I don’t know if a restaurant is such a case (probably it isn’t; it seems especially common when you work for managers who have important duties besides managing), but there are jobs where the most important thing you need to do to please the manager is make sure you don’t do anything that needs the manager’s attention, because they don’t have time to deal with you. Asking the manager for advice in such a case is obviously something to be done rarely and carefully.
I think you could make the argument that a place where the manager doesn’t have time to deal with the people they manage is a poorly managed place. Maybe they need to hire assistant managers or more employees to do the non-managerial work.
If they don’t want to. But as an employee, I care about things that influence me directly; if the company is poorly managed to some degree but offers good wages, I still want to work for them, at least until I find something better. Trying to judge the management quality doesn’t seem to be a good employee strategy.
I don’t know if a restaurant is such a case (probably it isn’t; it seems especially common when you work for managers who have important duties besides managing), but there are jobs where the most important thing you need to do to please the manager is make sure you don’t do anything that needs the manager’s attention, because they don’t have time to deal with you. Asking the manager for advice in such a case is obviously something to be done rarely and carefully.
I think you could make the argument that a place where the manager doesn’t have time to deal with the people they manage is a poorly managed place. Maybe they need to hire assistant managers or more employees to do the non-managerial work.
That may be true but the argument is of little use for the employee.
It might be useful for the employee in determining they no longer want to work for a poorly managed company.
If they don’t want to. But as an employee, I care about things that influence me directly; if the company is poorly managed to some degree but offers good wages, I still want to work for them, at least until I find something better. Trying to judge the management quality doesn’t seem to be a good employee strategy.