Auctioneers over the last few years have publically said they are boycotting Google, Facebook, The Super Bowl (and anyone who’s performed there recently) Starbucks, Target, Kohl’s, Chick-fil-A, Cracker Barrel, Garth Brooks, and Budweiser … just to name a few.
It’s almost as if boycotting makes them famous — fighting for some righteous cause that requires these companies to fail. So “cancel culture” that you so disdain is okay if you’re supporting it?
Why do the rest of us care who you aren’t doing business with? I’d be far more interested in who you are doing business with, however, given you’re boycotting other companies, maybe that doesn’t interest me either.
I know I know … I don’t have to notice it, read it, or pay attention to it, but I do notice it, and pay attention to it because you’re in the same business I and many of my friends are in — the auction business.
Yet, I’m not boycotting anything and don’t plan to unless I receive horrible service (more just making other choices) and that seems to be the overriding view from most in the auction business. I don’t hope these other businesses go out of business, it’s just I shop elsewhere.
Speaking of “business” the auction business is a business to be taken seriously, and not coupled with foolery, malarky, and idiocy — just because in your opinion some business is engaged in foolery and malarky doesn’t require to you mimic that behavior.
It occurs to me that if I’ve hired you to conduct an auction for me, I want you to concentrate on that, not on boycotting companies based on your political or social views. Okay, I suppose you’re doing both … so I as your client shouldn’t worry?
Or, do you not have any clients? So the best way to find one would be to look for companies to boycott? Maybe not, and rather marketing yourself to those likely needing your services — that is, if you have time given your boycotting duties.
Actually, it’s not the actual boycotting that I find curious — it’s the hypocrisy — in that, if a conservative right-wing company or person is boycotted, you cry of “cancel culture,” or scream about “freedom of speech,” and “freedom of expression.”
Should anyone boycott your business? That wouldn’t be right, would it? Just so I understand, you can rightly boycott other businesses, but nobody should be boycotting your business? As the sign suggests, “We are better than this …” or so I once thought.
Lastly, what if auctioneers as a group conspired to boycott certain businesses? There is potential for a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which notes such could constitute “per se antitrust liability.” Is your public boycott meant to encourage others?
Mike Brandly, Auctioneer, CAI, CAS, AARE has been an auctioneer and certified appraiser for over 30 years. His company’s auctions are located at Mike Brandly, Auctioneer, Brandly Real Estate & Auction, and formally at Goodwill Columbus Car Auction. He serves as Distinguished Faculty at Hondros College, Executive Director of The Ohio Auction School, and an Instructor at the National Auctioneers Association’s Designation Academy and Western College of Auctioneering. He has served as faculty at the Certified Auctioneers Institute held at Indiana University and is approved by The Supreme Court of Ohio for attorney education.
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