5 ms·

Hi, sorry, I think this is really jumping the gun, and this is going to sound like a personal attack, but I'm not sure there's another way to phrase any of this

Hi, sorry, I think this is really jumping the gun, and this is going to sound like a personal attack, but I'm not sure there's another way to phrase any of this. The way you've described the problem, the way you've classified your coworkers, the things you called out to comment on in this reply, these are all giant red flags of immaturity to me. I ran companies and teams of half a dozen to three dozen people when I was your age (and younger, and older), and I hired people, and I fired people, and you sound like me, and I was grossly immature. If you've only been there a few months, it takes 3-4 months just to get a feel for the job. If you haven't been networking and talking with everyone above and below you, and instead your head has been down grinding on some possibly pointless deliverables, you don't know anything about your role or your company yet. You don't know why your coworkers are the way they are. You don't know why you were hired. You don't know the real expectations for you from your employees. And you don't know what kind of a manager you are, because you have no experience being managed. You need to read rands' book, and then quit, and go work for a less immature company until you yourself are less immature. Management is a skill you don't have yet, and can't possibly get without making a lot of terrible errors in your current role.

clownjuggler 13y ago
You are making an incredible amount of assumptions. We were all hired at the same time. Everybody is new, but not new to the field, we got to work from day 1. We are hired for very specific tasks, we get in, we get out, and right now we're not getting in fast enough. Make sense? I know the way they are, I know why they were hired. It doesn't matter what their expectations are from me, because it's below what I'm capable of getting accomplished and that's not the game I play. Don't get me wrong, we're all friends. It's not me vs. my employees. It's an internal struggle of mine to get my teammates to properly match my level of expectations, not just make something passable that hapazardly works. We are a team of contractors here to get a job done, and it's not being done as best can be. I work for one of the biggest companies in the US. There's a high probability you use one of our applications. We all work in a common space. When one co worker is on the phone with their tenant and divorce lawyer on and off all the time, then complaining about hitting deadlines and not meeting them, we have a big fucking problem. I know what I'm dealing with, thank you for your input. What I'm having a hard time with is determining the route to solve this problem without ruining lives.
- vitovito 13y ago
  Oh, okay, cool. In that case... Just kidding, that doesn't change my core premise, that it's an immature organization and you're dealing with the problem in an immature fashion. "It's an internal struggle of mine to get my teammates to properly match my level of expectations, not just make something passable that hapazardly works." That's the problem, right there. Your expectations are yours and yours alone. Everyone under you is a person, a human being, with thoughts and feelings and goals and, rightfully, they don't give two shits about what you think they should be doing. Real life is not a meritocracy and everyone is not a highly disciplined type A producer. Your expectations are your problem, not theirs, and holding other people up to them is the express route to disappointmenttown, population: a bad version of you. You need to understand what it means to be a manager, and an empathetic human being. Pro tip: those are mostly the same thing. Maybe you will need to separate the wheat from the chaff one day, but that day is after you understand exactly what it is all those people do, and why they do it, and how they do it, and what their goals are, and what their motivations are, not as employees, not as cogs in your great machine, but as human beings. That day is not today. You don't know enough, and it's not possible for you know enough yet. You haven't been doing the job long enough, you don't know the people well enough, and you don't have enough life experience.
  - clownjuggler 13y ago
    Did you read my other responses? You are here at this company and are being paid exorbitant amounts for the 7 hours you are here every day. That time is not to goof off and take two hour lunches, then complain about missing deadlines that I didn't set. If you want to say something, then say something instead of spouting bullshit. I'm dealing with a tough fucking situation and I didn't come here to get shitted on by a 1 upping random (really, you were younger than 19 working at a fortune 500 managing 40 people, okay kid). Really, if you want to offer proper advice other than "you're a piece of shit" (to summarize) then fuck off. I came to ask HN because it's a professional community with people that have a diverse range of skills in these very environments I'm struggling with. Stop replying, you are stressing me the fuck out, thank you.

clownjuggler 13y ago

You are making an incredible amount of assumptions. We were all hired at the same time. Everybody is new, but not new to the field, we got to work from day 1. We are hired for very specific tasks, we get in, we get out, and right now we're not getting in fast enough. Make sense? I know the way they are, I know why they were hired. It doesn't matter what their expectations are from me, because it's below what I'm capable of getting accomplished and that's not the game I play. Don't get me wrong, we're all friends. It's not me vs. my employees. It's an internal struggle of mine to get my teammates to properly match my level of expectations, not just make something passable that hapazardly works. We are a team of contractors here to get a job done, and it's not being done as best can be. I work for one of the biggest companies in the US. There's a high probability you use one of our applications. We all work in a common space. When one co worker is on the phone with their tenant and divorce lawyer on and off all the time, then complaining about hitting deadlines and not meeting them, we have a big fucking problem. I know what I'm dealing with, thank you for your input. What I'm having a hard time with is determining the route to solve this problem without ruining lives.

vitovito 13y ago
Oh, okay, cool. In that case... Just kidding, that doesn't change my core premise, that it's an immature organization and you're dealing with the problem in an immature fashion. "It's an internal struggle of mine to get my teammates to properly match my level of expectations, not just make something passable that hapazardly works." That's the problem, right there. Your expectations are yours and yours alone. Everyone under you is a person, a human being, with thoughts and feelings and goals and, rightfully, they don't give two shits about what you think they should be doing. Real life is not a meritocracy and everyone is not a highly disciplined type A producer. Your expectations are your problem, not theirs, and holding other people up to them is the express route to disappointmenttown, population: a bad version of you. You need to understand what it means to be a manager, and an empathetic human being. Pro tip: those are mostly the same thing. Maybe you will need to separate the wheat from the chaff one day, but that day is after you understand exactly what it is all those people do, and why they do it, and how they do it, and what their goals are, and what their motivations are, not as employees, not as cogs in your great machine, but as human beings. That day is not today. You don't know enough, and it's not possible for you know enough yet. You haven't been doing the job long enough, you don't know the people well enough, and you don't have enough life experience.
- clownjuggler 13y ago
  Did you read my other responses? You are here at this company and are being paid exorbitant amounts for the 7 hours you are here every day. That time is not to goof off and take two hour lunches, then complain about missing deadlines that I didn't set. If you want to say something, then say something instead of spouting bullshit. I'm dealing with a tough fucking situation and I didn't come here to get shitted on by a 1 upping random (really, you were younger than 19 working at a fortune 500 managing 40 people, okay kid). Really, if you want to offer proper advice other than "you're a piece of shit" (to summarize) then fuck off. I came to ask HN because it's a professional community with people that have a diverse range of skills in these very environments I'm struggling with. Stop replying, you are stressing me the fuck out, thank you.