“Overworked And Underpaid”: 45 Stories From People At Companies On Their Last Legs

I worked in magazines and it as utterly devastating. In the same building being run on a skeleton staff was my faaaavourite magazine as a teen and to see its fall from grace devastated me.

But as a whole seeing the quality go such as firing sub-editors etc just so so sad.

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.

I worked at a dying company. It was insane going into every single f*****g meeting thinking I was losing my job. Then, when it came to upper leadership, 50+ year olds would start crying (nothing bad about crying) because they don’t know how to build a resume, or network, or know what to do if they ended up getting fired.

HQ restructured the jobs and areas like… I feel like 5 times since I was there and left? Every few months you hear about them struggling to breathe.

I didn't work for a big dying company but I did work in mortgage during the 2007 mortgage crisis. I would go to work every day for months, worried and wondering is today the day I get laid off. All my work experience was in mortgage and knowing that if I lost my job I most likely would not find another one was stressful and terrifying. I did end up getting layed off and could not find work in my industry and once my unemployment was close to running out I had to pivot to a new sector (payroll) and start from scratch.

My first serious job outta high school (class of ‘99) was a company riding high, only to crumble due to lack of foresight and planning. Started at Blockbuster video in 2000, worked my way from cashier all the way to store manager, actually had the pleasure of opening the store and closing the store. Fun times, great workers and always make sure u rewind.

Even now i can remember the head winds Netflix, RedBox, streaming, investing heavily in Blu Ray. Underestimating the threat RedBox, laughing at the thought of buying Netflix (allegedly), turning there nose up at streaming. Then there is the “no more late fees” campaign that was completely mis managed. But honestly morale didn’t suffer, naturally there were mumbles about not meeting goals, cut hours, days with more employees then customers in the store, but none of us (employees) thought things were that bad.

Then one day an urgent e-mail came thru everything in my store had to go so if u in Long Beach Ca, I was the first and only store manger at the Blockbuster on Long Beach Blvd and Pine.

I worked for a retail company and left about a year before they fully went under. Morale at my store was fine, largely because the head office tried really hard to hide their struggles. We knew the writing was on the wall eventually because the products the stores sold were becoming obsolete, but we didn't think it would happen so fast.

I worked at a location that was doing well, so we didn't notice much except when we suddenly stopped getting product from some big suppliers. The head office would say things were just delayed while they "negotiated contracts."

I found out they were going under in a news article one morning and sent it to my friends who still worked there. The head office hadn't told their staff yet... but it was circulating in the news, so I was the one who broke the news to them that they were all losing their jobs. I felt so bad for them.

It came out then that the company had been really struggling for years, and those "contract negotiations" were suppliers pulling product because the company owed them millions of dollars.

I work at a Kohl’s e-commerce center that is closing next month. Everyone was surprised, but not shocked when we closed, and understand why it happened. The company can handle so much volume through it’s two most modern efc’s, our location-and the one in California also, became redundant.
That said, the overall company is a total mess, as brick and mortar sales are tanking, and efficiencies had to be found wherever possible. Kohls is on the same path as Sears, imo., I give it 10-15 more years.

I worked at a “green energy” firm whose stock has dropped 90% over the last 18 months. Everyone is there just to collect a paycheck. Bare minimum is done on a daily basis. Thankfully EHS is a priority, sometimes it’s an excuse not to do work.

I worked at Tower Records when it was in decline. Maybe they even declared bankruptcy while I was there? I forget exactly, but I do remember our old, rich customers smugly asking me what I thought about the store going down. I felt lucky I got to work there.

I used to work at a Sears photography studio in the late 2000’s. Still one of my favorite jobs I ever had but I was seasonal and not hired for full time. The people with whom I worked with were truly trying to make ends meet on this job. It was hard to watch as I was a college student at the time and didn’t worry about the same things they did. Morale was ok but there was rarely people in the store section. Photo sessions would pick up because of the holidays but the store itself would be empty. I’d walk around on my break and barely see people in there. This was about 2 years removed from the recession but still you could see the decline even then. That Sears closed about 7years later.

I interviewed for a corporate position at GameStop not too long ago and it was crazy. I withdrew from the interview process very fast.

They said the turnover is really bad, but also said they’ve done a ton of layoffs that “have been the best thing they’ve ever done”. They went from I think they said like 1200 people down to 300 people in their corporate side.

Flat out they said the morale is down, people are leaving nonstop, and it’s hard to get people to want to join.

It was for a position within their HR team so I think they wanted to really give a look behind the curtain. They said their main goal was to make it last for another 5-10 years and try to find people willing to stick around for that.

Worked at a company selling refurbished phones for 3,5 years until it filed for bankruptcy.

It was being dangled over our heads for about 2,5 of those years (because the old boss was a festering sore on legs) so it wasn't a huge surprise. We went from 4 people to just 2, 1 of whom mostly worked from home so often it was just me. Orders slowed down, less stock came in, it was dreadfully boring and I spent about 2 months waiting for the call from higher up. General mood wasn't too bad because my supervisor and I got along like a house on fire so we c*****d enough jokes to keep us both going.

Fun fact, I knew we were losing money but not how much, only that the owner was compensating for them in the hopes of making it successful. I didn't know until the bankruptcy that we were losing 150k a year.

The company I am at is in an accounting death spiral. No one else seems aware. Everyone thinks one big win will change things but our wins now cost more than they bring in. My division is starting to get impacted despite being the only thing driving innovation.


The most senior people haven't realized we're at rock bottom and need to make a huge strategic shift. Cultural differences stop them. It'll be too late be end of year. .

I used to work for a dying company, we did industrial real estate during the Great Recession.

It was frustrating, we were all working really hard and we were having salaries and hours cut. The company did everything they could to keep us employed and keep us happy, I have no issues with how they handled things. We all did everything we could to make it a good environment.

I had some former coworkers who worked at Sears corporate during its final days. It was dreadful and they all had trauma from it. One woman told me a story about someone who jumped off one of the interior ledges and died.

Edit to add: I interviewed at JCP before the pandemic. The building was like a mausoleum built by JCP but they had to sell the building and now only rent part of it. It was surreal, the people were nice but something was empty and strange.

I’m in An Auto services compAny (roadside) that feels like it’s dying due to unwillingness to modernize. The main reason they’re still around is insurance, but that’s not very strong. The other reason is that they deceptively market to senior citizens and that isn’t going to last forever. They refuse to modernize their company and don’t know why younger people in general don’t like using them. It’ll go by the wayside.

I work at u.s.p.s. I would say everyday people just chill and wait for the end. Nothing to crazy or anything just kinda keeping the wheels rolling until whatever comes next comes.

I worked at Sears corporate for the last 10 years of its existence. For the last 2 years there were quarterly layoffs.

On layoff days there would be bankers boxes lining the hallways for people to pack up their stuff.

People were openly interviewing at other companies and would ask how your job search was going.

I liked my job and said I was staying until they kicked me out. I finally got laid off, and 2 months later they declared bankruptcy and stopped my severance payments.

I worked for a company that was circling the drain. You had three categories of people:
1. Young assertive types who saw what was coming and left for other opportunities
2. Older guys in the 5 year retirement window who also saw what was coming and all they cared about was making it to retirement
3. a significant majority of people with a narrow focus and didn't even realize the company you work for might not be around forever.

When the layoffs started it kicked off a culture where people's number 1 focus became keeping their jobs rather than doing their jobs.

I was at JCpenny- there was a woman working since the handwriting checks and balances - she ran the cash in the safe but I honestly don’t know what else she did -
The safe still had a little window for where employees use to pick up their checks and do punch cards
The whole back offices had art and decor from the 80’s
the backrooms very weird- there was a huge amount of old displays - the carry over from the one person in the back in charge of inventory all of it - merchandise inventory was like a mix of people still doing paperwork by hand ( this one solitary woman who said no one was going to be trained in everything she knew and it was going to be a nightmare when she quit because they’re going towards technology that’s not overlapping all these old as hell items )

Buy online built it’s own new section - so they’re just slapping new things on top-

The amount of old as s**t displays when I’d have to do an update and just layers of dust from how it hadn’t been touched- there is a HUGE amount of inventory that just doesn’t get put out and they just swap through - and liminal space leading to all the different sized old as hell hardware

The general manager that hired me bragged about how old the company was - to allude to ITLL STAND THE TEST OF TIME

okay Jan

Don’t get me started on watching Sephora (inside JCPenney) be its own separate company from Sephora and fail and be ripped out leaving a black and white hole.