Return On Disenfranchisement

How decades of employer abuse have created a fatigued, and frustrated workforce.

Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah recently sent a holiday email to his employees to end the calendar year. The memo was nothing more than an uninspired screed of personal validation from another in a long line of overpaid emotional infants running major firms who have no grasp of actual life, or apparently any shred of self-awareness.

To begin his year end email, Shah doesn't bother to thank his staff or compliment them for another year under their belts. He hops right into his sole point of reference, his first person point of view. As happens repeatedly throughout the memo, Shah begins the opening paragraph with “I”.

It’s a reasonable way for one to expect Shah to start his manifesto, as it’s clear that he sees himself as the lone savior for Wayfair, despite the company losing more than $400 million in just the second and third quarters of 2023 combined.

As you’ll see in the full memo below, along with a full set of notes for translation and deeper understanding, Shah expects his workers to suffer longer hours, provide additional value at every moment for no additional compensation, and to help him in cutting costs at every turn. In essence, Shah would like his staff to do most his job for him. Let’s have a look at the transcript, shall we?

Hi everyone,

I thought I would take a minute to share some thoughts that I have had recently.

As we work our way through the holiday season it is really encouraging to see that we are back to winning. Winning feels good - and is a great reward for all of our efforts. Our market share is growing nicely, our repeat is increasing, our suppliers are leaning in, and we are profitable. This is something to be very proud of.

What the fuck does winning even mean, Niraj? Are you beating Joybird or Ashley or some other furniture manufacturer at a game of whiffle ball? Did you guys win the fantasy baseball league this year for CEO dipshits?

This is a huge part of the problem with corporate culture. It’s been built up into this mentality of conquest and victory and athletic prowess. Stop behaving like a middle school volleyball coach and be a fucking adult. You are one of the few people winning here. Everyone else is trying to eke out a living, you clueless hack.

That said, while we have worked hard to get back to the execution oriented, hard working, frugal, customer oriented culture that we had for most of our history we still have some work to do to make sure that we get fully back. And this is what I want us all to push on in the weeks and months to come.

One point I think is important to make is that winning requires hard work. I believe that most of us, being ambitious individuals, find fulfillment in the joy of seeing our efforts materialize into tangible results. Working long hours, being responsive, blending work and life, is not anything to shy away from. There is not a lot of history of laziness being rewarded with success. Hard work is an essential ingredient in any recipe for success. I embrace this, and the most successful people I know do as well.

What Shah is essentially saying here is that he doesn’t want you to have a work/life balance. Yeah, he’ll say the acceptable things, but in essence, figure out it yourself. You’ll be expected to work long hours. You need to be right there when needed and if you can’t figure out how to do that within your life, you are not gonna fly here, pal.

Shah mentions that “hard work is an essential ingredient in any recipe for success”, and I would agree wholeheartedly. What Shah fails to grasp, or at least mention is that human beings will at some point become inefficient and ineffective, no matter how hard of a worker they are. There are only so many hours in the day and life has other priorities besides work.

CEOs and employers talk all the time of compensation packages and bonuses but never seem to incorporate the value of boundaries to keep life and work at least somewhat separate. When you are responsive and attentive, it means you are always in work mode. It’s difficult to be in the moment at a family dinner or a friend’s wedding when it’s expected that work mode is always on. Life is there, but because of work mode, it can never fully be lived.

You may know of Nirajisms, these are phrases that start with 'Niraj said'. What disappoints me is that the majority I hear are either not true, are old and no longer applicable, or are taken out of context. The one I would reference here that I heard was 'Niraj said that he does not think that we should work late'. I would suggest that this is laughably false. Hard work is essential for success, and a key part of getting things done. Everyone deserves to have a great personal life - everyone manages that in their own way - ambitious people find ways to blend and balance the two. I think that is what we all should do.

If you are using your own name to talk about a series of phrases you have uttered, you’re a douche. Sorry, this is a hard and fast rule and I will not be budging. If I started throwing bullshit aphorisms at you and called them MattyGrams you’d rightfully mock me out of the room.

If Niraj needs you to work late once in a while, that is totally reasonable. There are projects, emergencies, staffing shortages, and all sorts of other reasons why Wayfair might need some extra time from you once in a while.

The problem is that it has become corporate expectation to get 50 to 60 hours a week from many employees, week in and week out. This isn’t working extra, this is doing one and a half jobs. This is where Niraj and his friends are fucking you.

You work 60 hours a week and get counted as one employee. Dave over in accounting also works 60 hours a week and gets counted as one employee. Now, you and Dave are doing the job that used to be done by you, Dave and Sarah who left last month to have a baby. Sarah won’t be coming back and you and Dave need to pick up the slack.

Niraj now gets to have the work of three people done for the cost of two. We had a word for that when I was growing up. It was called theft. Niraj is stealing that third paycheck from you and Dave, and then telling you you’re winning. No, he is winning. You are working harder for less.

I heard another Nirajism yesterday which was 'Niraj said that we cannot recruit from Google Amazon or Walmart'. I am not even sure where that could come from since so many of our senior leaders are from these places. Again false.

I would encourage you to run any Nirajism that sounds odd by me. I am happy to clarify anything. And I am sure there are some that in fact I would support and say we should stick with. Ultimately I want us to be aggressive, pragmatic, frugal, agile, customer oriented, and smart. Use those as filters and I think things can become clearer.

I would also encourage you to think of any company money you spend as your own. Would you spend money on that, would you spend that much money for that thing, does that price seem reasonable, and lastly - have you negotiated the price? Everything is negotiable and so if you haven't then you should start there. One cost we were discussing yesterday was the cost to run ethernet wires. In this example it started at $1,600 a drop. At 12 drops that would be $19,200. To run them would take two people maybe 8 hours or so. I would be happy to spend a Saturday doing this with you and splitting $19,200. Basically that price is highway robbery. Why did we get robbed? Because no one worried about the cost. That $1,600 became $800 and then $300 as some questions were asked and negotiations ensued. We have this this type of problem in many places - we need to root them out. And we need everyone who is at Wayfair to care. If you see wasted spend that you do not know how to fix just let me know and I will help. This is a great way to strengthen the culture.

Cutting costs is wonderful and I am thrilled that Niraj figured out a little problem all on his own like this, but the idea of him and a buddy dropping line all over town cracks me up. He says he’s happy to split the costs of drops with a partner for a big payday, but he fails to mention a number of factors.

1. Niraj, do you have any fucking idea how to safely, dig, run, connect, and/or secure cabling?

2. Are you insured, licensed, bonded, and registered with the proper authorities to perform such installations?

3. Do you have a truck to carry tons of wire as well as a massive spool to help uncoil it for easier installation?

4. You mention just splitting the $19,200 with a partner. Did you plan to steal the wire or had you not considered the costs of the actual components of the job?

5. You are a man who makes more than $750,000 in compensation before benefits and stock options. Your company lost nearly half a billion dollars in six months this year. Yet, you accuse others of highway robbery. Have you recently looked up the definition of irony in a dictionary, you disaffected twat?

And lastly I want to encourage us all to be smart. You will encounter some things that do not make sense. Question them. And then escalate it if you encounter bureaucracy and believe that you are right. We have a lot of policies or practices that need to refreshed, leaned out, or eliminated. Less is more - let’s find policies and procedures that do not add value and eliminate them. Let’s find policies that do not make sense and adjust them. And just approach everything with first principles. You are smart - bet on that and use your judgment. And feel free to ask me or other leaders for advice when you have a question. This will help us all win.

Together we can win much faster than we are winning now if we all row in this direction together. Let's be aggressive, pragmatic, frugal, agile, customer oriented, and smart.

Thanks for being on the team!

Niraj

I have a cost-cutting measure for you Niraj. You currently make at least 7 times what your average employee makes before you get your stock options. How about you work for free and hire seven more people? You clearly are not worth your salary. It’s hard to figure out just how much you have lost on your watch, but looks like it’s more than a billion dollars. It seems like highway robbery to me that you get paid at all.

Maybe seven more people could help take the stress off of Dave in accounting now that Sarah is gone. Besides, you said it best, “Working long hours, being responsive, blending work and life, is not anything to shy away from. There is not a lot of history of laziness being rewarded with success.”

Someday you’ll be back there with the makers again, buddy. You just need to work harder, leaner, and smarter. Oh, and maybe try a bit of empathy, humility and tact while you’re at it.

Cheers,
Matty C

P.S. It’s also worth noting out that Niraj is a terrible writer. He begins sentences, and even paragraphs routinely with the word “And”. He forms run-on sentences, often with competing ideas. There are mixed metaphors, clumsy allusions, loss of viewpoint, and just poor clarity altogether.

You may think it petty of me to pick apart the poor writing of a man who is just sending an email to his weary staff. Important to remember that this is a man who is paid a lot of money to communicate with his employees. If he cannot do that well in the written form, he is severely overpaid.