Why I left Chiquita. (More or less.)

So one of the things people have expressed is why did I throw away everything I had at Chiquita?

First, its an inaccurate statement. I didn’t throw away the knowledge, skills, or experience I had. And I honestly didn’t throw away the reference either, people have just assumed that I’m going to skin the cat in the normal way, which I’m not going to do.

Second, I’d rather be poor, destitute, and happy, than rich, comfortable, and unhappy. On the drive out I role-played a conversation where Dave, the director over my group, called and offered me more money to come back, I was going to say “You could offer me as much as Fernando (the CEO) but I’ll still say no.” (Mind you at $1.5 million a year, he makes my old annual salary every 9.1 days.)

I think one of the things that drove me nuts about Chiquita was the insidious pessimism that infests the place. To be fair the people that have been around for a while have earned their badge to be pessimistic, after being dragged through a bankruptcy and bunch of management changes and half baked initiatives, those that survived have had to develop certain defense mechanisms. Its my firm belief that this portion of the culture, was one of the driving reasons behind Fernando’s desire to relocate the headquarters to Atlanta or Miami and work to change the culture.

If you look at it I’m not the only talented one to leave the place. (Talented is how others at Chiquita have described me.) You could list anyone who has left the controllers group, or the people who’ve left the Walmart team, or even people who’ve left the Chiquita-to-Go team. I won’t get started on outside consultants, but suffice to say Deloitte Touche’s name is far too close sounding to Douche for their comfort.

Its ironic that I was scheduled to receive my first review the week I left. I think part of my sub-consious had put together that I was finding myself on a road of advancement within a company I’m not sure I wanted to be a part of.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Chiquita has great plans and the assets to execute them, I’m just not sure they have the culture or the personnel to execute them.

I just pulled up my portfolio, I own 15.8408 shares of Chiquita, which represents 22.143% of the current value of my portfolio as of 21 July 2006, and 40.280% of the purchase price of all my shares. I honestly don’t know what to do with these shares. Part of me wants to be a backseat cheerleader and hold onto them and watch Chiquita get their act together and execute on their plans, and part of me wants to just say “Screw it.” and sell off the shares.

One final thought about the culture of Chiquita. The stated mission is to build a high performance organization, part of which in my mind is building a diverse pool of people with different strengths and talents to drive the needs of the organization. So in some ways I’m amazed at the fact that when I bleached my hair a month or two ago, there was a bit of a concern going around for my potential future in the company. But what is a culture that is supposed to be a high performance organization doing worrying about what color one of the member’s hair color is? Its a bullshit waste of time, and the shareholders should be pissed. What does it matter if someone who doesn’t meet customers or venders in person changes their hair color?

I’ll leave you with one thought as to why I moved to Seattle: Today I saw a guy downtown today wearing a dress shirt, a tie, dress pants, a belt, and flip flops… It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, it matters what you contribute.