TOO MUCH autonomy?

[Lisa28]

I am having the opposite problem of most people--my boss is never around, I can't get her on the phone, she won't respond to my e-mails, etc. And I need answers! I also just need some feedback/encouragement every once in a while. Anyone else having this problem? Maybe I shouldn't be complaining!

[Mini14]

I can definitely relate to your problem.. I had a job last year where my boss turned up on average about 1.5-2 days per week, and then was usually so busy catching up on everything that I couldn't speak to her.. I found it really difficult because I was new and there were heaps of questions I would have asked if she had been there, so I missed out on learning a lot of stuff, and felt really unsure about what I was supposed to be doing in my job. So then when the time came to present the results of what I had been working on I got very anxious.. It usually turned out that most of what I'd done was fine but she would pick out any little mistakes I'd made and focus on them (in quite a patronising way too unfortunately :cry: ), but of course most of these mistakes could have been avoided with slightly more help/training.

Anyway I'm not sure if your boss is anything like mine was, but I can understand why it would be difficult not having enough contact with your boss! Also not answering an employee's emails or returning calls is really bad manners (unless there is a very good reason!), if it was me I would be upset, and yep a little bit of encouragement can definitely go a long way!

Can you talk to her about it, and explain that you need more feedback?
I never confronted mine because before it got to that point she took 6 months unpaid leave and has now left the company..it turned out she was really unhappy in her job and that's why she wasn't putting in much effort.

Anyway not sure if this helps but it's just a few thoughts, I hope your situation can be sorted out.

Mini

[Lisa28]

I also forgot to say that her office is in another building, so even if she's physically at work, I'm nowhere near her.

[steph78]

I have a similar problem sometimes - I am employed by a company in Atlanta...but I telecommute from my home in Alabama. So I only see my bosses about four times a YEAR! All communication is through e-mail or the occasional phone call. It works pretty well most of the time but one of my bosses in particular is very bad about not responding to e-mails/voice mails. So here's what I do - because I am generally working on long-term projects, I try my best to work through any problems/questions on my own, but for anything that I need his input on, I will save up a list of questions as I work and present it to him in one big e-mail on a weekly basis or so. In the e-mail I give him a progress update on where I stand on the project (so he sees that I HAVE accomplished a good bit) and then I tell him that I need his help on the following list of questions. When the questions are presented as one big list like that it's more efficient for him to just answer them all at one time (rather than one question here, one question the next day). From what I have found I get a better response from him this way, and it saves his time as well.

[E11e]

I feel your pain! Too little management is just as bad as too much, IMO. There has to be a good balance in order for things to work well.

At my last job I had a similar problem of no management. The company was understaffed and upper management was really pushy and thick-headed (didn't think things through). The result was huge projects getting dumped on people and there being no intermediate management to help move things along, organize, communicate, problem-solve. So no one had any idea what you were working on, because it wasn't their problem, and you had no one to help you when you got stuck. I eventually stopped working basically, because I realized that no one followed your progress or kept you honest. It was horrible!! There were no status updates on anything, the whole project would change and you wouldn't find out until a week later that you'd been working on something that wasn't happening anymore. About 4 months into the job I understood why they couldn't keep anyone!

Maybe you could set a time for a weekly meeting with your boss so that you can count on talking at least once a week? If she's not responsive, maybe even cc HER boss on the email asking for to set up a weekly status update meeting?

Goodluck!