'You want more details, here you go': IT team complies with micromanaging coworker's request to provide ‘details' for new system update; turns out 120 pages long

Author image for Eleonora Bader
Eleonora Bader
Dec 2, 2023 10:00 AM EST

Some people are blessed with micromanaging coworkers who don't want them to get ahead and will go as far as to actively attempt to make them look bad so that they will stay in the same position for years, if not forever. That allows these mini micromanagers to get what they want, whether it's a promotion, a good reputation, or simple satisfaction that other people are as miserable as they are. If I had a penny for every time I met someone at work who was keen to throw others under the bus…

This story involves one such coworker and a small IT team consisting of 2 employees who really did their best for the company. The coworker in question did not want them to 'climb ranks' and so when they had a new phone system upgrade that they needed to build, the coworker made sure to send out a mass email to other employees, including upper management, trying to get them to reject the change. He was not anticipating the fight that began, but you can read all about that below. For more stories like this, here is a small town council that tried to micromanage one of the residents, but it backfired.

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    eec eec vool 0110010011001610406100 001100100001011100011000100100 20100100100 110 100100 "You want more details, here you go..." 0100400 999 10100 110000 100106 101101 OFFT01001110 00100 0101000011101000 891191104 6 01101001101001 100110011 CHO 01 wwwww 010100
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    You want more details? You got ! M OC This wasn't me directly, but a colleague and close friend. Many years ago we both worked in I.T at a company, we were in the design team, we would handle future
    via u/iThinkISawATwo
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    architecture, design and major upgrades for the systems. My friend (Doug/D) was working on the phone system upgrade, this was a major version upgrade for the phone management system. We had a change control process in place that involved writing up a brief about the change which was
    via u/iThinkISawATwo
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    distributed to the respective heads of affected areas who would approve it to go to change control board (CCB), once at CCB the same people would ask questions and then either approve or deny the change. The manager for the operations team / DH) did not like myself ( or D, decided we were a threat to
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    him despite us not caring about trying to get up the ranks there, we just wanted to do the job we enjoyed. DH had made it his prerogative to do what ever he could to make us look bad. Now for this change, DH had done a similar change a few years prior,
    via u/iThinkISawATwo
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    so D used DH's original change request as a template to copy off. DH, being the that he is, sent an email to all involved in the change board (including the branch head) saying the change request was lacking information and recommended everyone
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    reject the change until greater details are provided. Cue malicious compliance, D was not only a very efficient and effective worker, but a brilliant wordsmith and wrote top tier technical documents. As the CCB
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    would only sit once a fortnight and he now had to wait two more weeks to submit, he had plenty of time to provide "details". What is meant to be a simple one page overview of the change was turned into a 120 page document
    via u/iThinkISawATwo
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    with every single aspect of the change covered in excruciating detail. Next CCB comes around and D fronts the CCB for questions, DH though he would be smart and ask technical questions to try sound smart, every single one
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    was met with D tapping the printed version of the change request he brought with him. DH never tried that stunt with us again after that.
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    (His hatred for us eventually lead to him getting demoted, by his own actions, but that's a story for another day)
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    ClubeXo 2 hr. ago edited 1 hr. ago Ahh yes, reminds me of an old TL who became manager (an ace at __) within a year. I didn't care to climb the tree my position suited my lifestyle Then it came time to do a forest migration. Well I submitted my paperwork
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    including migration the Dev environment as my test etc etc. TL didn't understand it so denied change (he had the ear of the board) decides to modify my plan then take it upon himself to have a shot. Well it failed midway, and somehow half the AD objects
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    disappeared. No one knew till the next day when the calls started blasting in from shift starts. He tried to pin the whole thing on me for unapproved work but lucky for me, I built a independent syslog server to which I followed the bouncing
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    ball back to him. He got fired the same day Vote Reply Share
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    Equivalent-Salary357 43 min. ago (His hatred for us eventually lead to him getting demoted, by his own actions, but that's a story for another day) You posted this 2 hours ago (as I write this). So, just to be clear, do
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    I have to wait 22 hours, or one calendar day (possibly a bit longer than 22 hours), or were you talking about a 'metaphorical' day that might never happen?
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    When I read a good post like this one, it only make me want to read another. I sure hope you aren't a 'metaphorical' kind of day person. Thanks for the good read.
    via u/Equivalent-Salary257
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    Bont_Tarentaal 17 min. ago Wordsmiths rule. The pen is mightier than the sword. Indeed. (D) ***** (€ ***** Vote Reply Share
    via u/Bont_Tarentaal

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phone management system promotion micromanager malicious compliance bosses coworkers demoted IT team system upgrade detailed design team malicious compliance reddit
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