I’m a Micromanager and This Is What I Do in a Workday

The best part of my job as a middle manager is helping my team reach their full potential – a responsibility only I can handle.

5:00 AM - Wake up early to check Slack and emails. Send one word replies to any questions from direct reports.

6:00 AM - Hit the gym. Make sure to find at least three strangers to provide unsolicited feedback about their bad form. 

7:00 AM - Shower and get ready for the day. Leave another note on the mirror reminding my wife to put the toilet paper roll in the holder the right way. 

7:45 AM - Scroll through Slack again. Send a few “?” messages to keep the team on their toes.

8:03 AM - Leave home. Head to the local coffee shop to get my morning fix (I always buy local). Put in my coffee order. Take an extra 5 minutes to show the barista exactly how to make my drink the way I like it. 

8:15 AM - Drive to the coworking space. I always make sure to honk my horn at bad drivers as a public service for the other drivers on the road. You’re welcome.

8:29 AM - Log on to Slack one minute early. If you’re not early, you’re late. If you’re late, you’re getting reported. 

8:35 AM - Write up Annemarie for being late.

9:00 AM - First meeting of the day. This is the perfect opportunity to let my team know they aren’t performing up to par. I won’t give them details because I know they know where they’re falling short. It’s obvious.

9:28 AM - Give the team 2 minutes back in their day. They need it since they’re already behind on the new tasks I just assigned them. 

9:30 AM - Deep work: Scrolling through Asana to check the progress on the least important projects. Leave comments and ask for updates on each task. 

12:00 PM - Lunch break at my desk. I don’t do work during this time but I keep my Slack status set to “available” – you have to set a good example so the team won’t Slack off. 

1:00 PM - Send a couple of unannounced Slack Huddle requests just to check in on my team. I want them to know I’m always available to them during the workday.

1:13 PM - It’s annual review time, so I start pulling together my feedback for direct reports. It doesn’t take long because I’m very good at giving in-the-moment feedback to show them what they’re doing wrong and how to bring it up to my standards. I use ChatGPT to write the final drafts. AI is amazing and doesn’t mess up as much as humans. I make a note to remind my team of this.

2:00 PM - Therapy! I attend virtual therapy sessions every other week to decompress from the stress of work.

3:02 PM - Therapy was great. I learned a new concept that I can use with my direct reports: weaponized incompetence. I know they could perform at higher levels if they just followed my lead!

3:03 PM - Look through the calendars of my direct reports to see who they’re meeting with. Make a note to ask what they talked about in those meetings.

3:04 PM - Scratch that, they should be recording these calls and sending them to me. I won't watch them, but it's important that they think I might. I send a memo to the team via email and Slack. I request everyone use a thumbs up emoji to confirm they have seen the message. 

3:10 PM - Schedule 1:1 annual review meetings with my team. Send calendar invites for two weeks from now. I name the meeting “Your progress” and don’t include context – why would I?

3:27 PM - Time to add tasks to Asana! There’s so much work to be done, and I’m responsible for ensuring other team members do it. I always set the due date 3 days before it’s actually needed to create a false sense of urgency. A good manager knows how to motivate their team!

4:16 PM - I call the team to a mandatory last-minute meeting to touch base on what they accomplished today. I tell them where they need to apply their time and push up a few deadlines to EOD so projects can stay on track (even though they were already on track – it’s called psychology, look it up!).

4:32 PM - Set my status to Away. I have to run an errand I forgot to take care of yesterday. I stick around for a few minutes to make sure my direct reports are still online. There’s no reason for them to log off early when there’s so much to do by EOD.

4:36 PM - Leave for the day, but not before sending one final Slack to the whole team reminding them to do their work.