updates: interviewer said my reading tastes were pretentious, problem employee lashed out at me, and more

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

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.

1. Employer rejected me, then sent a list of everything I did wrong

Three or so years ago, I emailed you concerned about an interviewer who had sent me feedback for a job I didn’t get, including saying I lacked passion and some other stuff. (I was the one whose favorite book was Les Miserables and he said I was pretentious.)

As many commenters guessed, he WAS trying to hit on me in a negging sort of way. He later tried to ask me out via LinkedIn DMs. Needless to say, it did not work.

It took a while, and many other unsuccessful interviews (none of which were as rough as that one) but I eventually found a job in a field I had never considered, where I could put my writing skills to work with much less of a “bro culture” compared to writing for stocks/finances. I’m still in the job, got a huge promotion this year, and have even written articles about how great of a book Les Miserables is. It’s still my favorite and I still reread it regularly!

What prompted me to think of sending you an update is this: I recently as part of my job interviewed a long-time idol of mine, a celebrity I have looked up to for years, and he said to me at the end of the interview, apropos of nothing, that he had read some of my previous work and could tell how passionate I was about my writing and that he was so happy to be interviewed by someone so passionate about their work.

As for Mr. Interview Feedback, no idea how he’s doing, and no desire to know — but I’m in my dream job and happier than I ever thought I could be.

Thank you again for all of your advice.

2. Problem employee lashed out at me (#2 at the link)

The employee was laid off about a year after my email. He was very low-performing in hindsight, but I had very little to compare to at the time, him having been my first direct report. My boss several months later asked me if I thought he should be laid off, I said yes, and after a period given to the employee to job search while still employed (unsuccessfully), he was. (I believe he found a job within a year, but I think it was possibly a little lower level.)

It was somewhat of a shock to get your note that I wasn’t managing this person. It’s probably true that I wasn’t giving him strong enough feedback. But I did give him a LOT of coaching in work-related subjects, thus my shock. The loads of coaching didn’t help enough, though I sometimes wonder if it helped them later on with other jobs. In hindsight, your advice to manage more makes sense to me. Once I started giving stronger feedback, he reacted as you could have expected. One comment I remember is that he said, “You can’t compare me to twenty-something geniuses” after a comment I made that his performance was not measuring up to other (similarly compensated) analysts.

3. How to explain a family crisis to very demanding clients (#3 at the link)

I wrote in earlier this year wondering how to handle my emotionally needy clients’ reactions when I needed to be out-of-office sporadically while caring for a sick relative. Alison provided a great script, and the commentariat had a lot of helpful insight … and speculation on what, exactly, I was doing for work, where clients wouldn’t take “family emergency” for an answer.

I’ll get the sadder news out of the way first: I had to use this advice quite a bit, as my relative’s health declined and they passed away earlier this year. That said, I was shocked by how easy it was to deal with most clients, even the “needy” ones. I was massively overthinking this. I used Alison’s script almost word for word, but one commenter mentioned that these kinds of messages always felt “cold” to them, and I knew some of my clients would feel the same way. So for them, I’d start with “I wanted you to know,” so it felt more personal, before launching into the script. I’d end the messages with “… Since I’m back, I’m trying to get a bit ahead of schedule, so I know things are on track if I need to be away again.” And then I’d pivot into what I needed to keep their projects moving. I was anticipating a lot of responses hoping to help somehow, so framing “don’t ask questions and let me do my job” as a favor to me was wildly effective.

As for my industry: The folks who suggested editing and publishing were the closest. A lot of those comments were relatable! The thread about dogs texting their groomers also made me laugh during a tough time. Really, though, I build websites for a firm with a reputation for handling niche projects well. I have the technical skill to build the sites, but my main skills are organizing complex or confusing information and managing difficult personalities, so I get assigned our most unusual stuff. Much of what I do day-to-day is boring (ask me about my gravel database!) but I also have clients who are small nonprofits doing work they’re very emotionally invested in, or even individuals pursuing passion projects that I often compare to ghostwriting memoirs. These clients often share tons of really personal experiences to contextualize why certain things are so important to them. I’m translating people’s most dearly-held ideas, or beliefs, or experiences out of “thought” and into a format that other people can understand. There can be SO MUCH VULNERABILITY involved in sharing these thoughts and experiences, often for the first time, and a lot of anxiety about being misunderstood. Most projects are pretty creative in nature, and if you’ve ever nervously shared a creative endeavor of your own, you may know the fluttery, anxious, exposed feelings my clients experience. I’ve found that quick responses with reassurance and positive feedback help build the confidence they need to keep moving forward (so I can meet my deadlines.) The downside is that if I don’t respond as quickly as usual, the doubt sets in, and the whole project can grind to a halt until clients feel, emotionally, like they’re ready to move forward.

As a result, I had made managing clients’ feelings a key part of how I manage their projects … which was effective when I could do it, but clearly not sustainable. The last few months have made me realize that most of my “borderline” needy clients are taking their cues from me. If I treat them like they’re going to be unreasonable, they’ll be unreasonable. But if I simply expect them to manage their own feelings and get me what the project needs, most of them will do it. This worked wonderfully for the group I was most worried about in my initial letter: a community of nuns whose archives I’ve been digitizing. They’re notoriously particular and a little bit nosy, and were taking my slower emails very personally. But when I sent them the script, they just added my family to their prayer list and relaxed. A few clients were clearly upset that I wasn’t sharing more, and one in particular reached out to my boss to ask for more details, because they “found it hard to be open with me when they knew I was hiding things.” The advice here really galvanized me against these clients’ pushiness, though. If they want to be upset, that’s their business. My business is getting their projects done.

And to answer Alison’s question: I don’t think this is common behavior from clients in my industry. My company tends to attract (or, rather, tolerate) needy clientele more than others. Many clients come to us when other firms drop them. Historically, I’ve been good at keeping even the neediest clients feeling secure, so the neediest of them get assigned to me. I used to wear that like a badge of honor. Now? I’m not so sure.

4. I know who’s unvaccinated because of my job — can I use that info to make personal decisions? (#2 at the link)

Thank you for answering my question earlier this year about how to handle information at work that relates to my personal life/health. I decided you were ultimately right about needing to use a polite fiction that I did not know their kids weren’t vaccinated. I just told the families that we were “busy” any time they invited my kids somewhere. The wild cards in the situation were my kids themselves who are old enough to figure out something was up when we were not actually busy the day of the event we skipped.

Anyway, baby is here and healthy and on his way to being fully vaccinated!