# What is the most incompetent company? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 26, 2010, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450 "2010-01-26T00:40:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/81 "2010-01-29T03:01:22Z")
There also seem to be locations that are “cursed” somehow. The same building or storefront will see a run of half a dozen business open and shut down in the course of a decade. I always wondered why that was. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/82 "2010-01-29T03:17:03Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > A restaurant is a place where people go to set fire to their money. > > I lived for many years in Kingston, Ontario, a town with a very large and active restaurant scene, and it was amazing how many places opened and failed. My wife and I love eating out and would try them all. You’d go into a place and just know it was going to fail; they’d have good food but had forgotten to invest in furniture, so you were eating midpriced entrees on card tables, or the menu would be an inexplicable jumble. The next place would have nice decor and take two hours to get your food to you because the owners had never run a kitchen before and didn’t have the money to hire a real restaurant manager. It was almost painful to watch, and yet they popped up and died again and again, every year. It’s even worse than you’re portraying. You can do everything right - at least as far as the customer can tell - and still fail through lack of cashflow, financing, economic downturns, or four dozen other reasons. It is about so much more than feeding people. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/83 "2010-01-29T15:10:31Z")
> [@](#): > > The worst run businesses, in percentage terms, are usually failed restaurants. The restaurant business is brutally competitive, low margin, and very easy to screw up if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing. I’m sure you’ve all seen restaurants open and collapse in very short order. A restaurant is a place where people go to set fire to their money. I’ve heard that the failure rate in non-franchised restaurants is about 75%. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2010, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/84 "2010-01-29T22:42:17Z")
I have attended four, and in all cases, it is hard to find organizations MORE poorly run. Take physical plant:-huge buildings kept heated and lighted, with few classes held in them. -old buildings with no preventative maintainence-insted, they let them decay -poor utilization of athletic facilities-why not rent them out when not in use? -faculty utilization: poor and uneven (some junior professors have too much work, many tenured guys do nothing). College presidents are usually not good managers, as well. ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2010, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/85 "2010-01-30T01:34:51Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > There also seem to be locations that are “cursed” somehow. The same building or storefront will see a run of half a dozen business open and shut down in the course of a decade. I always wondered why that was. A lot of times, in cases like this, it really _is_ ‘location, location, location’. When I lived in western Maryland, there were a couple of store-fronts in my town that seemed to change hands every few hours or so (hyperbolically, of course). But. . .if you really _looked_ at the location, they were places where they were either very close to a shopping center that provided just about everything anyone needed, or because (in one particular case I can think of) there was _nowhere_ to park. So, if you were in walking distance, great. Otherwise, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Picard\_Kills\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/dec6dc/32.png) [@Picard\_Kills\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Picard_Kills_Kirk)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2010, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/86 "2010-01-30T22:56:06Z")
I can’t believe it took over 60 posts to get circuit city up here. The rise and fall of circuit city. I hated you. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2010, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/87 "2010-01-31T00:46:38Z")
Universities, especially small private ones with $$$, as mentioned by **ralph124c**. The one I worked for was incredibly ultra-liberal in self-professed ideology and incredibly paranoid. They had a ‘consensus based’ management style, which in the end means utter paralysis as every asshole learns that all they have to do is object to every little thing and it will never happen - which soon becomes a pissing war of “She shot me down, so I’m going to object to HER proposal!” (regardless of it’s real value) and worse, “I won’t take a stand on this issue because it will be shot down by my enemies and cost me prestige”. Which means that people occupy positions only for the value of occupying the position, not for the actual job or what they could do with it. I also worked for Prudential for a while. Big companies with lots of money can hire entire divisions full of people and not have a fucking clue what those people are doing for years at a time, pissing away millions before dropping the division without gain - and not even blink. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/88 "2010-02-01T22:10:43Z")
LLBean is awful lately. The material is cheap and it looks like it was made in a sweat shop. I had to send my last order back. I actually had a rude person on the phone and their customer service is usually the best. I ended up getting my money back and then some but that isn’t the point. I think they have sold out. ---
**Author:** ![Waffle\_Decider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/77aa72/32.png) [@Waffle\_Decider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waffle_Decider)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/89 "2010-02-01T23:17:33Z")
Comcast gets my nomination. The only reason they are still in business is because there are no practical alternatives for many people. When my workplace first got Comcast Internet, the reliability of our connection was extremely poor. It would work fine for a week or two, but then it would be very flakey for a few days. The reason was that due to our distance from their head office, the strength of the signal was only borderline acceptable by the time it got to our office. Any big temperature swing or other external events would easily push it out of serviceable range. And because it was borderline, and the service was not down all the time, the tech would often just say everything was working fine and closed out the ticket. This went on for almost a year before we finally convinced them to install a signal amplifier. Now the Internet is only down about every month or two instead of every week. :rolleyes: My Comcast service at home is also poor. They recently started converting my area to all digital cable, and I think the exercise is a complete disaster. Now everyone needs to hook up their little DTA device, which is a completely unreliable piece of shit. It seems that every month or so, my device would “loss” its activation signal, and I’d have to call Comcast to get it reactivated. Their CSR are always clueless, and sometimes rude. I’ll be switching to uverse or FiOS as soon as they are available in my area. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/90 "2010-02-01T23:54:19Z")
> [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](#): > > …including the (awful) web site: > [http://www.topdogcuts.com/Top\_Dog\_Cuts/Home.html](http://www.topdogcuts.com/Top_Dog_Cuts/Home.html) Is the website really that awful? At least it’s uncluttered. I think I will ask in IMHO, I’m curious what other people think of it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/91 "2010-02-01T23:55:34Z")
> [@](#): > > The one I worked for was incredibly ultra-liberal in self-professed ideology and incredibly paranoid. They had a ‘consensus based’ management style, which in the end means utter paralysis as every asshole learns that all they have to do is object to every little thing and it will never happen - which soon becomes a pissing war of “She shot me down, so I’m going to object to HER proposal!” (regardless of it’s real value) and worse, “I won’t take a stand on this issue because it will be shot down by my enemies and cost me prestige”. Which means that people occupy positions only for the value of occupying the position, not for the actual job or what they could do with it. Wikipedia’s run into the same problem. Some people don’t understand (or don’t want to understand) that a consensus means a majority agreement not a unanimous one. Few organizations can function with everyone having veto power. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/92 "2010-02-02T04:39:13Z")
> [@Perciful](#): > > LLBean is awful lately. The material is cheap and it looks like it was made in a sweat shop. I had to send my last order back. I actually had a rude person on the phone and their customer service is usually the best. I ended up getting my money back and then some but that isn’t the point. I think they have sold out. The quality greatly depends on what you buy and who makes it. Their Buck Pathfinder Knife is a ridiculously great knife for the money, for instance. But of course it is; it is made by Buck. As long as they still have their total return policy - meaning I can return that twenty-year-old L.L. Bean shirt for no real reason and get a comparable replacement, I think you can only call them incompetent in \*our \*favor - if at all. My father shipped them a pair of knee-high Bean hunting boots that were older than I am. He wanted to get them resoled. They did it at no cost. Years and years later, he shipped them back to be resoled yet again. This time, however, they determined the leather was just too far gone (40 years?) for another resoling to be worth while. Solution? Brand new pair of the same boots! All that said, they do carry some things that are not up to snuff. But the origin of the item is the big tip off there. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/93 "2010-02-02T13:29:05Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > I’d say the tobacco companies. They managed to develop a product that hooks its user for life (a GREAT business plan), but then kills the user (bad follow-up.) Well yes, but the user generally survives for decades and continues to smoke while hauling around an oxygen tank/speaking through an artificial larynx/left with 40% of cardiac function, and new generations start using because obviously they are immune to such problems. There’s so much money in it that you can even afford to make the occasional huge lawsuit payout and still rack up profits. And after your U.S. operations get curtailed there’s terrific earning potential in developing countries. A highly addictive product ensures that your business model doesn’t have to be super-efficient. ---
**Author:** ![It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/it_s_not_rocket_surgery/32/312_2.png) [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/94 "2010-02-02T14:56:39Z")
> [@Arnold\_Winkelried](#): > > Is the website really that awful? At least it’s uncluttered. I think I will ask in IMHO, I’m curious what other people think of it. It’s not bad to look at, just uninformative. I wouldn’t have referenced it except for the other issues with the business. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/95 "2010-02-02T15:15:03Z")
> [@nivlac](#): > > I think too many people are confusing poor customer service with corporate incompetence. If you can get away with it and remain in business, that’s not incompetence. Incompetence means going out of business. To me, the epitome of incompetence is a company like Blockbuster. They’ll likely close up shop this year. A core competency of corporate management is to have a sustainable growing business. This means looking at your competition and into the future to insure that you have a viable business model. Blockbuster was way ahead of everyone in video rentals. They dropped the ball in letting Netflix jump ahead of them in the on-line rental business. They compounded the problem with stupid promotions to try to beat Netflix. They blew the VOD business. Total incompetence. Bingo. A lot of the companies listed in this thread with poor customer service, especially best Buy, I could turn around and tell stories of great customer service. And Greyhound was great when I didnt’ have a car. I agree with Blockbuster and the like. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/96 "2010-02-02T15:24:48Z")
I agree, btw, on the opening up your own business thing. I never understood how people did it. The American dream may be to open your own business but not all of us can. (And it’s not my dream!) The employers still need employees! ---
**Author:** ![lindsaybluth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/90db22/32.png) [@lindsaybluth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lindsaybluth)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/97 "2010-02-02T21:22:43Z")
Pittsburgh city government. Latest fiasco? Given a parking ticket for not having a parking pass…when I _did_ have one on my dash. I was told I must formally have a hearing on it…because it was a guest parking pass. No hearings on regular parking passes. Just a way to screw with visitors. Luckily, I’m a _visitor_ from two blocks away. But just utter incompetence. I’ve worked with day laborers who look like string theorists compared with city employees. I live on the same street (not quite a city block) from some spankin’ new half-million dollar condos. So what do they do to welcome the new wealthy retirees Also, Verizon Wireless. Orders of magnitude dumber than your average ATT employee. > [@sachertorte](#): > > Macy’s > > It has nothing to do with customer service or evilness or good/bad product. It’s all about price. I can’t count the number of times I’ve purchased something from Macy’s only to find that the price at the register was much LOWER than what I expected. At the point I’m at the register I’ve already looked at the price tag and calculated any discounts that apply and have determined that I’m willing to spend that amount for the product. But when I check out, I wind up playing less. I LOVE this, but it is totally incompetent. Macy’s is so odd in this way. Shopping retail always makes me feel like I’ve stepped into the 1970’s - the associates always have old hairstyles, prices are outrageous (unless they’re on sale), and the whole experience is just very odd. Retail shouldn’t last much longer, especially once companies jump on the Zappos/Amazon bandwagon of easy/free returns and exchanges. ---
**Author:** ![lindsaybluth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/90db22/32.png) [@lindsaybluth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lindsaybluth)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/98 "2010-02-02T21:33:17Z")
Missed the edit: I live on the same street (not quite a city block) from some spankin’ new half-million dollar condos. So what do they do to welcome the new wealthy retirees? Why they pave the street and put in new sidewalks, of course! But only…on _their_ half of the street. So the whole street looks utterly absurd, half strewn with massive potholes and half brand new. ---
**Author:** ![Hodge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Hodge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hodge)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/99 "2010-02-04T20:42:09Z")
> [@kelly5078](#): > > **Krispy Kreme** seems to make quite a few missteps. They came to mind because they opened a $4 1/2 million dollar plant in my home town a few years ago, and then closed it 16 months later. > [@Sunspace](#): > > They’re the ones that tried to expand into Canada. They opened their first outlet in Mississauga to great fanfare–there were cops directing traffic off Mavis Rd because of the crowding–and then decided to open more outlets. Well, that first outlet must have benefitted from the novelty value (donuts with instructions to microwave for exactly 8 seconds?), because none of the other outlets did nearly as well. They have now closed. > > Apparently Canadians don’t like warm, mushy donuts as much as Krispy Kreme thought. I certainly didn’t. It was like eating a gooey ball of lard. Another anecdote: Our engineering firm was originally going to be a consultant for a KK flagship store here in Niagara Falls, ON, but their market research led them to relocate it to Kitchener/Waterloo due to the larger population base and tech industry (geeks love donuts). I thought it was a spectacularly boneheaded decision. After all, Niagara Falls is a major tourist destination. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? Y’know, all that water falling from a great height? Lots of people come to see it. In fact, Our population effectively doubles 8 months out of the year and a very large proportion of that transient population is American. And, gawd knows why, Americans love Krispy Kreme. The math isn’t that hard. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450/100 "2010-02-04T20:55:46Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > At the moment NBC seems pretty incompetent. People dislike Leno, Conan has been bought out and paid to do nothing, he will probably join a competitors network and the company looks stupid. I agree wholeheartedly. There’s been commentary on how NBC’s move is a noteworthy example of rejecting the younger demographic that Conan O’Brien appeals to. That may be, but O’Brien’s format also appealed to a much older demographic that liked the back-and-forth banter between Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon or Doc Severensen, not to mention a jazz band wearing suits, and featuring a top-notch drummer. In choosing Leno they’ve gone with a narrow, in-between demographic, while O’Brien ought to have been pulling both the younger and older audience on either side of it. Only he wasn’t, apparently. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-incompetent-company/526450.md?page=4)