My manager had a very famous open door policy. He talked about it in every all-hands. "My door is always open," he'd say. His door was, in fact, always closed. And locked.
I knocked once when I was struggling with a project timeline and needed guidance. He opened it, looked at me, and said: "Can you email me?" I emailed him. He replied three weeks later to say the issue had "resolved itself."
The next all-hands, he mentioned his open door policy again. I had run out of ways to explain to myself that this was normal. I started job hunting that afternoon.
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