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Rising Star
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New to Chicago - how do I find new friends here?
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Chief
Best consulting firms without the massive ego?
Is the rug being pulled out from under S&O?
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Ask her if your lack of experience is slowing her down. Force the conversation and explain you're not quite there. Feed to her ego if you need to.
Clearly you're far more intelligent at this than me. I'm just trying to learn. Don't take the 1:1 to heart. We do as we we're taught. Sometimes we need to know we're going too far.
If not, find a new job because some people prey on timidness.
If she had the patience or coaching skills. We wouldn't be here.
Qualitative says the persona of the experienced person is not going to be accepting of this plan idea that will take up more of her time.
You can try. I'm always for information. If you do that approach let me know how it went for my own personal curiosity.
She is experienced, but a bad manager. One of the primary responsibilities of managers is to develop less experienced people. But I agree with other advice, which is to have a one on one and stay where you are feeling and experiencing while feeding her ego. There is a small chance she is realizing she is not good at developing people and that is what is stressing her out and so you come get her and making it sound somewhat like it’s your fault might break the ice.
Pro
Be honest with her that you cannot meet her expectations and you don’t have the experience to do that.
You said the project is demanding so she’s likely very stressed with delivery and she needs to offload things to you, with a level of expectation that she doesn’t have to handhold you. A project is typically staffed that if you are a senior, you are expected to carry the weight of the senior regardless of if you are new or seasoned. If you aren’t pulling the weight, it simply means she will need to take on your share of work or she will have someone else to take on your share which they are probably under the water if it is a tight deadline. Being honest with her will let you have some breathing room and also let her adjust expectations or figure out alternatives.
There is another senior on the project with those responsibilities. I was supposed to be in charge of the data only. She is adding on more to my workload than what was originally communicated to me.
Chief
The ability to deal with a difficult personality takes some time and experience. What’s even more valuable and takes more time (unless you’re naturally really good at it) is reading people and figuring out how to use that information. Adam Hall above made the point about feeding her ego. That’s a tactic. I know it sounds manipulative but knowing what motivates someone can be extremely useful. It only becomes dark if use it that way.
sorry to say women at key positions are often stressed themselves unnecessarily and act like gatekeepers. Most of them passes on stress to other teammates.
A2 you are not here to understand rather argue. Feel free to form your own imaginations and choose to get triggered. I’m not expecting your acceptance, I don’t care what you deduce out of this. Good luck
I had the same experience with two abusive leaders on a project for 9 months last year. I have to say I thought about doing VERY bad things to them. I’ve left the job a few months ago but I still think about doing these things every day now. Burning urge to take revenge!
A much less toxic consulting firm :)
Could you please share some advice?
And this doesn't get better. When you get to M there will be an SM like that. When you get to SM there will be a PPMD like that.
I tried thinking it this way and things got escalated. If someone wants to intentionally make your work life miserable, it's hard to avoid unless you're quiet quitting.
Ask a lot of questions on expectations, ways of working, roles and responsibilities, etc. Make sure this is really clear and your other manager is aligned with the same
What are you trying to accomplish, and how did you raise it with her the first time?
If you're trying to get her to change her approach, it's unlikely to work and has a good chance of adding to the frustration.
If you're trying to find a way to work better together overall and reduce the stress, that is likely to land better.
I think that I know that manager.
Feel free to DM