I moonlight at a small animal clinic in my free time, as a vet assistant. I love it but our technology is pretty dated as far as Internet presence is concerned. The vet who owns the clinic wants me to come up with a social media plan for the clinic. But I know that no one there has the time or skills to implement the plan.

What I’d like to prepose is I do their social media remotely.  My problem is how do I define what I am doing and show value to social media? I’m basically preposing fire to cavemen. I’m on the payroll at $10/HR which is fine for clinic stuff. However I know the vet will want to keep that arrangement which I don’t feel is fair for the social media service.

My hubby says to just up my hours spent but I feel that’s a recipe for disaster because they will catch on at some point and it just feels wrong. This would be easier if they understood social media. It’s maddening.

I’ve been seeing a co-worker now for about 2 weeks, and like any relationship where you spend all your time together, things have escalated quickly. We’re not in the same department, but the company is only about 45 people, so I do see him several times a day. I try to be nonchalant about it, but outside of work, we’re becoming emotionally and physically attached in a way that I was unprepared for. A drunken kiss-turned-relationship in about 3 days flat.

Is this totally stupid? I’m new to this office and city, and until him and his group of friends I hadn’t found my “people.” Now I think I have, which complicates him and the situation even further. We literally haven’t been apart except in our cubicles for nearly 10 days straight.

What do you usually tell people in this situation? He’s not my superior, he’s not even much older than me, and we haven’t told people at work. How would you navigate this?

I have questions about performance reviews:
What can I expect to happen at a performance review?
How should I prepare?
I have been preparing for my performance review by tracking the goals they set for me and making sure I am meeting and exceeding them. However, I was curious if there was anything I needed to do right before my performance review?
Should I create a list of great projects I have worked on and results I have created?
Should I bring a list to the meeting to help me stay on track?
Should I send an email to my supervisors prior to the meeting with notes and details from the past year?
Should I expect a raise or do I need to ask for one?
I am expecting to get a raise at my review but I wasn’t sure if I needed to ask for one or if they would offer me one?
What if I don’t like the raise they offer me? How should I prepare?
Hi Penelope,
How are you? I’m an author and executive recruiter (currently at [big impressive company]), and have a book coming out next month. I’ve been told it’s bad form to request a review from a big-name blogger without first building a relationship, but that seems a bit backwards to me (or perhaps just disingenuous). I’d love to get a book review from you and am wondering if you’d be willing. Please let me know if you have any questions or what I can do to be of help.
Are there steps that you recommend taking when beginning a freelance career in the middle of the recession that perhaps wouldn’t be done if the economy wasn’t such an unknown? I’d like to know if there are any specific precautionary steps that one should take, such as having 6 months of expenses covered, etc. etc.
Thank you for your help. It’s very scary to think about going freelance. I’m procrastinating, but I know I need to start pitching for work.

I have blown work relationships with more people than I care to think about because of my bad temper. Now I’m struggling in my career. Part of it is the shrinking jobs and pay but I know it’s more so because of the bridges I’ve burned. I’m good at my job and I can be pleasant and fun –when my buttons aren’t being pushed. I’m actually very capable, responsible and smart. It’s just that I have issues.

I’m in therapy and I know it has to do with being criticized and having emotionally abusive parents. I get easily wounded and insecure, and I lash out.

Right now I should be using some of the many contacts I’ve developed along the way, and the influential people I know. (You can’t tell from looking at me that I have this problem and I have lots of friends.) But I fear using some helpful contacts because I know those people know the people I’ve had incidents with and I worry they know about it. Ugh.

I’ve been with a social media marketing start-up for a little over a year now. Our founder has made a lot of bad choices. Partly because he doesn’t know social media and also because he put his faith into a poor sales team.
We are now at a make it or break it point. I feel like I know what it would take to make a successful social media marketing company, but it would be entirely different from our current company, which may not fall into the vision of the founder.
Also, I currently do all the social media fulfillment for our clients. Everything. I’ve invested a lot of my own money in reading business books, seeing Seth Godin speak, and spend most nights blogging and reading articles on Hacker News. Yet, as long as the CEO/owner is in charge, I lack faith in the direction of the company.
Is it worth rebuilding the company or better to just start my own? How do you know when you should leave a start-up as an employee?

I’m a 22 year-old working in New York City. I have a decent-paying job as a journalist that is (to me) meaningful, challenging, intellectually stimulating, and offers a lot of opportunity for growth, on-the-job-training, and networking with others in my field. I can afford my rent and I have health benefits—money would be tighter if I had student loans, but I don’t.

The negative: I’m from the Midwest, and I really loved my life there. Since moving to NYC to start my career, I’ve been miserable: I left a loving partner and amazing friends behind and am lonely constantly. I don’t feel like I can connect with most people my age because they are still in school or are bumming around in retail jobs or living with their parents. Everyone I work with keeps me at arms length because I’m 5 to 10 years their junior. My job takes up most of my life, making it hard to schedule things in advance or take an evening or weekend class that meets regularly. I have no idea how I should be spending my free time. I am constantly homesick.
I feel like my career is on the right track, but I’m afraid that living in NYC as a sad and lonely 20-something with no ties will become unbearable and I’ll give up. I’m probably a few years ahead of the curve in life but I don’t know how to appreciate it or take advantage of it.
Is this a non-problem? When I write it out I feel like I’m just whining over nothing, but I feel really deeply effected by this.

I am a 35-year-old queer lady working in IT. I  have been out at work as a lesbian for 10 years, and always felt comfortable doing so.

But now I’m hitting a new challenge in my life. I was recently unemployed for a year, and during that year my female partner went under treatment for gender identity issues, and changed genders to male.

The relationship has worked out for us, so I am now a queer lady partnered with a queer-identified man. The word “queer” seems to be the best identifier for me: I have a nuanced enough identity that I don’t identify as “bisexual.” I’m not in a “lesbian” relationship. And I’m into my partner, but not most guys.

In the last few months, I have found myself starting at a great new job, but find myself plagued by the feeling of being in the closet.

Having a girlfriend was always shorthand for saying that I’m gay at work, but now I have a boyfriend who doesn’t want the whole world to know — upon first meeting — that he used to be a woman.  If I told my coworkers the whole story — which might be too much right now anyways — I would be ‘outing’ him before he has even met most of them socially and has a chance to decide what he wants them to know.

How does someone like me avoid this feeling of being in the closet?

Socially I’m in a whole new world here.

I worked at a company for about 3 years, which was fine through the recession, but a new manager came on board with whom I fought constantly. Yelling and screaming matches were the norm.

Fed up, I quit and recently accepted a new gig. Now, just a month in, I hate it. It’s not for me, it’s a big company and has extensive travel requirements and other tasks that I don’t even want to deal with.

So, problem is that now I’m job hunting again – but with weight of not being able to get good recommendation from last employer and the new one is only a month in, not an easy story to spin.

Any suggestions on how I can fix this?

©2023 Penelope Trunk