Go Woke, go broke.
That is a hard and fast rule of economics.
Dick’s Sporting Goods went anti-gun and got hit hard in the bottom line.
The North Face decided to tell an oil company that wanted to buy employees custom fleeces to piss off, despite 100% of their products being made of materials that are petroleum products.
So it was a shock to the gun world when Arc’teryx decided to combine the mistakes of both Dick’s and North Face and tell a gun company that wanted custom gear to piss off.
Arc’teryx is extremely popular with the tactical and action shooting crowd and they are also a supplier of military equipment.
This email is the sort of thing that goes around the gun-web quickly and makes the gun world boycott a brand.
Considering that the tactical and action shooting crowd drops money on fancy new toys and equipment like water on a forest fire.
USPSA is a fashionista central of $200 all synthetic tactical pants, Salomon trail running shoes, and the latest and greatest in custom molded Kydex gear on a molle belt. Apparently, all the money that these guys save on handloading goes into clothing.
If you sell to the tactical world, do not piss off tactical/action shooters unless you want to feel the hurt in your profits.
But I digress…
The good news is that Arc’teryx corporate caught wind of what happened and sent out a five-alarm apology and clarification.
“The email screenshot expressing a restrictive policy on corporate sales to tactical industry business was sent out in error. It does not reflect our current policy. The customer has been notified, apologized to, and been put in touch with a representative from the Arc’teryx LEAF business unit”.
So here is what think happened.
Note this important tidbit:
The employee who rejected the request had her pronouns in her signature.
I believe that this Service Coordinator is every bit the stereotype that you’d expect someone with pronouns in her signature to be.
She saw a request from a gun company and unilaterally sent out this “we don’t agree with your values” bullshit not realizing the size of the hornets’ nest she was kicking.
I can imagine that she was even proud of her decision. “I told my coworkers that I told a gun company to fuck off, and then everyone in the break room applauded.”
Arc’teryx corporate, watching the civilian sales of $250 tactical pants go to zero, panicked and had to apologize and throw that employee under the bus as hard as they could without violating Canadian employment laws.
The most important lesson to learn from this is: anyone with their pronouns in their signature should be fired immediately before they tank your business.
Shit like this gets around in the ‘good old boy’ corporate network that is still in existence.
I can see new management positions in ‘unwoke’ corporate HR sections that specifically look for resumes with this woke pronoun horseshit signature blocks and chuck those applications in the shredder. It’s better to never hire these morons in the first place.
J. Kb: I agree completely.
Reltney McFee
Pronouns: I/me/mine,
You/yours
He/him/his
She/her/hers
You/yours
It/it’s
The Omnipotent Everything/The Mighty Zardiz.
According to Mr. Wizard (Wikipedia):
Arc’teryx is a **Chinese-owned** company that sells outdoor clothing and climbing gear. The headquarters and design centre are located in North Vancouver, with a local manufacturing facility called “ARC’One”, located in New Westminster. There are overseas teams located in Munich, Shanghai and Tokyo.Wikipedia
It was a Canadian owned company, purchased by a Finnish company that is a wholly owned subsidiary of a Chinese holding company.
I’m all for banning holding companies and we can have a conversation about allowing the Chinese to buy up all the companies in the world, but it was originally a Canadian company and how much micromanaging the Chinese holding company does through the Finnish company to the Canadian company is not known.
First of all, I find Arc’teryx gear to be ridiculously overpriced for the performance you get. There are a lot of companies out there with gear that is on par, at a significantly lower price.
As to the pronouns, I generally go with:
Preferred pronouns: Take a guess. I am an adult, I will not get offended if you get it wrong.
“panicked and had to apologize and throw that employee under the bus as hard as they could without violating Canadian employment laws.”
And that’s the rub.
What sanctions were delivered to the employee who either didn’t know company policy (bad), or went deliberately against it (worse)?
If the answer is “nothing,” then, sorry, still not going to do any business with them if I can help it. Actions must have consequences.
I agree, that company should be boycotted until the employee(s) responsible for the scandal are named shamed and fired, or they go bankrupt.
I wander if this was really a company position. But when the fire storm happened blamed the employee.
I like the guy who said something like: “my preferred pronoun is ‘Your Majesty.'”
‘Noble Born’ is also acceptable.
I went over there and followed the comments on the “SSD” site, Jeez the dog piling on the guy trying to explain things logically, he was called a “schill” for the company because he has a possible business relationship with them. Interesting to see how this plays out.
I find it annoying when news items like this have the name blanked out. There is no reason for doing that (not in the USA, where truth is a complete defense against a charge of libel).