When a new boss comes into a department, they typically want to make changes just to assert their authority, even if it doesn’t help anyone.

What would you do if your new boss demanded that you email her on every little thing that you did each day?

That is what the employee in this story’s boss demanded, but she couldn’t keep up on every email so she missed some important items, which ended up getting her written up.

Check it out.

You want me to email you everything? Sure!

So this is from back when I was in college.

I was working a job on campus and my manager moved on to a different organization and was replaced by someone else who we’ll call “Karen.”

Now our team of 10 students worked super well, very efficient, and got everything as expected.

Karen comes in and decides that the team needs to change the way we work.

So, she makes massive changes and makes our lives harder, but it’s all part of the job and we deal with it.

Karen sees him as a threat.

Also, I was the unofficial leader of the team and constantly advocated for my team.

We were close and we knew what worked for each of us.

And the rest of the team looked to me as a leader.

So, obviously Karen hated me because I’d advocate against stupid policies that had no benefit but only made our life harder.

Each of us had a weekly 1-on-1 meeting with Karen to discuss the stuff we got done, needed to get done, etc.

As always, I went in with an agenda, made sure she got all the updates I had, made sure she answered all my questions, made sure I answered all her questions, and then ensured I had a 5 minute space at the end for her to discuss anything she had to talk to me about.

She is being intentionally difficult.

2 weeks into the changes, she tells me that I have not been updating her properly.

Surprised, I ask her what updates I didn’t give and as she lists it out I point to the agendas of our previous 2 meetings and show her that I did discuss it.

She says that verbal updates aren’t acceptable and I need to email them to her.

I am confused but I know how to pick my battles and agree to it.

In fact, she writes me up for not properly communicating with her, not giving her updates, and not keeping her in the loop about my work so I am mad.

After the meeting I check with my team and this isn’t the setup for anyone.

Everyone gives her verbal updates and sometimes emails them but there’s no real rule for it to be in email every time.

So, I decide to follow her policies as she stated.

That evening, I send her a long email with the details of everything I got done over the last 2 weeks.

The next day onwards, every day when I clock in, I send her an email with my tasks for the day.

As I complete tasks, I update her via email, and if I’m stuck on something, update her on that too.

I cc her on all the emails I send and also send her an email at the end of the day with what I didn’t get done.

Her demands actually make his life easier.

Now this doesn’t take my long because I write most of these emails in my own tracker so it’s just a matter of copy-paste.

However, when writing in my tracker I do it on my time, but since this is a work related task I must do it on the clock.

So not only is she getting approximately 15 emails a day from me, she also is paying me for about 1 extra hour each day (this matters later).

Given how new Karen is, she doesn’t realize that I have built a mini network with some of her colleagues given my time in this job and I find out that Karen now has a habit of ignoring all emails from me (also matters later).

I don’t care about it because I’m now getting paid for stuff I was doing on my own time.

Hopefully he can make everything run smoothly.

A couple of months or so later, our department has to host an event.

The tasks are divided and all is good.

The 2 tasks I have are to manage the food for all the guests and to provide parking tickets to the guests in advance (large university -> parking office is a pain to work with).

I get the parking done and then I focus on the food the week before the event because we only got final confirmations then.

I realize that there are several guests who have various dietary restrictions.

I also am suddenly told that a few of the gusts are in wheelchairs (they told me that because they needed specific parking spots) but our venue is not accessible.

Given the importance of this, I immediately email her.

But knowing that she ignores my emails, I cc the parking team (to ensure they have a consolidated list because Karen obviously won’t send it), and the person managing guests during the event so they know to ask Karen about the special meals when the guests arrive.

He could have gone right to her, but why bother.

We don’t have any more 1-on-1s before the event so I try to figure out how to tell her to make sure the guests aren’t affected.

I try to schedule a meeting with her but given that she’s ignoring my emails, she is also ignoring all my meeting requests.

So, I give up and decide to enjoy the fireworks during the event.

(The reason I need to talk to her is that I need the budget increased to accommodate these multiple dietary restrictions. Gluten Free meals + Nut free meals meals all really add up and we were at the max of my permitted budget already. Essentially we had a meal budget of say $20/person but these special meals costed $25/person).

One thing that makes doing this difficult for me is that as much as I hate Karen, I do not have the ability to let that hate for Karen affect other people.

So I spoke to facilities to get a ramp kept in the backroom for the wheelchairs and found that about 5 of the people coming had not picked meals so we didn’t have to offer them meals.

Got the caterers to set it up so we could provide a reduced offering to those 5 while ensuring that the gluten and nut free meals were available for those who had asked.

I bet she was freaking out.

Day of the event, the guests in wheelchairs arrive and are stuck at the entry to the event that has 3 steps.

Given that I am managing the food, no one thinks to blame me so Karen is frantically running around trying to find someone to throw under the bus because her boss is chewing her out.

Then I hear the words “gluten intolerant.” 20 seconds later Karen and her boss are in my face ready to chew me out.

I was fully prepared for this and the conversation went something like this:

Karen+Boss: Didn’t you know we have people who cannot eat either of the standard meals?

Me: Yes I did. I emailed you about it because we needed to increase the meal budget to accommodate that. Did you not speak to the caterers?

K: I didn’t get any such email

(While her boss gives her a look)

He brought the proof.

Me: I sent it to you. See? (Shows the email on my phone)

Boss: Karen?

K (In literal tears because this is event her Boss’ baby and people have gotten in a lot of trouble over messing up this event): But you didn’t send it to me. Did you?

Boss (very mad): What do we do now?

Me: Let me figure something out. Also I see people in wheelchairs, what’re we doing about them?

Boss: No clue, we’re trying to figure it out.

He is ready to shine.

Me: I’ll take care of that too.

*10 minutes later*

Me to Boss: I got facilities to give us a ramp that we’re putting by the stairs for the guests in a wheelchair. And I spoke to the caterers and we’ll have the gluten free and nut free meals ready.

Boss (to me): Thanks

Finally, some justice.

2 days later I had my 1-on-1 with Karen.

Surprisingly her boss was there. Lo and behold, Karen got written up, my write up was removed, Karen stopped trying to mess with me and the entire team now has laughs every time we mention a gluten allergy.

Karen got exactly what she deserved.

Why do so many bosses think they need to be in the loop on every little thing, then ignore the things they should be working on.

Let’s see what the people in the comments say about this.

Why do they think this is a good idea?

Yup, he set her up and let her ruin her own career.

This person loved how he handled the new boss.

This was perfectly planned out.

This commenter loved the story.

How is it that people like this get promoted to manager?

Such a waste, but this guy handled her perfectly.

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.