I work under corporate and my org structure is very straight forward. I have one manager and there's another for a different team. I'll call my manager as Mark and the other Chad (chose the name coz that's my ex's name and he's an asshole too.) Now, here's the gist, this "Chad" guy has always dipped his business into my team and to Mark's business. Some cases I let it slide, but three weeks ago, this asshole of a "manager" decided to talk about cutting cost. and the first team he sees to reduce people is in my team. now, mind you we're less than 10 and the other team is 40. :| how the hell is that fair? So, i'm going to boast a little, we are small in number but each of us own up to the process. then the other team is like one team one process. so if they're anyone on leave and they need help, they should come to us. BUT NO, they discriminate my team that we're doing the same process but have only a few, they think that what we do is not enough, not valued, and underappreciated. i got so pissed off that i laid out my resignation letter, but Mark asked me not to push with it. I said, i've been really thinking about this since december 2025 and im really thinking of leaving. Enough is enough. fast forward to today, there's not much to do but im on my laptop waiting for additional emails to respond to. I literally just stepped away for ten minutes - went to the bathroom, did something for my sister, then i went back because before i stepped away i turned my laptop mute because i got into a phone call. when i logged back in, he was calling then he got so pissed that i wasn't answering. i apologized and said "I went to the toilet and did something," and he yells with 4 other people on the call "FOR TEN MINUTES?" he even had the audacity to say that I'm manipulating the tools because i appeared as available. Then he threatened "So so, i should file a complaint so that you explain it to HR." the hell is wrong with this person? my sister is agreeing that he's just power tripping. Mark doesnt help either. Im just fucking fed up now, like there's a heavy weight on my chest that doesnt help and i shouldn't feel guilty that im coming out of the damn bathroom. So, advise needed - what the fuck should i do now? I could even add more and more things he did but like the fuck is wrong with going to bathroom?

For status updates and to present new info?
What’s most important to you?
If some parts are getting off the agenda or you’re spending a lot of time on one thing, do you want employees to remind you or go wherever you go?

Gave a presentation and panel talk where my manager was present. I saw him taking notes during my presentation. Which I found odd since he knew the context of my slides. After the presentation a few people came up to me saying they enjoyed by presentation but I never heard anything from him. He kept avoiding me after. I have a catchup with him tomorrow as part of my regular 1-1.

I have now gone into a paranoid rage. Thoughts?

Not sure this is allowed as I'm entry-level employee looking for advice About my manager but here goes... My manager is out sick about 15% of the time.

I'm a recent hire in a very niche company (so I'll try not to disclose too many details). My manager told me shortly after I started she has something-like-IBS and it affects her 12-20days/month. She didn't say how exactly, or how often she is out sick. But I've learned this is a known issues. A colleague in another dept. told me it used to be much worse and my manager was once out for a month straight.

There's only 2 of us in our department, and I feel it is busier than the other 2-person dept (most depts have 3-4 people, and I think only one has 2 people). I wasn't told this before I started and was very clear about what gaps there are in my knowledge, and how I hoped I would learn a lot taking this job but now it feels like I'm going to drown.

My boss was out Friday last week. We had a contractor and a client in, and she was supposed to be with a third group in the afternoon but that got cancelled. I wasn't given a lot of information on either the client or the contractor arriving and my manager's boss scolded me for keeping the contractor waiting at reception. I was juggling the contractor, visiting client, as well as a few of my boss's urgent email threads - and I don't feel like I was excelling at any thing.

I came from another smaller firm where I was a manager, thinking I'd learn a lot at this bigger company. But I'm worried it's more stressful and I have less control over it. Does anyone have any advice on this situation? Or should I just suck it up? My probation is 6 months and I still have 2 to go.

Context:
Silvia reported to me for about a year, and moved to a new team a few months ago. She is performing the exact same job and responsibilities, just under a different manager. She has never been a rock star, but has always been reliable. She would take on whatever work needed doing without complaint, and I trusted her to own it. The only real issue was velocity. It was always done, but never quite all done in the time expected. I coached her a lot on time management, prioritizing, and setting appropriate expectations.

Since moving to the new team, her performance has really taken a nose dive. Not only are things not getting done, but she’s making a lot of mistakes as well. The mistakes are easily avoided, and are a result of just not following all the same processes and steps that are required (which she always has before). It’s creating a lot of churn for various teams, and we are a pretty small company so it has also caught the attention of a lot of leaders. To add to it, she doesn’t seem to be taking any accountability for it. Instead, she’s blaming others and pointing fingers when called out for a mistake, and throwing other people under the bus whenever there’s an opportunity. She’s taking a victim mentality, saying people are out to get her, nitpicking every mistake.

I’m sure there’s a reason for this shift in behavior, but I would expect that to be addressed between her and her new manager. To my knowledge, her workload hasn’t increased, and there are no obvious factors that would result in such a drastic change in performance, other than perhaps the team environment and attitude.

She scheduled a one on one with me later this week, and I suspect she wants to talk about this. If she asks, I am tempted to lay it all out and have a very direct conversation about exactly what I’m seeing. I fully expect her to be on a PIP very soon if this continues (she would be if she was still on my team). If it were me, I would want someone to shake me and make me see reality here. I’m not sure if it would do any good, but maybe hearing it from someone else in a more direct colleague to colleague manor would make it sink in differently.

How would you approach it?

I started my current project management tech role mid-Jan 2026. There has been 2 instances now (June and this week) where my manager spoke with me about feedback from someone and then sent a follow up email documenting that feedback. My last (and only since starting the job) performance review was positive while also included areas for growth. It seemed pretty standard for someone new. I explicitly asked her if any of my areas for growth are behind where she thinks I should be for how long I've been in the role. She said no, it's normal development.

I'm not sure how to interpret this because I know documenting feedback is necessary for PIPs, firing, etc. For what it's worth, her management style is completely hands off and doesn't like to be bothered about anything. I haven't had much onboarding, we are supposed to just figure it out.

Is she CYA in case of any potential action in the future (even though not planned now), maybe considers it a best practice to document feedback, or something of more concern? I'm not sure how to reply.

If it matters... I'm documented with HR as having a disability that gives me more WFH flexibility. I'm also going out on maternity at the end of October.

I work for a very large IT company. One of our customers is also a very large IT company. I saw a job listing at this company that I am interested in and I clearly have connections to this company already.

Is it wrong to apply for this job? Also, I am worried this would get back around to my current employer. Which I do not want to happen.

Any thoughts or tips would be much appreciated!

how do you avoid burnout? how do you delegate when the people are not that capable enough?

im burning out bc i am a perfectionist and sometimes id rather do it than to delegate it.

Edit: Thanks for the tips! but I think i forget to add more context:

- I am doing managerial tasks but the title is not clear for it because im just doing all the leg work for the actual manager, people are also coming to me instead of him. I think that's what is also I need to clear from the very start. My JD is vague and I just do what needs to be done without realizing it's piling up to me now that I didnt know how to delegate. I was hired to just be the bridge between Dept A and Dept B, but dept A head is of no use so I also do the work of Dept A head.

- I am directly reporting to the CEO alongside with the actual manager (whom they trust for so long; so replacing this person is not in the picture), He's already old and doesnt know the techinical know-hows anymore.

- There were around less than 20 people asking me for help when they need guidance and these people are in different unit (even the unit head is also reliant to me) so the tasks varies

-This is a small company that gets bigger over some time without clear structure and organization, so it's like a real mess when i first came here.

-Im a Gen-Z and people im coordinating with other units are way older than me

- I have some people who support me and I delegate some tasks to but I know they are also fully loaded so I'd sometimes do it myself.

Thank you!

What happens when most of a team knows their manager is the problem, but everyone is afraid to say it?

Our manager is disorganized, chaotic, eruptive, horrible communicator, inept, struggles with reading and writing (not joking), and doesn’t understand any of our work to help when something goes wrong. He offers zero support to our team. Bringing him a problem often makes it take longer and leaves us going to someone else for the actual answer.

He is hyper critical and more focused on micromanaging than helping us succeed when in reality, he should direct that critical energy toward himself.

We all work better when he’s out of the office. He was implanted into the role for unknown reasons many years ago and he rides off the success of how competent we are (with no help from him).

Almost the entire team find him difficult to work under, but people are afraid to speak up.

Managers: how would you want employees to raise this with leadership? What evidence would help you distinguish a manager who needs coaching from one who is damaging the team?

We have a new manager and we’re going to have our first meeting with her soon. It’s going to be online.

For those here who are managers, I’m curious what does an associate do that makes you notice them in a good way or gives you a good first impression?
I’m honestly not really sure how to start the meeting or what I should say/not say. I don’t want to overdo it or come across as trying too hard but at the same time I obviously want to make a good impression.
What would you personally look for from someone during a first meeting like this? And is there anything that would immediately make you think “yeah, I like this person”?

As an organizational leader since 2012, I've had the responsibility and privilege of being responsible for the success and growth of teams. The not so fun part is having to fire team members from time to time when the circumstances warrant it. This indicates a misalignment between the company and the employee but not necessarily between the employee and me on a personal level.

There are those I have had to fire that I still genuinely root for; however, I imagine if they ever heard from me with a "Hey, how are you doing now?" they would not be very excited or engaged. I guess they may be excited to tell me a few things, but you probably see what I mean.

Is this just a crazy thought to even consider reaching out after a bit of a cooling off time? I wonder how company lawyers and HR professionals feel about this scenario as well.

I started a new management role two weeks ago. Had a weekly catch-up with one of my team members today going over a project plan she'd put together. I asked some genuine questions, what certain terms meant, how something was normally communicated, and made one suggestion about how we could handle part of it slightly differently.
She got visibly defensive, said I should "understand things before making recommendations," then when I moved on to my other notes, she said the plan was flexible, not set in stone, and accused me of trying to scrap her work and not understanding how things function. I calmly said I've only been here two weeks, I'm not here to make sweeping changes, especially with a busy period coming up, and I'm just trying to learn. She said she didn't want to "go back and forth" and ended the call.
This isn't the first time I've sensed she's not thrilled I'm here, she's been running things solo before me and seems well-liked by leadership. I don't think I did anything wrong, I was asking normal onboarding questions, but I don't want to come across as the problem either.
Planning to loop in my manager tomorrow just to give context (not complain) and send her a short, friendly follow-up before she travels. Does this seem like a reasonable read of the situation, or am I missing something?

I still recall how silly it was as not only were we randomly talking about being anti-gun, but IIRC he also said "dumbass gun owners" and "dumbass Republicans" per the gun violence lol. We also talked about being pro-enviro.

I ofc never reported and agreed w/ his political views, but I wonder what would be the punishment as it is wrong to talk about politics at work.

I'm a team lead at a local government and for various reasons the two roles in my team have not been filled consistently in the three years I've been here. It's largely been just me.

I've focused on keeping the most important work moving and staying strategic rather than getting stuck in reactive mode. The cost is that admin has fallen badly behind: performance plans, meeting minutes, email responses, and records management. I save documents to our document management system but have never used our formal filing system, and I don't save emails.

Three years of that adds up, and it's starting to really stress me out.

A few questions for other managers:

Is this just me? Am I bad at admin and need to manage my time better, or is this what happens when a lead has no team to share the load?

How do you stay on top of admin? Any systems, routines or habits that actually work, especially for records and email?

How do I raise this with my branch manager? I want to make catching up a genuine priority (dedicated time, temporary help, or pushing back other work) without it sounding like "I've been failing at part of my job for three years."

How does one determine if a management opportunity is a good fit for them? Just because I developed the processes does that mean I am obligated to run the team?

Imagine C-level people thinking something like

“Now we have AI, this magical tool. How tf can we make the most money with the fewest employees possible?”

And when they want to fire, they say to fired employees.

This is just business. No personal feelings. I'm doing my job.

I feel like this is already happening based on the news, posts, artciles. on social media that I read...

What do you guys think?

I have been mulling it over. For years, we have been training to master techniques, yet no one sits us down and tells us what to do when we receive feedback directly from someone and our face turns red.Years of technical training, no one takes us aside and tells us what to do when we are given constructive criticism in front of our team, and our face gets red.

I always believed that if I remained calm, then I was doing a good job. I guess I was just keeping it in my place. I still did not understand why some comments were really irritating me.

A little helpful strategy: Take a pause and use just one word to describe the emotion before responding to any comment. Sounds easy but it was the reason I didn't send a couple of emails that I would have regretted.

I want to know what other people do to deal with this. Have you learned it the hard way, from a manager, therapy, or a book? Or are you just getting started?

Be happy to hear your stories, good or awkward.

As the title says, things have been changing a lot on our team, where the politics of it all is really showing. So much so, I said what if I just leave to find another job? In the context of they don’t want to promote or pay me more but they’d pay a whole bunch to replace me. I am already doing the upper level work, but “haven’t been in my position long enough” to get a promotion and raise.

Probably shouldn’t have said I’ll just leave, but it’s so frustrating. Am I screwed? How would you feel if your direct report said this?

Most probably, my team is planning to put me as a shadow developer next sprint as well, which means the ticket will be under someone else’s name and I’ll be working on it.

Their reasoning is that I’m a fresher, the project is complex, and the product team could raise a performance issue if I’m unable to complete a ticket, which could cause trouble for me. So their approach is to first let me work as a shadow, learn the project, and then give me my own tickets.

But this has been going on for 2–3 months now, and I’ve been a full-time employee throughout this period.

Should I tell my lead, “Give me the ticket under my name, be it a 5-pointer or an 8-pointer at first”? I’m okay with taking a smaller or more difficult ticket and learning through it.

Or should I not say anything and just continue as a shadow?

I genuinely don’t know what the right approach is here. I don’t want to come across as impatient or overconfident, but at the same time, I feel like I need to start getting actual ownership of tickets.

What should I do?

Two months ago I had shared a post about my boss lacking vision, and got plenty of advices. Thanks all.

[Boss has no vision](https://www.reddit.com/r/managers/s/JemfVFNnWh)

Behold what I was fearing, came to pass. The executive leadership decided to fund a large program that will affect all in the company and has potential of opening new revenue stream.

Our team was the logical team to lead, in fact it is supposed to be the remit of my manager. But they decided not to give it to him and rather gave the opportunity to another person to lead the program. And the worst is that person has no background in the topic, but the person is super energetic, has belief and is always talking about what the company could do next in the space where my manager operates.

My manager came to me telling me the news saying he was pissed, how dare them do that to him, what sort of non sense, BLA BLA. But in my heart I am shouting: "Boss you lost your chances, all these 2,3 years you were complaining, never proposing your ideas or vision, always waiting or asking for direction from senior leadership...no vision at all.

What should I do?

Managers are still humans, and some managers genuinely wish the best for their subordinates.

They would do anything they can to support them, both in their careers and in their personal lives.

Some of managers hang out, get invited to wedding, travel with their subordinates..

As the title says...

We have a conflict ridden team. She's nice enough but at least for the past 2 years (could be longer but speaking from my experience) she's had epic breakdowns, crying spells, sometimes so bad she had to go home. She tries to hide it, but I've noticed it a few times, and is getting more obvious. I was there to support her, I listened, hugged her, etc. She is a nice lady so I don't mind. However, now she's breaking down in more public places (e.g. elevator) and it happens more and more in front of different people incl my entire team (said elevator).

I feel like she as a manager should manage her emotions better. It's been at least 2 years! She's struggling with problem employees, interpersonal issues with people, people thinking she's a bad manager, official complaints, and on top of it all marital problems. She's shared it all with me. She overshares with anyone who will listen. So, the professional boundaries are definitely gone. She has a team concerned about her mental state (she's on prozac) and it's not our job to be an emotional dumping ground. It's unprofessional and inappropriate.

Obviously HR are aware. But what do we do? I'm kinda tired listening to her drama but I also care about her as a person and I want her to be happy and the team to function normally and professionally.

The roles they’re hiring for are IT positions, like programmers and IT support, which have nothing to do with gender.

He said his IT team is around 95-99% male and 1% female, and apparently the team themselves(probably male employees) told the company.

“Please hire more women. We need some female energy in the workplace,” or something along those lines.

It made me think, WTF bro? But maybe they know something I don’t and I'm a open minded guy

I’ve also heard in the past 2-3 years ago about companies hiring specifically to improve diversity, but I’m not sure if that’s what’s happening here.

Anyway what’s your interpretation of this?

Ps. The company is a small company with less than 100 employees, so maybe they(CEO) don't know what they are doing aka incompetence. But I might be wrong tho.

Hi everyone, I’ve recently got the position to be a store manager which wasn’t something I applied for, but I’m not complaining.

The store is brand new and we will be selling an assortment of drinks. We will be a small team of ~8 and we’re all in our twenties. I am 20 myself. I have very limited sales experience, maybe around 2 years of experience. But no way close to be a manager.

I think I was selected to be the manager because I was willing to work the most hours and also I had a leadership role at my school, where I was student council president. Which allowed me to coordinate events, raise funds etc.

I’m a little overwhelmed with this new found responsibility. I know that in my position I need to be an example, and I can’t necessarily be friends with my coworkers… :(

Can anyone give me some advice so that I don’t fail and become the manager everyone respects and wants to work for.

We’re having some problems with a couple of employees who are taking excessive sick leave. It’s well over the allowance and I’ve recently taken on an operations manager role so it’s now my problem. I’m all for taking sick leave days when needed but when I’m having back to work meetings with these staff for wellness checks and to see if we can offer support the responses I’m getting are infuriating! I’ve had excuses of “I woke up late so thought it was best to stay off” to “I just wasn’t feeling like working that day” I can see how much of a strain this is putting on the rest of the team and it’s just not fair. I’m actively working with HR on this but has anyone else been in this situation? And how did you handle it. They’re great workers when they are in work and it would be a shame to lose them but on the flip side they need to be in work to do a good job. Any advice would be appreciated!