Posting from a throwaway account, for obvious discretionary reasons. I just really needed to get this off my chest, get some advice or thoughts, and commiserate. I know this is gonna be long, but trust me, you'll want to join me in hating this guy, lol.
Setting: I'm a marketing specialist at a medium sized business. We're not some huge household name, but we're also not some tiny “mom and pop” business either. It's been around over a decade and generates a lot of money for the CEO, who was already rich from other business ventures of his. But this one is his baby, so he's highly involved in it. We're a b2b service.
The CEO: He is exactly what this sub and those like us hate. He's filthy rich and thinks he knows everything and can run everything himself. He's literally a poster child for what this sub stands against, and I can give you some solid examples of why:
- He's trying to be one of those motivation Youtube business gurus type, by putting out a lot of reels and TikTok's where he shares mostly minimal, vague advice. Often “tips” or stories that everyone else has already echoed a thousand times over, and he adds nothing new to the conversations. It's very generic. For example, one of his vids literally amounted to “Hey guys! The number 1 thing keeping most entrepreneurs from seeing 7 figure success… is organization. You gotta be organized! Look at the people you admire, the wealthy successful leaders you know of, are all organized. They track everything they do, big or small. Being successful and staying successful starts with organization and tracking. That's the big secret ingredient that people don't put enough thought into, simply tracking what's important.” The end. Yawn.
- He once put out content where he literally said he despises “quiet quitting”, and thinks people who do that are cowards. He also put out content bragging about “quiet firing” as his method of pushing out the lower performers and keeping his team filled with top executing professionals only.
- He fired the most marketing knowledgeable person on our team once, because they butt heads too much. This guy he fired was awesome, and I looked to him for knowledge on things I wasn't as strong with. He taught me things and helped me get better at specific things in my content. He would question and challenge tactics that our boss wanted to pursue, by looking at the data and trying to understand and make better calls. The boss hated that because he has a hard time understanding anything marketing related, so when he doesn't understand something he assumes he doesn't need to and loses interest. Hence why he cut that guy out despite him being one of our most valuable employees. Fragile ego.
- He insisted we return to a hybrid schedule, with emphasis on time at the office. So we're now expected to be at the office 3/5 days a week. When this started, the office wasn't prepared. Roles like mine didn't even have a proper space prepared to work in. I was told to pick a spot at an open table alongside 2 other marketers, no privacy, noisy, no equipment, old janky chair. I had to constantly push for my own space. Meanwhile he comes and goes as he pleases, brags about luxurious trips, etc.
- I've caught him lying multiple times. I can't get too specific but he once gave our team a document with ideas on it that he claimed in an intro paragraph came from his family. I later noticed on his social account that another entrepreneur, in one of his “rich people” groups, posted that exact same list of ideas, except his intro paragraph was much more in depth and heartfelt as it came from specific circumstances in his family. My boss commented on this guys authentic write-up asking for a copy of it.
- This is petty, but he doesn't wash his hands after he uses the bathroom. Multiple occasions we've crossed paths in our bathroom and he's pissed, zipped up, and walked out. Cringe.
I could go on and on. I've never worked for someone so out of touch with the reality of the professional world. What makes it all harder to stomach, is the fact that I have to put out content he's made, where he brags about how good he is at leading teams. He brags about his tips for empowering your employees and fostering a family-like environment at the office, where people want to work hard and execute. Meanwhile, I'm literally browsing other jobs, and several coworkers of mine are too. The irony is insane.
Of course there are many other ways he fails as a leader. Like how he'll make big decisions regarding our marketing team, like letting someone go or hiring someone, without talking to us first. Never getting our thoughts, feedback, etc. Now I'm not saying I expect everything to go through us first, as obviously that's not typical. He's the boss, it's his company, he can do as he wishes. But you'd think that someone trying to grow marketing and empower that team to be rockstars as much as he says, he would want to involve them more. Be more transparent and inclusive. There have been numerous times where on a team Zoom call he handled a situation horribly, and the tension was obvious. Everyone was uncomfortable and awkward. And afterwards, I'll recite in my mind how I would have handled that better if I were the leader instead. It's easy for me to think of completely reasonable, and professional ways of handling it 10x better than he did. I'm not a manager/leader! If I can do the CEO's job as a leader better, then he shouldn't be leading.
He vanishes from Slack as well. He'll show online and available, I'll ask him an important question, and 30 mins later he's no longer showing as available and I never got a response. Things like that just add up, because they're so frequent. He fails at conveying true leadership in every way.
My struggle, is that I will admit I'm fairly compensated. They've also been generous with equipment I've requested. But it seems like he thinks that's all it takes to keep employees happy and executing; money and little perks. So my dilemma is that I NEED this job, I need to make this kind of money so I can grow my family. We want to upgrade our home in the coming years to make room for a baby, we want a better more reliable car, things like that. I can't risk setting us back on stuff like that by leaving this job without assurances. But the job market is tough. So I'm stressing a lot lately, because I'm forced to stick it out at a company that frustrates me and baffles me, daily. And I have to grin and take it.