Negative Feedback from Manager

[BlackoutBlind]

This week at work I received negative feedback from my manager. It was a shock as the week before I was given a small pay rise and thanked for my good work and ideas by the senior management team.

My manager’s feedback was that on two occasions the language I’ve used to express that I would have liked things done things differently was not appropriate.

Situation 1: He told me his manager said we needed to enter our hours onto a new spreadsheet. I asked the reason why because we already have to enter it on two other systems. He said he didn’t know we just needed to do it and I asked whether he could find out the reason because to enter it in a third place felt like a waste of time.

Situation 2: I spent an extra day doing a task for another colleague and said privately to my manager that I wished that colleague had just told me exactly what he wanted in the first place because if he’d been clear I wouldn’t have wasted time providing the wrong set of data.

Looking for opinions on whether others think these are indeed unprofessional comments when speaking directly with a manager or whether it could be because English is not my manager’s first language.

Really don't think you've done anything wrong here. I'm wondering if he's objecting to you pushing him to find out about the first thing, though the second one till makes no sense. And actually remembering these non-events in order to give you "feedback" about it later shows a serious lack of perspective. Is he the sort of weirdo who thinks being a manager is equivalent to being a Victorian dad?

He feels threatened by you, that's what's going on. Senior management gave you praise and a pay rise one week, the next he nitpicks and one of his examples is questioning something he didn't think to question himself.

I can't comment on the two situations you mentioned but I think it's often inevitable that senior management and direct management views will differ. Senior management don't work with you on a daily basis on BAU tasks and so may not pick up on stuff that you do that's irritating or inappropriate or inadequate on a day to day basis. Equally the small pay rise shouldn't be taken as a sign of how well you're doing sorry- you're likely to have been given a small payrise by default because the entire company has been given one not because you're particularly good at your job.

Hi

i think the first one is debatable:
my company has loads of nonsense policies but we just get on with it, we don’t tell management it’s a waste of time and ask for the point. Especially when timesheets are concerned as policies, guidance is likely governed by HR and not something your manager can even change. Therefore you could be seen as pushing back at a reasonable request.

the second one seems understandable but may not be the best political language to use, I tend to eg just forward on exactly what was said to me and let your manager come to the conclusion that something wasn’t your fault