What in the Cutie Freaking Pie is Happening Here? in These Foolish Things

Well, hm.

Every day at The Cutie Pie Company brings more scratching of the head.

I’m six weeks in. There has been so much chaos and drama that I’m really going to have to start protecting myself at this point. Let me just bullet point yesterday:

• I’m the first person in the office. I have a lot to learn and I’m trying to be on top of my game, so this happens fairly frequently.

• A few people flow in, including Social Media Director, who I already know is on Chief Cutie’s (founder and CEO) shit list. He looks sour.

• Chief Cutie comes strolling in but storms out minutes later to “go get coffee”

• I have my virtual team meeting 30 minutes later, which Chief Cutie joins in person with her coffee in the conference room. After we log off, Chief Cutie starts telling me how angry she is at Social Media Director for “lying” to her about needing to leave “early” on his birthday (I saw him leave at 5:30, mind you, which is our official End of Day) and then taking off for jury duty and some other things I don’t quite understand. Mind you, Chief Cutie talks a million miles a minute and she is going off on a tangent at this point.

• I go about my day of frantically making sure my team is on task while being pulled into a million conversations with the product team and then back and forth with Chief Cutie, who is, again, displeased with something - this time something I’ve sent to her for approval. She then apologizes over Slack, telling me she’s mad now at the Content Director for going to a hair appointment at lunch and not checking her Slacks while she is getting her hair done.

• Chief Cutie later pulls me into a back room to tell me that Social Media Director stormed out of the building earlier in a huff AND that Content Director actually just put in her two weeks notice after her hair appointment!!

• Now, I already knew that our H.R. person had already put in her two weeks notice right before leaving on a trip to Cabo yesterday, so that’s another person down - and this is a 25-person company!

• Chief Cutie then goes on to disclose, “See, THIS is why I’m planning on selling this company!”

• Chief Cutie THEN tells me she’s planning on moving one of MY staff over to become the new Content Director. OKAY. Fine. This girl is the weakest on my team, but has a background in digital media, so I wasn’t that concerned because the rest of my team is very, very good and can absolutely cover for this position.

• It’s 5:30 at this point and Chief Cutie tells me to go ahead and announce the change to my staff because the move is effective immediately, so I have my virtual meeting with everyone except for my Senior Designer who has firm boundaries (good for her!) and has already signed off for the day

• I spend the next hour frantically working on getting emails out that I couldn’t get out during business hours because of all of the chaos.

• I’m the last person in the office at 6:30. Or so I thought…

• Chief Cutie comes out from a back room asking if I’m the last one in the office. She’s puffy-faced and her eyes are red. She tells me she’s been crying. I get it. It’s been a fucked-up day, and I commiserate with her and listen. I understand her frustration, and I offer my words of support. Of course, I would never, EVER tell her that her manic, frantic ways are why the turnover is so freaking high. She blames it on Gen Z and their terrible work ethic.

• She then tells me not to worry about what she said about the sale of the company. She said what every business owner says when they want to sell their company, “They are buying my people and their valuable expertise!” Right. Right. I’ve seen this before. I didn’t dig and question about possible timing of this event, but I’m going to see if I can work it into conversation at some point soon.

• It was a good talk - Chief Cutie desperately needed to talk with someone, and we ended it with not one but two hugs because she needed them. But I’ll be goddamned!

I can not TELL you how I can’t wait for the end of today and the weekend.

What am I going to do???
GS