My favorite comments I will never forget from my ex-CTO:
"you are wrong about this, because I say you are wrong." [turned out: he was dead wrong!]
"stay home if you want to answer phonecall from your dad." [knowing he is in the hospital]
"today you have been all day on the phone." [after talking with dad for 3 min 35 sec]
"stop pinging google to check if the net is working."
"ping doesn't tell you anything."
"I hate those Chrome tabs -- they are affecting my search results."
"I'm a CTO - I can be rude."
"Don't work here if you have family."
"If we succeed with this project [24-months period], we may get million dollars bonus" [perfectly knowing its impossible and simply not true]
"I fixed Asia!" -"Cool!" -"What did you do?" -"At 3am? I was with my wife and kids." -"Well, I hope that helped alot in your career." [next day, after he IT-supported Asia at 3am]
"You see my desk? Apple, Apple, Apple..."
"You are on a McDonalds French Fry Guy schedule, ha!" [after working 14 hours straight from 7am till 9pm]
"You work long hours and are not paid for those, because you are upper managment and should be proud of it". [after working 14 hours straight]
"Don't ask for that, you are not upper managment!" [when something failed to work and needed to figure the details to troubleshoot]
"You are upper managment, you should know this!" [when I didn't know something IT-related]
"You won't get the bonus, you are not upper managment!" [bonus question around Christmas time]
[email provider down; on the phone with support] "Why are you calling them? chat-support is faster!"
[days later, the same issue; on the chat] "Stop wasting time on chat, just grab a phone and call them!"
[after 12 hours straight work on 8hr schedule] "I completed the project, I am going home" -"Fine with me, as long as you are Symfony Framework specialist" [next day after staying extra 2 hours to understand basics of Symfony Framework] -"Never mind, we won't use them anyway!"
Those were the perks.. there were some better here and there, but honestly I started making notes way too late. But my tech-friends always loved to ask whats new with my CTO. They used to call him "Chief Toilet Officer", because frankly speaking he couldn't do shit right.
Why did you work there for as long as you did? After the first two you could have packed up without any repercussions, and you should have made a little farewell present to the CEO giving him your exact reasons for leaving.
I hope the pay was really excellent, I mean - fabulous. Otherwise I don't see why someone would submit to such treatment. Many companies are constantly looking for good programmers, and I bet you can find one with a non-jerk boss.
"you are wrong about this, because I say you are wrong." [turned out: he was dead wrong!]
"stay home if you want to answer phonecall from your dad." [knowing he is in the hospital]
"today you have been all day on the phone." [after talking with dad for 3 min 35 sec]
"stop pinging google to check if the net is working."
"ping doesn't tell you anything."
"I hate those Chrome tabs -- they are affecting my search results."
"I'm a CTO - I can be rude."
"Don't work here if you have family."
"If we succeed with this project [24-months period], we may get million dollars bonus" [perfectly knowing its impossible and simply not true]
"I fixed Asia!" -"Cool!" -"What did you do?" -"At 3am? I was with my wife and kids." -"Well, I hope that helped alot in your career." [next day, after he IT-supported Asia at 3am]
"You see my desk? Apple, Apple, Apple..."
"You are on a McDonalds French Fry Guy schedule, ha!" [after working 14 hours straight from 7am till 9pm]
"You work long hours and are not paid for those, because you are upper managment and should be proud of it". [after working 14 hours straight]
"Don't ask for that, you are not upper managment!" [when something failed to work and needed to figure the details to troubleshoot]
"You are upper managment, you should know this!" [when I didn't know something IT-related]
"You won't get the bonus, you are not upper managment!" [bonus question around Christmas time]
[email provider down; on the phone with support] "Why are you calling them? chat-support is faster!"
[days later, the same issue; on the chat] "Stop wasting time on chat, just grab a phone and call them!"
[after 12 hours straight work on 8hr schedule] "I completed the project, I am going home" -"Fine with me, as long as you are Symfony Framework specialist" [next day after staying extra 2 hours to understand basics of Symfony Framework] -"Never mind, we won't use them anyway!"
Those were the perks.. there were some better here and there, but honestly I started making notes way too late. But my tech-friends always loved to ask whats new with my CTO. They used to call him "Chief Toilet Officer", because frankly speaking he couldn't do shit right.