r/askmanagers

Our company is going through a tough time, and the current leadership can't handle it, and ngl... the situation is pretty shitty. Decisions are constantly being delayed, departments are shifting blame, and there's no clear direction to calm the team.

If you were in our shoes, somehow... how would you handle a board that gets bogged down during a crisis and drags the entire business down? Thanks in advance for any advice!

just got hired at a fast food place for my first job (i'm in high school) and i'm being scheduled close to 30 hours a week, but that doesn't give me enough time for schoolwork and ECs, and also just to have free time

i'd like to be scheduled 15-20 hours a week, so my question is what's the best way to ask my manager for less hours? (it will be over text)

i'm not really sure how to ask, so any advice would be greatly appreciated!

i was abruptly let go from a temporary assignment. i appreciated my experiences there and am tempted to send a note of thanks to the women who hired me even thought they let me go. i suspect it may have been for fishy reasons, though i have no intention of asking them why they let me go and i have no desire to argue with them. what do people think of this? have you ever received a note like this as a manager after you let someone go?

I'm in a niche company in a large industry. I work an administrative job running a program. I've been with my company for nearly a decade. I like what I do. I like my coworkers and managers. I don't plan on going anywhere anytime soon, however there is no advancement where I'm at.

I've gotten more efficient with my time management as I've been doing the job so long. I freed up some time for myself to study. I've been taking industry certifications and also taking some classes at a community college to enhance my technical skills - graphic design (I do a lot of promotions, documents, email campaigns, etc.), Excel, etc. I already have a college degree, I'm just brushing up on skills I feel I'm lacking in.

My manager recently asked me out of the blue about a certification I got a couple of years ago and wanted to know why I did it. Was it a part of a big push for the employees to all get it? Was it something I needed for my job? It wasn't either of those, it was just something I wanted to do. The truth is that although I like my job, I don't ever want to be stuck in my job. I'm also easily bored and happy to take classes to keep myself learning and growing.

I'm currently working on a rather large certification. It's well known and well thought of in my industry, but again, not going to directly impact my day-to-day job. My manager is eventually going to ask about it and I'm not really sure what to say. I don't want to sell myself short or make it look like I'm trying to find a way out of the job (I'm not). Nor do I want it to look like I just have tons of free time on my hands and need to do more. I'm honestly just very efficient, at study and work. My company pays for the certifications and I get some VA college benefits for the rest. I'm not paying out of pocket.

I've been at my job for 2.5 years, and last year i had two coworkers hired who i love. I came in with prior experience, they had none. Come to find out, one of them (not sure about the other) gets paid over 10k more than i do. I have a busier desk (even they admitted). I feel like i should at least get the same rate, but i dont even know if thats possible based on how raises work at our place of work. without giving too much away, we are AMLaw100 but only get yearly raises and bonuses.

How do i ask to raise me at least to what she gets without throwing her under the bus? I mostly want it because i am paying off student loans, and with the SAVE plan ending, I'll definitely have to pay more.

I am working at outsourcing firm. It's my first job and it's been around 5-6 month. I am disappointed with working culture/environment and want to confront about that at the time of my salary review. Is that a good decision. or should I leave the firm and search new one. But I am uncertain whether I will get another job or not. There is 15 days time for my review. And i have already applied for few vacancy just in case.

I'm a program manager (PM) at my company for 3 years, it's a major player in my field. When I joined I was one of 2 such PMs in my team, the other PM was senior by 1.5 years. (We both had/have 15 years in the industry).

August 2025, I was told in a one-on-one after the mid-year review that my avg score (2.7 out of 5) was not going enough and I'll be put on a PIP, manager gave me no other details. 2 days after that, I got an email from a client with rave reviews, which I saved. The next one-on-one, my manager says, "on second though I'm going to hold off on the PIP" (exact words, I've documented this).

Six months go by. Full year review happens in Jan 2026, I get an avg of 3.2 out of 5 (3 being "meets expectations").

In Jan, the senior PM left on maternity, I inherited her 4 major projects + the lead role in many meetings she was taking. I struggled at first for about 2 months as I was not used to handling so many projects, and leading all 7 meetings, and keeping track of everyone else's projects too (she was the defacto second in command).

I also struggled because she had fucked up in 3 of her 4 major projects, fuck ups which I spent a month to fix.

I left on a week's vacation end of March, and first day back can in April, my manager takes me aside and hits me with, "I've received feedback about your behavior and communication and you'll be on a PIP." When I pointed out that the last one was withdrawn within a week, his response was completely baffling : (word for word because I remember and wrote it down) "well, you were on an informal PIP, and this is the next logical step".

I was shocked and nervous. Then, things became... weirder and weirder.

The next one-on-one he said our team's HR rep (each team has one) was just back from vacation and was catching up on things.

The next one-on-one he said the same thing.

The next one-on-one, he said the same exact thing.

The next one-on-one (now we're in mid-May), he said, "well, HR asked me questions about the targets, specifics of the plan and about support we can give you etc, and they'll come back to you".

The next one-on-one, he says nothing, doesn't even bring it up. I'm nervous so I don't even bring up the topic.

The next 4 one-on-ones go by and he does not bring up anything to do with the PIP, just operational stuff.

Every single one-on-one, I've been too nervous to poke the bear and so I don't bring it up and neither has he.

Now we're in mid August and nearing another mid-year review, and he had not said a goddamn thing about the review and it's been 4 months. I've heard nothing from HR and nothing from anyone else either.

Managers of Reddit, am I on a fucking PIP or am I not? Should I bring it up at the mid-year review or leave it be?

I've spent the last 4 months every week being stressed over whether I'm gonna lose my job or not. I've lost weight and sleep over it.

Please help, I need guidance. Thanks!

Been noticing a pattern over the last couple months where a coworker presents work the whole team contributed to as primarily their own during leadership meetings, and it's starting to affect how our manager perceives who's actually driving projects. Haven't said anything directly yet since I don't want to come across as petty over something that might be unintentional, but it's happened enough times now that it feels deliberate. Looking for advice on how to address this without it turning into a bigger conflict than it needs to

I'm currently hiring to backfill an analyst position. An issue I've encountered in the past is that during a typical behavioral interview, candidates will have anticipated most of the questions and rehearsed answers they believe I want to hear. As a result, when I hire someone, it often turns out that the responses they gave in the interview have very little correlation to reality. Even the ones who turn out to be great employees are great in ways I would never have expected from what they said in their interviews.

I've gotten pretty good at assessing skills and knowledge over the years, but I feel like assessing personality/fit is an area where I need to improve. Does anyone have advice?

For about 10-11 months now, my role has changed very drastically from something I loved into work that is mostly sales, basically cold outreach, along with a pile of boring admin work that seems to increase almost every week. My KPIs are still in the top third of the people doing this job nationwide (450+), and in the parts of the job that are not related to sales, I'm probably in the top 12%. The problem is that the work I used to be happy doing is now something I dread and can't stand. I'm not a salesperson, and I don't want to become one, and I feel like I'm pretending that I'm doing fine until someone notices that I'm bad at the sales part. And I feel like that's inevitably going to happen.

Last January, the company asked 18 people to leave voluntarily to avoid layoffs. About 24 people agreed, but no one from my area of the country did. After they changed the territory assignments after the 24 people left, they realized they still needed to reduce headcount in my area, and in May they laid off 6 out of 29 people doing the same job as me in my region. This time there was no opportunity for anyone to volunteer, and the way they chose people didn't make sense to anyone. I genuinely like and respect my coworkers, and it was very hard to see people leave who wanted to stay, while I would have gladly taken the package.

Since then, my manager has told a few senior people on the team that he expects another small round of cuts sometime near the end of the year, possibly late winter. The severance is honestly excellent, and it would give me enough breathing room to look for work I want to do.

What worries me is another layoff process happening that feels as random as May's, instead of offering people the chance to opt out first. The same severance was paid in both cases, so it's frustrating to think that someone else might lose a job they want while I'm still sitting here pretending I'm fine. My manager is generally a fair person, but since these changes started, he has seemed more stressed. Would it be stupid for me to tell him I'd like to be considered if cuts happen, even before anything is officially announced? Should I frame it as helping the team so they don't lose someone who wants to stay? If I'm honest that I'm burned out and unhappy in this role, I think the worst-case scenario is that they eventually push me out anyway. I do have a few open offers elsewhere, so I'm not in a panic.

Hi everyone
I have a problem with my manager and I don't know how to talk to them.

Context:

• I am mid-manager level, have 10+ years, and have been a senior manager before, I've managed people at a senior level
• I am new to this job, barely 2 months, and I barely know my manager or the organisation or the projects that are going on
• I have capacity, work is really quiet right now and I get massively bored at work, I am used to owning things and having responsibility and working in stressful environments

Problem

• My boss complains repeatedly that she has too much on and that she needs help. She stays at work till 10 pm.
• In the meantime she has barely introduced me to any projects or workstreams, beyond the basic inductions about the company, the team, etc. I don't know how many workstreams there are or at what stage.
• She has posted in a Teams channel a list of projects and has assigned owners to those projects. But it's just that, a list. She has not introduced me to any of them, and most of the projects in that list still don't have an owner (so she has "delegated" about a quarter of them, not the majority).

I am so confused about this situation that the other day I posted in the Teams channel something really quite generic -- "I have capacity, is there anything I could take on right now?" - then she posted again the list.

I am really struggling to understand the situation here. If she wants me to own a, b and c, what is preventing her from putting time aside to sit with me and brief me on those workstreams? I was so baffled by her response to my question, that I did not reply, I did not know what to say, I even found it rude.

Then she added me to a call about a project "a" in the afternoon. That's a project that I own, theoretically. The call starts and she starts talking about the project to everyone, takes notes, decides next steps, everything. It was about an online tool that is being created, she showed us the tool on the screen.

I have even approached her physically in the office to offer help, but she is always busy. In calls, or talking to someone. I honestly don't have the moment to talk to her.

My problem here is: why has she not briefed me on that project? According to her list it is my project but I still lack the basic facts of the situation.

• what is the ambition
• do we have a deadline
• the tool needs development, who created it
• can I have the link to the tool (it's web-based), I don't have it, I can't even test it
• where is the tool pulling data from, who's the contact for that
• the context, the email chain, the background

So I am really baffled about:

• Why is she not briefing me on the project
• Why is she responding to me with a list when I ask what I can help with
• How does she expect me to own it when she is leading in the calls and not even telling the participants that from now on I will own it, when she's not giving me the basic context
• Does she not realise that I am new, I need context?

So I spoke to a colleague about this situation (my manager complaining all the time about how busy she is, and not having been briefed on any of my projects). My colleague said yes, this is happening, but don't expect her to give you a brief, it doesn't work like that.

How does it not work like that? Does she not know that someone who has just joined the company would expect a brief? And if she really wants to step back, why doesn't she give me the brief and then step back? Why does she organise the calls, lead during the call, etc?

I am so confused. But today I am irritated. I was told that my expectation is unreasonable and that I have to talk to her about what I need to be able to take on my projects. I find that profoundly unfair. I am even worried that it is going to affect my probation. I'm not doing anything, when there is all this work to do, and somehow it will be my fault.

Then I thought about it and was like -- ok, it seems that she doesn't know how to delegate, so I'll have to tell her what I need, but I feel deeply uncomfortable about doing this. I don't know, I find the basics so elemental that the fact that I need to tell my boss that she needs to give me a brief makes me really uncomfortable. I don't know how to tell her that without blushing. It's such an obvious fact to me. I've done it a million times (in my previous more senior roles). I sit with a person, I tell them you need to take this on, this is the project, the ambition, the stage of the project, the deadline and the key contacts and who does what. So the fact that I have to explain this to her makes me baffled, and I know I won't know how to tell her this. I will blush, feel deeply embarrassed, I don't know if I will be able to be tactful, etc. It's also starting to make me nervous, so I am not even confident that I will be able to tell her this calmly. It's very stressful to me to observe this situation and see she is not doing anything about it, even after I have offered help.

I was also a bit upset about how she responded to my question and what my colleague said to me "don't expect a handover." I am not just going to take over from her without a proper handover, she is my boss, more senior, I wouldn't take a project from her without permission.

I've heard a lot before about managers who don't know how to delegate but I never encountered one for real. I don't know how to tackle this.

Help please.

I was sent home early today by HR. I had an autistic report that was gunning for an office position and I told him that it won't happen.

I refused because his meltdowns would be a major issue in the office because its customer facing and it would create a bad work environment for those in the office because they would be walking on eggshells.

He put in his 2 weeks on Friday and in the exit interview, he said he got a job elsewhere because he didn't have growth opportunities here. I had to sit in on the exit interview and mentioned that quitting because he didn't get his way was unprofessional.

They went through his employee records and saw my notes on 1 on 1, yearly reviews etc. They saw he was a stellar employee, so they asked why I told him that he would not be promoted, I brought up that he was autistic and HR's response was just "So?" Went on to explain my reasoning that his meltdowns would lead to a bad work environment and they told me that wasn't my decision to make.

They launched an investigation to see if there was the possibility of a discrimination lawsuit and found there is a chance so I have been put on leave the rest of the month and if they don't fire me, when I get back I will be demoted and work his position on the floor.

What are my options in this?

yes, there are documented occurrences of meltdowns at work.

you don't hire someone with epilepsy to drive a truck because of the risk. someone like him shouldn't be in a customer facing position for a similar reason. imagine if he had a meltdown in front of a customer, that would put the company at risk. besides, he's really good at production work.

I am currently serving my notice period after not receiving a promotion for 3 years, which has been disappointing. Despite this, I have continued giving my 100% on the SAP greenfield project. I developed and deployed an automation script that was outside the team’s existing skill set, based on my prior experience. I have already provided KT 2–3 times, but the team is now scheduling multiple additional KT sessions.

Is it ethical to expect someone in their notice period to train outside the skill?

As a new professional, I’m working at a company to sharpen my communication skills and grow. I keep my manager in the loop with a daily update, so we’re always on the same page, even when we don’t have a meeting.

I’m all ears for feedback and happy to hear what my manager thinks. But I’ve heard things like, “Can you read?” or “This person shouldn’t be in HR.” My manager says they’re just being straightforward.

Could you help me figure out if these comments are directness, passive-aggressiveness, or just plain rudeness?

Most advice says don't give a number first. That's fine but it's not the useful part. The useful part is understanding when the number actually gets set, because it happens earlier than people think and it's usually not during the negotiation.

Here's roughly how it works at most companies with any real structure. A role gets a band before it's ever posted. Say 85 to 110. That band came from a compensation team or a spreadsheet, and the hiring manager doesn't control it. What the manager does control is where in that band they slot you, and they usually decide that after the second or third conversation, not at the offer. By the time HR calls you with a number, someone already wrote it down days ago and got it approved. The person calling you often can't move it much because moving it means going back and asking again, which is annoying and slow.

That means the leverage is earlier than everyone tells you. The moment that matters is when the hiring manager is deciding whether you're a "solid hire" or a "we need to get this person" hire, because those two land in different parts of the band. That decision happens in the interviews, not in the negotiation.

A few practical things that follow from this.

When a recruiter asks your expectations in the first screen, they're not negotiating, they're checking whether you fit the band that already exists. If you're way under, you get slotted low from the start and it's hard to climb back. If you're way over, you get screened out for budget rather than fit. So the goal in that call isn't to win, it's to stay in range while learning what the range is. "I want to make sure we're in the same ballpark before we spend time, what's the band for this role?" is a normal question and most recruiters will just tell you now, especially in states with pay transparency laws.

Any competing situation you mention should come up before the offer, not after. After the offer it reads as a threat and requires re-approval. Before, it's information the manager uses when deciding where to slot you, which is a much easier internal conversation for them.

When you do get an offer and you want more, ask the manager, not the recruiter, if you have that relationship. The recruiter delivers the number. The manager is the one who can go fight for a different one, and they only do that for people they've already decided they want.

And if the number won't move, ask what else is in the band's neighborhood. Start date, sign-on, review timing, title. Title especially, because your next job's band is partly set by your last title, so a title bump compounds in a way a one-time bonus doesn't.

This applies less at small companies where the founder decides everything on the spot, and more at anywhere with an HR function. If anyone here has sat on the comp side, I'd be interested in where this is wrong, since it varies a lot by company.

The company i work for outsources our IT work to a third party company and sometimes the owner of it has to do work on our server on site. Usually after they do a server or system reboot, it works slower for a bit and a bunch of errors happen. On the logo of that company, they have a slogan below it, "we make it work". Awhile ago, maybe over a year ago I made a joke that the logo should say "we make it worse" because i was in the middle of making a heated point that the system is slow everytime they work on fixing it. Well.. it caught on. At first even the owner laughed. Other people started doing the same, jokingly.

Its been some time, but it became kind of an office joke, oh hey WE MAKE IT WORSE are here. I guess the IT company owner had enough and sent a company wide email asking to stop.

I emailed him back, I was sorry because I remember when I said it that time and a bunch of people around me laughed, himself included, i had no ill will for it to catch on like that, he emailed me back saying, its not funny anymore. Stop it, and I can shove my apology, the entire company is making fun of his slogan now.

But actually, how do I stop it now?

Hey everyone, looking for some advice on a tricky workplace situation.

I’m the head of an educational department at a company (small/startup environment where the "managers" are actually the company founders). Recently, leadership decided to roll out a major structural change: completely removing subject-specific specialists and moving to a generalist, rotating system for parent communications and day-to-day operations.

To back up a bit: I didn’t receive a heads-up prior to our initial meeting that we’d even be discussing this major change, and I wasn’t given all the details at the time. During that brief conversation, caught off-guard, I gave an off-the-cuff thought that we could potentially manage without them. However, after taking time to map out the operational reality, I realized it's a massive risk. I wrote them a detailed message while on annual leave outlining my concerns:
\- The new model completely drops specialized subject knowledge.
\- Parents will get a different person every time, increasing the risk of miscommunication and parents leaving.
\- My role (which is supposed to be high-level strategy and quality assurance within limited weekly hours) will now be buried under 1-1s, parent queries, and exam creation across multiple subjects I'm not an expert in, leading straight to burnout.

While I was still away on leave, they went ahead and informed the rest of the team about the new structure, completely bypassing me and rolling out new admin communication workflows without my input. One founder acknowledged my message and agreed to a meeting, but the other hasn't replied, and now I'm facing a fait accompli when I return from leave.

Since the founders are the ones who made the call and rushed it through while I was away, I'm trying to figure out how to handle the meeting when I get back. I'm worried they'll just tell me it's already handled and fixed.
\- How do I address the fact that my opinion shifted once I looked at the operational reality and got the full picture?
\- How do I bring up the fact that I was bypassed on a major departmental change without sounding petty?
\- How can I anchor the conversation to business risks (like student retention and workload capacity) rather than just coming across as complaining?

Would love any advice from people who have navigated tricky dynamics with founders or major structural pivots.

We were told by our department head today that my direct supervisor's husband passed away this weekend. My supervisor and I get along great, and while we do sometimes discuss non-work topics, I wouldn't say we're close. I feel terrible for her and was hoping for the perspective of supervisors/managers about what an appropriate "gift" might be, whether a simple condolence note or something like flowers whenever she returns. Thank you!

edit: I truly appreciate the feedback and feel much more comfortable in my course of action. Our department head is planning to provide us with information regarding the service, so I'll send a simple card with a handwritten note. It's clear that the best thing I can do is to help keep work a separate space from what I can only imagine is an awful ordeal. Thank you again!

Hello, I am in the final steps of an interview process and I realized my resume has a discrepancy. Everything else on my resume is completely accurate. The start/end dates for the other two jobs on my resume are completely accurate. I didn't lie about my education credentials either.

However, I noticed that my start date for a job from 7 1/2 years ago (and last job on my resume) wasn't January, it was April/May (I looked at bank statements). The end date was accurate.

Honestly when making my resume I just guessed, this job was 7 1/2 years ago so i didn't remember my start date.

Will this cause me to get my offer rescinded? Should I be worried?