I once had a manager ask me to email him a progress report every day; and every hour or two, he'd make a point of interrupting me to ask me "so how's <current_task> going?"
Sounds like something straight of office space, but that was my life for a while. Least productive job I've ever had because of that (well, and the myriad other little toxic/passive aggressive behaviors he had).
He had a Stanford MBA too, which convinced me of how useless MBAs must be. Because if you make it through one of the top programs in "business administration" in the world and still manage like that, you might as well have an MD from Harvard and still believe bloodletting is a viable treatment for illnesses.
I once had a manager ask me to email him a progress report every day;
This seems to have become very nearly normalised in the guise of daily stand ups. Some would argue it's less intrusive if it's for "the team" rather than for an individual manager, but I'm not convinced myself.
and every hour or two, he'd make a point of interrupting me to ask me "so how's <current_task> going?"
Similarly, in environments where tasks are getting broken down into tickets that are only expected to take a few hours, there's a similar level of oversight (although hopefully a bit less disruptive than hourly shoulder-taps, I agree).
I worked for a startup that grew up around me. We started without any project managers and such and they got introduced as the team grew and grew.
I would just make tasks like "figure out how to do X", "look into this framework Y", "write a really good SO post for the bug we came across in library Z" . Worked fine, tho the PM for my project was sound.
I'm at the first job I've ever had that didn't do daily standups and it's liberating. I've never been more productive at work.
Maybe once a week my manager comes by and asks me how something is going. I give him a high level sketch and a time estimate. He goes along on his way after that.
He's treating you like a cog in a manufacturing plant, which he can "optimize" at will. MBA programs often teach people that. He doesn't understanding creative work or thinking heavy work "appear" to be non-working but it's essential.
> I once had a manager ask me to email him a progress report every day; and every hour or two, he'd make a point of interrupting me to ask me "so how's <current_task> going?"
Asking a developer's status progress everyday or every hour? That shows the manager has absolutely no clue how development works. Period. Developers don't need a manager to "help" them make tradeoff on a daily basis. Developers need managers to back the fuck off to let them alone to concentrate on the mentally taxing work at hand.
Here are some possible explanation for the behaviour. There might be other urgent fires burning for the past week and he is getting nervous and trying to figure out whether he needs to reschedule. He also has to manage up and set expectations when the whole project is going to be done. He might be concerned you are gold plating an otherwise simple task. He might think you are stuck and trying to figure things out on your own. You could help him by letting him have a sense of where you are, and whether there is something more pressing that he needs to talk about. Perhaps he has access to people/equipment/money that can accelerate your work.
I guess the MBA is there to facilitate your professional development, not to make you more productive.
And what you have to do in order to look good to your manager or manager's manager's manager is different than what you have to do to be productive. Your boss was perhaps just doing the former?
Sounds like something straight of office space, but that was my life for a while. Least productive job I've ever had because of that (well, and the myriad other little toxic/passive aggressive behaviors he had).
He had a Stanford MBA too, which convinced me of how useless MBAs must be. Because if you make it through one of the top programs in "business administration" in the world and still manage like that, you might as well have an MD from Harvard and still believe bloodletting is a viable treatment for illnesses.