There is a price for failure

There is a lesson to be learned in the firing of University of Kentucky Basketball Coach Billy Gillispie.

If you don’t succeed at your job, you will be fired.

With the failure to reach the NCAA tournament, Gillispie’s fate wasn’t hard to guess. There have been rumblings around the Big Blue faithful for weeks that Gillispie’s time should come to an end.

Everyone has an expectation of success. Some teams would be excited to make it to the National Invitational Tournament but none of those teams are headquartered in Lexington.

In his comments following the axe, Gillispie said all the right things. He was gracious and acknowledged things didn’t work out the way he or the fans would have wanted.

Although he received a very healthy buyout, Gillispie didn’t receive a million dollar bonus for a job poorly done.

If you mess up at your job, you usually suffer. You could be passed up for promotion, not get a raise or perhaps miss out on a bonus.

But apparently, this tiny piece of commonsense alludes members of AIG’s financial services division who received millions of dollars in bonuses after many of its dealings pushed the entire global economy to the brink of disaster.

The company itself is standing only because of taxpayer money. These bonuses should have been denied on principle alone. Management of many companies deny promised bonuses during tough economic times. Everyone working in the high-powered financial industry should understand they are no different from ordinary workers.

When the Wildcats failed, Gillispie paid the price with his job.

There are people on Wall Street who should recognize this lesson.