Some bosses take “keep me updated” a little too literally.

What would you do if your supervisor demanded updates on every small task, no matter how routine or irrelevant? Would you question the policy and risk a scolding? Or would you lean into the request and let the consequences speak for themselves?

In the following story, one employee deals with this very predicament and opts for the latter. Here’s how it all played out.

Want updates for every single thing? Ok.

I used to work in a medical facility in a military camp where the guy in charge wanted updates on every small thing, no matter how minor.

His reasoning was that it was his medical centre, so he needed to know whatever was going on.

Context: there were always at least two medical staff on duty overnight and on weekends. The medical facility was fully staffed on weekdays.

He requested the on-duty medical staff send him updates by text, and got really mad when there were no updates.

He made sure the updates always occurred regularly.

Ok. Message received loud and clear.

When I was on duty, he was very well informed.

I’m taking over duty? Update.

If there was a reason to update him, it happened.

Sending someone to the hospital? Update. This is possibly the only legitimate use of the update.

However, we could be sending someone to the hospital or to a bigger camp at night, and this could be multiple people.

You want an update every time something happens? You got it. Sending one update per person, in the middle of the night!

Dealing with some administrative duties at our camp’s headquarters? Update for each time I had to go and perform this administrative duty.

Again, multiple updates in the early morning and late evening.

It only took one weekend for a policy update.

Getting off duty? Update.

Well, over the course of the first weekend (Friday – Monday), when I was on duty, the man was updated multiple times.

When he returned on Monday, he implemented a new rule: updates only when there are major casualties (e.g., requiring CPR) and when “important duties or incidents occur.”

He left the interpretation of what is “important” up to us.

Hilarious! Sounds like he asked for it.

Let’s see how the readers over at Reddit relate to this story.

Here’s a great point.

Indeed, it is.

It sounds just like that!

Now, this may’ve pushed it too far even quicker.

No one needs to be that updated!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.