Top all-time · #836
Ask a Manager
Personal blog · askamanager.orgcareerculture
Ask a Manager is a personal blog at askamanager.org about career and culture. Since 2010, 78 different Hacker News readers have linked it 98 times, most often ““I was fired from my internship for proposing a more flexible dress code””. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Sometimes recommended · 11 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
Alison Green's workplace advice column, which answers reader questions on management, hiring and interviews. HN commenters cite its posts as examples and point readers to it for management and job-search advice.
- Recommended for · 11 comments
- Called pretty good for interviewing advice, a fun blog for asking specific questions, sound advice, an excellent site, and a good way to learn management from o
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- /9 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2019-12-16
- “I was fired from my internship for proposing a more flexible dress code”5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2016-06-29
- The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2022-01-31
- /2016/10/update-a-coworker-stole-my-spicy-food-got-sick-and-is-blaming-me.html3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-04-27
- A coworker stole my spicy food, got sick, and is blaming me (2016)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-04-27
- I was rejected because I told my interviewer I never make mistakes2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-02-13
- Men are hitting on my scheduling bot because it has a woman's name2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-01-08
- “do what you love” is not great advice2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-09-18
- Use a different part of your brain to combat burnout2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-09-26
What Hacker News says?
Ask A Manager has a lot of interviewing advice, and I think they're pretty good. Here's a thing she did for interviewing: http://www.askamanager.org/how-to-guide I thought there was also a video part of this where a person on the screen would ask you questions, but I can't find it right now.
Comment linking /how-to-guide
on “Tell HN: I just wanted to say: thank you, Hacker News”Submitted The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed as a story · 1018 points
HN discussionYour boss is absolutely allowed to open an envelope on your desk if it's clearly a business-related piece of mail, and your employee handbook almost certainly says that your corporate Slack account is only to be used for business purposes. In fact, your boss is allowed to open any mail sent to your work address. https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/abg/2015/07/1... http://www.askamanager.org/2010/08/is-it-…
Comment linking /2010/08/is-it-legal-for-my-boss-to-open-my-mail.html
on “Guide to Slack import and export tools”Submitted A coworker stole my spicy food, got sick, and is blaming me (2016) as a story · 185 points
HN discussion> I've though about working in a Amazon warehouse. There's one near me. But they don't get health benefits for 3+ months. Have to do intense manual labor etc. I think you need to focus on your priorities here. As I understand you're currently jobless and obviously have no health benefits, and are on the verge of becoming homeless. Doing three months of "intense manual labor" to get a paycheck and health benefits is…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?”Submitted Is Being Salaried a Scam? as a story · 177 points
HN discussionhttps://www.askamanager.org/2018/01/i-paid-for-fake-referenc... You're not alone!
Comment linking /2018/01/i-paid-for-fake-references-is-it-rude-to-shush-someone-and-more.html
on “Ask HN: Did you encounter any leap year bugs today?”Submitted Alternatives to Firing as a story · 121 points
HN discussionhttps://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/12/24/never-sign-a... > There isn’t any upside to signing the PIP because, once one is presented, the decision to fire has already been made. A manager who genuinely wants to improve a person’s performance will communicate off the record. Once the manager is “documenting”, the relationship’s over. Also, people very rarely pass PIPs. Some people get the hint and leave, others…
Comment linking /2013/05/what-to-do-when-youre-put-on-a-performance-improvement-plan.html
on ““I Had a Baby and Cancer When I Worked at Amazon””Submitted How do I manage an employee who doesn’t need the job? as a story · 106 points
HN discussionDeja Vu? This exact question and set of circumstances was Asked previously. Ahh, yes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30150343 Which referenced: https://www.askamanager.org/2022/01/the-new-hire-who-showed-...
Comment linking /2022/01/the-new-hire-who-showed-up-is-not-the-same-person-we-interviewed.html
on “Ask HN: Have you experienced “hiring fraud?””Submitted My best employee quit because I wouldn’t let her go to college graduation as a story · 88 points
HN discussion> The way you wrote it, it seemed you were going to just call the employee's current manager. I wrote, "Checking references is one of the last things we do and insist that one be their a [sic] current manager". I thought that made it clear we ask the candidate for references and that one be their current manager. > The reference call almost guarantees the person will lose his current job. Not everyone is like you, I…
Comment linking /2013/01/can-a-prospective-employer-tip-off-my-boss-that-im-job-searching.html
on “I Got Catfished by a Candidate”Submitted “I was fired from my internship for proposing a more flexible dress code” as a story · 65 points
HN discussionInteresting timing. The Ask a Manager blog just yesterday published a guest post by someone who tracked down one of the commonly cited statistics that drives the supposed myth. The research does not debunk the claim itself, though both the author and the blog runner share their own comments about the veracity of the claim. https://www.askamanager.org/2020/10/your-job-application-was...
Comment linking /2020/10/your-job-application-was-rejected-by-a-human-not-a-computer.html
on “Show HN: I wrote a book on writing good developer resumes”Submitted The new hire who showed up is not the same person we interviewed (2022) as a story · 61 points
HN discussion> everyone should get an opportunity to be a manager One way to test drive being a manager: read the Ask A Manager column ( https://www.askamanager.org/ ) for a few days or browse the archives. Read the question submitted by the reader, consider how you would deal that problem, then compare your response with Alison's (and the commentors below.) Yes, most the problems are not technology or software problems. Some ar…
Comment linking /
on “Developers can't fix bad management (2020)”Submitted Men are hitting on my scheduling bot because it has a woman's name as a story · 60 points
HN discussionMy sense is that it's just a good way to annoy people whose job isn't hiring. At best, you're risking annoying someone who is busy (and your email being deleted with no reply), at worst, you're actively penalizing yourself if you are demonstrating that you aren't willing to go through the standard hiring process that the company uses. (For other terrible ways that job applicants try to "stand out", Ask A Manager is…
Comment linking /2013/06/a-job-applicant-stopped-by-with-a-plant-and-candy.html
on “What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp”Submitted I was rejected because I told my interviewer I never make mistakes as a story · 41 points
HN discussionhttps://www.askamanager.org/2014/03/my-coworker-wont-stop-in... I have coworkers who constantly talk over each other in meetings. Bringing this up as a problem in weekly team meetings, one-on-ones with manager (she's one of them) and any other review meetings has been somewhat successful.
Comment linking /2014/03/my-coworker-wont-stop-interrupting-me-while-i-train-her-going-by-a-middle-name-and-more.html
on “Ask HN: How to deal with constantly getting cut off in work discussions?”Submitted My best employee quit on the spot I wouldn’t let her go to her college grad as a story · 35 points
HN discussionJust a meta-comment - if you're new to all this, it's good to know that management != leadership. If you're starting out, you'll want to learn both, and you'll need both. More practically, here's a fun blog where you can ask specific questions: https://www.askamanager.org/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What are the best articles on managing people?”Submitted Our IT guy is an unresponsive jerk as a story · 33 points
HN discussionI just found something very indicative of the current times: in Ask A Manager (a blog about work where the owner answers questions from her readers) someone is afraid that not working during the evenings or the weekends is going to hurt their job prospects. The article has been published today. https://www.askamanager.org/2019/07/can-you-advance-professi...
Comment linking /2019/07/can-you-advance-professionally-without-giving-up-your-evenings-and-weekends.html
on “The Loneliness Epidemic”Submitted My employee refuses to lie to customers – but that’s our policy as a story · 28 points
HN discussionI'm a regular reader of Ask a Manager ( https://www.askamanager.org/ ), and one thing that comes up over and over is how both managers and employees will avoid awkward topics ranging from trivial ("your breath smells") to consequential ("you need to step up or you'll be fired!"), to the point of going to extremes like quitting the job, just to avoid having a genuine conversation with somebody. And I'm guilty of this…
Comment linking /
on “The Cost of Avoiding Sensitive Questions”Submitted A job application asked me if torture was worse than prostitution (2018) as a story · 23 points
HN discussionI'm a professor and have worked in industry. Let me break down the issues a bit on the education side, first. Almost always by year 4+ most PhD students are fatigued and starting to get very weary. I was definitely one of them, and at times I did feel like my supervisor wasn't helping my career development or giving me enough mentoring. He is a wonderful, kind, and creative person and he spent 1-2 hours per week wit…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Is abuse from supervisors as common in industry as in academia?”Submitted I was fired from my internship for proposing a more flexible dress code as a story · 10 points
HN discussion
