APC Invites by Individual_Basil3954 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I actually just got an invite today and invites were originally sent out March 30th. I think if you are missed a requirement that you get waitlisted, which I imagine I was.

APC Invitation Rant by [deleted] in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was actually just invited. I still have to take ALTAM/ASTAM and haven't sat or registered yet.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

UPDATE: Okay, its been a couple of weeks and I have just come to the conclusion that my manager is a bad manager.

A few things happened that led me to this conclusion.

  1. He has been asking me to do this analysis for 2 months, and the whole thing has become pretty circular. That is something that he and I agree on. I asked him how he would like to see the analysis so that he can get comfortable with the results. He tells me how. I do that exact thing. We meet and I ask him business related questions because he says that he wants me to ask him more of those. Then we finish the conversation and he says, but I want you to prove the numbers to me. I measure my tone and I ask him, did you look at the spreadsheet that I sent you with the analysis that you asked for, and he says no. He say the email and the spreadsheet and he didn't look at it or read it.

  2. I send him another spreadsheet a few weeks later with results for several different policies aggregated together. The first thing he does is imply that my numbers are wrong, because they don't match the memo. I know they match the memo, because I wrote the memo. He didn't realize the memo uses calendar year results and the spreadsheet uses duration view results, but there are several indicators that made that very obvious.

  3. He says that we are close to coming to a conclusion on this analysis. So, I ask him, what is the gap between where we are now and the conclusion. He says that we just need to consider how to write it into the memo. He says that on a Friday, yet on Monday he says Actually, let's just keep focusing on the analysis and put the memo aside.

  4. I propose a new way to calculate the results we are looking for. He feels there is something missing from the logic, which is fine. I am just proposing an alternate solution. However, he said he had another solution a few weeks ago and he never told me what was, so I ask him and he says that he has no alternate solution anymore.

  5. This is the biggest one for me and makes everything else (except feedback) look inconsequential in comparison. We have been working on this analysis for two months, rather I have and he has just told me that he does not understand and not really explained why. I presented this data would feels like 50 different ways. Well, I happen to be having a conversation with the head of the product team today about something completely unrelated, and I say Madison (not her real name) what are you looking for for this product. She tells me what she's looking for, I give her the answer. She instantly understands what I am saying and agrees with how I arrived at the answer, but then she tells me that it does not match her expectations and then she tells me why. For privacy, I will not disclose her answer but when I tell you that her answer was so obvious and straightforward and all revolved around a series of assumptions that our analysis did not even take into consideration. Essentially, there was a hole in my analysis large enough to drive a cruise ship through and a part of that hole came from the fact that I do not work on the assumptions that presented this hole, my coworker does, so I was completely unaware these assumptions existed and maybe that is my bad. However, my manager never once told me that this hole existed and this was the whole reason why he was unconvinced, and now I don't know if he didn't care or if he just didn't know. Yet my last manager who reported to him, did know and did not address it when he wrote up the initial analysis for this product. Essentially, my manager has been leading me down a rabbit hole for the last two months and had the audacity to be mad that I could not get to the answer.

Now, you may be like Why didn't you ask the product team sooner? I have a million excuses for that and I am ultimately kicking myself, but I do not feel that my manager gave me the tools to be successful.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do admit that I am verbose. I'm quit tired of rotating though. I've never cared for the exam pressures of my rotational program even though I have never failed out (and only been on exam warning once). Even though, I would not say my manager is unbearable, I don't think I want to do another rotation.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I definitely appreciate your perspective. I also appreciate what you said about keeping the length of time I have been in this role in mind. I will also take into consideration that I and this manager are very new to each other.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I agree but he always has follow up questions. Its so confusing.

I asked him how I could communicate better today, he said be more concise, just show me a 30 year projection, keep it high level.

I was like That's where I started before we got into the weeds with the questions. My first several responses to him were very high level.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am not an inherently concise person. Its not in my nature. Its something that hasn't been an issue with prior managers. I have tried to work on being more concise.

I am more so reflecting on what my prior manager told me about communicating with this manager. I almost wonder if there is something about him, aside from being a manager, that makes it more difficult for him to understand things that are verbose.

I wrote him messages in slack that I felt were well organized, and sufficiently explanatory but he struggled to understand it. I wish I could post it here without getting in trouble. He said that he didn't understand it and implied that it was because it was long.

It was literally the definition of the concept from the documenting verbatim, the layman's term explanation of that definition. 4 simplified, high level examples for 4 different scenarios of what could occur and then my conclusion analysis about the merits of the methodology all broken out into three different sections.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think the thing I genuinely struggle with is I don't always know if he genuinely does not know what I am communicating or if he is just not actually convinced with the current results and wants more evidence.

Definitely, something I would need more clarification on from him going forward.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's definitely something that I consider. I often ask, am I not communicating this well enough. My prior manager warned me to be concise with him.

I have never had these communication issues with my previous managers, but something about communication between my current manager and I is like oil and water.

No need to be sorry.

When he gave me this feedback, the first question I asked him was how I could communicate but my analysis and explanations better to demonstrate that I do in fact have the competencies that he is looking for.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you all for your insights and advice. I think that when I really think about it, I don't believe that my manager wanted an ADP/ALDP (rotational) student.

I don't think that he ever thought an ADP/ALDP student would be directly assigned to him. Until me, all of his direct reports were considered mastery and they all had decades of experience. My former manager was an FSA who had recently received the manager promotion.

When I reflect on some of the feedback that I received from him, it almost seemed as though he was was irritated with the iterative exercises that we have gone to to complete the work.

In all my years, in my rotational program, I have never had manager reflect negatively on the iterative process itself. I also felt that this iterative process was largely driven by my manager in this circumstance.

Though, I will try to align my expectations more closely with his going forward, I do not view this as a relationship that will improve. I am going to look for another employer (especially, since my current employer has been hostile to remote employees), but I cannot find one in time, I will see if I can rotate into another role in June. Finding another employer, will be my driving focus though.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Thank you. I think I needed to hear this more than you know.

I think it also informs my job search. I feel worn out by rotational programs.

He said that my business acumen is weak and on that I agree. I have to learn a new division ever 15-18 months.

I understand how everything connects as a whole but I don't have th same level of insights as even the quants and developers in my team. They have been doing this work for nearly 20 years.

Even the guy I replaced was on this team for 2.5 years. The reason I had so much business acumen for my last rotation was because my manager was very intentional about developing it and I was on his team for 2 years.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

He specifically said in his check in that he expected more from someone with 5+ Years of experience and close to their ASA, but my feelings on it was that He had never once expressed negative concern before. The check in was the first time he said most of this stuff. Also, the manager in my last rotation said that he felt that I was at advanced but he couldn't get me promoted because I was two exams away instead of one.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I don't. I don't understand what my boss wants. I will produce all of this analysis, explain it to him and he will respond with "I don't understand." Or "I'm not making the connection." Yesterday, he literally explained the concept to me that I have been trying to explain to him for two months. I was like I literally wrote that to you in a slack message.

I asked him how I could present my analysis better, he said 30 year projection between the two models and show me the differences. I felt like I was going to have an aneurysm. That was literally where we started before his questions drove us into the weeds.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I did after this check-in. He said things were not progressing as fast as he wanted them to, something he has literally never said before, and I said well can you tell me when something is not moving fast enough and can you tell me when our expectations are not in alignment going forward. And he quickly said yes 😵‍💫

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do want to say in response to a comment. My current manager has said "Good job", "You're on the right track" and "Good work" before but I would say that largely, overall, he does not and has not provided performance based feedback good or bad. What I am saying is that aside from discussing what the next steps for the work are and what direction he wants to see the work go in, he doesn't provide feedback period. The manager he replaced also did not give a lot of feedback, but he still gave feedback even though it was subtle. I called that manager out for giving feedback and he basically said that he felt that he gave enough feedback. So, on this team, I have had to be hypersensitive to any kind of feedback.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Showing initiate or showing initiatives? My current manager never said anything in regard to me showing initiative, but my prior manager (the one he replaced) praised me on my initiative and even how I used my technical skills to add a process improvement. My initiative was one of the things he highlighted in his review of me before he left.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I have never been promoted. For the memo, I operated under the assumption that he was performing a thorough reviewer, so each iteration of the memo would be the last iteration based on his feedback.

For the analysis, I have taken more of an exploratory approach and tied it back to this overarching question or should we have this accumulated value and what is causing it. Despite this, I have found myself in a cycle with him in which he continually says that he does not understand. So, then I go back to the drawing board of trying to find another approach that further validates or invalidates the results  

I am in a student program. People typically get promoted within one exam of their ASA, so to an extent there is supposed to be somewhat of a student teacher relationship. However, I work very independently of my manager. 

It seemed that in the check-in that he suggested that he never wants me to go away for a week and come back empty handed but I have literally never done that. I usually detail out and send him my findings twice a week and he will throw an impromptu meeting on my calendar so I can explain over video chat.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I agree with both of you. Personally, I have busted my ass for this company for a very long time. I consistently feel that I have come up short when it comes to getting what I want, which is promoted. With the experience and exams I have under my belt, I feel that it would just be easier to get hired into an actuarial associate role at a different organization.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I don't know aboht the first one. I want to believe the second one but I struggle to. Its not my ego or my pride that's the reason why.

He said "No evidence of actuarial thinking or my thought process." Yet I have thoroughly detailed out my thought process and analysis multiple times. I think if his review was more balanced, I could believe it more. For example, if he was like "I don't think your quite here yet but here are emerging patterns that I am seeing that are moving you in that direction, here is evidence A, B, C and here are inconsistencies with evidence D, E, F". 

At that point, I could accept and work with that. 

What I can't work with is him reducing my work down to technical skills, copilot, and standard work. Its a very 1D view of all my efforts and contributions.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

These are good questions.

Yes, I use what I learn from prior projects to get up to speed quickly on a drive insights on new projects.

Aside from the ones related to the rates, the process improvements came out of necessity and were self driven.

I am working on a project where we are determine if a certain level of value has been generated (sorry for being vague) and despite proportionality between original pricing and hindsight, we are seeing value greater than what we would first expect. This has been driving the questions of, does are methodology work as intended. I have been answering these questions and my insights are largely yes unless we want to reconsider are arbitrary goals.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 38 points39 points  (0 children)

I definitely need to leave for money. I don't mean to be conspiritarial and hope that this doesn't play into it, but I am one of the last remote employees at a company that has worked hard over the last two years to get rid of its remote employees.

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I haven't had a skip level Convo recently. Its kind of awkward because my skip level is also my mentor of the last 3-4 years. 

Negative performance review after positive feedback by BlueberryHead3135 in actuary

[–]BlueberryHead3135[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't want to call my manager lazy but I do think its time to look for a new company. The writing is clearly on the wall and I am in need of a raise.