GM CEO Rick Wagoner Looks on The Bright Side of Life

I don’t know about you, but if I’d earned $14m in ONE YEAR, and I’d worked for the same company for thirty-two years, at least eight of which delivered unto me similarly (if not equally) spectacular amounts of pay and benefits, I wouldn’t really be all that worried about what happened next. OK, yes, reputation and all that. But we’re talking about Rick Wagoner, the man that’s flown the GM jumbo jet straight into the dirt without once recognizing that funny looking thing called the yoke. Any reputation that remains is purely in Rick’s head, and the heads of the sycophants who wear their “Pay No Attention To That Man Behind the Curtain” T-shirts with pride, without irony. So don’t expect me to be surprised that USA Today reports “GM, [Wagoner] says, is crouched and ready to pounce if the auto market begins to rebound. ‘We just need to get the storm over, and we’re about ready to go.'”

Does anyone other me notice the odd nuances behind Red Ink Rick’s ruminations? Don’t you try to get through a storm not “get the storm over”? And why in the world would Rick say we’re “about” ready to go? Even though GM’s nowhere near ready to go (unless we’re talking about going bankrupt), shouldn’t a man who’s about to beg for his company’s survival (thanks taxpayers), a man upon whom over a million people’s livelihoods depend, speak without candy-ass equivocation?

Stand back. I’m about to hurl.

The reason for Wagoner’s confident appearance is his unshakable belief that things will get better soon enough. And, in Wagoner’s view, GM will be ready — forged in the crucible of crisis into a tough, hard, healthy, profitable, high-tech and high-quality leader.

How will GM be ready? It’s on federal life support. Product programs litter the cutting room floor. Its branding is non-existent and getting worse. Cuts across the company have left GM’s remaining workers—both factory floor and cubicle cell—on the sharp end, dispirited, anxious and incapacitated. GM’s corporate culture remains a cesspool of toxicity.

With all this mess at his doorstep, you’d imagine that Rick Wagoner would be afraid to show his face in public. And you’d be right!

Two weeks ago, returning from the National Automobile Dealers Association meetings in New Orleans, he found himself on the front lines of consumer feedback. Flying commercial to avoid the fat-cat image of using the company plane as he has done for years, Wagoner was standing at the baggage carousel at the Detroit airport waiting for his luggage when a woman yelled his name.

“Normally, when people chase me around and say, ‘Are you Rick Wagoner?’ I say, ‘No,’ and run the other way,” Wagoner said, laughing. “But I had to stick around and get my baggage.”

He was glad he stayed put.

The woman gushed about the new GMC Acadia SUV she’d bought, trading in her Acura MDX. She’d decided to give GM a chance after hearing so much about the company in the news.

“It was terrific,” Wagoner says. “Having been through what we’ve been through in the last year, I think I’d like to be here when things get turned around.”

Hey Rick, don’t commit yourself, or count on it. You’re only bound to be disappointed. And you might want to spend a little more time looking at those brochures for Aruba estates. You couldn’t imagine a better time to buy. Obviously.