How many of you have had the unfortunate experience of being micromanaged? It’s my sincerest hope that no one here has had to face this but if you have, I know your pain.
Alright, let’s step back a bit and ask: what is micromanagement?
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines the word micromanage as:
transitive verb : to manage especially with excessive control or attention to details
intransitive verb : to direct or conduct the activities of a group or an enterprise by micromanaging them
Basically, micromanagement is a form of management where a manager will closely observe and control every aspect of the work done by their employees. Every email they write, every report they make, every article they write, the manager will see, scrutinize, comment on and change before it is finalised.
Now, there are a few reasons I don’t like being micro-managed:
- I never get any work done. I cannot officially finish a task until my manager sees it and gives the okay. Unfortunately a lot of the time my manager will either be too busy to see the task or they won’t like it and tell me to make more and more changes till they are satisfied, which of course eats up a lot of time.
- I feel like my manager doesn’t trust me. I understand that any manager will want good work but if they keep having to micro manage my work I inevitably feel like they are not happy with any of the work I do and that maybe it would be better if they gave the task to someone they think would do the job properly.
- It stresses me out. Every time I finish a task, I’m always on edge because I don’t know if my manager will like my work and I don’t know if my work is done yet or not.
So how should one deal with this kind of stress? Well ideally, you’d talk about it with your manager so that you could come to an understanding and come out of it with both parties happy. But that can’t always happen, obviously. I guess changing jobs is another option but not everyone can afford that luxury. For me the only thing I’ve found to work is a don’t care attitude. Don’t like my work? Fine whatever, I’ll change it later. Why did I take so long? It’s not my fault if you take too much time to tell me what I need to change. Say what you will, I’ll get the work done and I’ll do it on time, but I’ll do it at my pace.
True it doesn’t always work out that way, but by keeping this in my head I’m able to keep my sanity intact.
And on that note I’ll end this post. I know this isn’t really an ideal conclusion but hey, cest la vie. Sometimes you just have to deal with what you’re given and roll with the punches.
All negativity aside, I hope you have a good day ahead.
Alternative Yoga 