Dateline: 2012. For a few months I had a fucktard manager, on my short list boss fucktard hall of fame. Let's call him Josh. Why only a few months? He got himself fired. Everyone at HQ in L.A. despised him. Not a team player would be the polite expression. But this is not a polite blog.
For some reason, he wanted to axe me shortly after arriving. I was on a team of 3, none of us in LA other than him. Of us 3 reporting to him, one was an expert boot licker, much better at ass kissing than I was. The other was a loud talker (talked about private client matters during hotel breakfasts so loudly the entire dining room could hear) sales rep that I got along with fine, even though I cringed at the thought of her around savvy clients.
In our 1st team meeting at some bar in L.A., delusional boss declared 'there's no doubt in my mind we'll be the top revenue team here.' Mind you, at the time our brand-new team of 4 had zero revenue. New business line. The company overall had over 10 million in steady revenue. This is the level of delusion here. Maybe I expressed doubt at this statement in real time via eye roll, and that did me in. But he realized he couldn't fire me (the founders hired me) so next best thing is make me quit via endless verbal harassment.
How bad was it? I started smoking again. Had quit 6 years earlier. But I started up again. Also started drinking even more, which was a high bar. Smoking is a very hard habit to break. I kept it up months after he was axed. Actually, I replaced smoking with vaping. Vaped for 3 years, then quit that also. Better than smoking I reckon. Vaping is hard to quit also btw. Don't start.
I lined up a prestigious speaking slot at 3M big campus HQ in St. Paul, during their monthly 'lunch & learn' series. We're talking 30 line managers all in a big conference room, to come hear me pitch my wares (snazzy consumer survey software). During that hour I actually did a live launch to 100 consumers within our member database, using their questions I gathered ahead of the visit. The meeting went fab btw.
I told him to fly in for it, this is a potentially big dealio. Which he did. He took the redeye to MN from L.A. and said the bros behind him yapped away whole time ergo he couldn't sleep at all. I never ever take redeyes unless totally necessary, which for me they aren't. He stayed at an expensive hotel far from St. Paul, near my house actually. Next to the hotel was a Pittsburg Blue steakhouse we had dinner at after. He examined the wine list for several minutes before getting a bottle of something very expensive. One of my endless pet peeves: staring at a menu. Just fucking order something. You're not signing a mortgage.
Anyhoots. Three fucktard data points.
1) He gave himself the title of 'corporate strategy & global development' to HR when ordering his biz cards. Fun fact: he was neither. I heard on the grapevine the owners were less than thrilled with that maneuver. What a fucking chowderhead. Like nobody would notice.
2) At another L.A. gathering, me and my 2 teammates were staying at same hotel of course. He swung over to pick them up for an outing. From the lobby. He told them, not me. I was royally pissed at him (and also them) for that bullshit. I took a taxi to wherever the gala was. I did confront him actually, saying 'dude what the fuck, I'm staying there also.' He actually denied it happening. Denied it. Nice.
3) And now for the showstopper! I had been talking & pitching to the utility company Florida Power & Light for a couple weeks. Someone in their consumer feedback team. They were shopping for new survey software. We had solid rapport. Talked several times, gave two software demoes. She was digging what I was serving up. Said 'I'll tell our corporate buyer to issue the formal RFP (request for proposal) to you, I want the wider team to see this.' I replied 'super.' And then I heard nothing, for weeks. And weeks. And weeks. I tried to reach her via email & blower but no luck. When big companies issue RFPs they often go crickets to pretend they're not playing favorites.
I had forgotten about it actually, as 2 months of silence had gone by. Then, one morning, I got a weird call from Roger in HQ. Roger was the nephew of one of the senior guys there. That senior guy was actually the uncle of one of the founders. Following that? So Roger says, I shit you not:
'Hey man, I have this RFP from Florida Power & Light that's due this afternoon.'
Me: 'um, what the fuck?'
Roger: 'yeah I got it 6 weeks ago and didn't really look at it until yesterday. It's due end of day today.'
Me: 'how do you even have it?'
Roger: 'it came in through the general info email address.'
So: our team of 4 only worked on corporate prospects. Roger sold commodity slop into the channel. This RFP wasn't his lane, to put it mildly. Having him try to reply to that RFP would be like trying to teach Sanskrit to a pony. Our small team sold 'direct'. Ergo: that RFP should have been forwarded to someone on our team immediately. Moreover, I had copious notes within Salesforce, documenting all my conversations with Florida Power & Light. Looking that up would have taken 5 seconds. We all used Salesforce company wide.
Moreover: RFPs from companies, particularly public utilities, require a shitload of hoops to jump through. Legal stuff, IT audits, data protection protocol documents...etc. You don't reply with a 1 pager. They take days & days of work. These were my specialty, I've done lots & lots. Landed my share also.
So I'm fucking pissed. Roger should have been fired on the spot. But! He's the nephew of one of the top HQ guys. So I call Josh, he's in L.A HQ remember. He goes to talk to the uncle (in hindsight he probably did nothing) and calls me back and says 'I can't do anything he's Mike's nephew and you need to drop it.'
I'm thinking two things:
1: you're a spineless manager in addition to an abusive piece of shit
2: tell me again how we're going to pull in all this revenue
Josh then declares, for real: 'hey let's do a hail Mary reply, we have 3 hours to the deadline! We can do this!'
I said 'we never even acknowledged receiving this. Oh yeah and also: these take days & days of careful writing. Not gonna happen.'
I looked him up online and saw he's been job jumping every year or less. Once a fucktard, always a fucktard.