When People Knew Their Company Was On Its Last Leg

Author image for Eric Lund
Eric Lund
Feb 2, 2020 3:00 PM EST

Working for a big company can be weird. The lack of oversight can be strange, like this guy who was never told to do anything and stayed on for months. What gets extra strange is when the company starts to tank. Bosses stop responding to emails, the stores themselves begin to degrade, and people stop showing up. Here are people who know what it was like to work for a big failing company.

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  • 01
    Text - Stinky_doggo 1.1k points · 16 hours ago I got a job at Sears, I figured out they were definitely dying because I was getting a whopping 4 hours a week, 5 am to 9 am on Sunday mornings. Left me plenty of time to find a full time job, and when I did find a decent job, I just stopped showing up to Sears. My manager called me asking if "I really wanted to give up this job, and that I needed to carefully consider my options". I told them that I has weighed my options, and my new job gave me 10
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  • 02
    Text - Makabajones 13.3k points · 18 hours ago Worked at a Hollywood video. when there was a solid week with less than 10 customers, I knew it wasn't going to last. luckily it was just my job for while I was in college.
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  • 03
    Text - renwoman1127 16.8k points · 15 hours ago Waldenbooks. When one of two registers caught fire. The fire department put it out but rather than pay to haul it away the company left it, a hulk of melted plastic where it was at the checkout. The store closed two weeks later.
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  • 04
    Text - TheOfficialNSA 7.6k points · 17 hours ago I worked in the warehouse at Sears in college until 2007 when I graduated. We were regularly running out of inventory and everything seemed like it had to be ordered in on a case by case basis. I was the person in the back that loaded the tool boxes, treadmills, snowblowers, etc into vehicles. When you're running out constantly of your top revenue generating pieces, something isn't right. Also, they didn't even bother updating inventory. I had a f
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  • 05
    Text - Dagglin 7.0k points · 18 hours ago · edited 15 hours ago I worked at Lonestar steakhouse. There's not too many of them left anymore, if any. I worked an open to close shift one night, by myself. Had two tables and made twelve dollars. I started a career elsewhere shortly after that, and six days after I left Lonestar for the new position the restaurant closed. The employees weren't told either, they showed up and the place was shut down by corporate already.
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  • 06
    Text - Gloria-to-Nowhere 4.9k points · 16 hours ago I worked for Borders from 2000-2008. When I was laid off I was working what had originally been 3 job descriptions. They decided to eliminate that position too and dump all the work on my already overworked boss. Called it 'restructuring' and other corporate weasel-words, but I could see the ship was sinking. Still miss that place.
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  • 07
    Text - Ermaquillz 3.5k points · 15 hours ago · edited 14 hours ago I worked for a Kmart in the early 2000s when the chain was starting to die a long, slow death. This location was a total shitshow. The store itself was dirty, in an un renovated and outdated sort of way. My first day of death, I saw a bulletin about how a secret shopper had asked an associate for help and he told her to "f*** off". Training was a joke, and it was super easy to swap upcs so goods could be purchased for other price
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  • 08
    Text - llordlloyd 2.6k points · 18 hours ago · edited 16 hours ago I worked for Kodak in the mid 1990s. Digital photography was emerging, but emulsion (chemical) photography was already moving to minilabs, away from wholesale mass production. Management were always talking down digital and talking up our long term future. Kodak even brought out a new film format in about 1995, with a magnetic strip on the film. High tech mate! Among workers, most felt we were doomed but equally most of the older
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  • 09
    Text - emueller5251 2.6k points · 17 hours ago I worked at Blockbuster, but I quit a few years before they finally bit the dust. Probably we could tell that they were going under when they started chasing Netflix and copying them rather than trying to find a way to actually do something new. Of course, plenty of employees on Ihateblockbuster swore they saw it coming for years. Also, when nobody could get a decent manager to stay on, that was a pretty big red light.
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  • 10
    Text - derubino 1.8k points · 16 hours ago My owner started printing news articles about Netflix slowing down deliveries to folks who rented too much and posting them on our video store's entrance door.
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  • 11
    Text - toastingz 1.6k points · 14 hours ago When my boss started loading large Tv's into his car and told us to grab what we can. I worked at circuit city.
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  • 12
    Text - spartanaean 799 points · 18 hours ago I briefly worked at Kmart after my family moved to a new state. It was readily apparent that higher management was just trying to minimize their expenses until the stores were forced to close so they could have the largest post-bankruptcy payday they could muster. It was sad too because most of our customers would tell us how much they loved us over places like WalMart. If they had decided to invest in Kmart and actually gave a damn, it could have mad
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  • 13
    Text - dlordjr 759 points · 16 hours ago Not exactly a store, but I worked at a drive-in in high school. When the owner told me I could eat all the candy, hot dogs, and popcorn I wanted, I knew he was going out of business.
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  • 14
    Text - Bunnyhat 34.4k points · 16 hours ago · edited 16 hours ago I worked at Blockbuster. I was there when they started Blockbuster Total access to compete with netflix. You add movies to your account, they mail the DVDS to you. You can return the DVDS to any blockbuster, as soon as they scan them in you'll get the next movies on your list sent out so you didn't have to wait as long for turnaround. Even better, you were able to rent a movie at the Blockbuster for free that you turned it in at.
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  • 15
    Text - MSport 17.1k points · 17 hours ago Worked at Best Buy for a while, got fired and then went to work at Circuit City. I knew it the second I walked into that store. 6 months later we were told it was closing. Best Buy constantly updated fixtures and layouts/designs. Everything was bright and new. I imagine that Circuit City looked exactly like it did when it first opened.
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  • 16
    Text - sweets7887 13.4k points · 17 hours ago I worked at Babies R Us for 3 years. For part-timers, our hours would fluctuate based on sales from the previous weeks. If we had a bad week, as much as 75% of us would get called off future shifts. It was so random. I could have 10 hours one week and 34 hours the next. It felt like the employees were not the only ones living paycheck to paycheck.
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  • 17
    Text - instantrice 10.3k points · 16 hours ago Former CompUSA employee. The speed at which they started changing the slogan increased, they introduced and rescinded a rewards/loyalty program inside of six months, and they started pushing bait and switch selling tactics in our monthly store meetings. I handed in my resignation the day before they announced the company closing.
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