Emporium

“It's a bureaucratic nightmare rather than a corporate hellscape“
- Rowan

Whether you're new to the newsletter, it's old hat, or you're receiving it in an old hat, hello and welcome to our latest Spring newsletter! You're all astute enough to know that big changes have been coming - the first of course being the new newsletter format and style! We know that those of you who are joining us now are used to a bit more of a formal style, but that's just not who Emporium is. We want to sit down with you over a mug of freshly fissioning atoms and talk to you on your level. We're all making our way through this crazy thing we call a multiverse together, so we might as well sit at the same level and enjoy it together.

But why all the changes? Strap in, because this is a bumpy ride! There may not be a souvenir picture at the end, but trust us when we say that it's got just as good a pay-off: knowledge, and our ongoing gratitude to you, the newsletter subscribers!

After a full seasonal cycle of negotiating, discussion, and handover, our long-time strategic partnership with The Orbital Conglomerate™ has come to an end. Egbert and their representative Frey Wheeler's arguments for why our ongoing growth was unsustainable were difficult to counter - evidence is hard to refute when you don't have a good way to sustainably put those problems to rest! Although Orbital's negotiation representative, Hildegard Destroyer, put forth ideas for new growth strategies, this just didn't sit well with the direction Emporium was taking.

Thanks to the tireless hard work of our favourite¹⁾ Brand Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Ron/Bill/Vince/John/Rob/Tom/Bob/Phil negotiating their socks off (sometimes literally!), we agreed the best next steps to keep admin nice and tidy, and concluded in favour of ending that contract. For those of you who are worried we might have ticked off our old partners, rest assured that everything ended on friendly terms. Before the last of the Orbital staff departed, we all sat down and had a nice round of punch in the break room. Nothing says “negotiation successful” like a friendly round of punch!

For the more administratively inclined among you, we know you might be wondering how Emporium plans to handle the added pressures of taking on accounting, external marketing campaigns, company strategies, and all the other delightful things Orbital was contracted to do for us. We could lie and tell you it's going to be easy, but lying in our first post-contract newsletter would be putting the wrong tentacle forward. It's going to be tough, but the handover of all that fun stuff was gradual enough to get Emporium employees up to speed (as some of you employee readers are only too familiar with!). It's been a while since Emporium handled this stuff, and we're rusty, but all we need is a bit of deoxygenating agent and we're sure to shake off that rust soon.

Even when things being slower gets frustrating - and we know it'll get frustrating - please be patient. We will give you the best service we can as soon as possible!

Some might say that the sky's the limit, but when you've got no sky, you've got no limits! We're excited for what comes next, even though we're sad to say goodbye to our friends at Orbital. We hope they come back soon - this time as customers!

With the departure of Orbital, we are officially scaling back operations at Emporium. The bigger our operations became, the less sustainable they were, and the less care we could put in to making sure each and every one of you - customers and employees alike - received the level of care we first became known for.

While we won't be able to allow as many customers into our humble store per seasonal cycle²⁾, our lower capacity will mean an increase in stability in the store. That may be bad news for all you void aficionados out there, but for the rest of you, be assured that you're much less likely to fall into an interdimensional hole while trying to pick up your latest bunch of infinitely dividing bananas! As for you void connoisseurs, all is not lost just yet. We recommend checking the Entertainment department for some recreational Void-It-Yourself! kits to satisfy your void needs.

It shouldn't be necessary for you to half-destroy your homeplane to ravage it for enough resources to afford the items that you need to save it. We could not be prouder³⁾ of our employee, Mask, pioneering a subsidising scheme for essential goods across departments at Emporium. It's a scheme in its early stages now, but we're planning on extending it to more essentials as this seasonal cycle progresses - watch this space for more updates!

It may seem strange that a store is cutting into its profits to make this happen. But here's the thing: we exist so that we can make you happy, and that's a whole lot more difficult if you can't afford what you need to save your people, your world, or your stars⁴⁾. This is another step in the right direction to make Emporium a store we can all be proud of.

Remember that season between Autumn and Year's End? Well, this'll make the new experience of Unwinter even more exciting! You may be expecting nothing but icy desolation. Throw those expectations out the window! Unwinter is a season that celebrates the gentle persistence of things that are still active in the coldest season. If you dust off some snow here and there you'll see berries in every shade of the spectrum⁵⁾. Even in the middle of Unwinter, you can find life and activity wherever you go.

Remember earlier in this newsletter we mentioned that we're scaling up care? Thing is, that's not all we're scaling up. Emporium is changing into the kind of store that thrives most on collaboration and fairness. We want to hear what you have to say, and we want you to feel confident that we're listening, taking notes, and seeing what we can do better. Employees will already be familiar with the start of our new employee Union - thanks in no small part to Ron/Bill/Vince/John/Rob/Tom/Bob/Phil's tireless efforts to get things moving. This began as a Committee which itself began as a way for store inhabitants who had not been officially recognised to finally have a platform to be heard.

We heard you. We listened. We took notes, and we're seeing what we can do better. We hope that other businesses in the multiverse can take heed and learn from some of the amazing things we've already done as a result of working with each other and treating each other fairly, as equals. We've already seen some changes outside of this humble store, and maybe we'll see more.

We can't predict the future, but we're optimistic about it. In the end, the only business we can really change is our own, and we're going to keep changing to make things even better for you. You're why we leave the sleep pods to start a new shift, why we keep asking questions and keep trying to learn how we can be at least a little bit better every single time.

From our mailbox to yours, we wish you the very best, both in this seasonal cycle and beyond,
Albert, Egbert, and the rest of the Emporium senior management team