Are you kidding me!?  Capping executive pay at $500k is a joke!   Please explain to me what someone can do to be worth $500k!   How about some real salary caps for these jokers who caused this mess?  Hmm… maybe something more like $200k with the promise of a huge bonus IF they produce results?

It is sad that corporate America has put such a high value on these positions.   Frankly, many of which would not even do their jobs at all if it were not for the support staff keeping them afloat.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe people should be compensated when they produce results.  The compensation should reflect those results and that compensation should be equally distributed to that “team” not just to one individual.  That one individual could not have done their job without the assistance of a lot of other people under them.

Frankly, I believe those financial companies that took bailout money and paid out huge bonuses should not only be ashamed of themselves, they should be forced to return the money and be fired!   In case they weren’t paying attention, here goes; YOUR COMPANY WAS/IS LOSING MONEY, YOU TOOK BAILOUT MONEY, HOW DO YOU CONSIDER THAT WORTH REWARDING WITH A BONUS? 

I believe these high level officials have gotten so used to getting huge sums, they no longer know how to live on a “real” salary.  Most of them reached a point when things in the financial world started to fall apart where they said “oh no, how will we make it?”  This of course justified for them to continue to take bonuses that they no longer truly earned any more.  Many of them had developed such lavish lifestyles that they would have to give up completely without the bonuses to support them.    All I can say is, poor baby, learn to live with less, the rest of us have to!

$500k salary caps?  Give me a break!  How about salary caps which better represent the true value someone brings to the company and not the perceived value.   I strongly believe bonuses have their place, when the company is doing well and wants to share the wealth with those that made it successful.  Rewarding people for just being there and holding a high position in the company or being a ”name” of importance in the industry is just so wrong!

Lower the salary caps to about half of what they are, watch those executives work their collective asses off to truly ”earn” their bonuses in order to support a realistic lifestyle and not one which is based around the excess they have grown accustomed to. 

 Oh, and just in case someone says “the owner should be paid whatever they want to be paid” or something along those lines.  I am not referring to business owners.  Business owners (not shareholders) should pay themselves what they think they are worth.  They merely have to remember that they still have a business to run and keep running.  You drain it too much, there is nothing left to help your continuity.  I know many successful business owners who do not live lavish lifestyles and only take a salary for what they truly need to comfortably support their families.

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I had an interesting discussion today with a friend at work over lunch.  From his perspective he believes my priorities are messed up because I put my family first and my job second.  Now, I will definitely say that at one point during my life, during my first marriage, I do believe my priorities were messed up.  I essentially put work and my career before all else and neglected my family and personal life.  I excelled at my job at the expense of my family and my children.  Ok, that is just messed up, but, I believed it was as it should be.  Well, needless to say, my wife and I grew apart and I am sure she felt neglected to a certain extent.  I can’t blame her, I was not around much and I certainly was not much help with the kids when they were very young.

When we finally got divorced in 1999 I didn’t realize what my screwed up priorities had gotten me initially.  My priorities had cost me my wife as well as my children.  You see, when we divorced my children went to live with their mother, which was hard to accept but not a show stopper, I mean, what the hay?! I had my career to keep me busy, right?  It wasn’t until some time had gone by that I realized how much having a family had meant to me. I also realized how much I had screwed up and what my whacked out priorities had cost me.  It cost me my family.

Right before the divorce was final I had met Kathy, my wife, and I started to realize a lot of things.  I realized how much I should value my family and my time with my kids.  I realized that although I could always find another job, I couldn’t replace my family or loved ones. I realized how valuable my time was with my children, I mean, let’s face it, they are only young for so long.  When they become teenagers they want their independence and do not want as much involvement with you.  You have to take what you can get while you can get it because those years in your children’s lives are so short.  At that point in time I made a decision that my family, especially my wife and children, would be my number one priority no matter what.  Granted, my wife understands that from time to time emergencies come up at work and I have to deal with them.  She accepts that.

Ok, back to what brought us into this topic to begin with.  My friend said that my priorities are messed up and I say it is not true.  My top priority is my family.  My family, especially my wife, has accepted that I will only let my work interfere with family when it is ABSOLUTELY necessary and unavoidable.  I do not consider it ABSOLUTELY necessary to be on-site at work just to provide company for someone else.  I can’t count how many times I have worked into the night alone because there wasn’t anyone else in the group who could genuinely assist me, so why have someone needlessly hang around?  I have ALWAYS made myself available both remotely and physically whenever needed.  Physically I have been at the work and available whenever it was necessary to do so.  I mean, what is the point of all this remote technology if I can’t perform some of these functions from home?

What I don’t think my friend quite gets and why he thinks my priorities are out of whack is that he really doesn’t have any obligations to a family or a home life, much less to children he wants to see grow up and interact with.  This is something he will never truly get or understand.  It’s ok if he wants to make work his life and his priority, he can do that without a guilty conscience or missing out on seeing his children grow up.  He has the freedom to do whatever he wants without feeling remorse, guilt or a sense of real loss.  I feel remorse for being away from my family for too long, guilt for missing important moments in my children’s developments and a sense of loss when they grow older and learn new things without me there to share it with them.

I guess in the end, it depends on your perspective.  Do I think his priorities are messed up?  Nope.  Why?  Simple, work is what his life is about for the most part and it can be his priority without guilt or remorse.  It gives him a sense of purpose in his life and makes him feel good about himself and I think that is great for him. In my case, my family is my priority.  I take great pride in being a good father to my children and being a loving husband to my wife.  It matters that I am there for them and not away from home all the time.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I love my job and where I work, but the fact of the matter is, I can get another job, I don’t want to lose my family.  As long as I do my job and can be available, I think my priorities are just fine the way they are.

There are some excellent articles out there on this subject, be sure to give them a read also:

Top 10 Ways to Balance Life and Work

Recovering from Workaholism

Saying No to the Unimportant

SuperDads: Managing Expectations of Modern Fathers

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I just got off the phone with Ann P. at work.  We briefly touched on the concept of podcasting here at Munder.  She thinks it sounds like a promising idea.  Now, Ann came up with an idea I had not considered.  She suggested that we do some recordings of someone talking about each of our funds.  Now why didn’t I think of that?  The ability of anyone to connect to our site, subscribe to us and be able to download the most up to date information about each of our funds.  Wow!  Very cool!  Also, we can track our traffic and subscriber rate to get an idea of how many people are interested in our funds as well as tell how we are reaching our audience.  I reiterated that we would also want to do a podcast based upon “experts” at Munder speaking about topics that are of interest to listeners and more importantly potential clients with a quick excerpt at the beginning and end of the podcast giving contact information.  These podcasts would only need to be 15-30 minutes in length and could talk about any number of topics our experts would like to address.

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Installing SharePoint Server 2007! Finally installing SharePoint Server 2007 here at work.  So far so good.  Chris and I have been working together on it and we should have a fully working server by the end of the day.

 Well… what they don’t tell you in class!  My word!  Ok, as we were installing this server on a 32Bit server, we installed Windows Server 2003 R2 with service pack 1.  However, we had patched the server as completely as possible and installed IIS and ASP onto the server as well.  During the class I attended for MS SharePoint Server 2007 implementation and installation not ONCE did they mention that DotNet 3.0 or ASP 2.0 needed to be installed.  Nor did they mention in class that the Enhanced Security configuration being installed (which is installed by default) would raise so much trouble getting SharePoint to run.  Needless to say, we removed the enhanced security, installed the DotNet 3.0 and ASP 2.0 and were able to access the Home Page on the local server by using “localhost”.  All is now well… it’s just the little things they seem to leave out during class that get you.

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