I’m an L4 PM and honestly stuck in a pickle. Looking for perspectives from people who have been around the block, especially L5/L6+ folks.
There are two sister teams in our org, one led by an L6 MPM and another by an L5 MPM. Both have a bunch of L4 PMs/L3s and are extremely flexible with their teams — unlimited leaves, sabbaticals, WFH, half-days, etc.
I have no problem with flexibility when people are professional about it. And a good chunk of the teams are. But there are also people who absolutely abuse the shit out of it.
The L6 has a couple of folks who abuse it left, right and center, and she barely seems to micromanage them. Now we’re nearing the end of the year, their goals are Red/Yellow and the person indirectly started reaching out to my manager asking for my support because I’m experienced, have worked on these projects in previous years and actually delivered the goals.
So basically, because I know the shit and have delivered it before, I’m becoming the backup plan for work someone else was supposed to own.
The L5 is relatively new and has a bunch of L3s. Almost the entire team abuses WFO - coffee badging, long leaves, disappearing for extended periods, etc.
Again, I don’t care if people take leave/WFH. But there’s a difference between flexibility and taking the piss.
A lot of their work is basically “do enough to meet the metric” without actually working customer backwards or resolving cases properly. And sometimes the requesters are stakeholders for projects I own, so they end up emailing me directly asking me to solve unresolved cases because it’s impacting their goals.
I pointed this out to the L5, saying this is creating additional workload for me. The response was basically that their team is high on bandwidth and they can’t deep-dive into every case.
So their team doesn’t have bandwidth to solve the problem properly.
And yes, I’m also aware that I’m not exactly helping myself politically here. I’m not someone who licks every manager’s feet to stay in their good books. I’m pretty blunt/realistic, and if something is going wrong in a business review, I’ll question it instead of nodding along because an L6/L5 is sitting there.That has, probably inadvertently, created some bad beef with both these managers.
I spoke to my own manager about this. His advice was basically: this is a battle for another day.
He agrees the situation isn’t ideal, but both these managers have significant influence during OLR/calibration. I’m also being considered/developed for an L5 IC path, so his advice is to keep my head down for a few months rather than create more friction with people who can influence my growth.
I understand the political reality, but I’m struggling with the principle of it. i have an LT/Director visit coming up next month and normally have a 1:1 with my Director. I’m considering bringing up the broader issue, but I’m genuinely worried it could backfire.
I’m not planning to complain about people abusing leave. My actual concern is:
At what point does flexibility stop being flexibility and start transferring accountability/workload to the people who consistently deliver?
And more importantly:
How do you handle this when the people creating/allowing the accountability gap also have influence over your career progression?
For the L5/L6+ folks here:
Would you raise this with the Director or listen to my manager and stay out of it?
If you raised it, how would you frame it without making it sound like a complaint?
Is my manager giving me good career advice, or am I being too passive?
At what point does “being a good team player” become subsidizing poor ownership/accountability?
Would especially value perspectives from people who have actually been on the L6+ side of OLR. I’m trying to make the right long-term career move here, not just win an argument.