How to discuss atmosphere of team with manager

Question

I am 1 1/2 month into my 3 months extension of probation and things are really looking worrying. My manager had admitted that communication has been a big part of the issue from the top-level. I raised the team attitude especially Team Lead and another developer is very rude towards me and he mentioned having a discussion.

Lately, they hired another person pre-COVID but he didn't start until now as a senior and I am a senior too. who been having group calls every now and then and every day to do pair programming to do jobs coming in and on other hand, the Team Lead who had aggressive behavior had been very lean towards him whist not following SOP of not creating jobs on the job board but pasting in slack and the new senior guy is doing same.

While chatting with the Team Lead which started with me greeting and him mentioned he is worried that I do not speak up in chat and I told him that I newborn who is crying all the time so I type my message instead of speaking and asked what he thinks of me so he mentioned

"To be honest I think you've struggled quite a lot from the beginning, especially with tech name. I feel like you've not improved in your time here. But there are factors that play into that, lockdown has had a massive effect on all of us. Jobs that have been specced out, like the X fixes a couple of months back you spent the whole day working on Y even though we specifically said not to. Communication is key and if you're not understanding the way something is being explained then you need to speak up so we can help you. If you tell us you understand when you don't you're only going to stress yourself out even more. Any additional stress at the moment is something nobody wants. It's tough."

Now he is the same guy who asked 2-3 times would get angry and say "read it, it is there".

I am introverted and shy away if someone talks to me in a rude or annoying way but I want to catch up with my manager (as my chances are very bleak (IMO)), asking what is going on and why there is a handholding attitude

P.S - I have put in email to the manager for holidays to which he didn't reply the past 10 days also he haven't catchup with me when asked for discussion.

Answer 1

This may come across as harsh, which is not my intention, but I am going to be blunt about a few things.

Before you talk to your manager, make sure your house is in order, so to speak.

As your lead said, we are all going through a rough time now. This means that people will be sympathetic, but only to a point.

There are many management cliches and buzz phrases, but they are all rooted in truth.

Whether they are talking about results and not excuses, or the old RTFM (Read The F****** Manual) or others, there is some truth in that.

Having read this, and your other post, it is clear that your lead has a point.

Life doesn't care if you have a newborn, or are introverted or have other problems. Life will kick your backside from one end of the earth to the other if you let it.

I am hearing impaired, autistic, LD, and have mental illness which I have under control. I say this so you know I am not unsympathetic to your problems, but hope you will benefit from my mistakes and experience.

If you have ANYTHING getting in the way of you performing your job, you need to find ways to mitigate the disruption or at least demonstrate that making an effort to do so.

If it means taking some heat from others to get the information you need, you need to do that. If you have to go on a chat, and you have a newborn, either you or the newborn needs to be somewhere else where the crying won't be a disruption during the meeting.

Do your research before asking, so that your lead's response can't be "It's all there", or at least you can say "yes, I know, I looked, but what I don't understand is...."

Then no matter how many times you need to ask in order to understand, keep asking.

Follow instructions, if they say do X, do X, and don't do Y. If you don't understand something, make sure you make that clear.

Do all of that, so that when you speak to your manager, you don't look like you are causing trouble or are just whining about how mean your coworkers are, or you will be out so fast it will make your head spin.

Now, when you talk to your manager.

Be direct, be factual, do not talk in terms of feelings, but in terms of issues and resolutions. Don't ever bring a problem to a manager without having a solution in hand.

BAD

My lead is extremely rude to me, his tone is nasty and condescending, and I want you to tell him to stop.

BETTER

I'm having some difficulties with my lead. To address them, I have done the following (steps outlined above) I like the team, and working here, and I think we could resolve this with ABC

You don't want to come across as a rudderless ship being tossed about in a storm, you want to be seen as taking charge of the situation and taking steps to correct it.