"What did your company do to “save money” but ended up costing the company lots of money instead?"
You May Get A Little Hot...
"Shut off the HVAC system to save on electricity costs during the summer."
"Had to pay over half a million in mold remediation costs."
"F*cking morons."- dinosore
Never View People As An Expense
"Lay off a bunch of veteran people so they can bring in newer workers for cheaper."
"They find they couldn't bring in newer people for cheaper so they hire newer people at close to the same price as the veteran workers."
"Veteran workers are mad they have to train somebody making almost the same as they are with no experience and start leaving."
"Company has to pay fewer remaining veteran workers even more to get them to stay while paying inexperienced workers close to what the workers they just laid off were making."
"To my knowledge, prior to the lay offs, the veteran workers weren't even complaining about pay."
"Now the department is at a worse state and more expensive than what it was prior to their plan to save money."- Frankie__Spankie
Simply Illogical
"The roof of our building was leaking bad."
"Got quotes for doing just a third of the roof and for doing a whole new roof."
"They choose to do third of the roof."
"All it did was move the leak."
"A month later they did the whole roof."
"They would have paid a lot less had they done it right the first time."- sonsonmcnugget
Cat Olympics GIFGiphyLocation, Location, Location! Or Not...
"Business travelers must fly to the closest airport to the destination."
"Is Airport A one mile closer to the destination than Airport B?"
"Yes."
"Are the airline tickets 2x as expensive?"
"Also yes." - Reddit
A Hospital Is Nothing Without Its Nurses!
"Underpaying the nurses so they quit and had to pay agency 3x the going rate."- junotinychonk
The Dangers Of Outsourcing
"Moved 'corporate' phone support from UK to India for a very large fizzy drinks company, despite the contract saying guaranteed UK support."
"Over 50k phones canceled and moved to their rival."- WimbleWimble
"Someone I know worked for the 'oldest American' hoist company."
"They decided to outsource production to china."
"The cost of transport, losses, customs, etc made the Chinese hoists just as expensive as their American-made ones and then the Chinese company stole the plan to make and sell themselves for less."- Diabetesh
You Never Know When You're Going To Need Them...
"Company ran a campaign for 'outside the box' ideas in cost cutting, with stock awards for proven savings."
"Our facility maintenance manager claimed a $300k savings by eliminating unnecessary capital spare parts in the warehouse and received a $30k award."
"Six months later a critical compressor failed resulting in the plant reducing to half capacity at a $500k per day profit loss."
"It would only take two days to repair, however, the parts were no longer in the warehouse."
"They were among those eliminated and sold for scrap."
"It took 90 days to receive replacements."
"Total loss to our company was just over $50 MILLION."- eron6000ad
God Forbid People Are Rewarded For Good Work
"I used to work at a place with a sizable distribution center and thousands of SKUs."
"The warehouse's team of pickers was a great group of folks."
"They were fast, extremely accurate, and very good at their jobs."
'I brought them cookies on a regular basis and made sure to take good care of them."
"One day, some f*cking walnut decided that they were 'making too much money' in incentive pay (they got a bonus for accuracy and for picking above and beyond their normal quota of items) so they canceled the picker incentive plan and bumped up their quota, saying 'it's their job, we're getting robbed paying them extra to do what they should be doing anyway!'"
"Pick rates began falling sharply within the first week or two, because the incentive pay for being an outstandingly fast and accurate picker made the otherwise crappy base pay for that job turn into a living wage."
"Warehouse staff was enraged by having their pay jacked with and now being unable to pay their bills while still being expected to perform as well as they did before, so they started performing to the old quota."
"Management did much finger wagging and tried to write up a couple of the top pickers for 'deliberately underperforming and hurting the company'."
"Those top tier workers refused to sign the writeups, walked out of our warehouse, walked into the warehouse of our direct competitor, and had new jobs that same day."
"The rest of the high performers followed over the next couple of weeks."
"Delivery routes got delayed because of the short staffing and loss of the best workers, customers got upset because they were receiving the wrong items or not getting them at all, and the sales team, which wasn't paid enough to get screamed at by angry customers, was furious."
"Cue a meeting with the sales team and the f*cking walnut, who proceeded to lecture everybody about how 'picking is an entry level job' and 'anybody could do it' and how they're going to bring in a bunch of temp labor 'because they will actually appreciate the opportunity'."
"Fast forward a few months and it turns out the temps are idiots and caused the number of pick and 'not on pallet' errors to increase, customers are now leaving in droves, and sales people are bailing out too."
"The company lost millions of dollars in business and had to lay off half the staff because they were going to go bankrupt otherwise."
"All this because some f*cking walnut thought they could squeeze the people at the bottom of the pile who actually did the work that made the company money."- nancybell_crewman
From $75 Max, To A $75 Steak...
"We used to get a travel per diem for our meals."
"Most people would eat cheap like get a free breakfast at the hotel and get a $5 footlong and split it for lunch and dinner and bank the rest."
"I traveled a lot so it was like a nice perk."
'The company got wind of this and changed their policy to we had to buy and expense all our meals."
"The problem was they had to have the same policy for all employees so they couldn’t put a cap on meals due to the sales guys having to take out clients and stuff."
"We took full advantage of it and ate like kings."
"My meals expenses were twice what they were paying in per diem."- velvet_satan
Woman Like Me Fine Dining GIF by Little MixGiphySafety First
"I used to be the head of security for a club that had the most tight-fisted owners I’ve ever heard of."
"I kept telling them that we were dangerously understaffed."
"The police told them the same."
"So did the fire brigade, they said there wasn’t enough of us to evacuate the venue if we had to, they were right too."
"The owners wouldn’t listen."
"The club was taking around 45k per week but they wouldn’t pay for radios for us to least be able to communicate."
"We had so many incidents there that it was just insane."
"There just wasn’t enough of us to actually watch the whole club and even when we did see something we couldn’t call for back up."
"I found a set of second hand radios for under £200 but they refused to buy them I ended up buying whistles for the team to at least give us something to use to get each others attention."
"They also wouldn’t pay to get CCTV installed which upset the local police."
"One night a bartender came out to the door and told me there was a fight inside, there was no security inside just 2 of us on the door."
"When we went in there was around 60 people brawling on the dance floor."
"We did what we could but it was beyond our control."
"Eventually the police arrived but wouldn’t come inside they stood outside and essentially instructed us to kick everyone out and they would keep them out."
"We spent 45 minutes dragging people out of there."
"Many people were injured and after the fight one of the guys who had been fighting came back and stabbed a guy he had fought with."
"The police decided enough was enough and approached the council who as expected revoked the premises license."
"They lost the club altogether."- operative87
Gig Economy...
"Not giving the guy doing 2.5 full-time jobs a slight raise, instead letting them walk and paying 3 new people (combined) at least twice what they were paying him to do all the same work at like 65 percent the quality level."- BigPZ
Experience Matters...
"Consolidated the sales departments and made salespeople stop selling the stuff they knew how to sell and forced them to try to sell products they weren't familiar with to customers they had no history with."
"Company almost went out of business in a matter of months, and this was not a small company."- MostBotsAreBad
Sell Salesman GIF by Ryan SerhantGiphyNeedless to say, a business needs money to operate.
But money should never be the driving force behind the decision.
At least not over quality, practicality, and the well being of your employees.
Remember "Heaven's Gate?" A group of 39 people participated in a ritualistic suicide in 1997 because they believed that by ending their life, they would board an extraterrestrial spacecraft to take them to "Heaven's Gate." Yeah, that constituted a cult.
So it stands to reason cults, in general, remain highly controversial.
Sometimes, however, the bizarre rituals and demands of an organization can feel like a cult, even though they are not.
Curious to explore this concept further, Redditor FlintTheDad asked
What's something that's not a cult, but feels like a cult?
Corporate Cult
Certain corporate cultures can be oddly suspicious.
What Is SalesForce?
"It's a customer relationship management platform, in the parlance. It's a database for logging, accessing, and connecting work information, e.g. a sales lead, the quote, the correspondence, the sales docs, the budget, the implementation team, etc., etc. Companies attempt to use it as a be-all end-all management tool and stretch it beyond its capabilities."
Cutting the BS
"Salesforce. No, I don't want to build a community, go hiking or join a hundred online classes to learn the basics. Make a couple of well-explained, to-the-point training videos ffs."
Cult-Adjacent
"Under Armour's corporate culture creeps me out. Companies should not have an official chant. I would consider them cult-adjacent at the very least."
Too Much Enthusiasm
"I agree, another one is Sunglass Hut. I was a sales manager for a year and a part time associate for a couple years prior while I was in school. At the first region meeting they 1. 'Strongly encouraged' aka forced you to donate to their charity... that they run... and make profit off of. 2. Made everyone wait in the lobby before letting us into the conference room, and the only way in was where the higher ups lined the doors cheering and screaming while music blasted and you had to high-five them all. (Of course this is pre-[the virus]). In general, they don't treat you like a human being, it's either act like a camp counsellor (enthusiasm levels) for minimum wage or you'd never climb the ladder. Spoiler alert, there is no ladder to climb. The whole company mentality is very cult-y."
Tech World
These Redditors thought tech culture in general bordered on the cult-y.
Be Popular
"If you are a tech worker - your job. Upper management puts in foosball tables, orders lunch and has off site things on weekends (which is a daycare nightmare for parents), and expects you to spend every waking minute thinking about your job and having a device ready to answer email at any time of the day or night. Then, they have quarterly layoffs where they sweep out the unpopular. Yet, they want your loyalty and insist you are family and blah blah 'cultural fit.'"
Graduate Magnets
"I've been at companies like this, and they suck. But also it's super easy to leave one company for another in tech, the skills are very transferrable and in demand. Those 'tech' companies, are really just some other business trying to attract tech talent by providing those amenities and taking advantage of recent grads."
"Most people I know out of school get a job like that, and leave for greener pastures shortly after. If they really cared about their employees they'd just fix what's wrong and listen to their employees."
Creepy Benefits
"I'm 27 and have worked some random jobs, a lot of places gave tried setting me up with women at work. And a lot of couples who've been there for a long time met there."
"It's creepy AF when your boss is forcing women to flirt with you, just so you stay at the job."
Financial Cult
Does it pay to be involved in these? These Redditors didn't think so.
Multi-Level Marketing Schemes
"Herbalife. In fact, most (if not all) MLM schemes."
"Some pyramid schemes are actually classified as financial cults by Cultwatch, so not far off!"
Pyramid Selling
"General knowledge is such that MLMs and pyramid schemes are very easy to identify and debunk, so they have to transform it into an ideology pretty quickly after you join."
"if you can convince your new innitiates that everyone else criticizing the Cause is against progressivism, and that you're actually fighting for a better solution to capitalism or whatever stupid sh*t, and that YOU are the TRUE core of the Cause, when people tell you the stupid cult you've joined is ridiculous, you will take it personally and it will re-enforce the us-versus-them isolationism that fuels cults."
"watching crypto currency NFTs go from a dumb meme made for trading racist drawings to an art auction platform that gets immediately debunked as a pyramid scheme exploiting tech-illiterate artists to 'we're revolutionizing art as a whole. we are a brand new system, a way for artists to be powerful and influential, we are changing the world, if you disagree with this you are LITERALLY a luddite that hates art, the world, and us' happened literally over the course of two weeks lol."
– No-Bewt
"Brooklyn Nine-Nine" Reference
"Nutriboom"
"Woah there brother. Your amino acid levels are looking dangerous lol."
"Ah yes! The power of financial freedom. Boom Boom!"
Homeowner's Associations
"Used to work in a gated community pool. Some were cool, but most were the most awful bunch of wealthy jerks. Never wanted to follow the rules or cooperate and their kids always acted like little punks. It also felt kind of incestuous as well because those people were occasionally sleeping with each other. Not in the pool. I would just hear the pool gossip."
Play At Your Own Risk
"The ticky-tac cul de sac built behind me has been trying to strong arm me into paying HOA dues ever since I put no trespassing signs facing them in my woods. The whole reason I did was due to their stupid kids playing in my woods, getting hurt, and then being blamed by them for having an unsafe yard. Dude, it's an acre of unimproved woods with sticks, stone walls, and 200+ years of random shit thrown in it. It's not a goddamn public park, so your lawsuit means nothing. I was here before your house was built - why would I want to join your HOA when one of the conditions is that you all have free access to my land? You can feel free to stop trying to complain about me to the city, because they know I don't care. How do you like the HAM antenna I just put up on the edge of my land? Oh, is that an eyesore, too? Good."
"Also, I have no idea where those noisy guinea hens came from. I think they wandered in from the other guys land that you've been trying to co opt so he gets rid of his pigs and turkeys. Yeah, that's it."
"Retired Fun Police"
"I moved from an over zealous HOA in Virginia four years ago because they were a nasty group of retired fun police. We recieved a notice that our yard had too high a % of crabgrass! They attempted to fine us $100 per month until it was rectified. We received said notice in November. My partner elegantly told them to stuff it. This was after five years of various infractions such as storing a garden hose under our lattice covered back porch, paint chipping off a railing, anti bird cages attached to outside vents, yard lantern either out or wrong color all with pictures showing how entitled they were to trespass when ever they needed more $ for their coffers. They notified my next door neighbor her mailbox post needed painting, it looked like everyone else's prior.. They're passive/aggressive way of pointing out a wayward residents was NOT putting an American flag on their mailboxes on patriotic holidays. LOL I recall seeing many in noncompliance!"
I once belonged to a performing group in which our director participated in an organization that claimed to improve people's lives as long as members participated in frequent group sessions and paid a high monthly tuition.
I was a kid, and while this well-being organization may have had positive intentions, the changing behavior of our director creeped us out. He was suddenly cold and not as enthusiastic as he once was with us in rehearsals, and we all blamed his cult for changing him.
When we raised a stink about it one time, the director decided to quit the organization.
I'm not sure if what he participated in was actually a cult, but my friends and I remain skeptical.
Curious to hear about people's opinions, Redditor stocdave asked:
"Which cultural norms have been around for FAR too long?"
Corporate Culture
There are some cultural norms at the office that employees can stand to get rid of.
Salary Status
"At least in the US, not talking about how much you make. Your bosses can't fire you for it but everyone thinks they can."
We Are Gathered Here Today For Nothing In Particular
"Meetings that clearly could have been an email."
"I've had meeting invites where the description of what the meeting was about was enough to not need to have the meeting. Like wtf did you not read what you typed?"
"It usually winds up being a way to blindside people with something."
Nobody's Beeswax
"Having to explain why you're taking a day off. Never made sense to me."
"Whenever I told my scheduler I needed a day off, they always asked me 'why' and I always answered 'it doesn't matter why, I'm using my time off for this.'"
"When I became the scheduler, I always stopped people when they started going into detail why they need their time off. I don't care if you're gonna go sit on the couch for a day or steal the Declaration of Independence, if you ask for time off, I'm gonna try to make it happen."
Meeting A Quota
"The 40 hour work week."
"Even worse when you feel like 10 hours of those 40 are just pure waste, the meeting about the meeting."
World Of Retail
Consumers and store employees alike have their share of frustrations.
Short Life Expectancy
"Big ticket items like cars and appliances arent expected to last longer than 3-7 years."
– KenJyi30
"For appliances I've learned just buy the bare bones ones without lots of fancy stuff. They tend to last way longer and are usually cheaper."
– Poctah
Unpopular Store Policy
"That the customer is always right."
"As somebody who does customer service for a very large Bank I 100% agree with this statement. The level of entitlement and the victimhood mentality is absolutely astonishing."
Looking Productive
"The idea in service jobs that you have to stand and look busy your entire shift because sitting down makes you look lazy."
Making A Point
"Going to work when you're sick to 'prove you're a hard worker'. All you've proven is that you don't care about your coworkers."
"No One Told Me!"
"Bank customer service is especially vile. Like for the people who work. 'No one told me!' Is so f'king common when you tell them they're negative by dreads of dollars because they kept swiping their card even though they had only $100 at the start of their weekend."
"The other day I had to tell a customer that because he had signed up for debit card advance and kept swiping his card he went waaaay into the negative. 'But they didn't tell me I had that!' Really? Because there's paperwork with your damn signature on it saying you wanted DCA."
Keeping Up With Appearances
These Redditors are beside themselves about certain things regarding one's aesthetics.
Fashion Flaw
"Chicks not having pockets. I'm over here right now with a full water bottle, a phone, a map, earbuds, and a swiss army knife, and every woman that I meet has barely enough room to put their hands in their pockets. They are missing out big time."
A Certain Sacrifice
"Long hair is unprofessional, specifically on men. As a dude in my twenties about to enter the workforce, I hate the idea that I will definitely have to cut my luxurious locks because apparently I can't both have long hair AND be competent at my job."
– LosJoye
Some Clothing Is Optional
"That a man can go walking around without a shirt on regardless of the size of his breasts meanwhile women cannot in a lot of places. Not that I want to, but damn it I want the opportunity if I feel like it."
Horrible Stigma
"The idea that autism eather means that you are a dumbass or the smartest person alive. At school nobody I've told about it has reasonable expectations. Always eather babying me when I do bad on a test or thinking I'm the next fucking Steven hawlking when I get a ten."
– Truegr
It Ain't Always Nasty
"Being weirded out by sex/thinking it's taboo. Or thinking everything with the human body is sexual. I think if we were honest about sex, there'd be less teenage pregnancy going on."
"There'd still be some, but I imagine there'd be less."
Growing up as an Asian American, I always found it to be demoralizing to bow to anyone. Yet I couldn't escape it for fear of being judged by my own community if I didn't bow out of respect.
As my rebellious phase dissipated as I grew older, I believe bowing is not a social norm that bothers me as much as it used to. It's a cultural gesture I find to be humbling and refined.
Not to mention – in the age of the pandemic – I much prefer slightly lowering my head to rubbing elbows on the street in lieu of shaking hands.
But that's just me.
Twitter user delia paunescu (@deliap) is the hero of the day. She's clearly been working with plenty of office life's most wishy-washy divas lately.
i've recently become obsessed with all the insane corporate ways we say normal things to each other. "I’m a little… https://t.co/HKWzdrTJVF— delia paunescu (@delia paunescu) 1580313802.0
Apparently plenty of other people have at least noticed the very unique vernacular of corporate life, as just over 21,000 replies proves.
Or perhaps "noticed" doesn't quite get at the heart of these repliers' emotions. Perhaps "seethed" is better.
Or maybe "interpreted with horror" is more accurate.
After all, this passive aggression isn't about dishes in the apartment. Healthcare benefits, Paid Family Leave and Casual Friday's are on the line here, people.
This one—the fake apology with a left hook—is a classic.
@delia_p @mattdpearce “I’m sorry; I think my email/statement probably wasn’t clear. Hopefully this helps” = you’re… https://t.co/gjFl0adD0I— Naima Cochrane (@Naima Cochrane) 1580325817.0
@delia_p Maybe not insufferable but I absolutely love how “per my last email” is code for “do you even know how to f’ing read?”— Briana McDougall (@Briana McDougall) 1580315280.0
How does one gently remind a superior that they do, in fact, exist?
@delia_p “I wanted to follow up” - you forgot didn’t you? Didn’t you? Am I a joke to you?!— Jamie Keller (@Jamie Keller) 1580317450.0
@delia_p “As previously discussed” = I didn’t put in writing last time because I thought you were an adult.— Mitch Dinkins (@Mitch Dinkins) 1580317855.0
@delia_p "Thank you for your feedback! I'll be sure to keep it in mind!" <- your criticism is completely irrelevant… https://t.co/ABhnDZoolb— FerretXilla (@FerretXilla) 1580317548.0
Never good when your boss begins an email with a sentence containing no verbs.
@delia_p "A few things" !!!!!!! You done it now !!!!— Leah (@Leah) 1580317216.0
And, for some gentle office drama resolution...
@delia_p I have nightmares about hearing "Team, let's make sure we're all aligned."— Samantha Rosen (@Samantha Rosen) 1580318096.0
@baddestmamajama/Twitter
@delia_p “We’ll table that for now” and “let’s sidebar” are fun ways to get shut down in a group chat— Aoife “Fe” Baker 🦕🐯🧠🌈 (@Aoife “Fe” Baker 🦕🐯🧠🌈) 1580322214.0
Well this one is just plain aggressive.
"This should be more of a listening session for you" is the nicest way I've ever been told to shut the hell up. https://t.co/3UkoNzTOdG— Jackson Lanzing writes weird. (@Jackson Lanzing writes weird.) 1580322665.0
"i was under the impression that ..." which is my professional way of saying that you are not only wrong, but addit… https://t.co/ND06AoLXkJ— kylie 🌸 (@kylie 🌸) 1580324693.0
@delia_p @UrsulaV Stealing from somewhere but it’s true: “I hope this helps!”=never ask me for anything ever again— Lala Escargot, collector of curses 🎉 (@Lala Escargot, collector of curses 🎉) 1580317568.0
This one here provides some passive aggression in real time.
@delia_p @UrsulaV Two from this very morning: “Thanks for looping me in” = You should’ve come to me 27 emails ago… https://t.co/6neeDnW3qM— Hipster Viking Amy (@Hipster Viking Amy) 1580318485.0
@delia_p "Just to clarify" = I'm gonna ask this question again, simpler this time, so you can see exactly how stupi… https://t.co/LxqAu7ByZx— Charlie Bressler (@Charlie Bressler) 1580329215.0
Quite sure the dynamics of email introductions will elude everyone forever...
@delia_p "While I understand your urgency..." = "Procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."— Bärí A. Williams (@Bärí A. Williams) 1580328016.0
@delia_p 'In the future, please correspond directly with (..) on this issue' = Do not, I repeat, do not message me… https://t.co/dx1dqgKFRW— Chevron Summers (@Chevron Summers) 1580330361.0
High marks to this one for using the word "minions."
@delia_p “Give the details to my associate.” Read: You’re too insignificant for my time, but just important eno… https://t.co/k8GbnkN2W5— Jack Lynx (@Jack Lynx) 1580329081.0
@delia_p "Has the policy changed recently?"= I know the policy, and maybe you should try reading it.— Tepid Librarian (@Tepid Librarian) 1580337943.0
The long con...
@delia_p “What I would say is....” = I am in fact about to give you my opinion on something, but first I’ll preface… https://t.co/749bEd2Gee— Martin Wahl (@Martin Wahl) 1580405108.0
It feels relevant to close with this scene from the 2007 film Charlie Wilson's War.
Besides the insane hair and glasses, note how Philip Seymour Hoffman's character has zero interest whatsoever in email niceties.
Direct confrontation is important for reducing office conflict. But no one is recommending you throw a chair through a glass window.
Maybe a phone call or a face to face would do the job?