Life is Ironic and Just Plain Weird

Everyone in Cedar Rapids knows the company name McLeodUSA. Everyone can let out big groan together right .......... NOW .......... For those not familiar, McLeodUSA bears the name of its founder, Clark McLeod, a local teacher who started a telecommunications company back in the 80s that later became part of MCI. In the process, McLeod sold the business and became rich, some of his key people became rich, and he turned around and started doing the whole thing again as McLeodUSA.

Its stock was a highflyer about five years ago. If I remember correctly it topped out around $120 a share after several splits. Everyone and their pet fish in Cedar Rapids owned some McLeodUSA stock. Fast forward to 2002 -- market is in the tank, telecommunications is hot hard, McLeodUSA stock is destroyed, company files bankruptcy, everyone loses their shirt. 2005 -- still in the tank, everyone has now lost their shirt and their shorts. The company's beautiful campus is a ghost town, and the company is begging to be purchased by someone -- anyone -- just to stay alive.

And so with that background, I came across the following headline on my Yahoo! ticker strip a couple weeks ago:

McLeodUSA Wins Stevie Award for 'Best Human Resources Team' at Third Annual American Business Awards
Wednesday June 8, 3:59 pm ET

Are you kidding me? Now, I have no idea what the criteria is for winning this award, and the human resources team at McLeodUSA could be the best in the business for all I know, but, are you kidding me? That's like watching your favorite football team go 1-10, and then see Sports Illustrated say that you've got the best recruiters on the planet. The only human resources activity at McLeod the last few years has been processing pink slips.

No offense to the wonderful people at McLeod, but I wonder if this award wasn't applied for so that a few human resources professionals, who themselves may be looking for work, can proudly say that "I won a Stevie Award!" Isn't life ironic and just plain weird.