Sometimes life — oh, she is such an amusing gal, isn’t she? Oh, she is. Evidence:
Regular readers of the business page recall the highly amusing breakup of Jack and Jane Welch, in which this smart little trophy wife caught her husband, the titanic ego who used to run GE, playing Hide the Salam’ with an aspirant. Aspiring smart little trophy wife, that is. Forty-four-year-old Suzy Wetlaufer squinched her eyes nearly shut and convinced herself this 68-year-old gentleman was, yes indeedy, her One True Love, and never mind that he’s of the same generation as, you know, her father. That Jane Welch essentially outmaneuvered her genius CEO husband and served up key parts of his anatomy on a platter in her divorce dealings — let’s just say that was one day we found the Wall Street Journal front page a really interesting read.
Well, the ink is dry on the divorce, and now Jack and Suzy are moving their love nest out of Tawdry Town:
It was two weeks before her wedding to retired General Electric chairman Jack Welch, and Ms. Wetlaufer, the 44-year-old former editor of the Harvard Business Review, had plenty to do. There were children to pick up from school and work to be done on Winning, the business how-to book for which she and Mr. Welch received a $4 million advance from HarperCollins in February.
And then there was the wedding planning.
“It�s going great!” Ms. Wetlaufer said, giggling. She has long, gently curled blond-brown hair and was wearing a slate-gray suit and a glistening French manicure. “It�s really different to get married when you�re 44 from when you�re 21. You can be relaxed. We had such fun choosing the invitations together. It�s just been a fun adventure! I had none of that Bride-zilla stuff because, you know, I�m an adult, right?”
She and Mr. Welch are to wed in a white-steepled church a few blocks away from their Beacon Hill townhouse, followed by a reception at home, in the ballroom. An evangelical Christian rock band will provide the music; Ms. Wetlaufer is a devout Christian.
Oh, but could she be anything else?
mani-pedi said on April 14, 2004 at 8:52 am
What a coincidence! We had our reception at home, in the ballroom!
67 chars
Lex said on April 14, 2004 at 9:29 am
Sometimes the punch lines just write themselves.
48 chars
alex said on April 14, 2004 at 1:35 pm
Onward Christian homewreckers!
Who needs to worry about gay people destroying marriages? Let’s amend the constitution to protect horny old farts and their wives from gold-diggers.
183 chars
Bob said on April 14, 2004 at 11:01 pm
I had the pleasure of working for GE during Neutron Jack’s reign. On a vacation trip to New York via Amtrak, as the train passed the big GE plant at Schenectady, I commented to the conductor that I worked for that company.
He said that he had once worked for GE, too. In fact, he had worked for Jack Welch before his rise to CEO, when Welch was a department manager at Medical Systems in Milwaukee. He said that even then, Welch always had to win everything.
The conductor told a story of a company softball tournament. Welch’s team lost the final game by one run. The next day, Welch invited the player who had hit the winning run to his office, and offered him a job at a substantial increase in pay. The fellow accepted his offer, and Welch made the transfer effective retroactively to the day before the final game of the softball tournament.
Welch then pointed out a rule that all players in the company softball league had to play for the teams from their respective departments, and declared that since this fellow wasn’t an employee, on the day of the game, of the department whose team defeated his, the other team had to forfeit the title to his team.
That asshole with his end-justifies-the-means approach has been venerated and emulated by entirely too many aspiring business magnates.
1307 chars
Paul said on April 15, 2004 at 11:30 am
Hell, Bob, I think that’s the best way to win a baseball game I’ve ever heard of. We can only pray that the Yankees don’t copy it.
132 chars