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I was with you until you said negotiate with the current manager. Unless OP came up with this 70 hour a week thing all on his or her own, his or her manager ha

by x0x0 9y ago

I was with you until you said negotiate with the current manager. Unless OP came up with this 70 hour a week thing all on his or her own, his or her manager had some hand in leading OP to believe that delivering this platform (or whatever) would get the promotion OP wants. One of the most basic responsibilities a manager has to a report is managing the report's career, ie what work merits a promotion. So either OP made some stuff up entirely in OP's head with no input from OP's manager (bad, a manager should be proactively discussing this) or OP's manager led OP astray (really bad). Either way, I'd suggest rolling the dice and starting over elsewhere. And this time, OP needs to be really clear with the new manager on what OP wants and what work or deliverables gets OP there.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
Unfortunately it's possible that they did indeed decide to work 70 hour weeks. I made that mistake early in my career. You're right that if they were pushing him to work these insane hours for months then it's time to politely part ways. Such abuse was common in the gamedev industry: http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/ http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/
kamaal 9y ago
>>And this time, be really clear with your new manager on what you want and what work or deliverables get you there. In many cases even this doesn't work. That is unfortunately how toxic politics really is. Politics is an art of manipulating people and deceiving them into doing things. In the case you mentioned, its possible that the manager will agree for the deliverables on hand. When the time for reward comes, they will simply say there were other contenders and delivered more than you did. You can't argue much from there, because they will start throwing in the 'confidentiality' card saying "You don't know how much more the other guy delivered". Its always easy to say this because you don't have any way of verifying it. And calling their BS on their face means permanently damaging your relationship. Then you have no option but to leave. In short: If you have this kind of a manager, stop fighting the system, just leave.
nunez 9y ago
but it is entirely possible that OP worked on this after hours without their manager ever knowing or masking their real work with this work. i've met MANY engineers that gladly volunteered several hours after work on things they felt were important for their team or company. That's fine and all, but if there wasn't a conversation beforehand that expressed a need for that work, then the risk of those hours being for naught is high.

by x0x0 9y ago

sillysaurus3 9y ago

Unfortunately it's possible that they did indeed decide to work 70 hour weeks. I made that mistake early in my career. You're right that if they were pushing him to work these insane hours for months then it's time to politely part ways. Such abuse was common in the gamedev industry: http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/ http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/

kamaal 9y ago

>>And this time, be really clear with your new manager on what you want and what work or deliverables get you there. In many cases even this doesn't work. That is unfortunately how toxic politics really is. Politics is an art of manipulating people and deceiving them into doing things. In the case you mentioned, its possible that the manager will agree for the deliverables on hand. When the time for reward comes, they will simply say there were other contenders and delivered more than you did. You can't argue much from there, because they will start throwing in the 'confidentiality' card saying "You don't know how much more the other guy delivered". Its always easy to say this because you don't have any way of verifying it. And calling their BS on their face means permanently damaging your relationship. Then you have no option but to leave. In short: If you have this kind of a manager, stop fighting the system, just leave.

nunez 9y ago

but it is entirely possible that OP worked on this after hours without their manager ever knowing or masking their real work with this work. i've met MANY engineers that gladly volunteered several hours after work on things they felt were important for their team or company. That's fine and all, but if there wasn't a conversation beforehand that expressed a need for that work, then the risk of those hours being for naught is high.