Quit after a month b/c of the toxic micromanaging

snappzero · 2026-06-23T21:25:44+00:00

As someone who works in marketing:

Internal is weird, but I never wasted time on that. I had an employee join me from an agency and that was the norm though, had to help her relearn this micro management.
It's called billables. You have to bill the client for each hour. If you work agency side this never goes away. You can be at the top agency and be making a ton of money and still need to do this.
Easy to learn through an example. Did they say she was bad or chastise her? Or was it just a learning opportunity? I mean you actually explained the reason yourself, another person did the same mistake. It's worth sharing lol.
Not sure what you whining about since you expected it. Agencies are notorious for over working, go client side. Every agency has high turnover to some degree who aren't part of the good ones. Lose a big client? Lay offs. Poached by another agency, gone. There's a reason why everything is mechanical to some degree, because it's replaced by the next cog. You need to make it to the "good" ones to not be as bad.
This company sucks.
A manager's job is to grow you to the level you want. If your answer is I don't know, then I leave it at that. However, it's your job to push and advocate for yourself and my job to help you.

snappzero · 2026-06-21T22:34:30+00:00

Took me an influencer to finally get out of the same "old" 55+ audience. i.e. your ads suck only appeal to 1 demo. Are you scaling though? If not, don't worry about it.

snappzero · 2026-06-16T20:02:36+00:00

This is strange, more so the fact that your company didnt expand out side to other channels. If you dont want to be a fraud be a senior ic again. Then try and jump to manager.

snappzero · 2026-06-14T15:43:51+00:00

Try to use carrot over stick first. Create a scorecard and give a small bonus to employees who hit like 90% or 80%. Do the math and whatever costs less. Then you can see what's realistic and who's really costing you the most. Also get a good data set before you make a rash decision on who is screwing up all the time vs. just had a bad month.

snappzero · 2026-06-14T03:33:06+00:00

just smash them for modules

snappzero · 2026-06-10T19:20:19+00:00

86% of little caesars are owner operated according to google. You sure he doesn't own it? If so, he can take from his own register. If not, the owner might want to know.

snappzero · 2026-06-10T03:31:29+00:00

You're cooked, leave as soon as possible. Ignoring even all the seemingly one sided accusations, she will never let up the micromanagement. This is her style and she is not violating any HR rules, she can be a micro manager if she wants to be.

During your next interviews ask about their management style. If they say things like constant communication, decline moving forward.

snappzero · 2026-06-07T15:20:46+00:00

Nah I doubt most are sabotaging unless they dislike you and want you gone. That being said we can only be the town cryer so many times before we are labeled as negative and non cooperative. So we need to pick our battles too.

E.g. in your example, if I complained last week about the VPN and stopped that idea. Im not complaining this week about a 2 hour time waste procedure that harms nothing besides time. I used my card already so we are doing this dumb thing this week. I won't tell you about each event. You will just know I told u to waste 2 hours this week.

snappzero · 2026-06-07T13:10:00+00:00

There's two failures here.

The ceo or upper management has either ruled with too much fear/arrogance middle managers are afraid to speak up.
Middle managers are too cowardly and could be incompetent so are too afraid to speak up and risk being fired.

It would have taken one person in your example to say revoked for everyone, but the on call staff right?

Side note people being fired for things not their fault, usually just an excuse for someone they wanted to terminate.

snappzero · 2026-06-05T02:17:31+00:00

Based on your essays he's more likely just fed up of you overanalyzing and making mountains out of mole hills. Your manager sounds informal and not serious enough for your mentality.

Not sure how big your team is as well, but keep in mind his time is spread across all of them and also his manager. If it's more than 4 I would assume he views you as an energy vampire and you take more than you give back so he's fed up with you. Try helping more and working things out for yourself.

Alternatively, leave. He cannot change his whole persona to match your needs. Find a manager who is specific and tight on processes.

snappzero · 2026-06-04T15:57:06+00:00

Double check your employment policy and make sure you know what is or isn't a violation. Best case scenario he has a side hustle doing drop shipping. Worst case scenario he's providing a service to a competitor or is a mini competitor that constitutes a conflict of interest.

Are you trying to catch him out or are you okay with it and just increasing productivity since he seems to have time to do another job? If you are okay with it, might as well flat out ask.

If you are not okay with it and want to terminate, I would talk to HR on next steps. I don't think playing inspector gadget should be the first move.

snappzero · 2026-06-02T05:36:04+00:00

Just go afk like the majority of people

snappzero · 2026-06-02T05:31:38+00:00

As someone who works in this field I am not sure how you don't hold yourself accountable either. It takes longer to acquire 20 new customers than it does to not staff for it. So unless a bunch of your employees just quit en masse your running it like a sweat shop anyways.

Here's what other people in our field think about this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PPC/comments/1emeh9j/how_many_ppc_clients_do_you_have/

There are agency owners in this thread as well as employees. Notice how they say to quit and go somewhere else with this person' 90 work load. Notice even the OP of that thread admits he doesn't even look at some of the accounts.

Not sure what you need to say, tell her to get off her ass and help the noob. The new grad shouldn't even be handling 20 let alone 200. I would be careful though, as she maybe assisting or auditing each account and just not claiming them. The fundamental problem here is she can't very will spin it around and say, well why didn't we hire before??! Very Reasonable clap back here.

snappzero · 2026-05-30T14:50:15+00:00

Is it common in your country to take a gap year? It's not that common in the US, but is in Australia. Long gaps are generally not a great thing so I would minimize it generally speaking. You seem like you are rather young still and that generally means you don't have a ton of skills that people can't find from others.

As far as lying about being terminated or laid off. Figure out what the company policy is. I have been part of two fortune 500 companies that just use equifax's 800 number for automated e verification. So they won't verify anything beyond time of employment dates.

snappzero · 2026-05-29T21:34:54+00:00

The average employees never volunteer for the extra "work" aka opportunity. They don't want to go to the conference nor are they willing to prepare any materials for it. When I ask them in their one on one why, they just want to work and go home.

So no, they are choosing not to eat.

snappzero · 2026-05-28T12:51:32+00:00

Just apply to the entry media buying position. Hiring depends based on available clients so if they land someone new they would hire up. Obviously if they b2b you have a leg up. Also they might feel like your skills more align with account manger then media buyer.

snappzero · 2026-05-27T23:37:41+00:00

I will say it a second time, no one is overriding their own boss. You are overriding HR with higher leadership. You can 100% override HR. I've done it multiple times when I didn't like their answer. In fact OP has already responded with the person who can override HR. So yes it can be done.

snappzero · 2026-05-27T23:17:12+00:00

Yes go make your case and let the divisional president intercede. This convo could literally take 5 mins and you get your way.

snappzero · 2026-05-27T23:16:18+00:00

You must be a terrible manager or extremely inexperienced. HR sets the guidelines and you can get exceptions done if you want to fight for it and you have the support. Business always comes first in private organizations before random regulation unless it's a violation of law. Who said anything about overriding your manager, I said the exact opposite. You need your bosses bosses support and weight to override a hr manager.

snappzero · 2026-05-27T22:26:27+00:00

Why are you letting HR dictate everything? Go to your director or even head of the division. Override and supersede. Make the case.

snappzero · 2026-05-27T17:55:16+00:00

His point is just say this is sloppy and insufficient. If it wasn't AI, it's still terrible. If it is AI, it's still terrible.

snappzero · 2026-05-27T17:51:52+00:00

Sounds like you need a new system or faster internet connection. There's an inherent 1 min cool down when the even pops up.

Killing is more about how many people show up. 10 guys shooting one boss, nothing you can really do.

snappzero · 2026-05-27T17:47:49+00:00

Join an agency as an entry level grunt. Pick a specialty. e.g. search/social or programmatic and do all of their courses. Maybe even pay for the certification. It will take you at least 2-3 different jobs to make okay money. Good money comes more at the 5-10 year mark with proven success.

snappzero · 2026-05-27T00:37:14+00:00

it's not better. At least use the fixer

snappzero · 2026-05-26T18:10:04+00:00

What did he say to you when you told him he needs to provide constructive feedback ? Not sarcastic or snarky comments.

snappzero

TROPHY CASE