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Comment by iagooar | Hacker News Reader

> Management will always talk about having a healthy work-life balance but the implication is there that you could be doing more, fixing more bugs, taking on more work. > [...] feeling like your effort is constantly being judged means you end up doing it again and again.

This resonates with me! I have experienced this kind of management schizophrenia many times, telling you that you have flexible working hours, that you can manage your time yourself, that you should take your time, do things right... And then, on the other side, appears the pressure to deliver, the "questions" that suggest you might need to "hurry" a bit more, to deliver more stuff, to cut some corners if necessary...

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There is a technical name for that in psicology: Double-bind.

There are 2 acceptable responses to that, plus a taboo one. The 2 standard responses is either to try to uphold an unrealistically high standard (the neurotic overachiever type), or you can take the blame for not doing it and sacrifice your sense of self worth (the dilbertesque, paper pusher type). Both private and public sector have plenty of uses for workers of either type.

What is not permitted is to react like a grown up and point out to the inconsistency of the "mixed messages". I have read that this typically gets responded with hostility from higher-ups (who typically are not fully conscious of the dynamics of the game, or see themselves as just transmitting the requirements from upper management).

Of course I barely have a handful of first and second hand data points, but those seem consistent with the model as explained above.

The double-bind was a hallmark of a past job. Anytime a meeting, an event that the upper brass was hosting, or training was labeled as optional, there was always a heavy emphasis to attend on the day of.

Monday morning: ${Executive} is coming down to talk about ${something unrelated} on Thursday. Attendance is strictly optional. This is doubly so if you're working on something critical.

Tuesday and Wednesday morning: Don't forget about the talk on Thursday. You don't need to go, but it would be nice if you attended.

Thursday morning: Don't forget about the talk this afternoon. Plan head down there about 12:45.

Same thing happens here. Generally I think in these cases local management only gradually comes to the realization that nobody actually wants to sit and listen to a soulless executive spout off a bunch of non-information-transferring coporate newspeak.

So, to avoid the embarrassing spectacle of an empty conference room, they go from "invited" to "encouraged" to "drop what you're doing and get in there now."

>Thursday morning: Don't forget about the talk this afternoon. Plan head down there about 12:45.

Yeah, they do this where I work, and I just don't go. So far it hasn't happened, but if someone comes to me and complains I'll blink innocently and say "Oh... I thought it was optional?" I expect when being faced with admitting to a lie they'll just drop the conversation.

On the other hand, I have no interest in management.

In my experience the double-bind is typically a result of doublethink/cognitive-dissonance, which explains why people react poorly when it is pointed out.

Of your 3 solutions the first two are non-starters for me, and have found the third very tricky. So I prefer two other options - walk away from the situation, or calmly accept and subsequently ignore chastisement.

The latter solution is interesting, since often anger expressed by the person doing the binding is because they themselves are also in a (potentially self-inflicted) double-bind. They want to express their anger at you, but don't necessarily feel ill-will toward you, knowing subconsciously that your actions are reasonable and rational. Of course, dealing with this is a lot easier said than done, and I'd seek to walk away as soon as possible if it happened with any regularity.

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