Everyone here cringes up into a ball of frustrated anti-matter when they think of a micromanaging boss, right?
Not just me? Figures.
How about one of those bosses who’s also dripping with condescending hubris?
Now you’re a ball of frustrated anti-matter which is also impossibly on fire.
Well this story introduces us to Garrett, one such manager, and his amazing, hubris-shattering moment.
A small pot shot at my micromanaging managers
I work at a niche construction manufacturing company as an estimator.
It’s one of those that require math skills, a minimum of a 2-year engineering degree, and attention to detailed, consistent production.
They will train anybody who is capable, so it’s a great job in this sense.
The rub, however, is they offered me around $4.00/hour below the living wage in my city, and do not have a generous paid time off policy for all employees.
So the pay’s not great.
But at least the job’s not too bad.
Except for one thing.
I don’t mind the work. I like my job, but the management is obsessed with control and pedantic review of your work, and fair raises are always hard to come by – even when you improve in multiple areas.
So it can get tiring to keep up the production when you feel you won’t get a reward.
We had an engineer meeting where they presented a new system for us that introduces tiers/levels based on your experience in the job.
When management got to a section titled “Grammar/Spelling/Carless Mistakes,” they began to get condescending about having to include this.
This Garrett sounds like a real piece of work.
And OP here caught him red-handed.
Our boss Garrett would say things like “If we’re having to check your spelling like I’m your English teacher, then we have a problem.”
So I said “Hey Garrett, what is a ‘car-less’ mistake? How can I avoid making a mistake without cars?”
*record scratch in Garrett’s dumb-founded head*
Garrett looked up at the TV and blushed a little after re-reading that he had typed “Carless” not “Careless.”
“Yeah, that is a careless mistake, huh?” was his reply as the guy sitting next to me goes “Knock ’em down a peg!”
They emailed us a copy of the sheet after the meeting and I noticed they had corrected their car-less mistake.
POINT. MADE.
Let’s see what folks had to say.
This person thought the end was nigh.
OP’s still holding strong though!
Another person had a similar situation happen to them.
This is absolutely one school in Orange County you do not want to be in.
And I’m adding this to my day-to-day vocabulary.
Figure it out, GARRUTT.
Nice try, Garrett.
If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.