Leave nothing but footprints
October 26, 2015 4:54 PM   Subscribe

Buy Nothing Day has a long history but it's what one expects from a magazine like Adbusters, not a large retailer with $2B in annual sales. But REI plans to close on "Black Friday" and suggests people opt outside. People outside of the US can continue to live their lives as normal.
posted by GuyZero (59 comments total) 26 users marked this as a favorite
 
Brilliant. I did a whole social-media thing through this myself (even though among all the people I know I'd be preaching to the converted).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:10 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I've long boycotted Black Friday, but it's pretty awesome of rei to close and pay their employees. That said, I know zero about their usual labor practices, or how they rate as an employer, so I'm unsure if this is just a marketing campaign to gain traction with the people who are probably their key demographic, or if it's a reflection of their company ethos.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 5:11 PM on October 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


That said, I know zero about their usual labor practices, or how they rate as an employer, so I'm unsure if this is just a marketing campaign to gain traction with the people who are probably their key demographic, or if it's a reflection of their company ethos.

Here's their stewardship report. Health care for all workers who work 20 hours or more, number 58 in top 100 places to work. They seem to be walking the walk.
posted by zabuni at 5:28 PM on October 26, 2015 [22 favorites]


Ahh, I just got the announcement email from REI and for a half second I thought it meant they were closing on Black Friday... permanently.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 5:37 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


... mostly because the subject of the email and header graphic read:

REI IS CLOSING BLACK FRIDAY
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 5:39 PM on October 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


One thing worth reiterating about REI as a company is that REI is a co-op.
posted by barchan at 5:49 PM on October 26, 2015 [27 favorites]


I was about to say if I was a shareholder of REI I'd be furious, but as barchan says they're a coop.
posted by Joe Chip at 5:53 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


I love this.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 5:57 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


But seriously, go outside on black Friday? Last year in Seattle where they are headquarted it was a miserable rainy day. Maybe it's not a big day for them anyway since nobody buys camping gear in winter.
posted by Joe Chip at 5:58 PM on October 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


Black Friday shopping is pretty much my idea of hell. I boycott it for totally non-ideological reasons. It's pure self-preservation, not a statement about consumerism.

Last year I took my nephew to the cool adventure park with the zip-wire and the big scary slides on the day after Thanksgiving. I highly recommend it.
Maybe it's not a big day for them anyway since nobody buys camping gear in winter.
At least in theory, Black Friday is a lot about holiday shopping, and I would assume that plenty of people do give camping gear as Christmas presents.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:02 PM on October 26, 2015 [8 favorites]


Maybe it's not a big day for them anyway since nobody buys camping gear in winter.

REI sells skiing/snowboarding gear, so I expect winter sales are reasonably important. (I've bought a bunch of winter stuff from them).
posted by thefoxgod at 6:13 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah, it's a great place for Christmas shopping. They also sell a lot of stuff for skiers, snowboarders, snowshoers, snow campers, etc., so that keeps them busy. I've never seen it excessively crowded around the holidays, but I have seen it get pretty busy.
posted by teponaztli at 6:13 PM on October 26, 2015


REI stores are all over the U.S, not just Seattle. I worked there for 2.5 years as a network engineer, I designed and implemented the current integration of the wired and wireless networks for all 150 stores.

This is awesome for all employees and their families. I am really proud of them for taking this stand. It's the right move to make. Kinda bummed I left Seattle to come back to Texas, especially seeing as how the very next year they offered 100% coverage for trans related medical care. That's even more massively huge awesome.

So yeah, they're legit, but it's still retail, so it's not perfect by any means.
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:14 PM on October 26, 2015 [26 favorites]


(thefoxgod beat me to it!)

Also, in places like California, where I live, hiking and camping is pretty much year-round.
posted by teponaztli at 6:15 PM on October 26, 2015


As a political stance, anti-consumerism has always struck me as incredibly middle class and idealist, basically claiming that the fundamental social relation is between producer and consumer, with the producers "brainwashing" us into buying things, and thus the major political action being offered is everyone individually "checking out of the system". Along with this come some blatantly classist-flavored thinking that only barely rates better than, like, Simple Living magazine. Black Friday stuff can be especially bad, given the framing of it as "those slavering materialistic Wal Mart hordes stampeding one another" (the fact that 'materialist' is used in its other sense here as an insult is of course mostly coincidence, but still has a kind of telling irony).

All of which is to say that it's no surprise that a corporation like REI would get on this train.
posted by goodnight to the rock n roll era at 6:19 PM on October 26, 2015 [11 favorites]


I regularly breathe hellfire about capitalism in my personal life, but I am 100% about REI and have been a very loyal customer to them for the last year as I get more into outdoorsy shit. The reason why is that I have never ONCE been condescended to or patronized by any of the male staff. It's relevant to note that I do not have an outdoors background, and I am also a youngish woman. This includes considerable time getting fitted for a backpack, boots, etc.

I cannot say how rare it is to be a woman, especially a newbie in outdoor recreation, and receive such consistently thoughtful and respectful treatment. Normally I would rather eat paste than go shopping in a store, but REI's staff are so consistently pleasant that I actually look forward to going there. And so I'm glad to hear that corporate HQ is doing this for the employees, because they sure as shit deserve it.

Let's hope it catches on to other retail establishments, but I'm not holding my breath.
posted by mostly vowels at 6:24 PM on October 26, 2015 [34 favorites]


Maybe it's not a big day for them anyway since nobody buys camping gear in winter.

As mentioned, REI sells quite a bit of winter sports equipment, and Thanksgiving/Christmas sales are a good time to buy both presents and winter outdoor gear (as well as get good deals on the stuff from the previous spring/summer/fall). While there's no doubt REI would consider me a very good customer, I don't know if I'm a typical customer, but I do probably go to REI only slightly less in the winter than I do in the summer.

It's a good question about this being a ploy - there was an interesting article in Outside last summer about how "the outdoor industry has a millennial problem." This (and the healthcare thing, which I didn't know about) makes me glad to be a member again. Lately I haven't been, because the 10% dividend back really sucks me into buying there instead of local sometimes. So "walking the walk" or good marketing, it sure sucked me in.

And also because no one at REI has ever responded to my angry letters about the state of women's outdoor clothing.
posted by barchan at 6:26 PM on October 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


It's pretty awesome for them to do this, and great for their employees and their families. Makes me feel a little better about being a member and regular customer.

But it also seems like a relatively low-stakes move for them since they do a significant portion of their sales online.
posted by ardgedee at 6:26 PM on October 26, 2015


Heh, mostly vowels, I agree with you about their in-store employees. When I say "state of women's outdoor clothing" I'm talking about the industry as a whole.
posted by barchan at 6:28 PM on October 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


But it also seems like a relatively low-stakes move for them since they do a significant portion of their sales online.

They don't do Black Friday deals, and their customers/members are generally the type who wouldn't do so either. You can buy the gear on Saturday.

And the stores do a lot of business, because a lot of the gear they sell is stuff you need to try on or you want to see before you drop the money on it. I'm a huge believer in online, and yet, I'm still going to REI fairly often.

Member since....fuck, when it cost $10, I don't remember. Made that money back time and time and time again.
posted by eriko at 6:29 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


There was a day not too long ago when I was headed to Hawk Hill for my volunteer hawkwatching thing and I realized that everything I was wearing except my bra and panties I'd bought at REI.

I'm not harboring under any illusions that this will be starting some widespread movement, but I'm glad they're doing this. I've been a member since....don't know exactly. A couple of decades, anyway.
posted by rtha at 6:31 PM on October 26, 2015 [6 favorites]


It's funny you bring that up because I spent a fair amount of time while working there raising hell about the brand marketing to much to white privilege while ignoring/tokenizing lower income groups and POC. For instance, I brought that up with the CEO Sally Jewell in my orientation and my comment was met with thoughtfulness by her, so I suppose that, yeah it's a problematic culture and brand but it's a lot better than anywhere else I've ever worked.

I stirred up crap for sure, and you make a valid point. That said, there's more at play here than just the usual whiteness we tend to associate with the REI brand. Consideration for the employees was also a factor, I mean when I worked there Black Friday was a huge source of internal strife between corporate and retail, because for all their egalitarianism, I was always off that day and the stores had to be open. It caused a lot of problems. I'm pretty sure that factored into the decision.
posted by Annika Cicada at 6:32 PM on October 26, 2015 [4 favorites]


So back when I was drafting corporate transaction documents with another person who was morbidly obsessed with language, we decided that instead of using the usual "business day" definition of "any day other than a Saturday or Sunday, or a day on which federal or state regulation require or permit banks to be closed", we would say "blah blah blah remain closed" because banks close every day, but on non-business days, they don't open. That's my two cents in the REI IS CLOSING BLACK FRIDAY conversation.
posted by janey47 at 6:33 PM on October 26, 2015 [12 favorites]


It's totally a low-stakes publicity stunt, but at least their employees get paid time off for it. I mean, I don't know how they normally do it there, but I never even heard of paid time off in the many years I was working retail.
posted by teponaztli at 6:35 PM on October 26, 2015 [8 favorites]


"I was about to say if I was a shareholder of REI I'd be furious, but as barchan says they're a coop."

As a member for over 17 years, I'm a "shareholder", and I'm elated.
posted by notsnot at 6:38 PM on October 26, 2015 [27 favorites]


> ...a lot of the gear they sell is stuff you need to try on or you want to see before you drop the money on it.

REI is one of those places where the online and physical stores complement each other.

I'll frequently buy items in a couple sizes online, have them shipped to the nearest store, try them in the fitting room and return on the spot the ones that don't fit. It's sometimes the only way I can shop there, since even when they have what I need in the store they usually don't have my size. I know I'm not the only one who does that.
posted by ardgedee at 6:40 PM on October 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


> I'll frequently buy items in a couple sizes online, have them shipped to the nearest store, try them in the fitting room and return on the spot the ones that don't fit.

I've done that, too, but it's terribly dangerous for me because I almost always end up "just having a quick look!" at the racks near the dressing rooms and discovering things I really "need" in addition to the thing(s) I ordered.
posted by rtha at 6:43 PM on October 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


I shop online on Black Friday, so I am probably making sysadmins miserable. Sorry folks.

I do like REI, and their points card is nice too! Sadly, the one at my local mall here in WA is closing to move to a trendier town.
posted by taterpie at 7:07 PM on October 26, 2015


I've been an REI member, and the kind of person that celebrates BND, since the 90's. As you might guess, I think this is wonderful, and I'll probably buy some gift memberships on that Saturday. I'll probably do it online, with my REI credit card, over a bowl full of Thanksgiving leftovers.
posted by box at 7:13 PM on October 26, 2015 [2 favorites]


I worked at Best Buy through three holiday seasons in the early 2000's. I've seen people literally get into a fist fight over a cheap 13" Deawoo that would get passed over in the free pile at a garage sale today. I've seen hordes of ordinarily reasonable people do very unreasonable things in the name of getting a bargain. I don't shop on black Friday because I refuse to make anyone deal with the things I had to deal with, I just won't add to that system and every time some retailer announces that they're going to open just that much earlier, I get sad.

The other dirty secret about black Friday is that anything that is a genuinely good deal and a high quality product (rather than the one-off, POS, door busters you see on BF) that you see on BF will get offered again for the same price the weekend before Christmas. This still holds generally true for Best Buy, maybe less so at other retailers.

I really like that some of the back-lash has created "cyber-Monday" since I prefer to buy things online. For stuff like clothes, I like having the brick-and-mortar store to put my hands on some products and then I go home and buy them online.

In conclusion, I am happy that REI is doing this. I hope others follow or at least backing off of the "open earlier arms race" a bit.
posted by VTX at 7:23 PM on October 26, 2015 [6 favorites]


The joke is that the last time I went shopping on Buy Nothing Day it was to get a winter jacket at REI.
posted by ckape at 7:40 PM on October 26, 2015


I like to go into work on Black Friday. It's quiet as the grave and everyone in my dept. is relieved that I'm there so they don't have to be. There is no reason my company needs to be open that day but for some reason they won't let us take it without using vacation. Which nearly everyone does. I get a lot of reading done.
posted by emjaybee at 7:47 PM on October 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


And also because no one at REI has ever responded to my angry letters about the state of women's outdoor clothing.

OMG barchan, let's have a meet up where we write angry letters to North Face because why oh why would you take a functional pair of hiking pants, size it down to fit women, and then SHRINK THE POCKETS SO SMALL THEY CANNOT HOLD ANYTHING

WHY DO YOU THINK WOMEN HIKERS DO NOT NEED POCKETS, NORTH FACE? WHYYYYY?
posted by iminurmefi at 8:15 PM on October 26, 2015 [20 favorites]


WHY DO YOU THINK WOMEN HIKERS DO NOT NEED POCKETS, NORTH FACE? WHYYYYY?

Stuff goes in your stylish hiking purse?

I live this frustration vicariously through my spouse. REI at least carries a wide selection of women's clothing and gear, but they are still somewhat at the mercy of the industry's limitations. (Only somewhat, though -- they have their house brand, and they are a large enough entity to carry weight in what gets designed and sold by their suppliers.)

Buy Nothing Day has always seemed like a cheesy affectation to me, but it is great that REI is giving its employees a paid day off. I can remember being hourly and being given time off that meant that I would have trouble paying rent.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:39 PM on October 26, 2015


Buy Nothing Day
posted by Quilford at 8:49 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


My shop is normally closed on Fridays and the American Express rep that stopped by a week ago was just agast that we wouldn't be opening on Black Friday to take advantage of all the American Express card holders going on shopping sprees. Like, comically stunned, mouth flapping like a goldfish. Never mind the fact that we don't do retail sales so we'd have literally nothing to sell people even if we were open. But, but, money!
posted by bizwank at 9:01 PM on October 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


I worked at Best Buy through three holiday seasons in the early 2000's. I've seen people literally get into a fist fight over a cheap 13" Deawoo that would get passed over in the free pile at a garage sale today. I've seen hordes of ordinarily reasonable people do very unreasonable things in the name of getting a bargain.

Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion? C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate?
posted by LastOfHisKind at 9:24 PM on October 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


People don't shop on Black Friday to save money. They shop on Black Friday, because it's the one day of the year they can pamper themselves with otherwise unaffordable things. You know why Black Friday wasn't a thing before Reagan? Because America still had a viable middle class that didn't need to put up with condescending dehumanizing retail schemes in order to own a few nice things for themselves and their kids.

To be blunt, the people who rail against Black Friday can afford to buy the same products regardless of whether they are on sale or not, so instead of a buy nothing day, how about a register to vote day, preferably for candidates who oppose free trade, outsourcing, and other corporate swindles that have screwed the working class into the ground.
posted by Beholder at 9:36 PM on October 26, 2015 [20 favorites]


This is a publicity stunt... And it works. I just went from being vaguely cynical about REI to a fan.

The extra angle is that here in the Midwest, late fall isn't really a time you can do all that much... Too cold to hike, too warm to ski. So this is kind of a challenge to find something that works for you regardless if the weather.
posted by miyabo at 9:47 PM on October 26, 2015 [1 favorite]


Been a member since 1978, its not what it was but then again things change. Not to be a sour puss but REI is nothing to gush about, Coop? yeah thats a laugh. You probably don't know what I'm talking about so please read this: http://www.seattleweekly.com/2003-06-18/news/who-owns-rei/
posted by Pembquist at 10:42 PM on October 26, 2015 [3 favorites]


Having worked 5 Christmas Eves and New Year's Days in a row, I'm well aware that the general public needs a bit of education about what working on a day like this means (so many people assumed we're paid time and a half!) so I am all for publicity stunts etc that reframe it from a worker's point of view.

/Still bitter about the customer who lectured me about how 'people like me' want 'the economy to shut down' because I said I wasn't surprised it was difficult to find a restaurant to eat in without reservations on New Year's Eve.
posted by Gin and Broadband at 1:00 AM on October 27, 2015 [5 favorites]


Having worked 5 Christmas Eves and New Year's Days in a row, I'm well aware that the general public needs a bit of education about what working on a day like this means (so many people assumed we're paid time and a half!) so I am all for publicity stunts etc that reframe it from a worker's point of view.

Working class and middle class families need the extra money, since they earn so little (thanks war on unions!). This gives business the smarmiest excuse of all, that they are open on the holidays as a way to reward their employees with extra pay opportunities. It's mostly bullshit, of course. Walmart has enough money to give all their employees a paid holiday on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year and still have enough cash to fill the Grand Canyon, but then they'd be accused of hating America, and we can't have that.
posted by Beholder at 2:40 AM on October 27, 2015 [3 favorites]


how about a register to vote day

Nice idea, bad timing. Register to vote day should be three weeks before the general election, not after. (Or far enough in advance to meet whatever BS deadline state law puts on it; 29 days ahead of the election in my state.)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:29 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


The joke is that the last time I went shopping on Buy Nothing Day it was to get a winter jacket at REI.
My family doesn't celebrate American Thanksgiving, so I usually use that extended weekend to either pad out a vacation with a trip outside of the US, or to go on a camping weekend; and I feel a similar amusement about how REI gear has already supported all of my Buy Nothing Days for the last six years.

I'm also someone who's occasionally ambivalent about REI (mostly because there's a local camping store that I am fiercely loyal too and constantly worry about being crushed by the behemoth) but I'm glad that they're doing this.
posted by bl1nk at 5:05 AM on October 27, 2015


It would be interesting to do some research about Black Friday shopping - not "how much do people spend" but "who spends" and on what. I am a little suspicious of both the "no one would go out to shop on Black Friday if there was viable employment" and "people shop on Black Friday because they are slavering materialistic hoards", just because neither of those things seem to explain the totality of my experience of people who shop on Black Friday.

I think metafilter probably is a poor place to discuss this, since I think that many of us - even the ones who don't make that much money (like me) are giant weirdos and don't necessarily want many of the doorbuster Black Friday items anyway, plus tend not to enjoy giant scrums of people.

Whereas I have definitely met people who like Black Friday. It's fun! It's shopping as adventure!

I'd be interested in how the overall switch to fast production has helped create Black Friday. A lot of stuff people are shopping for either didn't exist at all pre-Reagan or was stuff that you just didn't replace all that often. (And we see that here on the blue all the time - like the discussion of Zenni optical, where people are talking about how they have ten pairs of glasses in rotation because they're so cheap; or people replace their phones frequently; or on the green, where people are mostly asking about stuff they won't have to replace next year, since things that fall apart in the months after you buy them are the norm now.)

I'm definitely interested in the work of shopping, and how this falls disproportionately on working class (broadly defined) people. It's difficult to live an average life and not constantly shop, because things that don't fall apart or become obsolete are either unavailable (as with tech) or very expensive. And for women in particular, there's much more pressure to get new clothes - even if very few people's jobs really require living like a fashion blogger, it's certainly changed from when I was growing up in the nineties (and we already had quite a lot of stuff) where people kept most of their clothes for years and the fashion cycle was very slow. The behavior of an average-fashionable person in 1990 would mean looking dowdy and dated very quickly now.

Again, on metafilter people incline much more to the "I buy all my stuff from [small company] and only shop on alternate blue moons" but for the average working person, the labor of shopping has definitely increased. I think the gamification of shopping obscures this. I'm interested in Black Friday as labor - the labor of the people who have to work it, of course, but also the labor of the people who shop.
posted by Frowner at 6:33 AM on October 27, 2015 [14 favorites]


FWIW my family's black friday shopping "tradition" has always been more for entertainment. We just spent all of Tgiving Day sitting at home, eating and loafing. By the next day, we're itching to go do something, but Minnesota in November does not always lend itself to outdoor pursuits. So we go shopping, just to get out, and at least start idly thinking about Xmas gifts.
posted by nakedmolerats at 7:13 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also, I've been to the Mall of America on Black Friday and if you're not there at the crack o'dawn for the crazy doorbusters, it really hasn't been any busier than any other pre-Xmas shopping day. It's not the crazy zombie horde the news likes to fan up.
posted by nakedmolerats at 7:14 AM on October 27, 2015


barchan: ""the outdoor industry has a millennial problem.""

This has not been my experience at all, but that might just be confirmation bias talking.

I'm sad that our local outdoors chain is closing, likely due to competition from REI, but that's likely just a function of simple economics -- REI has better economies of scale, and can afford to work with smaller margins, which in turn lets them invest more in their stores and employees (which they actually seem to do!).

I'm not sure about the cause/effect relationship, but it's worth noting that ethics seem to play a fairly important role in the outdoor apparel/equipment industry. REI definitely deserves some credit for setting the standard.
posted by schmod at 7:27 AM on October 27, 2015


Also, I've been to the Mall of America on Black Friday and if you're not there at the crack o'dawn for the crazy doorbusters, it really hasn't been any busier than any other pre-Xmas shopping day. It's not the crazy zombie horde the news likes to fan up.

The baseline at the Mall of America is crazy zombie horde.
posted by nathan_teske at 7:33 AM on October 27, 2015 [2 favorites]


I mean... we can agree to disagree, but it has really never been truly "oh my god I can't move" any of the dozens of times I have been there. It's busy and large, but the MN state fair for example has always scored way worse on my crowd-ometer.
posted by nakedmolerats at 8:42 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I have to say, the Mall of America just isn't that bad on an average day - my work life used to take me out there fairly regularly. I don't like malls generally, and it gets a bit overwhelming when they have some teen pop thing going on, but honestly Woodfield Mall in Illinois, near where I grew up, is sooooooooo much worse. I would infinitely rather go to MOA than Woodfield, and yet people generally don't hold Woodfield up as especially bad. (It has terrible acoustics and gets super, super loud, plus it has weird and confusing stairs.) Heck, you know what's really worse than MOA? Ikea. Ikea is much, much worse. Ikea on Black Friday, now that's a gnaw-off-your-forearm-to-escape situation.
posted by Frowner at 9:05 AM on October 27, 2015


As a political stance, anti-consumerism has always struck me as incredibly middle class and idealist, basically claiming that the fundamental social relation is between producer and consumer...

I find your comment confusing. Many political stances are idealist. And I don't think anti-consumerism makes any claims about what the primary social relationship is, just that consumerism has gotten too big. It doesn't even make absolute claims - clearly people need to buy things.

For my own part I think Black Friday as a concept/event has gotten out of hand although it has innocuous enough roots - the day after Thanksgiving is a traditional day off in the US, people like to shop, Christmas is coming up, stores compete for shoppers... but it's turned into this monster which I'm not particularly fond of. And as someone noted upthread, if there ever were good deals on Black Friday, they're mostly crap these days - big chains have very specific Black Friday merchandise picked out in the spring which is specifically designed and manufactured to be even cheaper than normal so you're not really getting a special on a normal good, it's a normal price on a "special" good.
posted by GuyZero at 10:24 AM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


> WHY DO YOU THINK WOMEN HIKERS DO NOT NEED POCKETS, NORTH FACE? WHYYYYY?

Wait wait I found some! Don't panic! LL Bean's Northport pants have plenty o' pockets, and the back pockets -- which zipper! -- are big enough for an iPhone.

I love getting camping gear at REI, and just poking around there in general, but I rarely bother looking at their clothing other than socks. They seem to think that women do nothing other than yoga, and that we're all teeny.
posted by The corpse in the library at 1:34 PM on October 27, 2015


I'm glad REI is taking this approach to the Friday after Thanksgiving. I have worked retail on that day and indeed through a holiday season.

Pembquist, thanks for the link. I'm an REI member and I should be less blithe about "oh it's a co-op" optimism. I like their products and services a lot and I have had pretty much uniformly great experiences with customer service at REI but I should still be careful about being too sunny!

From REI's financial data, executive compensation (PDF) for Jerry Stritzke (President & CEO: $2,710,060 in 2014) and Eric Artz (Executive Vice President & COO/CFO: $1,369,144 in 2014).
posted by brainwane at 2:51 PM on October 27, 2015


I realized that everything I was wearing except my bra and panties I'd bought at REI.
A few years ago I was shopping for bras at my local REI and I saw they were split into three categories: Comfort, Support, and Control. "Comfort" meant a hammock for your boobs, full movement autonomy for each of them, no guidance -- prevention of nipple showthrough and a bit of a rest. "Control" meant that you might go into gale-force winds or win a jump-rope championship and your breasts would not move a centimeter from where you had placed them. And "Support" was in between -- firm guidance that simultaneously allowed them to breathe, and shift a little.

I think that, as a manager, I want to default to being like that "Support" category of brassieres, neither stifling nor laissez-faire. Sometimes individual situations require the iron micromanaging hand of "Control" or the gentle indulgence of "Comfort" but usually we should be in between.

My "bra theory of management" is pleasing to me except I haven't figured out where "and there should be a little pocket for keys and a twenty-dollar bill" goes into this metaphor.

[also the Ex Officio and REI house brand briefs are really pretty good as underwear!]
posted by brainwane at 3:02 PM on October 27, 2015 [7 favorites]


I always liked working on the floor on Black Friday. You're always busy so the day flies by and there are enough employees working so there are no coverage gaps so you get to go on your breaks on time. Closing shift was a bit rough because of all the tidying up, but overall working Black Friday is way better than working an average day where you have to search out things to do most of the time.
posted by clorox at 3:29 PM on October 27, 2015 [1 favorite]


> My "bra theory of management" is pleasing to me except I haven't figured out where "and there should be a little pocket for keys and a twenty-dollar bill" goes into this metaphor.

One reason I wear men's pants (besides not having any goddamn idea what "size" women's pants I wear) is POCKETS SO MANY POCKETS. Actual functional pockets that hold stuff!

But it's good to know about their bras - I've never even looked, honestly, but I will next time I'm there.
posted by rtha at 6:20 PM on October 27, 2015


But it also seems like a relatively low-stakes move for them since they do a significant portion of their sales online.

from the press release:

"On the day itself, REI.com will feature a black takeover screen that encourages customers to #OptOutside."
posted by bl1nk at 7:39 AM on October 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


Riding the wave of the good publicity from the #optoutside campaign, the CEO of REI did an AMA. Probably expected accolades, instead attracted a lot of questions and revelations about how employee-unfriendly the place really is.
posted by mama casserole at 10:40 AM on November 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


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