Whatever happened to the "Real Thing"?

ja · 2026-05-04T07:03:08.986Z

I walked past the archives in the Atlanta HQ yesterday and felt like a ghost haunting a museum. We used to be a company that manufactured magic—or at least, that’s what we told ourselves. Now, the office feels like a hollowed-out shell, echoing with the silence of empty desks and the nervous hum of people waiting for the next "restructuring" memo. The layoffs didn’t just cut roles; they lobotomized our institutional memory. I look around at the new cohorts and they’re sharp, sure, but they treat the brand like a spreadsheet, not a legacy. We’ve traded our soul for quarterly margin optimization. The legendary, collaborative chaos of the regional business units has been suffocated by a sea of gray, siloed dashboards. I miss the days when we actually stood for something beyond a stock buyback. We’re still pouring the same syrup, but the bottle feels emptier every single day. Does anyone else feel like we’re just waiting for the lights to go out?

Whatever happened to the "Real Thing"? | Coca-Cola Discussions