Horrible Bosses

(Respect is Earned not Given, even when you’re the CEO)

“I know I get the reports. I don’t have time to read all these reports.”

“I could really be an asshole if I want”, he said with a matter of fact look on his face. I was confused in many ways but at this particular moment I was confused as to why the CEO of a multi-national company wanted or thought he needed to be an asshole to a middle management level employee of his. I thought CEO qualities were to be knowledgeable, encouraging, motivational and by all means a CEO was supposed to create the proper environment for employees to do their jobs, not to create a toxic environment. I’ve read many books by CEO’s and books written to CEO’s, not one of them said ‘be an asshole’ to your employees. I’m still waiting for the book that says the secret to success is reaching your asshole potential as a leader. While we wait, I have a story to tell.

It’s 3:00pm on a Friday afternoon in Corporate America. No coffee break today, I’m going to plow through the rest of my day and head straight over to Fleming’s for happy hour. Happy hour is the perfect end of the workweek and beginning of the weekend. It’s a toast to the accomplishments of the week and a welcome to the possibilities of your free time. I have two more meetings before the end of my day. It’s 15 minutes before my next meeting and that gives me just enough time to tidy up the office a bit before I walk over to the conference room.

As I’m sitting at my desk filing away documents I hear, “So how are the calls going?”

‘What?’ I look up and I see a slender balding middle-aged man with the lines of a permanent scowl etched in his face. Quentin Lesley the CEO of the 100 year old company I worked for stood in my door. This was odd, not because I never see him (my office was just a few steps away from the C-suite and right outside the executive conference room) but because in the year that I worked there we never had a conversation before this point. Not even an introduction.

I said, “Excuse me?”

“How are the calls going?”, as he walks in my office and makes his way behind my desk to get a clear view of my computer screen.

“The calls are good.”, I said with a confused tone.

Quentin received weekly reports on call volume, call results, potential clients, potential revenue and who acquired these opportunities (I was the author & editor of these reports) so this visit was curious. I didn’t know where he was coming from or why. My title was Sales Coordinator but in reality I was a Project Manager, Inside Sales Representative and an In-house Organizational Consultant. He began to talk to me about his days as a sales representative working in a boiler room, no doubt this was back in the 70s before email, LinkedIn & SalesForce. Quentin was a gifted financial professional and his sales boiler room days were minimal but still he recanted how there was a buzz about his boiler room. I looked around my office, noticing that I was the only person in there and thinking back on my days working in a boiler room. I was on a staff of 27, we were all inexperienced fresh college grads willing to do anything short of working at Starbucks just to say we had a job and be able to afford the cover charge at the latest club. This was clearly not a boiler room situation, one guy making 100 calls per week does not create a buzz on a 50 acre corporate headquarters.

At this company I was hired to be a Sales Coordinator for the VP of Sales in the entertainment division. But, because I’m a team player and I was taught that hard work is rewarded, I took on the responsibilities of a colleague who was fired. After taking on that role I began to take on support responsibilities for 5 sales guys and cold calling efforts for two divisions in the company. I worked hard, I got results and my reward was a $5000 raise at the end of the year. Which was a slap in the face considering I was responsible for the acquisition of what would become a $7m account (annually).

“What accounts have you brought in?” I was still confused because I knew he received this information and I didn’t understand why he was in my office taking my time to ask me trivial questions. In addition to creating the reports that would answer these questions I also had to create a report to report how much time I was spending on all my jobs tasks. This is an epidemic in corporate America and over reporting has to stop.

He complained to my supervisor that he saw a tab open on my browser for USC Marshall School of Business certificate in Supply Chain Management, a certificate program I enrolled in to support my knowledge of the business. I wasn’t asked to do this, this is something I did on my own cognition and instead of it being an indicator of my dedication it was looked down upon. Apparently, I couldn’t even grab coffee at the espresso machine with a female co-worker without the CEO complaining to my supervisor about it.

“So I can’t get coffee now?” I asked my supervisor.

“No, I’m just letting you know it’s been brought to my attention a few times.”

I didn’t take extended breaks and I was having coffee with the only other young person in my division. Considering we were surrounded by people in their late 40s and 50s I’d think camaraderie would be celebrated. One of the three reasons why people stay at a company is the culture fit and we did not fit in.

This Friday afternoon ordeal lasted for 3 hours. I missed meetings that I organized. I went through an impromptu audit & interrogation of my activities for the past 3 months. I was asked to create a report on the spot and I jumped right to it like a diligent employee just to be ordered to create another one and another one. Throughout this interrogation I kept hearing the same dissatisfaction but for no real reason because every question was met with a clear answer.

“I don’t understand, I send these reports every week.”

He responded angrily, “I know I get the reports. I don’t have time to read all these reports.”

I was being respectful so I didn’t say what I was thinking. ‘Why are you wasting your money and my time on me creating something that is useless?’

What I did say was, “What is all this about?”

He looked at me surprised at the question, “I can be a real asshole if I want.”

All of a sudden I was no longer frustrated. It finally hit home, he wasn’t trying to understand my process or get to the bottom of an issue he had to communicate back to the board. This was an exercise in intimidation. This was his management style. He chose to lead by fear but in leading by fear you lose respect. In that moment I was relieved of the frustration but overcome with regret. I regretted being respectful to someone who did not earn my respect. Conventional wisdom would suggest that the CEO of your company should be given respect, not in this situation. This is someone who passed by me in the hallway many times and never took a moment to welcome me to the company. I came to find out that Quentin Lesley requested to see my resume after he first saw me in the office. He didn’t ask to see my coffee buddy’s resume when she was hired but he asked to see mine.

Corporate America is not your friend. Corporate America is a cold place. Hopefully I’m saying what we know already but if not you need to realize that if your company is like mine was they don’t have your best interest in mind. HR is not your friend. HR will change your job description behind your back if you’re wondering if you should be given a particular task. There are companies out there that purposefully hire people fresh out of college to take advantage of their inexperience and ignorance.

Since that ‘be an asshole’ book hasn’t come out yet let me give the employees some advice. There’s no respect like self-respect. Don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself. There’s no benefit to working diligently at something that need not be done. There’s always another place that may be a better culture fit. We all have a choice. Some of us choose to be assholes and some of us choose to be better.

Contact me at [email protected] to book me to speak at your company about how upper management can better communicate with millenials and how millenials can get better at managing up.