Billionaires, Bakers, Bankruptcy and Backpedalling (Part Two)

Now... Where was I?

Oh, right! Sorry. I got distracted by Angus Jones for a few minutes.

At this point, I guess I should continue on with my commenter's, uhm, comments.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with working our way to the top and accumulating massive amounts of wealth...

My friend is absolutely right about this! She and I are in agreement 100%!

There is nothing wrong with working your way to the top. And there is nothing wrong with enjoying the fruits of ones success.

But....

There is something deeply, morally, ethically wrong with achieving that success or protecting your personal profit margin by short changing the hard working employees who you could not have achieved that success without.

There is nothing right about trading in your mansion for a compound, buying a second personal jet and adding four more classic cars to your collection while laying off employees, cutting the remaining employee's benefits (and tripling their workload) and raising the price of the product you are selling to your customers, because, "Things are tough all over."

The Blog personally witnessed the following conversation between an employee and the company's CFO a couple of years ago....

Employee: How was your Christmas vacation?

CFO: Miserable! We are having our kitchen and dining room remodeled and it has taken longer than we expected. We had to spend the whole holiday at the Ritz Carlton. It was awful.

What makes this exchange galling is that the employee, a divorced mother of two (who was, frankly, just trying to make polite conversation) was, at the time, in the middle of fighting the foreclosure of her house, due to the fact that the CFO in question had cut her annual income by a third the previous year, in order to keep the company's profit margin at status quo.

The employee in this story walked a way, at that point, and cried.

*A quick digression*

In many cases, one of the main jobs of a company's CFO is to keep the CEO out of the loop where employee wages are concerned. In a, sort of, defense of CEOs, many CEOs would be appalled if they knew how little their employees were being paid. On the other hand, that's why they employ CFOs.

*end digression*

Moving on...

I think Poppa John's has great food...

Well, that is a subjective opinion. I think Poppa John's pizza sucks.

To be fair, I'm not a fan of Pizza Hut pizza or Dominos, though both are better, IMO, than Poppa John's. Also, to be fair, I think Poppa John's is superior to Numero Uno, Godfather's, Little Caesar's and Chuck E. Cheese.

But, that's not saying much.

Poppa John does a lot of charity work.

Sure he does. And that's good! So do most corporations and multi-millionaires.

Philanthropic foundations are a great tax shelter. And, it's cheaper PR than any television ad buy. The fact that they get to support some of their pet charities in the process is almost accidental.

Call me a cynic, but it's true.

Philanthropy is a good thing, whatever the motivation. I'm all for it!

Is it fair that he (Poppa John) doesn't want to pitch in a few cents for healthcare?

No. It's not. It is also short sighted. Sick employees are unproductive employees. Full time or part time. Employee healthcare is a win/win situation.

"Poppa John" has backpedaled on his comments. I'll get to that in "Part Three."

See you here tomorrow.