Ship questions concerning the workplace, cash, careers and work-life stability to workfriend@nytimes.com. Embody your identify and site, or a request to stay nameless. Letters could also be edited.
Flying Up the Skilled Ladder
I’m a librarian in my late 20s and, due to a wave of retirements, I’ve moved in a short time up the ladder. My supervisors worth me, and I not too long ago utilized for and was supplied a place that places me answerable for my very own library. It’s simply one other particular person and myself working on this location. The opposite librarian has been within the discipline for nearly so long as I’ve been alive, and I do know she utilized for the place.
This has made for some awkwardness and it’s one thing we’ve not mentioned. We hardly speak to one another in any respect. She was very shocked and upset by the truth that she was not chosen for the place. I consider she might even be searching for redress. How can I am going about constructing a very good relationship in these circumstances? How can I stay assured in my skills and struggle impostor syndrome? I simply wish to be on pleasant phrases and do proper by her whereas additionally feeling assured sufficient to make the modifications wanted. The circumstances have actually sucked out lots of the fun that ought to include this new alternative.
— Nameless
Congratulations in your new place. I recognize the care with which you hope to work together with your colleague. Whilst you aren’t liable for her not getting your place, I perceive how she might resent being handed over for a promotion. If she seeks redress all you are able to do is let that course of work itself out.
Within the meantime, you wish to construct a constructive relationship together with your colleague. All too typically, we keep away from speaking about what we actually want to speak about. It could possibly be helpful to sit down down together with her and speak by your roles and how one can have a fruitful working relationship. Acknowledge her disappointment however don’t take duty for it as that duty shouldn’t be yours.
You additionally need to belief that you just earned your place. Make the modifications you consider needs to be made. Ask your colleague about what modifications she want to see and attempt to discover methods to work together with her as a substitute of taking a extra heavy-handed top-down method. This is a chance to determine what sort of chief you will be. Given the questions you’re asking, I’m assured you may be fantastic.
Physique Issues
After 4 years of self-employment, I’ve determined to return to an in-house, director-level place. However as I take Zoom interview after Zoom interview, I really feel I’m committing a sin of omission, not revealing my physique.
I weigh 450 kilos on a 5 foot 10 inch body. Why do I feel this issues? As a result of it requires lodging. Flying first-class or reserving two seats, nabbing aisle seats at theaters, particular ordering work clothes, doubtlessly declining staff meals or shopper conferences due to seating choices (a bodily limitation and insufferable nervousness induced by what I understand as flimsy or insufficient chairs).
Employers have expectations that administrators and executives will attend conferences, occasions and off-site conferences, generally with little discover. I don’t take into account these unreasonable requests, however these implied job duties solely gas my concern.
A part of me thinks if I obtain a suggestion, I ought to have a quick dialog with the hiring supervisor about cheap lodging for journey, conferences and in-person conferences. However, fairly truthfully, that feels embarrassing. Current in a world that doesn’t accommodate your measurement is burden sufficient with out having to deal with it preemptively. Clearly, I expertise disgrace over the additional area my physique calls for, and I’ve made sluggish however regular progress with these emotions over years of remedy.
What ought to an individual who isn’t bodily constructed for white-collar management requisites do when digital interviews and nearly all of distant work hold your measurement a secret?
— Nameless
I can relate to the whole lot you’ve written right here. I wrote a complete guide about it referred to as “Starvation.” Whenever you’re fats, there are a lot of challenges, bodily and emotional, in navigating a world that’s usually fairly hostile to fats our bodies. That mentioned, you aren’t committing a sin of omission by not revealing your physique, as a result of your physique shouldn’t be a sin. It’s not, as the author Sonya Renee Taylor reminds us, an issue. And it isn’t a secret. I urge you to attempt to reframe your understanding of your physique and be extra light with your self.
