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> late birthday recognition. if someone is going to feel slighted and similar things add up to them working less, they probably are not a great colleague to b

> late birthday recognition. if someone is going to feel slighted and similar things add up to them working less, they probably are not a great colleague to begin with. What matters more are: assignment to rewarding work, get paid top dollar, not be bored, get recognition for success, coaching on career growth, given leeway to make mistakes, not overlooked for promotion, etc. Now, as a people manager, if you're not steering those kinds of things, you are not a great manager and you should be replaced with someone who does those things.

Sharlin 10mo ago
Being primarily interested in money and career advancement would also make you not a great colleague in many people’s eyes. It’s rather subjective.
- darth_avocado 10mo ago
  Whether people like to admit it or not, very rarely do people work for anything but money and career advancement. You can claim you work for passion, the love of the game or whatever 100 other reasons people tend to give out. All it takes is 2 years of no raises and a couple of promotions for colleagues for you to start not wanting to work for whatever reason you convinced yourself you were working for.
  - zemvpferreira 10mo ago
    I find a lot of people work at a certain place for the social life, and the money comes second. Including some surprisingly high performers.
    - vohk 10mo ago
      I think that becomes more common with income brackets that can start to feel like "enough". If you've spent time struggling to make ends meet, even median income can feel like previously unimaginable wealth and security, and workplace satisfaction is rarely something that you had a great deal of choice around. If you've spent most of a decade making six figures with benefits, it's easier to decide an extra 10k or even 50k isn't worth the added stress. Cost of living and personal situation (dual incomes, dependents) can shift that needle around quite a lot too.
    - darth_avocado 10mo ago
      The only reason money comes second is because they’re paid enough. And even with enough money, like I said, two years without a raise while everyone else gets it, suddenly social life isn’t going to be that important.
      - zemvpferreira 10mo ago
        No, I have plenty of friends who are not making enough (and could be making double) but due to being risk-averse and relatively content stay in low-paid jobs. Only a crisis moves certain people from their comfort spot.
SkyeCA 10mo ago
People are emotional and react in unexpected ways to even the smallest perceived slights, myself included. A late birthday recognition might not feel important, but if one already feels like management doesn't care about them? I can easily seeing that as a confirmation of it that causes resentment. I can also see it doing the same for any number of management related issues. I can tell you personally that the action which most seriously affected my performance at a workplace was being denied a bereavement day because the official policy was to only allow one. I felt more than slighted and every single negative action taken afterwards by HR/management, no matter how small, caused me to resent them more.
- em-bee 10mo ago
  it also depends on whether everyone is treated equally, or whether some are treated worse or better than others.
- andsoitis 10mo ago
  > being denied a bereavement day because the official policy was to only allow one I think when setting up policy like this you have two choices: a) have a fixed number of days --> fair, objective b) allow it to the manager to use their judgement --> variance across company The former has the tradeoff that you experienced.
  - nasmorn 10mo ago
    You could also give people an additional unpaid day off if they ask for it. The good thing about bereavement days is that people don’t tend to abuse the policy much given they would have to kill someone first. Dead grannies are only allowed to make you sad for 72 hours sharp, is a bit of a harsh rule if executed without leeway
  - sensanaty 10mo ago
    Or I mean, just treat people as human beings and let them deal with family emergencies? I'm in the Netherlands and I don't think I've ever had a manager that would say anything other than "Take all the time you need" (and genuinely meant it) for a family member who either died or is in hospital/got injured etc. I'm sure there's a minuscule chance of someone abusing this by lying, but I find that if you don't treat people like shit in the first place, they're not gonna lie about stuff like this.
dghlsakjg 10mo ago
The example was a birthday card, but the mechanism is more important: the manager disregarded a policy in a way that was disrespectful to a specific employee. People don’t care about the birthday card. They care when the manager does something nice for everyone but them. Nobody cares about a pizza party, they care that the manager didn’t think to save any pizza for the team that had to do an emergency call out to a client site during lunch.
ok123456 10mo ago
I always immensely disliked workplace birthday celebrations. I've never really celebrated my own birthday. If your actual friends or family want to do something, that's fine. But mandatory birthday card signings and having your workplace surprise "decorated" with stuff for a children's birthday party (that gets taken down and reused for the next office birthday) is grim, impersonal, and infantilizing. Nothing at all would be better.
- dghlsakjg 10mo ago
  It isn’t about the birthday card. It is about someone with power over you demonstrating through actions that they don’t care about you. As an alternative think of this scenario: I prepared a presentation and arranged for the entire team to attend specifically for a manager above mine who had asked for it. He ghosted the meeting, and asked for a TLDR. Every single person in that meeting felt disrespected personally, and stopped taking the issue that we were meeting about seriously. Note: If your workplace celebrates birthdays and you don’t want yours celebrated, just ask, they will almost certainly accommodate you.
- Larrikin 10mo ago
  I liked the system one of my old workplaces had. If you want to celebrate your birthday with your team, you bring in your own cake. The manager will designate time for the team to eat it and maybe have some company beers at the end of the day. If you don't bring in anything then there's just private words throughout the day. The system eliminates any need to ask to split the cost or go through a budget request, since it's one dessert item once a year.
hirvi74 10mo ago
> assignment to rewarding work, get paid top dollar, not be bored, get recognition for success, coaching on career growth, given leeway to make mistakes, not overlooked for promotion, etc. How likely is one to find all of the above in a job? My current job is essentially the opposite of all of those items. Though, believe it or not, it's not a bad place to work. Just very old school and non-tech focused.

Sharlin 10mo ago

Being primarily interested in money and career advancement would also make you not a great colleague in many people’s eyes. It’s rather subjective.

darth_avocado 10mo ago
Whether people like to admit it or not, very rarely do people work for anything but money and career advancement. You can claim you work for passion, the love of the game or whatever 100 other reasons people tend to give out. All it takes is 2 years of no raises and a couple of promotions for colleagues for you to start not wanting to work for whatever reason you convinced yourself you were working for.
- zemvpferreira 10mo ago
  I find a lot of people work at a certain place for the social life, and the money comes second. Including some surprisingly high performers.
  - vohk 10mo ago
    I think that becomes more common with income brackets that can start to feel like "enough". If you've spent time struggling to make ends meet, even median income can feel like previously unimaginable wealth and security, and workplace satisfaction is rarely something that you had a great deal of choice around. If you've spent most of a decade making six figures with benefits, it's easier to decide an extra 10k or even 50k isn't worth the added stress. Cost of living and personal situation (dual incomes, dependents) can shift that needle around quite a lot too.
  - darth_avocado 10mo ago
    The only reason money comes second is because they’re paid enough. And even with enough money, like I said, two years without a raise while everyone else gets it, suddenly social life isn’t going to be that important.
    - zemvpferreira 10mo ago
      No, I have plenty of friends who are not making enough (and could be making double) but due to being risk-averse and relatively content stay in low-paid jobs. Only a crisis moves certain people from their comfort spot.

SkyeCA 10mo ago

People are emotional and react in unexpected ways to even the smallest perceived slights, myself included. A late birthday recognition might not feel important, but if one already feels like management doesn't care about them? I can easily seeing that as a confirmation of it that causes resentment. I can also see it doing the same for any number of management related issues. I can tell you personally that the action which most seriously affected my performance at a workplace was being denied a bereavement day because the official policy was to only allow one. I felt more than slighted and every single negative action taken afterwards by HR/management, no matter how small, caused me to resent them more.

em-bee 10mo ago
it also depends on whether everyone is treated equally, or whether some are treated worse or better than others.
andsoitis 10mo ago
> being denied a bereavement day because the official policy was to only allow one I think when setting up policy like this you have two choices: a) have a fixed number of days --> fair, objective b) allow it to the manager to use their judgement --> variance across company The former has the tradeoff that you experienced.
- nasmorn 10mo ago
  You could also give people an additional unpaid day off if they ask for it. The good thing about bereavement days is that people don’t tend to abuse the policy much given they would have to kill someone first. Dead grannies are only allowed to make you sad for 72 hours sharp, is a bit of a harsh rule if executed without leeway
- sensanaty 10mo ago
  Or I mean, just treat people as human beings and let them deal with family emergencies? I'm in the Netherlands and I don't think I've ever had a manager that would say anything other than "Take all the time you need" (and genuinely meant it) for a family member who either died or is in hospital/got injured etc. I'm sure there's a minuscule chance of someone abusing this by lying, but I find that if you don't treat people like shit in the first place, they're not gonna lie about stuff like this.

dghlsakjg 10mo ago

The example was a birthday card, but the mechanism is more important: the manager disregarded a policy in a way that was disrespectful to a specific employee. People don’t care about the birthday card. They care when the manager does something nice for everyone but them. Nobody cares about a pizza party, they care that the manager didn’t think to save any pizza for the team that had to do an emergency call out to a client site during lunch.

ok123456 10mo ago

I always immensely disliked workplace birthday celebrations. I've never really celebrated my own birthday. If your actual friends or family want to do something, that's fine. But mandatory birthday card signings and having your workplace surprise "decorated" with stuff for a children's birthday party (that gets taken down and reused for the next office birthday) is grim, impersonal, and infantilizing. Nothing at all would be better.

dghlsakjg 10mo ago
It isn’t about the birthday card. It is about someone with power over you demonstrating through actions that they don’t care about you. As an alternative think of this scenario: I prepared a presentation and arranged for the entire team to attend specifically for a manager above mine who had asked for it. He ghosted the meeting, and asked for a TLDR. Every single person in that meeting felt disrespected personally, and stopped taking the issue that we were meeting about seriously. Note: If your workplace celebrates birthdays and you don’t want yours celebrated, just ask, they will almost certainly accommodate you.
Larrikin 10mo ago
I liked the system one of my old workplaces had. If you want to celebrate your birthday with your team, you bring in your own cake. The manager will designate time for the team to eat it and maybe have some company beers at the end of the day. If you don't bring in anything then there's just private words throughout the day. The system eliminates any need to ask to split the cost or go through a budget request, since it's one dessert item once a year.

hirvi74 10mo ago

> assignment to rewarding work, get paid top dollar, not be bored, get recognition for success, coaching on career growth, given leeway to make mistakes, not overlooked for promotion, etc. How likely is one to find all of the above in a job? My current job is essentially the opposite of all of those items. Though, believe it or not, it's not a bad place to work. Just very old school and non-tech focused.