I work in a small creative startup that started last year. And our ceo claims, not a manager. I never knew no manager companies existed until some googling aka holigarcy, flat hierarchy, and Valve. Don’t get me wrong, it pays decently and far better than any retail I work at as it’s supposed to be like a respectable creative firm. I get a good health insurance. Ceo pays us dinner sometimes, we get to go events together, be creative, and I help other creatives. I’m trying to be as vague as possible to protect our company.
However, the CEO can be a mental circus sometimes. It’s not often, but we sometimes break into arguments. Ceo has no background in management, and forgets a lot more than the average person. Ceo also has the tendency to say “you can always come up and ask me for days off“, but then the one time I asked us to end @ 5, it becomes an argument about what if we need to work past five and project deadline. We always are done by 6 regardless of the deadline. I asked about this because we the company, went out to dinner past 6 every work day which is past 8 hours and me and my coworker was coming home only to sleep. Dinners ended very late. The CEO has sometimes poor time managing skills and gets super hyper focused to the point where I’ve requested something and CEO says almost done, but it becomes an hour later, sometimes way past our 8 hours. We are paid on salary so he does not believe in 8 hours and says it’s a guideline. Or could be ceo could use dinner as a leverage in an argument we are spending too much money, but ceo always says we are ok to buy us dinner, or use company money to buy furniture for the company.
Or I’ve told the ceo about something important. Ceo says ok, and I always confirm again. The next day the ceo forgets, and it turns into an argument. My coworker was there and we both remember the thing the ceo was suppose to do, but the ceo didn’t.
Ceo also has done this to my coworker where ceo tells my coworker to punch these holes, and then tells my coworker not to punch these particular ones and that “is not observing correctly.” Ceo has stated this statement before about changing from ounces to lbs scales for packages in which the coworker has never seen before. Coworker has no training on this project and coworker is doing it on the fly, we are leaving for an event that day at that time
(We said we were comming @ 2pm), and the ceo is the one who decided to do this big project @ 2 am in the morning before we arrive @ 2pm in the afternoon. Ceo stated that if we don’t do this project, the company will fail where There was multiple opportunities we could of helped to avoid the late night issue @ 2 am in the morning. The coworker unfortunately does not like confrontation at all, and has anxiety when approaching someone (unless it’s someone she really knows). So the coworker is afraid to ask questions because either way, ceo will be blunt and be criticized for something so little. I protected my coworker and had to tell Ceo that is not a good way to treat a coworker who came to help outta the blue on a day we are expecting to leave. It broke into an argument and CEO has said “if you don’t like my managing style you can leave”.
There was even a time where there was an order, my coworker ask if this file was ok before printing. Ceo gave the ok as “he checked it”. The next morning, I look at the product, and it was not correct, it was hard to make a clean product. We basically have to clean the product before mailing it. I asked the ceo about it, but Ceo did not believe me, said “you need to rely on your skills”. I had to show the file and then Ceo said “we should be all checking the files and making sure it looks good” instead of owning up to it and saying sorry for not throughly checking the file.
I don’t completely hate the ceo, because when it’s actually focus on making social content, going to events or we even have fun together out side of business hours. We done video games and creative projects together that is not company related. Even as far as my parents lovingly support the ceo for strides in the company and CEO has come for dinner or stayed over at my house. The CEO is the same age as me. However with this managing style, I’m very afraid to refer more of my friends and some have like autism that can’t take criticism like this. CEO claim “not a manager, and yet ceo criticizes people for not doing it right sometimes” without any training and claiming “it’s because my design teacher has been hard on our students for things like that.” It’s a mental circus because managing consistency is not his strong suit. Or when we argue, it has rippling consequences about my coworkers talking to the ceo, afraid getting criticize at. It’s hard to talked to my parents about it, because they only see the successful business venturer who treats their child well and they work in a traditional company with managers and oh you don’t need to complain about it. Even shocked a ceo would pay employees for dinner. I just want some emotional support that I’m not a crazy employee and maybe other stories that would help balance my mental state. It’s hard to find any other company like this if I decide to leave.