After hiring freeze, understaffed company posts listing for 'Chief Happiness Officer': 'I predict a whole bunch of mandatory fun'

JR Atkinson • Writer and Editor

Jun 18, 2026 9:00 PM EDT

What kind of a job is a "Chief Happiness Officer"

There are all sorts of jobs one can have in this life. Jobs that you could have never imagined existed, let alone paid a salary. The person in this story, who shared this to the antiwork subreddit, found out that their company was hiring for a pretty crazy position. When your company is struggling, there are certain things you don't want to see them do. When they start making frivolous decisions, it can reflect poorly on them and might even mean that your job is in jeopardy. When you see your company spending money as if it doesn't matter, and yet you are severely understaffed, there is a huge problem. It can make you feel like they're not looking out for you and trying to appease someone else. Someone who may not even exist. But that's what was happening here, after an employee discovered a listing for a "Chief Happiness Officer." That, to them, felt like a slap in the face, since they were having to make do on a slashed budget. That's the kind of role you try to fill when you have money coming out of your ears and don't know what to do with it. Plus, you have to imagine that the CHO (Chief Happiness Officer) will want to have a pretty big budget so they can do dinners and team building and cookies in the office and all the other ways you could think to make an employee happy without paying them more. That's the kind of stuff that they'd likely be signing up for, which doesn't make perfect sense. But what does, in this day and age?

via algoleague

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The frustration was real, though, for this worker who felt like their company had all the wrong priorities. This can be difficult to work through when you're trying to make the best of a situation where not much is going right. Keep scrolling to read the full story and see what commenters had to say about the whole hullabaloo.
My company's hiring freeze ended and the first role they posted was "Chief Happiness Officer"

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via Imaginary-Cicada3578
Commenters gave their opinions and takes.

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