Thanks in advance to all those mustachioed, fiscally responsible cultists...
I have been at my place of employment for 10 years. My current position, which I took ~2 yrs ago, is a soul-sucking vampire bat that I have to leave for the sake of my sanity. The primary reason is that I have an impossible relationship with my direct manager. Ideally, I would like to internally transfer so I could keep my commute, benefits, routine, etc. (although I have been job hunting externally as well, to no avail yet). The problem is that our HR system automatically copies the employee's manager in the event that he applies for an internal position. So it behooves the employee to start the conversation with his manager about applying for a position rather than blindsiding him.
This leads to my question. What should this conversation look like? Obviously, I will not tell him about the vampire bat. Should I just go for boilerplate stuff like, "I would like to expand my breadth of knowledge within the organization, yadda yadda, yadda." Should I just apply for a new job and not say a damned thing? If you are a manager, what would you expect a good employee to do? Have any of you ever been here before?