Sometimes something happens that makes me realise I really don’t understand ‘big’ business and that there really is a ‘them’ at the top and an ‘us’ under their heel – and them and us play by different rules. And the rules are always theirs.
Today, it’s this…
Rebekah Brooks, the former head of News International, was paid £10.8m after she resigned, it has emerged.
This isn’t rant at Rebekah Brooks, as such, or News International, but just the latest in a long line of such occurances. Most happen without hitting the headlines. I just can’t work out why, how ever much I think about it.
Ms Brooks had a job. Ms Brooks resigns from the job. Ms Brooks get a fucking massive wodge of cash as compensation for loss of office.
But hang on, she didn’t lose her office. She gave it up, didn’t she? If she gave it up then why should she be compensated? She wasn’t sacked unreasonably. She gave up the job of her own accord. Resigning is not losing your office.
Contrast that to someone working in a shop, a warehouse, an sales rep. They resign, they have to work a notice period, anywhere between a week to 6 months. They don’t get a payoff. In some, still uncontroversial, circumstances they might be paid in lieu notice, but then that’s still not a surprising amount.
So that’s the first difference. The lucky few resign and get a fucking big credit entry on their bank statement, the masses have to carry on working their notice or they’ll get fuck all.
But, Ms Brook is being investigated, and has been arrested, for wrong doing within the company she was employed at, so it’s not just a straight case of someone resigning to go to another job. She resigned to protect the company, or because her position became untenable and she was asked to resign.
Now, either way she has brought the company into disrepute. Either by being negligent and not knowing what the fuck was going on under her tenure or for at the very least looking the other way while her minions broke the law.
This fuck up of hers, and others, is costing the company a fuck of a lot of money. Once again, the ‘ordinary mad in the street’ would’ve been sacked. No chance to resign, just a push out the door whilst being told to fuck off.
Why do these people get the chance to resign? It’s not like they actually have their CV typed out on a couple pieces of A4 and might worry what sacking might do to their chance of future employment.
Now, I don’t know how much Brooks was paid a year for her job, but £10.8m is a fuck of a lot. That’s £900,000 a month over a year, or what someone would be paid at £50,000 a year, if they worked for 216 years.
… and I think I’ve just cleared up my confusion.
Brooks must either have one hell of a lawyer, or know some very dark secrets that the Murdochs’ don’t want out in the open.
So that’s going to be my business plan. Get some dirt on my boss until I can afford a shit hot lawyer.
