Why is new boss being such a knob?

[Buggeroffboss]

Our old boss took ill suddenly in December last year and died shortly after. They been the boss for 20+ years, so appreciate we were all very used to them.

Following their illness I became interim boss. In April I was offered the role permanently but declined as it would mean returning to full time work. I'm bitterly regretting not taking it due to new boss!

We're a remote team, have been since many years before COVID. New boss clearly hates remote working. We do have an office, but it seats 10 people and us open to the whole business (approx 300 people) not just our department (40 people). New boss wants everyone in the office 2 days a week. HR have told him to go whistle - we are all on remote contracts and live across the whole of the UK, including channel Islands and 2 in France!

New boss is now insisting we schedule any "coffee breaks" (you know, where you brew up between meetings) and that under no circumstances are we to appear on screen with tea/ coffee if it isn't adjacent to our scheduled break. In addition he's put an embargo on lunch time errands, such as laundry, popping to the post office or collecting the car from the garage. All time is to be accounted for.

As you can imagine, morale has gone down the pan. We're a high performing department, there is 0 issues with productivity. Our work is largely invisible most of the time, lots of thinking time and idea generation which makes monitoring our day to day workloads difficult, but we always exceed our targets at quarter and year ends - so people are clearly working. In the 6 weeks he's been in there's been a noticeable change in how people are working, fewer people on early or late, most just working to their hours.

AIBU to think he's being a bit of a dick and just needs to chill the fuck out?

Unless you recruit within your current workforce who are all familiar with the way of working, I think you will struggle with any new manager coming in. It would be very difficult for a new person to be comfortable with this amount of liberties and trust required when you don't know anyone who you are supposedly managing. I think BB and anyone else in the recruitment process would have to make it abundantly clear that this is the current culture which is encouraged and allowed. If I was being interviewed for this and informed that everyone wfh and is allowed to work how they wish I would seriously wonder why you are looking at recruiting externally rather than promoting from within. Surely, you have at least one (ft) person who would be willing and able to step up and then recruit for their position instead.

@Buggeroffboss is there anyone you can job-share with? Hell, I'll come and job-share with you - it sounds like a fantastic company, and you sound like a fabulous employee and manager.

Tbh what OP is describing aligns with the policies and expectations of my last 5 companies. I'd expect any incoming manager to read the company handbook and check any big changes with their manager before following through with a new way of work.

I'm a manager too - outside of a call centre, I've never seen this level of petty micromanagement. In fact there is so much research backing the benefits of flexibility and allowing your workforce to take regular breaks, it sounds like this guy has never bothered to learn how to effectively manage people!

Sounds to me like HR might have his measure. Raise with them all these silly rules to test if the company is directing him or if it's him.

I personally think it's him. He needs to be given a job to do take his eye off meddling, better still, the company need to recognise they've made a bad hire and get rid of him.

Yes, my last 2 companies were very similar and do is DHs. I am aware others are not so flexible but it doesn't seem exactly rare to me, but maybe it's because we know people in similar industries.

This is part of the reason I accepted my bosses offer to move from interim to permanent manager for my team.

I really had no desire to go back to managing people, but I looked at the rest of the team and just knew I would do a better job of it than most of them (which my boss strongly agreed with). I also had no desire to take the risk of potentially ruin the last few years before I retire with a new manager with little knowledge and something to prove.

I keep reminding myself of these reasons whenever the myriad management related job irritations get to me

I also took the FT job as 4 days a week. It ia definitely hard to do in 4 days and I sometimes do extra hours but the flexibility of being entitled to that day off suits me. I am ok with working around 4.5 days a week most weeks.on average but being paid 4. It certainly suits my employer too. I still get a good salary

You all to start drinking your water out of tea cups and mugs...that will drive him mad altogether.