[tomerv]

> you need to find out what your manager's motivation is from keeping you from such events and based on that formulate a strategy for dealing with him/her.

That's a pretty adverserial approach. Why not understand the manager's motivation and then work with him/her?

The "adverserial-ness" is also apperant in the possible causes you raised for the manager's decision (he's a company man / he's taking advantage of the fact that you're agreeable / he doesn't want you to work elsewhere). There can be other reasons, even with a manager that's 100% on your side. For example, maybe he worked hard to get approval for you to go to that conference, even fought his supervisors, but at the end he lost? That's why the best advice is to ask him to explain the decision, and not to come to the conversation with any assumptions.

[raducu]

Shouldn't the manager as a decent human being, upon so blatantly encroaching on another human being's personal time, be the one to explain himself and his reason for his refusal?

[AllegedAlec]

> There can be other reasons, even with a manager that's 100% on your side. For example, maybe he worked hard to get approval for you to go to that conference, even fought his supervisors, but at the end he lost? That's why the best advice is to ask him to explain the decision, and not to come to the conversation with any assumptions.

Fair enough. Maybe I should have said "managerial layers" when I said management.

[hrktb]

TBF a manager that tried to get approval but got refused usually won’t reject the original request without explaination.

It’s poisonning the relation with the managee, so if it’s by mistake or from good intent, it’s such a bad move that maybe it’s best to not expect them to have a positive impact going further.

If it’s just some misunderstanding, there is a clear communication problem anyway, so situation would still be dire.

[KirinDave]

> That's a pretty adverserial approach. Why not understand the manager's motivation and then work with him/her?

That we are here suggests a critical disconnect with the manager already, so that's already failed.

[wisty]

The manager just pissed on the employee from a great height. It's the manager's job to explain exactly why this was reasonable (and it probably wasn't).