Is my manager too much of a micromanaging red flag ? I started a new job and my manager monitors my Teams online status.
I recently started a new job. I would like to share some of the experiences I have had with my manager. I am wondering if these are red flags or if I am maybe being paranoid or thinking too much. It was quite difficult for me to get into this company and this job. The company is quite great and I was quite excited but some of the experiences I have had with my immediate manager have made me a bit apprehensive. I would like to share them and hear opinions about it. Here are some things which have happened which I have not liked so far - 1. I speak to a Senior Engineer one day and next day my manager asks me if anyone asked me to speak to him. 2. I shared an insight about a new tool which we can use on a deployment pipeline on the overall pod (under my skip manager). My manager immediately called me and started asking my status update and replied 'Discussing 1-1' in the group to prevent anyone getting visibility of the idea. 3. My manager pings me whenever I go offline and recently he asked me in a passive aggressive way, 'Please monitor your Teams status. It was away for most of today.' I now feel kind of paranoid to never get up as I feel my Teams status is being monitored.
Yes this is straight up micromanagement and insecurity.
Just stand up to him man. The more of such things you allow him to do, the more courage he will get and more he will fuck your life.
Just stand your ground for a few times and he'll understand that you are not the guy he can do this to.
Bad advice.No amount of work will be enough to gain trusts from rats like these.
unpocoloco
Stealth
4 months ago
@Paneerlabadar can't agree more on this..
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You also monitor your manager's online status and once he goes offline even for a second call him.
You can enable status change I guess in teams for monitoring the status.
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Hmm, your manager is highly insecure. Micromanaging is a very low trait by a manager and irritating for the team. Try to switch company or teams, you can escalate as well but mostly these management people create a lobby to protect even their wrongdoings.
Yes, usually they are empowered by their managers to do it so escalating might not help me.
Bakwasmaal
Stealth
4 months ago
All the folks advising you to stand for yourself are not giving you a job. As you said yourself it was an encumbered process to get the job.. protect it.. use interventions.. this isn’t the first micromanager neither will be the last.. check with your colleagues how they are managing him etc.,
This is happening in Microsoft? Wtf.
I had a toxic manager like this when I used to work for Accenture, Unfortunately it was my first job.i thought this was the norm in IT.
After switching to a start up.I came to know that this type of behaviour was not normal.
I would suggest you to change the company or team These types of managers hinder your growth and creativity.
They will also take credit for your work and throw you under the bus,if things go south.
Avoid confrontation at all costs.Cause he can fuck you over.By giving you bad reviews during background checks if you switch to different company.
Play your cards right,see how your peers handle him.
And start preparing for interviews immediately, sooner the better.
If you have a fixed set of working hours (instead of flexible) then I think the manager has every right to ask why are you Away on Teams for most of the day.
Picture this: It's like you have a 10 to 7 PM job, you walk in to the office, put your laptop at the desk and not to be found anywhere around for most of the day. You come back and pack up stuff and leave. Any manager will start questioning that. It would be dumb of him/her to not notice that actually.
On the other hand if you're having flexible work hours and all that matters is getting the job done for the day no matter what the time is, then I don't see a point in tracking your Teams status since only getting the job done matters.
I agree with this. If you’re away for a long time during your working hours then any manager will question you, unless they are absconding as well 😅 But your manager does seem insecure and is micromanaging and yes it is a red flag but that is the truth of plenty of managers everywhere. I think in the current layoff climate, they could be insecure about losing their job. They are obviously showing all attributes of an insecure manager by restricting your visibility. But I have also seen a different side where my manager knew more about my skip leader and when they showed similar behavior, they were trying to protect me from a backlash. So you never know till you get to know your manager and their intentions. Try and earn trust with your manager and work with them. Don’t make them feel like you are going behind their back. Involve them in your growth and development, seek their suggestions, etc. Building a positive relationship with them might get them off your back.
Brutallyhonest
Stealth
4 months ago
Just go with the flow. Apply reverse psychology. Show you are online as always
YourMum
Student
4 months ago
Usko bol "kya pagal ho kya tum? Ye kya chutiapaa hai?"
That's his real vibe bro
If you're on MacOs, use caffeine or some tool that permanently shows you online, similarly for both Linux and Windows. Very easy to setup
With Ms teams there's an option to set the status to always online.
Not trustable, for example, if you just go away from slack for like 10 mins, it sets you off, even if screen in on etc etc
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bestbachelorcook
Stealth
4 months ago
For teams status
Open teams, your personal chat, open notepad, place something on the space bar ( hold space bar basically) , it'll show you active forever.
For the micro-management part, confront, or fuck off from this place.
Call it out in employee signals , they are taken seriously in MS.. anyways a manager doing this in MS won’t be a manager for long
He is some what seems to be pranoid about his boss and trying to steal team ideas as his. You can show your ideas with your reviewer or with architech team of your project with in TCS instead of manager. If he is asking you to have 1 to 1. As far as i know some people not all take good ideas of team and show off it as theirs with higher management to show they are capable of puting ideas together it seems your manager is toxic. Better get out of the project.
Yeah he got really upset when I posted about the tool on the group.
He also got upset that I spoke with the senior engineer.
Must have been worried he couldn’t take credit for the idea
He seems to be a toxic manager with support background. Take help from team members to handle him else take help of Project manager to change team else get release and get assigned to another project. If it is permanent position else prepare yourself and attend more interviews and get better opportunity. All the best.
Talk to your team how they deal with him. But be cautious while doing it. Don't say anything bad say it is just jarring or some sort of polite word ask chat gpt.
Some people are rat ass lickers who will try to bad mouth. So be vary.
If you don't get anything then start giving it back a little by little
If he is not online ask him some question each time
Tell him you show offline to concentrate while working else it gets distracting.
Put the tool in writing in the group in text or any idea instead of giving in meeting.
Start forming good relationship with team mates so they can help a little
If nothing works then Try to change team or company
A lot of doors will open as you are in microsoft.
Also how did you get in lol, do they offer wfh?
human
Stealth
4 months ago
Name the guy and run tf away before he ruins your mental health
I too faced the similar issue, my lead (level9) recently became the lead of our team. And she is being continuously monitoring us. For example. Adding tasks to our azure boards is normally our scrum masters responsibility but she has been asking us about it. And also she will ask me if I’m on leave or says that my team status is offline or away.
Heights is she herself chose to work in another project and now she is asking us to complete her tasks from our team.
She will even ask why we haven’t updated the excel sheet right after just one hour we started testing stage testing user stories
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