I sold my printing company almost two years now, long enough to assume I had wrapped up any leftover emotional debris from more than three decades of leadership. Thirty-five years as a boss tends to do that. You accumulate stories, scars, and a surprising amount of affection for the people who kept showing up every day and doing their level best to help build something real, lasting and meaningful.
And then, without warning, Facebook taps you on the shoulder and reminds you that memory is subjective, perspective is optional, and some people prefer their history with a fictional twist.
This week, a longtime employee — someone I hired in 2001 and supported through recessions, pandemics, personal challenges, poor financial decision-making, kids, grandkids and everything else that comes with running a small business — posted that he can finally share political memes without fear of his “old boss making his life miserable.”
Given that the harshest “control” I ever exerted was reminding people to take their vacations and please, for the love of God, label their food in the fridge, this was… new information.
I’ll admit it: the comment stung for a moment. Leaders are human, after all. Even in retirement, even when you’re happily living the next chapter of your life, a stray jab can still land in a tender spot.
But right after the sting came something else — something closer to clarity, even amusement.
Because that comment wasn’t really about me.
It was about him.
What I’ve learned — and what this moment reminded me — is that people rewrite their stories for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it’s frustration. Sometimes it’s insecurity. Sometimes it’s just the comfort of having a handy villain to blame for whatever doesn’t feel right to them today.
And sometimes you, the person who hired them, mentored them, stood by them, and genuinely cared about their well-being… are simply the safest target. The person least likely to fight back. The one who moved on. The one who doesn’t have the power to fire them, correct them, or hold them accountable any longer.
There’s a strange freedom in that realization.
When someone paints you as a tyrant after twenty-plus years of steady employment, what they’re actually saying is: “I don’t feel great right now, and I need somewhere to put that.”
It’s projection, not truth.
Emotion, not memory.
Noise, not insight.
The real measure of your leadership isn’t found in one misplaced social media outburst. It’s found in the way you showed up every single day. I did my best — truly. I put my employees’ wellbeing first, even when it cost me sleep, money, or time. I took an authentic interest in their lives, not because I wanted to be their friend, but because I cared about the humans who kept the business running. When someone was struggling, I helped in every way I could. That was the job as I understood it: lead well, support well, and treat people with dignity. And that is one reason among many that lots of people ended up having long tenure when I owned my business.
And for what it’s worth, I never expected to be close friends with employees outside the walls of the business. We had a healthy work relationship with boundaries. I didn’t expect friendship then, and I don’t expect it now.
But I also didn’t expect this kind of attack, either.
You know those people who need to build a persona?
The “anti-boss,” the “free thinker,” the “I’m too smart for this place” type?
They use the boss — any boss — as a prop.
I just happened to be cast in the role because I ran a company and he worked there. He needed something to differentiate himself socially, and I became the convenient shorthand.
If you lead long enough, someone will eventually cast you as the villain in their story. That’s unavoidable. What matters is that you remain the hero in your own — and the trusted guide in many others.
So no, I’m not picking up the script handed to me this week.
I already know the part I played.
I lived it for more than thirty years, with intention, care, and a hell of a lot of heart.
And if the price of leading well is occasionally being misremembered?
I can live with that.
And if this former longtime employee needs to believe I made his life miserable?
I’ll let him keep that.
He seems to need it more than I do.
