'Twas the night before Christmas - a CEO letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

Now, before you make your list and check it twice, our corporate attorney says you should review my statement first to see if I was as naughty as those darn industry analysts make me out to be. So, here goes:

On balance, I tried to be better this year. I didn’t do all the layoffs I had planned thanks to the government funding in the CARES Act. I don’t know how I did it, but I was able to get my chauffeur, my body guards and my private jet pilot all classified as essential workers! That should count for something!

A lot of folks have commented on my recent decision to join the corporate exodus to Texas. Hey, if it helps me get more stock options from you, I’ll move to the North Pole instead!

People say I could have been more empathetic with our customers and maybe not pushed through that big price increase during the pandemic. But earnings promises must be met - you don't want me to lie, do you? That'd be naughty, not nice, right?

I will admit that I could have chosen a more appropriate background Zoom image for our virtual user conference this year. Thinking about it now, that poolside image of me at the Hawaiian Tropic bikini contest might not have been appropriate, but I really thought it would energize the audience. Mind you, it turns out it didn’t really matter as most of our attendees couldn’t connect to the live stream anyway…

This year, I spearheaded our effort to brand our solutions as multi-tenant even though they’re really not. You gotta understand Santa, if I didn’t do this, it would have really hurt our image as an industry leader. Now, our solutions are current (as long as your calendar says it’s 1999).

Our stock price didn’t really move much this year. Industry analysts said that was because I keep running off great talent, had no product roadmap, lack vision, squandered all of our capital on over-priced acquisitions, etc. They made it seem like it was all my fault when it was our customers’ unwillingness to roll over and be upgraded to a new, less functional product line that was the real issue!

You know Santa, you and I are a lot alike. We both run a large global organization. You outsource your toy making to the North Pole and I outsource all of our sales and account management to large systems integrators. Speaking of integrators, they’re the ones padding up the customer bills. Give them the lump of coal for failing to evolve with the times!

Now Santa, I might have one advantage you don’t have. I’ve got a small army of lawyers working over Christmas and if you don’t come through for me this year, we just might have to initiate a surprise audit of your use of our software up there in the North Pole. Plus, you still owe us for a couple of centuries of indirect access fees too!

Looking forward to a lot of new perks in 2021!

Captain O’Industry