According to a new study, a high salary may actually make your company’s CEO meaner. In the study’s white paper, “When Executives Rake in Millions: Meanness in Organizations,” professors from Harvard, Rice and the University of Utah argue that rising income inequality between executives and ordinary workers results in “power asymmetries in the workplace such that top executives come to view lower level workers as dispensable objects not worthy of human dignity.” [HP via HNM]
What the groundbreaking study doesn’t offer is specifics. Such as, at what pay bumps do you get a boss who’ll can an underling just because he didn’t like the guy’s face? At what take-home can you can said employee by sweeping everything off his desk and having security escort him out the building Jazzy Jeff style? (Also, what’s meaner? An approach like that or a two word IM: “get out”?) And at what pay-grade does one get to treat their underlings’ mouths like a urinal? These are the things we need answers to. (I’m being serious– let’s get some hard data here so people on either side can know what to expect.)
tru dat
HuffPo says this like it’s a bad thing?
Bess, as a boss, would you agree with this?
@2 says this like he’s surprised?
Given the stage of my career I’ve not had the privelage of utilizing the underling mouth urinal.
I feel comfortable with the mechanics of it, however if anyone with experience could shed light on how to flush one of these it would be appreciated. I’m assuming they are self flushing, is that correct?
@5 it hurts me on a level you can’t even begin to comprehend that you don’t understand what I’m talking about when I reference treating an underling’s mouth like a urinal.
@6/BL – It hurts me that it hurts you – if it makes you feel better I do indeed know what you were referencing, if you have a whiteboard marker I could draw a picture for you.
BL @6 – I KNEW you were into watersports!!!
Yeah, the guy wearing the $4,000 suit is holding the elevator for the guy who doesn’t make that in four months. COME ON!!!
I worked for a guy on the NYSE for two months and he decided to tell me that “things weren’t working out” at our Christmas party. I went on to bigger and better things and this cocksucker went to Jeffries. Now if only he’d develop testicular cancer……
Once upon a time in Soviet Russia, you “pee-on” boss!
-Guy who doesn’t understand the anatomy of a Russia Reversal, BL’s urinal joke, or the true meaning and pronounciation of “peons”
In Soviet Russia, “In Soviet Russia…” jokes tell you.
@11 Not bad.
the bigger the salary on Wall St. = the bigger an a-hole you are, it is actually a simple equation proven over the years
Dick Fuld 2007 comp 34.3 mil
Stanley O’Neal 2007 comp 24.3 mil
Joe Gregory 2007 comp 26 mil
@11. BL’s was a joke? Don’t be presumptuous.
I know of a certain hedgie who flew in on his private jet with a film crew (not cousin Sal with a JVC, but a full boom mic, etc…) to film him in his awesomeness for the day. Same day they laid off 20 people so they were able to capture him @ his most ruthless moment. Seriously, no one at the top cares about the help.
Bah! Humbug!
let them eat cake
has no one picked up on the fact that a harvard professor used the word “meanness” in the title of his book…what is this an 8year old harvard professor?
Bess,
I’m used to better tags. bosses=mean people, why the repetition?
I’m assuming I’m not the only one here still hung over? Fuck.
@14, I think the words you were looking for there were total comp package.
-guy who nitpicks kind of pointless typos but does so in jest and really doesn’t mean to be a dbag about it.
What a sweet gig it must be to suck up grant money writing about the obvious. I’m sure Harvard professors are the epitome of care and concern for the little guy. Ask any TA or grad.
I would totally eff a pelican right now. I don’t even care. I’m so serious.
I find this study compelling.
- Czar Feinberg
hey bess, i got your hard data right here
Welcome to the machine. The US system is built on greed. Does it surprise you that the greediest are on top?
CEOs are a sociopathic bunch. Quick, name a CEO you know to be a good person (not the PR nonsense). And now name 10 more. It’s hard
@9 – Nice “Arrested Developement” reference.
@27:
Here’s one – Blankfein. He does God’s Work, you know. He rescues abandoned cats too.
Do you rescue abandoned cats?
Research has found that an astounding amount of people consider Bess’s inbox to be a national treasure.
@29 what you don’t know is that Lloyd securitizes those cats into CBS which is sold onto Chinese restaurants at 1000% markup.
hey bess, your box is my national treasure
@31, Lloyd then buys CDSs on the CBSs and subsequently reports the Chinsese restaurants to the city. Also, I would think the CFA would be up in arms about this and revoke the memberships of any of its members working at a firm that engages in such dastardly conduct.
@33 I believe that’s what the firm calls ‘long-term greedy’ The rest of the street calls it rat-fuking
@14/sladd writes “it is actually a simple equation proven over the years”
The three comps you offered are all from 2007, which is a single year.
-AIG Quant
I use my assistant’s mouth as a cum bucket, not a urinal.
I’m just mis-understood.
@34,
YES. Thank you for referencing that. I was subject to his ramblings for half a semester in Managerial Accounting–it was worse than you could ever imagine.
-A frustrated Stern undergrad
@bess
I know the original urinal reference, but for originality you should always throw in some Human Centipede
As a Rice grad, all I can say is: Jesus. I wish I could say this is an outlier, but I’d be lying. Owls are, more often than not, giant weirdos.
Somebody paid for that study?
@31 – Well done!
Being a dispensable object not worthy of human dignity is the new killing it
@27, Ben Edwards was a fair CEO. R.I.P.