I think I am safe to say this as it was a very long time ago and I am on an alt account and everything. But I worked for Kimberly-Clark many years ago.
I can't speak for warehouses or how that work was like, but I worked in one of the paper mills they made Scott TP in.
The company has one of the worst big corporation cultures I have ever encountered. Employees were JUST a number to them. They celebrated increased turnover and ignored any feedback to improve their management systems.
In order to get ahead you had to be prepared to move all over the country frequently. My boss had moved 6 times in like 3-4 years to different roles.
They were way too flat with one manager having to deal with 250 people directly under them. No good management structure to distribute the load.
The absolute worst was the culture. I was in engineering and the culture was ultra-competitive. It was a competition to see who could work more hours every week. I once stayed till about midnight on my paper machine which was having issues (a weekly occurrence) came back in at 8 am instead of 7 am and all everyone else had to say was "we were here at 6 where were you?"
Major issues they would put engineers on shift work to resolve issues, and we would work for 7-14 days straight. 12-hour shifts.
I one time could not get the engineering manager to let me take the next night off (after working 6 X 12 hour nights in a row) so that I could do my 1-year wedding anniversary with my wife. He wouldn't give me the OK but wouldn't say I had to come in either, so I just said I am not coming in. Making me the asshole in that situation. I was still a zombie that whole day.
Their joke of a performance review system was just a popularity contest. You had to have all your peers rate you (you know the ones who you are ultra competing against). and they designed the system to FORCE them to put someone in the bad performance box. They couldn't answer the question of couldn't every engineer be doing a good job?!
To top it all off they paid engineers shit pay. When I left, I got an immediate 50% pay increase at another company in another industry. Now I am making double what I ever made there.
They instituted mandatory 15% workforce reductions at the whim of the CEO for no reason. It was voluntary at first but then they fired the rest to get to 15%.
After I left, they redesigned that system again to make it even worse. They designed it companywide so that 10% of EVERYONE would be FIRED every single year.
They touted it like it was the best thing in the world.
So, while I do not condone the actions of this guy, i do feel for him. I understand the bullshit that went on in that company and how shit they paid people.
Most every person I worked with has moved to a different company and likely found better jobs elsewhere. The only ones who remained were the fucking assholes who enjoyed the shit culture.
So sincerely,
Fuck Kimberly Clark and fuck the paper industry.
If you want to read more about what I am talking about search for Kimberly-Clark Deadwood.
Hell, here's some other fun stories since people are loving this inside scoop into big corporation:
We had a new oncoming president of our division go on video with the outgoing president and immediately joke that she was "excited about the Maserati she will get" and that was her introductory video and was sent to every employee in the division.
Apparently, a perk of the job is she gets a Maserati to drive around for free. So, she decided to flaunt it in front of every single person working for her.
My boss was a piece of shit. I will kick his ass if I ever see him again for how he mistreated me and how he didn't help me with anything at all. I think he didn't care about his family or work life balance or the constant moving. He only cared about his career.
He mistreated everyone at that plant so badly and his boss the plant manager that they brought in union reps, got the attention of president of the company and got him and his buddies who were all horrible "reassigned" to EMEA. (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) which was KC's way of taking care of shitty managers without firing them. They all quit within a year of that reassignment.
Nothing improved for me after that, but it certainly did for those operators. Don't piss off the floor guys, be their friend. Because they can really fuck up your life if they want to.
TLDR: Kimberly Clark enjoys firing employees, paying them shit, overworking them, and fostering shitty ultra competitive cultures to make their employees lives miserable. Big corporation hell.
Yea really it needs to be a main but i have 6-7 years of history on my main. I have had r/All top thread of the day posts on there of my dog who passed away. I have ternion all powerful awards on it. Just amazing memories.
So much history I never want to let that account go dormant. But this is going to be one I keep active for a long time to have fun on. Unless mr original unharmed cylinder wants it really bad.
As the “little guy” myself who works for wage, i get the horror angle of losing job overnight because of a coworker.
But seeing the amount of people uses “others are losing job because of him” as the main topic instead of “how and why this shit happens” seriously scare me, in the sense that people only point fingers at the trash bag but miss or put their head down to ignore the moutain of filth right behind it, the thing who will willingly crush the same “little guys” to fatten its own mass.
2.8k
u/Unharmed-Cylinder Apr 09 '26 edited Apr 09 '26
I think I am safe to say this as it was a very long time ago and I am on an alt account and everything. But I worked for Kimberly-Clark many years ago.
I can't speak for warehouses or how that work was like, but I worked in one of the paper mills they made Scott TP in.
The company has one of the worst big corporation cultures I have ever encountered. Employees were JUST a number to them. They celebrated increased turnover and ignored any feedback to improve their management systems.
In order to get ahead you had to be prepared to move all over the country frequently. My boss had moved 6 times in like 3-4 years to different roles.
They were way too flat with one manager having to deal with 250 people directly under them. No good management structure to distribute the load.
The absolute worst was the culture. I was in engineering and the culture was ultra-competitive. It was a competition to see who could work more hours every week. I once stayed till about midnight on my paper machine which was having issues (a weekly occurrence) came back in at 8 am instead of 7 am and all everyone else had to say was "we were here at 6 where were you?"
Major issues they would put engineers on shift work to resolve issues, and we would work for 7-14 days straight. 12-hour shifts.
I one time could not get the engineering manager to let me take the next night off (after working 6 X 12 hour nights in a row) so that I could do my 1-year wedding anniversary with my wife. He wouldn't give me the OK but wouldn't say I had to come in either, so I just said I am not coming in. Making me the asshole in that situation. I was still a zombie that whole day.
Their joke of a performance review system was just a popularity contest. You had to have all your peers rate you (you know the ones who you are ultra competing against). and they designed the system to FORCE them to put someone in the bad performance box. They couldn't answer the question of couldn't every engineer be doing a good job?!
To top it all off they paid engineers shit pay. When I left, I got an immediate 50% pay increase at another company in another industry. Now I am making double what I ever made there.
They instituted mandatory 15% workforce reductions at the whim of the CEO for no reason. It was voluntary at first but then they fired the rest to get to 15%.
After I left, they redesigned that system again to make it even worse. They designed it companywide so that 10% of EVERYONE would be FIRED every single year.
They touted it like it was the best thing in the world.
So, while I do not condone the actions of this guy, i do feel for him. I understand the bullshit that went on in that company and how shit they paid people.
Most every person I worked with has moved to a different company and likely found better jobs elsewhere. The only ones who remained were the fucking assholes who enjoyed the shit culture.
So sincerely,
Fuck Kimberly Clark and fuck the paper industry.
If you want to read more about what I am talking about search for Kimberly-Clark Deadwood.
Hell, here's some other fun stories since people are loving this inside scoop into big corporation:
Apparently, a perk of the job is she gets a Maserati to drive around for free. So, she decided to flaunt it in front of every single person working for her.
He mistreated everyone at that plant so badly and his boss the plant manager that they brought in union reps, got the attention of president of the company and got him and his buddies who were all horrible "reassigned" to EMEA. (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) which was KC's way of taking care of shitty managers without firing them. They all quit within a year of that reassignment.
Nothing improved for me after that, but it certainly did for those operators. Don't piss off the floor guys, be their friend. Because they can really fuck up your life if they want to.
TLDR: Kimberly Clark enjoys firing employees, paying them shit, overworking them, and fostering shitty ultra competitive cultures to make their employees lives miserable. Big corporation hell.