CEOs
In my experience the only use they have is in uniting the staff by giving them one thing to focus their anger on. The worst I have ever encountered was very intelligent and capable, sadly he was also selfish and egotistical, instead of trying to make the company a success his main task was to line his pockets whatever the cost to other people. If he was getting rich while being good at his job then ok, but this guy was useless.

His aversion to work was such that he hired a consultant to do his job (in one year alone this cost over 80k), while people were being made redundant he refused to take taxis instead of chauffeurs. He had a belief that he was entitled to all this because he was running a company (into the ground)

After a few years of abject failure on his part he approached the board with an idea to restructure the company (that means get a new CEO I'm off), he was bought out of his contract, his payoff was more than I earned in the last ten years. The fact that he walked straight into another role as CEO honestly baffles me.
(cname, Fri 28 May 2010, 11:20, 2 replies)

Totally with you...
...I've met a few now, and how they manage to divert attention from their utter uselessness and remain in very very highly-paid employment still beggars my comprehension. As I've mentioned in a previous post (in the racism/prejudice QOTW), they truly are a different breed from most humans.
(thatblokeoverthere not quite as much an arsehole as I thought, Fri 28 May 2010, 11:43, closed)

Sounds familiar
He wasn't a fat bastard called Keith was he? We got taken over by a .com company and they installed this obnoxious twat to "run" our company (comprising of 14 people). He turned up in his shiny Merc and started barking orders at various people, needless to say he didn't get a good reception and things didn't get done for him. He got really annoyed that I wouldn't order him a new palm (after he had rather obviously sat on the original one) I patiently pointed out we had no way of just ordering stuff we had no accounts with anyone and suppliers don't tend to send stuff for free (I was also on my way out at the time so not very inclined to help) his response to this was "just do it" I said no and carried on my way.
I'm always slightly surprised he didn't try and fire me but he was gone in less than a month, no doubt off to another high paying managerial position where he could throw his considerable weight around.
(cmouse is pondering about life in other jobs, Fri 28 May 2010, 13:14, closed)