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Comment by adekok | Hacker News Reader

Also Managers know better than you, and are generally better people, and more capable than you, because of some secret "management" skills.

I've seen engineers promoted to management, who suddenly drink the kool-aid that they're "better" than the engineers they worked beside a month ago. Now that they're managers, they know better.

The sheer infantilization of the rank and file by managers is appalling, and wide-spread. Such as hiring an expert in the field, and then ignoring everything they say.

Good organizations say "Look, I know that's the best way to solve the problem, but the customer doesn't have time or money for that, so we need something else".

Bad organizations say "You're just an engineer, and wouldn't understand the trade-offs inherent in customer interaction".

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> I've seen engineers promoted to management, who suddenly drink the kool-aid that they're "better" than the engineers they worked beside a month ago. Now that they're managers, they know better.

To be fair, while I've absolutely seen what you're talking about, I've also seen a slightly different phenomenon get blamed for that. Part of a manager's job IMO is to remove systemic paralysis. Some times that means making a totally arbitrary decision just so people move forward. Even if it turns out it was the wrong solution to whatever problem, just making the decision and allowing people to explore the problem space from different directions can have some value.

I know a number of people in the military, and there's a lot to be said for asserting command presence. Where it doesn't matter what the orders are, just that someone is there giving clear orders.

I've rarely seen that in managers. The issue I was talking about above was that managers really can think of themselves as "better" or having "secret knowledge" that enables them to lord it over the peasant engineers.

I have ethical issues with such an attitude. People are people, no matter how small.

My company's style is a culture of consensus. No one really "gives orders," because that's too aggressive, and someone might feel hurt. I find it fucking awful. If there's disagreement about something, usually another person is brought into the mix for "input," ad infinitum. This happens until the issue becomes a non-issue or a disagreement over a new issue occurs.

I might disagree with someone if they ordered me to do something I think is wrong, but I actually admire them for making a decision. There's nothing worse than making no progress because no one has the balls or authority to say "there's contention over this issue, but I think X is the best course."

Oh yeah. Ye old "disagree w/ them until they don't care". It's terrible. Usually the most stubborn peasant will get his way. A toxic culture is born/consolidated. It drains any excitement that you may have for the job. The whole process turn into a huge circlej*rl.

I see that a lot in my company where managers don't trust their workers. A lot of decisions are being made by managers talking to each other. Input from the workers is generally not welcome. My theory is that a lot of middle managers know that they are not really that useful so they have to withold information or pretend that things are more complex than they seem.

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