Have you ever encountered a sociopath?

[usonian]

9. Many Silicon Valley CEO's and managers are psychopathic or sociopathic.

But at least you can quit. Two bosses.

One boss went pretty nonlinear when he went on vacation and we didn't have quite enough to impress his boss when he returned, so he demanded daily verbal status reports. Unacceptable, weird-ass controller bullshit.

Friday that week was "Take your kid to work day" so when my daughter returned from the free pizza, I showed her how to deal with nutcases. I documented all my projects (they were in good shape, no loose ends) and walked out the door.

Another would always put employees in the middle of some tough situation. One Indian-American woman was tasked with managing some unruly and crafty Indian contractors, and her position was really junior. So she walked straight to business school.

Same guy broke a lease, from a guy known for violence, so we packed up everything at night, led by a guy supposedly a former Mossad agent, while the boss waited in the new office, far from danger. One day, he walked into my cubby, clueless as to what a one-person I.T. department actually did, and I saw his eyes lowering to a magazine on my desk. It was this one.



I don't recall if that was before or after a guy whose company he bought figured he had a raw deal so in the name of "demo-ing software" he also installed some spyware on the boss's laptop. Boss found out and sued him. I got to be witness. The final ruling was "well, you two work it out" The trial was in the building across from where Scott Peterson was on trial for murder, and there were media cables all over the place covered by wooden walkways. Mark Gallegos would hold press conferences between the buildings. Hey, anything for a strange life.

The boss always overpromised, and since I was responsible for a giant deployment (and entire school district) and he kept yanking people off the team, smartest first, it ended up almost entirely on my shoulders, and I remember everyone getting Sept 11th off except the field crew, so I ended up working the night in a high school rebooting servers and checking on stuff, glancing at the TV along with the maintenance people. Pretty depressing day. I got some PTSD from that job, Couldn't really quit because the job market was dead at the time.

He kept moving the business, in a remarkable coincidence, every time he moved his home. So there were many PITA moves.

I was one of those "full time employee contractors" so when he changed the terms of that non-agreement, I told him to file it where the sun don't shine. I dropped by the office around noon one day to leave docs and equipment and keys, but nobody was there. I waited until 2 p.m. and still out to lunch, so I just dropped it off.

Onward to contract work with "real" startups. They were easier to deal with because they were actually trying, and not hobbyists or ass-kissers.

And to be fair, some bosses were really decent people. One was new to the job and kind of clueless, so I would talk to the "regulars" and make helpful suggestions. The fast learners are at the bottom of the totem pole.

At one aerospace company, I got blamed for every idiot prank that anyone pulled. After an especially dumb popcorning of a department office, I told them in all honesty "That's not my style. I only pull clever pranks". Oh well.

I survived it all. Fortunately, outside of work, only mildly messed up people. Easy to deal with.
I feel genuine compassion for those who have had bad family relationships.