REI is Laying Off 275 Employees • Hacker News Board

Re: REI is Laying Off 275 Employees

#111

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 2:41 AM UTC

marricks wrote: post #50

neilv wrote: post #27

Since (IIUC from Wikipedia) REI is a member-owned co-op that elects the board of directors, does this decision to do layoffs reflect the interests of the members?

> Board candidates are selected by the REI Board Nomination and Governance Committee. In earlier years, board elections were competitive elections, with both board-nominated and self-nominated petition candidates. In recent years, REI eliminated the opportunity for petition candidates and has nominated only as many candidates as open positions . Emphasis mine. Sounds like OfSanguineFire's comment is right. The Govern…

> The Governance committee decides how the company is run and members don't have a choice of candidates besides rejecting them.

And if they are rejected, then the board appoints a temporary board member to fill the opening, with no membership input.

Re: REI is Laying Off 275 Employees

#112

Post by bfung » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 2:41 AM UTC

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #53

Is this really important news or at all related to hackers? Much larger layoffs happen all the time. What's the interesting angle of this story?

Popular outdoor equipment store in Bay Area/Silicon Valley. Chances are startup people in the valley have been to those stores.

Re: REI is Laying Off 275 Employees

#113

Post by myself248 » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 2:51 AM UTC

justinator wrote: post #37

zeroCalories wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even really need gear to camp either.

I'm curious about this opinion, and I don't want to make a snarky joke. Can you elaborate how you camp without needing any gear?

Steve Wallis is one of my favorite YouTubers lately, and his whole schtick at first was camping with cheap and unconventional gear.

Ten bucks of blankets from the thrift store, no tent, for instance. (The blanket fort remains one of my all-time favorite episodes.) Or a tarp and some straps from the hardware store. Or those $0.99 mylar "survival tent" things, what's the experience in one of those actually like? Another classic is the "can you make a tent from bubble wrap and survive in it in the dead of Canadian winter?"... No spoilers, but it's hilarious.

I forget which episode he explains it in, but the idea was that he was sick of seeing all the glamping channels with expensive gear in exotic locations, and their implication that camping and being out in nature was somehow a luxury for the rich, when it should be, no, it IS, everyone's to enjoy.

From there, his focus grew to the locations themselves. Opposite of exotic. Downright silly. Behind billboards, in a storm drain culvert, in the landscaping in the middle of a suburban roundabout... Not only can you camp without gear, you don't need a campground either.

Re: REI is Laying Off 275 Employees

#114

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 2:53 AM UTC

schemescape wrote: post #86

refurb wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? A co-op is just a business owned by it's members. If the members decide to sell (through the board of directors), they it gets sold. "yesterday a unanimous decision by its board of directors to sell substantially all of its assets to Kingswood Capital Management"

Wow, that link indicates that members likely won’t get anything, even their $5 share, back. So who is benefitting from the sale?

[deleted]

Re: REI is Laying Off 275 Employees

#115

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 2:56 AM UTC

alex_young wrote: post #107

Serious question - what is REI? I know there are all of these sporting goods stores, but it’s supposedly a co-op owned by the members, of which a sizable population of this country are, yet the board is not in any meaningful way elected or nominated by the membership. REI is a really interesting company. Kinda seems like someone stole a co-op a while back.

[deleted]

Re: REI is Laying Off 275 Employees

#116

Post by metal_am » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 3:03 AM UTC

nonameiguess wrote: post #61

valleyjo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Ultralight” backpacking favors skills rather than gear. Folks have done entire 3k mile thru hikes with 5lbs of gear. The main way you get that low is simply by not taking much with you. You carry only the essentials. I don’t know if this is what the parent poster was referring to but it’s what my mind went to.

This seems quite misleading. Generally, lighter gear costs more, for one thing. Second, going by the shopping list posted below about someone making it at just over 5 lbs, that works fine if you never go into high altitude or anywhere with very bad weather, but you're going to need more if you do. Also, it's listing "0.14 lbs" of food and water, which is obvious bullshit. That's only showing the weight of the contain…

When people talk about weight in this context, they really mean "base weight" not including consumables or worn clothing/shoes. The general rule of thumb is about 1lb/500g of food per day.

Re: REI is Laying Off 275 Employees

#117

Post by InSteady » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 3:04 AM UTC

constantly wrote: post #90

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the old returns policy, people were buying boots, wearing them out on the Appalachian Trail, and then returning them. Or buying a whole touring bike (REI sold their own fairly respectable model called the Novara), riding coast-to-coast, and then returning it. Once the internet era arrived and customers learned just what behavior they could get away with, the community was saying it was only a matter of time befo…

I’m a long time REI customer/member, maybe 20 years, and I was pretty happy about the move to a shorter return period. I always considered it my responsibility as a good citizen to be as honest and forthright as possible in return transactions. If something didn’t work out I didn’t feel bad returning it within reason, but if I had used it too long (like 2-3 years or put serious wear on it) I would not return it out o…

According to an article around the time of the policy change, people were even buying cliff bars and returning the wrappers for a refund, saying "I wasn't satisfied." It wasn't just young or broke people either, the CEO said they were looking at demographics and it was all over the place, just an all around increase in abusive returns. As usual, the internet and social media is a likely culprit.

Can't have nice things, dang it.

Re: REI is Laying Off 275 Employees

#118

Post by metal_am » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 3:05 AM UTC

hotnfresh wrote: post #19

vore wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might call themselves REI "co-op", but a consumers' cooperative is really the polar opposite of representing the interests of workers. It's really just a shareholder owned company with a few steps removed in the middle.

In practice, the “co-op” stuff really just amounts to a run of the mill rewards program. I can’t tell any actual difference between it and various other “loyalty program” thingies, aside from that they force you to join it to buy anything from them.

You'll definitely get asked about it, but there is absolutely no requirement to join to buy anything from REI.

Re: REI is Laying Off 275 Employees

#119

Post by astr0n0m3r » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 3:17 AM UTC

elijaht wrote: post #109

astr0n0m3r wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I hiked the AT, my backpack was a previous year's model (2006 Camelbak Cloudwalker, I think) that I bought for $35. It's smaller than most daypacks. In fact, it's still the daypack I usually use but sometimes it is too small for day hikes, like in winter. I used a summer sleeping bag that was 14 oz after I cut the zipper off (Marmot Pounder, which I wish they still made). I had a "blue foam" sleeping pad that wa…

How did you eat

I'm not sure specifically what you want to know.

I resupplied food in towns along the way. And while in town, I had a hot meal there. Also consider that resupplying is often not done in an actual town, but in a convenience store or whatever is closest to the trail.

Backpackers typically only cook dinner, and those get repetitive, so forgoing those with the added benefit of not carrying a stove, fuel, and a pot is sometimes nice. Some people find it wearisome to not have at least one hot meal a day.

Of course, I have done countless backpacking trips and have cooked on most of them.

Re: REI is Laying Off 275 Employees

#120

Post by RichardCA » Fri, Oct 13, 2023, 3:30 AM UTC

AlchemistCamp wrote: post #53

Is this really important news or at all related to hackers? Much larger layoffs happen all the time. What's the interesting angle of this story?

"Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport which requires you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and Real Programmers wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly spring up in the middle of the computer room."

https://multicians.org/thvv/realprogs.html