the luxury cabin, the clueless Christmas card, and other stories of wildly out-of-touch company executives

by Alison Green on February 5, 2025

Last week we talked about out-of-touch executives. Here are 12 of the most outrageous stories you shared. (Also, if you’ve never wanted to eat the rich before, warning that you might after reading these stories.)

1. The renovation

The head of the org I work for has been complaining about his home renovations for months. I get it, he had to move out of his house and … (checks notes) into the *other* property he owns.

This has been happening while several employees are dealing with being illegally ousted from their rentals due to landlords not legally following the lead abatement process. But yes, your kitchen renovation that you chose to do, and temporary move into your own home is also clearly traumatic too.

2. The photo

I worked at a company once where every year the owners would throw a party right before Christmas. To be fair, it was nice. It was a two-hour catered lunch in outside tents, and they honored all the employees who hit milestones. However, where they were a bit out of touch was with their gifts for the milestones. Mostly it was branded stuff, but I remember one year for the person who had been with the company 20 years, the owners praised the employee and then started talking about how they, the owners, always go on vacation to beautiful locations and how they wished they could share that with everyone. At this point, my friend is convinced this lucky employee is about to get tickets for a trip or a cruise or similar. But nope! What the employee got for their 20-year anniversary with the company was a framed photo collage of the owner’s vacation, complete with the owners in shot.

3. Calling in “cold”

We got a very stern lecture about the importance of coming into the office and mandatory in-person attendance from an exec who was herself calling in remotely (to the mandatory, in-person meeting) because it was “too cold.”

4. The luxury cabin

In 2020 I was working at a place with a VERY unpopular leader, who decided to pass the pandemic by renting a luxurious cabin in the mountains for her family (she had college aged kids who were normally away). Every all staff meeting she would dial in with the giant stone fireplace in the background and talk about how wonderful it was to spend this precious time with her family and luxuriating in nature.

You can imagine how well this went over with the rest of the staff, many of whom were separated from their family and friends, had sick loved ones, etc. Most of us did NOT have the resources to relocate to a luxury vacation rental!

5. The recommendation

During his first all staff meeting, the COO said he had taken the last two years off before this job and that he highly recommended we all do it.

6. The car delivery

Large local employer was failing, pretty spectacularly. My spouse was still working there and I had left about a year earlier. Many, many people in the community had purchased stock (and were watching the stock prices tumble).

During the week of another round of layoffs, the relatively new CEO had her brand-new luxury vehicle delivered to the main office (which was nearly all windows). It was unloaded right out front in the fire lane while employees watched. My spouse was not certain, but felt it was utter cluelessness, rather than dickishness.

7. The Christmas card

For Christmas 2008, when the Great Recession was kicking into high gear, our CEO had a Christmas card made that was a cut-out hanging mobile of the places around the world he and his family had visited in 2008, with illustrations of cities and airplanes and his family. That went over well.

8. The trivia game

The CEO of our division just had an all-hands meeting, where we had to play trivia about her. Vote on where she was born, how many coffees she drank per day, and which netflix shows she binged. Twenty minutes of that, with thousands of employees. One of the most tone deaf and expensive meetings I’ve ever been to, especially since there was nothing about our business strategy or results.

9. The “opportunity”

VP said in a staff meeting that another VP’s recent death was an opportunity to reorganize.

10. The tip

During Covid, my country was in extended lockdown. We had an all-hands meeting intended to be a check-in on our welfare, where a senior staff member shared their tips on managing working remotely. Their tip was to keep their work items like their headset in a little bag, so whichever room in the house they were working from, they could take the bag and be sure they had everything they needed with them.

We had junior staff living in shared houses, working standing up over an ironing board because they didn’t have any private space other than their own tiny room, which was too small to even fit a table. Leaving work items in other rooms of our large homes was not something that was a cause for concern for most of us.

11. The women’s talk

The CEO gave a talk to our women’s professional group. So: the audience was his female employees. When asked about women that had helped shape his career, he couldn’t name any and said something along the lines of “all the women i’ve ever worked with got pregnant and stopped working.”

12. The rock star

I used to work at a place where the CEO would come into an all-hands meeting with flashing lights and loud music playing (Rocky theme song maybe? I forget) and all the employees were supposed to applaud and cheer.

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  1. Snark*

    I’ve just been repeating “ooof” with different intonations and durations through the whole post.

      2. MissMuffett*

        Yeah that one was … something. And then it almost gets topped by the mobile christmas card. What is it with these people that they think we want mementos of THEIR vacations?!

        1. Admin of Sys*

          That’s the bit that keeps throwing me! I kind of get (but don’t sympathize) clueless folks who don’t recognize their privilege, but who in the world thinks other people want commemorative items for other people’s vacations? That’s not even a ‘my boss went to wherever and all I got was this stupid tshirt’ souvenir!

          1. Le Sigh*

            Probably the same people who hold you hostage for an endless slide show of their most recent vacation.

            1. ferrina*

              Yeah, this is the rich people version of showing you their slides.
              But showing their slides at an event recognizing someone else?!?

              1. Kes*

                To me this is worse than that. With someone you know reasonably well, you might be interested in seeing pictures of their vacation. But in no case is pictures of someone else’s vacation a reward

            2. JustaTech*

              I’ll admit I’ve enjoyed a few “slideshows of my latest vacation”, but in every case it’s been family or close family friends who went somewhere with great animals, so it was really “who wants to see a Galapagos tortoise?” and not “Here’s us in front of a cafe near the Eiffel Tower”.

              But unless you’re a professional wildlife photographer, no, I don’t want to *have* those pictures!

              1. Despachito*

                This.

                I can get that someone shows me some pictures of an awesome landscape or a local fiesta or something truly interesting.

                But for it to be interesting to me, that person has to be
                1. either my friend or relative (because I am happy for them and willingly share their happiness)
                2. an acquaintance I share a hobby with, and the picture relates to said hobby
                3. an acquaintance I expressly asked to share a picture of two of a location of my interest

                and, above all, it has to be A FEW pictures, not the whole slideshow.

                And I sure as h.ll WON’t be interested in pictures from a stranger. I can’t wrap my head around how someone can be so clueless to give THEIR EMPLOYEE a picture of THEIR OWN vacation. Total brainrot.

              2. Quill*

                Yeah, “slideshows of my fieldwork” is a privilege reserved for my brother, who is… a biologist and semi-professional wildlife photographer.

                “And here’s the lizard I discovered.”

          2. Impending Heat Dome*

            My first career job did this for Christmas. The executive team decided they couldn’t afford to throw a party for the entire company (about 150 people), so instead they threw a party for the executives, and then sent an email to the rest of us with photos attached, and a detailed description of the food and activities, and how great it was.

        2. Artemesia*

          The Christmas card is the same one they send to friends and relatives — so inappropriate but understandably insensitive. The family vacation collage as a reward for 20 years service is inexplicable except that the boss is a total AH as well as a narcissistic monster.

          1. Sharpie*

            I couldn’t help thinking this long-serving employee handed in their resignation soon after this and the boss was shocked Pikachu face…

      4. Jeff Vader*

        I try to be polite, but if that happened to me I’d probably ask the numpty owner “what the funk is this sheet ?”

      5. Dadjokesareforeveryone*

        Time for that employee to ora time their comedy routine. “Thanks boss, I never knew I needed this gift in my life. I still don’t”.

      6. Can’t think of anything clever*

        I collect Hard Rock pins. If my boss gave me one from a place I hadn’t been to I might think better than a plaque but what in the world do I do with vacation photos of people I don’t know? My most clueless boss wasn’t that bad!

      7. AnonInCanada*

        I were the recipient of this milestone “gift,” I would gladly “thank” him for it. But the voices in my head are tempting me to do something NSFW with it. I’ll let you all come up with what the voices in my head are telling me.

    2. Deborah Markus*

      I just screamed to my spouse (who just read the list) “that’s not even a gift you should give to a FRIEND”

      and then I thought “unless, you know, you’re hoping they’ll ghost you”

      1. Old Woman in Purple*

        “[I just screamed to my spouse (who just read the list) “that’s not even a gift you should give to a FRIEND”…and then I thought “unless, you know, you’re hoping they’ll ghost you”]”

        In which case, they’re not really your friend and your first point still stands. :)

  2. crying in chicago*

    #4 reminds me of March 2020 when the company I worked at went remote and team leads were trying to figure out some “team building” we could do while WFH. They came up with the idea of “MTV cribs”-style tours of everyone’s homes via Zoom … until I (and a few other folks) pointed out that it might be a little uncomfortable to see how fancy the executives’ homes were vs., say, a junior employee who shared an apartment with 3 roommates.

    1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      Someone on my team had that thought too and it gave me anxiety. I was the lowest paid person in my team, and I don’t want to have to clean and tidy my house for work.

      1. ferrina*

        I’ve got kids. Everything is a mess. No way I’m giving anyone a tour. (though sometimes I work from a different spot, and my walls are painted different colors, which amuse my colleagues.)

        1. Can’t think of anything clever*

          I follow a dog page where human mom is Kim Jong Mom. I’ve called him that!

        2. Phony Genius*

          Could be worse. I was listening to a music station on the radio when the female DJ was doing the news break. One of the stories was the death of “Kim Jong the Second,” as she thought “Il” was a Roman numeral 2.

          1. You Had Me at Moien*

            Are you in the Milwaukee area? Because I heard the same thing on a station here at that time. Blew my mind, especially given how often he was in the news.

    3. FricketyFrack*

      I said, “What in the Justin Hammer?” to myself reading it, but I forgot (or just blocked out for my own sanity) that we have real people like that. Elon really is a Justin Hammer, though, even though he thinks he’s Tony Stark – his products are all worse versions of something else, he’s smarmy and hateable, and he’s convinced he’s the true genius and everyone loves him.

      1. Chirpy*

        He thinks he’s Tony Stark (that Iron Man 2 cameo was cringey even at the time!) but in reality he’s Lex Luthor.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          Oh please, he wishes. Lex Luthor’s businesses were successful on their own (often illegal) merits rather than thanks to almost exclusively to government contracts, and Luthor was elected president himself instead of buying the president.

          1. Chirpy*

            Ah, true. (Frankly, I’m more of a Batman fan, so I’m not as versed in Superman lore. And there’s no good Batman villain correlation.)

            1. MigraineMonth*

              I nominate Roman Sionis, a.k.a. Black Mask (pre-New 52), who inherits his parents’ business and bankrupts it. After being saved by a buyout from Wayne Enterprises, Sionis resents and hates Bruce Wayne so much that he carves a black mask out of his father’s coffin (?!) and tries to get revenge. Instead he accidentally fuses the mask with his face.

              Later he picks a fight with Catwoman, mistakenly thinking she follows Batman’s “no killing” rule. It ends badly for him.

    4. AnonAnon*

      I’m the LW. Wasn’t anyone in the public eye. Although his company was an green energy darling of a couple of presidents.
      Every single all hands meeting he did this, to a different song.
      He refused to speak to anyone in HR or Finance, because they were all “useless overhead”
      I heard him speaking to his wife on his cell phone as he strode through the cube farm I was in and it was SO awful.

      1. Velawciraptor*

        Finance? Was useless overhead? I’ve seen that attitude about HR–wrong, but not surprising. But FINANCE? Useless overhead? What the entire hell?

      3. Richard Hershberger*

        It’s been a long time since I worked in a place that did this sort of stuff, but my experience from more than one employer is that any all hands event is to a greater or lesser extent an emotional support event for the C-suite.

        1. CheeseHead*

          I worked at a place that had monthly all-staff mandatory in-person meetings. We outgrew the original 8,000-person auditorium and they built a new one.

          At every single one, the CEO would talk to us about whatever pressing topic they felt needed to be focused on. Sometimes it even had to do with our work, like the time she claimed we were slipping in the rankings vs. one of our competitors (not really) and really needed to step up and do *even more* overtime to make up for it.

          Mostly, though, it was just random shit. Including the time we were literally shown a photo of dog shit on the carpet and told we could bring our dogs in over the weekend only if we cleaned up after our dogs. (A true hero stood up, claimed that the photographed shit had probably come from his dog, and apologized to all and sundry for wasting our time.) Random grammar pet peeves. A long lecture about losing or stealing the company branded pens. An announcement that Pokemon gyms were being banned from campus (which nearly led to a revolt). The time someone didn’t get a notification that a parking lot was being demolished because he was traveling, and instead of towing his vehicle they dug out the rest of the parking lot, leaving it perched on a column of asphalt and dirt like a 4×4 commercial.

          It was a toxic company, but the batshit stories I could tell…

    6. I Have RBF*

      IIRC, Marissa Meyer used to do that at Yahoo! Every Friday afternoon, we had a company wide mandatory all hands, so people wouldn’t try to get away early and beat the traffic. Yes, she did it so that the “parking lot wasn’t empty at 3 pm on Fridays”.

      Pre-pandemic, Friday traffic was abysmal, and a lot of people commuted over 30 miles. (One guy I worked with commuted from Berkeley to Sunnyvale.) So her little stunt added at least an hour or more to those people’s commutes. It didn’t matter if they came in early so they could leave early, they had to come to the Friday afternoon all-hands, so she didn’t have to see a mostly empty parking lot.

      1. Scrimp*

        I thought up until this comment that she was maybe set up to fail a bit- the glass cliff, as it were- but now I know she was just that bad.

        I like to think I helped somewhat with her downfall, having been on tumblr during her reign- we cost the company over 3 billion dollars =)

        1. MigraineMonth*

          I’ve felt a lot more warm feelings towards Alexa since I learned how much money Amazon is losing on her.

        2. I Have RBF*

          She is the one who implemented quarterly stack ranking, then used that to “fire” people who weren’t politically popular, because those were the folks who got the lowest two ratings.

          She would micromanage the damnedest things, and once said, on an internal forum, that our users were basically just change averse whiners after she crapped up Groups to make is useless for our power users/community moderators who were the people who made Groups work. So Groups died due to UI changes that were aesthetic only and cut the functionality of the product.

          When she started there, the rank and file had a lot of hope she’d turn things around, but she was just a shitty manager, and probably a hatchet woman.

    7. Atlanta Ally*

      I worked at a smaller company (maybe 200 employees) that was African-American owned and I was one of maybe 10% non Af-Am employees.

      The owner/ founder/ CEO entered the annual meeting to the theme from the movie “Shaft”.

      I might have just outed myself

      2. Calamity Janine*

        so we should not only get a bouquet of cute pet pictures for you in order to thank you for your service, but also a corsage of pepto bismol? makes total sense to me,

      3. I feel gross now*

        There have been some wild stories but this particular collection actually made me nauseous. Reading through all of them and choosing must have been brutal.

        1. Chirpy*

          I read through the whole original comment submission thread…yeah, it was bad. I couldn’t sleep.

      4. Wendy Darling*

        This is why I do not want to eat the rich. My opposition is purely on the basis of I don’t think they would be tasty OR nutritious.

        Perhaps we should just send them all to Mars, they seem into Mars.

        2. JustaTech*

          Tangential to that, I heartily recommend “A City On Mars” by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith (they also write the comic “Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal”), where two people who are super interested in space explain why trying to colonize Mars is The Worst idea (with the information and technology we have now).
          It’s really well written and reinforces the idea that Elon should go first.

          1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

            Didn’t he decide against it when he found out it was likely a one-way ticket, or if not, many years would’ve passed here on Earth when he got back? So if he couldn’t brag and throw it in the faces of all the people he knows to remind them he’s sooooo superior it wasn’t worth it?

          2. Pterodactyls are under-cited in the psychological literature*

            Seconding this rec, the book is fascinating and hilarious. I learned a lot.

          3. coffee*

            Wouldn’t it be so amazing if Elon were indeed millions of kilometres away on Mars?Send the other billionaires with him so they can keep each other company.

            1. allathian*

              In the most recent season of Spitting Image (early 2020s) there was a hilarious skit of Bezos, Musk, and Zuckerberg competing who got to Mars first and they all ended up staying there. I wish we could make that come true!

    4. Beveled Edge*

      Halfway through I was wishing there had been a trigger warning. I should have waited to get this mad until later.

      1. MigraineMonth*

        The list starts with (possibly added thanks to your suggestion):

        (Also, if you’ve never wanted to eat the rich before, warning that you might after reading these stories.)

    5. Elizabeth West*

      Same. Or, as I alluded in the last post’s comments, eager to organize a union of orcas.

      1. Rainy*

        I have an orca sticker on my water bottle that says “BE A PROBLEM MONEY CAN’T SOLVE”

        Words to live by.

          1. Rainy*

            Birdie Sam is the originator of the sticker and the quote, although unfortunately they’ve been ripped off by others since starting to sell the stickers. I’ll follow up with a comment with the link to their shop!

      2. Guacamole Bob*

        Have you read Starter Villain? It includes dolphins going on strike for better working conditions.

        1. JustaTech*

          Starter Villain is *awesome* and one of my new comfort reads.
          Though given what the dolphins are like, I can’t imagine dealing with unionized orcas.

          1. Calamity Janine*

            fortunately, i think orcas are nicer.

            they certainly have better taste in fashion. they even recently revived a retro trend from the 80s! i mean, yes, the trend is dead salmon hats, but it’s still a trend… yes i did shoehorn my way into orca talk just to reference the salmon hats however did you guess,

    6. Certaintroublemaker*

      That was EXACTLY my thought. Except #8 I want to stab with a broken wand, because what in the Gilderoy Lockhart…

    1. CeeDoo*

      That was my take, as well. Not only did he not receive a trip, but he received a photo collage of someone else’s trip. I’d rather have a water bottle with the company logo on it.

      1. Le Sigh*

        I read that one with my mouth agape. I had a much smaller version of this happen to me when I was a kid — parents kept talking about a big present I would like, and I was certain it was the thing I *really* wanted. Except when I opened it, it was a gag gift and I was crestfallen.

        But even as a kid, I knew it wasn’t intentional, they were being goofy and didn’t realize, and it was a relatively small gift. The person in #2 …. that was a public slap in the face.

        1. ferrina*

          Oof. I hope your parents were properly apologetic and got you a lovely gift to make up for it!
          I had a parent that liked to do weird gifts. It wasn’t even thoughtful, it was just stuff that they had grabbed in the checkout line. One year I had deodorant in my stocking. Another year it was a toothbrush. And the parent would pout if I wasn’t sufficiently enthusiastic.

          1. Le Sigh*

            I actually never told them. More context — they’re good parents (and good gift givers who went out of their way to find things we’d like on any budget, and generally aren’t offended if something doesn’t work out). I could tell they simply didn’t realize I had built up this gift (a CD, it was pretty small) in my head, and their jokes building up the gag gift were truly meant to be silly — so just kind of a perfect storm of miscommunication. I’m not shy about sharing my feelings, but that’s one time I held back and in the long-run, kind of glad I did.

          2. Wendy Darling*

            One side of my extended family used to do a white elephant/yankee swap every year until the year they decided to let the little kids participate. My cousin stole a miniature novelty gumball machine full of candy from his own 4 year old child. The kid reacted how you’d expect, and that was the end of THAT tradition.

            1. MigraineMonth*

              …from his OWN child. I think he deserves every ounce of misery that kid (and hopefully the rest of the family!) put him through.

              1. Wendy Darling*

                He was, like, shocked that his kid got upset and cried???

                I was in my late teens at the time and didn’t like or know anything about kids and even I thought this was an extremely predictable outcome and my cousin was a moron.

                On the plus side his mom gave him a talking to, but on the minus side apparently ALL of my cousins are emotional-intelligence-deficient dummies because they all thought the kid just needed to grow up (HE WAS FOUR! FOUR!!).

                1. ferrina*

                  Oh my! A 4 year old should not be participating in any game where a gift could be stolen. This age has very certain views on ownership. Trying to get them to understand that a present doesn’t actually belong to them even though it’s sitting on their lap and it might end up belonging to them…..just no.

                  And what was this cousin thinking?!?!

                2. Chas*

                  I can’t help but wonder what kind of “grown” adult would even want a novelty gumball dispense in the first place, let alone enough to steal it from a four year old…

                3. MigraineMonth*

                  Technically, the kid does need to grow up. Over time. He’s currently *four* and cannot be held to adult standards, unlike your cousin who is supposed to be an adult.

          3. Chapeau*

            When my siblings and I were in college, we got stuff like deodorant, toothbrushes, and toothpaste–nothing embarrassing–(and stamps! probably just revealed how old I am) in our stockings every year. Saved us money and they were useful. We loved getting that stuff!
            Actually, I’m pretty sure I got a toothbrush in my stocking every year that I can remember, long before I got to college. My daughter used to get one in her Easter basket every year. Now it’s in her stocking.
            And my dad got home from college one year so close to Christmas that the only store open was a grocery store. He bought his brothers ice cream for Christmas (no, he did not wrap/put the ice cream under the tree. He put notes under the tree to look in the freezer and labeled each quart with their names.) He claims he won Christmas that year. Only one of his brothers is alive for verification. I should do that…

      2. Carol the happy*

        My coworker and his husband were trying to adopt- but they had an offer from a relative to be a repeat surrogate (2 pregnancies! Woo hoo!) Deciding who would be the first donor, they each had to have a sperm count and function.

        Brad’s husband had gotten a company logo cup for his 10 yr “workaversary” when 5 other people had gotten high-value dining gift cards, a 3-day stay at an elegant B&B, a ski season pass- then the company was bought, and “Theodorus” was given the new company cup.

        One guess what Theo used it for….

    2. Ama*

      To me, that one screams “CEO shot down every other better idea as ‘too expensive’ and everyone gave up and left him to his own devices.”

    3. Snarkus Aurelius*

      I don’t even look at pictures of my own vacation so why would I ever want a framed picture of someone else’s?

      1. Elizabeth West*

        That one made me feel a little teeny bit more charitable toward the wealthy-ish couple who owned OldExJob. They went on a big family vacation every year to Tropical Island, but they would bring back coffee and fruit and share it with us.

        Also, they took their pets to the same vet as me, and I ran into them one day (after I’d left the company) when I was picking up my cat after I had to leave her for dental work. I asked if I could pay half then and come in that Friday and pay the other half of my bill, since I got paid on Friday. The receptionist said sure, no problem. I greeted Old Boss and Bosswife as I was leaving. The next day, the vet’s office called me and told me Bosswife had paid the rest of my bill.

        They were pretty clueless overall but clearly had occasional bursts of humanity.

        1. Wendy Darling*

          I will look at people’s Hawaii vacation photos if they ply me with macadamia nuts. This is the social contract.

      2. Shipbuilding Techniques*

        I couldn’t get a read on this from the wording of the story, but is it that the boss thought it would be funny? And that the whole company would revel in the joke too? That might work if the boss was a well-known personal friend of the awardee, but not many other situations.

    4. MikeM_inMD*

      This is worse than a “My boss went to and all I got was this shirt” tee-shirt, because the tee-shirt could have value as a cleaning cloth.

  6. Who knows*

    Re #10. I’ve been in far too many conversations with coworkers who assume *of course* everyone has a separate home office.

    2. Coffee*

      I don’t think I know anyone who’s home office doesn’t do double or triple duty. Guest room, bedroom, hobby space, dogs crate and toys…

    3. Wolf*

      I work with engineers – we tend to be pretty blunt. If you ask us to join a meeting on camera, you will see our kitchens, basements or “offices” that contain a stationary bike, the ironing board and piles of boxes of seasonal decorations.

  7. oblivious in the west*

    Late-summer 2020, I was working remotely full-time while caring for my two pre-school children as all daycares were still closed. My company also just completed a quiet layoff; everyone was terrified and stressed. My boss invited me to the office to have lunch together at an outdoor bistro. I vividly recall sitting there, terrified I was either going to be laid off or catch COVID, as my boss complained about the stress and inconvenience of having to close on a vacation property remotely. I… could not relate and left two months later.

    2. Her My Own Knee*

      You remember the scene in True Lies when Arnold fantasizes beating the crap out of the guy he thinks is sleeping with his wife? Sometimes I do this too.

    3. Ex Carpooler*

      I carpooled with a wealthy woman for a while but all she did on the trips was complain about all the things “she had to do” and things “she had to buy” (none of which were necessary). I finally quit and started taking the subway AND the bus and I was much, much, much happier (did not like her driving either).

  8. Peregrine*

    You know, I used to be prickly about “eat the rich” language. Look at the aftermath of revolutions, I’d say! French, Russian, Chinese, often lots of really violent, awful things result and new dictators arise. But at this point… eat the rich.

      3. Dhaskoi*

        Yeah . . .

        Violence is not the optimal solution, because violent revolution always has massive collateral damage among the innocent. But it’s starting to feel like the only solution left.

        1. Calamity Janine*

          democracy is a very nice invention, primarily made because beheading regents is messy business. i really do wish some folks out there right now would consider the value in it as a handy solution that humanity adopted for good reasons, instead of deciding “pfff i’m just built different so imma do it anyhow”. i don’t like the other solutions if we are left without this very useful invention. stains in the carpets, you know.

        2. Southern Violet*

          Whether violence is an answer very much depends on the question. The question right now is “What do we have to do to save democracy?”. Start with public pressure eg calling Congrescritters (yes keep doing so even if they are evil, its scaring the hell out of them). But if that doesnt work, yea, violence is certainly justified when fighting for our life.

      1. Gathering Moss*

        I’m fond of recommending composting the rich, personally. Maybe not for food crops, but waste not, want not, etc

      3. Wendy Darling*

        The botox situation alone! Not to mention whatever other drugs and supplements they might be using. Are the rich even safe for human consumption?

        I mean, no shade on botox/supplement users as long as they are not planning to become food, but.

    3. Beveled Edge*

      Right? I thought you’re supposed to get more supportive of the status quo as you get older, but the older I get, the more “off with their heads” sounds like a reasonable reaction.

      1. Falling Diphthong*

        In the past few years I have switched over to “Well of course people have lost faith in our institutions; look how terribly they have met the disinformation age! Losing faith was the rational response.” Where I used to shake my head at this sad trend.

      2. Le Sigh*

        I had a conversation along these lines when I called my alma mater to express my deep disappointment and anger about recent decisions by leadership. The alumni liaison said something to that effect, and chuckled as if either a) I’d understand when I got to be his age or b) we’re all on the same page. I told him it was quite the opposite — I was already fairly liberal, going to college made me very liberal, and everything after college is what radicalized me. (I’m not even all that radical but by his measuring stick it seemed I was on the verge of leading the next revolution.) I only donate modest amounts to need-based scholarships, so they don’t care what I think, but I refuse to joke along with such nonsense given the consequences of this mindset.

        Anyway.

      3. Wendy Darling*

        When I was 8 or 9 years old I told my dad I was bored so he handed me a copy of Animal Farm. I don’t think he thought I’d understand it but I ended up deciding I was a communist.

        All the adults in my life insisted I was not in fact a communist and I did not understand the nuances, and by the time I got to high school I was like, ehh I suppose you’re probably right.

        The older I get the more I am convinced that 8 year old me had a point. Certainly my position at this point is “capitalism bad actually”.

        1. Dhaskoi*

          Capitalism as it originally was/was envisaged isn’t so bad.

          What we have now is a kind of neo-feudalism, and that’s a nightmare.

      4. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

        I never thought that, but I’m also channeling my inner tricoteuse lately. Maybe I should take up my knitting needles again.

      1. Sloanicota*

        Ha! Everyone has the exact same definition of rich: it’s everyone in the next income bracket from you, and up.

        1. CeeDoo*

          My definition: you can buy a really nice brand new car outright, no financing. If you have enough cash to buy a new Escalade outright, I will consider you rich. And if you say, “but I saved for months and months,” I say, you had the income level to save for that level of funds. Most people do not have that level of funds readily available, and it would take years and years to save up enough for it.

          2. Varthema*

            I’ve always thought wealth means being able to stroll through duty free and buy whatever struck my fancy, just plucking things off the shelf and dropping them in a basket. I guess that’s because duty free is the only time I’m routinely face-to-face with so many luxury products so close together.

        2. Her My Own Knee*

          Nah. I don’t make that much and I don’t think the people who make slightly more than me would be considered rich. Rich means you have so much money you don’t even have to think about the cost of something before you buy it, regardless of what it is.

        3. I Have RBF*

          My definition is something along the lines of “Can quit their job with nothing lined up and spend the next two years bumming around without any degradation of their standard of living, including buying a new RV with cash.” This is about a million of non-salary income per year – IOTW, rentiers.

        4. Box of Kittens*

          Something that’s been helpful for me in understanding rich v poor v middle is actually reframing that to working class v non-working class. If you MUST have a job to earn a living, you’re working class and therefore not part of the crowd to be eaten. That’s a very simplified answer and I think there’s some room for more nuance, because obviously someone who makes $300k a year is in a very different situation than someone making $30k, but ultimately, it’s those of us who have to sell our labor to survive and those who buy it.

        2. Ally McBeal*

          Absolutely spot-on. I’ll carve out (haha) an exemption for Mackenzie Scott, formerly Bezos – her money does accumulate interest faster than she’s donating it, and billionaire philanthropy is ethically dubious anyway, but she’s doing a hell of a job donating it to (IMO) worthwhile causes. AND she has to watch her ex make an absolute fool of himself while she’s donating the money she earned from their marriage, which must make life pretty sweet for her.

        3. Dr. Doll*

          Good answer, except that my money makes money fast than I WILL spend it, because I am careful and frugal and modest and prefer staying quietly at home. So please don’t eat me.

          1. Socks*

            Does your money make enough money that you could live off it without 1) additional income or 2) dipping below the original balance? Bc I’m pretty sure that’s what they meant.

          2. Rainy*

            I didn’t say will, I said can. If your money isn’t earning more money faster than you or anyone else could possibly spend it, you’re not in the edible class.

        4. boof*

          And if you do that by being thrifty?
          I honestly kinda hate class warefare can we please focus on the bad behaviors rather than classism – or are all doctors and lawyers on the menu now too

          1. Wendy Darling*

            My hottest take of all is this:

            The idea of an “upper middle class” or even a “middle class” as distinct from the working class is, in practice, just a distraction to keep the doctors and lawyers from teaming up with the plumbers and electricians and fast food cashiers and grocery stockers and Uber drivers, because the only distinction that ACTUALLY matters is “people who have to sell their labor to afford to live” and “people who have so much money it has functionally become an infinite-money glitch and will never need to sell their labor again pretty much no matter what they do”.

            There just aren’t that many of those infinite-money-glitch MFers and if the rest of us peons got together and decided to f with them they would have a really bad time. So they have a vested interest in pitting the rest of us against each other — it keeps us arguing amongst ourselves rather than getting together to eat them.

            Realistically most of us, even the doctors and the lawyers, are financially closer to (and more likely to become) a homeless person than we are to Jeff Bezos. But the more people who know that, the worse it is for the Jeff Bezoses of the world.

          2. Velawciraptor*

            Doctors and lawyers work for a living. Their income is substantially based off of an earned wage, not off of investments. When you follow the thread above, they’re not included in the category being discussed.

            1. stratospherica*

              Exactly. It’s working class vs. owning class. Doctors and lawyers may be well off, but they still have to sell their labour.

            1. boof*

              Eh, my understanding is you don’t need insane amounts of money to FIRE if you also cut your life expenses really hard (probably no kids, no car, etc)
              Again I think it’s more productive to focus on bad behaviors which is really the problem
              Not going to get into a full debate here I mean I think the above list should be part of basic exec management training it’s so outrageous

              1. Rainy*

                We aren’t talking about FIRE, we’re talking about the kind of wealth that grows by $100K every 30 seconds just by virtue of existing. No one will ever achieve that by thrift.

                If you have ever in your life thought “hang on, should I really spend this much money right now?” you are not in the edible class and you never will be. Furthermore, when you start imagining that you might someday be wealthy so you’ve got to complain when people say “eat the rich,” you’ve already bought into what’s keeping you down.

              2. TheCardboardKid*

                It’s so frustrating to see people defending the rich without really having a decent conception of what “rich” even means. Rich people don’t just get bigger paychecks than you do or save and budget better than you. Class is not an income tax bracket.

                Owning things is fundamentally different from selling labor. This is what divides the classes, not a number on a paycheck. That fundamental difference causes the problems addressed by class war or exhortations to “eat the rich”. When you conceive of property owners simply as laborers with a lot of money you fail to grasp the issue, which is more about how money is made than how much money is made.

                The ways in which owners accrue wealth causes problems wholly separate from the amount of wealth accrued (though wealth inequality is a major symptom). You really can’t think of rich people as just like you but with a bigger number. They are a completely different force in the world. So no, bad behavior is not really the problem. The system and its maintainers and beneficiaries are really the problem.

                I don’t want to write a friggin’ class war essay or something, but seriously, you are misunderstanding what “rich” means in this context.

          5. Southern Violet*

            Class warfare is the basis of the bad actions, though. To fight them you have to understand tha billionaires are legitimately no different in behavior than sociopaths. They are too far removed from normal people to be anything else.

      3. Meaningful hats*

        We start with the Musks and the Bezos of the world. The doctors and consultants making mid-six figures are safe for now.

        1. Aerin*

          I mean, just start at the top and work your way down, really. Once your net worth crosses $100M the chances of having gotten that money unethically increases exponentially.

          Personally, I think CEOs should be required to live (with their families) off the salary of their lowest-paid employee for one full month of every year. Any attempts to cheat will incur heavy fines that will be shared between all hourly workers.

      4. Magdalena*

        The upper 1% of a given society usually don’t have to work and have an outsized influence over others. So, not just high-income but powerful.

      6. Generic Name*

        I’m just gonna say that if you spend time reading a workplace blog, you are likely not rich enough to eat.

        1. Lily Rowan*

          I work in very high-level fundraising, and anyone whose money comes from a salary is not that rich.

          1. I Have RBF*

            This.

            While some truly rich folks are also “salaried professionals”, they don’t actually need to work. Their primary wealth comes from investments, rents and maybe interest on inherited wealth.

          2. Artemesia*

            my boss at big name university bought a condo in a fancy building at a time when it was hard to get mortgages; he commented something about ‘how long does it usually take to get mortgage approval?’ The selling agent said ‘You are the first one to actually get a mortgage since I have been selling these apartments.” (and he was what most of us would consider well off)

      7. FaintlyMacabre*

        I think there should only be one billionaire allowed. If you have more than a billion, you fight the other billionaire to the death and the loser’s assets get liquidated and distributed to the less wealthy.

      8. Martin Blackwood*

        ‘Eat the rich’ level rich is thinking a normal christmas party has multiple fortune tellers and mini restaurants inside it. Choirs and opera singers and so many people working it, photographers and serving staff and entertainers, theres seperate catering for the people serving the workers.
        If you have never read the article This Christmas Party was So Fun That Now I’m A Communist, it is that level of wealth people want to redistribute. And even then, there would still be wealthy surgeons and actors.

    6. Charlotte Lucas*

      I have been saying about space tourism that I am not opposed to shooting rich people into space. But so we need to worry so much about bringing them back?

    7. MigraineMonth*

      I’d love it if we organized enough to get money out of politics. It’s a broadly-supported bipartisan issue among actual *voters*. If we really are a democracy, we should be able to pass laws increasing public funding for elections, restricting politician-lobbyist relations, adding ethics rules forcing recusal on certain votes, etc. Even pass a damn constitutional amendment making sure Citizens United is no longer the law of the land, if that’s what it takes. Other countries don’t have their politicians bought and sold for $10,000!

      1. Nightengale*

        I had this idea awhile back. Ever run for office in middle school? When I was a kid there was a rule you could only spend $10 running for class president, so that there couldn’t be any inequality of campaigning based on family finances.

        I think running for real office should be like that too. Besides, we don’t evaluate our governmental officials based on how much they can fund-raise but how well they can spend the money they do have. So we should issue serious candidates a set amount of money for a given office, mayor, state rep, governor, senator, president. A realistic amount, of course, not $10. But that is what they get. Maybe some for a primary and then another amount if they advance to the general. They can spend it on printing fliers for door knocking or spend it on flying around the country or spend it on TV ad buys or whatever, but all campaigns for a given office cost the same amount.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          That’s kind of already the setup for publicly-funded campaigns: the government offers a certain amount of money for campaigns, and if you accept that money you have to agree to limit how much outside funding you accept and open your books to increased scrutiny.

          We shouldn’t let people running for office opt out and just raise and spend all the money in the world just because they/the special interests backing them are rich. (Yes, I realize unions and other special interests I like are included. It’s still broken to flood that much money into an election.)

    8. Artemesia*

      my daughter got matching Eat the Rich Christmas sweatshirt/sweaters for herself and my husband a few years ago. It is now a Christmas tradition.

    9. Jennifer Juniper*

      The rich are never eaten. Only the middle-class and educated. The rich keep on business as usual and send everyone else to the gulags and death camps.

  9. Robbie*

    I desperately want to know what goes on in the mind of execs who think employees want pictures of themselves. I would be gauche enough if it was friends, if but you get a present of your boss and their great travels as a reminder that you don’t get time off or the cash to go on a cruise? I would be walking out the door at that point.

    2. Arrietty*

      I gave my aunt a photo of my son for Christmas and felt that was pushing the boundaries of appropriate. No one wants a photo of the boss.

      1. Cat and dog fosterer*

        My sibling got smart and all baby photos sent to me included the family pet. It also helped that there weren’t many of them.

      2. Alison*

        I asked my own parents if they wanted a spare school photo I had of our 8yo (their much-loved grandson) because truly I didn’t want to foist it on them if they didn’t want it

    3. Snarkus Aurelius*

      I would respond by giving the CEO a framed picture of my very cheap vacation or a staycation and see how they respond.

      Isn’t the La Quinta Inn off the interstate the best place to summer after Memorial Day? Did you see they upgraded their plastic cutlery at the free breakfast?

    4. Ama*

      Many many people are surprisingly bad at understanding that different audiences are going to interpret the same gift/joke/statement in very different ways. I bet at least some of them thought “my family and friends loved this so I will give it to my employees!”

      The others are so full of themselves that they can’t conceive of anyone who doesn’t think their life is as interesting as they themselves do.

    5. KaciHall*

      Not for employees, but Ryan Reynolds seems out Christmas cards of himself to all subscribers for Mint Mobile. and it’s hilarious.

      I don’t know any CEOs as well liked as Ryan Reynolds, though.

    6. Youth*

      The only time it’s appropriate to give someone a photo of yourself is if you are their child or grandchild.

    7. BlueCactus*

      The last time I gave someone a photo of myself, it was to my grandparents, I was eight, and I decorated the frame. I’m baffled that anyone thinks they need to give out photos of themself to literally anyone.

    8. Jerlee*

      At a work Christmas party for the HQ office staff, including the CEO. We had a Yankee swap, and someone opens a gift to find an 8×10 framed photo of the CEO… and a package of darts. *insert awkward silence here* At the end of the game, the “lucky” winner of that gift was told by the CEO that there was cash stashed in the frame behind the pic. He’d brought it himself!

    10. Kay Tee*

      I couldn’t bring myself to make printed photos from my recent wedding my only Christmas presents to family… and they’re IN THEM! I had to get the aunts/uncles/cousins each an additional thing because it seemed like gifting them a photo of myself, which gave me such an ick.

  10. Spicy Tuna*

    My “home office” is my garage. On a Zoom, the president of the company commented on my “high ceilings”

    Separately, I once worked for a large international company that was attempted to avoid bankruptcy. Some of the work force was unionized and some was not (I was part of the non-unionized workforce).

    The union folks would not agree to a change to their contracts unless the non-unionized folks took a pay cut. Since we were not unionized, we didn’t get a say in whether or not we would accept a pay cut. We already has very, very low wages, so this pay cut did not go over well.

    Management helpfully put out a “tips and tricks for saving money” bulletin, which included things like cutting cable, carpooling to work to save on gas and tolls, bringing lunch to work, doing your own nails, going on a nature walk for a date instead of going out to dinner.

    I remember being outraged at these suggestions because I had already implemented all of them as cost cutting measures BEFORE the pay cut!!!

    1. Rainy*

      Before we were married, my husband did tech support for a company that offered health insurance as long as you were sufficiently generous in your definition of both “offered” and “health insurance,” which basically everyone declined. (It was one of those plans that cost a ton and yet covered nothing.) The company sent around a “Wellness Newsletter” that offered health tips like “ask your doctor if they offer a lower rate for cash payments” and “if you are hospitalized, apply for the hospital’s charity care program immediately.”

      The first issue of the “Wellness Newsletter” dropped during my husband’s shift and he said he thought there was going to be a riot. There was no second issue.

    2. Meaningful hats*

      I remember a past co-worker, many pay grades above me, suggesting I trade in my car for a cheaper one to save money. I told him I didn’t even own a car – I was entirely reliant on public transportation. He was stunned that someone wouldn’t have enough money to afford a car.

      1. Cai*

        So at one point in my life, my family of 3 was living in my mom’s spare room after we lost our apartment and our car broke down terminally. I was walking almost 2 miles to work every day and bumming rides home.

        My wife and I went to a charity with a food bank. We brought backpacks and canvas totes, but one can only carry so much and eventually had to stop them from giving us more food as we ran out of space. The people AT THE CHARITY were surprised we didn’t have a car. “How did you get here? How will you get home?” We walked. This is a food bank, for poor people, right?

      1. Dr. Doll*

        Probably because the union thought all the non-union folks were making a ton of money. It’s certainly that way in our unionized environment. If you’re union, you are a Good Person doing a Hard Mission-Oriented Job for Low Pay; if you’re not union, you are an Evil Manager Dripping in Money who Does Nothing and Has No Value.

        I’m a union member. I get tired of this trope.

        1. Charlotte Lucas*

          Yep, and this is yet another great argument for pay transparency.

          I grew up in a union household. My dad worked third shift and did a lot of overtime. He was in a skilled trade and probably made more money than some middle managers at his shop. And he didn’t have to wear a tie!

      2. M*

        Presumably related to the fact that the company was asking for a contract change, in the context of bankruptcy – so, presumably, cutting the pay of union workers. So, the union says “no pay cut unless it’s across the board”, because they’re certainly not going to agree to their members taking the brunt of the salary cuts.

    4. pally*

      Yeah, when they get to things like “Underwear has two sides. Wear each pair twice before washing.” I hafta take a walk.

    5. me*

      Reminds me of McDonald’s “financial advice” for employees that included getting a second job because their wages were so low.

    6. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I, personally, hate that ubiquitous cost-saving recommendation to make your coffee at home instead of going to Starbucks everyday. Ok, thanks, but what if – hear me out – I already make my coffee at home every day?

      1. Rainy*

        I took an intro Environmental Science class in undergrad where part of my grade was predicated on doing any 5 of a list of 10 or 12 water-saving recommendations for a week and calculating my water savings over my “normal” water usage and then submitting that for criticism and a grade. I ended up having to go argue with the prof about it because she couldn’t believe that I didn’t own a dishwasher (her sheet recommended washing dishes by hand to save water), that I didn’t wash my car weekly and when I did wash it, didn’t wash it with a hose, didn’t have a sprinkler system for my garden, didn’t take 45-minutes showers, didn’t have a pool or a hot tub…

        1. Dogwoodblossom*

          My last workplace did a challenge like that. “What can you do to reduce your climate impact” and it was like “buy new energy efficient appliances.” Cool.

          Also we were actively helping logging companies get communities on board with clear cutting so…

        2. allathian*

          That’s actually not true. Washing dishes by hand uses more water than washing the same amount with a dishwasher, assuming the washer is full. Granted, manufacturing takes resources, but assuming the dishwasher is already there, those resources have been used already.

          1. Rainy*

            Yes, I know–but we were being graded on what was on her sheet, and that is what was on her sheet.

  11. Spiders Everywhere*

    One time our CEO decided the best way to inspire us was to call an all hands meeting and make us watch the “always be closing” scene from Glengarry Glen Ross, apparently under the impression you were supposed to admire the Alec Baldwin character and his approach. Unclear what exactly we were supposed to be closing since we weren’t actually a sales company.

    1. Snarkus Aurelius*

      That scene has a pair of fake, suspended testicles along with all the offensive pejoratives that ends with threats of termination. Highly inappropriate for work!

    2. CEDAAlum*

      lol my college debate coach did the same thing. Apparently we were supposed to be inspired to work harder. That was not the result; but we did all hate him/were scared of him.
      This was back in the day. I imagine he is no longer allowed to do that given the rampant bigoted language in the movie. Though… who knows.

    3. The Unspeakable Queen Lisa*

      Ha! Not a CEO, just a midlevel manager, but this new guy did an all hands staff meeting where he played a clip from The Warriors (70s post apocalypse gang movie) that was apparently supposed to get a bunch of office workers all pumped up. It was met with total confused silence. I don’t even know if anyone had ever seen it other than him.

  12. Librarian of Things*

    To be fair to the VP in #9, the unexpected departure of a member of senior management might indeed to be a good time to review and perhaps reorganize the structure, because a sudden departure is going to show you where you have gaps, where you have too many or too few redundancies, and whether divisions are still accomplishing what they were meant to, as they are. This is true whether that unexpected departure is to death, deciding just to take two years off before another job, or moving to a luxurious vacation cabin. But, woof, what a horrid way to phrase it. Words matter and a VP ought to know that.

    1. Funko Pops Day*

      The only remotely comprehensible case I can imagine is that after a lengthy tribute, discussing how terrible the loss was, how hard it would be for everyone, but that the org would need to move on, and that they hoped that perhaps it could serve as an opportunity, however unwanted, to re-examine etc. …. which is still a little heartless. Without the rest of the context, though…yikes.

    2. Kes*

      Yeah, that one is definitely one where I can see both that they are probably correct and likely meant well, and that it comes across as a little cold. But I would still take the leaders from 9 and 10 over any of the others.

    3. Seal*

      Seriously, there are SO many better ways to phase it! Everyone (presumably) knows why the position is vacant and that short- and long-term decisions need to be made about covering the work and filling the position. Some may even agree that it makes sense to consider reorganizing. But publicly claiming the death of an employee is an “opportunity” of any sort infers there’s a bright side to a sad situation.

      At least it wasn’t presented as “in honor of the VP we’re reorganizing – that’s what they would have wanted!”

    1. Sparkles McFadden*

      Years ago, one of my direct reports was no-call, no-show, which really was not like the guy. He didn’t answer any calls or emails, and his spouse (on a work trip in another country) hadn’t heard from him. I called the police in his town for a wellness check. The police called ten minutes later to say the guy was dead. When I told my boss he said “This is great! I know a guy I’d love to hire and now we have an opening for him!”

      I transferred to another department as soon as I could manage it.

      1. Librarian of Things*

        Great googly-moogly. I’m glad there was another department for you and I hope you worked for a human being there.

      2. Judge Judy and Executioner*

        Holy crap, I don’t blame you. If my boss ever told me it was great my team member died, I’d be looking to jump ship as soon as possible.

      6. ReallyBadPerson*

        OMG, you might have had the same boss as my husband. A 27-year-old colleague of his went into a diabetic coma and died before anyone could get to him. His awful, awful boss said the same thing. Oh, but he totally made up for it by having the dead man’s name printed on t-shirts and having the employees wear them at a corporate road race.

      8. Retired lawyer*

        Well, doesn’t this just bring back memories!

        My story was also years ago — my legal assistant (who I shared with a couple of other attorneys) disappeared for several days. Completely unlike her as well. She made work a lot of fun, not least because we shared similar tastes in music. We shared CDs and talked about bands and albums regularly. And even aside from that she was also one of the best assistants I had during my career. My legal work was, without question, better because of her assistance.

        I don’t remember exactly how long it took before they found her. She had committed suicide in another part of the state. She did not leave a note. None of the people who worked with her, including me, had any idea that she had been struggling or that this was even a possibility. It was a very hard time at work, to say the least.

        Well, during the middle of that, one of our partners decided that her death was an opportunity. He called a meeting a few days before her funeral. Yes, he called the meeting only a couple of days after she had been found. Except for the senior partner I worked for, neither I nor the other attorneys my assistant had worked with were allowed in this meeting.

        The purpose of the meeting was to talk about whether we should replace our deceased assistant — he wanted to get an agreement at the meeting that we would NOT. Why? Because he had been pushing for some time to lower our staff numbers in order to lower overhead and increase his profits. We hadn’t even really processed her death and he was trying to use it to his advantage. That was not the only instance of sociopathy that particular partner displayed during the far too many years I worked with him, but it is probably the most egregious.

        Fortunately, this did not end well for him. I vividly remember a meeting in which I, my senior partner, and the other attorneys my assistant had worked with lambasted him for a significant period of time. He kept on trying to weasel his way out and we would not let him. After that, he was significantly less of a pain to us than he had been. And the idea of getting rid of staff solely in order to increase profits died an unlamented inglorious death.

        Even so, fuck him.

        1. Jenesis*

          What a shame that his downsizing push couldn’t have included firing him and redistributing his salary among all the non-asshole employees!

    2. Kes*

      I think it depends how it actually played out. If they just straight out launched into, Bob’s death is a great opportunity to reorganize… oof. If they at least acknowledged it, as in, Bob’s death is very sad and unfortunate, and we are still dealing with it, but at the same time we also do need to keep going, and since we do need to deal with the gap this leaves in our organization, we are taking this as an opportunity to reorganize… it’s a little less sociopathic. Maybe I’m too optimistic here but I’d like to hope it was a least a bit towards the latter, or intended that way, but with some bad phrasing. But obviously it at least came across very badly.

      1. Seal*

        It also depends on the timing. Telling the staff right away who will be covering the VP’s duties while they determine next steps is one thing; telling them in essence “ding dong, the VP’s dead, now we can reorganize!” is quite another.

    1. UncleFrank*

      I feel like there had to have been some kind of backstory between the two VPs??? Not that I can imagine one that would make that comment OK!

  15. CzechMate*

    RE # 11 – when my husband was getting his MBA, his class went to visit a local business (I THINK the owner was an alum, but I don’t remember now). Owner was asked to speak to this group of MBA students about what drove him to do his work, his personal motivators, etc. He said, “Honestly? I do all of this to take care of my family. My wife belongs at home–I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if my wife had to WORK.”

    This delivered to…a room that was half-full of female MBA students.

    2. Snarkus Aurelius*

      It reminds me of that scene from Breaking Bad where Gus Fring said, “A man works because that’s what he does.” I know so many men who love that scene, but they have zero response when I say, “I work to support my family too. So have millions of women since the dawn of humankind. Where’s our ticker tape parade? What makes men special?”

      2. Elenna*

        Exactly! Look up how long it took to make, say, a single shirt, before the spinning wheel was invented. Keeping the family clothed was basically a full-time job for all peasant women (aka the *vast* majority of women), let along cooking and childcare and the other traditional “woman’s work”.

          1. Charlotte Lucas*

            There’s a reason that the word “economy” is rooted in the Greek word for “household.”

          1. Artemesia*

            There is a passage in Robert Caros first book of his biography of Lyndon Johnson which talks about what it was like for a woman to do laundry before the TVA brought power to the hills and valleys. Extraordinarily vivid and memorable. Hauling water, heating water, washing, rinsing, scrubbing, hand wringing, drying on lines and then ironing.

        3. allathian*

          When the Vikings commissioned a ship, building it took the men a couple of months, but for a dozen or so women to spin the yarn for the sail and to weave it took *two years*.

          That said, Norse society otherwise was relatively egalitarian, as women ran society while men went out raiding, although there were women warriors, too. Some even commissioned longboats of their own.

          Life for women was in many ways better during the so-called Dark Ages of Medieval Europe than it was in the Renaissance when more conservative ideas about woman’s place in society took hold again due to the admiration for ancient Roman and Greek societies that was a crucial part of the Renaissance. Incidentally something I never learned at school… Women could run their own businesses and own property in their own right in large parts of Medieval Europe, for example.

          There’s a number of last names that are originally occupational titles for women, many of them end in -xter, like Baxter, a woman baker, Dexter, a woman dyer of cloth; or -ster, like Brewster, for a woman brewer, or Webster, a woman weaver.

    3. Charlotte Lucas*

      Back when I was in high school (decades ago), I had friends who were surprised my mom worked outside the home (even though she didn’t “need” to). They would always say their dad wouldn’t let their mom work.

      My answer was always that my mom wouldn’t let me dad tell her what to do.

      1. DramaQ*

        My husband’s response to those types of comments is “I don’t tell my wife what to do I like being alive” and then watch the wheels in their heads turn.

  16. Falling Diphthong*

    Lately I’ve been thinking about that scene in Severance where Irving, who has been the most devoted company man in our little Macro Data Refinement club, suggests that they should burn the whole thing to the ground.

  20. Kdub*

    #7 reminded me of a meeting long forgotten, in the 2008-09 timeframe, where a Director (1 level below VP, had at least 2-3 levels of management under him as well) related himself to the whole group by pointing out that he understood it had been a hard year (no bonuses or merit increases)… because it was just a “one new car” year for him and his wife. ….. he drove a Jaguar. And he seemed surprised by the reaction from the crowd. Totally out of touch.

  21. TechWorker*

    #11 my eyebrows hit my hairline. Seriously how does someone make it to an exec role whilst being that unaware?!

    2. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      I mean, being clueless and unaware is in the job description for execs at anyplace large enough, it’s just usually not in that particular way.

  22. mcm*

    #10 was very similar to my org sending out a “how to set up an ergonomic home office!” flyers when very few people below senior staff have anything resembling a ‘home office’. Someone did respond “… you mean my kitchen table?”

  23. 3-foot Tall Inflatable Rainbow Unicorn*

    I’m shocked at the number of high-up execs who think their employees actively care about their personal lives.

    1. Snarkus Aurelius*

      And those same execs wouldn’t give two craps about our lives in the same way.

      Reminds me of an AAM letter where a CEO wanted employees’ families to be involved and engaged in the company’s mission and vision too. Why? My interest in my husband’s job begins and end at his paycheck.

  24. Laura*

    I remember a former VP telling a group of us about a job early in his career as a cautionary tale. He had a boss who would always want to get the people on her team wildly inappropriate birthday presents. (you’ll see what i mean in a moment. Former VP was the one who would always talk her down and redirect her to something more sane. Unfortunately this meant that there was no such person to do that when HIS birthday came around. She got him a rabbit. A live rabbit. And they lived and worked in Manhattan, so the chances of having space for said rabbit? Pretty slim. I think he had a family member who was willing to take it, thankfully.

    1. Language Lover*

      A pet rabbit is inappropriate but I have to admit that my mind went to a very different kind of rabbit until you clarified it was a living thing and not a mechanical thing.

    2. Mark This Confidential And Leave It Laying Around*

      Picturing that happening in my Manhattan office and dying. Please tell me she got laughed out of the building!

  27. Box of Rain*

    Am I wrong to think 12 isn’t… that out of the ordinary or tone deaf?

    I’ve worked in two school districts that did that for our equivalent of an all-hands meeting. My current company does that in all of our all staff meetings, although we genuinely cheer and hoot and holler vs. being forced to.

    1. KimberlyR*

      For the CEO or for each other? There is a difference.

      I have absolutely no desire or reason to cheer and hoot and holler for my CEO. If this was forced at all meetings of this nature, I would find a way to not be able to attend every single time.

    2. Your former password resetter*

      Yes?
      I genuinely cannot imagine this happening anywhere I ever worked. Even the places small enough that everyone personally knew the executives.
      At most I could imagine a polite applause when someone enters or leaves the stage, if thats the cutural standard. But cheering? For an executive making a business announcement? Like everyone is having a great time or are fand of the executive like theyre a celebrity?

    3. Dr. Doll*

      Our university president likes to boogie into the large, start-of-the-academic-year all-campus meeting preceded by our mascot in full dress, with some fun music. It’s reasonably cute. We clap for our mascot and it sprinkles over to the president.

    4. Falling Diphthong*

      Fun Stalin anecdote: You had to applaud for him. One time, all the party officials kept going, and going, and going… because it was not safe to be the first person to not clap. Finally, the manager of a small factory stopped clapping and sat down, at which everyone else instantly did so too.

      A week later he was sent to the labor camp.

      1. It's Marie - Not Maria*

        100% True Story – The person handling this case came right out and told the Factory Manager to never be the first one to stop clapping.

    5. Not a Vorpatril*

      I mean, my school did this right before this school year started. Got a bunch of students from some club or another to line the auditorium and cheer us as we made our way into the standard dreadfully boring meeting. It was… awkward. Cute in some ways, sure, and I new some of the students and could be happy to see them, but still awkward and did not make my day any more meaningful or the meeting any less annoying.

    6. Box of Rain*

      I stand corrected! :) I feel a little like I did as a teenager when OI realized that not all families were like my family. And that my family was WEIRD.

      I will say that, like KimberlyR notes, the clapping is more for the organization as a whole and each other than the CEO specifically. We hold them a theater that hosts Broadway touring productions (so, decently sized) and they become a fairly raucous affair with some kind of food/coat/shoe collection, door prizes, c-suite folks throwing out shirts like they’re at a basketball game just minus the t-shirt cannon.

    7. Jax*

      My company does this at large employee engagement events and people cheer because they’re hyped up and genuinely love working for the company.

  28. whatnow*

    Less of an eating the rich scenario, more just incredibly tone deaf – on 9/11, I had a boss who sent out an email that basically said he understood it was a difficult day, but if you were having trouble focusing, consider working on some smaller “back burner projects”. I thought I was going to have to forcibly restrain people.

    1. KaciHall*

      I was in high school, and even my football coach of a word civ teacher let us vote on whether to watch Ben Hur or the news.

    2. Elizabeth West*

      I had to go to work that day. I was temping part-time at an old job to cover a mat leave. Someone brought in a little portable TV and we stayed glued to it until it was time to go home. We only had two calls the entire time I was there. If my boss had suggested we do some work, we all probably would have dragged her in the hall bathroom and dunked her face in the toilet.

      1. Nightengale*

        yeah I mean I worked because I worked with kids in a residential school and so of course we had to keep working. We. Did not do any academics. We did some of the usual chores to keep in something like a routine. We tried to explain everything to the kids as best we understood it. We put kids on the phone with their families (had kids from all over the country at the school including NY and DC.)

    3. Distracted Librarian*

      At my workplace, it was business as usual on 9/11. We were supposed to go to meetings and act like everything was normal. It was surreal. Meanwhile, those of us with radios in our offices were glued to the news.

      I have a leadership role now, and I try to acknowledge difficult days and encourage people to take care of themselves and each other – because I don’t want anyone else to have to fake their way through a workday during a major crisis.

      1. JustaTech*

        I was in college and with the exception of my first period gym class, we resolutely went through the school day.

        I have no idea how my professors did it, but part of me is grateful that I could put my head in the sand.

        1. Junior Assistant Peon*

          I was a grad student, and I thought my own university was the only workplace in America stupid enough to treat 9/11 as a business-as-usual day.

          1. Jenesis*

            For me, it was a business-as-usual day. I was in elementary school at the time, and I didn’t realize that anything had happened until I turned on the TV after school and my usual afternoon cartoons had been replaced with some news footage of a plane crashing into a building. I lived (and still do) on the West Coast, so I wasn’t personally affected nor did I know anyone who was – it was only after it was the only thing people could talk about for the next several days that I realized what a Big Deal it was.

            I can 100% see adults in similarly unaffected states taking the same stance.

      2. It's Marie - Not Maria*

        My company as well. The Management went out of their way to force it to be a regular day. They even turned off the TVs in the breakrooms. They shut down any conversations on the topic. They were unhappy that people were listening to the radios in their vehicles on breaks and lunches to get news updates. It was surreal.

    4. Chauncy Gardener*

      When the Boston Marathon bombings happened, my boss asked why everyone was leaving. We were in Boston. All of us had people who were either running or were there in some kind of support capacity.

      1. Masshole*

        My daughter and her friend were working at a bar on Boylston Street. They had to walk all the way out past the hospitals to get to where I could pick them up with the car because they shut down all the roads and the T.

        1. Elizabeth West*

          Not one person has brought that up since I moved here, but I don’t ask about it. I don’t want to upset people.

          (Love your username, btw)

    5. Anon So I Don't Get Fired*

      I’m a state government employee in Virginia. The day of the then-Governor’s blackface scandal, an agency head, who was white, sent an agency-wide email that said, “If you’re a minority who is offended by the Governor’s current scandal, here are some EAP resources for you. Your mental health is important to us.”

      He later apologized.

    6. WFH4VR*

      OMG. I was working at a school and they shut it down and sent everyone home as soon as the footage of the first plane was shown. That was such a horrible day. My kids got off the bus and my five year old said, “Something bad happened.”

        1. Chocolate Teapot*

          There was a story in the UK of a Department of Transport employee who sent out an email after the 9/11 attacks saying “Today is now a good day to get anything out we want to bury”.

          Yes, it’s still horrifying, even now.

          1. EllenD*

            It was a big scandal and people got fired and I think she left Government service and is now a teacher. I hope a good one. In response to this the Perm Sec went into a rant that was 50% f*** words, when the story hit the press.

        2. Nightengale*

          !!!

          I was working at a residential school so we had no choice but to keep the kids there and keep going.

  29. Anon in Midwest*

    Related to #10 (the COVID working from home tips):

    I had a high visibility job in 2020 though I was still quite junior, and regularly was on video calls with our CMO and executives at external companies. My CMO was sweet but VERY rich and out of touch.

    I lived in a one bedroom apartment with my spouse and with both working from home, I took loud meetings from the tiny balcony whenever I could to spare him the noise.

    My CMO loved to start meetings by saying “Look at Anon, she is SO good at getting outdoors time & prioritizing sunshine during this horrible pandemic!!” as if it was just a lark, and a cute habit of mine, not a complete necessity lol

    1. Archi-detect*

      not to diminish your situation of course, but I did have several coworkers work outside on decks/a gazebo and one guy just set up a card table, and they all enjoyed it

    2. econobiker*

      The bright sunlit flex of one executive taking a video meeting lakeside, before going out on the lake, with his very large and very shiney silver and red boat, on its exact color matching 2 axle trailer, in the background on his camera.

      About $100,000 of super fast speed bass fishing boat and trailer.

      While we peons were sitting in cubicles in a factory without windows.

  30. KimberlyR*

    Our company hasn’t been doing great financially and it would be tone deaf to ask for a raise or any other additional pay. Our previous CEO lived in a different state from the home office and flew back and forth between his home and our corporate office almost every week…Even with frequent flier points, it just felt off that no one got extra money but we had the money to fly him back and forth. (I don’t know why he had to fly in so often. We are at least 90% remote).

    Our current CEO doesn’t believe in remote work and would love to make us all go in-office. The vast majority of the company does NOT live in the only state we still have an office in. I have no idea what he thinks will happen.

  31. They Call Me Patricia*

    #5 reminds me of a presentation we had during a mandatory all staff training. I work in a social service-type sector where the work is notoriously high stress and low pay. This presenter (who management could not stop fawning over) told us that if we were not 100% jazzed and excited to come to work every single day, we should take a 1 to 2 year “breaky-break.” (Yes, she used that term). Not sure who is going to pay my billsy-bills during my breaky-break…

    1. Little Miss Helpful*

      Social work is a sweet lady job, so luckily everyone has a honey-bunny-hubby to take care of that pesky money stuff.

  32. Calamity Janine*

    well. on the plus side.

    i am feeling so very grounded and down to earth right now, y’all. i mean by comparison i believe that i am absolutely nailing it. in fact i should totally order another tiara. i’ve got so much wiggle room before it reaches problem levels as described here, so i might even order two! i’ve hardly ever expected people to cheer for me while i enter to the theme from Rocky, after all! haven’t had a luxury car delivered to an office of struggling underlings even once! and i haven’t sent out Christmas cards with a mobile describing all my travels to my workers, either!

    i am a paragon of grace! i am god’s most perfectly humble creature! i am –

    oh god. oh no. this is how it starts isn’t it. hold on who can check to see if i got bitten by a clueless CEO in my sleep

    2. Six Feldspar*

      You’re our undercover agent and we’ll be sending you into the rich headquarters to sabotage them!

  33. Go Sports!*

    Early in the pandemic, the CEO of the division of a large tech company (who has since become the CEO of the whole company) told everyone during an all-hands meeting that his “pandemic hobby” had been naming the newly-founded NHL team in the company’s hometown. I guess that beats the banana bread everyone else was baking?

    1. I Have RBF*

      Heh. My “pandemic hobby” was making masks, because there were none available to a lot of people.

  34. DarkShadows*

    I had a VP tell me how fortunate that they were that they had an office with so much light and windows! Having an office with windows is so great. It’s much better for your health. In their last job, they had an office with no windows and they were just depressed all the time because of it and their skin looked terrible.

    This was said to me in my office. With no windows nearby.

    1. Archi-detect*

      I am 5 cubes back from the windows which are normal height so I feel ya on that. managers who haven’t been seen in person in a month+ have window cubes though

      1. Snarkus Aurelius*

        At my old job, I knew of a woman who had an office with a door. She came to the office once a year for a big meeting so she wasn’t even *in* her office when she was there. We had an office space shortage so hers was the first to go up for grabs, and she threw an absolute fit. She needed her office with a door even if she wasn’t using it in case one day she did need it! The hoteling space wasn’t good enough! It had to be her current office.

        I’m still astounded at how clueless and selfish she was. I don’t think she cared though. Yes, she did lose her office.

        1. Anglonemi*

          Never heard the term “hoteling space” before, here the standard term is “hot desking”. But given what anyone who scrolls clickbait knows from articles about hotels, I will be using “hoteling space” going forward because it gives precisely the right level of awkward.
          (given how much I converse with and commentate on my work, pretty sure colleagues would prefer me to have an office with a door or work from home)

    2. Shipbuilding Techniques*

      oooh, this reminds me how mostly I don’t mind my company’s RTO policy–except when I think about all the window offices that are never occupied! The highest level people are the ones who feel most empowered to ignore the policy! They should redistribute them to reward those who actually make a point of showing up regularly! It’s very disgruntling.

  35. Youth*

    I know of a company pres who said a bunch of wild, tone-deaf things during a meeting announcing everyone would have to come back to the office on a full-time basis.

    Someone shared a clip of this unhinged rant, and it went semi-viral.

    Later, he gave an interview with some publication about how the video was taken out of context. In actuality, the video was worse in context (for example, knowing the promises he’d made in the past about how employees would never have to go back in the office).

  36. an infinite number of monkeys*

    So, so many years ago, I was working for a pretty great company where I was overall very happy. But I was also junior, very early in my career, and a single mom of two young kids, so I was paycheck-to-paycheck (if I was lucky).

    One year they gave everyone a 10% end-of-year bonus across the board, adjusted to make sure it was exactly 10% after taxes. And that was great! Absolutely no complaints! But in the breakroom one day, a senior manager advised me to make the smart financial decision to use that money as down payment on a house.

    10% of my annual income was NOT house-down-payment money. Not even close.

  37. Louisa*

    I worked for a company where probably 80% of employees made $12-15 an hour, but anyone at the director level and above was paid way above what they could expect elsewhere. When an SVP’s husband died suddenly and tragically, the company set up a fund for her family, which would have been nice for the executives to contribute to, but instead, they announced the fund in an all-staff meeting and asked everyone.

  38. Seashell*

    Here’s my out-of-touch boss story. I was working at a job that requires a professional degree. I was working Monday through Saturday and making a rather low salary. The boss rarely came in on Saturdays, but a few of us underlings were.

    The boss subsequently invited us to his kid’s 1st birthday party. It was being held on a Saturday afternoon, so, since some of us were working then, it wasn’t an option to say “sorry, I can’t make it.” The boss acted like he was doing us a really big favor by letting us go to a party instead of work.

    This 1st birthday party was at a fancy reception hall where weddings are usually held, and it was probably north of 100 guests. I got a meal out of it, but I had to bring a gift for the kid (I think I gave money) and I had no burning desire to sit there with my co-workers, so it was close to a wash.

  39. CoffeeCoffeeCoffee*

    I used to work at a research university in Chicago and we had a new AVP come from a (smaller, less well known) school in Los Angeles. At his very first meeting with our staff, he asked how we all liked living “in such a small town” since clearly if it isn’t LA, Chicago is a “small town.”

  40. Goldenrod*

    Jesus, READ THE ROOM, people!

    #10 “The Tip – Reminds me of my last job. The Chief of Staff (for HR, no less) shared her helpful tip for working during COVID. It was “use the guest room as an office”!

    Gee, thanks. Why didn’t I think of using the guest room?? Was I just stupid?

    Oh wait, I just remembered, it’s because my husband and I were both working remotely out of our ONE-BEDROOM APARTMENT. Thanks for the great tip, boss!

    1. Cai*

      Also, who has a guest bedroom and DIDN’T think to use it as their remote office space? Was anyone so stuck on “the purpose of this room is for guests to sleep in” that they wouldn’t use it for work when suddenly having to go remote?

  41. Worker Bee*

    Years ago, everyone who worked in my (now former) company’s HQ gathered for a town hall. During the presentation the CEO mentioned that he was sure we’d heard rumors that the company was moving and many of us would lose our jobs. Then he showed us a picture of his recently completed new mansion in another state and confirmed that the rumors were true.

  42. Mark This Confidential And Leave It Laying Around*

    Solidarity to #8. Once had to sit through an hour+ 2-Truths-and-a-lie gameshow with 500 coworkers where we had to use our phones to guess the C-Suite’s hobbies and sports triumphs.

  44. OopsAllMicroaggressions*

    #1 reminds me of my last organization, where the staff of mostly young people of color had written a letter to the board about problematic (racist, sexist and otherwise inappropriate/entitled) behavior from the founder and leader of the organization. The founder called an all-staff where he, presumably, intended to apologize. Instead, he went on a long spiel about how his life hadn’t been so great if you think about it, like his family was lower middle class, and did you know he’s the first person from his family to graduate college? We did, in fact, know this — and that it was true only because several previous generations of his family had attended West Point before becoming Army officers.

  45. abitahooey*

    My (cis white male) department head never shuts up on a good day. While we wrote him off as just a talker who was out of touch but mostly harmless, recently at a work event he declared that it was high time people realized that DEI was racist and bad for business. He was stunned when his (majority women and people of color) team answered this remark with stony faces and icy demeanors. Several people straight-up left without a word. He used to be well-liked, now he’s scrambling to make nice so people don’t quit — which he really can’t afford. At least he has learned to shut the fuck up.

  46. DramaQ*

    I think #12 is now at my company.

    It was Taylor Swift music and we has to stand up and give a “big loud cheer!” when he entered complete with high fives.

    Later on several people jokes about not drinking anything already opened for us just in case.

    It was very cult/MLM scheme vibes all day.

  47. Leslie*

    These stories remind of a veterinarian I took my puppy when I was 19 years old. The veterinarian had a huge binders of all of her International trips in the waiting room, no magazines.

  48. umami*

    LOL the one about the luxury car reminds me of a former boss who kept telling me I needed to upgrade my (admittedly aging) car to a Lexus like his, saying I ‘deserved a new car.’ The last mention was about a week before I got notice I was being RIFed, meaning the plan had been in progress for a couple of months.

  49. Science KK*

    By comparison my boss isn’t too bad, but she always makes the comment “If I have time, YOU have time”. Ma’am I don’t have a husband who’s willing to help with dishes/laundry (I don’t have a husband/SO at all), I can’t afford a WEEKLY housekeeper (or any housekeeper), or to go out every time I’m too tired/overwhelmed/don’t want to do dishes.

    I want to remind her she’s paid 6 figures because she needs to outsource that stuff. I am not and cannot.

  50. Janice Plumlee*

    The local builder my spouse and I worked for had a nice Christmas party with food, drinks, and games. We were seated at the table with the owner and his wife. He stared at us as if we should not be there. We introduced ourselves and stated which neighborhood we worked in. He never acknowledged us and continued to stare at us during the meal. At the end of the meal, he stood up to deliver a welcoming speech. Instead he thanked everyone (who included lowest paid builders to highest commission sales) “for making everyone in his family millionaires!!” So tone deaf.

  51. For Real Life!?*

    For my fellow parents and caretakers of young children, #12 is straight out of a Bluey episode!

    “Ok, listen up. Whenever I walk into a room, everyone has to clap and go, ‘Whoo! Yeah! It’s Dad! Alright! That guy’s awesome!’ Got it?!” -Bandit Heeler

  52. KDO*

    Should’ve sent this one in – the very large, very successful tech company I work for hosts a retreat in Hawaii for all senior staff. They very generously invite the rest of us plebeians to… “join remotely.”

    3. WFH4VR*

      If only someone could hack that Zoom and play scenes from Scrooge where Ebenezer is railing against Bob Crachit for wanting Christmas off.

  53. Bitsy*

    I work in an academic field that’s pretty poorly paid. In my first job I was working at an isolated, rural institution, where the only housing I could afford was a single-wide trailer.
    When I landed my next job, slightly better paying, in a much larger city, the director came to me with concern. He said he was so sorry I was leaving, that he knew I felt isolated there. I thought, well, if YOU paid me enough to live in town, in housing that was attached to the ground, then maybe I wouldn’t be leaving!

    He then suggested that when I moved to the bigger city I should live downtown, so that I could “enjoy the cultural milieu.” Downtown housing there was all luxury lofts, way, WAY out of my price range. Which I told him, as politely as I could.

    He was actually a very caring person. Just a bit clueless.

  54. Sheila*

    I missed the entry post, but 15 yrs ago I worked for a govt adjacent organization that got a new president, a guy in his late 20s. In order to fit in with the oil company execs that made up the org’s members, he bought a brand new pickup truck that cost around $40k CAD. He insisted that THE ENTIRE OFFICE come down to the parking lot so he could show us his new truck. Never mind that the cost was the same as some of our annual salaries! That’s just one of several stories I have about this absolute lunkhead.

  55. Nina from Corporate Accounts Payable.*

    Did the recipient of the picture in #2 throw out the picture in the office, or did they wait to toss it in the trash when they got home?

    1. Wilbur*

      Personally, I think that’s more of a forget it on a table situation. If they ask about it, just tell them “I didn’t realize that was for me.” Or maybe if it’s a nice frame, keep the frame and throw out the photo.
      It’s pretty easy to give a bad gift (wrong size corporate wear, cheap water bottle), but I feel like it’s genuinely hard to create a situation where it’s better to not have given anything. This is one of those rare situations where it would’ve been better to never have given any gift.

    2. Jenesis*

      I might have made a show of publicly digging through the back of the frame for the “surprise cruise tickets” that “of course must be there” first, but I’m petty.

    1. Artemesia*

      If I got that I would keep it forever and would haul it out at dinner parties with sufficient numbers who had no heard the story for the rest of my life. ( I actually kept a hilarious gift from work and have been known to prove the insane story with the object itself)

  57. Raspin*

    Re #3: I had a former boss who called (well emailed) out because he got up to walk his dog and it was “dark like night” so he was going back to bed. It was winter in the Pacific Northwest. I made sure to forward that email to his boss’s admin so she could make sure he included it on his time sheet.

  58. Notthereanymore*

    A couple months into the pandemic, HR sent an email about how if we were getting tired of working in our home offices we could change rooms and work at the dining room table or at the kitchen table, complete with a picture of a large dining room room looking out into a yard with trees. This was publishing, where most people live in NY or one of the boroughs, and have gone on strike about low wages. We didn’t have home offices, much less dining rooms and dining tables–we joked about sitting on the floor to work at the coffee table instead of the couch…

  59. RCB*

    I appreciate that #8 mentioned the cost of that meeting. If you have 1,000 employees making an average of $75,000 a year (and figure 20% average cost on top of that for tax and benefits), a half hour of everyone’s time will cost the company about $22,000. I think if the CEO made everyone play a pointless game, particularly one about the CEO, and afterwards someone said “was this really a good use of $22,000 of company money?” then things might get real very quickly. Putting things in perspective like that tends to make people realize just how absolutely ridiculous some things are.

  60. WFH4VR*

    I think I have to vote for the boss who was “too cold” to come in for the mandatory-attendance meeting. They’re all pretty repulsive, though!

  61. not in my job description*

    I missed the comment deadline of the last one, but this one comes via a friend at my workplace who reminded me of something that somehow slipped my mind:

    We’re an almost fully on-site workplace (4 days in, 1 day out), and a couple years ago we launched a service that has never really made it out of the red. Our CEO has taken several opportunities to tell us how we need to work hard to push it to profitability, how the service can’t fail, how he’s so stressed about the success of the service and the company as a whole, and has for about two years now set quotas for us to refer friends, family, spouses, enemies, anyone who will listen to sign up for this service, regardless of our job type (essentially, we’re all salespeople and ‘evangelists’), generally with thinly veiled threats of “maybe you don’t belong on this ship if you aren’t committed”. 1 in 5 of our employee base are immigrants, many of whom came to this country to work here and don’t have the broad personal networks that local staff do.

    CEO regularly posts “inspirational” messages about his own great efforts to get this service into profitability… by pressuring his golf caddies, flight attendants in first class (or his private jet), taxi drivers, serving staff at premium restaurants to sign up. all during work hours of course, when the rest of us are mandated to be in the office, and then pressured into selling this service in our personal time, to our personal network, or to our local community. Yeah, no thanks.

  63. Dogwoodblossom*

    I worked at a place where the CEO came in very rarely (really she had very little to do with the business generally). One of our “perks” was a mini fridge full of kombucha. She would take out a bottle, drink a bit of it and then put the lid back on and then *put it back in the fridge!* Like, we had a regular sized fridge for people to store things.

  64. knitting is a nice hobby*

    The top executive did an interview so we could all get to know him as a person. He talked about his hobbies:
    – Car racing. Fun fact: He became buddies with Paul Newman!
    – Downhill skiing.
    – Piloting a small plane (I think? My memory is fuzzy)

    He also talked about going to Australia and digging opals for fun.

  65. Six Feldspar*

    Not quite so egregious, but I used to work in an industry where rosters were the norm and the standard 5/2 work week was the exception rather than the rule.

    14 days work/7 days off takes a little getting used to but is definitely doable for a few years on the salary offered (days at least, I never did the 7 days/7 nights/7 days off roster and apparently people get real weird on that one…)

    But it definitely gets old when you’re working a 14/7 roster and your supervisor on an 8/6 roster starts talking about how tired they are, or (lord defend us) your manager on a 4/3 roster starts talking about how tired THEY are…

    1. D*

      oh you’d be surprised what its like, I hated 4/3. it definitely has its downsides. you’re flying all the time and constantly in catch up mode. not that 14/7 was fun either. I did 21/7 for a while too cause I’m ollllllllld

      1. Six Feldspar*

        Oof, 21/7 would have been incredibly rough! 8/6 was probably the best we were going to get and it still gets tiring after a few years..

  67. Shipbuilding Techniques*

    I have read all these clueless CEO threads and every time I get so many laughs. Thanks to everyone for sharing your stories and comments. Glad I don’t work for these people!!! gah!

    1. allathian*

      Yeah, same. I’m glad I work for the public sector in Finland where pay differences are relatively small, so that the annual salary of the head of my agency only makes about 10 times the salary of the lowest-paid intern, and all internships are paid.

      It’s only possible because tuition is free up to a Master’s degree here, so we don’t need huge salaries to pay off student debts. Sure, you still have to pay rent etc. as a student, but I graduated with about 5k in student debt, for example. The small number of self-made wealthy people we have usually got that way by running a successful startup and selling it to investors. It’s basically not possible to get rich by working here, you need capital to do that.

      I’m convinced that it’s morally reprehensible for an individual to have a fortune that’s larger than about 100 million, and all these posts about clueless executives haven’t changed my mind on that. I certainly can’t believe that these people’s work is worth the salary they get.

  68. Witch of Oz*

    No 2 and 7 should’ve been thrown straight in the bin, preferably while the clueless execs were watching.

  71. Editor Emeritus*

    I have a slightly different twist from the ‘look how rich I am’ execs (though we had plenty of those; I’m in the UK and most of them had worked in the City at some point or another – and brought as much of the culture with them as they could).

    The company sold pension annuities, and as an internal communicator I put together a video that featured two teams of front-line employees getting the budget of an average retiree to go to the grocery store for a weekly shop, plus food for having some guests for lunch.

    One of the items they bought was a jar of olives. After the video was published, one of the senior leaders commented that he hoped people on a limited budget don’t consider olives a necessity, and maybe the team shouldn’t have bought them. Apparently, people on a fixed income shouldn’t eat olives? Or only serve bread and margarine to guests? Or not have guests?

    Fortunately my boss immediately called the guy out on his lack of leadership example, and the comment was taken down.

  72. Old Woman*

    These are much worse than mine. We had a VP hold a meeting with everyone at our local, very rural area. Laborers, logging crews, heavy equipment operators, staff, etc. VP proceeds to drink wine in the meeting. The state had only recently allowed sales of alcohol and a vast majority of workers were religious teetotalers. No alcohol was offered to anyone else except managers. He also loudly proclaimed he was an atheist. We were in the Bible Belt! The guy was clueless.
    He also moved the regional headquarters to Dallas, far away from the physical operations of this very large company. There was one failing operation in Texas. He did it to break up the power of the group at the closed headquarters and coincidentally (!) because he had a girlfriend in Dallas and a wife in the Northeast where company headquarters was located.

  73. Ailsa McNonagon*

    During covid, the CEO of the organisation I worked in told us not to worry about not getting a CoL pay rise that year, because working from home off-set the difference.

    It did not, or at least not for those of us earning less than £100K pa (like the CEO and leadership team were).

  75. Filicophyta*

    The musical CEO (letter 12) reminds me Season 3 Episode 1 of Sex Education when new head teacher Hope arrives at the school (she turns out to be awful).

  76. Filicophyta*

    The company provided staff housing at my location because there were no apartments in area yet, nor public transit, just huge family houses for people who were assumed to drive. (As soon as an apartment building was completed nearby, they stopped offering.)
    They found a four-bedroom house which also had a maid’s bedroom off the kitchen. This is where the company owner would stay for a few days each month when he came to town to visit our branch. There was a washing machine in the house but he expected one of us (four, usually all women) to wash his bed sheets. At first our branch manager did it but when she left the rest of us wouldn’t do that and he kept using them for a long long time.

  77. OlympiasEpiriot*

    In the spirit of Alison’s caution at the end of the post, the reply to this will be a link to my favorite Motörhead song.

  79. Mr. Spock*

    #6 – I’ve been there. At the company in question, they laid 12 staff off on the Friday afternoon without warning. On the Monday morning the CEO arrived in a brand new hand-built sports car, drove it into the visitors’ bay, and sat there revving it up.

  80. Blackbeard*

    I do not recommend eating the rich due to their toxic content. Just chew and spit them out without swallowing.

  81. Blackbeard*

    Also, several years ago I used to work for a consulting company (a real body shopper) which paid as little as they could, offered the legal minimum on pension schemes and holidays, gave zero benefits to employees (not even free coffee in the office), no raises, no COL adjustments, nothing.

    At the end of the year they regularly wrote in the company newsletter “thank you employees, we made a sh*tload of money again this year”. You know what? F the thanks, give me a raise.

    And the CEO regularly parked his red Ferrari in front of the office whenever he came to visit.

  82. HalesBopp*

    The obsessions with branded merch will never fail to amaze me. Our company does gifts for 1 year anniversaries, and then increments of 5 (so 5, 10, 15, etc.). The ongoing joke used to be about what awful thing they were sending out for specific anniversaries. The 5 year used to be a coaster with the company logo, but was eventually swapped for a branded water bottle. It was similar for retirement gifts. A colleague of mine left after 25 years and received a branded desk clock :/

    With COVID, it became impractical to try and store then ship all of these items, so we switched to an online gift market where staff can choose like (none of which are branded merchandise). We’ve received zero complaints.

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