I think that most people go into a job assuming the best of the people and companies they work for. I mean, sure, everyone is out to make a buck and the majority of places have that as their top priority, but I think we figure they’re not exactly out to get their employees, either.
These 15 people, then, must have been shocked to realize the people they were working for were not only shady as heck, but would totally throw them under the bus to save a buck.
15. Why would anyone volunteer to close?
Cinemark Theaters used to force employees in the snack bar to work overtime until the cleaning was complete, but then would go back and retroactively change timecards so that everyone clocked out right at 11:15 for closing, as closing was only supposed to take 30 minutes after the last showtime starts at 10:45. I was a weekend closer for a few years, and occasionally would be there until 1am+ on really busy nights when management wanted thing detailed. All of those hours went into the nether. They’d hide the fact that you weren’t getting overtime by lying on your paystub.
They also used to fudge lunch breaks, saying that it was “too busy” to send employees on their lunch at a proper time, so you’d occasionally show up to work and go on lunch 15-30 minutes after arriving, or you’d go on “lunch” after 7.5 hours in your shift and just end 30 minutes early, but with an expectation that you’d hang around for 30 minutes until you your shift was over.
I do my best to avoid their theaters, despite them being everywhere.
14. This is so super common.
I worked 30 minutes after closing because we still had customers in our store shopping. The next day, I found out my manager cut 30 minutes off because I “didn’t clock out on time.”
I argued saying that there was still customers shopping and I still had to ring them up. He then proceeds to say, “We do not do overtime here. So we’re still overriding it anyways.”
13. Good for him.
Hide political contributions, I was CFO and warned the board that this was illegal, I resigned over it. A few months the SEC auditor caught it and they were heavily fined, they blamed me for ratting on them.
I didn’t, but I suspect that one of my subordinates did for a reward, good for him.
12. The day idealism died.
My coworkers always forging the signs on the financial reports (the document for the upper ups). The admins know, the bosses know.
If there are new projects, definitely there will be some percents cut “for tax”, and that “tax” went into those people’s private pockets.
They said that it’s how things are (work in a university funded by government, in a corrupted country). My naive & fresh from university a$$ really am afraid. My idealism is not ready for this kind of reality.
11. Insurance fraud is bad.
I was working in a lab and observed that we were charging for chem7 and chem 14 and just running the chem14 that covers everything in the chem 7. Basically charging the insurance company and patient for labs that were only done once.
There was other stuff I noticed like this but I always felt like that was bad insurance fraud. Fortunately the place got sold. Just hope they stopped doing that crap.
10. Well I hate this.
An employee was grooming vulnerable teenage girls. Was caught in his car with more than one.
This is at Children’s Aid.
He was the brother in law of one of the directors.
9. It caught up with them eventually.
They told us we were not allowed to put in overtime regardless of how many hours we worked and denied it if anyone tried.
They ended up having to pay out 2 years of back overtime and then switched everyone to exempt employees.
8. That’s…not a thing.
A few years ago I was working/living at a McDonald’s in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The area manager decided to “save” the store so she became very… involved… in its day to day micromanagement.
One payday morning she made an announcement that, because everyone kept coming in asking for their checks and bothering her, she would be giving them to us when she felt we deserved them.
I called the local Department of Labor, who referred me to the state, who referred me back to local, who then told me they just didn’t care and weren’t looking into it. It eventually resolved itself anyway when she handed checks out the next day.
7. That must be ill-advised.
Overbill the government.
A previous employer was successfully sued by the government when his secretary made a whistleblower complaint about his billing practices.
The secretary ended up with over 400k from the government as her reward. This was about 20 years ago when 400k was worth a lot more.
6. He wasn’t even sick.
I used to work at a place that was owned by an organization with some political affiliations. There was a rich Middle Eastern investor who owed my employer money. Literally millions from a contract that they simply never paid. It was quite a sensitive issue and one that everyone really wanted to keep out of court. Some negotiations took place and the investor agreed to pay but in return, wanted a spot on the board.
Everything was agreed, the guy would pay and then there would be a big party event, with some press, for his appointment to the board. At any rate, a few weeks before this was supposed to happen, the head of my organization became very ill and needed surgery and was gone for several weeks…the big party where the investor would become a member of the board had to be delayed.
It turns out, our big boss wasn’t actually sick at all and did not need to have surgery. Actually what happened was, the head of the organization that owned my employer was running for political office and was worried about the optics of the whole event (only being able to get this rich middle eastern dude to pay us what he owed by putting him on the board and granting him a bunch of power over the organization) and basically ordered our boss to feign a long illness that would require the event to be delayed until after the election.
5. Kids should have to earn their grades.
This year I passed grade 10 which in Nepal is known as an iron gate(very important) but due to the coronavirus exam got canceled and the government decided to evaluate us by internal evaluation (basically by teachers giving marks to students according to the past performance).
I was the best performing student in the school in the terminal and extracurricular activities well. I got a 3.9 GPA out of 4, I was satisfied because I used to get the same GPA in real physical exams. but my friends who failed in previous exams also got marks in the range of 3.80 to3.90 with the lowest being 3.60.
then I learned that the school was selling marks for rs 15000(150 us$).the school had asked my parents for money but my parents being confident of me they denied the offer, I am proud of them but now my marks are also regarded as corrupt by colleges and it’s getting harder to find colleges.
4. Lying to their employee’s faces.
Not as bad as some others in this thread, but it still really pissed me off.
I worked for a very large telecom company. They would do things around election time like ask for donations to the Super PAC that they were a part of for the good of the company or send a recommended list of people/topics that we should vote for in the elections (in so many words), but what really got me pissed off was when net neutrality was becoming a huge topic.
They sent everyone an email explicitly stating that they were in favor of net neutrality and that we had nothing to worry about if we heard the company name mentioned on the news or in court when it came to that topic and that they were on the side of the consumer and being free to visit the sites you wanted to visit with no catch.
Of course that was a lie because when numbers came out for what companies were lobbying and spending how much money for what side of the argument, they were one of the top contributors against net neutrality. It’s one thing to be a greedy corporation and not tell your employees how you’re being greedy and underhanded; it’s a completely different level to straight up lie to their faces about it in a company-wide email.
3. Good for her.
The owner of our company suggested that one of our female employees take one for the team. About as corrupt as it can get. (She did not, however.)
2. That’s life and death.
I work underground in the mines. One place started having, what the workers found out later, was asbestos type rock in the ore. The company took samples of it and then said it’s kind of like asbestos, but it’s not old enough to harm you.
Later after a bit of more concern from the workers, it was found out that the sample they took came back as inconclusive due to something else. They lied and allowed their workforce exposure to asbestos.
I quit after that and found work elsewhere.
1. Lunatic is one word for it.
I worked for IBM. I made 30k less than the opposite gender doing the same job. Additionally- My VP once yelled, like the screaming kind, at one of my co supervisors in a meeting for hiring a pregnant woman once he found out. Called him a fucking idiot because “Now they had to pay for her to go on a 2 month free vacation” and “it was a waste of everyones time to bother training her” and “we shouldn’t even hire women if they plan on getting pregnant” and “how can we term her out before the baby is born without getting in trouble because we won’t be able to after it’s born.”
He was a joooy to work for. The real reason I left was because he was a lunatic and I couldn’t take it anymore.
More on him just for fun- He once asked me to get a poster board made up for some department event. I told him I needed a red marker for the thermometer part and that we didn’t have one. He looked at me and said “can’t you just make red with the other colors?” I was like, “no?” Him, “well why not” me- “it is a primary color” him- “so?”.
I had to get a colorwheel and to explain colors to a man with 3 kids. He got mad, then eventually came back having bought what had to be every pack of red sharpies the store had when he went and tossed the bag on my desk spilling boxes everywhere and walked off. He would also say super inappropriate things to women.
He would get you alone in a room and awkwardly flirt or talk about what he looked for in a woman, like very specific details “i like it when they have just a little bit of a pooch in the belly” and described it with hand motions. He looked like the quintessential sleazy used car salesman.
He had one very wonky eye, never knew where it was looking, was working on his 3rd failed marriage and for a time was living out of his van in the parking lot and showering at work. He was a real gem.
I wish I was more surprised, y’all, but I mean…
If you’ve had a moment like this, tell us about it in the comments!
