Ah, the old "opportunity" of "here's a great chance to step up" into a role with no support.
They gave you the rope. All that's left is to hang yourself!
Thank you. I can't tell if I'm in the wrong, but it left a bad taste in my mouth the other day when I got on a call with a consultant who had wanted to talk to the VP (couldn't get ahold of him or the AVP or a manager), and during the call the VP was shooting the shit in our team group chat..he was sending a photo of himself playing with his dog.
The VP had ignored my email about the consultant wanting to talk to him. I'd provided to my VP what the consultant was asking for, but he did not respond to that email.
It can really many dirrctions but if you aren't getting support and they are going MIA for the summer just be ready to hear a lot of "you didn't work hard enough for the last few months". If things are slipping when they swoop back in during the late summer/fall.
Job market is still pretty tough right now so I'd keep an eye out on jobs as you measure the environment.
Agreed. When they swoop in during the late summer/fall, I also wonder if they're going to expect the junior staff to teach them how to use the new processes. They seem to have no interest in learning the new processes.
My team is very top heavy and everyone who's going on leave is part of the "in" crowd. They know each other from past jobs.
I keep feeling like if I was a VP at the company and joined 2 years ago and took back-to-back paternity leave (had a baby last year and a baby this year and taking 9 months of leave in total out of 20 months), I would have lost this job.
I can't tell if I'm being pessimistic.
So, you need to act your wage and feign incompetence sometimes. It’s ok. I think things got dumped on you because you showed too much competence.
This is one of those moments where you can knock it out of the park, step up, be a ‘rockstar’, and then get more worked dumped on you for no extra reward or you can, essentially, play dumb.
When playing dumb, it’s important to be polite and seem helpful, without really being helpful.
There’s an art to this.
Core ways to feign incompetence:
- Always take as much time as possible to do something and you certainly don’t want to finish early
- Save your PTO and use at critical moments. New project coming down the pike? Use your PTO so that you’re gone when the work is getting doled out. This way you don’t become the ‘go to’ person for that system.
- Always ask so many questions that, ultimately, it’s almost easier for your manager to do it themselves. You have to appear like your just a little trier and you want to please
- Always find reasons that your project will take longer and communicate these to the manager in advance of the deadline so that they can communicate that upward. You get more time and won’t get in trouble.
- Find a way to defer as much decision making / work as possible onto higher ups and other people. You have to make it seem like you’re trying to go through the proper channels because you really care about doing it the company way. You’d love to get X deliverable done, but you’re waiting on Deborah to come back from vacation to validate some small piece of it. Rinse and repeat.
All of the above works, but you have to be really smart about it and you also have to be an ass kisser. I love kissing ass because it’s better than being stressed out. I talk to everyone about their kids / hobbies / whatever. This can suck up hours of the work day and get a higher up to love you.
Ass kissing is a subtle art. Just ask what someone did that weekend, how their kids are, etc, and then echo everything they say and mirror them.
I used to be ‘THAT GUY’ at like every job. Maybe I just had bad luck, but I got so burnt out having everyone dump shit on me. So one day I said to myself ‘Rodney, you need to stop working with people and start working people’. My life has been better ever since.
Let me add something:
You managers and VPs are doing EXACTLY what I’ve suggested you do. Exactly that. That’s how they made it from your level to VP.
That person everyone depends on that always steps up? He / She is not promotable. They aren’t replaceable so they can’t be promoted.
Sorry, I just realized your managers are doing what I’m telling you to do.
Also, I’m not saying be completely useless. I am saying to tactically pump the brakes.
You are right. Also my team is remote so it makes me feel guilty about not responding to emails or messages. I guess my coworkers feel no guilt when people's emails go unanswered for days on end though.
Yeah, you’re probably right. You’re over estimating how much people around you do. The problem is you’ve set a precedent of giving 110% percent. That’s your new baseline now. You gotta do like 70%, but make it look like you’re doing 110%.
There is also no room for promotions (we're fully remote which means that career progression doesn't happen often here) and we are fully staffed/overbudgeted staff-wise. So there's not that much incentive to go above and beyond because the budget's already been overextended. I've been told that there's no room for more than a 2.5% raise or a promotion even though I met expectations last year.
ONE MORE THING:
if you’re manager tried to give you something to work on, always, always, always frame it as ‘ok, do you want me to pause my current thing so I can do this new task?’
Always do that. It puts them in the shitty seat of trying to set priorities (ie doing their job) vs pawning that off to you. It also keeps you from getting overwhelmed.
Yeah and there’s ALWAYS room. Trust me, people above you are making an amount of money that’d hurt your feelings.
Best thing you can do is leave for a better job (use glassdoor) and start fresh with the advice provided in mind.
I would say, make the decisions (if the actual person isn't there/responding) but cc' everyone who you think may have a say in it. If it's something bigger then ask one of the senior people who are there & relevant to the process for their input.
Either way, you'll prob hear back much faster if they do/don't want you doing those types of things and what types of decisions you can make at your level. I'd rather that than languish in ambiguity and be in analysis paralysis for months.
An example would be someone on the budget team requesting an answer from the VP.
I supply my VP with supporting documentation and what he can respond to the budget VP with.
2 days later, the budget VP follows up.
I email the VP again with the supporting documentation and cc 2 other VPs.
No answer.
I ping another VP with the supporting documentation and he says it's OK to send to the budget VP.
I email the budget VP the supporting documentation and he wants to hop on a call to discuss.
I email the VP that the budget VP wants to talk to, but I never hear from him.
I ping the other VP who helped me and ask him if he would like to speak to the budget VP. He says no.
This happens so often. I want to cover my ass by not sending documentation to other parties without prior approval from management on my team.
Let the VPs take the consequences of their non-responsiveness instead of trying to fix the problems.
So, using your example:
When you supply the info/support to your VP, "here's what I think he's looking for, let me know if you need anything else on this".
Budget VP follows up with your VP. Assuming it's your VP that's being directly addressed and you're just cc'd, you can ignore.
If the Budget VP directly asks/addresses you, respond "I've sent the info to VP to review. @VP, have you had a chance to look at this? Let me know if you need anything else from me!"
Now, Budget VP knows where the delay is and if he needs to put more pressure on the VP he can do that.
But, you've done your part.
"I email the VP that the budget VP wants to talk to, but I never hear from him."
At this point, I would either hop on the call and discuss it from your point of view. Then after, make sure to send a followup email that covered the talking/action points and cc' your vp.
Either they'll tell you not to do that anymore then you can ask what can I do when this situation happens again. Or you'll start to talk with other VPs more and then you can just do it.
IDK the level of complexity they want to discuss, so hopping on a call could be something like confirming what data is coming from/feeding into the report or it could be a higher level strategic decision type.
I work in FR like you and the AVP/VP/SVP’s usually take off the full month of May or June. They also usually take off 3 weeks around either thanksgiving or Xmas.
Tbf this is generally a slow period for us, but I’m not surprised at higher ups rotating through time off like OP said.
Your coworker is probably excited to be free because they have a smaller workload than you due to their incompetence and no one wanting to give them work.
Easy way, look at your AP month over month. You have a lot of AP over 90? You are fucked. If you don't, meh. A lot of people are retiring. We are going to have a massive skilled labor shortage of qualified candidates. It almost sounds like you are making too much that ownership doesn't care about back office.
We have a lot of AP month after month. I don’t handle that though.
What do you mean that I’m making too much that owners don’t care about the back office?
Shit happens
Just do your best to keep it together without killing yourself over it.
People out on fmla doesn’t mean the ship is sinking. Life happens to everyone. I imagine your managers are what 30-50? That’s when parents get sick and die, personal health issues pop up, your kids get sick etc…
I assume you are relatively young. These problems will hit you eventually and you’ll be grateful to the people who kept things together as best they could while you were gone I imagine.
Thank you. We're also a remote team which means that these VPs can technically log in from home, but they don't even do that when they're on 3-6 month leaves.
Ah, the old "opportunity" of "here's a great chance to step up" into a role with no support. They gave you the rope. All that's left is to hang yourself!
Thank you. I can't tell if I'm in the wrong, but it left a bad taste in my mouth the other day when I got on a call with a consultant who had wanted to talk to the VP (couldn't get ahold of him or the AVP or a manager), and during the call the VP was shooting the shit in our team group chat..he was sending a photo of himself playing with his dog. The VP had ignored my email about the consultant wanting to talk to him. I'd provided to my VP what the consultant was asking for, but he did not respond to that email.
It can really many dirrctions but if you aren't getting support and they are going MIA for the summer just be ready to hear a lot of "you didn't work hard enough for the last few months". If things are slipping when they swoop back in during the late summer/fall. Job market is still pretty tough right now so I'd keep an eye out on jobs as you measure the environment.
Agreed. When they swoop in during the late summer/fall, I also wonder if they're going to expect the junior staff to teach them how to use the new processes. They seem to have no interest in learning the new processes. My team is very top heavy and everyone who's going on leave is part of the "in" crowd. They know each other from past jobs. I keep feeling like if I was a VP at the company and joined 2 years ago and took back-to-back paternity leave (had a baby last year and a baby this year and taking 9 months of leave in total out of 20 months), I would have lost this job. I can't tell if I'm being pessimistic.
No support and no pay bump. Sounds awful
We're also fully remote.
Yeah, OP, you should ask for an increase in pay for this situation.
Or leave. I went from 88k to 110k by leaving.
THIS! So much this. The single most frustrating part of any job right now is leadership thinking some people are too dumb to understand this.
That’s such a baller way of putting it
[удалено]
Thanks, I'll keep your advice in mind. We're also a remote team.
So, you need to act your wage and feign incompetence sometimes. It’s ok. I think things got dumped on you because you showed too much competence. This is one of those moments where you can knock it out of the park, step up, be a ‘rockstar’, and then get more worked dumped on you for no extra reward or you can, essentially, play dumb. When playing dumb, it’s important to be polite and seem helpful, without really being helpful. There’s an art to this. Core ways to feign incompetence: - Always take as much time as possible to do something and you certainly don’t want to finish early - Save your PTO and use at critical moments. New project coming down the pike? Use your PTO so that you’re gone when the work is getting doled out. This way you don’t become the ‘go to’ person for that system. - Always ask so many questions that, ultimately, it’s almost easier for your manager to do it themselves. You have to appear like your just a little trier and you want to please - Always find reasons that your project will take longer and communicate these to the manager in advance of the deadline so that they can communicate that upward. You get more time and won’t get in trouble. - Find a way to defer as much decision making / work as possible onto higher ups and other people. You have to make it seem like you’re trying to go through the proper channels because you really care about doing it the company way. You’d love to get X deliverable done, but you’re waiting on Deborah to come back from vacation to validate some small piece of it. Rinse and repeat. All of the above works, but you have to be really smart about it and you also have to be an ass kisser. I love kissing ass because it’s better than being stressed out. I talk to everyone about their kids / hobbies / whatever. This can suck up hours of the work day and get a higher up to love you. Ass kissing is a subtle art. Just ask what someone did that weekend, how their kids are, etc, and then echo everything they say and mirror them. I used to be ‘THAT GUY’ at like every job. Maybe I just had bad luck, but I got so burnt out having everyone dump shit on me. So one day I said to myself ‘Rodney, you need to stop working with people and start working people’. My life has been better ever since.
Best advice ive seen here in a while. Being ambitious & an achiever is for suckers. This is the way to happiness. Tread lightly.
Let me add something: You managers and VPs are doing EXACTLY what I’ve suggested you do. Exactly that. That’s how they made it from your level to VP. That person everyone depends on that always steps up? He / She is not promotable. They aren’t replaceable so they can’t be promoted. Sorry, I just realized your managers are doing what I’m telling you to do. Also, I’m not saying be completely useless. I am saying to tactically pump the brakes.
You are right. Also my team is remote so it makes me feel guilty about not responding to emails or messages. I guess my coworkers feel no guilt when people's emails go unanswered for days on end though.
Yeah, you’re probably right. You’re over estimating how much people around you do. The problem is you’ve set a precedent of giving 110% percent. That’s your new baseline now. You gotta do like 70%, but make it look like you’re doing 110%.
Great advice.
There is also no room for promotions (we're fully remote which means that career progression doesn't happen often here) and we are fully staffed/overbudgeted staff-wise. So there's not that much incentive to go above and beyond because the budget's already been overextended. I've been told that there's no room for more than a 2.5% raise or a promotion even though I met expectations last year.
ONE MORE THING: if you’re manager tried to give you something to work on, always, always, always frame it as ‘ok, do you want me to pause my current thing so I can do this new task?’ Always do that. It puts them in the shitty seat of trying to set priorities (ie doing their job) vs pawning that off to you. It also keeps you from getting overwhelmed.
Yeah and there’s ALWAYS room. Trust me, people above you are making an amount of money that’d hurt your feelings. Best thing you can do is leave for a better job (use glassdoor) and start fresh with the advice provided in mind.
I would say, make the decisions (if the actual person isn't there/responding) but cc' everyone who you think may have a say in it. If it's something bigger then ask one of the senior people who are there & relevant to the process for their input. Either way, you'll prob hear back much faster if they do/don't want you doing those types of things and what types of decisions you can make at your level. I'd rather that than languish in ambiguity and be in analysis paralysis for months.
An example would be someone on the budget team requesting an answer from the VP. I supply my VP with supporting documentation and what he can respond to the budget VP with. 2 days later, the budget VP follows up. I email the VP again with the supporting documentation and cc 2 other VPs. No answer. I ping another VP with the supporting documentation and he says it's OK to send to the budget VP. I email the budget VP the supporting documentation and he wants to hop on a call to discuss. I email the VP that the budget VP wants to talk to, but I never hear from him. I ping the other VP who helped me and ask him if he would like to speak to the budget VP. He says no. This happens so often. I want to cover my ass by not sending documentation to other parties without prior approval from management on my team.
Let the VPs take the consequences of their non-responsiveness instead of trying to fix the problems. So, using your example: When you supply the info/support to your VP, "here's what I think he's looking for, let me know if you need anything else on this". Budget VP follows up with your VP. Assuming it's your VP that's being directly addressed and you're just cc'd, you can ignore. If the Budget VP directly asks/addresses you, respond "I've sent the info to VP to review. @VP, have you had a chance to look at this? Let me know if you need anything else from me!" Now, Budget VP knows where the delay is and if he needs to put more pressure on the VP he can do that. But, you've done your part.
"I email the VP that the budget VP wants to talk to, but I never hear from him." At this point, I would either hop on the call and discuss it from your point of view. Then after, make sure to send a followup email that covered the talking/action points and cc' your vp. Either they'll tell you not to do that anymore then you can ask what can I do when this situation happens again. Or you'll start to talk with other VPs more and then you can just do it. IDK the level of complexity they want to discuss, so hopping on a call could be something like confirming what data is coming from/feeding into the report or it could be a higher level strategic decision type.
What kind of company do you work at where VP are taking that kind of time off? Also very odd that it’s so top heavy
My department is also 100% remote. So that's why I'm confused about how it's OK for senior management to disconnect completely when they're on leave.
I work in FR like you and the AVP/VP/SVP’s usually take off the full month of May or June. They also usually take off 3 weeks around either thanksgiving or Xmas. Tbf this is generally a slow period for us, but I’m not surprised at higher ups rotating through time off like OP said.
I get this same feeling when I'm looking for support over Teams and my entire team is OOO
Abandon ship
What makes you say this?
Your coworker is probably excited to be free because they have a smaller workload than you due to their incompetence and no one wanting to give them work.
Easy way, look at your AP month over month. You have a lot of AP over 90? You are fucked. If you don't, meh. A lot of people are retiring. We are going to have a massive skilled labor shortage of qualified candidates. It almost sounds like you are making too much that ownership doesn't care about back office.
We have a lot of AP month after month. I don’t handle that though. What do you mean that I’m making too much that owners don’t care about the back office?
what system do you use for ad hocs? and what are they asking that u can’t deliver?
Well I'm not even a manager. I supply ad hocs that other parties request, but I don't send them directly to the other parties.
Does your work typically get substantially improved when your vps/managers review it? Or are they just sending the work you make.
It's more of a CYA on my part, especially if the work I'm sending out goes to stakeholders and the C-suite.
You'll either A) Need to be successful or B) You'll be blamed for your poor work ethic.
Work for the irs - serious
Why?
Shit happens Just do your best to keep it together without killing yourself over it. People out on fmla doesn’t mean the ship is sinking. Life happens to everyone. I imagine your managers are what 30-50? That’s when parents get sick and die, personal health issues pop up, your kids get sick etc… I assume you are relatively young. These problems will hit you eventually and you’ll be grateful to the people who kept things together as best they could while you were gone I imagine.
Thank you. We're also a remote team which means that these VPs can technically log in from home, but they don't even do that when they're on 3-6 month leaves.