'I’m the one in charge, so you do as I say': Micromanaging supervisor belittles secretary for years, quits after being proven wrong by them in front of boss

Author image for Isabella Penn
Isabella Penn
Jan 19, 2025 1:00 PM EST

Micromanaging never works. It crushes creativity, morale, and productivity faster than a coffee-less Monday morning. I once had a friend who got a promotion he was thrilled about—until his new boss decided to "train" him for a year and a half. Who needs that much training? This micromanager was so uptight about relinquishing control of his accounts that he followed my friend around endlessly, nitpicking every decision and refusing to let him make any changes. My friend toughed it out, but honestly, I don't think I could've lasted a month under that kind of scrutiny.

This story, though, takes micromanaging to a whole new level. Imagine working for someone so obsessed with authority they're willing to rewrite the laws of physics just to prove they're right (or something like that). This employee's boss had to step in when her micromanaging supervisor not only insisted on an absurdly incorrect policy but tried to use condescension to enforce it. Let's just say the supervisor learned the hard way that being in charge doesn't mean you're always right. 

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  • RESIGNATION
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  • AITJ for embarrassing my supervisor so much she quits her job?

    This story happened many years ago, when I was a secretary for an up and coming attorney. It was a small office--just the attorney, me, and the office manager. Now, I never finished college, and the office manager never tired of holding her degree
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  • in business over my head. This person, who we will name Nancy (not her real name) managed to work her college degree into almost every conversation. Also, any time I questioned one of her office policies, such as not having a drink at my desk or not wearing slacks or not playing a
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  • radio in the office for background music, Nancy would explain to me in the most condescending fashion that according to her education such things were unprofessional and counterproductive. One of Nancy's weirdest policies went right against the stated
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  • Aren’t we at a point where the need for college degrees is fading? Seriously, if you’re working a secretary job, what’s the point of wasting four years in classes you’ll probably never remember, only to end up tens of thousands of dollars in debt? Plenty of people are skipping degrees altogether and still managing to make more money than the rest of us. This Nancy woman needs to let go of her outdated mindset and accept that times are changing. Skill and experience often speak louder than a diploma these days.

  • orders of the attorney we both worked for. As a law office, we sent out a lot of correspondence. Legal papers, claims, letters, bills, would all be mailed out because their office was fairly remote and we weren't close enough to downtown to have a runner take in the documents for the court.
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  • We had a postal machine to print out the exact postage on each piece of mail, and it was graded by weight according on how much each envelope weight on the postal scale. We used both number 10 envelopes and manila envelopes to mail things out.
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  • Now anything under a certain scale, if it would fit inside a number 10 envelope, would only cost the equivalent of one stamp. If it was more than three or four pages we would mail it flat in the Manila envelope, which because of its thickness and size would automatically require the
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  • postage equivalent of two stamps. In order to save money because of the volume of mail we sent out, the attorney specified that if it would fit inside a number 10 envelope, and only weighed enough to cost one stamp, go ahead and fold up the document and send it in the envelope. Maybe it sounds
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  • foolish to be so strict about something as small as the cost of a stamp, but trust me, on a weekly basis all those stamps. add up. So if a document was four pages or less, I would fold it up and put it in a number 10 envelope.
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  • And here's where I butted heads with our dear Nancy. The first time she caught me folding up with three page document to put it in a regular envelope, she lost her mind. "Don't you dare send that out in a regular envelope! It's more
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  • than one page and you need to send it flat." "But, Nancy," I said, "Henry (the attorney, also not his real name) was very specific--" "Are you arguing with me? Need
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  • I remind you that he made me the office manager and he told me to run this office in the most efficient manner possible? I'm the one in charge and I'm the one with the college degree. So you do it as I say." "Nancy, Henry said to--"
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  • Return Envelope OFFICIAL ☆ # FLECTION MAN Ad by the US PolService BUSINESS REPLY MAIL FIRST-CLASS MAIL PERMIT NO. 74 POSTAGE WILL BE PAID BY ADDRESSEE NO POSTAGE NECESSARY IF MAILED IN THE UNITED STATES
    via Tiffany Tertipes via Unsplash+
  • "I don't want to hear anything more about it. If it's more than one page, then you send it out flat." Now, I would have thought this was one of her professional business things that she learned in her classes, but what she said
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  • next not only blew that out of the water, but also convince me that I was dealing with someone who was a complete idiot, college degree or not. "If you fold up a piece of paper it weighs more. The more paper you fold, the more it weighs, and
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  • that's a waste of postage. Henry wants us to save every penny we can, and you're wasting his money." After I scooped my jaw up off the floor, and fitted it back into place, I tried to explain to Nancy that paper does not in fact weigh
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  • more simply because it was folded up. But she wasn't having it. She started yelling at me that I was stupid because I didn't think about the fact that if you fold something up it gets heavier. She reminded me again that she was the college graduate not me and
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  • I should know better than to question her authority or her intelligence. She reiterated that if you fold up paper, it weighs more and I was wasting postage by doing so. I offered to take four sheets of paper and fold them up and then
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  • place them on the scale and then place another four sheets of paper on the scale so she could see they weighed the same, and I thought she was going to slap me. She advanced on me, snatched the envelope out of my hand, and ordered me in a
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  • screeching voice to reprint the document and mail it flat because "if you fold it up it weighs more." About that time, Henry's office door opened and the attorney himself appeared in the doorway,
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  • laughing so hard he couldn't even talk it first. "Ladies, that's enough," he said, when he was finally able to speak. "I don't like getting involved in office politics, but this time I had to step in. Nancy, I
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  • know how proud you are of your bachelor's degree, but obviously they forgot to teach you anything about the laws of physics. So please allow me to enlighten you. OP is 100% right. You can't make something way more just by folding it up, and it
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  • costs more to send a manila envelope then it does a regular envelope. OP is doing exactly as I asked her, and going forward you need to let her handle the mail because that's the reason I assigned her the task. You're not to interfere with her anymore.
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  • OP, if Nancy gives you any more trouble, come tell me and we'll have a nice sit-down talk about it." From that day forward, Nancy refused to speak to me except when she absolutely had to, and I was perfectly happy about that.
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  • About a month after the heavy folded paper confrontation, she suddenly turned in her notice. and found another job. The new office manager who replaced her thought this was an absolutely hilarious story and never got tired of us telling her about it.
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micromanager employee manager job lawyer secretary work i quit Office entitled people karma workplace Horrible Bosses
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