Clandestine trashcan searches, snackless hell and other humiliations at the hands of a Really Bad Boss

One of my previous employers had a no eating at the desk rule.  Since no one likes to call a business and be greeted with the sounds of a customer service rep polishing off the remains of her barbeque chicken and rib combo, I had no problem with the rule.  It made sense…for the employees whose job it was to answer the phones.    For the rest of us, it felt like just another rule that 1) penalized all employees for the unprofessional behavior of a handful and, 2) reminded us that we were being managed by people who had nothing better to do than spy on the contents of employees’ trashcans.  

Each morning and afternoon, managers took turns walking down the cubicle lined aisles, peeking into trashcans for any sign of unauthorized snack consumption. Being a government agency with precise, militarily timed breaks of 15 minutes each, if you happened to be hungry at any other time than 11:15 am and 2:15 pm every day, you were stuck in a snackless hell.  So, as adults who are treated like children often do, we disregarded the rule and with childlike fervor became adept at sneaking snacks into our work areas, masking our defiance and coming to the aid of fellow snack bandits with perfectly orchestrated hand signals and turret like outbursts.

It was in the midst of a particularly harrowing snack sneaking session, in which I had been balancing a bag of potato chips on my knees while tapping out Morse code signals and flashing gang signs to fellow colleagues, that it dawned on me that I was an intelligent, talented adult, and not, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, a five year old. How had it come to this? How had I allowed snack espionage to become the highlight of my day?

Which brings me to my point.  When you routinely treat adults like children, they begin acting like them.  There are managers that will argue that if employees just did what they were supposed to, management wouldn’t need to create silly rules in the first place.  I agree that there are some employees (like the one in our office who tried to eat an entire pizza at her desk) who just don’t get it, and never will.  But we didn’t hire them, you did.  You created and/or contributed to your own management nightmare, so go manage it! And for the record, walking from desk to desk peeking into trashcans, is not managing it. Managing it would look like hiring the right people in the first place.  It would entail pulling the offending employees aside and addressing their offenses with them.  It would involve highlighting the people who are doing it right,  and, it would mean trusting the employees you’ve hired enough so that you don’t micromanage them to within an inch of their lives. 

The next time you’re tempted to do a clandestine trashcan inspection, think about the rest of us.   Think about the 95% of us who’ve known since we were about six years old that answering the phone with a mouth full of food is not ok.  Think about the 95% whose morale and motivation get knocked down a peg every time you devise another rule that screams “Look at me, I’m their manager, I can make them do anything!”  A well managed office won’t need a bunch of ridiculous over the top rules and a hall monitor to make sure things are running smoothly.  But, if yours does, whose fault is that?

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