should I tell an employee I had a dream predicting his death? — 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.

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

In 2018, I printed a letter from someone asking whether they should tell an employee about a dream predicting he would die on September 25, 2024 (#3 at the link). They promised to update us after that date, and many of you wrote to me on September 26, 2024 asking if I’d heard back. Here’s the update.

A promise is a promise!

I’d only been working at that job a few months when I wrote in! As far as I know, my former employee is very much alive and even asked me for a reference a few months ago. He was a mostly good employee, but had been promoted too fast and fell into the classic trap of thinking there’s a level of seniority or management that exists where you no longer have to work to build consensus with stakeholders and can just do whatever you like. He eventually left for another job, which he then left to run his own company, which went under after three months. He’s at another company and unhappy enough to be looking for his next big thing. I left the job where I managed him in early 2021, so if I’m the most recent reference he thinks might have something positive to say … well, he might not have died in 2024, but the jury’s still out on his career.

P.S. Thanks to you for telling me not to say anything, and to the commenters for asking what the hell was wrong with me. Later that year, I was diagnosed as autistic! Not something I consider to be WRONG with me, per se, but definitely explains why I didn’t see an issue with wanting to tell him (and to this day, I would prefer someone tell me if they had the same dream!). I’m in a new job with a boss who loves my direct and strategically-minded demeanor, and I have gotten better at knowing when not to say something — although I now have good friends both at work and outside work who will tell me when I can’t say something.