Just realized I was making my manager's job harder by not asking for help sooner

I was working on a big report for our client in Chicago last week and got stuck on the data part for two days. My manager, Sarah, finally asked me why the draft was late and I had to admit I was stuck. She showed me a tool in our software I never used and it fixed the problem in an hour. Has anyone else learned to speak up faster when they're stuck on a work task?

3 comments

3 Comments

quinn_nguyen1mo ago

Been there for sure. That feeling of spinning your wheels is the worst. Now I try to set a hard time limit for myself, like if I'm stuck for more than 30 minutes I'll just send a quick Slack message. What's the point of having a manager if you don't use them as a resource, right?

the_sarah27d ago

What if they're always slow to reply?

jordan6531mo ago

But what happens when your manager is the bottleneck? Like you message them, they don't reply for hours, and you're still stuck. Do you just wait or go bug someone else?