What are /r/askamanager's favorite Products & Services?

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I would first start by reading about what makes a good manager as a way to better understand. I strongly recommend "The Making of a Manager".

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Manager-What-Everyone-Looks/dp/0735219567

I remember one piece of advice I got when I was making the change over to be a manager was that it's important for you to like people. Now, you may not want to get drinks or hang out with some of your direct reports but the key messaging was that you want to do everything you can to be their support/cheerleader/champion. That means helping them succeed as an IC and grow in their career.

I know one thing I've struggled with at times is getting buy-in from stakeholder teams and being able to "paint the picture" in order to get support for the team (e.g. engineering changes that's always in demand). Some people may call this "office politics". But my team knows I'll always go to bat for them and I'll help them build quantitative data to prove what we need to succeed in our quarterly/yearly goals.

1. You need this book.

2. If you're having difficulty getting started, writing and reading off a script is fine. It's awkward, but does ensure you get the points across.

This. My other thought was that OP and the manager seem to blame each other, when really the process is the problem.... because it sounds like OP is following their standard process and the manager is having a hard time understanding that their process only flows smoothly when production occurs at their standard rate. Both OP and the manager are creating a bottleneck. OP’s overproduction may be causing stationary inventory issues but it sounds like it benefits the customer. That’s the kind of constraint you want to exploit.. If I were the manager, I would be looking at the rest of the employees production rates, and also looking into why I don’t trust any of my employees with the stationary. If OP and the manager put their heads together, I bet they could improve this process.

I'd like to recommend you read The Education of an Accidental CEO. Dave Novak did some fun stuff that encouraged his team and made himself feel more accessible to them. There is some other great stuff in there too, but it's his level of employee engagement that I took from it.

First question: Yes. I've had bosses like this in the past. IME, there's not much you can do about it.

Second question: What do you want? Do you want to change your boss? Because that's one discussion. Do you want to learn how to get by in this environment? That's a different question.

If you want to learn how to survive in this position, I'd suggest a book, Managing Your Manager.

Finding some small ticket item on Amazon may be the way to go I you have a Prime account that includes shipping. But it will still be a hassle as I think you can only input one address. So it will be 12+ transactions. Could you see if your company will be more flexible about gift cards? The most common suggestion I’ve seen is nice note and a $5 Starbucks card.

And gifts are so hard with personal preferences, allergies, etc. Could you instead pool the money you would have spent and do a charitable contribution or a funny note for a “holiday” pizza party whenever you are all back in the office.

If you are truly looking for ideas, I do like this little manicure set. manicure set