Penelope Trunk, of Brazen Careerist fame, has a stunning post on the new Huffington business blog, on Hold CEOs Accountable for Their Bad Parenting. Don’t miss it, she just nailed it. Check out this line:
"We have a double standard in our society: If you are poor and you
abandon your kids, you are a bad parent. But if you are rich and you
abandon them to run a company, you are profiled in Fortune magazine."
I have experienced all 12 dirty dozen actions plus some from work place practice’s. I work for King Sooper’s grocery store in Denver, Colorado. There is a saying that some business’s are successful by accident.The average new hire last less than a week. Anyone with a past management background is given the whole treatment, eeoc, civil rights activists could have a hey day with these guys. They are a walking time bomb. Some one will take them to task someday and reveal there operations. They make all the worst accusations about Wal-Mart look elementary. They are Kroger owned, but Kroger should take control of this business. It takes me back to the 60’s as far as personnel operations go.
Bob–
While I agree that Penelope nailed a problem for those who are unfortunate enough to be offspring of the CEO of a major company, I disagree that her post is revelatory. This is hardly a new issue, and fortunately for the young people of America, and for America as it looks for young leaders, it is not a widespread one. There are many times that many–perhaps a thousand times that many–who suffer from abandonment and poverty. At least the exec-abandoned don’t have their next meal as a primary concern.
Do I feel badly for those who are under-adored? You bet I do! My own kids always could see me on the sidelines at every athletic event even when it was at 3 pm on Thursday. That was hard to arrange, and I am nowhere near an executive-level employee.
But let’s get real, here. The guys at the top of the Fortune 500 are not going to change their ways because of anything other than the stock price dropping and it being directly attributable to their poor parenting skills.
They should not all be smeared with this broad brush, though! I am happy to report that my CEO/Chairman (I work for an S&P 500 company) is currently in Japan visiting his eldest who works there, and his entire family is enjoying the trip. Yes, he works too hard, too long, too often. No, he does not force his family to pay the price of that effort on his part, although there is certainly a price. Sure, they don’t see him as often as my kids see me. But he works to have a balance in his own life, and he is a huge proponent in insisting that his employees do the same. It is company policy to allow corporate folks to leave the office for a family event during the workday, and the chairman was the one who set that policy.
Bottom line: I hope Penelope’s article will raise awareness to this issue. I have known kids who grew up in basically parentless households of the wealthy, and it was hard to have others assume one is so cared for, while emotionally they felt so alone. At the same time, this problem pales in the face of those who are both parentless and without a household, or without a next meal.
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