Micro-Managing in The Workplace

[grizzled sigil]

Have any of you ever had a boss who micro-manages? How did or do you deal appropriately with them?

I currently work retail and have a customer service manager who irritates me (and others) with her attitude. Sometimes, the things she tells me to do are annoying, but make a degree of sense: for example, not opening a coin roll till all coins are empty. (makes counting at end of the day easier/prevents quick change scam artists.)

Sometimes, they are outside of my job description. (Asking a 4 year old child/his parent if he had taken a spiderman doll off the shelf when I didn't ACTIVELY see him do it and said doll had no tag. Per company policy, I can only ask customers if they have a reciept for items, and check carts. I will not call out to them if they are halfway out the door, esp if I didn't see it happen. That is a MANAGER'S JOB.)

Sometimes, it's rediculous. This most recent shift, she told me I couldn't fold long reciepts in half to hand to the customer. And she got irritated when I dusted the baseboards after close (even though I am asked to do this most nights) because she had just swept the floor. She grumbled that i was supposed to do it 'in between customers'

I try to be very neutral and agreeable, but this behavior, combined with low hours, makes me not want to work there. I'm too old to actively react to her nonsense. But, I also feel the need to speak up....

I know jobs in Comp Sci and programming can be really demanding, so I'm wondering if anyone had a similar situation and how they dealt with it.

[edgy badger]

I dealt with a difficult manager aswell (aka making me do a job that i shouldnt do)

In my apprenticeship i was looking for a department to stay at and they told me i could do backend stuff and set up everything (cus it was a new project) but in the end i shouldve "helped" my peers aka act as a supervisor even tho im not and should teach the others basic things (like github) cus i was the most advanced programmer

I just went to my manager and talked w him and i switched department last minute

In ur case i would do the same Just talk to her and tell her the issue and at the same time give her some advice on how to "improve" this habit

If she doesnt cooperate or judges u etc. I would go to her manager and talk about it and either switch departments or switch companies cus that shouldnt be the norm

Tbf i live in germany and here we tell people pretty directly if we dont like smth and find a way to work it out but i also know in other culters (japan, uk etc.) People arent as direct as germans so js find a good nice way to tell her what shes doing and offer her to help w this habit

Hope that helps :D