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Why Engineers Hate Their Managers (and What to Do About It)

(terriblesoftware.org)
85 points signa11 | 3 comments | 24 Jun 25 16:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.731s | source
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GianFabien ◴[25 Jun 25 00:45 UTC] No.44372619[source]▶
In my experience the bad managers are constantly trying to impress their bosses and curry the next promotion. They treat their reports like serfs who are obliged to burnish their image.

The best managers (very few) I've come across are like a mother bear. Protective of their team, running interference and pushing back on out of scope work, etc.

I've only ever had one manager whose calendar was viewable by his team. If he needed a meeting with you, he would ping by email with the subject and any supporting materials and asking you to block out the meeting time in his calendar. Talk about respecting your productive times.

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badpun ◴[25 Jun 25 09:09 UTC] No.44375151[source]▶
> I've only ever had one manager whose calendar was viewable by his team.

Is this an American thing? Here in Europe, it seems common. How else can you schedule meetings if you can't see when everybody's free?

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1. slumberlust ◴[25 Jun 25 11:37 UTC] No.44376100[source]▶
You can see availability but not the content of the existing meetings.
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2. badpun ◴[26 Jun 25 11:36 UTC] No.44386382[source]▶
That’s pretty standard in Europe too. It makes sense - what if the meetingd are about downsizing or outsourcing the team? The company and worker’s interested are often not alligned, so a layer of secrecy is warranted.
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3. collingreen ◴[27 Jun 25 13:21 UTC] No.44396604[source]▶
The people who think this secrecy isn't warranted probably think their managers should treat them as equals and with respect enough to discuss those things relatively in the open. Its kind of a weird thing though - a meeting can just have who is in it and not a highly revealing title like "pick the 10% of your team for my RIF so I get my bonus".