A former Microsoft employee was among a number of people who reached out for help after the politicization of her workplace became too overwhelming and made her job unbearable.
As a core part of her job, the woman, like the rest of her co-workers, was using the popular messaging and conferencing application Teams, which is made by Microsoft and allows users to customize certain features.
One day, she added an American flag in her background prior to a group meeting. Immediately after, her manager reached out and told the woman she could not display the American flag as a Teams background because it was triggering to some of Microsoft’s employees. Moreover, her supervisor said the American flag is a sign of white supremacy.
The woman, who is politically conservative, decided not to push back. She kept her head down and self-censored a bit, thinking, I can live with this.
The very next day, one of her other colleagues switched their Teams background to an image of a black man being lynched, with the subtitle “A good man died at your hands today.” Not only was that photo depicting the horrific death of a black man allowed to remain, she says it was actually celebrated by Microsoft.
She said to herself, “Okay, that’s the last straw. I’m out of here,” recounted Andrew Crapuchettes, CEO of RedBalloon, who was contacted by the woman to help secure new employment.
“That’s unfortunately one of many stories we get to hear at RedBalloon of people who are just fed up with crazy,” Crapuchettes told Timcast News during an interview. “And I mean, that’s flat out crazy.”
RedBalloon, a self-described “non-woke” job board founded in 2021, is now a front line fighter in America’s culture war, working with thousands of other companies which all vow to respect the concept of freedom, not institute vaccine mandates, and not allow political ideology into their workplaces as a condition of being affiliated with RedBalloon.
Unfortunately we hear stories like this every day.
But fortunately, we are able to connect those people with the thousands of values-aligned jobseekers and employers that are on https://t.co/pGlkZWd4lO.
Sign up today! https://t.co/AMPymGEKwf
— RedBalloon | Free to Work (@RedBalloonWork) August 1, 2023
One 0f the most visible symbols of corporate brand destruction over straying too far into the realm of political and cultural grandstanding is America’s former number one beer, Bud Light, which partnered with a transgender social media influencer this spring.
After controversy ensued because, in part, the company explicitly targeted children, Americans upset over the brand spotlighting transgenderism instead of just selling beer launched a nationwide boycott that tanked the company’s bottom line.
By the end of May, sales plunged nearly 25 percent, and Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light’s parent company, lost roughly $27 billion in market value. As of July 31, distributors are saying they stand no chance at luring back customers who fled following the campaign with the transgender influencer.
Anheuser-Busch is now planning to lay off about 350 employees as the company grapples with the sustained boycott.
RedBalloon recently announced a partnership with PublicSQ to help facilitate employment for job seekers impacted by Bud Light’s decision making.
Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light's parent company, just announced they will be laying off 350 employees following recent backlash to the brand.
No one should lose their job because of woke ideologies or agendas, and so we want to help.
If any laid-off Bud Light employee reaches out to… pic.twitter.com/k09PQ5ViES
— RedBalloon | Free to Work (@RedBalloonWork) July 27, 2023
But while RedBalloon is seeing a number of Bud light employees contact them, as Crapuchettes explained, not all are a good fit because they don’t all want a pro-freedom company — “They just happen to be caught in the crosshairs of that woke world.”
He said, “Many of them are deeply affected by the company’s decision to leave their customer base behind and try to appeal to something else.”
Former Google and Amazon employees also make up a large number of the individuals going through RedBalloon to try and find new employers “because they’re tired of this woke mindset that leaves the workplace a joyless place where everyone gets offended so easily,” Crapuchettes added.
Having been subjected to navigating politically correct waters eight to ten hours per day, along with mandatory coursework in microaggression and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) training, job seekers have told RedBalloon that they didn’t realize until they left what an impact the company’s policies had on their outlook on life.
Though the company has only been in business for two years, business is booming and RedBalloon is working diligently to provide opportunities to quality individuals who need jobs.
“We’re actually reaching out actively to the thousand employers that we have on RedBalloon to make sure that they’re aware that these talented people are now on the market,” Crapuchettes said. “If we want to be able to build businesses in this freedom economy specifically, then we need the right people who are going to focus on hard work, believe in capitalism, and believe in what made America great in the first place. So, we’ve been able to help and it’s been really fun to be able to be part of that.”
