Case study on a company that failed. 20 pages later, I'm depressed about capitalism.

[DonBrown]

Business strategy class. Had to write a case study on a company that went bankrupt. I chose a retail chain that was once huge and now doesn't exist. Simple assignment, I thought.

20 pages later and I'm genuinely sad. Like, existentially bummed.

I traced their history. Their rise. Their innovations. Their mistakes. The market shifts they didn't see. The leadership that couldn't adapt. It's like reading a tragedy in slow motion. Hundreds of stores. Thousands of employees. Generations of families who shopped there. All gone. And the worst part? Most of it wasn't even their fault. Not really. The economy changed. Consumer habits shifted. A pandemic happened. They made some bad calls, sure, but they also got unlucky. A lot of unlucky.

Now I'm sitting here thinking about all the other companies that will fail. All the workers who will lose jobs. All the communities that will lose anchors. And the machine just keeps going. New companies rise. Old ones fall. Nobody cares.

My professor will probably give me an A. But I feel weird about it. Like I profited from someone else's failure. Like I'm supposed to be "objective" about something that ruined real lives.

Anyone else get weirdly emotional about case studies? Or am I just too sensitive for business school?

 

[Tamman]

The "generations of families who shopped there" line hit me. My grandmother still talks about a department store that closed in the 90s. She mourns it like a person. And I used to think she was being dramatic. Now I get it. Places hold meaning. They hold memories. When they fail, something dies that wasn't on the balance sheet. Good on you for seeing that. Most business students never do.