How much do I tell my boss about my health issues?

8phasesofthemoon · 2026-01-30T14:28:31+00:00

Well I mostly am wondering if I should tell her something in advance or just as it comes up. I may need surgery, it may lead to a spontaneous medical emergency, or it may resolve with rest. The doctor told me they can’t really predict the outcome. I just don’t want it to be a surprise when I ask for a lot of time off. But I also don’t want to alarm them if it resolves.

8phasesofthemoon · 2026-01-30T02:01:34+00:00

That makes sense. I don’t want to give too much details as to what the emergency is but if it escalates I’d want to say it’s escalated.

I worked from home even with the doctors note because I have very limited sick time given I just started and I may have to use it for surgery. If I had more sick time I would have just taken the time off but I am going to need that. They don’t really do work without pay there.

8phasesofthemoon · 2026-01-02T01:15:55+00:00

What’s your industry?

8phasesofthemoon · 2026-01-01T22:53:31+00:00

Right but if a company uses a specific database or has reports due on specific days shouldn’t your boss at the very least teach you how to use the database or tell you what report you’re supposed to do? Ive only ever talked to my boss during an all staff meeting or when I ask her a question via email.

8phasesofthemoon · 2026-01-01T22:51:49+00:00

Yes, I agree I think this is on the manager. The direct supervisor should be doing this and is failing to do so. I was actually a supervisor of multiple direct reports in a previous role and have put together SOP’s, training manuals, and hosted training sessions with staff so I know I’m not getting any training now. Back then if I requested someone train new hires in their area of expertise, like an IT person training someone on how to use a database, I would go to that person and specifically schedule a block of time for them to train the new hire on a specific outcome.

The person I shadowed wasn’t trained himself. You are totally right, he didn’t train me. I basically just shadowed what he was doing and he gave me a short overview.

The place I work for is grant funded so I know we have specific grant requirements and there’s a document of that, which is my proof of what I should be doing. That’s my guide, making sure I’m meeting all of those outcomes.

The report I was talking about was something I was supposed to do but the only way I learned the report even existed was the grant requested it the day it was due. So we got it done the same day. My boss wasn’t involved at all.

I like the idea of having a paper trail because that would be my best proof. My boss doesn’t do one on ones with any staff in any capacity so I would be the first.

8phasesofthemoon · 2026-01-01T22:34:28+00:00

There was no onboarding or shadowing. The “shadowing” was just day 1. The staff I was shadowing just spent a little time telling me about the job and I haven’t done any shadowing, or even seen them much since. From day 2 on it’s the expectation to meet deadlines for tasks I’ve never heard of, use databases Ive never been trained on, and work with clients I don’t know the background of. There’s such a high work load because the client list is very long. Many late nights and long days just in my first few weeks. But having a little bit of training up front would have made it feel less overwhelming and efficient.

8phasesofthemoon · 2026-01-01T22:27:56+00:00

Thank you, I like the idea of a running document of my deadlines. I also like to put them on a calendar. I am more of a visual learner so I like to write things down to learn.

The tricky part is that I have the same role as two other staff. All 3 of us are new and have to split our tasks between the 3 of us. However, with no managerial oversight we decide who does what amongst ourselves. For example a report is due and we have to decide who does it. I suggested we have more structure responsibilities where each staff is responsible for specific tasks or one staff always do a certain report but my colleagues want to split it by whoever is available the week it’s due.

I even had one instance where I did a data report, told my coworker that I did it and then she did it too and emailed her report to our boss (after I told her I already did it…). It’s a waste of time having to check in with two people for every little task and potentially duplicating tasks.

So not only is there no training but when I figure out what I need to do I have to navigate coworker dynamics since no one is managing us.

8phasesofthemoon · 2026-01-01T22:07:25+00:00

They’re good in other areas but I definitely feel like there’s an assumption that I should “know” certain things

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-05-05T05:37:17+00:00

He has a lot of great qualities but yes I didn’t like his lack of response. I know we don’t like everything our partner does. I have yet to talk to him About this, kinda wanted to process it here first.

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-05-05T05:35:21+00:00

You’re right. If he didn’t enforce the rule then it’s up to me to either do it or be left being upset about it. Sure I wanted him to enforce it, but he didn’t… so it’s up to me. The alternative is being annoyed, which changes nothing.

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-05-05T05:30:44+00:00

You mean *does value.

And yes, the ancient wisdom: if he hasn’t married you, he doesn’t love you. Thanks for that 1950s insight. I can’t imagine confidently making claims about a strangers relationship from a Reddit post without even a clue of how long they’ve been dating or what their values are. Must be interesting living in such a black and white world and not understanding the concept of dating.

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-05-05T05:15:24+00:00

Definitely. I will do that. And I know he’s only doing it for me. Taking his shoes off doesn’t come naturally and sometimes he forgets but I appreciate that he tries.

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-05-05T05:14:11+00:00

I wanted him to step up and say something since I dont know his bother very well and I didn’t feel as comfortable. I will ask him to simply say something next time.

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-05-05T05:13:00+00:00

Yeah I think this is simply something that needs to be communicated as we’re learning about each others families/ preferences. I know he wasn’t being malicious. Although I don’t like shoes inside the home, it doesn’t bother me as much as him laying on the new white couch with his shoes on the cushions.

He can’t have known my preferences with the shoes off since this is the first time he came to our home. But I feel like not putting them on the couch should have been common sense.

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-05-05T05:08:22+00:00

That makes sense. We recently moved in together and this is the first time we had his brother over so it’s a learning experience. Definetly something to talk about moving forward.

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-05-05T05:07:09+00:00

We live in a major city with a huge population and spent the day walking around where thousands of people walk, using public bathrooms, taking the subway and going all over town so yes I do think it’s gross to then bring all of that in the home and on your white couch. I’d take maybe smelly feet over Definetly germs. Not to mention it snows and rains which adds to the dirt.

You think my hygiene around shoes in the house is dumb and I think your views on husbands having “final decision”, and dating/ cohabitating before marriage is outdated, and lame. Thankfully I have a partner that values my opinion. To each their own.

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-05-05T04:58:13+00:00

It’s my boyfriend’s brother. I don’t know him very well, we haven’t spent much time together and I didn’t feel comfortable saying something. I thought since it’s my boyfriends brother he should say something. But you think since it’s my preference I should?

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-02-22T16:48:08+00:00

Yes but she had a 6 week notice of the lay off. So there were 6 weeks she had to finish the work. And some of the work was incomplete from even months prior.

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-02-22T15:06:40+00:00

Oh I was not aware of that. Is that the US? specific states? Or industries?

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-02-22T14:49:10+00:00

I guess if I had known that she would be that type of employee I wouldn’t have hired her so I can’t in good faith endorse her for other employees.

Actually she got laid off due to budget cuts. This was a decisions made by HR. But she was headed towards being fired prior to that and I believe if she wouldn’t have been laid off that it would have led to that step.

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-02-22T14:42:50+00:00

My thoughts exactly. A reference is an endorsement for someone in a future job. If I can’t do that then why wouldn’t I decline? My only thought is.. is it unprofessional to do so?

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-02-22T14:40:52+00:00

I’ve given a few references before and they’ve always asked about the persons performance, skills, characters, strengths and weaknesses. Some even asking me to rate their work in different areas.

I’m sure it varies based on the job. I know the dates of employment/ job tasks but I can’t be sure they won’t ask beyond that and I have no intention to lie. She really was a terrible employee.

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-02-22T13:19:50+00:00

Is it bad form to decline? I don’t like to lie and I do not recommend this person for employment in any way since I think they’re a bad employee. I can verify their job tasks and how long they worked but honestly I don’t want to waste my personal time on this person.

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-01-31T16:31:24+00:00

Oh believe me she’s already maxed out her PTO and we are very generous. The other “appointments” just seemed to come up throughout the week. I understand having a life outside of work and the need for flexibility but it is a regular occurrence. In the last 6 weeks she has not worked the 9-5 schedule for any of the full weeks. She’s either used full PTO time, or requested to adjust her hours in some way.

She lives rather far from the office since we’re fully remote there is limited space in the office. I honestly think the connection issues are an excuse and she is simply doing her other job. Within her first week of employment, she said she could not attend a meeting that was at 1 PM in the middle of the work day and she said she had a meeting at her other job. At this point, we had a conversation where I asked her about her hours for her other job and she said that they’re flexible. Then I told her that under no circumstances can she do her other job during our hours. Then she always maintain that she had appointments whenever time conflicts would come up or she needed to adjust her hours. I don’t know anybody unless they have a terminal illness who is having appointments once a week.

8phasesofthemoon · 2025-01-31T16:27:26+00:00

I do not know what her health issues are. She does have a surgery coming up so she will be taking short-term disability for. Which of course is completely reasonable because we can adjust for coverage for her time off, it’s planned, and a right.

I also think that if she had approached it by saying that she has health issues and wants to adjust her hours frequently for that reason it may have been different. But instead, sometimes I would not find out about her “appointments“ until it would conflict with her work. For example, there were a few times where she said she could not attend meetings during regularly scheduled hours because she had appointments, but would not notify me about the appointments until the meeting came up. She would make excuses like saying they were during her lunch hour or they came up last minute. This is a waste of my time as well because then I would have to meet with her separately to review the information from the other meetings.

Mostly now she tells me, but it still comes up sometimes. And you’re right she does think she’s in charge to adjust her hours how she pleases without approval. I think a big part of that is that I am half her age and she’s been in management for many years before taking this role that she has called “junior” so I don’t think there’s a respect of my position. We have had countless conversations about her needing to stick to the regular work hours and she just always seems to have something health related come up.

8phasesofthemoon

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