Comment by patagonia | Hacker News Reader

Comment by patagonia | Hacker News Reader

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Direct report here. A bunch of these say both “keep it informal” and “no set agenda”. But, there is also a lot of proposed structures, suggestions for note taking, consensus on the generic format. Many suggest discussing career growth for example. If I discuss career growth for 5 - 15 mins every week with my manager, regardless whether they are well intentioned, it ends up being counterproductive. I can’t grow my career every week. I don’t want those discussions driving my annual review, because if that is how it works the stakes are just too high on a weekly basis. Also, shocker, sometimes I don’t want to discuss my actual career goals because it’s already been signaled that they are not in line with my current role or the needs of the company. I appreciate that a manager wants to “get to know me” and “build trust”, but let’s be honest, at the end of the day the manager is an agent of the company and might have to lay me off. They might know for a short window before they can tell me, which is all you need to know. I get it. Those are the roles. That’s fine. But don’t expect me to come in on a weekly basis sharing my hopes and aspirations to someone that might be nodding their head knowing my role can never go in that direction or that I’ll be out of a job in a day or two.

"sometimes I don’t want to discuss my actual career goals because it’s already been signaled that they are not in line with my current role or the needs of the company. I appreciate that a manager wants to “get to know me” and “build trust”, but let’s be honest, at the end of the day the manager is an agent of the company"

Completely agree with you. There is always an implicit agenda -- maximize the amount of work they can get out of me for as little money as possible. If I were a consultant, would I sit down for a weekly chat with a client in the same sort of 1-on-1 format? No way. The reason we are asked to have these meetings is so that management can gain useful information from us to then use as they see fit. That's it. We should approach these meetings accordingly.

I'm sorry you're in a situation that makes you feel this way. I've had great experiences with managers that honestly do want to help me - whether that's with advice, giving me opportunities that will help me grow, or even telling me tactical things I should do for promotions (that I've gotten, so it's not just talk with no action).

Some of us don't want to be bullied by nice guys.

> let’s be honest, at the end of the day the manager is an agent of the company

Employment, like any other business transaction, should not be a zero sum game.

Sure, both sides are in it to gain. But your manager's job is to make the most of your time and help you be as productive as you can. That should align with your goals - the more productive you are, the more valuable you are to the company.

I’m sorry you are in a position that makes you feel that way. At my company (less 20 people) we’re hard not to hire people we don’t want. Ergo we want to retain the people we have hired. So one thing we’ve found effective is talking about hopes and aspirations in a effort to best align staffing requirements for growth with existing staff’s goals.

For example, we have staff that do A, B and C currently. As we grow, we know we want to add in D. So I’d usually rather have existing staff grow into D if they want to and hire someone to fill in the previous roles of the existing staff (since as they add D they can’t still do all of A, B and C if they’re also doing D).

Obviously this only works when your existing staff can grow personally at a similar rate to the company’s needs. But when possible, we try to make that happen.

For reference a short tenure for technical staff at my company is 5 years. I take that personally as a compliment.

I also work at a small company (50ish). We also attempt to only hire good fits. We don’t have enough excess “fat” to do otherwise. My manager said almost verbatim what you’ve said. We want to retain people. We want to align company and individual goals. We want people happy. We want people to grow. Lip service was paid to those ideas for a few months. Once rubber hit the road it was clear that the company needed me to do what the company needed me to do, as defined by my manager, regardless my long term goals.

My experience, in my own case at least, is that I’ve been able to grow faster than my company and team in terms of skills and skill sets. That doesn’t mean my boss is gonna adjust our tech stack and it doesn’t mean there is going to be a new role available. I’m not going anywhere unless he does. And he isn’t. So, I’m stuck under him. And so, no, I’m not going to go into our meetings and explain why he needs to grow so that he can facilitate my growth. That is career suicide.

All that is semi besides the point. The fact is, a manager is an agent of the company, and at the end of the day the company is profit and product driven, and those will never perfectly align with my goals. Managers do ask, often and explicitly, for an asymmetry of information from me under the rationale of retaining talent or personal growth, but at the end of the day it is another tool in their toolbox to manage. Manage resources. End of the day, I’m a resource that is being managed. That’s the reality.

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