'Instead of giving the employees raises, we got oranges': 20+ CEOs who infuriated their employees with their business decisions

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jun 21, 2025 11:00 AM EDT

Why give the employees a raise when you could give them pens with the company logo on it? Everyone knows that there's nothing better than getting a mousepad with the company name on it, or a very cheap water bottle that'll remind you of the place you spend 40+ hours at each week. Who needs cold hard cash when you could have a little company merch? 

There's nothing wrong with getting some company merch — a lot of people do appreciate it — but that can't be in place of a raise or bonus. Employees just care far more about their bank accounts, but some higher-ups seem willfully blind to this. They're the type of CEO who thinks that a pizza party is the right answer to every question. Layoffs causing low morale? Pizza party! Everyone worked overtime for months, and now they're drained? Better have that pizza parlor on speed dial. 

These people shared their boss's worst gifts, from the people who got oranges instead of raises, to the workers who had to eat store-bought donuts while the higher-ups had a full catered meal. 

Next, read about the workers who made some giant mistakes while on the job: "[She] printed 500 copies of her gas bill on the company printer." 

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  • 01

    "Today my employer held a catered 'leadership conference' for managers only, aiming to improve employee moral. The employees were left out, hungry and had to work twice as hard to make up for absent managers..."

    Title says it all. Essentially, the managers were all brought into the conference room, played "team building games" and had breakfast and lunch catered. This was because it was noticed that general employee moral was low and there was a high turnaround for the entry level worker.
    via u/funsizedsamurai

    "What idiotic things has your job done for the benefit of the employees?"

  • 02
    What actually happened, was most employees had to skip lunch, work overtime and take on many extra tasks in order to make up for all the absent managers. This made the entire staff bitter and created an "us vs them" attitude in the workplace. Any stories of poorly though out workplace excercises?
    via u/funsizedsamurai
  • 03
    c_is_4_cookie They created a facebook page and sent out an email with the link to everyone's work accounts advertising it and asking everyone to like them on facebook. Facebook is blocked at my work. O_o
    via u/c_is_4_cookie
  • 04
    hahaheehaha My old company was having a morale problem, me and my coworkers had been pulling serious overtime trying to get all the work done. For 2 weeks straight we had essentially come in at 730am and left at 630pm without taking lunch. Finally after we had openly started talking about how p ed we were that we were
    via u/c_is_4_cookie
  • 05
    doing these hours and we were still getting bitched at for making tiny errors here and there, they decided to reward our department with lunch. When our lunch hour came the four of us walked in to find all the food had been eaten, by the managers, and they had left us 2 egg rolls and handful of fried rice. Morale had never been higher.
    via u/c_is_4_cookie
  • 06
    rivetcityransom I used to work in catering as a chef, and we once catered a company-wide going-away party for the head of a large local company that makes excercise equipment. (The reason that the company head was leaving was to go on a Mormon mission, but that's neither here nor there.) The executives ate on a dais at the head of a large conference room,
    via u/rivetcityransom
  • 07
    elevated a few feet above the ground. They ate smoked beef tenderloin with a calvados demi-glace, haricot vert, roast new potatoes, caeser salad, and all manner of breads and rolls, with handmade chocolate mousse in a champagne glass for dessert. The employees, on the other hand, were left to mill about on the conference room floor and enjoy their
    via u/rivetcityransom
  • 08
    fully-catered meal: of DONUTS. Yep, they got to eat store-bought donuts and watch their bosses and managers enjoy a multi-course fully catered meal, in full view of the masses of peons. That was close to 10 years ago and it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
    via u/rivetcityransom
  • 09
    CoffeeTastic Creating a "on the second" policy. You have to be at your desk exactly the second your workday begins. This has created an atmosphere where they find it really really hard to get anyone to do anything extra. On the second the workday ends everyone leaves. Before we didn't care about a minute or two here and there.
    via u/CoffeeTastic
  • 10
    C... My company has an annual trip for people voted as MVP from each office location plus executives and sales people who make quota. The trips are usually quite fancy, all- expenses paid affairs with tons of swag. Cut to the height of the great recession. We have our quarterly town hall meeting. The CEO stands
    via u/Cristina_Vancouver
  • 11
    there in front of a screen showcasing photos from this trip. I'm talking about pictures of people receiving fancy watches and going on helicopter rides. While these photos are showing, he gives a speech about tightening our belts, no raises that year and all salaried employees having to take 2 weeks off without
    via u/Cristina_Vancouver
  • 12
    pay. With pictures of him and all the other execs in the background drinking champagne on a helicopter behind him, people were p ed to say the least.
    via u/Cristina_Vancouver
  • 13
    Supernaturaltwin In my place of work, we have gotten EXTREMELY busy in the last few months. They expanded their stores into Florida. Instead of giving the employees much needed/ DESERVED raises, we got Oranges. Yes oranges. They thought they were clever being in Florida and all. Just made me angry.
    via u/Supernaturaltwin
  • 14
    ohfloatingholiday Our company decided to give out a weekly prize to randomly selected employees as a way to boost morale. Some of these prizes were things like iPads and TV's, so at first, this seemed cool. Then we started realizing that the people who won the big prizes were all VP's and above. Lower level employees won things like a
    via u/ohfloatingholiday
  • 15
    tote bag full of promotional materials. (The winner's name, title, and prize is e- mailed to everyone in the comp y). Now, whenever a regular person wins, he or she gets a flood of "congratulatory" e-mails from bemused co-workers. ("Congrats on winning that plastic cup! You must be so proud!")
    via u/ohfloatingholiday
  • 16
    UnarmedZombie In order to improve morale, my previous employer setup a suggestion box. When people anonymously submitted their gripes, management got pl ed and said we had to put our names on our suggestions. What's the point of a suggestion box if it's not anonymous? If I'm going to put my name on it, I will just email you directly!
    via u/UnarmedZombie
  • 17
    hammertheisland I don't suppose it was for the benefits of the employees, but... I worked at a stationery store that sold DVDs, CDs and the like (WHSmith). They had a management meeting about security and shoplifting.
    via u/hammertheisland
  • 18
    So... already short staffed, the supervisors, managers and security guards spent 2 hours upstairs. Nattering. Worst day for shoplifting the store had ever had. Hilarious.
    via u/hammertheisland
  • 19
    [deleted] Not really related to having a job, but I was knocked back from an internship at a world leading insurance company last year because "when you showed up you looked a bit like an I.T. guy"
    via u/[deleted]
  • 20
    Considering I was applying for an I.T. internship and my technical background is I.T. I have no idea what this human resources goon was expecting. EDIT: I was also the only technical person at the group interview.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 21
    NuclearThane When I worked at McDonald's there was a month where they put a digital scale by the shake machine, we had to zero out the weight of a cone each time and make sure that every customer was getting EXACTLY 5 ounces of ice cream--a cone with too
    via u/NuclearThane
  • 22
    much got thrown out. It's hard to appreciate the difficulty of making a cone, let alone a perfect one, and this just ended up being a massive waste of time and money.
    via u/NuclearThane
  • 23
    PantsMcGillicuddy "Congratulations! You've won a dinner with your boss!"
    via u/PantsMcGillicuddy
  • 24
    pikaichifan I work in the backroom of a large retail store. We're understaffed with hours cut and the only section of the store to run independently after 330. (We have one supervisor) Yet we have the highest rank in the nation in terms of speed and accuracy. We still get called lazy by the upper ups.
    via u/pikaichifan
  • 25
    coloneltuxedo Our grocery/pharmacy outlet was involved in a company wide push to boost profits over the holiday season. If we we came out on top with the greatest percentage increase over all other outlets then we would receive a handsome christmas bonus.
    via u/coloneltuxedo
  • 26
    We came out on top but the only ones to reap the rewards were upper management. Among the 30+ employees we would have stood to make nearly $1000 a piece for our hard work durring the holidays. Instead management split it among the top 3, giving them a little under $10,000 each.
    via u/coloneltuxedo
  • 27
    Those who complained were fired and given sh excuses why. I don't work for that sh company anymore nor do I ever have to see the greedy management that kept me and my family from my rightful Christmas bonus. F_Em'
    via u/coloneltuxedo
  • 28
    BradC My wife is always flabbergasted at the crop my company wastes money on. The lamest was wooden back-scratchers with the company logo on them, they handed out to everyone.
    via u/BradC
  • 29
    revmatty "We think it's in your best interest to not know how much the company pays of your insurance premium". Turned out it was zero percent.
    via u/revmatty
  • 30
    Cheezburger Image 10519755520
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 31
    jimmy_three_shoes Used to work at a movie theatre as a supervisor, and later a projectionist. While we were making the transition to digital projectors, we were informed that we would be keeping one or two of the old film projectors in case one of the movies we were showing wasn't available in a digital format.
    via u/jimmy_three_shoes
  • 32
    They told us they were going to keep us on, but give us extra duties to justify the 80% reduction in workload. Seemed fair. Fast forward a few weeks, and we get the heads up that they wanted us to train a couple of managers on how to thread up a film projector, and start it. They then had a giant "Appreciation Party" for us at a local Go-Kart track, where at the end told us that the managers were
    via u/jimmy_three_shoes
  • 33
    all going to be handing the projection equipment from then on. They then offered us all jobs as part-time regular employees starting at minimum wage, with an adjustment based on other merit raises we'd been given.
    via u/jimmy_three_shoes
  • 34
    I would have gone from 40 hours a week at $13 an hour to 25 hours a week at $8.75. On the last Go-Kart race I ran the General Manager into a wall at 30 MPH.
    via u/jimmy_three_shoes
  • 35
    meeerod At my firm we used to have this CEO that felt really entitled and he was a huge The company HQ was in a 3 story building with two stairways, one on each end of the building. His office was next to the stairway entrance on one end of the building. For some reason, he believed this was an executive staircase and only he was allowed to use it.
    via u/meeerod
  • 36
    Whenever he found another employee in it he would yell at them and threaten to write them up. So all employees had to use the other stair way regardless of where their office was in the building, such a huge inconvenience. Well we all had the last laugh. He goes on this great vacation to Europe and little did he know that while he was gone the board of
    via u/meeerod
  • 37
    directors had fired him. His company vehicle was removed from his property, his access to company networks was revoked, his key cards were deactivated and his office was packed
    via u/meeerod
  • 38
    up and placed outside the building the morning he arrived. He was truly blindsided. He came in claiming his car was stolen only to see it parked in the front ready for the next CEO. Ahhhhh... karma.
    via u/meeerod
  • 39
    C... Former company I worked for decide to have a "Holiday bake-off", which instead of being a fun pot- luck turned into a nightmare. One manager decided to instill rules and make it a competition, assigning who was the head of each team, requiring each team to bring in a certain amount of dishes and then making a voting criteria (all of which
    via u/cwithac
  • 40
    took away from actual work that had to be done). After personal time and money was spent on feeding coworkers (who only insulted the food as they were in competition, albeit friendly), the winning team recieved a trophy and crappy waterbottles with the company logo. Losing team, my team (aka not the CEO's team because who is going to vote against the boss...)
    via u/cwithac
  • 41
    also recieved a trophy. It was a horse's a that the manager decided to engrave my name on and insisted that I must keep prominently on my desk at all times for a year (including meeting with clients). I may have accidentally lost it when I quit a few months later.
    via u/cwithac
  • 42
    [deleted] My work place has yearly mandatory barbeques (they call them meetings - the meeting lasts for about 20 minutes and the rest is bbq and pool and stuff). Sounds awesome, but it is MANDATORY that you show up, and it is MANDATORY that you bring some food. You will be written up and/or fired of you don't show up.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 43
    So they scheduled this year's BBQ-meet in the middle of the day on a day I already never work (because I go to school). I kept telling. them I couldn't miss a day (I'm in a really competitive program - 200 people trying to get into an 18 slot program so I absolutely cannot f up) and they said if I don't show up, I'll get fired.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 44
    So I didn't show up (I actually forgot - I was going to just show up late) and no one said anything and no f s were given. I saw the photos on Facebook and it just seemed really lame. All the stupid cliques were there, same old bulls, just outside of work, not getting paid for it...
    via u/[deleted]
  • 45
    mstrymxer When circuit city was still around i was a warehouse manager. The company was struggling from spending too much on planograms. and such. So what did they do? They spent tens of millions developing a new POS system called rPOS (which we lovingly called our peice of sh ). I actually worked in the test store that was the first to get it in the
    via u/mstrymxer
  • 46
    nation. We had the dev team in for months working out kinks we would find and what not and i discovered a pretty major flaw. The system would randomly lose items in inventory. Like 4000$ tvs on a daily basis. I told them about this all the time and they said they would re-evaluate or something. They didnt believe me and it had to be a human error. So when the
    via u/mstrymxer
  • 47
    next dist. truck came in we took complete inventory before accepting the shipment into rPOS and wouldnt you know it we were immediately missing $25K in merch. So they never fixed it pushed it out to stores, and subsequently went bankrupt. lol
    via u/mstrymxer
  • 48
    And the old system wasnt even bad. sure it was dated but once you knew the way around it was gold!
    via u/mstrymxer
  • 49
    robin1961 Every year my hotel holds a Staff Holiday Party, at which door-prizes are given away. Our main competitor had had theirs the week before, and staff with friends and spouses at that hotel reported back to us about that party's door-prizes: iPhones, iPads, Minifridges filled with beer or groceries, the grand prize a week for 4 at any hotel in their chain,
    via u/robin1961
  • 50
    including airfare and meals. Our party came, and my company's crapulence was revealed. All the door prizes were free 3-nights at SPECIFIC hotels in our chain, no airfare, nothing else. Crappy hotels in non- destination cities and towns: 3 nights free in a hotel you had no desire to see in a city you had zero reason to visit, and the prize "winner" had to cover their own airfare.
    via u/robin1961
  • 51
    Staff morale plunged to an all-time low when one month later the managers all had their weekend "advance" on a 4-day weekend at a nearby 5-star resort, all expenses covered including golf and sailing :P
    via u/robin1961
  • 52
    tab021 All raises were cut for the last 3 years and replaced with gifts. Flowers year one, lunch box year 2, and an umbrella year 3. All were of cheap quality and clearly designed for women (I'm a male nurse "murse"). Yayyyy. I just left my "gifts" at work.
    via u/tab021
  • 53
    Cheezburger Image 10519755776
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 54
    ThHeretic At my office we hired a mediator to come in and address some of the workplace concerns. Our communication and interaction with one particular employee was lacking. This employee has a competitive nature that borders on overbearing/uncomfortable. The mediator broke us all into pairs of two and asked
    via u/ThHeretic
  • 55
    us to arm wrestle with each other; the winner of each match would receive a chocolate (each group was given a bag of chocolates). Well everyone split up and performed the task. Every group just communicated that neither participant
    via u/ThHeretic
  • 56
    cared about "winning" and just wanted the chocolate, so everyone just split the bags. EXCEPT for the one employee we had issues with, she dominated her opponent and got every last piece of chocolate. The mediator was befuddled, gave a little speech and left. TL;DR Mediator had our office do team building exercises, realized we're beyond her help and left...
    via u/ThHeretic
  • 57
    [deleted] Back when smart phones weren't super popular my manager texted me some sh like "Wow! Any large pizza for just 10 BUCKS!! Tell your friends to order now!! Blah blah blah corporate monster blah..." Then instructed me to pass it on to my contacts. I proceeded to use the good
    via u/[deleted]
  • 58
    ol' fill the ten recipient slots with the same contact and sent it right back to her. I hit re-send about fifteen times causing her phone to be unable to do anything but recieve my messages one at a time, 150 times. She didn't send me bulls marketing texts to forward after that.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 59
    O... I wasn't there, but this is the story I got for a meeting I missed. The company holds a meeting where people actually have to travel and get hotels in the home city (including the CEO). The meeting was something where the CEO was supposed to talk, state of the company, etc. Moral was
    via u/ooblek
  • 60
    generally low because they had been cracking the whip on everyone for the last 2 years (everyone was working 10-16 hours a day, sometimes on weekends too - on salary). So the CEO starts talking, making his presentation, and towards the end of the hour the hotel staff start setting up chafing dishes and setting food out. Everyone is hungry. The Q&A period is
    via u/ooblek
  • 61
    prolonged for an extral HOUR because people keep asking dumb questions. So finally it ends and everyone lines up for food. It is fettucini alfredo or something, and it is quite disgusting after sitting in the dish becoming lukewarm after an hour. To top it all off, the CEO, in front of everyone, says, "I'm not eating that cr p; it's full
    via u/ooblek
  • 62
    of carbs." HE LEAVES everyone behind to go out to a "real" restaurant. Some of the execs stay behind to eat with the employees because they knew what this had just done. The CEO did something similar during the company christmas party several months earlier. He traveled from his home state to the state where most of the employees are, showed up
    via u/ooblek
  • 63
    for about an hour, then asks one of the younger sales people, "Where are the good clubs to go to for getting drinks and a decent dinner." He then takes off the rest of the night, leaving us to eat the dinner served at the party. I quit quite a while ago, and he was replaced about a year later. Unfortunately, I've worked under CEOs that were much much worse.
    via u/ooblek
  • 64
    [deleted] Thomson Reuters axed our xmas bonuses so that we could have 4 52" tv screens that displayed sky news, company stock results, company predictions and security systems.
    via u/[deleted]

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