Raising The Micro Management Bar

My friend Alana (aka Fifi, Joan Crawford and Serial Mom) has had quite the eventful recent past in the employment realm. She was laid off, with so many others, in 2002, after giving ten years of her life to the same company. It was quite the blow. Instead of jumping back into the corporate game she decided to take a little time off and think about her next move. She already knew she didn't want to go back into the corporate world and she had been saving cash to have the time off.

She tried real estate, insurance, sales and eventually landed in education.

She was really excited about the education job, they loved her too. Well, at least it started out that way. Then the details started to trickle in. Her manager started showing some signs of micromanagement; checking up on her once too often during the day, reviewing everything she did, quizzing her on all aspects of all processes. Initially Alana thought - ok, this lady is just covering her bases since I'm new. But after then newness wore off, the management style became tighter and tighter.

The final blow came when this manager announced to Alana (and the whole staff) that everyone was to send an acknowledment email to each email that she sent out. I had to laugh out loud at this. What maniac wants 300 acknowledgement emails a day? Besides, Outlook (which they use at the office) allows you to return receipt any email sent. I've been a project manager before. When I've sent out emails to delegate tasks I dont want acknowledgment, just do the dang task and we'll cover the details in a weekly status meeting. Keep it simple is my policy.

But Alana complied. She would get emails from the manager then send confirmations. One lined emails: "Confirmed", "Got it", "Acknowledged".

Apparently this was not enough. Alana got called into the manager's office for a scolding.

"This is not appropriate response to my emails !!!"

The manager had printed out each acknowledment email and taken a highlighter to each one to emphasize the bad thing that Alana did. "You're kidding me, right? Who has time to do all of that? That's crazy with a capital C.", was my response.

Apparently psycho manager girl did not think one word responses were appropriate, complete sentences were supposed to be used.

I've seen alot of micromanagers in my day but this chick sweeps every category. Congrats to her, she wins the crazy micromanager of the year award! Grand prize - one year's supply of lithium. And this is probably better used on her husband, poor bastard.