This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I have an employee who is unable to obtain childcare when he is on call, which is an essential part of his job, and the job is not safe to take a child to. Therefore, we may not be able to keep him on. I supervise a team of maintenance technicians who rotate...

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I recently got an email from someone with screenshots concerning an employee of mine. They were of a personal nature directed to an organization outside of work using her personal time and her personal equipment. They didn’t concern work at all. They weren’t racist...

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: Over the last few months, one of my people (Alice) has repeatedly come to me about conflict with a neighboring department’s person (Mary). Both are at the same fairly junior level — they’re a few years out of school. The conflict has always seemed odd, and fairly...

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. My employee never remembers to save things on our shared drive, no matter how many reminders she gets I’ve been having an issue with one of the people I manage, our document processor, Ashley. I like Ashley; she is bubbly and...

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. This comment section is open for any non-work-related discussion you’d like to have with other readers, by popular demand. Here are the rules for the weekend posts. Book recommendation of the week: A Love Song for Ricki Wilde, by Tia Williams. A florist trying to break free from...

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. It’s the Friday open thread! The comment section on this post is open for discussion with other readers on any work-related questions that you want to talk about (that includes school). If you want an answer from me, emailing me is still your best bet*, but this is a chance to...