[Workplace politics filter] Is this coworker trustworthy?

March 1, 2023 11:27 AM

I, a (female) software dev manager in tech, had a colleague Joe, another manager, tell me that their report, Max, was mad at me. I spoke to Max, who was indeed very annoyed, and then spent a week and emotional energy fixing Max's issues even though they weren't my fault. Max has expressed appreciation, but Joe has never mentioned it though we talk a lot. Am I right to feel a lot of distrust of Joe? Soap operatic details inside.

Max built something that works ok but doesn't work very well. This is partly bad design and mostly the lack of resourcing he's given.

This thing he built was impeding my team's work, so I told our director it needs to be fixed, hoping he'd allocate resourcing for it.

Director told me to fix it myself and promised resources to do. I said I'd think about it during the meeting, and then declined shortly after because it's not my expertise. Meanwhile, director announced to a wider group that I was taking over the thing (which was bad leadership by the director, but that's a different issue).

Max started to get difficult in interactions with me and my team but never expressed why. That thing he built just floundered with no owner.

Joe finally told me that Max was frustrated. I spoke to Max and learned he really wanted full ownership of that thing with resourcing to make it better, and resented me for taking it away (though I did not).

When I conveyed this to Joe and suggested we advocate for Max getting ownership back, Joe told me that the director would never approve. This is in line with what has happened in other manager meetings, where the director criticizes Max behind his back, and Joe, his own manager and relatively senior, does not stand up for him, but others more junior, like me, do.

I told Joe I'd ask the director to give ownership to Max anyway. Joe said I would fail.

Ignoring Joe, I spoke to the director, who I did manage to convince. I also did a lot of work socializing Max's expertise among different members of our org to build up trust and collaboration since they had a bad impression of Max due to the director's criticisms.

Max is happier now. The thing is being developed. He's no longer being difficult with my team. Max as well as others in the org have thanked me for setting this thing into motion. Even the director is happy that things are moving.

Now, Joe. I'm resentful of Joe. It feels like he allowed me to be a punching bag for months to deflect responsibility, telling Max that (1) I wanted ownership of his thing and (2) there's nothing he could do. While he might have believed (1), (2) was clearly false, and he simply wanted to avoid conflict with the director.

Joe has never acknowledged my efforts in clearing up the mess that I did not create, because -- I don't know -- this change I made means I'm not a convenient punching bag anymore? It would mean acknowledging his lack of competence in managing all this? Or, he is simply unaware of the impact I had?

Ok, that was long. But I interact with Joe in many other contexts (outside of the Max situation), and now I feel I can't trust him on anything.

Part of me wants to gently elicit acknowledgment from him just to show him my boundaries for future interactions, but I don't know if that will serve any purpose and may backfire. Or should I forget this incident and assume Joe will behave more accountably in the future?

posted by redlines to Human Relations (19 answers total)

If I'm understanding correctly, the hierarchy here is that you and Max report to the director, who reports to Joe? If so, yes, it sounds like Joe is a bad boss, possibly someone who was promoted above his level of managerial competence. He is passive-aggressive and allows his own desire to not be the bad guy to take precedence over clear communication, leadership, and expectation-setting. Now, will you fix the problem by bringing it up with him? My guess is not, in fact it will probably lead to him undermining you in his typical indirect fashion, in ways that you may not even know about. Does Joe have a boss that could be at all helpful?
posted by derrinyet at 11:37 AM on March 1, 2023

I think your diagnosis is correct: Joe is someone who will go to pretty great lengths to avoid conflict, including failing his direct reports. So on that level, no you can't trust him.

Part of me wants to gently elicit acknowledgment from him just to show him my boundaries for future interactions, but I don't know if that will serve any purpose and may backfire. Or should I forget this incident and assume Joe will behave more accountably in the future?

I wouldn't do either, personally. No, Joe can't be trusted to be honest or to deal with things head-on. But I also don't think you're going to get much by trying to elicit acknowledgment from him. He'll either pay you lip service to avoid the conflict or get mad and act passive-aggressively to punish you (possibly both). I would just work with him as well as you can, with the full knowledge of what you can and can't trust him with.

By the way, it seems pretty clear to me that you "won" this incident. You rescued the project, you successfully mentored Max, and the director is happy with you. Take the win.
posted by lunasol at 11:38 AM on March 1, 2023 [59 favorites]

I said I'd think about it during the meeting, and then declined shortly after because it's not my expertise. Meanwhile, director announced to a wider group that I was taking over the thing

Another possibility is that Joe is trying to stay off the director's radar because the director is prone to making public announcements directly contrary to what has been said to him.

One way shitty management sticks around is by stirring up chaos and conflicts between their reports. Everyone is too busy being paranoid about their own position to do anything.

Under these circumstances I would not trust Joe or anyone else who works for this director, not because they're bad people but because they're doing what they can to stay afloat.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 11:38 AM on March 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

I think it is completely appropriate that you feel you can not trust Joe. Joe has demonstrated that he is unwilling to take the actions necessary to resolve conflicts which are clearly his responsibility. I would not call him on it; I think it would backfire. I would also not forget the incident. I would assume that Joe is not a reliable collaborator, and be very careful in future shared tasks making sure I document everything.
posted by hworth at 11:39 AM on March 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

I would do neither of those.

As I read it, you came out of this as the 'winner' of the interaction. You fixed a problem that Joe indicated could not be fixed, and are recognized as having done it both with credit that things are moving forward (from both above and below) and better relationships with the people directly below you and also across / below in the org (Max).

You didn't ask to play the game (so to speak), but take the W. Making Joe acknowledge that he lost isn't going to help your future interactions.
posted by true at 11:40 AM on March 1, 2023 [11 favorites]

Joe could be a vicious corporate player, but he could also be extremely lazy. He could have spoken to other people to help with Max's frustrations, but he could also NOT to do that and not have it affect his OKRs or what have you at all. I have worked with managers like this, and they are in fact harmful, but not in the way that someone that uses energy to purposely sabotage people are.

I would not assume Joe will behave more accountably in the future, unless his own manager explicitly measures that. Saying, "hey, I did this for Max and you" is useful for getting more information about Joe's behavior, but I wouldn't be surprised if he just responds with a noncommital "OK".
posted by ignignokt at 11:41 AM on March 1, 2023

Also, one thing you didn't mention is whether - at the beginning - you talked to Joe about the thing not working well before you talked to the Director. If you did, and Joe said that nothing could be done - ok, you tried. But if you didn't, if I were in Joe's shoes I would be a bit salty as you're basically going over my head to say that A) the thing doesn't work and B) I can't be trusted to fix it or manage my people without escalation.
posted by true at 11:46 AM on March 1, 2023

It sounds like Joe is acting out of incompetence rather than malice:

- Joe doesn't know how to get adequate resourcing for his report Max. Instead he allowed Max's project to get into an unsuccessful state. Even if you never got involved, it would've been bad for Joe's career that his report's project doesn't work well and is badly designed.

- Joe doesn't know how to convince his boss (the director) to take actions that are beneficial to the org, such as giving full ownership of the project to Max.

- Joe doesn't know how to manage his own reports when they're frustrated. He didn't know how to deal with Max's anger.

It's no surprise that Joe also doesn't know how to handle your frustration. He doesn't have the skills. He's probably slightly panicking on the inside, because he sees these high-EQ situations that others (like you) are able to magically solve, but he himself is unable to replicate that success.

I think you should treat him as an underperforming colleague. It's smart to reduce your trust in him, but do that because he lacks the skills, not because he's trying to use you as a punching bag.

It's similar to how Max lacked the design skills for his project. He can't magically improve his design skills overnight even if you tell him. It wouldn't serve any purpose to force him to acknowledge that his design skills are lacking. Expressing your frustration ("why did I have to design your project? Why aren't you better at design? Forcing me to do your design crossed my boundaries") would be pointless. Just work around Max's suboptimal design skills and Joe's suboptimal teamwork / management skills.
posted by sandwich at 11:47 AM on March 1, 2023 [24 favorites]

There's that lovely saying: "When someone shows you who they are, believe them."

Don't confront Joe or the director or expect any apologies or anything. It's water under the bridge at this point and that's obviously not Joe's forte. You do not have to fix Joe.

But as you continue to interact with him, keep this incident in mind.
posted by nkknkk at 11:55 AM on March 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

I don't think you'll get what you want from Joe. I think you've taken the right lesson here: tread carefully with Joe.

The other lesson: talk to people directly. I don't know what protocols there are at your work, and I'm not saying you should have done this before. But now that it's clear that you can't trust Joe as a go-between, it seems to me to be even more important to be on the same page with folks outside your team, like Max, who are working on projects for you in a different reporting line. The more you can work directly with those folks (even if you have to be somewhat lowkey about these communications), the better.
posted by bluedaisy at 12:14 PM on March 1, 2023 [8 favorites]

"This thing he built was impeding my team's work, so I told our director it needs to be fixed, hoping he'd allocate resourcing for it."

Did you talk to Joe or Max first before taking it to the director? If not, they might have felt blindsided and things could have gone downhill from there.

The bigger organizational issue is that there weren't channels in place for you and Joe to talk to each other about things like this. That should be a priority going forward.
posted by dum spiro spero at 12:40 PM on March 1, 2023 [5 favorites]

Joe is not someone who will resolve director-level problems. Maybe he’s lazy or conflict avoidant, or maybe he has experience with the director that tells him he won’t be successful, who knows? Regardless, that’s good information to have. Joe isn’t a resource you can count on in a situation like this.

Separately, I’m not sure what kind of recognition you’re looking for here. A quick “hey, you really worked some magic with the director, thank you for that!” would have been nice. But the lack of it doesn’t seem to mean anything dire to me other than this is a guy who is lacking in some soft skills re: coworker interaction, which you already knew from how he’s handling the director.

I can’t see bringing this up now unless you have a specific concrete ask for how you want him to do something differently next time. If you do, I’d focus on that ask.

Otherwise, yeah - you did a great job here, everyone made out well, take the win and move on.
posted by Stacey at 1:07 PM on March 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

Highly recommend you ask this (great!) question on the Engineering Managers slack, which is a lovely community.
posted by caek at 1:24 PM on March 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

There's a classic management article from Harvard Business Review called Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey that I encourage you to read.

Now you did score a win, but you also had several monkey's put on your back in the process (aka more work created for you in managing all these issues). I would be cautious that this pattern doesn't repeat itself and you end up doing the work of others.

It does seems like you skipped the step of putting this monkey on Joe's back first and instead went to the director and perhaps, so that's one thing to do differently. I would also think about being more clear about asking people for specific solutions from the get go, so telling the director to just "fix it" led to a lot of agita, and next time you should go to the director with a more specific "we have an issue, here's my thought on how you can fix it" would garner better results.
posted by brookeb at 2:57 PM on March 1, 2023 [4 favorites]

Joe shouldn't have been the flying monkey. if max is upset with you he can tell you this himself
posted by brujita at 3:10 PM on March 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

You fixed a problem that Joe indicated could not be fixed, and are recognized as having done it both with credit that things are moving forward (from both above and below) and better relationships with the people directly below you and also across / below in the org (Max).

Yeah. Take this as a giant W.

Joe sucks as a manager, and knows it, so he went to you to make his direct report your problem, since he knew in his bones he couldn't handle it. Your boss certainly knows Joe sucks, so he declared that you'd be fixing the problem that Joe everyone knows cannot handle. You then fixed the problem, and now everyone is happy, and the application in question in getting adequately supported.

Over here at my part of everyone's favorite fruit stand, there are a few "Joes", and our "Joes" have to spend like 105% of their workday ensuring the competent managers don't put a proverbial ice pick through their kidneys, since doing what you did is right in our matrix that increases total comp and maybe gets you up to M3 or Director.

So for you to have Joe just give you this opportunity is the equivalent of him putting that ice pick into your hand.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 4:29 PM on March 1, 2023

Boy, I hate to break it to ya, but there are more Joes than people like you in engineering management. It is a group rife with passive-aggressive conflict avoiders. You did good work. Joe is a weenie. He will never admit his weeniedom. I hope the fact that your director is happy means that you will be rewarded for doing this kind of work in the future, and the Joes of this organization will not. I would not hold my breath for this outcome.

In this case, it's fine because it was being made your problem and you fixed it, improving things for your team and thus yourself. But be careful about making this sort of thing you problem too much. It is far too easy and common for more junior managers in tech to try to solve issues like this and they are usually much harder to solve (Max rarely magically pulls it together even with more resources).

Next time a director offers you the project and resourcing, unless you really actively don't want to do it, say yes. If you think Max should be involved, tell the director you want Max transferred to your team as part of the deal. Don't sell yourself short, you're a manager, it doesn't need to be your expertise, that is why you hire people. I am not trying to be hard-hearted but I have seen too many talented female engineering managers get crushed under systems designed for the Joes of the world. Joe would take your projects if the director offered them to him in a heartbeat. You don't have to stab the Maxes of the world in the back (but seriously, be careful, usually Max can't execute either), but don't waste your time doing Joe favors when he isn't doing his job.
posted by ch1x0r at 6:30 PM on March 1, 2023 [7 favorites]

Honestly? I don't consider ANY coworkers trustworthy. That's not to say you shouldn't be friendly with them, but, always protect your own interests. Don't privately confess wrongdoing, don't shit-talk about the workplace too much and especially not in writing or when you could be recorded doing so, and just keep your cards close to the vest. I've been burned in many workplaces before.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 12:44 PM on March 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Update. Joe is not trustworthy, confirmed. He has thrown Max under the bus. Max will be laid off. It turns out that my “win” was not a win at all. I suspect it was carefully orchestrated by the director and Joe to get Max to do the grunt work of transferring knowledge to the team eventually owning his thing. For anyone reading this, never trust anyone, especially leaders.
posted by redlines at 8:27 AM on March 18, 2023 [3 favorites]