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Half of us have quit our job because of a bad boss (2015)

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Re: Half of us have quit our job because of a bad boss (2015)

#51

Post by lnsru »

ISL wrote: post #45
mattsfrey wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would likely be 100 if you remove all factors keeping somebody from quitting a job.

Only if all bosses are bad :).

My 3/4 bosses as intern were great. One guy was really incompetent, but he got me when the manager, who hired me, quit. So it’s almost ok.

After graduation the quality of managers varied greatly. There was a guy with 20 yeas experience, who took my mentoring very seriously. He fired me when I started my own company. Good decision actually! A boss before him was a great narcissist, if I were smarter, I would be able to play him and got higher. Not really the one to run from. Then there was a bunch of old dudes (totally incompetent) building big corp’s first electronics. They had no experience in the field and were really annoying. I quit. There was small company later with whole family in management: 2 sons, dad and mom. And a 2nd engineer. It was a part time position, so I was able to stay and suffer. No chance to stay with them for a 5 day workweek. My current manager is very restrictive. I can do things only old good way, all cost saving efforts and innovations are not needed. Heck, I could save company my early salary dozen times, but all the ideas were rejected.

Re: Half of us have quit our job because of a bad boss (2015)

#52

Post by smogcutter »

1123581321 wrote: post #44
gamesbrainiac wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is very long, what is the TLDR?

The thesis is a company employs Sociopaths, Losers, and Clueless. The Losers accept whatever quid pro quo they get in their current position. The Clueless struggle to distinguish themselves from Losers. The Sociopaths talk to each other in coded language during conversations that the unwitting Clueless believe they’re participating in. The shared understanding of the Sociopaths, who have a real ability to navigate th…

For example:

Sociopath: Adam Neumann

Clueless: middle management types who fully bought in to WeWork’s “vision”

Losers: Everyday employees just trying to make a living and go about their lives. End up just as hosed as the clueless, but at least they’re not surprised.

Re: Half of us have quit our job because of a bad boss (2015)

#55

Post by whateveracct »

gamesbrainiac wrote: post #22
x220 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did they instill fear?

Salami tactics. - Reduce flexibility over time - Every expense needs to be justified a hundred times - delaying approval of vacation days to the point that you take a vacation, and it is still not approved - Adding unnecessary process where none is required - Adding compromised people to the team (limited contract, needs the job desperately, needs a raise for kid's education etc) - Strict butts-on-seats policy - Cons…

> Constantly saying that we are going to remove technology , where is what you are hired for. Company will still need for the foreseeable future.

I've had a VPE who did this but much more subtly.

- VPE arrives & inherits a prototype written in and a team heavily experienced and passionate about

- VPE says that passion for technology is a hiring red flag. "We want people to join due to passion for domain not technology ". VPE is frequently the sole thumbs-down resulting in a rejection of many capable engineers.

- team is understaffed but has a near-term milestone defined (but not owned) by the VPE

- Simultaneously, VPE is hiring new members in another office with no experience in or interest in learning technology

- Milestone is cut in scope multiple times because initial goal was never reasonable. However, the milestone is delivered and is ready to be iterated on with all the new engineers hired.

- VPE suggests moving away from technology entirely and standardizing on alternative because the engineers he hired are more interested in and we are lacking in experts in

- End result is a wholesale rewrite of the project using . A year of my time and years of others' gone to waste. Not to mention the project itself is in a high-profile and competitive space.

Clearly a bad actor but also adept at maintaining plausible deniability thanks to everyone's deference to the VPE's authority. Not to mention a variety of other shitty leadership behaviors employed.

Really goes to show that the Amazon leadership principle "Leaders are always right" can be perverted by way of authoritarian self-fulfilling prophecy.

Per this post, once this VPE forced out my direct manager who I actually liked (making VPE my new manager)...I peaced out :)

Re: Half of us have quit our job because of a bad boss (2015)

#57

Post by WalterSear »

mjfl wrote: post #47
ISL wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if all bosses are bad :).

But what if all employees are humans. And like humans, they are irrational in their criteria of what makes a boss "good". For example, they want bosses that never demand work from them and let them go home early every day. Even if they get this, their standards will adjust and they will take the same level of issue with smaller things. Being a boss and attempting to be liked by your employees is a lost cause and fool…

I've had a number of great bosses, whose example I attempt to emulate in all my interactions - with both subordinates and superiors.

Re: Half of us have quit our job because of a bad boss (2015)

#58

Post by const_throwaway »

steelframe wrote: post #32
majormajor wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Few direct managers have the ability to give you a raise that a new employer would, in cases where you're being underpaid relative to the market. They also rarely have much influence over work flexibility or benefits.

> Few direct managers have the ability to give you a raise that a new employer would I'm usually very up-front with my reports on this. I make it very clear that I cannot compete with other companies on an immediate short-term compensation bump, so if they prioritize "money now" over everything else, then they should go out and interview. However in the four years that I was a manager at my previous company, nobody o…

>immediate short-term compensation bump

Did you believe you could deliver better long term compensation? This phrasing suggests that, it's a clever way to suggest something without promising it.

Re: Half of us have quit our job because of a bad boss (2015)

#59

Post by viklove »

ISL wrote: post #45
mattsfrey wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would likely be 100 if you remove all factors keeping somebody from quitting a job.

Only if all bosses are bad :).

Not at all. It would only imply that everyone has had 1 bad boss at some point in their career.

Re: Half of us have quit our job because of a bad boss (2015)

#60

Post by const_throwaway »

JohnFen wrote: post #35
standardUser wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is true in the US for a lot of people, and it was especially true during the recession. The fact that we've been in a situation where most skilled workers can easily job hop for that last 5 or so years is an aberration, not the norm! And frankly, we should probably take advantage of the situation while we still can.

> The fact that we've been in a situation where most skilled workers can easily job hop for that last 5 or so years is an aberration, not the norm Are you talking about workers in general, or software development in particular? In software development, I don't remember a time in the last three decades where a skilled dev couldn't find other employment with relatively little trouble. Of course, in some periods it was…

I was a dishwasher/line cook in my 20's, I could hop jobs on a dime. Got fired one Friday, and had a better paying job Monday and that was in 2008. I wasn't even that good.
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