Arrowhead anxiety: Turnover off the field causes concern
 

Secrecy, intimidation, fear and a watchful eye have become hallmarks of working for the Chiefs, say some current and former employees.

BY KENT BABB THE KANSAS CITY STAR

Todd Haley walked into the public relations office at Chiefs headquarters on a Thursday in early December. Four days before he was fired as the team’s coach, he wanted to talk about what life was like inside this organization. But he didn’t know who else might be listening.

continued...

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/01/14...nover-off.html

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This article goes into a lot of detail on the changes that came into effect with the Pioli regime. Sounds like a shitty ass place to work now.

holy shit...

When is Clark going to start holding Pioli accountable for keeping Matt ****ing Cassel around. If performance, accountability can apply to the scouts, coaches, ticket takers, merchandise people, why doesn't it apply to the ****ing quarterback of the team?

Pioli can ****ing die.

A gum wrapper? In an envelope...pulled out at a meeting. Seriously?

Yeah, in the year 2011, it's great to conduct your business like it's medieval times.

What a pile of shit Scott Pioli is. Clark Hunt is a bigger one for allowing his organization to run like this.

I hope Lamar Hunt haunts Clark.

Absolutely pathetic.

If you buy season tickets for this shit, you need your head checked.

My thoughts exactly when I read that part. Accountability for everyone except me. What I don't get, is when Carl got canned and we hired Pioli, and I believe promoted Donovan to oversee the business side, it seems like Pioli just runs the whole show. I thought he was brought in to run the team and Donovan was going to run the business side.

Crap.

Clark gave this maniac this power. Why is the general manager of the football operations side telling employees what doors they can enter in the gym?

It's stories like this that make me realize that any Hunt/Pioli lead organization will never win shit.

I'm schocked. Blow this fugger up.

I'll anxiously await the Patriot ballwashers that come to the rescue of Scott Pioli to address this nonsense.

saight. I stumbled on it like 5 minutes after it posted on the website by chance. Waited like 25 minutes for someone to post it but no one was so I thought I get it on here.

What a piece of shit.

That doesn't bother me but what does is the feeling that they are spying and listening to your private conversations.

The candy wrapper is the worst part.

Makes me want to waterboard Scott Pioli.

I think this article will draw up a lawsuit against Babb.

He's a ****ing bully. What's the standard for 7-9 Scott? How about 4-12? You've had 2 losing seasons out of 3.

I can't root for people like Scott Pioli.

Sure looks like he fell on his pen here. We'll see how he's treated after this, Babb might not be the Chiefs guy anymore, but he went ahead and exposed this clown for what he is.

Yeah, that was a great big ****ing bomb for sure.

I wonder if Haley is the unnamed source for any of that.

That's a lot of words.

GODDAMMIT, WE'RE SPENDING TOO MUCH MONEY ON COFFEE!!!

Oh, and draft Tyson Jackson, trade for Matt Cassel and give them $120 million.

I'm outta here, I think I saw a candy wrapper in the east wing.

I think everyone knew. It was just a matter of time before it got blown up.

If this is true he needs to be fired 2.5 years ago.

Anyone down to chip in for a skywriter to fly over the practice field and write "WE'RE WATCHING YOU"?

Control freak with an inferiority complex. Probably killing him watching the Patriots light up the Broncos today.

Best parts:

LMAOLMAOLMAO

In

if it gets us a superbowl he can give em all cavity searches for all i care.

****ing exactly. Don't build the depth on the line, safety, or quarterback Scott.

Just worry about the radio frequency in the locker room and how much coffee is being consumed.

I understand some of the things in the article being thought of badly, but does anybody really think of "Hey they could be watching my email and my web surfing and my phone log" as something odd? The bottom line is if you want stable employment working for more or less easygoing people, a sports franchise is probably among the worst things you could pick.

Wow. Crazy stuff. Actual Journalism...I'm impressed. I actually know Stephanie Melton from High School. She seemed to contribute quite a bit to Babb's story.

And what ever happened to the division between the personnel side and the business operations side? Last I checked, Pioli didn't carry both titles like Carl. He sure seems to be exercising the power of both titles, though. This can't end well.

<--------- I have been. ;)

I hate to react that way, immediately after reading an article like this one, and I am still one of the few who is holding on to a slight bit of hope for the Pioli era here.

But if we went a new direction tomorrow I wouldn't be upset.

I believe I would have told that rent a cop to kindly go get ****ed if he threatened to confiscate my phone.

The guard would have confiscated the phone? On what grounds?

He couldn't have. He would have been charged if he had attempted to confiscate anything.

There's always going to be grumbling when there's turnover, some people will never like the new boss. But some of this stuff isn't hard to believe. Belichick himself is probably borderline psycho about some things. Look at all that Spygate stuff. He just wins football games so no one cares. There have been plenty of reports come out lately that Bill Polian ruled with ego and fear too. The stuff about Haley thinking his office was bugged is hilarious, in a twisted way.

But if this is true, then he did a damn great job of reporting.

"A few former employees, though they don’t deny that the working environment was tense, said they believed Pioli and Donovan simply carried out changes that Clark Hunt, a graduate of the results-oriented Goldman Sachs training program, had authorized."

Goldman Sachs training program. :rolleyes:

This franchise is an embarrassment. Who would want to come here as a free agent knowing this shit? Word gets around.

Winning, my ass.

Babb did a nice job on this, I haven't read an interesting story on the Chiefs since Whitlock left.

I'll wait to see how he handles the QB position to see how I fully feel about Pioli.

This backroom shit doesn't affect me one bit. If he gets us a QB, I couldn't care less if he made employees strip down and gave each one of them cavity searches before they could enter the building.

Oh absolutely!!!! Can't wait to hear KK and NW on Monday now.

But that's the problem. He hasn't done shit yet, so he doesn't have the right to act the way he does. Yeah maybe he looked good in New England thanks to an amazing coach and falling into a franchise QB by accident, but in KC he hasn't done shit.

This is actually a great point. It will be interesting to watch how active we are in FA this year, considering we're close to 30 mil under the cap. If we go out and have another haul of Bechts and Piscatellis for our FA pickups this year, this theory will have much merit.

Same here. Nick is gonna be all over this shit.

Business-side staffers with an office window facing the practice fields were made to keep their shades drawn during practices. The team president was no exception. A security guard made the rounds during practices, sometimes interrupting phone calls and meetings to lower shades.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/01/14...#storylink=cpy


This part I know to be true. Paranoia.... one of my friends worked there and had to quit because of stress.

This may actually be the first truly scathing article of Piloi, considering the backroom stories. And Mellinger's pieces on Piloi's drafts can't be considered scathing compared to this.

I doubt the players give a shit about what's going on in the office.

True, but the coaches and staff sure care.

Anyone have a hard time believing Clark Hunt would want his top executives behaving this way, knowing how his dad was and how he's supposed to be his father's son?

Nope.

This.

no kidding.

also, I don't know really what could be done administratively that can make Bowe a better player etc...

Could Babb force Hunt's hand to fire Pioli after this article? I mean the organization takes a hit after something like this coming out...

Lamar Hunt used to pass out gameday magazines in front of Arrowhead on Sundays. Like a minimum wage schlep.

Scott Pioli can't take 10 seconds to bend down and pick up a candy wrapper.

Probably not, but as Chiefs fans we'd have to make sure everyone who cares in KC recognizes this article.

Well, maybe, but I'm not sure that anything I'm reading in this article is really that far out of the norm. Let's face it, sports management jobs attract a certain type of person (paranoid, psychopathic assholes with giant egos).

I doubt this would affect free agency. Where it would hurt is coaching candidates (i.e. Jeff Fisher) knowing this stuff and not even blinking at KC while flirting with Miami, where he would've eventually worked under Carl Peterson.

Things are so secret that a talk show host has the teams defensive play book.

If Pioli put as much attention to detail into the roster as he does his subordinates, we'd be a pretty decent franchise.

Can't wait until this clown is fired. Eagerly anticipating 2032.

I guess this is also a good time to reveal that ChiefsPlanet has also been bugged since Pioli took over. Watch what you say people.

This.

I'm shocked that people are surprised that people who run billion dollar companies have huge egos.

But like Tk said, other teams probably do the same things. The reason you don't hear about it is because they win. If Pioli gets us a QB, nobody on this board will give two shits about Stephanie Melton and her troubles. Just like if this same story came out about Belichick (I'm sure he does the same exact shit), no one in New England would care.

This.

Seems to me that there's too much energy being wasted on non-football related things by a man who is so called the "Head of all football operations".

Yeah, all good points.

Most people would more than likely be shocked at the things that are said and done in most Fortune 500 companies.

**** your mother and die Scotty!

The WPI premium forum is bug free, head on over.

The employees were much happier working for Carl Peterson when there were no performance expectations at all.

Oww. Thanks for the heads-up.

Hey, Pioli...err...Scott, you worthless piece of ****ing shit. It's impressive that you clawed your way into the league by bagging the Tuna's daughter, but the single most admirable line on your resume should be how mother****ing overrated and disappointingly bad you are at your job.

Shove your ****ing wrapper up your candy ass, ****ing Trey Hillman knockoff.

A few former employees, though they don’t deny that the working environment was tense, said they believed Pioli and Donovan simply carried out changes that Clark Hunt, a graduate of the results-oriented Goldman Sachs training program, had authorized.

Now that's irony.

BREAKING NEWS : People who've recently lost their jobs are pissed off.

With all of the discussion about accountability and honor, Pioli won't be fired, he'll be handed a short, ancient Japanese sword by an elderly Samurai.

LMAO

Carl Peterson built the Arrowhead experience from the ground up, took a shit, dying franchise and turned it into gold, and you think there were no performance expectations for the employees?

:LOL::LOL:


Can't wait for the dirt DaFace has on Rain Man if he ever leaves. I heard Rain Man lets his cat do the accounting for the company.

Also, the real reason Hootie was banned was because he left a Snickers wrapper on the floor of his bedroom for 5 days. Maybe if that little slob showed some attention to detail he'd still be posting here. We aren't going to win any message board championships with that crap.

That's not the most interesting part of this, to me. We've known about the age discrimination suit for some time now.

The reports of dumbass behavior by high-ranking employees is highly disturbing. Judging by what we know, Pioli spent more time scouting a candy bar wrapper than our starting QB.

Always close your chiefs planet tab when you're done posting. I've heard Patriots Planet has been around here video taping.

He fired a bunch of old guard people and brought in his own. This isn't rocket science.

He used to work for the Chiefs, but thanks to Pioli now all he can get is a pizza delivery gig. Pioli ruins lives.

For the first five years I suspect you're right. During the Donnell Bennett/Carlton Gray years, I suspect workers were going to the movies during the work day. And we know Carl wasn't doing anything at all for the first four or five months of the John Tait negotiations.

Exactly. Cry me a river.