After years of carrying the company on his back, employee reaches breaking point when his boss informs him he needs more ‘coaching’: ‘Do you even know how to do the work?’

Author image for Bar Mor Hazut
Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Nov 13, 2024 9:00 AM EST

It seems like the higher you climb in the corporate world, the less work you actually do. Otherwise, how can you explain that every CEO in the world seems to do absolutely nothing in their own company? They come to the office twice a week at best, wander around for an hour, have a meeting or two with the people who actually have work, and then go home.

What is even more annoying, is that those types of bosses have no appreciation for the people beneath them, who work extremely hard to keep the company going, like the employee who wrote this Reddit story. OP (original poster), is the only employee left in the company who didn't give up on their CEO. He has watched everyone else quit, and yet he stayed to make sure someone in the company actually does any of the work. That was until his hopeless boss told OP he needed more 'coaching' from him, which made OP understand just how much his boss cares about his company.

Keep scrolling to read the full tale. After you are done, click here for a story of a new hire who got fired 10 minutes into their shift.

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    Cheezburger Image 10427848704
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    Carrying My Boss's Company, Yet Somehow, I'm the One Being 'Coached'?
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    Joined a small tech R&D firm where the boss was an academic with no real business experience. He tried running the company based on books he read, not real-world knowledge. After laying off half the
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    company, most people quit, leaving just me and the program manager. I've been running the whole technical side, but he still micromanages and critiques everything while contributing nothing. Now I'm looking for an exit.
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    So, I joined this small tech R&D firm about three years ago. The boss is a former math major who started the company when he was in his mid-20s. Initially, he had a few early successes, winning a
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    handful of awards totaling around $13 million in the first couple of years. When I joined, there were 13 people, and the place had this weird cultish vibe. Everyone called him "the Leader." He was super into
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    coaching everyone and was always giving guidance. Fine, whatever, I was skeptical, but it seemed like a good opportunity. During my final interview, he even had a human psych professor (his
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    "mentor") on the line to assess me. Weird? Yes. But okay. But as time went on, I realized the entire company was full of yes-men who were enamored with this guy's "wisdom." He was always reading
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    business theory books, obsessed with writing, and basically thought academic skills mattered more than actual business skills. Every decision was based on something he read, not on intuition or experience.
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    He wasn't a businessman; he was an academic who happened to start a business. Then, shortly after I joined, he made the lead engineer (who he had "coached") into a proxy CEO while he took a backseat. Problem was, the lead
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    engineer didn't want to lead, didn't know how to make decisions, and had to run everything by the boss anyway, who was basically AWOL. The boss was off trying to find investors but couldn't close any deals because his negotiation skills
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    were purely theoretical and not rooted in any real-world experience. Fast forward two years, and we're not winning any awards. Then one day, after a big demo, the boss lays
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    off half the company-no warning, no heads-up-because his advisor told him to just cut everyone loose. The next day, the boss took a two- week vacation, leaving me, the lead engineer, and one senior programmer to do everything. (Yep,
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    s and seriously.) We busted our a won a small award, but then the lead engineer quit. Eight years of loyalty and burnout, and when he told the boss he was leaving, the boss basically said, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."
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    A few months later, the senior programmer quit, too. So now it's just me running the entire technical effort. There's one other person, a program manager, who deals with customers but mostly comes to me for help with
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    anything resembling actual work. She's been with the company since day one and balances the boss's complete lack of people skills. (Oh, and yeah, she's definitely mentioned to me that she thinks he might be on the spectrum.)
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    For the last six months, I've been doing everything: seeking new business, working on current projects, trying to market and move our products—you name it, I'm doing it. Then a few weeks ago, my boss comes to me, all weepy, and
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    says he can't assure the longevity of my job, so if I need stability, I should find something else. We talk a bit, and I say I'm still here working hard, but nothing changes in his attitude. He doesn't respect me or the two of us still here; he just keeps pushing and micromanaging.
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    Yesterday, after a two-hour working session, he tells me he wants to "coach" me. He says, "You have great ownership skills, great technical skills, great leadership skills, but you need to have better directability—I need to be able to
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    tell you and direct you on what to do." I'm sitting there, nodding along, but in my head, I'm like, *Seriously?! There's no one left. I'm carrying this company. You aren't doing the work. Do you even know how to do the work?*
    via samster4225
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    This guy has never worked for anyone. All his decisions come from stuff he's read, not from actual experience. Who are you to coach me when I've got 10 years of real- world, grind experience? And then he goes off talking about the future
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    success of the firm and how he needs more control-control of the two of us who haven't quit yet! Oh, and when the other engineers quit, the boss had an "emergency meeting" with me and the program
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    manager to talk about the firm's future and vision. But it was all theoretical nonsense. He started yelling at us when we asked actual questions about concrete steps we could take. He just wanted to go on about our "values" rather than actually build a plan.
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    And don't even get me started on his non-stop requests for reports. He critiques every word, analyzing them to d th. I'm like, dude, we I could have a two-minute conversation, and I'd answer all your questions, but nope, he needs
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    written reports. Recently, he sent me a feedback document from one of our bids, and he's like, "Read this and explain it to me." Dude, it's not that complicated-just read it. Then, after I explain, he asks for more clarification and proof that
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    I'm right. I've been here almost three years, doing everything, and he still doesn't trust me to understand a simple document? At this point, I'm just waiting out the interviews I'm in the later stages of because I cannot deal with this anymore.
    via samster4225

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boss workplace-stories micromanager employee manager job tales-from-the-workplace reddit story ceo overworked-employees workplace entitled Reddit company entitled people
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