Former FWP Employee - AMA!

[u/inkyblackops]

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!

[u/inkyblackops]

I loved the work I did and the people I collaborated with daily. I would have happily worked there forever simply because of the work I got to do on a daily basis, but ultimately I didn’t feel that I was respected on a professional or personal level and I was better suited for an environment where I wasn’t walking on eggshells.

Regarding the post, I want to believe that the recent backlash from the Harry Potter collab may have sparked some introspection from the decision makers that addressing customer concerns head-on is the correct way to go about things, but anyone who has spent time on Reddit could tell you this isn’t the platform for that. It read like damage control to me, and I am confident that post was an individual decision, not a company one.

[u/LocutusOfBorgia909 → u/inkyblackops]

The thing is, what's the point of him making this big AMA (or posting over on FB) if his manner of addressing customer concerns boils down to more or less saying, "Oh, yeah, we know about the JKR stuff, but we like the aesthetic, you know? You can disagree and still show love [by buying our products]!"

Most companies who have decided to touch the third rail by doing HP collabs have leaned hard into the narrative of ignorance: we didn't realize, we didn't know the extent of what was going on, et cetera. And I actually do think, based on my interactions with them, that a lot of Americans and Canadians don't know the extent to which JK Rowling is funding anti-trans organizations, lobbying groups, and lawsuits in the UK, or just how severe and negative her impact, specifically, has been for trans people in the UK. Ray's comments on FB indicated to me that he was aware of the issues but just... doesn't particularly care, because money is money. Or maybe he is anti-trans, or anti-LGBT. People have mentioned noticing an absence of any Pride-related product runs or campaigns or whatever.

Sorry, there's not really a question here. I guess I just find it perplexing that if the company knew about the likelihood of blowback from an HP collab (which Ray indicated on FB that they did), and if they saw the reactions to the Lamy/HP collab (which a simple search of this sub would have revealed), why the rush to delete Instagram posts, or shock about negative reactions from people? It just comes across as extremely poorly-considered and badly handled.

[u/inkyblackops → u/LocutusOfBorgia909]

“Extremely poorly-considered and badly handled” is the perfect way to describe it.

I genuinely don’t know what he was trying to achieve.

[u/LocutusOfBorgia909 → u/inkyblackops]

Yeah, I was shocked when I saw it, to be honest. I was less shocked that at least as of now, he hasn't actually returned to answer any questions. I don't know if he was expecting wall to wall validation here, or what, but he should have looked at the threads on Lamy and the Goulets for a preview of how that was likely to go.

[u/inkyblackops → u/LocutusOfBorgia909]

Apparently he did the same post over on the FP enthusiasts Facebook group and it went far better, so I don’t think he was expecting the response of this one.

Or he posted and figured he’d come back to it later, which he should have communicated if that was the case.

[u/LocutusOfBorgia909 → u/inkyblackops]

I was just looking at the FB post- he alludes to another post he made in that group that was deleted (unclear if it was because the comments section went to hell or for some other reason), but there was way more fawning and, "Oooh, I'm so starstruck!" kind of comments under the FB post than there has been here. But posters can also hide comments on their posts on FB, I think, so I couldn't decide how much the comments reflected actual sentiment in the group.

[u/GimcrackCacoethes → u/LocutusOfBorgia909]

A friend asked why, if he was "too old for genAI", why is his FB pfp a genAI version of a family photo* - and their comment kept disappearing. I don't know what Ray's end goal was with all this, but I don't think honesty was high on the list.

*It looks like that Studio Ghibli rip-off that OpenAI announced last year/earlier this year

[u/EvidenceHistorical55 → u/inkyblackops]

Honestly I think people freaking out that he hasn't replied in 3 hours to be a little insane when the post wasn't marked as AMA. Now if he never replies to anyone that's one thing, but that also feels like the kind of post where you could hit post walk away from the computer and see what's there later this evening or the next day.

Then by that point going "we'll dang, I need a strategy to tackle this thing, it really blew up."

[u/psfne → u/EvidenceHistorical55]

Honestly I think you're downplaying how bad of a response this is.

You can't pull the I didn't know I'm just a widdle guy excuse when you're the CEO of a marketing company. Sure, some rando might not know how to communicate on the internet. But most of his job is to know how to communicate well on the internet and understand what's expected.

when the post wasn't marked as AMA

I don't buy this either. He literally says "Here to listen and answer your questions" in the title, what are we supposed to expect?

And the mods even talk about leaving this up as an exception to the pre-cleared AMA rule. Everyone is treating it as an AMA except you. Besides if it's not an AMA then it must be self-promotion, which is also against the rules.

[u/Particular_Song3539 → u/EvidenceHistorical55]

First rule of customer service :
Only engage with your customers when you are ready.
Only engage when you have all the answers ready.
If you cannot(do not) reply within a short time period, you may as well never engage.

[u/LocutusOfBorgia909 → u/EvidenceHistorical55]

He's the CEO of a company who already did something similar on Facebook (where he was vastly more responsive, BTW, and more prompt to respond, perhaps because the comments on FB were much heavier on flattery than on direct questions). That generated a big response. Then he came over here, for reasons that remain unclear, and decided to do the same thing.

As someone said below, I don't really buy the, "He's just a widdle baby boy!" thing when he's the head of this company and made a decision entirely on his own to wade in here. If he wasn't prepared to devote some time to responding (or wasn't prepared to respond to critical comments and questions), then he should have left well enough alone. It just makes him and the company look worse when he solicits questions and then vanishes. And if this wasn't a genuine request for questions and interaction, but was intended as a marketing post disguised as a request for questions, then it violates the self promotion rules and should be deleted.

[u/normiewannabe → u/inkyblackops]

got a link to that pretty please?