A CEO who was annihilated on social media after sharing a selfie of himself crying about letting go of employees has apologised for victimizing himself.
On Tuesday, HyperSocial CEO Braden Wallake took to his LinkedIn page to post a tearful photo and a caption describing how hard it was for him to make two of his employees redundant.
“This will be the most vulnerable thing I’ll ever share,” he captioned the pic. “Days like today, I wish I was a business owner that was only money driven and didn’t care about who he hurt along the way. But I’m not. So, I just want people to see, [sic] that not every CEO out there is cold-hearted and doesn’t care when he/she have to lay people off. I’m sure there are hundreds and thousands of others like me.”
He concluded, “I’ve always hire people based on who they are as people. People with great hearts, and great souls. And I can’t think of a lower moment than this.”
The post has received over 6000 comments, and most of them are negative.
“Braden, you are not equipped to be a CEO. You are a narcissistic, emotionally immature quat. Hey, why not deflect your inability to take tough decisions and assauge your guilt by…. making it all about YOU! The only thing to make your ex staff feel better now is more pictures of your despair, a live feed of you agonising about it, poetry written about your darkest moments and you bringing out a new perfume line with real essence of your tears called Essence of Ego,” one person commented.
Another wrote; “Yikes. I was just laid off – along with many others. If my CEO sent this I’d probably lose my mind. You’re crying? I’m crying. We’re crying. You still have your job. Imagine if we all posted pictures of US crying? We’d never get hired, because we are forced to be RESILIENT in our industries. Put those tears in a jar and make a potion to help the peoples lives you laid off better. Connect them to other agencies/potential opportunities. This isn’t how you show empathy. DO MORE for your employees that were let go and those still existing. THIS ISN’T how. Yikes again.”
After Wallake’s post went viral, he returned to the platform to apologise to people that he has offended. The CEO posted an update that was intended to be an open job advertisement for people looking for employment.
“Hey everyone, yes, I am the crying CEO. No, my intent was not to make it about me or victimize myself. I am sorry it came across that way. It was not my place to out the employees’ names publicly.
“What I want to do now, is try to make better of this situation and start a thread for people looking for work. Here it is – comment away. This is for YOU to start a new future. To highlight YOU. People seeking new work: Post your resume, desired job title, and qualifications.”
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