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by caminante 159 days ago
In your situation, it's end of year review time. He might be softening you up.

Why not mention to your manager that CEO supported you? Are they working with different data? I get these may not be fun to press on right before the holidays.
1 comments
gwbas1c 159 days ago
Don't make assumptions. My employer does not do end-of-year reviews.

To make a long story short, my manager got angry because I wrote a quick and dirty tool that bypassed a lot of confusing abstraction layers, and is significantly easier to use than the tool the company currently uses.

When my manager got angry, I first told my manager that we shouldn't argue in front of the entire office. Then I went to the CEO for advice. The CEO gave me advice that I used on my 1-1 with my manager later that day. (The CEO was also quite happy that I made a quick-and-dirty tool that made peoples' lives easier.)

> Why not mention to your manager that CEO supported you?

I suggested that my manager discuss the issue with the CEO when they told me that he didn't think he could "sell my tool" to the CEO.

To make a long story short, this is a case where my manager started the company, and people / project management is not their strong part. The limiting factor is funding, otherwise we'd have hired a proper project manager and promoted my manager (the founder) to a thought leadership role.

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caminante 158 days ago
>I suggested that my manager discuss the issue with the CEO

Point blank:

Why not tell your manager you already spoke with the CEO instead of

1. Not mentioning you already overstepped your manager

2. And the skip-level boss/CEO liked the idea.

This seems like potentially good intentions being easily perceived by your manager as passive-aggressive. Maybe your skip level told you to use that phrasing.

Regardless, good luck.

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gwbas1c 158 days ago
I think you're misinterpreting the situation, because I didn't "overstep" my manager, and in a small company everyone has a relationship with everyone. (IE, what I did was taking initiative and making good use of dead time.)

I'm not comfortable discussing this further in a public forum at this point, but you're welcome to look at my profile to contact me directly if you want to.

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caminante 158 days ago
I understand and don't have your context.
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gwbas1c 156 days ago
If you're still looking at this thread, this article explains what's going on: https://www.startups.com/articles/how-founders-get-fired-by-...

The article takes a harsh tone on the situation, which really isn't true. (I wish the author avoided the word "failed" because the situation is really about recognizing success and playing to strengths.)

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caminante 155 days ago
Sure, you have a lot more tactical context.

I agree that diagnosing and treating Founder's Syndrome is a natural, healthy outcome.

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