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idopmstuffHNSource author
Lessons learnedExperience excerpt · English

You can often get them on your side by giving them a plan that makes them feel like they're in …

… You can often get them on your side by giving them a plan that makes them feel like they're in control (again, totally not your responsibility! But better than dealing with them being obnoxious constantly). If they ask for an update and you say, "I don't know what's wrong, but we're looking into it" then they don't know what to do. If you tell them "I don't know what's wrong, but right now we're investigating x because we suspect that's the source of the issue. I'm checking the logs and other engineer is trying to recreate the issue in a clean environment. Unfortunately I don't have a good answer as to how long it'll take, but we'll update you either when we've learned something useful or in two hours, whichever is sooner," then they have something to say to the people above them and they understand when they'll get an update, so they don't need to bother you. A helpless manager is like a child - if left alone, they'll just shout and cause problems. What they really need is direction and structure.

Original discussionManagers, Stop Distracting Your Employees204 source comments · at import
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ON
onion2kHN

Something to note is that there are two important variables in the second story. The first, as you say, is that you had a different manager. The second is that you had more experience. In every situation a manager is only ever as effective as the information they have, and that comes from how good their team is at communicating with them. I'd hazard a guess that you were better at telling your manager what they needed by the time the second event happened. If the team has good comms, and experience of both working and communicating updates to their manager regularly, and the skills to explain things in ways people understand, generally speaking you find the manager needs to check in less often. They can trust you to raise things promptly, to ask for them to do things for you, and that when you're quiet it's because you're busy rather than stuck. I find that teams who complain about their…

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candiddevmikeHN

> A helpless manager is like a child - if left alone, they'll just shout and cause problems. What they really need is direction and structure. What they really need is to find a different job. Needing to "manage up" is the ultimate waste of resources IMO and puts a lot of stress on the employees, why even have a manager at that point.

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ilytHN

> I don't know what's wrong, but right now we're investigating x because we suspect that's the source of the issue. I'm checking the logs and other engineer is trying to recreate the issue in a clean environment. Unfortunately I don't have a good answer as to how long it'll take, but we'll update you either when we've learned something useful or in two hours, whichever is sooner, Just don't get too specific, especially with even a bit technically inclined ones, because they will have ideas to help and bother tech people to check their random guesses when trying to be helpful

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ljmHN

are you saying the employee should propose a plan of action to control their boss? I'm reading your post and it sounds like you're trying to heard cattle

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fendy3002HN

> You can often get them on your side by giving them a plan that makes them feel like they're in control Only if they hear you. Had one that's too focused on the pressure from above that my advice is being totally ignored.

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