The Best Worst Job I Ever Had — And That’s Saying a Lot

Norman Building & Design.

A job I took after a divorce and the closing of Cascade Hop Farm. When the phone rang, it was the new CEO, a man I genuinely liked from an earlier interview and considered a professional friend. I didn’t know it then, but I’d soon learn that friendship doesn’t always translate to fit — and that not everyone called to lead is equipped to do so.

The company itself was a gem. Norman designed and built some of the most luxurious homes in Central Oregon — each one a collaboration between an architect, a client, and a team that turned months of sketches and wild-eyed ideas into something tangible. Art. Craft. Precision.

My role was to lead sales and marketing — an enviable seat, really. The homes sold themselves, and the process was the marketing. I spent my days meeting incredible people, helping them articulate their dreams, and then walking beside them as those dreams took shape one board, one beam, one handcrafted detail at a time.

So far, so good, right?
Where’s the rub?

The Rub

The rub came in the form of chaotic leadership — a son-in-law who inherited the company from its founder and was constantly battling for control under the surface. Department heads jockeyed for influence. Office politics started replacing craftsmanship as the currency of progress.

Quotes stopped getting generated.
Plans stalled in estimating for “unexplained reasons.”
Backroom deals determined which projects we’d chase and which we’d quietly sabotage.

At first, it went unnoticed — until the market shifted. Lumber prices exploded. Subcontractors started demanding more. Bids became harder to honor. And slowly, the cracks beneath the surface widened. Good people started leaving — carpenters, designers, project managers — chasing the stability and pay that a disorganized company couldn’t provide.

Somehow, I found myself managing architects while locked in a silent war with three other department heads — each of us trying to protect what we believed in, or maybe just survive the dysfunction that had taken root.

When the Blame Started Flying

Blame started getting slathered around like buckets of paint — messy, misdirected, and hard to clean off. Even in that storm, I managed to build a $50 million pipeline and close more than 40% of the LOIs that came through the door.

But where I failed — measurably failed — was in countering the drumbeat of chaos.

I did what many leaders do when the ground starts to shake: I focused on the people I could help most. The customers I had personal relationships with. The ones I could directly serve and support. I stayed hands-on — hands in the soil — but I lost sight of the wider erosion happening beneath the surface.

Behind the scenes, the tools of the trade — saws, hammers, screwdrivers — had become weapons in a quiet civil war. Everyone was looking for a place to pin the blame. Layoffs were inevitable. Costs were outpacing income thanks to bids that hadn’t accounted for the exponential surge in lumber prices. The market was shifting faster than the company could respond.

And through it all, our CEO drifted further and further away. He’d vanish from the office for hours each day. Later, I learned he was attending business counseling sessions — a good step in theory, but advice only becomes change when it’s put into practice. The rubber still has to meet the road.

The Call

Ultimately, I got the call.

The unmistakable shaky voice of a CEO I’d spent countless late nights meeting with — planning, troubleshooting, dreaming about a brighter future for the company. A future that, as it turned out, I wouldn’t be part of.

He opened with the words no one ever forgets:
“We need to cut our losses… and our pipeline is full for the next three years… so I’m going to have to let you go.”

There was more to the conversation, of course — there always is — but the details don’t matter as much as the silence that followed. The quiet weight of realizing that the future you helped build now belonged to someone else.

What I Learned

The lessons came in two parts — and both cut deep.

First, I broke my own rule. I took a job with bad soil — a place where my role was to sell the fruit, not tend to the tree or nurture the ground that gave it life. The soil was already depleted, the roots diseased, and no amount of marketing magic could make that orchard flourish.

Second, I stayed too long. I saw the signs — the rot wasn’t just in the leadership or the market; it was baked into the foundation. The problems weren’t fixable from my place among the branches. And yet, I held on. Out of loyalty. Out of hope. Out of belief that maybe I could prune my way to progress.

I couldn’t. Some ground just won’t grow what you need it to.

What I’d Tell the Next Version of Me

If I could talk to the version of me who walked into that office, I’d tell him this:

Don’t confuse potential with foundation.
Potential is a whisper — it’s hope, it’s promise. But foundation is truth — it’s what the soil actually holds. And no matter how talented you are or how hard you work, you can’t grow healthy fruit in poisoned ground.

When the roots are fighting each other, you’re not leading growth — you’re surviving dysfunction. And surviving dysfunction isn’t noble; it’s exhausting.

I’d remind him that walking away isn’t failure. Sometimes it’s the only act of leadership left available to you. Because when you stay too long in bad soil, you start to forget what healthy growth feels like.

Leaving taught me that loyalty without alignment is just slow decay.
And that the only thing worse than losing a job is losing yourself trying to save one that couldn’t be saved.

About the Author

Andrew Bloo is a veteran marketing executive, leadership strategist, and creator of the Hands in the Soil(TM) philosophy — a framework built on observation, empathy, and regeneration. His work explores what happens when leaders stay close to the ground, cultivate trust, and grow results that last.

Follow Andrew on LinkedIn for more leadership and brand insights grounded in real-world experience.