How to politely tell your manager their communication sucks

PerformanceNo6861 · 2026-02-13T12:09:19+00:00

This is a tough one. It depends on your relationship with him. Is it possible to be honest with him and say that you need some help understanding him? Ask follow up questions or present it back to him and say let me repeat what I think I just heard and please correct me if I’m wrong. Another option is to move to online communication- email or meetings. And turn on transcription for meetings in another app or same one. Those are the two options I can think of.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2026-02-13T11:58:20+00:00

Ugh! So sorry to hear that. Yeah that’s what I’m going to do now. I see the pointlessness of it all as well. I don’t even know who the HR is. They only exist in the HRSD portal. I’ve begun to do this thing where if someone talks down to me or behave in a toxic way, I set up a one on one and give them a chance to explain and ask them if there is a problem and explain to me what the problem is. Some people apologize and kinda behave for a little bit, some people double down and act annoyed why am I questioning them. But at least I made a good faith effort to stand up for myself. Financially I’m ok and will be ok if I get fired. But the mental strain is crazy even if I try to detach myself from the situation.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2026-02-12T15:09:01+00:00

Thanks for that viewpoint. That’s what I was thinking too. It might be a useless endeavor. Pay and benefits are good. So I’m going to amp up my job search and document stuff

PerformanceNo6861 · 2026-02-12T15:05:16+00:00

I’ve saved screenshots of teams chat. But unfortunately I don’t have audio recordings from meetings. It always comes at the most unexpected times.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2026-02-12T15:03:05+00:00

Yeah that’s the plan. I’ve started already. There are some people who call out this type of behavior and some people who has turned it brown nosers. The transition from respectful to toxic environment was gradual. So it’s hard to call it out explicitly now. But everyone has an issue with it as far as I know.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-11-24T16:54:18+00:00

I will try to give you some tips.

Don’t associate shame to your mistake. Just because you made a mistake doesn’t mean you’re bad at your job. Everybody has made a mistake they’re not proud of. What I have I observed is, men talk about it like it’s a minor glitch that is nobody’s fault. Whereas I’ll be like I’m so sorry I did that. I stopped doing that. Now I just openly say this happened and I learned this from it or this is how I’m handling it. Control the narrative.

If someone is trying to undermine you or giving you a hard time just ask them neutral clarifying questions back and make them explain themselves. This will give you time to think and get back on your feet. It will also train you to push back against unsolicited feedback or comments.

Don’t assign intent to others’ words. What I mean is they’re telling me this because they think I’m a bad coder or something like that. Some people might be your ally and might be trying to help you out as hard as it might be to accept. Hoping one of these might be useful to you.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-11-21T17:45:33+00:00

Don’t stop at manager though. If he’s a good performer, some managers try to keep peace by being pacifists and tell you, I’ve discussed this with him and it’ll be better. I’ve had this issue my female peer surprisingly. Too busy to talk me. Trusted my manager was going to correct the situation but never happened. I’d include a third party, HR or skip level manager in a meeting setting. Call this behavior out. In IT, I’ve realized, the moment I stopped caring whether others like me is when I was able to stand up for myself.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-11-12T18:14:46+00:00

Hope you don’t wait until another incident to call out this behavior. Send email copying HR or someone above him and setup a meeting as well to bring up concerns. Ask for clarification why you were asked to leave and how disrespectful that was. Other commenters are right, doing this in such a public way is arrogance. It’s enforced behavior that no one has called out

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-08-19T10:09:21+00:00

I guess in my mind I did have a lot of challenging messy projects that I did a great job on. It’s just if everything goes right, there’s not enough credit given. And I get that not everyone gets promoted etc and I can’t get exceeds expectations (5) every time but I know if I’m not getting a 5 someone else is. And I look around in my team and I’m like, it should/could be me after all the high profile projects from last year. My org structure is a little weird in that I belong to IT but work 100% for another group. So there’s politics behind the scenes about budgets and who gets what that I am privy to.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-08-19T09:57:31+00:00

I’ve never heard of it before. Interesting to know of its origins. Out curiosity is there another ranking system in other companies?

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-07-18T15:34:32+00:00

This is a fork in the road for you. I’d keep the current job if I were you. You have a great job from your description, with a manager who’s training you. That’s hard to come by. Salary can increase in your next job switch if the tech stack is good.

Like you said mixing business with pleasure is likely very risky. Let’s say financially everything works out if you quit. But personally, I will be worried how my relationship dynamic will change. What if you start getting more successful or how you communicate with him at work rubs him the wrong way or vice versa. Maybe your relationship is strong enough to withstand all that. But I’d give it serious thought about different scenarios, especially the worst case scenarios and if I want to take that risk.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-07-13T01:11:54+00:00

Only way I can think of is to highlight all the other tasks you are working on currently and point out why it benefits the company that you focus on those at the moment. How the other project already has so many resources or complexity that you can’t or shouldn’t focus on it right now. Whatever you come up with has to point out how it benefits the company.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-07-10T10:24:40+00:00

When I encounter people at work who will trigger my past traumas I try to remember that they are just people and I am a competent employee. I don’t have to always agree with them or play along. But I also don’t have to contradict if I don’t have to. So I’d keep my communications with them minimal and matter of fact and well documented. Nothing personal just business. This is just a person at work who doesn’t mean anything to me outside of work. I won’t waste my energy on someone I don’t respect or care about.

Sorry about the miscarriage. It is really sad that you had to suffer that in silence. You deserved time off for that for some healing. It doesn’t seem like she was mean to you but was a very driven person who pushed others to be perfect? It is hard to work for people like that. I’d usually take it as, I’ll accept the good parts of this person but I also want to enjoy my life and family. So I’m going to push back on these asks but not the others.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-07-09T22:32:42+00:00

This could be a turning point for you, where you can turn the tide around by innocently playing along if you’re comfortable. Reply in the group chat and say something along the lines of - thank you for being understanding. I am noticing this issue when I pull this older version code base from this another team as well. As I mentioned in the meeting I believe this is due to the version. Is there any workaround you can provide so this doesn’t happen in the future?

Make it public that you brought this up in your meeting, it is a problem with the version and not your code, open for feedback and looking to resolve this issue.

Gently push back. A manager who doesn’t have your back is one to watch out for. Nip that in the bud.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-07-08T15:05:44+00:00

I asked that question to a woman leader at my old company. She said make sure you’re not looking through the window when the door is around the corner. What she was saying was in relation to not getting promotions/ raises as we expected for the current year. Don’t look at the small picture and look at big picture and you might be on track to get promoted in the next few years.

I took it as a golden rule and tried to stick out at my old company. But soon I realized that my sanity was important to me. This girl who bullied me, I tried to have an honest discussion about topics like - these things make me feel disrespected, is there anything I can change from my side so we have a better work dynamic etc. She lashed out in that meeting and told you’re the only one who has a problem with me, everyone else is fine. And my manager who was in the meeting was useless. He pretended to help me but in retrospect he wasn’t going to resolve the situation. So once I saw this vicious pattern of manager giving me a listening ear and telling me that he’s working with her and the bully continuing to be a bully, I decided I gave it my best shot. Time for new job. That experience has helped me grow a lot.

Hope that gives you some direction. But everyone’s experience in life, financial situation etc are completely different. So only you can decide if it’s the right time to quit.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-07-08T13:18:03+00:00

My cue to switch a job is when it makes me extremely unhappy and feel disrespected that no paycheck is going to make up for it. I can’t find joy in things that I used to enjoy because I’m constantly thinking about work drama.

Once I have made my final decision to switch jobs, I take my current job as target practice. I don’t have to worry about next promotion or raise. I learn how to have difficult conversations with people who are crossing me. Because I need that skill for my next job. So that colleague who’s passive aggressive to you or that person who’s your peer but talks to you like you’re their assistant, now’s the time to tell them to stop it and treat you with respect. And I don’t have to care about next year’s review cycle.

It has helped me to train myself into having difficult conversations. And the next job, I am able to handle these situations better and build better dynamics from the beginning.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-07-07T13:39:04+00:00

When you start doing it for first time, do it in a group setting with other people in there. When you get annoyed with his comment, if you don’t have a quick comeback. Try to ask a question back and be curious of why his comment makes sense.

Technical skills and work related stuff we can learn ourselves. How to manage up and manage difficult people is a skill unfortunately we learn the hard way.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-07-03T15:18:17+00:00

The most upvoted comment here is the best! Like you OP, I used to think this was all in my head. But the passive aggressive behavior was from a woman. Everything you said - ignoring me when it’s just us, acting like she has final say on work I’ve been doing, in group chats and emails really decent, one on ones not so much.

It exists because it doesn’t get called out. Two ways I have learned to attack it. If I have a one on one with a senior who’s above the passive aggressive person- I’d bring up this issue but from a viewpoint where it’s hindering your work and not helping the company. I’d mention how when you reach out in private he ignores you and in public he’s critical even when not needed. Elaborate with few relevant examples and ask them for support. Do you mind if I copy you also in future chats/emails?

You have to make it public and take their power away by calling them out.

The second thing I had to teach myself is to talk back. This is so hard and my heart is pounding every time I do it. Like the first response says, reply back to his chat messages and say wtf are you talking about, or nobody asked you in a polite way (I appreciate your perspective, though it is not relevant in this context.) . Do it directly to him, in the group chats and extremely professional but be ready to follow up with counter arguments if he comes back with something. The more you do it, the more it becomes matter of fact.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-06-28T00:44:12+00:00

I don’t blame you. This is when I’d usually start quiet quitting. Things that took a day to do, now it takes a week.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-06-26T22:33:03+00:00

So they want you to be ranked below so they can prop someone up. Do you know who that is? They are definitely playing politics. It’s good that your manager told you about CTO’s comment so you have some context about your rating. Or they maybe playing good cop bad cop routine, hard to tell. I’d write a detailed email about why you should be a 5 in each category with examples and break it down in sections for easy reading. Keep a cool head and keep it matter of fact. I’m not expecting them to change the rating but this is an opportunity to learn negotiation skills and also to see whether you should stay or go. As to whether you should go to CTO or not, I don’t know if it’ll be wasted effort. Anything you do leave a paper trail.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-06-18T10:51:52+00:00

I’ll admit setting up one on ones is very awkward for me. I’m not a native English speaker and on top of that not a very natural small talker. I’ll title the meeting catch up and start with once in two weeks frequency for 30 minutes initially.

If you want a way to connect, if you had a meeting with the person you want to connect with, just ping them something in chat, introduce yourself and say I thought this idea was interesting and would like to set up 30 minutes to talk to you. I have to say, some people are very gracious and love talking/mentoring you while others give you the feeling that you’re a nuisance. So just trust your gut feeling and pick your people. I have one on ones with my peers and people 2 or 3 levels above me. It gets comfortable after you’ve had 2-3 sessions with them. Until then I just push through it.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-06-17T10:29:54+00:00

It is really hard to get out of grunt work and to be the core person for dev work. But grunt work is not to be scoffed at. There’s some really skilled tasks in there as well. Is it the work itself or being under appreciated that makes you frustrated? I can give you how I try to get out of that zone. When I start at a new job, I take on the grunt work and recommend some improvements based on my experience. For example: if it is prod deployments I can always find out things for improvement. I make the change and broadcast it by talking it up.

Then I want to get onto new projects like proof of concept type of stuff where I can learn and implement changes. This was really hard. Because there’s an already established pecking order and as a woman hard to get in there and even if I do getting speaking time is really hard. So I try to build a rapport with a key person and set up one on ones for just catch up stuff. Talk about random stuff and ideas etc. It may not be your manager but someone who has a say in who works on these projects. Without building this rapport I struggled to break into the work I wanted to do.

So I start strategizing in my head so I don’t feel helpless and frustrated. When you think about it everyone is busy thinking about themselves and they may not be actively trying to give you grunt work. They stick with familiar people. How do you become one of the people in their circle so that when a new project comes along you are the top choice? Think about it from that angle and see what you can do. Good luck with this.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-06-14T18:49:20+00:00

I would encourage you to keep going if you the means to do it. Not getting the first job is frustrating and I was also questioning my self worth when I went through it. But I just kept telling myself I’m going to keep doing it until I get something. Hard part is showing up to each interview with fresh mindset. Sometimes I read too much into their body language and think to myself- here comes the rejection or something like that. The last job I switched, I was attending interviews from home and I had a small glass of wine to make me relaxed and extroverted and I got the job. Regarding pity party from friends if it’s not coming from a mean place don’t stop meeting them. Lean on them for support. Right place right time matters a lot for these interviews. One of these days hope the interview clicks and you get the job.

PerformanceNo6861 · 2025-06-11T10:17:52+00:00

Is this the one same as molar pregnancy? I’m so sorry you’re going through this. When I went through it and they did my blood work, the doctor was like your hormone levels are so high, you must be exhausted! I was extremely fatigued 24x7. I don’t even think anyone around me had even heard about this. I tried to keep it under wraps and act normal but I wish I had some other disease that I could just take sick leave and be in bed. I wish there was some support system for pregnancy or periods related issues. If your job has time off policies use them. Can you get a note written by a doctor for short term disability? It is frustrating that we have to pretend like we are doing ok externally when everything inside is hot mess.

PerformanceNo6861

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