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There is a senior manager at work who consistently ignores people's emails and other attempts to reach out to him. It's not that there's a delay in his response, he simply doesn't respond at all. His approval is required on many matters that affect multiple departments throughout the company, and he will ignore even urgent requests. He also tries to then "pass the buck" by calling others out on some minor mistake they made, presumably to distract from the focus of his own bad behavior.
He is a busy person, but not so much busier than anyone else at his level, and no one else behaves like this. I also don't think he's clueless, I think he knows exactly what he's doing. I get the sense that he enjoys having people chase him around for his approval on something, acting like he's so "above" them that they're not even worth acknowledging.
I also can't imagine that someone at his level behaving like this will last very long. Beyond the rudeness, his behavior is simply bad for the business.
Has anyone ever dealt with someone like this or seen this kind of behavior in the workplace? Do you just let this type of person dig their own grave?
Perhaps in the title of the email you should type Urgent, Response requested. See if that helps.
I know that many folks email their supervisor for almost anything. Are you positive that your emails are not being addressed, even if you do not get a direct response. You did say that this supervisor does call out people for mistakes, so it obviously isn't an issue of his not being aware.
Back in the day, before offices used emails....we used a memo with carbon....so every memo was in triplicate. It was a decent checks and balances system imo.
I also agree with the previous poster that suggested CC-ing the right person when emailing this supervisor....positive or negative.....it might get you more attention. But, make sure it really is an important
issue.
Also, in many office environments, the admin assistant is the person opening the emails. Are you positive this supervisor is getting them?
Sitting around and not answering emails or just forwarding emails on to people at the last minute to complete doesn't sound like adding more value to me really. Which is what I see ALOT of managers doing these days.
I can add more value by getting stuff done myself instead of passing the buck on to people that may or may not get it done or do it correctly. (Probably the latter since company training is a thing of the past).
People that get it done, done correctly and on time should be getting paid more than many of these co called "managers" today
That's another thing that separates managers apart from the lower level employees. The ability to prioritize their time. Not every email needs to be read... just like not every fax needs to be read. Email is simply a database of information that can be referenced on an as-needed basis. If you need to communicate to someone, you wouldn't use email just like you wouldn't use facsimile in 2017. You would use modern methods of communication acceptable for business... such as SMS or Slack.
The documents, photos, etc. that are attached to email can be reviewed on an as-needed basis.
You're self-described inability to scale by delegation is exactly why you won't be a manager anytime soon.
That being said, feel free to run your company the way you see fit.
There is a senior manager at work who consistently ignores people's emails and other attempts to reach out to him. It's not that there's a delay in his response, he simply doesn't respond at all.<>Has anyone ever dealt with someone like this or seen this kind of behavior in the workplace? Do you just let this type of person dig their own grave?
I’m always amazed at how bothered people are by what others are doing even when it doesn’t affect them directly. Take care of your job, do it to the best of your ability, and quit fretting about what some manager is doing that you have no control over. Life is too short to worry about such garbage.
That courts conspiracy. When the target finds out his/her boss was BCC'd, you're well on the way to making an enemy who will redouble his efforts to blow you off in the future.
To OP's point, a person who is a gatekeeper and acts as a human roadblock will *not* survive long in a high-performance, excellence in delivery environment. It simply can't happen. I worked for, and now am a management consultant working closely with, World's Largest Software Corporation. My peers are Sr and Principal, quite a few Directors and the occasional GM on-thread. Big dogs with valuable time, hundred K to five million dollar projects, 'nuff said.
The problem with this client (company) is email overload. As an employee I'd receive very many per day, as I recall about 70. Many would be informational, important but not actionable, and filed off via Rules. Boss Corr, always actionable, had a rule and a flag ditto up the chain. But the rest was troublesome. We all had to learn, and it was very hard, what was actionable and deferrable, but how to prioritize in a way that didn't lose anything important and make sure nothing important was missed.
That company overloads people with work, which I personally don't think is a setup for success since people seem to leave roles every two or three years, and the company not long after, almost always burned out and pissed off. So when they say most people are "busy," they mean it in this case.
The only way to get ahold of some of my customers, who are upfront about how busy they are, is to IM them (Skype in our case). Just a "Hey, Jayne, BB here. Ping when you've got 5, thx." They'll see it, and probably ping you in an hour or less. Then it's, "I'm running over that thing. Please provide comments by EOD to me, Fred, Ted, and Ed. We know it's due EOD tomorrow, I'll consolidate and send after. K?"
They can't really ignore IM at our company, and what I said was important and compels them to prioritize my item. My item better be high on their list of to-dos, also, or previous won't work.
It's imperfect, but gets work done.
A distant second is to book 30 min with them directly on the calendar, and IM. Often works, but not always: I've had clients passive-aggressive not show up. After second time of that, I'm CC'ing (not BCC'ing) their boss *if and only if it is a critical business matter holding up the work of multiple parties, stopping us from invoicing, or similar that is genuinely time-sensitive.* There are BS tricks people can pull in Outlook like block whole days or weeks on the calendar with no insight into why, but that just compounds trouble for them later on.
At the client I'm working with, passive-aggressive it flagged in quarterly and semi-annual reviews and marked down very severely. Every manager knows about it, you'd be fooling no one. Keep doing it, your ass is gone in a year, tops. Finding a hard time believing modern business would tolerate such a thing too long: if there isn't a review w/peer feedback system in place, something's really wrong with that firm.
In 2017, emails are going the way of facsimiles. Sure, email is the best way to pass on certain types of information, but an email requires a followup via SMS, Slack, etc. if you are waiting for a response. Would you send a fax and not follow up?
Emails work great for a "paper" electronic trail. What are you using in place of that?
We're going a lot toward IMs and at least those are now automatically saved for documentation purposes too but they are never as detailed as someone would be in an email so I don't prefer them for that purpose.
Emails work great for a "paper" electronic trail. What are you using in place of that?
We're going a lot toward IMs and at least those are now automatically saved for documentation purposes too but they are never as detailed as someone would be in an email so I don't prefer them for that purpose.
Can you give me an example of a situation that uses email as a paper trail?
I’m always amazed at how bothered people are by what others are doing even when it doesn’t affect them directly. Take care of your job, do it to the best of your ability, and quit fretting about what some manager is doing that you have no control over. Life is too short to worry about such garbage.
It absolutely affects me directly. I have had things pend for weeks waiting for his approval. This isn't just an "annoyance".
I’m always amazed at how bothered people are by what others are doing even when it doesn’t affect them directly. Take care of your job, do it to the best of your ability, and quit fretting about what some manager is doing that you have no control over. Life is too short to worry about such garbage.
The OP mentioned this person/manager needs to approve certain things, so this in affect makes him "part of his boss".
This day in age, many people avoid "promotions" to manager b/c they'll get buried under meetings, but they still need to be around to approve stuff that requires their approval. We're not going to spend $5,000 out of pocket for plane tickets for business travel. Or for a new software program when it's the company that owns the license to that software and should be the ones paying for it. Plus, there may be a permissions issue installing it in the first place.
.
I don't have to deal with these approvals currently, but I do remember when I worked in a department store, they tell us all checks above $100 needed supervisor approval, while checks above $300 required manager approval. One manager would always get annoyed with the latter, saying "just find a supervisor", but I'd have to tell him it's over $300. I'd LOVE to find a supervisor instead. This manager had a bad attitude about that, but TBF, I can see he was genuinely busy (all the more wonderful if I had alternatives). However, I'm not going to take the chance that I'd get chewed out for not following procedure.
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