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Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#91

Post by bendixso »

repsak wrote: post #74
vfc1 wrote: post #71

You don't. As long as you work for someone else, that type of situations will always occur, to a larger or lesser degree. As long as you work under someone else's supervision, you will never have the freedom to do whatever you want, like for example give a conference talk or a million other things. I'm sure it's not only the conference talk, right? There are other things. Instead of investing so much time trying to n…

This is quite childish advice. Is this your solution all disagreements? "You will then have the freedom to do whatever you want each and every single day, and won't have to spend all that time and energy constantly convincing someone of things that are often for their own good." I wish! Constantly convincing someone of things that are often for their own good is basically the definition of what you do when working fo…

There is an implicit assumption that working for yourself means working for medium to big clients, but that isn't always the case. What if you build a product and have hundreds or thousands of customers? They might leave a negative review here or there, but they aren't going to give a rip which conferences you go to.

Imagine building a business that passively generates half of your yearly spending. Now you just need to generate the other 50% of your yearly spending from "active" projects like jobs and medium-sized clients. It's not full independence, but I'll take it over being completely beholden to someone else.

It's not childish to take responsibility for your life, to carve your own path and gain greater degrees of autonomy. In fact, it's what fully developed adult human beings do.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#92

Post by bitshepherd »

gtt wrote: post #64
dagw wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That he can count on you to do what needs to be done. You will go out of your way for her. If you've ever said "this isn't my job" then you will have only an adversarial relationship. True to the extent that it is actually related to your job in a larger sense and doing so won't adversely affect your ability to do your 'real' job. Many managers will just keeping adding more and more responsibilities to their 'best' w…

>>Many managers will just keeping adding more and more responsibilities to their 'best' workers until they either start saying "no", quit or burn out, often without any malice or ill intent. I consider such people total failure as managers and try to avoid.

When I'm in the employee seat, I try to avoid managers that use blanket statements of people. The 'best' workers, where everyone -- including their manager -- goes when they need the hard questions answered, will usually quietly exit. They prefer not to cause a big scene, knowing their value. Value usually has a big catalyst in this, often appearing sudden and unexpected, exit.

Some of these 'total failures' will go on to outdo even their own expectations. Some will do as you prophesize and 'fail' in their burnout, get fired and fade away. The strong ones will come back from it. People quit people, not jobs.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#93

Post by snarfy »

It's nothing to do with having a thick skin. It's about being professional. Nothing that happens at work should be taken personally.

Meetings with your manager need to be two way. As your manager tells you how you are doing, you need to tell them how they are doing. I manage my manager by being completely candid about his performance as a manager.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#94

Post by AznHisoka »

raducu wrote: post #84
AznHisoka wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most interesting talks in conferences usually are case studies or explain how X was successfully used in a pratical project. It might be hard for OP to give such a talk unless he talked about his personal projects only. If he is just giving a generic talk about lessons learned without explaining the intricate war stories, thats a dull talk. Those are commodities.

Oh please, unless he developed something patent-worthy or something specific that could be used by direct competition then it's stupid not to let an employee talk about his (technical) work. In 99.99% the cases where a manager would be so impertinent as to decide upon how the personal time of an employee be used, it's because the manager is a shitty manager and the employee is completely worthless in the eyes of the…

You're arguing against a strawman. In most cases, yes the manager probably is using wrong judgement, but there are valid cases where an employee would be disclosing information that could be used by competitors.

And I'd argue, the employee is tremendously valuable if that is the case, and probably should ask for a huge raise :)

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#96

Post by bendixso »

What does the company have to lose by your going, and what do they have to gain? If you are asking to take personal time off in the middle of some critical goal/deadline, I could see how your going would negatively impact the business.

In fact, it has happened to me while working on projects. Some key person is off at a conference, while we're all charging to get the thing done, and it's not a good feeling.

In my experience, tech conferences tend to be more for developers and less for the companies and businesses that hire them. Let's be honest with ourselves here. It's kind of self-indulgent, like a mini-vacation.

It's not like you can't watch the videos online or go read whatever tutorial or documentation. I'm only speaking to my experience here, so maybe your conference has something the typical tech conference doesn't have.

I would only go to a conference if I knew that going would more than pay for the cost. If I were certain it would lead to many more opportunities than what I've got going on at present, I would say it's worth paying for the airfare, hotel, and restaurant food.

It seems like you could stand to gain quite a lot from going to this conference, and your company might just lose you. They are justifiably afraid of that, but so what? This is capitalism, man. It's ruthless. Everyone's in it for themselves.

Your company is subject to market forces. You are subject to market forces. They would need to find another developer to train up if you left, and if they let you go because you went to a conference, they would be taking on the risk of having to replace you.

So there's an inherent risk in going (on both sides). Can you currently afford to take that risk? How much do you have saved? How much debt do you have? Would you be okay with being unemployed for a few months while looking for the next thing?

When someone else's interests are naturally at odds with yours, there is little negotiation to be done. They simply don't want what you want, and that's okay. Can you afford to go get yours?

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#97

Post by walshemj »

greggarious wrote: post #14
confiscate wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

agree. Especially with #3 "understand what boss wants" From the way OP phrased the question, it sounded like the OP felt the manager "owed" the OP. As in, OP feels going to the conference is a must, "a given", a "constitutional right", and that the manager "wronged" him by not letting him go. It's a very childish way of viewing the world. As in, I deserve to go to Disneyland. My mom won't let me, so I will now get a…

> OP feels going to the conference is a must, "a given", a "constitutional right", and that the manager "wronged" him by not letting him go. It's a very childish way of viewing the world. OP's employer does not own them - they have a right to a private life. While they certainly could not want OP identifying themselves as an agent of their employer when giving a talk, OP is entitled to use their free time / vacation…

For professional jobs which I suspect 99% of us on here have responsibility for your CPD (Professional Development) is down to you as much as it is to your employer.

The IEEE and similar bodies would not look very kindly on an employer that barred its members from CPD.

The only time an employer reasonably might not want to have the attendee use his employers name are TLA's or some companies at Blackhat conferences (if you work for a phone company for example)

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage your manager?

#99

Post by KirinDave »

Your question is not about "managing your manager." This is about your manager trying to sabotage your career.

Give the talks, quit if you have to. You don't need a manager who is not your advocate. I say this as someone responsible for many more management functions in tech than a technical tasks now. If your manager doesn't help you, tell HIS manager and be open: you don't need to accept this.

Bad management is a poison. Selfish managers need to be lanced out of a company like the malignant boils that they are. Take advantage of a seller's market for technical skills while you can, because there is no promise that you'll have this kind of agency in a year.

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