He automated so much of his workload that he had very little left to do on most days—Manager tells remote worker that his status should never show "away"—he writes a program that feigns activity at all times

After being warned that his Microsoft Teams status changed to "Away" every 20 minutes, a remote IT worker wrote a script that kept him permanently available while he spent his afternoons hiking.

Managers worry about all the wrong things. 

Some managers insist on managing through control and proximity, direct observations of employees' time spent working, sitting at a desk, making sure that they're at they're sitting at their computer ready to respond to a message at any time of the day.

But when your management strategy boils down to "watch for yellow light," I think you probably need to rethink your strategy.

The problem with managing in this way is that you're just always behind the wheel. And you're training your team to be behind the wheel too. You're always looking for actions and never at results, and it is this micromanaging that grinds a team down.

This manager insisted that an IT worker always show as available. It pushed him into not working harder, but writing a script that showed he was active at all times.