One star.

The world’s greatest surfer, Kelly Slater, has long dabbled in the business arts launching companies like energy drink Purps, overseas surfboard manufacturer Slater Designs and sustainable outerwear brand OuterKnown during the course of his illustrious career.

Very smart to diversify portfolio etc. but what is it like to toil under the 11x World Champion’s yoke? Is he a gentle leader or a tyrant? A P.T. Barnum or a Steve Jobs?

Well, popular New Zealand career website Glassdoor.co.nz provides much insight, at least into OuterKnown, as many ex-employees have posted about their experiences. What do they say?

I loved working at Outerknown because their mission and purpose align with my passion for sustainability and environmental awareness. My fellow colleagues were amazing and I felt my manager did a wonderful job of listening to me and she always had my best interest in mind. Leaving Outerknown was an extremely tough decision, but I am happy to say my experience taught me so much that I will take with me as I grow in my career.

Prepare for Long Hours and Potential Burnout. Stressful work environment. You’re expected to do the work of several people/departments. When you ask upper management to hire additional help, your requests go ignored and nothing changes. Be prepared for burnout and long hours working here.

Management is not the worst I’ve experienced but absolutely mediocre at best. CEO is out of touch and so is the entire executive suite. Such a shame that HR is not able to help with the real problem, simply bad management and outdated leadership style.

Non-toxic and sustainable clothes, super toxic work culture and unsustainable work-life balance. Top-down “leadership” style driven by whatever hashtag social cause can make them money, instead of pushing for any meaningful change. Post a black square because it’s trending, and then fire non-white employees. Any challenge to the status quo is met with aggression and fragility. Incredibly toxic work environment with no clear paths to promotion. Inequitable pay with no transparency. Old-fashioned executives who like to think they’re progressive, but it’s the same boys club of every industry who prefer nepotism and blowing things up rather than fixing what’s right under their roof. High turnover and low pay, HR is a joke.

Outerknown requires Covid vaccine. Outerknown requires the covid vaccine. Sustainability is not a huge concern. This company does not promote from within.

OuterKnown requires a Covid vaccine?

Whoa.

Read more here.

Tougher than the rest.

There are not many occasions, as surfers, to feel sympathy for our Great White Shark neighbors, the selfsame that nibble our feets and cause us to hop on metaphorical sleds and reset, but there’s a 10-foot li’l nugget, currently swimming off the coast of South Australia, that is so battered, so bruised as to maybe become BeachGrit‘s new mascot.

The amazing footage was captured by underwater cinematographer Dean Spraakman who described the shark as “friendly” but said no one on his team had ever seen a creature in such condition.

“We see sometimes down there the white sharks tracking stingrays because they hunt and eat them and we thought they chase them into shallow reef areas where it’s quite sharp and it might get stuck and cause that sort of damage. You can only speculate what happened there and to be honest no one … ever really knows what causes that sort of damage to a shark, but the poor guy had a bit of a hard time I think. I noticed he had scars on him but I didn’t realise to what length until I reviewed the footage later.”

They wondered if the gouges might have been caused by boat propellers but dismissed the notion and continued to remain befuddled.

National Geographic explorer Professor Yannis Papastamatiou thought some of the wounds might have been from fighting with other sharks saying, “Females are often heavily scarred from mating behaviour but males can get bitten as well during dominance interactions between sharks, eg a larger shark may want a smaller shark and dominate the smaller individual with a non-fatal warning bite.”

Whatever the case, this shark is a working class hero and, you know, some girls, they want a handsome Dan or some good-lookin’ Joe on their arm. Some girls like a sweet-talkin’ Romeo. Well, ’round South Australia, baby, he learned you get what you can get so if you’re rough enough for love, honey, he’s tougher than the rest.

But is it a ploy?

At 1:25 pm, California time, the NFL’s Green Bay Packers will take the field against the Kansas City Chiefs and there will be one dominant storyline. The absence of Packers’ quarterback Aaron Rogers who tested positive for the Covid virus earlier this week. Rogers at the beginning of the season told reporters that he had been “immunized” but had not, in fact, taken one of the three vaccines.

Days ago, last year’s most valuable player decides to address the situation directly.

“I realize I’m in the crosshairs of the woke mob right now, so before my final nail gets put in my cancel-culture casket, I think I’d like to set the record straight on some of the blatant lies that are out there about myself right now,” he told Pat McAfee of the Pat McAfee Show.

“It wasn’t some sort of ruse or lie, it was the truth,” he said about his being immunized, and if further questions had been asked “I would’ve said, ‘Look, I’m not some sort of anti-vax, flat-earther. I am somebody who is a critical thinker, you guys know me, I march to the beat of my own drum, I believe strongly in bodily autonomy.'”

Continuing, “I believe strongly in bodily autonomy and the ability to make choices for your body, not to have to acquiesce to some woke culture or crazed group of individuals who say you have to do something. Health is not a one-size-fits-all for everybody.”

Entirely Slater-esque.

Slater himself went on his own pro-choice campaign, recently, opening various fronts against Instagram commenters, doctors and his fellow professional surfers, telling Australian Ironman Matt Poole, “If I know the risks (informed consent) and I judge the choice to be one that benefits/hurts me based on stats and info and my own ability (health), I can choose accordingly.”

And yet, the world’s greatest surfer has been uncharacteristically silent since Rogers’ dragging began.

Not a peep.

Now, I’m no military tactician, but might the 11x World Champion have seen an opportunity to join forces with Rogers and the very popular Joe Rogan and punch through the fortifications of the pro-life side?

A real Battle of the Bulge moment?

Maybe Slater is waiting until 1:25 California time to announce the attack.

It would be wise.

Erwin Rommel-esque.