this used to be really bad when we had the terribad bossman, bc he was basically just a professional toadie who never let the guy know that (without hyperbole) every professional decision he made was objectively bad and most of his professional interactions were completely unprofessional

after bossman was made to go, this mostly just became kinda ridiculous to watch, and not actually damaging

supervisor is now the dept director, which is fine, he's a reasonably good manager and we have a fairly small dept of very professional people

problem, he and i keep having disagreements about dept decisions that involve my specialization. i'm the only specialist in that area in the office. i don't expect my advice to always be followed but when i lay out long lists of reasons why something is a complete waste of time and money for months, i expect... at least some consideration? acknowledgement?

but when things like this come up, he just overrides me. and honestly, that's annoying but i can roll with it. the thing that bugs me is that i feel the need to keep informing him of my opinions and the reasons for them bc he acts as though this is all impossible and/or new information everytime i do

and i ask him if he needs me to keep him informed of what i think on these matters, or if i can just let it be

he says he always needs me to tell him what i think on these matters bc i'm arguably the only expert in the dept, and it always comes off in a way that makes it seem like he's trying to keep me happy or be polite. it's the same kind of sycophantic manner that i see him use when interacting with other people he wants to keep happy

but i don't need someone to pretend to me like my opinion on a specific matter is the most important thing, when it clearly isn't. it also doesn't need to be the most important thing.

naysaying isn't fun, but it's my duty to do this kind of issue spotting. it's in the job description for me to advise my superiors on matters in my specialization

but when i see you making what looks like a bad call, and half the time you act as though i haven't let you know when i repeated my assessment, or you shoot down my assessment without a rigorous argument, it feels like i have not been heard in a myriad of ways

any advice on how to politely let someone know i don't need them to try and make me feel like my advice matters, i just need to know if i've been heard, even if my advice isn't going to be followed

supervisor definitely gets twitchy around really direct statements like that, and i wanna try to not make him uncomfortable but still make myself heard

Hmmmm that’s tricky. Honestly it feels like maybe a discussion with HR might be in order because he’s undermining you professionally by ignoring your advice