People Who Work For Dying Companies Reveal What The Mood Is Really Like

At the end of the day, no one's job is one-hundred percent secure.

As a change in the economy, the political climate, or even in the administration in your place of work could see you without a job in the blink of an eye.

When you are constantly reading or seeing in the news how badly your company is doing on a regular basis, you have even more reason to worry about your job.

And likely find yourself clocking in to a less-than-jovial mood each day.

Redditor cubansbottomdollar was eager to learn more about the work environments of companies that appear to be on borrowed time, leading them to ask:

"People working at dying companies (Yahoo, AOL, JC Penney, etc.) what's the morale/general mood like?"

The Dangers Of The Digital Age

"A friend of mine retired from the local paper where he'd worked for 25 years."

"By the time he left, the paper's staff consisted of:"

'The editor/publisher/reporter- The adman (himself) who doubled as photographer- one constantly-turning-over-reporter position, which didn't require a journalism degree- one stringer photographer who also did some reporting."

"When he started in 1999 they had a staff of 20+, including a stable of reporters and dedicated photographers, and numerous ad-peeps."

"He said he was glad he got into it when he did, but he effectively worked through the post-peak years of local journalism."- peaveyftw

Progress Can Be Subjective...

"I worked in newspapers, on the printing side."

'It was staffed entirely by older people who were basically unhirable trying to pad out their 401k before they hit 70 and younger uneducated people who are glad to be doing anything other than food service or retail."

"Generally speaking, we were overworked and underpaid but for someone like me it was godsend opportunity.'

'I went from washing dishes 7 days a week and barely making ends meet, to having weekends off and two weeks of paid vacation every year."- lookyloolookingatyou

What They Did For Love

"Not necessarily a company, but I’ve worked on broadway shows that have closed and the morale can be pretty bad."

"Looking at grosses and being like we are gonna have a company meeting any week now, and not knowing if you were gonna close immediately or have a couple more weeks can be pretty stressful."

"It’s hard to predict what’s gonna be successful, and there’s nothing worse than thinking you are on a sure-fire hit and seeing the house is only at 60 percent capacity most days lol."- Cold_Entertainer9564

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What's In A Name?... Job Security Apparently!

"Many years ago my brother Byron worked for an American oil company that was once a regional powerhouse and had a big skyscraper."

"They got bought by a European company who didn’t want to immediately fire all the Americans for PR reasons, but everyone there knew that their days were numbered."

"Morale was terrible."

"It seemed like each week about 1/2 of a floor would be fired."

"Byron was particularly worried since he worked in an area easy to outsource."

"So the day his boss came into his office Byron was sure he was going to be let go."

"Much to his surprise, his boss let him know that he was the one who had been fired and told Byron, that as far as he knew, Byron still had a job."

"So Byron kept coming to work but had no one to report to."

"His direct deposit kept coming thru every two weeks and he came into the office and worked on getting a new job."

"Finally one of the European managers who showed up periodically told him he might as well 'work from home' and that he would call him if they needed him to come in."

"Byron was pretty depressed since no one else was hiring."

"So he stopped looking for a job."

"He stayed home and started drywalling his unfinished basement."

"And the direct deposits kept coming."

"Months later, in-laws came to visit and they got on his nerves after a few days so he got dressed up and went into his office to get away from them."

"As it turns out, the European manager was in town also and came into his office and said 'Byron - that’s an English name, right?'”

"Byron agrees that it is, and the manager invited him to a meeting that afternoon."

"When he showed up, the manager greeted him by his name and told everyone 'this is Byron and he is going to take notes'.”

"So Byron takes notes, gets several assignments, and is back working full time."

"No one asks what he has been doing for six months."

"He figured that having a non-American-sounding name was all it took."- WillingPublic

Taking Advice From Anywhere They Can Get...

"Didn’t take the job, but I interviewed for Claire’s a few months ago, and the interviewer explicitly mentioned they’re really struggling and asked me my strategy to target customers from the demographics of competition stores."

"I’d never actually shopped at a Claire’s before but walked out of the interview thinking ‘oh they’re going under soon’."- shroom_in_bloom

Before There Were Podcasts...

"Like many of you, I got out of my chosen career radio, because of corporate America."

"When good/great ratings and decently paid announcers were looked at as solely a cost and no benefit, I bailed."

"There is VERY little original content being produced in your local markets."

"One reason why they lean so heavily on sports."

"Other than that, a few major broadcast companies own most of the radio stations, and they force announcers to record daily radio shows in markets that they have never even set foot into."

"Basically, 'that was ____, here is _____'."

"Local radio, with a few exceptions, is dead."- VoiceGuyNextDoor

Animation Chilling GIF by Gabriela Sibilska Giphy

Disconnected

"I worked at a telephony service out of university, they were selling VOIP technology to big customers like CISCO and Nortel."

"At one point, they were massive, almost 500 people working at the main headquarters' call centre."

'By the time I joine,d there were 10 of us, operating out of a tiny section of this once massive, mothballed office.'

"Our chief IT guy had an entire floor to himself and worked on the complete other side of the building..."

"At night, he would construct massive castles out of old desks and divider walls."

"Working there was alright, mostly we were there to maintain support on the remaining existing contracts but it was pretty clear the company was just waiting to be put out of its misery by the new bigger companies in the market."

"It was a kind of boring job, and ultimately, after being a mediocre employee for five years, I was fired for watching Invader Zim episodes I'd downloaded off Napster on the company computers."- pbradley179

Former Glory

"I work at a super famous, 150-year-old company that is dying the slowest of deaths."

"Hint: they had their own tower in Chicago at one point."

"There’s some great people that have been there a long time."

"General mood is people are trying their best but turning things around and restoring the glory to this once great company is like pissing up a rope."- zippie26

Gone With The Click Of A Button

"I worked at Justice RIGHT before they filed bankruptcy and it was miserable."

"None of us knew just how bad the company was doing until we got an email."

"Everyone put in their 2 week notice and all but 6 people quit on the same day."- Clementinecutie13

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When Life Is Simply Out Of Your Hands...

"I worked for a dying company once, and like... most days, it just doesn't come up."

"There are projects, you do your work, you have some laughs with coworkers, you get paid."

"Everyone knows it's likely the job will eventually end."

"There are people who are very, very paranoid about layoffs and will talk about them a lot."

"Those people are annoying, honestly, it's not worth being paranoid all the time."

"Make a plan/decision about what you'll do and do that thing."

"The decision could be finding another job and leaving soon, or waiting it out to see what happens."- sexrockandroll

Grounded...

"I worked at a tiny failing airline once and tbh the morale was no worse than any other company I’ve worked at."

"Me and pretty much everyone I knew had no real vested interest in that company other than a paycheck, so none of us really GAF about the company at all."

"It was annoying having to deal with vendors refusing service on occasion because the company wasn’t paying its bills and there were jokes with each other about hoping our paychecks didn’t bounce, but beyond that it was like any other job."

"Somehow it managed to limp along for another 15 years or so after I left."- non_clever_username

Extra! Extra!

"I was a staffer at one of the top dailies (newspapers) in my state for eight years."

"In 2000, the newsroom had about 200 employees."

"Today, the number is four."

"The region we covered had about 200k people; today, there’s 400,000."- notsosubtlethr0waway

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First Hand Experience...

"I interned at a newspaper in 2010."

"One day my mentor was there, the next she wasn't."

"I asked what happened, and they said she was on vacation."

"Yeah, right, she cleared out her entire office to go on vacation."

"Then the entire department I was interning with shut down, and I was awkwardly shuttled to a different one, and they didn't know what to do with me."

"It was just weird."- Neon_and_Dinosaurs

Not All Change Is For The Better

"In our 100-year-old company, they hired a CEO from outside the company."

"Previously, the CEO always came up through the ranks and was promoted into the position."

"The first thing the new CEO did was start cutting senior people because people were too 'comfortable'."

"In a few months, 900 people were 'separated'."

"Morale tanked, productivity dropped, and a bunch of clients went to competitors."

"Those of us who were left started a low-key 'Say Hello' campaign."

"If anyone, especially a manager said, 'Good Morning'."

"Our reply would be, 'Hello'."

"Someone eventually asked why, and got the explanation that there hasn't been a good morning here since the new CEO took over."

"The company tried to show how wonderful and responsive it was by doing an 'employee satisfaction survey'."

"The results were dismal."

"Rather than address the employees' concerns, the CEO decided to solve the problem by not doing any more satisfaction surveys."

"The CEO eventually 'left the company to pursue other opportunities', which was code for he was fired."

"The damage was already done."

"Fewer clients meant a declining workload, and I was eventually 'separated', but I was already mid-60s and just took retirement."

"The company still exists, but it is a mere shadow of its former status."- fredzout

Startup... or end down?

"I’ve worked for some failing startups."

"Upper management is very stressed because they think they can possibly turn things around if we just… bagged another investor, sold a few more units, etc."

"Rest of us know the end is near."

"Lunch talks are all about interviews and who’s hiring."

"We are happy when someone leaves."

"I’m just collecting the paycheck and padding my 401k."

"The call from HR is coming before the end of the year."

"It’s inevitable."

"But I show up, do my job, document everything, and go home at 5pm."

"Every day."- bondsman333

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Countless people go into work every day worried they might get fired with no cause at all.

If there's any feeling less fun than that, it's going into work fearing you might get fired with very just cause indeed...