There has been an accident in the magical cookie factory!

Good day, and thank you all for coming. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Greg Weston. I’m a managing partner at StormRock Capital, and in 2023, my company purchased the magical tree where you woodland elves have been baking cookies for five thousand years. I’m here today because I’ve learned that some of you understandably feel we’re making light of last week’s tragic events that led to our “Oops! All Rainbows!” ad campaign. In fact, the accident that killed seven elves also destroyed our moon, candy cane, unicorn, and treasure chest cookie molds, so the factory in your sentient tree can currently only produce rainbow-shaped cookies. Please believe me, if the tone of our “Oops! All Rainbows!” commercials seemed superficial or even celebratory, that was not our intention.

I know the idea of ​​baking cookies for any reason other than to spread love in this land and every land across the vast sea no elf has ever crossed is new to all of you. But the sale of your cookies is what allows StormRock to grow this company. To innovate. To buy new equipment so we can bake more cookies and fill more bellies with oven-fresh goodies. Did that new equipment explode and slice seven elves in half lengthwise while they were standing in a perfect line doing the Fresh Batch Dance? We all know it did. And we all want to understand why that happened.

But snap judgments about what went wrong are simply not productive. Yes, the old furnace—whose iron and copper had been mined and forged by your old allies, the dwarves of the High, High Mountain—operated for millennia without a single incident. But it was fueled by a friendly dragon whose appetite for sugar was unbearable. The furnace had to be replaced if we were to remain competitive. And yes, the new furnace was manufactured by Haizi Shouzhi Corp., which is owned by StormRock. We’ve never hidden that fact. That’s called vertical integration, and vertical integration doesn’t cause furnaces to explode. It just doesn’t.

So why did the furnace fail and die alongside Blambrophil’s son Nerbo? Not to mention little Oobli and stocky Gleebo. And Murgo and his wife Deleenia, who wouldn’t have been there at all if Murgo hadn’t forgotten his honey bread and apple at home. And of course old Weeblomir the Grey, who was only a few weeks away from retirement. Well, I’ll tell you exactly what killed them: alertness.

The self-appointed DEI police have forced an agenda on this entire field, and they’re making workplaces unsafe. Just think of the time you’ve wasted doing countless Zooms with that HR lady and then taking a test on what you learned on the Zooms. Time you could have spent baking. Or singing to the cookie dough to make it even tastier. Or checking to see if the thermocouple pressure relief flange on the new oven was installed correctly. The fact that it was installed upside down is not Haizi Shouzhi’s or StormRock’s fault. Final assembly is done in Mexico—a faraway land of pyramids and jungles and Tod’s bachelor party—by a company StormRock has a stake in, but which is run by an independent board. OK? And since that company also has government contracts, that means mandatory biannual DEI training and The means mistakes are going to be made. Call me crazy, but I don’t really understand how learning about “implicit bias” or “women don’t like compliments anymore” helps with putting on the right veil. Not to mention baking gooier and tastier cookies for your belly.

It’s insane. HR has become politicized, and DEI is the reason more troll dens are collapsing. It’s the reason the wolf hordes have invaded the areas west of the Ferndil River. It’s the reason work is no longer fun. But our hands are tied. If we don’t follow these new rules imposed on us by our socialist overlords, they’re going to cancel me – with magic! They’re going to put a cancellation spell on all of us!

I know there are some older elves who might disagree with me about what went wrong. Elves who believe that by baking cookies for profit instead of pure goodness, we’ve somehow broken a pact with the Enchanted Forest itself. That we’ve torn apart an ancient oath that protected your clan and its trees from the dark forces that live among the trees. Let me pause for a moment. What’s really changed? DEI and all the zooms and hiring quotas. Wood elves are raised from birth to bake cookies, but now we have to hire employees. Flow Fairies who help you?! As far as I know, they can only talk to fish, spread unfathomable love and, yes, bake pastries. But they don’t specialize in cookies. And that is the kind of things that cause explosions.

Ultimately, the point of our “Oops! All Rainbows!” campaign is to prove that StormRock remains committed to keeping this cookie factory in operation. But to do that, we all have to make sacrifices. With only one cookie mold, fewer elves are needed to bake now, so there will be retraining and possible staff cuts. But the last thing we want is to have to sell this company for short-term profits. After all, we didn’t buy your magic tree just to skin it while it begs us not to, and then sell the bark to Grimskar the Destroyer so he can finish the magic potion he’s working on. So, let’s get back to work! ♦