Choosing between manager and company

LegacyUser

Hi,

So, I'd assume this is a problem others might have had before when they've had a bad manager, so hoping someone can give advice.

I work in IT and we were asked to do some minor work. I gave an original estimate of 2-3 days including testing. When the work came up, I was snowed under with other projects so told my manager, I didn't have time to work on it, and could another person do it. Manager said it was fine so got someone else (who's a bit useless as a developer tbh) to work on it. She came to me for advice and I told her say it'll take you 5-6 days as you don't know the code as well as I do. She was ok with that, and came to me for further questions, but due to my other projects, I couldn't help. She then went to manager, and manager said it's going to take more than 10 days so has to be a project and has to go through project approval process internally.

For it go through this, it would end up missing the externally set deadline (for a regulatory body), so was not ideal. I decided that wasn't really good enough, so did it anyway, and it ended up taking me half a day, as well I work for the company and the company would be in trouble if it wasn't done and done correctly to the best of our knowledge.

Now, my issue is this, I went against my manager's decision to not do it as I felt it was in the company's best interest for it to be done. No one really knows I've done it that I'm aware of, but it's obviously not a good thing.

In addition to this, my manager is refusing to sign off on the overall work for the regulatory body as it would require amendments to it after being produced and it's going to executives to fight on it. She is doing this as she's had a run in with the other manager, and not for any professional reasons imo. She signed off on it in the past when amendments were required after being produced, and when it was raised that it was going to be done like that again, she said nothing until this week as it's coming due.

I've tried to give as little major details as possible there, as don't want to be identifed, but my main question is really, if your manager asks you to not do something, but that thing is in the best interest of the company, do you ignore your manager or go with them?

dennyk

It's probably best to listen to your manager in that scenario. It's good that you want to look out for what's best for the company, but when it comes down to it, that's the job of your manager and the folks above her, not you. Obviously if you believe your manager may be unaware of information like the impending regulatory deadline, you should bring that up with her, but ultimately it's her call if she feels you should be giving priority to other projects instead.

At this point, your best bet is probably to let your manager know that you had a bit of down time and were able to get some work for the regulatory project done after all. If she decides to take what you've done and go ahead with it, great. If not, again, that's her call to make. Going over her head with it is not a good idea, unless it's a situation where health and safety are literally at stake.

If you have concerns about your manager's performance in general, discussing it with her boss might be warranted, but it could have negative consequences for you; only you would know the company dynamic well enough to judge whether that would be the right approach.

evolving_doors

Do whatever your manager says... but have a record of them telling you or at least a record of you confirming with them. Just mention it as a 'by the way' at the end of an unrelated email so it doesn't look like you are obsessed about it.
Like "oh btw I had a bit of time to look at issue X and finished out the code, it should be ready to go in future if needs be"

Then at least if a claim is made about certain work not being done, then you have a trail.