Last time I shared some of my career history and left off when the dot com bubble burst. Today I continue this series by giving details on the next position I held.
As you recall, I made the shift to the head of marketing for a sister company when the dot com I was working for went under. The company was what I’d call a smaller mid-sized company ($300 million in sales) that had been declining the past few years. Competition was eating away at its base of sales and the company president, a wonderful man and good leader in times of plenty, was not the right person for the job when times got tough. In short, the company was in a slow death spiral.
What did this mean? The business was losing sales and profits and cutting all the costs it could (including marketing expenditures — yikes!) Morale was decent but people were jumping off the ship whenever they got the chance. Pay was frozen (a big kick in the teeth to my efforts to grow my salary) and we had a couple rounds of letting people go (ugh, again.) Needless to say, this wasn’t the best place to work.
But at this point I didn’t have a lot of options. I was at the top of one of the best companies in our industry (believe it or not), so I didn’t have many alternatives. In addition, I had gotten off the fast-track a bit as I had moved to progressively smaller companies and thus lost touch with many of the headhunters I knew a decade earlier. In addition, the current job had some advantages. It was low on the stress scale and didn’t require as much work time as previous jobs I’d held, making it a nice job for my family life. Besides, I was making a good salary already, making much more than I needed, so I was by no means desperate for income. I must admit that I got a bit lazy during this time. While I did have some big accomplishments during this period, for the most part I was on auto-pilot career-wise.
This state of affairs lasted a couple years until our board got tired of the slow drip-drip-drip going out of our profits. They fired the company president and hired a “professional” executive, one with great credentials. Unfortunately, he had the same sort of personality as Maniac. And his past work experience? Marketing. Great. Just great. As you can imagine, my life got quite a bit more hectic. (FYI, one day he told me, “I can do your job better than you can.”) Almost overnight, a sleepy little job went into hyper mode. Now I not only had a frozen salary, but I was working like a fiend for a madman. Ugh.
I won’t recount everything that happened over the subsequent two years, but here are some of the highlights:
- We had one change after another. As you can imagine, the new president did a complete company overhaul.
- Employees worked long hours, many of which were “busy” times spent chasing one rabbit or another for a president that knew he knew everything and no one else knew squat.
- I posted a few big wins/accomplishments during this time — one that was so substantial that we made our annual bonuses. I was popular with my colleagues that year. 馃檪
A couple years into this, I had a real-life flashback. We had been given a profit number that was far out of our reach (like I’d received in the past). Like last time, our only chance was to swing for the fence and try a risky plan, but one that had at least some chance of getting us close. The president suggested I consult a marketing firm he’d used in the past and do whatever they suggested. I worked with them, and they came up with a plan that seemed reasonable — at least it had a chance of succeeding. I presented it to the president as well as his right-hand man (who he’d brought in from his last company) and got it approved. Now, we just needed to execute the plan.
The short story is that we executed it alright, then it executed us — the plan failed disastrously. Our sales tanked big-time and were down during our biggest time of the year. The board wasn’t happy. Then, the unbelievable happened. The president and his #2 claimed that they had never agreed to “my” plan. They “forgot” that they had recommended the company that put the plan together. They “forgot” that I had shared the plan with them. They “forgot” that they had agreed to it. The only thing they “remembered” is that I had come up with a bad plan that was killing our company. Sure, I had advocated the plan as our only hope, but they had been in agreement and certainly given their approval. Otherwise, how could the plan have gone forward?
As you might imagine, it was a tough time for me. I was sure that I had a job since I had a one-year employment contract, but I wasn’t sure what it would be. Then, a few startling events took place that made me move. I’ll cover those next time. For now, here’s what I learned from this job experience:
- Don’t become complacent with your career. After years of managing my career actively, I found myself in a position where I had few career choices. I had become complacent with my career and was in a tough spot as a result. It’s one reason I harp so much on the issue of actively managing your career — I’ve seen the downside of not doing so and don’t want any of you to be in the position I found myself in.
- Politics can be a killer. I had seen some pretty harsh company politics previously, but nothing like this. The blatant lying and denial from our top two executives (seeking to avoid any blame) was simply unbelievable. And since they had direct access to the board and I did not, who do you think the board was going to believe?
- An employment contract is invaluable — so is keeping expenses down. I wasn’t sure if they wanted to fire me or not, but if they did, they’d have to pay me a year’s salary. I knew that I could stretch one year’s pay to two or three years of living expenses simply because our spending was way below my salary level (one reason: my mortgage was paid off.) It was a very nice bit of security in a big storm and the one area that helped advance my career/compensation (as I was able to carry it into future job negotiations.)
Well, that’s it for this time. Next time we’ll cover the twists and turns that led to my next job.
For the next post in this series, see My Jobs, An Interesting Transition.
If you want to read this series from the beginning, start with My Jobs, Pre-College.
photo credit: mikecogh Blame Them via photopin (license)
Fritz @ TheRetirementManifesto says
ESI, interesting to hear your career stories. We’ll enjoy comparing notes when we meet (12/30, I hope!).
Having a CEO change can be a huge impact on your life. For good, and for bad. I’ve had both. Fortunately, we just changed our CEO “for good”. I’ve been at a “Top 100” Summit all week this week with “The New CEO”, and things are looking very good. I’m thankful, I’ve put up with plenty of “Bad” over 31 years!
Your post is reminding me to be thankful. I hate getting thrown under a bus, and have a few tire scars, like you! Amazing.
The magic bean counter says
This post is a great reminder that it is so very important to live simply and keep your expenses/debt way down. By doing this, you give yourself way more control over your future. Companies can be so unpredictable and a good situation can quickly turn into a bad one in the corporate world. Its awesome that you would have been able to stretch a years salary out 2-3 years if need be.
-Stafford
Laurie says
I have a friend who recently left a job because of an unpleasant political situation. The freedom they had from managing their finances prudently was invaluable, because it gave them the freedom to walk away when they didn’t want to endure any more–like when your boss leaves you and the plan he endorsed out to dry, because it didn’t go the way he expected.
Having choices when the going gets tough is true freedom, IMO! 馃檪
Erik @ The Mastermind Within says
Thanks for sharing ESI – very interesting story with some valuable takeaways. Did you ever think about starting your own company?
Did you end up getting fired?!? I’m on the edge of my seat 馃檨 haha – until next time.
Have a good weekend – Erik
ESI says
Haha! You’re going to have to wait and see!!!!! 馃槈
Mike H says
Hi ESI,
Great post. I am going through a situation like this in real time at my company, a $500M a year business. We got a new Corporate CEO last September after the previous one (my previous boss) retired in July 2016- no overlap and the new hire was a handsome ego maniac who seemed pretty incompetent- he didn’t know how to add simple numbers in his head and asked me how to share his new job status with his Linkedin connections (dude, just update your background and it’s automatic!). I met him and immediately thought he was a “Himbo” but learned how to deal with his put downs and micromanaging style until he actually got to the point to trust me and confide in me in a friendly manner- this took about 2.5 months to achieve.
He also tried to undermine the Managing Director of the company by trying to link into the Chairman of the board- bad idea as those two are thick as thieves and related by an in-law so he was summarily fired 89 days into his tenure. Like called on the phone one night and told not to come back in again. This was after I took him around to our key business partners, issued PR for him and after he met with the analysts. Oops.
Following this was a month of chaos- the last months of the year were bad and I was asked to stop all marketing to shore up profitability at the close of the year. Then- surprise- sales started tanking in Jan and Feb but the head of the company didn’t believe it was linked to the lack of advertising since the proof is not definitive enough (a lot of other operational stuff happened during the same period that didn’t help the performance).
This week I’m asked to fire one of my lieutenants based on some rumors from people influential with the MD. The latter has never met nor worked with this person. It was an order so I’m dutifully doing it. I’m still employed and doing more of the work as of now, working as hard as I physically can.
I thought I’d be able to spend a few more years here. Now I honestly don’t know… I think I’ll try and ride the bronco for as long as I can until I get bucked off.
At least our campaigns are being executed and the business is slowly improving but way off the expectation and results of last year.
Enjoy retired life as working is a serious roller coaster!
-Mike
ESI says
Ugh.
I’m so sorry you have to deal with this. I know how taxing it can be as I’ve been through your scenario over and over again.
Whenever I got into those situations, I hedged my bets — I worked hard at the job but in the evenings started putting my feelers out for jobs at other companies. Sometimes things settled down and sometimes I had to move. But I always had options.
I hope it all works out for you and things get better soon.
Mike H says
Thanks, ESI. I’ll keep you updated. Other options are slow to cultivate and there is a buffer as severance pay gives a few months. Also a side business venture may be in the cards. Plus the possibility of semi-retirement. We’ll see. It is nice to have some options.
WealthyDoc says
All good points. I had an experience with getting fired. I was doing great work but I didn’t communicate that to the right senior leaders. Since then I keep my resume up to date, I informally interview, boost my skills continually, promote and communicate frequently. I’m “hostile to complacency” and know “only the paranoid survive.”
Jack Catchem says
This reminded me of one of my favorite quotes: “Paranoia: You only have to be right once to make it all worth while. “
ESI says
Ha! I like that!
Jack Catchem says
Thanks for continuing the series, ESI. I’m enjoying the tales as well as the takeaways.
Full Time Finance says
You know I read all the way through this post only to get the dreaded “To be continued…”
This one has some great lessons. While they bit you at a specific company I’m sure anyone who works in a corporate environment long enough has been bit by politics or ended up in a tighter career spot. Right now I’m struggling because another department is trying to take credit for my teams work. Never mind that they spent months blocking our path to execution. Politics indeed.
Paul says
Complacency is indeed a killer. “When life looks like Easy Street, there is danger at your door.”
Looking forward to hearing the next chapter. Fingers crossed the President and #2 get theirs – I’d like a Grimm’s Fairy Tales style ending!