Dear Madeleine, I am sixty years old and really love my work. I have had a long and varied career and had hoped to get another decade in before retiring. The institution I worked for closed down for good last year because of COVID. Since then, I have sent out 72 cover letters and resumes.…
Dear Madeleine, I manage a department in a large manufacturing organization. Some parts of our business are going gangbusters, but my area is suffering from a slowdown due to the restrictions and economic impact of Covid-19. We were able to redeploy some of my people to the busier parts of the business, but still ended…
Dear Madeleine, I thought I could take it, but now I am not so sure. I live in a state that is just now having an explosion of Covid-19 cases. I thought at this point things would be going back to semi-normal, yet it appears things are going from bad to worse. My mother is…
Dear Madeleine, I work in HR in a small company and recently had to let someone go. The process is never pleasant—and to make matters a bit more complicated, the terminated employee was a bit of a gossip. Now that she is gone, many employees are upset and have been speculating out loud about the…
Dear Madeleine, I was hired five months ago by a local business. I had no experience in finance but my new boss assured me that he could teach me what I needed to know. Five months have gone by and my boss has just told me that he doesn’t have time to train me after…
Dear Madeleine, Is it wrong to let someone go if they just aren’t performing? I have an employee that I originally hired because he seemed to have real promise. I like him a lot as a person, but he never quite “gets it right.” I have given him plenty of chances to improve, but his…