HR Drowning in Manager Complaints

“Hi y’all, I need to address something sensitive with my boss, but maybe it isn’t worth it? We have a staff bathroom and this man routinely destroys it. He’s also always farting in the clinic and it can get so bad it bothers patients too, this one isn’t as controllable as filling the toilet with splat and skid marks. BUT. It just feels soo disrespectful and disgusting to do this to a shared bathroom and leave it. Am I being dramatic? And how do I approach this with him? For real y’all, I DREAD wh”

“Nothing. You need to understand that the decision makers that hire Harvey never have to deal with the system themselves, as they have a myriad of middle managers that will land them a clean report with everything they want to know”

And the gene pool. WTF??!?

“With the coworkers. Once people realize that management and HR use small disagreements among coworkers to dampen organization, it becomes much easier to feel unity and then move forward.”

“I work in my department for more than four years and it's been good at first. I thrived in good team work and camaraderie. However recently, starting last month, I noticed my manager began to nitpick the smallest things about me while obviously favoring someone else (example: constantly talking to them about non-work related things or gifting her sweets). I also noticed my senior began to nitpick me too, constantly yelling and waving me away when I try to communicate or ask questions. This p”

That’s exactly it. Disgruntled, toxic employee

This is super helpful! Thank you so much for this breakdown!

“It’s a deep-seated agitation that stems from management overriding the recommendations made by a systems administrator, and then when that same bad decision inevitably blows up in their face, expecting that same systems administrator to drop everything in his/her life and treat the preventable, predictable situation like some kind of emergency.”

“It makes it all the worse that they called an internal employee i.e. a human being, a resource... like wtf??”

“reframe decisions in terms of pros & cons and business impact. focus on risk mitigation rather than small tasks..”

“Not mom related but I go to this group for all my work-related advice at this point. TL;DR skip-level employee uses extra and grammatically incorrect words in her speech and I'm not sure how to approach providing feedback or helping her communicate more clearly. Longer version: There's a woman on my team who I'll call Meg. Meg reports to one of my direct reports and she sets up skip-levels from time to time, and I really struggle to follow her when she talks because she uses a lot of”

“That's not true. Most are situational. Go look through them. Pretending there's no difference in "heres a situation that happened" and "I hate HR" isn't really honest.”

“Enjoy it. I’m constantly stalked and micromanaged every day- every key stroke is reviewed. I’d love a boss that actually let you do your job”

“-Acknowledge the challenge someone brings to you, state that you “hear” them, -pose your reasoning as a question back to them for them to answer, -lead them to the reason why you made your decision -but let them reason into what you knew all along…”

“I’m about 98% sure I’m being replaced. Over the past few months, my managers have verbally told me multiple times that my performance hasn’t been meeting expectations. I haven’t been put on a formal PIP, but we’ve had several discussions. Recently, I found my exact job posted on Indeed. The location is Ontario (where I work), and I also found out they’ve hired a recruiter to fill the position. They told me they needed another Project Coordinator for Vancouver and other provinces. But the posting”

“The second version exposes your reasoning while the first version just states the outcome. There's one sentence i like to remember : "a boss imposes a decision, a leader lays out the thinking so people follow willingly". So don't report what you did, show the judgment behind it. It's a thinking habit to take, not a wording one. Now of course, it's easy to say this but harder to execute. good luck !”

“Hi, I figured this is best place to ask. B2C telco, team of 15. Europe. I tried roleplaying, replaying their best calls, sat them all in a meeting room and cold called in front of them for an hour. They just dont get it. Cant handle basic objections. They give up instantly, let prospects take over the call. Im thinking Im doing something wrong because there is no way all of them are not for sales. How did you learn to sell? AI was useless just gave me common sense advice. submitted by &#32”

You’ve got this, op!!

“Asked the manager of a department which computer his employee with an open ticket uses. (who will not answer email or text) Got called in to the office because I was rude(?) - these crybaby managers with no clue drive me crazy. Edit - this blew up - heres the convo tech: I have a request to look at (known software) – but I need the computer name. mgr: He’s not in until 2:30pm. What was the issue? I might be able to determine. tech: I need the computer name and I need your current IP address. Ple”

“I get the sentiment: actions speak louder than words. I'd just say both things can be true: framing and follow through are not mutually exclusive muscles. Framing a problem, and much corporate communication is about problems, is important. I could see how you may be referring to bullshit corpo answers with weasel words and no real substance, I feel like that's a different conversation and agreed should be challenged.”

“At what point would you be firing an employee? We have a newer (several months) legal assistant with education and prior experience. One of LA's (limited) jobs is to download filings from the court site, file them in our system, tickle deadlines/court dates, and send to the client. It took her months of training to learn how to name files correctly -- all of this is both written out in an SOP and she's been trained on this multiple times. The attorney recently discovered LA wasn't ha”

“I think some people have a hard time grasping that some people don’t want extra responsibility - rather they’d prefer to just come in, do their job and go home. Not everyone can be a manager. Managers need people like you to manage 🤷‍♂️”

Could you try asking what exactly they mean rather than nodding along?

“Is this coming from your boss or someone else? I had a boss that would be vague, but after time I realized it was them that didn’t understand the basics of what I was saying bc they weren’t actually qualified for the role and had no knowledge of the dept I was speaking about. Needless to say they aren’t around anymore lol”

Sounds like they also have an opportunity to improve their clarity too.

“It means you need to talk on their level. Often this means don't get into the deep technical details. They only want to hear about what they care about, which can take time to figure out.”

Idk if it’s just me but I’m so frustrated by this. My boss keeps using other people to tell me what he wants. He’ll message me saying he wants xyz done then…

“I'm looking for advice on handling a workplace situation professionally. A few months ago, my company hired someone to work on my team. Shortly after, I went on vacation and transferred my responsibilities to him. When I returned, a lot of the work had been done incorrectly or left unfinished, and I spent about a month fixing everything while keeping up with my own responsibilities. My boss was very unhappy with his performance and even considered firing him. Since he was on my team, my boss”

“Lol "all of these CEOs" is a wild overstatement. And dont worry Ive asked myself if its me, checked myself with previous clients and workers. Not me but thanks for making me feel good about myself. Do you teach your kids if they havent got anything nice to say dont say anything?”

“If you look up the definition of a micro manager it it he to a T. Back story ill keep it brief. Started at this company 4 years ago, it was great had a different manager at the time, temp to hire, took the full time. About 2 years ago the department split, my old manager went to one side, we got a new manager, this guy has been with the company for 12 years. FUCK he is such a fucking nudge, every fucking day has his nose in every fucking thing we do. Tell us how we should be doing something. Som”

Bingo

“Studies show most executives have a cluster B disorder. If you don't know what that means...it basically explains how these volatile people get into these positions. They​ can't empathize but love power. source: Been an executive for 15 years. Am one of the few ones with a soul and it makes every day a lot harder.”

“A lot of people in management rise to the level of their own incompetence, and your manager was doing the opposite of managing... So do your best to not internalize advice from an incompetent individual.”

“Ideally: Walking new hires through the on-boarding process (making sure their paperwork is in order for getting paid, helping them sort through benefits offerings, etc), documenting disciplinary records for the company as needed, mediating disputes between employees and managers, and other associated bureaucratic work that is required for the process of maintaining and managing an employee base that has scaled above the ability for it to be managed on the side.”

“Honestly with how lost you sound you need some guidance, we do this with companies all the time where they hit their milestone and then they just don't know what to do next. We typically audit their business, customer journey, marketing, etc. You'd be surprised how much can be done to work on a business. From marketing, to presentation, to customer experience, and far more. A business coach can help you but be cautious with them. In your situation I might recommend even a companies like”

“I’ve got what is a “unique to me” situation. On my team currently, I have what I consider to be an incompetent/ineffective manager (all the reasons for this aren’t scoped into this post, but it does come into play; I’m handling it) and a junior engineer who is good at their job and, with the right career coaching and technical mentorship, I believe can be great. I’ve mentored junior engineers before and helped them grow their careers, but I haven’t worked with one whose career I felt so strongly”

“My team has had a new manager for about 6 months. Everyone despises her. She came from another department and really doesn’t understand what her own team does, but majority of days are us arguing with her because she gets angry when she doesn’t understand things and only ever believes she is correct. She will argue with me about anything, it seems her absolute goal is to ensure she never agrees with anything I say. My team has about 10 people people: a couple nearly as new as her who are startin”

Who let fucking HR in here?

“At a well known big tech company it’s called getting unicorned. The victim account sends an email to the whole org claiming love for unicorns with subject “I love unicorns“. At a wild startup back in the dot com years, it was emailing the infamous goatse pic. This company was like a frat house. It went public in a very successful IPO and was later acquired by one of the most corporate companies in the industry.”

“I would not address it directly. Become more assertive and normalize a boss/employee relationship during work hours. Wait on your friend to bring it up again and then address it.”

This is despicable and I love it

“You must push back publicly and professionally without looking defensive. Look for flaws in his work too and publicise it. They need pain. Manager letting this happens shows you are on your own and they are getting ready to take you out. Start looking elsewhere.”

“Do not stay with a toxic manager, doing so is the worst thing you can do for your career, mental and physical health. Seriously switch teams or companies immediatly.”

“Just like the title says they promoted my fairly new coworker over me. A little backstory: I am a receptionist at a law firm where ive been working for over 3 years now. Ive seen many people get hired and quit/fired. well yesterday was one of those days where someone got fired. and today they moved the other receptionist whos only been working here for about 4 months. Throughout these 3 years there has been 5 other receptionist. We have a total of 2 receptionist at the office. EVERY SINGLE ONE O”

Adult daycare applies to dealing with the executives too.

“authority and being authoritative aren't the same thing, and I think that's the gap here. tone doesn't fix a deadline nobody's actually accountable for. what fixes it is whether missing that deadline has a real consequence, visible follow-up, someone noticing out loud. you can deliver that with a casual style just as well as a stern one, it's about consistency, not volume. the mimicking thing aside, the useful part of the feedback might be this: casual and rapport-driven work”

“to give some insight as an ED tech (of a few years), the amount of bare minimum things they (management) has us do now as "top priorities" added onto my load of basic job duties is ridiculous. not to mention having to redo things that weren't done correctly/not done at all either on the opposite shift or just during my shift. most of my shifts now i have been in charge of 40+ beds and all traumas/codes for more than half my shift. they refuse to hire anyone or send anyone home earl”

To police. Not just the firm

“Hope this is a dummy account on the off chance he’s on here. Definitely report it to HR and file an official complaint. If you do nothing, he’ll likely continue to push boundaries and if you retaliate directly he could just fire you. Also, so sorry that happened to you! It’s not ok.”

“I have been working at a small firm for several years, they've taken good care of me with fair raises etc, but the firm has lately been losing clients, and lately the boss has been making me feel micromanaged. like I can't send an email to a client, a coworker or make any basic decisions about my work with out running it by him. he'll ask me what I think about loaded questions and I genuinely feel like he asks just to tell me i'm wrong. I used to share ideas for improvement and i”

“I'm on a new unit and so am fairly unfamilar with my new manager. I am also not loving the switch and already thinking about leaving. Just some background. Last week, I worked two shifts where I did not get a lunch break; one was during my regularly scheduled shift and none of the three of us working were able to take a break. The other time, I was working a different, later shift than I normally do, so planned to take my break later but I ended up getting sent home early for low census. I j”

“I work at a very AI focused tech company that I’m starting to despise. My old manager got promoted to an AI agent manager position, and the director that created that position left the company right after. There are basically zero agents for them to manage. She has been messaging us every week, requesting for us to provide any project ideas to improve our workflow. Except she just wants ANYTHING. Doesn’t matter if it’s related to AI or automation or what. Something as small as changing the layou”

“Every on/offboarding cycle I've been part of goes the same way: a departing colleague spends their notice period doing rushed brain-dump meetings, someone records them, and six months later the new hire is still reverse-engineering decisions made years ago. The core problem, as I see it, is twofold: barely anything gets documented in the first place, and the knowledge that matters most, the why behind decisions, sits a layer deeper than what people can easily put on a page. You don't not”

“Every on/offboarding cycle I've been part of goes the same way: a departing colleague spends their notice period doing rushed brain-dump meetings, someone records them, and six months later the new hire is still reverse-engineering decisions made years ago. The core problem, as I see it, is twofold: barely anything gets documented in the first place, and the knowledge that matters most — the why behind decisions — sits a layer deeper than what people can easily put on a page. You don't n”

“Every on/offboarding cycle I've been part of goes the same way: a departing colleague spends their notice period doing rushed brain-dump meetings, someone records them, and six months later the new hire is still reverse-engineering decisions made years ago. The core problem, as I see it, is twofold: barely anything gets documented in the first place, and the knowledge that matters most — the why behind decisions — sits a layer deeper than what people can easily put on a page. You don't n”

“Every on/offboarding cycle I've been part of goes the same way: a departing colleague spends their notice period doing rushed brain-dump meetings, someone records them, and six months later the new hire is still reverse-engineering decisions made years ago. The core problem, as I see it, is twofold: barely anything gets documented in the first place, and the knowledge that matters most, the why behind decisions, sits a layer deeper than what people can easily put on a page. You don't not”

“Some people do not get paid enough to manage up. I currently get paid enough to manage up. But at my previous job I didn’t, so I left”

“Find how to work smarter, not harder. Also, make sure you are not assuming responsibility for work others should be doing - that's a biggie. Saying "yes" takes time you may not have.”

“Recently had my evaluation meeting. My boss complained about my work for the whole hour, pointing out and nitpicking mistakes. Then I received a 30% raise. I have no idea how to read this. He's supercritical of everything to the point I wonder if I should be job hunting. But then...thats a very good raise. I was below market before and it puts me there. Thoughts? submitted by /u/yeyiyeyiyo [link] [comments]”