Ask HN: Boss ignoring me – what next?
I know that the most common advice would be, speak to him. I am not considering it. Because it might turn out to be a false alarm I would be assigned a module which I am not interested in.
My current plan is to pretend that I am not aware of him ignoring me. And I will spend a lot of time learning technologies (Initially I wanted to quit, because it hurt me. But after reading various reviews, I learned that its pretty much the same everywhere. At least in my current company, the work life balance is very good. Since I am in 40's, I may find it a little difficult in a new company)
My question is, have you been in a similar situation?. How did you handle it?. If I want to pretend (that I am unaware), for how long can I do with some self respect?
89 comments
[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 100 ms ] threadAre you doing something trackable, like fixing bugs
Good luck!
They may have forgotten about you. They may not be checking with you because your performance ratings are high and you don't require to be "managed" that much, and their attention is on someone who's having trouble performing their job. Heck, they may be having trouble or going through harsh times. You don't know.
I have seen this very dynamic happen when I was in contact with both the "boss" and the "contributor" who felt the "boss" was mad at them and shunning them and didn't want to talk with them but I had first hand factual knowlege that none of this was true. I gave the same remark as the above. The "boss" was happy to receive the email, and the contributor was relieved to find out that all their thoughts were unfounded.
Now, I'm not telling you that your boss is not ignoring you; that is a possibility, after all. I'm telling you that there's a high chance it's not the case.
You are a seasoned contributor and it's not lost on you that managing your manager is something you ought to do.
>My guess is that, he wants to promote his favorites and he wants me to leave on my own. How do I handle this situation?
>I know that the most common advice would be, speak to him. I am not considering it. Because it might turn out to be a false alarm I would be assigned a module which I am not interested in.
This is a dangerous vicious circle: assuming the manager has bad intentions, being aware of the most common advice, which is the most common for a reason, and not wanting to speak with the manager.
You'll go into overdrive for nothing as the work life balance is very good, and your performance is high. You will waste this.
Management depends on the "managed". A manager might let someone do practically what they want with little supervision because they have a track record of getting things done, being right almost all the time, and knowing when to tread lightly or ask for a greenlight when the risk/reward ratio calls for it. That same manager might be micromanaging on a task by task, day by day, or hour by hour someone new to the team during observation. You can point some people at a problem and forget about them. Some people will anticipate problems managers overlook. It really depends on the person. There's no size fits all in my opinion because people are different.
>I think work from home also adds to the confusion. Had there been some in person interactions, I could have interpreted better
Suggest that as an idea. Weekly or bi-weekly calls to align everyone.
I used to go on walks with team members. We'd go outside of the office and just walk in the city and talk about things. It was very, very, effective in getting people to talk about frustrations and share their opinions when we were outside of the office and there wasn't a laptop we could hide behind or a sofa to go back to. We also have a balcony in the office with a view on the Mediterranean, directly facing the port, and we've had many conversations there. We've been working remotely for a year now, and we've been doing weekly calls with Jitsi with the team. We record the videos and make them accessible for reference. This has been useful as people refer back to them. We share our screen and go through code. Sometimes we troubleshoot things and we prototype things live. It's cool.
>With due respect, he is a very mediocre manager.( in terms of technical knowledge etc.)
He's lucky to have you then. Any manager works to hire people who are way better than themselves. Why would anyone hire people otherwise? He makes decisions based on tradeoffs. He may not be great in terms of technical knowledge, but you are, he's relying on your deeper technical knowledge to make decisions and tradeoffs.
>Only silver lining for me is that, my 2nd line manager ( his boss) is technically very good and he rates me very high. He still talks to me.
Not good enough. I think this ought to be sorted out for the sake of everyone and for the sake of getting things done.
Ask an action forcing question with your default path forward if he doesn’t respond. Send an update a month later on how that turned out.
I also try to share the metrics for why I think something is valuable. Specifically calling out the quantitative and narrative value to try to have the value be understood.
So, the title of this article should instead be "I am ignoring my boss".
It's entirely possible that your boss is sitting in their office thinking about their employee that avoids them constantly and shows no initiative to involve themselves in new projects.
I don't mean to say this in a derogatory way, but I've worked with people that describe their work environment like you did in the OP. They get fired, say they knew it was coming, then blame everything but themselves.
You know what the most common advice is and you actively shun it.
Until you take some initiative, engage with your fellow humans and own up to your insecurities, you will always feel like the world is conspiring against you. It's not. The world largely doesn't care about you, doesn't remember you and is fine discarding motionless parts in the machine.
MAKE yourself useful, or accept that you didn't.
Great bosses are interested and nurture.
Ok bosses are overwhelmed and trying to stay afloat.
Bad bosses are negative forces.
It’s really nice to have a great boss, but usually I have an ok boss. So I don’t fixate if they aren’t interested, so what can I do. I can be more interesting.
Bosses aren’t parents, and they aren’t gods or shepherds. They are people too and it’s important to not build up mental fantasies where they need to be interested or there’s some exclusive choice between focusing on your own career and focusing on your bosses career.
You could confront him directly, ask him to come clear and/or you can start looking for alternatives. My opinion (I am hardly 30, so maybe think it over), is that he doesn't want to be direct with you , for whatever reasons.
Software developers are ICs.
Your boss knows you are a high performer and you are taking care of bugs and keeping it off his radar so s/he doesn't have to stress about it so he leaves you alone out of respect. He trusts you and knows you are capable and you don't need your hand held, hence your high ratings prior. He may not realize how much time has really passed because things you take up are just done and there isn't a concern and he's focused on other team members who are struggling or need more day to day help. It is possible you are reading into the situation what you fear rather then reality.
I'd suggest you call or send a quick email to your boss that isn't passive aggressive etc. But also do so to protect yourself so it is a fine line. I'd say something like, "Hey Boss, I've solved the last few defects x, y, and z and realized that we hadn't connected recently and wanted to take 5 minutes and just make sure I am doing the priorities you feel are most important." This way if he is building a case against you he'll have to respond in a way you know otherwise his case would become weaker. The fact you let it go on for months is already a weakness, but not beyond fixing. If you ignore, you will leave either by their action or your own and you'll be bitter which can poison your new job search, so do your part and then at least you feel good even if you leave as you'll know you did everything you could.
However, although the freedom was nice, it didn’t really do anything to focus my career, challenge me to improve, or advance in the organisation politically - so I switched over to working directly for one of the teams I had mostly been working for anyway, and a boss I already have a good working relationship with.
If you don’t have the working relationship with your boss that you feel you need, and don’t see them having that relationship with others - then maybe you need to consider a change. Hopefully it’s not so completely hopeless that you can’t tactfully discuss it with them, at least.
Those are the situations where "speaking up" does not help. Trying to have an honest and earnest conversation should always be the first step.
Considering that your current plan is to learn new tech on company time and not speak to your boss, the high performance rating must be due to your boss really liking you. So you have nothing to worry about.
Don't do this. Don't assume what might be happening and create stories around that and plan your career on top a big pile of assumptions. If you have concerns, speak to your manager. It doesn't need to be defensive, you don't need to make a big deal out of that conversation, just check in to see how they are doing and let them know how you are. I find it surprising that you don't already have a scheduled regular one-to-one meeting.
Maybe he does not like you but still thinks you are doing good work. In this case a formal a one-to-one and asking directly what he thinks of your work is a better approach.
If he both does not like you and does not like your work, there is not much to be done.
Honestly it sounds like you are abdicating yourself of responsibility, To be blunt Have you asked for more work?
Especially in the current situation with COVID it could be that you are simply not his top priority, maybe he assumes you have work to do and is focusing on others.
So recommendations.
- Talk to him, do not mention 'being ignored' simply tell him you're interested in the current projects and would like to be involved.
- If he is hostile/unhelpful during the conversation and decides to continue not providing work, start exploring new job options.
I have previously found myself isolated within a large compnay and used the time to learn. In my case the situation resolved when the politics changed (change of leadership) and I was re-engaged.
I've found it helpful to have a goal beyond technology - so learning a new technology would be a means to another business (social or political) outcome. As I'm sure you've experienced, technologies come and go.
During these silent months he might have had gone through covid. Or someone from his family. You don't know.
Remember that we, apart from being engineers, coders, solving business problems, whatever, we also also human and communication is a key. If I can suggest, just give him heads up, give a short report and ask how are things as it's been a while since you spoke. And that you hope that things are fine in these extraordinary times.
You cannot imagine how much people are struggling at work within these times, where on surface all seems fine.
The other side of this coin is hat you will, for the same reason, also be off the radar for any kind of promotion. Why change a winning formula, right?
It boggles my mind how people seemingly don't understand the importance of having protected time 1:1 with your direct boss.
You should request a weekly or biweekly meeting 1 on 1 and talk with him. If he refused then try to switch to a different group, or leave the company on your own terms.
A specific example: early in 2019, my boss wanted me to do interviews. I had never done interviews in 30 years as a dev, and wasn't comfortable with it, so I pushed back. He dropped it (or so I thought) and it was never mentioned again...until my performance review. That's when he said I wasn't a team player, wasn't performing my responsibilities as a senior dev, etc.
Look out...You’re becoming Milton Waddams, The Red Stapler Guy from Office Space.
Not appropriately managing-up (that is to say you actively managing Boss/Executive relationships) frankly, sounds meek.
Anyhow, modern leadership just doesn't care and is restricted to not interfere by boss' boss and guidelines. So they're basically useless for other than the strictly mundane. Connect with other bosses, owners and even techies, in order to get proper work.
It can be different from place to place, but you're mainly describing modern work culture as it is.
If not, choose a different one.
If it does, carry on.
However, I advise you check in with your boss. It's healthy. Much healthier than being assigned to a module you don't prefer. The assignment will pass. The uncertainty won't until you talk.
Good luck.
1. Update your resume. You should do this regularly even if everything is fine.
2. Ask your boss where you can help out, since you seem to have some time. That's all. Don't confront him over being ignored or any such thing. Just offer to help.
3. Start checking out other jobs you could apply for. You don't have to apply but you have to be ready to do so when the need arises.
4. If nothing else changes, your next review is likely to be terrible. Change things before that happens. Whether you change this job or change to another one, don't wait until you're angry, or worse, unemployed.
Do you want to be promoted? If so, if you can not address this issue with your boss in a professional manner, why should you be promoted?
To me it sounds like you are trying to avoid confrontation.