Friday, September 23, 2011

About Meg Whitman As HP's New CEO

We've all heard and read more than we probably wanted to since yesterday morning concerning HP's firing of 11-month old CEO Leo Apotheker, in favor of board member and former eBay CEO and failed California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman.

So I'm not going to opine on HP's board, valuation, or checkered history of so many CEOs in so few years.

Here's what struck me this morning.

How frustrating must it be for the millions of unemployed, formerly middle- and/or senior-managers in America who can't get replies to inquiries, or interviews, or jobs, because those hiring consider them unqualified or insufficiently qualified.

Now they see Meg Whitman, who has never run a hardware or software company, simply given the job of CEO of a large one which does both.

It must be very galling to be seeking a job in some function in which you have experience, perhaps even in an industry you know, and get nowhere, only to see Whitman asked to take a lushly-compensated job for which even pundits on the business cable networks this morning assert she has no serious credentials to qualify.

Talk about luck and serendipity.

As my first boss, at AT&T, John Tyson, used to tell me about the manyfrustrating situations he encountered in his job at the company,

'Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh, or cry. I laugh, because it hurts less.'

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