Is cruise really a bonus for Oprah staffers?
I'll bet some would prefer cash to vacationing with co-workers
That's some bonus. Oprah Winfrey is treating her entire staff and their families to a Mediterranean cruise. Transportation, food, drinks, activities, the works.
My guess is if you're Oprah and you want to do something that huge, you might get a bit of a discount -- but it's still an exceedingly generous gesture.
Four years ago, Oprah surprised her staff with a vacation in Hawaii. As I re- call, there was at least one other occasion years before when Winfrey took a number of staffers on vacation.
There's no doubting the good intention behind these bonuses -- and by all accounts it's the norm for Oprah's employees, who enjoy excellent salaries, great benefits, plenty of vacation time.
And of course you're never going to hear any public gripes from Winfrey's staffers. For one thing, they've all signed confidentiality agreements. Former White House staffers routinely publish books in which they give away secrets and second-guess the big boss. Former Oprah staffers wouldn't dare.
Nevertheless, I can see how some of the employees might be slightly less than thrilled with the vacation.
Note that Oprah set this up in celebration of her 55th birthday. There's something narcissistic about the grandiose move: "Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me . . ."
Also, even if you love your job and you adore your boss and you get along swimmingly with your co-workers, do you really want to go on vacation with virtually all of them? Don't you use your vacation to put work-related thoughts on the shelf? Kinda tough to do when Sasha the production assistant is the first person you see when you hit the breakfast buffet every morning.
One imagines at least some of the lower-level employees would have preferred a cash bonus to a Mediterranean cruise. How much can you enjoy the trip when the air conditioning back home is out, the kids' tuition has been increased and the credit card bills will be waiting for you when you get home?
Maybe it's bad form to even ask these questions -- but I'll bet you anything that if all the employees had been given the choice between the vacation and the cash equivalent, a good percentage of them would be in the Chicago area right now, depositing that money in the bank.
E-mail from reader Don Hubert: "So let me get this straight. Anthony Abbate gets two years probation and the dude that stole Lance Armstrong's bike gets three years???? I'd love to hear your opinion on this one."
I think the Gods of Justice should make a trade before the July 31 deadline and switch the sentences in these two crimes.
When reality TV star Lauren Conrad arrived in Atlanta the other day, she Twittered: "It's hot here!"
That's the kind of keen insight that makes her one of our leading young novelists.
I kid. Sort of.
The sad truth is, Conrad has written a novel titled L.A. Candy, with this description on Amazon:
"Los Angeles is all about the sweet life: hot clubs, cute guys, designer everything. Nineteen-year-old Jane Roberts can't wait to start living it up. She may be in L.A. for an internship, but Jane plans to play as hard as she works, and has enlisted her BFF Scarlett to join in the fun."
I know. Totally a ripoff of Crime and Punishment.
L.A. Candy is the No. 1 fiction book in all of the Amazon.com universe. As you read this, there's little doubt it's outselling anything by Tolstoy, Austen, Dickens, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Joyce, Voltaire and, you know, EVERYONE.
What did Albert Brooks say about the devil in "Broadcast News"? I'll substitute "she" for "he" here . . .
"What do you think the devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in by a long, red, pointy tail. No . . . She will be attractive and she will be nice and helpful and she will get a job where she influences a great God-fearing nation and she will never do an evil thing . . . She will just bit by bit lower standards where they are important . . . Just coax along flash over substance, just a tiny bit . . ."
I'm not saying Lauren Conrad is the devil. I'm just saying it kills me that a lot of the people buying her book probably won't buy another book this summer. This year.
They don't know what they're missing.