Some people think they can get ahead at work by being absolutely insufferable and a lot of workers let them get away with it.

Check out a fabulous blueprint for handling one of these people.

Micromanagement isn’t cheap

I’m an IT consultant. Customers pay my employer for me (or my colleagues) to work on their IT systems.

It’s not cheap (around 1500 per day), but we’re good at what we do.

I also don’t bill hourly. I can’t imagine the friction that would cause for everyone, including me.

We bill by the “day,” which should technically be an 8 hour shift dedicated to a single customer, though in reality things are kinda fluid.

I might need to email or have a quick meeting with another customer during the day and make the time up elsewhere etc. All my customers understand this, and they trust me to get their work done/ not rip them off.

In 8 years, I’ve never had a complaint.

Unfortunately, an ego trip ruined their flow. Oof, I feel for this team!

I was midway through an 18-month project with a long-term client. We billed them 2 days a week, which pretty much lined up with the work I was doing for them. The project was progressing nicely and everyone was happy.

Then they hired a new project manager.

From the get go he was a nightmare and clearly wanted to throw his “authority” around/ show off for his new bosses.

Of course, none of his demands make sense.

He wanted to micromanage all my work.. putting in twice-daily meetings, constant emails, the works.

After a couple of weeks, he decided they weren’t getting their money’s worth and demanded a detailed breakdown of exactly how my time was being used.

Fine by me.

I’m rooting for this guy. What a legend!

I started tracking every single minute: Meetings he scheduled, emails he sent, time spent responding, time spent logging all of this.

The bill nearly doubled.

His director (who I had a good relationship with) called me directly to ask why costs had suddenly spiked.

This end is so satisfying to me. Yay!

I explained I was just following the new PM’s request for detailed time tracking and regular “updates.”

About 30 minutes later, we got an email saying we could go back to the previous arrangement and that the new guy had been “reallocated to another project.”

A few weeks later I noticed his account had been disabled.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who figured out how to stop his manager from constantly stealing his phone charger.

Here is what folks are saying.

Good point! I learned this the hard way.

This is exactly what I was thinking!

My fingers are crossed, let me tell you.

Hehe shocking, right?

Textbook! I hate it. It doesn’t even make sense.

Client’s new project manager is on an ego trip and wants everything documented, so OP complies and it doubles the client’s bill.

Manager moved out of that position.