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Question for the crowd: how to manage up a politically savvy skip manager that routinely trivializes engineering effort? They couch it in sarcasm, something lik
by yanslookup 8y ago
Question for the crowd: how to manage up a politically savvy skip manager that routinely trivializes engineering effort? They couch it in sarcasm, something like "oh you can build that in like 2 minutes, it's just an SQL query and 3 lines of python, right?"
- drugme 8y agoFind another job.
- alexk 8y agoI think you would find negotiation practices helpful, e.g. check out the book "Never split the difference" to learn some negotiation techniques and "Elephant in the brain" to understand that this behavior is likely not about technology.
- yanslookup 8y agoIt's not a negotiation in good faith because they are "just joking man!"
- alexk 8y agoAs someone who actually builds things you have more leverage than you think in this or any other conversation with your manager, you need to learn how to use it better.
- wsy 8y agoThis manager wants to make you smaller, so that he can look bigger and exert more power. In my experience, the only way to counter is by also making a strong gesture. For the dialog you sketched, possible responses could be "Then you can surely do it yourself in 2 minutes". Another, more aggressive, option would be to answer "this joke gets old". You need to find your own tone, obviously, which should not be agitated-aggressive, but make clear that he now has an opponent, and you will not be an easy victim for his power games. Obviously, this is a risky approach; only do it if you can afford switching jobs. But in my experience it is less risky than it looks. Bullying persons have a good sense of their opponent's strength, and will rather look for new easy targets than going into a serious fight. If you can talk to your team mates and make this a team stance, this will of course strengthen your position further.