Some managers are so obsessed with rules that they forget how work actually gets done.

What would you do if your boss enforced a policy that sounded good on paper but completely wrecked your ability to do your job?

Would you try to reason with them until you’re blue in the face?

Or would you follow the rules and see what happens?

In the following story, one IT team finds themselves dealing with this very situation.

Here’s what happened.

“we just followed the rules»

Working in IT, my friend and I had a decent gig.

Nothing crazy, just coding and fixing bugs, as usual.

Our manager? Let’s call her Karen.

She had her rules, sure, but nothing too wild.

Until one day, she dropped the “new policy.”

“No more working on multiple tasks at once,” she said. “Focus on one thing at a time, complete it, then move on.”

On paper, it made sense.

Less context switching, more efficiency.

In reality, though, it was an absolute nightmare.

They tried to tell her.

We tried to explain. “Hey, sometimes we need to switch while waiting on approvals or testing.”

She shut us down. “No, stick to the task. no exceptions.”

Okay then.

A week in, tickets piled up.

We were stuck waiting for feedback with nothing to do.

Customers got mad. Deadlines slipped.

We tried talking to her again, “Look, this isn’t working—”

“You’re just not adapting,” she snapped.

With no other choice, they adapted.

So we adapted by doing exactly what she wanted.

No multitasking.

If we hit a block, we sat there.

No side tasks, no quick fixes.

Just… waiting.

Then the backlog exploded.

Managers higher up noticed.

Clients complained.

One day, Karen got called into a meeting.

She came back looking… different.

Next morning? Email from HR.

Unfortunately for her, things didn’t work out so well.

She was out.

The new manager came in, and the first thing he said?

“Hey, so you guys work how you used to, yeah?”

Yeah. We do.

Wow! It makes you wonder if she had ever been a manager before.

Let’s check out what the readers over at Reddit have to say about this.

This person gets it.

Here’s someone who could never just focus on one task.

According to this person, they’d have enjoyed it.

This person dealt with a similar experience.

That will teach her!

What a terrible idea for a new policy.

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.