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Comment by skeeter2020 | Hacker News Reader

skeeter2020·

Another manager here; you also can't fix most issues you do hear about. You can sometimes prevent the problem from forming in the first place, but it's not on "people to inform you" of them. Your entire job is trying to catch the few issues you can address early and doing your best to shield your team from the rest of them.

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Personally, a lot of my experience is that my manager knows and understands the issue and is doing their best, but at some point there's only so much "managing up" they can do to prevent larger dysfunction in the org from effecting the team.

I had a discussion with my manager about this the other week and they asked me to let them know if I was considering other work so that they could try to fix it - my response was that I didn't think that would help. By the time I'm considering another job it's _because_ I no longer think my manager can or will do anything to fix the issues I have.

People generally don't leave companies when they feel like their manager would have been able to solve their issues with the company.

I tend to disagree with both points.

I can't read minds. I need people to tell me what works and what doesn't for them. An employment is a continuous transaction, if the situation changes it is absolutely open to re-negotiation. It's on both the employer, the direct manager and the employee to make sure everybody is happy with the arrangement.

And the two times I did hear about problem before the new contract was signed, I was able to find a solution. In the other case there is not much I can do.

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