this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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Struggling with inexperienced manager, job at risk due to bad rating - how to react? (programming.dev)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by fololzl@programming.dev to c/experienced_devs@programming.dev
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Prologue: Long time Reddit subscriber, this Lemmy thing seems neat. I will probably ditch Reddit completely. Hi everyone!

tldr; joined new team two performance review cycles ago. Reorg before I joined, now have inexperienced manager who is different than hiring manager. Things went downhill after a while, probably due to personal issues, now my job is at risk. Another reorg with new manager happening soon, trying to save myself from layoff until then and trying to save my rep. Wondering how to do this best.

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[–] nivenkos@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Speak to your skip-line manager with what you wrote here and see if you can change teams.

Otherwise start applying to jobs (maybe start internally if you're in a large company).

There's no use in staying in a bad situation.

[–] fololzl@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Hey! So the situation is that we're still having a hiring freeze, but soon I'd have a new manager anyway if I can stay in my current team. I like everyone else I'm working with. I'm worried that if I tell my skip level these things openly she may consider me a backstabber. In a different job market I'd probably already have left, but right now that's difficult.

[–] Buttons@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Expressing concerns to skip level + a little shade towards boss = backstabber

Expressing concerns to skip level + a lot of praise and respect for boss = excellent employee seeking to solve problems

I like the book "Crucial Conversations", in a sentence it teaches how to be 100% honest, and 100% respectful. How can you be both honest and respectful with either your boss or your skip level boss? Don't leave out the show of respect.

[–] valence_engineer@programming.dev 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree overall but it also depends. In this economic climate with layoffs common backstabbing is not the worst short term strategy. OP would essentially be using their accumulated political capitol to make it more likely that their manager gets the ax versus them.

The skip is most likely doing a calculation of how much OP is worth versus how much the Manager is worth to the organization. Showing too much respect means the calculation is less likely to go in OP's favor since even OP seems to see Manager in a mostly positive light.

[–] Buttons@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I see what you mean. I said "a lot of praise", but maybe that is too strong. Show respect, but keep the praise honest.

Too many people go for the "brutally honest" approach, never even considering the "honest but respectful" approach.