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Subject:Re: Working later than the boss From:"Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> To:<techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 5 Jul 2007 11:53:10 -0700
The idea that a manager should always be around anytime
someone working under him/her is in the office is grounded
in the idea that employees need to be constantly watched.
It's the same basis for management discomfort with
telecommuting. If employees expect their managers to
accept that they can do their jobs without having to be in
the office where their manager can see them at all times,
it shouldn't be difficult for employees to accept that their
managers can do their jobs without having to be in the
office where employees can see them at all times.
There are lots of possible reasons for Anonymous'
irritation, some reasonable, some not. The senior level
responsibilities that Anonymous says he/she is carrying
may have been taken on based on the promise of an
accompanying senior title and pay that have not been
delivered. Or the manager's style may be horribly
noncommuncative and based on lots of this "hinting"
without clear explanations of what needs to be done
and why. These are reasonable sources of irritation.
However, being irritated because you are asked to do
things your manager doesn't do is not reasonable The
reason people get hired in the first place is to do things
the people who hire them don't, either because they
can't do them or because they don't want to. Anonymous'
manager may indeed be leaving the office at 4:30, never
to be seen or heard from again until the next morning.
My own manager often leaves his office before I do,
and I am seldom the last person in my department to
go. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, as long
as competent and willing subordinates are in place to
see that business is carried out in the manager's absence.
This is where Anonymous' manager is failing.
> My reading of the situation is the boss is hinting that someone in the
> department should start doing something that the manager is not
> willing to do themselves (stay until COB). Personally, if I were a
> manager I would be uncomfortable asking someone who worked under me
> (and who possibly, but not necessarily, was making less money than me)
> to do something that I was unwilling to do myself. And I suspect that
> may be what is irritating Anonymous.
>
> Most of us can tell when our manager is working off hours. We see the
> time stamp on the e-mail sent early in the morning or late in the
> evening. We know if they are managing people in other time zones or
> not. But Anonymous didn't mention any of those factors. What she
> *does* say is that she has management permission to work 8-4:30, and
> would like to stick to that schedule due to family obligations. I
> don't think that is an unreasonable request.
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