0:01

It's a scary feeling sometimes, especially if you're comfortable where you're

0:03

at, you know, you know the people, you know what the

0:06

work is and all of a sudden you hit a wall

0:08

and it's just like, all right, now I

0:10

got to put myself back out there. Hitting

0:12

a wall could mean a great many things.

0:15

In this context, our friend Ryan's wall was

0:17

the person who was supposed to be helping

0:19

him grow and learn. It

0:22

was his manager. Instead

0:24

of providing him with new opportunities,

0:26

he was telling Ryan to stay

0:28

in his box. At

0:30

the end of the day, and this is a statement that

0:33

I really, you know, hold true to, the only

0:35

person who's really going to look out for your career

0:37

is you. Even a good

0:39

boss can only do so much for your career. Your

0:42

future is in your own hands. Today

0:46

we're going to hear about a couple

0:48

of ways poor management can really set

0:50

you back and how you

0:52

can recover and overcome the barriers in

0:54

your way. This

0:58

is Compiler, an original podcast from

1:01

Red Hat. I'm Angela

1:03

Andrews. And I'm Johan Philippine.

1:06

We go beyond the buzzwords in

1:08

jargon and simplify tech topics. We're

1:11

sharing stories from industry veterans about how

1:13

they found their footing in the tech

1:15

industry. Today, we're hearing

1:17

about how to deal with bad

1:19

managers. So

1:25

today we're talking about bad managers.

1:28

And bad managers come to you in a

1:30

whole slew of different ways. Angela,

1:32

did you ever have a manager who meant

1:34

well but ended up doing more harm than

1:37

good? Yes. And

1:39

I think that is very easy to do

1:42

because most folks are very

1:44

well-meaning. But if you're

1:46

not used to managing or have

1:49

the acumen to manage, you

1:51

can wind up doing more harm than good.

1:54

Only because that's not your jam.

1:57

That's not what you're good at. You were probably...

2:00

the technical lead and you're super

2:02

smart and you've been elevated into

2:04

management and now

2:06

you're dealing with humans.

2:08

So they mean well, but sometimes,

2:12

yeah, in my experience they

2:14

can do more harm than good. Sometimes

2:16

you end up with a Michael Scott

2:18

kind of experience where they think they're

2:20

a good manager, they think they're doing

2:22

well, and it's just it's not helping

2:24

anyone out. Nope. Alright. So

2:28

for our first story we're bringing back Jennifer

2:30

Scalf from an earlier episode. She's

2:32

a people manager of technical account managers here

2:35

at Red Hat and if you missed that

2:37

episode she told us about a time when

2:39

she was asked to work on a project

2:41

that wasn't supposed to succeed. Not

2:44

knowing it was supposed to be impossible, she

2:46

got it to work. Today's

2:48

story takes place a little bit later

2:50

in her career where a boss with

2:52

allegedly good intentions ended up making a

2:55

great situation kind of messed up. For

2:58

a little bit of context, Jennifer started using

3:00

Red Hat Linux in the 90s, early

3:02

days. She was a computer

3:04

science student messing around with servers and

3:07

most people were using Windows or some version

3:09

of Mac. If

3:11

you wanted to really learn the guts from the hardware

3:13

all the way up to the operating system and beyond,

3:15

Linux is the best thing at the time and so

3:17

all the kids at the time in college, 18, 19,

3:20

20 year olds, that's what we're

3:22

playing with at universities and

3:25

we were installing it on anything we could find

3:27

to install it on. I felt like it would

3:29

really round out my computer science experience

3:31

as an undergrad. That's a

3:33

good way to get started right? Just kind

3:35

of messing around with Linux and learning how

3:37

everything comes together. I recommend it. Well

3:40

she went beyond reading the documentation

3:42

and the textbooks. She went

3:44

even beyond playing around with computers in her

3:46

spare time. She was

3:48

helping to run her university's Linux user

3:50

groups and that experience led to a

3:53

job. I got

3:55

a job. Again, it was early

3:57

aughts as a student worker and then

3:59

that transitioned into a full-time position at

4:02

the university. And then I was there

4:04

for nine-ish years, running everything hardware

4:06

all the way up to the student

4:08

applications. So I got to learn what

4:10

it is to literally take the rack out of the box

4:12

and pop it into the systems that we had that had

4:15

everything load balancers, the databases,

4:17

everything, which is great. I

4:20

hope folks still have that opportunity these days. If they have

4:22

to do it on their own, I highly recommend

4:24

it. Sounds like Jennifer

4:26

really knew her stuff, right? She

4:28

spent years building her skills as a student

4:31

and then in her first job. She's

4:33

what I'd imagine a hiring manager would see

4:35

as a dream candidate. It

4:38

turns out when she was hired for her next

4:40

job, her technical skills were

4:42

not the deciding factor. Yeah,

4:45

so I'm gonna try to protect the innocent.

4:47

Well, they thought they were innocent. They still see they're innocent. So,

4:51

but, okay, because

4:55

other people will experience this. They will probably be very

4:57

different in 2023 than it was in 2000, whenever

5:01

that was back then. But I was hired

5:03

without knowing because

5:05

of certain attributes, mainly

5:08

that I was one of the only women

5:10

at the time, and I think the only

5:12

one this person had ever met that knew

5:14

anything about Unix, about Linux. Again,

5:18

this was in the aughts, right? Right after the

5:20

dot com, but not too much further. And

5:23

I wasn't told that explicitly at the time, just

5:26

like folks aren't usually told that explicitly

5:28

even probably today. She

5:31

thought she was hired because of her merits, and

5:34

she did really well in her new

5:36

role, oblivious to the other considerations. But

5:39

those considerations didn't stay hidden forever. A

5:42

few years later, I was told that and the

5:44

person was very proud that they used

5:46

that as one of the reasons to hire me. They

5:49

thought that was a very good thing. And then I

5:51

proved myself. They hired me for that reason.

5:53

They told me that they could have hired

5:55

other people without the same attributes as myself.

5:58

That might have been more skilled. at the UNIX

6:00

and the Linux, as we used to call it. To

6:03

be told that she was hired despite

6:06

there being more qualified candidates because she's

6:08

a woman, and then that

6:10

she ended up proving herself, that

6:12

didn't feel so great. I'm saying all

6:15

these things very sarcastically. It's

6:17

very awkward and uncomfortable to this day, but

6:19

it really hurt me when I was in my 20s to

6:22

hear that I was hired for those reasons. At

6:24

that point, I felt that I had almost already proven

6:27

myself, but I wasn't quite there. I did not have

6:29

the self-confidence to handle that well. There's

6:32

an expectation that if you've been hired,

6:34

you've already convinced your new manager that

6:36

you can do the job. After

6:39

a few years of success in that position, she

6:41

had the rug pulled out from under her. No,

6:44

actually, we didn't think you were qualified, but

6:46

you turned out great anyways. While

6:48

Jennifer is able to talk about it now, that

6:51

wasn't always the case. So,

6:53

it caused... Every

6:57

time adversity hits us, we, in

7:00

a very cheese ball, corny way, try to use

7:02

it for good, right? So, I look back on it,

7:04

because for self-preservation, mental preservation, you have

7:07

to look back on things kind of

7:09

positively. You do. I do,

7:11

anyway. So, I look back on it

7:13

as a turning point that I decided,

7:15

oh, maybe I'm not as good at the

7:17

technical aspects of this, so maybe I will

7:20

get a degree and something else. That's

7:25

a tough kind of reaction to have. It

7:27

is. We've talked about this in

7:29

the past, where you get that doubt kind

7:32

of instilled from someone else when you're seeking

7:34

advice, and it kind of leads you

7:36

down a different path. She

7:38

planned to leave tech and pursued an

7:40

MBA in supply chain management. She's

7:43

continued to work in the Unix and the

7:45

Linux because she was good at it, but

7:48

she thought she wasn't great at it. And

7:50

that's the kind of influence bad management can have

7:52

on people. Now, she ended up

7:54

doing both, staying in tech and

7:56

getting her MBA. I

7:59

can see that... type of comment having

8:01

effect on you no matter your age.

8:04

When you think you've earned your right

8:06

and someone says, no, you didn't, shrug.

8:10

Yeah. That

8:13

does not feel good, like you said. Yeah,

8:16

it's a particular kind of damaging, right?

8:18

Because it's like, we didn't

8:20

think you were necessarily the best person for

8:22

this job, but we hired you and kind

8:24

of wished for the best and hoped for

8:26

the best, right? You're able to

8:28

actually do the job and then they end up

8:31

being happy with it. That's not something you want

8:33

to tell someone, right? Because that can be just

8:35

a huge, huge hit to your self esteem. Jennifer's

8:38

saying that it's probably less likely that

8:40

people would still say this in this

8:43

year, but I imagine people still do,

8:45

right? And too many people still feel

8:47

imposter syndrome. Jennifer isn't

8:49

saying that diversity isn't an important

8:52

consideration when hiring, but

8:54

being told she was hired despite being

8:56

allegedly less qualified because she's a woman

8:58

made her reevaluate how skilled she thought

9:00

she was. And

9:02

that's the problem. She really second guessed

9:04

herself when she knew she

9:06

was confident in her abilities. She knew

9:09

it. And there wasn't anything you

9:11

can tell her otherwise, but this came

9:13

along. That's right. She questioned herself,

9:15

not the fact that the person questioned

9:18

her, but she questioned

9:20

herself. That is the

9:22

most damaging part of this. Yeah. She

9:25

had all those years of experience in

9:27

school, all those extracurriculars. She had those

9:30

years of experience in her first few

9:32

jobs. And still... She

9:34

was owning it. And

9:36

then here comes that rug. But

9:39

Jennifer kept going. So

9:42

now I don't mind it as

9:44

much because I like to think

9:46

now that I can be

9:49

a role model. I do completely believe

9:51

that theory that if we have

9:54

folks with certain attributes represented,

9:56

that that will contribute to

9:58

more folks with those attributes. being hired

10:01

or being interested in that particular role.

10:04

And now I'm trying to embrace that. It's

10:06

taken me a long time, y'all.

10:08

It's taken me a long time to get to

10:10

that point. This is not something that came easy. Now

10:14

I imagine she'd be a fantastic role

10:17

model either way. It's just a huge

10:19

shame that she had to have that

10:21

experience and it tainted

10:23

her consideration of new opportunities. A

10:26

friend of hers mentioned a job opening she should

10:28

apply for. Jennifer demure it

10:30

at first, worried about not having enough

10:33

technical expertise. But her friend convinced

10:35

her to apply anyways. And

10:37

in the end, Jennifer got the job. I

10:39

didn't give up. My friends propped me up

10:41

and cheered me on. And so have your

10:43

star players, have your friends there, join the

10:46

user groups, and get on with it. Because it

10:48

had been years before that they had kind of

10:51

crushed me with the you were hired because you

10:53

were a woman who knew Linux. I didn't want

10:55

that to happen again, obviously. So my

10:57

friends were very good about encouraging me and letting me

10:59

know that's not the reason we're hiring you, lady. So

11:01

I'm going to get a little choked

11:04

up about it. So that's it. So I jumped

11:06

in and they were thrilled to

11:08

have somebody who had had this business degree for the

11:10

account management part of it. In

11:15

the end, her detour worked for her and

11:17

helped her get ahead. But in

11:19

all too many cases, the detour becomes an off

11:21

ramp that never leads back to the tech industry.

11:24

Things like that tend to make

11:26

you think you don't belong. And

11:29

you will pack up your

11:31

laptop and find something else and go

11:33

somewhere else where you feel that you're

11:35

valued and where you can have that

11:39

empowerment. And in

11:41

her case, she felt that

11:43

empowerment. And just one person

11:46

was able to take that away from

11:48

her. Albeit for a very short time,

11:50

she questioned herself. And I

11:52

see it a lot myself in

11:55

this industry where something

11:57

bad happens to someone and that's where I

11:59

see it. They're really ready to say, I

12:01

don't think I can do this anymore. I

12:03

see this more than I care to admit.

12:07

It's heartbreaking because we all

12:10

belong here. Do

12:14

you see any improvement? Did it

12:16

used to be worse than it is now? Has it been

12:18

about the same or is it getting worse? I

12:22

can't really tell because of social

12:24

media. And now it's so prevalent.

12:26

You hear these comments and you see

12:29

these comments. I do

12:31

in my timeline just enough

12:33

to make me wonder how

12:35

things really changed. You know,

12:37

we're still at this point

12:39

where folks

12:41

are doubting their abilities. They got

12:44

here, they worked hard and

12:46

something comes along and makes them question

12:49

that it can be, you know, a

12:51

bad project. It could be a bad

12:53

manager, a bad experience, a bad

12:55

call. It can be a number of things.

12:59

But when anything comes up that

13:01

makes you question if you belong

13:03

somewhere, that's a

13:05

red flag and that's when

13:07

we need to kind of take a step back because if

13:10

you made it here, this is where

13:12

you belong. And it's only up to

13:14

you to decide if you're

13:16

going to leave. That's your decision always,

13:19

but not based off of something

13:21

terrible happening to you or someone

13:23

saying something terrible to you. We

13:27

work hard to get here. We deserve

13:29

to be here. Now we've mentioned

13:31

this before, but we're going to say it again.

13:33

Find the people who are going to support you

13:36

and cheer you on and hold on to them.

13:39

They'll help you go beyond the detractors,

13:41

even the well-intentioned ones. When

13:43

we get back from the break, we'll

13:46

hear from Ryan again and his manager,

13:48

who was decidedly not well-intentioned. Okay,

13:50

so now we get to the real doozy. Managers

13:54

who actively stifle growth. Oh,

14:01

uh-uh. I'm

14:04

getting nervous. You're getting nervous.

14:06

I'm getting nervous. Is

14:09

it based on personal experience? No,

14:13

I just, I've heard these

14:15

stories and, yeah, let's see

14:17

what Ryan has to share with us. Well,

14:19

for this story, we're going back to

14:21

Ryan Roberts. He's an infrastructure

14:24

engineer at JPMorgan Chase. And

14:26

in his last episode, he told us

14:29

about his cursed internship, the

14:31

one where he was advised to just read

14:33

the docs. Remember that one? I do. Boy,

14:35

do I. Well,

14:39

it turns out there was a little bit

14:41

more behind that piece of advice. He also

14:44

wanted a little bit more responsibility so that

14:46

he could help the team clear the quick

14:48

and easy help desk tickets. I

14:54

don't know if it was because I was an intern

14:56

or I think if I

14:58

remember correctly his exact words, I have enough people

15:00

doing that. And it was, you

15:02

know, I actually remember the exact conversation. I was just

15:04

like, can I reset a password? Because

15:06

there'd be times where I'd be

15:09

manning the help desk phone. Somebody

15:11

call in and says, like, hey, I locked myself

15:13

out. I need you to unlock my account or

15:16

reset my password. And the team

15:18

would be preoccupied. So I was just like, well,

15:21

I can, you know, slip in there, you

15:23

know, help out at least that way. You don't

15:25

have that downtime between me

15:27

having to wait for somebody else to come in. You know,

15:29

I could just unlock the account, reset it. Hey, we're done.

15:33

He just wasn't for that at

15:35

all. All he wanted

15:37

to do was to help with resetting

15:39

passwords because he could see that the

15:41

full time employees were swamped with other

15:43

stuff. It's kind of

15:45

the cliche help desk ticket request, right, Angela?

15:48

It is. Low hanging fruit, as they

15:50

say. And it's not

15:52

exactly rocket science to get it done. But

15:54

his boss wasn't having it. I

15:56

truly believe it was. He just didn't trust me enough.

15:58

I knew how to do it. I knew how

16:00

to do it. I just needed my

16:03

account to have the proper privileges to do

16:05

it. That

16:07

remaining piece of it is still a mystery, but from what

16:09

I got, he just didn't... He didn't

16:11

trust the interns enough to do it. I

16:15

kind of see where his manager's coming from.

16:18

I don't agree with it, but I understand it,

16:20

right? No. Okay.

16:25

So, they're guardrails

16:29

that can always be put in

16:31

place, so you only have permission

16:33

to do just the

16:35

thing that you need permissions to

16:37

do. You don't have to give them the

16:39

keys to the kingdom or the

16:41

administrative or root password. No, you

16:44

can give him just enough so

16:47

he can reset a password,

16:49

unlock an account. Easy peasy.

16:52

Yeah. I think this was probably

16:54

something more than that. Yeah, I

16:56

don't know. And I guess we'll

16:58

never know. We'll never know. I

17:01

mean, my take is if you're worried about

17:03

them messing up, why hire them in the

17:06

first place, right? Yeah. Interns, they're

17:08

there to learn. If

17:11

you don't give them anything even

17:14

remotely difficult to do, what are they going

17:16

to learn? Why are they there? At

17:19

some point, you're going to have to trust them

17:21

to, at the very least, reset a password and

17:24

hopefully, later on, do something of

17:26

lasting value. I agree. That

17:29

was an easy one, though. They kind of handed him

17:32

a little something. Yeah. Now,

17:35

this situation, it might not seem like

17:37

the biggest setback, right? But in

17:39

general, that lack of trust can have

17:41

an outsized effect on people

17:44

starting out in their careers, right?

17:46

These are out, let's not limit

17:48

it to people starting out because

17:51

there are roles out there now where

17:53

you're moving into a role and you

17:55

know things of your responsibility. And it's

17:57

like, I don't know.

18:00

We'll ease into that, right?

18:03

So this is happening to folks

18:05

throughout their careers and for

18:07

a myriad of reasons. We're not going

18:10

to assume why it happens, but not

18:13

being trusted is definitely

18:16

a buzzkill. And

18:18

it can have some lasting effects on you.

18:20

It can really sap your motivation to do

18:22

a good job and like push to do

18:25

more than what you've been assigned and to

18:27

get ahead, right? I agree. Well,

18:30

although his boss wasn't very helpful,

18:33

Ryan was able to learn from his mentor

18:36

and he learned a lot more than the technical

18:38

skills he wanted to. I

18:41

mean, general advice, the one he

18:43

gave me was never let anybody put

18:45

out your fire. If you're

18:47

truly determined to learn something, go

18:49

after something, don't let somebody try and stop you

18:52

and put you down. If somebody's

18:54

putting up a wall, find a

18:56

way around that wall and you'll continue to

18:59

push on and push forward. Great

19:01

advice. Don't let anyone

19:03

tell you what you can't learn or practice.

19:06

I'd hope that doesn't happen too often, but apparently

19:09

it does happen. If you

19:11

find yourself in a similar position where

19:13

your boss doesn't trust you to do

19:15

something or even to teach you how

19:17

to do the next logical step, it's

19:19

a good idea to find a way around that. If

19:22

you're not learning and growing in an internship, let

19:24

alone in your job, what are you

19:26

gaining beyond the paycheck and the line on the resume?

19:30

Brian suggests doing what he did, finding

19:32

another mentor. It's

19:34

a harsh reality that in some cases

19:37

you have somebody who's trying to learn

19:39

the trade and really grow their career and then you

19:41

just have somebody who just kinda brick

19:43

walls them right there. I mean, in that case,

19:46

if the company is big enough and

19:50

has the resources, try and find somebody

19:52

maybe outside of the department who's

19:54

willing to spend some time with you to show

19:56

you this new concept that you have an interest

19:58

in. But one thing, One thing you don't want

20:01

somebody to do is just to stop you writing

20:03

your tracks when you've got the momentum going because

20:05

it can really

20:07

take a long time to get that momentum back

20:09

up and running. A stalled career can

20:12

take a lot of effort to get back on

20:14

track. A mentor can help

20:16

you continue to develop your skills to prepare you

20:18

for that next job, but not everyone

20:20

has access to a mentor in their own company.

20:23

If you can't get it where you're immediately at,

20:25

you really have to start looking, all right. I

20:28

think outside the box and we look outside

20:30

of my circle and see where I can

20:33

get what I need. Look

20:35

outside your company, make your own

20:37

options, meet other people. Network,

20:40

network, network. Say

20:42

it again. Network.

20:45

And scour the internet. Yeah,

20:47

I mean YouTube, you know, I might as well

20:50

just call it an online university at this point.

20:53

Yeah, YouTube University. I mean, you can truly

20:55

learn just about anything there. And you know,

20:57

that's usually the first place all goes like,

20:59

hey, I want to hear

21:01

about, you know, some of these topics, maybe get, you know,

21:03

a day in the life of somebody in this career. For

21:08

people looking into development, Ryan

21:11

also suggested checking out online code camps

21:13

and coding courses as well. So

21:15

even though his boss didn't give him an opportunity

21:18

to grow, his mentor and the resources he

21:20

found online helped him get past the boss

21:22

fight and on to bigger and better things.

21:25

Great story. All right. So

21:29

this episode, we heard about

21:31

misguided, mistrusting and malicious management and how

21:33

they can really get in the way

21:36

of your career, either

21:38

by causing emotional damage or by

21:40

restricting your growth and opportunities for

21:42

advancement. The key is finding

21:44

the people who will support you and help

21:46

you get past those barriers. It's

21:48

all about your community and the people you surround

21:51

yourself with. Those are the ones that get you

21:53

through those hard times. Next

21:56

time on Compiler, we're going to hear some more

21:58

stories about people who had unorthodox path

22:01

into the tech industry. Ooh,

22:03

I can't wait for that one. But

22:05

about this episode, I hope you

22:07

loved it. I mean, we talked

22:09

about bad managers, and we

22:12

heard two very interesting stories. You

22:14

have to share your thoughts with

22:16

us, share your stories with us,

22:18

hit us up on socials at

22:20

Red Hat, using the

22:22

hashtag compiler podcast. Have

22:24

you had a bad manager in

22:26

your career, and what did that

22:28

do for you? We'd love to

22:31

hear more about it, so make sure you tag us, okay?

22:36

That does it for this episode of Compiler.

22:39

Today's episode was produced by

22:41

Johann Philippine, Kim Wong, and

22:44

Caroline Craighead. Victoria Lawton has

22:46

never seen a wall she couldn't get

22:48

around. Our audio engineer

22:50

is Mark Angley. Special

22:52

thanks to Brittany Dugan. Our

22:55

theme song was composed by Mary Anchetta.

22:58

Our audio team includes Brent Siminoe,

23:00

Lee Day, Stephanie Wunderlich,

23:02

Mike Esser, Nick Burns, Erin

23:05

Williamson, Karen King, Jared

23:08

Oates, Rachel Ertel, Devon

23:10

Pope, Mike Compton, Ocean

23:13

Matthews, Paige Johnson, Alex

23:15

Trebulzi, and Mira Cyril. If

23:18

you liked today's episode, and we

23:20

hope you did, please follow the

23:22

show, rate the show, leave us

23:24

a review, and share it with someone

23:26

you know. It will really help the show.

23:29

It really does. All right, goodbye

23:31

everyone. Take care, until next time.