Micromanagement is a boogeyman of the workplace—always lurking. You’re always apprehensive that it’s going to be there when you walk into a new place and worried that it might suddenly appear out of the blue and ruin something that you once loved. It’s also exceedingly frustrating and hugely demotivating 

One of the most psychologically deconstructing things to experience at work is a lack of autonomy, especially when you had it before and now suddenly have a new manager who refuses to let you do your job. Their constant interruption of your work and interjecting of suggestions and requests makes it impossible to concentrate on the tasks you’re trying to complete—slowly driving you into the ground through reduced performance and mounting stress.

This worker shared their experience of being micromanaged by a new partner at their firm, telling of how the partner unwisely demanded that the worker give them knowledge of their whereabouts «at all times.» Rather than fighting this as a lot of us would do, they decided to comply with the letter of the request and began sending detailed updates, complete with timestamped photos, of their location every five minutes. After a few weeks of this, the micromanaging partner gave up and never mentioned it again.

Keep reading to see this brilliant story of workplace malicious compliance. Next, see this worker who recently shared their story of managing their micromanaging supervisor.