Or else!

As previously mentioned in this series, I’ve been labeled a “bad manager,” “difficult to work with,” and “not very technical.” So in the spirit of transparency, and perhaps a touch of satire, it seems only fair to offer more examples of my alleged misdeeds. There are many.

One such adventure unfolded during a conference my team and I attended out of state. We were scheduled to fly out at 6:00 a.m. the next morning when, mid-afternoon, the head of Security and Operations reached out with an urgent request: he wanted us to monitor Production databases from 2:00 to 4:00 a.m. while his team performed work in the Test environment. His concern? Those changes in Test might somehow impact Production.

I asked for a full brief on the issue and then, politely, explained that our travel itinerary made this request impractical. If something did go wrong in Production, we’d be forced to abandon the situation to catch a flight, or incur costs and delays by canceling travel. I also clarified that the architecture of our FinTECH environment made such a scenario virtually impossible. Test and Production were strictly partitioned, separate networks, systems, clusters, and hardware. The idea that work on application servers in Test could affect Production databases was, frankly, absurd.

Moreover, the organization had clear policies around maintenance windows. Production changes were allowed between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m., while all other environments were restricted to after-hours work, defined as anytime after 5:00 p.m. CST. The request violated both logic and policy.

After calmly discussing these points, the Security head acquiesced, but then escalated the issue to the CEO, demanding a conference call to address my “difficult” behavior. During the call, the CEO confirmed that I was correct, both in terms of the technical separation and the maintenance schedule.

Now, here’s the interesting part: the head of Security was deeply involved in audits, planning, and environment design. He knew, or should have known, that Test and Production were entirely disjoint. This wasn’t about technical risk. It was a manufactured crisis designed to paint me as obstructive. Anyone familiar with our systems would have recognized that the timing was unnecessary, and that asking the entire database team to monitor Production databases at this time, before a 6:00 a.m. flight, was, to put it mildly, asinine.

This episode should have raised flags for the CEO about the behavior of certain managers. It certainly was not an isolated incident, in fact, it was a blatantly obvious pattern.

On another occasion, this same individual instructed a new “security trainee” to contact me for IP and MAC addresses of all database servers. I explained, again, politely, that we accessed servers via DNS entries, not IP/MAC addresses, and provided guidance on how to retrieve the information himself or from the appropriate department. Networking, who managed DNS could pull a full detailed report. I saw it as a learning opportunity. He ran to his boss, just as the boss expected, who then used it as fodder to jump on the bandwagon of my being difficult to work with.

As a Director with broad responsibilities, I presume I was expected to drop everything to chase down IP and MAC addresses or contact Networking on his behalf. It was nothing more than bait.

I had a good relationship with the CEO outside of work, but the thing is, we never really discussed work during these times. Other than the one time I pitched the idea for a Generic/Turnkey solution over dinner at a Mexican restaurant with our families.

The instance with the Security and Operations head should have been an eye-opener for him. And if it wasn’t, what happened shortly afterward certainly was.

After this group of managers continuously assaulted the CEO with tales of my horrendous behavior, stories they claimed were coming from “everyone”, I came up with an idea that should have made the situation crystal clear for him.

I began scheduling one-on-one meetings with people at all levels across departments. Just simple meet-and-greets to build bridges and get to know one another. Oh my God. One would have thought the world was coming to an end. Minds were lost. How dare I? These managers put an end to that quickly, telling their people not to meet with me.

In environments like these, clarity is a form of rebellion. Often, the bravest and smartest thing you can do is refuse to play dumb, take part in the games and noise, or allow people to bully you.

Knowing when to cut your losses and extricate yourself from such environments is also important.

This series of stories are not meant to toot my own horn as they say, but ultimately, to open eyes to what does transpire in a toxic work environment if you pay attention.

For instance, in these cases, who was really difficult to work with? Who really knew what they were doing? Who was actually a good manager?

The results of an employee’s work and the pettiness of the complaints is a sure sign of what is really going on.

As a leader, one can look deeper or stick their head in the sand.

Reference Blogs:
August 12, 2025: https://modba.net/2025/08/12/psycopaths-and-labels/
August 6, 2025: https://modba.net/2025/08/06/speed-is-relative/
August 3, 2025: https://modba.net/2025/08/03/the-myth-of-being-hard-to-work-with/