My husband just went through probably the most stressful two weeks of his life. I'll give you the short version of the story. He's an upper level IT Architect...last 9 years at a Fortune 100 Company. The job was stable and good but he was getting bored. New opportunity presents itself with a small consulting firm. Growing company, lots of opportunity. He takes it. First few days in, he realizes that they needed him to come up to speed on a new technology "quickly". Okay, he throws himself into learning the technology. Day 5, conference call with the CEO - DH realizes that CEO expects him to have already picked up the technology (CEO is not happy that he's not "there" yet). He's about 60% there. Keeps learning - 14 hour days pouring into new technology. Day 7 - DH is about 95% there....CEO calls and spends basically 2 hours ripping DH's ass that he didn't know this small customization/programming piece yet. Essentially calls him a liar...that he hasn't been working on it. On and on...yelling and berating him on the phone.
Day 10 - DH resigns and goes back to his old job (they were thrilled to have him back).
Is this absolutely insane? In my DH's 20 year career, he has learned more new technologies than I can even count. He steps up every time his company needs him and has always gone above and beyond. This joker CEO gives him ONE WEEK to become an expert in a very difficult technology that DH has never even seen before (they knew this when they hired him - they hired him for his expertise in other technologies for a client that apparently did not re-up their contract)....and then proceeds to completely lose his temper and yell at DH for 2 hours.
This job wasn't even much of a pay increase. My DH took it for the longer term opportunity. DH has been in many pressure cooker situations in his career but has NEVER been treated the way this CEO treated him....and in the first 2 weeks no less. We were both just at a loss for words.
I guess my questions is....do people actually work under these conditions willingly?
