The 13 Worst Fictional Corporations To Work For
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?Working sucks. Life would be a whole lot easier if you could stay home and play Xbox all day, but eventually, you’re going to need more money to buy new games. And also, food and shelter too. And maybe the new Sideshow toys. Point is, everyone has to go to work. It’s a fact of life.
But some jobs are maybe a little worse than others — sometimes they might pay less, sometimes they may have worse health benefits, and sometimes, you just have a 99% chance of getting violently killed there while you work. Here are 13 of the worst places you could ever hope to find a job in genre films. Because sometimes, working as a Wal-Mart greeter isn’t the worst job in the world.
13) The Gloucestershire Somerfield Supermarket
12) Team Zissou
While there are undoubtedly fantastic fringe benefits to working on Team Zissou, like free tennis shoes, a topless co-worker and all the Portuguese Bowie covers you can handle, the overall experience looks pretty horrid. The beginning of The Life Aquatic establishes that Steve Zissou’s best friend was eaten by a jaguar shark during the filming of their last documentary. And when you factor in pirate attacks, deadly helicopter accidents, and compulsory robberies, the awesome powder blue tennis shoes don’t seem like such a bargain.
11) Clamp Enterprises
At first glance, Clamp Enterprises, from Gremlins 2, doesn’t seem so bad. Sure, it’s really weird that a genetics lab, television studio and architectural firm all share the same building. But, on the plus side, there’s apparently a great frozen yogurt stand with toppings. Where Clamp takes a tumble is in its crisis management. If security can’t stop three-foot tall reptiles with bad attitudes, how in the hell are they going to protect you when something serious goes down?
10) The Men In Black
The Men In Black have some pretty amazing jobs. They are some of the few people who ever get to learn all of the secrets of planet Earth and its relations with aliens, plus they get amazing technology, snazzy outfits and pretty much carte blanche to do whatever they want. There are some downsides, like having your fingerprints burned off, breaking contact with anyone you ever knew and forced line dancing to Will Smith songs, but for some people, that might be a good trade off. That is until retirement time. The memory of your entire existence is wiped away clean with the Neuralyzer. So, you get to spend your golden years with no memories, no friends and no penchant from a job you never knew you had.
9) Stark Industries
Being a scientist for Stark Industries has to be about one of the worst career moves you could make. Your CEO is a barely-functional alcoholic who, besides making rash decisions, like, say, abandoning his company’s Defense Department contracts over some fast-food cheeseburgers, is also way smarter that you will ever be. Seriously, the dude built a miniaturized arc reactor for a heart in an Afghani cave. On top of that, you’d frequently be caught in power plays between Stark and his other executives, like Obadiah Stane. You’d be better off working in some lab creating erectile dysfunction cures than spending ten minutes at Stark Industries.
8) Ghostbusters
As a Ghostbuster, every minute you’re on the job, you’re being chased and attacked by some very angry supernatural beings. And when you’re not on the job, you’re living in a dilapidated firehouse that even company founder Egon Spengler says should be condemned. Then, there’s the matter of equipment. Each Ghostbuster has an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on their back. And if you happen to cross your firing streams with another Ghostbuster in one of your fights with a ghost, every molecule in your body explodes at the speed of light. On the plus side, the jumpsuits are pretty cool.
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7) S-Mart
There’s no doubt that Ash, star of Army of Darkness and played by the one and only Bruce Campbell, would be a fun co-worker to be around. But given his penchant for attracting the demons of hell, he wouldn’t be a very safe co-worker to be around. And say you survive the attack of the demonic she-bitches — you think Ash is going to stick around and clean up the mess? No, he’s got some sugar to get. This is a clean-up on aisle you, all the way.
6) Oscorp
Even at the beginning of Spider-Man, Oscorp doesn’t seem to be on the sturdiest of ground. General Slocum openly talks about his desire to rid the company of their military contracts. But by the end of the film, Norman Osborn, the head of Oscorp, has murdered everyone in his employ, from scientist Mendel Stromm to his entire Board of Directors. And in Spider-Man 2, Oscorp employee Otto Octavius comes within striking distance of destroying New York City before he dies. Everyone who works for the Osborns meets an untimely death with one exception. Bernerd, the Osborn butler, is spared. But after his horrible scenes in Spider-Man 3, we kind of wish he was killed first.
5) Cyberdyne
Cyberdyne’s entire existence is based on a time-travel paradox, which is never a great business model. After the original T-800 is destroyed in Cyberdyne in its pursuit to kill Sarah Connor, Miles Dyson is able to reverse engineer the microprocessors from the T-800’s arm to build SkyNet. So, if Sarah Connor had just gone ahead and let herself get killed, Judgment Day may never have happened in the first place. Sure, Sarah and her son, John, live, but Miles gets killed and the rest of the Cyberdyne employees are left with the knowledge that they helped usher in the end of humanity.
4) Omni Consumer Products
Taking a job with Omni Consumer Products, or OCP, means moving to Detroit, which is, in and of itself, a terrifying prospect. Entry-level workers at OCP have a choice between working at underfunded police offices, underfunded hospitals or in the underfunded military. Get hurt on the job? The OCP benefits program is one of a kind. They have the ability to scoop up your body and do whatever they want to it. Executives don’t have it much better. Just ask Mr. Kenney. A young executive on the rise who was turned into pulp after ED-209 malfunctions in the boardroom. At least OCP is run by the doddering Old Man, who seems to have no clue what is going on at any time, whatsoever.
3) Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory
Of course, Wonka’s main employees are the diminutive Oompa-Loompas, refugees from Loompaland that live on the sweets that Wonka churns out. Wonka claims that the Oompa-Loompas are very happy, but have you ever seen so many dour faced people singing such melancholy songs in one place? Both movies also make vague references to actual humans working for Wonka, including Mr. Wilkinson, the man who posed as Arthur Slugworth. Being a human in the chocolate factory might be among the most crushing punishments imaginable. Even a trip to the bathroom would entail a nightmarish ride on a contraption that is just as likely to drop you off in a furnace as it would deliver you to a stall that more than likely would contain taffy toilet paper.
2) InGen
InGen, perhaps best known as the creators of Jurassic Park, is about the crappiest place you could ever work. Throughout the course of the first movie, InGen founder John Hammond talks frequently about sparing no expense on his park. And yet, computer programmer Dennis Nedry complains about how little he is paid, rides break down and employees openly gripe about the need for cloning Velociraptors. Although the complaints cheerfully roll off Hammond’s back, they definitely have a point. Dinosaurs kill and eat many of InGen’s employees, especially after Nedry engages in corporate espionage in an attempt to make more money. And in the sequel, San Diego is terrorized by a Tyrannosaurus that is misguidedly brought to the Unites States by another InGen employee. Proof that you don’t even have to work for InGen for the company to completely ruin your life.
1) The Weyland-Yutani Corporation
The Weyland-Yutani Corporation, or The Company as its not-affectionately known as to its employees, is the big daddy of companies gone wrong. Taking a job with Weyland-Yutani is like signing your own death certificate. The Company is hot to get their hands on the Alien samples, presumably to use them as biological weapons. If you come in contact with the Alien and it miraculously does not kill you right away, don’t look to The Company for support because you ain’t going to find it. In all of the original three Alien films, Weyland-Yutani sacrifices employees again and again in order to keep their magnificent specimen. At Weyland,Yutani, no one bothers with putting money in their 401-K because no one has lived to see retirement.
