updates: the emotional affair, my boss won’t let me tell coworkers I’m pregnant, and more

Here are four updates from past letter-writers.

1. Someone I had a near-emotional-affair with years ago is about to be my sort-of boss (#2 at the link)

My update almost eight months later is not the most exciting, but a good outcome. Craig has been friendly in the occasional meeting we are in together but we have not spoken one-on-one at all.

Our company is in the midst of a re-org due to budget cuts and we know that one of the VP positions is getting eliminated. Everyone is suspecting that Craig is returning to his original senior technical role but nobody knows yet exactly what’s happening. Personally I’d be very happy if that happens. Now that time has passed, I am less inwardly awkward about the whole thing, but I would rather not have any added weirdness with a boss-adjacent person.

I read some of the comments on the original post and many echoed the idea that I was young, learning professional norms, and to give myself a little grace, which I really appreciated.

2. My boss won’t let me tell coworkers that I’m pregnant

Thank you and the commenters for your warmth, empathy, and humor.

Shortly after I sent this question in, my boss shared that he had hired someone new for the team, and with that I finally got to share my news with my coworkers. The timing was probably a little tight, but a couple of my coworkers knew the new hire from previous work so I think they hit the ground running.

Lucky for the company and for me, my baby was also not born early; in fact she arrived the day before she was due (insert project management joke here). I’m completely focused on her now, and will see what the future holds for my work in a few months.

3. When should I tell my manager that I’m leaving the country? (#4 at the link)

My situation resolved in a relatively drama-free way. As I was anxiously deciding what to do, and when to tell my manager, I ended up getting told I was being laid off with a fairly generous severance package. I let my manager know of my plan to move overseas in the meeting with HR.

Although I was sad to end my time with that company, and was sad for my coworkers (my whole team got cut), the timing worked out basically perfectly for our move and the severance helped with relocation costs. I was feeling very nervous about the impending move, so I decided to take the layoff/severance as my sign from the universe that it was the right thing to do! So far so good.

4. Is this job opening a scam? (#5 at the link)

Long story short: after that initial call, I never heard back from them again.

But after that initial contact, I remained suspicious, and started to do some of my own research. Their site had a page showing their professional certifications, and I reached out to several of them. They were legitimately members of the provincial safety board. One organization I never heard back from. But the organization that is both the major provincial landscaping association and the administrator for interlocking paver certification wrote me back almost immediately, to the tune of, “No, they’re not currently members in good standing, and we’ll reach out to them to see if they’d like to renew their membership.” They still display that logo on their website to this day. They still do not show up in the landscaping association’s member directory.

Another listed certification turned out to be a proprietary business software method rather than an industry credential.

And although this isn’t necessarily damning, I found out that the business owner is a teenager (which may explain the borderline-hostile tone of a lot of the Google Review responses.)

Everything taken together definitely discouraged me from trying to contact them again. A business that misrepresents its credentials to prospective clients is a business that has shown they will deceive people in other ways and I have no interest in working for them or tying my own reputation to them.

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