Do I always need to follow my supervisor's instructions?
I am paid by the company to be under the project manager as a development resource. But this other developer on my team who was supposed to be my supervisor for a short period keeps using me for his personal benefit. It has been several years and I feel competent to do tasks myself. I am not sure who to consider as my manager in this case - the supervisor or the project manager. Sometimes the supervisor would assign me responsibility for a task in front of others, including the project manager, while behind the scenes he would not let me have control over the task to do it myself, but tell me to follow his instructions directly. I have felt pressurized because of conflicting responsibilities - do I fulfill what the supervisor asks or directly complete the task the best way I know how for the other person? The supervisor has also done this to let me take blame for his failures - I am responsible in others' eyes, but he only lets me try his ideas behind the scenes, and when it fails, I get blamed. Sometimes he would also pass responsibility for a hard issue to me and suggest to others that it was easy, asking me to help on it behind the scenes. My question is, should I just always do what my supervisor says, then when others hold me responsible, I just refer them to my supervisor? Thanks.
I am paid by the company to be under the project manager as a development resource. But this other developer on my team who was supposed to be my supervisor for a short period keeps using me for his personal benefit. It has been several years and I feel competent to do tasks myself.
I am not sure who to consider as my manager in this case - the supervisor or the project manager. Sometimes the supervisor would assign me responsibility for a task in front of others, including the project manager, while behind the scenes he would not let me have control over the task to do it myself, but tell me to follow his instructions directly. I have felt pressurized because of conflicting responsibilities - do I fulfill what the supervisor asks or directly complete the task the best way I know how for the other person?
The supervisor has also done this to let me take blame for his failures - I am responsible in others' eyes, but he only lets me try his ideas behind the scenes, and when it fails, I get blamed. Sometimes he would also pass responsibility for a hard issue to me and suggest to others that it was easy, asking me to help on it behind the scenes.
My question is, should I just always do what my supervisor says, then when others hold me responsible, I just refer them to my supervisor?
Thanks.
