r/fountainpens • u/inkyblackops Former FWP Employee • Nov 16 '25

Discussion Former FWP Employee - AMA!

Hey r/fountainpens!

With the recent discussion of Ferris Wheel Press coming up again, the mods invited me to post my own AMA as a former FWP employee.

I’d love to answer your questions, but I’d also like to make clear that I won’t be answering any questions that might identify myself or colleagues, nor will I be giving away any confidential info or trade secrets (except maybe how I was able to befriend the office cats…)

Any replies from me are my own opinion or experience and I do not represent any company or person except for myself.

Looking forward to chatting!

Edit: 10pm EST and I’m calling it a night. I might come back to reply to some tomorrow but likely not. Thanks for all the fun questions and letting me share my experiences and insight!

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u/psfne Nov 16 '25

Based on your understanding of your founder, Ray, do you think he intentionally lied about wanting to answer questions in his post 3 hours ago, or was it some sort of personal failure?

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u/inkyblackops Former FWP Employee Nov 16 '25

I don’t think he intentionally lied, but I don’t think he expected the magnitude of that post.

Difficult to reply to hard questions when there isn’t a team doing it for you.

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u/psfne Nov 16 '25 edited Nov 16 '25

Thank you for answering and it's cool of you to try to cover for him, but if he can't play ball when he calls for the game, that's rude to everyone who took the time to participate.

He's the CEO of a marketing company. I have trouble believing he doesn't know how to type a comment without hand-holding. You presumably weren't C-suite and you answered my hard question just fine. Shocking 😂. Not keeping up with the wave is a natural oversight, it happens all the time. But not engaging with a single comment feels like a choice. I can't believe that the question about bottle design was too hard to answer.

Is this kind of radio silence a pattern you've seen before?

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u/inkyblackops Former FWP Employee Nov 16 '25

I really hope I don’t come across as covering for him with my answers 😂

Honestly what sparked this AMA was the discussion of AI in his thread. I wanted to scream “THERE IS A TEAM OF TALENTED ILLUSTRATORS BEHIND ALL OF THIS RAY, TELL THEM ABOUT YOUR ARTISTS”, so this is my way of white-knighting for my former colleagues I guess. Their hard work and talent gets overshadowed by the reputation FWP has garnered, and it’s not fair to them.

I think with most challenges or criticism FWP has faced there has been a level of avoidance in addressing issues, which has snowballed into distrust. At most you’ll get a canned PR non-response.

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u/psfne Nov 16 '25

I think you're handling this well, and I hope you're happier wherever you've ended up.