What a total ****** ****ing tossing pr*ck
Discussion
greggy50 said:
Where I worked the one year the owner said he could not afford to pay out a bonus, he then proceeded to purchase a £650k sunseeker and stuck up a picture of it in reception...
That went down really well!
I'm sure it went down very badly, but given he'd been saving for a decade for that boat, he wasn't going to not buy it simply to avoid the grumbles of employees not in receipt of a little ex-gratia windfall, was he?That went down really well!
The photo in reception was not a good idea, mind.
pork911 said:
kVA said:
Can't be bothered to read everything and there's two sides to every story and all that, but leave the f
king thing at home that day!!! How stupid do you have to be to think that's OK (and that it's not going to get tyres slashed, pissed on and worse!
I remember a very similar scenario years ago and the hatchet man turned up that day in his teenage daughter's Fiesta... Funnily enough, everyone knew his Bentley was probably still in his drive, but actually thought it quite decent of him to show some sensitivity to peoples feelings.
So I agree, the OP is right - what a fking tt
should all the workers walk in with sole-less shoes and hair shirts when the company is struggling and repay any bonus in the good times? king thing at home that day!!! How stupid do you have to be to think that's OK (and that it's not going to get tyres slashed, pissed on and worse!I remember a very similar scenario years ago and the hatchet man turned up that day in his teenage daughter's Fiesta... Funnily enough, everyone knew his Bentley was probably still in his drive, but actually thought it quite decent of him to show some sensitivity to peoples feelings.
So I agree, the OP is right - what a f
king ttno, because they are employees
No matter how much you think the business cares about you, they don't really. Do what you need to stay employed and nothing more since you simply don't get the reward for putting your heart and soul into it. Unless that is in your contract of course, and remunerated appropriately.
Dave
spitsfire said:
crofty1984 said:
You think he was born with a new suit and a full time job?
Maybe the reason he's in that position is because he started his career stacking shelves like the rest of us, got educated, got a decent job in a company, then worked hard and proved himself for, oh I dunno, a decade or two, made some smart career choices and got into that position.
You might be right, but several studies have suggested that social class mobility is lower now than at any time since WW2. In other words, if you're born poor, you're more likely to die poor (and vice versa) than if you'd been born 50 years ago. There are a few of the 'pull yourself up by the bootstraps' success stories out there, but the evidence (and a lot of the comments on here) suggest that many people don't see success as being a product of hard work and ability, but more about being in the right place at the right time and screwing people over. Maybe the reason he's in that position is because he started his career stacking shelves like the rest of us, got educated, got a decent job in a company, then worked hard and proved himself for, oh I dunno, a decade or two, made some smart career choices and got into that position.
Edited by crofty1984 on Tuesday 23 July 07:23
It's partly the facts, and partly the perception; it's harder to come from nothing and get wealthy, and it's easier to stay wealthy if you're born in a world of opportunity. Even if it's only a perception, it's likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy as the 'us and them' mentality takes over.
Anybody who thinks that this is not a really, really bad thing should have a look at how Britain fared in the 1970s when the 'us and them' mentality dominated. Anybody heard of British Leyland? British Steel? Upper Clyde Shipbuilders? If you're under 30, you probably won't be familiar with these three (and there were many others) businesses that went from employing huge numbers of people and generating massive export orders to total collapse in a generation, their failures defined by bad management decisions and appalling workplace relations.
BTW - I'm speaking as a privately-educated, unashamedly middle-class libertarian before anybody accuses me of the class warfare stuff.
There are plenty of would be tradesmen and women out there, with degrees and skills who never get the chance because the company owners pave the way for their own family to get skilled up, even though they may be totally unsuited.
It's the same song, just a different beat........
I'm pretty sure we're all aware that not all MD's are the same. My Uncle who's had a medium size company with a decent turnover for many a year drove round in a beat up Saab 9000 for at lease 15 years, I think in the end they begged him to get an S Class 
. Joke is, 10 years later he's still in the S class.
He's always re investing in the company but as he's built it from scratch and is surely looking to pass it on to his son, his motivation is very different. Saying that he's always putting cash in property and has a nice portfolio.
Yes, you can dump your cash into a depreciating asset as an MD if the company is perfroming well, if it isn't that sounds well, just plain evil.
. Joke is, 10 years later he's still in the S class.He's always re investing in the company but as he's built it from scratch and is surely looking to pass it on to his son, his motivation is very different. Saying that he's always putting cash in property and has a nice portfolio.
Yes, you can dump your cash into a depreciating asset as an MD if the company is perfroming well, if it isn't that sounds well, just plain evil.
Davel said:
Rovinghawk said:
Since when was a new E-type £98k?
Yep - two different cars.It was in the early nineties and he'd bought the E-Type in concourse condition.
It wasn't just his business that folded- he apparently lost his beloved E-Type as he was also in a financial mess personally.
He only called time when the bank wanted him to mortgage our house.
In summary, he took nothing and put in extra cash to ensure his employees and suppliers were paid, until it was no longer tenable as the outside money was all gone.
In those final months some of his 'loyal' (spits on the floor) employees rewarded him by offering to do private work for customers who phoned up or walked through the front door looking to place business with my dad. Thereby loosing the company much needed business.
This is a true story and the moral is that nice bosses make very bad business men because their employees take advantage off them.
TRUE STORY
Hol said:
Its not just the rich though. You ever heard of Dock Labour????
There are plenty of would be tradesmen and women out there, with degrees and skills who never get the chance because the company owners pave the way for their own family to get skilled up, even though they may be totally unsuited.
It's the same song, just a different beat........
Yes, agree with that one, and the same also applies to 'closed shop' workplaces, although these are largely a thing of the past in the UK. There are plenty of would be tradesmen and women out there, with degrees and skills who never get the chance because the company owners pave the way for their own family to get skilled up, even though they may be totally unsuited.
It's the same song, just a different beat........
Having seen the German approach and the rewards in productivity, profitability and job satisfaction that come with it, I really wish we'd realise that if the dominant philosophy of a workplace revolves around screwing over the next guy, everybody ends up getting f
ked.The Crack Fox said:
Muzzer79 said:
My Co. car is on a lease deal. When that lease expires, I get another brand new car. That may happen on the same day that I have to make someone else redundant. Has the company spent money? No, we've just removed car A for £x a month and replaced it with car B for £x a month.
This happened to me. I had to make 125 people redundant. My company car lease was due for renewal but I deferred it for 12 months. Your logic, Muzzer, may be right - but having to explain it to some poor b*stard who has just lost his livelihood and has a family to feed is a less tactful way of handling things than a small wait for your next set of wheels. I would park the new car round the corner or something.
But the point is that something brand new or expensive outside doesn't necessarily correlate with laying out loads of company money as the OP and a few others seem to think.
spitsfire said:
CraigyMc said:
The bank has had crap results since 2008, and Hester will be taking about £1.6m home with him when he leaves on top of tens of millions he's made since he was hired.
Was he worth it?
C
I'd question whether anybody is worth £1.6m a year. After all, you'd not even get 9% of that for running the countryWas he worth it?
C
If I was being semantic, I'd also point out that Hester 'making' money is fundamentally different from being captain of a ship on a rising tide.
Fundamentally he is highly qualified (1st class degree from Oxford in Economics and Politics) and has done a good job of repairing much of the damage RBS had.
As to how much he was paid, it's in the tens of millions, but you'd have to ask who was qualified to run RBS in 2008, and of those people who was willing to put up with the s
t that was inevitably coming the CEO's way.An utterly thankless task done quite well has a price tag. It cost him his marriage, by the way.
C
Hol said:
My fathers company lost their biggest customer when the local navy yard shut. Other companies that owed him money went under seriously affecting cashflow but he kept things running by taking no money himself and using his savings until they were gone.
He only called time when the bank wanted him to mortgage our house.
In summary, he took nothing and put in extra cash to ensure his employees and suppliers were paid, until it was no longer tenable as the outside money was all gone.
In those final months some of his 'loyal' (spits on the floor) employees rewarded him by offering to do private work for customers who phoned up or walked through the front door looking to place business with my dad. Thereby loosing the company much needed business.
This is a true story and the moral is that nice bosses make very bad business men because their employees take advantage off them.
TRUE STORY
I'm sorry to hear that things didn't work out for your father. But he can hold his head high and in my experience people like him do better in the long run. The traits that saw him act with what sounds like compassion and dignity are likely to be the same traits that helped him build up the business in the first place and I do hope he was able to use those same skills to rebuild things.He only called time when the bank wanted him to mortgage our house.
In summary, he took nothing and put in extra cash to ensure his employees and suppliers were paid, until it was no longer tenable as the outside money was all gone.
In those final months some of his 'loyal' (spits on the floor) employees rewarded him by offering to do private work for customers who phoned up or walked through the front door looking to place business with my dad. Thereby loosing the company much needed business.
This is a true story and the moral is that nice bosses make very bad business men because their employees take advantage off them.
TRUE STORY
MX7 said:
VolvoT5 said:
And to top it off these guys show a total lack of management skill, awareness or compassion by turning up to sack people in cars that cost more than some peoples houses.
oyster said:
Do you think it shows good managerial nous to turn up in what people perceive to be a very flash car on the day that you are making cutbacks?
Managerial nous, management skill, awareness and compassion are not legal requirements for running a company. Why do you expect every company to try to mimic one of the '100 Best Places to Work' companies? If that's what you're looking for, go and work for one of those companies.
I'm not sure what you were expecting. Companies are, generally, fairly inanimate when it comes to compassion and awareness. It's nice when it happens, but stupid to expect it.
Even a hard-nosed, confident and ambitious business owner should know when to be seen to be tough and when to be seen to be compassionate and understanding. The case in the OP got it wrong and there is NO defence AT ALL for that behaviour.
As to the point about mimicing the 100 best places to work for - obviously not all companies can achieve that, or perhaps even aspire to it. But the number of companies whose business case rests on recruiting the least motivated and driven staff must be very few and far between. In my line of work, attracting good staff is the hardest part of the job, but by far the part that has greatest impact on the bottom line.
CraigyMc said:
My point was as follows: Bankers are hated. Hester is a Banker so he's hated.
Fundamentally he is highly qualified (1st class degree from Oxford in Economics and Politics) and has done a good job of repairing much of the damage RBS had.
As to how much he was paid, it's in the tens of millions, but you'd have to ask who was qualified to run RBS in 2008, and of those people who was willing to put up with the st that was inevitably coming the CEO's way.
An utterly thankless task done quite well has a price tag. It cost him his marriage, by the way.
C
Fair enough, a 1st from Oxbridge shows he's a smart cookie. But I'm not sure that being in an occupation more likely to result in your marriage failing (try being in the army), or being loathed by the public (see traffic wardens or social workers) should mean that your pay packet can justifiably be greater than the average person's lifetime earnings.Fundamentally he is highly qualified (1st class degree from Oxford in Economics and Politics) and has done a good job of repairing much of the damage RBS had.
As to how much he was paid, it's in the tens of millions, but you'd have to ask who was qualified to run RBS in 2008, and of those people who was willing to put up with the s
t that was inevitably coming the CEO's way.An utterly thankless task done quite well has a price tag. It cost him his marriage, by the way.
C
I don't see why bankers should get a bump in pay because they're disliked. They're disliked because they gamble with our money, award themselves huge bonuses when they win, and huge severance packages when they fail. If bankers were being lynched I might have a bit more sympathy for that argument, but they aren't, so I don't.
02verco said:
Well I know he has been sleeping in the office for the last 3 weeks as his missis kicked him out, witch is quite funny! Should call channel 4 they would love to send some cameras around ha ha
Why is that funny?Does he have any children watching their parents split up? Perhaps you should share your hilarious joke with them to cheer them up.
Didn't mean that post to sound quite so tetchy - it's just I do get irked when folk show empathy for a group of people who collectively caused the worst economic crash in living memory, but managed to avoid the consequences of their actions because they'd been pocketing obscene amounts of cash in the run up. Hester, who's career started at Credit Suisse, and spent the half of the naughties at British Land helping inflate the property bubble, can be included in that group.
This also applies to feckless directors and execs, and there's quite a few of them out there....
This also applies to feckless directors and execs, and there's quite a few of them out there....
zebra said:
OP _ dear me. Your naivety is incredible.
I sometimes drive a decent car at work worth probably the equivalent of an 8 year old Aston. People often say, 'you must be making loads to afford that'.
I don't have kids [cars are generally cheaper things], I don't drink and I don't smoke and my wife works incredibly hard too.
In the bad years I pump money into my business. It cost me money to start my business. I am not a charity _ I didn't start my business to employ people, I did it to make money and to do that I employ people.
At the start of the recession I made some people redundant _ it cut my costs, saw me through the worst of the past three years and now I am employing more people again.
I did it to keep the business going. I am aware that the people that were made redundant are still bad mouthing me. Tough luck. They have no idea of the sacrifices I have made over the years, the money I have ploughed in to the business, the long hours I have spent working while employees clock off at five to go to the pub. They haven't seen me working weekends for months on end so that they have a job to go to. I have a mortgage to pay, I don't always get to go on holiday; in the bad years I probably cannot afford to go on holiday. Buying a second hand car over the months costs several hundred pounds. Chances are this fella didn't walk in to the local garage, throw his wallet down on the salesman's desk and say in a loud voice, "Oi son, take fifty grand out of that, give the keys to the DB9 and keep the change."
Many employees are totally clueless as to what their bosses do hence why they find it so easy to criticise. Try walking a mile in my shoes and see how long you last. Those that are capable of doing it have probably already made the choice to do so because they are motivated to better the quality of their life _ good luck to them.
A second hand Aston probably doesn't cover more than a few people's annual salary. Businesses have a long term view _ employers have a macro view, employees have a micro view; their immediate world _ "How am I affected?'
'Rubbing people's noses in it'? Just turning up in a car is not rubbing people's noses in it at all and I doubt he was taking people out into the car park and saying, "Hey, look at my great car, now jog on, you're jobless." You cannot honestly answer that because everything you have written on this thread is what you have been 'told', unless you are the person in question and therefore with your attitude I would want to make you redundant too.
You sound like the kind of bloke I'd like to work for. I sometimes drive a decent car at work worth probably the equivalent of an 8 year old Aston. People often say, 'you must be making loads to afford that'.
I don't have kids [cars are generally cheaper things], I don't drink and I don't smoke and my wife works incredibly hard too.
In the bad years I pump money into my business. It cost me money to start my business. I am not a charity _ I didn't start my business to employ people, I did it to make money and to do that I employ people.
At the start of the recession I made some people redundant _ it cut my costs, saw me through the worst of the past three years and now I am employing more people again.
I did it to keep the business going. I am aware that the people that were made redundant are still bad mouthing me. Tough luck. They have no idea of the sacrifices I have made over the years, the money I have ploughed in to the business, the long hours I have spent working while employees clock off at five to go to the pub. They haven't seen me working weekends for months on end so that they have a job to go to. I have a mortgage to pay, I don't always get to go on holiday; in the bad years I probably cannot afford to go on holiday. Buying a second hand car over the months costs several hundred pounds. Chances are this fella didn't walk in to the local garage, throw his wallet down on the salesman's desk and say in a loud voice, "Oi son, take fifty grand out of that, give the keys to the DB9 and keep the change."
Many employees are totally clueless as to what their bosses do hence why they find it so easy to criticise. Try walking a mile in my shoes and see how long you last. Those that are capable of doing it have probably already made the choice to do so because they are motivated to better the quality of their life _ good luck to them.
A second hand Aston probably doesn't cover more than a few people's annual salary. Businesses have a long term view _ employers have a macro view, employees have a micro view; their immediate world _ "How am I affected?'
'Rubbing people's noses in it'? Just turning up in a car is not rubbing people's noses in it at all and I doubt he was taking people out into the car park and saying, "Hey, look at my great car, now jog on, you're jobless." You cannot honestly answer that because everything you have written on this thread is what you have been 'told', unless you are the person in question and therefore with your attitude I would want to make you redundant too.
Edited by zebra on Monday 22 July 20:09
Edited by zebra on Monday 22 July 20:10
My current employer is similar. I'd like to own a business one day, but I either don't have the skills or the guts to make the jump so I work hard as an employee and have myself in a position where I have a decent salary in a job I like. Suits me fine and you don't hear me b
hing about the nice cars in the car park. Good luck to 'em.Davel said:
Happily, the whole company went under a few weeks later and the Chairman lost his beloved E-Type which, I was told, he'd paid £98,000 for.
Yeah, really happy that. The people you worked with lost their jobs, but that's ok. One of "them" lost his jag. other people doing just as badly as me - makes it all better. Prick.
tbc said:
The MD isn't there to console the employees, he's there to make as much bunce as he can
not much time for emotion in business
the colder, the harder, the biggest bd you are the further you will get in the corporate world
The corporate world - maybe. If you stay employed long enough to get a managerial position with that attitude.not much time for emotion in business
the colder, the harder, the biggest b
d you are the further you will get in the corporate worldIn small business, cold hard callous b
ds tend to get the employees they deserve, and the business suffers in consequence. If you treat your workers like st, you will never get their best work.This is not communism, just common sense.
ps Bonuses for losing money is taking the piss. Isn't the seven figure base salary enough?
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