'Staff... mutually agreed to give this person exactly what they asked for': Micromanager creates strict new rules for employees, sparking a "great resignation"

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Aug 2, 2024 11:00 AM EDT

After running an entire department alone for a while, this worker was having trouble letting go of their responsibilities. It can be a difficult thing to delegate tasks if you're used to just handling things. Being the person in the office who can get things done on time and under budget is a great feeling. Even so, this person was instructed to change: they were told to dole out their responsibilities to some newly created departments. 

This person's malicious compliance story is a nice example of how remote work can benefit employees. After working remotely throughout those dark days of the early 2020s, the workers were told to return to the office. Ugh. Instead of working in their pajamas all day, saving money on lunch, and having zero commute, suddenly these workers were instructed to start showing up at the office again. Not only that, but they were already working 60 hours per week. 

There isn't usually just one thing that makes employees leave a bad company. Bad management is almost always a factor in this, though. People leave bad bosses and they stick around with good ones. Sometimes it's as simple as that. You can check out the full story below and judge for yourself. 

Next, check out some freshly baked bread and cake mistakes, get 'em while they're hot! 

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    Cheezburger Image 10383220736
    via Mimi Thian on Unsplash
  • 02
    Micromanaging 101 I am an amused bystander to this. I was working on a compliance project at the time. The practice had once consisted of a single compliance officer, but the company had grown and responsibilities had been split up into multiple
    via r/MaliciousCompliance
  • 03
    departments. The person who had once run the entire practice alone, was having a hard time handing off responsibilities to the newly created departments, and would find petty ways to claw back control at any time. This person would also panick about investigations that could prove that previous work had not been
    via r/MaliciousCompliance
  • 04
    done consistently, so would revise procedures, definitions, department requirements, etc. to suit whatever agenda happened to be at play. Sometimes this meant ignoring important things, sometimes this meant filing. unecessary reports, things changed on a weekly basis.
    via r/MaliciousCompliance
  • 05
    For some unfathomable reason, this person was very concerned about in- person coverage. This entire department had worked remotely throughout C. All other departments continued to work remotely. This department HAD to be in the office. Period.
    via r/MaliciousCompliance
  • 06
    To make things worse, working hours were defined as 8:00 am to 5:00 pm with a 1 hour break. On multiple occasions, this person would complain claiming someone had mentioned that the department was deserted before 5 pm on Fridays, the day before holidays, etc. Didn't matter that staff was working around 60 hours.
    via r/MaliciousCompliance
  • 07
    Also didn't matter that there was nobody there TO complain as this was the only department on site. There were duties, which occasionally required someone to be on call until 6 or 7 pm. On call staffers suggested that the person responsible could start late on those days, but no. The workday starts at 8 am. No exceptions.
    via r/MaliciousCompliance
  • 08
    The two hourly staffers took 2-3 hour lunch breaks so that they could still cover the required 8 am start date, be available until 7 pm, and still meet their no- OT requirements.
    via r/MaliciousCompliance
  • 09
    The salary exempt staff wasn't having any of it though. Calls were no- longer answered, because staff was to work from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, and there was to be no flexibility regarding attendance.
    via r/MaliciousCompliance
  • 10
    Staff got tired of this, and mutually agreed to give this person exactly what they asked for.
    via r/MaliciousCompliance
  • 11
    They started sending group texts of their work lock- screens, showing that they were at their desks at 8am. They'd send texts showing that their computers had been locked at 5:01 pm ... I was (briefly) on this text chain and had to mute it due to the barrage of daily petty texts.
    via r/MaliciousCompliance
  • 12
    The individual in question intended to mean that staff had to be there AT LEAST between those hours. Unpaid OT was totally reasonable. But there was to be no concession made to allow staff some flexibility in the way they split up their working hours. That couldn't be said for obvious reasons. So they harped on the 5 pm minimum end to workdays.
    via r/MaliciousCompliance
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    As you can imagine, this was followed by a wave of resignations. Over a six month period, the department collapsed, leaving them with less staff than they had before the expansion.
    via r/MaliciousCompliance
  • 14
    Great for us! We ended up winning a lucrative contract to manage and rebuild their entire practice. The staffer responsible for this great resignation, was found to be incompetent, after their work started to get reviewed independently. The sheer volume of missed issues became impossible to justify, and this person was eventually quietly replaced.
    via r/MaliciousCompliance
  • 15
    Stabbmaster More events like this taking place and maybe the "work from home" model will be implemented more broadly. I'm fine with offices and buildings being present, but if
    via u/Stabbmaster
  • 16
    you can expand staff and cut costs by having people work at home there's honestly no reason not to do that. C showcased it was 100% possible.
    via u/Stabbmaster
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    BensBum I love these stories of bosses "cracking the whip" to be sure employees work their assigned 8 hours, and then get screwed when they realize their staff was far more efficient before they were forced to work a "conventional" schedule. Karma can be a nasty
    via u/BensB**
  • 18
    mickers_68 A few years ago, I was the sole IT person at a decent sized education org. Very flexible, I'd been there for a decade, and I had worked a lot of unpaid OT.. Over a holiday period, a new office manager was employed, and very quickly things got 'interesting'. In the past, the OM had managed the office, but this person decided it was their job to micromanage
    via u/mickers_68
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    all staff. I was hearing from long time staff who were ticked off at this person they had never heard of emailing new directives during the holidays. Anyway, apparently there was one or two staff who were a bit lax with their start and finish times, (in their favour, not the org's). A new org wide directive came through from OM.. Hard start and finish times, no
    via u/mickers_68
  • 20
    unauthorised OT. For those who may not know, many educational institutions operate on the good will of their employees, or at least they did back when I was there. Many hours of unpaid work outside of the official times. Fast forward to 5min before finish time on Friday evening, and our mail system went down. I was (as often happened)
    via u/mickers_68
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    the last person on site, no one available to authorise me to stay. Oh, well, I guess I'll have a look first thing Monday morning. At the normal start time. Cos it's usually quiet first thing Monday morning /s The directive was revoked by mid next week.
    via u/mickers_68
  • 22
    Management 101: 'Don't try to catch a couple of shrimp with a massive net, then act surprised at what else gets caught up in the net'
    via u/mickers_68
  • 23
    jmacattack5585 Love when micromanagers get exposed. Had one where half the staff left within 6 months of her starting. Made excel spreadsheets of all our daily tasks and we had to check off work as we did it. I'm pretty sure all she did was monitor the spreadsheet and go on 1-1 meetings with us to talk through our completions.
    via u/jmacattack5585

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