How Often Have You Seen Mostly or 100% AWOL Managers? • Hacker News Board

Re: How Often Have You Seen Mostly or 100% AWOL Managers?

#11

Post by anonzzzies » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 5:57 AM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #9

anonzzzies wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People just want the money. I cannot imagine doing a job just for the money myself; I rather sleep under a bridge (probably not really but luckily I don’t have that issue). I just cannot belief it’s true; people here whine about tech all the time and updating to the latest stuff etc while you can make 250-350/hr doing CRUD in Java + Oracle in enterprises with knowledge you hardly have to update for the past two dec…

Are there really a lot of 250-350/hr jobs building crud apps for enterprises? Where is this market drawing from?

Even in Europe I got those amounts for those types of jobs; I don’t do them anymore as I don’t like them anymore (when I started out it was interesting and sometimes challenging work, now it’s just crud; I can dream up those things without effort), but if you have a bit of a network of enterprise management types, you can get more and more of those gigs. Usually departmental apps which every dep will have done ‘their own way’ (which means it’s all the same but built from scratch every time).

Re: How Often Have You Seen Mostly or 100% AWOL Managers?

#12

Post by jiggawatts » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 6:03 AM UTC

SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #2

Yeah I’ve seen that before many times and usually they’re moonlighting. So it’s not career immolation necessarily, it’s more like double dipping.

Ding-ding-ding.

I’ve worked with a manager at a customer that rarely turned up to even online meetings and even complained that this was taking time away from his personal business!

He was a full-time employee using business hours at his job to run a side-hussle.

After this experience I’ve learned to recognise the signs.

Re: How Often Have You Seen Mostly or 100% AWOL Managers?

#13

Post by anonzzzies » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 6:04 AM UTC

overtomanu wrote: post #10

anonzzzies wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People just want the money. I cannot imagine doing a job just for the money myself; I rather sleep under a bridge (probably not really but luckily I don’t have that issue). I just cannot belief it’s true; people here whine about tech all the time and updating to the latest stuff etc while you can make 250-350/hr doing CRUD in Java + Oracle in enterprises with knowledge you hardly have to update for the past two dec…

It's not that easy to do Java+enterprise CRUD job. Even though there might not be much to learn technically, you will be expected to learn about functional/business rules related to the application. ERP software can be one of the most complicated soul sucking job. It is in here where stuff gets tough, in that you have to deal with legacy codebase, poorly documented rules, bug would have become feature etc. If you don…

I agree somewhat, but we were talking about maximising money without caring about the work; that, at least to me, means I am working as a company for a company, not in a traditional job. Contracting as a company means I can deduct almost everything I buy and/or charge it to the client which means more money. It also means multiple clients and work from ‘my office’ (which looks a lot like my home) has been allowed forever as if you are a company they cannot dictate where you work. Demotion does not exist; they can just tell me they don’t need my services anymore: I have too many clients so I have to say ‘in 6 months’ anyway and get offers all the time for more.

And yes you are right about the learning but that happens automatically when you are building ERP stuff. But that’s always the case: my point is: if you chase the newest tech crap, you are not focusing on making max money as you don’t need to update your tech knowledge. No one cares about that outside the tech realm. For both old and new tech, the business rules you learn by doing and you start to see patterns fairly fast so the next project will be similar to the current. I don’t want to think how many times I implemented almost identical employee benefits self service portals…

Re: How Often Have You Seen Mostly or 100% AWOL Managers?

#14

Post by a-saleh » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 6:06 AM UTC

Why would I care about my manager not being in the office? We probably don't share a continent anyway.

On the other hand, sometimes it is culture. I had manager that had 100+ direct reports. He never had 1x1 and barely managed to get all of the payrol/timesheet/pto aprovals on time.

Re: How Often Have You Seen Mostly or 100% AWOL Managers?

#15

Post by quickslowdown » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 6:12 AM UTC

My manager's great. Their manager can't even be assed to tell my manager when they leave for vacation.

Re: How Often Have You Seen Mostly or 100% AWOL Managers?

#16

Post by Brian_K_White » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 6:16 AM UTC

throwawaysleep wrote: post #3

Anecdotally, the idea of a career is dying among many I know. People just want the money. So some of it is probably being Overemployed. I have a job where I am just doing the minimum to keep it. Some of it is just waiting to be fired while their build their own businesses.

What career?

Companies haven't been loyal to employees in a long time, so now they get to enjoy employees not being loyal to them.

Re: How Often Have You Seen Mostly or 100% AWOL Managers?

#17

Post by eru » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 6:19 AM UTC

a-saleh wrote: post #14

Why would I care about my manager not being in the office? We probably don't share a continent anyway. On the other hand, sometimes it is culture. I had manager that had 100+ direct reports. He never had 1x1 and barely managed to get all of the payrol/timesheet/pto aprovals on time.

> Why would I care about my manager not being in the office?

I suspect OP might be more interested in the manager being available, not so much where the manager is physically located.

Re: How Often Have You Seen Mostly or 100% AWOL Managers?

#18

Post by eru » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 6:20 AM UTC

Brian_K_White wrote: post #16

throwawaysleep wrote: post #3

Anecdotally, the idea of a career is dying among many I know. People just want the money. So some of it is probably being Overemployed. I have a job where I am just doing the minimum to keep it. Some of it is just waiting to be fired while their build their own businesses.

What career? Companies haven't been loyal to employees in a long time, so now they get to enjoy employees not being loyal to them.

> Companies haven't been loyal to employees in a long time, [...]

Some companies have, some companies haven't.

Re: How Often Have You Seen Mostly or 100% AWOL Managers?

#19

Post by q7xvh97o2pDhNrh » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 6:23 AM UTC

Oh, man, I was hoping this thread would be about managers who have mastered the art of time management and are doing their jobs in a few hours per week.

One of my old managers had it. I would rarely see the dude -- except for once or twice a month, when we'd happen to be in the same meeting. He'd wait until the last bit of the meeting, and then he'd come in -- calm and measured -- with a comment that would blow everyone away. While everyone was nodding at what a good point it was, he'd disappear, never to be seen again until next quarter.

Meanwhile, I'm over here working a steady 50 hours/week and barely keeping up. Most weeks are wall-to-wall meetings, combined with a few over-caffeinated nights writing up some doc or another, and then it's a stumble into the weekend with just enough time to recover and start the whole thing over on Monday.

I'd like to hear from those kinds of AWOL managers. I have no idea how they do it.

Re: How Often Have You Seen Mostly or 100% AWOL Managers?

#20

Post by al_borland » Sat, Apr 06, 2024, 6:24 AM UTC

I've had a few AWOL managers, but in each case they had another team as well. They spend all their time on the other team and expect the team I'm on to run itself. So they aren't AWOL from the company, they just have 0 presence in my work life.