I’ve never had a boss who didn’t do this. Promise, set timeline and price, get contracts signed, then come to the development team to ask whether it’s possible to do by Wednesday. Many years ago I had a boss who promised a major client that we’d provide an entire online advertising network to rival Google Ads, and gave us 4 days to design, develop and deliver it. Then when it wasn’t ready he threw one of the developers under the bus in a meeting with the customer. He actually used the words, “This is Dave’s fault.” Dave was professional and didn’t argue. Good look for a CEO. I’m sure he thought he had won. The project went nowhere because all the execs had different ideas about what it was supposed to do, and the dev team was oddly unmotivated to help them out.
I bumped into the CEO again about 10 years later at a funeral. He was thoroughly obnoxious and spent the time making fun of the deceased (a colleague of ours) and taunting my friend about how many hours he had tricked him into working for free. Then he bragged about his current business and its success. Really one of the most awful people I’ve ever met.
That wasn’t the first deceased colleague of ours he had disrespected. We had a very skilled but very obedient guy working on our team - call him Jim - whose brother (also an colleague) was terminally ill in hospital. These brothers were good guys and popular with all their colleagues. One day Jim got the message that his brother had taken a turn for the worse and might not have much longer, so he asked his manager if he could take the afternoon off to visit his brother. Word came down from Mr. CEO: no, Jim was needed in the office so could not have the afternoon off. Being a loyal employee, Jim stayed. His brother died that evening and he didn’t get to say goodbye. I left the company soon after that.
Miserable as this all was, it was a good lesson in just how self-centred and self-important some people are. This CEO is now very wealthy and still goes through life convinced he’s a success and we’re all losers who don’t know how to do life like he does. He’ll probably never figure out the truth.
My old manager sent out invitations to the bride‘s family before telling me I was the groom.
(he publicly announced the new product‘s price and release date before telling the dev team that there will be a new product)
I’ve never had a boss who didn’t do this. Promise, set timeline and price, get contracts signed, then come to the development team to ask whether it’s possible to do by Wednesday. Many years ago I had a boss who promised a major client that we’d provide an entire online advertising network to rival Google Ads, and gave us 4 days to design, develop and deliver it. Then when it wasn’t ready he threw one of the developers under the bus in a meeting with the customer. He actually used the words, “This is Dave’s fault.” Dave was professional and didn’t argue. Good look for a CEO. I’m sure he thought he had won. The project went nowhere because all the execs had different ideas about what it was supposed to do, and the dev team was oddly unmotivated to help them out.
Fucking 4 days.
Well, in Dave’s CEO’s defense, it was just Google Ads.
Just, you know, that thing that largely provides the income for a world top-ten company.
I bumped into the CEO again about 10 years later at a funeral. He was thoroughly obnoxious and spent the time making fun of the deceased (a colleague of ours) and taunting my friend about how many hours he had tricked him into working for free. Then he bragged about his current business and its success. Really one of the most awful people I’ve ever met.
That wasn’t the first deceased colleague of ours he had disrespected. We had a very skilled but very obedient guy working on our team - call him Jim - whose brother (also an colleague) was terminally ill in hospital. These brothers were good guys and popular with all their colleagues. One day Jim got the message that his brother had taken a turn for the worse and might not have much longer, so he asked his manager if he could take the afternoon off to visit his brother. Word came down from Mr. CEO: no, Jim was needed in the office so could not have the afternoon off. Being a loyal employee, Jim stayed. His brother died that evening and he didn’t get to say goodbye. I left the company soon after that.
Miserable as this all was, it was a good lesson in just how self-centred and self-important some people are. This CEO is now very wealthy and still goes through life convinced he’s a success and we’re all losers who don’t know how to do life like he does. He’ll probably never figure out the truth.
You didn’t just punch him in the mouth?
He’ll probably figure it out on his deathbed if you’re lucky