Being a manager is weird.
1) I have to not take anything personally. I got a result of a survey question that says one person on my team is only “somewhat satisfied” with their manager and I sorta lost it like… who isn’t satisfied with me 😭😭. No, what this is is opportunity to do something different, NOT to get down on me. This isn’t about me, it’s about something I’m doing, and they aren’t the same.
2) I’ve been at this less than two months, it’s not always going to be perfect.
3) These people probably think I’m the weirdest manager they’ve EVER had. You ever have a manager that wears weird colored wigs and hats for the Wednesday informal coffee chat? Well there’s 5 people that now have, and they all gotta put up with me every day.
4) I career counseled a guy I used to work with and it ended with me giving him a pep talk and wishing I could wrap him in a blanket and give him soup, and I realize what I really want is to be a manager that never breaks someone’s spirit like that.
5) I am literally bumbling around asking a million questions but repressing my inner person with opinions is hard. I have to remind myself that my job is to make space for other people’s opinions, and sometimes, to shut up.
6) I feel like sometimes people want feedback and other times they want head pats. And I’m shit at telling the difference. Sometimes I feel like I offer suitable headpats on something, but also I provide some constructive feedback, and then everyone rushes in with all head pats and I’m like wait was I supposed to be doing that? Or did you need my engineering opinion? Separating validation from feedback opportunities is hard as hell when all of your abilities to read people are fake, and mostly learned the hard way. Fake it til you make it is how I learned all the social skills I have.
7) It’s fuckin hard to read people when you’re always remote. Please let me have a whole day of my team stopping at my desk. I’m gonna put out snacks when we go back to get them to stop in. Look I’m not above baiting people with chocolate, I’m going to be the best snack manager.
8) I know snacks don’t make a manager, it’s intentionally managing relationships while having empathy, seeking opportunities for my people, opening doors, and trusting people. That’s a lot of things to remember. It’s like running a nonprofit all over. Except that actors could totally be bribed with snacks and I’m less certain about engineers.
9) ADHD just makes all sense of time and space go to shit, and my brain goes “you’ve been at this 2 weeks” and “it’s been 84 years” at the same time.
It’s going fine. It really is. Maybe even good. But it’s *weird*.














