In this context it is interesting to note that Barach Obama passed on the custom of redecorating the Oval Office.
Redoing the office is a way of saying ,I am in charge now, the old guy is gone. I will pee in his lair. I will mark his territory as mine. …He could have just painted it. It is wasteful to put 1.2 mill in a bathroom redecoration.
Well, what you’ve described is high-functioning sociopathy.
That does seem to be frighteningly common in that industry. That said, it’s not unknown elsewhere; Toronto Mayor David Miller spent $2 million in taxpayer money redecorating his office.
Now, don’t get me wrong; the Mayor of the City of Toronto should have a spiffy office. He’s a very important person, who is visited by heads of government, heads of state, representatives of large interest groups, captains of industry. There are fifteen U.S. states and five Canadian provinces with smaller populations than Toronto. But holy flying fuck, TWO MILLION DOLLARS? Even assuming that the redecoration included a lobby, a conference room and a shitter, you’ve got to be pretty frickin’ loose with the Amex to run up $2 million. For $2 million, they could have built a luxurious lakeside house for the mayor to do his business out of. Were they tiling the floors with diamonds?
I’ve tried to come up with a rationale for how a man running a city in terrible debt, full of poor people who could use some help, can with a straight face authorize the use of two million dollars to redo his office, how a man could NOT at some point say “You know, maybe I don’t need two million clams to do this. Maybe I should set a budget at a quarter million. That’s enough money to build a whole house; I’m sure this place could be made to look good for a quarter million.” I just can’t build a case for it. I can only conclude Miller is a gigantic asshole.
I mentioned it upthread but I’ve been in the exec officers at RIM (Blackberry) and unless money was hidden behind the drywall, I’ll tell you right now Jim Balsillie didn’t spend $2 million on his office. This is not a cheap company - they hired Aerosmith to play a concert for the employees, with the Barknaked Ladies as the opening act. Balsillie is openly trying to buy an NHL team, which will conservatively, cost him $350 million once the team’s bought and an arena either built or upgraded to move them into. So he’s not averse to forking out the bux to get what he wants, and yet no $35,000 shitter for Jim. And it is, after all, HIS money, so there’s no moral barrier to him buying a platinum urinal or whatever, but he managed to keep a lid (ha!) on it. But that’s sort of the point. It was Jim Balsillie’s money. Balsillie presumably elected not to spend $35,000 on a toilet because he doesn’t want to waste HIS MONEY. John Thain and David Miller were wasting other people’s money on themselves, proving Milton Friedman got at least one thing spot on.
The worst part is that I doubt anything will ever be done about it. Obama pretty much called them out in his weekly address, but if he can’t get something done to address the already wasted money, they just get away with it. Since they’ve got so much cash it doesn’t matter if their names are shite either. They’re set.
A few months ago the conservatives were on a roll about the greedy auto workers and how their pay was not competitive with Japan. I’d love to see the Dems call them on this and cut lineworkers pay the 10% or so difference and then restrict exec compensation to Japanese equivalents. There would be some screaming as execs had their pay cut 75%.
Exactly. That’s the thesis of the book Snakes in Suits. When psychpaths are born poor, they go into crime. But if they come from good homes and wealth, they can rise to the top of the corporate ladder, where ruthlessness and a complete lack of empathy are highly valued traits.
Bingo. It’s about time we goosed the ganders.
The New York Times reports reaction to a $500,000 cap on executive compensation at companies accepting bailout money:
Hm. Maybe these companies will do just fine without executives for whom half a million isn’t enough. What makes them think they’re so uniquely capable?
This made me think of the bar where the hoodlums from Clockwork Orange hung out.
I"m very firmly of the belief that most medium to large companies could pick from at least a dozen top lower/middle managers, put them into executive positions, pay them “only” $500.000/year, and they would do AT LEAST as good a job, if not better, than the current crop. Pick some excellent internal candidates, and give them a chance to clean up the mess left by the (now fired) executives.
If the chairs are that size, the table is bound to also be inadequate. By “redecorate” I mean “make changes to the decor,” it doesn’t have to mean “making such changes to the decor that all trades must get involved.” Would you prefer “I’d have to change the furniture”?
I don’t think the scale and expense of the redecoration was justified, but then, I also think my SiL’s redecoration of her hall was over the top… (she put in a €400 minitable after my brother vetoed another one with one more zero). And I do think that redecorating the office can be an actual necessity without even getting into the marketing aspects of it; it can be a necessity for someone whose office never is seen by outsiders at all. That’s using my definition of “redecorate” and M-W’s, mind you, I’m not sure what yours is.
Actually, I don’t see how that follows. I’ve seen a lot of office furniture, and, in general, there’s pretty much one kind of desk. You get to choose your chair for ergonomic reasons.
It doesn’t have to mean that, but generally speaking “redecorate” implies changing the entire decor of the room, not just replacing two objects. Furthermore, it strongly implies changing the aesthetic appeal of the room, not replacing two objects based on their functional value.
Would you have to change all the furniture? Or just the your own chair? I don’t see why the second chair would have to be changed, since you wouldn’t be sitting in it. And I’m skeptical of your claim that the desk would have to be changed.
What exactly are we talking about here? Office furniture? A chair, a desk … they’re interchangeable. A chair that makes your back hurt doesn’t inevitably lead to “redecorating.”
Let’s play by my definition then. “Redecorating” is the full-scale alteration of the aesthetic appeal of a room, not the replacing of a few functional items, nor is it simple repair or maintenance of normal wear and tear. Now how do you come out?