Is it a coincidence that four out of five of the companies that made Edugree’s list of the worst companies to work for are also, at least in my opinion, the worst companies to do business with? Decide for yourself-here are the companies that made the top five.

Home Depot-At one time Home Depot had personnel that could answer product questions. According to the article on Edugree.com, these folks were canned in favor of cheaper labor. “After firing all of their decent staff, they took or severely cut back any worthwhile employee benefits and incentives; merit badges worth $20 each, tuition reimbursement, dental, employee discounts, Christmas bonuses (now just a coupon) credit signup bonuses etc.” Nice.

AOL-Have you ever tried to disengage yourself from AOL? You can’t. I swear their customer service reps are either stalkers or former loan sharks. According to the article, AOL trains employees on how to charge credit cards of those trying to cancel their accounts.

Best Buy-The article states that Best Buy forces “employees to practice questionable ethics.” I don’t know how, or if, they do that (see yesterday’s blog for more details about BestBuy), but I know that they have the longest check-out lines in the history of mankind.

McDonald’s-Edugree, you dare criticize the entity that brought us Big Macs and Happy Meals? You say that “McDonald’s is host to incompetent supervisors where ‘mediocrity is looked up to, but never quite achieved.'” That may be, but their coffee is good.

Verizon-Note to anyone who may be in the market for a new cell plan. The term “free upgrade” does not mean the same to Verizon as it may to you. Oh yeah, and I lied about Best Buy having the longest check-out lanes in the history of mankind. That honor definitely goes to Verizon. The Edugree article says that Verizon is guilty of “freezing pensions by e-mail and that the poor top-down management has caused some of the lowest morale ever in a company.”

For more on these companies, see the complete list here.