An executive from Columbus, Ohio, is on his way to becoming a meme after he shared a photo of himself crying on Facebook. LinkedIn after laying off several employees.
Braden Wallake, the chief executive officer of a marketing company called HyperSocial, posted a LinkedIn post on Wednesday voicing his guilt over having to lay off some employees. The post ends with a close-up photo of the CEO crying, covering his mouth with a finger.
“This would be the most vulnerable thing I’ve ever shared,” Wallake wrote in the post’s opening post. “We just had to lay off some of our employees.”
Wallake called the layoff “the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
The CEO writes that he has seen many other companies also lay off employees in the past few weeks.
He claims that while many other businesses lay off employees “due to the economy or some other reason,” the layoffs at HyperSocial were his own fault.
“I made the decision in February and stuck with it for too long,” he wrote. “Now, I know my team will say ‘we made that decision together,’ but I lead us into it.”
It’s not clear exactly what the regret decision is.
Wallake went on to write that he wishes he was a business owner “just for the money and doesn’t care who he hurt along the way”.
“But I am not,” he wrote. “I just want people to see that not every CEO out there is cold and uncaring when he/she has to fire someone else.”
Wallake compared his employees to family members.
“I can’t think of a lower moment than this,” he concluded.
The post, as of the time of this writing, has been liked more than 32,000 times. In more than 6,600 comments, LinkedIn users split over whether Wallake’s post was admirable or confusing for demanding sympathy.
The company, HyperSocial, specializes in LinkedIn marketing and B2B outreach strategies. Bloomberg reports that the company has 15 employeestwo less than before being fired.
Following mixed reactions to his LinkedIn post, Wallake also released a follow-up statement in which he referred to himself as a “crying CEO.”
“No, it was not my intention to do that about me or to be my own victim,” he wrote. “I’m sorry it happened that way.”
“I do not apologize for the post. But at least I want to use that post for the benefit of others who might need it,” he wrote, urging job seekers to include their resume, desired job title, and qualifications in the comment section on his post.
However, social media users across all platforms continue to discuss the “crying CEO,” with many claiming that Wallake acted selfishly in making the post.
From April to June, the US economy shrink for the second quarter in a row, contracted at a 0.9% annualized rate and stoked fears that the nation could be headed for a recession.
Under a new pollmost Canadians already believe the country is in Depression and the price will continue to increase in the near future. More than 80% of Canadians polled said they believe prices will continue to rise and 59% said they think Canada is in a recession.
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