C-E-Whoa.
A tech boss applauded one of his workers for selling the family dog so he could return to work in the company’s office.
During a virtual town hall with his employees, Clearlink CEO James Clarke talked about the sacrifices he was seeing from some of the workers who were shedding “blood, sweat, and tears” for the firm.
“I learned from one of our leaders that in the midst of hearing this message, went out and sold their family dog which breaks my heart,” Clarke said as he began to brag about some of his past achievements as the company’s “head of the humanization of pets movement.”
“Truly those are the sacrifices that are being made and I honor you for those sacrifices and what is taking place here,” the CEO added.
Clarke, who founded the Utah-based digital marketing firm in 2001, then gave his employees a strange challenge.
“There’s not one of you here, and I challenge any one of you to outwork me, and you won’t,” Clarke said. “I’m all in on what we’re doing here at Clearlink and I want you to know it and feel it because this is what we do and I’ve sacrificed and those of you that are here have sacrificed greatly to be here as well, to be away from your family.”
Following the bizarre statement about his employees’ sacrifices, Clarke shifted his attention to those who didn’t meet his work standards.
“(Some aren’t) working hard at all, and it’s unfair to the rest that are,” Clarke said about the people who are doing the bare minimum for their job without much effort. “Some have already quietly quit their positions but are taking a paycheck. In one month of this year alone, I got data that about 30 of you didn’t even open or crack open laptops and those are all remote employees including their manager for a whole month.”
Last week’s town hall came after the company sent an email mandating all employees who live within 50 miles of the Draper headquarters to return to the office starting April 17, despite the Utah-based firm promoting a remote-first work environment since the start of the pandemic, according to Vice.
Clarke then began throwing baseless accusations at his employees, saying some were taking second jobs, while writers were using artificial intelligence for the majority of their work.
“So much now, that’s taking place within our organization with some of our developers could be working for two different companies, we don’t know,” Clarke said. “Many content writers today are now exclusively using AI to write, I can do that in about 30 minutes of an eight-hour day.”
The claims of AI being used in the workplace led to Clarke asking his employees to produce 30 to 50 times more than normal.
Clarke then shifted his speech to a problem that was brought up following the company’s return-to-work announcement.
“As a result of so many questions outside of what was already addressed, that came without any respect or merit and just full of nonsense, and that is the question about child care,” Clarke announced.
According to Clarke, who founded Clearlink in 2001, the discussion of child care was a heated, tear-filled conversation.
“In some ways, as I mentioned, breadwinning mothers were hit the very hardest by this pandemic. Many of you have tried to tend to your own children and in doing so also manage your own demanding work schedule and responsibilities.”
Clarke’s praise for the single mothers was short-lived, as he then admitted it wasn’t fair to the employer to allow child care to take over the lives of the full-time employees.
“While I know you’re doing your best, some would say they have even mastered their art, but one could also argue this path is neither fair to your employer nor fair to those children.”
The bigheaded CEO was quick to make an attempt fix to his previous statement, but it did little to help him out.
“I don’t necessarily believe that, but I do believe that only the rarest of full-time caregivers can also be productive and full-time employees at the same time,” Clarke explained. “You may take issue with any part of this, but I believe that the data will also support this in time.”
The choice to return to work in person was to help the company “achieve its collective goals,” a spokesperson told Vice, without answering specific questions.