Ask HN: Have you ever experienced workplace 'mobbing' by managers or directors? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Have you ever experienced workplace 'mobbing' by managers or directors?

6 pointsfred929 comments

Either directly towards you or to someone adjacent to you? What did you do about it? Leave the company, switch your team, just keep your head down, talk to someone (HR?)?

Without going into too much detail, my manager was 'mobbed' by their director to a point where the director spread false rumors about them (found out about this from several people high up in the reporting chain) and the manager was forced to switch teams. I was appalled at the power directors can wield and the power disparity, the lack of transperency (and at the fact that the other people higher up in the reporting chain were not willing to or able to stand up for them even though they knew the rumors were fabricated)

Now a close friend is going through something similar at a FAANG company being seemingly targeted by their director pushed to leave a team they have been happy and effective (high performance ratings) on for years.

Especially wondering if there is any director, VP level people here who could shed light on how common this is and how accepted it is at your company? What are your options when this happens to you?

So, several notes:

1) business bureaucracy is, in truth, more or less like the inside of the old Soviet bureaucracy and Politburo, except instead of getting killed or imprisoned you get fired. There is no guarantee of fairness or rationality.

2) this sort of thing happens more often if it's a "shrinking pond", where people start to think that somebody's going to get laid off, so they need to start discrediting somebody else so it won't be them. In good times, everybody has more work that needs doing than they have people to do it, and they behave differently (typically).

3) it is never easy to get a different job, and especially not in tech right now, but it's harder when you don't have one; you should start looking now.

Here's a trick. HR people know this backwards and forwards, it's their job. DO NOT go to the HR in your own company, instead try to find someone at a different company. A friend of a friend, someone you know from church or anywhere else. Buying them lunch is good because it gives you plenty of time to talk over the issues. As a bonus it's also a backdoor job interview at the same time.

But to steal a line from the Mel Gibson movie where he had blue paint on his face:

"The Lord tells me he can get me out of this mess, but he's pretty sure you're foocked."

It wouldn't happen in my company, but the Serbian law would also protect the employee enough that you'd need written proof about the behaviour, and the HR and legal team would have to review it to ensure we are not getting in trouble if we ever get sued for wrongful termination.

But even in the US part of the company, it should be hard for it to play out, but probably a lot easier: while most people, including other directors, seem to be good human beings, we are all stretched extremely thin and I am sure someone could easily get something to slip past us.

TBH, I am always surprised how do people get into situations like this and what are the types of people that do this? Like what do they gain from it? How far it takes them? I know I am naive and I have seen my fair of shit over ~20 years in the industry, but it still boggles my mind.

On the other side of it, I am sure one person — they under-performed but thought extremely high about themselves and got frustrated when I disagreed — would have claimed they were being mobbed by me (even after attempting to get improvements from them for 6+ months). So since you are not in your close-friend's shoes, do take note that they might not be sharing the full story and they are certainly not 100% objective either.

But for anyone having these sorts of disagreements with me, I advise reaching out to an HR or my superior directly with specific instances of problems they have concerns about or feel I am misrepresenting. For my part, I keep records of chats, emails and 1-1s to establish "facts" that drive any decisions I make, especially when it comes to life-affecting decisions like these.

I happen to have a lot of insight into the situation and in this case there is also written "proof" (good feeedback, good ratings from a lot of other people etc.) Of course there is always two sides to a story.

Since I for obvious reasons can't go into a lot of details this is more of a hypotetical: Assuming there is a bad apple director what should one do?

I do generally agree with also giving directors/managers the benefit of the doubt of course and not immediately jumping to feeling targeted/mobbed.

In the case I faced, the person also had good non-anonymous performance feedback from colleagues, but in 1-1s their collegues shared they were afraid to contradict them because of their aggressive demeanor and how convinced they were they were always right.

But let's assume this is not the case and the director is really mobbing them. In that case, I'd first go directly to them and ask them plainly what they are saying about my performance and why? You might be surprised at the results (and also point both sides at Radical Candor).

But if that does not work, and you've tried going to HR, their superior and their peers, and none of it helped, the only obvious choice is to leave (why stay at an org like that?) if you can afford it (at one of my previous jobs, I confronted the director myself, who ended up agreeing with me but still promoted another person over me for very dubious reasons — when I felt I was being devalued, I've moved my value elsewhere).

Basically, if it is a situation where one is not being recognized and there is no obvious way to fix that (talking to them directly, their superior, HR, their peers), the most reasonable thing is to leave

Start collecting evidence for the upcoming wrongful termination lawsuit. Or just quit.

I would have them contact an employment attorney and start documenting a paper trail for a wrongful termination suit. Emotions are unhelpful, default to action.

Well, call the bully guy to a staircase, make sure nobody is there, then recreate the this is sparta moment. You, people, should stick together and don't let anyone to be singled out or partake in psycho games.

Isn’t this just called being managed out?

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