boss gave me hush money, don’t want to participate in my office’s steps challenge, 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 five updates from past letter-writers.

1. My boss gave me thank-you money in secret, but it feels like hush money (#3 at the link)

I thought both pieces of advice were solid options and landed between the two. I spent considerable amount of time asking myself if I keeping the money would prevent me from functioning authentically in the future should I have issues. I decided it would not.

I chose to assign good intentions since I had no tangible reason not to although my “spidey senses” were still tingling. Not taking the money seemed it may create bigger issues. Things seemed fine, and he seemed very pleased I accepted it.

Fast forward six months to yesterday. Someone on the leadership team reached out to provide notification of their role change in the company, and provide a personal word of warning to watch my back with the seasonal employees. Additionally information provided me with the backdrop for why I was given such a large amount of secret thank you money.

Apparently one of the seasonal employees was jealous of me and operating behind the scenes to sabotage me and my role. Leadership became aware of this toxic situation and talked about it among themselves. However the key authority personnel (the Money Giver) willingly chose to not address it because it didn’t personally affect him. Arguments among leadership ensued, pressure was applied to support me in my leadership role with said staff and Money Giver turned a blind eye.

So- all the spidey-tingles I experienced that something was amiss behind the scene were correct. The first commenter to my post was also correct. The money wasn’t hush money. It was “I f’ed up money.” He gave it to me to make himself feel better. But that’s okay. I bought brakes for my car, I now know my discernment was sharp, that leadership here is a mess and same seasonal employees are coming back. Leadership displayed their values – which do not align with mine. I am now job searching to find a place that more closely aligns with my values. It’s still a win for me!

Thanks for the advice!

2. My boss told me to meet weekly with my coworker … but my coworker won’t do it

I took your advice and emailed Jim and pushed for in-person meetings, especially since our boss asked me to establish regular face-to-face time. Unfortunately, he didn’t respond. My attempts to catch him in person about this did not work out.

I went back to my boss one last time. She explained that while she can mandate meetings with Jim, she believes it would be punitive for her to require meetings between the two of us, and feels it would be better for Jim and me to resolve this together without her intervening. My boss also clarified that Jim’s preference for email isn’t personal but part of his standard approach. He likes to process conversations and reflect before responding. Side note: Earlier this year, Jim told our boss that he didn’t see the value in regular 1:1 meetings. Boss had to put in a lot of work to get him to agree to meet regularly with her!

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve had two communication issues where Jim expressed concerns through email, IM, or via my direct report instead of speaking to me directly. This has led to confusion and required me to initiate in-person conversations to clarify and resolve the issues. The second instance was particularly problematic, as he discussed his concerns with four other people during a meeting I wasn’t part of, including my direct report. He then messaged both my boss and me simultaneously about the issue without first talking to me. Both times this happened, I was completely surprised by his concerns and caught off-guard. This has been very frustrating.

I’m disappointed that my boss won’t require Jim to meet with me and that Jim hasn’t made communication easier. I still don’t understand why this has turned into such a “thing,” or why I am the one who is solely responsible for trying to better communicate with Jim. I hate to say it, but I am a youngish woman and he is an older man — I sincerely hope that our demographics have nothing to do with this, but who knows? Regardless, I sent him a final, direct request to meet bi-weekly, given the recent issues. I’m waiting for his response.

To address your question on verbosity: ironically, Jim is known for storytelling and lengthy explanations during meetings, so that label might suit him more than me — though I could be biased!

3. I don’t want to participate in my office’s steps challenge

I wrote in about how to manage a steps challenge at work when I was concerned about being pressured to participate. Your advice was spot on in helping to give me a breezy way to respond when two people did push me about signing up.

As is often the case for many who reach out for advice, I realized this one thing was a symptom of a larger culture issue. When I sat back to think about it, I realized I didn’t feel like I fit in with the office culture and didn’t like my work enough to keep trying to fit in. I decided to start job hunting and asked an old boss for help. He put me in touch with a friend of his who connected me with a company that did similar work but was a much better culture fit. Especially in this market, I was glad it was easy for me to quickly find another job that made me much happier.

4. Is it appropriate to want to be told when my manager won’t be in the office?

In the 10 years since this letter, my attitude toward my work and I think in general, Americans’ attitudes towards work and work location have really shifted. Speaking generally, I care less about where people are than if they do good work in a timely manner, and communicate appropriately.

For the specifics of the original question, I did take Alison’s advice that as long as things were getting done, then it had nothing to do with me. I remained in the role for several years, and looking back, I admire my manager for living her own life and also being a supportive boss, who has since been a reference several times.

Due to the nature of the field I’m in now, I’m likely to work for small (tiny) organizations in the future, though they won’t be family businesses. I think more years in the working world have helped me realize what is and what isn’t mine to care about.

5. Managers don’t know we can all read their private Slack channel

I wound up telling them that the Slack channel was open. I decided that they really needed to know. I told my acting manager who was one of the three in the channel. He started to cry. I received an apology from the chief of staff and the CEO thanked me for acting like a “grown-up.” My new manager didn’t understand my role and the leadership team continued to be toxic. I wound up playing my own personal game of survivor as everyone in my department started to leave one by one. It came down to me and one other woman. I left about a week before she did! I am now in a new position with a wonderful new boss. I appreciate everyone’s advice and continue to follow everyone’s stories on AAM!