Comment by justonceokay

> always having to sell opaque higher up decisions as your own

Is that really part of management etiquette? In my experience nothing ruins my trust in my manager more than when they pretend that they love every decision from the higher ups. My favorite managers have always taken a “well this is dumb but we have to do it because the CEO said so” approach. It creates comraderie and lets me know they are a real person.

My least favorite manager of all time laid off a valued member of the team for financial reasons (sad but understandable). Within 24h he had started to rationalize and defend that our team was actually /better/ now. I assume he was trying to convince himself as much as the rest of us.

Managers are weird because they are implicitly asked to take on elements of the organization into their personality. It’s unavoidable to an extent. But some fully become Sartre’s Waiter. I always wondered if this type of manager went home and was totally cool and normal with their family or if they brought The Board home with them too.