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I’ve given up on the idea of good and bad people. I myself am good or bad depending on how it suits me. How could I do anything else? From my experience a mana

I’ve given up on the idea of good and bad people. I myself am good or bad depending on how it suits me. How could I do anything else? From my experience a manager will choose the option he thinks is most beneficial to his continued employment in the company. This includes maximising team support/influence over for instance making a change in a product with measurable benefit to the company, a change which even he himself might agree is a good idea. Who could blame him? Any manager who didn’t act in this way would surely be naive and idealistic. Assuming this is true for managers, what benefit could possibly be had from complaining about other colleagues. It could only serve to reduce his trust in me, and increase his fear that I would do the same to him. It is very difficult to balance things like team support, ensuring that I have interesting work to do and also ensuring continued employment. I have been too naive and idealistic, and now I am looking for a change of strategy. It’s all well and good to be aware of these realities, but much more difficult to put the conclusions into practice. Sometimes I think you’re just born with it.

NateEag 8y ago
I never said the manager was a good or bad person. We all do lots of good and bad things, and the labels overall are pointless to apply to people. I did say "good manager" - for a particular role or job, I find "good X" an acceptable shorthand for "understands the core responsibilities of X well and reliably executes them well."
NateEag 8y ago
A further reply, beyond my simplistic defense of my use of the term "good manager": It sounds like your "naive and idealistic" manager overlaps with my "good manager". I will argue that a manager's principle responsibility is actually to be a maintainer of relationships. Her responsibility is to maintain her relationship with each of her direct reports first and foremost, next to help them maintain their relationships with each other, and finally to help them maintain relationships with the other employees/teams in the company as necessary. Managers do have some logistical tasks they have to take care of, but mostly they "manage" humans, and that is fundamentally about keeping the relationships healthy and functional. It sounds from your description like you've never had a good manager, and I'm sorry for that. The good ones definitely are idealistic, but they're not naive. They are, as I mentioned earlier, in much shorter supply than good programmers. I've worked with far more decent programmers than I have decent managers (though since teams have N programmers to 1 manager on average, that may just be sampling bias). I should also note that when I'm having trouble with a coworker, my default is a one-on-one attempt to resolve the issue(s) directly. If that fails (or in the rare case where I think it's a bad plan), I don't go _complain_ to my manager as such - I ask for their help in mediating conflict and negotiations. Because a good one focuses on relationship maintenance, they're often better at handling those situations than I am, and at helping the different members of the conflict understand each other and resolve their disagreements amicably. Again - good ones are rare. I'm sorry you haven't gotten to experience one, from the sound of it.

NateEag 8y ago

I never said the manager was a good or bad person. We all do lots of good and bad things, and the labels overall are pointless to apply to people. I did say "good manager" - for a particular role or job, I find "good X" an acceptable shorthand for "understands the core responsibilities of X well and reliably executes them well."

NateEag 8y ago

A further reply, beyond my simplistic defense of my use of the term "good manager": It sounds like your "naive and idealistic" manager overlaps with my "good manager". I will argue that a manager's principle responsibility is actually to be a maintainer of relationships. Her responsibility is to maintain her relationship with each of her direct reports first and foremost, next to help them maintain their relationships with each other, and finally to help them maintain relationships with the other employees/teams in the company as necessary. Managers do have some logistical tasks they have to take care of, but mostly they "manage" humans, and that is fundamentally about keeping the relationships healthy and functional. It sounds from your description like you've never had a good manager, and I'm sorry for that. The good ones definitely are idealistic, but they're not naive. They are, as I mentioned earlier, in much shorter supply than good programmers. I've worked with far more decent programmers than I have decent managers (though since teams have N programmers to 1 manager on average, that may just be sampling bias). I should also note that when I'm having trouble with a coworker, my default is a one-on-one attempt to resolve the issue(s) directly. If that fails (or in the rare case where I think it's a bad plan), I don't go _complain_ to my manager as such - I ask for their help in mediating conflict and negotiations. Because a good one focuses on relationship maintenance, they're often better at handling those situations than I am, and at helping the different members of the conflict understand each other and resolve their disagreements amicably. Again - good ones are rare. I'm sorry you haven't gotten to experience one, from the sound of it.