Boss Tells Employee to CC Her Into Every Email, Doesn't Go As Planned
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
A manager's attempt at increased transparency by demanding to be CC'd on every client email appears to have backfired spectacularly.
In a Reddit post, the woman's employee exposed her boss's shortcomings by simply following instructions. Since the post was published, it has received 38,000 upvotes. Newsweek spoke to Thomas Roulet, professor at the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School, about the situation the poster described and what he advises for the employee, who works in client services.
"My manager isn't super involved, but last month, she goes 'Can you CC me on every client email? Just for transparency,'" the poster, u/Mysterious-Notice500, wrote. "So, I CC'd her on literally everything, including the emails where clients asked why she missed their meeting, or where I had to explain delays from her not sending over files."
Stock photo: A woman works on her laptop in the office.
Stock photo: A woman works on her laptop in the office.
Daniel deThe strategy quickly bore fruit. Several days later, the poster's manager began replying to emails with, "Let's take this offline." And she hasn't brought up CC-ing since.
The Reddit community lauded the employee's approach.
"This is the way," one person commented. "No lies or deception, just illuminating the ugly, painful truth."
Another had a similar story to share. "I worked for a guy who treated all of our customers (and, well, our staff) like he was a king, and we were just his lowly peasants," they wrote. "He pulled the 'copy me on everything' crap, and when I told a customer that we were late arriving because the manager had sent us on another errand first, the manager told me I wasn't allowed to talk to customers anymore. Talking to customers was a majority of my job."
A third Redditor empathized.
"Do we have the same manager?" they wrote. "She brags she doesn't micromanage, but she doesn't want us to talk to any other department, if possible, without going through her. She's horrible at timely responses because she has created so much work for herself."
An Expert Weighs In
Newsweek spoke to Roulet, chair in Organizational Sociology and Leadership at Judge Business School, about his take on the incident.
"I love that Reddit story," he began. "It is definitely a case of micro-management that backfires. The employee was totally right to go along, and it served them well as it exposed the shortcomings of their managers—not only that they were micro-managers, but that they were also not that diligent."
He added that this transparent system would also help protect the employee from misplaced blame on the clients' behalf.
Roulet also shed light on the often-paradoxical nature of micromanagers.
"Surprisingly, micro-managers, who are basically bad at delegating and trusting other to do good work, are often overwhelmed and struggle to fulfil their most basic work duties," he said. "The worse of them would blame it on others, leading to a high level of toxicity in the workplace, or on overwork—which is why it is a good strategy for the employees to go along to protect themselves."
Newsweek reached out to u/Mysterious-Notice500 for comment via Reddit.
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