Workplace Horror Stories- The Origin Horror Story!!

Maybe you have picked up some hints in previous episodes- psychopathy, mobbing, toxic gossips and so much more combined in one toxic sludge of an employer.  That employer served as the meeting place for our hosts, and the origin story for this podcast.

Fortunately, that employer is no more.  Sniff. Sniff.

In this episode, Stella and Roberta share more details about the most toxic environment they ever had to tolerate. Hear details about "the BBQ", learn which department started the most $hit, and details around several- let's just call them "personalities".   Finally, hear candid details about the lengths some may have gone to stop this podcast and our voices.

Warm up your hands for a slow clap and get your ears ready to hear all the tea worth spilling in this second installment of Workplace Horror Stories 2024!!

When Your Employer Files for Bankruptcy- Fact Sheet (DOL)
Tech Layoffs 2024 (Updated List)- Techcrunch
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Transcript

>> Stella: 0:01

The Toxic Tea Room Podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Neither the Toxic Tea Room nor its parent, that one, Booth Productions, llc, is responsible for the statements or opinions of its guest submissions or content derived from publicly available sources. Content should not be interpreted as targeting specific companies, organizations, or individuals. Even though some, may look awfully familiar to you, including the one we're going to discuss in this episode, the Toxic Tea Room Podcast and that one, Booth Productions, llc, are not responsible for any actions taken by individuals as a result of any content produced on this podcast. Listeners are encouraged to vet any recommendations with certified professional personnel. For more info on our disclaimer and to read our blog, visit our website at www.toxictroom.com. i am Roberta. And I'm, Stella. welcome to the Toxic Tea Room. Hi, Stell. Hi. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. We've both been so crazy busy. Yes. You know, you, with busy work, me with busy work, me with chemo, me back from chemo, me, me, busy work again. It's. It's been. It's been interesting. A couple of months. Yes, it has. Super busy. But we also had something occur in the past couple of months. Yes, we have. Technically, the past couple of weeks. Right. Yeah. So we're going to talk about in our second installment of workplace horror stories, no poop in this one. There, might be, I don't know, kind of. There's a lot of bs, that. Occurred, but it's a rhetorical poop. Wait, is that the right word? Metaphysical poop? Astrological poop? I don't know, Metaphorical? A metaphorical poop is what we're covering today. Oh, my gosh. But we. We started this podcast, both to bring these issues to life with some humor so that we can laugh instead of crying. And candidly, because we had left, at the time of our foundation, we had left the most toxic workplace I think most of us had ever experienced, and none of us are spring chicken. So that says something like, we've all been through stuff. We've just never been through this much. And this particular organization led us to kind of want to not just die in the shadows, but bring some of these issues to light and see how many other people were affected by it. And I guess it served for us kind of like our personal healing journey. Like, we. There was so much distrust and shenanigans at this particular employer that we were all looking over our shoulders for anything, any reason. There. There was just so much that happened. And now. Now that Company is. Rest in peace, no more. So Stella and I had said a long time ago, when this finally happened, we were going to do a slow clap to applaud the leadership, the incredible strategic vision, the immaculate execution of that vision, the news worthy accomplishments of this particular company. So give us 10 seconds, audience, for that. Here we go. Ready? By the way, are we coordinated about as much as their leadership team was? So we were fine. No, but if I could add, you know, it was a, such a travesty in general because, we were given an opportunity to really create something, or we were promised an opportunity to really create something. There were fantastic people that were brought on board from various organizations all to essentially go down a rabbit hole that led to nowhere. and so. Nowhere. It's a talking head song, isn't it? I think so, yeah. So, you know, when you, it just feels so inherently nefarious, if you would, if you're bringing on all these great people, disrupting their career, essentially only to not come together for a, you know, what you're promising. Right. they kept saying things like, we're gonna boil the ocean. And everyone knows you cannot boil the ocean. And if you try to boil the ocean, you're not going to be good at any single, you know, but thank. You for mentioning that particular phrase because that was said a lot. Yes. And now I understand why they kept saying it, because the only place you can boil the ocean is in hell. And that's where we were. We were in hell. So spooky. and we had heard, what about a month ago, still, it was. Right, let me. It was in August because that was when I took my first round of chemo. It was in August that we heard that the website now went to a 404 page and there were all these rumors that it was over, that they had finally shut down. There were no more trickle layoffs, no more begging for business, no more not paying vendors, no more not paying, you know, people. It was just over. Yes. And we had heard that. And I felt a lot of the same feelings that you're articulating. Like, you know, what a damn shame, because even though we had no longer been part of it, it was just that finality of everything that that company could have been. The promise of that company with the level of talent there was over. And because we were away for it for a while. And you've heard us say on this, podcast, time and distance gives you the gift of perspective. You see things much differently than when you're in it. Right? And some of those things are horrific. And we thought today, in honor of that company and because it jogged our. Me. Our memories, because we just got a letter. We just got a letter. We just got a letter. and we know who it's from. So all former employees got the formal. Hey, so, going to be disposing of assets. And in typical bankruptcies, wages have to be made. Right. So we think we're right. But if you have any claim, file your claim by that letter. Okay. That letter. So the death bell has told. It's over. Yes. So we said, you know, why don't we take a look at some of the things that occurred from a workplace horror perspective. And we're going to share our stories around these topics. So we're going to start with the one that got the most attention. And internally, we called it the Barbecue. Roasting. Good Lord. So essentially, the barbecue was a quarterly business review, and it was always this big deal. Like, if you were invited to it, if you were invited to, what are you going to do? Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, yazza. And essentially it was just senior leaders together and reviewing what had occurred in the previous quarter. Financial results, customer results, sales results. And it should be. Those meetings should bore you to death. They should be pretty. You're. It's a review, right? It's. It's. Let's talk about what happened and what went well. Did you hit targets? What didn't go well? Why? What's our corrective action? Like, these are normal meetings, except where we were. And the reason it was called the barbecue was because somebody. Somebody was going to be the designated suckling pig, put on the spit and roasted over the fire. Now, we're not talking about, you know, those celebrity roasts where a bunch of comedians come up and roast you to death. Because that's amusing. No, this is the founder and CEO absolutely unleashing, a picture the exorcist scene when she's vomiting across the room. Like, picture that in your head and make that the founder and CEO. And that's what would happen. Just this unleash of horrible bile coming at you. Because that's what it was. None of it was constructive. None of it was even on business. It all became just horrific. Like it was meant to crucify the person that was the target. And by the way, you didn't have to do anything wrong to be the target. It was just going to be your turn. When it was my turn to be the target, it was towards the end of my Tenure there. And I did openly laugh because I was being told not to bring geopolitical events into the sales results. Hey, folks, here's the fun thing. I didn't, and I wasn't responsible for sales. But that gives you just right. That was, that was one of the milder things. I have heard people be called stupid. I have heard people be told directly, why are. Why don't I just fire you? Why are you not. Why are you even here? And mind you, this is not a small group. This is. Again, if this was the C suite, it would be inappropriate for the C suite to speak to each other this way. But if you're seeing each other on the daily and your relationship allows for that kind of thing, or, even if it said jokingly, I don't think it's appropriate. No, this is the senior leaders of the company. This was director and up. and this was like a 20 to 30 person meeting. So you would, the person, the target would literally get crucified in front of everyone that they have to go out and work with after that meeting. And nobody was, Nobody abstained from it. Nobody was let off of it. It was always somebody's turn. It was just a matter of when. And the barbecue is probably my least favorite. Well, it's tied. There's a couple of things I hate from there. But you, you attended a couple of those meetings as well? Yeah, a few of them. and yeah, it was, it was just tacky. you, you felt so bad for the target. And, quite frankly, it was demeaning. And I guess the motivation, the only motivation I can see was that he wanted to create this sense of fear that, you know, if you aren't bringing, you know, if you're not boiling the ocean, then you're falling short. I mean, at the end of the day, I think that's, that's what it was. it was just misguided and misappropriated, you know, bashing of what was happening only because, they, you know, the leaders had this aspiration that they were going to be the biggest, you know, player in the universe, even above and beyond Amazon or, you know, some of the biggest players. and so when you fell short of doing that as a single individual, I guess that was all the relentless bashing came on, you know, a particular. Target and, and there was no forewarning. It was just, you know, and, this particular founder, well, certainly intelligent, I won't take that away from him. But in his mind, he would always share these little stories like, well, I went home and my wife asked me how, how my day went, and I told her, well, once again, I'm the smartest person in the room. And he would joke about it, but I'm like, I could see him actually having that conversation. Yeah, I could too. I can actually see that. He always, boasted that he could look around the room and at any given point fire three people and no one would notice. But then that makes you wonder, but then why did you hire them? Right? Then why are they here? And he would say those things and look, physically speaking, not a big dude. I think I'm bigger than that dude. Could, could. Could he get drop kicked to the floor pretty readily? Sure. Not. Not physically astute. He had a loud voice and he had a demeanor that was just condemning. Like if you were in his line of sight in a bad way, you were going to get lasered. I mean, you were just. He was going to tear. He would not be satisfied unless you were reduced to nothing. That's just how he was. And then he stuck with that. and he would take that sentiment elsewhere. there was a member of my team that he walked up to me once and that person had already been skipped for a promotion. That person was still working there, still had value, had still delivered for the organization. And he would come up to me on the regular and he would say, hey, Roberta, why does that MF or still work here? I mean, like, that was. He would literally say that, Yeah, how long is it going to take you to fire that m. Effort? Well, if you can fire three people and not miss them, why don't you do it? Meow. Yeah, I think we all know the reference there. Yeah. yeah, the barbecue was definitely a lot. Let's, let's talk about the secret meeting, shall we? Yeah. The secret meetings occurred. And how do we know if they're secret? Well, because they were secret in air tags. Okay. Secret. Like, yeah, you'd watch people go into an office or a conference room and it would be all hush, hush. And then they come out of there and you could read their face and they'd be like, oh, my God. Oh my God, what is this? Oh my God. The last secret meeting that I was aware of, I was made aware of after I left, but apparently a large number of, And when this was described to me, I'm going to describe it as I heard it, just because I want the visual there. Yeah. So I had someone tell me that there were all of these people, clearly foreigners, the kind and they assume I I don't, I don't know where they were from. I know now because I can connect the dots on what happened. But, they walked in with like very flashy, very flashy clothing. Like I'm imagining like Uncle Rico on Napoleon. Dynamite only, you know, a little more upscale. Yeah. Like very flashy clothes with like huge amounts of jewelry, big gold rings, huge diamonds on them. And they all went into one office and one office only and shut the door. And then all of a sudden there was more funding and all of a sudden the company had an offshore office. not anymore, I gather. But now all of a sudden the company's focus has changed from we're going to be a digital marketplace to rival Amazon. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I'm sure Steve Jobs was threatened. I'm sure he's like, oh my God, please don't do it. I've worked so hard to, We're going to be a solar marketplace. We're going to sell the sun through solar panels. Right to now flooring. So you've gone the gamut. You've gone. And over the lifetime of a corporation of say, 20, a few decades, could that occur? Sure. You could have different, you know, divisions. You can have different focuses. You, you flip and bet this is within the first five years, folks. And the last five years, as it turns out. But. Right, yeah. First and last, the secret meetings. yeah. Were you ever brought into a secret meeting? I don't think so. You lucky girl. Yeah, those sucked. They sucked because you felt dirty even being in the room. Yeah. Even if it wasn't about you. Even if you didn't have to do anything. Sometimes they would call in just for collateral. Witnesses. Yeah. And it was just dirty. It was just gross. I hated that. Let's move on to the anonymous emails. Okay. So this. Oh, yeah. that was fun. Oh my God. So there was a point in time where two anonymous emails came in in very close proximity to each other. As I recall, the first was against our corporate council. So when you have a corporate council, you're probably like a, guy's a lawyer. Yeah. What could go wrong? And this anonymous email comes out of the left field and it's sent to. This is the best part. Anybody that had a public email, like the leadership team, the investors. Yes, the founders, like anybody that had a publicly accessible email, even people within the ranks, as long as they could find a publicly accessible email, they sent an email about our corporate council. Here's the fun part. They sent his arrest record. Now to be clear, because he's not a bad soul, but yeah, he was an attorney and a corporate attorney. And I have nothing against attorneys. We have lots of attorneys on this show. Yes, but he was a corporate attorney and corporate attorneys work for their client. Their client is the company. Right. I'll leave that right there. That said, they sent his arrest record which was from clearly his college days, just based on the dates. And it was essentially for public drunkenness and he liked to piss outside, because that was his arrest record. Okay. They caught him pissing against buildings, pissing on the street. I mean it was silly and we all laughed at it, but I don't know what he did to someone. To have them email. Everyone at his new company where he's the peace, a, counsel. He's an attorney, he's not general counsel, but he is a legal counsel. And mail his arrest record from what appears to be college drunkenness as if that has anything, in fact, if anything that helped him in this company. Dude, if you could stay drunk, it would have been so much easier. Like if we could have just been drunk the whole time, right? I mean, yeah, like just a nice light buzz would have made all of this so much easier. We would have just laughed the whole time. Like, you know, have the founder go off on one of his bile filled exorcism tirades. We'd all just be like, dude, you are tripping. What is wrong with you? It would have been fun. Would have been fun. So like none of us cared about it. I was just, at the time, I was just like, wow, you, you pissed someone off. but then the second email came. The second email was even better. So when the second email came, I saw it come across, I glanced at it briefly and then I honestly, I was very busy so I did not read it. And I certainly didn't pay any attention to the subject line. Now the target of this email happened to lead our account management team. So that was the frontline customer interface. They were tasked with growing the relationship, making sure the customer was happy. What else can we do for the customer? So they reported into the sales organization, not operations. And this was, this person was their leader. So this person came into my office and looked me and said, did you see the email? I said, well, I saw one of those emails come across. I glanced at it. I honestly, I haven't read it. Did you see the subject line? Well, no, I didn't. So I open it up and the subject line was her name. Literally, that's the Subject line is, her name is a, fat effing. See you next Tuesday. Yeah, but it didn't say all of those words. It didn't edit. Like, I just edited. So whatever you think I just said. Yes, it said exactly that. And I immediately was like, oh, my God. Yeah. And then I, She. She sat. I mean, understand. She's in my office. She's on the other side of my desk. She goes, read it. So I read it really quick, and it was horrible. And they alluded to her personal appearance, and in one sentence, you know, they talked about her as a person. I mean, they just ripped her up and down. And I said, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. That is horrible. And again, sent to investors, everybody with a public email that the senator could find. So, same list, essentially. Yeah. And she looked me dead in the eyes and said, they called me fat. I'll never forget that conversation because of all the things that they spoke about, the character assassination that that email was, including the subject line. The fat bothers you. Yeah, the fat bothers you. Not. Not the effing. See you next Tuesday. You're. You're okay with that? You've. You can live with that. That doesn't bother you at all. But the fat part does. Yeah, I couldn't. I've never gotten over that. That has. To this day. To this day bothers me. Yeah, it's. It's atrocious. But, you know, again, why were these emails sent? Oh, my gosh. I just had a mini heart attack. That's what I would have expected, her to be upset about, but no. Yeah, no, she was. She was fine with the. See you next Tuesday. The allegations in that email, which I don't even want to get into. She was fine with all of that, but how dare you say I'm heavyset, You son of a. how dare you, you rat bastard, show your face like. I. I can't. Yeah, it was. It was sad. There was a lot of disgruntled people, though, because of what we mentioned earlier is that, you know, they kept churning through so many people and changing the target, expecting everyone to, you know, help the company boil the ocean again. Yeah. So you're stuck. I mean, they just kept saying that. They did. We're trying to boil the ocean. We're trying to boil the ocean. We're trying to boil the ocean. Yeah. Yeah. let's talk about some of the shady practices, and I'd like you to personally, speak to some of these. Not that you did them, but you saw plenty. What are some of your favorites? you know, I think it was, luckily I worked remotely, so I think in part I was shielded from a lot of things. But I just saw repeatedly, that whoever the target was, everyone would band together to, you know, discredit the person. But I, I would have to say I was most disappointed with hearing that there was a paid informant. I think that was, I think that was the saddest part. for me, among others. It's just that some people were intentionally told to go spy on what other people were doing and report back to sea level, on whether they were doing well or not. And the second thing that I think I was very disillusioned with is, that, you know, the people that were supposed to be doing something, the leaders especially, like, we'll say ops and sales and they really weren't doing anything. You mean at the C suite level? Yeah, at the C suite level. I think that was very demoralizing because again, they hired very, very good people with a lot of expertise and reputation. And they were kind of thrown into chaos because the vision and strategy kept changing. So for example, we would say, they would say, oh, we're going to do this. So you would pursue doing that. for example, I had a, an idea for, giving. Giving our customers a market, evaluation, that was neutral. And they're like, yeah, go do it. And then as soon as you went to do it, they're like, oh, you're still doing that. And it's literally been only one week. And they're like, oh, why are you still doing that? We don't have resources for it. So you're like, wait a minute, what happened between last week and this week? And then the, the thing that was extremely demoralizing, as well is to hear from leadership that you don't know anything about your subject matter. Like, I was, I was told that I didn't know anything about what I had just spent two years building, that I didn't know anything about it. Even though I built the entire team and the entire operation and coached all the product team to, ah, build the tool that would help service the product I was building. I feel you on that. So that was, it was just very chaotic and, discouraging, because, you know, you were leading all these people into a vision and then the vision kept shifting and the resources kept shifting. Well, the truth is there was no vision. Right. Except to boil the ocean. Here we go. What did you think was. What was your favorite horrible thing. for shady practices. Yes. There's so many, all of what you said. For sure, for sure. And in fact one particular person that would always say doesn't know anything. Doesn't know anything but would never say that to the target that they're talking about. Yes, exactly. It's like you're so brave to talk about that person behind their back about how they, incompetent they are and they don't know anything. But this particular person has never built anything. This particular individual just sold what other people built. Just sold what other people built. And the one time this person has a chance to build something, they go and connect with other companies that are just reselling and then says sell it for less. So yeah, yeah, use. You got a lot of revenue in that was immediately at a 10 to 80% loss. Bra freaking O. You are genius. Please stop talking about other people's competence. So there was a lot of that but there was also the payment practices weren't cool. I mean, yeah, that was bad. We, we had, and I was responsible for this area and we had to submit. Here's everybody that needs to get paid now. Not employees, we weren't payroll. These are all suppliers, right? These are people that did the work that we sold on their behalf. Because remember, we don't build anything. We don't know how. Yeah. So now don't ask me. I don't know how to do jack diddly squat in an industry for 25 years. I, I know nothing. So don't ask me how to build things. but we went to pay these folks and we would have to submit. Here's what needs to get paid. Some of it would be past due and then that would go to. Where do you think that would go for approval guys? Because in a typical company, in a well functioning company, maybe the controller at the highest, I mean you're going to send it to ap, they're going to put it in and it gets paid. And if there's some anomaly they'll spot it and ask you questions. But hey, these are the people we need to pay now. that's not how it worked. We would send it to accounting who would then put it in front of you got it. That same physically challenged and height bile spewing, brilliant, smartest man in the room, founder and CEO who personally determined how much we were going to get. And if we had $4 million due, for example to be paid, he might say here's 800,000 and we would have to make choices over who got paid. Now, in our industry, that's challenging because you put a lot of vendors at risk. But on top of that, when they're moving your cargo, guess what? They have collateral. So guess what? We had to do all the flipping time. Fight fires because a delivery was being held up, because it was being held hostage by a provider who's like, I need to get paid. You owe me a lot of money, and I can't extend any more credit. You need to pay me. That was one of the most disconcerting things. And when I left, because I'm very free with my cell phone number, I'm like, whatever, call me. I can block you if I don't mind, you know, to hear from you. So a lot of them called me, and I would, you know, and they would start screaming at me, these vendors on the phone, mind you, I'd already left, screaming at me. And finally, when they took a breath and say, hey, listen, listen, I hear you. I no longer work there. And then their tone would change like that. And like, oh, my God, Roberta, when did you leave? Like, it. And then they were totally friendly, like, so who should I call? Here you go. I would give the numbers directly. Here's the cell number. And if you were listening to this, and that was you. You put me in that position. So sorry. Not sorry. Yeah, it's sorry. Not sorry. It's just sad that that practice kept being like. They kept saying that it was so and so's fault. Oh, yeah, I was blamed for it. After I left, they had the absolute gall to blame me for why carriers weren't getting freight, carriers weren't getting paid. They blamed me. Now, it's common practice to blame all the ills on the person who's walking out the door. I'm not surprised. But the absolute gall of the person who delivered that message to my team, who knew better. Like, the. The thing that was fascinating is, like, you're talking to them as if they don't know what the process is. Right. And, you don't even care about your own credibility with these people. You can go ahead and throw me under the bus if you'd like, but I didn't write the checks. Right, you wrote the checks. And you would tell us not to pay these people. That's ap. Let's talk about ar. Let's talk about accounts receivable. Yeah, because I also ran billing and one of my areas of responsibility. I had a lot of responsibility there, folks, by the way. but we did all of the client billing. Yeah. One of our clients was a very large company who paid 70% or so. I think. I think the number was 70% of their. I think it was of their invoice in advance. So in other words, we would invoice upon delivery, but they would pay us 80% of the anticipated amount once they picked up. So we had the money for most of the shipment. Did we pay people on time? No. Nope. That money went to pay other people. Another client, which was one of your favorite clients, Stella. they started to pay their own carriers. Why? Because they weren't getting there. They weren't getting paid. Yeah. they weren't getting paid. And then finally, if I recall, because I think this was right as I was leaving, so I don't remember all the details, so keep me honest. That particular customer said, we're going to pay everybody ourselves. We're just going to pay the carriers directly. Yeah. And there were certain people in the C suite who were angry, like, oh, so you can pay them, but you can't pay us? No, we're paying them because you apparently can't pay them. Right. you can't get them paid. Why would we pay you? You're not paying them. And there's. It's our freight that's in jeopardy. It's our containers that are being held up like, that's screwing our business over. I'm not here to finance your business, but guess what? I think all customers work. All customers were financing their business. even now I've heard from customers who said they've had to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to carriers like UPS even, because they had already paid that bill, but that money never went there. See, that's the kind of shady stuff that. I'm sorry, you have no business calling yourself an entrepreneur or a smartest person in the room if, you're smart, like con man smart. Okay, I'm not saying you're a con man, but I'm saying that's not smart. If you don't pay your suppliers, if you play games with other people's money, which is what you did, that doesn't make you smart. Yeah, I'm scared to say. I think this is. This in particular is a little more prevalent than anyone would like to think. But I don't know. It's just this on top of, well. Well, on top of everything else. Yes. Leveraging payment terms is one thing. So, like, if I want to pay you in 60 days, because I'm going to get paid in 30 days, and you agree to that. That's not shady. That's cat. That's cash flow management. That happens all the time. But when I've given you the money and you don't pay the carriers that hauled for me under your umbrella with that money, then you're causing my business distress. Yeah. And then telling the carriers or the vendors that the reason they're not paying is because they haven't been paid yet. Yeah, but we're still waiting on the money. It's like the one you got already. Yeah, you got that a long time ago, that money. I mean, look, guys, it's. It's not. Shady is not even the right word. But I'm not. I'm, not astute enough to call out specific laws that this may or may not have broken. I'm just saying it's not how you run a good business that you're trying to get to IPO that you're trying. Oh, I have. Yeah, I'm going to save that one for another day. I have an IPO story, but I'll save that for another day. That's a good one. That's a good one. We're going to save that for another day. let's. Let's wrap up with one more. Okay. Complete and total distrust. Yeah, that was sad. Ah. If there was a product that they could say they made organically, it was distrust. You could not trust anyone. Anyone. Like, they would go, there were. There were people that held meetings with my team that I wasn't invited to and I wasn't alone. And then I was invited to meetings I had no business being in. Yeah. And then they would schedule meetings as gotcha meetings. Yeah. Like, I remember one, and this one involved you, Stella, where you had already resolved the issue. You communicated the issue. Right. And then literally two hours later, I have a senior leader coming and saying, can we talk? Like, can we just please have a meeting today? I'm like, on, What?

Well, do you have 2: 37:58

00 open? I checked your calendar. Yeah, I have it open. Why. Why are we meeting on this? I thought this was resolved. And they said, no, no, we just. We just. Can we just have a quick meeting to review. Okay. And it was already resolved. The whole point of that was to scream at me and have the COO on the phone for an issue that had been resolved that morning by you. Yeah, there was no point to the meeting. There were 12 people on that meeting, and I let them have their say. And then I finally. And. And I mean, I reported to the COO Right. So I finally said so this was resolved at

7: 38:38

00 this morning. Stella's already updated all of you. Why are we having this meeting? This was already done. Yeah, well, we know it's resolved, but okay. Why? There's a lot of money on this call. Surely we have other things to do. Why are we having this meeting? Yeah, just so that you understand the importance. Oh, I understand the importance. It's already fixed. Stella understood the importance. She already fixed it. Why are we having this meeting? Let's just have this answer. Why are we having this meeting? And then all of a sudden the meeting is over. Yeah, Yeah, I knew why we were having the meeting. It was a gotcha meeting. But for flipping, what do you people. If you would focus on doing your jobs, if you would focus on getting the, the business. Because this is always sales, you know. Do you notice that sales did most of this?

>> Stella: 39:29

Yeah. Am I right in that? Like I didn't see anything coming out of flipping engineering. Like let's have some gotcha meetings. You know, I've never realized that. I never took, took a toll of that. Let's, let's think about this real quick. How many times did engineering call us into secret meetings? None that I know of. How about product? None. None. Finance? Finance? No, no. Every flipping bit of this came out of sales. Am I wrong for that? I don't think so. I never called a flipping secret meeting, so it didn't come out of my organization. Yeah. I think it all came out of sales. Like I'm, I'm only incredulous because I never looked at it from that viewpoint. But in that particular meeting, the gotcha meeting, it was account management that asked for it. Yeah. And they reported into sales. All of the gotcha meetings started with sales. Yeah. Do you think I'm just going to throw it out there? So I'm going to say right now on record, this is open speculation. I'm not stating any of this is fact, but I'm speculating, okay? Because I'm allowed to do that. And besides, you guys are busy right now with your little bankruptcy. So here's, here's what I'm, here's what I'm saying. The sales was never what they pretended it to be. Would you agree? Yeah. We were always behind sales. We were always pricing with little to no margin. Sometimes 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 flipping basis points below margin because we wanted top line revenue. Okay. Again, I leave it to the geniuses. I, I know what a coupon Is okay. But you can't say, look at all of the money we look at all the sales we've got and you're at a loss. Like, that just doesn't work for most people because. Right. for those of you involved in selling things at a loss, the typically, the approach would then be to get economies of scale. So you take a look at your internal rate of return and determine for the loss that you are taking on the initial revenue gain, how long is it going to take you to make that up? And then could you get enough economies of scales through efficiencies and everything else to make that investment worth it? These are concepts you should learn, because giving away business is. Is not how you stay in business. That is my lesson from today. Because I don't know anything anyway. Yeah, what do you. Anyway. Now what do you know now what do you know, jackass? But it never occurred to me until now to think about the epicenter of most of the drama there, kind of the shit starters. Was that organization now going to go on record? Not everyone in it. Because there were a lot of prisoners in that organization. Right. More than guards. But when you are, failing at your job, offense is a great defense, is it not? Yes. I'll leave it at that. Mic drop. Just because you get a six figure bonus doesn't mean you know what you're doing. It just means you convince some other sucker to give up a ton of money. Right, Right. Again, I'm speculating. I'm just speculating. All in all, guys like this, it was like Halloween. It was. It was a horror place. And it, and it really gave Roberta and I a bit of ptsd.

>> Roberta: 43:17

not a bit. Wait, hold on. I have to stop. You understand, I need the audience to hear this because when you guys listen to us, like, you know, because some people could say, okay, so get over it. You no longer work there. Let me explain what we're talking about. Not only did we go through everything we've articulated, after we left, some really odd things happened. So, this group representing these alleged investors, we're going to make an investment into that company that we worked for and thought that Allison and I, only Allison and I, would be uniquely. That's the word they used. Able to advise them, with some questions they had on the company.

>> Stella: 44:00

Yeah.

>> Roberta: 44:01

So why would we, just the two of us, because we're on this podcast and they wanted to see what we would have to say, perhaps. And neither of us fell for the bait. And we told them, nope, we have a non. You Know a non disclosure agreement.

>> Stella: 44:16

Yeah.

>> Roberta: 44:16

And we're not going to. We're not going to divulge. We don't work there. Bye. And then a personal invite for Stella and I. Now, this may sound tinfoil hat, but you have to understand, where we work, these people had nothing to do than to mess with people's lives. They clearly weren't building a business plan or a real business. And they took personal offense. Some. There are members of the C Suite in particular, that took personal offense to the fact that we did not crumple up and die, let alone that we were bold enough to talk about the behaviors there. And Stella and I received an invitation to audition for a documentary on toxic workplaces. And we were really excited. We're like, wow, that could be really great for the podcast. We talk about this all the time. We each spoke to, and the firm is out of New York. We each spoke to the casting agent that represents this firm that was going to do the documentary. And it was a great time. We didn't say anything about the company, neither of ours, because we're not going to do that. You know why? Because we're not stupid.

>> Stella: 45:28

Right? Not only did we not get called to film, nobody got called to film. Nobody. Nobody got called to film. That documentary never happened. So I'm not saying that it's tied to this, but I did tell the casting agent that, you know, have a bit of PTSD from a former employer. I'm not wholly unconvinced that they didn't hire you. And there was a flash, just a flash on that person's face of like, no, no, that didn't happen. Oh, my gosh.

>> Roberta: 46:04

The lengths that they would go through just to try to trip us up so that they could sue us or interfere in our lives in some way is what happened after we left. So you can only imagine what it was like when we were in it. When we were in it. And look, we're not the reason they couldn't get any funding. Nobody's. Nobody gives a rat's ass what we have to say when it comes to funding. You're an investor. Go look at the books, take a look at the operations. Make up your minds, get some additional people to, you know, some analysts. You know, we get called for work sometimes, you know, rent ahead, right? Rent a brain. Rent a brain. Tell me about the industry. How would you view this? Anybody that's in those roles is not going to divulge anything secretive because you're not allowed to. And if you're a investor with scruples, you don't ask those things because you recognize they can't. So to have people reach out to you directly, saying, boy, you're uniquely. You must think I just fell off the turnip truck. Like you must. So just us two. Just us. Like nobody else but the two of us. Even though there had been a ton of people that had left, but Allison and I were the two most uniquely qualified people to help this investment group understand if they should invest in this company. Get bent. Nobody fell for it. Nobody fell for it because an investor group's not going to contact two individuals directly. They're. They're just not. And that's not what happened. It was a trap. And they didn't happen. The documentary thing. Great touch. The fact that their new president had been brought in and lived in New York and so was this group. I don't know if it's a connection. I don't know if the documentary, people that were based in New York were used by this person before. But I just think it's hilarious that if we bother you that much with this little, teeny tiny podcast.

>> Stella: 48:04

Yeah.

>> Roberta: 48:05

It's because there's something that rings true. That when we talk about your psychopathic boss, you see yourself that, when we talk about mobbing, it's because you know you did it. When we talk about all of the behaviors that we've covered in the early stages of this podcast and sal sense that you see yourselves in it. Ah. And that's what gets in your craw, is that the two of us aren't afraid to talk about it and we aren't ever going to be afraid to talk about it. If this podcast stops, it's because of one of two reasons. Either we're busy as hell and don't have time for it anymore.

>> Stella: 48:38

Yeah.

>> Roberta: 48:39

Or we're bored and don't want to do it anymore. It's. Those are the only two reasons we will stop. We self fund this. We don't rely on anybody. We welcome sponsors. Don't, don't, don't think. We don't want you. We love you. We, we focus more on putting that on our blog. Right. So we, we don't care about any else. Anybody else's opinions on, what we say other than we want quality content for our audience. We try to keep it entertaining and we want it relevant. That's all we care about. Like, we don't. We're not reliant on anybody to pull the long. So if we are too busy or too bored to do this anymore, then we'll stop.

>> Stella: 49:21

Yeah.

>> Roberta: 49:21

But to. To think about how the levels and the amount of work that went into after we had left.

>> Stella: 49:31

Yeah.

>> Roberta: 49:33

To get us to trip up or slip up or even keeping tabs on us. So I'll share. I'll share one more little tidbit so that you guys know the level of psychosis we left. Okay. And why. If it seems like we're a little batty sometimes, there's for good reason, other than just our natural personalities. So there was only one assistant that worked there that I was aware of, that that was truly her role.

>> Stella: 50:00

Yeah.

>> Roberta: 50:01

And she was an assistant to the head of sales. I'll just leave it at that. Okay.

>> Stella: 50:08

Yeah.

>> Roberta: 50:10

Now, one day, because of all of these little weird things that are happening, and I only mentioned two things, folks, I'm not going to get into all the other, little weird things because I don't. We. We do not have enough time.

>> Stella: 50:19

Right. I just gave you two key examples of what happened. And I thought to myself, you know, I'm still connected to a lot of these folks on LinkedIn. LinkedIn, for those of you that don't know, or those of you that live under a rock, is Facebook for business. Right.

>> Roberta: 50:37

Okay. So, I'm still connected to a lot of these folks on LinkedIn. And I was in a place where I was so distrustful because, again, that's what they wanted you to be. That I said, you know what? I'm just going to disconnect from everybody that was there on a couple of people. I did send a personal note telling them why. And after the place closed down, I reconnected with a few that I wanted to reconnect to. But, the day, the day I did all of that, and she was one of the people that I connected to, she sent me a connection request. Now, help me understand, for those of you that use LinkedIn on the regular, you'll know where I'm going with this. I have no clue who's disconnected from me. I don't. I don't know you, because you can do that. And the other person doesn't get like a, hey, so guess what? This person kind of wants to block you. So, you don't get that you're just disconnected in order for you to find out if you have been blocked, Usually it happens because you try to look that person and now you don't see them anymore. And, then you have to wonder, why is that the case? So this person, literally, I think it was the. Either that afternoon or the following morning. But it was very quickly after. I disconnected from every single person. Person. And block the ones I never want to hear from again.

>> Stella: 52:00

Yeah.

>> Roberta: 52:00

So if some of you are listening to this and saying, I just thought you dropped off a LinkedIn, nope, still didn't want to deal with you. Bye. So some of the people that I. I know what I know, and I block them. I don't care what you do with your career. Mazel tov. Go nuts. I just don't care. It doesn't affect my life. I'm happier even forgetting I knew you. Those people I blocked other people I disconnected from so they could not see what I was doing. and based on my privacy settings, I could make that work. This human being who'd done nothing wrong to me, it wasn't about that. It was about who she worked for. And I. So I disconnected from her, almost instantly. Sent me connection requests. Now, what that tells me is she went to go look to see what I had to say on my LinkedIn, and when she couldn't see it, she sent me a connection request, which I ignored because, And why would you, as the assistant to someone. She wasn't my assistant. And we weren't buds. Like, she was. Fine, she was nice, but we weren't friends. We weren't buds. We didn't even talk every day. So why would you need to send a connection request when you realize you were no longer connected to me? Is it because your boss told you to keep tabs and you don't have your daily report on what Roberta's talking about on LinkedIn to share? Oh, sucks to be you. And, even if some people like, well, you might be, you know, grabbing a straws, maybe. But again, when you look at the grand scheme of things and everything they did to us while we were there, everything they tried to mess with us when we were gone. Like who. Who does that? Who fakes? An investment group.

>> Stella: 53:37

Yeah. Or the fact that some people told us that they were. They were directly advised not to listen to the podcast.

>> Roberta: 53:46

So, yeah, that's my other favorite one. There's a person that we know that was told to not only promise not to listen to our podcast, but to sign some things they made her sign. Do you understand what we're talking about? Where. Now I would have just said, oh, yeah, sure, I promise I'm not signing anything. And, then how are they gonna know? But that's the level of fear they would instill in people based on their livelihood, that they got this individual to not only agree to not listen to this podcast, but to sign it, she had to sign something that if she, if they found that she listened to the podcast, it was cause for termination. That is what we left. That's what this company was. Good call. I forgot all about that. So, like I said, there's so many little things, big things, all kinds of things that we could bring into this and, and talk about from that organization. Candidly, they're just not worth that much time.

>> Stella: 54:40

Yeah, yeah.

>> Roberta: 54:42

But, because it's October and it's workplace horror stories, and again, because, well, that company is no longer going to exist, we felt we could, we could talk about it. So, thank you for listening to all of that and if you felt sorry for what we went through, we love you for that. We're over it. Where we've moved on. We're in great places in our lives again. We're very busy. We know there is a group of former employees of that same organization that understand, can relate. Maybe we're giggling. Hopefully you didn't have to pull over and cry. We're not trying to upset you or bring back past trauma. We're all in a different place now. And if you want to squeak in because we're a little behind schedule. Okay, I had chemo. I'm so sorry. We're a little behind schedule and recording. But if you have any last minute October workplace horror stories.

>> Stella: 55:46

Yes.

>> Roberta: 55:47

Send them in to the teabag@toxicteroom.com. look on our blog for affiliate links. We've got, some great ones there that we're going to be posting. You know, click on it and just give it a look. You never know. And some of them are funny and some of them might brighten your day and some of them are legal. I'll just leave it at that. And you can do what you want with that information.

>> Stella: 56:12

Yes, please. please listen, respond any comments on the website. we'd love to hear from you. We have heard from several different people from all over the world actually. but we just love hearing from you. And even if it's just a quick story, we keep everything anonymous as you know. And, hope you're doing well.

>> Roberta: 56:39

And by the way, guys, we'll try not to be as absent as we have been, but we appreciate all of you. Thank you so much. And thank you. I mean, can't say thank you too much.

>> Stella: 56:52

Yeah, we love you guys. Bye. See you next Tuesday. Oh, my God. Wait, you stop.

>> Roberta: 57:31

I have to stop it? Yeah, all that's getting edited.