Of course I have an opinion on this. Of course. But I only have an opinion when I observe someone not running their shit and I see them suffer as a result. As a general rule, I do not ask my bosses for anything. Nothing. I tell them. I'm not disrespectful, and I'm not even terribly strident. I try to be the kind of employee I want to supervise. I handle my shit, I manage my time, and I believe they care more about the results than how I get there. Not in an unethical way but in a pragmatic 'hundred ways to skin a cat, pick one' way. If they wanted to tell me step by step how to do my job, and there are some who do, they most certainly will. Most however, work like most things in the universe do and they chose the path of least resistance; they have shit to do too so it would be most helpful if you just do yours without tying them up into how the hot dog is made. If there is a question, it is framed as 'here's what I plan to do, how's that sound' instead of 'what should I do.' I may be wrong but it's easier to edit my idea than it is to think for me.
It is burdensome to supervise people who need direction, advice, or a sounding board for everything; people who have little sense of perspective for when something is truly important and merits supervisory attention. They think everything that bears their watermark has to perfect. That sense of integrity and attention to detail is just the person you want manning our nuclear arsenal but not the person you want putting together the monthly birthday celebration. If that type of person believes the birthday celebration is important to anyone, it will be the best damn birthday celebration their attention to the other minutiae of life allows. It will be better than anyone else is likely to pull off but still not as good as they would have liked and thus brings them little joy. It is a stupid way to live. I live stupidly in many other ways so I consider myself an authority on stupid living and feel I can say that.
My replacement seems to be this kind, the kind that outsources their initiative, distracted by what everyone else thinks instead of wanting to own her success and failure as something of her own invention. She has pinged me on so many questions of zero significance or relevance that I'm irritated in advance of even meeting her. I already don't have confidence in her ability to communicate or in her ability to triage and figure out what is going to hit the cutting room floor because it is not possible to do everything. I feel she will consult her boss for everything from what time she should go to lunch to what the policy is on leaving 15 minutes early. And here's the thing, power, even insignificant power of the kind she is yielding to her management will never be refused. If you give your boss the option of having a registered opinion on when you take lunch, they are going to feel entitled to one. But here's the rub, it will only apply to you. And eventually you will resent it because one day you will break set with his expectation and he will give you feedback that seems unfair in light of how no one else seems to be held to taking lunch at his convenience. But there are no take backs. You gave them purview over that area of your life and now they feel it is owed to them. Further, because you asked them to register an opinion on something they would not ordinarily care that much about, you just took a hit on judgement too because you seek direction others don't.
I really love to be value added, to help people, to make my work place better. I will not however, be asking my boss to run my life, personally or professionally or imply I seek that kind of direction from them. I know I'm on trial with every new person I work for and it is new boss 101 to have a guard up and project a 'prove yourself to me' vibe. I have the same guard up and the pros and cons column is being worked fiercely during every interaction. I'm I'm lucky, the work eventually bears me out and they respect me and trust my judgement and ability to handle myself. Some iteration of "self-managing" or "works well with little or no oversight", has been written on more of my evals than probably any other phrase. If more bosses cleanly laid out their expectations there would probably be less wringing of hands from the approval seeking type (not that we don't all need or want approval). But most bosses don't. That sucks but I prefer the anxiety of setting my own professional boundaries and risking correction over the anxiety of 'mother may I.'
And that's how you run your shit.
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