Re:How learned helplessness happens in engineering teams
by julian_sark on Wednesday November 03, 2021 @06:42AM
(#29092948)
> that bringing this stuff to my manager is even worse ...
This.
While I currently have a manager that mostly understands such complaints, I have learned that even then, it amounts to nothing. Because he can't change material things without invoking higher-ups, and they won't be brought on board. For one thing because that would require a lower level manager to create tasks for a higher manager. And that's not how management works in many companies: A lower level manager didn't get to be a lower level manager by creating "work" for higher-ups. He got to be a lower level manager by absorbing the complaints from the ground force, assuring them that their voice is heard while at the same time shielding the higher-ups.
Maybe I've just been in sh*tty IT companies all my life, but I'm seeing this, and similar pattern for nearly 30 years now, and that's why I'm now searching for a job that is as far away from the potential to create overbearing complexity as possible. Even to be point where salary be damned.
This.
While I currently have a manager that mostly understands such complaints, I have learned that even then, it amounts to nothing. Because he can't change material things without invoking higher-ups, and they won't be brought on board. For one thing because that would require a lower level manager to create tasks for a higher manager. And that's not how management works in many companies: A lower level manager didn't get to be a lower level manager by creating "work" for higher-ups. He got to be a lower level manager by absorbing the complaints from the ground force, assuring them that their voice is heard while at the same time shielding the higher-ups.
Maybe I've just been in sh*tty IT companies all my life, but I'm seeing this, and similar pattern for nearly 30 years now, and that's why I'm now searching for a job that is as far away from the potential to create overbearing complexity as possible. Even to be point where salary be damned.