So I was super curious about my mid-year performance review, and I got it this week. My feedback was not great, albeit I still haven’t my actual rating (Achieving vs Not Achieving; Aligned with Values vs. Not Aligned with Values). My boss (the CFO) said that when he gives me a task, I execute it well, and he is happy with it. But I don’t take it to the next level, and I am not pro-active.

He gave an example – for example, with the business case of the company (PaymentCo) we recently acquired… when he asked me to do the business case, I did it well, but I didn’t really own it, and make sure there is a consolidated business case, and be clear on all the right numbers.

And I commented, well… Firstly, I used to be in charge of M&A, and I’m no longer in charge of M&A. And in terms of who could lead the preparation of this business case, there are the following people who could have, or perhaps should have done it:

• The Co-Founders of the company (since they own the milestones, and P&L. Albeit they cannot compare to the original acquisition case we went to the Board with)
• The new M&A guy (who was then taking my paper and consolidating contents into his update on the integration anyway)
• Any of the “business partners” from the FP&A team – Milan for Corporate, Vero for Product, and Pete for Commercial. Since their VP is always mega aggressive when he feels like I’m infringing on his team’s space
• Najat, the backfill for the company’s fractional CFO who is meant to take over and eventually become a business partner to the Co-Founders

But for various reasons (Co-Founders don’t know acquisition case, FP&A team are swamped, Najat is new. And I don’t know what fucking excuse the new clown M&A guy has…), they all can’t do it, so sure, I am super happy to help. But, it’s not really my job, and in terms of consolidating the business case, I prepared the business case in at least two formats:

• The ‘Long Range Plan’ format, and the business split into ‘Current Product / Geo’ vs. ‘International Expansion’, as he had asked me to do, which would be helpful for Milan
• The ‘Business Case’ format, which Vero developed, and I even cut it into three segments: Consolidated, Current Product / Geo, International Expansion

AND, I had asked his VP of FP&A how he had derived the Guidance numbers that went to the Board (and also the breakdown of revenue between SaaS and PS), and he didn’t respond to me for days. So I made a judgement call on which numbers to use, and flagged it. And then he ATTACKS me on Monday at the Finance LT meeting that I ‘suddenly’ brought up the discrepancy in numbers for the first time that morning, which is not the forum. EXCUSE ME, I had Slacked him (WITH my boss on the thread), last Thursday about it.

AND… the team suddenly decided to apply R&D capitalisation last Friday, without telling me. But no problem, I can certainly update ALL the numbers in the MULTIPLE formats again.

SO… that is the reason why I was a little bit confused by the PaymentCo business case situation. After my explanations, the CFO backtracked slightly and said, “Yeah, maybe PaymentCo isn’t a good example. But, for example, you could be proactive and create a KPI tree, which shows the top level Company KPIs, and all the KPIs nesting below that, so that we can easily track goals across the company.”

Yawns, been there, done that. But because I have no incentive to create friction, now that I am leaving, I just nodded and said he said a point. I said I did prepare such a KPI tree 18-24 months ago, but then it was never used, and everyone left. But it can be useful, so I can dig it up. He said, “Well, you can use me to gain visibility with the ELT”.

Hmm… yes, if I actually rated and respected the Company’s Executive Leadership Team, and wanted something from them, yes. But I really don’t rate most of them. And I should be assessing them, rather than them me. So, there’s that tiny problem.

And perhaps most importantly, I have been burned before at this company, and under the current CEO too. I wrote the Data and Metrics strategy and plan. And that got given to the CEO’s pet ‘Chief of Staff’ (an ex Finance team junior who was super incompetent with numbers, that she got kicked to Product. And then she came back into Finance). I wrote papers on Capital Allocation, Market Review / Recommendations, developed a revised reporting format, all of which were implemented and adopted by the various teams, with no benefit to me. I led the Company’s first M&A and wrote the high level integration plan, and got kicked out of the job for my efforts, while they hired a less qualified guy with a penis and gave him a more senior title.

So yeah, NO SHIT SHERLOCK, if I’m not that pro-active.

My CFO commented, “I get the impression that I’m under utilizing you. But I don’t have time to figure out how to utilise you. But every time there is something new, I bring it to you.” But he said, “Don’t worry, this is only the mid year, we have time to course correct by the end of the year.”

He’s so funny. Does he not realise that as soon as they gave me that poorly conceived and communicated feedback during the M&A process last year, AND hired the new M&A clown and gave him so much more visibility than me (not that I’m big on the limelight to be fair), the clock had starting ticking? I was on the first available plane, train, or bus out.

I guess even when quiet quitting, I am still more productive and engaged than most other people? After all, I do the bare minimum of what I am expected to do, and organise it around my kids’ school run and my training; but if urgent work comes in, I ask for the spec and deadline, and generally deliver to requirements. I rarely push back, because things haven’t been that difficult. Except where there are dependencies on other people / teams. After all, I came from a tough training in banking, where as junior analysts, when the MD says “Jump”, the response is typically, “How high?”

To the point around being responsive and engaged, I was still really busy last week, and this week – turning around and getting the investor newsletter out (SO LATE!! Because FP&A gave me the numbers 37 calendar days after April month end!!), updating the PaymentCo business case in two docs and multiple excel formats last week, and then RE-updating all the numbers for R&D capitalisation and refreshed inputs from Co-Founders this week, and responding to the Board Chairman on his questions (LATE, because VP of FP&A told me off for asking his team for input to the questions), progressing the PPA and Transfer Pricing work, and responding to questions on the cap table.

But I wonder about the VP of FP&A, because he is sooo mega unresponsive, soooo irresponsible – leaves his team without air cover, and just doesn’t attend meetings. Is he leaving too? And someone said the VP of Accounting also seems to be on her way out. Separately, apparently the CRO has been interviewing at other places.

Anyway, I am now curious about how my CFO will react when I resign next week. Will he be surprised? Or will he expect it?

Hopefully I can be more overtly less engaged / responsive, and transition my work from next week onwards. KG thinks that I will get placed on gardening leave as soon as I resign because the CEO used to like me, and so will see this as a betrayal. Full gardening will be very nice indeed. But let us see…