ANN CROTTY: The vulgar boatman
Ferries boss gets a lashing, but perhaps we consumers are also to blame
For large chunks of the British population, Russia’s Vladimir Putin slipped from first place on the "most hated people in the world" list on March 17. Top spot was taken by the CEO of P&O Ferries, Peter Hebblethwaite, who had just announced the sacking of 800 employees and their planned replacement by low-paid contract workers.
His human resources director, Andy Goode, who has managed to avoided much of the opprobrium heaped on Hebblethwaite, deserves second place for his pre-recorded four-minute Zoom message to the unsuspecting employees. Even in the context of a world that seems to have become gratuitously violent and cruel, this was a particularly nasty and vicious way to upend the lives of 800 people...
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