Unloved corporate failure Meg Whitman was last seen insisting that she should be governor of California because goddammit, she paid $141 million to be governor of California. And now the former eBay executive has re-appeared on the public stage, with news that she will be hired to run the ruined tech company Hewlett Packard. The rumor/announcement was greeted by a global plunge in all stocks, led by a collapse in all technology shares. Why can’t she just leave Earth alone? Aren’t things bad enough without Meg Whitman?
Whitman and another failed Silicon Valley executive, Carly Fiorina, decided in 2010 that they would each like to buy a big political office in California, because they were bored and had hundreds of millions of dollars from their accomplishments: yelling at underlings, laying off tens of thousands of American workers, and driving big companies into the ground. Whitman decided to be governor and Fiorina decided to be a U.S. Senator. Neither had any idea of what they were doing and didn’t even know how to vote in regular Election Day situations. Naturally, they ran as Republicans. Both were crushed.
What do you call it when delusional Republican multimillionaire CEOs fail to buy their way into office in California during a terrible recession? “Year of the Woman,” obviously.
And the crazy people who run HP have been trying their best to destroy what’s left of the computer company, probably as part of some elaborate 2012 ritual. They keep making weird announcements like, “Let’s not make computers anymore,” and then the shares plunge and they try to think of something else, like, “Let’s hire Meg Whitman as CEO. We already had Carly Fiornia!”
The markets responded like this:
Hewlett-Packard Co. led a broad-based selloff In tech stocks by midday Thursday after a report surfaced that Meg Whitman, the former eBay Inc. chief, was expected to be named chief executive of the beleaguered tech giant after the closing bell.
At least HP is leading something again! Oh yeah, and all stocks everywhere are plunging. We are apparently in another Global Depression now. Hope you enjoyed the recovery! [Marketwatch]
{ 195 comments }
Maybe Meg Whitman sat on the stocks.
Can't we get that harpie to run the Taliban or fuckin' N Korea?
Can't wait for HP products to have a "Buy It Now" button. Gonna need it.
Just as long as I can keep getting parts for my plotter.
Sad, sad, sad. My grandfather knew Bill Hewlett, lived just a few blocks away. My first job was at HP in 1972, in the same building where they were building the revered HP35 calculator. The union tried time and again to get into our plant, but HP treated us so well we kept voting them out. HP is in many ways a shadow of its former self, at least in the way it treats its greatest asset, its employees. But they're no different than just about any other publicly-owned corporation, are they?
I praise Cthulhu every day that the Electronic Test Equipment and Life Sciences divisions had the good sense to GTFO of that travesty hollow shell of a formerly great company. Agilent, for some of their faults, still rocks the test equipment world.
There was a time when the entire SillyValley looked to HP for management hires because they were the best-trained. HP invested in its people back then.
No matter what the Meg Whitman question being asked is the answer is always the same.
Cause she an entitled scaberious cunt, that's why. Ask the browns…
When authorities start catching up, CEO's never seem to know what's going on. Why do they get paid so much? They didn't know nothing, they didn't see nothing, they didn't do nothing.
And they don't know the people who work for them either … except the ones they decide to blame for their poor decision-making.
Meg was the one who had the illegal immigrant who was working in her house and swore that she "didn't know it"
If we wanted a governor who swears they have no idea what's happening in their house, we'd move to Alaska
First capital expense: $141 million to root out that DemonSheep crapware.
Eh, she may have been kind of a lousy exec at eBay, but she's no Carly Fiorina.
… yet. Give her time.
No, she's not. Unlike Fiorina, she has actually assaulted at least one of her employees. I understand her son is just like her, except that he prefers to break the ankles of strange women in bars.
Carly Fiorina ran HP into the ground by overpaying for a dead-end computer maker, called "Compac".
Maybe Meg Whitman can overpay for acquiring MySpace or some other dead end technology….
Keep your capitalistic hands off of my 401K!
Isn't that about a 4.1K now?
Capitalism is great, until somebody gets an eye put out….
Fortunately, I just stocked up on printer cartridges, so I'm good till the end of the year.
They're coming in the dead of night to confiscate our cartridges and switch us to network printing. Fucking Socialists. It's my God-given right to fill tech dumps in China.
The laugh's on you; they've been sitting in a warehouse for three years and will expire in January.
H-P was originally a medical device manufacturer and I was stocked up with defibrillators when Carly took over. Now I need batteries and can't find them. Damn.
Is it time to buy, sell, or have more drinks?
Yep.
All of them, Katie.
It's always time to have more drinks.
I would say "All of 'em, Katie," but since the GOP Presidential Debate is tonight I'm going to focus on "have more drinks." Going to the store to stock up now…
I'm not going to watch or listen. I am, however, going to drink my fucking ass off.
too late to sell, too early to buy, so drinks it is!
OT – but I have been seeing if I can go off one of my meds lately and today I am really really angry. Now, I'm been angry before…hell, I'm angry most of the time. But today I'm snarling angry. I wonder if there's a connection.
Come… to Mendocino County.
Maybe I should try weed again.
try the butter. or other oil, like hemp oil-that one is legal and full of omega 3
"A bag of weed, a bag of weed, everything's better with a bag of weed. . . ."
Everytime I read one of Ken's posts I feel like going back on Prozac. Not that we don't love ya Ken, but . . . . . .
It wasn't so much this thread (although what's not to hate?)…no, my co-worker is being a little ChristOcon bitch whore today and I want to slap her. Maybe the snarling anger is environmental and not so much systemic with me….hmmm
Just take heart in knowing that the heaven she seeks is right here, and that she's not going anywhere else when she dies.
Your bad mood is inspiring creativity. Did you make up ChristOcon? Because it's great and I would like to borrow it immediately. I usually say Christianista, but now that the Sandinistas are so out of fashion …
And KeepFn, that's a fine way you have of cutting to the chase. I think I'll make use of that idea, too, because my meds don't always work so well either and I could use a pick-me-up like that.
Wait, snarling isn't normal????
Lol…"If you're not snarling, you're not paying attention."
I think it may be the "brain shivers" that's making me tetchy.
I like those, they are like random salvia attacks.
Whenever I wean myself down to 5 mg of Lexapro, I find myself screeching and string-cursing. I am perfectly happy, in the way that Ren of Ren and Stimpy was happy being angry, but its tough on those around me, so I have to put the happy helmet back on and go back to 10 or 15 milligrams, so I can sing the Happy Happy Joy Joy song. With my old pal, Stinky Whizzleteeth.
I guess I'm not the only one.
Nope, you most certainly are not.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that if you can survive in 21st century USAmerica without being drugged to the eyeballs, you're insane, and therefore the source of everyone else's problems.
Me, I just disassociate.
Sybil, meet Kim. Etc…etc…
I call dibs on the one you quit!
Well, I'm not currently on meds and I'm snarling angry, so I'm guessing there is no connection…or maybe I just need some meds.
Maybe you just need to find Jesus. The magazine rack in the men's room at work is usually a good place to start.
P.S. Paxil is my Lord and Savior.
Hmmm. I L-O-V-E Paxil, but it makes me very fat so no can do. But there's something about a little voice in my ear saying, "Who cares if you're the size of Rush Limbaugh? Rush is beautiful like everyone else in humanity. Go ahead, eat the whole cheesecake. There's no such thing as diabetes." Goddam side effects.
There there, Dash. Nothing a few more tax cuts for the wealthy and de-regulating everything won't take care of..
If you're on psychoactive meds, you REALLY should not try reducing your dosage or stopping the medication except under the direct supervision of a doctor. I say this as a person who has repeatedly ignored this priceless advice and come very close, as a result, to paying the ultimate price. Clearly, whatever medication you were taking affects your mood, whether directly or indirectly. In the interest of your continued life, health, and peace of mind, I suggest you stay away from anything that makes you feel angriER and see if you can either ingest something or practice something that calms you — yoga, meditation, serious exercise, weed, whatever it takes — and either talk to a doctor ASAP or get back on your meds ASAP.
If you can get a medical marijuana prescription, it is quite good for helping you get off a lot of other stuff. But you do have to be carefully monitored.
Thanks, POD.
It's only because I care, Buddha, and selfishly don't want to be deprived of your incomparable wit — at least until it's time for you to Officially Pop Your Clogs.
"A bag of weed, . . . ."
Something tells me I'm hearing the voice of experience.
Its one of the great truths, the four pillars of wisdom: drugs will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no drugs.
If a rumor Meg Whitman can spark a stock panic, just imaging if a Fortune 500 company named Sarah Palin or Rick Perry as CEO.
Why, someone would have to be mentally incapacitated to put either of those two in charge of anything, except a fundraising PAC.
I'm convinced that most top decision-makers in corporate America ARE mentally incapacitated. By raging narcissism and megalomania so consuming that they don't have enough brain cells left to do more than the most basic cognition. Only in their cases megalomania is not a delusional fantasy because at this point the wealth, power, and omnipotence they feel is very real.
I think many of these big corporations only exist by getting as much public welfare as they can get through lobbying or outright buying politicians. Do any execs even bother with business basics like supply/demand anymore? Such an incestuous group with government it's hard to tell them apart.
OMG, does this mean I agree with Michele Bachmann?
To be fair, she probably won't last long enough to do much permanent damage.
also, there aren't that many jobs left to ship overseas …. or shareholder value to burn.
HP employees better get their boxing gloves on, Meg likes to push and shove her employees. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/us/politics/15w.... I don't why the HP board would bring on board someone with an assault record, but we live in "fun" times,
She looks like a few of them punched back with blunt instruments or bridge abutments.
Let's just leave it at "She's descended from a long line of WASPs who all fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down."
This bitch better not have anything to do with why my News Feed is so fucked up, omg srsly fml >:-(
If a giant, hairy toe is your company's most prominent public face, you're in real trouble. SELL SELL SELL!!
Pubic face? Oh right. Never mind.
Come on give the girl some credit, bet she didn't spend over $50M on board member bribes to get elected CEO!
She is like $90M ahead, and she got this job!
(She, and her board, spit on your stinking shareholders!)
Well, if there's one thing Republicans are good at, it's driving companies/countries/communities into the ground.
So Mittens will be out of the POTUS job market come Nov and also won't be needed to downsize HP? Sucks to be him….
Repubs are also very good at then spending billions in rebuilding countries/communities with many cost over-runs and pallets of cash "mysteriously" disappearing.
C'mon … they're very good at TRYING to rebuild. The results leave a little to be desired. (Unless you're the one who got the pallet of cash.)
I thought Natalie Portman was the Black Swan.
I wish our Black Swan was as hot as Natalie Portman, but it more resembles Mike and Molly…
So, she's not dead? Who do I have to blow to get some good news today?
Well, I don't know about good news, but maybe a "happy ending"?
Me!
Let's see, good news, good news…. Arrgh, nevermind.
I think we need to talk about that oral obsession of yours. Call me. Soon!
Sincerely,
Marcus Bachmann
I was going to offer, and then I remembered you're married.
Thank you for putting a smile–and a blush–on an old man's face, but, yeah, that's all you can put there.
Aww! You're SUCH a sweetie, widestance. Hugs to you and your wonderful hubby.
I wish I had a crystal ball so I could see to which country Meg is going to send what remaining HP jobs there are left in U.S. Dumberica. How's the desert, Ken? That's starting to sound like a fine idea.
Maybe Pawlenty has got inside info – he's going to Tunisia to get one of those plum HP assembly jobs.
Just throw a dart at a wall map to get the answer.
Sorry KBJ, but Year of the Woman wuz 1992. Boxer, Mikulski, Feinstein, and the Soviet of Washington's beloved Patty Murray beat the living shit outa the former/current HP CEOs.
HP's been listening to BillO and are going to try to run the company into the ground because they don't want to pay higher taxes. Yeah, that makes sense. Right?
Sounds like a good idea to me. Can I spend all the money I have buying their stock?
There is a parody about this:
http://www.phinvert.com
Oh, that's just lervely.
When I was just a little nip of an Engineer I used to hear ad nauseam about the HP way. I’m pretty sure the HP way had zero tolerance immoral racist grifters. I am sad for this once great Corporations sleigh ride to hell.
Like so many things in this great country of ours, 'The HP Way' existed in the 50s and 60s when men were engineers and women were secretaries and the blacks were 3/5ths of a person.
That's not entirely true. HP was a pretty decent place to work well into the 80s and 90s.
Not according to my mother. The "women were only secretaries and blacks are 3/5ths of a person" are more than a bit true. "The HP Way" may have been adhered to in California but it certainly wasn't in their Oregon, Washington, and Colorado facilities (mom worked at all three). There were no women above lower/middle management until Carly F. There was only one non-white token above-middle management guy during that time at one of their facilities and not because of a lack of qualified applicants. If you sucked up to your supervisor you could take 2-3 hour smoke/booze breaks while the ladies covered you. When an opportunity for a promotion or bonus came up the hardest workers wouldn't get it, the supervisors' cronies would get it.
What was the HP way? I only remember you had to type in the equations in HP calculators fucking backwards, and there was no equals sign.
It was all about trust, respect, teamwork and innovation, not just words but a true company ethos. And reverse Polish notation Rocks by the way.
And MBWA!! Management By Walking Around
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_the_garage
Fuck 'em, they chose the route.
How much does an HP LaserJet 4 fo for on eBay Meg?
Meg Whitman's greatest crime was forcing me to vote for Jerry Brown.
There are worse crimes. The nominee could have been Antonio Villaragosa or, God save us, the current Lieutenant Governor.
These are the times that try men's souls…
Well I think it's nice they are giving work to an unemployable beluga whale.
SAVE TEH CAVIAR!!!!
So much for the Meg Whitman bounce.
Oh I guess I'll be the first one to reply and say that she would be more likely to crash through the floor in a blizzard of broken tile and plywood.
Thank you, sir.
One man's ceiling, etc etc
Dead cat libel!
HP's policy of making replacement cartridges more expensive than buying a new printer seems like a smart business plan. How could it go wrong?
I worked at HP during 'Hurricane Carly.' Did they hire Meg out a sense of irony or stupidity? I didn't think they could exist together, but now I'm not so sure…
I'll bet Christine O'Donnell could run that sucker.
…while dreaming of sucking that runner.
Commando Style, Ass Mode!!!
This decision makes perfect sense when compared the their recent decision to buy Palm.
Flourishing indeed.
I'm speculating here, but I think that the market has spoken, and, apparently, it does not like fat, abusive, lying, racist, incompetent, closeted queers who are parents of rapists.
Or maybe it's simply those jowls.
Those boys of hers are real charmers, aren't they?
Cost her millions to buy them a dining hall where they could insult the Nears with impunity.
You are absolutely right. The market, sadly, has no problem whatsoever with fat, abusive, lying, racist, closeted queers who are parents of rapists. But boy, oh, boy do they ever hate fat, abusive, lying, racist, incompetent, closeted queers who are parents of rapists.
I'm investing heavily in torch and pitchfork futures.
Can I interest you in forming a guillotine subsidiary? Increased efficiency at a comparable price point.
What part of "No Fat Chicks" does HP not understand?
Well, to be fair, John Elway and the Quaker Oats guy said no first.
Ass, grass or gas–no one runs HP into the ground for free….
I assume her sons will come along, as a package deal? Ya gotta have some rapers to accompany your assaulters, if you want to turn around a floundering company.
An item you've been watching has been relisted.
This is good news for Demon Sheep.
Could be the new HP mascot!
Whatever happened to that guy?
This just in: Dell has just announced that Danny Bonaduce has been appointed new CEO. Their stock is down, but not as much as HP is.
He's sober now and still manages to be employed, so he's certainly a better bet than Meg.
I thought Packard bought Studebaker back in '54 and both companies entered a death spiral that ended with a brilliant crash and explosion in the early 1960s.
Yeah, but Hewlett bought what was left of the Packards and turned them into fairly decent printers…until Carly got ahold of them.
In the crazy game I sometimes play , entitled , 'Me, if I'm not careful" I think Meg Whitman is me, if I'm not careful. I am now depressed.
Now, now…go for a quick run or gym visit and you'll feel better. As a bonus, you'll have taken a step to prevent becoming Meg Whitman. The last time she got a workout in was probably before HP was born…
Never, darling! She hasn't your incomparable tits, your delightful sense of humour, and most important, she hasn't an iota of your intelligence.
Also, my face doesn't look like a doughy bun.
I should think not, my lovely, although I have yet to see that divine visage up close and mmm … personal.
If Mrs. Butterworth and The Quaker Oats Man had a baby who let herself go completely in middle-age…
i'm pretty sure that if i had to play a game about 'alike things', lizzie and meg would be farther away than 'republicans' and 'responsible governing party.'
but maybe that's just me.
Packardammerung
Gramm-Leach-Bliley and NAFTA and free trade, our descent to cannibal annarchy can be blamed on everyone who has held office since the coup which was the assassination of Kennedy. Deregulation under Carter, Reagan, and DLC co-founder Bill Clinton and ther speaches he used to give about how we don't need to have any manufacturing jobs, because we can all get re-trained to work paving the information superhighway. And since he left office he's been cashing in, sucking the dick of the multinational corporations that were ever his master, grifting every bit as shamelessly as Palin. Both sides sold us down the river long ago.
Jeebus. There's 15 million people out of work and they chose her.
Those other 14,999,999 people must be unbelievable fuck-ups.
I thought the long-term unemployed were having a hard time finding jerbs.
When they're as rich as Mittens Romneycare and sMegma Witless, they can BUY their own jerbs.
Good, now I can get parts for my Packard-Bell Media Fun Center.
Also, HP is going to merge with Atari and bring out Pong v2.0. Good times comin'.
OT Mrs. Mittens is now putting her very well-shod foot in her mouth .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5FwZZ0Uslc
Comments are disabled
I saw what you did there.
Would the White House be adequate for their needs? Bring back the negroes to build two more wings!
Perfect. Could I get a negro or two myself, I have something different in mind but still.
A super-fast bobsledding team? Or did you have something else in mind?
It involves the parachuting into occupied France , rescuing downed aviators and finding something to do until it is safe to take them across the Pyrenees.
OT: I think I deserve hearty congratulations for NOT SNICKERING this morning when I was filling in a form on the computer, asked the caller what her child's name was, and she said "Zepplin."
(Yes, spelled that way)
Oh, the humanity!
Was there a sibling named Pink Floid?
Well, sure…why wouldn't a person who spent $50 per vote be the perfect person to turn around a troubled company? http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/11/ste...
Suits those of us in the Golden State fine…
And this just in, the $1 bill is being replaced by unsold HP TouchPads….
HP is awesome at finding the worst person available and then making them CEO, amirite Carly?
The only woman ever to make the "20 WORST CEOs of all time" list.
…so is she going to auction off HP?
But it Now – $550!
The people who hired Meggy could not find a teen-ager in Mumbai to take the job. Farewell, HP.
Aw. That's sweet. The girls get to take turns ruining HP. Can Carly ruin EBay next? Its almost recovered from the Megger.
Corporation Swap! – the hot new reality show.
The invisible hand's just giving her the finger.
No, the invisible hand is giving US the finger. Again today.
Copy Cougar.
After having to wait for half a decade and a class-action settlement to get a defective HP notebook replaced, I just have to say that this couldn't have happened to a nicer company.
Allah willing, she can take charge of Sony next.
Or Microsoft. Maybe then BING and Windows 7 can die ignoble deaths.
Oh pleez oh pleez oh pleez oh pleez oh pleez!
HP has been all downhill since the Venn Triangle
Shoulda focused on the downy triangle.
How about a reality show wherein Carly and Meg swap companies. Or maybe Gary Busey should run HP.
Remind me — was it Mark Penn or Ed Rollins that lost that election for her? I forget.
That reminds me I need a neck lift.
True story:
The Opinion editor of a local, big-ass paper talked to our Dem group a few days ago.
He said that his favorite candidate interview was of Schwarzenegger, (no Romneyesque pander there), and that his least favorite interview was Whitman. He said that Arnold knew all about the issues and was charming. Meg was extremely rude, (especially to the lowly staff-members), and was ill-prepared.
Shocking!!
Man, I just turned my keyboard upside down and shook it real good–just to, y'know, see what would happen?–and a whole truckload of cookie crumbs came wafting down. 'Sup wi' dat?
At least have her read Bob Packard's "The HP WAY" and test her on it before giving her the job.
I phu*kin hate HP, this should put the final spike into its heart, er, innards …
I don't know why I have an HP printer. It sucks donkey ass.
She has enormous, Jerome Bettis-like thighs. Fiorinis I think they're called.
I'm seeing a career path here. After she is thrashed soundly in the primaries, Bachmann will run for governor of Alaska.
You gotta delete the cookies more often.
But don't that turn off the pron, to?
If that had been the initial concern, it would've been cheeto dust instead of cookie crumbs in the keyboard, I think?
Stocks aren't the only things that fall at the news of Meg Whitman.
As an Apple stockholder, I approve.
"yelling at underlings, laying off tens of thousands of American workers, and driving big companies into the ground."
As practice for being a GOP governor, it worked well for Mitt Romney.
I think when things are serious enough that dissociation is the best response, medication is fairly useless. I'm not sure there's any other solution, either, except time, and love.
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