Would I be rude to say to manager “just give me a straight answer?”

[Hearfreedomcalling]

I’ve posted before but it’s got worse and I find myself finding it hard to sleep now. I’ve been in my new job a couple of months now and it’s the kind of work where each project I’m on can be completely different. It’s also a new career and one I’ve no experience in.

I’ll come across something I’ve never ever done before and done as much as I can on it independently before I say to my manager can you guide me with next steps. But instead of telling me he will say “what do you think?” - and I have no clue because I’ve done what I can (I’d never ask without at least attempting to do something) and he still won’t give me a straight answer. I get a politician answer where I’m still so confused at what I’m doing.

I’ve been in tears at work over this (privately in the bathroom). The work is piling up, I have multiple people asking me to do things I have no idea how to do.

How do I say - please just give me a straight answer because I’m at the point of walking out.

I think if you immediately respond this way to your manager on everything, you might have worked out your problem.

Good luck in finding a new role.

Your manager sounds like they can't be bothered/ don't have time to guide you. Do you get regular 1-2-1s? You need to feed back that processes need to be explained properly in order to do your job.

I wondered that, too!

I'm minded to say that this job isn't for you.

Some of your responses are indicating that you might be out of your depth , given your need for direction.

Sorry and all good wishes to you.

There was nothing wrong with my response to you.

• I apologised if I missed out a question you asked
• I did read too fast and thought you mentioned pricing so my mistake on that. However I thought the programs you mentioned were to do with that role so I confirmed that part as they wouldn’t be relevant.
• confirmed to you why I couldn’t ask a particular person
• said your example was good but didn’t work for that situation.

Unsure why so butt hurt and passive aggressive with the “new role” comment when there was nothing wrong with my response. I answered your questions and genuinely apologised if I missed any - as someone mentioned that I wasn’t responding to questions and that wasn’t my intention.

Genuinely though if you started a new job tomorrow (one you had genuine interest in and wanted a career in) and it’s completely different to what you do now so you can’t draw on that for experience.

If you don’t get proper guidance from the start it does not mean the job isn’t for you. The company maybe.

It would be like if you really wanted to learn piano but you’d never pressed a key before. The teacher gives you sheet music, but no further instructions and you’re expected to play. Then when you can’t being told “piano isn’t for you” .

I just want a fair level of training where I can progress in the job or … say I tried and it’s not for me.

Answering the questions isn’t the issue.

Many people responding to you here, many offering good advice and suggestions. You seem very dismissive (intentionally or not) of all the responses. That’s fine, it’s an internet chat forum.

Not sure I’d be quite so relaxed about it if it was a member of my team, who also seemed to need quite a lot of guidance.

Having read the whole thread, I genuinely think you should cut your losses and find a new role - that will make you happier than you are now.

My job has certain processes and legal expectations, but so many variables and unexpected segues, it is not possible to teach new recruits every possible permutation. We need people who have sound judgement, logical processing, and are good at making quick but defensible decisions. Every day my team are dealing with situations they have never come across before whether they've been there five weeks or five years, I couldn't possibly do my own job if they brought each new scenario to me.
It could be you're just not suited to this kind of work and that's ok.

I’m not dismissive of any but with people not knowing the role etc some suggestions just wouldn’t work. Just how I explained yours wouldn’t.

I also don’t need a lot of guidance. I need guidance on things that I’ve never done before and have no point of reference or examples to look at. I worked on a check out as a student and it wasn’t like day one heres your till - bye!

If only getting a new role was that easy? Unfortunately as someone who lives alone and doesn’t have the help of a partner it’s not always that simple.

Would you not expect someone to ask for help on a particular area if they knew it the same thing was going to be a regular occurrence so wanted to ensure it was done right the first time?

I actually do make legal decisions and use my own judgment all the time. But on an area I’ve not been trained in then yes there’s an expectation from me to have that training to enable me to do my role. I’m not asking for hand holding. When I’m signing away £500K plus contracts I want to know I’m doing the process correctly the very first time.

I'm a Team Manager for a very large customer facing business unit, for a company that prior to Covid employed 88000 people.

Whilst I'm commercially responsible for certain areas of this business unit, 80% of my role is being a People Manager - my team are the SMEs for our commercial areas, not me. I have a high level knowledge of these areas, but as they are the SMEs, my role is to coach and guide them in their development.

So to me, it sounds like your manager is coaching you. This is not new, and a very much used tool to aid development. If it's not working for you, you just need to talk to your people manager.

I would also advise a conversation about how you like to be managed - I actively ask all new recruits this, but would expect a new line report to flag any issues that they were facing under my leadership.

Just say: I don't know, that's why I'm asking you.

When he says "what do you think"

The best approach would be to tell him what you've done so far to find out the answer. e.g
"I've looked at resource a, and spoke to person b, and looked at project c for similarities. I am not finding the required information I need to resolve this though. I think perhaps I should do "insert solution here" but I can't find anything to back this up."

Also, it's hard to say as I don't know the projects/role/tasks but could it be that there are many correct answers and maybe he is getting at you choosing one without realising you might not know the options?

there is lots of good advice on this thread, either you’re so stressed you’re not listening or the way you respond and deal with challenges is part of the problem. I suspect it’s a combination of both.

In overview the polite response that also assures him you aren't using him as the first port of call is to explain what you've already done but that you aren't able to reach a conclusion without his advice

I agree that in many jobs it’s simply not possible to ‘train’ people to a single answer/process for every possible
scenario and there is an expectation that people will use a certain degree of initiative and creativity to get to the answer they need.

OP, in the example you gave of being asked a question about a project being led by someone who’s signed off sick, I agree with your manager. I would have taken responsibility and phoned the person who asked the question. I would have explained to them that my colleague was off and I knew nothing about the project, and I would ask them what they knew as background information. Any emails from the colleague? Any documents? Any hints as to where colleague might have stored documents relating to the project? Between you, you might be able to come up with the answer. If not, you should be able to identify what information you need and even whether there might be someone else who might know more. And you would also be able to ask the person how urgent the question was; if you have good reason to think the colleague might be back next week and the person doesn’t need an answer until then, well, that’s solved, for now at least.

At the very least, having done the above and maybe some resulting detective work into where your colleague might have left information about the project and/or who else might have useful information, you would then be able to have a more useful and informed conversation with your manager about what needed to be done and when it might be done by, and what information was lacking to enable you to do it. And you might also suggest better information sharing so that when someone goes off sick others can cover more easily.

It might well be that you feel the above doesn’t apply in your situation, and maybe it doesn’t. But I am also an experienced manager, and I have seen people who are very process-oriented and who need to get their head around systems or they feel paralysed, struggle in more generalist jobs where not every situation can be reduced to a process. It often seems to be people who are
trained in finance or good with numbers,
in my experience. And they can be indispensable in many roles (I as someone much more flexible, some would say chaotic,
in my thinking would be a complete liability in some of those roles!). So perhaps this role isn’t for you; it doesn’t seem to be making you happy?

I appreciate that you don’t want to share every detail in your example, so perhaps this depends on what you were actually asked. But it’s interesting that you say you were asked for an update on that project and your manager said you should go back to them. So that sounds like he expects they have information that is useful? I would in that case have called them, explained that this one was dropped on me due to sickness absence, that I would try to move it forward - but needed to know everything they knew about it to this point. If they’re asking for an update, that can mean that they actually have all the information right up until the person on your team went sick. Once you turn, “can I have an update?” into “we know that they can deliver the artwork to the spec we gave them, but we were waiting for them to confirm with their printer when they had availability” then you know your action: ask the person asking for the update (or your manager, or scroll the email chain) who the contact is then get onto them to ask about the printer.

Obviously I’m making up an example here, but

my point is that you seemed to dismiss going back to the other person as the blind leading the blind - when it might not be.

It's hard to tell even with the examples you've given how much of this is you not taking initiative that you might be expected to, and how much is your line manager's poor people management skill.

Coaching is a useful development technique but it doesn't apply in every situation. As a line manager I would never refuse to answer a question or give clear direction to someone in my team if they were asking for it, although I might be considering if they were right for the role if they were repeatedly coming to me with things I felt they should be using their initiative on, or not appearing to learn.

Anyway to answer your initial question, I wouldn't use those words but I do think you need an honest conversation with your manager to say that you're struggling and you really need him to give you clear direction when you're asking for help. You'll then at least open the discussion so he can understand your point of view and you might get an understanding of where he's coming from or why he's been responding the way he has.

Haven't seen your other posts but I can't understand why HR would have suggested you raise a grievance. The situation doesn't seem to call for that at all.

Is there someone other than your line manager who you can ask?

Do you think he isn't being helpful on purpose for whatever reason?

Haven't RTFT but my suggestion would be to put your questions in numbered bullet points in email.

That way he can't wriggle out of answering and you also have a paper trail if he's feeding you wrong info.

This was exactly my thought. Did you phone the person your manager suggest you phone and find out as much as you could? Ask if there was anyone other than them who might be able to help? See if there was any previous correspondence they could forward you? Or did you just dismiss it as stupid advice and do nothing?

I work in a very competitive industry. We get two types of people through into our team: those who hit the ground running, find out things off their own backs, build relationships with people who can help them, Google things they don't know - or try to find someone who might know, are able to articulate why they've done what they have up to that point, and what they might try next. And then there are the others who put barriers in their own way, don't try to find out anything independently, expect to be hand-held and spoon-fed everything, don't ask questions, don't write anything down and then ask the same questions again, don't reach out to colleagues to help, don't build relationships, and then keep getting upset when other new starters seem to be getting on better than they do. Really, OP, you may fall into the former category but you are coming across as falling into the latter. I think you are probably out of your depth and need to start looking for another job.

In the example you give, my first response to the inquirer would have been "I don't know, I'll find out who is responsible for absent team member's work".

If it turned out no-one was, or that it was you, I'd ask someone - not necessarily the manager - where I could find out about the relevant processes and find precedents, maybe ask to look at a file for a similar transaction.

I'm a manager and I have trained several people from nothing - currently working with someone who has been in my industry for a few weeks. I ask that question a lot because I need him to start thinking like his job role and so he can make decisions on his own in the future. I also know from experience that he is far more likely to remember the answer to his question if he has thought it through himself. I've found people who are given the answer straight away end up becoming lazy when figuring future issues out and struggle to work on their own.

That being said, if it is obvious he is struggling (either because he gives me the completely wrong answer or babbles), I'll tell him or I will guide him to somewhere he can learn more about it.

My response would be 'I'm really not sure, I've thought about it from all angles and I just don't know.'