[Da Peach]

For those of you who aren't your own boss, how much "upward management" would you say you have to do?

My current job is good and all, but good lord my boss needs a lot of...reminding/herding/re-reminding/encouragement.

I find myself idle quite often, while he's running around like a chicken with his head cut off. I approach him daily offering help, and even provide him tools and information unsolicited to help make his life easier. He usually thanks me and ignores it/doesn't use it.

I just don't get it.

There are times where I'll poke my head into his office to remind him that he wants to meet with me about...something. I won't know what, because all I get is an email with the Outlook "!" on it, with no description, just "come see me". He'll ask me what I need. I say I'm coming to chat with him about "that urgent thing you wanted to talk to me about"... He won't remember what it is.

We get to talking about what it is he's working on at the moment...it's always VERY important and due in an hour or so. It is often something that is either not our responsibility to provide, or something that I would say is totally redundant. I ask him why he's doing it (in a supportive sort of way), and he tells me that it's urgent and "a long story", etc...

He'll spend HOURS correcting grammar. English is not his first language... This doesn't go well. Replacing "discovered" with "encountered" does not add value.... I volunteer to take that load off, but half the time he's correcting my English. Painful.

From my personal experience thus far in my career, I'd say people like this are rare. Would you agree? For your sake, I hope so...

 

[CrabJoe StretchPants]

I've heard plenty of people that are in the same boat. My boss is on top of his ****, though I tend to remember stuff better than he can, but I attribute that more to age than anything.

 

[jonKranked]

 

[Jim Mac]

Ever think that your boss might be keeping you at a distance because they might be afraid of eventually being replaced....and maybe by the likes of you?

This happened to me - I had to finally do an end game around it.

 

[Da Peach]

Ever think that your boss might be keeping you at a distance because they might be afraid of eventually being replaced....and maybe by the likes of you?

This happened to me - I had to finally do an end game around it.

My wife seems to think that's the case... But I guess she's biased.

We've got a well staffed team on this project. I see no reason why he's put himself on this short road to burnout. It would be better for the whole bunch of us if he'd just define some roles and get a-delegatin'.

It's quite frustrating.

 

[I Are Baboon]

I am a manager and report to a director. I have very little interaction with my boss. I do a pretty good job of managing my own area independently. He is responsive though when we have work to discuss.

It helps that we work six floors apart.

 

[Da Peach]

I am a manager and report to a director. I have very little interaction with my boss. I do a pretty good job of managing my own area independently. He is responsive though when we have work to discuss.

It helps that we work six floors apart.

Yeah, it would be nice if my boss were more responsive. I'm pretty badly under-utilized as it is. Any time I approach him with work I've done "proactively" he thanks me for it an puts it aside.

My boss insists on making himself the bottleneck for everything. He reviews EVERYTHING. He's overloaded himself to the point of being useless. He'd rather correct a typo than get something out on time. It's ridiculous.

 

[-BB-]

I am a manager and report to a director. I have very little interaction with my boss. I do a pretty good job of managing my own area independently. He is responsive though when we have work to discuss.

It helps that we work six floors apart.

Ditto... Mgr reporting to Sr Director. And mine is more than 2000 miles (and three time zones) away.

 

[norbar]

I'm doing a 2nd lap of intership and with a new team I need to tripple check everything with my bosses because they are vague as hell. It's super annoying because they get angry when I don't read their minds and do all they never told me about.

My bosses are also very anal about proper wording, how their powerpoint presentation look like and not with real work. Though they don't run away from me but I get your pain. It's even more crappy since I made 3 times as much in a week of my freelance job as I do in a month of my intership.

The real conclusion here is - working in a company sucks. At least it's how I see it. I prefer to work freelance since it forces my employers to give me very specific tasks and then I do it the way I want to.

 

[binary visions]

I tend to bypass managers who get in the way. Not sure if that's a luxury afforded to me by the organizations I've worked for, or if more people could do it and just don't. Not in a way where I'm really bypassing their authority, I just avoid getting them involved at all.

My last boss was pretty awesome. He was just about as far from a roadblock as he could possibly be. If I had issues, I would go to him, have a succinct conversation, and the problems would be immediately removed. About as good a boss as I could have asked for.

My current boss is just busy with his own individual contributions to the company, so I circumvent him. About once a month, I stick my head in his office and tell him what I'm currently working on, but other than that, if I need something in my department, I go straight to the director, and if I need something in other departments, I go straight to the parties involved.

 

[Da Peach]

I tend to bypass managers who get in the way. Not sure if that's a luxury afforded to me by the organizations I've worked for, or if more people could do it and just don't. Not in a way where I'm really bypassing their authority, I just avoid getting them involved at all.

My last boss was pretty awesome. He was just about as far from a roadblock as he could possibly be. If I had issues, I would go to him, have a succinct conversation, and the problems would be immediately removed. About as good a boss as I could have asked for.

My current boss is just busy with his own individual contributions to the company, so I circumvent him. About once a month, I stick my head in his office and tell him what I'm currently working on, but other than that, if I need something in my department, I go straight to the director, and if I need something in other departments, I go straight to the parties involved.

I've done about as much circumventing as I'm comfortable doing at this point. I've already done PLENTY without any negative consequence. I pretty much told myself he'd thank me for it if he had the time. No news is good news, I guess...

But now there are bits and pieces of work that need to be assembled from different departments and sub-consultants. There's only so much going behind his back that one should do before it starts making him look bad.

My old boss was very similar to yours. I could be left for quite some time without direction and kept things humming along. I had plenty to do. If I needed some direction/confirmation, I'd get it, quickly. No time for BS. If he couldn't address it during the work day, I'd often get an email around 10pm clarifying/confirming as needed. At the time, I thought he was nuts. This is a stark contrast to my current boss who perpetually tells me to stop sending him email. Then he asks me in meetings why he wasn't aware of "x".

Oh well. At least I'm making more money than I used to... It's just frustrating knowing how slowly things are going compared to how they could be going.

He's even making noises of hiring another person. Somehow I don't think this is going to have the desired effect... More people to manage.... Or not-manage as it were...

 

[johnbryanpeters]

we don't have anyone as bad as that in our shop. Some degree of managing up is always necessary. Your fellow sounds addled.

 

[Da Peach]

we don't have anyone as bad as that in our shop. Some degree of managing up is always necessary. Your fellow sounds addled.

Addled. Probably a pretty good word for it.

I think he's just a really awkward guy. He can't finish a spoken sentence without clearing his throat 2 or 3 times. It's like a nervous tick. He interrupts people constantly with is favorite interjection: "Time out!".

Not a prize-winning communicator.

I'm quite willing to do some, maybe even quite a bit of upward management. But I'm kind of at the limit. I'll continue at my current level for a while and see what accumulates.

What I'm not sure about is when to address it with him in more explicit terms. I'm guessing there is never a good time to go over his head... I do get along quite well with the VP...

 

[OGRipper]

Do you want his job?

 

[eric strt6]

oh I wish, everyone in the field gets their hands on instructions from dispatch. Anything that needs more attention or repair gets elevated to Director level >me. conversly anything the CEO wants done with staff or equipment gets sent to me to figure out how to get it done. Luckily I get to stay away from any billing issues.

 

[Da Peach]

Do you want his job?

Not really... I'd want this project under my belt before taking on his position on a project. This project is pretty big, with a difficult client.

I think I'm well suited to where I am right now. I'm just looking at him as a living-breathing cautionary tale of what not to do. I don't envy his position at all.

All I know is that when I need help, and someone offers it, I say "yes, please". This appears to be something he can't or won't do. I'm not here to twist his arm, am I?

 

[OGRipper]

Not really...

Gotcha. The reason I ask is because our advice would be different one way or the other. Anyway, someone who gets bogged down in the micro details but can't delegate isn't really a manager at all. Good luck with this dude.

 

[6thElement]

Last conversation I had with my boss was in July last year, I told him I wanted more money. Haven't spoken or heard from him directly since :/

 

[jdcamb]

I made the decision to go to Wendy's instead of Burger King today. They made fun of me for getting a Salad. The back of the truck smelled like Pot when we got to our destination. I pretended to not notice.

 

[Da Peach]

Gotcha. The reason I ask is because our advice would be different one way or the other. Anyway, someone who gets bogged down in the micro details but can't delegate isn't really a manager at all. Good luck with this dude.

Thanks...

That's the thing, I'm not bucking for his job. I'm just a bit incredulous that he holds the position he does.

He argued with me over the use of the word "encountered" vs. the word "discovered".

Time well spent...

 

[Da Peach]

I made the decision to go to Wendy's instead of Burger King today. They made fun of me for getting a Salad. The back of the truck smelled like Pot when we got to our destination. I pretended to not notice.

Capital "P" for pot.

Noted.

 

[jdcamb]

Capital "P" for pot.

Noted.

Are you going to call my Boss? Why would it not be capitalized?

 

[Da Peach]

Are you going to call my Boss? Why would it not be capitalized?

Capitalizing Boss cancels it out.

 

[AngryMetalsmith]

Capitalizing Boss cancels it out.

Capitalizing Boss is trying to take advantage of the situation.