Unhappy HP Employees Named Mark Hurd a 'Turd'
Former HP employee blogs discontent over the company.
Late last week a surprise came from HP when it announced that its then-CEO Mark Hurd had stepped down amidst a sexual harassment investigation.
Chuck House, a former HP worker of 29 years and author of "The HP Phenomenon: Innovation and Business Transformation" (Stanford Press, 2009) is shedding more light on the situation in his blog HP Phenomenon.
While the woman who was involved with Mark Hurd said that there were no intimate sexual relations involved (but settled with Hurd on monetary terms privately), the HP CEO was still found to have violated company policy through improper expense reports.
House wrote in his blog:
A few mis-stated expense reports, that "totalled" somewhere between $1,000 and $20,000? This turned out (missed by nearly all the columnists) to be for EACH ONE. The 2008 10K report says Hurd was re-imbursed $79,814 in tax "True-ups" for the estimated $243,000 in "personal meals" that he ate on behalf of HP. This was in the midst of the three years cited with "his girl friend" -- sounds like a little more money than the initial reports.
House also said that HP employees didn't like Hurd very much, characterizing him as a thug:
This guy was a thug, nicknamed Mark Turd by ex-HPites who worked directly for him -- stories that have circulated in the Valley for three years. He raped HP employees (figuratively, without violating the sexual conduct code at HP) by eliminating the sixty-five year concept of profit sharing, preferring to move to obscene bonuses for himself and his five top minions -- a mere $113 million payout for them in a year he chopped everyone else's pay by 5% plus profit-sharing. These were raises for some of the five people by as much as 400% -- a tidy uptick.
He was profane, a bully, autocratic, threatening, demeaning, vindictive, and rude. Blogs over the weekend by current employees said "Hooray, the tyrant is gone!" I couldn't contain my glee on the 11pm news -- best news for HP in a very long time!
The Voice of the Workplace, HP's thirty-five year historic 'measure' of employee feelings (done every five years) showed in April an astonishing finding -- more than two-thirds of HP's employees would quit tomorrow if they had an equivalent job offer. Not a raise, not a promotion, simply an alternative. That number never used to be in double digits. Other companies in the Valley have reported an amazing rate of HP resumes being submitted; one large company saying, "we didn't know they had that many people working there".
Of course, this is just one man's take on the situation, but the numbers are there to suggest that Mark Hurd had one of the lowest CEO approval ratings in the tech industry.
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HP has been unreliable ever since this took over. Good riddance!
Proves the old saying that the biggest rise to the top
Why some bosses think they can act in that kind of manner is beyond me
yea..I know what it means to work for an aggressive bully...
sometimes u might look for an alternative with lower pay,to get out of it..
HAhah turf
Wow, just wow, that's like 5 year olds in the playground.
Now I know why my HP wasn't that reliable
I've not had anything from HP yet that wasn't a (expletive deleted).
A very similar situation is currently playing out at other used-to-be great places to work: the acronym HAL comes to mind...
Bring back Carly!
$243,000 in personal meals in 2008?
That's a meal allowance of $665 a day.
If he had one meal a week, then that was a $4673 meal.
Three meals a week, $1550 each.
That's 3x/4x that salary of the average employee!
He definitely had the Marie Antoinette complex.
$243,000 in personal meals in 2008? That's a meal allowance of $665 a day.If he had one meal a week, then that was a $4673 meal. Three meals a week, $1550 each.That's 3x/4x that salary of the average employee!He definitely had the Marie Antoinette complex.
With expensive wine, this figure is rather easy to reach. European politicians know everything about that.
HP is in deep trouble if only it realised it. The price of (specifically HP's) printer ink has become the butt of jokes on mainstream TV shows even in Europe, they don't seem to be brand leaders in any field, class actions are brewing on alleged unremedied known faults on laptops.
Now we learn why. Ill behaved, greedy, management -- and stupid enough to get caught treating their employees as badly as they do their customers.
So this is what it takes to be a CEO: be an avaricious, brutish who does nothing in life but take, take, take. Probably gets a golden parachute on top of it. Must be nice to be immune to the effects of lazy old Karma.
So this is what it takes to be a CEO: be an avaricious, brutish who does nothing in life but take, take, take. Probably gets a golden parachute on top of it. Must be nice to be immune to the effects of lazy old Karma.
Sounds about right yea, that is about right to describe most CEOs.
Quarter million for food? That's so wrong on so many levels.
Sounds like a greedy!
And now watch him become the CEO of the next major corporation. Those just move around from one money fountain to the next. No matter how bad their previous stint was, there's always another open seat on the board waiting. That is what truly disgusts me.
I have an idea. We find, capture and shoot this type of person. Who's with me? I'll spend a few years in the pokey to know evil humans like this don't exist.
Bush perv look alike... he should get neutered...
I think he might of harassment male too!! LOL
+1 on good riddance bad CEO MUST be punished
HP has been unreliable ever since this guy took over. Good riddance!
You could say that again. I love how my laptops GPU overheated playing Youtube videos and then shut down because of heat protection. Oh and then it fried itself a week later...
I feel bad that so many good people had to work underneath this guy, this huy even makes jobs look like a good alternative. Its too bad HP's image is ruined already with poor quality and outrages ink prices (cost a lot to research new ways to make an ink cartridge for every printer you know)Ill never buy anything HP. My work uses all HP printers in all of our locations but i have no choice in that.
Im glad this piece of is gone.
yup HP got Huge Problems with its management and employees' morale.
good, honest leaders are hard to find nowadays
This is an ad on top if this article's page:
Topic: Business Printing
It's All About Quality
In partnership with HP
The HP engineers once came down to my (previously) office to investigate why our networked laser printer doesn't work (anymore) with our WIndows Server 2003 SP2 Server.
They concluded, "This product was never intended for use this OS. I wonder how you guys were able to install it and get it to work seamlessly for so many years in the first place."
That day I thought I'm glad it's my (ex) boss' problem, not mine.
Now I'm wondering why anyone would want to buy any products from a company whose employees always dream be working for another company. Bribery?
Now I'm wondering why anyone would want to buy any products from a company whose employees always dream be working for another company. Bribery?
What are you referring to when you say "a company whose employees always dream to be working for another company"? Nowhere in the article is this written.
Now I'm wondering why anyone would want to buy any products from a company whose employees always dream be working for another company. Bribery?
Considering how much "Special Bonuses" and "Deep Discounts" some businesses and governmental organizations are given by some of the big players to push out competition, you wonder if the bribery has just changed names.
it's funny because it rhymes.
What are you referring to when you say "a company whose employees always dream to be working for another company"? Nowhere in the article is this written.
I believe this is referring to the paragraph in House's blog where he cites employee dissatisfaction with HP, willingness to jump to another company for no gain, and huge number of HP employee resumes circulating the tech industry.
At least Foxconn knows who to sell their worthless nets to...