
Although we must acknowledge that hindsight is 20/20, it can sometimes still be difficult to imagine what someone was thinking before they committed a significant blunder.
This goes for politics, sports, organizational management, and, of course, the business world.
Plenty of Redditors were eager to respond to a recent thread that asked folks to share the biggest business head-scratchers they've encountered.
These are sad stories that involve the financial struggles of both business owners and employees. And yet, we hope they're at least a tad instructive.
Redditor Devvint_ asked:
"What is the Worst Business Decision You've Ever Seen?"
Many talked about the pitfalls of new ownership. There is something about new owners that leads to sweeping changes without an acknowledgement of what's been working for years.
Don't Fix What Isn't Broken
"In my hometown there was an independent fast food and homemade ice cream place, long established and run by close friends. It was a goldmine. They decided to sell and retire."
"New owners immediately changed everything. Painted it a wild color, removed some attractions on the grounds, changed the 60 year old menu and switched to commercially made ice cream. They lasted 8 months."
She Had the Chance
"My late great uncle started a fish and chips restaurant. He had his own unique recipe for the fish and it was very popular. Businessmen had offered him thousands in cash for it over the years, but he always declined. After about 40 or so years, he decided to retire and hand the business over to an ambitious recent college grad."
"He offered to give her the recipe and even volunteer his services for a bit while she got comfortable in her new role as owner. "
She declined both and within a year, she was forced to sell the restaurant after coming close to declaring bankruptcy. My great uncle died and took the recipe with him to his grave"
Out of Touch
"There was a Tex-Mex place I loved in Fairbanks, Alaska. The food wasn't GREAT, but it was consistent, and the prices were fair."
"Well, a new owner came in, and they decided to revamp it into a fine dining steak house. $30 was pretty much the lowest cost you could get for an item, and this was in a neighborhood that had a substantial crime rate and was right across the street from the bikini barista and the marijuana dispensary."
"I stopped going, and they went under shortly thereafter. I walked in once before the place closed down, and it was dreary and empty and they had tried to bring some of the classics back to the menu, but it was far too late by then."
"You were too good for this world, Los Amigos."
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Worthless and Ugly
"A developer my dad worked with sold off a beautiful piece of land next to a river in a very desirable area, he sold it to another developer. The new developer cut down every tree on the 6 acre site, as he said, 'he wanted to see what he had.' "
"The land then started to slide into the river, rendering it worthless and ugly."
-- pete1729
Other people talked about major overhauls that a company made in the hopes of driving more revenue. Of course, these schemes backfired completely.
When Dollars and Cents Is All They Care About
"Take a help desk that has been consistently rated extremely well by its customers for their first-call-resolve, attitude, and helpfulness; outsource it to a company that's been rated towards the bottom of the list for over a decade because it costs less than the salaries/benefits of your former in house help desk."
"Then complain when your first-call-resolve drops through the floor and your customer satisfaction is at an all time low."
-- amalgamas
Full Speed Ahead
"Property management company I used to work for had a number of student properties and high-rises that were always a struggle to fill in the summer months when students went out of town."
"Head office came up with an offer that anyone who signed for two years got the four summer months at 50% off. Sounds like a good deal, 50% rent is much better than zero. We signed tons of students."
"However the lease templates that head office sent over showed the reduced rent rate on the lease rather than just adding the discount as a separate addendum. I noticed this discrepancy and reported it - and was subsequently ignored."
"Which meant the students were signing a legal document that guaranteed them 50% rent for two years."
"The company lost hundreds of thousands in revenue."
Talking the Talk
"A radio station i used to listen to recently changed their format from 80% music, 20% talk show to 100% talk show. Then they were like 'oh you can still listen to the music but it's only going to be on our app.' "
-- El_Voador
The Exact Wrong Move
"Circuit City was pretty stupid. When the recession hit, they decided to stop selling appliances and instead focus on DVDs and televisions and such. (Appliances are known as being a recession proof item. People always need refrigerators and microwaves. They don't need DVDs.)"
"They also wanted to cut down on labor costs, so they fired a lot of managers and assistant managers, and just left a lot of entry level employees because they were cheaper to pay. Well, entry level employees don't really know how to fully run a store, so pretty much every Circuit City became dog sh**."
-- Stevie-Avail
Driving Them Away
"There was a shopping plaza near me with a fairly large gift store. Not a gift shop in the museum sense, basically like a Hallmark store but independent. It wasn't exactly bustling, but they apparently did solid business and a lot of people in the community really appreciated having it there as a place to buy gifts and wrapping paper and such."
"The owners of the shopping plaza raise rents to the point that the shop goes out of business. The reason this was stupid is that the store front sat vacant for like 15 entire years. Seriously, this place closed when I was a child and I'm now 27 and the vacancy was only taken over very recently."
"If their goal in raising the rent was to have a more profitable store move in to that space, they certainly failed and missed out on decades of rent as a result."
-- Sarahlpatt
Pandora's Box
"In the early days of the personal computer, a fairly prominent developer Osborne went under because they showed off their new model far in advance of when it was actually going to be available."
"So predictably dealers immediately cancelled all orders for their current computer model in preparation for the new improved version. Inventory stacked up and they were bankrupt before the new model ever came out....."
"Its known as the Osborne Effect."
-- RedDragons8
Pricey Stinkers
"Cincinnati's deal with The Bengals."
"It has cost over $1B since 2000. It has some of the most ridiculous requires for the city and is widely considered the worst business deal in the history of sports deals."
"The city hasn't remade anywhere close to $1B by having the team. Arguably, they've gained nothing."
"This is all while the Bengals are perennial stinkers. They've made being terrible a lucrative business model."
-- Zezu
And some discussed those "flash in the pan" style business decisions that seemed like a good idea to drum up a short term rush.
Unfortunately, these small tweaks had pretty huge consequences.
Hopping on the Bandwagon
"I worked for a video store during the time Finding Nemo came out on DVD. The video store I worked for got a huge fish tank put inside. It was so big they had to shrink the game rental section. The tank had clown fish in it."
"The tank was also locked and we couldn't feed the fish or clean it. This was supposed to be done by someone who I never saw come in."
"So the tank ended up filled with a bunch of dead Nemos in a nasty as fu** tank. Needless to say parents were very unhappy about it. The local paper did a small article about it too which didn't help an already dying store. I have no idea what they thought an expensive as Hell fish tank would do for their business."
Substituted
"A friend of my husband's owns a sports bar. A few months ago he offered $1 beers. The place QUICKLY became overloaded with homeless people and the regulars didn't like it and stopped going.
"Special didn't last long."
-- DiaHosein
Heart Was Never In It
"Target's expansion into Canada"
"collapsed in 2 years and cost them Billions" -- USSMarauder
"It was so bad."
"We were expecting competitive prices and good products. We got Walmart quality products at higher prices and you'd go into the stores and they would have empty shelves and one product you liked would be there one week but not the next. It would end up at another target the next town over."
"They really treated Canadians like they were doing us the favour letting us shop there." -- warmaster_whorus
Wrong Part of Town
"Panera Cares opening less than a mile from my college campus."
"For those who don't know, Panera Cares basically just let you order food and would list a 'suggested donation' based on what you ordered, but ultimately it was honor system. The cashiers would just make change for you so you could put cash in the donation box."
"If you can't afford a meal it's fine to not pay but you are supposed to volunteer to work for two hours to cover it, but this isn't actually required."
"I think generally these things are supposed to be for really affluent neighborhoods where people probably donate even more than is 'suggested.' "
"But students from the college basically turned it into a real life Tragedy of the Commons experiment. There was almost never bread available because everyone would just take it. The lines were insane and people would donate like $1 if anything. It closed within a year lol."
So if there is one thing to take away from this list, it's this: if you find yourself managing a small business or even a larger scale set of employees, listen to what worked before and think through your changes for a good while.
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It's highly believed that it is important to learn history as a means to improve our future.
What is often overlooked is that what is taught in history class is going to be very different depending on where you went to school.
And this isn't just internationally, even different regions of the United states will likely have very different lessons on American history.
This frequently results in our learning fascinating, heartbreaking and horrifying historical facts which our middle or high school history teachers neglected to teach us.
Redditor Acherontia_atropos91 was curious to learn things people either wished they had learned, or believe they should have learned, in their school history class, leading them to ask:
What isn’t taught in history class but should be?
The Irish Troubles
"The troubles."
"Too many people in America do not understand why a wall straight through Ireland would be a BAD idea."
"I’m referring to the Brexit referendum and possible outcomes."
"If people were wondering why we were talking about walls through Ireland in the first place."- CLCVS.
Forgotten elements of World War II
"What the Japanese did to the Chinese during WW2."
"Unit 731."- CaptainMcBoogerJew.
"Japan gets off easy for their war crimes in WW2."
"They killed an estimated 16mil Chinese civilians and another 8mil soldiers"
"Also, Pol Pot."
"Didn't know who he was until I was like 25."
"Worst dictator all time (in terms of percentage of population he decimated)".
The truth about the American Revolution
"That the American Revolution was part of a wider cold war type of conflict with France."
"The American Revolution was basically the UK's equivalent of the US version of Vietnam."- vinsant7.
The Dark side of Swedish history.
"As a Swede, I'd like to know more of all the horrible sh*t my country has done throughout history."
"It's a damn shame we're trying to hide our history."
"For example, Swedes killed a metric sh*t ton of all Polish people when we were at our strongest."
"That's the kinda sh*t we don't get to learn."- mogwandayy.
Colonization
"Basically what Belgium did to the Congo."
"A lot of people are telling me that they are taught about this actually."
"I'm glad to hear it because I wasn't taught about this in the USA during my public school days (1995-2008)."- EconArch.
The truth about "heroes".
"While teaching about historical Heroes they should also tell students about the unspeakable things some of them did."
"Many famous figures throughout history who are pillars of morality actually did many terrible things." - User Deleted
Intolerance for Mental Illness
"The dark history of mental illness treatments."
"I think it's worth learning about."- 7dayexcerpt.
Slavic Mythology
"Slavic mythology in Slavic countries."
"Don't get me wrong, I love both Greek & Roman mythology and as a person from the Balkans both of those cultures are part of my country's history and had great influence over not only my region but the entirety of the continent & the western world but I wouldn't mind knowing more about Slavic mythology as well."- ShorsShezzarine.
The truth about the CIA
"How the CIA was made and all the shady things they did over the years."- ALargeChip.
There is a lot about the history of our world, not to mention our own country which shouldn't be ignored.
And it's from learning from our mistakes that we really improve our future.
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So apparently we are in the endemic phase of this nonsense.
We have light at the end of the tunnel.
So what now?
Where do we go from here?
Normal seems like an outdated word.
How do we get back to normal though?
Is it even possible?
What are reaching back to?
Life pre-Covid.
Those were the days.
If only we could bring them back.
Redditor hetravelingsong wanted to discuss our new normal in this hopeful "endemic" phase. So they asked:
"What’s something random you miss about pre-COVID times?"
I miss people being sane. Though that maybe election cycle issues not COVID. We'll never know.
I thought I was Alone...
"Being able to grocery shop after 11 pm."
Reading_Rainboner
"Hell yes. I miss the days where the Walmart across the street was open 24 hours."
Small_Tax_9432
let's just go...
"I miss spontaneity... everything now seems to have a barrier of difficulty."
iidosee
"I live very close to Disneyland so I have an annual pass. My friends and I would just go there after work and hang out and grab a bite to eat."
"Now, we have to reserve a day to go. And most of the time, the days are at 'full' capacity so we couldn't even reserve. I don't want to schedule to hang out at Disneyland for a couple hours for July. So yeah, I definitely miss the 'lets go eat at Disneyland tonight?' texts."
mymymissmai
Not til 24-25
"Functioning global supply chains. Ah, the product you want has got microchips in it? 9 month wait."
richard-king
"Minimum, I'd been saying for a while now that I wouldn't expect a true return to normalcy in terms of electronics prices till 2024-2025. Although Crypto crashing through the floor really took some of the pressure off graphics cards which I really appreciate."
statiiic
WTF?!?!
"How affordable everything was!"
Disastrous_Hour_6776
"Yep. Today I was bagging up my things at the grocery store and I heard the cashier say to the lady behind me 'thats $78.12.' She had -- 2 boxes of Kellogg's corn flakes, a carton of 12 eggs, milk, strawberries, raspberries, blue berries, a small cheese cake, English muffins, coffee, and a small whole frozen chicken that could maybe feed 3 people if the meat portioning was small."
SnowyInuk
Sushi
"My favorite sushi place. It was good quality, close by, kid-friendly, and not too expensive."
InannasPocket
All of this... it was a simpler time.
NASTY
"As a retail worker, just how f**king NASTY some people have gotten."
DmitriPetrov*itch
"They applauded you for being an essential worker but won’t vote for policies that’ll raise minimum wage while insisting a wage cap for heavily paid employees."
sketchysketchist
CHANGES your DNA...
"Some of the people closest to me became very bitter and petty over the last 2 years. So many people have the 'crazy eyes' now."
__--__7
"So true and holidays with the family is like who has the biggest tinfoil hat building contest. How many jumps does your brain have to go through to think that the Covid vaccine CHANGES your DNA into the patented DNA so that the government now controls your body."
"So like vaccinated people now have a singular DNA set. I feel like I still have a chunk of my brain just broken off due to that comment alone. I was also told by same family member that I could never donate blood again due to the vaccine. I guess it is so my patented DNA doesn't affect people?? FYI my vaccinated butt just donated today fine and multiple other times after the vaccine."
tyreka13
Homeward Bound
"House prices."
adrianinked
"I'm resigned to never thinking I have a chance on owning property where I live. I'm 30 and just can't imagine it anymore. And I don't want to live anywhere else so, whatever."
Osdab2daf
"That didn’t happen because of the pandemic. That was already happening regardless."
CH11DW
Oh Mickey
"All Day Breakfast at McDonalds."
hutch2522
"It was honestly hell to do, and not very popular. ITs margins aren't anywhere dinner and lunch specials. ON top of that, the temperatures are such that They require its own grill, meaning that if you have 2 grills in shop, you are down 50% of lunch capacity."
Freyas_Follower
Way back when...
"Hanging out with friends. And I mean waaaaaay before Covid. Like 2006 back when I had some friends."
LoocsinatasYT
I miss the old days. Maybe we'll get back there.
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What do you believe?
Is there a GOD in the sky?
Is he guiding us and helping us?
Life is really hard. Why is that is a big entity is up there loving us?
Atheists have taken a lot of heat for what feels like shunning GOD.
What if they've been right all along?
Maybe let's take a listen and see what they really think.
Redditor __Jacob______ wanted to hear from the people who don't really believe all that "God" stuff. They asked:
"Atheists, what do you believe in?"
I'm waffling between G-O-D and nothing. So please give me some education.
911
"We need to look out for each other because help isn't coming."
cknipe
Peace Out
"More than 2 decades ago, a priest was giving a sermon in my church and he said 'our faith requires you to believe without question. Why call it faith if you have to ask questions?' I haven't returned to church. Not until my wedding day but you know what I mean."
asiangontear
Delusion
"When I was young I used to think that after death you would have access to a PC that you could see absolutely anything about your life. Stats, any question you had no matter how obscure, replays of moments, perspectives of others in relation to you. No matter what you wanted to know, if it was relatable to you, you could see it. I know it's silly, but as time goes on I just want it to be real, and I don't think I'd have any issue allowing myself to fall into that delusion."
eggwardpenisglands
I think nothing happens...
"Realistically, I think nothing happens. We literally experience nothing after death. Same thing that we experience before birth. We don't exist, so it's nothing. I think the tenant that we should follow while living is to try to be happy and healthy while minimizing the damage we do to each other."
"What I would LIKE to happen after death is whatever you believe in, exists. I think Christians should get to go to heaven if they truly believe in it, Hindus and Buddhists get reincarnated, and everyone else also gets to experience what they believe they will experience."
"'I would still experience Nothing. Maybe it's one of those things where at the moment of death their brain makes them experience what feels like an infinitely long moment in time where they experience their afterlife. I just think it would be neat for everybody."
Better_Meat_
Shrug
"Best advice I received from a dear senior on their way out. 'You win some, you lose some' shrug. Nothing divine, life is that simple and wonderful, accept it and move on."
Tune_Kindly
It all sounds pretty simple. Why are people so up in arms about Atheists?
Whatever
"I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do."
imCIK
Cool with Empty
"Nothing. [Serious]."
rumblingtummy29
"I feel this way about death. When I was 5, my grandfather died and my cousin simple said, he is dead, that means you are gone forever. Everything ends up dying, even plants and animals. I'm now in my 40's and still have this simplistic view of life and death. People think I'm ambivalent to life and death but it's just what it is."
thepigfish82
puppet-masters...
"I think a lot of religious people struggle with the fact that we are all just swirling units of chaos. There is no grand plan or great orchestrator. I think that’s why people who are prone to religion are also susceptible to things like Q anon and the Cabal and all that. They REALLY want to believe that there is some almighty puppet-master who determines all of humanity’s fate."
Lngtmelrker
“we’re living in a society!”
"Just be a kind and empathetic person not because you’re worried about some cosmic justice, but because it’s the right thing to do. If there is some being that created us there’s no way they actually care about believing in it or adhering to some rules from over 2000 years ago."
"Also a big thing for me is that I find the idea that you need religion or the Bible in order to have morals and ethics pretty dumb. It’s pretty f**king clear that most evangelicals have neither. But my main thing is being a good person simply because, as George Costanza once said we’re living in a society!' If you’re only a good person in order to make it to heaven you probably aren’t actually a good and moral person."
conservative_genius
That's All
"You're born. You live. You die. That's it. After you die you cease to exist, the same as before you were born."
serefina
Believe what you want. We're all here together. So let's focus there.
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The list of what irritates me is endless.
I mean... breathing too loud or dust can set me off.
I'm a bit unstable, yes.
But I'm not alone.
So let's discuss.
Redditor Aburntbagel6 wanted to hear about all the times many of us just couldn't control our disdain. They asked:
"What never fails to piss you off?"
I feel like this article can go on forever. Let's get some highlights.
Wasted Time
"Meetings that could and should have been an email."
Sirena609
Lotto People
"Getting stuck behind people playing the lottery at a corner store."
thenuggetlover
"I also used to work in a gas station and you’re SO right. I f**king hated the lottery people. Especially since my store had a small staff and there was usually only one of us working at a time, which meant that I couldn’t get any of my other work done as long as they were there."
"And you’re right, it’s also pretty sad to watch. I had one lady who used to come in every day and spent hundreds and HUNDREDS of dollars on scratch tickets. One day, she won $200 after spending probably around $600 and she was so excited and saying she can 'finally pay her bills.'"
i-am-your-god-now
Aware...
"No situational awareness. Job, home, shopping, driving. Think for one minute and go about. OBSERVE!!"
Dizzy-Foundation8122
"My mom is one of those people who leave the shopping cart in the middle of the damn aisle and proceed to walk twenty feet away. After correcting her a million times to no effect I just walk away now so people don’t know I’m with her."
OutrageousEvent
Shut Up!
"Endless barking in the middle of the night, I love animals but that sh*t I can't stand."
Acceptable-Lemon2924
"Endless barking in general drives me up a wall. One of my friends dogs was barking almost an entire gaming session the other day. I wanted to reach through the computer and smack him for letting it go on."
bangersnmash13
Kindness
"People being mean to service workers, especially if the workers are very young."'
scaryboilednoodles
All of these things. I hate them all.
Admit It
"People who never accept fault when they mess something up. Like, why blame a million people when it was clearly you who did it???"
Quirky-Area-8978
From Above
"My upstairs neighbors."
lutzow89
"I had terrible neighbors at my previous apartment. It was a one person studio for students, but her boyfriend was clearly living with her illegally and he was loud."
"One night we knocked n the door at 3 AM because of the loud music and an unknown girl opened the door. I just thought they were having a little party. But the next door I saw the girl living there come home with a suitcase after having been away for the weekend... Her BF was cheating on her in her own apartment."
Th3_Accountant
Move Away
"People who sit directly next to me at the airport, movie theater, any other place where you can choose a seat when there is PLENTY of other seating."
BacardiPardy33
"I can’t YES this enough and the ones who can’t park for crap so they park so close you can’t open doors on one side of the car or the ones who park directly behind when you pulled through so the door won’t open to load groceries."
BacardiPardy33
It's Over
"People who try to restart old drama. Like I'm done with you, just leave me alone."
Tired_Potatos
"Yep, half the reason I've basically quit playing one of my favorite online video games. People keep bringing old crap up or sh*tting on on someone who used to be our friend. I got tired of it so I just ejected the game out of me."
CaucasianHumus
AHHHHH!!!
"People walking too slow in front of me with no way to get around them. It’s even worse if it’s a couple or group taking up the whole sidewalk. HAVE SOME SPATIAL AWARENESS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!"
_-v0x-_
Life in general pisses me off. I'm easy.
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