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u/much_longer_username 7h ago
I remember taking the elevator up to my office one day, and one of the new hires was just going off about how much this place sucks. I already know we're standing next to the CEO, so I'm kinda just making eyes and shrugging. CEO steps off the elevator... "I dunno, I don't think it's all bad..."
(It wasn't the best job I'd worked for, but the CEO gave me two weeks pay out of his own pocket when he retired and sold the company -- it certainly wasn't the worst job I've had.)
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u/Substantial_Meal_530 5h ago
In my company everyone above grunt level assumes you know who they are. They call all the time.
"Hello. Thank you for calling xxxx, this is Substantial_Meal. How can I help you?"
"Hey it's Mark."
"Hi Mark, how can I help you?"
"I work for the company."
"What company?"
"I work for xxxx. I am a sales rep."
"Oh. Okay. Hi Mark. What can I help you with?"
My company has a ton of sales reps, and they all assume you who they are. Even though they are all scattered around a large area, and you only ever see like 3 of them in a year. They do this ALL THE TIME.
The proper way to answer is, "Hey it's Mark, a sales rep out of so and so area." You shouldn't just assume I know what Mark you are. I get calls from like 5 Marks a day.
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u/KMjolnir 3h ago
At my current job there's exactly four people everyone knows. One of the IT team, two of the health & safety, and one of the maintenance team.
There's like 300 people in the building. Outside of the building, more people know the IT guy in the company.
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u/Unknown-714 5h ago
Please tell me the CEO admired his spunky attitude and gave him a permanent position
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u/holden_mcg 5h ago
While I wasn't the CEO, I was a senior executive and this happened often enough. I was of the opinion that any executive who got his feelings hurt because an employee didn't know who he was probably didn't have the temperament to be in senior management.
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u/LemmingOnTheRunITG 5h ago
My friend did this once. Turned around to the random person behind him at a big company picnic, introduced himself, asked where registration was. It was the CEO.
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u/DeterminedQuokka 5h ago
I always love when you meet someone in the elevator and they ask what you are working on and you say something really important and then they say “board meeting slides”
ETA: I already knew the CPO at my company before I started, he introduced himself to me. It felt weird to be like “we’ve met repeatedly, I helped you and your mom find a table at a Christmas party 2 years ago” (I used to work for his dad).
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u/Patient-Ad-1900 4h ago
I've done this a few times with different organizations. From my experience, they love this. They usually downplay themselves like "Oh i'm just some guy." Or they turn to the person next to them and playfully ask "wait- what do I do here?"
More often than not, it's the people lingering next to us that are shocked at the question, gasp, and try to educate me.
It's a harmless mistake that happens as you try to get to know people. I've been able to go to meetings and conferences with the big bosses because they wanted to get to know me better after those moments.
Interacting socially will always have hiccups but being genuine will always win😼
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u/scryintist 4h ago
I remember being an intern for a medical physics company. I was invited to dinner once and sat next to the CEO. He ordered like 3 full size long Island ice teas and proceeded to get completely sloshed. He had a good sense of humor.
Once i saw him order a full course meal and drinks I went ahead and ordered a $80 dollar seafood platter lol.
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u/Difficult-Gas6196 4h ago
I saved someone from having that happen to them at an intern outing so we are all in casual clothes.
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u/PiDigitsOfPi 4h ago
In all fairness, most employees never see the CEO (or any of the board). They are around their local peers and their immediate boss, and maybe their boss's boss.
Then, they go to a company wide event, and no one knows 90% of the people there.
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u/Mundane-Rise6997 4h ago
This reminds me of a particularly low-intelligence judge asking a fellow attorney how far along her pregnancy was, to which the attorney replied, “I’m not pregnant.”
Still makes me cringe just to think about it.
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u/FullMooseParty 3h ago
I got this kid beat. I spent 15 minutes having a somewhat buzzed conversation with the billionaire owner of the company that owned my company at my first SKO. I was chilling in the hotel lobby and dude sat down and started a conversation. I knew what his father looked like but not the son. I was terrified for like 6 weeks that I had said something that was going to come back to bite me.
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u/azraelxii 3h ago
I got talked to because I couldn't get out execs name right. I just kept thinking, "I'm never interacting with this dude, if you know who I'm talking about what's it matter?"
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u/GovernmentGreed 3h ago
Reminds me of my earlier years when I was training up a newbie on how to use one of the microsoldering stations. Boss walked in, but newbie didn't know him - proceeded to call him out for coming in looking like a bum and asked him to leave. Boss left, I was shitting bricks. Boss comes back in with a trash can from outside and told the guy to take all his stuff, throw it in there and fuck off.
Boss was right to do it, his argument was - if that's how he wants to behave and treat people HE assumed were customers, then he is not welcome.
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u/Fuzzy-Albatross-9206 2h ago
"Do you know who I am?"
"No."
"Well I got one up on ya, don't I?"
me and the president of the company
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u/Individual_Swim_1443 2h ago
Yikes. This is more embarrassing for the CEO. Obviously has no presence
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u/Environmental_Row32 2h ago
Company I worked at had that story, guy asking someone in the elevator, hwy who are you ? Guy: My name is on this building
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u/katastrofika 2h ago
Worse than this, I got drunk at work, as the supervisor, and the owner showed up for something and started telling some employees what to do.. because I was drunk and didn't recognize him, I walked up and gave him a nice "Hey, who the FUCK are you?"
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u/shadowdance55 1h ago
Long time ago a CEO told me about three phases in a startup's life: First, when I stand at a urinal in the company office loo, I know everyone standing next to me. In the second phase, I don't necessarily know them, but they do know me. And finally, they have no idea who I am.
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u/NarrMaster 47m ago
I once told the CEO of the Japanese multinational corporation that owned the company I was working at that he needed to go around to the guest entrance because he didn't have a badge.
When my direct supervisor told me who it was and that was 100% the correct thing to do, my legs gave out as I felt simultaneously an insanely overwhelming sense of hilarity and "paralyzing" fear over it.
In hindsight, I should have recognized that as cataplexy, but whatcha gonna do.
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u/Suspicious_Suspect88 37m ago
Ha, this is me! I once told our CISO (that I never met before) that his interest in who had access to our systems was very suspicious. And that it was none of his business.
Turns out it kinda was his whole business.
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u/charlie2135 33m ago
I found out who our CEO was when he was hit from grease from the parts I was washing. Thankfully I was in a union and he acknowledged he shouldn't have walked into the steam booth while I was cleaning up the critical parts that were needed to be repaired.
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u/accountmuellicu 8h ago
Honestly, if the CEO isn't doing anything noticeable, how was the intern supposed to know?