I have had some terrible experiences working with some managers and team leaders in the past, and also had some great experience. The better ones were mostly characterized by a 2-way communication channel where the manager lets me know that there’s a certain way to proceed about things, here’s how and why, get to work.
My previous supervisor, who was like that and valued my input and contribution, was someone like that. He had a crystal-clear agenda, he’d lay it down to me and tell me that eventually we are moving towards it, let me hear why you’d think this is a terrible idea. This manager LOVED being challenged, and it completely worked for me. Sometimes, I’d disagree with him on a few initiatives/ideas he might bring up, other times I’m in the flow with what he had in mind, but what’s important is: there’s always a healthy discussion to be had before he’d blatantly and openly asks me to do something using his superiority in the organization.
Well, that manager left, and his replacement just joined a few weeks ago, and I could tell that the way he functions is very incompatible with me. The first fuckup that he did was to initiate a training session in my sector to all the stakeholders I work with in the company and asked me to conduct monthly trainings to refresh their knowledge. My first reaction was, “Okay…?” But had he asked me what was done in the past, I’d have told him that each and every individual stakeholder I work with has had a butter-smooth experience working with me and working with the process I have personally established. I didn’t say anything, but I was like, “Alright, fuck me and what I know, I guess?”
The second one is that we (the previous manager and I) have been working on some branding initiatives outside of the company where we’d go and promote our company, and now he’d like to have a meeting about this saying, along with his superior, that they don’t see value in doing this and it might not fare well with the current allocated budget (absolute bollocks. The membership fee has already been paid and subscription is valid for the next 2-3 years, the superior KNOWS, and there are no costs involved besides my personal presence). The problem is that I’ve been in touch with this external company now for the past 2-3 months, and I’ve worked so hard to embellish our brand and make it presentable. Today I received an email from them asking to have one final meeting to recap everything, and when I forwarded it to my supervisor, he said to stop sending him email and that we will be discussing it tomorrow in person. Corporate for it’s not going to happen.
I really hate this type of interactions where the person I have an issue with shuts me down. And I hate that they’re not taking my input and taking initiatives that aren’t at all needed. I feel incredibly frustrated that all my hard work is gone to shit, and I don’t feel like I have the energy to carry over tomorrow’s meeting because my stance will be, “Look, if you wanna cancel it, just fucking do it already, no need to waste more time. We can move forward with other topics”.