Part of doing any job well involves getting feedback, and that’s also true for my position as the Work Friend columnist for The New York Times, which I have been for the past six months. Over that time, I’ve received dozens of incisive and critical responses, most of which have made me think about, and sometimes rethink, my answers to questions I had responded to in this column.

For this last column of 2024, I thought I’d do something different and share some of that feedback from readers, not just about my answers but about some of the questions themselves.

A column that prompted one of the biggest responses was my very first. A questioner expressed discomfort over a colleague’s habit of initiating conversations on Slack with just a “hello” and no follow-up. My response empathized with the letter writer’s frustrations — I even called the practice “creepy.” And a lot of readers had something to say about it, much of it smart.

Said one:

“I have to say that I found it comical that neither the advice seeker nor you thought to simply prompt the ‘hi’-writing colleague to elaborate on the purpose of his greeting, rather than just letting it ‘languish’ with no response. What happened to common civility? If someone says hi, you say hi back! Perhaps it’s his way of checking to see if you are busy. And if no response he assumes you’re not available. Or perhaps HE feels put out that everyone else ignores his attempts to connect! He doesn’t want to keep pestering people who don’t reply. So he doesn’t follow up. Has anyone tried to just ask?”

Another column that prompted a flurry of emails was one where I answered a question from a young woman who said she was made uncomfortable by the monthly tradition of her company’s CEO inviting junior employees to lunch. As she put it, their conversations often dovetail into discussions about their personal lives, which make her uncomfortable. (“I find him to be brash, immature and annoying,” she added.)

Well, a lot of people disagreed with her — and with my advice that she simply refuse to go to lunch with him.

“It’s learning about leadership opportunities. It’s proposing process improvements. It’s learning about the company’s and CEO’s strategic vision, and how that might affect you. I’d pay to get 90 minutes even with the most immature SVP at my workplace. If it’s none of those things, slap a fake smile on and treat it as an opportunity, to learn how to deal with unlikable people.”

Not every response to every column is negative, of course. Lots of readers have written in to share their own stories about surviving a difficult job while on the cusp of retirement, about being an “older” worker on the job hunt in an ageist society, and about gossiping at work.

One said about the retirement dilemma:

“You correctly diagnosed that the root of the problem was the person’s attitude, but you did not offer any encouragement toward a way to improve that attitude. My point is, saying ‘Improve your attitude’ is as helpful as telling an angry person, ‘Just relax!’”

Not surprisingly, some of the most scathing emails came in response to a column, in which I explored a letter writer’s questioning the appropriateness of a decision to announce, via a sticker by her desk, that she’d had an abortion. (I was sympathetic to the letter writer’s description of the sticker as “a totem of safety” to the women she worked with. And no, I’m not going to quote the emails I got in response.)

But most emails really made me think.

Lots of readers weighed in on my response to a woman’s query about disclosing her cancer treatment to colleagues who might be confused by the difference between her appearance on a video chat and her visage on her team photo. It’s no one’s business, I said. I still believe that. But a few Work Friend readers, many of them with personal experience with a breast cancer diagnosis, disagreed:

“I am a two-time breast cancer survivor and, like Anonymous, continued working through my chemotherapy treatments (also resulting in complete hair loss!). Similar to Anonymous, I was in contact with colleagues on a daily basis. As such, I did not keep the reason for my baldness a secret. On my first appearance with individuals who had not yet met me or seen me since my hair loss, I took a few minutes to explain my situation, adding that I was feeling well enough to work.”

Another:

“People that are going through breast cancer feel very alone and not supported, and to pretend like you don’t have it feels really weird. I think it would be better if she just told people that she was going through chemotherapy and that she’s OK. Rather than pretending like she’s just wearing a hat or a scarf because it looks good. Ha! It does not look good! Or feel good.”There’s nothing wrong with having cancer and being open about it, and it’s good for the person to receive support. Normalize it!”

Anna Holmes’ work has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and The New Yorker.