We will survive!
Barack Obama’s hair is turning gray. The New York Times reported the other day that a President typically ages two years for every year in the job. Thank goodness our new President is only 47 years old. The way things are going right now, I suspect he’ll age twice as fast as other Presidents.
We learned this week that things are worse than we thought. General Electric (GE) CEO Jeff Immelt, who used to be one of the world’s most admired bosses, saw his stock dip below $6 on Wednesday, down from $30 a year ago. (It’s now nosing toward $7.) Citigroup (C) CEO Vikram Pandit watched his shares drop below $1–a dollar! The stock-market capitalization of Citi, with shares now trading at $1.02, has sunk to $5.6 billion. Meanwhile General Motors’ (GM) market cap is below $1 billion. GM’s auditor, Deloitte & Touche, said yesterday that the automakers’ survival is in “substantial doubt.”
And today we learned that America’s unemployment rate has reached a 25-year high. Job losses in the past six months topped 3.3 million. “These days, people have either two jobs or no job,” Andy Serwer, my boss here at Fortune, likes to say. I feel it. Between writing for the magazine, blogging, and chairing Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit, I’m pushing myself like never before. I was in my office until 2:45 a.m. Thursday morning. I hadn’t stayed that late since the ’90s. Made me feel young, actually.
I’m lucky. I have a job. And one that I love. I look around my office today and I see the smartest, hardest-working people I’ve ever been around. (And I’ve been here at Fortune for 25 years.) Today, slackers simply do not survive. Don’t you wonder if these twentysomethings–the enterprising and lucky ones who have jobs today–will emerge as a new Greatest Generation of workers? They might turn out to be better than we are.
It’s amazing how the current environment has brought out the mean in people (like the comments below). There are a lot of people who appreciate the long, tireless hours and passion you bring to your work, Pattie.
until 2:45 a.m?
HaHa, I have to laugh at so much time spent being unproductive.
And it may make you feel young but it makes you look old.
Pattie,
Odd that a writer from Fortune would generalize GM as a bunch of slackers and go further to state workers at Fortune are “the hardest-working people.” I say this since the writers at Fortune until the last 60 days completely supported GM and gave glowing reviews of the VOLT. If the writers would have done their homework they would have realized the VOLT is a rebadged EV1 and the vehicle would never go over 40 miles with the existing battery design. GM misinformed the public initially saying the car would go over 200 miles, only later to retract that statement. It was not the Fortune analyst that covered the vehicle that discovered this misstatement, it was GM that eventually made the correct statement under pressure.
Please go through the Fortune articles from the last 12 months and find how many of them actually gave GM glowing comments.
I believe GM’s Executive Management and Board is ultimately responsible for the performance of the company, they failed. If the USA government gives GM another dime without replacing both the Management and Board, this money will be wasted.
Regards,
Jim
Pattie, I do not believe there is a coorelation that can be made between the generalization that GM is full of slackers as a result of their poor performance. The Board and Executive Management consistently made the wrong decisions regarding the direction of the company.
Yes, there are some slackers at the company, but as a former employee I would not generalize the entire workforce in that manner. I am of the opinion that the Board and Executive Management must be replace if it is to be a viable company.
Regards,
Jim
Marlo Thomas: Why she gives to kids in needNational outreach director, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
- Happy holidays!
- Gallery of Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs
- Fixing health care…in the supermarket
- Think of yourself as a media company
- Sol Price, in Sam Walton’s memory
- A solar start-up that saves energy–and cash
- Power Point: Mobile Internet races ahead
- Entrepreneurs who never let you see ‘em sweat
- Power Point: Treat your boss like a child
- Zalaznick and Citrin: Family ties
- She has been wrong on many things but... More
- Wish we, and the bankers/developers h... More
- oops! sorry!... More
- the truth hurts....and since you didn... More
- read "The Flow of Trade in a Global E... More
- Well, it certainly is convenient that... More
- http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-... More
- I have worked in a Precinct for over ... More
- A godly woman puts her husband and ch... More
- Lonnie Lardner's Creative Voltage... More
Restaurant entrepreneur and Food Network star shares her life story. Watch
Patricia Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Can Meg Whitman Save California?", Melinda Gates ("The $100 Billion Woman"), "MySpace Cowboys," Martha Stewart ("I cannot be destroyed"), Ted Turner ("Gone with the Wind") and Oprah Winfrey ("Oprah Inc."). And she has broken ground with insightful pieces on career management issues such as ego ("Get Over Yourself!"), and "Charisma: Do You Need It? Can You Get It?" Pattie chairs the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, academia, and the arts. And she has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" cover package since its launch in 1998. She started at Fortune in 1984, covering the big consumer brand companies.
From what I’ve observed, even “hard workers” can be laid off. Careful about patting yourself on the back too hard. After you get laid off, you’ll think back on your cherished beliefs and see how silly they were.