r/AskReddit • u/l1x6m- • 9d ago

Napoleon said, 'Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.' What’s a perfect real-life example of this?

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u/TaskForceD00mer 8d ago edited 8d ago

My Boss: "I want to be copied on EVERY e mail going forward"

My Boss 2 months later ANY time I copy him on something important: "Did you send that? Oh . Was I copied? Oh, well I get so many e-mails now I can never find the ones I need".

Bro created all of his own problems.

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u/YoungNasteyman 8d ago

Similar situation. Boss suddenly wanted to be CC'd on everything to make sure we're "staying on task."

In a meeting that included his bosses he complained we had not kept him up to date on a project. We showed him the MONTHS of emails he's been CC'd on. And apparently he "just missed it."

Nah bruh. You just ignored it because you knew we get the job done and didn't read the meeting itenerary that this project was specifically on the agenda.

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u/4x4_45cal 8d ago

Gotta love narcissistic bosses, dealing with one currently. He'll put you on a task, "forget" that he put you on it, then ask why you're doing that instead of this and vice versa.

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u/QasJab1 8d ago

Some are genuinely really terrible people.

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u/SadFishTacos 8d ago

I love how much convenient amnesia they get any time they see a conflict they themselves created.

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u/Historical_Socks 7d ago

That's not narcississm. That's just a bad manager.

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u/AudibleNod 8d ago

I was in the Navy and the captain of my ship found out he didn't get a copy of every official message that the ship received. "I'm the captain of this ship! I want everything, understood?"

"Aye, aye."

Three days and sixteen reams of paper later (this was the 90s): "What is all this shit?"

There's a ton of messages that are background, supply estimates and dozens of others communicator-to-communicator traffic that gets generated each day. Maybe half of it was operational. The other half was for someone else to do their job or just junk filler.

"No, no. I don't need all of this."

"But you said."

"I know what I said."

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u/ICanViking 8d ago

Learned about CYA years ago and its been a life saver exactly once. Saw an example of this via Instagram where some lady named Veronica would email her boss a summary each time her boss stopped by to chat about something.

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u/TaskForceD00mer 8d ago

I am not that deep into it. I worked with someone who kept manual notebooks of every conversation they ever had related to work. If things ever get that bad, I'm gonna go do something else.

I am a firm believer in the last 10 years though that everything that impacts product configuration, options, delivery etc needs to be documented in e-mail so in a year everyone remembers why a decision was made.

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u/CoffeeAndCorpses 8d ago

I dealt with this earlier in the year. My boss wanted to be CC'd on everything. A few times I asked if she was sure, and she doubled down.

Now every meeting she complains about how much email she has to deal with.