Today I read the Ad Age article about a former employee's resignation letter from Whole Foods, 'Has Whole Foods Really Become a 'Faux Hippy Wal-Mart'?'. The letter caused a lot of attention within the first few hours it was posted. Here's a snippet from the letter that Ad Age provided;
Dear [REDACTED], I don't think you could calm down enough and become a happy, tolerable person if you were to do yoga in a hot spring while high on ecstasy. Daily. For the rest of your life. Just wouldn't happen. I haven't met a single person working under you or who has worked under you who doesn't loath the way you treat people. Your job doesn't matter AT ALL. Get over it, relax and start treating people with a shred of respect. Chances are, you'll improve a lot of lives. Possibly even your own. I do have a suspicion that you're a sociopath though. Especially now, after seeing your reaction to you-know-who's hospital visit. If that is the case, this was futile. May I suggest some acting classes? You're not very good at pretending to be a complete, emotional, sincere human being....And I'll throw this out to Whole Foods employees -- is there a quinoa of truth to what he's saying? Email me.
A few weeks ago I was introduced to a You Tube video poking fun at the Whole Foods near my house in Santa Monica. While it was mainly pointing out the cluster of a parking lot, the 2,290,213 views of the video makes it clear that the shopper stereotypes portrayed (girl in yoga pants, iphones, being upset when WF took Kombucha off the shelf) hit a sweet spot of familiarity for shoppers nationwide.
SO with all the media buzz, what will WF do to maintain a solid brand reputation? People, including myself, flock to WF because of its cleanliness; store and food. I don't want these bloggers and you tubers ruining my squeaky clean perception of the only grocery store I can tolerate within a 25 mile radius.
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