Reflections of a Corporate Executive

Saturday, March 12, 2005

The pain of outsourcing

As a member of the upper ranks of corporatedom, I am among those criticized as being uncaring. It's believe that we CEOs seek out the almighty dollar and don't care about the little people.

Yesterday we had to tell 30 of our computer programmers that we were letting them go in six months and outsourcing their work to people in outer Estonia. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do and I tried to put as positive a spin on it as possible. Many of the 30 own several dozen shares of Cowcope stock, and so I stressed to them that this action would reap them positive rewards in the value of their stock. Wall Street, I explained, doesn't look kindly on a company that has been running 70% profit margins suddenly slipping to 65% profit margins. Darryl Yikeloth, one of the affected employees, had the nerve to get smart with me and blame the decrease on the government investigation into cases of flaky udder disease caused by our Cow headache drug Mootrin.

I know these guys are losing their job, but it isn't like we aren't giving them three weeks to find another job and 3 days severence for every year they worked. Plus, we're allowing them to continue their health coverage under COBRA. We even allowed those with the most tenure to stay on for an additional six months with the opportunity to fly to Estonia to train the new employees. They'll have the opportunity to travel AND learn a new language.

To let them know that I too am feeling the pain of the financial hard times we've fallen into, I've cancelled my limo service for the next 2 months and cut back to only three massages a week.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

My First Post

Allow me to introduce myself. I am Halbert W. Jalikeakek, a vice president here at Cowcope. Like many of you, I started out from humble beginnings. With skill, luck, and my inate intelligence, I was able to work my way up all the way to the position of Chief Operating Officer and Vice President. I know that many people out there feel that corporate executives are overpaid, underworked, corrupt, and earn their livings on the backs of little peons that they crush in their wake. I'm here to assure you that this is not true. Why just today, as I was washing my hands in the sink with 12 squirts of soap and 10 back and forth motions, the janitor walked in. Even though he broke my count, I did not get mad. I acknowledged that he was a working joe just like me and even took the time to wipe down the counter for him in a counterclock wise motion 5 times. And when I opened the door with my used towel, I made a point to comment on how sanitary my executive bathroom has been these days. I just started doing this thing the kids call "blogging" recently and have found it therapeutic. My first experience with blogging came from an unfortunate experience I had recently with an employee that I'll call Eddie B. Feldstein the III. Eddie had been with the company for 13 years. One day, while doing my quarterly check of my employees credit records and googling them to make sure they didn't have any hidden skeletons in the closet, I uncovered that Eddie had been writing a blog called Life at Cowturd. His terrible attacks on the company that had put food on the table for him and his seven kids was absolutely terrible. I fired him on the spot. So, to encourage my employees to post valuable information about the company, I decided to start my own "blog". Here is my first entry. I'm hoping that you will see we corporate executives are just like you, only with a bigger bank account.