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How my former boss managed to destroy his own division

I worked for a company that designed and installed customized workspaces (mostly meeting rooms and auditoriums). We integrated a lot of equipment (audio / video, lighting, control systems, furnishings, etc.) so companies could do impressive presentations for their clients and employees. It's a niche industry that is heavily affected by the ups and downs of the economy, so it is difficult to find and retain good experienced designers and installers. I'd had enough of the company management, and quit. I was the lead engineer, but they kept allowing the head salesman to overrule my design decisions (which usually ended up costing the company money as his changes did not work – which I would then get blamed for). I was also supposed to keep the schedule for the installers, but management would overrule my schedule and send installers to different destinations at the last moment – causing upset customers (that…


I worked for a company that designed and installed customized workspaces (mostly meeting rooms and auditoriums). We integrated a lot of equipment (audio / video, lighting, control systems, furnishings, etc.) so companies could do impressive presentations for their clients and employees. It's a niche industry that is heavily affected by the ups and downs of the economy, so it is difficult to find and retain good experienced designers and installers.

I'd had enough of the company management, and quit. I was the lead engineer, but they kept allowing the head salesman to overrule my design decisions (which usually ended up costing the company money as his changes did not work – which I would then get blamed for). I was also supposed to keep the schedule for the installers, but management would overrule my schedule and send installers to different destinations at the last moment – causing upset customers (that again I'd get blamed for). The head salesman was appointed the division head (and now was my boss), and he immediately began sabotaging the cost controls that the CFO had tasked me with implementing.

After I left, former coworkers told me that many of the installers followed me out the door. It had been chaos there before I arrived, and it quickly returned to chaos when I left.

The head salesman came up with a “brilliant” plan. He'd save the company a lot of money by laying off all of the remaining installers, and not replacing me (not having an engineer). He would engineer the projects himself, and when he needed installers he would hire them through temporary employment agencies. No more salary overhead!

Of course, his engineering remained incompetent. But the kicker was they found that they could not get good installers via temp agencies. They could not fulfill their contracts, and customers were cancelling their projects. I know all of this because he called me and tried to recruit me back to fix his mess.

Not that I would have gone back, but before I even got an offer the owner decided to close the division. The next call I got from that salesman was asking me if I could get him a job where I was working… sorry…

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