After watching part of the congressional hearing during which the CEO of BP became a piñata for the posturing , lynch party of our illustrious representatives, I have come to a great realization. We, the American public, you and I Bubba, us folks, have made a giant hiring mistake of the first order. We have hired a tribe of idiots with no idea how to manage anything ,much less the United States of America. The only things they appear to be able to do is spend trillions of dollars that will enable us to be in the debt of China and spend over six hours acting like complete yapping fools.

Take Henry Waxman for instance. Having just watched “Tin Man” I kept seeing that bat with the scrunched up nose and pointy ears , the trusted pet of the evil sorceress. Whoever the group was that hired ole Henry certainly didn’t discriminate on the basis of appearance , personality, ability to communicate in a professional manner or any of the other things required of any leader.

Then came our boy Joe from Texas. Oh no, Joe, you didn’t really just say that…I know that the oilies in your home state gave you a lot of money but even they know that BP rolled the dice of high risk and it blew up their nose. “Shakedown”, “blackmail”, oh Joe, your political life is going to pass before your eyes and that is going to be mild compared to what is going to happen to you when you wake up to find 50 flat bottom boats in your pool filled with Cajuns from the Bayous of Louisiana pointing frog giggers at your cat if not at you. Do senior executives really get to "apologize" four hours after the board meeting for what they said and expect it to go away?

And the beat went on, and on and on. Henry seemed disturbingly furious that he had sent a list of questions to Mr. Hayward that he, Henry the Bat , expected to be answered. Henry my friend, even the evil sorceress has no power over the advice of corporate lawyers to their clients. Are you really dumb enough to think that because you asked , the CEO of a company under heavy fire is going to have tea with you while you snarl and spit in his face.

The outrageous, phony, posturing and verbal assault went on for six hours. And for what reason? Would any business tolerate that type of verbal assault in any business situation no matter how heated it got? Of course not. But here we have the people we have hired with out votes to run the business of our country, leaning into their mics with froth on the corners of their mouths saying things to another person that would get them sued at best and probably arrested in corporate American and certainly fired without notice or severance.

Was anyone naïve enough to think that the CEO of a company responsible for the worst economic disaster in the history of our country was going to sit there and tell our rabid dog congressmen that he, his fellow executives, the company or any of their subcontractors had done this either on purpose or they were culpable of gross negligence. That my friends is why God ordained corporate lawyers. Does anyone really believe that BP executives knew or were informed that the risk they were taking or not, on one well out of hundreds, would result in 11 deaths, the Gulf of Mexico full of oil, the loss of an expensive asset. All at a cost to BP of Billions of dollars plus (for those of you who are all into “brands”) the besmirching of a world class reputation of one of the largest oil companies in the world. Our “Showboat” congress certainly screamed their grandstanding heads off in what I think was one of the most tasteless cases of public flogging that had no point since the Salem Witch trials.

Maybe they can all go home in August and beat their chests while the devastated, oil covered, destroyed citizens of the Gulf are still trying to pay their house, boat and equipment payments, feed their families and try to have a little time left to try and save the wild life that inhabits their beautiful part of the world. Did the fouling of the air on prime time daytime television do anything to help the situation?

If we had hired sane, serious people to do the business of our country within the normal constraints of business communication and problem solving perhaps they might have asked questions of Mr. Hayward like:

What is your company doing, or planning to do, to clean this mess up over the next 10 years? Give us specifics and timelines please that your company is willing to draft and sign as to who, when , where and how this cleanup will be managed?

Add one hundred more questions here that any of us would have asked to try and solve the problem other than turning lose a bunch of howling “disaster dogs” to bark and pee all over everything and everybody just to mark their territory. Trunk Monkeys would have been more effective.

I was sickened by the whole debacle, appalled that I had voted to hire any of these nasty people who felt they needed to demand attention for feigned anger and outrage to please what they perceive to be their constituents back home. I was embarrassed for them, embarrassed about the spectacle they made of themselves, embarrassed that I had a part in their hiring and determined to change my hiring policy with my one vote in November that might help my country hire some mature, serious minded people who will not conduct themselves or the business of my country like a frenzied mob of cheated harlots.

I am a recruiter, I am going to make an effort to recruit responsible people to represent me and my country in a professional manner going forward just as I do in the real world when I recruit executive talent for my clients. If any of the people I saw perform in the congressional hearing came to me for help finding their next job I would not represent them based on the way they handled themselves in the hearing I watched. Very capable people do not get hired due to Facebook gafs. If we saw any of that on FaceBook profiles we would run the other direction…and they run our country.

There certainly may have been hiring mistakes that were part of the problem within BP. I can’t do much about those but the hiring mistakes we have made with the senior executives of our country can be corrected. In my book executive performance is not measured by who can win the blame game or scream the loudest insults.

Views: 136

Comment by Ronald Peterson on June 23, 2010 at 10:39am
Ms. McCartt: While I certainly agree that many of our elected representatives do a terrible job while serving in Washington, and fully agree that their constituencies are responsible for sending lots of idiots to do the public's business, I think you do your argument a disservice when you state: Take Henry Waxman for instance. Having just watched “Tin Man” I kept seeing that bat with the scrunched up nose and pointy ears , the trusted pet of the evil sorceress. Whoever the group was that hired ole Henry certainly didn’t discriminate on the basis of appearance , personality, ability to communicate in a professional manner or any of the other things required of any leader. Waxman is as bright as they come, totally devoted to the business of the United States, an excellent listener and should be measure by his achievements (which are many) and not his ears. He's a congressman, not a platoon leader, and has a very different job, something that he fulfills with awesome talent.
Comment by Sandra McCartt on June 23, 2010 at 11:44am
Ronald,
Thank you for your comment. He certainly may be all that you describe. My impression was gleaned from the diatribe and demeanor that he and the others effected in the debacle of the hearing. Political satire is lost on many people when one uses an analogy to reflect an impression of a specific event. An overall impression if you will, that perhaps diminished credibilty of many of those involved in that exercise of insulting, time wasting futility. As in many cases in the private sector, a stellar career can be tarnished in the eyes of many by an emotional performance that could have been handled in a more mature manner.
Comment by Tori Bowlsby-Petrouskie on June 23, 2010 at 2:28pm
Kudos, Sandra! I was too amazed and disheartened at the focus on culpability rather than solutions. Yet another waste of taxpayer dollars all in the name of posturing.

I try to impress upon my candidates to be mindful of their actions. Like you said, "Very capable people do not get hired due to Facebook gafs."

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