Advice Columns

[chonies]

Apr 28, 2017 13:17:47 GMT -4 GirlyGhoul said:

I think if they had fired Jack, they'd have reasonable cause. He put a co-worker in harm's way just to save himself. I mean, if birds are so scary, his why wasn't his instinct to protect Liz from the bird instead of shoving her into a moving car?

For me, the phobia thing is a distraction--phobias are excessive, unreasonable or outsized fears, which means reactions to the trigger might not seem logical or predictable. Jack and HR seemed to handle each following decision in the worst possible way imaginable, which exacerbates the already serious injury.

[eclair]

It's been a weird run of questions at AAM. The coworker who called her boss's daughter a whore, sorta, the 9/11 joke, the person who held the money raised for a coworker's preemie baby but then died and they don't know how to ask the estate for the money, just weird lately. But more interesting than "how do I send thank you notes to five people", etc.

[Mutagen]

Did you see the one about the coworker who got the cops called on her pot-smoking coworkers? That was wild, and another one where the comments exploded.

Edit: Here we go - www.askamanager.org/2017/04/employee-got-her-colleagues-arrested-for-smoking-pot-at-a-conference-and-now-wants-a-transfer.html

[Auroranorth]

my coworker wants us to call her boyfriend her “master”

Yep, it's Ask a Manager again. There's an update in the links below the answer.

[Laira]

According to the LW, Liz just found a new job. My guess is that she's holding off on the lawsuit because she was job searching. A lot of companies wouldn't hire someone who's suing their former employer regardless of the merits of the case. I hope she gets a good lawyer and wins bigly.

[Deleted]

Apr 28, 2017 13:32:19 GMT -4 chonies said:

Apr 28, 2017 13:17:47 GMT -4 GirlyGhoul said:

I think if they had fired Jack, they'd have reasonable cause. He put a co-worker in harm's way just to save himself. I mean, if birds are so scary, his why wasn't his instinct to protect Liz from the bird instead of shoving her into a moving car?

For me, the phobia thing is a distraction--phobias are excessive, unreasonable or outsized fears, which means reactions to the trigger might not seem logical or predictable. Jack and HR seemed to handle each following decision in the worst possible way imaginable, which exacerbates the already serious injury.

This. Phobias by their nature are not rational. Depending on how severe it is, when it kicks in a person might not have total control over their actions. And as I said before while I agree that everyone has handled this badly (particularly the boss) I'm not conformable with condemning Jack. If you don't have a phobia you'll never understand what that kind of fear does to you.

[Deleted]

Ask A Manager has an update on the letter writer who sorta called her boss' daughter a whore. It starts off pretty well, she apologized unequivocally to her boss who accepted her apology. Letter writer also said the comments made her realize that using the word whore was wrong. She had an ultraconservative religious upbringing and heard that word all the time from her parents and teachers. All good but then letter writer starts talking about "liberal Christians" and how they're wrong and how she knows the bible absolutely says dating is immoral and then something about sexual deviancy which a lot of the commenters took to be a slam against LGBTQ. To make it weirder Alison later edited the letter and deleted that part so now not only do the comments seem strange, it makes the letter writer seem more tolerant then she really is.

I love Ask A Manger but I have noticed she has been printing a lot of kooky letters lately which is fine, they're more interesting (see the tickling letter yesterday). But I think sometimes Alison is a little out of her depth answering them and definitely not equipped to moderate the huge volume of comments that come after a controversial letter.

[Auroranorth]

I think she's being pretty disengenuous about the letters. It's not all that hard to predict that certain letters are going to trigger a lot of comments and her fake-surprise that people don't respond well to dogwhistle language in a letter is getting old.

[laurenj]

I love Ask A Manger but I have noticed she has been printing a lot of kooky letters lately which is fine, they're more interesting (see the tickling letter yesterday). But I think sometimes Alison is a little out of her depth answering them and definitely not equipped to moderate the huge volume of comments that come after a controversial letter.

It took me way too long to realize that the tickling letter writer was using the characters from Friends as the pseudonyms, lol.

This one is similar to something that was happening at my bf's (extremely small) workplace recently. The high strung owner was taking out her stress by basically pitting each of the 4 employees against each other, telling each one that another employee had complained about them or told her something that they had done wrong. It was bananas until bf said he was quitting and she backed off the daily drama.

I don't know how he dealt with that every day, I would have lost my mind.

[Laira]

Here's another doozy from Ask A Manager:

www.askamanager.org/2017/05/my-employee-set-up-a-false-fraud-investigation-because-she-was-being-abused-and-wanted-the-police.html#comment-1483484

One employee framed another for financial fraud, including falsified documentation which led to a police investigation. The employee claimed it was because she was the victim of domestic abuse and wanted to speak to the police, although why she couldn't have borrowed someone's phone in the ladies room and called 911 instead of setting up a coworker on an embezzlement charge wasn't explained. Anyway, the framed employee was suspended without pay, lost her home and had her reputation ruined. Naturally, the framed employee wants the person who framed her fired. The LW seems to think that this is unreasonable.

What is it lately with AAM and these people who bitch because the injured party doesn't want to work with someone who threw them in front of a moving car or framed them for embezzlement?