In the context of a programming team, and from LeadersDontDo,

	 :	[The programmer is] damned if he tries to follow the micro-instructions (since it's an incomplete set) and damned if he follows his inspiration (since they're likely to run afoul of what was merely intimated or implied) [apologies for gender bias]

''Now I start to see the hole into which I have fallen.  I had been criticised for following my inspiration, although I can't quite put my finger on exactly how or why; I then tried insisting on being MicroManaged, which I now see as a form of MaliciousCompliance [there is already a WikiWord for that, but I can't find it].''

''Naturally this isn't working out too well either, and so we continue FurtherDownTheSpiral to TheyCanFireMe.''

There's something here that smacks of family politics and the *Gadzooks, yet another Wiki''''''Word''''''Not!!?* DoubleBind. An illustrative tale: A KGB officer waxes eloquent on Stalin's mastery with reference to the arbitrariness that makes terror effective: "There were so many rules and regulations ... and many of them overlapping and contradictory. If someone was to be gotten, we would look and see. If the poor fool had done something, we would get him for it. If he had not done it, we would get him for having neglected it." "Doing" involves any number of bifurcations and choices, not all of which require (or even justify) management or leadership intervention, i.e. autonomy VS automaticity. A good and creative workperson *sigh* may well produce with a frighteningly and dangerously high degree of autonomy; the ControlFreak will always have a long list of quibbles, most of which will not have been explicated precisely in StandingOrders ... always being on tenter-hooks leads to catatonia (which, BTW, usually arises from the profound and irrational belief that the next action, however trivial, will prove catastrophic); the step previous to catatonia is automaticity. -- BenTremblay