‘Let your subordinates do their job!': New army commander demands to see every single report made, so nightshift soldiers call her 50 times a night

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Mar 22, 2025 1:00 PM EDT

It doesn't matter what field you work in, if you were hired to do a job, the people who hired you should trust that you will do your job. Or what was the point of even hiring you in the first place, right? Unfortunately, there are micromanagers up the wazoo out here in the world, and that also goes for every workforce out there! It's annoying, but you are likely to come by a micromanager at some point in your lengthy career—even if you switch paths! 

 

In the case of this micromanager, malicious compliance helped put them in their place. This was a commander in the army, so the level of micromanaging was through the roof! I'm not going to pretend like I know army rankings and such, but just know the commander was not trusting her subordinates. Which like, isn't the army all about working as a team? There is no "I" in army! 

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  • The soldiers worked the nightshift quickly had enough of this new commanders micromanaging. So you know what they did to deal with it? They did exactly what she asked of them. Exactly. She demanded she see every single report ever made as they're being made. So, since it was the nightshift, she kept getting calls throughout the entire night. She quickly learned her lesson.

  • Cheezburger Image 10482640640
    via Unsplash+ (and Victoria Romulo)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • Some background: I spent most of my military service in a 'communications command and control center' (CC for short), which isn't as glorious as it sounds, it was mostly emails and Excel. Our CC was relatively high in the command chain, we were more 'big picture' managing the operability of communication systems across the whole military. The ones actually doing
    via TechnicallyCant5083
  • the work in the CC are enlisted soldiers but because the work was relatively important, the commander of the CC was always an officer. At the time of this story I was an E3 (enlisted soldier, 3rd rank), I had a lot of time and experience on the job. One day we got a new commander, an 01 fresh out of officer school. She had a really
    via TechnicallyCant5083
  • 'I'm an officer you must respect me' attitude. I was more time than her in the army, I was also older, and my work involved interacting with officers with much higher ranks than her, so I couldn't give a sh, but I tried playing nice.
    via TechnicallyCant5083
  • Our work at the CC had a pretty normal procedure, we'd get some report, say "maintenance A starting", something like that would usually be filed away immediately because we knew about it ahead and they usually didn't affect anything. A report like "someone dug through a fiber optic cable and a whole post lost internet connection"
    via TechnicallyCant5083
  • would usually lead to us making some phone calls trying to understand if there are backups, who could fix it and when, and lastly when we had all of the relevant info we would notify our commander.
    via TechnicallyCant5083
  • Cheezburger Image 10482648320
    via Unsplash+ (and Getty Images)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • She didn't care about that procedure, she wanted to be involved and assert her control. One day she saw a report on one of our computers that we didn't notify her about yet, so she got really angry and said "from now on you are to notify me about every report!" big mistake. The
    via TechnicallyCant5083
  • CC worked 24/7 but there was only one commander, so if something really important came up we would wake her up in the middle of the night, but most stuff was kept to the morning. Well que malicious compliance.
    via TechnicallyCant5083
  • That night the night shift woke her up about 10 times, and they were being nice. The day after she was visibly sleep deprived. I was on the next night shift and called her for EVERY report, sometimes we'd get multiple a minute, she was basically doing the night shift with me. At around
    via TechnicallyCant5083
  • 5AM she said "fine you don't have to report everything, you know what's important and what's not". So for conclusion I'm gonna steal u/CaptMaxius 's line- "outrank doesn't mean out-know". Let your subordinates do their job.
    via TechnicallyCant5083
  • Cheezburger Image 10482648576
    via Unsplash+ (and Greg Pappas)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.a

  • CoderJoe1 Keeping officers "informed" throughout the night as "punishment" I mean, "training" is a well known military practice, often reserved for the most arrogant of officers.
    via CoderJoe1
  • Hoo-B As a leader, the power of not micromanaging and relying on people to do their jobs cannot be overstated.
    via Hoo-B
  • SimonTrimby Similar to' outrank doesn't mean outknow' is when I heard a sergeant being lectured on his area of expertise and replying'Sir, I think you're mistaking your rank for my authority'.
    via SimonTrimby

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