I hate May, so does Napoleon (unedited)

I'm not sure why, but I have a hard time getting motivated in May. It's a nice time of the year, warm during the day, cool at night. Somehow I'm always kinda disappointed with life in May, and struggle to make the most of it. And April typically isn't much better.

Nonetheless I'm going to push myself to make the most out of the rest of the month, which includes the annual Memorial Day weekend camping trip. Two weeks from tonight I'll be home from the annual camping trip... here's hoping my mood is much more upbeat by then.

Another guy who might not be having a great May is our former fearless leader, the man we referred to as Napoleon. A week ago Friday it was announced, rather quietly, that the top dog of our four-state newspaper conglomerate was resigning. The announcement was posted on our website, without a mention to any of the minions that our leader was no longer leading our company. We're in the communications business, but you wouldn't know it by how poorly we communicate internally.

Most of us were tickled by the news. The guy who was lining his pocket for years to the tune of $300,000 or more, was no longer calling the shots. As far as I'm concerned, the guy has been stealing for years. His punishment: probably a negotiated severance check. It was reported that he stood to cash a $450,000 paycheck if the board of directors ever kicked him to the curb.

Two of my co-workers who have lived off of relatively peanuts for the past several years were kicked to the curb last June at the end of our unceremonious bankruptcy saga without a dime of severance. Good to know that when a company kicks loyal employees who are woefully paid, they get nothing from the company, yet a well-paid executive is guaranteed a fat paycheck when he was kicked to the curb, a kicking that would undoubtedly come as the result of a lackluster performance by Napoleon. It's your country.

There was nary a tear shed for Napoleon, but I was a little less than ecstatic. It was good to know that Napoleon was finally done stealing from our company, but when the weekend was over those of us left behind had to return to our lousy jobs at a failing company in a dying industry. If anyone has any reason to be concerned, it's those that fed off of Napoleon's gravy train -- his uneducated son, the son's trophy wife and at least two of Napoleon's loyalists and their wives. If you're the uneducated boy genius, you should be seriously concerned. I'm sure he cashes a huge paycheck for a job dad gave him through on-the-job training. He, along with the trophy wife, are just as guilty of stealing as Napoleon is as far as I'm concerned. I don't know the kid personally, and I can't fault him for taking advantage of nepitism, but I won't start to feel good about our company until the day that spoiled brat is forced to go out and earn a paycheck on his own.