Monday, February 05, 2007

She's not a failure!

After 180 days as Penney COO, Catherine West "was terminated involuntarily due to her failure to satisfy performance objectives" and was paid $10 million. The transition from the credit card business to the retailing world just wasn't a smooth one. But Ms West is not discouraged: "'Absolutely I would go into retail again,' she said. 'I'm captivated by it.'" What pluck!

You know, at first I wanted to be mean about this, to make some kind of sweeping generalization about executives, their sense of entitlement and the sorriness of people overall. Now I think Ms West might be a genius. She's actually figured out a way to get corporate America to fund her mid-life crisis. When most people want to pursue second careers, they accept that there will be a period of sacrifice. At the very least, they may have to put themselves on a budget while going back to school or getting training. But Catherine West is up $10 million and still looking. Fabulous!

2 comments:

Moda di Magno said...

Irene:

Don't you think Catherine got robbed compared to Mr. Nardelli? I grant you a shorter corporate stay, but I think $10 million was a bit shy for giant corporate fuckupery. She should totally sue the bastards.

Irene Done said...

Oh, now that's funny. Wonder if Nardelli is similarly "captivated" by retailing. Heaven help us.