Have you ever worked for a company with a bad reputation?

I currently do. The company I work for is locally known for various things but probably most well known in these parts as lazy. This reputation has been around long before I started. The sad thing is, the longer someone stays with company they now start to wear the badge of bad reputation. People I meet tell me they've heard bad things. So Im getting close to five years with this company and the main reason I've stuck it out this long is for the benefits. Any thoughts on what I should do?

And have you or do you work(ed) for a bad company?

No, but I've turned down employment from companies where I didn't like what I saw when I was there. It was nothing I disagreed with about the company itself but it was more the culture, having cliques that look down on each other and talk behind backs. That doesn't seem like something I want to be involved with.

Oh yeah. Man, probably 90 percent of companies have a bad reputation for SOMETHING terrible.

My personal ones with a bad reputation were ADM (lysine price fixing made famous by the movie The Informant), and Bain Capital which gutted the child company and sold it. My current company is pretty solid, but I'm keeping my eyes open, lol.

My wife worked for Olan Mills which got caught stealing from employees, and Wal-Mart which also got caught stealing from employees. I've worked for two companies that stole from employees personally, but they were too small to get a reputation.

Household names like Ford, DuPont, and Chiquita have scandals that would make your toes curl. Hell, McKinsey, the upstanding consultant firm, proposed plans to pay doctors and other vendors for opioid deaths and addictions.

Being at a company with a reputation as lazy is hitting the ethical gold mine, relatively speaking.

I previously managed a branch of a currency exchange, who aren't bad on the face. We were largely bought out by a credit union and the original family owners fired me on unsubstantiated claims, to which they couldn't even provide a sliver of evidence to the government as is obviously required. Couple years later, the family was basically allowed to leave without charges for alleged money laundering... Basically, the CEO/his wife who had no standing or education in the field/his daughter with no actual education who was a District Manager/the son in charge of "media", which basically meant making slides for out TV displays. Let me tell you, left that place with no regrets.

I wouldn't say we have a bad reputation, but my once-respected place of work was bought out by a huge multinational corporation that sort of ruined our reputation, essentially losing our loyal customer base and forcing to rebrand and go after a younger demographic which *gasp* decreasingly uses our product.

Definitely miss the old days.

You mean Ford, nazi supporter and donation maker?

Or DuPont, makers of napalm?

And Chiquita, that literally invented the "banana republic"?

Bad reputations? Them!?

@mrbojangles25: Lol, those weren't even the ones I had in mind for Ford and Dupont.

I worked for Walmart for around a year, around the time the Xbox One and PS4 were released. Left as soon as I could.

Heheheh. That's comforting. Thanks!

Yes, the company i currently work for. Bad safety. Six dead in 25 years according to a colleague who has worked there for that period of time. The last one was in November last year. Younger guy, 29 years old, leaving behing a young widow and two little children.

Yeah. Worked for 2/3 largest US banks, and some of the largest insurance companies. Most people do not like banks or insurance companies lol.

You don't have to tell me where you work, but I am curious whatr industry it is.

Oil? Mining?

We get some bad injuries in my field--a lot of steam or fluid burns, chemicals incidents, machines crushing hands and stuff--but no deaths so far (thankfully!). It's usually user error and thus preventable but once in a while it's usually a lack of preventative maintenance.

Out of curiosity, how do you cope with that?

Not saying you're part of why they're terrible but let's say you are a decent person working for a terrible company, do you just get paid enough to shrug it off or what?

No judgement btw, genuinely curious. I have these thoughts about quitting my job often and I just have to tell myself "I work with good people and get paid well enough, just stay the course, dude. Stay the course" lol

my wife works for amazon. you walk in the front door and the gay flags is painted on the entire floor and walls. took down the american flag. then all the managers had to kneel on a gay flag each one of them for there xmas picture. no its not forced lmao.

sad really.

metal industry? It's a company that produces engine and transmission components for BMW and Porsche. From raw material (Al alloy) to the finished part. Casting the raw part, followed by CNC, leak testing and other procedures. I work where the casting happens, where the latest fatal accident happened. A lot of forklift traffic. An accident that happened before the one last year november, was a forklift operator driving unsafely, with a crate elevated and he either didn't notice the other guy or hit the breaks and the crate moved forward. Either way, the end of the story was fatal head injury.

No worries, those are good questions. For the banks and one of the insurance companies, I had no moral qualms about working for them. I wasn't asked to do anything unethical or immoral. I leveraged my positions to be as helpful as possible. Also, I remind myself that it's no secret these entities are for-profit, and that their customers have consensually entered a relationship w/ said bank/insurance company. We provided a service they were willing to pay for or have a hassle with.

I will admit, one of the other insurance companies was more of an moral compromise. All the same apply above. However, they advertise heavily, and in the sales department you're encouraged to be aggressive. Nothing illegal, but definitely not for those of us who aren't conditioned to it.

Hope that makes sense. I can expand more if needed.

Oh yeah, I've seen my fair share of machine shop/metwalwork accidents. Industrial, supersized lathes are the stuff of nightmares, I tell you what.

And yeah, forklifts are no joke. I can't stand seeing people playing around on them, which happens more often than I like tbh. "Hey look at me I'm 'forklift certified' hyuk hyuk look at me do donuts on the wet floor"