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Ask Slashdot: How Do You Deal With a Terrible Tech Manager?
snydeq writes: From the Know It All to the Overwhelmer, succeeding beneath a bad manager takes strategy and finesse, writes Paul Heltzel in his round-up of bad IT bosses and how to keep them from derailing your career. "While there are truly great leaders in IT, not all inspire confidence. Worse, you can't always choose who will lead your team. But you can always map out new paths in your career. With that in mind, here is a look at some prototypically bad managers you may have already encountered in your engineering departments, with tips on how to deal with each of them." The six "terrible tech managers" mentioned by Heltzel include: "The Know It All," "The Pushover," "The Micromanager," "The Unexpected Boss," "The Fearful Manager," and "The Overwhelmer." Have you ever worked for any of these managers? If so, how did you deal with them?
If your wealthy and smart start you own company.
If your not wealthy or smart?
Your stuck with having to understand your boss and have to try and reason with them.
Try and understand your boss and their origins.
Overeducated for the role and wanted to be promoted in the past but failed?
Had some connection with others in management that secured their role but they are not a productive boss?
Someone who once had good ideas but has less to offer every year?
They use their own boss as a method of advancement and just keep staff around to fill in the role of been a boss? Their own advancement is the project not anything that needs to be done.
The boss has issues from university, never went to a good "university" in the traditional way, was too poor to enjoy university, did not fit into any social setting at university. Was smart but did not have the correct level of wealth to fit in? All that can shape the mind and issues a boss projects. Poverty made them have many, many issues decades later.
Social acceptance issues? Even been a "boss" just does not wash away that feeling of not been accepted by management.
Lack of ability to learn new skills. The boss is using past success to just stay in place for a few more years. They don't want to lean new methods. They have staff for that.
They have the wrong education. It was ok years ago and got them the job but they feel different from their better educated peers.
They had a good memory that as able to fake their way past university exams, the interview and the social skills to become a boss.
Even average staff know they have a lack of ability needed in their role. So the boss takes steps to hide that issue.
Most people have traits they bring up from university and as they enter the work force. What was your boss like? Could they even study on their own or did they always need help? Could they work on a project or did they always need a lot of support?
Once you understand your boss aviod the things that make them unhappy.
If your wealthy and happy don't remind your boos of their own poverty filled past.
If your boss is smart, learn from them.
If your boss is lacking in skills, don't be the person that knows too much about their past.
Other traits are the boss who has to talk about their new found wealth and what they are doing socially. The charities, social events, music, art, a new car.
If you are wealthy and enjoyed all that as a given, it becomes almost comical to sit and listen to your boss trying to buy their way into society. Try to be positive and just be happy for your boss. If you boss finally has the wage to enjoy opera or some other social event just smile and ask them all about their experience.
A normal boss will work hard, bring new ideas, have the educational background to study and keep learning new things, want the best for the company and all staff. They will want to share their own skills and learn.
If not something is wrong, just take the time to find out what. Poverty, educational issues, a well hidden lack of talent.
Good interviews and hiring on merit with background investigations will usually detect any of the bad traits. Always interview, hire on merit and look into pasts, then a company can avoid staff issues.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I had a supervisor who assigned me two separate projects that had a one-month gap between them. I documented that I would take them with the understanding that there will be trouble if the two projects overlapped. The inevitable train wreck came when the first project overlapped the second project, both projects got delayed and later reassigned to other people to straighten out. Supervisor tried to throw me under the bus but I had documentation that he didn't lift a finger to help me. What happened? Supervisor got promoted out of the department and I didn't have a project for 90 days.
Next supervisor told me not to document any of his activities. Of course, I documented that and everything else. Soon I was being written up for insubordination for... you guess it... documenting his interference with my project. When he gave me the "his way or the highway" speech, I resigned as soon as my current project was done. I was the third out of a dozen senior employees who headed for the exits that year. Supervisor rode the company into bankruptcy.
I was reorged and placed under a kiss ass manager-ette. My solution: I called up my old manager and asked is I could go back to work for him. Viola. Done. I think she was in to some "categorize work tasks in to a flow chart" thing . I couldn't take the situation. I am an adult. I think she may have given head to someone at the top.
This lady was like a Marissa Mayer on knee pads.
Got out, kept my sanity, survived well.
You can't change crappy managers. Best to distance oneself.
He very openly says he knows nothing about code, so he wants things explained in simple terms.
You have the best type of manager.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.