home sweet home depot

Home-Sweet-Home Depot

Dear Wally:

I get so upset when I hear how much money some CEOs make whether or not their company has performed well. How would you suggest we deal with this as a society?

Alexis in Accord
_____________________________________________________

Dear Alexis:

On a recent trip to Home Depot, I gave this some consideration. Upon his ouster, Home Depot’s ex-CEO Robert Nardelli rewarded himself for dismal stock performance and declining customer satisfaction with the highest executive compensation / severance in the country. Plus, he kept his orange smock, 3 screwdrivers, and the bladeless non-functioning box cutter all employees carry for some reason. Well done, sir! This really smarts, (the compensation part, anyway) and has seemed to touch a nerve in you, me and plenty of other hard working Americans. (I’m assuming you are hard working, but even if you are not, for the sake of ratcheting up the Socialist drama of discrepancy, let’s let it slip). It doesn’t help that every time the press takes a picture of Big Bob, he’s bloated and smiling like he’s just had a big steak dinner on us. Which he probably has.
So, my advice to you, Alexis, which I hope you’ll pass on to the corporate board members who approve these unchecked, grotesque executive compensation / severance packages is as follows: Don’t. (See? That was easy!) In publicly held corporations, let’s not forget, the public (shareholders) own the corporations. Surely we can figure out some way to tag compensation to performance. Maybe let the shareholders grade performance and use that to scale executive payout? Maybe wait 5 years and reassess the company’s stock performance and fundamentals before releasing those outlandish bonuses? I dunno. It seems to me that if the CEO delivers, they should get paid. If they don’t deliver, and/ or they leave prematurely, they shouldn’t automatically get paid the huge sums. Ya know, kinda the way it works out here in the real world…
As an aside, after driving Home Depot’s shareholder earnings into the very toilets it sells in aisle 13, Bob Nardelli has been installed as Chrysler’s new CEO, (excuse me??) which to my thinking means that any day we should expect to see orange cars made from warped lumber rolling down the road on wobbly wheels.

(Got a question that needs answering? email our advice columnist-- advice@bsp.com)