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

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

#1

Post by mamidon »

My job recently decided to return-to-office, which put me back on the market for a fully remote job.

It got me thinking to the other times I've moved on from a company, with 2x of those being due to my immediate manager being completely AWOL. Literally for multiple months these guys just didn't come into the office, a constant stream of excuses.

Which gets to my question, if I've seen this 2x in 10ish years it's got to be somewhat common.

What is the deal with these people? Aren't they immolating their careers? I just don't understand it.

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

#3

Post by throwawaysleep »

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.

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

#4

Post by lovich »

AWOL as in they don't come in at all, or AWOL as in they don't produce any noticeable artifacts or effect on your personal or team output?

I manage a team and we have a return to office policy that I'm waiting to be reprimanded for not following before I actually come in, but I also don't hold my people to any standard beyond what I'm willing to do. I couldn't imagine ordering them to go in and not doing so myself.

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

#5

Post by rayrey »

It is about being checked out.

I am in 50s. I rode a late state startup to IPO and back to PE with a an exit soon. I have got kids to put through college and a parent to be taken care of. I saw nepokids be handed, HANDED , a company they had no business running. So yes I am grabbing what I can.

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

#6

Post by steve_adams_86 »

I’ve never encountered this. I’ve had managers who were promoted into incompetence, but they were still present and doing their best. I can’t imagine how someone would keep their job if they weren’t doing it… The teams I’ve worked on would almost all express concern to their manager’s manager that they weren’t getting the structure, support, and direction they need from their manager. It couldn’t last long.

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

#7

Post by anonzzzies »

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.

> 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 decades. If you are really in it ‘only for the money’, you have a Delaware company, cayman accounts, live in dubai and you do multiple boring crud jobs for Fortune 500 companies that require no learning with max income and you invest that money in ETFs. You don’t build your own business (very large chance of failure aka wasted no-money time) or you build one by talking your vc friend in investing in you so there exists no waste. And you don’t wait to get fired, you try continuously to find more higher paying and easier stuff and just do it concurrently. In most boring non tech companies with 100k+ employees no one will notice you underperform as that is the norm.

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

#8

Post by happytoexplain »

anonzzzies wrote: post #7
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.

> 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…

>I cannot imagine doing a job just for the money myself

Realistically, this is the source of 90% of misery in developed nations. It is logistically impossible for even half of all people to have jobs they enjoy so much it doesn't make them at least somewhat miserable doing it 40 hours a week.

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

#9

Post by azinman2 »

anonzzzies wrote: post #7
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.

> 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?

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

#10

Post by overtomanu »

anonzzzies wrote: post #7
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.

> 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't bring more value to the table and just coast off without learning anything, you will not get hike and effectively be taking demotion year after year. You will not have any bargaining power since they can replace you with a new grad anytime.

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