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I can't agree more. I once had a lazy boss that hated putting his ideas in order and expected to act on oral orders that were vague on details. I would always a

I can't agree more. I once had a lazy boss that hated putting his ideas in order and expected to act on oral orders that were vague on details. I would always ask at the end of his long stream-of-consciousness speech, "Oh, that's great! I have a big favor to ask you: could you briefly summarize what I have to do in a short email to make sure I haven't missed anything important?" He would look at me with contempt, "Can't you just remember these few simple things?" or would murmur "OK, OK" but never did. So after this kind of conversation I would compose a short email to him, "As agreed during the conversation today, I will do this and that within given period." He hated these emails, I could tell. I'm so glad this shit-show is over.

kranke155 2y ago
In Person management is the best way to make poor leadership work through constant oversight and changes (the dreaded "over the shoulder" management). Great for bad/mediocre managers, horrible for workers.
mapt 2y ago
It does seem that you need EITHER a very particular combination of things for "Guess culture" to be more effective than "Ask culture", or you need a system that is so irrevocably corrupted by its faulty incentive structures that it can't function as a bureaucracy without lots of plausible deniability. My boss at this point understands that he's often putting me in a double or triple bind, but is obligated to do so and is never going to get approval for not doing so; My attempts to acquire verbal directives as to priority are met with "figure it out" and a grin. But then he's also extremely forgiving about accountability, doesn't attempt to apply metrics, because he understands that I'm going to be working on it all day anyway. Sometimes the bureaucratic style, enforced from the top down, is "Ask for unreasonable things in order to attain reasonable outcomes". I do not work with life-critical systems, where this sort of thing absolutely would not fly.
- noisy_boy 2y ago
  > My boss at this point understands that he's often putting me in a double or triple bind, but is obligated to do so and is never going to get approval for not doing so; My attempts to acquire verbal directives as to priority are met with "figure it out" and a grin. But then he's also extremely forgiving about accountability, doesn't attempt to apply metrics, because he understands that I'm going to be working on it all day anyway. Seems like at this point, you two have trust which has been built up based on respect/maturity, evidence of honesty/sincerity and delivery. You two are more or less a well oiled machine.
nottorp 2y ago
You can formalize vague instructions if you want to. Email them back with what you understood and questions. Works for bosses and more importantly for customers who may not even know how to define the work properly.
dzhiurgis 2y ago
The trick is to interrupt stream-of-consciousness speeches with follow up questions...

kranke155 2y ago

In Person management is the best way to make poor leadership work through constant oversight and changes (the dreaded "over the shoulder" management). Great for bad/mediocre managers, horrible for workers.

mapt 2y ago

It does seem that you need EITHER a very particular combination of things for "Guess culture" to be more effective than "Ask culture", or you need a system that is so irrevocably corrupted by its faulty incentive structures that it can't function as a bureaucracy without lots of plausible deniability. My boss at this point understands that he's often putting me in a double or triple bind, but is obligated to do so and is never going to get approval for not doing so; My attempts to acquire verbal directives as to priority are met with "figure it out" and a grin. But then he's also extremely forgiving about accountability, doesn't attempt to apply metrics, because he understands that I'm going to be working on it all day anyway. Sometimes the bureaucratic style, enforced from the top down, is "Ask for unreasonable things in order to attain reasonable outcomes". I do not work with life-critical systems, where this sort of thing absolutely would not fly.

noisy_boy 2y ago
> My boss at this point understands that he's often putting me in a double or triple bind, but is obligated to do so and is never going to get approval for not doing so; My attempts to acquire verbal directives as to priority are met with "figure it out" and a grin. But then he's also extremely forgiving about accountability, doesn't attempt to apply metrics, because he understands that I'm going to be working on it all day anyway. Seems like at this point, you two have trust which has been built up based on respect/maturity, evidence of honesty/sincerity and delivery. You two are more or less a well oiled machine.

nottorp 2y ago

You can formalize vague instructions if you want to. Email them back with what you understood and questions. Works for bosses and more importantly for customers who may not even know how to define the work properly.

dzhiurgis 2y ago

The trick is to interrupt stream-of-consciousness speeches with follow up questions...