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It's almost like you could create a 2 x 2 matrix of Useful Vs Valued - Not Useful, Not Valued: Get good or change jobs/industries. - Not Useful, Valued: talks

It's almost like you could create a 2 x 2 matrix of Useful Vs Valued - Not Useful, Not Valued: Get good or change jobs/industries. - Not Useful, Valued: talks a good game (or is doing useful stuff that is not apparent) -Useful, Not Valued: Could be useful at non-strategic stuff, or does good work without self-marketing, or has bad management and needs to leave. - Useful, Valued: Ideal situation.

steveBK123 1y ago
Some of these may also work in different life stages. Want reasonable job security & compensation but currently pursuing a masters / raising an infant / dealing with elderly parental care - "useful&not valued" may not be so bad for a few years.
- JadeNB 1y ago
  Isn't "not valued" at odds with "reasonable job security?"
  - steveBK123 1y ago
    If there's a grid of 4 types of people, the two boxes of "not useful" are usually let go first
    - closewith 1y ago
      That's missing the point here completely, as it's not the useless who are let go first, it's the unvalued.
    - lovich 1y ago
      You respect your managers a lot more than I would. The not valued column is let go first via the fact that the value function is what decides if their managers care or not
      - steveBK123 1y ago
        Good points and maybe expressed to generally by me. I suspect who is laid off first is more to do with the lifecycle of the company actually, having been in high/low/negative growth environments myself. I have found in negative growth environments, managers tend to get pretty sober about who is actually useful not just valued, and cut accordingly. Negative growth environments is also when more cuts happen, with generally a worse job hunting environment if you are cut. But in frivolous times, yes, I've seen plenty of useful people get cut.. but they always bounce back better anyway.
- closewith 1y ago
  The opposite is true. In those situations, you want to be valued but useless.
Tsiklon 1y ago
The punnet square of value and utility
naikrovek 1y ago
> does good work without self-marketing I kinda feel called out. My work should speak for itself. It often does, but I will always forget it when it comes time to speak of myself nicely. I simply do not care to self-promote. It feels vain and vanity is one of the most useless things possible to me. Donald Trump is about 98% vanity, if you want to see what vanity is. Not being able to actually cite the things I’ve done to someone who already knows what those things are has cost me several promotions, though. I can do the work, I can forecast needs, be ready for them, and solve them before they arrive, but because I don’t self-promote, people who can’t shut up about themselves get promoted beyond me. Now that I’ve typed all that out, I am remembering just how many times this has happened, and now twenty minutes into the week and I am 100% misanthropic. People suck.
- gen220 1y ago
  Hey, I've been where you are. > because I don’t self-promote, people who can’t shut up about themselves get promoted beyond me You need to re-frame this problem, so it's not about "self-promotion", and instead is about proactively forecasting the needs (as you put it) of your manager, not just the technical system you're managing. If you view it as part of your job to document (not promote, just document) the work you've done, it's trivial to collect those links into a doc at the end of the promotion cycle, hand it to your manager and collect a promotion. Make sure that you're communicating throughout the cycle that you're expecting a promotion in your 1:1's and ask if you're on track towards that goal / if there's anything un-discussed you'd need to do to get there. It's critical to understand that this is not vanity, it's part of your job (if you want a promotion, that is). I hope this is helpful!
  - naikrovek 1y ago
    how can i understand what my manager needs if i don't know what he does? I have no idea what managers do, and I can't ever get an answer when I ask what managers do. "oh, all kinds of stuff." gosh, thanks. it's so clear, now.
    - bornfreddy 1y ago
htrp 1y ago
turns out the consulting firms stole from the german army

steveBK123 1y ago

Some of these may also work in different life stages. Want reasonable job security & compensation but currently pursuing a masters / raising an infant / dealing with elderly parental care - "useful&not valued" may not be so bad for a few years.

JadeNB 1y ago
Isn't "not valued" at odds with "reasonable job security?"
- steveBK123 1y ago
  If there's a grid of 4 types of people, the two boxes of "not useful" are usually let go first
  - closewith 1y ago
    That's missing the point here completely, as it's not the useless who are let go first, it's the unvalued.
  - lovich 1y ago
    You respect your managers a lot more than I would. The not valued column is let go first via the fact that the value function is what decides if their managers care or not
    - steveBK123 1y ago
      Good points and maybe expressed to generally by me. I suspect who is laid off first is more to do with the lifecycle of the company actually, having been in high/low/negative growth environments myself. I have found in negative growth environments, managers tend to get pretty sober about who is actually useful not just valued, and cut accordingly. Negative growth environments is also when more cuts happen, with generally a worse job hunting environment if you are cut. But in frivolous times, yes, I've seen plenty of useful people get cut.. but they always bounce back better anyway.
closewith 1y ago
The opposite is true. In those situations, you want to be valued but useless.

Tsiklon 1y ago

The punnet square of value and utility

naikrovek 1y ago

> does good work without self-marketing I kinda feel called out. My work should speak for itself. It often does, but I will always forget it when it comes time to speak of myself nicely. I simply do not care to self-promote. It feels vain and vanity is one of the most useless things possible to me. Donald Trump is about 98% vanity, if you want to see what vanity is. Not being able to actually cite the things I’ve done to someone who already knows what those things are has cost me several promotions, though. I can do the work, I can forecast needs, be ready for them, and solve them before they arrive, but because I don’t self-promote, people who can’t shut up about themselves get promoted beyond me. Now that I’ve typed all that out, I am remembering just how many times this has happened, and now twenty minutes into the week and I am 100% misanthropic. People suck.

gen220 1y ago
Hey, I've been where you are. > because I don’t self-promote, people who can’t shut up about themselves get promoted beyond me You need to re-frame this problem, so it's not about "self-promotion", and instead is about proactively forecasting the needs (as you put it) of your manager, not just the technical system you're managing. If you view it as part of your job to document (not promote, just document) the work you've done, it's trivial to collect those links into a doc at the end of the promotion cycle, hand it to your manager and collect a promotion. Make sure that you're communicating throughout the cycle that you're expecting a promotion in your 1:1's and ask if you're on track towards that goal / if there's anything un-discussed you'd need to do to get there. It's critical to understand that this is not vanity, it's part of your job (if you want a promotion, that is). I hope this is helpful!
- naikrovek 1y ago
  how can i understand what my manager needs if i don't know what he does? I have no idea what managers do, and I can't ever get an answer when I ask what managers do. "oh, all kinds of stuff." gosh, thanks. it's so clear, now.
  - bornfreddy 1y ago

htrp 1y ago

turns out the consulting firms stole from the german army