Micromanager enforces new "performance tracking policy" forcing employees to prioritize phone calls over emails, creating major backlog of work: 'And just like that, [the] policy quietly vanished'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Oct 10, 2025 8:00 AM EDT

Whatever happened to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it?"

Far too many supervisors seem to operate under the assumption that if they don't completely upend processes that have been successfully working for years, then they're not proving themselves as capable managers. The reality is that sometimes the best form of management means backing off when something is working well.

This employee found himself having to adjust to a new micromanager, who decided that she needed to track employees' progress by tracking and monitoring their phone calls. She even went so far as to enforce this new "performance tracking policy" by telling employees to prioritize making calls over responding to emails and other orders. 

What she underestimated, of course, is that the bulk of orders within the company and with external clients were not handled over the phone, so naturally, there was a huge backlog of projects that went under the radar. All it took was for this team of employees to follow their micromanager's instructions word for word in order for her supervisors to catch onto the fact that something was very much not working.

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  • A businesswoman wearing a cardigan speaks to a coworker offscreen with her laptop in front of her.
    via LinkedIn Sales Solutions

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Oftentimes, stepping into a management role at a new company should involve a period of listening and getting to know the people on your team, what their needs are, and how you can support them to do their best work. 

    Watching them like a hawk with a totally outdated tracking policy is unlikely to make employees feel secure, and it certainly won't improve performance either. 

    This story just goes to show once again that quality management does not mean micromanagement. It means quality support!

  • "Supervisor says phones are all that matter. Okay then!"

    So this actually happened a few months ago at my job. Long story short, coworker got promoted to a new supervisor position for all the wrong reasons (she's besties with the boss. and gives him relationship advice on the side).
    via Common_Employee
  • Our team handles many types of incoming requests; phone calls, emails, tickets, and even printer jobs that get printed out automatically. We have a really chill system that actually works:
    via Common_Employee
  • everyone helped where needed, and the manager trusted us to get the work done. Nobody tracked individual stats. or micromanaged. We just got
    via Common_Employee
  • everything handled and kept things running smoothly and its been that way in this department for probably 30 years now.
    via Common_Employee
  • Then my new supervisor comes along and I guess decides she wants to tighten things up or increase accountability or something.
    via Common_Employee
  • Her big idea? "From now on, I'll be tracking phone calls for performance metrics. Make sure everyone's doing their job and no ones slacking."
    via Common_Employee
  • So of course we asked, "What about tickets and emails? Those take most of the time."
    via Common_Employee
  • She says, "Well, there's no way to measure those right now so we can't really track that."
    via Common_Employee
  • Umm, ok? So of course, everyone does exactly what she asked. Phone rings? Answer it immediately. If we were working on an email and a phone call comes in?
    via Common_Employee
  • Put it on pause and answer the call. Working on a ticket? Pause, gotta answer a call.
    via Common_Employee
  • A woman in a black blazer demonstrates something on her computer to a coworker.
    via LinkedIn Sales Solutions

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • So naturally emails start piling up in the shared mailbox, tickets sit untouched in the internal portal (which management still doesn't know how to run reports on), and the printer starts piling up paper in front of it.
    via Common_Employee
  • After a couple of days, people from other departments, people from our satellite offices, and even some of our external customers start emailing and calling asking if we're "backed up"
    via Common_Employee
  • because nobody's responding to tickets or emails. One guy even came down in person to ask why no one has reached out to him about the email he sent in.
    via Common_Employee
  • When asked what was going on we just repeated what supervisor told us. "Focus on the phones since thats what matters."
    via Common_Employee
  • A few days later, I saw the supervisor get called into a meeting with the boss. When she comes out, she's clearly annoyed and sends out a message on teams saying:
    via Common_Employee
  • "Please remember that all work types are important, not just phone calls." And just like that, the "performance tracking" policy quietly vanished. We're back to doing all the work again, the same way we've been doing it successfully for years.
    via Common_Employee
  • A woman in a black long sleeve shirt holds a smartphone in an office environment.
    via LinkedIn Sales Solutions

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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workplace-stories micromanager work stories malicious compliance work overworked-employees Horrible Bosses workplace malicious compliance toxic-work-environment
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