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I don’t contact him much but when I have a question we usually email him (he is in a different office) and most time he just doesn’t respond. He isn’t my direct boss but if mine is out he is the go to. A few weeks ago my boss was out for a week. I had something come up from a customer that I needed his help on. I forwarded him the email to verify something. He never responded. Followed up a a few days later. No response. Called. No answer. If I ask my boss when she gets back it just looks liked I never worked on it. I don’t want to tell her he never responded. He is above her also so I know he has a lot of work and is usually hours or a day behind on emails. Is this common? I’ve never dealt with it before.
I would copy your manager so at least they know you reached out.
Not knowing the role your manager's manager plays, hard to say if this is normal. Perhaps they're on vacation or travel? Or maybe they have their own pressing issues they're dealing with? Or they're just unresponsive.... not much you can do about it. Maybe talk to your manager when they return and see if something can be changed for next time?
When I'm dealing with people who are not very responsive via email, I adopt a policy of calling them first to talk through the issue, and then following up with an email to go over what we just discussed. That way it's documented and you have something to point back to.
Sometimes you just can't win, especially when having to depend on someone higher up to do their job. Very frustrating.
I'd log / document you're attempts at getting a response (for your own defense), and seek someone else of higher position to help in this matter. If that fails, look for another position and/or gauge when the current "boss" may move on. If that all fails, look to another company. There's no point doing your job, and doing it well, only to have someone else ruin it for you.
You can follow up emails with calls but sometimes they are unresponsive to both.
Since this boss is over your normal boss, she is probably used to dealing with the same issue. Copy her or tell her.
You are not going to bully or box in a senior level boss with read receipts, cc's, or bolded capitalized titles. You may get yourself on the sh#t list though.
Before you pester a senior boss, make damm sure that you can't get the info on your own or somewhere else. I get annoyed when co-workers waste my time asking questions they could answer themself if they would just RTFM or the documentation they already have. Not saying this is the case here, just be really sure it isn't the case.
How many people does this "senior boss" have as total reports (direct and indirect)? For example, you would be an indirect report because you have a line manager in between.
If that number is greater than 50 (and especially if it is greater than 100), I would not expect any kind of timely response.
I have a number of reports, and my manager has 30 total (and he is difficult to pin down on something -- but we have three scheduled group calls per week so I always have a method of communication).
His boss (my line VP) has over 200 reports. She doesn't respond to anything, nor does she answer her phone. She knows who I am, and in her monthly broadcasts if I mention something she will handle it, but she is way too busy to deal with small issues.
One of the disadvantages of this 18-months-and-counting WFH is there are no "accidental" conversations in the halls or at the elevator or in the lobby. So it's really hard to get the ear of senior people.
With internal issues try to find the responsible person and talk to them, peer-to-peer. With customer issues, if they are big (meaning $$$), then you need to escalate with lots of bells and whistles via e-mail and voice mails. Follow up until you get a response. Small potato customers probably can be deferred.
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