You can’t look the troops in the eye and say, “It’s been a bad year, we can’t do anything for you,” but then say, “By the way, we’re going to pay ourselves a $1 million bonus.”
H. Ross Perot (1930–), US entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and politician.

Referring to his resignation from the General Motors board following GM’s decision to freeze profit-sharing payments to workers while going ahead with executive bonus payments.

Source: Quoted in Thriving on Chaos (Tom Peters, 1987)