What Would Bing Do?

Dear Stanley,

What are your thoughts on employment contracts? I’ve been with my company happily for several years on a salary. Now I am being asked to sign a contract and to switch to commission. It seems generous enough, although a bit less secure than the salary and bonus structure that I’m used to. But mostly, I’m wondering why the company suddenly wants everyone on commission and if there are ramifications to the employment contract (i.e., is it easier to let me go?). Help!

Signed,

Suddenly Insecure

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Dear Stanley,

A new job just opened up in my department and I’ve been given the task of interviewing candidates for the position. The issue is this: there’s a woman who used to work here. She left maybe five years ago to open her own operation, and it didn’t do very well. Now she’s looking for a job, any job, and she won’t leave me alone. She has e-mailed me about the post maybe six or seven times already. I answered each time, telling her that it’s a long process and I would keep her in mind when I recommend people to my bosses. That’s not enough for her. She insists on coming in and having an interview. So I told her okay, I would let her know. She then wrote several letters to various people, going around me, which annoyed me. Then she had the wife of a board member call the president! He said it was up to me, but please treat her with respect and so forth. There’s one thing I know: I don’t want to recommend this person. It’s been years since she’s been in the swim. She was never a top player to begin with. And her behavior right now makes me feel like she’s a nightmare. But I’m afraid that dealing with her during the process and afterwards, when she doesn’t get the job, is going to be horrendous. Is there anything I can do to ease her pain … and mine?

Signed,

Too Annoyed for Empathy

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Dear Stanley,

I work in consulting and my boss is well known in the industry but working for him is like working for Vader. I’ve been looking around and found a good position in another firm where my college buddy works. The catch is that the prospective employer used to work with Mr. Vader a long time ago and knows him very well. How should I approach this employer without my current boss knowing it?

Signed,

Under Cover Man

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Dear Stanley,

It’s August, and I don’t feel much like working. My boss is off doing this and that, the rest of the guys are off someplace, and I’m here at the office for some reason. I had a vacation earlier in the summer, but that seems like a long time ago. Can I just bag it and pretend I’m an executive?

Signed

Too Productive

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Dear Stanley,

My boss has a problem with beverage abuse. What can I do to make the boss’s absences easier for my co-workers?

Enabler

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Dear Stanley,

My boss is always complaining about me. He uses me as his scapegoat. I hear him blaming his mistakes on his admin — that’s me. I am up for my review soon and want to tell him I don’t like it, but I think it won’t do any good and will only feed fuel to his complaining fire. I feel that I do a good job, but no matter what I do he looks for the bad. I need my job and don’t want to quit, but I don’t know how much longer I can take it. What would you advise me to do?

Signed,

Under Fire

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Dear Stanley,

My boss loves to talk. If I have a question for her, I dread going into her office because a question with a yes/no answer can drag into two hours of her telling stories about her kids, making my work day inefficient. Now she’s implemented a rule in which all staff must count their work hours by subtracting time spent talking with others, including her! How can I keep my boss on track so I don’t have to stay late every day?

Tired of Listening

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Dear Stanley,

Today I was given another reason to hate self-assessments. Every year the employees in my company are required to fill out a self-assessment and submit it to their manager before their annual performance review. I filled mine out honestly and assessed myself as being below expected performance, only to have it emailed back to me including the note: “The company takes this seriously and you’ve made a joke of the process.” I was told to do it again. I have never been able to even remotely judge my own performance with any accuracy. Do you have any suggestions on how I can accurately judge my own performance?

Too Honest for My Own Good

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Dear Stanley,

My company has been going through a lot of turmoil lately, and it became necessary for me to toss one of my colleagues overboard in order to save my own skin. Some questionable decisions were made, and I was sort of in the know on most of them, but I had to deny that knowledge later and make it look like he was totally responsible. Now he’s mad, and he’s talking to the newspapers and promising to stir up a hornets nest both in the press and at our annual shareholders’ meeting, which is coming up. Is there anything I can do?

Ken

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Dear Stanley,

In this day and age of job hopping and layoffs, what is the average number of jobs a person will/should have? I’m 23 and already on to my second job out of college (by choice, not layoff). I don’t want to be seen as not having job loyalty, although it seems quite common for my generation to change jobs often. Will employers judge me for switching jobs so quickly?

Peripatetic

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