May 04--As Bill Veeck, the late great sports entrepreneur, once observed: "It isn't the high price of stars that is expensive. It's the high price of mediocrity."
Take a look at former United Airlines boss Jeff Smisek's exit package of more than $36 million.
Or check out the $55 million severance payout for Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer if, as expected, she's booted.
You'll see stars at those eye-popping off-the-job figures, especially for people whose on-the-job performance was so-so at best.
This could be where one might talk about how these deals are part of how major companies lure and keep talent, or that some of the reported value of executive salaries and golden parachutes are theoretical rather than real because of stock options, and the whole spiel.
This is, after all, the state of play for big businesses in 2016.
But even when you know all that, it's still more than a bit galling.
Say what you will about Edward Smith, who gained notoriety as the captain of the RMS Titanic on its first and last ocean voyage.
There are conflicting accounts of precisely how Capt. Smith perished as his great ship sank. None have him weighted down by huge sacks of money, White Star Line stock options he negotiated or loose silverware stuffed in his pockets.
Smisek's $36 million deal is ironic because the unlamented former chairman and CEO of United will be remembered most for how he squeezed pennies, passengers and employees.
Nothing was so cheap at United that Smisek was unable to cheapen it further.
Conveniences, services and small comforts disappeared, were diminished and/or attached to add-on fees and upsells. More than the off-brand coffee Smisek's regime embraced grew bitter.
This was the price of the poorly integrated merger with his Continental Airlines that Smisek helped orchestrate. Among the greatest challenges for CEO successor Oscar Munoz has been trying to restore consumer faith and reassuring his unions United actually wants to work with them.
So when Smisek quit last year after his wheeling and dealing was exposed in an investigation of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, it was a break for United. An expensive break as it turned out, but a break nonetheless.
Seeing that Smisek's resignation still merited a big payout must have come as a cruel disappointment to rank and file conditioned to his stance that the airline had to be tight with its money if it wanted to be competitive.
That would be doubly cruel and disappointing for anyone at any company laid off under far less generous terms to preserve margins and boost a share price.
We should all be so lucky as to be dismissed with cause from our jobs with the fat $55 million severance deal Yahoo's Mayer is in line to receive when the company's core business is sold, if not sooner.
At least, she was seen as a star when Yahoo snagged her from Google in 2012, which explains the five-year deal worth a reported $100 million that Yahoo gave her, ensuring the generous payout in the event of her early exit.
The ouster will be earned, the generous payout less so.
Yahoo's downward trajectory has greatly dimmed what much of Mayer's remaining twinkle.
