Categories
Antiwork

Micromanagement murders morale

My program director is a lot to take on a good day. Trouble being, there are rarely good days due to her perfectionist and neurotic standards. I've tolerated, mediated, and bent over backwards working around her frequently contradictory instructions. To make matters worse and conditions less bearable, she is also very condescending… to the point that I've had peers reach out to me after her very public 'redirections'. Redirection almost always included openly questioning mine and others' highly specialized skills and mockingly degrading us in front of peers, but not senior management. My position and field of expertise required a master's degree, plus 2 additional years of specialty schooling, and an additional 7 years in a lesser role, in training for the advanced one I now have. For those of you thinking that I may be overstating the level of neuroses myself and my co-workers endured daily, I offer this…


My program director is a lot to take on a good day. Trouble being, there are rarely good days due to her perfectionist and neurotic standards. I've tolerated, mediated, and bent over backwards working around her frequently contradictory instructions. To make matters worse and conditions less bearable, she is also very condescending… to the point that I've had peers reach out to me after her very public 'redirections'. Redirection almost always included openly questioning mine and others' highly specialized skills and mockingly degrading us in front of peers, but not senior management. My position and field of expertise required a master's degree, plus 2 additional years of specialty schooling, and an additional 7 years in a lesser role, in training for the advanced one I now have. For those of you thinking that I may be overstating the level of neuroses myself and my co-workers endured daily, I offer this case in point: this absolute Nero will insist that emails to persons she considers higher ups in our field include her CCd, but not before sending her a draft for approval first. I've been accustomed to dealing with a certain level of micromanagement in my professional life, but I mean for the love of jam, lady! Who has the time to write someone else's emails?! Did I mention that her appointment as our director is literally her second side gig, and her main job is 60hrs a week by itself? Yeah.

I woke up this morning as usual. Got showered and ready for work. Opened up my laptop. Entered the required 20 character pw. And opened my email to find one from her right up top (from 6am) scolding me for not having completed project X, when she asked me Wednesday to prioritize project Y and “table X for next week”.

Okay, boss. Sure thing.

I just checked, and I have 76hrs worth of accumulated PTO. You all know how the rest of this goes. I emailed to director and management my holiday time off plans (with 2 weeks heads up, as is required by my company for all major time off). I'll be taking that time to have a Christmas trip with my lovely wife. And when I return, I'll be putting in my 2weeks notice, as I've been contacted about a job I declined earlier this year, and they are going to up the pay to get me in.

tl;dr: Bye ️

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *