These are five answers to five questions. Here it is…
1. How to tell my boss I want his expertise, not AI
I changed careers a few years ago and now have a job I love at a small company with great coworkers. My industry relies heavily on expertise. When I’m working with a client, they expect me to be an expert and have knowledge of industry best practices, case studies, etc. One reason I enjoy working at my company is that my boss has gained significant expertise over a long career, and he has incredibly valuable insights. As I move forward in my career, I’m excited to develop my own expertise, but she’s a great resource in helping me understand the best way to present things and where to start when I’m delving deeper into a problem.
However, recently he has become extremely enthusiastic about AI. Whatever question I bring to him, he suggests asking the AI or consults the AI itself and sends me the output. When I talk about things related to marketing or customer relations, their first suggestion is always to use AI to do it. On a recent project, I asked him to review a report I wrote to make sure it was in line with his ideas and our client’s needs, and he suggested I ask AI instead. I don’t want to ask AI – AI doesn’t have the expertise I need to help me learn, improve, and move forward in my career.
I want to politely and respectfully let them know that when I ask for their thoughts or insights, I’m interested in learning from their expertise – in fact one of the most valuable resources I have for learning my job is access to their deep experience – and AI is not a suitable substitute. I’m afraid if I tried to do this it would come off as smug (or I’d just scream that I didn’t ask, aye I asked you!!). Do you have any suggestions on how to deal with this?
When you approach him with questions, can you first say, “I’ve done my research on this, but I’d really love to hear your thoughts from your own experience”?
If that doesn’t work and he keeps suggesting or citing AI anyway, I guess you could say, “I appreciate those suggestions, but I find your ideas much more useful than AI. It’s your expertise and experience that has been most useful to me, so I’m looking forward to hearing from you directly on this if you’re interested!”
Connected:
i think my boss is chatgpt
2. My positive reference was actually negative
Last year, I lost my job. In the midst of a long-term mental breakdown combined with an extremely painful family tragedy, the quality of my work declined rapidly and I was fired. Before this, I was an exemplary employee with glowing reviews (of which I have copies) and my manager even called me a rock star of an employee. Since then I have been receiving therapy and medication, and I have done a lot of work and thought to make sure this situation never happens to me again.
When I started applying for jobs again, I asked a former co-worker with whom I was close if they could be a reference. I had known him the whole time I was at my previous job, and he had supported me through many bad situations before my dismissal. When I asked him to be my reference, we had an incredibly warm and positive conversation and he seemed excited and excited to be my reference.
As it turns out, they have given incredibly negative and untruthful references, and I believe there are at least three jobs they have considered that have prevented me from moving forward in the process or receiving an offer. I recently found out, and to say I’m devastated is an understatement. I’m disappointed that I had no idea and let this go on for so long – they really wanted me to succeed, and they never said they had any reservations about me or my previous work. If they had I would have used someone else.
Although I understand that I can’t possibly do anything for jobs that have already rejected me, I’m wondering if it was okay for me to reach out to the current job that I’m in the interview process for and ask to change their reference. I’m also wondering if there is any way my reputation could be affected – I’ve applied for multiple jobs in different departments at the same place (all within my experience and ability), and I have a unique name. There is a high possibility that I may meet him or have to work with him in the future, depending on where I end up. I’d like to think I’m not the center of the universe and no one will remember me, but I’m getting a little carried away after that.
So terrible. I think you can change the context; It’s best to do it in a way that doesn’t seem mysterious or makes them curious if there’s a story there. I would say something like, “Katarina Mulberry is difficult to reach, so I would like to replace her in my reference list with Nicolina Pluffron, whose contact information is…”
Also, would you consider contacting the former co-worker and asking what’s going on? It is appropriate to tell them that they assured you they would give you a strong reference, you offered their name on that basis, and you were surprised to find that was not the case, and you are wondering if there was something in your conversation that you misunderstood or if there are some issues in your working relationship that the two of you should resolve. Maybe this will spark some honesty in them about what is happening to them in this matter.
3. Correcting “grade inflation” in performance appraisal
I work for the state government and have a team of nine people reporting indirectly to me. All of them have been in my department for 15-20 years. I had an Assistant Supervisor (AS) who was his direct manager, who is now retiring and will not be replaced. AS has reviewed the team so far, and I will review and sign.
I started six years ago, and I always felt that AS was overestimating the team based on reviews, giving everyone exceptional ratings while only some of the team deserved it. I did not hold back except in specific circumstances where someone was performing particularly poorly.
Is there any way to bring the reviews back to reality now? I worry that anyone now receiving an acceptable rating after years of excellent performance will panic and wonder what has changed in their performance, when, in reality, nothing has happened.
Key Context: Employees are unionized, so reviews don’t affect their pay. Additionally, since everyone has been here so long, and these roles are remote, it’s unlikely (though not impossible) that they will leave the role except by retirement.
Yes, people won’t like it. They won’t particularly like it because you’ve always been signing off on their reviews – it’s not like you’re a brand new manager coming in with a new way of doing things. They’ll naturally wonder why you didn’t fix it sooner if you thought it needed fixing.
In any case, my advice is to make sure that you are adapting your ranking system to how the rest of your organization, or at least your department or division, works. If the change will make you rate your team more important than the scale everyone else is using, it’s going to be a tough sell, and I would question whether you should do it at all (especially when it wasn’t pushing enough to do so in the first place).
But if your recalculation will bring the ratings in line with other teams in your region, that is something you can explain. People still won’t like it, but you can explain the definitions the broader organization uses for “exceptional,” “acceptable,” etc. and you’ll follow that system going forward. Be clear that this means some people will see a change in their ratings, explain why you still think it’s a useful change, and be very clear about what looks “exceptional” (and what doesn’t).
4. Is it true that no one is ever fired or even managed?
I have been on the same team and reporting to the same manager for the past several years. He is a textbook example of carelessness bordering on recklessness. There is no accountability on our team. Our manager announces new initiatives and people follow or don’t follow them as they wish, with no clear consequences. Obviously, I don’t know what he says to other team members in his meetings, but there has been no change in behavior in 3+ years, so I’m no longer inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
My manager has said to me many times, “I wish Eve and Nadine would do that…” or “I wish Ian and Roarke wouldn’t do that…” and it’s frustrating to me because a) all four of them report to her and b) I have no management role. In fact, I have less tenure than those people. He has also said on many occasions that we are all leaders and leaders do not need micro management. I personally think people shouldn’t be managed based on their title alone, but that’s beside the point. I know my manager sucks and he won’t change.
My question is: Is it like this everywhere? I was talking to a work friend, who is more experienced and whom I generally trust, recently about some specific frustrations and said I was thinking about looking for a new job. Where, hopefully, there is some accountability and if people don’t follow basic parts of the job, there are some type of consequences – even including firing people if necessary. My friend said that this does not happen.
He said that once people get a job, they leave only if they want to. He said this kind of management is everywhere, and that people at our level “shouldn’t need to be managed” so it doesn’t happen. For reference, “our level” is essentially lower-middle management. We are not leaders of the people, but we are at that level.
Is it true? There are aspects of my job that I love; I would hate to leave them and go somewhere else, where there are no metrics for success and no accountability on the team, but there’s also no flexibility in working from home and my schedule, which are two advantages of my current role that I really value. If this is a common management style I can stick with it for a long time, at least until the job market picks up.
No, this is not true. “Once people get a job, they only leave if they want to” is a pretty incredible thing!
This may be true in your organization, which is why someone who works there is telling you this. But this is not generally true. People are fired from their jobs! People are given feedback and asked to change and are otherwise held accountable, including lower-middle managers. There Are There are places where this doesn’t happen – there are enough of them that it’s something to seriously look at when you’re job searching – but it’s not at all the norm.
You just have a bad manager (and probably a bad employer if most of the managers out there act like your boss).
5. I can’t use the bathroom if I forget my work badge
I work in a trailer outside our main building. Since the trailer lacks a toilet, we have to leave it and enter the main building to use the facilities. We used to access the main building via a key fob or access code, but they recently changed access to a work badge only. So now, if I forget my work badge, I can’t use the restroom. Is it legal?
No, if they don’t have a system in place to ensure you can gain access in an alternative way. OSHA regulations require “quick access” to bathrooms, and restrictions on that access cannot cause extended delays or create “unnecessary barriers.” If forgetting your work badge results in a long wait to access the bathroom (or if you can’t access it at all), this is likely an OSHA violation. (She said, your employer can Repeatedly forgetting your badge will result in you being legally disciplined or even fired; In the meantime you just need access to the bathroom.)
