Clearlink CEO celebrates worker selling family dog to come back to office

A boss has applauded a worker selling their family dog as part of a forced return to the office and issued a warning about mistaking his “kindness for weakness”.

A bizarre video leaked of a tech company CEO addressing staff at a town hall showed him celebrating the fact a staff member had to sell their family dog due to the company forcing employees back into the office.

Clearlink CEO James Clarke, who runs the digital marketing agency based in Utah, in the US, also accused staff of ‘quiet quitting’, deemed they would be incapable of outworking him and claimed employees had “misrepresented” his “kindness for weakness”.

The video was posted on Reddit and YouTube before being deleted and was later obtained by the publication Vice.

It came after Clearlink employees were told in April they would have to come into the office four days a week if they lived within 80km of the company headquarters – shocking workers as they had been told back in October there would be no forced return.

The mandate prompted Mr Clarke to hold the town hall address where he said “challenging” economic circumstances required a return to the office to improve performance and asked staff to give their “blood, sweat and tears”.

He said the company had opened “world class” headquarters just three months ago and returning to the office wasn’t “optional” with the mandate applying to 275 people.

Those who refused to follow the new rules would face “corrective action”, an email to staff also said.

“I thought those of you – all of you – would want to be in this world-class facility every single day. Alas, that’s not been the case,” he said in the meeting.

The CEO made some bizarre claims at times. Picture: Screenshot

But at times Mr Clarke’s address turned into a rambling rant about employee’s performance.

He raised a number of accusations and claimed monitoring of remote employees had shown 30 had entirely stopped logging or even opening their laptop for a month as part of a “quiet quitting” movement.

Mr Clarke also claimed that developers were working multiple jobs for other companies alongside their Clearlink role, while he urged content writers to rely on AI to increase output “30-50 times our normal production”.

“I challenge any one of you to outwork me, but you won’t,” he also told his staff.

The founder of Clearlink also applauded one employee’s sacrifice after he was told he had been forced to sell his dog to return to the office.

“I’ve sacrificed, and those of you that are here have sacrificed greatly to be here as well – to be away from your family,” he said.

“I learned from one of our leaders that, in the midst of hearing this message, [someone] went out and sold their family dog.”

Staff had not turned up to the world class office, according to the CEO. Picture: iStock

However, he also said the news had “broken his heart” as “someone who’s been at the head of the humanisation of pets movement in other businesses that we’ve built”.

For 10 years, Mr Clarke was chairman of a company called PetIQ which sells pet products and vet services.

His speech took an even more disturbing turn when he questioned whether mums could adequately divide their time between work and raising their kids.

“Breadwinning mothers were hit the very hardest by this pandemic. Many of you have tried to tend your own children and in doing so also manage your demanding work schedules and responsibilities. And while I know you’re doing your best … one could argue this path is neither fair to your employer, nor fair to those children,” he added.

“I don’t necessarily believe that,” he then backtracked. “But I do believe that only the rarest of full-time caregivers can also be a productive and full-time employee at the same time. You may take issue with any part of this, but I believe the data will also support this in time.”

Many workers had been hired believing they could remote work. Picture: Supplied

There was also a bizarre reference to Clearlink staff likening him to a “convicted Wall Street felon” and he said there was a willingness to “backbite or murmur or find fault or criticise”.

“In these town halls, I alone have been compared to a convicted Wall Street felon. I’ve been criticised for my faith, where I went to college and it wasn’t at all about Harvard or Oxford, two universities of which I’m an alum, but were also founded and operated under the Judaeo-Christian ethic,” he said.

“The prejudice, contention, hypocrisy and unfairness of these statements made by many who remain at Clearlink were made by none who knew me.”

He then went on to issue an ominous warning.

“I took it and I listened and I was kind and I responded with kindness, but no more,” he added. “You have misinterpreted my kindness for weakness. You have continued to do so, and it will stop.”

Clearlink told Vice that the recorded meeting was an internal matter and said the return-to-office push would help Clearlink reach its “collective goals”.

“We look forward to having these team members join us at our new world-class Global Headquarters in Draper, UT and appreciate the efforts of all of our committed team members – which includes those who work in office and those who will continue to work remotely – as we accomplish our best work together,” company spokeswoman Layne Watson said.