This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: For my job, I often travel five to eight hours in a car to get to a destination. I have been a field scientist and now work for a five-state program so I have hundreds of hours of experience of driving with coworkers. An unspoken rule seems to be you talk to...

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I recently applied for a promotion at work and was passed over in favor of an outside candidate. I won’t go into all the details, but hopefully it suffices to say that I was a very strong candidate, I had a lot of internal support, and everyone I’ve talked to...

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I’m a female manager of a team. I’m significantly overweight. One of my direct reports has repeatedly made derogatory comments about overweight people to me during the course of conversations, such as “____is a big girl, I mean, she’s really big!” I think that’s...

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Inspired by last week’s story about the two employees who hated each other to the point that one declared she could not be in the same room with the other “without blacking out with overwhelming fury” (although they later ended up dating), let’s discuss weirdest coworker arguments...

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. If I send someone home for being too high to work, should I stay late to finish their work? I’m a closing manager at a restaurant. Several Sundays ago, I found myself staying an hour late to finish stocking and cleaning. When...

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I am dealing with a bizarre situation at work and could use some advice on how to proceed. My coworker, Charlie, has several concerning habits involving the lighter and several utility knives he carries around on a daily basis. When we’re in team meetings or...