[cobolcomesback]

At every job I’ve had, across all the managers I’ve had, my immediate manager (and usually their manager as well) genuinely cared about me and my team and our well being as well as our careers. My _company_ and its executives surely didn’t give a damn if they even knew our names, but the actual humans I work face to face with definitely do.

[bluGill]

Managers are human (at least so far). As humans they care about other people they know.

Managers will sometimes not help you because they are lazy. In a few cases culture will make them discriminate against you. However in general managers like you and want you to do well.

[franktankbank]

This is like some sort of twilight zone shit. I have not had this experience in general.

[raw_anon_1111]

My wife cares about me and won’t say “because Bob said I had to divorce you, you have to go”.

Any manager will let me go if their manager tells them to.

[cobolcomesback]

I’ve been part of organizational discussions. Every manager ive worked with has actively fought, and fought hard, to keep, promote, or get pay raises for their employees. They don’t just bend over and say “okay boss” if asked to cut people.

If you treat your managers like soulless entities and don’t build relationships with them, they’ll probably do the same to you. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.

[raw_anon_1111]

Well in my 30 year career across 10 jobs - everything from startups to BigTech and now working full time at a consulting company, I’ve found line level managers to be absolutely useless - not soulless.

When I was being recruited as a strategic early hire, one of my requirements was that I must report to the CTO/director and not a line level toothless engineering manager.

Also, every meaningful raise I’ve gotten has only come when I was reporting to someone above a line level manager.

[apple4ever]

You've had bad luck. I get it. But good managers like myself exist.

[raw_anon_1111]

It’s not “bad managers” - it’s “powerless managers”. If you are a line level manager, you don’t control budgets, company wide re-org decisions, or really anything that I care about - which is mainly “how much money do I get in exchange for my labor” and “do I need to come into an office?”. Those are all decisions above your head

[johnnyanmac]

I don't expect them to move the world for me. But I don't equate "powerless managers" with "useless managers". If they feel like they do what they can within their means, I'd say that's a good manager.

>really anything that I care about - which is mainly “how much money do I get in exchange for my labor”

That's fair. Though I didn't choose my domain for the reasons you work. So I cared more about managers who felt like they were empathetic and invested their time to help me succeed. Not whoever can have me climb the corporate ladder the fastest.