u/baesoonist

Two years ago when I started living on my own, I got 100 custom matchbooks for under $30 on efavormart. They said “stolen from [my name]’s apartment” with a cute champagne icon, and have been a huge hit. I host regular parties and guests will take them. I’ll go to my friends apartments and see them littered around by their candles and it’s nice to know I’ve given them a piece of my home that is useful and gives them a fun reminder of the time we’ve had together.

Flash forward to now, I want to make updated favors for my partner and I’s combined home, and efavormart doesn’t seem to do matchbooks anymore. Most vendors are charging almost a full dollar per matchbook, so an order of 100 would run me at least a hundred dollars. I know inflation has gone up, but triple the price in 2 years is unexpected.

What are other evergreen and affordable favors besides matchbooks to keep in my home for guests? Something that can potentially carry between multiple addresses in case we move to a different apartment before we run out.

26. Manager level role. <100 person nonprofit.

I genuinely didn’t know this was possible. A few years ago at a different organization, I was given a PIP after using short term disability and was offered a severance package to buy my departure without hassle. I assumed all PIPs, based on my own experience and that of others, was a formality and a coverup for firing someone.

This came up during my annual performance review and cited a few things: a mix of “yeah I could’ve done better” points and me getting thrown under the bus for things leaders above me did. Considering the things I’ve seen other people get away with, I think this was largely the result of disappointing the wrong people at the wrong times. I was given 30 days to fix up or I’d be hitting the road.

How I got through it:

-Was incredibly clear with my manager, who I was lucky did have my back, that I was committed to doing well if it could be overcome, and that if it was a formality, she should just tell me so I could put my energy into a job search. She told me this wasn’t a formality and that the result would in fact be up to me and how much effort I put in. I stressed to her that I’d be merging lives with my partner soon and signing a lease and did not want to do that if I didn’t stand a chance. She told me to have fun looking for apartments, but that she would only stand up for me if I did what I needed to.

-I documented EVERYTHING. CC’ed and BCC’ed my manager on so many things. Made a spreadsheet with every task/project I completed with the time completed, recipients, and links. Specified if my manager was CC’ed on it, and if she wasn’t, why (like if it was a Teams message, in person conversation she wasn’t part of, etc). Wrote down “Followed up with x person about y thing” “Followed up again with x person about y thing” to implicitly tell the story of stakeholders that needed constant reminders and were sometimes dropping the ball- including my own manager. This turned into a ~200 row spreadsheet that was fueled by a desire for malicious compliance and became a good tool for showing my leaders what I was doing. I’d bring it up in 1:1s and ask if they had feedback, which forced them to look at the proof I was not only doing what I needed to, but that I was being thorough about it.

-Met with my manager often (2 times a week usually) and asked for explicit feedback. Asked her to describe things I was doing well and anything I needed to improve on.

-Started working more closely with my project leaders on my tasks, making it clear I cared about their input and wanted to be doing right by them. Made sure every draft was signed off on before finishing. Let the micromanagers micromanage me.

-Took initiative on some things: coordinated sending a gift to someone at another organization that needed recognition, sent new resources around, improved processes on my teams and just handed them over like “here’s me demonstrating my value”.

-Did LinkedIn learning courses and sent a write up to my manager tying the courses I did to the improvement goals set forth in my PIP.

-Worked office politics a bit. Dressed a bit nicer. Left a bit later. Helped a colleague get moving boxes. Went out to lunch with people more. Complimented people’s outfits. Brought food into the office. Created good will for myself outside of my project performance.

-Asked colleagues to send in positive feedback about me. If a colleague said they liked something I did, I asked them to send a note over to my manager. I would also send that feedback over directly to my manager in case they forgot. “Hey manager, I just got this feedback from Stakeholder A. Just wanted to let you know!”. At least one of those pieces of feedback were cited back to me today in closing out the PIP.

Was I stressed the whole time? Yeah. Did I submit some applications elsewhere? Yeah. Am I still submitting applications elsewhere? Yeah, just in case there’s a place with a better position, better perks, whatever it might be. But I did get through it. And I wanted to share that while I think this is a rare win, it is helpful that there’s a win at all.

Happy to answer questions.