Absentee Manager Is Taking Advantage of You?  Ask Madeleine

Dear Madeleine,

I am a college student in the middle of my junior year, majoring in business. I have had a job in the store at the student union since the summer before my freshman year. My manager was a PhD candidate and taught me a lot. He was a decent boss, if sometimes moody.

Sadly, over the years I have watched him slowly implode. He complained constantly about his debt and about how undervalued higher education is, and he was often drunk when he was at the store. It would be none of my business, except that he is paid to fully manage the store but hasn’t been doing anything. As I said, it happened slowly. At first he started delegating the oversight of entire shifts to me, then asked me to cover opening or closing. The reason I’m speaking about him in the past tense is that he is now completely absent.

For a long time, if I wasn’t sure how to handle something (late deliveries, missing inventory, hiring people) I would text him questions and he would offer direction. Every so often he would have me call the owner to get input. But lately he hasn’t been responding to my texts, so I have had to use my own judgment.

I don’t want to rat him out to the owner, but I am also worried that I could make a critical error. I am not being paid nearly enough to be the store manager, but it is the job I am doing.

I feel bad for my absentee manager, but I can’t do this anymore. It’s too much. My schoolwork is suffering and I am constantly stressed out. This isn’t what I signed up for. I might be willing to do it if I were the actual manager of the store with the title and the pay.

I have thought about just not showing up one day and waiting for the owner to investigate what is going on.

What do you think?

Put Upon

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Dear Put Upon,

It must absolutely, positively stop. Clearly you have a strong sense of personal responsibility, discretion, and loyalty, which is commendable. But positive character traits and natural strengths can often be overused. I think this might be the case for you—to the point where you are now in a real bind.

You have been fully taken advantage of by your (former) manager, and this situation has gone entirely too far. I appreciate that you don’t want to be a tattletale, but simply throwing your hands up and abdicating will not be a good look. You have been nothing but reliable and trustworthy and it makes no sense for you to suddenly do something that is so out of character. 

There is a fine line, when it really matters, between tattling and telling the truth. Get in touch with the owner and share how things have devolved. Leave out whatever judgments or complaints you have and just stick with the facts and the impact the situation has had on you.

Be prepared to make a clear request; for example, that you be promoted to the job you already have been doing and what you think the pay should be. This may feel risky to you—communicating with crystal clarity is a skill that can take years (decades?) to refine. Being unapologetically direct can feel aggressive, and asking for what we need and want can feel downright subversive.

Craig Weber, the author of our Conversational Capacity program, offers what he calls “low-key tests” we can all use once we’ve shared our views. They include questions like:

• • Do you see this differently?
  • What’s your take on this?
  • How does what I am suggesting feel to you?

The owner can then make you an offer or not, and you can negotiate or not.

Once the dust has settled, you can decide to share these things with your former boss or not, based on the strength of the relationship you once had. You will undoubtedly feel guilty—but you won’t actually have done anything wrong. No one would fault you for simply moving on from a manager who first exploited your good nature and then abandoned you.

You have risen to a difficult challenge, Put Upon. One of the hardest things to learn and practice is to stand up for yourself, especially if it feels like it might be at someone else’s expense. But none of the people who are supposed to be adults seem to be paying attention, so if you don’t stand up, no one else will.

Now is the moment. Good luck.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services as well as a key facilitator of Blanchard’s Leadership Coach Certification course. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

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