Open Letter to a rude manager that I worked with for the last 10 months…

Dear ________,

I say “worked”, but I wouldn’t say that we truly worked together.

You were assigned as the manager to work on my project and I was told to report to you but I am afraid that you didn’t have any management skills. And definitely not leadership skills!

My job is to talk to the Business, understand their processes and then document their requirements. You work in IT, so you’re supposed to tell us what’s possible and help us find solutions to the problems that the Business need addressing. We are supposed to work together. I shouldn’t be telling you this, as you are twice my age… but anyway, I find myself needing to write this.

I thought that all the hostility and tension that you brought to the table came from your obsession to “micro-manage” but I realized that it’s more than that…

It seems that you don’t trust anybody but yourself. You should learn to delegate, because then we might have achieved more, and you wouldn’t be taking work home on the weekends. But that’s your style.

I can’t change you. And it’s not my job to tell you that. That would be insulting.

Here’s what I didn’t like:

1. You don’t let me finish my sentences – you try to jump ahead and attempt to auto-complete what I’m going to say, but you always get it wrong. You are lucky that I’m patient and compassionate. I don’t belittle you or call you out in front of your peers.

2. Always saying that I’m wrong. You have done this countless of times, and I don’t mind if I was truly wrong, but I wasn’t. You were always misinformed as you didn’t take the time to read anything that I wrote and learn the business process. Screaming “No, you’re wrong” in the middle of a sentence is plain rude. I know that English is not your first language so it can’t be easy but it doesn’t doesn’t seem like its your 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th language either. You should really work on those communication skills.

3. Telling me that I shouldn’t be making decisions, as I don’t belong to the organization. I fully agree with this, but that’s not what I was doing. Because you didn’t take the time to read the requirements, take part in our meetings and actually try to sympathise with the business users, so you started to get left behind. I thought that keeping you in the loop would be considerate, but you saw it as an attack... and you felt like I was making decisions on my own.

4. Can’t smile if your life depended on it. This was the one that really got to me, the total rudeness and lack of respect that you had for me. You didn’t appreciate the time or effort that I sacrificed for this project.

Do you remember when I came to your desk after Christmas? I had been away for 3-weeks and I greeted you with a big smile, wished you a Happy New Year and all you did was turn your head to the side, grunted, said a quick hello, and then carried on staring at your screen.

Remember that?

Who am I kidding, of course you don’t.

Today, I left the project and before leaving, I had a great feedback session with my Project Manager. The project was successful and all the key stakeholders were happy.

Then we went on to discuss the working relationship that you and I had.

We tried to find an excuse for your behavior and the only thing that we could come up with is that you felt threatened. Threatened for your job but remember, I’m only here for the short-term, here to help you, not compete with you.

Perhaps you’re chasing a promotion? The problem with being promoted is that it means that your responsibilities will increase. And then things like delegating, management, leadership and ability to empower power all become important.

But you could read all the self-help books in the world and I still don’t think you’d get it.

When I said my round of goodbyes, I decided not to stop by at your desk.

There was no point in subjecting myself to any more abuse. I know how you feel about me. You made it clear over the last 10 months. You knew I was leaving and you spent the whole week ignoring me.

Anyway, I can't stop smiling today. Smiling because I know that I’m moving on to bigger and better things! You are everything that I will never be and I hope that the next people that work with you have the strength & drive to push through, deliver, and then get out of there!

Take care.

If you liked this one, then please take the time to upvote.
If you feel like your followers might like this, then please resteem!
Follow @soul-thru-da-ink for more stories straight from the heart!