Conversation with the CEO at the company Xmas party
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I work for a fairly large company. Some time back, the senior mucky-mucks made a greedy, short sited decision and it came back to haunt them. As a result, they laid off a good chunk of the company to save money. A few weeks later, the company throws a Christmas party that can only be decribed as lavishly oppulantly decadant. I made the requisite appearance, and while mingling, the CEO and cronies run into me. We had chatted for a minute when he asks what I think of the party. I pondered it for a fast second and responded that if they had used the money they spent on the party for payroll, they could have avoided all the layoffs, and that I personally would gladly have given up a night of indulgence to save my peers' jobs. Then I politely excused myself and walked away.
What is it with these people?
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Unfortunately, most likely the XMas party was cheaper than one months payroll for the peers who had to go.
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@snoofle said:
I work for a fairly large company. Some time back, the senior mucky-mucks made a greedy, short sited decision and it came back to haunt them. As a result, they laid off a good chunk of the company to save money. A few weeks later, the company throws a Christmas party that can only be decribed as lavishly oppulantly decadant. I made the requisite appearance, and while mingling, the CEO and cronies run into me. We had chatted for a minute when he asks what I think of the party. I pondered it for a fast second and responded that if they had used the money they spent on the party for payroll, they could have avoided all the layoffs, and that I personally would gladly have given up a night of indulgence to save my peers' jobs. Then I politely excused myself and walked away.
What is it with these people?
How much did this "lavishly oppulantly decadant" party cost do you reckon? Even if it cost a million dollars (which I VERY much doubt), not having it would only save the jobs of 25 people on 40 grand a year. A 'good chunk' of a 'fairly large company' suggests to me hundreds, if not thousands, of employees getting made redundant. The party isn't going to have made a lot of difference. Get your sense of scale right.
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The party was thrown in several very large Manhattan hotel ballrooms for several thousand people, with over a hundred servers, waiters, busboys, etc, open bars stocked with (free) top shelf liquor in every room, multiple open buffets of very expensive (and might I add delicious) steak, lobster, crab, and so forth, live bands in each ballroom, limos home for those who drank too much (mostly to avoid lawsuits), and so forth. I'm guessing the party ran in the multiple-millions. It was hundreds who got laid off, but they were mostly low level employees who didn't make much, so the tab for the party would have come close to covering their salaries.
Don't get me wrong, I like a free ride at an expensive party, but a lot of folks got hurt a few weeks earlier, and this place burns through cash like it's water.
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I think a lot of times they write that stuff off as a "moral building" activity. Those are especially needed after people get fired. Problem is it doesn't actually raise moral since it highlights the fact that management are the ones making stupid decisions and the peons have to pay for it.
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@snoofle said:
burns through cash like it's water.
I get your point, but I'm having trouble imagining water burning.
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@belgariontheking said:
@snoofle said:
2Na + H2O = Na2O + H2 + heatburns through cash like it's water.
I get your point, but I'm having trouble imagining water burning.It's not burning water, but it's close enough.
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@belgariontheking said:
@snoofle said:
burns through cash like it's water.
I get your point, but I'm having trouble imagining water burning.
Great, now I'm going to have "Smoke On The Water" stuck in my head all day. Dah dah dahhhhh dah dah da dahhhhh dah dah dahhhh dah dahhhhh
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@Welbog said:
@belgariontheking said:
@snoofle said:
2Na + H2O = Na2O + H2 + heatburns through cash like it's water.
I get your point, but I'm having trouble imagining water burning.It's not burning water, but it's close enough.
Isnt that actually a "reduction" (Dont know the english word for it but I hope its a correct) instead of an oxidization? So close enough is actually exactly the opposite? ;)
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Well H2 + heat + O2 (from the air) will result in burning.
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If those "senior mucky-mucks" are still there, then their decision didn't come back to hant them. It came back to haunt their ex-employee victims. Funny how the higher up you are, the less affected and punished you are for the blindingly obvious mistakes that you make.
Anyway, if the CEO or a member of his gang know who you are, probably best to start looking for another job! That said, well done for being infinitely more polite than I have been in similar situations.
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Even what you described wouldn't cover the salaries of thousands of employees.
i would have kept it a bit less lavish out of respect for the recent layoffs, but to think the one party alone could have saved all those jobs is a bit ridiculous.
Plus, you never badmouth the CEO. Especially not to his face. I'm reminded of the story told at Verizon Wireless training about the CEO who walked into a store only to find 10 customers and no employees. When he found them in the back room, they were promptly fired.
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@Welbog said:
@belgariontheking said:
@snoofle said:
2Na + H2O = Na2O + H2 + heatburns through cash like it's water.
I get your point, but I'm having trouble imagining water burning.It's not burning water, but it's close enough.
Anyone else found that sound the pulled down protector screen made REALLY scary when played in slow motion?
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@NerfTW said:
I'm reminded of the story told at Verizon Wireless training about the CEO who walked into a store only to find 10 customers and no employees. When he found them in the back room, they were promptly fired.
I'd say that's a stupid CEO. It would be cheaper to re-emphasise to the employees the importance of at least some of them being on the shop floor at any time, than to hire new employees and train them from scratch. Chew people out, but don't fire them for something relatively trivial.
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@vt_mruhlin said:
I think a lot of times they write that stuff off as a "moral building" activity. Those are especially needed after people get fired. Problem is it doesn't actually raise moral since it highlights the fact that management are the ones making stupid decisions and the peons have to pay for it.
"[b]Morale[/b] building", perhaps. I'd hardly describe laying people off for budgetary purposes and then wasting a bunch of money with the term "moral".
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@RayS said:
If those "senior mucky-mucks" are still there, then their decision didn't come back to hant them. It came back to haunt their ex-employee victims. Funny how the higher up you are, the less affected and punished you are for the blindingly obvious mistakes that you make.
Anyway, if the CEO or a member of his gang know who you are, probably best to start looking for another job! That said, well done for being infinitely more polite than I have been in similar situations.
Actually, I got a *substantial* bonus this year (Mrs. snoofle is getting a Lexus with one of those giant bows on top come Christmas eve), and no, they don't know anything other than my first name, and the chance of my ever running into any of them again is almost-null... (wait a minute...)
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@snoofle said:
The party was thrown in several very large Manhattan hotel ballrooms for several thousand people, with over a hundred servers, waiters, busboys, etc, open bars stocked with (free) top shelf liquor in every room, multiple open buffets of very expensive (and might I add delicious) steak, lobster, crab, and so forth, live bands in each ballroom, limos home for those who drank too much (mostly to avoid lawsuits), and so forth. I'm guessing the party ran in the multiple-millions. It was hundreds who got laid off, but they were mostly low level employees who didn't make much, so the tab for the party would have come close to covering their salaries.
Don't get me wrong, I like a free ride at an expensive party, but a lot of folks got hurt a few weeks earlier, and this place burns through cash like it's water.
Doesn't sound like it would cover the salarys. Additionaly staff have costs that go FAAAR beyond their salary - and perhpas if it was staff associated with a particualr project that had no future, they will have to cut it off to save the organisation.
Just like many areas of confict you need to cut losses and loose some parts to save the greater whole. Imagine the feeling when there is no cash left to pay ANY staff.
Who will give a promotion to anyone that does not support you?
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@m0ffx said:
@NerfTW said:
I'm reminded of the story told at Verizon Wireless training about the CEO who walked into a store only to find 10 customers and no employees. When he found them in the back room, they were promptly fired.
I'd say that's a stupid CEO. It would be cheaper to re-emphasise to the employees the importance of at least some of them being on the shop floor at any time, than to hire new employees and train them from scratch. Chew people out, but don't fire them for something relatively trivial.
I'd say that's more likely an apocryphal tale. I'm sure there's a version of it at every retail company.
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@snoofle said:
almost-null... (wait a minute...)
Sorry for jumping on you again, but I have to do this.
[quote user="FILE_NOT_FOUND"]enum Bool
{
True,
False,
FileNotFound,
AlmostNull
};[/quote]
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@shadowman said:
@m0ffx said:
@NerfTW said:
I'm reminded of the story told at Verizon Wireless training about the CEO who walked into a store only to find 10 customers and no employees. When he found them in the back room, they were promptly fired.
I'd say that's a stupid CEO. It would be cheaper to re-emphasise to the employees the importance of at least some of them being on the shop floor at any time, than to hire new employees and train them from scratch. Chew people out, but don't fire them for something relatively trivial.
I'd say that's more likely an apocryphal tale. I'm sure there's a version of it at every retail company.
It doesn't matter. Let's consider the cases:
If it had happened, then the HRdroids would tell it to all trainees.
If it had not happened, then the HRdroids would make up a tale like this and tell it to all trainees.
Since the outcome is the same in either case, the information content of this tale is zero - knowing that they told it doesn't leave you any more informed about what happened.
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And they didn't invite the former employees? I just had my work Christmas party and former employees were there (although there were only 25 people there in total). This was at the boss's house.
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@Zemm said:
And they didn't invite the former employees? I just had my work Christmas party and former employees were there (although there were only 25 people there in total). This was at the boss's house.
I bet there was a lot of missing silverware....
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@SuperousOxide said:
Well H2 + heat + O2 (from the air) will result in burning.
Correct me if I'm wrong here(And I very may well be) but this like more like the water vaporizing than burning to me. Sure, if you concentrate enough heat & oxygen on water it will change from a liquid to a vapor, but that dosn't make me think of burning. I'm pretty sure that the phrase "burning through money like it's water" was either meant as a deliberate parody of management's lack of common sense, or the overabundance of water and the speed/exponential growth of a fire. Then again I had a bit to drink at lunch today....
Consider this my $0.02 contribution.
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@Welbog said:
@belgariontheking said:
@snoofle said:
2Na + H2O = Na2O + H2 + heatburns through cash like it's water.
I get your point, but I'm having trouble imagining water burning.It's not burning water, but it's close enough.
If you really want to burn water, you should be able to do so in a fluorine atmosphere.
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Ok, I would be pissed off with a big party at a company just laying off people.
If I was pretty drunk I might have said something like this to the CEO. And Snoofle was pretty polite, apparently which is great. And CEO's deserve to get the truth back at them.
And I definitely would have taken the bonus and bought the Lexus.
But having done all that, I wouldn't post all holier-than-thou at this or any other website. How many staff could have been paid by not giving out bonuses (and presumably not just to Snoofle but lots of others) ? And it don't take too many Lexi to get to way more than the cost of the party.
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@gentian said:
Ok, I would be pissed off with a big party at a company just laying off people.
If I was pretty drunk I might have said something like this to the CEO. And Snoofle was pretty polite, apparently which is great. And CEO's deserve to get the truth back at them.
And I definitely would have taken the bonus and bought the Lexus.
But having done all that, I wouldn't post all holier-than-thou at this or any other website. How many staff could have been paid by not giving out bonuses (and presumably not just to Snoofle but lots of others) ? And it don't take too many Lexi to get to way more than the cost of the party.
Am I missing something? Where does he say anything about a bonus or a Lexus?
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@MasterPlanSoftware said:
Am I missing something? Where does he say anything about a bonus or a Lexus?
@Snoofle said:
Actually, I got a substantial bonus this year (Mrs. snoofle is
getting a Lexus with one of those giant bows on top come Christmas
eve), and no, they don't know anything other than my first name, and
the chance of my ever running into any of them again is almost-null...
(wait a minute...)It wasn't in the OP. It was about 10 posts above your question.
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@MasterPlanSoftware said:
Am I missing something? Where does he say anything about a bonus or a Lexus?
Please read before posting. <g> http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/permalink/140064/140119/ShowThread.aspx#140119
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@KenW said:
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
Am I missing something? Where does he say anything about a bonus or a Lexus?
Please read before posting. <g> http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/permalink/140064/140119/ShowThread.aspx#140119
True, I should have seen that, but missed it. However, if he is replying to a post other than OP, there is a handy little button called 'Quote' .
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@MasterPlanSoftware said:
@KenW said:
@MasterPlanSoftware said:
Am I missing something? Where does he say anything about a bonus or a Lexus?
Please read before posting. <g> http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/permalink/140064/140119/ShowThread.aspx#140119
True, I should have seen that, but missed it. However, if he is replying to a post other than OP, there is a handy little button called 'Quote'
Yes but. This is a mild WTF. This was like my second post. I hit the reply button. I saw the text on my screen so I assumed it was going to be quoted. I was amazed when the quoted text wasn't there.
So I really tried to quote the post but it didn't work out.
And at least in my browser (Safari on Mac) the preview button doesn't work. It previews some previous version of the draft post, not the current one.
