So, I wrote the following e-mail to my boss/ owner of company, 9 people here including him, highly specialize market. I haven't actually sent it, not sure I should. Identifying info (ie names) obviously changed.
Dear Boss
There are some serious issues in organization and management around here that you need to deal with. I know you are busy, but every time this come up you say you are busy and nothing ever changes. You tell us to deal with stuff, but it's not our company, we don't have the authority to enforce changes, you have been known not to follow procedures yourself, or to change them, and John (other senior tech employee) does not have the ability to say no to you. I don't want to run a small business; one of the reasons I said no when you asked if I wanted to buy the company.
John either can't or won't say no to you. Many times I've seen John in the middle of something he is trying to get done and you have come and said you need John to do X, that it is important, to get it done right away. I have then see John drop whatever it was he was working on to deal with your important thing, without regard to how important the thing he was working on might have been.
John has too much he is responsible for, things are missed, forgotten, and late. The person in the front office is supposed to be handling book keeping, shipping, office purchases, and a few other things. Jenny has decided she is working from home, and only doing the book keeping, everything else has been put on John. When Mark left John was handed all his work, in addition to several other things he was already doing. John is also defacto in charge of the shop. I know your idea was that Sam take over that, but it doesn't seem to be happening.
Case in point, this last job PG30. It was ready to ship last Friday, John wasn't here to do the shipping. John came in on the weekend and left a note that we needed the tax id, no problem I got that from the customer on Monday. John didn't show up until after 4 pm on Tuesday, too late to do the shipping. Wednesday he finally gets to the shipping, only for him to realize that he never actually tested one of the circuit boards that Tom had given to him to do weeks ago. It's Thursday morning, before I'm able to get the tracking numbers to the customer, almost a week after I told them we were ready to ship.
This is not new or a unique situation. We have probably lost customer as a customer, and I know there are a couple other customers who have not been happy with their service over the last several years. I also hear frustration from people calling in for (other part of company). E-mails aren't responded to in a timely manner, phone calls aren't always returned. John is working later in the evenings so he can get some work done without having to be interrupted by customers, a single phone call with a customer can take 30 mins of time at the low end, many take more time.
You still haven't reviewed pricing for (my part of company) and (other part of company) prices. Other customer is still waiting for an estimate.
EDIT: I didn't send the e-mail. After ranting, then waiting a couple hours I felt better.