CEO Takes Substantial Pay Cut To Save Worker Jobs

Also converts personal rocket ship into soup kitchen

Photo by Pablo Varela on Unsplash

BASKING RIDGE, NJ - Declaring “My colleagues’ well-being is of far greater import than adding that third runway to my private airport in Gstaad,” chief executive Croesus “Chip” Dubonnet today instructed the Executive Compensation Committee of healthcare giant The Femur Group to retract his stock grants and reduce his annual salary to align with the hourly wage of in-office barista Kayla Erasmus. Consequently, a planned layoff of 8,500 Femur Group employees was shelved and Therapy Kitten Friday was reinstated.

Dubonnet also terminated top-tier management consulting firm Bane & Venal, which had recommended a massive workforce reduction despite Femur Group’s 29 consecutive quarters of strong earnings growth. Citing Bane & Venal’s “value-added organizational redesign strategic action plan,” a chastened Dubonnet apologized “for ever allowing those rapacious, jargon-spewing charlatans to set foot inside our walls.” He will redirect Bane & Venal’s $79 million dollar advisory fee plus all proceeds from the corporate malpractice lawsuit against them to fully fund a childcare center and after-hours teen enrichment program “to help our hard-working parents.” Additionally, five Bane & Venal managing partners provisionally tapped to become Femur C-suite executives were instead tarred and feathered in the parking lot.

In a town hall to discuss Dubonnet’s announcement, every employee was thanked not with a T-shirt but rather $1,000 in cash. (Remote employees’ cash was individually hand-delivered inside boxes of warm, fresh-baked brownies.) At the all-hands, Femur senior management arrived on time, used plain English to honestly answer tough audience questions about the company’s direction and the possibility of future layoffs, then concluded with the proclamation of meaningful promotions for individual contributors who were truly deserving.

Dubonnet has promised a follow-up gathering which will cover company-paid gym memberships, full tuition reimbursements, a free gourmet cafeteria, and guaranteed 85% raises.

It is scheduled for one year from today.

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