Micromanaging

GMH1183 · June 2014

I need to vent and maybe for someone to put this into perspective for me. I started a new job about a month ago. My supervisor mentioned to me today that I need to copy him on all project related emails. All. This isn't just me though. He has all of his staff of about 15 people do this. He says it is so he can stay up to date on all projects and jump in if someone dies or quits or something.

Is this nuts? Or am I over reacting? I feel like i can't work with this micromanaging going on!

ricekez · June 2014

I had a boss like this once. I thought it was odd and didn't understand why he wanted a gazillion emails, but whatever works for him. Most my bosses have not cared or had time to read all my emails, but there was that one who wanted to be cc'd on everything.

GMH1183 · June 2014

It just feels like he doesn't trust his employees. At least it sounds like he is not the only one. But really, I send a lot of emails and it seems crazy to cc him on all of them.

Is there a good way around this? I don't want to be a rebel but I feel like saying "back off and let me do my job." We also have weekly progress updates and quarterly evals.

jesuisfatiguee · June 2014

I don't CC a supervisor, but I do CC the pre-sales person for whom I provide support. There are some emails I leave her off of (like pleasantries or something like that), but I CC her all order detail emails, which is MOST of my emails throughout the day.

GMH1183 · June 2014

At my previous company I had a set weekly checkin with my boss. He trusted me to handle my projects and come to him with questions. So I'm used to a more hands off approach.

GMH1183 · June 2014

He has only been a manager for less than a year so I don't know that it is company culture. I was recruited for this job by him personally so we have known each other for a long time. I don't know how others feel about it at this point or if they truly cc him on all correspondence.

But this really could be something that would get me to look for a new job. We are all professionals and I don't need my supervisor to be in on every single email. It doesn't seem like the right environment to empower employees to make good decisions.

jesuisfatiguee · June 2014

Is he following up on emails you send, or constantly asking questions? Or does he simply file them away?

I think if he's filing away it's NBD, but if he was bugging me all the time, or sending little critiques or whatever, that would definitely bother me.

GMH1183 · June 2014

I'm not sure what he will do with them. He just brought it up to me this morning in our team meeting. It seemed completely crazy to me so I posted here to see if this was more normal than I thought. Which maybe it is.

dashofreality · June 2014

My boss generally prefers his employees to copy him on every email. I do not. I was having issues where he would respond to an email he was cc'd on to customers within 10 minutes. He didn't always know everything going on and it drove me nuts. We had a discussion and I now only cc him on certain things. I will cc when things escalate or he needs to be aware. I'm also good about sending summary emails as an FYI so that he isn't blindsided.

I would have a discussion, but this wouldn't be a deal breaker for me.

cecilyandgautam · June 2014

When I first came on board, I was asked to CC my boss on any email going outside our immediate office. I knew the email traffic would be too much if I really did that, but I complied on all emails of substance anyway. I quickly picked up on the types of things my boss would feel blindsided by if she didn't know in full detail vs the minutiae of just getting the job done that would effectively be junk mail in anyone else's inbox.

So, I initially did comply with the request, to establish trust, but tapered off slowly to something more reasonable. Once my boss became more familiar with my work and I became more familiar with her preferences, it just naturally came to a reasonable equilibrium. Since you're still new, I'd go ahead, at least for the time being, and then scale back a bit when you're more established there.

Tink112011 · June 2014

K3am said:

Eh, with 15 people's emails going through him, he's probably not actually reading any of it. That's really, really annoying though.

And in all honesty, if someone dies or quits or whatever, your organization has the ability to provide him with access to that person's emails, so he can catch up that way.

Yup, we do minimal CCing at my work, and when someone leaves, an existing employees gets access to all their email files. Works out fine.

I would question my boss's productivity if they have enough time to read all their direct reports' emails

outnumbered · June 2014

This is not micromanaging. Cc him on the emails and let it go. I am not in a management position, but my husband is a manager. It is vital that he knows what is going on in all the projects he oversees. If he is called into a meeting and does not have a current status update it is his ass on the line and he looks incompetent.

ss+el · June 2014

As long as he just archiving them and not critiquing them, I would let it go. The only thing that would concern me is if he uses the information to take credit for your work, but that would depend on if it would even make sense for him to do so.

(I once had a manager that would take credit for my projects, right in front of me, fortunately I had the balls to call him on it)

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