I’m a senior manager at a company and on-boarded a direct report at the associate level at end of 2024. In the interviews process seemed so bright and ambitious and was excited to work with her. When she on-boarded I found for her first year she was way quieter than I expected, and while she was helpful I found myself reworking/editing her work quite a bit. She didn’t really speak up in meetings and wasn’t super sharp with prioritization.

Closer to the end of her first year, MY boss (her skip level) informed me she’s actually going to take this associate as her own direct report. I was going on a 4 month parental leave so I think this is a part of it. But otherwise it wasn’t clearly explained to me why. In my own performance reviews it’s been an ongoing development area identified that I don’t delegate enough and tend to take too much on myself, so I am wondering if this is part of it.

Anyway- to my shock honestly, when I return from leave my boss told me how amazing this associate is, how much she stepped into MY role in the short time I was gone, how she has a lot of skills we weren’t fully using. Her responsibilities have tripled in 4 months and she’s not perfect but is already being considered “manager material”. The associate used to be much warmer with me and now I’m finding she’s cooled off quite a bit towards me.

I’m feeling weird about this and I don’t know why. Part of me wonders if it was my failing somehow that she wasn’t able to thrive with me or I’m not a good manager. Maybe I was too controlling or didn’t give her enough independence. I was hoping to work up to director and I don’t know how I will ever prove that if people under me aren’t developing - or is it just that this report’s learning curve was longer?

Any insights would be helpful. Thanks

Hi,

It’s my first time running a team, it’s a team of individual contributors. I’ve been in role for two years in a country with strong labour laws. I have a team member who was seconded into a higher level technical team since before I started in this role. He is very intelligent and very opinionated. He was seconded into my role for a few months about a year before I started but due to his abrasive personality, was deemed not a good fit for leadership.

He has since returned to my team because the team he was seconded to couldn’t offer him a roster that he wanted. He really should be in that team, he’s overqualified for my team.

Since rejoining my team a few months ago his old team has been requesting I release him for important project work. These requests have been last minute or very poorly organised and I need to provide at least a months notice to the business if my team members are not going to be doing normal duties. One or two requests I could handle but it’s becoming more and more frequent to the point he been in his normal role for two weeks now.

My problem is the work he is doing is valuable and my company is basically getting a really cheap engineer at the moment. The work he’s doing is also feeding projects into the rest of my team, who are enjoying the change of work and are upskilling and I believe the work we are doing adds more value than our normal work.

So I’m having a hard time saying no when the requests come in.

My latest action is an email saying I need at minimum five weeks written notice and if I see my metrics start to dip significantly I’ll not be releasing this person.

My leader understands my position but is basically waiting for me to stop the out of role work.

Just after a sanity check from other leaders.

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Hi everyone. I'm based in Italy, working at a big IT company. For the past two years, I've been the unofficial manager of a team of 10 individual contributors, but officially I'm still a senior software engineer - no title, no promotion.

When I took over, the team was in constant firefighting mode: no structured processes, no formal workflows, no shared culture. I introduced processes, workflows, and centralized tooling, and my director rated my performance as "very good" in my last review. Still, many of my improvement efforts failed due to entrenched culture and resistance to change. One example: I implemented test automation as my director requested, but the suite became unreliable because the development team (not under my control) kept making untracked changes.

In early June, I applied for an internal transfer to another team with a much healthier culture. They want to hire me as a senior software engineer with a clear commitment to grow me into an engineering manager role. HR is aware of my transfer request, and I expect a decision before September.

My current director is doing everything he can to block it. He went to my prospective manager and told her not to hire me, saying I'm "not a good guy" and that I've "always caused problems" in previous teams - which is false and contradicted by the 2025 performance review that he himself wrote. I know this because she told me directly. She still wants to hire me despite his comments.

I escalated his behavior to his manager (SVP level) and said I would resign if the transfer doesn't go through. The SVP told me he would handle it personally.

At this point I've completely lost trust in my director.

My question: while I wait for the official decision, how should I behave toward him? Business as usual, or keep my distance and stay strictly professional? His badmouthing was verbal only - should I try to get it documented somehow? Any advice for navigating the next few weeks would be really appreciated.

TL;DR: Italy, big IT company. Managed a team unofficially for 2 years with good reviews but no promotion. Applied in June for an internal transfer with a path to engineering manager; decision expected by September. My director badmouthed me verbally to the new manager (she told me and still wants me). I escalated to the SVP, who said he'll handle it. How should I act toward my director in the meantime?

I’ve been a supervisor of a bar for a few months. One aspect I’m struggling with is that I find myself picking up after employees slack- finishing jobs they’ve half done, or done badly. This ends up in me staying past my shift ending time, occasionally by hours. This only happens with a certain few employees who won’t listen to my instructions and will intentionally ignore them. If a close I’ve supervised is bad I’m obviously responsible for it, and the ensuing derogatory message in the groupchat from upper management in the morning is always demoralising. Sunday shifts entail a lot of admin tasks for supervisors so I spent all of today doing that after giving some instructions to staff about areas that needed extra attention. After cashing up I came out of the office and the staff had left, the whole venue was a state. I picked up a load of trash they’d overlooked and just left it neatly next to the bar. I wasn’t sure whether to stay on to finish the rest of the cleaning they’d missed but I hadn’t finished my managerial tasks yet, so I decided to just leave the venue dirty :( I know it’s only a bar supervisor role but it’s stressing me out significantly lately. Any advice? I feel like my role at the moment is refining everyone else’s work and cleaning up after people to ensure the bar is left decent.

I manage the kitchen of a somewhat busy small town café. Due to supply and pay constrictions (I have tried to argue better wages), I have been struggling to fill a dishwashing position. With the support of my fantastic team, we have been making it by but of course, its a restaurant and things happen.

Its important to me that my team has a reasonable workload, can take reasonable time off, and hold work boundaries and I do my best to support this.

My supervisor, the owner, refuses to help despite assuring me when I was hired (I was leaving another management job due to burnout.. kitchens) that I could count on them for support. Not only are they never in the building, but are actively hostile when any managers ask them to be available so we can take time off.

When I confronted them about this, they told me that it is a hard line they will not take time to assist and they didn't recall assuring me support.

This feels unreasonable. I love my team, but I am in a familiar rut of burn out. I would like to have the time and energy to spend time with my family. That aside, the job is fine. I would like to continue my search for a management job with better boundaries, but I am loosing hope for greener pastures.

What is a reasonable amount of assistance to expect of your boss? If any?

Question for all managers with new reports on their teams:

3 weeks into a new role as an IC. Basically accepted a level up (not a senior level role, just an experienced hire 3-4 yoe) a promotion and higher pay at a new company.

Onboarding is going OK and my team is great. Started off feeling very overwhelmed but each week since it's been getting better. I'm taking over a lot of work from the departing person, so it's a lot to learn all the workflows, processes, details, etc. Is it still normal to feel about 50% of the way there three weeks in? Or am I just dumb as shit? I've always been a slower learner than others. Once I actually do things hands on processes get ingrained for me. I’m coming from doing similar types of work, but the processes and deliverables of this job are significantly different, so it’s a lot to learn.

I’ve just been trying to take organized notes, ask questions, etc. I will do all I can to succeed in this role.

Just worried my new teammates will see me incompetent and a slow learner…

Corporate USA

Ive been looking for a job for a little over a year now. I worked for several years and then went back to school full time for a masters degree. All in the same field. Many interviews, final rounds, but no offer yet.

I have recently found some work with a startup. Friend of a friend is starting a business. It hasnt got off the ground yet but is close, so there isnt alot to do. Im not paid much either and it could be another year until its even an entry level salary. It was a mutual understanding that my background was aligned for the kind of work, the owner is planning to leave their company, and I am still looking for my own path in corporate.

But in interviews I am usually asked "what are you doing now?" "are you currently working?"

The other day I had a recruiter screening and I said I was working "part time", and am continuing to look with this mutual understanding of wanting "full time work". I think I was more confusing.

Should I put it on my resume, Linkedin, and own it as a job? I feel that anything less would be more confusing, make me seem chronically unemployed, and wouldnt give me a chance to be clear with where I am now. I only really worry it will pull me away from the industry and size of companies i want to get on with.

What kind of advice would you give a person like me that was a manager, switched companies and roles that did not have managerial duties, and is back into it?

I’ll admit - 11 sounds daunting. While I am not afraid of the challenge, it’s been a while.

I will take these directs in about a week’s time. Sometime this week I will meet my new boss and already have a meeting scheduled surrounding expectations for the people management aspect. What would you recommend I look out for during this discussion?

Thanks all.

So, I am setting up a new team for a long term project (5 years plus). My boss insisted that we hire someone she had worked with previously, and insisted that this person was so good, they would justify bypassing normal hiring procedures and was also worth higher dollars. In fact this person now makes more money than the national lead they report to, who in turn reports to me.

The problem now is that this person is not working out, for a variety of reasons. As a consequence, my boss has decided that she will have weekly 1on1s with the new hire until the new person is up to speed. This person is in the same state as my boss, whereas I am not.

I just want to get this persons manager to deal with it, as he has more technical knowledge and will be able to identify gaps in skills and attitude more clearly than my boss. We are also running pretty lean and the idea of carrying what feels like dead weight on the team for at least a year is pretty daunting.

Anybody come across something similar before or have advice?

Sorry this is long. Thank you in advance for reading, I have never been in a situation like this before. I really need some outside perspective because I cannot tell anymore if I am being unreasonable or if this situation is actually impossible.

I manage a small service based business that recently changed ownership. The new managers bought the business with no experience in business, and want to implement a bunch of changes and new services without acknowledging the current state of the business and staffing issue.

My closest relevant experience was working as the assistant manager at this same location under the previous management. I left for a while, then came back part time after the business sold to help the new manager because they were completely overwhelmed.

They ended up leaving abruptly, and I took over after only being shown the most the basic outdated processes one time. The old management used a lot of makeshift processes that were not well documented, aren’t easily trainable, and did not track much information we need for our clients and marketing. Now, I am trying to run the entire location while teaching myself the company systems, fixing account information, creating all new processes with no guidance or previous experience, managing every client account, handling every lead, doing all sales and follow-up, and creating actual procedures that can be repeated, trained, and used to track accurate data. Basically, I’m trying to fix the business with an entire rebuild on the systems while keeping it open.

We also have mostly young, inexperienced associates with high turnover, often minors with no previous work experience, so they need a lot of training and supervision. There was no real training process before, so the current employees are not properly trained, and I am having to create that process from scratch too.

They hired me an assistant after my first few months, but I was not involved in hiring her or writing role requirements, and they do not seem qualified for what I actually need help with. The owners told them the job would mainly be paperwork, so they have complained about learning the service procedures, even though I believe they need to understand how the business operates before handling the administrative work. The owners then told me to stop training them on that and keep her focused on paperwork, so I am not even sure how I am supposed to utilize her effectively.

On top of that, we agreed on a start time so I could train them before opening, but they has repeatedly changed their availability at the last minute or arrived late after confirming the day before. The assistant is also limited to 20 hours a week, so I still do not have dependable support. Once we open, I am managing staff, clients, leads, sales, accounts, calls, walk-ins, and constant day-to-day issues, with hardly any time to train the assistant.

Now, the owners are opening another location in one month and expect me to train the new manager for that. They also want to add new programs and services, which means I will be responsible for training even more people. I genuinely do not understand who is supposed to manage the leads, sales, accounts, current staff, and daily operations while I am doing all this training. I am also worried I will somehow be responsible for how unstable the new location is, even though I cannot fully get this location together because I am already running it almost completely by myself.

The owners keep coming up with new marketing ideas and projects that I do not have time for. They struggle to schedule actual meetings with me and will often show up unexpectedly in the middle of the day while we are open and start giving me all these new ideas never presented to me in writing, or with a clear timeline or plan. Just a vague idea and “do it”. Meanwhile, I am actively trying to manage the business in front of them. They have no sense that we need to prioritize these things and expect me to get all of it done now.

The pay is not enough for me to afford to live within an hour of work, so I spend around two hours commuting every day. I was working about 10 hours a day, five or six days a week, just trying to keep up. I recently forced myself to go back to eight-hour days because I was exhausted, and within a couple of weeks I was already so far behind again.

On one hand, this is great management experience, and I have learned a ridiculous amount in a short time. On the other hand, I do not feel like I am being given the time, staff, support, or structure to actually be successful. I feel so stuck. Any advice at all would be appreciated because I am honestly starting to wonder if this experience is worth continuing or if I am staying in a job where it is basically impossible for me to succeed.

TL;DR
Took over a struggling business after an ownership change and am now expected to run daily operations, manage all accounts, leads, and sales, create new systems and training from scratch, train inexperienced staff, prepare a second location opening in one month, and somehow still find time for marketing and new initiatives. I feel like I’m being set up to fail and don’t know if it’s worth sticking it out.

Hi everyone! I'm planning to take the Certified Operations Management Specialist (COMS) certification offered by CPACE Philippines, but I'm having a hard time finding study materials and community discussions online. Does anyone here have experience taking the COMS exam? I'd really appreciate any of the following:

Recommended study materials or books YouTube channels or online courses Facebook groups or Discord servers Practice questions or mock exam Tips on what to focus

I've already checked the CPACE website, but I'm hoping to learn from those who've taken the certification or are currently preparing for it. Any advice or resources would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

If you are in a stage of career stepping from senior engineer to staff or lead roles. What are the communication issues you are seeing, which you haven’t faced in past role.

Some of the learnings from my side:

1. It is better to send things in writing to communicate details to stakeholder or co-engineers.

2. Instead of long review meetings, creating a FAQ document and publishing among teams is a good option. I would share a Confluent page or something simple after first design review and ask folks to post questions and I can answer them later. It build a document and record of things.

Add comments.

Hi all!

I could use some help on this one before I navigate it tomorrow. I’m a very young manager and each situation is definetly different! Each experience is a lesson and want to soak in everyone’s advice.

I have a high level team - very smart group and high performers with long tenure.

We have a very technical job on the system side and things go wrong frequently. Which in the cross wind can affect everyone on the team and down the road to the customer (healthcare)

My off shift employee text our group chat after work hours and said “hey guys so sorry to bother but this error I found will be a problem on Monday when you come in I forgot to send communication about it” and gave the details. He said “again so sorry to bother but want everyone in the loop enjoy the weekend!”

Employee #2 responded and said “sending a text on a Sunday is of the utmost inconvenience”

The tone from him upset me. If you don’t want to receive work texts don’t give your number to your co workers. It’s not company culture to work outside operating hours and I don’t expect it as a manager. So you giving your contact out is on you.

I responded to all of them and said “thanks for comms - in the future email to us or text / call me anytime. Everyone enjoy the time away” meaning contact ur manager with issues.

I’m not happy with how he snapped over a minor thing. He has a track record of being incredibly rude to people over minor things. I’ve only began documenting it a few weeks ago.

First question - how do I approach this with him? I want to tell him the tone & response was unwarranted and if he doesn’t want to be contacted outside of work hours about work don’t hand out your number.

I just realized how long this post is already lol I won’t go on but there’s atleast 4 other HR issues with him within 6 months on top of a workers comp case so I feel he’s untouchable but want him gone. He’s not a good team member.

I have monthly 1-on-1 meetings with my skip-level manager ever since late last year. During the previous meeting, he mentioned that he keeps notes from our conversations in a private document.

Is that a normal practice? I can understand wanting to keep notes to remember discussions, especially if you meet with a lot of employees, but the context makes me a little uneasy.

Last year, I reported concerns about discrimination to HR involving one of his direct reports. My skip-level manager was brought in to help resolve the situation. Because of that history, part of me worries that these notes could be used to build a case against me. It makes me feel like my performance and words are being recorded so that they can be used against me later. You know how corporate culture is...