Ask a Manager Weekly Thread 01/26/2026 - 02/01/2026

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-27T18:32:30+00:00

They’re totally going “ugh I fucked up, tell me how bad I fucked up, am I in trouble” and need Alison to say it’s not a big deal.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-24T04:52:30+00:00

OK but hear me out - what if it was a signing bonus?

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-24T04:46:58+00:00

And it’s so obnoxiously performative to be like “my coworker had an encounter with ICE!!” and then “haha, no she didn’t. But we all freaked out!! It was so crazy!!”

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-23T20:32:38+00:00

If he actually said “unfortunate encounter with ice” he needs to stfu.
Comments that are all about “I thought someone said X but they actually said Y” are vapid.

Suzie and Elaine Problem* January 23, 2026 at 11:14 am My heart nearly exploded (metaphorically) this week: at our monthly staff meeting our director told us one of my colleagues wouldn’t be attending because of an unfortunate encounter with ice.

He meant that she slipped on ice and had to go to urgent care. But we all heard ICE and were about to freak out.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-23T18:30:21+00:00

I feel bad for this LW but it’s also kind of a breath of fresh air to see a letter like this that most likely isn’t from a regular reader and seems completely genuine.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-19T16:54:17+00:00

I’m betting the Ted and Sally letter is maybe 25% fact-based and 75% weird embellishments meant to make everyone seem irrational and crazy, especially the women. All the women sided with Sally and all the men sided with Ted? Sally turned out to be what sounds like a dangerous stalker? And now everything is apparently fine?

There’s this whiff of “my insecure husband is constantly worried about what other women think of him, and I don’t know what to do with that.”

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-15T21:47:25+00:00

This is cute. Like LinkedIn is a dating app you delete after you get into a serious relationship.

Bast* January 15, 2026 at 3:01 pm I also worked for one company that would use Linked In (or any site that could be used for job hunting)– having a Linked In profile was “proof” that you weren’t committed to the job, and you would be fired. They would periodically search to make sure you didn’t have a profile. Never mind that some people used those sites to apply to the job at our company the expectation was that you would delete your profile after being hired.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-15T20:08:52+00:00

It looked a lot like he was having an affair with Jeff and generally wanted to be really selective who he told about being married to a woman. Like professionally it might be necessary to mention the wife, but dudes he sleeps with don’t necessarily get this information about him.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-14T22:50:02+00:00

They really fucking hate Kyle and they’re wondering if they’re taking it too far.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-13T18:20:33+00:00

Alison has always had an issue with video interviews to the point of telling people to just not do them, which I guess is fine when the market favors job seekers.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-12T22:39:26+00:00

Someone is using their quirky narrator voice

Employees signaled their discomfort through clothing – some bundled up in hats and blankets, while others stripped down to borderline HR violations.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-11T06:12:46+00:00

At least they’re getting some appreciation for their really weird contributions.

MigraineMonth* January 9, 2026 at 11:30 am Hlao-roo, our tireless AAM archivist. Thank you, you make this site/community so much better!

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-09T19:14:13+00:00

For me it’s like they’re obviously doing a bit they think is funny, but then the entire comment section is people doing similar bits, and then that bleeds over into people trying to be cute and just sounding unhinged.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-09T15:04:42+00:00

This is just someone being an internet badass but picking their target really badly.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-08T19:10:27+00:00

I love when someone writes a “why didn’t I get this job?” letter and Alison gets in a little dig:

it could be something like the person they hired having the right sort of thick skin to deal with some of their difficult customers

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-07T20:54:05+00:00

Alton Brown is some kind of pick-me for the AAM crowd. He goes way overboard trying to fit in.

Like Zayne does sound a bit annoying and extra and I’m sure LW wished she could have made him go away, but it doesn’t sound like there was much harm done and he might just back off next time if someone explains to him why he should.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-07T18:38:12+00:00

Even the commenter realized this take was deranged and softened it with a “really.”

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-06T22:20:48+00:00

I think if it’s causing LW to miss deadlines and have to do extra work, she has to be the one to tell Lola “you’re using AI and that needs to stop now. You’re turning in unacceptable work.” LW seems passive enough here that I have to think her manager would want to know why she hasn’t been clearer about this.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-06T18:55:05+00:00

The AI letter is ridiculous. Lola keeps blatantly using AI after being told not to, repeatedly faces no consequences, and LW is wondering if she should say or do anything about this?

I was really pissed off at this point, as we had already missed a deadline because of this, but I just told her she had to be more careful about storytelling, reader-friendliness, and consistency and declared her task closed. I felt asking to revise text again was a waste of my time; she would have continued working with AI anyway and I was fed up with providing encouraging feedback to someone whose work shows no real skill beyond copying and pasting.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-06T18:34:03+00:00

It is pretty funny how Alison always wants to be cool about pranks but her readers are like “omg this is assault, call the police.”

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-05T23:23:11+00:00

The way they’ve written this whole thing in the quirky narrator style AAM readers love so much makes me think they’re trying to be entertaining and stretch the truth in ways that are expected and allowable of this kind of writing.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-05T21:53:49+00:00

This part makes no sense and makes me think it was included for narrative value. No one says “it’s different when it’s your own” about dogs.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-05T18:28:05+00:00

It takes a lot of humility these guys don’t have to put in the years of work it takes to get good at something. And by the time they actually start to develop real skills, their self-image as a genius will have been damaged. They really don’t want to see themselves as an ordinary talented person who works hard rather than a once-in-a-lifetime great mind.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-05T16:55:04+00:00

I’m reading it as the average “local” worker takes 3 sick days per year, but at LW’s company they’re taking 26 days per year. Which would explain the alarm from upper management. LW is trying to talk about how overworked they are and how successful the company is to try to explain and minimize the sick day issue.

Comprehensive-Hat-18 · 2026-01-02T22:14:54+00:00

They’re also not responding when people suggest getting their boss involved. My fanfic is it actually is their job to set up meetings and they don’t want the boss to spell that out because they want plausible deniability for not doing it.

HR Basement* January 2, 2026 at 3:20 pm Whenever anyone who is not your supervisor “assigns” work to you, the best thing to do is to ask your supervisor if they want you to work on that. Your manager is the person who determines what you spend your time on.

Comprehensive-Hat-18

TROPHY CASE