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 three updates from past letter-writers.
1. Coworker sees herself as a mother figure
Thank you times a million for your help! I talked to her today and it went very well. She apologized for making me uncomfortable, and said she’d make a big effort not to offer any other advice or to “act like a mom” around me. Thank you again for your response!
2. Coworker cooks fish at work — and the smell makes me vomit
I’m happy to say that the offender has not yet cooked it since! I posted in some comments on the original post that I found out after the fact that someone else who also hates fish gave them some tough love after our interaction and apparently it sunk in. Very pleased with that outcome. The offender seems to be fine if not even a little nicer in general as well. No idea why, but I’m not complaining!
As far as your other advice, well, I have been taking a long hard look at my company’s culture. We have a monthly internal survey program that is actually taken seriously by upper management, so I have been more frank in my comments in the surveys and have told my closer work friends to do the same, whether they are is up to them.
The saying goes be the change you wish to see and after your post I decided to finally put in for a desk move due to a minor annoyance that always irked me about my location that I was too scared to request in the past. I was right next to a conference room so I dealt with a lot of groups loudly congregating as they waited for the room to open up. I lead and participate in dozens of conference calls weekly and the people waiting could get loud and distracting when I was trying to lead a call.
I moved last week and some people have asked why (as it was only 2 desks away behind my original) and I just say “that location was a bit loud for leading calls due to people waiting for the conference room, so I requested a move”. Most people have said “oh yeah that makes sense.” So far the worst response was “must be nice to get what you want”. And I just smiled and said “well the view certainly is better!” as I now face outwards instead of inwards.
3. My employee can’t accept that his performance is bad
Thank you so much for publishing my letter and a huge thanks to everyone who commented. Your response gave me some additional phrasing to try with Benedict but also prompted me to reflect whether I truly had been as clear as possible – and I think I was by the time I wrote in to you, but probably I hadn’t been at the start. A learning process for me as well!
Ultimately the process played out to ALMOST the very end, with Benedict resigning the day I was to submit my final report. While the PIP paperwork will stay on our files here, he did manage to secure another role and leave us without being let go. We work in a smallish industry and I’ve heard he is doing well in the new role where he is more a subject specialist and doesn’t have staffing responsibilities.
The 6 months of process took a huge toll on me but I came out the other side stronger, more resilient, and with a whole lot more tools than I went into it. The downside is that I’m about to launch into a similar process with another staff member. This time there are fewer complicating factors and I feel better equipped to manage it.
The best thing from writing in was to hear that I wasn’t alone. The comments from everyone else reassured me that I wasn’t going crazy (is it possible to gaslight yourself??!), and just knowing that other people had been through similar experiences and survived gave me a boost to keep going, so thank you so much to you all!
Update to the update:
Since I sent the update email, I’ve now gone through another performance management process with a different employee and they’ve now recently left our organization. I’ve learned so much from both of these situations, to the point that a few senior staff have jokingly asked if I’ll hire myself out to work on their staff. Fortunately now I have a great team and at last I can focus on helping the high performers really excel instead of hoping they cope while I spend months dealing with process and poor performance. I’ve continued to read the website and love the varied perspectives that people bring to the comments in particular.
updates: the mothering coworker, the fish microwaver, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.
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