Our team got a new manager that was hired from outside. Within the first week he asked us all to make our calendars public ‘to help with scheduling’.
Does anyone else’s manager ask them to do this?
27 replies (most recent on top)
Is he from Statestreet ? Since Sara Berwick docked her ship from SS
Toxic manager. Start looking for a new opportunity. Free/Busy is good enough for most.
No, and it's easy enough to see when time is marked as BUSY, TENTATIVE or OUT OF OFFICE, so his reasoning is bunk.
tell your boss to go pound sand
Unless you’re using your work calendar to track your menstrual cycle this shouldn’t stress you out and saves everyone endless email chains trying to find an available time for a lot of people to talk about doing work
Sounds like the new manager will be a micro-manager. Best way to deal w/ that is right off the bat, extreme over communicate. Let them know when you are going to the bathroom - "hey need to run to the bathroom quick. just wanted to let you know i'll be away from my desk for a few minutes."
Tell them every time you take a break, ask them if they want a daily or weekly summary of what you worked on. Absolutely lambast them with every.single.little.thing. you can think of. They will get sick of it and eventually leave you alone. :)
I've done this for years and years and in my experience, its a tried and true solution to the petty micromanagers. Good luck!
Easy solution, stop scheduling so many stupid meetings. They are huge time wasters in the vast majority of instances, especially these days.
My initial reaction is, "F--k, no"! Then again, my co-workers have accidentally shown their calendars while screen sharing. I've seen "meetings" for lunches, workouts, you name it. It's impossible to schedule legit meetings when people have their calendars filled with fake cr-p.
Let his/her boss know your contributions. I can’t respect any leader that does not conduct quarterly or at least annual two down meetings. How else are they going know if the smoke their directs are blowing up their a-s is real or not. You people at the top stop burying your head in the sand. That’s how we’ve got into all this mess.
@fbq+1o8qMT3W "Taxonomy of Redundant Risk Hierarchies in Obsolete Frameworks."
This happened at USAA when the toxic former Wells Fargo executives were put in charge. It allows them to make your life he-l by making reschedule your calendar every 5 minutes for meetings with said execs where they don't show up.
#9 😆
Do what you’re told.
Report him/her. You manager is an ahole.
Make your calendar public but mark all entries private 🤷♀️
Yes. That would be a normal request unless you have something to hide
My manager did that years ago because there were some questionable employees and he couldn't make it seem he was picking on anyone. Those employees left and now my manager doesn't care.
Seems your manager will be a micro manager though.
im guessing this manager has nothing better to do because we all know if you aren't in meetings you aren't working. we'll probably see more and more of this as they flatten orgs and make managers people managers only.
I used to fill up my day with fake meetings so people would leave me alone on IM. sometimes didn't work, but it helped.
Your manager wants to know if you're sneaking off to get cornholed during the day.
Love it! But you forgot the one with the word “taxonomy” in it :)
No! And as a manager, I have never asked that if my team.
Unless you’re in a production type of role, it’s ridiculous! If they have to get that level of detail to see what you’re doing every hour of the day, they have NO idea what they’re doing in a manager role. There are better ways to schedule meetings and know what’s going on with your team. SMH
Yes. My team has done this for as matter of policy for scheduling pto, etc. I have been in multiple departments over the years that did this.
It’s ok. Just rename those fake meetings you’ve setup to fill up the calendar with some serious sounding titles. I will give you some from my own calendar. Note all of these are recurring too
- "Strategic Analysis of Risk Perception in Predictable Environments"
- "The Synergy Between Anticipated Hazards and Known Outcomes"
- "Holistic Approaches to Understanding Previously Understood Threats"
- "Risk Recalibration in Static, Unchanging Contexts"
- "The Quantum Mechanics of Overly Analyzed Dangers"
- "A Deep Dive into Risks We've Already Mitigated"
- "Re-evaluation of Established and Accepted Risk Parameters"
- "Proactive Risk Assessment of Yesterday's Problems"
- "Circular Exploration of Tangential Risk Factors"
- "Unpacking the Known Knowns in Current Risk Paradigms"
You can only see free/busy on the platform, this manager wants to see what your entries are for each hour.
It should already be open to anyone on the Exchange platform by default. We wouldn’t be able to schedule meetings if it’s private.
What?!
I’ve been here for nine years and nobody asked me to do this, nor any of my last companies.
Be on your guard OP, these changes so early could lead to a lot more aggravation coming soon.