I worked in marketing for a mid sized business phone system manufacturer that used to be CEO’d by a major control freak. He was the founder and the primary shareholder, but he was just a flat out loon.
My VP was a guy whose wife worked for Great Leader and was also his mistress. Yes, the whole company AND MY VP knew about it. VP wouldn’t quit because he would lose his shares in the company if he did, and they were worth a good amount.
My director was a woman who had an absolute terror of confrontation. She hated the company and everyone above her, but she hadn’t fully vested yet and didn’t want to lose her shares.
My manager was a good person and real workaholic but an absolutely anal perfectionist who also wouldn’t say, “No,” to anyone above her pay grade. That made working for her a living hell when you’d put two months of effort into a campaign and then have it rejected because the VP or the CEO didn’t like the font or some such.
Anyway, the work environment was lousy across the company. Engineers quit left and right and deleted their project files, everyone in my team of 4 was constantly looking for another job, etc.
I finally found another gig and gave my notice, which shocked my manager. She came from one of those strict families where nothing is ever discussed and you must pretend that everything is happy happy joy joy at all times, and she carried this into how she managed.
On my last day, my director told me my exit interview was scheduled for 3:00 and that it would be with the entire department. I didn’t care, I was finally going to be free of that hellhole.
Well, the other three specialists on my team took me out for lunch. It turned into a long lunch. There was much drinking involved. We got back to office around 2 and I packed up my stuff.
At 3 we all file into the conference room for my exit interview, which, as an aside, is just about the single dumbest practice I’ve encountered in 15 years of corporate work.
I got the whole, “We’re sorry to see you go, yadda yadda,” from the director and manager when the VP, who was in town for the day, stuck his head in and said he wanted to sit in.
The director had a couple of softball questions for me and then asked, “So, why is it you felt you wanted to leave and go work for another company?”
Now, I had I been sober, I would have thrown out the usual better opportunity for advancement, the new company is doing some exciting things, etc. bullshit. Instead I said (quoted as well as I can recall), “You can’t fucking be serious!” I pointed to the VP, “The CEO a dictatorial lunatic who is fucking your wife and you’re too much of a pussy to quit or put a stop to it.” I pointed at the director, “You’re so desperate for validation that you collapse like a Jenga tower if anyone above you disagrees with any idea you have, but you refuse to walk until your stock vests.” I pointed at the manager, "You’re so stoic and filled with self loathing because daddy didn’t hug you enough that you take any ridiculous assignment and deadline with no budget and no guidelines and flog us like mules to do the impossible for the idiots leading the company who have driven the share price down by more than 50 percent in the last two years. How’s that stock looking now, folks?
“The emperor has no fucking clothes and I’m tired of having to look at his wrinkly ballsack as he flounces down the street. Fuck this. I’m out of here,” and I stood up and left, put my stuff in my car and drove across the street to Denny’s to have a few cups of coffee and sober up for a couple of hours before I drove home.
When I got home there was a message from one of the other guys on my team saying that no one said a word for a full two minutes after I left and that he was the first one to speak. He said, “Yeah, I quit too.”