When you have two bosses and they can't agree on whether to build a spreadsheet or a web app

What happens when you have two bosses and each has a completely different vision? Bad management.

And what happens when, on top of that, they don't talk to each other? All hell breaks loose. Thank god we didn't keep flamethrowers in the office, because it would have literally burned to the ground.

Let me explain.

It all started on some day of the week I couldn't tell you. I was at the office working on a project that had been going for months, one we were all genuinely excited about, or at least I was. While I was wiring up a third-party integration into the platform, the CFO summoned me over, marketing team in tow. They did it their usual way: barging into the developers' room and announcing they needed to talk to me. No calendar invite, nothing.

They told me they needed to import a batch of XML files from a provider older than dirt, convert them into a Google Sheet so they could review and tweak the data, and then push that Sheet into the database.

I walked them through the technical headaches involved and roughly how long it would take, and their answer was: "this should have been done months ago, so make it top priority."

Like everything else at that company, naturally.

So I told the CTO what they'd asked for, and he said it wasn't nearly as urgent as finishing the integration they'd interrupted. He told me to ignore them: it had been sitting on the backlog for years, and a little longer wouldn't hurt. Being the good employee I am, I listened to my CTO, my actual direct manager, and went back to what I'd been doing.

Meanwhile, the CEO wandered in, chatted with the CTO, then came over to me. Told me not to worry about the Sheet, that he'd cover for me.

Yeah, right.

A week later, one of the marketing folks pinged me on Slack asking how it was coming along. I explained the situation. She ghosted me. A while later she showed up with the CFO and, once again, pulled me out of the room for "a quick word."

I laid out everything I'd discussed with the CTO and CEO. They told me to ignore both of them and do what they said, because it was so urgent we might lose the client.

Fantastic.

I went back to the CTO afterward, and he explained that this client had never actually paid us, and that the CFO caved to their every whim because, to him, "landing this client is personal." He told me to forget about the guy (his exact words) and keep doing my job. I had plenty on my plate: more integrations, more testing to make sure everything held together.

The CFO and the marketing person booked a couple of meetings with me, and when I found a gap I built the XML-to-Google-Sheet converter. Several versions of it, actually, because "they didn't like how the spreadsheet looked."

At that point I was tearing my hair out, so I took it back to the CTO. He said it was only natural they'd say things like that, since they didn't grasp the technical side of what I'd built, and told me to make it clear there'd be no styling or fancy touches: take it or leave it. They took it, and started reviewing the data.

A month went by and they asked me to start importing everything into our platform. We had zero spare time, since the main project was about to ship (or so we developers believed). After I turned down a few of marketing's meetings over it, the CFO stormed into the developers' room, absolutely livid. The conversation went roughly like this:

CFO: Kyngo, I need you in my office for a second. Me: Can't, CFO. We're slammed and a couple of servers just went down. CFO: It's important, Kyngo. Come now. Me: I'm telling you I can't, this takes priority. If you want, I'll drop it and leave half our clients without service for as long as you need. Otherwise, wait till I'm done. CFO: Kyngo. Come. Now. That doesn't matter.

The air was thick. I stood up, glanced at the other developers, and they glanced back, everyone sensing something big (and stupid) was about to go down. I walked into the CFO's office. He shut the door and stared at me.

CFO: Let me get this straight, Kyngo, do you think this is some kind of game? That you can mess with me however you please? Me (baffled): ...What are you talking about? I have no idea what you mean. CFO: When I ask you to do something, you do it. Full stop. Half this company is mine, and I can do whatever I want with your future, understood? Me: I think you should talk to the CEO, because... CFO (cutting me off): So now you're saying the CEO is playing games with me. Me: I never said anything about games. I'm saying talk to him, because the two of you aren't aligned. CFO: I don't see what that has to do with anything. If I ask you for something and you turn down my meeting, you're basically telling me to get lost. If I say "come," you come. That's what I pay you for. Me: The company pays me, not your wallet. Talk to the CEO, and once you've cooled off we'll pick this up again.

I walked out, shaking from the sheer stress of it. I grabbed the CTO and told him everything. He buried his face in his hands and said he'd take it to the CEO.

That same afternoon, the CEO and CTO came over and asked for two minutes. They apologized on the CFO's behalf and assured me it never should have happened. I told them that meant nothing to me, that I wanted the apology from the man himself. They turned a deaf ear.

I left that job a few months later, but I'll save that story for another post. This whole thing became the talk of the office, and it still comes up whenever workplace toxicity at that company gets mentioned in my circles, because nobody had ever seen anything like it.

Karma caught up in the end, though. The CFO eventually left the company. A bigger firm bought it out and made it a condition of the deal that they didn't want him.

Anyway, that's it for now. Plenty to chew on already, right? Heh.

Cheers, and don't let them burn you out!