5 ms·

Micromanagement is a negative and is unhealthy. If you are being micromanaged, that's grounds for finding a new job instantly. Absolutely nothing to do with wha

Micromanagement is a negative and is unhealthy. If you are being micromanaged, that's grounds for finding a new job instantly. Absolutely nothing to do with what industry you work in. Performance reviews is another bag. That is bag of issues. My last job, I got my first performance review. I was expecting a good raise. I was a leader of the team, people would come to me constantly looking for help with their issues. Out of a team of ~30 sysadmins, only 2 people(including me) had any networking skills. I was valueable. I was available afterhours regularly, I billed ~50-60 hour weeks. I worked on multiple teams for clients, I had many clients who wanted me exclusively. When a coworker ended up in a disaster, I was often dispatched to help in the situation. I often gave out kudos to my coworkers and thanked them for the good work they did. Positivity in MSP is so important because everything we deal with is negative. Something broke, someone ran a virus, etc. Went into my performance review. I got very poorly rated justifying no raise. So I went into it... why was I so poorly rated? I had over 40 lates to work. Except that wasn't true. I was often one of the first people into the building in the morning. So what gives? Oh, every time I worked a weekend and clocked in at say 10am to respond to an emergency... I was late to work. I had worked 40+ weekend days. So if I worked a saturday and sunday, I was late twice. When actually properly evaluated, I was late once and that was with pre-approval for a doctors appt. That wasn't all, my boss was under the impression that I had no friends there. That I was out of the office too much to build interpersonal relationships with coworkers. That there was 2 people who at the time were anonymous in that they didn't speak highly of me. Turns out... I was being harassed. I had one of my clients provide me a phone recording of my coworker badmouthing me pretty badly.

kenferry 5y ago
It's extremely strange that your boss could be so unaware, and honestly quite a red flag. Did they have 100 reports?
Twisol 5y ago
Did they formally update your performance rating? Did you end up getting the raise you were expecting, or did they give an excuse like "well all the raises have been allocated at this point"? The immediate situation sounds like it sucked enough, but if it had continuing ramifications, I'd be beside myself.
- sleepingadmin 5y ago
  >Did they formally update your performance rating? Did you end up getting the raise you were expecting, or did they give an excuse like "well all the raises have been allocated at this point"? The immediate situation sounds like it sucked enough, but if it had continuing ramifications, I'd be beside myself. Precisely what happened. Incidentally I reported the harassment and I got fired the day after I reported the harassment.
  - Twisol 5y ago
    v_v I'm so sorry to hear that.
  - BarryMilo 5y ago
    This seems like a long time ago, but that last sentence is blatantly illegal in my country and I dare say a lot of states.
    - sleepingadmin 5y ago
      >This seems like a long time ago, but that last sentence is blatantly illegal in my country and I dare say a lot of states. About 4 years ago. Here in Ontario, doing this is not considered illegal. Your employer is obligated to investigate harassment claims but not required to do anything at all. Including firing you. I know this because I went to 'office of the worker' whose lawyers told me this.
GoToRO 5y ago
You were working too much and you made everybody else look bad. Also, they didn't have budget for a raise so they gave you a poor review. I worked at a company like that. You see, if they give you a raise then the budget must grow. This is the job of the manager. But as he isn't doing his job, budget is not growing. So bad reviews all around. This is when top manager think they are so smart and come up with these rules, and then middle managers bend the rules.
waynesonfire 5y ago
It's also possible management didn't know what all you did. Or, you were running around like a headless chicken-not aligned with the company goals.
- sleepingadmin 5y ago
  >It's also possible management didn't know what all you did. Or, you were running around like a headless chicken-not aligned with the company goals. I was an outbound tech at an MSP. I was often not in the office, avoiding much of the drama. I was hired originally because 3 people quit with no notice on the same friday. Between the time I was hired and fired. Many other people quit and they were very ineffective at hiring. I was 1 of 2 networking capable techs. I was also constantly out for emergency after emergency. None of which I caused. I actually live wrote a 4 day week at this place on r/sysadmin back in the day. I took the friday off because it was my birthday. In those 4 days I dealt with over 40 tickets, >25 of which were emergencies. At least half of these clients were clients I never worked on previously. On the friday the company phone was constantly ringing, i didnt pick up and even had an account manager come to my house. Of which he shouldn't know where I lived. Except he sat next to someone who did. Out of ~30 sysadmins, 25 of which didnt last beyond 6 months. Everyone was fired or quit.
  - __turbobrew__ 5y ago
    I’m sorry you had to go through that. If somebody came to my home on my day off to try and get me to work I would be livid.
  - xvilka 5y ago
    Well, with this description you can cheer - their demise as a company is written on the wall. Especially in the current situation of the worker's market.
datavirtue 5y ago
If people are cognizant of when I start work then I'm scrambling for the door. Everyone always thinks I come in at 7am for some reason. I always have this reputation as an early bird. I start ramping up somewhere between 9-10am. I have had co-workers that guilty-ly admit they don't start up until 8:30 and they notify everyone about the munitia of thier schedule like we work in a restaurant or a factory or some shit. I don't get any of it.
- bluefirebrand 5y ago
  I usually only tell people my working hours so they know not to contact me outside them. However I absolutely do not tolerate my workplace telling me I am "late"
lumost 5y ago
Biggest two lessons of job performance I ever learned. 1) Your future hire-ability is determined by the work you do and the results you achieve. If you aren't an A-hole to work with this helps. 2) Your performance rating within a company is based on perception. If you are perceived as doing good work then you get a good rating. There are no objective internal measures of engineer quality in any company.
- skeeter2020 5y ago
  >> 1) Your future hire-ability is determined by the work you do and the results you achieve. If you aren't an A-hole to work with this helps. I agree with these but you've got them backwards. I'll help a positive & kind but marginal performer get better or find a role where they can excel; An a-hole is a cancer on the team regardless of how talented.
  - lumost 5y ago
    This is true, and leads to how perception impacts performance reviews internally. If you are nice and get a small handful of wins then you can excel. When you look externally companies look at the small list of accomplishments and don’t value you as highly.

kenferry 5y ago

It's extremely strange that your boss could be so unaware, and honestly quite a red flag. Did they have 100 reports?

Twisol 5y ago

Did they formally update your performance rating? Did you end up getting the raise you were expecting, or did they give an excuse like "well all the raises have been allocated at this point"? The immediate situation sounds like it sucked enough, but if it had continuing ramifications, I'd be beside myself.

sleepingadmin 5y ago
>Did they formally update your performance rating? Did you end up getting the raise you were expecting, or did they give an excuse like "well all the raises have been allocated at this point"? The immediate situation sounds like it sucked enough, but if it had continuing ramifications, I'd be beside myself. Precisely what happened. Incidentally I reported the harassment and I got fired the day after I reported the harassment.
- Twisol 5y ago
  v_v I'm so sorry to hear that.
- BarryMilo 5y ago
  This seems like a long time ago, but that last sentence is blatantly illegal in my country and I dare say a lot of states.
  - sleepingadmin 5y ago
    >This seems like a long time ago, but that last sentence is blatantly illegal in my country and I dare say a lot of states. About 4 years ago. Here in Ontario, doing this is not considered illegal. Your employer is obligated to investigate harassment claims but not required to do anything at all. Including firing you. I know this because I went to 'office of the worker' whose lawyers told me this.

GoToRO 5y ago

You were working too much and you made everybody else look bad. Also, they didn't have budget for a raise so they gave you a poor review. I worked at a company like that. You see, if they give you a raise then the budget must grow. This is the job of the manager. But as he isn't doing his job, budget is not growing. So bad reviews all around. This is when top manager think they are so smart and come up with these rules, and then middle managers bend the rules.

waynesonfire 5y ago

It's also possible management didn't know what all you did. Or, you were running around like a headless chicken-not aligned with the company goals.

sleepingadmin 5y ago
>It's also possible management didn't know what all you did. Or, you were running around like a headless chicken-not aligned with the company goals. I was an outbound tech at an MSP. I was often not in the office, avoiding much of the drama. I was hired originally because 3 people quit with no notice on the same friday. Between the time I was hired and fired. Many other people quit and they were very ineffective at hiring. I was 1 of 2 networking capable techs. I was also constantly out for emergency after emergency. None of which I caused. I actually live wrote a 4 day week at this place on r/sysadmin back in the day. I took the friday off because it was my birthday. In those 4 days I dealt with over 40 tickets, >25 of which were emergencies. At least half of these clients were clients I never worked on previously. On the friday the company phone was constantly ringing, i didnt pick up and even had an account manager come to my house. Of which he shouldn't know where I lived. Except he sat next to someone who did. Out of ~30 sysadmins, 25 of which didnt last beyond 6 months. Everyone was fired or quit.
- __turbobrew__ 5y ago
  I’m sorry you had to go through that. If somebody came to my home on my day off to try and get me to work I would be livid.
- xvilka 5y ago
  Well, with this description you can cheer - their demise as a company is written on the wall. Especially in the current situation of the worker's market.

datavirtue 5y ago

If people are cognizant of when I start work then I'm scrambling for the door. Everyone always thinks I come in at 7am for some reason. I always have this reputation as an early bird. I start ramping up somewhere between 9-10am. I have had co-workers that guilty-ly admit they don't start up until 8:30 and they notify everyone about the munitia of thier schedule like we work in a restaurant or a factory or some shit. I don't get any of it.

bluefirebrand 5y ago
I usually only tell people my working hours so they know not to contact me outside them. However I absolutely do not tolerate my workplace telling me I am "late"

lumost 5y ago

Biggest two lessons of job performance I ever learned. 1) Your future hire-ability is determined by the work you do and the results you achieve. If you aren't an A-hole to work with this helps. 2) Your performance rating within a company is based on perception. If you are perceived as doing good work then you get a good rating. There are no objective internal measures of engineer quality in any company.

skeeter2020 5y ago
>> 1) Your future hire-ability is determined by the work you do and the results you achieve. If you aren't an A-hole to work with this helps. I agree with these but you've got them backwards. I'll help a positive & kind but marginal performer get better or find a role where they can excel; An a-hole is a cancer on the team regardless of how talented.
- lumost 5y ago
  This is true, and leads to how perception impacts performance reviews internally. If you are nice and get a small handful of wins then you can excel. When you look externally companies look at the small list of accomplishments and don’t value you as highly.