A Day in the Rigorously Meaningless Life of One Corporate CEO

Kurt Vonnegut had an uncle who often said on a sunny day with a glass of lemonade in his hand, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

On the flip side of that coin, when reading a feature about a day in the life of a CEO, I often say, “If this isn’t shite, I don’t know what is.”

It’s always a contest of who can sleep least, get up earliest, eat healthiest, work most efficiently and still have a guilty pleasure at the end of an 18-hour day. You’d think we’d get over this after first marveling, then gagging at the disgraced Theranos’ CEO Elizabeth Holmes’ routine. Remember?

• “4:00 A.M. rise & thank God. most things are not logical.”
• “4:00 – 4:15 – wash face, change.”
• “4:15 – 4:45 – meditate, clear mind.”
• “4:45 – 5:20 – work out.”
• “5:20 – 6:20 – change, shower, shave, perfect.”
• “6:20 – 6:30 – pray”
• “6:30 – 6:45 – bfast (bannana [sic], whey)”
• “6:45 – drive to [Theranos]”

These days in prison, she can sleep in until 6:00.

But just the other day, I read a similar day in the life of one Damola Adamolekun, CEO of the restaurant chain, P.F. Chang’s.

“My life is my work,” Adamolekun begins. “My work is my life.”

I’m okay hearing that from the President of the United States. I’m okay hearing that from a school teacher in a hard neighborhood in Chicago, or a church pastor or a public defender. Honestly, I’m even okay hearing that from a bricklayer who works on buildings built to last.

But from the CEO of the Asian Olive Garden?

The 34-year-old has a motto, he told Fortune: “Early to bed, early up.”

Wow.

After rising at 4:30 a.m.:

He begins his day with a seven to eight-mile run, which he says helps him feel less stressed and more relaxed. The aerobic exercise routine stimulates his “calm, relaxed, autonomous nervous system,” Adamolekun says, unlike the sympathetic nervous system, which triggers your body’s fight or flight reaction.

Look, young man: I’m the CEO of Pro Rhetoric, LLC. I run four miles a day. My “calm, relaxed, autonomous nervous system” does not require any more miles than that, even if I start the day with a little hangover. I don’t think yours does either.

“You’ll feel better the whole day,” Adamolekun responds. “You’ll be smarter, you’ll be sharper, you’ll be more energetic.”

I’ve run eight miles many days, training for long races. I’m not smarter, not sharper, not more energetic for doing so. Promise.

6:00 a.m. Before hitting the road, he takes a few minutes to review the chain’s performance numbers from the previous day in his home office, checking to see if they aligned with the company’s expectations.

A restaurant chain’s daily performance numbers? Pardon me, but what kind of strategic move might this guy make on Wednesday if Tuesday’s sales missed expectations by a few ticks (or even a bunch)? Sounds like he’s spinning his wheels before he even heads to work—where at 7:00 a.m., he “casually meets with the COO and CFO before jumping into a day full of meetings. His schedule is packed with internal and external meetings.”

Now see here: If you want to meet casually, it’s not with a COO and a CFO. It’s with the guy about your age with the long hair who smells vaguely like dope, in corporate communications.

In between meetings, Adamolekun manages emails, prioritizing the most essential tasks to ensure employees are being met with timely approvals to move forward with their work.

Do employees also receive timely refusals, to stop them from moving forward with imbecilic schemes, wild goose chases and fool’s errands? In any case, it seems to me a CEO shouldn’t be scrambling to answer emails in order to avoid becoming a bottleneck. Maybe Adamolekun should casually mention this one morning, to the COO.

6:00 p.m.: When the day’s meetings are over, Adamolekun clears his inbox and heads home. But, his work day doesn’t exactly stop there.

Now, my dude has been up since 4:30 a.m. and supposedly run eight miles, crunched some numbers, had a “casual” meeting with the most brutal executives in the organization, held a half dozen formal meetings between answering many business-critical emails. I didn’t see a nap anywhere in there. I know he’s 34, but I was 34 once too. And by 6:00 p.m, I’m telling you: The guy is toast.

But no!

As the CEO of a major restaurant chain, Adamolekun is no stranger to mixing business with dinner, often meeting with colleagues and connections after the traditional nine-to-five workday ends. As he puts it, “It’s a hospitality business, so a lot of dinners are involved.”

Really? Just because you’re the head of P.F. Chang’s, you have to go out for dinner a lot? Does the head of IHOP have lots of flapjack breakfasts to attend? Does the CEO of Vienna Beef have a hotdog-eating contest every night?

On the occasions when Adamolekun can go straight home without any post-work affairs, he relaxes with a cigar on the patio, ending his day the same way he starts, by activating his parasympathetic nervous system.

To the extent that the above is true, I truly feel sorry for this man, who seems to be trying to become a robot. And to the extent he’s typical of corporate CEOs, I feel sorry for all of them, for having gained the world in apparently enthusiastic exchange for the infinitely richer lives they might have lived. In exchange for freedom, itself.

Work is good, and good work is great. But whoever you are, whatever your work and whatever the pay—don’t dig your life away.