Micromanaged Back to Life

The Block

I lost inspiration. The pen was willing, but the mind was not. The Carbon Fang GT™ pen sat ready. It moved across the page like a soldier primed for battle.

Spitting out drivel like:

“Consider long-term over short-term profit.”
“Happy employees build better products.”
“Pay interns in money, not proximity to genius.”
“Don’t run out of money.”

This wasn’t thought leadership. This was… common sense. Pedestrian. Inspiring no one. Every line looked like something my uncle would say at Thanksgiving.

In times of crisis, some people run to Bali. Others escape to Burning Man. I chose something more radical.

I went to WeManage, the world’s first coworking space for middle managers.

The Environment

Beige walls. Modest ambitions. The faint smell of compliance training. No kombucha taps, no meditation pods. Just rows business-casual athleisure wear, PowerPoints, and copies of “Who Moved My Cheese.”

At WeManage, you’re never alone with your thoughts.

One manager hovers over your shoulder to make sure you’re “on task.” Another asks for hourly updates on “deliverables.” A third schedules a sync to align on the update about the deliverables.

Slack pings. Teams chimes. Outlook dings. A noise so constant it starts to sound like a hymn.

Not chaotic. Coordinated. Predictable. Monetizable. Pressure at scale.

The Breakthrough

After a few hours, my banal phrases evolved.

“Think long-term, not short-term” became Strategic Temporal Leverage™.
“Happy employees build better products” became the Human Capital Flourish Index™.
“Don’t run out of money” became Runway Preservation Architecture™.
“Pay interns in money, not proximity to genius.” is too preposterous to even consider.

I felt alive again. The Carbon Fang GT™ hummed with purpose. I was building frameworks out of nothing. But seconds after inspiration returned, my inbox pinged.

I had been CC’d on an email. A manager at WeManage had packaged my work into a deck called “Strategic Thought Leadership (Draft V1).”

And in the body of the email: “Here are the insights I came up with today.”
Micromanagement had revived me. Micromanagement had also stolen me.
I can’t hate the manager. I can only respect the model.

Because at WeManage, nothing belongs to you. Not your time. Not your thoughts. Not even your breakthroughs.

And maybe that’s the point.