Micromanaging boss banned engineer from talking to anyone — ends up getting almost fired by regional management
'Boss says I did not have the authority to answer the question...'
Some bosses can be extremely controlling. Take this boss, for instance, who discouraged employees from talking to people outside their company at work. However, when an ISO auditor learned about this bizarre rule set up by the boss, he made sure the boss learned a lesson he would never forget. Sharing the post on December 3, the Reddit user shared how malicious compliance with the boss's rule eventually backfired on him. The story has gained more than 1,000 upvotes on Reddit so far.
The Reddit user worked at an FAA facility and was in charge of repair and overhaul work. The job comes with repairing parts and involves interactions with customers, unlike other departments. However, the employee's boss was a control freak. "This boss came to us from the production side and did not understand why we were reactive in our work versus scheduled like production," the employee shared. A month later, when a customer had a specific question regarding a product that the employee was working on, they requested to speak to the person. However, when the technician brought the customer to speak to the employee, the boss became furious. "Boss says I did not have the authority to answer the question and that the customer should have been brought to him or Quality Assurance (QA). At the next morning stand up, boss reiterates to the entire group that no one is to talk to anyone not a part of our company without either boss or QA there for conversation," the employee explained.
They asked the boss about the new rule in writing and received a response immediately. Another month passes by, and the company is scheduled for an ISO 9001 audit. "The audit is scheduled, and somehow when the auditor is on the repair floor, no one is around but me, so naturally I get audited," they wrote. However, when the auditor began asking questions, the employee told him that he was not allowed to talk with people who did not belong to the company in the absence of his boss or QA. When the auditor digs deeper into the bizarre rule, the employee pulls out the email he had received in writing from the boss. The auditor thanks the employee and leaves. Funnily, during the next stand-up meeting, the boss apologized to the technicians and staff and scrapped the "no communication" rule. The employee later learnt that the boss was put on a performance improvement plan (PIP) for his behavior.
A 2025 report by Aslan M, Sönmez S and Deniz found that autocratic leadership can be associated with increased stress, especially when the workplace climate is poor. If it weren't for the timely intervention from the auditor, the employees would have suffered from entrapment at the workplace under the boss's controlling environment. Following the post going viral, many users shared their thoughts about the story. u/Cybermagetx wrote, "Danm. Your boss got chewed out for that for sure." u/Scenarioing commented, "'I asked for this in writing.' Control freaks are so oblivious to the fact that the sole entire purpose for the request is to use as a devastating and deserved takedown against them in the very near future... and that it will be a takedown entirely of their own making." u/Lylac_Krazy shared, "Boss on PIP? Time to rig the game."
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