My Unsolicited Opinion

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When I was a young sprout, just starting my way in the world, I worked for a think-tank in Washington, DC.  While there, I was unlucky enough to encounter Evelyn Y. Davis.  Now, if you're reading this, you are most likely asking yourself "Who the hell is Evelyn Y. Davis?"  She's not exactly a household name, to be sure.

Evelyn Y. Davis is a shareholder-rights activist, of sorts.  She is thrice-divorced, and has somehow has managed to amass a good deal of money.  She invests in publically-traded companies, attends their annual meetings, and harasses executives.  My unsolicited opinion on her behavior is this:  Have you ever seen an old woman at a grocery store, making a huge stink over nothing, just to get the attention she can't command anywhere else?  Evelyn is that old woman, but with a larger than average bankroll.  Rather than harass the stocker in produce, she harasses Michael Eisner.

I have no respect for this woman.  She makes a spectacle of herself, and makes personal attacks that are not constructive (such as disrespectful attacks on corporate senior management regarding their weight or their wives wardrobes).  However, every now and then she'll fight on issues of substance, like executive pay.

Evelyn, if you are reading this, I am not a CEO.  That said, you likely will stop reading this right now, as I am just a "flunky" that you despise.  But I do have another unsolicited opinion for you, and you should probably listen, since you really only have about 10 good years left on this planet.  Stay focused!  If you could choose an important issue or two, and fight for them like a tiger, you could truly help shape corporate governance.  Your current antics may get attention, but they make you a joke.  You've become the court-jester of every meeting you attend...  The worst of all flunkies.

An old USA-today article on Evelyn:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2003-04-27-shareholders-davis_x.htm

Evelyn’s recent SEC filing, against using electronic proxies to save companies money (not to mention saving a tree or two!)

http://ftp.sec.gov/rules/proposed/s71005/eydavis7225.pdf#search=%22evelyn%20y.%20davis%20sec%22

A few days ago, Good Morning America reported on the length of the American workday, and its negative effects on health.  Imagine this:  as Americans work longer days and take fewer vacations, they become more sedentary and extracurricular activity (read-- exercise) falls by the wayside. 

This is a topic that my husband and I have discussed at length, and I am a true believer that the US obesity epidemic is directly linked to our quality of life in the workplace.  Once upon a time 9-5 was considered normal business hours.  Yet, on rare occasions when I would leave work at 5:00, my peers would joke “Working a half-day today?” as I walked out the door.  What’s the matter here?

Corporations once regularly rewarded long hours with promotions and raises, regardless of the employee’s actual accomplishments.  Now that everyone is working longer hours?  Corporate America has come to expect a 10-12 hour workday, and just keeps adding responsibilities to job descriptions to fill all of the extra time you’ve so graciously donated.  As people work longer hours, it leads to less time for healthy relationships, hobbies, and physical activity.  While both mental and physical health suffer from long workdays, corporations reduce health-care benefits while raising monthly costs to the employee.  American workers unite, and take back your free time! 

I can remember a few years ago, the body-conscious constantly raved about the French.  “They’re so thin.  What do they eat?”  The American public focused on the French diet, and many books were published on how to replicate it.  Wake up people, the reason the French are thinner is because while you’re sitting on your ass until 8:00 pm working on the millionth report you’ve produced that day, Pierre and Dominique are enjoying a stroll down the Rue du Blah Blah Blah arm-in-arm.

According to an article in The New Yorker, the French work 28% fewer hours a year than Americans.  Imagine what you could do with just a quarter of that additional time. 

My unsolicited opinion:  Perhaps you can refer to Americans as fat.  But, don’t you DARE call us lazy.

New Yorker Article can be found here:  http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/051128ta_talk_surowiecki

Friday, a 43 year old man died while driving while driving north on I-5, in the greater Seattle area.  I don't know much about this man, but I do know that he had a wife and four young children, expecting child number five.  His name was Gavin Coffee.

 

What is unusual about his death, and what drives me crazy about Seattle drivers, is how the accident claiming his life was initiated.  A 21 year-old man was driving a pickup truck in front of him, with a large piece of furniture in the back-- NOT STRAPPED DOWN.  Perhaps difficult to imagine, but gravity alone did not hold the furniture securely in his truck.  The furniture fell out of the flatbed, Gavin swerved to avoid colliding with it, colliding instead with another vehicle, thus ending his short life.

 

Sadly, this offense is something very common to see in the Seattle area, and with recent new legislation passed thanks to the activism of Maria Federici (a victim of a similar incident), you would think the frequency of incidents like this would be on the decline.  Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case.   I often see people using their flatbeds to lug furniture, machinery, hell-- I've even spotted someone lugging sheets of paper, NOT TIED DOWN.  Once, while driving south on I-5, I had to swerve out of my lane because a SOFA was in the middle of the highway.  You read that right, a SOFA was in the middle of the highway.  Luckily, the lane I swerved into was empty at the time.

 

Similar to many other people guilty of this offense, the 21 year-old that ultimately killed Gavin Coffee fled the scene.  But this guy was even less chivalrous than most, actually attempting to get his 77 year-old grandfather to take the fall for him. 

 

My unsolicited opinion:  If you're too stupid to realize that you can't rely on gravity to safely secure items on the back of a moving vehicle, you shouldn't be behind the wheel period.  You obviously don't have the intelligence to handle heavy machinery at all.

 

To the currently unnamed man driving the pickup truck that led to Gavin Coffee's demise, I hope you are prosecuted under the full extent of the law.  Perhaps the incident itself was just a result of your idiocy, but you fleeing the scene shows you are devoid of ethics and deserve to be removed from the population.

 

To Gavin Coffee's family, and unborn child, I offer you my sincerest condolences.  

 

 

Link to the story in the Seattle Times:

 

Link to Maria Federici's webpage.  Thanks so much, Maria, for dedicating your life to activism!

This recent news is probably one of my favorites in the past few weeks.  Northwest Airlines, currently in bankruptcy, has published a manual to assist employees with their personal finances.  Why would the airline need to issue this document?  Because executives at Northwest Airlines have no idea how to run a business, and many of their employees will likely be laid off.  The manual was apparently called "Preparing for a Financial Setback", and advises that employees not be embarrassed to "dumpster dive" in search of items they may want or need.  Is it just me, or does this statement seem like the "Let them eat cake" of the modern age?  I half expect the mechanics on staff to commence construction of a guillotine, rather than continue to maintain aircraft.

 

My unsolicited opinion-- if your leadership can be partially to blame for a corporate bankruptcy, your financial advice isn't worth the cost of the paper it was printed on.