I’ve heard it before.
The tale of the new boss who thinks the wheel needs to be reinvented.
In this case, a high performer tells the story of how they maliciously complied when his new boss kept going on and on about doing things as fast as possible despite the fact that errors could occur.
Let’s see how that worked out.
I’ve been working in my field for a while, and I’ve always taken pride in doing a thorough, reliable job.
I’m a high performer and had a solid track record with my previous bosses, who valued quality and consistency.
But then Eric became our new boss, and things took a hard turn.
Eric was all about efficiency.
“All about” efficiency quite literally, as we’ll see.
He came from a startup environment where things didn’t need to be perfect, just right AND fast! He wanted things done fast—even if it meant cutting corners.
In meetings, he’d throw around phrases like, “Time is money!” and “Every second counts!”
Sure, efficiency is important, but Eric took it to an extreme.
He didn’t care about the quality of our work; he just wanted it done now.
Nuances, quality checks, and double-checking went right out the window.
This is a huge risk for any company. But Eric didn’t care.
Then, he decided to implement a “Time Tracking and Output” policy.
This meant logging every task we worked on with specific time limits.
Anything taking longer than his arbitrary limits was flagged, and we’d have to explain ourselves in weekly “efficiency reviews.”
Essentially, the new rule was: don’t need to do it completely right—just do it fast.
Something bad was about to happen, but Eric didn’t listen to warnings.
I tried explaining to him that rushing through things would lead to mistakes, but Eric insisted this would “maximize productivity.”
Frustrated but willing to play by his rules, I decided I’d give him exactly what he asked for.
If Eric wanted speed, I’d deliver speed.
I stopped double-checking everything.
Tasks that normally took an hour to review and refine?
I was now completing in 15 minutes, barely glancing at them.
Documents that required analysis?
I’d throw some data together and call it a day.
Anything that usually got a thorough review now only got a quick, single pass—tops.
Just like the boss wanted, right?
Naturally, errors began cropping up.
Typos, incorrect numbers, misplaced data, bad presentations—mistakes were popping up everywhere.
But technically, I was working exactly within Eric’s time limits.
Eric was thrilled with how much faster I was working and started bragging in meetings about how “efficient” our team had become.
He was in for a surprise.
Then the clients started to notice.
One of our biggest accounts found a major error in a document I’d whipped together at record speed.
That led to an awkward phone call with Eric.
More issues came up, and after about two weeks of “optimized efficiency,” I got called into his office with his boss.
Eric, visibly irritated, asked me why the quality of my work had taken such a nosedive.
The nerve!
I calmly explained that I was meeting all of his time limits, exactly as instructed.
I told him that quality work requires time, which I simply didn’t have under his new policy.
Eric sat there in silence, realizing his policy had backfired.
Wow. Things were about to change.
His boss stared at him, completely stunned and red in the face.
After an awkward pause, Eric muttered about “re-evaluating” the time limits on tasks.
The “efficiency” policy quietly disappeared soon after.
Now, I’m back to doing my job properly.
Eric’s underperformance review and his boss is closely involved with all our operations, especially with big clients.
Why reinvent the wheel when things are working fine?
And why try to rein in the high performers to stamp your authority?
Power trips aren’t good for anyone involved.
Let’s see what Reddit has to say about this.
A reader keeps it short.
This commenter shares their point of view.
Another reader chimes in.
Very true.
That’s a good question to ask.
You can’t argue with that.
When did micromanaging high performers ever work?
You’d think people would have learned by now.
If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.
