At the tail end of a massive maintenance shutdown (16 hr days for everyone, for 2 weeks) the mill leadership started a site-wide meeting with pictures and stories of their recent trip to Japan. How they went golfing, the great meals they had, their trip to the mountain, etc. They finally wrapped that up and proceeded to tell us that cost of living raises were going to be small that year due to them being “unsure about next year’s profit margins”.
There was a pretty steady wave of resignation letters for the 6 months following that meeting.
It’s amazing how often I see executives talking about their cool trip, their new plane, or other rich person bullshit during the same presentation where they are telling their employees to suck up some furlough, reneg on bonus, or similar financial hardship.
Similar thing happened at my first job out of college. It was a year into COVID and we’d been WFH since the spring before this annual June meeting. They had just gotten done announcing that our productivity had exceeded targets, when they added two more announcements:
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WFH was ending, and we’d all have to go back to an office that didn’t have enough desks for everyone to be there all at once but that was okay because we could all just coordinate amongst ourselves as to who gets to sit where and when and when we had in person all-hands meetings some people could just sit on the floor and work.
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Due to a lawsuit filed against an entirely different OU we shouldn’t expect much in the way of bonuses this year.
We saw the stress the company was under between the lawsuit and the move, so over the next couple months we helped by cutting about a million dollars a year from their annual salary budget.
some people could just sit on the floor and work.
i hope you have a workplace safety agency where you are, because damn…
Where I was. I noped tf out of there, and a few weeks after they started enforcing RTO America set it’s records for daily new COVID cases and daily deaths. We really did do COVID the way we did Vietnam: it got too expensive so we gave up, declared victory and threw a bunch of people away.
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Jesus, some people just have no awareness whatsoever.
It’s almost always better for a company to have resignations than layoffs.
So it’s kind of always been a thing for them to “encourage” resignations with shit like this, then hire back new people later for drastically lower salaries.
It’s what a lot of places are doing now mandating return to the office.
That sounds good in theory but with layoffs you tend to at least aim to let the worst employees go. With resignations you have literally the opposite. The best people are the ones that will go and the best ones will go first as they can and will find a new job more easily.
Not saying that they don’t do it for that reason but sometimes (and I’d say most times) people are just incompetent and do stupid shit like this.
Quiet firings.
Quiet hirings are a thing now too…
Companies are putting up postings for positions they don’t have any intention of filling any time soon.
This way when they are ready to hire, they finally look at resumes and can start scheduling interviews ASAP. It’s shifting all the wait time of the process to applicants.
Combine the two, and you end up with companies being able to maintain bare minimum staffing regardless of workload without having to ever pay severance packages.
It’s actually really smart, as long as you don’t have the tiniest shred of empathy and think of workers as machines and not people.
Really explaibs how I got an answer to my application 14 month later. But they were consulting work companies. So you were hired when they needed a consultant with your profile.
I interviewed with one company I wanted to work at, but no answer after 2 months, so I interviewed elsewhere. That place had me start within a month. 6 months into working at my job, the first company said “ok, we are ready to schedule your start date”. I took that as a sign that it probably wouldn’t have been a great place to work.
That’s messed up.
That’s capitalism.
It only works when the government backs citizens over companies. Because a public company is required to put profits over everything else.
So there needs to be regulations getting passed to keep blocking whatever new bullshit someone set up.
All it would take would be requiring companies to have a start/end date on applications and only be able to hire from applications received in that window.
It’s already how the federal government does hirings. The government gets a lot of shit, but they’ve got one of the best unions around.
I thought I made people mad by ordering a curry chicken sandwich in a student-ran shop in college, but I hadn’t paid attention to an announcement that was made at the end of the class and I accidentally interrupted the minute of silence for a terrorist attack that had happened a few days before
I remember a pause for a minute’s silence announced in the upper concourse of a train station (UK) last year. It was disconcertingly comedic as the people walking in either on the phone or with a friend were very confused at why everyone inside was standing motionless and glaring at them.
I think I was working in that station on that day, because I have a very similar anecdote. Actually someone came to buy a ticket, and was annoyed because they thought they might miss their train having to wait for the minute’s silence to end. Not even the most callous passenger I’ve come across either.
Where did you see that? I’m in the UK, can’t remember exactly which station but pretty sure it was a London station with underground
Honestly fuck those intercom announcements. If you want to have a minute of silence, say “we will now have a minute of silence” instead of “mrrrr mrr mrrr mr drrrrr mrrrrr mrrrrr-mrrrrrrrr” fucking shit quality can’t understand a word they say
It was an announcement in class by the teachers
Ah well then you’re just a dummy.
We had a big mandatory meeting where an executive came in to tell us all to be happy we weren’t getting our bonuses or pay raises, and used a weird analogy about poor people being perfectly happy, because they have realistic expectations and that’s all you need to be happy.
He then had to leave early, as he quipped he was sharing a ride with a fellow executive on the private jet, and if he didn’t leave right then, he’d have to suffer flying commercial.
If you’re still there, organise your workplace. Unionise. Join the IWW - they can help you to accomplish this.
This was like a decade ago, I’m elsewhere now. Still not union, but I personally have no room to complain (reasonable hours and conditions and quite well paid).
Former CEO gathers 20-30 of us in the board room, talks about the difficult economy, proceeds to fire everyone.
The silence was deafening.
The meeting ends, he stands at the door expecting us to shake his hand as we leave.
Not a single person shook his hand.
At least he didn’t publicly share what his bonus was going to be for improving the bottom line.
Never forget that the year Lehman Brothers “collapsed” it paid the CEO 700 million dollars for one years worth of work.
My first job out of university.
Company is going through financial hardship. Boss cancels our collective insurance without telling us. Then the president of the company does a meeting in a shady motel reception room to announce to everyone the company isn’t going well and we all need to take a 10% pay cut. Ends the PowerPoint presentation with a photo from our major client’s ads with a lady on a beach with a laptop. President says “oh that’s going to be me in a few weeks. I’ll be going to Greece!”
The whole room just say there silent.
I worked at Cabela’s when it was bought out by Bass Pro. The sale went into effect mid-September, and in October they announced that all Cabela’s locations would be open on Thanksgiving for the first time ever and that ALL employees were required to be at work
On Thanksgiving day, when the employees who had their family time stripped away last minute were on the edge of revolt, the billionaire owner of Bass Pro made us print out and distribute an email he sent to all managers.
It was pictures of him and his family enjoying their Thanksgiving at his estate and a letter from him expressing how important it was to share the day with family and friends.
That’s so disgusting, I’m sorry you had to put up with that shithead
New hire, brought on board comes to a Monday meeting.
The company Quality of Worklife Balance survey has been returned, and it’s awful. It’s just after the 2008 crash, and we’re barely treading water, but the company held on. The CIO brought everyone into the largest conference room, meant for hundreds (there’s a couple dozen of us standing around, the chairs weren’t setup) and we stand around her as she procedes to tell us “Why is your QWL so low, you should be talking to your managers about this! I don’t wanna see another QWL survey this bad ever!” In a very yelly tone.
One of the managers raised their hand, and asked, “Folks feel like they’re not being listened to and that they’re not getting enough leeway to make decisions.”
CIO: “Well they need to get over that.”
And that was the first meeting a bunch of developers and IT folks got to see at that company.
Many other shenanigans occurred there, but my personal favorite was the quarter million dollar genset system all setup and tested multiple times – fueled and ready to go, failed in a major power outage because someone left the key in the “test” position on the generator.
– That CIO thought they led people, they did nothing of the sort.
The first all hands meeting (within three days of being hired) I had at my new job was the CEO talking about legal allegations and indicating he’s going to be much less involved in the day-to-day. Apparently he was pretty well known for being a massive dick and berating employees.
On the bright side, I’ve not had to deal with him once! In the last year-plus I’ve seen him comment on two tickets regarding bugs, but that’s about it. We’ve not had a single all-hands since then. I just started at an unlucky time, haha
Me. 19. In Ireland for a 2 hour layover to move onto Germany. I realize I can drink here. I go to the bar in the airport.
“What can I get you?”
“Can I get an Irish Car Bomb?”
Yeah… they didn’t like that. I didn’t know anything about the terrorism shit! 😩
Had a teacher tell some students that it’s rude to speak a foreign language in school (an international school)
As an autistic person with ADHD I am going to leave this one alone. 😬
As an ADHD person I have so many stories.
But I can’t remember a goddamn one of them.
An American comedian, following a long set here in Australia, told the audience to stand up and stretch. He then tried to direct us to “bend over and pat your neighbour on the fanny”. Stone cold silence did not indicate to him his mistake, and he tried several times before eventually realising he had lost his audience goodwill entirely with this starting skit.
Turned out later that he had no clue what “fanny” means here, and had to have it explained to him.
Genuinely curious what does fanny mean in Australia
It’s slang for ‘pussy’. It’s the same in the UK.
So question for any language experts: why is it different?
Wait, what does fanny mean in America?
It’s a word for butt. It sort of has a childish connotation, like a pre-school teacher might direct their class to “keep your fannys on the ground.”
Still a weird thing to say.
Not as weird or rude as telling them to pat their neighbour on the vulva.
I think “grope your neighbor” just falls under unacceptable dumbassery from a stand-up regardless.
Like, if the bit is making people refuse to do it, why keep trying when no one laughs?
Okay wait, even if he meant “butt”, I feel like no one is going to follow a random comedian’s request to grope your neighbor on the butt…
No, not grope, as I said, pat.
He felt we had all been sitting down for too long, and should gently pat the stranger on the butt, presumably to help them with the pins and needles. It was weird, but we thought it was weirder still! I believe people did indeed ask a lot of questions of him, but at the time it was a massive moment of lost in translation and divided by a common language, etc.
I worked a night shift at a lobby of some residential building, with another guy patrolling the building.
Some mentally unstable person wound up sitting at the lobby while the guy was on patrol (long story), so I sent him a message explaining the situation as I didn’t want to talk about it in front of the person.
The patrol guy comes back, looks at the person, looks at me and says “so, who’s the psycho?”
Good lord, what an inconsiderate asshole
I heard this years later by my former boss. He used to work for a company that just announced some lay-offs because work was slow. Right as the lay-offs were being announced the head of the company pulled into the lot with his new Porsche lease. It was terrible timing, but the corporate lease was up and the car was ordered months prior. Just made the owner look especially tone-deaf since the car came the same say as the lay-off announcement.
that reminds me of a meeting I was in with the CEO of the company I worked for and we went around the room sharing our hobbies. Everyone said things like reading books or baking or playing video games or whatever.
The CEO said collecting vintage cars.
The CEO said collecting vintage cars.
I know people aren’t going to believe this, but honestly, you don’t need to be a bazillionaire to collect vintage cars. It sure helps (a lot!!), but depending upon what he was collecting, you can buy certain classics for (relatively speaking) cheap.
The director at my old company was into classic cars too and we would shoot-the-shit all the time about his cars and mine.
My whole family was into vintage British roadsters. If you’re willing to work a bit and to flip them after you’ve had your fun, all but the first one pay for themselves.
But it’s hard to say goodbye!
I always thought of it like sending my kid to college. Doubly so because the money I got from selling my '72 MGB sent me to college.
I always think of it like Pokemon. I want to collect them all.
Why are most of the stories here about dickhead executives
Not a specifically bad instance, but everywhere I’ve worked has always had that guy who has a hundred irrelevant questions at the end of a meeting, holding up 10 or so people from actually getting on with work.
After a couple of bad questions, I’ll either excuse myself, suggest we carry on separately, or (ideally) ask to be sent a list, for me to ignore at my leisure.
Sorry Greg, we’re not here to answer your dumbass questions, or indulge your hypothetical edge cases.
It’s always hypothetical rabbit holes 🙄
They think they’re like Doctor Strange trying to map out every conceivable future
If 1 person has a question, then chances are good most people have that same question but are too afraid to ask it in front of everyone.
Some people have questions because they just don’t listen when information is given, or have no ability to think for themselves.
Went to a cousin’s wedding, her parents split when she was little so I’d not seen my Uncle Mal for decades. Tbh everyone was expecting him not to show because he’s a selfish twat and knows nobody likes him.
Surprise, Mal is here. He had an inexplicably-attractive, younger date (Mal was a disgusting, horrid-breathed, lumpy old man and his date was a pretty, well-spoken woman in her 30s so we all assumed she was an escort, as Mal has no redeeming qualities).
The whole time everyone is desperately avoiding being stuck alone with him, and everyone is talking about having the same conversation… Mal has written a book, he’s a writer now, and he’s written a poem he wants to read.
He was given many hints, subtle and not-so-subtle that his poem wasn’t wanted and he agreed not to read it. Unfortunately whether due to ego or wine, he loudly interrupted someone elses toast to announce he had a poem to read. Our collective hearts sank.
It was worse than we expected, at one point including cringe-inducing references to his daughter having large breasts. It went on and on for at least 5 minutes of everyone silently looking at the floor, sneaking the occasional “No way he just said that?!” glances at each other. He eventually finished, and just stood there awkwardly for about 10 secs, I assume waiting for applause, which obviously was not forthcoming.
Read the fucking room Mal, no-one wants to hear your shitty poem and no-one cares that you’re (allegedly) a published writer now. And your breath smells like a fart pushed through an onion.
And your breath smells like a fart pushed through an onion.
My sides
Honesty compels me to inform you that this ending sentence was shamelessly stolen from It’s Always Sunny. Highly recommend it, first season is a bit ropey as they are literally filming, writing, scripting themselves with no experience and at the start of their acting careers. An incredible show though imo!
I swear this feels like a plot point from a Righteous Gemstones episode. Sounds like you have a real life Uncle Baby Billy
I’ve been meaning to watch this show but I was put off by the evangelical-ness of it… worth watching then? This happened in the UK about 8 yrs ago!
I was the same way. Especially as someone who lives in Texas and is surrounded by those types. Not to give anything away but it is closer to mobster than evangelicals.
That sounds horrible but in good news this was probably the funniest story I’ve heard on Lemmy so far
The last sentence I will admit is a shameless ripoff of a line from It’s Always Sunny, rest is my writing so I’m glad you enjoyed it. At least some good came from suffering his presence!
