Friday, June 24, 2022

WIRTW #631: the “(not so) Good Ship BrewDog” edition


Job interview: "Are you planning on having kids? Do kids feature in your five-year plan? Because we want someone in this role for a minimum of five years."

Answer: "I've never wanted kids. Never have; never will. I've been told I probably can't have kids anyway."

Follow-up phone call: "You're the best candidate for the job. You're everything that we've been looking for. You'd be absolutely perfect for the role. But we need to clear things up with this whole 'kids' thing."

Answer: "I don't want them, it's not part of my plan, and I can't anyway."

Final conversation: "We can't hire you because of the whole 'marriage and babies' thing."

That what Alice Hayward claims happened to her at BrewDog when she applied for a promotion from bar work into a sales position, as reported by the BBC in the Good Ship BrewDog podcast. I've absolutely devoured this six-episode podcast over the past several days. (Bonus points for the narrator's lovely Scottish brogue.)

If you're curious about the damage that a toxic work culture can cause, I cannot more highly recommend this podcast. While the entire show is a master class in how not to manage employees, I thought episode 5 — which focuses on BrewDog's expansion into the U.S. — was the standout.

Good Ship BrewDog also underscores why I decided to become a beer lawyer. Our industry is cool, fun, and full of great people. Yet, there is still so much work to do.

Before I get to this week's list of links, I'll leave you with this thought I found on Instagram.
Regardless of how "hype" or "good" the beer is, stop supporting breweries … who perpetuate problem behavior.
Businesses have little financial incentive to cease misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, racist, and other problematic behavior if we who stand against it and believe it's dangerous and wrong keep supporting them with our wallets. 

Or, to put it another way (quoting Jim Vorel in Paste Magazine, from a recent story on another brewery, Tired Hands — more on their story next week): "If we look away, the beer world's sexism will always return to the status quo."

Here's what I read this past week that I think you should be reading, too.