Micromanaging will get you nowhere. Nobody likes a backseat driver. Everyone is the main character of their own story, so they generally don't appreciate when others treat them like an incapable child. Heck, I didn't even enjoy that when I was a kid. Let me free, man. I can handle my own business. But unfortunately, that doesn't always fly in the corporate sphere. Managers are paid to watch over their flock, so when nothing is going wrong, sometimes they have to make stuff up to look busy.
I don't understand time policing in general. If you get your work done, you get your work done. Within reason, of course, but what difference does it make anyway? But that's not how things work in the big bad world of corporate America. Like in this story, which is a classic instance of workplace over-managing. If I were them, I'd start looking for a new job. Pronto.