Updated September 2026: in 2021 I vented here about a manager who kept inventing extra work and checking on me every hour. I have rewritten it as a practical guide to working under micromanagement, which is more useful than the complaint was.
In 2021 I was assigned to a large opportunity with my manager, and it went wrong from the first day. He produced ten ideas where the onsite team wanted three simple tasks, and he called every hour to check progress, adding a new task each time. By the end of the first week I was doing twice the work for none of the credit.
Why do managers micromanage?
Usually because they are anxious about an outcome they will be judged on and do not yet trust the information reaching them. Some also want to be seen as the source of ideas. Neither is about you personally, which matters, because the fixes that work target the anxiety and the visibility, not the person.
How do you reduce the hourly check-ins?
Give updates before they are asked for. A short message at fixed times, say late morning and end of day, listing what is done, what is next and anything blocked, answers the question the manager keeps calling to ask. Most micromanagers relax once status reaches them predictably. If they still call, refer back to the last update: "Nothing has changed since my 12 pm note; next update at 5."
What do you do about pointless extra tasks?
- Tie every task back to the client's ask. When a new idea arrives, ask which of the onsite team's requirements it serves.
- Make trade-offs explicit. "I can do this, but it pushes the pricing sheet to tomorrow. Which comes first?"
- Park good ideas instead of rejecting them. A "later" list keeps the manager's ideas visible without letting them take over the week.
In my case, the onsite team kept acknowledging the extras and then asking for the plain tasks they had wanted all along. That pattern, pointed out politely with the emails attached, is a stronger argument than any complaint about workload.
When should you take it further?
If the behaviour continues for weeks, affects your health, or starts showing up in how your work is rated, keep a short record of dates, requests and hours. Then raise it with your manager directly first, and with a skip-level or HR if nothing changes. Stay factual: the hours and the redundant work, not his character.
What I learned from that opportunity
Reacting to each call and each new idea is exhausting. Scheduled updates and asking "which comes first" take less effort than the resentment does. And when a manager does not change after a fair attempt, that is useful information about whether the team is the right place to stay.
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