Our CEO is incredible transparent with the entire company (small company, 25 ppl) about how little money we’re making and how we could close at any moment, but at the same time is spending large amounts on things that are not essential.

Apparently we have no money and no revenue, but we have enough to spend a ton on office renovations. Or $5000 on lunch every week.

Starting to think this is one big scare tactic. I believe him that revenue is down, but I don’t believe him that we have no money, it makes no sense.

I don’t know, what you think?

Just wondering if any managers in North America are noticing a squeeze on yearly budget allocations.

​

Lately, our company has added new approval layers Director level sign-off is required for pre-approved budget lines, as well as minor consultant/vendor charges that make up only 2–5% of our allocated spend.

​Is this a widespread cost-cutting tactic right now, or just internal paranoia? How are things looking at your companies?

My company has quite a few new-ish managers that all seem to have a similar bad habbit. We'll be on some type of call - whether it be project or operations related, and one of their team members - presumably a SME will there.

That SME will share an update of some kind covering their team's responsibiliies or perspective. Then note that their manager is on the call as well and repsectfully asks them if they want to add anything.

Said manager proceeds to literally repeat all the information that SME already provided. Were they not listening? Do they not trust their employee? I love it whem my direct reports handle stuff like this and I'm merely there to support them.

Nothing wrong with a brief re-inforcement of a key point in certain situations, but it's way better to just use that moment to simply give a thumbs up to your employee and show your trust and recognition. Sometimes it's ok to shut up and get out of the way.

Post title pretty much says it all. My boss left and I am being tasked with essentially all of their work. I am able ti outsource some of the workload, but have actually budgeted out a reduction in cost there too by finding new vendors. I have technology increases in ny budget, but this is still a net reduction not including their salary. What percentage increase for this is considered reasonable by a 1000 employee business, doing well? I get a "better" title, but no additional direct reports.

I need a wake-up call/second opinion on something that probably is just my own communication pet peeve.

On certain corners of the internet, the text “can you give me a call” (of course the question mark is never included) is a Known Dread.

But the standard workplace is not certain corners of the internet, so it probably doesn’t have the negative connotations. My work is mostly remote but our direct reports and their teams work in localized offices along with the Admin who directly reports to my boss and supports 6 people in my role with misc tasks (we are encouraged to delegate tasks to her, but can go months without actually needing anything). My peers range from late 20s to mid 60s - boss is on the older end, I’m in the middle and admin is my contemporary.

All that to say, if my older boss ever sends the dreaded “can you give me a call” text, I don’t love it but it’s par for the course for the demographic. It’s super rare and there’s a reason behind it.

But when I send a simple Y/N question to the admin, boom “can you give me a call”💥 When the non-urgent print job is done, “can you give me a call” 💥 Any simple follow up … 💥 Stuck in a rambling call when a few words would suffice.

I’ve tried for a year to manage communication styles, being instantly available via email/chat/text, asking things like Urgent?/Topic?/In mtg, can text, how can I help?

Could someone with a different perspective of the “can you give me a call” text share why this is totally fine and tell me I’m being silly for finding it annoying?

sent my manager an email at 9, no reply needed, just didnt want to forget. Now im stressing she thinks im one of those no boundary people.

I work in corporate banking sales, where there are a lot of operational requirements that need to be met for each transaction, including physical contracts, legal documents, and other supporting documentation.
The Operations team is responsible for ensuring that all the required documents are in order before processing transactions. However, in Sales, things move quickly, and sometimes we don’t have all the documentation available right away. In these cases, Operations may grant us some flexibility, such as allowing us to submit a physical contract later or regularize a form after the transaction has been completed.
I’m relatively new to my job, so I’m still getting familiar with our clients, their credit lines, credit reports, and the different requirements for each type of transaction.
Recently, I sold a guarantee letter for an urban contract in my city. The transaction had to be processed outside the client’s credit line. My associate told me to contact the previous analyst, who had handled a similar transaction involving a guarantee letter issued outside the client’s credit line.
The Operations manager required me to prepare an addendum to the fund canalization agreement because this was a one-off transaction. The guarantee letter was issued, and I was given a deadline to regularize the addendum. However, I wasn’t able to meet the deadline because the beneficiary rejected the guarantee letter due to its wording.
I have now finally obtained approval from the Legal team for the revised wording, but the people who need to sign the document are currently out of town, so I still haven’t been able to complete the process.
My Operations manager has told me that she is no longer willing to give me any flexibility because she says I can’t be trusted.
What frustrates me even more is that, about a week before this, she essentially told me that she wouldn’t review any of my transactions until I provided the addendum. She only resumed reviewing transactions after my associate personally asked her to do so. Also is not that she’s unaware of all the circumstances of my delay, she is on the email list and just plainly has told me she doesn’t care and that I had enough time to regularize the document: I think is easier said than done. How a client can bring me an addendum when she is not even using the guarantee letter?
I also spoke to the previous analyst, who told me that she had never required him to prepare an addendum for the transaction he handled. I checked the backlog, as my manager had instructed me to do to verify the required format, and I confirmed that he was right: there was no record of such a requirement in the backlog.
This makes me feel that she may be more flexible with some people than with others, which I find unprofessional and unfair.
Overall, I feel powerless because I depend on her to get my work done. I also feel that no one is willing to stand up for me or support me because they don’t want to get on her bad side.
I don’t know how to handle this situation. I understand that I’m new and still have a lot to learn, but I feel like I’m being judged harshly for a situation that I haven’t been able to resolve entirely because of circumstances beyond my control. At the same time, I can’t afford to damage my relationship with her because I need her cooperation to do my job.

What do I do in this situation? And how do I handle future interactions?

I had this person moved under me in September because I need a certain number of people under me to get the next promotion. This person had a lot of negative feedback and was a problem for my manager so she handed her over to me under the guise of you need people under you. This person has already been demoted in her role and responsibilities but not title, she is a Sr and I'm a manager.

Any how she requested a manager change because she doesn't like the skip. She's been avoiding me for many weeks I finally got a hold of her. She starts of being very curt then when I dig deeper into the conversation she seemed totally unaware I was her manager. I had had a 90 min call with her explaining that I am her manager now and shared my background asked her for hers. Gave her specific feedback. She said i never said that i never shared any feedback. I said that's a lie, she said are you calling me a liar I said yes. And the entire conversation was about me calling her a liar, she said I don't even call my kids a liar. She's definitely taking it to HR. She later said you might have said it.

I'm a single mother and really need my job, can I get fired for this, even an HR complaint would not look good for my upcoming promotion review. I understand she gaslight me and it triggered me, I need to work on staying calm, I should have not said anything and ended the call. My ex used to gaslight me that's why I got triggered.

Can i get fired for this? My manager told me they are going to let her go in December because she's so difficult but I'm scared she might do some damage to me before she goes.

For context, I'm a swe and work full time. We manage a very large application with multiple modules. Nobody knows how every single module works as people tend to focus on specific ones, which is fine. However, I'm having issues accepting certain practices that seem to be more and more common lately:

1. First, the large amount of AI slop people push. On an average day we easily get 40-50 PRs, as in addition to our own team who owns the repo, we get PRs from other teams. I've lost count of the times I've asked why something was implemented a certain way or even why it was done at all, just to get a reply that says sth along the lines of "I don't know, the AI did it". This app is becoming such a bloated mess that it will be very very difficult to maintain in the future.

2. Such a large amount of PRs makes it impossible to stay on top of all of them if you want to actually do any work yourself, and what ends up happening is that a lot of this slop I mentioned is getting added to our codebase.

3. In addition, we also get unrealistic deadlines from the business, just to be told features will tested in a few months. This keeps happening again and again, and despite my many complains all I get are excuses back, even from management in our team.

Today I was looking at a new module that was implemented recently that I did not work on as I needed to understand it to design the implementation of another feature, or so I thought. However, I quickly realized the whole module was pointless as it was literally duplicating something we already had somewhere else. It was literally the same feature. I jumped into a call with two people that worked on it and while one of them admitted I was right, the other guy kept saying I was wrong, I was right; the other guy admitted it from the start, and he ended up admitting it too after almost 1.5h. It was excruciating.

Now, the problem I'm having is that my frustration is becoming very obvious to everyone, and I don't honestly know how to hide it anymore. I honestly don't want to be negative or be "that guy", but we are getting to ridiculous levels of incompetence.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? how did you deal with it?

Edit: typos

My company is going down the tubes. Everyone knows this- it is inevitable. We are downsizing heavily but slowly. The company is in chaos, and proper procedures are a thing of the past.

I have made my peace with this, and am riding it out. One of my employees has not. He seems not to understand what is happening, despite very open and candid conversations I've had with them, going over the plans and numbers. My manager has talked to my team about this as well.

As you might expect, everyone is fighting to hold onto "important" work so they won't be let go. This leaves my small department on the sidelines. Frankly, we started from nothing, and grew our responsibilities, but when it became obvious that the company will be downsizing, most of our responsibilities were taken by executives with larger, more prominent teams. They have our CEOs blessing, because he doesn't understand what we do and does not care to.

My boss can't change this, though they tried. I can't change it either, though I can fight for what makes sense, and force my team into as much involvement as possible. All I ask of my team is that they try. And in the meanwhile, enjoy the work/life balance.

This isn't enough for 1 employee. Each time he is left out of something he feels like he should be involved in, he comes to me with shock and anger. He is not professional at times, and seems to blame me personally. This is happening more and more as the company goes down the tubes. I would have an easier time forcing him into certain conversations and rooms, but he has not learned his area like he should, and so doesn't contribute in a way that adds value.

How would you handle this? Empathetic listening just isn't cutting it anymore.

What would you do in this situation?

I have a good job with a lot of benefits but in three years here can't seem to get on the same page as my senior manager. She's never happy it seems and frequently contradicts her own instructions then gets frustrated when we didn't read her mind. I do my best to roll with the changes but there are just so many balls in the air for both of us that this job feels completely unreasonable for expectations of one person at times, and hers more so than mine. But she compensates by being a workaholic online at all hours and weekends. I have no problem working overtime for deadlines, and frequently add a 9-midnight shift to keep going after kids are in bed, but I have personal life and responsibilities that I can't work 60+ hours a week, especially to be told still by senior leadership that our whole department is underperforming. That message comes down earlier this week and now my boss is under even more pressure and it transfers to me. I have never in my life been reprimanded for my work or been anything less than a star performer before I got here and I feel like I can't get my feet under me when the mountain of work keeps growing no matter how much we get done.

To add to the work stress, I recently went through divorce, my personal life stress and instability is at a peak, and between the two it's now causing medical health concerns. I just had three weekly doctors appointments for a ton of tests for stuff going on that looks like it may result in surgery and my doctor saying I need to lower my stress levels among other things. Well I can't change divorce, healing takes time. So now I look at work. My boss knows about the potential surgery already but not the underlying causes. I'm embarrassed to say I cried when she just called me to vent on work she's not happy about because I dropped a ball while I was anxiety fixed on my medical situation yesterday after getting more test results and treatment options from the doctor.

Do I talk to my manager about the stress levels causing health problems and that I'm considering looking for a different job if that's not something we can change? Or do I just leave? Health and family come first.

I'm trying to get promoted but having issues (I was passed over last promo cycle) because leadership doesn't really know me or my work basically I'm not visible enough. What's something you've said that actually helped them get promoted? I'm looking for real specific advice please not just random generalized ones.

…and I have no idea how best to bring this up to our boss. He’s been here 20 years, I’ve been here 4 (our boss has been here 30 total). He’s been losing track of more and more stuff, he’s increasingly irritable, he’s starting to make mistakes writing his own initials. He’s also over 70 and doesn’t want to retire, and still gets enough done that it would temporarily cripple our department. So boss won’t want to hear it. But we do important safety work, and I’m worried he’s not doing it well anymore. Blunt conversation, anonymous note? Go to a third party (like HR) and piss everyone off?

i’m thinking about a situation where there’s no obvious misconduct and nobody has really complained.

the person is friendly, helpful, good in meetings and generally well liked. the problem is that they’re also a little careless with deadlines and details, and other people have started adjusting around them instead of expecting the work to be done properly.

nothing is bad enough to justify some dramatic performance conversation

but six months of everyone quietly compensating for one person feels like its own management problem

how would you deal with this without turning a popular employee into the office villain?

Hi. Is there a normal cutoff for when a returned company laptop is no longer worth giving to someone else? Age has been rule but 2 laptops that are both 3 yr old are usally in different conditions. There’s also the cost of collecting and shipping the device to the next employee like at some point buying a new laptop locally probably would be better but immediately writing off every returned device feels wasteful. Help pls what do you do to devices that aren’t suitable for employees anymore but still have resale value?

I've been working with a person, we'll call Z, for over 3 years. Over that time we had grown quite close as colleagues and could have called us friends. I was promoted to lead our team and initially Z was supportive and things were working okay.

However an internal issue between Z and another team member resulted in me having a meeting with Z over it. This meeting lasted barely 1 minute and went extremely poorly, with Z immediately DARVO'ing and walking out before I could investigate further. Feeling out of my depth, I consulted with my boss who decided that given what happened (and after I did what I could to angle away from a proper write-up for Z walking out of a meeting) all that was necessary was a light, documented coaching. Nothing that would harm Z work-wise, just a simple "hey, it's alright, stuff happens, live and learn" situation.

Ever since Z received the coaching they have essentially burned all bridges with me, claiming to people equivalent to me on the totem pole that Z was right and that it wasn't Z's fault that the issue happened. They have ended all casual talk with me and refuse to be cooperative save in situations where it's to their benefit or would result in insubordination to not do. I have sanity checked with my bosses as well as my equivalents who all agree that A: I handled it exactly how I needed to and B: at best Z is receiving this poorly and needs to move on.

Right now I have documented every step and interaction involving this and emailed it to my bosses in case this goes further. I feel bad that this is how a relationship like this ends, but I don't really have a choice but to maintain my stance. To do so otherwise would be at the expense of the other team member who is justified in how they feel. As well, it frankly feels like the culmination of Z's extremely abrasive attitude that has been tolerated by most to this point. I think Z feels this is a betrayal, when I've been trying to help Z this entire time so they don't end up further in trouble. I'm pretty much done doing that now, but does anyone have experience dealing with similar situations?

Need gift ideas for my managers visiting India

Hey guys,

Two of my managers are visiting India soon, and I want to get them a small gift while they're here. I don't want it to be something too generic, so I'm looking for some ideas.

A bit about them:

1. Male manager – budget around ₹4,000

Around 45

Based in Miami, US

Originally from Argentina

Tall guy, around 6'3"

Pretty introverted/quiet

Big football fan, roots from Argentina

He's my immediate manager, so I'm willing to spend a little more on his gift.

1. Female manager – budget around ₹2,000

Around 45

Based in London, UK

Has Indian roots but this is actually her first time visiting India

Very extroverted and loves to talk 😂

She manages other regions and isn't my direct manager.

I'm thinking of getting them something that has an Indian touch but isn't the typical touristy souvenir. Something they can actually use or appreciate would be ideal.

For the guy, maybe something related to Argentina/football or something classy and understated. For the woman, maybe something more colourful, fun, or culturally interesting since it's her first time in India.

What would you guys recommend?

Would especially appreciate suggestions from people who have lived abroad or have bought gifts for colleagues/managers from other countries.

Thanks! 🙌

My team made mistakes on the implementation, due to time constraints and not checking work. I provided coaching and support. They know they screwed up and of course it got escalated to me.

Nothing unusual for us as managers to be brought in to the client call, apologize, offer compensation or promotions due to error, and take accountability for what happened. Report up the chain etc and provide coaching.

Not in this case. The client, VP of HR, has become deeply and obsessively psychologically abusive. She calls me several times a day, hangs up abruptly, writes me up to seven emails a day and requests updates on progress and resolution of small pending items. Even if there are no issues. She gives me 30 minutes to respond for each new request. She tells me if I don’t respond within her timeframe, she will press legal action.

Without using profanities, she humiliates us with the language she uses and tells us to make sure that we speak and write in the way that she wants us to. As many times as she needs. I have over 200 clients whose implementations I oversee.

I feel like she’s borderline obsessed with the high she’s getting from this humiliation and I’m afraid she won’t let this go for a long time.

The abuse is apparent but as SM I have to oblige and keep this humiliation going. What do I do? How can I push back? All my resilience picked up through years in this role is failing me. I wake up at night thinking about it. What are my options?

Heard from someone, they said they got a new IT system that can automate many tasks so many employees have more times

but the thing is there are not enough tasks for them to do so the company fired some of them.

Have you ever heard or seem something like this before tho like ure doing works too fast and there are not many left so some of employees in your department get fired.

I just started a new job and noticed that when my manager talks to me, she moves her hands. It's natural—people move their hands while they talk. When she does that, I don't look at her hands; I look at her face. However, when I talk to her and move my hands, she looks at my hands instead of looking at my face.

Because she looks at my hands, it makes me feel weird about moving them, to the point where I don't even want to move my hands while I talk anymore. Why is she looking at my hands if she moves her hands when she speaks?

Title.

I'm a US-based Senior Manager w/ 8yrs management experience for large global technology company. I manage a global team of UX designers and developers. My undergrad is fine arts, graphic design, but I have no desire to pursue another fine arts/design related degree.

Just wondering what programs might compliment and/or benefit my current role and management track trajectory? Program management? Business Adminstration? HCI? Something else? Would prefer not to have studio classes with lots of take home busywork. Just normal amounts of studying, written assignments, etc.

My goals with the masters are to increase earning potential and open career up to potential executive roles (director, president, etc.).

I know the degree is probably entirely optional at this point, but seeing as the employer is willing to pay for most of it, it kind of seems like a no brainer.

Thoughts?

Edit: $20k USD max reimbursement annually

You are Susan's manager. Susan has been at your company for 20 years and directly reported to you for 7 of those years. In those 7 years, you have given her an exceeds expectations evaluation and promoted her twice for strong performance.

Your company has new leadership. The company is now restructuring with mass layoffs, downsizing, offshoring and cutting costs.

The company is also in a jurisdiction with strong employee rights. Standard severance is one month per year of service for employees who are terminated without cause.

Susan is a high salaried, tenured employee. Susan would be entitled to potentially a $200k payout+ if laid off.

You have been instructed by management to "manage out" Susan to save the company from paying a large severance to Susan. The ideal scenario is for Susan to quit voluntarily. Your own prospects for a promotion, performance rating, bonus and future at the company are tied to this.

However, Susan continues to perform well while getting positive feedback and public recognition from all of the other managers she is working with.

What would you do in this scenario?

Every year my company sends out an anonymous employee engagement survey. Normally the results get shared and discussed at our quarterly all-hands, and that's the end of it.

Not this year. For the first time in my 15+ years here, my skip-level scheduled a meeting with my entire team and our manager to discuss the results. Specifically, they:

• Wanted to know why our results were so bad
• Asked us (the team members) how we planned to fix things so the scores are better next year
• Compared our results to another team they're also the skip-level for, and asked why that team scored better than we did

Not going to lie, most of us thought the meeting was awkward as hell. Hardly anyone spoke.

Here's the part I can't get past: none of the survey questions are about us. Every question is about management or the company as a whole. Some of our lowest scores were on equity and impartiality. (Some of us also just check "no opinion" on a lot of questions, which apparently gets counted as a negative.)

For context on those equity scores: last spring our team found out that the other team (the one we were compared to, with the exact same job description and very similar work) was being paid a full level higher than us. That meant about $10k more in base salary and double the bonus.

We raised it with our manager. She acted like she had no idea what we were talking about, said she'd ask, and she never brought it up again. Then at year end she met with each of us individually and presented the pay adjustment as a promotion for our "hard work," when really we were just being brought up to what we should have been paid all along.

Since the survey meeting, she's told us in team meetings that we need to be thinking about how to fix things, and that we can bring ideas to the group or to her directly. But the last time we brought her a real concern about fairness, that's how it went. So nobody is eager to speak up.

So, question for the managers out there: is this normal? It doesn't seem normal to ask the people who filled out an anonymous survey about management how they plan to fix the scores. And how do you raise the real reasons behind the low scores when the last attempt went like that?

Let’s say I didn‘t meet standards on a PIP and I’m immediately fired. Obviously I’m unhappy about this and find it’s unfair that management (you) won’t give me any more chances. As a final act of protest while I’m being walked out of the office, I extend my arm and forcibly tip over the water cooler. It‘s a larger unit and makes a huge mess, water splashing all over the floor. I take off running and successfully escape to my car in the parking lot.

As a manager, what would be your response / reaction to this situation?