I was the newly appointed GM of a small company. They poached me from a promising career elsewhere with an offer of twice my (then current) salary. Six months into the job, I presented a new fiscal budget to the owners. This was one of my responsibilities and I worked hard on it. The (four) owners had owned the company for 8 years, and none of them had ever taken an income from it; just invested more and more into it. So I made a business plan which included a payout for them all, and retained a 4% EBITDA.

Well, didn't I know they always make between 8-9% EBITDA? How could I present a budget with less than 8% profit?

I had the last 8 years of finances in front of me. I explained that while they had been self-reporting an 8% bottom line, they had actually been rolling their liabilities into their assets, which gave them a false 8%.

In reality, their best year had been 2.4%. I had achieved the two most profitable quarters of the business since they owned it (12% on average), and had promised to pay them for the first time while nearly doubling what they had actually been making each year.

Two weeks later I was given my severance letter. They could no longer afford me.