How a micro-/nano-manager (MNM) kills the creativity – An Example from my Personal Experience

When my MNM asked me to finish one month work in next one week, I was sure that the guy was going for a family vacation & he wanted to make sure that I didn’t get chance leaving the lab before working minimum of 10-12 h/day, which was my almost every day routine. In the meantime, we had been struggling to solve a specific problem for about two months. If we couldn’t solve, the project was going to fail. Since MNM pretend to know everything, whenever I used to design any experiment, he used to dump it and asked me to do thousands of things so that I didn’t get chance to do anything else.

I thought, since MNM was going for a vacation, I would focus on solving the pending problem with no distraction! I planned to do some experiments, which I thought might work! I knew he would be mad if I didn’t do what he was asking me to do. In addition to his suggested experiments, I conducted some extra trials based on my understanding about the project. During this labor extensive process, my junior colleague helped me a lot in organizing everything that we needed for running the experiments, monitoring it, collecting & analyzing the data.

One of the experiments that we tried gave even better result than what we were trying to achieve. We ran this experiment multiple times to make sure that it was reproducible and robust. After we felt confident, we kept all the data to show the NMM. My junior colleague, who joined us a few weeks ago, was very excited! I was also excited internally. I thought the MNM would understand that if I was given a bit space to apply my own brain, I could solve more critical problems.

After coming back from the vacation MNM looked energetic and I thought he was in good mood! He asked me to show the data that we collected during his absence. He went through everything and saw that I had solved the much-desired pending problem. Immediately, he started counting the time needed for each and every experiment that we ran, literally by hour and min. Then started saying “You didn’t stay in the lab enough time.”

Btw, he asked me to send every day’s update which I didn’t do to avoid distraction! Because I had seen his instability in thought process so many times after working for a few months! He used to change his own idea almost every moment. Many times, it had happened that he asked me to start an experiment and when I was in the middle of it, he came back said that it would not work and put another one! He used to try to prove that he was so dedicated that he was constantly thinking about the project. I started doubting his stability in thought process.

In R & D, one needs to think first, read the relevant literature, discuss with respective colleagues and then decide collectively what should be done and change, if needed, based on critical observations! Here MNM used to take most of the decisions, most of the cases with no discussion, especially with people of color. If he discussed, it would be 1:1 in a close door so that others didn’t know what a person of color like me said.

Countless time MNM displayed disrespectful and abusive behavior to me. I had always thought that he was under tremendous pressure (might be coming from his personal life and/or boss!) and cannot share with anybody. That’s why he found me as a soft target to release his anxiety/stress. But, when I observed his reaction, attitude and behavior after a critical success, I realized this guy was inherently racist, and master of discrimination. I have never seen this guy use a single tough word (forget about a bad or abusive word) when our white colleagues used to do any mistake, even if it was serious in nature.

 You might be thinking the MNM is at least not from same color/national origin (SCNO)! You are absolutely wrong! He is brown like me and originated from my home country. Some people in the company used to think that we were even brothers! Most of them didn’t know what I went through while working with that guy! This is a perfect example of Brown Racism in America! They generally don’t do this kind of activities with people from other countries. This class of people might have been abused by somebody else in the past, may be by their own parents, brothers and/or teachers. They strongly believe that they got this license to abuse people from same color/national origin from their ancestors. They think that this is the only way to achieve success in America, a land of opportunity!

 After coming to USA, I have worked with people from all across the world. Unfortunately, I have faced most disrespectful and abusive behavior from the people who originated from my own country of origin. That doesn’t mean that we all are like that. I know there are countless people from the same country who are excellent human being, and stretch out their helping hand when we need each other.

I decided moving out of that toxic culture without having a confirmed job in my hand. I had no saving at that time. My wife was a home maker and we had two children. I started believing that nothing could be worse than that. I thought of quitting science! But I came to science by my choice not because of anybody’s mercy! It was painful to think negative about science!

I am happy that I could find a better job with very good work culture in my beloved scientific field. I am thankful to everybody who stood by my side when I was unknowingly growing through that crisis! It’s not easy to face this kind of situation. However, if we can grow through such kind of situation, it becomes an asset in our life. I can tell that I am much more stronger than before! I hope that someone who is facing similar kind of situation would be inspired to take right decision for himself/herself after reading my story! Wish you all the best in life!