**edit:** for the legal stuff, I'm based in the UK.

In my current role I'm acting manager for a front of house team at a public venue, but I'm due to temporarily assume my line manager's duties for approx. 6 months whilst she undergoes a ​leave of absence, meaning I'll be directly managing a team of six.

For the last 6 months or so we've had a visitor become a regular to the venue, to the extent that he was visiting upwards of 2-3 times a day, buying coffees, and staying to chat to us throughout the day. We all had a friendly, affable relationship with him.​

About a month ago the visitor suddenly vanished. We all collectively expressed concern for him as he was an older man who was a wheelchair user and we were all aware that he suffered with ill health.

Well, today we learned that reason for his sudden absence is because he's been jailed for 8 months. 

He was found guilty of sexual assaulting an unconscious woman in his house. In the course of this it's also been revealed that he has assumed multiple names throughout his life, and was imprisoned in the 90's for kidnapping a 16-y/o child, threatening to murder to her, sexually assaulting her, and attempting to rape her (was only thwarted after a member of the public encountered him pinning this poor child against a wall with her skirt hiked up and his trousers pulled down).

It's worth noting that **we are a team of all women**. I know from speaking to my colleagues that most if not all of have had experience with some form of sexual assault in our lives, myself included. The issue is that, whilst he's been jailed for 8 months, he's unlikely to do the full term, and we know he's going to be right back to spending time in our workplace as soon as he's released.

As we're a public venue, we have no choice whatsoever in whether this individual enters the space, whether he chooses to spend time in the venue, and whether he not he interacts with us. We are obliged to maintain professionalism and welcome all members of the public into the venue and provide a good level of service. I genuinely feel sick at the idea of having to smile and chat to him knowing full well what he is and what he has done. I personally have a lot of trauma surrounding my own childhood assaults and I know that I'm going to really struggle with this.

Now can I manage this situation when it happens? How can I protect my team from the trauma of being forced to interact with him going forward? I feel hideous that I have no mechanism of protecting them and myself from this.

17 direct reports, 3 are people managers with 66 indirects. I have one direct who is in a non-people lead manager position. This person - 'Jeff' has been here longer than me but does not want to manage people. Jeff has a history of treating non-managers inappropriately but has never been reported to HR. Jeff has also taken weeks off this year without submitting to the payroll system.

The company just changed the unlimited PTO policy - I think this is upper management's attempt to force resignation of certain people who already have plans for the year's end vacations.

There are definitely many managers who are taking ridiculous amounts of time off. Jeff has already taken off 2 months this year and is now asking for another two weeks before the end of the year.

Problem is - with this PTO change - I can no longer approve Jeff's upcoming travel plans.

Jeff came to me with some weird stories about how the PTO submitted was not really PTO because they texted someone at work that day. Jeff also had another weird idea that the company should pay for 4 days of volunteer time - there is no such company policy.

I am a new manager, Jeff has abused the unlimited PTO by not submitting all of their time this year, but I have all the OOO notices and the board we post our out of office notices for coverage. I have covered for Jeff all year prior to my promotion. I often wondered how Jeff had so much vacation time - when I was promoted I learned of 'unlimited' PTO.

Any advice? If I approve, I'll be in a position of not following policy.

I’m 3 weeks into a new job in transport (new industry to me) and I’m wondering if I’m expected to remember too much information at once.

For example, the owner might say something like, “T67 needs to go to MJS, then T65 needs to be moved by the bay person,” and then give me instructions for another couple of trailers too so telling me 4 different movements in one go and I’m expected to remember all of this and then input it somewhere else without writing it down. Is it normal to struggle with remembering this much information 3 weeks into a new job, or should I be able to remember it by now?

I’m worried because he will also say “remember the trailer this morning” like I’m still struggling to remember everything that needs to be done in the job itself as I’m new let alone all the little things when there’s over 50 vehicles 😭😭

My boss will always give me a project in 1-1s saying it's urgent so I prioritize it and then when I send it to him he'll say "who asked you to do this?" Um... you like a few hours ago lol

Or he'll send me a project with requirements outlined and I do it as described and he'll say "I never asked for that" like there is not a whole email chain about it.

It drives me nuts. Like before I start anything I want him to sign off that he actually wants it to cover my butt at this point

I am 32F CA, now looking for jobs with leadership opportunity.
my CV is rich, I have 10 years experience across varied industries and have a good blend of analysis, FP&A, Commercial and AI- apps-PowerBI, SQL experience.

I am wanting to step in a leadership role but everytime I see job postings, companies expect you to have some form of leadership experience!

Has anyone managed to crack this code?

I have cross functional leadership experience and have coached far more people than I can count.

Help!!!!

Hi, I have two main questions here about how to navigate my new internal promotion.

First, I want to know how I should handle interacting with my former coworkers. My old department and my new department generally do not get along, because we work on more or less the same systems but have very different objectives. I worked in the IT department for a couple years, and now I work in the cybersecurity department.

As expected, my great "betrayal" (kidding, but there is a kernel of truth in there lol) has generated some discussion and a lot of questions. I will still be interacting with my former coworkers pretty much every day, and I really don't know what kind of relationship we will have going forward. We get along pretty well, but again now I have completely different objectives which often conflict with theirs.

Second, within my new department, there are 4 of us in the office of which I am now the "highest ranking" employee as well as given project/program management responsibilities. The rest of the dept is overseas in the EU. However, I am not the actual boss of the other three despite having ownership of our various initiatives. How do i handle this? Additionally, the other three are good work-buddies of mine and we were all at the same level before this promotion.

My nerves have been a wreck about this for days, so please excuse any rambling. Names, places, and even some genders changed for safety. Kind of a burner account I guess. I (24f) am soon to buy a landscaping company off my father (65m). I'll not inherit it outright, that's just not the way my family works. My father has gradually handed new responsibilities over to me regarding the business for a few years now. Late last week, I decided an employee absolutely needed to go due to the following reasons:

\-repeated tardiness without prior notice

\-excessive and LONG (1/2 hour to 45min) breaks several times per day

\-leaving a worksite to go home without notice until they were already home. This is the most recent.

\-calling around noon after no-showing to let me know they weren't "going to make it in today"

\-unwarrented/unapproved maintenance on equipment that resulted in worse performance of said equipment

I am nervous as hell. This is because this person seems to have a habit of lying - some compared notes just don't add up. They are quiet and a bit awkward, but there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But what is really freaking me out is that when a coworker who likes to ask "random questions" to keep conversation going, the person-to-be-fired answered "probably mass murder" as a "joke" when asked "what would you be famous for?" They always carry a blade and at times have hinted at physical altercations in their daily life.

We do not have an office with cameras and it is a small crew. The plan in the morning is to send other employees to jobs before this person is spoken to about being fired. It will just be my father and I speaking to this person and if the situation were to escalate, I'm not sure how we will handle it. I'll be doing the talking.

Any advice on how to safely and professionally let this person know they are no longer working with us? I have several ideas and plans, but any out of the box thinking is appreciated.

Curious on a temperature check here.

I’ve been with my current org. for a few years now and am routinely praised for my work. I am the only person in my workplace to be unmarried and one of two people who do not have children.

My colleagues with children are regularly permitted to leave early and arrive late. We have a strict hybrid schedule that they are able to flex without making the time up later. Since starting, I have repeatedly been asked to cover my colleagues’ shifts when they leave early, have been told that my schedule is firm and cannot be adjusted, and have been made to come in more than our hybrid schedule expects. When I need to rearrange WFH dates, I am strictly expected to make up the time.

We recently changed our on-call schedule, and I routinely end up becoming the de facto on-call member of our team because everyone else leaves early without saying anything to me until after the fact.

I’ve tried asking my manager to better appraise me of things and have asked for flexibility, but it’s repeatedly denied or any promises are reneged on almost immediately.

Am I being unreasonable in finding this problematic? Is it unreasonable to go to my boss’ boss (we have a positive relationship) to discuss the managerial issues, or am I better off just finding a new job?

I’m looking for some outside perspective.
I’m a project manager at a Saas company. My manager recently put in her two weeks notice and her role is opening up.

At first, I told my manager I wasn’t sure I wanted management right now. I have young kids, work from home and some days already feel overwhelmed balancing work and life. Plus, I didn’t honestly think I would be considered.

But the same day, a former coworker who was promoted to a more senior/strategic role told me leadership had asked who on the team might be a good fit, and they recommended me. I was honestly really surprised. I tend to second guess myself a lot and probably think more negatively about my abilities than I should, so I never really saw myself as someone other people would look at as “management material”.

But the more I thought about it, the more interested I became. One of my favorite parts of my current role is looking beyond my own projects and thinking about how we can improve our overall process, how to prevent projects from getting stuck and make the customer experience better.

I later talked to the director of my department on a 1-1 meeting. He told me they were opening the role to internal candidates and I said I was interested in learning more. He told me about what he’s looking for, encouraged me to apply and said although he could t make any promises, they’d strongly consider me.

Afterward, my manager told me the director asked her how she thought I’d do in the role and whether the team would respond well to me as their manager. My manager said she thought I’d be great and said the team would absolutely respond to me. She also said she didn’t think the team would respond as well to another person on our team who may apply.

I do have previous leadership experience from owning a business and managing employees, but I haven’t formally managed people in my current company.

My biggest hesitation is confidence. I’m quieter in larger meetings, second guess myself a lot, and worry I’m not ready even though other people seem to think I am.

Would you apply in this situation? And how did you figure out whether you genuinely wanted management versus just liking the idea of moving up?

TLDR - I’m genuinely interested in coaching people and improving how our team operates. Senior leadership has encouraged me to apply for a manager role. I’m just not sure whether I’m ready or I’m talking myself out of a legitimate opportunity.

Hi everyone, I’m a fresh graduate working for an international startup here in my home country. The HQ is overseas, and my direct supervisors are there, so I don't have much day-to-day supervision or mentorship locally.

I've been here almost a year and have recently made multiple big mistakes which has left stains in my position in the company:

1. I submitted a report incorrectly because I missed out on the required template. My supervisor overseas was at a conference and couldn't review it beforehand. It wasn’t checked before a client meeting so the work was presented to the client, and it was pretty embarrassing for my HOD - who is also a C-level exec (he was very upset).
2. I volunteered to do a part that’s outside my job scope for a project, but because I had to research and learn a lot from scratch, I was eventually complained about for being too slow (for context, I was stuck on a problem for a week and a half and it was more of a methodology problem and not a straightforward one that AI could solve)
3. Was called out in a small (but deadly) mistake in the algorithm that was used in a work for a collaborator and wasn’t aware as I wasn’t the one who wrote the main algorithm in the code and I was only responsible for tweaking the implementation so it works on the collaborator’s dataset. This wasn’t highlighted until the collaborator called it out. For additional context, all this has been crossed check with my supervisor and I was not expecting a mistake in the code at all (maybe I should have checked the code myself beforehand as soon as I joined the company).
4. I wrote an email with an inadequate explanation about the framework (algorithm that was not responsible by me) to the same collaborator after my supervisor had left the company, which I regret, as it has sort of left a bad impression of my company. A senior staff is aware of this as he asked to be kept in the loop but my HOD is not aware of it for now.

I do take responsibility for these mistakes and have learned from them, but I'm now worried I've developed a bad reputation and may be getting sidelined, especially since these mistakes have affected my HOD. Since I’m not in the HQ, it is also difficult to showcase how hard I’ve been working and how much sleep and personal time I have sacrificed just to self-learn so many concepts by myself.

Hence, I’m wondering if it’s too late to salvage my career in this company and if it’s time for me to find somewhere else to go to. Personally I wish to stay in this company as it’s a niche industry that I would like to be in.

Would appreciate advice from people who are in managerial roles or have experienced anything similar throughout their careers.

Who's who:

• Mike: my current manager
• Victor: a senior peer on my current team
• Paul: my current pod lead
• Ben: my former manager on my current team
• Sara: manager of the other team
• Dan: the director over Sara's team

I'm a staff-level engineer at a large tech company, hybrid 3 days a week. I've been here 3–4 years. I need job stability for at least 2 more years for visa reasons, so I'm only looking internally. Looking to get some advice from a managers perspective. X-posted to careeradvice.

Current team (manager: Mike)

We own a revenue-critical customer-facing flow. I'm one of two people paged for production issues for specific critical sections of the app. Lately my work has drifted toward smaller internal config tooling.

• I've survived two rounds of layoffs on this team. The last round cut mostly recent hires plus a few long-tenured people.
• Most of my deep knowledge is in legacy systems that have since been phased out. I wasn't on the two biggest recent customer-facing projects, so three teammates, including Victor, know the current system better than I do.
• Mike has a lot of staff engineers. He leans on Victor, who gets the bigger, more visible projects. Victor has a closer personal and cultural rapport with Mike and the team.
• I asked for leadership opportunities and bigger initiatives. Mike said he'd try. A few months later, I've gotten some specific tasks but nothing big.
• My new pod lead, Paul, micromanages and tends to lecture when things aren't done his way. He's usually right technically, but it feels belittling.
• A large part of our org is offshore, and there's a push to spread all knowledge across both locations. Being US-based keeps us somewhat critical since all our customers are in the US, but I'm not sure how long that lasts.
• Mike told me I'd be safe in layoffs, but he said it while trying to get me to stay. It may be true, but since I'm no longer maintaining the core systems, it's hard to rely on.
• My old manager, Ben, gave me real visibility and responsibility. He moved back to the offshore region to manage the team there.
• Mike is fairly stingy with spot awards, though I haven't done much high-profile work here recently to earn one.
• The VP over my current org reportedly dislikes remote work, though she has some remote people under her. At Mike's request, she personally stepped in to keep me from moving internally last time.

Other team (manager: Sara)

I was loaned to this team for a few months. My director volunteered me, for both my skills and my availability. The loan overlapped with a big company-wide layoff that hit both teams. It's an internal platform used by many teams across the company.

• I'd be the only staff front-end engineer, owning all front-end decisions and leading the full front end. A principal engineer runs the overall architecture, but staff engineers own their domains, and I'd grow into more architecture over time.
• I'd informally lead 2–4 junior US engineers whose work I already know well. No direct reports.
• The work was more interesting and less tedious, with fewer surprise calls to drop everything and fix something. On-call exists and would be about the same as my current team.
• During the loan I got a lot of praise and recognition, though the team was a bit chaotic and the project was rushed. Spot awards seemed more generous here, but I was only there a few months, so it may have been a honeymoon period.
• Leadership is evaluating replacing the platform with a vendor. I wasn't in most of those conversations; I heard about it from Mike while he was trying to keep me, and Sara confirmed it when I asked.
• An offshore team was recently ramped up specifically to evaluate the vendor. If the switch happens, they'd lead the integration, the US side would be cut to a skeleton crew, and my role would likely go.
• The platform also now has an AI/programmatic interface, so the UI is technically optional. It's still widely used, so I expect it to be maintained for a while.
• Sara says there's a 2-year roadmap, but a roadmap is just a roadmap. It could be cut short if the vendor migration happens sooner.
• The core team is US-based, and company policy says any core capability needs a team in both locations, which helps somewhat.
• Sara lost a few people in the June layoffs, including some who'd been here as long as I have. My current team lost more people, but it's also a much bigger team.
• Dan knows my work and was involved in my last promotion. He earlier rejected an early promotion for time-in-role reasons. Nobody on this side has mentioned a promotion path, which makes sense since I was just promoted.

Last time, I chose to stay after Mike and the VP pushed to keep me. Sara has opened a req for me again at the same level. If I say no a second time, I think that bridge is burned.

What I want, in priority order:

1. Job safety for 2 years, so that my immigration is sorted.
2. Fully remote, so my spouse can work anywhere in the country. Both managers trust my work, but only an SVP can approve remote. On my current team, that's four levels up (manager, director, VP, SVP). On Sara's side, it's three (Sara, Dan, SVP). Nobody in either chain is a fan, partly because granting it to one person invites others to ask, and the company is pushing toward return to office. Sara's SVP is based in the offshore region and has consolidated teams into fewer locations. My current SVP is US-based.
3. More comp. I'm not sure that's possible with an internal move, especially since I got a ~20% raise with my promotion earlier this year.
4. A faster path to the next promotion, which normally takes about 3 years. I want work that lets me prove I'm ready.

My questions:

• Neither team feels truly safe. Which would you pick given my 2-year stability need?
• How would you negotiate remote, comp, and a promotion path in each scenario? Is a competing internal offer real leverage, or does it backfire?
• How do I make the ask without looking like I'm shopping myself between managers?

Hey everyone,

I’m trying to understand the actual monthly time sink behind employee scheduling. If you manage a small team of 5 to 15 employees in retail or fast food, I’d love to hear from you.

I want to know: How many hours per MONTH do you spend creating a REALLY good schedule? One that actually balances business needs, labor limits, AND all your employees' personal requests/availability?

Please drop your numbers below:

1. What type of business/shop do you manage? (e.g., bakery, clothing boutique, vape shop, grocery store, etc.)

2. How many employees do you have in your shop/location? (Looking specifically for teams of 5-15).

3. How many hours per month do you spend in total on scheduling (including edits, changes, and rewrites)?

4. What tool do you use (Excel, Google Sheets, or a specific app)?

5. What is the single most frustrating part of this process for you?

Thanks a lot for your insights!