According to just about everyone who works at Chesapeake Energy – or knows someone who knows someone who works for the natural gas giant – a substantial round of layoffs are expected today at the company's Oklahoma City campus. Chesapeake apparently conducts layoffs on the Tuesdays of pay weeks, and with this being one of those pay weeks, just about every frackin' employee is holding his or her breath.
At least that's the rumor everyone is hearing. Here are some rumors I've heard from various Moles:
• "The Chesapeake HR Department was bottled up at the Renaissance Hotel all weekend preparing packages for today"
• "If it's a big group tomorrow my guess is it's all from land. They are supposed to lay off 400 land employees by the end of the month"
• "My wife had to choose her people to cut last week, while not knowing if she was being chosen by her superiors to be cut herself"
• "Tighter security and no one allowed on campus unless they are a current employee."
To beat the head off a dead horse and then place it in a bed of a Hollywood movie mogul, these are just rumors. We don't know if they're true or not, but where there's smoke in the Ogle Mole Network, there's usually a natural gas flare burning bright.
(Update: Can you believe it? The rumors ended up being true... again. Chesapeake announced today that they have laid off 640 employees in Oklahoma City.)
Anyway, instead of dealing with sad and depressing stuff like people losing their jobs and facing financial insecurity, I thought it would be more fun to focus on the lifestyles of the rich and kind of famous. Back in August, just months before he would tell employees in a letter that he "fully recognizes the difficulty and stress associated with the transformation process," Chesapeake CEO Doug Lawler purchased a 13,000 square-foot, $3.75-million mansion in Oak Tree.
Here are a few photos of the house from the still active online listing:
No, that's not a fancy retirement community. That's the actual house. Here's a closer look at the main living quarters. I guess that's what it's called.
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The house was previously owned by PGA golf pro Bob Tway. You need to be extra careful when typing Bob Tway's last name. If you're sleepy and not careful, you may make a really embarrassing typo.
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Well, I guess we know who in the Lawler family is hosting Thanksgiving this year.
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So this is where they hide all that really expensive and tacky furniture from Mathis Brothers.
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When coming up with the design and layout for this room, Bob Tway turned to the interior decorator and demanded "Give me the most stereotypical study money can buy!
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One sign that you made it in life is when you're able to put a living room set in your bedroom AND not use the sofa as a bed.
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Oops. That's a pic from Club Dreamers.
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Having a basketball gym in your house is pretty cool...unless it's painted like the insides of Eddie Sutton.
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Wouldn't it be weird to swim in the pool knowing that Bob Twat probably had sex in the adjoining hot tub?
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That's it for the pics of Lawler Manor. If you want to see more, go to the probably soon to be taken down reality site.
Here are a couple of other thoughts / notes:
• I hope I didn't ruin the hot tub experience for Mr. Lawler.
• I know it's not his fault, but... Yeah, Lawler inherited a mess from Aubrey McClendon, but it still seems tacky to go out and buy this mansion just months before you layoff a large percentage of your workforce. He knew the layoffs were coming. He should be living in a hotel or bought the home under a trust. Then again, it's probably tacky for me to post pictures of his home, so what do I know.
• Notice how the home is in Oak Tree and not Nichols Hills? I'm not sure if we should read anything into that or not. Was Lawler shunned by Aubrey McClendon and the OKCG&CC crowd? It wouldn't surprise me. More than likely, Lawler found a lavish mansion that he liked, and that mansion just happened to be located in North Edmond. Still, how does the CEO of Chesapeake Energy not live in Nichols Hills? That would be like David Boren owning a house in Moore.
