Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#451

Post by marcus_holmes » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 3:29 PM UTC

I'm sorry you had this experience. It sucks. A lot of managers suck, because the skills and traits needed to get a promotion or run a business don't necessarily align with the skills/traits needed to be a good manager.

First, this is not your fault. Do not take this personally. Your manager/boss is the "adult" in the room - what happens between you is their responsibility, because that's their job. If you are walking away from an interaction feeling demotivated, annoyed, etc, then that's them being bad at their job, not you being a bad employee.

Second, this is not how professional, constructive, feedback is given. If your boss wants you to make some changes in how you work, they will be specific about that. This kind of unfocused complaining contains no actionable instructions, so you can safely ignore it. It's good that you've found some specific things that you were able to take away from the meeting, but given the context, those may not have been intended and you may not find yourself being praised for following them.

Third, your boss is only human. Humans have bad moods, bad days, and some humans make themselves feel better by making other humans feel worse. Every human is just trying to feel safe and loved, and your boss is no different. Be aware that they are this type of human, and try to remember that if it happens again.

Fourth, take some meeting notes while it's still fresh. For this first time, I wouldn't send them to anyone, but if this recurs then start obviously taking notes during the meeting and emailing them to your manager and your boss after the meeting. It's amazing how having written records of meetings stops unprofessional behaviour during them. It will also clarify if the criticism is genuine, or just your boss offloading their problems onto you. If anyone objects to you taking notes during the meeting, then they are definitely just offloading and you can ignore everything they say.

There's probably more, but I think the main point to realise is that this is not your fault. Try not to let it get to you.

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#452

Post by gen220 » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 3:42 PM UTC

This is a classic case of miscommunication: there's evident misunderstandings on both sides, and that's totally normal, since no human is a perfect communicator.

My advice (as somebody who's been in your shoes), since this is the only occurrence of this behavior so far, is to reach for mercy instead of justice and try to obtain her point of view through direct, good-faith conversation. Even if you disagree with her priors or decisions, you'll learn something valuable. Emphasize that you don't hold anything against them but just want to learn from the situation, and no egos will be injured.

People on the internet can spend all day pontificating on what she or you might have meant or felt, and what the greater ambitions of yourself or herself might be, but it's all futile because (1) it doesn't solve the problem for you (2) none of us know you or your manager. Instead of reading every comment on this thread, my advice is to schedule some time with her and air it out. Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#453

Post by waoush » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 3:52 PM UTC

pjerem wrote: post #395

throwawayboise wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can be motivitating words for some people. Coaches will say stuff like this to a talented athlete who is underachieving, if they think it will light a fire. A good manager would not say stuff like that unless he really felt the person would take it the right way. A bad manager will say stuff like that to stroke his own ego.

Coaches are not involved in hierarchical relationship where they could fire you or make your life hell. Neither they are involved in the decision of how much you should earn or if you should be promoted or not. So those are absolutely different sorts of relationships. The coach is not your superior so it changes everything about what they could say to you and the consequences it could have on you. So no, a good manag…

I would also add that sports can be highly emotional games, and getting a player angry or passionate (assuming they direct this at the other team) can actually be productive. This isn't the case with work that requires higher level of cognition, and not smashing someone against the wall to get a puck from them hah. I wouldn't want my subordinates to be angry at me or the rest of the organization for any reason.

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#454

Post by Communitivity » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 3:52 PM UTC

OnlyMortal wrote: post #261

xanaxagoras wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this junior engineer DM'ing me right now and I've been ignoring it because I don't want to deal with him and I have my own work to do. I'm reading through your comment here thinking "hey, I'm pretty good at walking that line, bothering the professor when appropriate, not waiting too long and not asking him for help too soon"... and then it occurred to me this guy is probably bothering the professor where I'm t…

If your a senior dev it’s part of your role to help the junior ones out. You should cultivate that behaviour as it brings up the quality of your colleagues and builds work relationships.

Let's say you are the cryptid 10x engineer/tech lead, supervising a team of 8 junior engineers. You can spend 4 hours, the equivalent of a 40hr week of lesser mortals (this math is almost never true in my experience), or spend a half hour of time on each of your junior engineers. The problem you help each of them solve is solved in 30m as opposed to the 3-4h they might have tried solving it themselves, and they've learned something that maybe saves them an hour a day. You do this twice during the week.

You've 'lost' 80h effectively of productivity for the company (remember, mythical 10x), but you've gained 104h (32h+32h+81h/day5days) from your team, for a net 24h gain.

Of course, numbers are exaggerated, but the point remains the same: if you are a tech lead helping your team succeed is your primary job, not coding/design. You are the person who connects the lines of communication, removes obstacles, mentors the team on coding and design, and gets the team moving in one direction that aligns with the customer needs.

You probably will code, to fill in gaps and help out, but personally I find it's split around 5/2/2/1 - 5 parts are working with your team to guide them and help them overcome obstacles, 2 parts communicating with management and customers, 2 parts coding/design, and 1 part administrivia/training.

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#455

Post by 999900000999 » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 3:55 PM UTC

I’d say just walk away when you still can.

It’s VERY hard to change the perspective of a boss that thinks you aren’t doing your job. I recently had a horrible manager who ignored me for months when I told him the dev environment was so unstable it was impossible to get anything done.

I kept asking for him to look into fixing it, again ignored. This continues for a good while until his boss takes a look. Boss boss is upset we don’t have a stable dev environment, which makes what I do get done take 5x as long. I blame myself for not clearly documenting these issues in emails. I’m really not a confrontational person, and I can’t know if it would of went better had I sent a bunch of angry emails saying without a stable dev environment nothing will get done.

Then it happens, I’m thrown under the bus and I have to leave anyway. I will say this was done in a very nice way. I’m given time to find another , far more enjoyable job.

Going forward I’ll walk out sooner if my boss doesn’t take my concerns seriously . I don’t argue with people, not at work, not in real life. As if this wasn’t enough I received a few late paychecks since my manager would neglect to approve my timesheets on time !

Drop that admiration, assuming you’ve finished a full year you can leave right now and it looks fine on a resume.

Good luck !

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#456

Post by singlow » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 4:06 PM UTC

kamaal wrote: post #339

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your boss is gaslighting & intimidating you. The person giving the feedback was the boss's boss, and they clearly didn't have the entire picture of the situation. That's not gaslighting. The term "gaslighting" gets thrown around far too readily. Assuming malice and manipulation in cases of miscommunication is a quick way to sour any relationship, this one included. There's no question that communication wasn't grea…

>>The person giving the feedback was the boss's boss, and they clearly didn't have the entire picture of the situation. Then why even have a discussion about something you don't know. It looks a straight up case of cya, followed by manipulating a junior employee into believing it was their mistake all along- a.k.a gaslighting.

Not all manipulation is gas-lighting. Gas-lighting is when you intentionally create a scenario to make another person doubt their competence as a distraction from your own nefarious actions.

If the boss had intentionally given the subordinate a task that was harder than it seemed in order to make the subordinate feel inferior, causing the subordinate to feel at fault for the lateness of a larger project and therefore not report the boss' bad decisions up the chain of command, that would be gas-lighting. But just telling them they are at fault is not gas-lighting.

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#457

Post by b_t_s » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 4:18 PM UTC

One of the best things about my job is that the CEO and other product owners genuinely understand and accept that when they change requirements and blow out X weeks/months of work the project will take that much longer. Not having that at the upper levels of management is going to make everyones lives painful. It's not a quit immediately issue, but certainly an explore your alternatives issue. It's also sometimes a symptom of financial stress. Life is _much_ better working at a company that is significantly and reliably profitable. Deadlines at the C level are bankruptcy and/or negative cash flow. Even decent executives have trouble not trickling that pressure down on the entire dev team. But as a dev without a signifiant equity package, the solution to that is just find a better company. Also, as a junior you pretty much shouldn't be making _any_ architecture decisions. Suggesting them, sure, but actually making them, no.

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#458

Post by onphonenow » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 4:18 PM UTC

stef25 wrote: post #385

onphonenow wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow - this is the best advice on HN (top comment to while I write) in a while. For junior folks I REPEATEDLY say, if you find yourself getting stuck / slowing down touch base. Or keep me in the loop, let's check in regularly when you have a good moment to chat, I'd love to hear how its going. Here's the other thing I noticed. I work with someone who is is my peer. Ie, 15 years+ experience etc. THEY check in with me p…

> For junior folks I REPEATEDLY say, if you find yourself getting stuck / slowing down touch base. Or keep me in the loop, let's check in regularly when you have a good moment to chat, I'd love to hear how its going. Sometimes work goes in such small incremental steps, full of unknown unknowns that there's so many occasions you can get bogged down. Even if you apply the rule of "touch base if you get stuck for more t…

One issue is turnover, it's annoying to spend time training someone who you won't be working with a long time. I've only had that really happen once.

So a tip for junior's might be to look at places where folks have a bit of tenure and stick around (I know some places cycle folks between teams like crazy - that makes this hard).

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#459

Post by delgaudm » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 4:24 PM UTC

devoutsalsa wrote: post #426

ImportOllie wrote: post #422

There's lots of good advice here already but one thing I don't see suggested is whether this might be laying the groundwork to let you go... and that might not be related at all to your ability as an engineer/developer. It's not uncommon for companies to use "Performance Improvement Plans" as a structure for this. You get set targets that are difficult to reach and when you don't reach them, they conclude you're not…

I was on the path to a PIP at one company. They put me on the team of a manager that had recommended against hiring me. He gave me impossible tasks and actively subverted my success. It was pure hell. When I finally got to the point where I was failing to meet the goals, I got dragged down into a recorded video chat with my boss and his boss. They pulled out a job description I’d never seen and outlined point by poin…

>When I put on the PIP, I went straight to HR. I complained about how I had been completely screwed, was super pissed, and suggested they pay me to resign.

You were lucky to get 30 days. Bear in mind HR works for the company, not you. In general, when you talk to HR expect them to act in a way to protect the company, not you, and keep HR's bosses happy, not you. Your complaint went right to the boss, and they conspired to use that as further motivation to see you out of the company in any way legally possible.

Re: Ask HN: My boss doesn't think I'm doing good work, how to proceed?

#460

Post by singlow » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 4:30 PM UTC

singlow wrote: post #456

kamaal wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>The person giving the feedback was the boss's boss, and they clearly didn't have the entire picture of the situation. Then why even have a discussion about something you don't know. It looks a straight up case of cya, followed by manipulating a junior employee into believing it was their mistake all along- a.k.a gaslighting.

Not all manipulation is gas-lighting. Gas-lighting is when you intentionally create a scenario to make another person doubt their competence as a distraction from your own nefarious actions. If the boss had intentionally given the subordinate a task that was harder than it seemed in order to make the subordinate feel inferior, causing the subordinate to feel at fault for the lateness of a larger project and therefore…

To clarify, I don't mean to say the boss did something ok, just that I think the term gas-lighting as a term is very useful to describe a particular phenomenon in various relationships, but is less useful if it gets broadened. I think this is something different, not necessarily better or worse.