For 10 years, my small promotional group was responsible for annual growth of 10% for a $3 billion business, management loved us and life was good. But when the new CEO decreed we move to a rural state near one of our plants, the brand manager we worked with so successfully quit in a rage and nominated a jerk from the rural state for his successor. You know the type: a humorless MBA who is 100% fact-based-- as long as your "facts" agree with his preconceived notions of how the world should be.

At our first meeting he bragged about how hard he was to get along with and how his daughter ran off with a married sailor just to escape living under his roof. Right then I knew our ride would be both short and bumpy. The new boss made us stop working and start planning. We justified our existence at every level and broke down every assignment into 15-minute increments. This went on for months, and while this went on we spent no money, which he liked, since he never understood our business anyway.

A new business unit president arrived and had to decide who was responsible for the decline in the business; us, or the new boss, and naturally he guessed wrong. Things came to a head during a budget meeting where my supervisor and the new boss started by shouting and ended by throwing chairs at each other. When management refused to take his side, he began falsifying fitness reports on us. Then he fired us. Now the business is really in the tank but he's probably happy since he's saving all that promotional money. I found a post with a firm that still treats employees with respect and years later, saw him in an airport terminal. When he saw me, he ran and hid in the men's room until my plane left. Too bad. I'd have enjoyed knocking him in the gutter where he belonged.

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