# My wife's company tried to screw its employees, so they torpedoed the company right back. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 6, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765 "2010-07-06T20:11:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/61 "2010-07-07T18:33:07Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > How many programmers does it take to change a lightbulb? > > Hardware issue. Contact your vendor. > [@tdn](#): > > Let’s try rebooting your light switch. > [@vd](#): > > Nah, that’s customer service. Close all your windows, go outside, come back in, and see if it’s changed. > [@tdn](#): > > If that doesn’t work we can try putting a patch on the lightbulb. Y’all forgot that you’re supposed to cut off the power to the whole damn house, wait 10 to 15 minutes, and then turn the power back on. It comes right after rebooting the light switch, and is between going outside and coming back in. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/62 "2010-07-07T18:34:51Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > What peoplpe want more than anything is not perks and pay, but actual influence on the job. Even if that’s true, the fastest way to lose the respect of your employees is to take away those perks or pay. You can eat away at “employee influence” for years without anybody noticing, but take away accrued vacation time or even something simple like free coffee and watch employee morale go to the toilet. Mainly because rumors like “if we can’t afford coffee, is this company going bankrupt?” start flying. ---
**Author:** ![Duke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e8c25b/32.png) [@Duke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/63 "2010-07-07T18:40:34Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > Y’all forgot that you’re supposed to cut off the power to the whole damn house, wait 10 to 15 minutes, and then turn the power back on. It comes right after rebooting the light switch, and is between going outside and coming back in. This reminds me of a cruel but brilliant plan worked up by another database company. There was a “known issue” which caused the database to lock in a certain situation. When a client called in with said issue, the customer service rep would ask for their superuser password, then tell the client to have everybody log out while the company “fixed things from their end.” Of course, the company had to do nothing…getting everybody to log out sorted the problem. God only knows how many “client service call fees” that company bagged from that. ---
**Author:** ![Khaki\_Campbell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de053/32.png) [@Khaki\_Campbell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khaki_Campbell)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/64 "2010-07-07T18:43:47Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > My wife’s company used to be a small mom-n-pop outfit with a great **corporate culture** , Two words combined that can’t make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/65 "2010-07-07T18:46:06Z")
> [@Duke](#): > > This reminds me of a cruel but brilliant plan worked up by another database company. There was a “known issue” which caused the database to lock in a certain situation. When a client called in with said issue, the customer service rep would ask for their superuser password, then tell the client to have everybody log out while the company “fixed things from their end.” Of course, the company had to do nothing…getting everybody to log out sorted the problem. > > God only knows how many “client service call fees” that company bagged from that. If Catbert didn’t dream up that plan, then he’s absolutely green with jealousy that he didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Punoqllads](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d2c977/32.png) [@Punoqllads](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Punoqllads)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/66 "2010-07-07T18:57:10Z")
> [@Duke](#): > > There was a “known issue” which caused the database to lock in a certain situation. When a client called in with said issue, the customer service rep would ask for their superuser password, then tell the client to have everybody log out while the company “fixed things from their end.” Of course, the company had to do nothing…getting everybody to log out sorted the problem. > [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > If Catbert didn’t dream up that plan, then he’s absolutely green with jealousy that he didn’t. Yeah, if EvilGenius, Inc. tells a sysadmin that the problem can be fixed by everyone logging out, then said sysadmin probably goes around bad-mouthing EGI’s programmers. But telling him that they’ll fix things from “their end” makes the syadmin feel like he’s not technically adept enough so he’ll cover his ass by blaming something else entirely (“UPS bit-bucket maintenance today, should take about fifteen minutes.”) ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/67 "2010-07-07T19:22:48Z")
Just to put a little perspective on thislets look at things from the other side. Yes, SIRSI was a nice small company that was a great place to work - they paid well and gave people a lot of good jobs with good benefits. They had a good culture and wrote good software. The problem with writing good software is that customers are happy with it. They don’t want to buy your new product because they are happy with the one they have. Those multi-million dollar sales start to dry up and suddenly the company is in big trouble. So what do they do? They tell the libraries that they aren’t going to support the older systems any longer. You can keep using the old one, but if something goes wrong, you better have someone on your staff that can fix it, don’t bother calling us. They’d also add some new “essential” upgrade that the libraries had to take and pay for, even if they didn’t want it. Yes, maybe it was a useful tool for Stanford or Duke or Princeton, but some podunk community college was forced to pay for it as well. This industry absolutely raped the library community for years. The great jobs that the company provided came at a great price to the library community. The libraries didn’t do themselves any favors by not providing any organized opposition to these tactics. It happened with journal subscriptions as well. The journal publishers just kept raising prices 10-20% a year for no legitimate reason, and the libraries kept paying, while their only response was to bitch up a storm on the listserves. When the economy finally made it impossible for schools and public libraries to expect increased funding year to year, it forced some tough decisions, and they finally started to tell vendors “no”. This caused tremendous grief in the vendor community. While there were dozens of library automation companies in 2000, there are only a half-dozen or so that really matter anymore. It’s much worse in the journal industry. There’s a reason the owners, the “mom and pop” sold their company five years ago - they saw the writing on the wall and realized it was a good time to get out. The bottom line is, even while the California owners may well be heartless bastards, the glory days in that industry are over, and even if the original owners were still in charge, bad things would be happening. Every company that deals with libraries as their primary customer is going through the same sorts of things. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/68 "2010-07-07T19:44:48Z")
> [@Lamar\_Mundane](#): > > Yes, SIRSI was a nice small company that was a great place to work - they paid well and gave people a lot of good jobs with good benefits. They had a good culture and wrote good software. The problem with writing good software is that customers are happy with it. This is a problem with a lot of software companies, though. There are solutions which do not involve being a titanic jerk. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/69 "2010-07-07T21:32:36Z")
A firm I worked for (in RI) did this-they moved to Florida. The people who moved with them really got the shaft-within 12 months of making the move, the Florida location was shut down. These people found themselves in anew area and no jobs-really a bad deal. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/70 "2010-07-07T21:35:45Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > My wife’s company used to be a small mom-n-pop outfit with a great corporate culture, and employees that considered each other to be family. Great bunch of people, and the managers and VPs were no different. Over 30 or so years, it became the largest company of its kind in the world, and still had a close-knit, wonderful culture about it. The turnover rate was low, you had the seasoned veterans sticking around because they were being treated well, etc. > > About 5 years ago, the company was bought out by an investment company in California, who then bought another, related company in Utah, and merged the two. Since then, life has been hell. Constant layoffs. Constant “streamlining” consisting of draconian cutbacks to keep the company in ready-to-sell condition. This past Spring, the company, in order to keep it from looking like a debt on the bottom line, confiscated all accumulated vacation time for all employees. > > … You have the lay the blame on the shoulders of “mom and pop”. They’re the ones that sold their souls (and their neat company) to the investment company and started this train wreck. Fuck them. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/71 "2010-07-07T22:01:50Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > You have the lay the blame on the shoulders of “mom and pop”. They’re the ones that sold their souls (and their neat company) to the investment company and started this train wreck. Fuck them. Bullshit. That’s like blaming someone for an accident because they were driving on the road when someone hit them. Where does it say _anywhere_ that the owners of a business can’t sell it? As noted by **Lamar** , they saw the writing on the wall and got out when the getting was good. The employees aren’t pets. You don’t owe them lifelong care and protection. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/72 "2010-07-07T23:30:56Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > A firm I worked for (in RI) did this-they moved to Florida. The people who moved with them really got the shaft-within 12 months of making the move, the Florida location was shut down. > These people found themselves in anew area and no jobs-really a bad deal. Dad worked for the same pharmaceutical company for just over 30 years, during which time it went through a few different parents. Ford Motors. Greyhound. Revlon. Revlon transferred him and a bunch of his colleagues from Illinois to another, fast-growing, subsidiary in New York. Three years later, Revlon reduced the Tarrytown subsidiary to a skeleton as a cost-cutting measure because the cosmetics division was doing so poorly. Dad, 52 at the time, was one of the first to be terminated. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/73 "2010-07-07T23:49:24Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > You have the lay the blame on the shoulders of “mom and pop”. They’re the ones that sold their souls (and their neat company) to the investment company and started this train wreck. Fuck them. Not always true. I worked for a guy for years who always tried to do well for his employees. (At one point, he fired his accountant because when he went to set up a 401k for the staff, the beanie kept dragging his feet and trying to steer him into a different plan that would have netted the owneer more money and the employees less.) Eventually he sold to a big outfit that was expanding because the big guys’ cash flow was going to be a serious improvement on his ability to hand out bonuses and provide for retirement. Unfortunately, the CEO and the board of the big company got into a pissing contest, the CEO (who had a particular vision of the company that would have really taken off in a couple of years), quit in a huff, and the board disestablished all the divisions that were part of the ex-CEO’s plan. My boss took a huge hit on that one and wound up restarting his original company–minus the capital the big company had looted from the merger. Without knowing the details of the sale, I am not inclined to condemn “mom and pop” out of hand. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/74 "2010-07-08T00:36:37Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > The employees aren’t pets. You don’t owe them lifelong care and protection. And employers should not expect any measure of loyalty or sacrifice from employees. It’s just business. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/75 "2010-07-08T01:03:05Z")
None of those solutions are a PROGRAMMING solutions. Obviously we need to assemble a team to gather requirements for what it will take to come up with a Lightbulb Management System. I’d like an initial funding base of $1.5 million and six months, at which point we should be able to give you a full estimate of the total time and cost for this project. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/76 "2010-07-08T01:06:55Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > None of those solutions are a PROGRAMMING solutions. > > Obviously we need to assemble a team to gather requirements for what it will take to come up with a Lightbulb Management System. I’d like an initial funding base of $1.5 million and six months, at which point we should be able to give you a full estimate of the total time and cost for this project. I’ll just stick with my open source candle. It’s easy to troubleshoot and I can always make my own if I need to.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/77 "2010-07-08T01:22:18Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > None of those solutions are a PROGRAMMING solutions. > > Obviously we need to assemble a team to gather requirements for what it will take to come up with a Lightbulb Management System. I’d like an initial funding base of $1.5 million and six months, at which point we should be able to give you a full estimate of the total time and cost for this project. Sorry, first I’ll need to see full functional and non-functional requirements, a preliminary database design, a fully leveled project plan and WBS, your communications plan, risk mitigation strategy, project charter, process flow diagrams for all major processes, deliverables acceptance criteria, quality management plan, and driver’s license. At which point, I’ll use all that to bid the project out to somebody else who’ll do the whole thing for $990,000 using off-shored resources. But thanks for playing! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2010, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/78 "2010-07-08T10:46:15Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > After all, why would anyone want to live in a hellhole like Huntsville or St. Louis when beautiful Provo, with its tolerant, accepting LDS culture, beckoned? You’re being sarcastic, right? Provo is a Pleasantville, Stepford-wife filled hellhole, and if you’re not Mormon you’re less than nothing. The only culture there is the LDS culture, much like yogurt has culture. There’s no night life, there’s no great places to eat, everyone is pasty white with dishwater blond hair, (so if you’re swarthy you’re an _outsider_) and the lake stinks. Sure, if you’re young you can go hang out at BYU and try to get handjobs from the Mormon co-eds there, but they think the Gentiles (that’s us) aren’t marriageable, and they certainly wouldn’t let you meet their family. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/79 "2010-07-09T08:13:25Z")
About employees & loyalty: Some years ago, I worked for a large banking company that for several years had been emphasizing employee stock ownership. They would actually match up to 15% of your salary put into a 401K in company stock. One of the underlying assumptions the management had in doing this was that they thought these employee-owned shares would always be voted in favor of management. Ha! We worked there; we KNEW how screwed up the management was. They were unpleasantly surprised\* to find employee stockholders voting AGAINST the management position more than other stockholders. Including those really big chunks of stocks that they had set aside for future ESOP purchases – Federal regs required that block to be voted in proportion with the votes of the shares already purchased by employees, so these shares mostly went against management. Which then got noticed by some Wall-street analysts. - which was nothing new – this management seemed to frequently get _unpleasantly surprised_ when their plans didn’t go as planned in the real world. ---
**Author:** ![bdgr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a87d85/32.png) [@bdgr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bdgr)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765/80 "2010-07-09T08:33:56Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > Y’all forgot that you’re supposed to cut off the power to the whole damn house, wait 10 to 15 minutes, and then turn the power back on. It comes right after rebooting the light switch, and is between going outside and coming back in. Just define “dark” as the new standard. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-wifes-company-tried-to-screw-its-employees-so-they-torpedoed-the-company-right-back/545765.md?page=5)