John Thain, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch, has been taking a lot of heat for redesigning his office.  It’s not that he was spending his own money; that would be okay.  He was spending the company’s money to the tune of $1.22 million dollars while the company was firing workers, bleeding money, and preparing to be sold to Bank of America.  He says he’ll pay back the company for it, though he only added that clause after getting his hand slapped in public.  Of course, the awesome and talented Miss Cellania points out that he could have spent a lot more money.

I can understanding wanting to have a nice office.  I mean, you are the CEO and all, and there is some expectation that you look the part of a rich fat cat.  People trust rich fat cats with money.  That’s the difference between a well-run Ponzi scheme and a rediculous 419 scheme.  In some ways, being the front for one of these companies is a bit like being a con artist.  Look the part, act the part, and no one will know your company is going under.

Still, just reading about that kind of makes you sick, doesn’t it?  He spent more on a rug than the average person would make in two years.  I’m sure the rug really tied the room together, but come on dude.

Tags: merrill lynch, bank of america, miss cellania, john thain,

[tags]merrill lynch, bank of america, miss cellania, john thain, $1.22 million dollar office furniture, expensive office furniture[/tags]

Margaret O’Callaghan had a need for a new type of kitchen utensil.  The round-bottomed ladle and the spatula are just not good enough when you’re dealing with things like crock pots and serving dishes.  That’s why she invented the scrudle, a combination ladle and spatula designed to scrape the deliciousness from any sort of cooking […]

Every day, Tom Baker deals with the issue of traffic.  Given Southern California’s massive concentration of cars, it’s no wonder that Baker would get frustrated dealing with the daily traffic routine.  That inspiration resulted in these great images of Los Angeles without the cars.   Here’s the full image gallery, and it’s awesome.
I love the […]

Have you ever wondered where salt comes from?  I mean, salt is in everything from fertilizers (potassium chloride) to the dinner table (sodium chloride), but where does it actually come from?  Why, salt mines, of course!  They’re not just for horrible industrial accidents or mad scientist lairs anymore.  English Russia has a great look inside […]

For some reason, the kids these days love the Twilight saga.  Believe me, it pains me to call it the Twilight saga, because to me a saga is a great, sweeping work of masterful literature, not a teenage vampire romance novel.  Either way, the latest movie based on the Twilight books, New Moon (officially The […]

People worry about all kinds of crises as the world ends, but as the movie Zombieland taught us, sometimes it’s our snack foods that are most important to our happiness.  For Tallahassee, it was his beloved Hostess Twinkies.  If your favorite food is the humble Eggo waffle from General Mills, then you’d best head to […]

I love goofy little websites like this.  From the Wal-Martians to quality engineering, I love a nice, odd corner of the Internet to investigate.  If it’s something that can result in some comedy thanks to random word generation, even better.   That’s why when Mysterio offered to predict my holiday gifts, I jumped at the […]

Linguist d’Armond Speers is an odd bird.  How else could you explain someone that taught his son Klingon as his first language? For the first three years of his son’s life, Speers spoke to his son only in the fictional alien language Klingon from the Star Trek universe.  His reasoning?  It was an experiment to […]