SaraSavvy24•This week
My Manager Thinks ML Projects Takes 5 Minutes 🤦♀️
Hey, everyone!
I’ve got to vent a bit because work has been something else lately. I’m a BI analyst at a bank, and I’m pretty much the only one dealing with machine learning and AI stuff. The rest of my team handles SQL and reporting—no Python, no R, no ML knowledge AT ALL. You could say I’m the only one handling data science stuff
So, after I did a Python project for retail, my boss suddenly decided I’m the go-to for all things ML. Since then, I’ve been getting all the ML projects dumped on me (yay?), but here’s the kicker: my manager, who knows nothing about ML, acts like he’s some kind of expert. He keeps making suggestions that make zero sense and setting unrealistic deadlines. I swear, it’s like he read one article and thinks he’s cracked the code.
And the best part? Whenever I finish a project, he’s all “we completed this” and “we came up with these insights.” Ummm, excuse me? We? I must’ve missed all those late-night coding sessions you didn’t show up for. The higher-ups know it’s my work and give me credit, but my manager just can’t help himself.
Last week, he set a ridiculous deadline of 10 days for a super complex ML project. TEN DAYS! Like, does he even know that data preprocessing alone can take weeks? I’m talking about cleaning up messy datasets, handling missing values, feature engineering, and then model tuning. And that’s before even thinking about building the model! The actual model development is like the tip of the iceberg. But I just nodded and smiled because I was too exhausted to argue. 🤷♀️
And then, this one time, they didn’t even invite me to a meeting where they were presenting my work! The assistant manager came to me last minute, like, “Hey, can you explain these evaluation metrics to me so I can present them to the heads?” I was like, excuse me, what? Why not just invite me to the meeting to present my own work? But nooo, they wanted to play charades on me
So, I gave the most complicated explanation ever, threw in all the jargon just to mess with him. He came back 10 minutes later, all flustered, and was like, “Yeah, you should probably do the presentation.” I just smiled and said, “I know… data science isn’t for everyone.”
Anyway, they called me in at the last minute, and of course, I nailed it because I know my stuff. But seriously, the nerve of not including me in the first place and expecting me to swoop in like some kind of superhero. I mean, at least give me a cape if I’m going to keep saving the day! 🤦♀️
Honestly, I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up. I love the work, but dealing with someone who thinks they’re an ML guru when they can barely spell Python is just draining.
I have built like some sort of defense mechanism to hit them with all the jargon and watch their eyes glaze over
How do you deal with a manager who takes credit for your work and sets impossible deadlines? Should I keep pushing back or just let it go and keep my head down? Any advice!
TL;DR: My manager thinks ML projects are plug-and-play, takes credit for my work, and expects me to clean and process data, build models, and deliver results in 10 days. How do I deal with this without snapping? #WorkDrama
