How do I push back against upper management "innovations" and simple "requests"?

Question

It has beeen a long time since I've asked a question, however the narrative to my question is quite simple:

How do I push back against upper management "innovations" and simple "requests"?

Questions that I found tremendously helpful were:

• How can I push back against a boss who wants us to work four 16-hour days in a hotel?
• How to deal with a bad management choice about a technical solution?
• Should I do something unethical/possibly illegal if asked by management?
• How do I report an employee who is compromising security of employees and clients?
• Implementing something your boss has asked for, even if it's potentially a bad idea
• How to correct a CEO's misunderstanding of a project?

However, until I can find a valid exit strategy, here is the situation.

Background:

I work fairly autonomously, as the sole "data person" (basically someone who knows how to write SQL queries and build self-service tableau dashboards for business intelligence dissemination) left (other person left as soon as they got an offer) on my team, I have considerable leeway in deciding what projects/features (among the dozens pending) that will fill my day for research, design, and implementation - as I am the only developer left who is qualified to make a working data product.

However, from time to time, upper management, will "pop-in" to make demands and changes that are one or a mix of the following:

• Unethical: Tying personnel scorecards (like a report card from school) to arbitrary or unreasonable metrics (imagine if your teacher was ranked based on the class average grade... or that you have an attendance grade, a metric based on the same attendance grade + X, and again another metric based on attendance grade + Y).
• Amoral: If upper management doesn't get their way, in the sense that I say "yes, I will give you a email of a spreadsheet", a shouting match occurs where my tableau-based work is touted as "insufficient" or "useless" or that "they don't understand it" (other than upper management, tableau dashboards work fine for the rank and file team members) and that they can find someone to do the work and replace me.
• Eyebrow Raising: Whenever a new report is made, upper management will use excel spreadsheets as a "mock-up" of exactly what they want, even though there is no way in heck that an excel spreadsheet is a viable delivery method for data reporting assets that is used dynamically by >220 users. The level of technological comprehension seems to be stuck solely on spreadsheets and emails as the primary means of business intelligence dissemination.
• Disrespectful (? not sure the right word): while the other data person was on the team, when I said "no, with the following reasons... data stack incompatibility, refresh times, UI/UX, delivery times, etc..." upper management will order the other person to do exactly what they want (the other data person always enables upper management) and I am forced to incorporate and support (now inherit) spaghetti code and framework with numerous coding issues and 0 documentation (I document, other person doesn't).
• Unreasonable: since upper management only pops-in from time to time, there is no overall data strategy, everything is ad-hoc and should've done yesterday. Deep Dives into operational issues are expected within 4 hours or new dashboards are demanded and minimalized as "basic spreadsheet reporting that should've been done yesterday".

My direct manager is remotely aware of my role within the team, and keenly aware of the abusive nature of upper management, however my direct manager is a "people manager" and not a "data person" and as this is a 'operations' environment, the workplace culture definitely has "old school" mentality.

I am currently looking for other employment for the past year, but given the economy, I had a couple of interviews, but no offer in hand.

In the meantime, my 2020Q4 goal is to figure out the spaghetti and learn the workflows that I will be inheriting, but I suspect that 2020Q4 will be full of demands to do inane (send an email from a screenshot of a tableau report before 1100 AM, while the requestor for some unknown reason refuses to look at a data dashboard and self-service their business intelligence needs) tasks that the other person who left usually does.

Note, once I am gone, there will be 0 knowledge left my team to build and or maintain existing assets. I used to have trouble about this (professional pride and my relationships with coworkers to ensure that what they use daily works), but after speaking in real life to some mentors I have come to accept that once I am gone, this is not my business. I have pushed for more support and levels of redundancy (I proposed to train a junior data analyst, but the response I received was that 2 hours every other week was enough, I thought this was a joke as it would've taken >2 years to train this person, but this was a serious response) to support and document what I do and its impact on the overall team, but these requests were upon deaf ears. I only have 40 hours and I am now supporting a global team solo - there is simply no time left in the day to do everything.

Answer 1

Your question reads like a rant.

Instead of pushing back, why not just go along with it? You have no stake in the success or failure of the company other than your current paycheck, and since your plan is to leave as soon as the opportunity arises, why do you care? At the end of the day, they pay you to perform work. You may not like the work, you may not agree with the work, but it's not up to you to determine what is worthwhile and what isn't.

You seem to have a lot of complaints about how things are done, most of which I'm failing to find real merit with, and most of what you've stated is subjective. We can't possibly validate anything you've said, and taken with the tone of your question, strikes me as not much more than sour grapes. If you don't like the way they run the business, and if you don't like the things you're asked to do, then go start your own company and run it the way you want. Until then, I'd simply keep my opinions to myself and do the work they request of me.

Answer 2

"My direct manager is remotely aware of my role within the team, 
 and keenly aware of the abusive nature of upper management"

A good manager is a meat barrier between you and the rest of the company. Do they know of the issues? 'remotely aware' implies that there is a communication issue between you and them. You need to help them understand the issues, so that they can help protect you.

Write down the three most important aspects of your job, and the three most invasive issues that stop you doing that job. For each issue, also give your proposed solution. Three aspects, three issues, and three solutions. You can revisit with the next three in the future once they're all solved. More than three will become a simple shopping list, and focus will be removed.

There. You've informed your manager of what YOU think your job is; that may or may not align with their impressions. You've told your manager of the problems, and one way of solving them. It's now their problem to solve. That may or may not happen, but in the meantime, you can search for a new role; that will give you options in case your manager doesn't respond.

Answer 3

Sounds like you need to interview harder/more. I don't know what locale you're in or what steps you've tried, but you can try vomiting out your resume on LinkedIn to as many job postings as you can click before your thumbs get tired. That actually worked for me once. Working with recruiters on LinkedIn is also useful, in my experience; all my jobs except my current one have been through random recruiters.

Regarding your points:

1. I'm not sure how it's unethical to tie student grades to teacher metrics. IMO teachers should be ranked on the class average grade; if the students are all failing then probably the teacher can't teach and should be replaced. Of course, the teacher is the one preparing those grades, but as long as there's some oversight... Likewise with attendance; if students aren't attending class then probably the teacher isn't engaging, and the teacher needs some training in how to teach more effectively. That task is not unreasonable imo.

2. If upper management wants a report in an Excel spreadsheet, then give them the report, in an Excel spreadsheet. It doesn't matter how bad it is or how difficult it is to read. They asked for an Excel spreadsheet, so give them an Excel spreadsheet. Those are your requirements. You can propose an alternate method of delivery and explain how it's better, but at the end of the day, if management wants Excel, management should get Excel.

3. Your point about your coworker always doing what management asks proves your opinion is incorrect: When you said it can't be done, in fact it can be done. It causes issues, the UI/UX is bad, the code style sucks, but ultimately it got done. And when it got done, but you said it couldn't be done, that makes you look bad. When you have issues like this, you should push back against management, lightly, and explain "hey, you know, there are issues XYZ and maybe you should consider that", and if they reply "don't care, get it done", then just get it done in the best way you can. Being too pushy on this makes you look like an insubordinate employee and that's not good. If you feel like you are getting too many of these "just do it" requests, the it's time to find another job, because this company cares more about "just do it" than producing a quality product and that's a recipe for disaster long-term.

4. Regarding the too-tight timelines, this is the part where you should actually quit. When management tells you to do something, you tell them how long it will take. If they tell you it's not fast enough, then tell them to hire someone else to help you because it's not practical for someone to get their request done on their timeline, otherwise that's how long it will take. If they come back with some snoody comment, then it's time to pick yourself up and leave, because management does not respect the technologists, meaning you.

5. Regarding picking yourself up and leaving, you are exactly right: If you don't like the company, leave. If they are left with reams of unmaintainable spaghetti code, that's not your problem. You did your due diligence in explaining why the code is bad, and explained (or should explain) what needs to be done to fix it. If they're not happy with that, then too bad for them.

Answer 4

Pushing back against upper management innovations and requests for improvement? Hold on. It is top management's job to know what they need. However, you can push back on how that information is collected and presented.

The problem is that you, in IT, are expected to know the business objectives and work to further those objectives. You are resisting that. The problem isn't what they are asking for, but because of the disconnect between your ideas and their comprehension of their business needs, there is conflict.

The better way of dealing with this is to ask for understanding of what the business needs are. When they come in with innovations and requests for improvement, we do a heck of a lot better to ask for understanding of how this fits in with the business needs. Often, we get to learn more about the company and what the real objectives of top management. (And, yes, those objectives often change.)

I have a lot of requests for specific spreadsheets. By asking for more information, I have often come back with a different solution that better meets the business needs. Remember that top management needs information in a format that they can understand. Our job is to provide that. That rank and file people use one format, but top management uses spreadsheets is not a problem. We get to provide those spreadsheets.

If you don't want to do that, yes, find another job.

Answer 5

The situation is

1. Your job sucks

2. You are looking for another job

3. You assert that you've not yet found another job, even though we're in the middle of the biggest ultra-hyper-boom ever for anything related to data or software.

There are only three possible solutions,

1. Your point 3 is simply incorrect, you can get another job locally if you try harder

2. Move

3. Take a remote job