4 ms·
Send an email asking your manager how they're doing, what interesting things are happening, and how you can help them with what they're doing. One short paragra
by Jugurtha 6y ago
Send an email asking your manager how they're doing, what interesting things are happening, and how you can help them with what they're doing. One short paragraph. No negative thoughts. No "hurt and licking my wounds" undertone. No "you've been ignoring me" or "I feel excluded". Just something with the general feeling of "hey, how are you holding up, hope you're doing fine, how may I help".
They may have forgotten about you. They may not be checking with you because your performance ratings are high and you don't require to be "managed" that much, and their attention is on someone who's having trouble performing their job. Heck, they may be having trouble or going through harsh times. You don't know.
I have seen this very dynamic happen when I was in contact with both the "boss" and the "contributor" who felt the "boss" was mad at them and shunning them and didn't want to talk with them but I had first hand factual knowlege that none of this was true. I gave the same remark as the above. The "boss" was happy to receive the email, and the contributor was relieved to find out that all their thoughts were unfounded.
Now, I'm not telling you that your boss is not ignoring you; that is a possibility, after all. I'm telling you that there's a high chance it's not the case.
You are a seasoned contributor and it's not lost on you that managing your manager is something you ought to do.
>My guess is that, he wants to promote his favorites and he wants me to leave on my own. How do I handle this situation?
>I know that the most common advice would be, speak to him. I am not considering it. Because it might turn out to be a false alarm I would be assigned a module which I am not interested in.
This is a dangerous vicious circle: assuming the manager has bad intentions, being aware of the most common advice, which is the most common for a reason, and not wanting to speak with the manager.
You'll go into overdrive for nothing as the work life balance is very good, and your performance is high. You will waste this.
- busterarm 6y agoI want to second what's being said here. High performers can often escape a manager's attention because the manager has limited time and needs to push weaker contibutors forward with that attention (or risk spending even more time hiring).
- Jugurtha 6y agoYes, and the high performer can be helpful in these situations and help the person/team who's having trouble pulling through, taking that off the plate of the manager and enabling them to do other things.
- ktrulr 6y agoThanks a lot. I hope so. But it doesn't look like. Lets see how it goes.
- ktrulr 6y agoThanks a ton for a great advice. I appreciate it. 1. That's my doubt too. (I mean it could be a false alarm) One good quality my manager has is that, he doesn't do micromanagement. Trusts the employees. (I think work from home also adds to the confusion. Had there been some in person interactions, I could have interpreted better) 2. Having said that, I strongly suspect he is deliberately ignoring me. With due respect, he is a very mediocre manager.( in terms of technical knowledge etc.). Only silver lining for me is that, my 2nd line manager ( his boss) is technically very good and he rates me very high. He still talks to me.
- klyrs 6y agoIt might be worth having a conversation with your 2nd line manager, and see if he's got any insight into the situation.
- ktrulr 6y agoThanks. Will do after some time.
- Jugurtha 6y ago>One good quality my manager has is that, he doesn't do micromanagement. Trusts the employees. Management depends on the "managed". A manager might let someone do practically what they want with little supervision because they have a track record of getting things done, being right almost all the time, and knowing when to tread lightly or ask for a greenlight when the risk/reward ratio calls for it. That same manager might be micromanaging on a task by task, day by day, or hour by hour someone new to the team during observation. You can point some people at a problem and forget about them. Some people will anticipate problems managers overlook. It really depends on the person. There's no size fits all in my opinion because people are different. >I think work from home also adds to the confusion. Had there been some in person interactions, I could have interpreted better Suggest that as an idea. Weekly or bi-weekly calls to align everyone. I used to go on walks with team members. We'd go outside of the office and just walk in the city and talk about things. It was very, very, effective in getting people to talk about frustrations and share their opinions when we were outside of the office and there wasn't a laptop we could hide behind or a sofa to go back to. We also have a balcony in the office with a view on the Mediterranean, directly facing the port, and we've had many conversations there. We've been working remotely for a year now, and we've been doing weekly calls with Jitsi with the team. We record the videos and make them accessible for reference. This has been useful as people refer back to them. We share our screen and go through code. Sometimes we troubleshoot things and we prototype things live. It's cool. >With due respect, he is a very mediocre manager.( in terms of technical knowledge etc.) He's lucky to have you then. Any manager works to hire people who are way better than themselves. Why would anyone hire people otherwise? He makes decisions based on tradeoffs. He may not be great in terms of technical knowledge, but you are, he's relying on your deeper technical knowledge to make decisions and tradeoffs. >Only silver lining for me is that, my 2nd line manager ( his boss) is technically very good and he rates me very high. He still talks to me. Not good enough. I think this ought to be sorted out for the sake of everyone and for the sake of getting things done.