I have come to believe that the weatherman has the best job in the whole wide world. How many other jobs out there can you be so consistently wrong and still keep your job? This is the perfect setup. There's always a reason to explain away their mistakes. Come on, you've heard them, you know them by heart and you accept them EVERY TIME you hear them. Unexpected drop in pressure, the winds shifted, the isobars are closer together. I hear that one frequently, our annoying weather guy LOVES the old isobars. Half the time when I look up into the great blue, I almost expect to see the damn things up there. Giant red flaglike things accompanied by blue half circley (okay, I just made up a word) things, floating serenely past my house. I never see them, but I know they're there.
But back to the job thing, I've been trying really hard to think of another job that rewards inaccuracy so well. Outside of becoming a hastily fired CEO of a Fortune 500 company, I don't see a whole lot of employment opportunities for the chronically mistaken. I read recently about some of the severance packages given to fired execs. One large home improvement store that uses a lot of orange gave the guy they fired nearly 82 million (yes, million) dollars. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE fire me next! Just let me screw up for a couple of months, then you can fire me and I'll never darken any employer's doorway again, I won't need to, of course. Richard Scrushy (don't you love that name? say it out loud a few times) nearly destroyed Healthsouth and was ousted is due somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 million, but Healthsouth is one of the few comapnies to say no. "Sorry guy, our stock was worth nearly $13 a share before you and after, fourteen CENTS...no soup for you!" How does someone even dare to negotiate a contract like that. Can you imagine those conversations?
CEO To Be: "I appreciate the offer and I'll do my best for your company."
Board Member: "Welcome aboard, I think you'll see we have an attractive package prepared for you."
CEO To Be: "Looks great except for that bit there about you guys having the option to fire me if I bankrupt the company or screw the employees out of their retirement funds."
Board: "You don't think we should be allowed to fire you under those circumstances?"
CEO To Be: "I have no problem with being fired, I just want you to pay me enough that none of my progeny will have to work, for generations to come. You'll have to pay me millions to go away, even if I leave the place in shambles."
Board: "That seems reasonable to me, we'll have the papers drawn up."
Check out this article:
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/P44954.asp
You're gonna LOVE it.
WHY aren't these people hiring ME? I can destroy a company as well as the next person. I can be uncaring and incompetent. I can live extravagantly on someone else's dime. Where are the headhunters and recruiters? I'm waiting!
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