When boss is hammered · Probably Bot

Acquisitions are a messy business. The new culture is not the old culture and some people don’t do well with rapid change.

Our new overlords wanted to turn our successful remote-first company of the Montessori “weee flat” variety into a hybrid structure. This eclectic, international team now had to work alongside offices in major cities. And we needed to grow from 22 to over 70 within just a few quarters.

It was my job to recruit and assemble the new team shape. The acquiring company was a big corporate monolith and naturally we were provided with bags of cash and new executives to oversee the process.

The new executives arrive - Anchorman

Their job was to guide the ship with care to the fulfilment of the business case. They knew that the tribal knowledge contained in each engineer was precious, and that the juice needed to be squeezed before people left or tuned out to pure uselessness.

In this dance, technical employees enjoy an incredible amount of social power. And everyone knows it. It’s a delicate dance indeed.

The execs provide the white glove treatment. There is placating and coddling. They apply that snug fit for the golden handcuffs, just long enough to see the job done.

For a time, it was working. Goals were being met. There was decent engagement. And it seemed like my career at this new corporate monolith was on a fast track. There were tantalising titles and offers dangled before me and my future looked bright.

But I found myself sceptical. When a leadership corps is together in one office and you’re ultimately detached, floating somewhere out there in the remote worker nebula, trust is vital. I never felt it, because I just wasn’t in the room.

Remote work is hard to do at the best of times, when everyone is fully committed to the structures and processes. Maybe it was just circumstance, but the relationship with the executive team never really felt forthright. This turned out to validate my intuition.

The execs in the office taking team calls - Anchorman

Several months into the acquisition, we all went to an un-remoting event to meet each other in person and to spend some corporate money together.

One of the nights went a little long, and we went to a pub after our team dinner. Our group was very well represented.

And there’s no other way to say this. By the time we arrived, our boss, the primary executive, had already drunk too much and was hammered.

“Here it goes down, down into my belly”- Ron Burgandy, Anchorman

He was swaying, he was slurring. He had a swaggering, quiet, somewhat sad, watery-eyed sense of outward confidence. I empathise. He needed to do whatever he could to keep everyone happy, and this was a big opportunity to create unity and rally a bunch of cats towards our shining goal.

There’s a pressure for executives to be entertaining too, to be the guy, to try to command a room and instil positive energy into your team. Some people can do this without social lubricants and some can’t.

I greatly prefer not to drink alcohol, such that I haven’t had a drink in over a decade. But I’ve had my time with it, so I get it.

Hammered exec comes up to me at the bar and puts an arm around me and, through a drunken breeze, says, “I really respect you, you know”, or rather, his best attempt.

I said simply: “thanks”, because I didn’t have much to say.

Perhaps he thought this was the right time for a heart-to-heart, to debrief on the battles we’ve had together. But with that opener, I didn’t really want to get into it. Not there, not like that. I just wasn’t on his level.

We exchanged some idle talk and went our separate ways. An hour or so passes, and a couple of colleagues and I, including our most junior engineer, decide to go for a walk. Our hotel isn’t too far away, so we decide that we’ll head in that direction.

As we gather ourselves towards the exit, a wild, very, very drunk executive appears once more. He’s fired up.

It’s immediately apparent that he thinks it’s important that the night continue so that we can really connect. But this guy can barely connect his feet with the pavement, let alone with another human being, and he is stumbling and swaying, fiddling with cigarettes.

“I’m expressing my inner anguish through the power of song!” - Ron Burgandy, Anchorman

You never want to see anyone like this. Many people do it because they feel that they have to. They really don’t. He’s a good enough guy. We would have gotten on no matter what. I’m not a judgemental type. We really, truly, would have gotten on just fine.

But again, remember, my relationship with him isn’t a person-to-person relationship. It’s a remote relationship. And those don’t always translate, no matter how much we try to convince ourselves that they do.

So he has an idea of me, and I’ve tried my best to accept the fact that I have no idea about him. Maybe I came off as distant. Really, I was just trying not to be presumptuous. I don’t know him, and he doesn’t know me. That’s the reality.

Whatever; in this state, it’s clear that we should get him into a cab and get him home. The dude is a risk to himself. While the hotel isn’t far, it is entirely too far when you’re battling alcohol spins and gravity.

We flag down a cab and one pulls over, and we say, “Hey, this cab’s for you. We’re gonna walk. We’ll see you back at the hotel.” We assumed this wouldn’t be an issue. He’s clearly very intoxicated.

But we were wrong. He’s pissed. Drunk, yes, and also mad.

As my companion opens the car door for him, I lend him a shoulder and an arm to help him in the cab. But that’s not how he sees it. He pushes me, hard, and slurs: “Fuck you guys. I don’t want to go”.

The moment he shoves me, I know my time at this company is over. Instantly, it’s over. We both knew.

Maybe it wouldn’t be obvious or malicious, maybe it wouldn’t even be conscious. But on some level I knew that this person would never be able to be around me without feeling embarrassed and ashamed. It would be simpler, given I’m detached from the physical corporate nexus, to slowly cut me out.

Better to just let it die slowly than to deal with it. After all, managing people out after an acquisition is just part of the sausage. Regardless of how I might have felt or how things were going, and all the nice promises they made, the die was cast.

The people I’m with look at me. The junior is horrified. And no one is quite sure how to react.

“Boy, that escalated quickly” - Ron Burgandy, Anchorman

Then he gets right in my face. The conspiracy has been revealed. It’s not clear how, yet I am conniving to exclude him from an imagined party. He’s now aggressive. I’ve threatened him, somehow. He’s blaming me.

So, what do you do?