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Comment by geoffchan23 | Hacker News Reader

I'm going to try and add a different angle to this because most people here have covered what I wanted to say (performance, compensation etc.)

I would use this time to find out how your manager is doing in his/her role. Find out how you can help them. Talk to them about their frustrations and how they are feeling. Just because they are your manager doesn't mean you need to treat them like a boss all the time. Show them some care and empathy. It can go a long way for your career.

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I have pretty bad work-related anxiety and I recently started seeing a therapist who specializes in it. She recommended I start thinking of my role as solely "to make my manager look good". This changed my whole mindset from trying to be a better/more efficient developer to trying to look out for what's on my manager's plate and how my behavior would reflect on her and her team. It's really helped me and I know my manager appreciates it. I can expand on this more if anyone thinks it'd help them too.

Sure, would love to know what a change your actions would take with this mindset, thanks.

For example, we're changing some of our server infrastructure. This was supposed to be a huge project and was anticipated to take at least 6 months. I found and modified a script that will do it in ~30 seconds, took me a few hours. Instead of presenting it at our team meeting, I sent it to my manager and let her present it to her managers. Everyone was very impressed with her work writing it. I don't really care about getting credit for it since:

(1) if I want to stay here and get a promotion or raise, it'll be my manager approving that.

(2) if I decide to leave (the much more likely scenario), I don't care about how much credit I got here. My close coworkers know what I do/have accomplished which is all that matters for a reference.

After learning this, I've been trying to go to my manager with potential issues and solutions preemptively. I'll present a few solutions like "would it be helpful to you if you had ___ or ___?" and let her micromanage which one.

This is kind of ridiculous that a manager would take credit for something you wrote on your own initiative and present it as hers.

Don't hate the player hate the game.

I've had a manager take credit for my work, gaslight, and fire me when he was getting in trouble for underpreforming. I had no relationship with his bosses; I kept my nose down and did my work. I documented the craziness, but it happened so fast I could not defend myself. I learned to toot my horn some too. But really I should have left that department/company sooner. Yrmv. I don't think a good manager will take full credit for underlings work.

An old quote I found from 20 years ago:

"When you're heads down in your work, some other asshole is running around behind you taking credit for your accomplishments"

> if I want to stay here and get a promotion or raise, it'll be my manager approving that

Is this truly solely up to your immediate manager? In a lot of (most? almost all?) cases, it takes people above your manager approving it too. And if those higher-ups think that your manager did the things that are being used to justify your promotion/raise, you might not like the outcome.

Did your manager mention you at all when presenting this? That's kind of a no-go in my opinion.

I am just curious how is that helping you?

Aren't you pidgin holing yourself into a 'person I can't promote as I would have no work to steal from'?

IMO, that a manager would do this is pretty messed up. Even if YOU don't care, if this continues this manager will start to develop a reputation for taking credit from others. Then it will be much harder to recruit people internally to their team.

The best managers constantly are talking up people on THEIR team. They are responsible for creating an environment where people can excel. This makes them look good at a manager ("Everyone on my team consistently over-performs!"), everyone on the team looks great and it makes it easier for them to get recognition and promotions, and it makes it a very desirable team to work on which makes recruiting internally much easier.

This is great advice. As an employee, I've found success with the following:

- Send an agenda beforehand. This gives your manager an idea about what you'd like to discuss, so then they can prepare themselves and/or not get caught off-guard.

- At the end, I try to ask, "do you have anything for me?", which typically opens the door for them giving you feedback/thoughts if they have it. It also is a nice way to prep myself for receiving feedback vs. it coming without me "opting in."

I wrote about some other ideas on 1-1s in this guide...not sure if useful: https://www.friday.app/p/employee-1-1-meetings

This sounds good if your organisation is political. However if the coding work is below par it’ll probably get found out sooner or later. Schmooze the boss but wax on wax off make sure the basic job function is being done well enough.

In fairness, schmoozing your manager arguably makes your manager look worse, as it makes them look like their team considers them schmooz-able while producing good code automatically helps your boss look better, as it shows they, at least in part, are managing their team effectively.

As a manager i would fight this approach because the 1:1's i schedule are for an exact flip of the relationship you describe. I certainly appreciate and encourage these feelings across all my teams, but unlike ICs it's my job and I'm given the time and resources to make these changes, it's not fair to expect someone to both execute well and put all the required effort into pushing for organizational improvement

The only reason I'm in the organization is to push for organizational improvements. That's why they hired me over somebody else. That's the source of momentum in my career path and the best thing for me as well as the org.

If that isn't the case, then I'm a cog in a feature factory and that's not the job that I want to be in. I know that some companies/teams/managers approach work that way, but that's a very strong counter signal to me.

When I'm going on to my next job, do you think they want to hear what my responsibilities were or what I did at the company that made it succeed? This ties into why I think hiring is broken -- we hire for one set of skills and tend to expect delivery of another.

>push for organizational improvements

doesn't pay the light bill

> a cog in a feature factory

pays the light bills.

YMMV

Disagree. The answer is somewhere in the middle.

Every time some failing startup does a large layoff round, there's always questions of "why does X need Y many engineers?". Too many cogs in a broken organization is just burning dollars and electricity.

do things manually for as long as possible until you need to automate it.

At some point automating becomes a full-time job. And that's literally what I do.

Your concern makes sense if it's all they do. Status updates and talking about your managers needs would be a crappy 1 on 1 if that was every time. It's supposed to be the employee's meeting.

However, if you mix up what you talk about a lot, then spending some of it on managing up would be pretty smart, just like you likely only talk about their long term career sometimes.

A lot of topics and ideas to discuss here https://getlighthouse.com/blog/one-on-one-meeting-questions-...

This is really good. A lot of the other replies do talk about how bad managers will take credit for your work, but the good and okay ones will appreciate this and it will work out. Assume your manager is a good human being, or go find one that will reward this kind of behavior.

Being a manager, especially mid level, can be really lonely. Your boss is often not very available, and then you have a team you're trying to help, but with little training on how to do your job (hence the Peter Principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle).

So with that in mind, having an employee that actually cares about what your perspective, and wants to help where appropriate will be very helpful.

And this all ties back to being good at managing up, which is a really good skill to develop in your career; if you find the right leader it will lead them to taking you with them as they level up in better and better roles.

A supervisor is in a position of power over you, it's their job. What's the upside for me for potentially opening up a can of worms where I discuss their performance - that's negative? We are not friends, it's a professional relationship. If they need to talk to someone about their job, they have their boss to talk to.

Good question.

I am under the impression my manager is trying to get the next role.

If I am able to understand, and perhaps even address, my manager's concerns, then I can help them manage themselves onto the next level.

Then you should have their job :) I see what you are saying here, but it's a very fine balance and the potential downside is greater than the potential upside here so just be careful.

This is a terrible plan by the way. No one try this at home.

The upside for you asking your boss: 'what do I need to do to make your job easier' should be obvious. The reason your manager can justify employing you is because you, by working, accomplish some goal that was set for them by their manager.

If your manager has any self-interest, and isn't an idiot, they will reward people who help them look good. If your manager is an idiot and a sociopath who will instead reward people who aren't helping them look good, obviously don't try this advice.

> We are not friends, it's a professional relationship.

We are not friends, it's a feudal relationship.

FTFY.

This is the opposite why to have a 1:1.

It's like going to therapy and trying to analyze the therapist. Save your money.

Edit: grammer

Except the therapist in this case has a significant impact on your career progression. You don't have to show empathy and help them but don't be surprised when the team member who does gets promoted rather than you.

This attitude works if you have a leader for a manager. Notsomuch if s/he's a boss.

Those types do build a wall between themselves and others true. But if there is ever a time when you can break that and engage with the real person underneath I think 1-1 are it.

Those people would try not to show real weakness / vulnerability before groups of people - but just one? Maybe.

I’ve managed to build many a close relationship with people that others considered “the devil wears prada” types this way.

So strongly agree with the parent comment!

Sure it does, baring sociopaths they are still human with the usual sense of empathy. And even sociopaths have a sense of self-interest. You can trigger that sense of empathy and there's many books on it (starting with the classic How to Win Friends & Influence People). And most everyone likes someone who makes their life easier rather than harder. Hell, bosses in my experience promote sycophants (not saying you have to go that far) a lot more often than leaders do so it's likely to work even better on them.

I tried this approach and it didnt work out well for me because my company ended up doing a matrix organization and i had two managers. It turned out that being an ambassador for my current manager's concerns and wanting to make them look good in the larger org didn't work out. They just got upset when they weren't directly a part of the success I was having with the other manager and pushed me away.

This can really backfire if your superior is doing their job poorly. Sure, they will be happy to deligate tasks onto you that they are incapable of performing. But unless you make it known to their superiors that you are doing those tasks, you only end up with doing someone else's job but without their pay.

Don't do this

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