Hacker News Reader

Comment by infecto | Hacker News Reader

I can only speak from and engineers view but my hope is that I have a good enough relationship with my manager that we can have an open dialogue. You should also have pretty wide berth in what you can say, even if the complaints or comments are unjustified, sometimes people need to vent.

If I was scared to vent to my manager I would be looking for a new job.

View on HN

Many managers could interpret it as a bad attitude or lack of motivation. As an engineer, I don't like having a financially risky conversation every week or two weeks. There's too many variables and ways to screw up.

Being in that kind of environment is stressful. If you can't trust the person above you to have your back you're going it alone. I hate working in places you have to feel unreasonably guarded.

Isn't this the norm outside of the Silicon Valley bubble? Maybe everyone I know (including myself) all just happen to have worked for shitty companies all our careers, but I don't know of any company where I would be comfortable "venting" to my manager.

This is probably why:

- Only 30% of employees are engaged

- 50% of employees have left a job to get away from a manager

- 25% of Millennials plan to quit their job in the next year.

Unfortunately, HR is who watches over these issues and are totally disconnected from the root problem (bad management issues). They focus on compliance, lawsuits, and stability. Usually their org is small too, so they have no idea what it's like to have 10 direct reports and constant pressure to ship.

I think it depends on where you are and what the market looks like. The only time I felt at all hesitant about shooting straight with my manager was my first job out of college when I didn't know any better. In every subsequent job, I had no fear of unemployment, and without that fear 1:1's became a very enjoyable experience. I could be honest, and that begets honesty in return, and when I was managing people I paid that forward.

You know what puts the fear of unemployment into you? A sudden bout of unexpected unemployment.

Been there. I was your-services-are-no-longer-required at a job in 2013; that's what precipitated my career pivot into devops/platform infrastructure. I was out of work for about eight weeks, five of which were by choice (and my new company paid me a significant bonus to start that early).

That said, yes, the notion of "hey, I could get fired for this" did sometimes enter my head afterwards, but I never feared it, because I knew I had options.

In all seriousness, what do you do that you're so secure with your manager that you have no fear of getting fired for saying or implying the wrong thing?

Every place I've ever worked at groans at the expense of people, and will use every means available to reduce that cost.

It seems we've had very different professional experiences (not a dig at you, seriously).

Most of the places I've worked I have never felt like I needed to bite my tongue, and the couple places where I did, I burned out of quickly because they were such toxic environments.

I'm secure with my manager because the culture of the workplace isn't toxic, and we have aligned goals, and so the 1-on-1 meetings are a good place to discuss issues. We all want to ship product, and so bringing up things that might compromise that shared goal is important.

That said, I have a particular bit of privilege - I have no children or family to support. My finances are excellent and I can support a very long period of unemployment if needed, and I work in a niche that is in-demand where I'd be able to have a new job in the order of hours or days if I were unceremoniously fired. I also keep my professional networks up to date and I interview well.

All of these combine such that I'm basically never stressed about getting fired. If they fire me, shrug. They will likely have a rougher time finding my replacement than I will finding a new job.

To add on to this, if what you are saying is constructive, meant to be meaningful/helpful, and is true- then what fears of getting fired should you have?

Even if you're just bitching about some thing/person/policy that gets on your nerves- if what you're saying isn't slanderous and is true, why should you fear repercussion?

If being candid with your boss means you have to worry about your job, you would probably be happier elsewhere.

This chart says it all: To be engaged at work you have to have a trusting relationship with your manager...

https://getlighthouse.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Ga...

(Source: Gallup State of the American summary: https://getlighthouse.com/blog/gallup-employee-engagement-su...)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com