Overtime Will Tell

I work in a small startup company of around twelve people. It’s a very good atmosphere in the office, and everyone pulls their weight and is super motivated. However, our boss likes to micromanage us, even though he has no expertise in any of our fields (marketing, design, accounting, etc.).

This is especially true for us in marketing and design, and we suffer a lot from that, since he will make changes to our strategies, posts, and the website, sometimes without telling us. He then gets upset at US when the customer feedback is bad, and we aren’t reaching our predicted goals.

So recently, he told us that the reason he thinks we aren’t seeing enough results is that we are manipulating our hours and not actually putting in the work we should. Until then, we each wrote down our hours manually in an Excel sheet, but with the new time tracking tool, he would see how long we were working down to the minute.

We also could only log in on our desk PCs (and previously approved home office devices), but not mobile because “if you are not at your desk, it is not work”.

After our initial shock passed and our boss left for the day, our manager called for a meeting, and we came up with a plan. We would do as he says, in the most “just following the rules way” possible.

1. We would not engage in work-related conversations with him unless we are sitting at our desks and are clocked in.
2. Any questions by him which are asked after we are clocked out will only be answered once we clock in again the following day.
3. Every phone call, text message, or otherwise work related things outside of the office would only be answered once there was an option for us to clock in, either the next day in the office, or for some of us on our home office device.
4. Since we no longer have the option to “shift” time manually, all work minutes and hours would be clocked exactly when they took place (sidenote: in my country, weekends pay better, Sundays have to be paid double, and working after 8 PM warrants additional financial benefits by law. Previously, if we needed to post something really quick or had a question, we would just add the weekend hours or late time to the upcoming Monday. Basically, out of goodwill. But no more of that!)
5. We would stop any independent activity (like posting on social media or writing an email) and would send him EVERYTHING to approve before following through.

After about a week, our boss was so fed up with this that he gave us the option to clock in from our mobile devices, so he could get a more immediate response to his questions. However, this, of course, led to us clocking in way more frequently (since, as I said, he likes to micromanage and is therefore asking a LOT of questions).

I’m happy to report that we have abolished the system again and regained most of our independence, and even though our boss is still pissed about how we exploited the system, it brought the team closer together and hopefully taught him a lesson.