That’s not what anyone is saying. The parent comment specifically said that the OP needed to work on changing teams, not going to war with his own manager.

As a manager of managers, it’s not that hard to see when a manager’s own team doesn’t like them. Getting multiple requests from people on a team who want to escape it is a huge warning sign that warrants further investigation.

However, if I instead get reports that a team member is combative and fighting with their manager at every turn, I have to approach it as interpersonal conflict. Some times (like this story), both parties can be in the wrong. If the situation as written is accurate and honest, I’d be moving toward heavy mentorship for both parties involved but they’d both be up for removal if they couldn’t improve.

One person behaving badly doesn’t give a free license for the other person in the conflict to also behave badly. “But he started it first” isn’t even a valid excuse in elementary school and it’s not valid in the workplace either.

Managers are expected to be held up to a higher standard because they were presumed to be better at interpersonal relationships as a reason for moving into the role.

Yes, it's certainly not great when an IC is unprofessional but they're expected to be maturing over time and the range of issues that could provoke an IC to be unprofessional is vast and could conceivably never reoccur. Managers have less excuse, they're the ones placing the people on their team and they're the ones responsible for dealing with issues within their team.

Your role as a manager of managers is just to do what works. By pretending there's some external force that binds you from reaching the right decision is a way of externalizing responsibility so you can enact a decision you secretly want to but are unwilling to morally admit to yourself.

Everyone has to be mature and professional at work. Yes, management might be held to slightly higher standards, but being combative and fighting with your manager at every turn is below the standard for anyone.

a) They made up wholly out of thin air just so they could drop their "have to" line

and b) If an IC "is combative and fighting with their manager at every turn.", then holy hell, is it not an interpersonal conflict, it's even more of a management failure. The manager was the one who put the person on the team, how did they evaluate this person? Why did they not pick up on the warning signs? What stopped them from letting them go even faster?

The IC is 100% fired in this scenario but the responsibility is also 100% on the manager that this should have never happened in the first place.

An interpersonal conflict is when there is genuine differences of opinion that come from honest differences in values. Not when one or both sides are clearly wrong.

A lot of this entire thread sounds like "perfect victim" blaming. Only the perfect victims are allowed to point out abuse in the system, if you have some prior criminal history or you've made some sexual missteps in the past, then you "deserve" the police brutality/sexual harassment that was put upon you.

Standards are made wholly out of whole cloth over who gets to be the perfect victim and if you fail at any minor point of decorum, then we "have to" disregard your critique of the system because you "weren't professional enough" to have suffered management abuse.

I mean, you made up international federations of managers "out of thin air" too. That's how conversations work, people introduce things, if you have issue with a particular point you can discuss that.

>and b) If an IC "is combative and fighting with their manager at every turn.", then holy hell, is it not an interpersonal conflict, it's even more of a management failure.

It's possible some people are just combative and unprofessional, and should never have been hired in the first place (or changed over time). I agree that a manager has more responsibility for a relationship with their reports than vice versa. But, I also think it's entirely possible for an employee/contractor to just be too combative and hostile, and it not necessarily reflect on the manager too.

>A lot of this entire thread sounds like "perfect victim" blaming. Only the perfect victims are allowed to point out abuse in the system, if you have some prior criminal history or you've made some sexual missteps in the past, then you "deserve" the police brutality/sexual harassment that was put upon you.

I'm seeing the view that everyone always remain professional at work - even if other people are not. I don't think that means you "have to" disregard someone's opinion. But it means if you're not professional there can be consequences. If someone is insubordinate at work (disobeying a manager, creating sarcastic/mocking backlog issues) its common grounds for termination and blacklisting. I'm not saying this to support the status quo, I'm saying this as advice for people reading these threads and trying to navigate professional waters. It would be bad advice to suggest otherwise.

Ultimately, businesses generally function by paying you for your time. If they pay for your time, but you're not doing what they want with it, they're going to stop paying you for your time. If you have a bad manager, you need to frame it in terms of how it's detrimental to the whole business.

I disagree this has anything to do with police brutality or that those parallels are helpful. I have no requirement to be professional to the police (although, for better or worse, it's often unwise to be an asshole to cops, it is legal). Whereas I do have a requirement to be professional at work. I see the point you're trying to make, how often people who suffer police brutality are maligned due to unrelated crimes they may have commited. And that's fair, that's just personality assassination. But I would say the issues have to be taken separately - the police abuse is clearly heinous and should be stopped, but also the crimes should be treated in isolation (as they likely had been in the past). Returning to our manager/IC discussion, I'd say the unprofessional behaviour of both parties would lead to both parties getting terminated. But in reality, companies will protect management more readily than IC contractors, so I'd advise anyone in the IC's waters to tread carefully.

> An interpersonal conflict is when there is genuine differences of opinion that come from honest differences in values. Not when one or both sides are clearly wrong.

That's a good point, I agree with your framing.

But this is the exact same depersonalization rhetoric. It's some nebulous "world" that is enforcing all of these oh so unfair rules that I certainly don't agree with but have no choice but to follow also because we all agreed ahead of time what is "professional" and "unprofessional" and if you are "unprofessional", I "have to" punish you according to a formula rather than listen to your actual human complaint.

But it's all bullshit, there is no "have to" in this equation, nothing bad happens to you if you do the actual right thing. Let's call it for what it is, you want to treat it as an interpersonal conflict rather than a management failure because that absolves you from confronting structural failings in the system. But you also know that admitting such things, to yourself or others, would make you a moral hypocrite, so you invent a hypothetical other that makes you "have to" do it that way because the system has been good to you so far out of good fortune and you are afraid of what will happen if the same flawed system is now flawed against you.

That's why people do the perfect victim blaming. They want to be convinced that if the system ever came for them, a just outcome would arise because they, of course, would be totally justified and above reproach as a victim while the manifest failures of the system against other people are a result of individual exceptionalism that causes those instances not to count because they had it coming.

I'm simply asking people be honest and admit that this is what this is rather than hiding behind cowardly "professionalism" as a bunch of made up nonsense that is simply there to protect the system.

> As a manager of managers, it’s not that hard to see when a manager’s own team doesn’t like them. Getting multiple requests from people on a team who want to escape it is a huge warning sign that warrants further investigation.

This means that situation was very bad and escalated for months. This means that the team is well beyond the "own team doesn’t like them" situation. This is why it is impossible to change or fix bad managers before the team is decomposed and people suffered. If your only feedback about leadership quality and attitudes is "multiple people are escaping", then it means you are not checking on leadership quality at all.

> However, if I instead get reports that a team member is combative and fighting with their manager at every turn, I have to approach it as interpersonal conflict. If the situation as written is accurate and honest, I’d be moving toward heavy mentorship for both parties involved but they’d both be up for removal if they couldn’t improve.

This enables bully managers big time. This could be unclear competences, this could be professional disagreement, this could be manager picking on employee, mismatch of ideas about roles and it could be employee being entirely in the wrong. You start assuming interpersonal conflict, which means that if there actual causes for issues wont ever get fixed.

> if the situation as written is accurate and honest

Gotta love this assumption given that especially middle management selects for people who are neither accurate nor honest. Now, engineers are not better people in principle, but when engineers lie, it is faster to find out. Meanwhile, your rules have no "check whether the manager is telling the truth" moment.

Doing a good job of identifying teams who don't like their manager means discovering it before you have multiple people trying to transfer away from that team. By the time you've reached that point you've already failed in your job as the manager's manager.

> The parent comment specifically said that the OP needed to work on changing teams

I don't have any further thoughts, but changing teams to avoid a poor manager seems precisely like 'sucking it up'.

If you want to change something, you have to demonstrate that you’re acting in good faith and trying to work with the system rather than against it. Asking to change teams is working with the system. Getting into personal fights with your manager and escalating the battle at every opportunity is working against it.

People who work with the system and behave professionally are going to improve the overall health of a company. People who escalate every battle and want to fight every conflict until one party loses (in this case this backfired on the OP and they became the loser) generally only make the system worse.

The thing to keep in mind is that the company doesn’t have to choose which person is “right”. A manager and employee blowing up conflicts can both be wrong and can both be removed.

False dichotomy. Asking to change teams is being complacent and making it someone else's problem. "escalating the battle at every opportunity" isn't an accurate summary of OPs actions.

So? Not every battle needs to be your battle--especially those where common sense says you're going to lose. You're under no obligation to try to work things out at a given job.

Is the problem that the company you’re working for has bad managers? Is your goal to ensure that there are absolutely no bad managers in a company the size of Spotify? Because that sounds like a Sisyphean task on a good day.

If that isn’t the goal then why is switching managers not a perfectly adequate solution?

And about making it someone else’s problem, potentially that person may get on better with the manager and they may both be more effective. Alternatively, when there is a second person who also chooses to change, that would lead to either the manager reconsidering their approach or the manager’s manager wondering why no one sticks under them.

If the company has a decent HR policy they will allow for anonymous feedback on the manager and when it gets similar feedback from multiple people they can work on improving the managers training and/or get rid of them.

No, obviously not.

> Is your goal to ensure that there are absolutely no bad managers in a company the size of Spotify?

No, obviously not.

I believe the OPs goal was improve a specific failing manager. I think he didn't do this very well, but let's not straw man him.

Employees have 0 responsibility or incentive to improve their managers (the converse is not true). In fact, it’s a terrible idea to do so, because there’s probably only single digit % of managers who would take that positively, if even.

Especially if it isn’t the manager taking the initiative to ask for improvement ideas.

It isn't? Whoever inherits the role will have the same issues, so how isn't swapping teams punting the issue to someone else?

> Employees have 0 responsibility or incentive to improve their managers (the converse is not true).

Employees have a responsibility to make sure their job gets done, and can (and should) identify obstructions to that happening.

> there’s probably only single digit % of managers who would take that positively, if even.

'Managing up' is a well-known and fairly common skill at large companies.

Sort of, but the person whose problem it becomes is the person who can and should deal with it.

A manager’s manager should notice if the manager’s team has a bunch of attrition. Certainly the best path is to work with your manager but if your manager is not amenable to that then changing teams is a signal to the rest of the org that the manager has issues.

He could have tried to talk with the managers manager, talked with HR, or done anything except behaving as a passive aggressive child...

It always was someone else's problem. If your manager wants the benefit of your insight and perspective, it is their responsibility to create a team culture which enables you to share it.

I had the misfortune to completely misinterpret my manager once. Turns out our relationship wasn't equal (go figure) - when I challenged my managers decision it backfired to the point of nuclear-escalation from management. Even though it happened in the right forum and from a professional viewpoint. Even though I hadn't done anything wrong, everything was perceived in ill faith.

Department management wanted to talk to me in a meeting. They did not want to disclose the agenda.

Fortunately, I was in a union. So when I asked for them to include my union representative in the meeting they backtracked HARD. After having discussed the case with my union representative we came to the conclusion that I hadn't done anything wrong, and that they were most likely abusing their powers - and that there was a prior history of this in this particular department.

With my union representative present, management moderated themselves immensely. They had started something without thinking that I would include my my union.

In the meeting, we ended up exchanging pleasantries. Some action items were made, applicable for all involved parties to avoid - so that we could avoid these kind of misunderstanding in the future.

The meeting ended with me having the moral high ground, but I knew that my days in the company was coming to an end. I felt like a marked employee.

I spent a couple of months rebuilding my image. Just conforming to everything they told me to do. After a while, I turned in my resignation and am now working elsewhere.

Doing the same, but less work for much higher pay and for a company that cares a little more about their employees well-being.

Absolutely, I hope most people would. And if that was all he did then that would have been great. However once you switch from "making an argument" to mocking and bullying and passive aggressive bullshit you have obviously crossed a line and lost the high ground.

Part of being an employee or contractor is accepting that often you don't have the final decision. Once you have presented all your arguments as best you can to all the relevant people you have to be prepared that they will turn around and say "I've heard your arguments and taken them into consideration, however we are still going to do it my way". And once you have reached that point you have to either accept their decision or say that as a professional you cannot accept that decision and feel you have to step away from the project.

If you want to be the one making the final call, apply for the job as the person who gets to make the final call.

I wish someone had explained this to me when I began my career. It would have saved 5 years of my professional life, a lot of frustration, and losing out on a really good job other than disagreements with my manager.

Trust me, I've been there. At one point, I ended up going to my manager's manager--who I knew well--and basically said transfer me somewhere else or I quit. Which he did and I did some legacy work for a while and it was fine.

Nothing gets solved with sarcastic passive aggression either.

I've been told I have a 'healthy disdain for authority' from a boss before, yet we still got along and were able to work well together.

That's a naïve way to look at it. As a contractor he should have STFU and done his job. His job is to do the work he's told to do. Now, if the manager hadn't been an asshole, none of this would have been an issue. But when you're dealing with an asshole (in a position of power over you), the last thing you want to do is continue to piss him off.

I've been there, done that and when I there was mutual respect and trust between the manager and I, I would push back on things that could be done better. When the manager was an asshole, I just stayed in my lane. My job wasn't to fix the org's problems, my job was to build software and (from my perspective) my primary concern was staying employed.

If he wanted to stay at Spotify he just should have kept quiet and switched teams.

The manager was affecting his ability to do his job.

I don't think it's fair for anyone to have to put up with shitty managers just because they're contractors. The thoughts and feelings of a contractor are just as valid. It shouldn't just be "put up or shut up". It should be Spotify ensuring their managers aren't assholes.

Nobody is saying that. You’ve been misconstruing people’s responses throughout this thread.

The bottom line is that both people can be in the wrong in a situation like this. The employee is not entitled to behave poorly because they have a bad manager and the manager is not entitled to behave badly simply because they’re a manager. However, the fact that neither party could do anything other than escalate the situation and even continue fighting battles after being fired is unprofessional behavior.

This blog post IMHO makes the author unemployable, they publicly demonstrated they are a high-friction person and even tacked their name on it. Being able to handle social conflict gracefully without escalation is a virtue and they don't have it.

or, told another way: dance monkey, dance.

If companies or managers just want to do the infinite monkeys typing shakespeare approach with 0 critical thought, don't hire / contract senior people.

Someone who doesn't push back on giving an estimate for something they have never seen is useless in a senior role. Sure, the kanban stuff might be a little out there, but if a manager is doing a shit job of blocking tasks mid sprint, again it is better they try and suggest something to help their co workers.

Senior people should know how to read the situation and either A) figure out how to persuade management to their way of thinking and failing that (repeatedly) B) STFU and do as your told.

I'm not opposed to making suggestions/recommendations, but some people don't want to hear it, for whatever reason. As a contractor I'm not going to upset if you don't take my recommendations and it takes longer (after all, contractors are usually hourly...more money, more money). If you're unable to "STFU and do as you're told", bide your time and find another position on your own terms.

That's the lesson this person needs to take away from this.

See def. contractor.

If you want them to do sprint planning / estimations / train interns it is a lot closer to a traditional employee than a "we pay $XXX a day for 7.5hrs of coding" contractor

How do you go about doing this? A direct confrontation? Or by asking for documentation for their request (like a JIRA ticket), and then replying in the ticket with your suggestion? etc

> If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved

Fight Twice. On Record; push back against something you disagree with (Be it Style or design decision) Twice. If the other side (especially if they are above you in the food chain) still persists - Suck it up and do the work.

If you can't live with that situation - look into moving on (while sucking it up). Continuing to push a beleaguered point (even if you're "Right") will inevitably lead to nothing good.

You aren't there to solve their problems. You're there to make them happy. While related (and sometimes intersecting), fundamentally these are vastly different things.

And at the end of the day, "making them happy" is what takes precedence. Even if it means holding your nose while you wade through that big giant mess of legacy code that could have been made into a much smaller mess by the time you got around, "if only, if only". And learning, finally, to STFU until it's time to GTFO. Rather than waste your breath (figuratively or literally) telling them things they don't want to hear, and wouldn't be able to grasp the import of anyway.

It took me forever and a day and then some to figure this out. Granted, it shouldn't be this way, and sometimes we actually do get to work with who are fully functional adults, who know their limitations and can handle disagreement have, you know, empathy. And who have not completely lost themselves in the game that is their "role" to the point that they are incapable of dealing with their organizational underlings as people, let alone as equals.

Alas, these situations are few and far between. Most of the time, it's pretty much as I described up above. Not that we shouldn't at least try to make a difference. Of course we should. But when we get the sense that our efforts are going against the grain -- they're going against the grain.

And all we can do is step back, breathe, and say to ourselves "OK, this isn't my problem". And remember why we're there in the first place.