r/askmanagers

In many teams, one individual gradually emerges as the default go-to person for everything, not because it is his/her job, but simply because he/she is faster or knows more.

Initially, this helps speed things up, but over time it leads to constant interruptions for that person, uneven workload, and even a kind of single-point-of-failure situation.

This issue has started to interest me in relation to the transfer of internal knowledge. Even the tools like Honen are attempting to organize company knowledge in such a way as to not rely solely on the “one person” method, but I am not sure how much of it is actually technology and how much is teamwork.

Before my prior boss moved to a new department, we had a 30 minute social gathering one morning a week during work hours. We did this because we all work from home and very few of us have ever met in person. The meetings were optional.

This boss was not very aware of professional boundaries. She hired local friends, and when things would break at her house, she would ask her direct Reports to do the repair at no cost. Even on weekends.

Now that she works for another department, she is continuing the weekly meeting with her former team. This includes people that left the department over year ago.
About 10 people are invited and current management does not know she’s doing this. I feel very uncomfortable.
I’d like advice on what to do. So far, I have left the gathering on my calendar, but not attended. Should I remove it from my calendar? Do I need to advise current management?

TLDR: Former manager socializing weekly on the clock with prior direct reports. (Remote work). Do I decline? Talk to her? Just not attend? Remove from calendar so I’m not implicated?

Hi all,

I'm a slightly new manager. I have an individual on my team who, during any process, asks multiple questions along the way. They have worked the same job for a little over 4 years, are the senior on the team (promotion occurred before I became the mgr) and our work is extremely straightforward.

I wouldn't even say it's confusion, it's just wanting every move to be signed off on. There was a point where they were editing an internal document and the copy provided by someone else had a very obvious typo where it could only mean that one word. "It says xxxx, do you think they meant to say xxxx?"

I am happy to answer questions but it gets to a point, especially when it is over very, very minor things that they should be able to operate through on their own at their level. I have tried the guidance that I've seen on here — asking "well what do you think?" or directing them to previous guidance but regardless, the question asking for stuff they should know continues. I'm not even sure if there's a solution here. My manager suggests it is a personality thing and we can only do so much. Has anyone else had an employee like this?

Hi guys, I wanted to come on here and get a manager’s perspective on this.

I’ve been in my team for under a year, and I’ve cried in front of my manager twice now. I’m worried about how this might come across.

The first time was after I came back from holiday and found out my grandpa had died. I was also really burnt out at the time, although I didn’t tell my manager that part. I bumped into them in the toilet and they asked me a few times if I was okay, and I ended up breaking down crying. They were really kind about it, told me about times they’d cried at work too, hugged me, and told me to go downstairs and take some time away from my desk. After that, I was fine.

The second time was today. Yesterday, I told my manager I’d continue some work from home because my commute is around two hours and it was already 5:30pm. Long story short, because of cancelled trains I didn’t get home until 8:30pm, but I still logged on and tried to finish the work. I didn’t manage to finish it, so I left a note on the file explaining where I’d got to and then went to bed.

The next day, my manager spoke to me about it and basically said that I’m working really hard, but I don’t need to be logging on at 8pm after a long commute, especially when train cancellations are out of my control. They said they trust me to do the work when I can.

They were being really kind and reassuring, but I started getting teary eyed because I already have a lot of feelings around not doing enough (i’m a junior atm). Another factor is that my parents are travelling tomorrow to attend my grandpa’s funeral in another country, in a town that is recently under terrorist attacks, so I’m also quite anxious about that. I didn’t tell my manager the later details though.

As I felt teary eyed already, this time, I excused myself to the bathroom, tried to get all the crying out, and then went to sit in a more private area on my floor. My manager saw sit down me and came to meet me and said, “let’s go on a walk.” I started crying again, but I only said I was overwhelmed. They comforted me again and then I went outside for a bit on my own then got back to work feeling fine and presenting my usual self.

They also sent me messages saying things like “we are here for you” and let the person I had a meeting with next know that I might not join because I was out taking a breather and was quite tired. The two instances were 3 months apart.

I’m just wondering: if you were my manager, and all you knew was that the first time I cried because my grandpa had died, and the second time I said I was overwhelmed, what would your perspective be?

Would you see this as concerning/unprofessional?

Maybe just me but I find it rather unsightly to see a few days stubble on someone.

I'll judge them as either lazy or someone who doesn't talk to anyone on video all day.

Exactly that! I, for the most part have and still do respect him...for now. This is a tricky situation because it's office gossip to the point where favoritism and possibly an affair is affecting how others react and respond to him. Myself included. I won't say where this is but to point out that it's of HIGH moral standing and the people SHOULDNT be acting in this way is putting it lightly. He is letting this woman get away with murder and treat the employees under her with favoritism and to bully and not accomplish work and he covers it up. The entire company thinks there's an affair going on. I see it, everyone sees it. I'll say that I do not I think work in that department but see it as plain as day. Here's my dilemma with it. I also am directly under him. I too am a decent looking woman (there's a point). That being said i have just worked here just over a year and I notice he's close to me too. I noticed last year sometime the 'extra' attention. Nothing out of line. Although I've felt like I've definitely kept him at arms length. Here's the kicker and I hate this...he's really religious. It just sucks. I won't go on about that im cause I'm disappointed more as a Christian myself. But as a newer person I feel like the PERCEPTION people have now of me, is one where they lump me in with her. Freaking eww!!! My pet name is 'frumpty-dumpty". Wearing bright white socks with heels....girl....

Managers.....why?! What could (besides the obvious) could make you jeopardize a high level career, your marriage and all the respect you command?!?!

I'm offended because people clump me in with that and it's harder to take him seriously if he can be lead so simply.

Make no mistake, that is 100% a simpleton thing to do. Get lead around by your dick..how do I maintain respect?

not necessarily talking about intepersonal team issues or surge of workload, but more of "bad days" where you make mistakes and not really performing 100 percent of your productivity capabilities.

For example, had a meeting today with the team regarding some of our products. the meeting took too long, and was spent more of clarifying objectives than actually going to the meat of the agenda. and one of my staff who put this very well was that the meeting was a waste of time because we didnt go through the agenda. she hit it nail in the head! i knew it wasnt going well, and i knew why - didnt make it clear enough to set the goals right from the beginning, so everyone knew what to expect. and i thought to myself, why did i make that mistake? i knew from the get go you set every goal/objective and make sure to stick everything right there; meetings shouldnt exceed more than an hour and if u do something is definitely wrong etc. definitely today was a fail on that regard, and i dont want that to happen again because it impacts the team.

when I was IC it was easier to manage the mistakes because it was contaibed and is part of the job learning process. but as manager youre not expected to do those things, and if u do, more people do get affected.

so in times like these, how do you manage your "bad days"?

I own a small cafe and today, one of my employees came in on her day off after one of her friends (a regular customer) called her while she was there and asked her to meet. My employee came in with food from another establishment, went to her friend to chat for a minute then proceeded to the bathroom. Her friend followed about 30 seconds later. I saw none of this happening because I was busy cooking on the line. They were in the bathroom in the same stall for about 6 minutes. I had gone in to use the bathroom and was in there for about a minute, walked out of the stall and washed my hands. As I was washing I realized there were 2 voices in the other stall at which point one person said "are you almost done?" I thought it was a mom and kid at first until the stall door opened and out came my employee and her friend, acting nervous. My employee said "hi" to which I responded "that was really weird" and her friend looked horrified. Then they left right after me. The entire thing was shady AF.

My question is, how do I handle this? I did text my employee that I don't know what was happening in that stall but it cannot happen again. Obviously I didn't actually *see* anything nefarious because they were in the stall together but the entire thing was bizarre and would have made anyone uncomfortable who happened to be there. The friend works with kids locally at an after school program (she was in uniform) so I called her manager to let them know about her bizarre behavior considering she works with kids and my kids are part of that program.

Background: the employee is often late to work, calls out a lot and has actually passed out while on the clock due to not eating breakfast. Her employment has been on the chopping block for a while now. I trust her even less after this weird behavior.

Managers

What’s the biggest thing that slips through the cracks because info is scattered across meetings, Slack, docs, sheets, emails, etc.?

Has it ever caused delayed decision, client issues, or even loss of a project/customer costing the company a lot?

Would love real experiences.

NOTE: If you have seen my reddit name before in a similar post, its probably because I was asking for advice DURING my name-change process. I am now asking AFTER this process because my anxiety is going crazy.

I recently got a great new engineering job with a new company and quit my current startup job. I am starting at the beginning of July. I am an engineer.

Over 8 years ago, I got a DUI with 2 of my 17yo friends (I was 19) and my 20yo friend in the car, so they tacked on "endangering the welfare of a minor" charge. Of course the local news picked this up and put my giant mugshot on the front page with that as the headline. It is NOT one of the first things that pops up when you search my name (its on page 3 or so of google results), but if you go to google images you will see my mugshot near the top, or if you google "my name + arrest" its of course the first thing that pops up. Ultimately the endangering welfare charge was dropped and I only got a DUI on my record. Since then I've been completely sober, got a BSE, an MEng, and worked at a startup as an engineer for almost 4 years.

EDIT: I have tried multiple expensive removal services, a lawyer, and emailing/sending a letter to the editors (and even the governor). The news org has a policy to not remove or de-index any article that was accurate at the time and won't remove it under any circumstance.

I passed the background check of my new job thru HR (the DUI did show up, but they didn't care and didn't even ask about it), and I ultimately decided to do a name-change in the last few weeks because this signifies a new point in my life - I have an actual job with a large company, its been over 7 years since the charge, and I really don't want that information findable in an organization with 8000+ employees when I want to move up/socialize at the company. I also don't think anyone would hire or respect an upper-level manager with that type of article on google about them. Also, having that personal burden of that always being findable with my legal name was killing me over the past 7+ years. There was no question in my mind that this was the right decision for me.

My current manager interviewed and hired me with my old last name, and the executive assistant also knew me and has been communicating with my old email with my old last name. HR has already accepted the name change documentation and has changed my legal name in the system for onboarding with no questions.

This question is for managers/hiring managers - if this situation happened with a new employee, would you get "suspicious" and do your own investigating? Could finding that article lead to my termination? I am getting married soon so my "excuse" is that I want to change my name before marriage, which is what I will tell them if they ask (and nothing more). Any feedback is appreciated, thanks!

I'm conducting independent research on manager preparation and the "honeymoon period", specifically, what (if any) training new managers get and when doubt first sets in.

If you've been promoted to a manager role, I'd love to know:

1. Did you receive any formal training before or after your promotion? (yes/no)

2. If yes: What type? (leadership course, mentorship, internal program, external cert, etc.) and how long? (days/weeks/months)

3. How many months after becoming a manager did you first think "I'm not sure I want this" or "I don't know what I'm doing"? (even if the feeling passed)

4. Do you think the training (or lack of it) affected when that doubt hit?

No judgment, genuinely trying to map patterns between preparation and manager confidence. I'll share aggregate results in 30 days.

I've been in my current role for about two years. I took it because it was a scope step-up - started with six direct reports, now at three due to structural changes and their performance issue, not because of any other reason. Until January this year, I had consistently strong feedback from my manager, near-perfect scores, and a clear path to promotion. Then a reorg happened, and things have shifted in ways I can't fully explain.

Here's what I'm seeing:

Scope that was promised hasn't materialised, and I haven't been given clear reasoning. My promotion path, which was explicitly on the table in January, is no longer being discussed. My manager's tone has changed - feedback is inconsistent day to day, the strategy changes, and when I go back with what they said two days earlier, they make it my problem that they forgot. It's hard to push back on because it's delivered in a way that sounds reasonable on the surface.

I've also been navigating a DR situation that I think is now entangled in this dynamic. My manager had been pushing me to promote this person in 2025, I was pushing back because while they're talented, they've required significant handholding and I've had to step in more than I should have had to. My manager agreed with my assessment through every conversation, gave strict feedback about this DR as recently as this cycle, and now seems to have done a 180 after one conversation. The DR did improve but not in a way that warrants the shift I'm seeing. I genuinely can't tell if the turnaround is being framed as a credit to my coaching or as a signal that I wasn't recognising talent. This person has also received xfn feedback that is negative.

The net of it: I've been deferential, I've let my team's success speak for itself, and I'm realising that in this environment that approach has left me exposed. Thankfully I have documentation of how much hand holding I do every day, but I've been slow to manage upward, and I now feel like I'm in a position where a case could be being built against me - even if that's not what's happening.

I'm not in crisis mode. But I want to be strategic about what I do next rather than reactive. I'd really value someone's perspective on how you'd play this.

One thing I didn’t fully appreciate before becoming a manager is how much of the job is just being the middle layer for everything.

At an associate level, you’re mostly focused on your own work. but at senior level, you start owning chunks of the file. At manager level, you’re responsible for everything flowing between people who are all working on different timelines with different levels of context and different definitions of doing the work. Nothing really moves in a straight line anymore.

When a client asks a question, it’s you who translate it for the team…junior finishes something,  you translate it for the senior and senior reviews something…you translate it back for the client. When a partner wants an update…you compress everything into something that sounds simple enough to be reassuring.

And half the time you’re not even changing the substance. You sit down framing so the next person can process it without confusion and man there’s hell lot of repetition in that.

Busy season makes it even more obvious and everything speeds up, but communication just gets more compressed with more emails and shorter deadlines, with faster follow-ups. And the strange part is that this is the job.

Overall, a big part of my job is honestly just making sure things don’t get lost as they move from one person to another. What’s it for you?

I was manager-less for the first 6 months of my job. When the new CFO joined he immediately hired an FC. Between the time the new CFO started and the new FC started, I got fairly close with the CFO and earned his trust (or at least I thought).

New FC has been here for the last 2 months now. In that time, I’ve behaved badly.

To give some background, I moved someone great into managing a function before FC arrived, but as soon as FC got here they wanted a new person in to do it instead and for them to oversee it instead of me. The FC wants me not to have a relationship with the CFO and the new hire who was to report into me now is going to report into them. So, as you can see, I’ve been massively disrespected in a short amount of time.

Because of this, I’ve complained constantly about not wanting to be managed to my CFO and wrote an essay to his personal number saying how miserable I am. Which he responded to with “we will talk during work hours”. When the CFO told me my person wouldn’t be managing the function, I was incredibly angry and even said “you’ve shat on me and shat on my person”. He said he was shocked at how badly I acted.

We had an hour long conversation about how I need to accept the new FC and she’s now in charge. I said I will try.

I’ve complained less but I still have flare ups here and there. I ignore a lot of the FCs check-ins and the CFO did tell her to stop checking in as much due to my complaining and she has calmed down (which has been massive in improving my mood).

I am defensive over her requests and standoffish. I find she doesn’t add any real value and actually creates more work for other people (when we were already overworked).

Initially the CFO was working more with her, but he’s come back to working with me and she doesn’t like it and is trying to stop it despite me saying I like working with him. At the end of the day, the CFO is going to ask for help from the person who can help the best.

I am probably close to being fired. It’s a shame a great job has disintegrated this quickly.

I recently took approved Magna Carta of Women leave under RA 9710 following a medical procedure. Before and after I returned, my manager would casually joke about my leave and my absences. At the time I tried not to take it seriously.

I just found out that I received a “3 – Meets Expectations” performance rating, and now I’m wondering if my protected leave may have affected my evaluation.

To be clear, I was still able to complete my work and my leave was properly approved. I’m planning to professionally ask for clarification on the basis of the rating and copy HR for documentation and guidance.

For those who’ve experienced similar situations:

Is it reasonable to raise this concern with HR?

Would copying HR immediately seem too aggressive?

Has anyone experienced subtle retaliation after taking protected/statutory leave?

Just looking for objective opinions and advice on how to handle this professionally.

I manage a small team of customer service employees. We sit close together in an office with an open floor plan, so any "bad" behaviors are difficult to ignore.

I have one employee who is really great at so much of their job. They are a fast learner and take on responsibilities with very little prompting, and they have a pretty big workload with no complaints. However, they can be extremely passive aggressive, and do not have the capacity for feedback. Even if I am not asking for feedback, just requesting more information on how a process is handled, I am met with defensiveness, cranky mumbling, and one-word answers. It is like pulling teeth. Sometimes I will get the silent treatment for days or weeks after making minor suggestions. Sometimes there is just loud passive-aggressive humming, and loud typing. Then to prove their point, they will go be very friendly with other employees in the building, I guess so I can see how not friendly they're being with me. At no point do they stop doing their job, but they make it clear that I'm on their bad list. And, for what it's worth, I'm very open with my employees and allow them to push back if they think my idea is bad.

I'm literally the person in charge of communication between our clients and all departments of our company, so my understanding and knowledge of processes is critical. And, I'm slow to offer criticism on how my employees do things, because I acknowledge that my employees are the ones handling things on a day-to-day basis, and are the ones that are in the weeds, so to speak. No one likes a manager that comes in and changes things for the sake of change, and I try not to give my people any cause to be defensive with me. We all just want to do our jobs and go home.

It's exhausting. Due to our seating arrangement, it's always noticed by other team members (they mention it to me) and it stresses all of us out. Most of us have worked together for a long time, and we're a low drama group of people. To further make it weird, when I'm on their good side, they bring me little gifts, cards for my life events, etc (none of which I expect from any of my employees!) It's like a bizaare, slightly emotionally abusive relationship.

I've raised kids, and my take has always been to just ignore the bad behavior when it happens, since it is so obviously for attention, but it's been a few years and I'm honestly just tired of it. Just because I am not reacting does not mean it doesn't bother me, and it's creating undue stress that I don't want to have. I wish I could just not care, but I can't, and it's becoming very stressful. And, since they aren't doing anything that's actually "bad", I don't even think I have grounds to say anything.

Help me. Maybe I'm just too sensitive to be a manager. But I am tired and out of patience.

I'm a manager with about 10 years of PM experience and am working for a big company.

My direct manager has been managing me for about 5 years. As time has gone on, I've become increasingly unimpressed with her and also how unhelpful she can be.

We haven't spoken in a couple of months, and I let her know that we can skip this month's check-in as well because I don't have any updates. She seemed miffed and said that if we don't meet that will make 3 months of not talking, and we needed to stay in touch. I accepted the rescheduled invite.

Fellow managers, do you get any value from check-ins with your direct manager? Or is meeting with boss for the sake of ceremony just something I need to make peace with and give a fake smile for the duration of the meeting?

Thanks!

EDIT: Thanks so much for the insight everyone. Unfortunately...it's sounding like I just have a subpar manager. Still good food for thought about what to do next for my career.

For context, I am a Marketing Coordinator and 100% of my job can be done remotely, yet I am only allowed 1 working from home day a week.

Today I came into the office and it was completely empty. Like all 12 desks empty. The entire office is barren and I messaged my boss and she said that everyone has things off site or are working from home, I asked if I could go to work from home and she has just ghosted me.

I genuinely do not understand why I need to be sitting here, it’s actually immensely more distracting for me sitting alone in a big empty office. It’s also really frustrating she just ghosted when I asked. I don’t even have any meetings today. All my work is remote. This is actually so stupid.