let’s talk about ridiculous examples of micromanagement

Not much is worse in a boss than extreme micromanagement, and here are some ridiculous examples that have been shared here in the past:

“Several years ago, I took over a department that had been badly managed by a borderline psychotic micromanager. While trying to make sense of the ridiculous, overly complex procedures she left behind, one of my new employees gave me the ‘party procedures.’ This three-page, single-spaced document detailed which holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries were to be celebrated and when, the types of gifts that were to be given to the various classes of employees for each occasion, and what type of food was to be served at each event.”

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“Our former director felt that any desk decor was clutter, and issued an edict that we could only allocate an outlandishly small amount of space on our desks to personal items (e.g., photos or little trinkets) because things were looking too sloppy around the building. Needless to say, staff did not appreciate this kind of micromanagement, and a staff member who had a fairly visible desk cut a piece of paper to the exact measurement that we could devote to personal items (it was smaller than an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper) and put a bunch of toy dinosaurs on it, all crammed together. There were probably fifteen plastic dinosaurs of different sizes sitting on this little piece of paper, and every time I walked past it, I couldn’t help but laugh.”

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“I used to work in a call center that had ridiculous micromanagement demands. Like insisting we email the manager if we spent more than five minutes in the bathroom to provide reasoning why. We all decided management needed to know every intimate details of period flow, period pain, also if we’d had a bean burrito for lunch and it didn’t set well … we were brutally honest (to other grown adults who should know better) about why five minutes is often not long enough for bathroom needs. After about a week, they changed their policy to allow for seven minutes per bathroom break and no explanation required. Humans are so stupid sometimes.”

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My boss has announced that now that we’re all working from home, the entire company will now be spending the work day on a Zoom call with video. He framed it as being for our benefit and useful for “establishing a work life balance” and so we can “see our coworkers and feel like we’re back in the office.” Plus, it’s supposedly so we can “ask questions without having to take meetings.”

While we are a small company, most of the people I work with already worked in another location before we went remote, and none of us do similar work. I can think of no world where this is helpful and anything be highly distracting.

But don’t worry, we are still allowed to have bathroom breaks and get snacks (wow, thanks so much). But the majority of our work day should be spent in this weird online room with video and we are supposed to be “dressed for work.”

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Let’s discuss the most ridiculous examples of micromanagement you’ve seen. Please share in the comments!

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