serpentine smiles

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/02/when-is-it-ok-to-go-over-an-unresponsive-contacts-head.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=35869

A reader writes:

For nearly five months now, I have been trying to get in touch with a contact at a partner organization about some grant money they’ve promised us, by contract. Phone calls, emails — nothing. It’s getting completely absurd. I’ve repeatedly inquired as to if there’s something we need to do to hurry this along — no reply. (But he does return contacts from other organizations so I know he is alive and at work.)

This staff member is the primary liaison between his organization and ours, so we want to keep it civil. I’ve been advised to go over his head, to his boss … but she’s the executive director of his organization, and I’m very aware this could get this guy fired, maybe.

When someone’s flaking out on their essential responsibilities, when is it appropriate to go over their head to their boss? How important does the issue have to be, and/or how long should you wait?

Also, what are the best practices for going over someone’s head and getting things done, while also making sure we don’t ruin our relationship with a worker and/or organization who — for all I know — is just going through a difficult time right now?

I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

The post when is it OK to go over an unresponsive contact’s head? appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/02/when-is-it-ok-to-go-over-an-unresponsive-contacts-head.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=35869

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/02/should-i-write-a-bad-review-for-a-job-i-quit-after-3-5-months-because-they-wouldnt-publicly-praise-me.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=36185

A reader writes:

I left my last job after 3.5 months despite receiving consistently high praise privately from the director (my direct manager) of my department.

At a year-end all-hands meeting where the entire company of at least 70+ people attended and each department gave a status update, I did not get any public recognition in my department of four.

One person was called a Salesforce “wizard” and another was praised for doing the hard work of helping set up the infrastructure. The director had only been there two months longer than me, and no one in our team worked there for longer than one year.

Needless to say, this was hurtful and humiliating. In just 3.5 months, I was an unofficial manager to an under-performer, someone who was objectively assigned the most challenging work, and also had notable Salesforce accomplishments.

To add insult to injury, I contributed heavily to another department, by their request, and one of their middle managers completely excluded my contributions in a very elaborate Slack shoutout. No one in the entire organization sought to correct the record in this case or at the all-hands meeting.

I brought up these and several other concerns with my department director (excluded from important meetings, getting onboarded late, constant reschedules or no-shows) and asked for tangible and meaningful concessions. I wanted them to put themselves in my shoes and then really make an effort to do just about anything.

It would have cost 10 seconds to simply go into Slack and just say that I’ve been a great leader. Because for all of the private praise I received, when it came time for the rubber to meet the road, this person was completely missing. Isn’t that part of the job? The “contract” we have as manager and employee is that I give great work, and you don’t embarrass me in front of the entire company. There’s a phrase for that and it’s called being two-faced.

After the holiday break, I decided to get HR involved because I had lost all faith in my department director and my emotional health was at a low point.

We all met together and their verdict was simple: stay in your lane (which was not said literally, but about 85% close to being literal).

They closed ranks to maintain the status quo, and I incurred a net penalty. Half of their “proposals” were “I’ll try to do a better job” without any tangible mechanisms, and the other half were just barely better than that.

At that point, enough was enough and I decided to leave, because they had clearly shown a lack of humility and did not put thought into any structural changes. I truly invested in my teammates and the work itself, and thought I could overcome the obstacles plaguing my career.

Unfortunately, after two weeks, the wound is still fresh and I still don’t even have written confirmation of a professional reference from my manager. I know writing a review on Indeed, Glassdoor, or LinkedIn would appear like I’m lashing out, but this has to be heard. I want the record to be set straight. And to be completely honest here I don’t want to be the only loser. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Based just on what’s in your letter, this is a disproportionately strong reaction.

Yes, managers should give public praise! And yes, when you told them you were feeling slighted at not receiving any, they had a very easy way to remedy that, and it’s not clear why it required meeting after meeting for them to half-heartedly vow to do better when, as you say, they could have put the whole thing to rest with a quick team message in Slack.

But you are having a very strong reaction to something that, on its own, doesn’t warrant it.

It’s not that odd not to get public recognition at an all-hands meeting. There were 70+ people at this meeting; presumably they weren’t all singled out for public praise. (In fact, it sounds like in a department of four, half of you were and half of you weren’t.) This is not an outrage, and it’s unusual to experience it as humiliating, especially when you’d only been there a few months.

Should the other manager have included you in their Slack shout-out for the project you’d contributed heavily to? It sounds like it! But it’s also really, really common for those shout-outs not to be fully comprehensive. Maybe it was an oversight. Maybe it was because as much as you did, other people did more. Either way, it’s very unlikely that it was an intentional slight.

None of this is “embarrassing you in front of the entire company.” It’s extremely unlikely that anyone else in the company was thinking about it, let alone drawing any conclusions about your work from it.

I can’t tell if there was more going on that caused you to have bad feelings about this job, and the recognition issue just became the thing that all those bad feelings coalesced on. Sometimes that happens. But the recognition issue on its own just doesn’t sound that outrageous.

It is weird that you apparently had repeated conversations about it and they didn’t just give you some public recognition. But the fact that they didn’t — combined with them telling you to stay in your lane — makes me think there was more going on.

Regardless, it sounds clear that this wasn’t the right job for you; you weren’t happy, you left, and that sounds like clearly the right choice. But nothing here is at the level of needing to publicly set the record straight.

(Also, don’t spend energy pursuing the reference you mentioned! It doesn’t sound like you could be confident it would be fully positive — the relationship sounds messy at best — and a reference from a job you were only at for 3.5 months isn’t likely to significantly strengthen your candidacy for future jobs anyway.)

The post should I write a bad review for a job I quit after 3.5 months because they wouldn’t publicly praise me? appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/02/should-i-write-a-bad-review-for-a-job-i-quit-after-3-5-months-because-they-wouldnt-publicly-praise-me.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=36185