You may have worked hard for years to gain your fame and reputation but it will take only one mistake to ruin it.
A user asked the forum, “What’s the best example of “it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it” that you know of?”
Let’s read the top comments from the forum.
AN EMPLOYEE MISTAKENLY TAKING HARSH WORDS ON A MEETING CALL
“At my old company, we produced consumer goods and licensed lots of high-end pop culture brands. On a call with a team representing a very popular and iconic space movie franchise owned by the mouse, one of our senior partners was sitting through a call on rights or sales numbers or whatever with like 20 people….thought he was on mute and said,, something to the effect of “How much longer do we have to listen to this obese idiot jerk himself off talking about his BS anyhow!?!”
The Call was abruptly ended. All follow-ups were ignored. Maybe a week or two later, we got a letter terminating all current and developing licensing deals for cause citing contract violations, and the company was effectively quietly banned from ever doing business with any brand under that massive mouse umbrella.
That dude lost hundreds of millions in future business in about 15 seconds. When you first start, you’re told never to suggest pitching anything owned by the mouse and then get told the story.
The company was the worst job and culture I’ve ever had. Amazed it stays in business.”
SELLING HIS CAR
“The guy who sold his old company truck to a used car dealer and ended up seeing it in the news with some terrorists in the middle east driving it. Mounted guns and everything on that thing with his business and his name painted on the side. Great advertising.
He was forced to close the shop because of the bad reputation. Sad when you think about it since he didn’t deserve it. But great example.”
INVOLVED IN CRIMES
“American Ninja Warrior winner Drew Drechsel. After years of training, competing, and coming up short, he finally won in season 11 and became just the third person to ever achieve “total victory” and win the $1 million dollar prize.
Months later, he was charged with crimes. The court case is still ongoing, and he could face years in prison and massive fines and to state the obvious, he will likely never compete again.”
CHEATING
“My father. Grew up believing he was an honest, hardworking, and loyal man. While he was absolutely a hardworking man, finding out when I was 21 that he had another house, woman, and child 20 minutes down the street that he went to on his frequent “business trips” dispelled the notion that he was honest and loyal.”
LOST A LIFE FOR SHORT-TERM PLEASURE
“A minister in my hometown died of restricting oxygen to the brain for pleasure. His congregation didn’t even hold a service for him. His family disappeared, and within a week, it was like he had never existed.”
FAKE PROMISES
“My Mom ran a daycare for almost 20+ years. It was her own business that she built up. Not only did I attend it, it was my first real job. And I fell in love with childcare because of it.
We were very accommodating; we weren’t too strict. Our goal wasn’t to get a 3-year-old to read at a 4th-grade level but to give parents what they needed, making sure the kids were safe and well cared for.
Helping out along the way with potty training and weaning and such. We had such a long waitlist but still found a way to get the children who really needed it to care.
My mother sold it to a larger chain daycare when she retired. They made a bunch of changes, made a bunch of promises that kids would be reading, potty trained by 2-3, perfect little angels.
Every child is different. Do you know why every child was potty trained by 3? Because if they weren’t, they were kicked out.
No comfort items at nap time because they were making little adults instead of babies.
It took about six months, and the wait list was zero. They were offering incentives to sign your child up. They could bring on workers. I think it downsized but eventually closed.”
THE WIFE IS TRYING TO TAKE SNAPS OF EXPLICIT PICTURES
“Local couple – husband was a city alderman/real estate agent, and his father was a former mayor, so their surname and family were very well known.
The wife was a beloved teacher and cheer coach/sponsor at the high school. Apparently, she was trying to snap someone explicit pics on Snapchat and accidentally sent them to everyone on her snap, including students, friends, family, fellow church members, etc.
She was fired, and her husband divorced her because he wasn’t on Snapchat and wasn’t the intended recipient of her spicy pics.”
A WRONG HIRING
“Me. I worked at the same company for ten years and had an excellent reputation. Some wild stuff went down, and all the managers except for me had to be replaced. My reputation was fine at that point.
Then we hired this crazy guy who was lying and saying strange things a lot; then he was behaving inappropriately with a customer. I reported all of this to my boss. This crazy guy made up even bigger and more compelling lies… about me and they believed him.
I didn’t do anything fireable, but they transferred me to a different location. I was told that I needed to “shape up to save my job” despite ten years of maximum raises and promotions and glowing feedback.
Two days later, the guy was fired by HR because a customer reported him for his behaviour. Nobody said a word to me, no apology, nothing.
I quit in January. Office Depot!”
FAKING KINDNESS
“Ellen DeGeneres. She had a reputation for years of being kind and down to earth. Until the accusations started coming out that she was a real harsh to a lot of people and not kind like she portrayed.”
INAPPROPRIATE COMMENTS ABOUT A COMPANY
“I believe there was a cheap jewelry company back in the 80’s in the UK whose whole schtick was that its stuff was just as good as the high-end stuff but just cheaper. They had a decent chunk of market share and were on their way to being the largest jewelry store in the UK.
Then their CEO has a big meeting with, I want to say, the shareholders, and one of them asks how they keep their stuff so cheap, to which the CEO jokingly remarked, “Because our gems are all cheap junk” or something to that effect. That remark got out to the press out of context, and it ruined the company within the year, I believe.”
TWEETING SOMETHING CONTROVERSIAL
“How about that lady who tweeted something racist right before a flight, and by the time it landed, she was canceled and fired from her executive job?
That took 5 seconds, not 5 minutes. It’s got to be a record.”
A SINGLE CONTROVERSIAL POST
“There was a social media influencer (I don’t know her name) who was doing quite well with promoting her fitness wear brand. She was even working on deals with companies like Under Armor and Nike. (I can’t remember the exact brands, but definitely the heavy hitters.) She was set to move into the million-dollar income bracket.
Until a single post. She showed a picture of her and her family eating tacos with the following caption:
“We missed Taco Tuesday, so we’re having (racial slur for Mexicans that starts with W) Wednesday.”
Instantly canceled by pretty much everyone (and rightfully so). Brand deals shut down immediately. Followers left in droves. Pretty much killed her career in a single post.”
RUINED LIFE
“My former stepfather. He went from a job that he had for 15-plus years, bi-monthly bonuses, 1-hour lunches every day, and three days off a week, to smoking meth, hoarding junk to tweak on, and stealing anything he could to get more.”
ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES
“Guy I worked with, super niche industry but on the sales side. We’re the market leader by a huge margin and pretty much own the market – think infotech/networking.
The guy I worked with worked his way up from inside sales to President of New Projects/Acquisitions/Mergers/etc. Basically, he was the show pony for the company – he would go out and wine and dine an existing client base, sweet talk companies into licensing features to us or outright purchasing them, etc.
Guy had it made – made huge money, stock options, golden parachute, the whole 9 yards. Would vacation with the rich and famous in Dubai, Monaco, etc.
The downfall was he got greedy and greenlit some projects and single-sourced them to his friends and family, and he was involved in the side companies in a “consultant” facility – we’re not talking small deals either – less than $1-3M but like 40-50 such projects.
Ultimately what brought him down was due diligence; some clerk noticed his name in the wrong spot on some paperwork, which opened a can of worms and got him booted out of the company and blacklisted in the industry, got him on conflict of interest.
He’s doing fine, though; guys like that always land on their feet, but nowhere near where he was before.”
INAPPROPRIATE MEDICAL PRACTICES
“My Uncle was a surgeon but was pretty bad at it, so he transitioned over to be a medical director at the hospital. In 2018 he started to really to just slack off and be rude to people and just be a miserable person.
He got fired and went on a horrible rampage of how he resents it; the CEO is a jerk, etc. He was well-known in the city, and everybody heard about him.
He now works at Lowes, lives at his 84-year-old Mother’s house, and lost his kid due to his wife leaving him.
He’s an Ivy League surgeon, even has a Ph.D. on top of his MD, and works at Lowes. Sad”
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This article was originally published on Mrs Daaku Studio.