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Bosses and employees are supposed to build a rapport together, but the employee in this story quickly realized how little her boss trusted her to operate independently.

One employee spent five years working remotely without a single complaint about her online status.

Then came a new role, one flexible remote day a week, and a message from her boss nine minutes into a lunch break asking if everything was okay. The reason: an 11 extra minutes after the official break had ended.

Instead of being cool or understanding, that small delay was enough to trigger a new rule requiring advance notice for every future lunch.

Suddenly this employee was starting to feel like her every move was being scrutinized.

Keep reading for the full story.

being monitored at new job

Worked remotely for 5 years, and never once did my boss say something to me about my status being “away” for a period of time.

At my new job, we work remotely one day a week, and recently I was gone for my 30 minute lunch break for 41 minutes.

That’s when her boss started taking things a bit too far.

I took my break at 11am. My boss sent me a message at 11:09am.

When I returned to my laptop, I had messages asking if I was okay.

Suddenly her break time got a lot less lax than she was used to.

I told her I was on my lunch break, and she said that she asked because I was showing an away status for a while.

She told me that I need to tell her when I’m taking my lunch breaks from now on.

Now the employee is forced to repeat back every small detail.

I told her I went to use the bathroom and was away from my computer about 10 minutes longer than 30 minutes because I used the bathroom and got water after my break was over.

I’m worried this will set the stage for a hostile work relationship. How would you take it?

This isn’t the first time her boss has micromanaged her.

She also has scrutinized my email responses and told me that I should have included more or should have used different verbiage.

I’ve had many corporate jobs and been working since she was a toddler.

I just started, and if there’s a certain way that everyone has to follow in regards to email responses, then I should be given a template or some sort of training or guidelines.

Yikes — this sounds like a clear overstep on the boss’ part.

What did Reddit have to say?

This user points out that this behavior may just be part of being new.

If there’s an established duration for breaks, the employee has to abide by it, whether she likes it or not.

When surveillance meets AI, it makes for a pretty uncomfortable combination.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a researcher who complained about being excluded from a trip only to watch the university cancel the whole thing.

This commenter doesn’t really see the big deal.

An 11-minute gap after lunch shouldn’t be worthy of this much scrutiny, but every business runs differently.

If employers demand absolute rigidity from their employees, it isn’t exactly a recipe for employee efficiency.

At the end of the day, it seems like this boss cares a lot more about control than she does about following the rules.