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> The vast majority of bad remote managers are bad because they’re plain bad managers. 1000x this. Much of the time, people in management were promoted there b

> The vast majority of bad remote managers are bad because they’re plain bad managers. 1000x this. Much of the time, people in management were promoted there because they were complete shit at line / front of house / customer or client-facing work and someone up top didn't feel like firing them that day. After all, if you were good at line work, why would they promote you away from it? It makes perfect sense that they'd be complete shit at managing teams, too -- remote or in-person.

endymi0n 5y ago
Do any of my parent comments have any actual management experience? Because while it‘s super easy to ramble about managers, they‘re essential to any company that‘s larger than a dozen people. Management attracts scorn. I have to ignore it as people who don‘t see the importance have no clue what it takes to build a winning team and company. And while I‘m still trying to learn how to manage a remote team and getting good feedback, I hate it. As in, I utterly, completely despise it and I‘m close to burnout and think about leaving the profession to just do engineering on my own. Maybe I still haven‘t figured it out, but I feel like I have the choice between still trying to connect to humans and suffer from Zoom fatigue — or go all-in on async, having the feeling that I‘m chatting all day with a black box of meaningless, replaceable NLP models. It‘s lonely, it‘s tiring and I‘m so looking back to connecting to real humans. If you have tips, I welcome them.
- remotereallife 5y ago
  Try to get a non-work private life with non-virtual contacts. Or maybe move to Sweden - it's more common to seek family and friends in your company - with all strings attached…
  - triptec 5y ago
    I’m from Sweden and most of my friends are old or current coworkers except for my oldest that’s from my school or university days. Is this not common elsewhere? If it’s not I think I should consider myself lucky as I believe that is a big factor in how much I enjoy going to work. I’m somewhat split on remote or not. For me I enjoy work more at a office with my coworkers but having a commute around 30 minutes and not having the possibility of just eating whatever’s in the fridge or being able to split the responsibility of a sick child in smaller pieces than a full day makes the practicalities of remote work very nice.
- mellavora 5y ago
  I've been working/managing remote for 15-20 years. I agree with the posters, that the skills which make a manager successful can be executed remotely as well as in person. Buy "High Output Management" by Andy Grove. Read it. I've read it cover to cover 6 times now and still find gold each time I review it. It is hard to know everything about your situation from you post, but your more emphasized issue is you seem to be missing a 'real connection to real humans'. Yes, of course a manager needs to be connected to the team, and that empathy/earned respect is essential.... but it can be built using remote means as well as in person. You show respect through words and actions, those can be written as well as spoken. Maybe you personally put a lot of emphasis on the immediate feedback of face to face to feel that connection? Truth is, while that immediate feedback feels great and helps you tune your message, it isn't the foundation. The foundation is the thing you are getting the feedback on. If the message is "Team, here is the goal for the week and why it matters", the foundation is that each person sees the goal and how their effort contributes to it. It is great when everyone high-fives around the room, but high-fives without the understanding are a false signal. You are correct that managers are essential to building a winning team. You probably have a list of what roles/jobs/tasks a manager does to achieve this. You could write down that list, and for each item write your current process for achieving it. You could then think about how you can map that process to a remote work framework.
  - endymi0n 5y ago
    > I agree with the posters, that the skills which make a manager successful can be executed remotely as well as in person. I agree as well and just for the record, I wouldn't say I'm ineffective. We 10x'ed our revenue and tripled the team during the pandemic. I'm getting top notch reviews from my peers and I've got a kick-ass team around me that I really like. It's just that my job itself went from an onsite one that I loved to a remote one which I absolutely hate, and I'm at loss about what to do with that or what I'm doing wrong. I'll definitely check out your book suggestion though.
    - deagle50 5y ago
      The scorn you read here is not against all management, but against the notion of "we can't manage remote employees effectively". Your results above show that it can be done even when you hate it, which most of us assumed was the case all along and we've been suffering the "back to work" talk track needlessly.

endymi0n 5y ago

Do any of my parent comments have any actual management experience? Because while it‘s super easy to ramble about managers, they‘re essential to any company that‘s larger than a dozen people. Management attracts scorn. I have to ignore it as people who don‘t see the importance have no clue what it takes to build a winning team and company. And while I‘m still trying to learn how to manage a remote team and getting good feedback, I hate it. As in, I utterly, completely despise it and I‘m close to burnout and think about leaving the profession to just do engineering on my own. Maybe I still haven‘t figured it out, but I feel like I have the choice between still trying to connect to humans and suffer from Zoom fatigue — or go all-in on async, having the feeling that I‘m chatting all day with a black box of meaningless, replaceable NLP models. It‘s lonely, it‘s tiring and I‘m so looking back to connecting to real humans. If you have tips, I welcome them.

remotereallife 5y ago
Try to get a non-work private life with non-virtual contacts. Or maybe move to Sweden - it's more common to seek family and friends in your company - with all strings attached…
- triptec 5y ago
  I’m from Sweden and most of my friends are old or current coworkers except for my oldest that’s from my school or university days. Is this not common elsewhere? If it’s not I think I should consider myself lucky as I believe that is a big factor in how much I enjoy going to work. I’m somewhat split on remote or not. For me I enjoy work more at a office with my coworkers but having a commute around 30 minutes and not having the possibility of just eating whatever’s in the fridge or being able to split the responsibility of a sick child in smaller pieces than a full day makes the practicalities of remote work very nice.
mellavora 5y ago
I've been working/managing remote for 15-20 years. I agree with the posters, that the skills which make a manager successful can be executed remotely as well as in person. Buy "High Output Management" by Andy Grove. Read it. I've read it cover to cover 6 times now and still find gold each time I review it. It is hard to know everything about your situation from you post, but your more emphasized issue is you seem to be missing a 'real connection to real humans'. Yes, of course a manager needs to be connected to the team, and that empathy/earned respect is essential.... but it can be built using remote means as well as in person. You show respect through words and actions, those can be written as well as spoken. Maybe you personally put a lot of emphasis on the immediate feedback of face to face to feel that connection? Truth is, while that immediate feedback feels great and helps you tune your message, it isn't the foundation. The foundation is the thing you are getting the feedback on. If the message is "Team, here is the goal for the week and why it matters", the foundation is that each person sees the goal and how their effort contributes to it. It is great when everyone high-fives around the room, but high-fives without the understanding are a false signal. You are correct that managers are essential to building a winning team. You probably have a list of what roles/jobs/tasks a manager does to achieve this. You could write down that list, and for each item write your current process for achieving it. You could then think about how you can map that process to a remote work framework.
- endymi0n 5y ago
  > I agree with the posters, that the skills which make a manager successful can be executed remotely as well as in person. I agree as well and just for the record, I wouldn't say I'm ineffective. We 10x'ed our revenue and tripled the team during the pandemic. I'm getting top notch reviews from my peers and I've got a kick-ass team around me that I really like. It's just that my job itself went from an onsite one that I loved to a remote one which I absolutely hate, and I'm at loss about what to do with that or what I'm doing wrong. I'll definitely check out your book suggestion though.
  - deagle50 5y ago
    The scorn you read here is not against all management, but against the notion of "we can't manage remote employees effectively". Your results above show that it can be done even when you hate it, which most of us assumed was the case all along and we've been suffering the "back to work" talk track needlessly.