Item the First – Our CEO
Okay, Mr. CEO, you and I have some things to discuss. Pull up a folding chair, sit down and shut up. Bring all the rest of the chief-fillintheblank-officers with you. I don’t want to hear a word out of you until I finish. 'Kay?
Okay, now then…
First, what the bloody HELL were you thinking when you gave the okay to buy up all the companies in sight? Yes, I know our industry was in a ‘growth phase’ at the time, and you wanted to grow our company into the dominant 800-lb. gorilla of the industry. In this industry, you either have to be one of the big boys, or you have to be a small boutique specialist firm. But fer chrissake, could you have done your homework first? Did we even bother doing any financial due diligence before buying these dogs?
I’m only about three-quarters through my MBA, and even I was able to tell that these companies weren’t going to make any money. Looking through their shareholder reports of the last few years, and analyzing their financial statements, it was apparent that these businesses weren’t performing up to spec. Fine, you say, we’re buying underperforming businesses and improving them. No, we’re not! We haven’t touched their method of operation since we bought them, and therefore they continue to drag down the bottom line!
In buying these companies, you’ve incurred an amount of debt that’s equal to one-half of our yearly revenue! That’s like a family with a $100,000 yearly income having $50,000 worth of credit card debt! (Okay, a gross oversimplification, I know, but that’s still a position a company never wants to get into.) Because of all this debt, we can’t pay our vendors, and I have to spend half my day either: a) explaining to vendors that yes, hopefully they’ll be paid soon, or b) trying to find a new vendor to replace the ones that have dropped us because we’re not paying our bills. It’s embarrassing, being the big player in the field and not even being able to pay our bills.
And so, to help defray the costs of this debt, you start taking away our benefits. And your explanation for why the company is in dire straits? “It’s the soft market and the economy.” Bud, this company was in trouble last year, when everyone was still singing the praises of the strength of the economy! So don’t use that as an excuse.
Y’know, I could accept the benefit cuts if the company’s problems were just due to a soft economy or the terrorist strikes… but because they stem directly from the mistakes of upper management (and then you lie about them!), they’re a little hard to swallow.
And then, in your next address to the company, on the topic of sagging employee morale, you say, “If you don’t like it, just leave”!!! I hate to tell you, buddy boy – we are. Your best and brightest are streaming out the door, leaving you with the dregs that remain. Like the captain of the Titanic, you will be going down with the ship, valiantly trying to do damage and spin control while the icy waters of bankruptcy swirl around your ankles.
On the way down, may your golden parachute land on you with the mass of the metal it is named for. And once you hit the ground, with the golden parachute pinning you down and breaking most of the bones in your body, may the coyotes come out at night and make a snack of your soft, round, pudgy corpse. Slowly. With ketchup.
Item the Second – Our Office VP
Glad you could make it. Sit the fuck down next to the upper-management primate in the folding chair there.
Congratulations on being with the company for over twenty years. I’m impressed. Your position as a VP must be one based on tenure, because it’s sure not based on talent or intelligence!
You apparently think that your management style, which primarily consists of yelling at and intimidating people, will help our office pull through this crisis. I have to hand it to you for your novel approach. Some managers might take the course of being up-front with their employees, acknowledge the company’s having hard times, and trying be supportive; it may not work completely, but that way, the employees at least know their managers are on their side. But instead, you say things like, “Layoffs are imminent, and we’re going to be scrutinizing everyone’s behavior,” and then follow it up in the next two minutes with, “Keep smiling! Now’s the time to work harder than ever!”
<Mrs. Broflawski> Whatwhatwhat?!!?!?? </Mrs. Broflawski>
Lemme get this straight. You’ve cut our vacation time. You’ve suspended raises from now till the Second Coming. You’re closing offices and handing out pink slips like fun-size Snickers on Halloween, and you have the utter GALL to tell us to ‘keep smiling’? Dude, it’s all we can do to keep from crawling under our desks and committing hara-kiri with our plastic knives from McDonalds, and you want us to SMILE? Don’t give me that rah-rah bullshit, especially when it rings so hollow coming from someone so false.
For you, your punishment will be to be demoted to the position of mail-room clerk for the rest of eternity. Your position will then be subject to the vagaries and whims that you are so talented at handing down to the rest of us. Good luck having a real job.