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Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/01/boss-is-pressuring-me-to-microblade-my-eyebrows-people-who-show-up-very-early-for-appointments-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=30560

I’m off for the holiday, so here are some older questions from the archives.

1. My boss is pressuring me to microblade my eyebrows

My boss has been pressuring me and the other two employees in our division to get our eyebrows microbladed by her friend. She comments on our eyebrows. She tells us it would be the best thing for us to do. She will show us photos of women with microbladed brows and say we should want to look as good. Since she’s the boss, there is no easy way to tell her to knock it off and I know my coworkers are as tired of it as I am. Personally I don’t think microblading looks good on anyone, and trends change (remember the over-plucked eyebrows of the 90s?). No one knows the long-term effects since these things are so new, and I have read many articles about the orange and green left behind when it fades. But besides all that, I don’t think it’s appropriate for a boss to pressure people under her to have a permanent alteration done to them.

She gets offended if we don’t show enthusiasm for her ideas in general, and this eyebrow thing isn’t any different. She mentions weekly how she can’t understand why none of us have gone. Her own eyebrows are thick and overdone like the trend is nowadays and none of the three of us want to look like that. Do you have any tips or scripts as to how we can get her to stop when she is our boss and won’t listen to a thing any of us say?

Yep, totally inappropriate. And weird! Who is invested that much in someone else’s eyebrows?

If you haven’t yet told her directly you’re not going to do it, start there: “I’m not interested in changing my eyebrows. It’s not something I’m going to do.”

If you’ve already done that, then say this: “I really don’t want to keep talking about my eyebrows! I get that you like it, but it’s not for me and I’d rather not keep discussing it.” And then if necessary: “You keep pushing me to change my appearance when I’ve told you I’m not interested in doing it, and it’s making me uncomfortable. I’m not sure how to get you to respect my ‘no.'”

That said, someone who continues after the first or second “no, it’s not for me” is someone who isn’t the playing by the same rulebook as most people, and so you might need to resort to just changing the subject and/or tuning her out every time she brings it up. (2026 addition: can you add an eyebrow wig to make them bushier? I would add eyebrow wigs.)

– 2019

2. My employer told me to stop posting YouTube videos of my work but I don’t want to

I’m an arborist (I climb/care for trees). I make videos of my work (it’s GoPro/POV video). They are mostly educational/technical discussions related to climbing equipment. I work for a tree company and in the past I have been scolded/suspended for posting my footage on YouTube.

My boss thinks there might be legal ramifications for having footage of clients’ backyards or properties (usually from 30-90 feet in the air where faraway things are warped and very little detail is captured by the wide angle lens). I don’t post faces or any personal info (besides my own). The only voice that can be heard in the videos is mine.

The videos do not contain footage that is against company/safety policy or reveals the company’s identity (no logos). The videos all take place at height in the canopy of the tree.

Filming at work is not a distraction. The GoPro is easy, quick, and unobtrusive — it sits on your head, hit record, hit it again when you’re done. It does not interfere with productivity.

This is my hobby and I love it, but I also love the company I work for. I want to know if A) they are at risk somehow by my posting YouTube videos (outside of work) and B) if I were fired for posting my videos, would that be unlawful termination?

I can’t speak to whether or not they’re at risk by you posting your videos (that’s outside my area of expertise), but you absolutely could be legally fired for continuing to do it after they’ve told you to stop. You can be fired for doing anything after your employer tells you to stop, as long as it’s not activity that’s specifically legally protected (like unionizing or reporting harassment or discrimination). In fact, that’s generally true even if your employer doesn’t first tell you to stop; legally, they could fire you on the first strike with no warning (unless they’ve committed to following a different procedure in their own internal policies).

And it’s really, really reasonable for them to want you to stop doing this, and they likely will fire you if you continue. You can’t overrule your boss on this just because you want to.

So yeah, you should stop if you want to keep the job.

– 2019

3. I need to fire a volunteer

I am the president of a local industry society with an all-volunteer board of directors (some elected, some appointed). We currently have a very large project that one non-board volunteer eagerly agreed to lead. It was supposed to start last fall, but due to circumstances beyond her control, it’s just now getting started in May.

We gathered up a dozen volunteers to help on the project, but lost momentum when we couldn’t get it off the ground. Now we’re having a kickoff meeting in a few weeks, and the volunteer still hasn’t contacted those people to let them know it’s happening now. I’ve followed up with her several times, and each time the response is “I’m working on it today” or “I’ll get it out this week.” I have spoken with this volunteer about ensuring she has the time to commit to this project, and she reassures me she does, though I’m not seeing any action on her part. Over the last 10 months I’ve given her several opportunities to gracefully bow out, but she doesn’t take me up on it. It’s very frustrating. I’m ready to find someone else to lead the project, but with the kickoff meeting a few weeks away, how do I fire her?

Are you willing to give her one final chance or are you at the point where you need to remove her now? If you think she could have a final chance as long as it’s accompanied by a clear warning to her that there won’t be another, you could say this: “I know you’ve been really busy. We need X, Y, and Z to happen pretty urgently at this point. If you’re not able to do that by (date), I’m going to need to find someone else to lead the project. I hope you understand.”

On the other hand, if you’re past the point where that makes sense, say it this way: “I really appreciate you trying to make this work with your schedule. Unfortunately this is time-sensitive and I know your other commitments have gotten in the way of the timelines we’ve talked about previously (like contacting volunteers by May 1, and then when that didn’t happen by May 10). At this point, I need to find someone else to lead the project. I hope you understand, and if your schedule does clear up, we’d of course welcome you participating in a different way.”

(You may not want to say that last part, of course. It depends on what your dynamics are with volunteers and how obligated you feel to soften the message with them. You could also change it to “we could talk about you participating in a different way,” which makes it sound less like a sure thing.)

– 2017

Read an update to this letter here.

4. Exclamation points in cover letters

I have a question about the use of exclamation points in cover letters. Yes or no? I wrote a very compelling cover letter and used a total of three exclamation points (all appropriately) throughout the one-page document. I shared the cover letter with a former colleague. His feedback was that my cover letter “contained WAY too many exclamation points.” What’s your take? There is very little advice on the subject.

There’s no hard and fast rule here because it really depends on the content of your letter, but in general I’d say that one or two exclamation marks are fine, but three is probably a little overboard (and I’d bet you could change one or two of them to periods without losing anything).

Also, keep in mind that you want your text, not your punctuation, to do the heavy lifting when it comes to conveying tone.

All that said, there are many enemies of exclamation points out there, some of whom believe they never belong in professional correspondence (I disagree), and if this was your colleague’s only piece of feedback on your cover letter, he may have such leanings.

– 2016

5. People who show up very early for appointments

What’s the best way to handle clients who arrive early for an appointment? I try to confirm the time with them first, make sure it’s on my calendar, and plan accordingly. Then my day gets thrown off when I get a call from Reception way before the client’s expected to show up. I don’t mind the 5- to 10-minute early bird, but some arrive as far as 45 minutes in advance.

Some background: my company works to prepare people for entry or re-entry into the workforce, sometimes by addressing matters of professionalism (attire, conduct, etc.). Part of me feels like one of my duties is to demonstrate the importance of respecting another person’s schedule, and of maintaining a professional agreement (i.e., the meeting time). So when I get an early arrival, I typically stay at my desk (which is out of sight of Reception) and come out only 5-10 minutes before the scheduled time.

This strategy, while doable, makes me feel like an entitled jerk for making clients wait so long, since I tend to have a lot of downtime and there’s usually no reason I can’t meet with a client the moment they decide to show up. Still, I don’t like feeling as though clients don’t respect my schedule and how I choose to fill it.

I tend to want to conduct myself in a very black-and-white, right-vs.-wrong way, which I realize can work well for some jobs but tends to conflict with my current one, which is all about working with human beings and their many idiosyncrasies. Is it better to stand firm in cases like these, or cut clients some slack and focus on helping them in other aspects of my job?

Arriving that early and expecting to be seen so far ahead of schedule is rude. I generally advise employers who encounter really early candidates to stick to the original meeting time (and even to feel comfortable sending people away if there’s no obvious place for them to wait), assuming that it would inconvenience them to do otherwise. You don’t have any obligation to see people outside the specific meeting time that you both agreed to.

And certainly given your line of work, it makes sense to explain to your clients that they typically shouldn’t show up more than 5-10 minutes early to a job interview. But you can teach them that simply by saying it. If it genuinely makes no difference to you whether you see them early or not, I don’t think you need to teach the lesson by refusing to meet with people until the appointed time. It’s possible that in doing that you’d be making someone’s life harder than it needs to be; maybe they were hoping you’d be able to start early so that they can be on time to pick up their kid from daycare, or to catch a particular bus, or who knows what. You’re not obligated to start early — just like an employer isn’t — but I wouldn’t refuse to do it just on principle.

– 2017

The post boss is pressuring me to microblade my eyebrows, people who show up very early for appointments, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/01/boss-is-pressuring-me-to-microblade-my-eyebrows-people-who-show-up-very-early-for-appointments-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=30560