Expert advice on professional identity after personal separation

But now for deep breaths. The reality is that you heard this second-hand, so don’t storm into your boss quoting it as fact. What I would do is ask for very specific feedback about why you were overlooked and what criteria were applied. Listen carefully and make notes. You need to establish whether there are legitimate reasons that you didn’t get the role.

If you still feel there were no valid reasons other than a misguided perception, you might like to think about whether you want to raise it with someone senior in the organisation. I think your best approach, though, will be to show your managers through your actions how ready you are for the next opportunity. Your future is now in your hands, and I reckon you will knock their socks off.

My manager, who put the boss into verbosity, has lately discovered AI on Outlook. So, on top of our endless and time-wasting conversations, I now get spammed by emails full of corporate jargon when all I needed was a yes or no to a simple inquiry. As a frontline worker, I simply don’t have the time for all of this. How do I approach a request for more efficient communication?

Sounds like your boss is feeling terribly clever sending out long emails full of big words. It is definitely a good idea to try and nip this in the bud. I am tempted to tell you to reply with a long AI-generated email to see how they enjoy finding a simple yes or no answer in among the slop, but that would be childish ...

I think you probably need to tackle this head-on. Explain how busy you are and that in a frontline role you need to be able to make quick decisions. I wouldn’t accuse your boss of outsourcing to AI, but rather say that it is something you are noticing more generally. I would ask if your team could establish a communication protocol – a simple agreement about how you speak to each other by email – and suggest that longer messages be saved for those that really need them. If you point out to your boss that they are most likely to get a quicker reply from a shorter email, that may help, too. Good luck!