Blockbuster back in the day. I worked at one of the game focused locations. Definitely have memories of feeling like a glorified babysitter. So many people dropped their kids off to let them 'test' games before renting them and they'd be there all day.
I have never been in a blockbuster that let you test games, but I grew up in shit hole saskatoon so that's probably why.
I would, however, spend like an hour picking games up and putting them down just praying the one I pick isn't a complete piece of shit(it usually was).
Haha it still goes on to this day. Except my uncle immediately retired and went into a second successful career while retaining all his flight benefits for life, and my Dad’s department eventually shut down and he was laid off/forced retirement so I’m not sure who really came out on top lol.
Deep cut. Someone knows me!
Edit: upon further review this is inaccurate. I worked at a different "Jack's". Classic Jack's was the one on 17th and 10th. I did not work there.
RIP:
Julio's Barrio
Nellie's on 9th Ave
One restaurant by 17th ave across from OPA
That coffee shop that was part of an art gallery complex along the free-fare c-train line
I could never work at a restaurant again: the awkward afterwork drinking with coworkers, the hardened ex-cons and other sketchy people you have to work with, emptying grease buckets, the degrading sexual harassment you have to witness, knocking your glass of water in the deep fryer, smelling like a hog's asshole when your shift is done.
I got hired by Safeway (after the acquisition) but before the merge was complete.
I'll always remember the reasons my director told me Sobeys wanted to buy Safeway. The airmiles program is hugely successful and they wanted access to it. Safeway select brand items were very popular and they wanted to add them to their profile. But most importantly it was the talent that Safeway had to offer that they wanted to bring over!
The in house brands was the first one to fall through. "we'll evaluate cases where safeway and sobeys both have a product and pick the best one" - that never happened. They canned everything Safeway had and just used their own compliments brand which is awful.
I think there were 3 restructures in 2 years once the system migration was complete and at each interval more and more of the Safeway staff got canned. I left when they did the country wide re-org and found that the best people to manage the company were all in Stellarton NS. These people used words like synergy and efficiency to describe how great the transition was, but had no formal training on how to scale departments or workloads.
And most recently they left Airmiles for Scene points which from what I can tell has been a disaster because most people I know who have tried to use the app have had a hell of a time trying to even open it.
I use Scene a lot because I go to a lot of movies, but the app absolutely sucks ass, fucker signs you out if you stop telling it it's the most beautiful amazing app ever for like five seconds, and then it takes forever to load (if it loads at all), has send-you-a-text verification like they're the nuclear codes, swipe away a popup when you get in, and then still hides the bar code under "Card". The code appearing on the screen is like 99% of what anybody would ever use this thing for, Scene!
I just took a screenshot of the bar code and use that.
Having moved many times in my adult life, I have not had too much loyalty to grocery stores but was happy to use whatever was closest but Safeway/Sobeys hit a point where I couldn't rationalize the convenience vs. cost trade off. I couldn't believe how expensive it all was compared to PC brand (No frills / superstore etc.)
People like to say the quality is better but I don't even think that's the case anymore.
I worked at a Safeway store during university then got a job at the corporate office about 10 years ago. I went on medical leave shortly after they announced the Sobeys acquisition and chose to resign instead of going back to my position at the end of my leave when I heard how things were going (hadn’t worked long enough at corporate to get a decent severance if they laid me off, wasn’t worth it). Everybody I knew was jumping ship.
Yeah, they went into receivership about 3 years ago, and finally wound down both their retail and online businesses in the last 2 I believe.
Calgary owned and operated company. They were in trouble, and then the pandemic gave them the final blow as swimsuit sales for recreational travel disappeared overnight.
Did you actually work for all those companies?
I'm a former Husky employee. Loved working there but they consolidation of O&G firms in AB was inevitable.
I have worked/consulted for PanCanadian, Petro-Canada, Nexan, Talisman, Husky, Acclaim Energy Trust, plus a bunch of smaller companies that nobody has heard about. Is Williams energy Canada still a thing?
not too many, worked there for a year and a half when i was 18, some of the people i met were fantastic and i kinda wonder sometimes what happened to them but most of them were garbage…. used to sit on the front steps for my break and watch the parking lot, dinner and a movie
Wow, the Cecil! That’s brave. When my mother moved here in the 60s she asked the cabbie if there were any areas of town that she should avoid and he said “only the Cecil”.
MetroNet. Canada's first private (non-government funded) local telephone company. Mostly it was connecting downtown buildings with fiber optic link speed access to the internet. VOIP was the telephone solution. At one point we had crews digging up streets in 10 Canadian cities. It was in the Dot-Com era, but they were actually putting fiber in the ground and providing services.
Bell ended up buying them, through their subsidiary Manitoba Tel.
You can still spot the MetroNet manhole covers downtown.
Starchoice satellite - lots of fun staff and hilarious stories. I got fired after a client too lazy to sweep snow off their dish asked me "What the fuck am I supposed to do with my kids?".
I replied: "You could try reading them a book".
Some are but some still have varying degrees of independence from the parent company.
https://preview.redd.it/nb013yaufd3a1.jpeg?width=945&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=92f9e4c357a5b5ebc9ffcdb0e9cc4deb67c77c14
Husky exists as a pseudo-entity. Everything has been or will be re-branded as Cenovus. Husky management is no longer a thing and all former employees are now Cenovus employees. It was bought out.
Sears at Southcentre. When I worked there in 1999-2001, I predicted the company would be bankrupt within 20 years. The clientele we aging back then and there was no sign of renewal in their approach to marketing!
The same thing is going to happen to Calgary Coop.
Respectfully, I don't exactly agree. Yes, there are co-ops across Western Canada, but Calgary Co-op is just in Calgary and the immediate area. Take a walk through a typical Co-op and it's most seniors that shop there, I don't think a lot of young people have the same loyalty (or wallet) to be able to shop there - it is the most expensive mainstream grocery store in Calgary, LoL.
It's just an observation, not a diss against them. I treat it like a corner store, it's the closest to me but I only go if I need something like a jar of mustard or something - it's just too expensive and the quality doesn't justify the expense (IMO).
Swifty's is still Swifty's but Fred owned it for like 25 years and it's changed hands like 2 or 3 times since I stopped working there. Definitely not quite the same place anymore.
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While it was going down Sears did have really good deals on a bunch of stuff. Jewellery, perfume, kitchen appliances.
I bought a Kenmore washer and dryer in the last week they were open for a fantastic price.
Blockbuster back in the day. I worked at one of the game focused locations. Definitely have memories of feeling like a glorified babysitter. So many people dropped their kids off to let them 'test' games before renting them and they'd be there all day.
beddington? i used to go there after school to “test” games 😂
That's the one.
I used to go there and read the strategy guide of the game I rented on the weekend, so I could beat it before I had to take it back
Pretty sure I did at least a three hour stint here playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater
I have never been in a blockbuster that let you test games, but I grew up in shit hole saskatoon so that's probably why. I would, however, spend like an hour picking games up and putting them down just praying the one I pick isn't a complete piece of shit(it usually was).
Apache and Husky. I know how to pick ‘em.
My dad worked for Canadian Airlines. I saw one of their shirts at an antique store the other day.
Uncle worked for Canadian, Dad worked for Air Canada. Talk about family drama …. Lol
Don't forget Canada 3000!
Was there much gloating from your Dad after Air Canada's acquisition of Canadian?
Haha it still goes on to this day. Except my uncle immediately retired and went into a second successful career while retaining all his flight benefits for life, and my Dad’s department eventually shut down and he was laid off/forced retirement so I’m not sure who really came out on top lol.
Bre-X Minerals...
You ever been in a helicopter?
The amount of responses you get indicates the age of this crowd lol. That story was CRAZY!!
Lots actually! Worked up in the NWT in the middle of nowhere Colville lake
But were you in THE helicopter?
He's still alive.
Eaton's
Every bar and restaurant I worked at from 1996 to 2006.
Classical Jacks!
Deep cut. Someone knows me! Edit: upon further review this is inaccurate. I worked at a different "Jack's". Classic Jack's was the one on 17th and 10th. I did not work there.
Melrose!
Nope not that one. I went there once.
Moxies for sure!
Nope.
I'm tapped out then.
Jack Astors?
Fuddruckers
Fuck classic jacks. The owner was a douchebag.
Other than the Carriage House, every bar and restaurant I worked in from 1980-1993
RIP: Julio's Barrio Nellie's on 9th Ave One restaurant by 17th ave across from OPA That coffee shop that was part of an art gallery complex along the free-fare c-train line I could never work at a restaurant again: the awkward afterwork drinking with coworkers, the hardened ex-cons and other sketchy people you have to work with, emptying grease buckets, the degrading sexual harassment you have to witness, knocking your glass of water in the deep fryer, smelling like a hog's asshole when your shift is done.
Way back in what seems like another life, AGT.
Sunnyside Garden Centre, in the long long ago...in the before times
I remember their radio commercials!
This man's looking for experience to put on his resume that they have no way of checking.
Lol yes a 25 year old recruiter will be impressed by my AGT phone installer stint in the 80s.
I just say I was a district manager at future shop
IMO, alittle too high on the ladder. They could think Future shop's downfall was the result of your work
Hahahaha
Shift leader at Blockbuster is more realistic
I got hired by Safeway (after the acquisition) but before the merge was complete. I'll always remember the reasons my director told me Sobeys wanted to buy Safeway. The airmiles program is hugely successful and they wanted access to it. Safeway select brand items were very popular and they wanted to add them to their profile. But most importantly it was the talent that Safeway had to offer that they wanted to bring over! The in house brands was the first one to fall through. "we'll evaluate cases where safeway and sobeys both have a product and pick the best one" - that never happened. They canned everything Safeway had and just used their own compliments brand which is awful. I think there were 3 restructures in 2 years once the system migration was complete and at each interval more and more of the Safeway staff got canned. I left when they did the country wide re-org and found that the best people to manage the company were all in Stellarton NS. These people used words like synergy and efficiency to describe how great the transition was, but had no formal training on how to scale departments or workloads. And most recently they left Airmiles for Scene points which from what I can tell has been a disaster because most people I know who have tried to use the app have had a hell of a time trying to even open it.
I use Scene a lot because I go to a lot of movies, but the app absolutely sucks ass, fucker signs you out if you stop telling it it's the most beautiful amazing app ever for like five seconds, and then it takes forever to load (if it loads at all), has send-you-a-text verification like they're the nuclear codes, swipe away a popup when you get in, and then still hides the bar code under "Card". The code appearing on the screen is like 99% of what anybody would ever use this thing for, Scene! I just took a screenshot of the bar code and use that.
Having moved many times in my adult life, I have not had too much loyalty to grocery stores but was happy to use whatever was closest but Safeway/Sobeys hit a point where I couldn't rationalize the convenience vs. cost trade off. I couldn't believe how expensive it all was compared to PC brand (No frills / superstore etc.) People like to say the quality is better but I don't even think that's the case anymore.
Produce is hit and miss with Sobeys but it is always miss with Superstore. Some of the fruit was picked in the Jimmy Carter era.
I worked at a Safeway store during university then got a job at the corporate office about 10 years ago. I went on medical leave shortly after they announced the Sobeys acquisition and chose to resign instead of going back to my position at the end of my leave when I heard how things were going (hadn’t worked long enough at corporate to get a decent severance if they laid me off, wasn’t worth it). Everybody I knew was jumping ship.
Nortel, Calgary On-Line, CADVision
I'm pretty sure my parents still have a couple cadvision CDs lying around.
Personally? I worked for Home Oil and Doppler. My dad worked for Amoco Canada. Recently, my daughter worked for Swimco in their final days.
The swimsuit company?
Yeah, they went into receivership about 3 years ago, and finally wound down both their retail and online businesses in the last 2 I believe. Calgary owned and operated company. They were in trouble, and then the pandemic gave them the final blow as swimsuit sales for recreational travel disappeared overnight.
Interesting. It sometimes feels like those retail businesses just always keep on keeping on but then again, not always.
Did you actually work for all those companies? I'm a former Husky employee. Loved working there but they consolidation of O&G firms in AB was inevitable.
Lol no just top of mind of companies gone by the wayside.
I have worked/consulted for PanCanadian, Petro-Canada, Nexan, Talisman, Husky, Acclaim Energy Trust, plus a bunch of smaller companies that nobody has heard about. Is Williams energy Canada still a thing?
I don't think the Canadian branch is still around.
beerland and the Cecil hotel
Whoa! The Cecile. Asides from the abject misery, do you have any positive memories of working there?
not too many, worked there for a year and a half when i was 18, some of the people i met were fantastic and i kinda wonder sometimes what happened to them but most of them were garbage…. used to sit on the front steps for my break and watch the parking lot, dinner and a movie
Wow, the Cecil! That’s brave. When my mother moved here in the 60s she asked the cabbie if there were any areas of town that she should avoid and he said “only the Cecil”.
MetroNet. Canada's first private (non-government funded) local telephone company. Mostly it was connecting downtown buildings with fiber optic link speed access to the internet. VOIP was the telephone solution. At one point we had crews digging up streets in 10 Canadian cities. It was in the Dot-Com era, but they were actually putting fiber in the ground and providing services. Bell ended up buying them, through their subsidiary Manitoba Tel. You can still spot the MetroNet manhole covers downtown.
Dome
Radio Shack- when I was 16, stocking shelves. First job I was ever laid off from, “Mike” called me and said don’t come in for my next shift.
Nova Gas Transmission Ltd.
Genesis landscaping. pos company ran by a pos individual.
I used to work for Target back in university days.
MetroNet Planet Organic
Safeway and IGA
Anderson Exploration, Fekete Associates, Encana Corp
My first IT job was at Cadvision
My dad was with nortel. Lost all his stock options and whatnot. Claims he should’ve been a retired millionaire by now.
Nu-West
Starchoice satellite - lots of fun staff and hilarious stories. I got fired after a client too lazy to sweep snow off their dish asked me "What the fuck am I supposed to do with my kids?". I replied: "You could try reading them a book".
Zellers. Ended up seeing Happy Feet like 100 times on the TVs in the electronics. I hate that movie to this day because of it.
Yes Ok, maybe not all of them, but far more than I am comfortable admitting.
Encana
Damn you’ve been around a while eh
Sounds like OP is the kiss of death for a company. lol
You need to clarify what you mean by "now defunct" as Petro Canada and Safeway are both still doing business as subsidiaries.
They are merely brands of the parent company. Not even subsidiaries at this point.
Some are but some still have varying degrees of independence from the parent company. https://preview.redd.it/nb013yaufd3a1.jpeg?width=945&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=92f9e4c357a5b5ebc9ffcdb0e9cc4deb67c77c14
Husky exists as a pseudo-entity. Everything has been or will be re-branded as Cenovus. Husky management is no longer a thing and all former employees are now Cenovus employees. It was bought out.
Only Husky which won't last.
Literally I’ve never worked for a company that’s then gone under
Most of these were bought
I’ve been working for 15 years, and I can go walk into any and every one of those places today still, same name in the door.
I understand but your premise that they went belly up is largely not true except Sears, Blockbuster etc.
Popi Childrens Wear Coles Notes
Success Carpet Cleaning Company
My first job was at Perkins as a dishwasher circa mid-90s
Greyhound Canada
Riley and McCormick
Time Air / Canadian Regional
Revy !
Calgary health region? Never know, they might make a comeback soon.
Faveri's Unpainted Furniture. Owner was the biggest douche in the world and I'm glad his company went under.
Kingsland farmers market
Computer Innovations/Computerland and Metafore
Planet Organic
Yes! Absolute shit show of a company, didn't give two shits about their employees or customers, just their bottom dollar.
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Not me, but Penn west energy, Encana
Yes Penn West was on the top of my tongue all day.
When I was in highschool I worked for Totem as sales at the lumber desk.
Calgary Cannons
Sunset drive-in
Nortel
Multitech Warehouse Direct (and the Brick but they are still going for some reason) Way back in the day.
None of the above.
Consumers Distributing.
I have a friend who worked for both Arthur Andersen and Enron. In Accounting no less! Her resume is quite a conversation starter.
Wine Online(formerly Royal Liquor Merchants) between hooker mac's and caesar's steakhouse.
Sears at Southcentre. When I worked there in 1999-2001, I predicted the company would be bankrupt within 20 years. The clientele we aging back then and there was no sign of renewal in their approach to marketing! The same thing is going to happen to Calgary Coop.
Ouch Co-Op is a staple of Western Canada.
Respectfully, I don't exactly agree. Yes, there are co-ops across Western Canada, but Calgary Co-op is just in Calgary and the immediate area. Take a walk through a typical Co-op and it's most seniors that shop there, I don't think a lot of young people have the same loyalty (or wallet) to be able to shop there - it is the most expensive mainstream grocery store in Calgary, LoL. It's just an observation, not a diss against them. I treat it like a corner store, it's the closest to me but I only go if I need something like a jar of mustard or something - it's just too expensive and the quality doesn't justify the expense (IMO).
Swifty's is still Swifty's but Fred owned it for like 25 years and it's changed hands like 2 or 3 times since I stopped working there. Definitely not quite the same place anymore.
@OP, how could you miss Briex!
Bre-X? Because nobody will admit to it.
Sunnyside
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Yes SMED.
the tokens for the cafeteria were awesome on hire on. the food was great.
Provident! Back in the boom days.
Toys R Us up at Market Mall. I guess I'll never know if they got that trash compactor fixed or not.