I was asked to share this story from one of my previous posts.
(names changed for privacy)
Larry had built an amazing business over 45 years, creating a pretty good work environment. He listened to employees, gave bonuses based on yearly sales, bought lunch for the whole company a couple times per month, held two catered employee parties per year, and just cared about the business in general. Finally, he decided to retire and sell the business to Eric.
Now, Eric had grown up working occasionally in Larry's business. He had even been a manager of one specific department for a while. I and most of the other employees didn't even know who Eric was until the transfer of ownership was announced.
Eric trained with Larry for a couple weeks before Larry decided that Eric should know how to run the business and left.
Immediately, Eric was rarely at the business. He would stop in for a few minutes and then leave to go have fun for the rest of the day. Day-to-day operations slowed to a crawl because he was supposed to be approving reports, signing checks, confirming new pricing, checking payroll, and organizing management.
Several employees had emailed Larry to express concerns about Eric's absence and lack of leadership. Larry came in and chewed him out. He got better for a few weeks, then went back to not being at the business. This happened at least three times that I know of. Finally something seemed to click for Eric and he was more present. He was so far behind on things that it took a few months to catch up. Eric was still fairly clueless but learning painfully slowly.
Things started to improve but he had hired a few people who had little to no business being in those positions. Eventually he fired me (see my post “Discrimination will bite you back”) and the business still has a high turnover rate according to my friend who still works there. Profits have dropped almost 18% since I left (I only did paperwork, so the drop probably isn't related to my position there, but it could have had a small impact).
Larry has washed his hands of the business and is doing well, enjoying his retirement. I ran into him at a grocery store a few weeks ago but we didn't chat. Just waved and kept shopping. He looks great!