Horse 831 - Area Management

From time to time as is our wont, we get the odd director's meeting of proprietary companies who are our clients, in our offices. One such meeting had several technical staff attending and one of the chaps, Mr Fiddler (not his real name) who was an "Area Manager" spent most of the morning... managing his area. It's really quite unsettling to be sitting around a table when an Area Manager is re-arranging equipment all morning.

Have you ever been at work and noticed some "area management" by your co-workers? Have you ever been on the job and noticed someone else, just quietly taking the art of Feng Shui a little too far? Are there other people like Mr Fiddler who perhaps need to pull back production?

I'm pretty sure that he was rearranging his equipment because of cramped conditions, I mean a little micromanagement can really help to get a leg up on the competition. Now if this Area Manager rearranged equipment so things were more efficient or it benefited the company in some other way then that position could be understandable, but did he really have to do it during a meeting?

Not forgetting his devotion to satisfactory customer service; although many clients like a hands-on approach, wouldn't a little micromanagement be more appropriate? When you get down to the nuts and bolts of it all, isn't it just a little easier in the name of industrial harmony to let the boys on the worksite manage themselves?