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Imagine working for a small company where the co-founders are the supervisors and are very involved in the daily tasks at the company. Would you be upset if one of these co-founders, who is basically your supervisor, micromanaged everything you did?

In this story, one woman is in this situation, and she is so fed up with one of the co-founders that she’s thinking about telling him how she feels about his micromanaging ways. She hasn’t been at the company very long and isn’t sure if she should speak up or not.

I think she should zip her lips, and if she hates it so much, start her job search. Keep reading for some examples of things this co-founder does that bother her and see how you think she should handle the situation.

WIBTAH if I gave honest feedback to my supervisor?

I (25 F) started a new job a few months back. I am working for a smaller tech start-up and happen to be the only female employee at the moment.

That’s fine, doesn’t bother me too much as the team is really nice and made me feel welcome right from the start.

The company belongs to 2 co-founders, who I will call Benny (35 M) and Toby (34 M).

The co-founders are very involved in the company.

Since the company is still quite small (less than 25 employees) most tasks are supervised by the 2 founders, everything from code to design to copywriting goes through them, which I understand to a degree since they want to make sure everything is aligned with their vision.

I have noticed that the number of changes they are requesting seems to be…a lot.

Benny will sometimes ask for specific changes that usually make sense (e.g. improving the runtime or if someone went off-book on the company’s color scheme for a design).

Toby, however, lets people iterate the smallest things 3-4 times. Sometimes things as small as an image caption for an Instagram post or a paragraph for our website (3 sentences). And even then, he will usually make quite a few changes himself before allowing it to be published/executed.

Here’s an example of something that annoyed her about Toby.

I have heard similar stories from other colleagues, but the other week he asked me for a design based on a similar template (grid photo collage basically). I sent him the draft and he said it “looks great, thanks, but could you exchange picture A for something more neutral?”

I said sure and sent him the new version.

He said thanks again and marked the task as done.

The image was uploaded a few hours later and I saw that he completely changed the order of the images again.

She hates feeling micromanged.

This happens with almost everything and it is honestly starting to irk me.

It feels like it doesn’t matter what we do or write or design, nothing is perfect until they’ve had their last go at it.

It has seriously impacted my motivation to work because it feels extremely micromanage-y.

I’ve also noticed that it happens less frequently with the guys or that Toby is more open to their suggestions.

Here’s another example of something she found frustrating.

The other week I made a suggestion for some code that I think the company would really benefit from and he said it was a good idea but they did not have the capacity right now.

I told him I could take care of it since I’ve done a similar implementation before and he just said “We’ll see”.

Which I guess is fair (??), but people (and I) WOULD have time for this kinda stuff if we didn’t have to do everything 2-4 times before they, and especially Toby, are happy.

WIBTAH if I told him that he is micromanaging us and it is not good for us as a team nor beneficial to our motivation to work? I haven’t been with the company for super long, but I am currently quite frustrated.

Look, it’s partially Toby’s company. If he wants to put his fingerprints all over every single thing before publishing it, so be it. If she doesn’t like it, she can look for another job.

Let’s see if Reddit agrees.

This person thinks it would be okay for her to tell him how she feels.

Another person says feedback works both ways.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who makes his boss regret firing him for failing to take the blame for someone else’s error.

This person suggests talking to Benny instead.

He’s not just her boss. He’s also the co-founder. Since it’s his company, he probably has a very specific vision, and he’s having trouble trusting his employees to follow through with that vision in the same way he would.

I understand why she’s frustrated, but she might just have to accept that this is what it’s like working for Toby. She could try talking to Benny about it. That might help, but it also might not.

If she hates being micromanaged, she needs to look for another job.