The smelly brown stuff certainly hit the fan at Hewlett-Packard last week -- and we're not talking about something spicy to perk up your sausages.
While this scandal isn't quite on a par with, say, Enron, the plot twists like a soap opera.
HP's bad press was supposed to end when current CEO Mark Hurd was appointed. He was picked as a safe pair of hands to get the company back on track after the train-crash known as Carly Fiorina left HP without a proper strategy, Compaq's failed business and with too much of the wrong kind of media attention. Fiorina was supposed to be a marketing genius -- but it turned out the only thing she could to sell was herself and the contents didn't quite match the packaging.
Recently Hurd was chose to take over from chairman (obviously no politically correct job titles at HP) Patricia Dunn who was originally scheduled to leave the company at Christmas but actually departed on Friday.
According to the latest reports from the US, Hurd is personally implicated in the company's phone snooping mess. He know investigators were looking at reporters' phone records.
So it now looks as if HP's corporate headhunters will shortly be hunting for two new senior executives. Given the recent track record of office holders in the company, the CEO position is in danger of becoming a posioned chalice.
The sad thing about all this, is that Hurd's strategy appeared to be working. Ethics aside, HP seems to be running in the right direction. Of course, this may make that poisoned chalice look a little more tempting to an incoming boss.
