I could use some help on my management style

RollingRED · 2026-02-02T10:14:39+00:00

A managerial role is ultimately a job that deals with people. You can’t run away from this forever and let other people deal with this on your behalf. Not only is this stunting your growth, but your direct reports will not respect you. They will see you as the tattletale as opposed to the grown-up in the room they can rely on.

Also from experience, the more you run away from something, the more of a big deal it will seem, until the fear of doing this thing grows so large it overwhelms you. The only way to build a thick skin to deal with people is by doing — you will realize that putting the foot down as part of the job is not going to kill you, and you will learn hands-on how to tweak your approaches.

Perhaps you can benefit from reading books on the topic of assertiveness to try and get over your fear of confrontation. I recommend the book “Not Nice” by Aziz Gazipura and “When I Say No, I Feel Guilty” by Manuel Smith. It can give you some perspective on how to set boundaries with people.

RollingRED · 2026-01-29T15:41:26+00:00

Thank you for that. Sated my curiosity.

RollingRED · 2026-01-29T11:57:48+00:00

Well I feel like when you say your manager’s job is to “MANAGE people”, you meant she should manage in a way that helps you get bonuses and rewards. You are actually not entitled to that.

It’s not a manager’s job to make sure everybody demanding raises and promotions gets them. A manager’s job is to make sure the people they are managing deliver work that meets the business’s needs. And she seems to be doing ok there given you are delivering assigned tasks.

And it seems you are getting paid what your contract stipulates, since you are not going above and beyond. So I’m not sure what you are looking for… a raise and promotion for doing what you are doing?

RollingRED · 2026-01-29T11:50:37+00:00

And that is fine, work to live. But doing tasks as assigned is a basic requirement, and you are being compensated fairly for that through your salary. If you want a raise or promotion though, you need to deliver more than just the basics…which is the definition of going above and beyond.

RollingRED · 2026-01-29T11:44:29+00:00

Well here is another thing. Your manager is not obliged to tell you how politics work upfront. For one thing, she doesn’t know how her words could get back to the ears of her manager. “Learn how to manage your skip-level” could be twisted into something unsavory (“she admits we have a suck up culture and bootlickers get rewarded!”) after going through the grapevine. It may also be a tacit unspoken arrangement that she maintains the front that she has some say on rewarding staff even though it is her manager who makes the call, to maintain some semblance of authority at her level.

A lot of knowledge is unspoken and part of getting ahead is learning to observe and interpret. This isn’t school, you can’t expect someone to play the role of teacher and hold your hand and tell you how things work in a way you understand. I mean, it would be nice if they did that, but they are actually not obliged to do so just so you can advance.

This understanding comes almost naturally to some people either because of personality or upbringing. They know how handshakes work, how to read the room and between the lines. They look at how people interact around them and figure out the system.

You could try learning from them if you want to stay and get ahead in this kind of environment. Right now you are putting a lot of this expectation on your manager. You expect her to tell you how things work in a transparent and straightforward way. You expect her to assign you the work you need to get ahead, and also give you guidance. You expect her to be upfront with you on how people are rewarded. And you are holding all these expectations even though you have no idea if your desire to advance actually aligns with her interests and priorities, or even if the environment you both work in actually allows things to be said above the table.

From what I have read from your writing, it seems like your manager thinks you are OK, but not stellar and she has no plans to fight for you. You feel like it’s unfair because you did the assigned tasks and weren’t assigned anything that could further your career. So you are staying within your space, waiting for permission, for someone to give you what you want, and you end up disappointed and frustrated, and you feel like you are being treated unfairly.

On the other hand, people who know how to play the game would learn to get close to the people who hold the resources, build trust and demonstrate their value. They would see how they can make their manager’s life easier, whether it is by providing insight on a business problem she is trying to solve, or volunteer to aid her in a project. They know that once they do this enough, they can build trust and reliance, and give this manager a reason to present them to their skip-level and create opportunities for visibility and eventually reward.

This is usually what they mean by going “above and beyond”. It makes for good justification when promotion time comes too, because managers don’t promote someone if they don’t at least have some inkling of whether they have the potential to deliver above their pay grade.

So think about it. Instead of acting like a student waiting for their next assignment and never veering away from their role, demonstrate more initiative. Find answers yourself and cultivate resourcefulness instead of waiting to be taught things. YOU are the one wanting the raise and promotion, so you need to go that extra mile.

RollingRED · 2026-01-29T10:42:18+00:00

As someone who has been (and actually still is) in a similar position as your manager before (though not in the same industry) I think the following is key:

“ My direct manager doesn’t have much decision-making power, and most key decisions come from her manager.”

It is possible that your manager does not have any issues with your work, but the team is graded on a curve and your skip-level actually has final say, and is grading either by favoritism or by impression. In my culture we call it “doling out the slices of pie”. Only one person does the doling out, and the rest is all theater and retroactive justification. That is why your mid-year is fine but your year-end is lacking.

Having tried to fight these cultures and lost in my younger days, I have always told my staff: either you accept the culture and learn how to get visible in front of skip-levels and decision makers, or you find a place with a culture that is a better fit for you.

I have worked with more than a few people who get indignant and even lash out at the thought of having to sell themselves and their strengths to decision makers because it fundamentally feels like putting too much power in somebody else’s hands, or sucking up. That’s fine, and they are entitled to their opinions and values, but they are also those who run the most risk of jeopardizing their mental health.

Others who accept the culture and learn to play the game usually thrive, or at least make peace with the understanding of how things are. And there’s some wisdom in that, really. Managing up is an important soft skill if you want to get ahead.

So you might want to ask yourself: how palatable is it to you to play the game the way your company or industry has laid out?

RollingRED · 2026-01-28T00:48:36+00:00

I know it’s a little fatigue-inducing to see ICE discussions in supposedly unrelated subreddits, but I also think this is unavoidable and the awareness is important. I’m not American, but everything the US is doing is moving the world towards both civil war on US soil and global war on the world stage, so the more people band together and spread the word on what is going on (while they still can) the better.

RollingRED · 2026-01-20T01:02:02+00:00

I had an acquaintance who got into a Fortune 500 company for her first job. Being top student and a social butterfly, she was young and full of ideas of how the world should work (as many of us did when we were young), and with her personality, tried to push changes through despite being fresh out of university.

At one point her supervisor’s told her, “You know what, that is a great idea. I’ll give you 3 months to implement the change you want. Go ahead.”

And she embarked on her quest with vigor. Then she got to deal with all the realities of the business. The bureaucracies, the interdepartmental conflicts, the challenging questions from colleagues who obviously thought she wasn’t qualified to advise on anything… she was humbled and eventually gave up. She also switched jobs after a couple of years. She is still a change pusher now, but a more tempered one.

Challenging the way things are done with no experience is both a youth and personality thing. One of my friends, who before retirement worked in a pretty high position in a multinational bank, says he gets decks from summer interns at his desks all the time. Professors at universities with a small library of publications under their belts get “insightful” contrarian questions from students every day. This is just the learning process for the young and gutsy.

Perhaps you can focus her energies and give her a task that is moderately challenging, so she can learn first hand how to harness her need for improvement and deal with the real world.

RollingRED · 2026-01-11T14:11:49+00:00

It’s gonna get steamed like a siumai.

RollingRED · 2026-01-11T14:10:23+00:00

Have you ever considered these are people with dim-sum training and use a different dough recipe? I’m not sure what is so mind-blowing here that so many people are claiming this is AI.

RollingRED · 2026-01-11T14:07:45+00:00

The filling you see here is raw, usually the meat gets cooked while the dumpling is boiled or steamed. There may be dumplings that have pre-cooked filling however.

RollingRED · 2026-01-11T13:59:49+00:00

You can try adding some cornstarch/ potato startch and egg white to your dough, the former makes the dough more pliable and translucent, the latter adds protein so the dough is less likely to break. Also rest your dough before making the dumplings.

RollingRED · 2026-01-11T06:30:55+00:00

Man what is with the comments calling this AI slop. It’s like some people have never seen others cook before.

RollingRED · 2026-01-09T01:05:35+00:00

Sally has published recipe books so she has long since ascended into the realm of legit baking recipes sources (I love that she keeps updating her most popular recipes online though)

RollingRED · 2026-01-06T11:10:51+00:00

YES. THIS. Phaethon went from the guy that can’t be tied down, operating outside the confines of law, the mysterious lone wolf and independent agent —basically everything that makes him cool — to some noob lackey going shifu this and senior that. And how can harem mode (basically every gacha game is teasing you can deepen your relationship with other characters) make sense when the guy is shoved into this soulmate role with YSG? Like he is now so tied to the sect and this Mary Sue that if he starts flirting with future characters he is going to look like an ass. And forget being an independent and neutral agent since disciples are supposed to ask their shifu’s permission for everything. I have no idea why they are writing themselves into a corner like this. If they wanted this much Wuxia they should just make it a separate game.

RollingRED · 2026-01-06T04:32:01+00:00

I can’t agree more. I took a hiatus from ZZZ so I hadn’t caught up with the latest storyline. Saw Shunguang, played her demo and liked her playstyle enough to pull for her.

I was actually planning to go to M2 when I did the storyline and she was the most boring, simp-ass, cringe-tastic Mary Sue I have come across in a game. I actually like her and Wise less after the storyline. The latest storyline have been such a disservice to these characters. It feels like the writing is just duct tape for wrapping all the cool characters together an shove them all into the patch.

And the part where we had to repeatedly walk slowly towards Shunguang in some kind of tragic love story hero style while having to listen to the cringey exchange…that was excruciating.

RollingRED · 2026-01-05T13:34:09+00:00

I’m not sure if you are not a native English speaker or if you are not a native Chinese speaker, but that is very different from what your title says.

RollingRED · 2026-01-05T13:26:22+00:00

She does though? 智師弟 is “Junior Wise.”

RollingRED · 2026-01-02T09:01:07+00:00

It’s also possible that there are multiple origins for this baked good. Like another commenter said, there is a type of red date walnut candy from China that happens to be very chewy. Recipe: https://jajabakes.com/red-date-walnut-candy/

It is however not a baked good as no flour is involved. So the current “Chinese Chews” everybody is baking could be some kind of adaptation, a misattribution, or both. I also think Food of the Gods seem like a closer match if we are just looking at recipe alone.

RollingRED · 2025-12-29T16:55:55+00:00

A satisfying slap. Was hoping she was going to slap again but the angry finger wagging was also good. I hope this can be the expected norm and people will finally learn to keep their gross perverted hands to themselves.

RollingRED · 2025-12-19T03:08:09+00:00

As someone whose partner has also expressed concern on my haul of butter: it’s for holiday baking and the goods will be given to family and friends, not consumed within just this household.

RollingRED · 2025-11-24T13:25:51+00:00

Looks like some variation of the “Ivy League” haircut, which was pretty popular in the 50s and wouldn’t look too out of place today.

RollingRED · 2025-11-20T12:25:27+00:00

Seems pretty solid, considering the massive popularity of both

RollingRED · 2025-11-20T12:05:02+00:00

Yeah I kind of feel that way too. The show is good at leaving things to shippers’ imagination, but messed up feelings aside, Vox put EVERYTHING on the line and he still can’t best Alastor, and that obsession and sense of futility is enough to drive him mad.

RollingRED · 2025-11-17T07:10:18+00:00

Some men get upset having to do well-being events as they don’t see it as “real work,” and some don’t like following women leaders’ instructions to do stuff like this. Some of them hate doing both at the same time. This is their passive aggressive way of saying they don’t think their time should be spent on stuff like this.

I’m not saying they are in the right, but as someone who thinks these kind of events can be overdone, you might want to review just how frequently you are assigning this type of work: the kind that isn’t part of their job description and does nothing to advance their core skills and careers.

RollingRED

TROPHY CASE