Incompetent but nice manager
So, manager is a good person but incompetent in the field, industry and overall management. How to get out of this? he won’t fire me because he is a good person, and I am well respected and have a reputation and an ear with upper management. but my career is stalled. leaving is one option, working it out is another, which is what we are trying to do, but how do you teach programming, data structures, architecture, strategy, languages, etc. the core to someone who doesnt have an engineering background or the ability or desire to learn? Believe me. I have tried but he doesn’t see the value in learning about software development even though we are in the software development industry. he also doesn’t believe or trust that these abilities can help the team. this makes him unable to appreciate valuable contributions. What are other options to get out or handle this situation?
I am in the same position. No real advice except if he's so nice he'll help you in other ways by giving you progressive responsibility, maybe title of team lead, etc and then eventually to move. Long term I'm trying to move internally but not burn bridges with my manager. I plan to tell her eventually that I'd like to move to a certain team for specific reasons and ask if she'd help me do that. She's a nice person so framing it this way positions me to be grateful to her and for her to feel she helped her report.
He won’t help. I have tried to get more authority since I have a bunch of influence but my influence alone is his demise. Authority would totally freak him out so he will never give it to me. He is only 1 level above me. Authority would make us peers. I have escalated him by trying to move teams. That worked out, somewhat. but there is a freeze and now we have to learn to get along explicitly which we am trying, but the issue for me is not personal, the issue is how do you teach an old dog new tricks? His issue with me is what do I do with this rebellious child who knows more than me and is making me look like an idiot and is making noise. His advice to me was lay low. They will fire us both. It’s about surviving. My response was I don’t want to survive, I want to thrive.
I am already a lead btw. Top of the ic ladder.
Then why are you staying at this company?
Because I have a lot of influence and respect and he won’t fire me and my TC is good.
I like my job. I just don’t like my manager.
From your background check and documented experience dealing with him you’ve determined he’s a con artist. He’s been like that his whole life. You can’t change him. So switch teams or switch companies. But yeah, don’t burn bridges with him because psychopaths will play games you can’t even imagine. Simple as that.
This is true. However I can’t move teams. I tried (that is how I escalated him) but bc there is a hiring freeze the mandate has been to work it out in the short term. Have looked outside. No one can afford me.
I can continue looking or take a pay cut and go. Or I can go do my own thing too. Or I can stay. Ideally I would stay in the company just working for a diff manager but hiring freeze.
@allegrante facebook, you say I sound unwell in the thread above but I cant reply bc someone marked it as innappropiate (the initial thread comment) but I am Interested in hearing how or why I sound unwell or insane.
You’re repeatedly responding to your own comments. A lot of rambling. A lot of strange behaviors (it’s not normal to run a background check on a colleague/manager because you think they’re not competent). You transparently acknowledged previous issues with mental illness, which predisposes you to further mental illness. You’re also extremely focused on this one individual and it’s clear you’re letting them impact your life to an unhealthy degree. Not to use a trolly/rude analogy, but when you’re riding on BART and a homeless person starts yammering, you don’t need a ton of data points to know they’re not alright. You can just tell.
Ok thanks for sharing, well one thing is to ramble incoherently at someone who is not visible to anyone, but I am rambling, and not incoherently, at a Blind forum, providing evidence of the course of action and responding to my thread and the comments left by people who are replying. To take that behavior and extrapolate it into madness just because you are not an articulate writer or you struggle with reading comprehension above 8th grade, or are not engaging in your own posts, or wouldn’t have thought of doing something and assume no one should either,is a bit of a stretch, no? Perhaps a projection?
No but he is a white male. 50 something.
I also did a background check on him and he has changed his name 3 times. Owes 100K to the IRS and he was an acquisition. He looks like a con artist to me who specializes in politics.