I used to work for a major cable company whose name rhymes with “bombast”. Although working for them was kind of like working for Darth Vader, I did take some pride in the fact that our app had millions of daily users. Eventually I learned that essentially all of those daily users were faked and that nobody actually used the shit (and they only installed the app in the first place to get a discount on their cable bills). Then I was only able to take pride in the fact that we were essentially scamming the c-suite and the shareholders out of millions of dollars a year.
Bombast retired this app three years ago, so they at least realized they weren’t making any money off of it. It was always understood to be a loss leader of sorts, but I don’t think they were ever really fully aware that even its utility as a loss leader was being greatly exaggerated.
Bombast is strangely competent in a weird way. During my time there, I frequently worked under vice presidents (they have hundreds of these in their corporate structure) who ranged from grossly incompetent to clinically insane, but they were always disappeared within weeks of my being assigned to them. I assume they were fired and escorted out of the building immediately, but I wouldn’t entirely rule out murder.
Also strangely incompetent in weird ways. The founding Roberts died in 2015 and many people wore his signature bowtie to the corporate memorial service to honor him. The scuttlebutt was that everybody who wore a bowtie was fired shortly afterwards. I know for sure that this was the case with my own boss. I could never hope to explain why this was done.
I used to work for a major cable company whose name rhymes with “bombast”. Although working for them was kind of like working for Darth Vader, I did take some pride in the fact that our app had millions of daily users. Eventually I learned that essentially all of those daily users were faked and that nobody actually used the shit (and they only installed the app in the first place to get a discount on their cable bills). Then I was only able to take pride in the fact that we were essentially scamming the c-suite and the shareholders out of millions of dollars a year.
It’s somewhat amazing to be able to pull this off - and also speaks of the layers and layers of management in modern corporations.
Did the c-level folks find out eventually?
Bombast retired this app three years ago, so they at least realized they weren’t making any money off of it. It was always understood to be a loss leader of sorts, but I don’t think they were ever really fully aware that even its utility as a loss leader was being greatly exaggerated.
Bombast is strangely competent in a weird way. During my time there, I frequently worked under vice presidents (they have hundreds of these in their corporate structure) who ranged from grossly incompetent to clinically insane, but they were always disappeared within weeks of my being assigned to them. I assume they were fired and escorted out of the building immediately, but I wouldn’t entirely rule out murder.
Also strangely incompetent in weird ways. The founding Roberts died in 2015 and many people wore his signature bowtie to the corporate memorial service to honor him. The scuttlebutt was that everybody who wore a bowtie was fired shortly afterwards. I know for sure that this was the case with my own boss. I could never hope to explain why this was done.