I no longer work here but follow the goings-on of Sears Holdings very closely. It's a very interesting case study of the slow dismantling of a former retail giant. I left Sears for the reason that it is a ticking time bomb and I wanted to get out before it detonated and took my job with it. Plus, the stress was not worth it for the meager pay I received.
I do remember browsing Pebble every once in a blue moon and seeing everyone swarm around Eddie's proverbial feet whenever he wrote something. Man, those were the days. It was comical. If I was a CEO I wouldn't appreciate any of the brown-nosing, it would actually make me think less of the people doing it.
Apparently he likes the attention though. He's got a big ego. Maybe he merged two failing retailers and strung them along for so long to give his ego a boost (and make a little cash along the way by selling it off piece by piece until there is nothing left of any significant value). Maybe it gives him a continual rush to be in control of a company that initially had about 200,000 employees (it's around 80,000 the last I heard - still, it's a lot of people and it's a shame that 80,000 people are probably going to lose their jobs within the next year or so, maybe sooner).
If Sears goes kaput on his watch, he will probably go insane. Not at all for the effect that it will have on employees, stakeholders and vendors, but for the fact that he failed. I don't know about how much money he's made from Sears Holdings vs. how much he's invested or "loaned" out (remember the loans he granted every few months starting in 2013?), but I'm pretty sure he's lost a pretty penny. Anybody could have told him that the majority of the stores in SHC's portfolio are not all that valuable, especially now. All the good ones are all gone and sold off. Now he has Kmarts in third tier strip malls and Sears in deserted malls.
Thank you, @Vy9fskV-1xls , your post is not just informative but also made me laugh. Something we all need in desperate times like this.