'My workload diminishes and boss's increases': Employee makes micromanaging boss handle tasks, ends up coasting with no work

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  • 01
    "Even though she is my boss I am not her secretary"
  • 02
    I had to teach my boss that even though she is my boss I am not her secretary. TLDR at end. I have a good boss but sometimes you have to teach them a thing or two. My boss is becoming from micromanaging the b
  • 03
    Where I used to be able to do my job I can no longer do it with out constant interruptions of micromanagement. Boss has office near mine, if I handle a business call she listens and tries to control the call from his office. It is impossible for people to do more than one thing at a time. I can not listen to two people at a time when one is on the phone. One conversation depends on verbal skills only and the other is messed up trying to use verbal and non verbal.
  • 04
    The customer should be served not the boss. I sort have dealt with this pretty well and cleaver. When I am on phone with someone and eavesdropping boss starts to try to control a simple phone call with "no don't do that, do _, who is that?, Ask them tell them "I become polite cover the phone and say to my boss I have this handled.
  • 05
    If boss persist with the micromanagement I then cover the phone and say "Mr. Customer, can you please hold a moment, it is to loud and busy here to understand your needs, if it is ok with you I am going to transfer you to my boss with a private office." Boss then says "no, can't you see I don't have time for that call". I transfer the call that moment and walk away. Boss handles call which they wanted to do in the first place.
  • 06
    Next time boss interrupts me on a call I cover the phone, say can you hold one second, and politely ask boss, "do you want this one", look at boss, and wait till their attention goes back to the desk when I then handle call.
  • 07
    Now that I have broken that mind numbing habit boss has moved to different interruptions to my work flow. He is clever but I am more so. "Can you copy files from and scan them to me?" Over and over I hear this. Now you do things for your boss but when they run their own small business on company time they tend to take you on as an unwilling partner, asking you to do things they don't have time for, but then you don't have time for your job.
  • 08
    Most of our documents are PDF and our company will not provide us the ability to edit stuff........so...when I ......cant get my job done I wait till boss wants a document scanned to them.
  • 09
    I wait for a one pager that I know they want to use electronically. I retrieve the file, 50% of the time is in boss office, I pull the page they want and I then scan the thing. But the end of the document goes in scanner first so the document will go to boss UPSIDE DOWN and not use able by them. I then announce "I am going on break, would you please return the document to the file" they get the file they can't use and I am not there for them to ask me to rescan.
  • 10
    Bonus Revenge: Boss has to go to the scanner to rescan his document. Once he handles it he is obligated by company culture to return it to the file so I comply with his micro management demands and he ends up doing what he should have done in the first place.
  • 11
    TLDR; Boss is micro managing, I give him more to manage when he micro manages. My work load diminishes and boss's increases, life is gooooood.
  • 12
    CoderJoe1 This is called managing up and is a basic office survival skill that only a few people seem to have. 845 Reply Share
  • 13
    well749mine . Dude, I've had times when I was new at a company and people, not even mgmt, actually asked me to get them coffee. I looked at them and said, "I'm not your secretary." Nip that in the bud right there and also command some respect. 438 Reply Share
  • 14
    cheesepage I had an awful boss once. Learned early that part of my job was to manage him, so as to be able to manage my department without his interference. Put a small sign at my eye level where I worked: "Manage G." No one figured it out thank goodness. Reminded me to put in the few minutes here and there that would save me hours later. 153 Reply Share
  • 15
    00 HarryMonk Haha great work. It's a fine line to tread, I had an old-school boss once who'd make one of the apprentices go out and get lunch. Now this was frowned upon even 10-12 years ago and it was a project/management apprenticeship, where half of us were in our 20s/30s.
  • 16
    I normally sat further away from him but all the closer apprentices were out of office and he finally picked me and gave me his lunch order. I creatively misinterpreted his instructions and got him the miniature version of his lunch and he never bothered me with it again. I was a little worried he'd think I was a moron but I think he knew what I was doing. He the casting vote on whether I passed my apprenticeship exams so evidently he didn't think too ill of me.
  • 17
    shentaitai. So is your boss female as implied in the title, or male as implied in the narrative? Just curious about the dynamics involved.
  • 18
    sixuldv8 OP. I wanted to disguise my situation a bit. Went back and replaced all the hers with hims but like most liars I left a clue. Sorry. Just trying to protect myself. It does read better with my boss being a she but I am not changing another word. Everyone knows Reddit ALWAYS catches you. -46 Reply Share
  • 19
    smootfloops When a supervisor starts micromanaging I micromanage up by making daily standing 15 minute touch bases to show them and explain EVERYTHING they could possibly want to see or know. It is absolute overkill and it builds irrevocable trust in my competency and they always back off. Works every time. Yes it's annoying but I'm like oh you want to see me do my job, sure I'll give you a whole show!

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