A manger told me once: “if you want to be a manger you have to lie”. Then the hasshole has been promoted director.
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You're gonna trade little bits of your soul for money or you're gonna be a drone. Just the way it is everywhere. Work is a four letter word.
I don't want to become manager, but anyway, my manager told me something else. That I need to defend my turf, that my peers will all try to get into anything important I'm doing and try to take some of my credits etc. And he is completely cool with it. He thinks that's how things should work. I was appalled.
That is the culture in Cisco. People are not supposed to collaborate, but to compete, with no scruples. You need to lie, you need to backstab people you work with etc.
My manager told me she is afraid to speak up, to advocate for herself or her team. She’s just waiting for retirement hoping to dodge the LR axe every 6 months. It’s no surprise that even with cross functional experience she didn’t advocate for me to join a team hiring contractors. Been with Cisco over 10 years. When the managers who have integrity leave or are also LR’d you are left with yes (wo)men and that is exactly what they want of their middle managers.
I rose from grade 10 to senior director over a 15 year stretch at Cisco. Overall a pretty good career, until it wasn't. Never had to lie tho it could have potentially extended my run. However from what I see happening now I'm happy to be out. The shenanigans new leadership pulled to dispose of me were pretty outrageous and blatantly falsified, but it's all good as I got my due in the end. It does seem bizarre however what the company has turned into-- unrecognizable relative to the company I joined back in 2004. Sad from a personal perspective.
As you grow in an org , technically or as a manager, you have to lie, no way around it. Anyone who says anything else is the liar
Cisco = administrative assistant > project manager. No 9 yrs of levels in between. No certification. No top CS degree. Just a overpaid human post it note promoted to a very overpaid human iCal.
At many companies leadership, both technical and managerial, involves four skills:
- Jumping up and down with one's arms and legs flailing
- Screaming profanity at the top of one's lungs
- Lying
- Stealing
The first two are why the phrase "prairie dogging" exists. I've seen all of these at every company for which I've worked, and Cisco was definitely a world leader at all of them.
That you sumeet?
Can you tell me what this has to do with the layoff board? Are you that bored? Please leave.