Has anyone had a “pseudo line manager” arrangement before?

[HankMarvin1990]

Just been asked about having a pseudo line manager rather than directly dealing with my new line manager. LM would (I am told) still be dealing with me directly, when requested, and we would have three way conversations at times and I would have to report on how the pseudo line manager is doing.

I have never come across this. Is this a thing nowadays?

Do you have a "dotted line" to this other manager for maybe projects or specific tasks and your line manager is still in charge of performance, overall care, etc? This can be the case in a "matrix" structure.

The other manager would carry out my performance reviews etc and I would carry out the work they delegated to me.

Yeah that's normal these days. It's basically a way companies try to minimise costs. Either they can give someone managerial responsibility without promoting them and paying them appropriately, or they can lumber an existing manager with a bigger team without paying them more for it.