6 Emails You Get When Your Company Is About to Go Under
In today's uncertain and, well, terrifying economic climate, it's good to think ahead. While we don't want to alarm you, basically your company could go broke at any second and you'll be out on the street. Even worse, it's in their best interest to keep it from you until the very last moment. All you have are the emails that arrive in your inbox, the high-level assistant who loves to gossip and your nose for bullshit.
Here are six warning signs that you might just be on a sinking ship.
#6.
Sudden Company-Wide "Status" Meetings
The Email You'll Get:
"Our Founder and CEO of DoomedCorp would like to bring the DoomedCorp family together to talk about our future. Attendance required."
What's Actually Going On:
No one likes meetings, but they beat the alternative of, you know, working. Unless they're not watching your Internet usage in which case the meeting is just a rude interruption in your porn stream.
Every few months you probably have big meetings where the CEO talks about how bright the company's future is, if we all just work a little harder and keep our eyes on the prize, etc.
But the meeting to get worried about is the sudden, unscheduled, company-wide meeting. There's a good chance they are trying to get ahead of bad news, breaking it to you before you read about it in the papers. Or hear that guy on CNBC screaming about it.
These meetings are all about damage control. Keep an ear open for vagueness ("We here at DoomedCorp are facing some tough times, but I promise you, we'll forge ahead with determination!") and spin ("It seems dark now, but I assure you, there is a new dawn breaking.") It'll probably close with the CEO making a promise to stay with the company as long as it takes.
Time to Go:
Look for more meetings, with increasing frequency, as more bad news rolls in. The company is trying to get ahead of the office grapevine, suppressing rumors so you won't get nervous and quit, hoping you'll stay the course right up until you arrive to find a security guard standing next to a cardboard box filled with the stuff from your cubicle.
Of course, there's also the worst case scenario, which is when the sudden company-wide meeting is held after the bad news hits, because the news was so bad the company couldn't bring itself to say it to your face (like having it turn out the higher ups were robbing the company blind). So we guess another warning sign is if the CEO's speech is interrupted by the cops dragging him out the door.
#5.
Executives Finding New, Exciting Opportunities...Elsewhere
The Email You'll Get:
On Monday:
"Join us in congratulating Ted Stevens, Vice President of Sales, as he's agreed to accept a position with TechCom Solutions, Inc. as their Vice President of Sales Strategy! Let's meet at Chili's to celebrate! This is not a company sponsored event."
The next Tuesday:
"It's with great sadness that I announce the departure of Cathy White, who's chosen to spend more time with her family. It's a difficult decision for Cathy and, while I'm sure you're all surprised, we hope you'll join us in thanking her for all her hard work."
Two weeks later:
"Mark Harker has left us as director of IT. His replacement will be announced shortly."
What's Actually Going On:
Now, people change jobs all the time (you'll likely do it every five years or so). So you can't panic every time some executive leaves for greener pastures. But watch for several bailing out at once.
"See ya!"
Also, did Ted up there leave for a job that seems to be way down the ladder from the one he had here? As if it was a choice between taking that or finding himself on the street because his current job was about to go away?
Also, on his last day, did he smear "SAVE YOURSELVES" on the door to his office in his own feces?
Time to Go:
Did you work directly under the departed executive? Are all of your tasks suddenly getting shifted over to other departments, because his replacement prefers to work with his own people? Has someone on the web posted a form resignation letter for your company?
It may be time to call up Ted and TechCom and see if they've got any openings.
Otherwise, the next thing that will happen is...
#4.
Exciting New Opportunities Find You and Your Co-Workers
The Email You'll Get:
"Hi, everybody, I'm writing with great news. Bob, our former Customer Service Manager, has just been made Comptroller of Customer Management. Don't worry, he'll still be keeping an eye on you CSRs, but he'll also be supervising some other areas Ted was looking over before he transitioned to TechCom. Congratulations Bob!"
What's Actually Going On:
Notice that Bob is doing Ted's work, but didn't get Ted's title? That's because while Bob got some of Ted's responsibilities and they made up a new title for him, he didn't get a promotion or a raise. This kind of reshuffling happens all the time when a place is A) trying to save money and B) having trouble attracting talent to their sinking ship.
You might have noticed Ted's role was pretty vital, being VP of sales and all. What's it tell you that your company can't hire a guy to sell their product?
Time to Go:
When they start losing so much staff that it becomes a game of Office Task Musical Chairs, with you and others constantly taking on new duties, but with not even a new title to show for it. Now might be the time to look into that multilevel marketing operation your neighbor was telling you about.
This list is a lot more funny in retrospect. At the time I first read it, we were getting pretty much these exact signals at my (now former) job, so it was a bit too realistically painful to laugh.
ReplyPlease note that in some workplaces constructive discharge is difficult to implement because the harassment so closely resembles normal working conditions.
Reply20 years of Dilbert summed up in one sentence.
Stock giveaways are not a tax scam anymore. Stock given immediately has to be expensed at the price per share and options must also be expensed based on a series of rules.
ReplyI work for [Unnamed] Group (not allowed to mention it in any public discussion on the web per instructions from same as possible grounds for termination)... Here are the tricks the company learned...
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesOne complete department was phased out of building in which I work. They were all advised about 6 months in advance, in order to allow the staff to seek employment within the company. (Just not here: want a paycheck? Move. [Unnamed] Group won't cover any moving costs, but you will have to leave the state. Family? Children? [Unnamed] Group could not f*****g care less.)
Result?
Employees started getting their resumes in order, and we actively seeking work. Once they found it (obviously this was a while back), they simply used the strict attendance policy that was in place, were terminated and given the "Golden Handshake," all of their accrued time off and one week pay for every year of service... and the attendance policy was such that it only took a few days of coming in late, breaks being too long, leaving early and one unplanned day off.
Result from that: another department was going to be closed, same exact scenario, but the company decided to hold a Team Meeting day for the entire department, required attendance (sound familiar? That is because you just read it in this article), but instead of the infamous Business Casual, they could wear jeans!! Woo Hoo!! Of course, showing up to the meeting, they found boxes of Kleenex, about one per person, on the tables, and comfort food... lots of it. Surprise!! You don't work here anymore!!
Result? People got up, left and came back only to sign the paperwork and get their Golden Handshake...
Result? [Unnamed] Group changed its attendance policies... but only to eliminate the Golden Handshake....
When the department I started in was causing me to have high blood pressure and constant thoughts of showing up at work doing my Robert "Taxi Driver" DeNiro impression or my Michael "Falling Down" Douglas impression, I jumped to a different department.
About a year later, that department was closed... but announced in the local paper, radio and TV. [Unnamed] Group was furious all the way to the [Undisclosed] home office... because they wanted to do it...
By that point, the economy was starting to go full on Titanic, and the people there, instead of fleeing in droves, struggled to hold on to what they had (starvation and potentially becomes homeless does that). Suddenly, the micromanaging went from annoying to being an escalation of "How Fast Can We Break These People?" Between the stress of the department closing, the knowledge that you Had To Stay To The Bitter End Or Get Forcibly Sodomized, [Unnamed] began to bust chops. Literally every single undotted "I" or uncrossed "T" became An Issue.... and people were terminated left and right, and of course more than a few started having spontaneous nosebleeds and blood discharging from their ears in geysers.
Why stay? Because if you could somehow make it to the end, you got (drum roll) the Golden Handshake!!
Result: people refused to just quit and started milking that cow for all it was worth.
Corporate response? Crack down on every jot and tittle (yes. I said tittle. Go ahead: I'll wait...) and began raising the bar of Acceptable Standard... while deciding to keep that department open for another month... then another... then another...
The carrot and stick approach only works if A) there is a carrot, B) the carrot must appear to be within reach and C) the stick is used to dangle the carrot rather than flog the wage slaves .... um, employees.
Ahhh.... I feel better. Don't you?
Compass Group, by any chance?
hehehe... tittle.
I believe the companies name was Initech.
-deleted
ReplyAnd this, fellas, is why you grew up with the TV's canned information saying international trade and hiring illegals and bashing unions was cool. Yeah, and you were "Cool LiberTardians" who tolerated this because someday if you kissed up/kicked down hard enough you'd be the boss and get to lay off your employees, ship their jobs overseas and get a private island or something. Except options to do that pretty much were limited to those that dropped from the right dam that'd have them anyways....
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesSays the guy posting on his computer at work.
I mean, if it wasn't for unions, people could cross-train as they want, get promoted based on ability, set their hours to match demand, keep more of their paycheck...
You know what the steelworker's union was doing while the industry was collapsing? Buying more unions. They are now "The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union". You know what the auto union was doing while its industry was collapsing? Buying more unions. They are now "The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America". You know what the steelworkers and auto workers were doing at that time? Getting fucked in the ass.
You know who *is* still employed in this terrible economy? Union management.
@ jayman419 There is no reason we cannot produce goods in the United States other than it saves companies money to have orphans overseas do it for far less than a livable wage.
I think the unions are the lesser of two evils here.
If it wasn't for unions (socialist unions, at that!), you'd work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, until your right hand was mangled by an industrial accident and then fired your ass.
DAMN YOU UNIONS!
The reason we don't produce good in the US is that it's more expensive to do it here. And the people overseas are paid a lot better than most other jobs they could get.
Unions used to be a good idea. There used to be a problem with mangling, etc. There isn't really that problem any more.
All of these happened at the company I worked at. However they also did something which isn,t on the list: implemented new company policies without telling the employees. Because they didn't want to hire some freelancers to replace the s**tload of people they fired, somebody decided that employees in my department could not take a two week vacation. As it turns out, it wasn't official company policy, just the manager's idea to make herself look good to the higher ups. Still didn't get my two week vacation, and so I quit and never looked back. Well enough of my venting...
ReplyAhh, "new company policies". I remember those. It's just the company's way of stacking up reasons to fire you.
Pretty much this whole list happens at MediaBrains,Inc all the time. When I was there, the owner would renegotiate contracts weekly, when he saw sales people would make more & more money on sales. He thought he could automate the renewal system and get rid of the whole sales team. He realized after the fact that when most didn't renew, he had the janitor calling to find out why, and no one calling to make new sales.
ReplyMy mom sells credit for a national bank. They're pulling the same bs on their salesmen/women. They're looking for work with the competition. What a surprise!
if this is happening, i think that maybe calling everyone a crazy bastard, smearing fecal matter and blood on the floor until you get fired. then you get unemployment pay. in fact, try that instead of quitting.
Replyok, TECHNICALLY fraud but still...
I used to work for the New York Times and every single one of these happened. That was like two years ago. Newsprint is dying fast
ReplyMust be because of sites like this.
Way to be an a*****e, dude.
"Please note that in some workplaces constructive discharge is difficult to implement because the harassment so closely resembles normal working conditions."
ReplyBT;DT.
I still have nightmares about the security guard and the cardboard box and the 9 AM drive home, and that is not a joke.
ReplyBeen there, a couple of times. If you get a recorded voicemail message inviting a large chunk of the office to a mandatory unannounced meeting, DON'T GO!
Anybody, anybody who thinks that their mailbox looks similar to this article, please tell us your company name. We want to dump their stocks.
ReplyNothing would please me more, but the company for which I work has stated emphatically that doing so is cause for termination... I cancelled my FB account due to (among many other things) the [Unnamed] Group announcing that they are actively monitoring that site...
Mirage: Unfriend AND block everyone that can potentially get you in trouble (yes, including co-workers unless you were friends with them long before working at [REDACTED] and *know* for reallysure you can trust them), then lock down your account so everything is Friends Only or "Custom - Only Me" (not Public, and not Friends of Friends unless that's the only option). And that goes for photos too. Social-network monitoring companies legally can only access things you've allowed the whole world to see.
While you're at it, keep an eye on Twitter and Google+ too, since EVERYTHING on Twitter is public by design (unless you lock your tweets, which is pointless) and Google probably would give up your "private" posts at the waving of a $5 bill.
I worked for Starbucks Corporate about two years ago (right before they did massive layoffs) and we got every single one of these e-mails in a two month period. Fun times.
ReplyI used to work for a small foodservice company. They kept
Replyexpanding,opening more units,but with no one to staff them.
Towards the end,paychecks started bouncing. The final straw
was when the chef-managers(myself included) would get phone
calls on Sunday afternoons from our district managers saying
that "our orders to our food vendors got screwed up",meaning
they won't deliver because they haven't gotten paid in months.
So we were told to take the next days profits and go to
Restaurant Depot to get food for the week. The company folded
soon after.
I s**t you not, I was at a company where the paychecks bounced, I'd be the first one to the office in the morning and I'd be the one to find eviction notices on the door, and my health insurance (which was deducted from my check) lapsed for non-payment. But the absolute final straw was when my boss said she had a cure for all of our problems. She had printed out an e-mail that she said was from Bill Gates and told us to forward it to all of our friends. I resigned by the end of the day.
ReplyBill Gates scam? Please elaborate, this sounds like an interesting story.
All of the above are Standard Operating Procedure in the construction industry...especially for electrical contractors.
ReplyA big one is when the company stops providing free tea/coffee/biscuits. When the penny-pinching gets that bad, time to go.
ReplyJust a reminder everyone: Due to budget cutbacks, our office may now only provide you with this... special blend of coffee generously provided by the local McDonald's dumpst- I uh mean, staff.
Having been through a major merger and restructuring, I can verify that this article is accurate. If you see any of these things, START LOOKING FOR A NEW JOB.
Reply Hide All See All 9 RepliesIcing on the cake: when my department was phased out and we were let go, I was the only one offered a continued position with the company. Essentially, I was going to be reporting to three times more bosses (that worked for 'the other company' before the merger), have twice as many responsibilities, working a sus**ciously vague job description, and they couldn't be bothered to offer me a single red cent more. This was the offer they presented, knowing I had another job that paid more than my current position.
Does the filter seriously stop you from writing sus**cious?
Dirty, sus**cious Mexicans. Huh, well look at that. It does!
Susp1cious. There's always a way.
sus**cious let's see what's the guilty combo
I too am suspicious. whoaah!
brysonwillis! what manner of witchcraft are you practicing? I am suspicous of you!
Yet you can write
s
p
i
c
When I got laid off, I was called back after a couple of months, but for half the pay. I don't think they could slap me in the face harder if they tried.
I think brysonwillis is a very suspicious person...
I know for a fact that my school's teachers have received at least four of these... They'd probably have received the other half if it wasn't for the fact that schools do not yet have stock.
Reply