turnover was like nothing he’d ever experienced before and he was
troubled by what he saw as a culture of dishonesty at the company.
The worst offender was Tim Kemp, the head of the software team.
Tim was a yes-man who never leveled with Elizabeth about what was
feasible and what wasn’t. For instance, he’d contradicted Justin and
assured her they could write the Edison software’s user interface faster
in Flash than in JavaScript. The very next morning, Justin had spotted
a Learn Flash book on his desk.
Elizabeth never reprimanded Tim, even when obvious examples of
his duplicity were brought to her attention. She valued his loyalty and,
in her eyes, the fact that he never said no to her reflected a can-do
attitude. It mattered little that many of his colleagues thought Tim was
a mediocrity and a terrible manager.
There was one incident involving Elizabeth herself that also didn’t
sit well with Justin. During an email exchange one evening, he asked
her for a piece of information he needed to write a section of software.
She responded that she’d look for it when she was back at work the
next morning. The clear implication was that she had gone home. But
minutes later, he stumbled on her in Tony Nugent’s office down the
hall. Justin got angry and stormed off.
Elizabeth came by his office a little later to say she understood why
he was upset, but she warned him, “Don’t ever walk off on me again.”
Justin tried to remind himself that Elizabeth was very young and
still had a lot to learn about running a company. In one of their last
email exchanges, he recommended two management self-help books
to her, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and
Surviving One That Isn’t and Beyond Bullsh*t: Straight-Talk at
Work, and included their links on Amazon.com.
He quit two days later. His resignation email read in part:good luck and please do read those books, watch The
Office, and believe in the people who disagree with you...
Lying is a disgusting habit, and it flows through the
conversations here like it’s our own currency. The cultural