26 ‘The Beatings Will Continue Until Moral Improves’ Work Stories
The phrase “the beatings will continue until morale improves” is usually reserved for high-pressure military units that will actually beat their squadron into becoming stronger performers. But as these Redditors can attest, sometimes that’s exactly what a 9-to-5 feels like, too.
One Redditor worked at a tech-support company that had a trifecta of issues: micromanagement, awful pay and being forced to promote a product that sucked. Naturally, no one was happy to be at work. The company held a series of meetings to discuss low morale, and someone from upper management kicked things off by asking the staff, “Who here is happy with their job?” When only two people raised their hands, the guy leading the meeting looked at everyone else and said, “Well, in this economy, you’re lucky to have a job at all. Meeting over,” before storming out.
If anything, he found a way to take low morale and break through to “rock-bottom morale.”
Other Redditors have shared the ways their superiors tried to force the troops in line, including an “anonymous” survey, a meeting about a meeting and an ever-changing dress code.
