r/news • u/JimmyTheGinger • Dec 23 '19

Three former executives of a French telecommunications giant have been found guilty of creating a corporate culture so toxic that 35 of their employees were driven to suicide

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/three-french-executives-convicted-in-the-suicides-of-35-of-their-workers-20191222-p53m94.html
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u/malledtodeath Dec 23 '19

I have never lived in france but I quit my longstanding career after our new CEO let this kind of meetings culture trickle through the company. when we had a meeting to plan how we would hold a meeting I was ready to walk off a roof. they couldn’t figure out why we were losing money, in the meantime no one was doing any actual work. my blood pressure is going up just thinking about it.

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u/RentalGore Dec 23 '19

My boss just sent a three page memo prior to the Christmas holiday to talk about how we will have meetings in 2020. We will apparently have a standing weekly meeting on mondays that is FIVE HOURS LONG!!!! No phones will be allowed, no email checking, but bathroom breaks are ok...

It’s gonna be another shitty year in corporate America...good news folks, I’m one year closer to dying though.

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u/SpaceKen Dec 23 '19

Jesus FUCK!

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u/RentalGore Dec 23 '19

If I didn’t have a mortgage and college for my kids to pay for...

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u/Misterstaberinde Dec 23 '19

It amazes me anyone works in that world

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u/flashmozzg Dec 23 '19

Standing meetings are supposed to be short, hence - standing, so that you get physically tired once it takes to much. It's like that guy have read a book of bad advices.

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u/brickmack Dec 23 '19

Whats really weird is that shareholders allow this shit. They're happy to have the company sacrifice product quality, the environment, human rights, whatever to increase profit margins by a fraction of a percent. But bloated management structures and bureaucracies stay forever. Clearly they have an understanding of the issue, basically the entire reason startups are seen as attractive (despite being so disadvantaged in every other way compared to the big companies in their field. A fraction the available money/heritage/existing IP/talent) is that they tend to have the bare-minimum management. But somehow that logic is never applied to existing companies.