DEPARTMENTS

...not exactly a corporation, but...
I worked for a small office furniture installation company for several years. Each year at Christmas, the owner would give us each a generous bonus. On the last year I worked with this company, Christmas crept closer and closer with no bonuses having been given out and no word of whether or not they were coming. The day before Christmas, the owner, who had recently returned from a long weekend in Las Vegas, announced to the company that no bonuses would be given out as it had been a "tough year for us". Some of my co-workers were crushed. Many of them had kids, for whom these bonuses were used to provide a nice Christmas. We're talking about some very blue-collar guys. When we returned to work after the holiday, we were greeted with the site of where our bonuses had really gone. The owner had parked his brand-new, top-of-the-line, 25 foot power boat in the warehouse. He, needless to say, was beeming ear to ear with enthusiasm. The productivity of the installation crews dropped off the charts. I have to say that I should thank him. That one act convinced me to go back to school and earn my degree. He closed the business 2 years later. LINK

I worked for an outbound call center that aggressively slammed real estate agents on marketing products.

Every morning at 6am we had a team meeting with about 40 people all standing around our cubicles.

One particular morning my manager, a 5'8" has been football player whose head connected directly with his shoulders yells at me in a very Vin Diesel "Boiler Room" Moment, "Davis, what the hell are you wearing!? You have f***** us all. We are going to have a terrible day in sales!"

I was silent and thought he was merely being rhetorical, he yells again demanding, "what the hell is on that shirt!?

I respond, "it's a sesame street shirt, you know, big bird, Elmo, Grover, Burt, Ernie."

He yells, "F***!" and shakes his head in disgust.

That day was in fact one terrible day in sales. Later that night I get a call on my phone with a message from my boss, "Thanks for F****** us today with your G** A** shirt, you are never allowed to wear that S*** again"

I showed up the next day with a purple, pink and blue pattern flannel looking shirt that he hated even more! LINK

I used to work for a company that bid on construction tenders, usually worth between 30 and 300 million pounds. For one such bid, for a new school, we made sure to hire an architect with an extensive background in schools. One part of the bid involved this architect answered some questions from the council in a live interview format. He completely flubbed the interview, and seemed unable to answer very simple questions about school-building that even I knew the answer to. We lost the bid right after the interview, and had a sort of post-failure analysis meeting. I was a bit amazed at how badly our man had performed, but the older hands were completely unfazed:

"He probably got a call from one of the competitors in the night, offering him a few hundred grand to intentionally fail the interview, then a position with them if they got the bid. We'll probably do the same thing at the next round of bidding." LINK

Right out of college I was hired by an arrogant blow-hard of a boss. It was a small company... just him, me a part-time assistant and four freelancers. I had worked there for two years, getting regular paychecks -- everything was pretty normal. Then one day, the guy calls me into his office. It seemed that though he had been withholding taxes and Social Security from my wages, he wasn't actually sending that money in to the IRS. He had talked to his accountant and the scheme they worked out was to make me an independent contractor, retroactively to my start date. To do that, he needed his accountant to do my taxes.

Sure thing. I walked and my first call was to the IRS. LINK

I worked for a small company that eventually got bought out by a large corporation. It was a shock to most of us and all were worried about losing the close, family like group we had for years. We were assured by the (newly wealthy) original owners that nothing would change and we'd all continue to live on in happy bliss.

During the first year, very little changed. We did begin to receive more mass emails from the upper management of the new corporation, often with a lot of blah, blah, blah, rah, rah, rah rant that didn't actually say much of anything. Grumbling among our group began, but no one really said much of anything, mainly fearing being laid off by the new management.

In the fall of that year, the new young president of the monster corporation sent out one such email. It touted how successful the company was, with profits exceeding expectations. An old timer with the company who was known for his unconventional antics decided to reply:

"Great news! Thanks for the email. Since we are doing so well, how 'bout a raise?"

Unfortunately, an assistant who screened the president's email caught it and sent it to our local management level. Everyone was extremely upset, and I as this man's supervisor, was directed to have a stern talk with him and write him up. I did follow up with an email and later a phone call that said:

"Excellent job! It's what we are all thinking and we appreciate you taking the initiative". LINK