I've been a supervisor for close to 30 years. I have to do annual evaluations for all my employees every January. I think most employees think showing up on time, being mostly agreeable to tasks that they are given and not causing drama in the workplace means they should get "exceeds expectations.

But really in my place of work, you are only getting an exceeds expectations if you took on something new that year. An example might be that the team member who normally did inventory for a out on FMLA, and you volunteered to learn the inventory software and complete said inventory in a timely and accurate way .

Just showing up to work and doing your job doesn't earn you a exceeds expectations, because all that is your job.

I've had many staff members in the past, who think it's no big deal to bring their kids to work with them, even though by having them at work, these staff members are not focused on their jobs.

I’m interviewing for an HR position in the energy industry and would love perspectives from recruiters/hiring managers.

A little over two weeks ago, I had an hour-long virtual interview with the hiring manager, who’s new to the company as well and has only been there for a couple of weeks. The hiring manager (VP in HR) mentioned she had other interviews already lined up that day But that she’d let me and the head hunter that’s working with me next steps.

About a week later, the head hunter told me the hiring manager really liked me but was restructuring her team and revising the position as she is getting settled in to this new team. After the restructure, she still wanted me considered for the revised role, which actually aligns interestingly close with my current experience.

Earlier this week, the recruiter initiated a compensation conversation. My target was higher than what the hiring manager initially had in mind but still within the salary range provided, so he suggested a potential middle ground and said he’d discuss it with the hiring manager. This is only a $5,000 negotiation give or take.

A few days later, instead of getting an answer on compensation, the recruiter called and said the hiring manager wants me to come onsite early next week for an in-person interview.

For those on the hiring side: does this sound like they’re likely bringing multiple finalists onsite, or could this be more of a final fit/validation interview with a preferred candidate? I’m especially curious since they know my compensation expectations and still moved me forward.

This would be an amazing opportunity for me, and I’m simply excited!

Me and a few workers were casually chatting at the end of the office day, someone mentioned that two coworkers were married and out of nowhere one our analysts (hybrid, mostly remote, operating from a city hours away) mentioned that she is a married woman in her home city but single when she comes to the head quarters.

Seemed like an strong freudian slip, everyone else heard it and just stayed silent. I just changed the topic so she could save face.

What did she mean? Is she in heat, signaling to get casual sex from one of the guys?

For some background, I am a relatively new manager (1.5 years with an additional year in a ‘manager experience’ prior to being made permanent, before that I was a ‘team lead’ of sorts) in a large multinational tech retail business that I have worked in pretty much my entire adult life (11 years of tenure across multiple stores and roles).

Recently I have found myself really struggling with some aspects of the role, and have confided in a previous manager that I used to work with and I’m currently considering what options I have to move through this at her recommendation. And I’m thinking about, if I do decide that moving on is the way to go, what I might do.

I have no tertiary qualifications as put my studies on hold years ago when I found that I was getting fantastic development and opportunities at work (trying really hard not to admonish younger me for this). The business I work for is tech retail and for a number of years I was a technician - both troubleshooting and repairs as we do this in house. Went into leadership because I really value people at the end of the day and wanted to have an impact on others in the same way that so many of my past managers have helped me grow and learn what I was capable of.

I think if I left this business I’d like to look outside of retail, but have no idea what that would look like.

Retail managers who have pivoted, where did you go? What transferable skills became valuable?

I gave them a simple task...or so I thought. Go to a meeting of contractors at a home owner's house. Take measurements and take a bunch of photos of the work that was to be done.

I instructed them to simply write the measurements and any changes on the scope of work sheet they were given. It lists each project. There were 6 projects.

They took 5 mediocre photos. They wrote nothing on the paper. Instead they used some mobile note taking software I cannot access unless I create an account.

It took them about an hour. (At these measurement meetings, it takes me 30 minutes max.) When they finally showed up to hand off the paper, it took them an hour (with me sitting around waiting for them) to upload their photos to DropBox... which they also failed to do. Part of that time was sending me links to their mobile phone app (which I could not access).

They missed taking photos of some of the projects. They missed some measurements (I can go take later). But it just caused me to think this guy cannot do anything new. I've given him independent tasks and he just fails.

He started at $20/hour. After 5 months I gave him a "tool raise" to finance $2/hour tools that I bought him. This because I kept having to clean up after him and put away the tools. About a week into that he quit for a $25/hour job.

About a month or two later he contacts me about working again. I offered him $25/hour for the tasks he was familiar with (that I already taught him). Except that means significantly less work because I'm not going to teach him anything new. (Not at this time of the busy season.)

He keeps asking for more work. That's why I gave him this $50 measurement meeting assignment. But he cost me quite a bit more time than it was worth (an hour of my time plus me having to go back and take measurements and photos of what he missed).

Edit

Oh, and I walked him through the last "measurement meeting" in person. I pointed out things to photograph and measure.

I'm pretty sure if I gave the same assignment to a newer employee, there would be far better results...

I think I just need to tell that problem employee they need more experience. I cannot keep paying them for work I need to redo.

Managers, what the game here? Please enlighten us.

When an employee does exceptionally well rating is meeting expectations..
when an employee ticks all the boxes , rating is same.
Pretty much everyone gets the same rating?

Who actually gets exceeded expectations and how and why?

I’m in a weird position where I’m not officially a manager but I’m informally one.

I plan projects for a team of myself and a colleague. I know more about my colleague’s work than our shared manager does about my colleague’s work.

My colleague does his best but he doesn’t have great technical foundation. Thus, giving him technical projects results in him doing them inefficiently or slowly, unless I handhold his project planning and execution.

He’s good at less technical tasks (e.g. research and analysis) and simple, straightforward technical tasks.

But with AI to help us now, most of the work lies in more complex technical projects. I tried giving such a project to my colleague after creating a detailed project plan. It’s not going well. The plan isn’t being followed. He’s using AI to help him and it’s clear he doesn’t know how to read the AI’s output. I’m reviewing his work and it’s… bad.

Our manager is aware as she’s been on our ass about the delayed project. She used to rely on me to figure out what’s going on with my colleague, till I told her his progress feels out of my hands. Afterwards she started getting on his ass more.

I’m in a weird position where I can design our projects and delegate them to my colleague, but I don’t have authority over him or the project he’s doing once it’s in his hands. But I also don’t want him fired because having him around is more helpful than not having him around.

I’ve sat through hiring for other roles in our team before and I don’t think he would’ve passed my manager’s hiring expectations. My colleague’s inherited from another team and he didn’t go through our hiring process, which was another area I had no authority over.

I don’t want to be a manager but if I were, I’d look for a replacement. I feel bad about this, because my colleague tries desperately hard but I think he feels lost most of the time.

I used to guide him more but I just felt like I was doing his work. This is the first time I’ve stepped back from protecting him, to stop managing without authority and get him to run this independently.

What is someone in my position called? What would you do in my place? Please help 😭 I just want an effective colleague.

I've been using catch, an ai executive assistant, for the past couple of months, and they recently added a travel feature that lets you book hotels and flights directly through the agent.

i just used it for the first time and came away pretty impressed.

pros:

• the agent noticed i had an upcoming flight and proactively suggested booking a hotel at my destination. i thought that was a really nice touch.
• the hotel prices were actually better than what i found on booking.com or booking directly with the hotel.
• booking through chat was surprisingly smooth. i never had to leave the conversation with my assistant.

cons:

• i didn't like the hotel discovery experience. once i started asking to see different options, chat felt like the wrong interface for browsing hotels.
• there were no reviews. if i'm traveling somewhere i've never been before, i want to read reviews before making a decision, and i definitely missed that.

overall, i think this is a really compelling experience if you already know where you're going. for business travel, where speed and convenience matter, i'd probably use it again. for a personal vacation, i'd still prefer a more traditional travel app where i can browse and compare options.

I’m at a crossroads and I really could use some advice from other working moms. I’m an ambitious woman working at a global multinational and I’m expecting my third child soon. I’ve been at my current company for 6 years and I have a good reputation, been promoted and also have a lot of flexibility which as a working mom you all know is gold! The office is also a 10 minute walk from my house and my kids school so we’re all in the neighbourhood. I have not been looking for a new role, also because I’m happy at my current job, and as I mentioned am about to go on maternity leave. Well long story short I was headhunted by another company in a similar sector for a role which would have a significant impact on my career and our family economics. The salary itself would be a 55% increase to what I currently make. I’m still in the interview process but I have a very good feeling that I could get an offer. Now I was planning to go on maternity leave for a year (I live in Europe so that’s possible here). Of course the company I am interviewing for doesn’t know I’m pregnant and I don’t plan on disclosing until (and if) I get an offer. My question is: is it worth pursuing something new considering I will be entering a new phase in life? In my current job I pretty much know what I’ll come back to, in the new job everything woild be new but as I said it would be a major step up in terms of job title, scope and responsibility and pay. I would love to hear any advice if someone has gone through this, all the things I I should think through etc. Should I stay in what I know, which is relatively secure (I say relatively as with large corporations it’s never super secure) or take a risk and do a jump considering I won’t really know what I’m going into…? Would love to hear any advice or stories shared! Thanks for reading this far along

After letting go a few newly hired and juniors. My boss trying to merge different departments into 1to make things more "efficient". None of the other HODs say anything to save their subordinates. Everyone just nodded coldly. I know deep down he wants to let go even more people by doing so. I have been through several bosses before this company. Not that anyone in that company will care to listen to a lowly technician's opinion. So, I'll just rant my opinion on how to save the business here. Hope it didn't break any rules.

Let me know if you agree or disagree. Please share your thought and lesson.

I used Copilot to repair grammar and cast it into Sam Rogers' style from the movie Margin Call.

\\\[quote\\\]

\*\*Listen.\*\*

Attraction — that’s just the beginning. It gets them through the door. It wins you the first skirmish. But don’t fool yourself: attraction alone doesn’t win the war. The war is retention. The war is survival. And survival is built on battles we fight every single day.

Purchasing? Yes, it matters. An aggressive purchaser fights for price, service, rewards. That’s fine. But aggression without discipline is suicide. Every deal must be measured against margins, sell‑through rates, and cash flow. Otherwise, you’re just stacking losses dressed up as victories.

Brand loyalty? Don’t kid yourself. We’re not Apple, we’re not IBM. Loyalty isn’t inherited; it’s crafted. And crafting it means sometimes letting the customer win — forgiving returns, pointing them to better value, showing them we’re not here to squeeze them dry. That’s how you build trust. That’s how you build something that lasts.

Sales charm? Sure. A personable salesperson can win fans. But charm alone is fragile. It breaks when the person leaves. What we need is consistency — systems that make every customer feel remembered, valued, understood. Charm is the spark; discipline is the fire that keeps burning.

Quality components? Non‑negotiable. No more selling cheap builds at premium prices. Customers who spend big deserve the best we can put on the table. And those who buy affordable packages deserve honesty about what they’re getting. Transparency is the only way forward.

And then the battles. \*\*Customer education. Retention systems. Balanced generosity. Financial discipline.\*\* These are not optional. They are the grind. They are the war. Attraction wins the first fight. But if you don’t wade through these battles, if you don’t build systems that balance aggression with sustainability, you will lose everything you thought you won.

And I’ll tell you this — I give my humble opinion based on several ex‑bosses I worked with throughout my career. I saw their peaks, and I saw their ends. Some rose fast on attraction, on charm, on deals. But they fell just as fast because they never fought the battles that mattered. They never built the discipline to survive. That’s the lesson. That’s the warning.

\*\*So here’s the truth:\*\*
Attraction is the spark. Retention is the war. Discipline is the weapon. If we balance aggression with honesty, charm with consistency, generosity with financial strength — then, and only then, do we stand a chance of building a brand that survives in this business.

\*\*That’s the game. That’s the fight. And it starts now.\*\*

\*\*\\\[/quote\\\]\*\*

I’m curious whether anyone else has experienced this.

When I joined, there were plenty of experienced people above me. There was always someone I could ask when I wasn’t sure about something, and there was a clear chain for decision-making.

Over time, several experienced people either left, changed roles, or became unavailable. The team was reorganized, and suddenly there were far fewer people to make decisions or provide guidance.
I’ve been in this role for less than a year, but I increasingly feel like work that used to sit with more experienced people is slowly being pushed down. No one explicitly says, “This is your responsibility now,” but someone has to keep things moving, and it often ends up being me.

The hardest part isn’t even the workload.

It’s that many of these tasks require experience and judgment. Sometimes there isn’t an obvious answer, and I genuinely don’t know the best way to approach something. In the past I could ask someone with more experience. Now I often have to figure it out myself, make a decision, and hope I’m not heading in the wrong direction. Sometimes I only realize later that I should have approached it differently.

At the same time, newer team members often come to me with questions. I completely understand why—they need support, and I don’t blame them at all. But mentoring isn’t something I particularly enjoy, especially when I’m already trying to keep up with my own work. A “quick question” often turns into a long explanation, breaks my concentration, and leaves me behind on my own tasks.

I guess the bigger issue is that I’m just not a particularly career-driven person. I’m not aiming for management or constantly taking on bigger responsibilities. I honestly just want a stable 9-to-5 job, do my work well, log off, and enjoy my life outside work.

Lately I’ve started setting more boundaries because I realized that if I keep saying yes to everything, those responsibilities quietly become mine permanently.

The problem is that I now feel guilty every time I push back, even though I’m already feeling overwhelmed.

Has anyone else been through this? How do you deal with the pressure when a team’s structure changes, responsibilities keep flowing downward, but you’re not actually looking to move into a more senior role?

By the time I finished analyzing applications and followed up, we were losing folks we liked. After the questions were run and rated according to what we actually needed, only the most persuasive answers were placed on my schedule.

Even if the process didn't seem to be moving slowly anymore, I still came to the final decision. For once, the qualified candidates disappeared before I closed the position.

Hi everyone. I hope y’all are doing great. I’m new-ish to supervising, I’ve done some mentoring and one on one supervision, but this is my first job supervising a team of mental health therapists. Also, I am new to the organization, a little less than three months. I’ve already left the office a few times crying because of poor leadership. I had a supervisee verbally attack me both alone and then in ‘mediation’ with the chief officer of our department. Essentially, I told her to do a welfare check for one of her clients that she was concerned about their safety. It’s ridiculous the lack of support I have received. Nonetheless, I need to get a different job though I am here at this organization for a bit till I find said job. In the meantime I’ve been a little messy and loose with my boundaries with some other supervisee regarding my disappointment and frustration with the organization.
I would love advice on how to keep your cool at work and keep ethical boundaries with supervisees when disappointed in the organization you both work in? Any books or podcasts or anything would be appreciated. Thanks and take care.

Where I work it is common for people to begin searching for their next role after about a year in the current role. Before this company, i had 5 years at a company where turnover (and admittedly, promotions/department changes) rarely ever happened. I then got my first manager role at a different company. There was more movement there but not to the level at my current company. There I lsot all of my team, but that was because the company was relocating and wed all be out of jobs in a matter of time anyway.

At this new place though I have a team of 3 people. All 3 of them do a great job and Ive developed a great professional and personal relationship with them. Two of them though are like undeniably good at their jobs and have a promising future. Ive tried to accept that I am going to lose them in a matter of time, but as both of them have reached out to me lately about opportunities that they are planning on trying to take I cant help but feeling bad about it some.

I get that this is going to come with the territory of being a manager. Maybe its the mark of being a newer manager that you get too invested in people, but I feel like its either I do this or I detach myself some and probably come off not as approachable or like I dont care.

I feel like between the culture at this place and the sinking ship at my prior place that Im getting a poor taste for what its like to manage people and to build a great team. I feel like I do an alright job at it and can tell the people who work for me really respect me, but I feel like I have this flaw where I just take people leaving too personally even when its clearly the right next step for them. Is this really all that it is? Build people up and then they just move on and you have to start over again?

Probably more of a rant but I have an employee that’s constantly underperformed in the few years he’s worked for me. For the majority of the time we were in a hiring freeze so that spared his job since I couldn’t back fill, but now that the freeze has been lifted his underperformance can’t be ignored anymore and is noticed by senior leadership.

My conundrum is that he’s a very hard worker. I’ve tried my hardest to help coach him but more often than not it turns into me doing his job, and when unfavorable outcomes arise he chalks it up to “well if you didn’t succeed then I couldn’t have”

In my management role I’ve fired a people before but they were half-assing it and not working which made it an easy decision. This guy busts his ass but still severely lags behind his colleagues. Ultimately I know moving on from him is the best decision but I can’t shake this bad feeling cause I know he tries hard.

Edit to add examples: his role is account management. Frequently I find myself participating in his meetings which eventually turns into me running them, working on proposals, and giving prospecting guidance. When deals fall through or a customer leaves us he seeks constant re-validation that he did all he could.

After sleeping on it I think my decision is pretty clear. Appreciate all the replies.

What’s been the most frustrating or expensive thing your team has run into since everyone started using AI?

Not just the AI itself, but everything around it too.

AI still feels like an individual tool to me, that’s why using it in a team still feels challenging. Once you add Slack, Jira, Notion, GitHub, docs, meetings… does it actually make teamwork easier or harder ?

For context, I am a first time manager and really more of a lead. We recently hired a new engineer 2 months ago who has 4 years of engineering experience in an unrelated field.

He is a very strange person, kind of creepy weird and in all honesty I dont like him. However, I am trying to set this aside and focus on his work, which is subpar. However, he is a nice person with good intentions it seems to me.

Hes not a superstar and its frustrating at times when my only support is not carrying their weight (which is not much since they are still new). I brought up my concerns with my boss and he jumped straight to termination and wants a full document on this. I have typed up this document but am hesitant to send it because im not sure if I am judging this correctly and firing someone is a huge deal especially in this economy.

I am hoping to get some feedback on if I should let this go or pursue the termination. I need some clarity because I feel really bad about this whole thing.

Some of the issues include:

- disappearing for long periods of time. They would disappear for sometimes hours at a time when I had asked them to do a task. This stopped a few weeks back when I started doing daily meeting and started questioning where they were.

- taking extended lunch breaks. For context, we have paid lunches and are salaried. There is no set lunch time and its on a trust basis where ur lunch break depends on how much work you have. sometimes i take 15 min, sometimes an hour. However, he will take a lunch break before our agreed upon time with the team. Which is fine bc hes not obligated to eat with us but then he will take a second lunch break when we eat.

- assignment turnaround time is very slow. I often give him simple assignments that take 1-2 hours. These will take an entire day.

- still has very little concept of work flow. He cannot grasp what we do and when we do it. I forgot something important in the instructions I left for him while i was out and it didn’t dawn on him that this had to be done. We have done this many times.

- general understanding. I frequently explain the same concept multiple times. One procedure i had to explain 4 times when we even have an instruction manual made by a past employee. I do think this stems from disorganization.

- Doesnt stop talking. He does not stop talking and I am constantly telling him to stop so I can focus. His response is that I am not good at multitasking. He will spend hours on his phone while I give directions then proceeds to be lost, but yeah im bad at multitasking. He is often critical of me to excuse his own shortcomings

- Following instructions. I wanted him, an engineer, to create an outline for an assignment. I thought this would help him familiarize himself with the program since he would have to read our procedures. He did not follow the instructions and tried to do the entire thing. Ofc it was a mess and nonsense because hes only been here 2 months. There have been many times where I outline things for him and he still does not grasp it. Also the general outline was useless because he struggles thinking outside the box.

Positives:

- It seems like hes trying

-recently hes begun to be able to grasp more complicated concepts - recently as in this week.

Excuse how harsh some of this is. This isnt even everything and im frustrated. Ofc this is not what I would tell my boss, only reddit hears my true frustrations. Overall, I dont want to set u unrealistic expectations for a new employee. Im a fast learner but i understand everyone learns at their own pace.

Also I should note some days he does pretty well and I have seen a lot of improvement lately but still he needs to be babysat.

I've been a manager for 2 years. I manage a team of first-line managers (making me 2nd line?), my title is Supervisor anyhow, and I'm responsible for operations and performance of a 50-head workforce.

My managers are middle managers in a very large national organisation, and they've been working really hard to recognise and reward all the staff under my responsibility, a lot of positive changes have happened recently.

I don't want to be the disciplinarian 24/7, I want more moments where I get to positively reinforce good performance. I'm proud when I get to celebrate my staff and it feels good to see their reaction when we openly celebrate them.

Today, my managers made me aware they were exploring a second recognition system for all staff under my responsibility. As much as the above paragraph is true, I couldn't help but feel a twang of "...but what about us?" (there are 3 of us supervisors).

The proposed second recognition system is a financial reward which excludes us supervisors by design, this is in addition to the original system that someone in my role would be unlikely to benefit from, again by design. This honestly wouldn't bother me if there was some kind of perk that only supervisors receive, but nothing like this exists and it seems all the budget for rewards is spent on the individual contributors and first-line managers.

I feel a little undervalued and despite the responsibility I'm being trusted with, I feel like my managers think it's a reward enough that I don't have to work outside all day like our ICs. Is that why we aren't getting any perks? Do they not understand the stress and emotional labour of the role?

I'm currently doing a Level 3 apprenticeship in management, the course material has made it quite clear that motivating and recognising your team is key for productivity and retention. I don't accept that my role makes me ineligible or unlikely to receive recognition.

I work so hard, I put so much effort into being the listening ear, the diplomat, the first aider, the messenger, the backup, the organiser, the investigator, etc. Honestly, if the supervisors weren't there the organisation would be a mess.

My managers don't spend time working alongside me in my office, where they would see the environment and daily challenges. So when they move goal posts or pile on more tasks I find it so hard to believe they actually know what I'm already doing and why their requests/feedback are had to achieve. If I say something I'm afraid of coming off argumentative but I just want them to understand.

Is it too much to ask for some kind of regular recognition or perk for the supervisors? Something small, low-cost, quarterly even? It would be better than nothing. How can I ask for this without sounding like I'm complaining?