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I've worked in an organization for the last 7 months. I have 5 years of experience, but from my starting day, my superior has not assigned any work to me. I asked him 10 times, but he says that I have to complete certifications.

I have completed the certifications as he specified, but now also he is not responding.

What sign is he giving me?

StackExchange What The Heck
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user3131969
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2 Answers2

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The problem is that you're asking us to read your supervisor's mind, which none of us can do.

If it's possible, you need to physically go to him and talk to him face-to-face. Document this. If not, call him on the phone. If you can't get hold of him at all, talk to his boss.

Whether you're an employee, a contractor or something completely different, you deserve an answer and the only way to get one is to be persistent and get one. Even if you have to be a pest about it, can it really get much worse?

Chris E
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  • I talked him about my specific work.He took a lecture about professionalism and extra things.After 1 hour conversation he briefly said that he has to trust me in various areas.But he didn't specified what are those.Is it a signal to firing? – user3131969 Nov 07 '14 at 19:40
  • Ask him in terms that he has to not hint. Something like, "So what is my assignment right now? What's your assignment for me?" It does sound like he's trying to get you to quit, to be honest. Alternately you could just ask him straight out, "Do you have work for me to do or not?" – Chris E Nov 07 '14 at 19:43
  • Now I have one chance to impress him.I have to complete one more certification as he specified to me before joining only.I have 1 more month to complete that certification.So after completing that I will ask about my specific work.what say? – user3131969 Nov 07 '14 at 19:54
  • Well, then in that case I would suggest something like, "I've completed the certifications you've told me to complete, what have you got for me now?" But ultimately he either wants you or he doesn't. At some point you'll have to pin him down. And don't get discouraged if he doesn't, because there is always someplace else. – Chris E Nov 07 '14 at 19:57
  • If he gives same answer as I said before what will I do? – user3131969 Nov 07 '14 at 20:02
  • Move on and find another job – Chris E Nov 07 '14 at 20:05
  • If you are worried about loosing your current job, then consider starting to do the work you need to get a new one. – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen Nov 08 '14 at 09:48
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The case is most likely:

  1. Your manager lacks confidence that you will get the job done exactly as he wants it to be done.
  2. He do not have much time to figure out which simpler tasks you can do instead
  3. OR he may just have no such simple tasks
  4. That means he sacrifices your resource in order to get the result deterministically using other guys

How to change that:

  1. Most likely you are not an efficient worker. This needs to be understood at first. This is a must to resolve the issue.
  2. Having the understanding that you do not do things the right way you need to understand that you need to change personally. Why? Because your current issue is because your attitute or approach to work is not sufficient. Why? Because your personality does not imply different approach. So to get better results you need to change yourself (or evolve).
  3. To change yourself you need: a) understanding of what is wrong in you, b) will to evolve and to change. Both requires additional painful internal work from you.
  4. Understanding of what is wrong comes from comparison vs. the best guys. If you thought that somehting is not THAT important, but the best guys think that it IS important - trust them, forget about your opinion. Try to find the maximum points of discrepancy between how you approach things and how the best guys approach things. When you will learn something from practicing the different way - get back to your original views and examine them. Most likely you will find that they are not good enouh. The most problems comes from paying insufficient attention to critical things.
  5. Will to evolve comes from the faith that you may do better. And your current state is not your limit. You are already in trouble, get maximum from this situation - learn. In your comments I see that you do not really understand what are your weak points. This is really bad, fix this asap with help of this life situation (item 8).
Riga
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    That's a lot of speculation. I would not base any conclusions on that. It only helps the OP by giving him some ideas of what he could ask his boss. I'm not going to edit you anwer in that direction beacuse that would change it too much, but as suggest you rewrite is as 'these are some possible scenarios and this is what you could ask to find out.' –  Nov 09 '14 at 11:21
  • @JanDoggen the question was "what is the signal", not "what to ask my boss about". I helped the topic starter by giving him the most probable explanation per my point of view (you can find "most likely" wording in it). So your comment and downvote make little sense in terms of the subject defined by the topic starter. Moreover, I don't thing something may change from plain asking his boss about something. – Riga Nov 09 '14 at 16:41