Ask Slashdot: How Do You Deal With a Terrible Tech Manager? 140
snydeq writes: From the Know It All to the Overwhelmer, succeeding beneath a bad manager takes strategy and finesse, writes Paul Heltzel in his round-up of bad IT bosses and how to keep them from derailing your career. "While there are truly great leaders in IT, not all inspire confidence. Worse, you can't always choose who will lead your team. But you can always map out new paths in your career. With that in mind, here is a look at some prototypically bad managers you may have already encountered in your engineering departments, with tips on how to deal with each of them." The six "terrible tech managers" mentioned by Heltzel include: "The Know It All," "The Pushover," "The Micromanager," "The Unexpected Boss," "The Fearful Manager," and "The Overwhelmer." Have you ever worked for any of these managers? If so, how did you deal with them?
Easy (Score:4, Funny)
I send him a link to Breitbart. Before long he's spending all day tracking down pizza parlors and gay frogs, and staying out of everyone's hair at work.
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Interesting. We send ours links to articles about how innocuous things like office air conditioning are examples of racist, sexist, islamophobic, colonialism.. they spend all day tracking the sexism down in the ducts, adding some entertainment to otherwise dull days.
Left one out (Score:3)
Left out a kind of terrible manager: The Complete Psycho. Unfortunately, too common.
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i think sociopath is more common.
synonym. [wikipedia.org]
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A psychopath kills for no reason, a Sociopath kills for personal gain
That is your definition, but if you search the web you can find dozens of other "differences" many of which are contradictory. There is no formal medical definition of either "psychopath" or "sociopath". Psychiatrists use the term "antisocial personality disorder".
In vernacular English, the terms "psychopath" and "sociopath" are used interchangeably.
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That is your definition, but if you search the web you can find dozens of other "differences" many of which are contradictory. There is no formal medical definition of either "psychopath" or "sociopath". Psychiatrists use the term "antisocial personality disorder".
That's the actual definition. People don't get to redefine words just because they have degrees, words are used to communicate and stem from common usage, if a person has a degree in language or special knowledge of psychology they have the ability to catalog things, not to change them.
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Right. Because killing someone is the only way of harming them.
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Then I worked for a Psychopath. He killed everyone's morale, and with a smile.
He would literally wait until 4:45 every Friday before coming back from the director's meeting and lunch with his report (our manager) before announcing to us that he promised the new system upgrade before the business opened on Monday morning. Someone in the IT department got screwed every Friday. (okay, i think he missed about 2 a year)
One particular upgrade took 72 hours on the test / development environment. When he was re
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You are far from safe. There are a lot of things that may be in the sociopath's interest that are not in yours. For example, you getting the blame for the destruction he caused. You giving up a family holiday so he doesn't have to. You working 80 hour weeks so he looks good to his manager (until you burn out, then you're useless to him so he'll purge you to make room for fresh meat).
They made a documentary (Score:2)
They made a documentary about this. Jason vs Freddy [imdb.com]
Jason is a psychopath and Freddie is a sociopath. Freddie even at one point gets angry that Jason kills so indiscriminately.
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*THIS*
I tried getting out from under one and was retaliated against and ultimately was terminated (with 17 years of good to outstanding reviews behind me) by a railroad job from said psychopathic asshat.
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That will teach you to spend 17 years at one place. WTF were you thinking?
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Re: You forgot one... (Score:4, Interesting)
He very openly says he knows nothing about code, so he wants things explained in simple terms.
You have the best type of manager.
Re:You forgot one... (Score:4, Informative)
I had a boss who was technical but in a different field. The thing was, he knew what he didn't know - so he used to listen and delegate. If you wanted to make the case that it should be done this way, or that way, or not done at all he'd listen to you.
He'd give you a damn good roasting if you got it wrong. But it was your decision, so why not?
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Where exactly did I say it was?
Escalate, then quit. (Score:3, Insightful)
First you bring up the issue with the boss's boss. If nothing is done, then you quit. If you're good at what you do in technology you shouldn't have trouble finding work anyway. If you're useless or burnt out, maybe you can apply to be the next terrible tech manager. Many of them started that way and got "promoted out of the way".
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Not one minute after the call ends
1. Scram (Score:5, Insightful)
Get out if you can! It's not worth your health and sanity to stay for a bit more money.
I had a sinister boss during a past slump, and had to wait a while to find another company. Economic slumps suck: choices die faster than summer daisies in Death Valley.
I had a know-it-all (Score:2)
He had all of the theory and none of the practice. I eventually quit, but he "decided to leave" a little later.
Oh ... my. (Score:4, Insightful)
I've had a boss that was all of these. Very frustrating.
I've often wondered why folks in tech expect 24x7 access to their employees. If you work at Burger King, you don't have to put in 90 or 100 hour weeks - or if you do, it's with overtime pay. But if you're in tech, this seems to be the default expectation and don't you dare ask for overtime or even a bonus. Gosh no. Don't expect profit sharing either.
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What do you do when you get promoted to a management position in a different department and have no clue how to manage people? Do you quit, or try to do the job?
This is an excellent question. The fact that you ask it indicates that despite a lack of knowledge of the people and the product, you have a fighting chance to actually be successful. To quote someone else: "We ask kittens to fight tigers. We don't expect them to win, but we do expect them to try."
So, my advice is to just - try. At worst, it won't
Re: Oh ... my. (Score:1)
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They think it makes them look like good, tough managers, squeezing so much time out of employees. In reality, they're increasing the odds those employees leave and the company will have to deal with a constant rotation of employees who have to keep learning the products from scratch and don't have a personal connection to them, so it will be more difficult to track down deeper issues and make major changes. Also, I just don't think it's realistic to expect more than 8 hours of quality work out of an employe
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Because I can get anybody to flip a burger. The problem with tech is that for many companies IT is 24x7x365 but the IT department still expects to act like they are working 8-5. So reality collides with their notions and reality wins.
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...many people do not want to distinguish between shitty helpdesk/lowly IT positions, and higher level techs.
Help desk I haven't done in ten years. I've done PC refresh projects at eBay and a local hospital, and built out a data center for Google. Upgraded and tracked 300+ laptops with 11ac wireless cards at Cisco. I'm currently doing InfoSec remediation for government IT. None of these positions are either "shitty" or "lowly".
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Ah, the belief that the field you are in requires talent, and others don't. Alternatively, whatever you don't understand must be easy, since you don't know the actual difficulties.
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Ah, the belief that all people put forth relatively equal effort at life...
There are, in fact, butt simple things lazy people can and do make shitty livings at. The world needs ditch diggers too.
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But if you use neither, then how would you know?
Make a movie called Horrible Bosses 3? (Score:2)
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You all show up in suits ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Look for a new job (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Look for a new job (Score:4, Interesting)
I was reorged and placed under a kiss ass manager-ette. My solution: I called up my old manager and asked is I could go back to work for him. Viola. Done. I think she was in to some "categorize work tasks in to a flow chart" thing . I couldn't take the situation. I am an adult. I think she may have given head to someone at the top.
This lady was like a Marissa Mayer on knee pads.
Got out, kept my sanity, survived well.
You can't change crappy managers. Best to distance oneself.
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I was reorged and placed under a kiss ass manager-ette.
There's no reason to be a misogynist to make your case. There are plenty of epithets that you could use to describe your former manager that don't disparage other women in the process. Kiss-ass is good, as is toady, moron, bosshole, stooge, empty suit, or sycophant.
By the same token, don't call the woman driver who cuts you off a bitch or a cunt, or the male driver a prick or a faggot. You can call all of them 'assholes,' for example, and convey the proper level of insult without pointlessly insulting ot
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Insulting someone because of some group they involuntarily belong to dilutes the effect and makes you seem intolerant. Insulting people based on who they personally are or what they've personally said or done works better in general. Calling her a kiss-ass who wouldn't have a spine if it wasn't for the Gantt charts up her butt is more effective.
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Gantt charts have their uses with project planning. As long as you remember that it's a plan and plans change. And when they change the end-times and start-times of the tasks need to be adjusted.
I was at one company and they insisted on starting the testing phase based on the original chart...but development was 3 months behind schedule.
The devs were not happy about having defects raised against code that hadn't even been written yet.
You just do as I say... (Score:1)
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Re: All you need (Score:2)
I trained them ... (Score:3)
... I guarantee you those bastards (or bitches) came to realize that when I was happy, they were, too.
It's like training Pavlov's dog.
For one son of a bitch in Reston, Va., I programmed our fax machine to forward to his cell.
Re: I trained them ... (Score:1)
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Every good boss I have had (which is most of them) quickly figured out that I may be their employee, but they report to me :-)
There's a lot of truth to this. I've posted on /. before about having managed as many as 600 people in diverse groups. No way I could know all their jobs. The only option? Listen to the people who actually knew how to get the work done, understand the obstacles they faced, and get those obstacles out of the way so they could do what they do best.
You know what? It worked. I didn't need to pretend I knew it all or run around giving orders. Amazing what people can do if you make sure they have what they need a
Add Psychopaths to the list (Score:2)
See: https://www.amazon.com/Snakes-... [amazon.com]
If you get that, you're basically fucked. Document what they've done to you (and your team) and quit (which is what the book tells you to do).
It's a tough world out there.
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Came here to say this. You can't win fighting a psychopath / sociopath.
The only winning move is to quit - and move to a higher paying job.
The best revenge is living well.
It is quite well known. (Score:3)
Understand your boss (Score:3, Interesting)
If your not wealthy or smart?
Your stuck with having to understand your boss and have to try and reason with them.
Try and understand your boss and their origins.
Overeducated for the role and wanted to be promoted in the past but failed?
Had some connection with others in management that secured their role but they are not a productive boss?
Someone who once had good ideas but has less to offer every year?
They use their own boss as a method of advancement and just keep staff around to fill in the role of been a boss? Their own advancement is the project not anything that needs to be done.
The boss has issues from university, never went to a good "university" in the traditional way, was too poor to enjoy university, did not fit into any social setting at university. Was smart but did not have the correct level of wealth to fit in? All that can shape the mind and issues a boss projects. Poverty made them have many, many issues decades later.
Social acceptance issues? Even been a "boss" just does not wash away that feeling of not been accepted by management.
Lack of ability to learn new skills. The boss is using past success to just stay in place for a few more years. They don't want to lean new methods. They have staff for that.
They have the wrong education. It was ok years ago and got them the job but they feel different from their better educated peers.
They had a good memory that as able to fake their way past university exams, the interview and the social skills to become a boss.
Even average staff know they have a lack of ability needed in their role. So the boss takes steps to hide that issue.
Most people have traits they bring up from university and as they enter the work force. What was your boss like? Could they even study on their own or did they always need help? Could they work on a project or did they always need a lot of support?
Once you understand your boss aviod the things that make them unhappy.
If your wealthy and happy don't remind your boos of their own poverty filled past.
If your boss is smart, learn from them.
If your boss is lacking in skills, don't be the person that knows too much about their past.
Other traits are the boss who has to talk about their new found wealth and what they are doing socially. The charities, social events, music, art, a new car.
If you are wealthy and enjoyed all that as a given, it becomes almost comical to sit and listen to your boss trying to buy their way into society. Try to be positive and just be happy for your boss. If you boss finally has the wage to enjoy opera or some other social event just smile and ask them all about their experience.
A normal boss will work hard, bring new ideas, have the educational background to study and keep learning new things, want the best for the company and all staff. They will want to share their own skills and learn.
If not something is wrong, just take the time to find out what. Poverty, educational issues, a well hidden lack of talent.
Good interviews and hiring on merit with background investigations will usually detect any of the bad traits. Always interview, hire on merit and look into pasts, then a company can avoid staff issues.
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No. Quit, and give no hint until the exit interview as to why. Frequently you will not have an exit interview. So call your boss's boss on the way out.
You don't have any other power. This psychobabble bullshit might work if you already knew it, but it won't help anyone who needs to read it and finds it insightful. Actually quit, and name names.
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Only if you don't need the reference. It won't change a thing and will ruin the reference. Some shit managers only give bad refs on 'principle', in that case fuck him/her as hard as you can.
For most companies: Lie, lie, lie on the way out, just like they did to you on the way in. Don't burn that bridge.
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If you have a terrible manager, you don't want that reference. That reference is not predictable. Do not list it, and explain in your next interview that your manager was an idiot, which is part of the reason you left. Not immediately, but find a subtle way to compliment the chance to work for new management with some sort of understanding of what you do, as opposed to the arsehole you used to work for.
You're leaving for a reason, and you don't want that reason to be something you enter into day 1. If n
ironic... (Score:2)
because that's generally how anyone horrible at their job seems to get that position in the first place. They hide out or "follow the rules" long enough for someone to leave or there is simply no one else to fill the role.
In many of my anecdotes as a contractor, its seems the last people standing in a company (the primary shit stain of sales or the senior dickwad of software) are almost always the most worthless people that just new how to hide well....the good people bailed or were blamed and fired long be
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because that's generally how anyone horrible at their job seems to get that position in the first place. They hide out or "follow the rules" long enough for someone to leave or there is simply no one else to fill the role.
In many of my anecdotes as a contractor, its seems the last people standing in a company (the primary shit stain of sales or the senior dickwad of software) are almost always the most worthless people that just new how to hide well....the good people bailed or were blamed and fired long before.
You're more correct than you think - I posted this before [ribbonfarm.com], but another post can't hurt.
The lifecycle of a company is such that once it is out of the growth phase it will be filled by useless wastes of oxygen. That link above provides excruciating details into why this happens.
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Good people find it much easier to bail out. The ability to get a decent job is a good parachute.
Only had issues with the micro-manager (Score:3)
/ Typical example, Quit bugging me, send me email,
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Say you're busy with a 2 day task. By noon, you will already need to pull a report for something else because he promised it up the hierarchy or other meeting where he didn't dare say no. He will promise two other high priority tasks that you also have to perform in the mean time and by the end of the 2 days, where you had basically 2 hours of work on the initial project, h
Simple (Score:1)
Look for another job, life is too short to fight this kind of thing and HR will always side with the manager first because usually those rats are good at their game and will already have dirt on you (real or made up, does not matter) in case you talk and spin it to HR in your file the second they smell that you will start complaining. Your career will be stalled completely as long as that manager will be your boss anyway. Move on.
Document, document, document... (Score:4, Interesting)
I had a supervisor who assigned me two separate projects that had a one-month gap between them. I documented that I would take them with the understanding that there will be trouble if the two projects overlapped. The inevitable train wreck came when the first project overlapped the second project, both projects got delayed and later reassigned to other people to straighten out. Supervisor tried to throw me under the bus but I had documentation that he didn't lift a finger to help me. What happened? Supervisor got promoted out of the department and I didn't have a project for 90 days.
Next supervisor told me not to document any of his activities. Of course, I documented that and everything else. Soon I was being written up for insubordination for... you guess it... documenting his interference with my project. When he gave me the "his way or the highway" speech, I resigned as soon as my current project was done. I was the third out of a dozen senior employees who headed for the exits that year. Supervisor rode the company into bankruptcy.
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Be lucky (Score:3)
I had a terrible manager a long time ago but fortunately he knew nothing about my job (systems and database administrator on a VAX system). He'd come over and talk to me and I'd just bury him with VAX specific jargon. As long as the VAX ran fine (and it always did) I was left alone. Others in the department weren't so lucky because he thought he knew something about PCs and the phone system and he was a micromanger. He lasted less than two years as head of IT but got moved to other departments and had similar problems (a manger can manage anything, right?). Eventually he got fired when he go caught trying to return an expensive camera system that he'd "borrowed" without approval. It was needed for some tests.
The one time he did get to me (and the others in the department) was when he insisted that all email go through him for approval. This was in the days before ubiquitous internet email so we had two systems, the local VAX email and the corporate system called sysm. That only lasted for about a week. We buried him in emails then complained when he wasn't able to keep up and deliver the messages in a timely manner. At the time I was changing usernames on the VAX to the new corporate standard so I was sending out 20 or 30 messages a day telling users about the new usernames they'd have the following morning. Users were complaining and I told them "Talk to Ted, he was supposed to forward the message on to you".
Change departments or failing that companies. (Score:2)
Several years ago I had a manager whom I could not stand and who was not fond of me. I chose to apply for a position in a new department and moved there.
If the person is a manager, they're adept at playing the game. They're going to beat you at office politics. Unless you have knowledge that they're stealing or otherwise ethically/legally compromised, don't try to fight them. Get out.
LK
The Toxic manager (Score:2)
I'm not sure why but they are missing the Toxic manager in there.
I used to have a manager that would ensure that whoever he nominates to be the lead on a project would fail to accomplish most, if anything in the project.
First very unrealistic time tables for the project, which was essentially a rewrite of an existing CMS from scratch. 3 months.
He booked easily 60% of my time in various meetings. Spent a lot of the rest of the time planning and designing features to "stay ahead of the curve".
Of course during
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The organization was simple at the 'sabotage' level of process immaturity. The 'process immaturity model' is a useful lens to look at companies.
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Manager has reached his level of incompetence and knows it. Wants to surround himself with other incompetents (to hide among them). The key in that situation is to identify the 'king moron' (the one who started to herd of incompetents, likely hired your direct supervisor). If you can't possibly take over that role, the place is doomed and you should just use it to learn knew skills while looking for new work.
It's a corollary to the peter principle, whose name escapes me at the moment...'When a person has
I might have a problem... (Score:2)
...I actually enjoy these managers.
Hacking management behavior is loads of fun. Give me 6 months with any manager and I can provoke damn near any reaction I want, all the while they think it's their idea.
10 penny fuse (Score:2)
Then have him go in and check it.
Make sure you unscrew all the lightbulbs in that area.
Micromanage back (Score:2)
I had a manager who tried to micromanage me. I can play that game. I became incapable of making the simplest of decisions. I kept going to his office every few minutes to ask stupid questions, like what color he wanted a particular header in. I made sure to only ask one question at a time for maximum impact. So every few minutes I'd interrupt him with something stupid. I had actually expected to get fired, not win the battle. Imagine my surprise when he finally just yelled, "just do whatever you want
Management != leadership (Score:2)
This is something that should receive more emphasis, I think; a lot of managers don't understand that they aren't leaders - and that they are not even supposed to be leaders. Management is something that requires a certain set of skills - you are required to manage people, ie. you tell your staff what tasks they have to do, you evaluate their performance, you communicate with the wider administration, so your team members don't have to bother with the trivia of administration. In many ways, a manager is a s
None-of-the-above (Score:2)
So, I've worked with all flavours of these managers listed, yet none of them are the most frustrating manager I've worked for.
The most frustrating manager was the guy who read all the books, always knew what to say, tried to be your friend, but never actually let you do the things you wanted to get done. He'd never say no, but make you resubmit your requests 10 times with various tweaks almost like he wanted you to give up.
Then in staff meeting's he'd complain that no one was being innovative except his fav
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Here's how I deal with it (Score:2)
The Hurricane (Score:1)
That's one that's not mentioned and really hard to deal with. Found common in startups, the Hurricane Boss is a brutiful combination of all of the above, cranked up to eleven.
I had one, a precocious Frenchman, who once walked back to my team's area, clapped his hands (in a way only a precocious Frenchman can), and commanded, "I want rounded corners and dropshadows. On everything." And then left. Fifteen nerds stopped dead in their tracks, concentration broken, pulled out of the zone. For rounded corners and
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I was driven out of every job, mainly because I didn't respond properly when ordered to "do it wrong or you're fired."
Just an FYI, I have been absolutely willing to "do it wrong" (nothing unethical, of course), but it doesn't seem to help. If a manager doesn't like you, it's not because of the work you're doing, it's because he feels threatened, or has inter-personal issues, etc.
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Rule of 3s: If you've had 3 bosses with the same problem, it's not their problem, it's yours.
Either you are dealing with your bosses wrong, or you are working in the _wrong_ industry. FYI If you are working for an industry that makes pure commodities (e.g. life insurance), your boss will be a marketer and you will be seen as pure overhead.