I've worked and had roles where I had a non-existent manager.
If it is really really that bad, it's a much better outcome to leave amicably versus fighting to fix the issue. Remember that software is a very small industry we all work together in.
There's no candid way to fix your manager's behavior if they are non-existent, or completely detached from their team. Especially if your manager's manager does not care or know.
Indeed. Going the extra mile to fix problems outside your purview to benefit the company is a lot to ask individual contributors.
If you want to grow into a different job then that can be a worthwhile route, sometimes. But there is only so far that any individual should be asked to go on their own. Ideally the employee/employer relationship is a two way street, you do work and the management/corporate structure also does work to facilitate you in your work and help you be as productive, engaged, and satisfied as possible. If the management chain is doing no work and you have to pick up the slack or if they are doing negative work that you have to counteract then that's an abusive relationship. If you were doing no work for the company they wouldn't hesitate to push you out the door ASAP, you shouldn't be excessively more committed to the professional relationship than they are. There are lots of other opportunities out there, go find one where your talents are appreciated and complemented by others. You don't have to set yourself on fire to keep others warm.
Indeed. I did not have a ~great~ manager until my 3rd or 4th job, and if I had known people like that existed before I certainly would not have stayed as long in some of the earlier jobs.
It is divine to have this luxury. But changing your management under a bad boss is simply not that easy.
My story: I was given the option to change my boss for the first time in 2006 or so. At this company, I'd already been promoted several times, ostensibly on merit, which involved a different boss each time. This event was different. The team was growing and we simply needed more people doing similar things. I decided my relationship with a (somewhat older) peer-turned-manager would be better off if I didn't report to him.
Had he been a bad boss? Not really, but he wasn't a good boss. The new boss wasn't any better or worse. Old boss and I both spent the next year slightly miserable, but I wouldn't have known how miserable he was until he suddenly left the company. And then he hired me away a few months later.
He also fired me a couple years later. Why? I was sick of the job, and I mostly deserved it; we were also at a smaller company now, where more egos were crammed into one room. I'd also literally been given a second job and a second title, complete with a second boss, who was also my boss's boss. (No pay increase, of course.)
Was it more work than I could handle? Not exactly. Was there a mismatch between my responsibility and my power? Absolutely. Did losing this job damage my career? Not in the long run, and I learned far more valuable lessons about the need to simply work differently with different people.
I think stories like this are close to the best possible outcome when you have a bad boss. And I think the moral here, is that a Voltron Manager is something everyone should have regardless of how good their current manager may be.
I would echo the comment you are responding to: if you have a bad direct boss, get out and work somewhere else. If you decide to stay, for example because you have golden handcuffs, make a clear decision on how long you have to / want to stick around and leave after that time elapses.
If you cannot leave, understand why (e.g., does your resume feature COBOL as a top skill?) and try to fix this quickly. Having a mindset "I like working here, but I can find another job quickly if I have to" helps greatly in any job, e.g. by letting you take calculated risks at your job (and sleep well at night), which on success can give you great benefits. My 2c.
This is all very good advice. It costs me nothing to recognize my privilege as I endorse it.
edit: My story is about developing the opportunities to leave several different mediocre bosses, sometimes more than once! It really did work out for me, even when I made the decision to go back to the devil I knew.
All of these mediocre bosses were well-intentioned former engineers and I have no lingering ill will toward any of them. The part I left out of the story, is that behind the scenes in all of this, was the layer of management above and around them. I was incredibly fortunate that a Voltron had sort of built itself around me. Other engineers I barely got to know, noticed my work. The executive overseeing the departments at both companies paid attention to what his reports were doing. He didn't want to listen to me lament every possible bit I ever might have to twiddle, but he was a significant guiding force in my career for years before I even realized it.
It is possible to develop relationships like this, through good faith efforts. But I honestly don't know how I would pass along any advice about this, other than by being as honest as possible about what happened in my life. Essentially: Look Around.
Skilled COBOL programmers have good job opportunities, IIRC. Lots of legacy systems, not many people who aren't retired who understand and can work with things. It's a different set of things you get to work on compared to having a sexier technology like React or Python or whatever on top of your resume, but there's lots of well-paid work out there.
> Skilled COBOL programmers have good job opportunities
I am sure they do, but this is likely due to a funky supply and demand state: low demand but even lower supply which leads to good compensation but fewer opportunities. To acquire a freedom to move to a new employer I would emphasize my high demand skills instead. Just an opinion
This is overly simplifying the issue. I work for an org that requires exactly this type of 'build your own manager' idea that is mentioned in the article. Sure, it's dysfunctional and has a lot of legacy problems (like most large public sector orgs), but the work is what compells me... irrespective of how good/bad my manager is.
Basically: In some cases where you work and what you are working on trumps who you are working for and how much you are paid.
Life doesn't exist on one axis. If I compiled a list of every "if your company does X, quit" heuristic that has been heavily upvoted on HN and we all started following them we'd all be unemployed.
And with so many unemployed tech workers you don't think tech companies would face an equal level of difficulty in having so many empty positions?
If tech workers were more savvy and critical in terms of deciding where they work and what conditions they allow themselves to work under (e.g. crunch, bad management, etc.) the industry would be breaking its back to try to change things to hold onto and acquire talent.
Your job at your workplace is what you were hired for. Yes, that position's requirements and workload may change, but that is to be expected. What should not be expected is for you to do all that and do what your boss is failing to do in their own job.
If you'll have to work extra hard to do your boss' work as well... why aren't you getting paid more? Or why aren't you the boss? It's clearly a sign to look elsewhere for employment, if you're not already.
Unsupportive bosses are a sign of bad culture or that their bosses are likely equally unsupportive or clueless. Cut your losses.
Apparently this is common enough that there's a saying "People don't leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses" and this is backed up by some surveys suggesting that bad bosses/supervisors are the reason for 75% of job leaving events and also the number 1 cause of unhappiness at work.
I'm glad the poster, posted their article instead of this knee jerk reaction. My manager is a good person. This team deserves good workers. This company deserves more support than knee-jerk reactions such as "If your manager is more inexperienced than you, QUIT!" This is why our grandparents think we have no company loyalty.
"company loyalty" ... in programming? are you serious?
I hope for your sake that you aren't. If you are, you probably are already getting screwed and just don't know it yet. And it'll probably end with another disillusionment because the company sure as hell won't be loyal to you once the CEO can increase his exit-bonus by firing you.
Not all programming jobs are the same, and not all software companies have the same culture. There are a lot of jobs outside the startup bubble, and outside the US.
Europe has a much better workplace culture in general , and there is some loyalty between the worker and the workplace.
I would say that Company Loyalty is a dangerous thing. The Company isn't going to be Loyal to you. I happen to like my workplace, but I know that if the company is ever in trouble again they will fire me without hesitation. I survived 2 firing rounds already. I will not survive a 3rd one. I didn't quit till now because I was loyal, but I stayed because I was lucky.
Some have decided to quit just before the firing rounds, because we all could see it coming. That is "disloyal", but they are now employed again. That may have been the better decision for them.
The company deserves as much loyalty as it will show you. Which in many places is none at all; the world is full of people who demonstrated loyalty to their company and got terminated at zero notice for "downsizing" or bankruptcy.
I believe it can worth being loyal to co-workers and your immediate boss if they deserve it, since they're actual human beings and can be loyal to you, but a company is not a human.
This reminds me that networking and engagement are not only activities for gaining new business...but fostering a support group of people that you already know. Nice article indeed!
> "I’ve been coached through changing my name, which is a gendered professional experience that none of my male peers had dealt with."
How about ending that convention in countries that have it? In Belgium most people do not change their name upon marrying, and I do not see the point of doing so. Person X and Y marry, there's a contract already, no name change is needed for that.
There are plenty of reasons to change your name that don't have anything to do with marriage. The answer to systems being inflexible and not coping with name changes is not that people shouldn't change their name. The process should be easier and less painful, and all systems need to deal with names that change, including usernames that change (since people often use part or all of their name in their username).
(Also, some people do enjoy that convention, while others do not. It shouldn't be expected, but it should certainly be permitted.)
I got my name changed to that of my stepfather when I was too young to understand. Don't enjoy representing them, don't have any attachment to my rather ugly sounding birth name, so your plan makes sense to me.
Belgium law is quite restrictive. Up until recently you were required to use the father's surname if known. You're now allowed to use either or both unless one parent is unknown, in which case you have to use the other.
Confirming. I think I know at least two friends who have chosen the least common last name even if it was hers. And I belong to what would often be described as a very conservative group ;-)
Spain has an interesting system here, a person born into a Spanish-speaking family is given a first name followed by two surnames, the first being the father's family name (or, more precisely, the surname he gained from his father) followed by the mother's family name (or, again more precisely, the surname she gained from her father).
Or in your example:
Gen X: FirstName P1-First-LastName P2-Second-LastName
You might know Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Mártir Patricio Ruiz y Picasso under a shorter name...
Do any countries actually require it? I think in the US, UK and probably other western countries you choose to change your name and either the man or woman can change if they want - it’s totally optional either way isn’t it?
Here, the mother was already involved in care proceedings, and the local authority child protection social workers weren't able to just force her to pick different names, but had to go to court in front of an independent judge.
It's a pretty detailed document and it shows, I think, how uncomfortable English judges are with exercising this power.
In the US marriage is not a federal institutional but a state one. I don’t know other state rules, I would be surprised if any require names to change.
I know that in California, at least when I got married, both people are allowed (or just one person) to take the others name or some combination of both names.
I was curious at the time, but never checked, if the combination could literally just be any combination of the letters of both. My guess is it would be the county clerk you deal with who’d decide to accept it or not.
For many couples it’s a traditional part of the change a marriage brings and the symbolism is worth the inconvenience. Women wear wedding rings and they’re not materially useful either and have a cost. Inconvenient symbolism isn’t an unusual part of human culture!
I changed my name when I married (am male). I haven't had any problems or repercussions changing names, professionally or personally.
Some reasons why I changed name:
1. My kids and I now share all surnames.
2. I had no relation to any parts of the family that shared my previous last name.
3. It felt a teeny weeny bit progressive being the male who changed.
Not everything is black and white and needs to focus on business needs... :) Accounts were easily renamed (except Skype, bluh) and no one has asked me for any of my papers or research. Just add them to your profile as you would before you changed name.
A lot of professional women (in the US, at least) run into that problem-- They either don't change their name and deal with the social problems that entails or they change their legal name but still publish under their previous name and deal with the professional implications. Publishing under a new name is also an option, but, as you said, makes it much harder to get your work connected to you.
The main social problem comes when you have kids: if partners have different names, the kids will have names that don't match one of the partners, or will need a hyphenated-combination of the two.
The ramifications of this will depend on how common it is for women to not change their names in your particular locale: if it's uncommon, there will be some confusion when people expect children and parents' names to match, as well as people wondering about whether the child is actually your stepchild, etc. Of course, those judgmental/insensitive reactions are inappropriate, but they do happen.
> Kids name not matching is a much smaller deal than changing your name.
That's easy to say, but that's just your personal feelings on the matter. My sister left her name alone when she got married, but changed her mind (and her name) when she got pregnant, specifically because she wanted her kid to have the same last name as her.
I would probably make the opposite decision if I were in her shoes, but it was her decision, based on her desires and what makes her the most happy; not mine, and not yours.
> Because it doesn't affect anything in practice what their name versus parents name is
Depending on where you live, there can be social confusion and even a stigma. Maybe you're lucky in that where you live that isn't a problem, but that's not the case everywhere.
> Changing a name on the other hand gives practical problems such as for any copyrights, email address, source code, publications, etc...
No one's saying there aren't practical problems, but if the name change is worth it to you, then by definition you have accepted that trade off as also being worth it.
Basically none. You have to explain it to family members and other people occasionally. It's not like the hospital's going to ask for your last name and demand a marriage certificate if it differs when you go to see your sick spouse.
It's not forced but where it's culturally common it's often the default presumption.
My wife didn't change her name but that meant she has a different surname to our children. That can cause minor annoyances in airports, for example. It's not a big deal, and it's fairly predictable, but it's a thing.
Nobody's forcing anyone to do anything (in the countries I'm aware of). This whole thing is people about what two people choose to do between themselves, so I don't see why anyone should have any opinion on it at all.
IMO the main reason is that your kids bear the father’s last name. Convention has it that kids bear the father‘s name, and this „works better“ if everybody in the family has the same name. I‘m not saying it is good or anything.. but this is the reason why many in my country (Austria) marry before the first child arrives.
So in Belgium most people don't change names, and it causes zero problems and makes it seem weird why anybody would ever do such a thing, I mean when I first heard about this I was totally baffled: What about your email address? Your publications? Your personal projects? Your github? It's crazyness!
If you can remember different first names, why couldn't you remember different last names?
As for kids: it's pretty simple, pick a name of one of the parents. Nothing confusing about it. A name (first+last combo) is an identifier of a person.
> it seem weird why anybody would ever do such a thing
Are you seriously baffled why people choose to do symbolic things to show their love for each other and show how they are bringing their lives together, even when it isn't convenient to do so?
If you genuinely are then I can't imagine how you are living day-to-day in human society because people do all kind of things like that in all parts of society.
The writer of the original article seemed to be not particularly happy to have to "deal with that experience", so was it a choice, or was it an expectation of society there?
It's not a constructive expectation of a society to have imho. A name is an identifier of a person. You need a first and last one to have less same-name clashes.
You'd have to ask her. She may have wanted to change her name, and was just disappointed that the process wasn't easier, such as publishers having some kind of system to help you, or something like that maybe. But yes I guess it's possible her mother nagged her to do it or some other kind of social pressure, that's possible. But as I say you'd have to ask her.
> What about your email address? Your publications? Your personal projects? Your github?
What portion of people do you think have any of those other than the email address (which for many people's personal addresses doesn't even include their full name)? For my wife at least, the email address is what convinced her to change her name because it made it possible for her to get the address firstnamelastname@gmail.com.
A bit of a digression, and maybe this is a west vs. east coast thing--I couldn't detect the author's location--but starting an email to one's manager with "Hey $name" seems disrespectful. Additionally, asking folks "please don't address me with 'Hey'" I imagine to be ticklish business.
I'm pretty sure I've started emails to my manager with yo!and a lot worse.
If your worried about how you're subordinates are addressing you in an email you need to get a life. Not sure I'd want to work somewhere where my manager is stuck up / has an inflated sense of his importance. Maybe I've always been lucky to have relaxed managers, sort that I can go get drunk with.
I've generally stuck to "Hi [Name]" for managers and employees with whom I had a strained relationship. Otherwise "hey" felt fine. This is in East Coast software companies and academia.
Overall I'd say I hey'd about 80% of bosses and 95% of employees at least some of the time.
You are on their property, on a domain that carry their first and last name. I think it's safe to say that they are free to use a friendly tone in that context.
Always "Hi $name" or "Hello $name". "Hey" feels to me like a California-ism and just a touch too informal for email in particular. Whether the downvotes on my original comment support or reject this hypothesis, I cannot say.
I use it frequently with multiple managers and directors. It entirely depends on your relationship with the person. Sometimes you can cultivate a relationship where being so formal and subservient is unnecessary, if not counter productive.
I am in California, so perhaps this is just confirmation of your guess that it's a California-ism, but I certainly use "Hey $name" and even less formal things (if that's possible) to address my manager (and even my CEO). I did the same when working in upstate NY, though (~15 years ago), and my impression is that such informality isn't particularly unique.
I've actually never worked anywhere such formality was expected, and suggesting something like that would probably get you some weird looks. I wonder if it's an industry thing? Perhaps some industries tend to enforce politeness/formality between rungs in the career ladder more than others?
If it is really really that bad, it's a much better outcome to leave amicably versus fighting to fix the issue. Remember that software is a very small industry we all work together in.
There's no candid way to fix your manager's behavior if they are non-existent, or completely detached from their team. Especially if your manager's manager does not care or know.