"Here to Win"
How corporate values show the sociopathy of executive leadership
Today's story caught my attention and reminded me of the inept, tone-deaf, abusive CTO I briefly worked under at the fashion retail hereditary oligarchy.
" Starbucks’ Howard Schultz, who was interim CEO at the time, broke federal labor law in 2022 by telling a California barista who raised concerns about unionization that “if you’re not happy at Starbucks, you can go work for another company.”
A decision by the National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday said Schultz’s statement was an unlawful, coercive threat.”
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/03/business/howard-schultz-starbucks-labor-law/index.html
This kind of tone-deaf nonsense pervades the psychopaths running retail enterprises.
When the fashion retail hereditary oligarchs selected the Travelweb CTO to turn the technology organization around, he started by hiring all his favorite inexperienced junior directors from Travelweb and creating VP-level roles for them.
He created new VP roles and vacated existing VP roles through convenient resignations to “spend time with family.” When a VP or higher announces they’re “taking time to be with family,” this means they were fired.
We must never allow the ruling class to experience the shame and judgment they subject labor to without a second thought by firing them. We must always protect the shareholders, the oligarchs, and the board by never admitting that they made a bad hire at the executive level. After all, we know they’re in charge because they’re so bright and have so much merit.
He passed over many highly qualified, long-tenured, and capable in-house professionals to hire mostly men with no experience in retail or the executive-level roles he was unilaterally bequeathing them. When a director approached him and mistook his “open door policy” for an actual open door policy and told him many people were feeling like nepotism and cronyism were impacting them unfairly, he reportedly responded with, “I’ll hire whoever the fuck I want.”
Whoops, I guess we better close that door then.
This new CTO loved doing his all-hands meetings on video. This was way before Covid, so it was unorthodox. He liked to be seated at a large desk or table and be broadcast across the company. These meetings were reminiscent of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez’ long, meandering state-televised bloviations.
More like this tho
“MORBO HATES BEING CHALLENGED BY THE LABORERS HE ABUSES!”
One of the corporate platitudes put forth as “values” was “Here to win,” which is as meaningless a platitude as any others on the list.
During one particular all-hands bloviation on gender pay equity issues within the technology organization, he presented with the female chief human resources officer.
She did the masterful job of an obsequious HR professional protecting and defending the oligarchs. She addressed some of the valid problematic, contentious concerns raised by employees by rigorously reframing and defending this abusive buffoon.
She was explaining how much he cares about gender pay equity and how committed he was to transparency and fairness when he interrupted her mid-sentence.
He.
Interrupted.
Her.
Midsentence.
In a meeting about gender pay equity.
A meeting triggered by the nepotistic, unfair, and male-biased hiring and promotion practices of his new administration.
To say what, you ask?
What inspiring words did he have to offer the women being underpaid and abused by his leadership practices?
”If you don’t believe you can be winners here, don’t be here.”
People asked me if I thought he meant women should not be there. I could only honestly answer that, given the topic of the meeting was “gender pay equity” and given that he chose to interrupt the female chief of HR to make that statement, it stands to reason that must be what he meant. At a very minimum, he was not concerned about how context would color his statement.
One would think someone with authority over 2500 or so technologists at a multi-billion dollar enterprise would have even a tiny clue how to speak to humans or how to avoid looking like an absolute garbage person. especially given the ubiquitous hiring and retention problems the organization had in light of its abysmal reputation in local tech circles.
These people at the top of the corporate enterprise wield massive, largely unchecked power over labor. They do so very often with total impunity.
HR knew this man was a disaster, but given the high turnover rate in the CTO position, it was more important to “make it work” for the sake of the stock price and saving face for the grandchildren of the founders who happened to have the most merit and ran the company.
When the game is rigged, what “here to win” actually means is “don’t complain about the abuses you’re suffering at the hands of psychopathic oligarchs.” just shut up and do what you’re told. Ladies, this goes for you, especially.