Boss loved embarrassing employees by pointing out their errors via email — but only until she got a taste of her own medicine

What goes around comes back around, and Rosie, a micromanaging team member, realized it only after her coworker began pointing out her mistakes, just as she had done to others years back. The coworker (u/wakemeup3000) posted the story on Reddit on December 23. Rosie had been working for the company for a long time and loved pointing out others' mistakes. She dodged any position that would require her to do any actual work, but would always be eager to put someone else's mistakes in the spotlight. Rosie would often interfere with her coworkers' responsibilities, and if she found mistakes, she would immediately mail the person in question and copy the supervisor. "Things like typos, spreadsheets that didn't contain all the fields she thought should be given (even when there was no data for those fields)," the author explained. 

Rosie had become this one annoying coworker at the office who everyone hated, but nobody could complain because the supervisor allowed her to keep up her behavior. Life moved on, and the author joined another team. Years later, they found Rosie's name pop up. "The team she worked on was low on work, so she was put to do data entry for my current team when she finishes her tasks," they said. The author realized this was the best time to let Rosie taste her own medicine. Usually, they would fix any error they saw, but when it was Rosie's, they had to do everything she had done previously. Every time the author found mistakes, they would email Rosie, take a screenshot with a detailed reason justifying why it was wrong, and copy it to her supervisor. "Is Rosie happy? Probably not, but hey, she's the one who let me know years ago that we always CC the boss on mistakes," they concluded. 

Having a micromanaging boss or a colleague at the office is enough to discourage and distract you from work, often leading to reduced productivity. In fact, micromanaging is one of the top reasons why people quit their jobs. In his book, "My Way or the Highway: The Micromanagement Survival Guide," author Harry E. Chambers highlighted a survey in which over half (69%) of respondents reported considering changing jobs because of micromanagement, and another 36% actually quit because of it. In fact, 71% of respondents said micromanagement reduced their performance, and a majority (85%) said their morale was adversely affected. 

Meanwhile, reacting to the Reddit story, u/ok-standard6345 shared, "I have a Rosie at my work too. She sends screenshots and points out your mistakes as if your mistakes will derail everything, and the company will end in ruin. However, if you find a mistake she made, 'Oh, it's just a slip of the finger.'" u/sennyonelove commented, "I don't mind when people take issue with the quality of my work or point out my mistakes, as long as you do it to my face first. If I refuse to take the appropriate steps to fix the issue, then you can go to my manager. I hate people who go straight to a manager for the slightest issues, not realizing they're putting other people's livelihoods on the line when they do that. Or maybe that's why they're doing it."

u/donkeh101 said, "I worked with a young woman like this. She CC’d everyone in on anything that the Top Finance Manager, three levels up, didn’t need to know. It was so annoying. But then we had this Messenger chat thing, company-wide. This dingbat would update her 'status' to say 'It’s so boring today' or 'I hate everyone.' Like it was MSN. We watched it change for a week or so before we said anything. Dingbat got in trouble."

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