interesting issue -- do CEO's and their family represent the "product"?

[Briar Rose 7457]

my neighbor is the CEO of a fast food chain. I happen to like his wife and his daughters -- lovely people. but I overheard a remark at a PTA meeting a few weeks ago -- that it was a good thing that they were such nice people, because if they were nasty individuals it would be a detriment to the company's image.

so that raises the question -- if a local business owner or CEO ran a nice operation, but you met his/her family socially and thought they were nasty and obnoxious, would youpatronize the business?

with my neighbor's situation -- I prefer another brnad, but I don't dislike his product. I'd buy it even if his daughter and mine weren't classmates.

 

[DukeStreetKing]

I would probably not patronize his establishment regardless of how nice it was. In situations like that, the CEO is a direct advertisement for his company.

 

[tkd lisa]

I probably would consider them an extension. I might not patronize if they were nice and I just didn't like the food/product, but if they were nasty, I'd have a hard time patronizing, knowing that it was going to support them.

We have a local Arby's that we used to go to a lot. Their evening manager is a really nasty person. We were in there one evening, and were sitting in a back section of the store, so I assume he thought no one was in the store. He was berating his employees, using very foul language. I had often seen him being very demeaning to his female employees (things like calling every woman, regardless of their age, sweetie and honey, belittling them, etc.) but the behavior this evening was way over the top. An employee was off the clock, but was waiting on her bus to come by. He told her that she was lucky he hadn't fired her yet, since he could do it if she was late twice within a month, etc. And every other work was a curse word. When she said that she didn't think she had been late, he walked back to the office, and waved papers in her face saying she had been late 3 times. My husband went over to him and asked him to please stop, because it was extremely rude, and our kids didn't need to hear that language, nor did the employees need to be screamed at. The manager actually started screaming at my husband that it wasn't his business. My husband asked for a number for the store owner, and the manager just said that he didn't have to give that to my husband. One of the employees mouthed www.arbys.com to my husband. DH sent an email complaint, and received an irate phone call from the same manager who we had spoken to in the store! Needless to say, we don't go there anymore!