This is the kind of thing I’m talking about: nitpicky gossip that has nothing to do with the real situation. Guilt-mongering that has more to do with what will sell papers or drive traffic to blog posts, rather than a real discussion of what is going on. BP CEO Tony Hayward went to a yacht race. And he did it while there are tens of thousands of barrels of oil leaking out of one of his company’s oil wells into the Gulf of Mexico. Unthinkable, right?

Not really. Tony Hayward is a human being. He is the CEO of one of the largest multi-nationals in the world. What does he do on his free time? He goes to yacht races. I assume he plays golf. He probably throws lavish parties. He probably has a really big house. This is not an instance of Hayward assessing the situation and thinking, man, what I need to do right now is head to a yacht race. That will really help out the problem. No. I don’t know the specifics of what he is doing, but from what I’ve seen, he is making videos apologizing for what is happening, setting up escrow funds to pay people the money they are losing because of the disaster, overseeing a gigantic cleanup effort while everyone is breathing down his neck like he is Lucifer incarnate, and answering to Congressional panels. You want to go to a yacht race on the weekend and take a little break? Fine. It’s called self-care, people. Tony Hayward going to a yacht race and mingling with his friends does not mean he doesn’t care about what’s going on. It means he is not holing up in his office or retreating from the public view. It means he is doing his job, part of which is taking care of himself. I don’t go to yacht races- I take bike rides and play Frisbee in the park. If I were a millionaire CEO, I’d probably go to yacht races on occasion; it sounds like it comes with the territory.

Aside from self-care, staying visible also means that he is representing his company. Who knows what other people he talked to at that yacht race- I’m sure there was plenty of networking going on. He may have said the right thing to keep the stock price from plummeting, which gives BP more money to pay people for their losses. He may have met someone who says they can help. He may have just had an afternoon with his family and friends that makes anyone better at their job, better able to have perspective on the world, and better able to deal with the serious business come Monday morning.

I know that the oil leak doesn’t stop for weekends, and I know that his company isn’t doing the best job of stopping or cleaning up the leak. I take as many jabs and hold him as accountable as the next blogger- but picking on him for going to a yacht race is lame. Talk about the issues. Talk about how we deal with and react to this. Not what he does in his limited free time.

Photo Credit: World Economic Forum