Micromanaging Rarely Results In Smiles

I worked as a tech support for a global insurance company. Our old manager retired. He was a cool guy, not a micromanager. We got this new one who was, right away, very confrontational. He was a “my way or the highway” kind of guy, even when we explained the bureaucracy of our company and processes. For whatever reason, he had it in for me; he went as far as making comments in front of everybody about replacing me.

At one of our employee review meetings, he said he was getting complaints of me “not smiling enough”, which I found very odd because I consider myself a likable person and I’m always joking with other users and employees, which I’ve found helps with the job.

He even went as far as to show me how to smile.

I proceeded to give out the most forced, creepy smile humanly possible every time I interacted with a user, every single time. People asked me what was wrong, and I always answered, “Following an employee review, I was instructed to smile more, so I’m smiling.”

I was doing this for a couple of days and after an interaction providing support for Human Resources, with the smile and the explanation, I went back to my desk.

A couple of minutes later, I saw the HR lady go to my boss’s office. They were there for like half an hour. After she left, my boss called me in.

Boss: “You don’t have to smile anymore.”

Me: *Sarcastically* “Aww, do I really have to stop?”

He just looked at me for a moment.

Boss: “That’s all.”

He left like a year later. No one, not even the other managers, liked him.