Bingo. If a manager wants to sit out with their employees and the manager is not doing the same work as the employees, they're there to micromanage. But they'll phrase it as "it helps communication" (translation: I can bother them any time I want) or "it helps with morale" (translation: the employees make it look like they're working harder because the boss is watching over their shoulder).
As an employee, I don't need a private office. But I sure as hell need my boss to have one.
>If a manager wants to sit out with their employees and the manager is not doing the same work as the employees, they're there to micromanage.
Exactly. My boss (the owner/CEO) has a bad habit of coming by my desk or work bench and saying "Son, whatcha workin' on?", knowing full well I'm juggling three or four tasks he's given me that day on top of my daily workload. I don't like to be rude, but I don't have time for idle chit-chat when I'm that busy, and I certainly don't have time for him to come by and try to mentor me on something he doesn't understand himself.
I've gone so far as to tell him "Look, you hired me to handle the computers and network here, right?" "Right." "And you did that because you have no idea how to do it yourself, right?" "Right, but..." "So please, trust me when I say that I've got this handled. You don't have to check up on me, and I promise you'll get a status report when I'm done." That usually sinks in for about half a day, then he's back to pestering me or another employee, making sure we're doing what we're supposed to.
I honestly don't see how he finds the time to do his duties if he's always looking over our shoulders. A manager who feels he has to micromanage is redundant and unnecessary, as far as I'm concerned.
On the other hand, I've known employees who needed the manager to drop by once a day and ask what they're working on - because they'd go off topic otherwise.
Some employees need micromanaging, others do not. There is no one rule to rule them all.
Dropping by once a day to check in isn't micromanaging, it's being a good manager. A bad manager is either never there when you need him, or always under your nose when you don't. A good manager knows how to stay between those extremes, and knows which employees need more "boss presence" and motivation, and which ones work better with minimal supervision.
The big test is, if you had no work that needed to be done today, could you sit on reddit all day and not have to explain to your manager what you were doing or why you were doing it? Or not have your manager think less of you? Or give you more work to do?
I'm not saying this is the most ethical thing to do (because in the real world, there's likely always more work that can be done), but it's an interesting test to think about. As long as your work was getting done, if your manager wasn't watching over your shoulder, they would never know you weren't actively working. If your manager is really not interested in micromanaging, they could sit and watch you play Angry Birds on your phone all day, secure in the trust that you were getting done the work that needs to be done. If they're sitting in their office, they would never see you and thus there would be no problem. They wouldn't think to ask you what you were doing, or why, or give you more work. But if they're sitting in the cube behind you, what would they say?
I don't know how your manager would respond. But I think that's the test of seeing the intentions behind a manager choosing to sit with their team. If you were doing something that they would have no problem with if they were in an office (maybe even because they didn't know you were doing it), how would they react to the same thing if they were sitting beside you?
As an employee, I don't need a private office. But I sure as hell need my boss to have one.