updates: employee is lying about having cancer, loud coworkers, and more

It’s “where are you now?” month at Ask a Manager, and all December I’m running updates from people who had their letters here answered in the past. Here are four updates from past letter-writers.

There will be more posts than usual this week, so keep checking back throughout the day.

1. My boss thinks my employee is lying about having cancer

Yes, this is an update to “My boss thinks my employee is lying about having cancer.”

Yes, she was.

She also lied about losing her parents.

She is also now lying on LinkedIn about the dates she was working for us, with her end date a few months earlier than her resignation.

It turns out the absences and poor performance were because she was using us as a prop while she made her side gig her main gig.

The advice from you and the readers about how to handle the situation was really useful and gave me perspective on how to move on from the resignation, as well as how to manage the team’s response, so thank you to everyone for your support.

Burton and I? We were both made redundant in a team restructure shortly after my letter was published, but we are both thriving elsewhere. In fact my new role is a significant step up in pay and responsibilities, in a field I am really passionate about, with a lovely team, so happy endings all round I guess!

2. Loud coworkers in shared space (#5 at the link)

I sent this back in April when we were just returning to the office and things were still settling in. Things kind of settled down with not much intervention as people figured out how to exist in a shared space again, and also in my team it was quickly realized that they weren’t fully tracking who actually came in office so a significant amount of people just stopped coming in. A few people and teams realized that we could use conference rooms and closed spaces. I think it just settled into its own rhythm, which was good!

Lucky for me, in July I moved roles to a completely different organization within the company. This group has been in office for the last 1.5 years at this point and have learned decency in terms of taking meetings at their desk. On the other hand, where I sit now is one big cubicle with four corner desks within. My new boss loves to take his meetings without headphones so we are just a part of every meeting he has. It is easier to go find a quiet spot if needed. But sometimes our meetings overlap and he also doesn’t mute, so we battle with “who stays muted,” “who is speaking,” “should we just use one computer,” it’s a fun game.

It’s overall been much nicer because so many more people are aware of their voices and are much more respectful.

Something hilarious to me that won’t ever change, though, is I work at a large automotive headquarters. Our first floor is full of labs and garages for testing, which is union-run. Due to my role, I sit in the offices that are attached to the garages to be closer to the vehicles. Unfortunately, the union garage mechanics don’t know about meetings and being quiet, so they will come barging into the office area screaming and laughing and asking loud questions when it is dead quiet with us all working or being in meetings. It’s frustrating, but I find it hilarious and it’s only a few minutes a day. Our garage supervisor is constantly on the phone with his airpods (likely a personal call), and when he is sitting at his desk he will randomly erupt into a boisterous laugh in the silence that gives me a good scare every time.

I appreciated all the comments and it sounds like everyone was going through something similar. Hopefully it’s settled down for them as well! Thank you!

3. My manager told me my work was OK, but then redid it

As it turns out, you were correct in the first sentence of your response! Another volunteer did feel like changing it up as tribute to a local patron of the shop who had recently passed away.

I have, however, kept your response for future use as I love the open and positive way in which it is phrased.

4. How to explain I was out for stress leave (#5 at the link)

The advice was absolutely spot on. I sent my question at the start of what ended up being a month of leave, which felt very scary as my first brush with capital M Mental Health, and it took quite a while for me to get myself to a place where I felt comfortable with a depression diagnosis and with the idea that someone nearly in their 30s can just get depression! It’s not just a thing that some people get as teenagers, adults get it too! (This is probably the most obvious thing on earth, but it took me a while!) As I got to the end of that month, I ended up getting on antidepressants. I’m in a much better place now mentally and would really recommend antidepressants as something that’s really turned things around for me in terms of how resilient I feel and how much more I feel I can cope with things as they happen. They’re so not a big deal!

In terms of work, it was exactly as you said — it was as if I’d just come back from holiday, no one asked a single follow-up question after a “how are you” was answered with “much better, thank you” and now, three months on, anything that I missed whilst I was away is easily covered with a “oh, that must have happened whilst I was off” to literally no follow-up questions. Thanks again for the advice!

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