Some people really don’t flourish in a corporate environment. They find it too stifling and the rules too overwhelming.
These people shared their personal stories about the times they decided to quit a job because the corporate culture was too much for them to deal with.
1. That’s a little fishy
“They changed the title of the receptionist to “Director of First Impressions.””
2. Wall of crazy
“Had a “wall of crazy” where the CEO wanted to spend 20k on cool and edgy stuff for the office. Staff could make suggestions (Slides, beanbags, napping pods, etc)
Project was scrapped when the top suggestions ended up being:
Desks
Chairs
Working Heating
Working WiFi
Health Insurance”
3. Time to leave
“I’m in management and we just got the message that bonuses for the last financial year were severely cut across the business, probably going to receive 30% of our usual – at best. Then I attended our financial end of year results meeting the next day to be told that net profits were 18% up (nearly 1 billion total) and the best performance in years, all thanks to us.
So even though our profits were way up, the bonuses were cut? Employees who were not upper management would never have that information. Planning on leaving now.”
4. Then why are they there?
“Not my company but a company from a neighboring building. They had an entire area devoted to foosball, pinball, billiards, console gaming, and videoke booths on the ground floor and it was clearly visible because of the glass windows on street level. Oddly enough, nobody ever used them, and the place was almost always empty save for a few people who use the internet kiosks.
When I learned a friend worked there, I asked why nobody would want to take the opportunity to use the awesome-looking recreational facility, he told me that people who do use the facility often found it used against them during performance evaluations, even when their use wasn’t excessive at all. After a while word got around and they started avoiding the place altogether.
The irony is that their recruitment ads always touts a culture of “work hard play hard”.”
5. Like a criminal
“A co-worker was forced to work while her mother was dying in hospice. Mom dies, she quits, they escort her off the premises like a criminal.”
6. Cultish
“When I went to firm drinks in a public bar and the firm’s “fun committee” handed out song sheets and a choir of employees lead by a bad guitarist sang a song about how great the firm was to the tune of ‘Cause I’m Happy. We were expected to sing along. It was at that moment I realized I was in a cult.”
7. MONEY
“We (management team) spent months working with a business coach trying to collectively come up with meaningful core values. We devoted a ton of time to it and really tried to decide which direction we wanted to take the company culture. Everybody agreed on teamwork, reliability, a couple others that I can’t remember now, and then one day the owner came in and called a meeting.
He sat us down in the boardroom and told us he spent all weekend brainstorming and had decided on the core values. They were:
Meaningful Ownership Neighbourhood Engagement You
Does anybody see what that spells? He literally wanted it to be money and just came up with words that sort of worked the way you do in elementary school writing your name poem.
He rebranded the entire company from t shirts with giant first letters and smaller letters for the rest of the word straight down the arms, to plagues, wraps on the cars, everyfuckinthing.
And that’s when we all knew it was going to get bad.
Money is great, but it was mortifying walking/driving around with that plastered everywhere.”
8. Okay….
“Lush, when we couldn’t say “bathroom” on the shop floor and instead had to ask a manager for “serenity.” “
9. Priorities
“Not me, but my husband worked for two weeks for a “family owned and operated” business that touted how important “family” was and that they were all one happy “family.” My husband was on his way to drop our at the time 2 year old son off at daycare before work when son threw up all over himself. Husband called his employer to tell them what happened and that he needed to take son home and clean him up but he’d be in asap.
His manager told him he needed to get his priorities straight. He responded with “You know what? You’re right, I won’t be back in at all.” He was still working part time at his previous job where they had been sad that he was leaving, so he called them and told them to put him back on the schedule full-time. The “family” business is currently in the process of liquidating assets before going out of business and I cackle every time I drive past it.”
10. Tears
“I worked for Apple back in their heyday and it was always constant and terrible. But one guy who was an assistant manager (or something like that) took time out during a store meeting to evangelize to us (his words) about how Apple was going to change each of our lives so drastically that we wouldn’t recognize ourselves any more. About five minutes in to his proselytizing, the tears began to flow and he openly sobbed about how Apple was the greatest thing on the planet.
He was ultimately let go for being late too many times and had to be escorted from the store out the back door because he was crying and refused to leave his “home.” “
11. The blame game
“We had a problem with the client and the boss dumped all of the blame on a 24 year old woman who was basically his most loyal employee. He made her cry in front of the client, as if that would somehow help save the relationship.”
12. Time to cheer!
“When I went to my first corporate managers rally, I thought this will be cool, free catered lunch and it counted as a work day. Then they started the rally with the company cheer. I’m like wtf, we’re adults, why are we cheering? Looked around and way too many people were into this cheer. I realized that job wasn’t going to be for me. EDIT: for all those asking I was working as a GM for Dominos pizza at the time. I believe they have a few videos on youtube of the cheer but I’m on mobile and can’t every get links to work.”
13. Not an upgrade
“When I took a 40% pay cut (with no change in workload) by being moved to salary.”
14. Just like family
“”We treat our employees like family!”
Ignores harassment claims, hires from outside the company, refuses to give out decent pay, will write you up for doing overtime, but the CEO just bought himself a new BMW.
I hate that place.”
15. Union busters
“When i was told that if i heard any talk about unionizing i was to report it immediately. <– G.E. “