Dear BC,
You know, I think sometimes even the strongest of us just need a good cry. I think you should send this person an onion and see if he still watches Lifetime and Hallmark after cutting it, and you will know your answer.
Regards,
CF
Friday OT - Dear Abby
- Thread starter Angie
- Start date
Dear BC,
You know, I think sometimes even the strongest of us just need a good cry. I think you should send this person an onion and see if he still watches Lifetime and Hallmark after cutting it, and you will know your answer.
Regards,
CF
so this is not unlike cases many women encounter of having to negotiate for maternity leave or a flex arrangement when they come back to work.
So I'll give you the same kind of suggestions.
1. Be mostly honest. You're in the early stages of considering a move and want to explore options that would allow you to remain with this company - you enjoy the work, your boss, blah blah smoke up their ass. Don't say at this point that it's remote work or you quit.
2. Come in with those options and be prepared to solve the problems they come up with. Such as having a separate office away from children/distractions (or being clear that children are leaving the house for daycare/school), once a month trips to the office........don't suggest a pay cut but keep it in your back pocket if you think it's relevant
3. The big one. Suggest a trial period. Propose doing this for a couple weeks or a month to see how it goes -for both sides. Maybe you'll find you hate WFH. Or it will show your boss this can work and gives them the ability to test it out without committing to it 100%.
4. Don't negotiate against yourself. If you are doing a good job.....it's expensive to recruit, rehire, and retrain a new employee. You have value there so they will likely want to try and work with you on this if you are a good employee.
Good luck!
Dear CF,
Less than a month ago, I was the object of affection for many people on this website. My moniker, picture, and gifs would frequently appear in many of these threads. However, ever since the calendar changed to the 20's, I seemed to have lost my position within this community. People seemed to have moved on to a younger, blonder (or more gingery), more Russian Superhero-y version of myself. Is there anything I can do to regain my status or should I just accept the fact that times change, people are fickle and beauty is fleeting?
Sincerely,
JLH
Less than a month ago, I was the object of affection for many people on this website. My moniker, picture, and gifs would frequently appear in many of these threads. However, ever since the calendar changed to the 20's, I seemed to have lost my position within this community. People seemed to have moved on to a younger, blonder (or more gingery), more Russian Superhero-y version of myself. Is there anything I can do to regain my status or should I just accept the fact that times change, people are fickle and beauty is fleeting?
Sincerely,
JLH
I am a man.
I will wear purple but never pink. Not because of fear of judgment but because it is a horrible look with my skin tone.
But the fact that I'm aware of skin tone and complimentary/uncomplimentary colors probably offsets the not-wearing-pink on the masculinity/femininity balance scale.
Hello, first time caller!
This is a great question, and happens more often than people realize. If you have an affable relationship with your boss, I'd just put out the question about if it would ever be possible for a good employee to work remotely if they needed to be nearer family for personal relationships. If the boss asks why, I'd just be honest - maybe your parents are getting older and you'd like to be closer to them, but want to research financially before making the decision. That doesn't give any ultimatums or follow-through, if you make sure to be clear you're just responsibly researching all options.
In the meantime, it doesn't hurt to look around in your destination, or places that do allow remote work. It's amazing how many careers allow for remote work these days.
OR, throw caution to the wind and set up a gigolo service in your new home. Win-win!
Ask in the premise that your wife was offered a position that would require you to move so you want to explore all options and see if that is a possibility. If he says no, you can look but tell them you decided against leaving.
I have a side photography business, so this is a real concern for me. Here are the two main things I do.
For photos that I want to bequeath to my kids some day (i.e., photos of them and our family), I have an external hard drive for each child. I put photos with them in them into directories. For each child, I have each year of their age. Inside that year folder (age 8 or whatever), I break it up into the month. (So, "2010-11" for November 2011.) That way I can immediately find photos from a certain age for them, etc. I also back this up on an Amazon Drive.
For other photos, if you are planning on putting them on a computer I'd recommend getting a photo software. I use Lightroom for this. You can tag photos, and then do searches and exports with the tags in place. I believe other photo services online (cloud storage sites) will let you do the same. I find the tags to be easier than making folders upon folders upon folders.
Challenge her to arm-wrestle (Signed - Joe B)
We have a daughter approaching tweendom who will only eat fruit and carbs (rarely meat), and a 5-year-old who only likes meat and eggs. Luckily cooking is Janny's problem and I don't have to sort through it.
I love pink shirts on men, if it works with their skin tone! Not every man (or woman) can pull off pink; I have trouble with many tones of it.
Thanks! This is generally my approach: basically say "My wife and I would like to move back to Iowa for reasons x, y, and z. How can we make that happen together? I'm happy in my job and want to stay with this company, let's brainstorm solutions on what this might look like." Then start to discuss things like how many trips I need to make to the MSP office, in general. What's the expectation for my travel, etc. My wife stays home with the kids, but DSM is our closest family. So in actuality, moving closer to family makes it easier for me to travel more because we'd have a better support system for her.
My biggest fear is really just that they say 'no.' My wife and I are 100% decided that we're moving back for our next move. The downside if they say no is that it's a great job, with great opportunities, and I enjoy the work. So, I'd have to leave a great job and find something else. Not the end of the world, but not something I'd look forward to, necessarily.
Dear Defeated Dad,
Don't start none, won't BE none. You reap what you sow.
Cordially,
CF
I agree with your approach. It's important not to approach the conversation of "I'm moving, you can keep me or not." It really should be "hey, this is something we'd like to do, is it possible?" If that answer is "no" then I say "ok, I understand" and start the process of looking for something new.
Dear JLH,
Ah, darling girl. You know what you can do to solve this problem, and the answer is as simple as "post a selfie in a wet tank top." Men are fickle, but predictable. The future is in your hands.
With utmost sincerity,
CF
I think that employers who value their employees will definitely look at it from the standpoint of being glad they're being kept in the loop, rather than having to make the decision under pressure. Nobody likes to be put on the spot!
I had almost the same situation a little over 10 years ago. Myself and my young family at the time had moved to the Minneapolis area for my career, from central Iowa. After about a year up there, while the job was great for me and going well, it was not the right area to be in for my family. So, we began the process to move back to central Iowa. At the time, the company I worked for had no remote program for workers, but were starting to explore the option on a limited basis. With that though, my boss at the time was very old fashioned, for lack of a better term, and not into the whole working remotely thing. So, the way I handled it was that we made preparations to move back to Iowa, I looked for new jobs in the area and once I had an actual job offer on the table back here, I then went to my boss with the work from home question. I was promptly told no and given that I had said that if I can't work remotely I would have to leave the company for a new job, I was told to pack up my things and leave immediately.
So, my advice would be to handle this how you think the boss might react. You might not 100% know, but you probably have a feeling of how they might react to a work from home question. In my case, I knew my boss would have no part of letting me work remotely, so I had plan B ready to go. If I had a more understanding boss, I might have handled it differently. Also, you could feel it out a little, with just asking to work from home from time to time and not bringing up the whole move to Iowa part, at first. If they are willing to let you work from home, where you live now, they might be more open to letting you work from Iowa.
Dear CF,
I switched jobs about a year and a half ago, going from a job with quite a lot of responsibility, managing a team of around 10. At my new job, I am "just" a worker bee, with very little responsibility. Thing is, I am bored out of my mind half the time. My boss just gave me a busywork kind of project, and I am thrilled that at least it will kill an hour of my day.
I got a decent pay bump taking this job, and also cut my commute drastically. It's flexible and no one keeps tabs on me or micromanages me. It is virtually stress-free.
Do I overlook the boredom and be happy taking the good and easy paycheck, or look for a more challenging position?
Signed,
My Days Last Forever
I switched jobs about a year and a half ago, going from a job with quite a lot of responsibility, managing a team of around 10. At my new job, I am "just" a worker bee, with very little responsibility. Thing is, I am bored out of my mind half the time. My boss just gave me a busywork kind of project, and I am thrilled that at least it will kill an hour of my day.
I got a decent pay bump taking this job, and also cut my commute drastically. It's flexible and no one keeps tabs on me or micromanages me. It is virtually stress-free.
Do I overlook the boredom and be happy taking the good and easy paycheck, or look for a more challenging position?
Signed,
My Days Last Forever
Thank you.
I know that social media sites are a tight-knit community and as a mod on a very high profile and important social media site, can you be sure to pass this advice on to the real JLH through your connections? I think she'd truly appreciate hearing your wisdom.
