never got a steer from management about what to do about Zephaniah’s legacy, at least that legacy is fading fast.

The three things that have most helped my morale are, first, I took advantage of our health plan’s therapy sessions and realized I can be more relaxed about my own situation, so I’m feeling a lot more secure now; second, I’m now shomer shabbat, and having one day a week where I make sure to disconnect from work completely has done wonders for my mental health; and third, I got onto the work DEIJ committee which under new big boss is a paid responsibility. So I have a concrete, constructive way to hold leadership accountable and improve our practices. I’m doing about the same amount of work, but I feel a lot better that my “above and beyond” goes to improve accessibility for colleagues and clients rather than doing damage control.

3. I can see someone having sex from my office window (#2 at the link)

As these things are wont to do, it worked itself out. The couple who were in that apartment moved and it has been taken over by someone who instead appears to spend literally the whole day working out, which feels like a much lower risk situation to be happening when I’m chatting with my manager!

The advice in the comments tended to be a little more … aggressive than I was hoping for. A few people suggested I go and talk to the building concierge, try and track down the apartment myself, or even call the police (?!) which felt a little extreme! I did appreciate the suggestion for stained glass window hangings to put up in strategic locations, and might track some down just for the decoration.

4. My employee never remembers to save things on our shared drive, no matter how many reminders she gets

You and the commenters were completely right — my issue wasn’t really with the shared drive. But putting everything in there first had created a lot of visibility for her work and I was finding more errors than before, I was cleaning up after her more often and was just generally disappointed with her and her work. Instead of talking to her about it though, and providing clear expectations, I got frustrated and became a bad manager. I’m not sure how much of that was coming through my letter, but I didn’t like how I was handling my frustration with her. Just being short and unkind. It wasn’t who I like to be as a manager. A bit after I wrote in, but before you published my letter. My manager came to tell me that Ashley had come to him and was complaining about me. I wish she’d come to me with it, but since I was being equally bad at communication, I can’t really blame her for that.

My manager and I talked, and we realized that I needed to fix my relationship with Ashley, first. I was never going to address the issues with her work if I couldn’t have an honest conversation with her. So I took her to coffee and we had a heart-to-heart. I apologized for how I was communicating and gave her a clear list of expectations I had for her work. She apologized for how she was hiding when she messed up, how annoyance at me was making her even worse at remembering to do things, and promised to hit her daily tasks every day or at least ask for help when something was preventing her. We both agreed to communicate better and to not leave things in chat that should be talked about face to face.

It was really good! It turns out that Ashley is the kind of person that needs extremely clear expectations. She can’t proactively see what needs to be done for the day, or what’s the best thing to prioritize. Which is fine, that’s what I’m here for, it was just so different than how the rest of my team operates, it made it hard to see I guess. I won’t say everything is perfect. Ashley does no more than what’s on her expectation list, even if we are very busy and there is clearly more work to do. She still makes mistakes and I still have to check in and on her more frequently than anyone else. She still forgets to put things in the shared drive sometimes. But, we can talk about it now. And I believe that makes both our work lives better.