Give Him ALL TEH DETAIL

I worked for a petty, fragile man years ago. He loved to micromanage and always wanted to know if I talked to anyone higher in management than he was. This by itself wasn’t a problem, as I understand chains of command and follow them. The crux of the issue was he had to know every detail of every conversation, and he wanted to dictate what they were told when they reached out to us.

I was in a unique situation because I have specialized education, which was very useful to top management. Because of this, they called me directly, frequently, every day of the week, and at all hours. The “Babyboss” had a huge problem with this because he wanted to control the technical information that I provided the “Bigboss” when he called with questions. I tried my best to loop Babyboss in when these calls occurred, but Bigboss wanted me to speak freely and didn’t want to wait for someone else to get on the call. Often, Babyboss would call Bigboss after we spoke to try and take credit for what I told them, even though it was well known that he didn’t have the same education or understanding that I did.

Babyboss then demanded I call him EVERY time Bigboss called me, and he wanted a FULL recounting of our conversations.

Cue malicious compliance.

I followed his directions to a tee. If Bigboss called me at 2:00 am with a question, Babyboss got a call at 2:15, but with a rambling retelling of our conversation, which often exceeded the length of the first call.

After a few weeks, Babyboss got tired (literally) of being woken up at all hours. He then demanded that I send him an email after every call with every detail. So, I did that. I created these emails that would rival a high school assignment with a minimum word count. I’d sprinkle the important information in between long, flowing sentences so he was forced to read the whole thing if he wanted to know what I really spoke about.

This ultimately resulted in Babyboss relenting and just asking for a brief recap in person during the next business day.

Soon after, the budget people were very concerned about why I had huge amounts of overtime at odd hours, and I explained the direction I was given. Babyboss was eventually disciplined and forced out, due in large part because of everything that happened with me.