Final week we talked about out-of-touch executives. Listed below are 12 of probably the most outrageous tales you shared. (Additionally, when you’ve by no means needed to eat the wealthy earlier than, warning that you just may after studying these tales.)
1. The renovation
The pinnacle of the org I work for has been complaining about his residence renovations for months. I get it, he needed to transfer out of his home and … (checks notes) into the *different* property he owns.
This has been taking place whereas a number of staff are coping with being illegally ousted from their leases on account of landlords not legally following the lead abatement course of. However sure, your kitchen renovation that you just selected to do, and non permanent transfer into your personal residence can also be clearly traumatic too.
2. The picture
I labored at an organization as soon as the place yearly the homeowners would throw a celebration proper earlier than Christmas. To be truthful, it was good. It was a two-hour catered lunch in outdoors tents, and so they honored all the workers who hit milestones. Nevertheless, the place they had been a bit out of contact was with their presents for the milestones. Principally it was branded stuff, however I bear in mind one yr for the one who had been with the corporate 20 years, the homeowners praised the worker after which began speaking about how they, the homeowners, all the time go on trip to lovely areas and the way they wished they might share that with everybody. At this level, my buddy is satisfied this fortunate worker is about to get tickets for a visit or a cruise or comparable. However nope! What the worker acquired for his or her 20-year anniversary with the corporate was a framed picture collage of the proprietor’s trip, full with the homeowners in shot.
3. Calling in “chilly”
We acquired a really stern lecture concerning the significance of coming into the workplace and obligatory in-person attendance from an exec who was herself calling in remotely (to the obligatory, in-person assembly) as a result of it was “too chilly.”
4. The luxurious cabin
In 2020 I used to be working at a spot with a VERY unpopular chief, who determined to go the pandemic by renting an expensive cabin within the mountains for her household (she had school aged youngsters who had been usually away). Each all employees assembly she would dial in with the enormous stone hearth within the background and speak about how great it was to spend this treasured time together with her household and luxuriating in nature.
You possibly can think about how properly this went over with the remainder of the employees, lots of whom had been separated from their household and mates, had sick family members, and many others. Most of us did NOT have the sources to relocate to a luxurious trip rental!
5. The advice
Throughout his first all employees assembly, the COO mentioned he had taken the final two years off earlier than this job and that he extremely beneficial all of us do it.
6. The automotive supply
Giant native employer was failing, fairly spectacularly. My partner was nonetheless working there and I had left a couple of yr earlier. Many, many individuals locally had bought inventory (and had been watching the inventory costs tumble).
In the course of the week of one other spherical of layoffs, the comparatively new CEO had her brand-new luxurious automobile delivered to the principle workplace (which was almost all home windows). It was unloaded proper out entrance within the fireplace lane whereas staff watched. My partner was not sure, however felt it was utter cluelessness, reasonably than dickishness.
7. The Christmas card
For Christmas 2008, when the Nice Recession was kicking into excessive gear, our CEO had a Christmas card made that was a cut-out hanging cellular of the locations world wide he and his household had visited in 2008, with illustrations of cities and airplanes and his household. That went over properly.
8. The trivia sport
The CEO of our division simply had an all-hands assembly, the place we needed to play trivia about her. Vote on the place she was born, what number of coffees she drank per day, and which netflix exhibits she binged. Twenty minutes of that, with 1000’s of staff. Some of the tone deaf and costly conferences I’ve ever been too, particularly since there was nothing about our enterprise technique or outcomes.
9. The “alternative”
VP mentioned in a employees assembly that one other VP’s latest demise was a possibility to reorganize.
10. The tip
Throughout Covid, my nation was in prolonged lockdown. We had an all-hands assembly meant to be a check-in on our welfare, the place a senior employees member shared their tips about managing working remotely. Their tip was to maintain their work objects like their headset in a little bit bag, so whichever room in the home they had been working from, they might take the bag and ensure that they had all the pieces they wanted with them.
We had junior employees dwelling in shared homes, working standing up over an ironing board as a result of they didn’t have any personal house aside from their very own tiny room, which was too small to even match a desk. Leaving work objects in different rooms of our giant properties was not one thing that was a trigger for concern for many of us.
11. The ladies’s discuss
The CEO gave a chat to our ladies’s skilled group. So: the viewers was his feminine staff. When requested about ladies that had helped form his profession, he couldn’t identify any and mentioned one thing alongside the strains of “all the ladies i’ve ever labored with acquired pregnant and stopped working.”
12. The rock star
I used to work at a spot the place the CEO would come into an all-hands assembly with flashing lights and loud music taking part in (Rocky theme track perhaps? I overlook) and all the workers had been purported to applaud and cheer.