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Your boss is gaslighting & intimidating you. - Do not be intimidated into thinking you did your work poorly. I've seen this happen many times with employees be

Your boss is gaslighting & intimidating you. - Do not be intimidated into thinking you did your work poorly. I've seen this happen many times with employees being guilt tripped, especially the younger more junior employees. You are a professional and the work you do is important for the company, you do it with pride and to the best of your ability. - Beware of gaslighting. Some bosses can be incredibly manipulative and will resort to all sort of tactics to get more from you. They can have you attend more meetings than necessary because there's a deadline coming up for them. They might want to shift the blame to you when something hasn't been done in their department, even when it wasn't your job in the first place. When this happens clearly state that it is not your responsibility and that you do your job well and on time. - Stop caring too much about company problems, and focus on your own work. You should not care if the manager does his job poorly or if the company is not doing so well. It not your fault. They are running the business poorly.

JamesBarney 5y ago
> - Stop caring too much about company problems, and focus on your own work. You should not care if the manager does his job poorly or if the company is not doing so well. It not your fault. They are running the business poorly. This entirely depends on whether you care about promotions. Understanding the company problems, and your manager's problems will directly impact your ability to get promoted in the future.
- prima-facie 5y ago
  What a can of worms promotions are. The politics involved stink to high hell most of the times. It's significantly easier to sell yourself as a lead in another company than to scale up the ranks in the current one.
- rdtwo 5y ago
  Junior dev should be able to jump ship for promotion without much issues
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
commandlinefan 5y ago
> Your boss is gaslighting & intimidating you. Yep. And it won't be the last time. There are a lot of people who deliberately manage this way - in fact, a lot of times they're promoted to management because they act this way. For the most part, it's bluster and you can ignore it. It's really, really hard to find programmers and, no matter how good a programmer they found, the next one won't be as capable as you because he/she will need to spend time coming up to speed on the codebase as well as the rest of the company. That is assuming of course, that you're actually doing the best work you're capable of. If you really are slacking off unreasonably, stop - but if you're not, then there's not much else you can do except be fatalistic about this job and take comfort in the fact that in our business, jobs are easy to come by.
- hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
  I don’t think someone slacking off would post on hn as emotionally agnostic as op. It does sound like there’s a fair amount of gaslighting though, if you associate ‘the performance of the project’ with yourself as a junior, that’s on your manager - if you screw up, it’s their fault for not providing top cover. I employ one full timer and another junior, most screwup’s are my miscommunications or me not setting expectations. @op, Mind if I ask, are you part of any minorities which may result in you being bullied? Obviously you don’t have to answer, and I don’t want to gaslight you, but a lot of *ist behaviour I see is smart enough to be camouflaged. To be clear though, junior’s screwing up is par for the course, if you’re a net zero (bring in as much income/productivity as you burn in screwups, but with the ability to learn), I’d consider you a win.
prima-facie 5y ago
Since this comment became somewhat popular I'll post the entire guide here. I wrote this a while ago for someone else. It summarises some of my own struggles after being let go from a company I cared for deeply. Not all companies and bosses are the same, but even well intentioned people can have some of these traits depending on the situation. The end goal is to have a good work/life balance and not work yourself to death. * Put yourself first no matter what. No job is worth your mental and physical health. If you will work for your own company some day maybe then it's worth putting in the extra effort. Maybe not even then. * Respect yourself and make sure they respect you. * Do not allow to be bullied in the future. Bullying can come in many forms. Sometimes it's an inappropriate comment from a colleague or boss. Make sure you say it out loud when it happens but do it respectfully, in a serious tone: "I'm very surprised of your comment <name>", "This is a professional setting <name>". "We are at work here <name>". * Do not allow them to overwork you. Most of the time you won't get paid for working late and no one will appreciate it. Finish your work at 5PM. If your contract states 9 to 5 then that's exactly what you are doing. Stand up from your desk and leave. Ignore snarky comments from colleagues or bosses. There's absolutely nothing they can do legally to make you work more than you have specified in your contract. They will whine and moan about stuff that needs to get done ASAP. Stuff will get done regardless of you leaving now or an hour later. * Do not be intimidated into thinking you did your work poorly. I've seen this happen many times with employees being guilt tripped, especially the younger more junior employees. You are a professional and the work you do is important for the company, you do it with pride and to the best of your ability. * Beware of gaslighting. Some bosses can be incredibly manipulative and will resort to all sort of tactics to get more from you. They can have you attend more meetings than necessary because there's a deadline coming up for them. They might want to shift the blame to you when something hasn't been done in their department, even when it wasn't your job in the first place. When this happens clearly state that it is not your responsibility and that you do your job well and on time. * Stop caring too much about company problems, and focus on your own work. You should not care if the manager does his job poorly or if the company is not doing so well. It not your fault. They are running the business poorly. * Raise issues early and in writing. A quick email to HR or your boss depending on the situation can work well. Exercise diplomacy and keep a copy - print to PDF works. * When you are sick take sick leave, do not allow to be bullied into coming in to work or working from home instead. * Do not divulge too much about your personal life at work. This can sometimes be used as leverage against you. Loose lips sink ships. * Leave work problems at work. This is easier said than done but at the end of the day you shouldn't care about what happens there after you have left for the day. Enjoy time with family and friends. I have been manipulated, bullied, devalued and treated poorly at work by Machiavellian bosses. I would never allow these things to happen again. I've had recruiters trying to low-ball me from the very first call with a smaller salary figure than the one they had advertised (or with completely different terms than advertised), by suggesting that my skills were somehow not up to scratch. I respectfully told them that my skills are exactly the ones stated on the CV and hang up. Good luck and try to stay positive. Focus on yourself and what benefit you get out of work.
haunter 5y ago
>Your boss is gaslighting That's not gaslighting. Or not how the word should be used. It has a very specific meaning that somehow lost in the last couple of years, saw a lot of times on reddit too where people use it wrongly all the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting In OP's case gaslighting would be something like this - BOSS: I told you to finish this project X weeks ago - OP: But this is the first time we sat down talking?! - BOSS: Are you joking? We had this conversation 2 weeks ago! Right, MANAGER? - MANAGER: Yes it was after the big meeting, can't believe you you forgot that too etc That being said the boss doesn't come around nice to me from OP's story
- YPPH 5y ago
  Your example conveys that gaslighting occurs as between three (or more) parties, but that's not necessarily the case. Gaslighting most often happens between two individuals. OP's boss wrongly and intentionally asserting OP didn't do something on time would be gaslighting. So too is each of the following. They are more commonly referred to as gaslighting. That's because they're more subtle, yet might have an even more profound impact: * You are remembering things wrong. * You always make a big deal out of these things. * You need to learn how to take criticism better. Of course it really depends on the situation. Suppose I negligently publish my organisation's private API keys to a public Git repository. My boss calls me in and says I shouldn't do that in future. I threaten to quit at being blamed for my mistake. My boss says there's no need for it to come to that, and I should be open to constructive feedback. None of this is gaslighting, it's all grounded in facts and reality. Wikipedia is, of course, not an authority on the use of language. However, it looks like your example is the alternative definition they give, rather than the main one they talk about: making someone question their reality. You can do this by making someone think that by offering erroneous and gratuitous remarks to them.
  - blub 5y ago
    Nobody’s making OP question their reality according to OP’s story. It just seems that OP was completely unaware of the manager’s opinion and now he became aware of it. There’s nothing nefarious in that, happens all the time.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> Your boss is gaslighting & intimidating you. The person giving the feedback was the boss's boss, and they clearly didn't have the entire picture of the situation. That's not gaslighting. The term "gaslighting" gets thrown around far too readily. Assuming malice and manipulation in cases of miscommunication is a quick way to sour any relationship, this one included. There's no question that communication wasn't great in this scenario, but I don't see any reason to believe it's malicious or manipulative. The OP needs to work on proactive communication, but receiving unfiltered feedback from above is much better than blindly continuing down the same path without ever being informed that something is wrong. Learn from it, adapt, and move on. Don't assume it's "gaslighting" or manipulation every time two people have different perspectives on a situation due to miscommunication.
- kamaal 5y ago
  >>The person giving the feedback was the boss's boss, and they clearly didn't have the entire picture of the situation. Then why even have a discussion about something you don't know. It looks a straight up case of cya, followed by manipulating a junior employee into believing it was their mistake all along- a.k.a gaslighting.
  - singlow 5y ago
    Not all manipulation is gas-lighting. Gas-lighting is when you intentionally create a scenario to make another person doubt their competence as a distraction from your own nefarious actions. If the boss had intentionally given the subordinate a task that was harder than it seemed in order to make the subordinate feel inferior, causing the subordinate to feel at fault for the lateness of a larger project and therefore not report the boss' bad decisions up the chain of command, that would be gas-lighting. But just telling them they are at fault is not gas-lighting.
    - singlow 5y ago
      To clarify, I don't mean to say the boss did something ok, just that I think the term gas-lighting as a term is very useful to describe a particular phenomenon in various relationships, but is less useful if it gets broadened. I think this is something different, not necessarily better or worse.
Notanothertoo 5y ago
This. The conversation had was entirely one sided with no grace or responsibility. Furthermore if they don't appreciate it that feeling isn't going to change. They are rolling their bullshit down to you because they lack the maturity for something else. Also juniors are expected to need hand holding to adjust academic expectations for real world and if they haven't done anything to correct or provide more direct technical feedback that is also on them.
slenk 5y ago
It's not even OPs direct boss - that meeting just screams inappropriate to me.

JamesBarney 5y ago

> - Stop caring too much about company problems, and focus on your own work. You should not care if the manager does his job poorly or if the company is not doing so well. It not your fault. They are running the business poorly. This entirely depends on whether you care about promotions. Understanding the company problems, and your manager's problems will directly impact your ability to get promoted in the future.

prima-facie 5y ago
What a can of worms promotions are. The politics involved stink to high hell most of the times. It's significantly easier to sell yourself as a lead in another company than to scale up the ranks in the current one.
rdtwo 5y ago
Junior dev should be able to jump ship for promotion without much issues
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

commandlinefan 5y ago

> Your boss is gaslighting & intimidating you. Yep. And it won't be the last time. There are a lot of people who deliberately manage this way - in fact, a lot of times they're promoted to management because they act this way. For the most part, it's bluster and you can ignore it. It's really, really hard to find programmers and, no matter how good a programmer they found, the next one won't be as capable as you because he/she will need to spend time coming up to speed on the codebase as well as the rest of the company. That is assuming of course, that you're actually doing the best work you're capable of. If you really are slacking off unreasonably, stop - but if you're not, then there's not much else you can do except be fatalistic about this job and take comfort in the fact that in our business, jobs are easy to come by.

hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
I don’t think someone slacking off would post on hn as emotionally agnostic as op. It does sound like there’s a fair amount of gaslighting though, if you associate ‘the performance of the project’ with yourself as a junior, that’s on your manager - if you screw up, it’s their fault for not providing top cover. I employ one full timer and another junior, most screwup’s are my miscommunications or me not setting expectations. @op, Mind if I ask, are you part of any minorities which may result in you being bullied? Obviously you don’t have to answer, and I don’t want to gaslight you, but a lot of *ist behaviour I see is smart enough to be camouflaged. To be clear though, junior’s screwing up is par for the course, if you’re a net zero (bring in as much income/productivity as you burn in screwups, but with the ability to learn), I’d consider you a win.

prima-facie 5y ago

Since this comment became somewhat popular I'll post the entire guide here. I wrote this a while ago for someone else. It summarises some of my own struggles after being let go from a company I cared for deeply. Not all companies and bosses are the same, but even well intentioned people can have some of these traits depending on the situation. The end goal is to have a good work/life balance and not work yourself to death. * Put yourself first no matter what. No job is worth your mental and physical health. If you will work for your own company some day maybe then it's worth putting in the extra effort. Maybe not even then. * Respect yourself and make sure they respect you. * Do not allow to be bullied in the future. Bullying can come in many forms. Sometimes it's an inappropriate comment from a colleague or boss. Make sure you say it out loud when it happens but do it respectfully, in a serious tone: "I'm very surprised of your comment <name>", "This is a professional setting <name>". "We are at work here <name>". * Do not allow them to overwork you. Most of the time you won't get paid for working late and no one will appreciate it. Finish your work at 5PM. If your contract states 9 to 5 then that's exactly what you are doing. Stand up from your desk and leave. Ignore snarky comments from colleagues or bosses. There's absolutely nothing they can do legally to make you work more than you have specified in your contract. They will whine and moan about stuff that needs to get done ASAP. Stuff will get done regardless of you leaving now or an hour later. * Do not be intimidated into thinking you did your work poorly. I've seen this happen many times with employees being guilt tripped, especially the younger more junior employees. You are a professional and the work you do is important for the company, you do it with pride and to the best of your ability. * Beware of gaslighting. Some bosses can be incredibly manipulative and will resort to all sort of tactics to get more from you. They can have you attend more meetings than necessary because there's a deadline coming up for them. They might want to shift the blame to you when something hasn't been done in their department, even when it wasn't your job in the first place. When this happens clearly state that it is not your responsibility and that you do your job well and on time. * Stop caring too much about company problems, and focus on your own work. You should not care if the manager does his job poorly or if the company is not doing so well. It not your fault. They are running the business poorly. * Raise issues early and in writing. A quick email to HR or your boss depending on the situation can work well. Exercise diplomacy and keep a copy - print to PDF works. * When you are sick take sick leave, do not allow to be bullied into coming in to work or working from home instead. * Do not divulge too much about your personal life at work. This can sometimes be used as leverage against you. Loose lips sink ships. * Leave work problems at work. This is easier said than done but at the end of the day you shouldn't care about what happens there after you have left for the day. Enjoy time with family and friends. I have been manipulated, bullied, devalued and treated poorly at work by Machiavellian bosses. I would never allow these things to happen again. I've had recruiters trying to low-ball me from the very first call with a smaller salary figure than the one they had advertised (or with completely different terms than advertised), by suggesting that my skills were somehow not up to scratch. I respectfully told them that my skills are exactly the ones stated on the CV and hang up. Good luck and try to stay positive. Focus on yourself and what benefit you get out of work.

haunter 5y ago

>Your boss is gaslighting That's not gaslighting. Or not how the word should be used. It has a very specific meaning that somehow lost in the last couple of years, saw a lot of times on reddit too where people use it wrongly all the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting In OP's case gaslighting would be something like this - BOSS: I told you to finish this project X weeks ago - OP: But this is the first time we sat down talking?! - BOSS: Are you joking? We had this conversation 2 weeks ago! Right, MANAGER? - MANAGER: Yes it was after the big meeting, can't believe you you forgot that too etc That being said the boss doesn't come around nice to me from OP's story

YPPH 5y ago
Your example conveys that gaslighting occurs as between three (or more) parties, but that's not necessarily the case. Gaslighting most often happens between two individuals. OP's boss wrongly and intentionally asserting OP didn't do something on time would be gaslighting. So too is each of the following. They are more commonly referred to as gaslighting. That's because they're more subtle, yet might have an even more profound impact: * You are remembering things wrong. * You always make a big deal out of these things. * You need to learn how to take criticism better. Of course it really depends on the situation. Suppose I negligently publish my organisation's private API keys to a public Git repository. My boss calls me in and says I shouldn't do that in future. I threaten to quit at being blamed for my mistake. My boss says there's no need for it to come to that, and I should be open to constructive feedback. None of this is gaslighting, it's all grounded in facts and reality. Wikipedia is, of course, not an authority on the use of language. However, it looks like your example is the alternative definition they give, rather than the main one they talk about: making someone question their reality. You can do this by making someone think that by offering erroneous and gratuitous remarks to them.
- blub 5y ago
  Nobody’s making OP question their reality according to OP’s story. It just seems that OP was completely unaware of the manager’s opinion and now he became aware of it. There’s nothing nefarious in that, happens all the time.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> Your boss is gaslighting & intimidating you. The person giving the feedback was the boss's boss, and they clearly didn't have the entire picture of the situation. That's not gaslighting. The term "gaslighting" gets thrown around far too readily. Assuming malice and manipulation in cases of miscommunication is a quick way to sour any relationship, this one included. There's no question that communication wasn't great in this scenario, but I don't see any reason to believe it's malicious or manipulative. The OP needs to work on proactive communication, but receiving unfiltered feedback from above is much better than blindly continuing down the same path without ever being informed that something is wrong. Learn from it, adapt, and move on. Don't assume it's "gaslighting" or manipulation every time two people have different perspectives on a situation due to miscommunication.

kamaal 5y ago
>>The person giving the feedback was the boss's boss, and they clearly didn't have the entire picture of the situation. Then why even have a discussion about something you don't know. It looks a straight up case of cya, followed by manipulating a junior employee into believing it was their mistake all along- a.k.a gaslighting.
- singlow 5y ago
  Not all manipulation is gas-lighting. Gas-lighting is when you intentionally create a scenario to make another person doubt their competence as a distraction from your own nefarious actions. If the boss had intentionally given the subordinate a task that was harder than it seemed in order to make the subordinate feel inferior, causing the subordinate to feel at fault for the lateness of a larger project and therefore not report the boss' bad decisions up the chain of command, that would be gas-lighting. But just telling them they are at fault is not gas-lighting.
  - singlow 5y ago
    To clarify, I don't mean to say the boss did something ok, just that I think the term gas-lighting as a term is very useful to describe a particular phenomenon in various relationships, but is less useful if it gets broadened. I think this is something different, not necessarily better or worse.

Notanothertoo 5y ago

This. The conversation had was entirely one sided with no grace or responsibility. Furthermore if they don't appreciate it that feeling isn't going to change. They are rolling their bullshit down to you because they lack the maturity for something else. Also juniors are expected to need hand holding to adjust academic expectations for real world and if they haven't done anything to correct or provide more direct technical feedback that is also on them.

slenk 5y ago

It's not even OPs direct boss - that meeting just screams inappropriate to me.