Today is sort of an auspicious day for a blog to start. It’s the start of Occupy MN today, it’s Friday, I’m at Bordertown. Sounds pretty good to me.

While I don’t want this to be a ranty blog, I might do a bit today because I just received this email:

{} indicates where I took out identifying info.

Until you hear otherwise, please forward me draft copies of all emails to our customers at the various {} offices, with a cc’ to B{}. Region wide we are trying to improve our communications w {} and this will also give us a good teaching opportunity to review some of your client communications and offer some perspective on  the items discussed with them. Our reviews of emails will be prompt. If one of us is out on leave, you may proceed with comments/review from just one of us. We all need to make sure this does not critically effect timely communications.

Please note that this is in no way a result of an unfortunate incident or a reflection on any one’s performance. It is an area we are going to focus on and try and improve and advise on for the next few months.

Micromanagement much? It’s like the supervisors at my office have nothing to do. I understand that there are some sensitive communications that deserve more attention and review, but to say that every email should be pre-read by my supervisors (even ones that are like ‘per our conversation earlier today, we will be meeting at [place] at [time] on [date].’) is rather condescending and implies that they don’t think we’re capable of writing our own emails, and further seems like a huge waste of management time. This just proves that we have too many managers, so much administrative bloat.

I don’t believe that it’s not a result of an unfortunate incident or a reflection on performance since it comes right after two such incidents and poor performances, not on my part, but on the parts of my coworkers. The first was several weeks ago when a small project blew up over email. The second was more recent when a sensitive email was sent to a prominent client in ALL CAPS. It’s like they don’t know how to use the internet.

I think I know how to write a professional and polite email, and I think my work thus far has proven just that. If they didn’t think I had that ability, then why did they hire me in the first place? Plus, when I have a sensitive email I usually have someone else on my team review it anyway, so this just makes the managers review all of my more mundane emails too.

In conclusion, this email was insulting and proof of my agency’s great efforts at micromanagement. There are many more examples, but I’ll save those for a later date!