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Comment by psyc | Hacker News Reader

This was my reaction as well. The skip-level should not be the first person to let them know they're perceived as under-performing. OP: Schedule a 1 on 1 with your direct manager and have a conversation about all of this.

My skip-level at my first MAAAM job used to snipe at me when I was a new hire. He told me to my face he "would not have chosen me" and "didn't know how I got in." It made me so angry it was all I could do to hold my tongue until I got the fuck out of his office. But I went on to become very successful there, and he eventually had no choice politically but to support me. He got managed out a couple of years later.

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> He told me to my face he "would not have chosen me" and "didn't know how I got in."

Holy shit. Glad that this person got managed out... eventually.

Can be motivitating words for some people. Coaches will say stuff like this to a talented athlete who is underachieving, if they think it will light a fire.

A good manager would not say stuff like that unless he really felt the person would take it the right way. A bad manager will say stuff like that to stroke his own ego.

I don't think tech managers should be taking management lessons from Full Metal Jacket in any case. But I sat at a lunch table with this guy every day for 3 years, and I know he was not trying to motivate me. He was trying to keep me in my place.

Coaches are not involved in hierarchical relationship where they could fire you or make your life hell. Neither they are involved in the decision of how much you should earn or if you should be promoted or not.

So those are absolutely different sorts of relationships. The coach is not your superior so it changes everything about what they could say to you and the consequences it could have on you.

So no, a good manager should never say stuff like that. It's the sort of words that can be the involuntary sparkle which could ignite depression or even suicide. And for what ? A better performance at writing crud programs ? No. Professional things are not important enough to say any of this.

I would also add that sports can be highly emotional games, and getting a player angry or passionate (assuming they direct this at the other team) can actually be productive. This isn't the case with work that requires higher level of cognition, and not smashing someone against the wall to get a puck from them hah. I wouldn't want my subordinates to be angry at me or the rest of the organization for any reason.

I know how that "I wouldn't have hired you" thing feels. I didn't go to college for software dev, but am now working at my second job. When I got hired at the first, eventually a conversation came up that was supposed to be light-hearted with all the employees at a lunch (small startup), and the CEO (who is the one who had interviewed me) said "when you got to work coding, you seemed very experienced. But had I known you were only __ years old, I wouldn't have hired you."

Not sure if it was meant to be a good job, or a "you're lucky."

sorry, not aware of that acronym, is that a new acronym for FAANG? I could see facebook turning into meta, google to alphabet... can't see netflix in there? is the other M microsoft?

Or is it something else?

I assume it's: Microsoft Apple Amazon Alphabet Meta, or some structure-preserving permutation thereof.

I immediately hate it.

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