Empire Attire

by: Otto Hanson

While we all like to spend as much time on the slopes as possible, many of us have resolved to spending most of our time in swivel chairs at the office.

Today I’m working with pro skier and Empire Attire Cofounder Simon Dumont who stops by occasionally to contribute to product design, marketing programs, blog articles and the like. He’s sitting next to me now on his laptop studying an elaborate spreadsheet with complex formulas that purport to forecast the future value of this company. He’s so content here that you would almost think he was in his natural element.

When a professional athlete gets out of their sport and into their investments, they take it as seriously as the sport that got them there. Simon is no different. He rolls into my office at 11am sharp decked out in Oakley shorts, t-shirt and shades, Nike 6.0 sneakers and his signature Red Bull cap. He sits down across from my desk and eagerly asks what we’ll be covering for the day. As I break out the spreadsheets and the laundry list of conference calls we have to make, he doesn’t hesitate a bit before diving right into the meat of it. We work hard, we work closely, and we work together.

The office is a place where people are encouraged to drop their competitive streaks and put on their much friendlier team faces. Working at Empire is the one time you might see guys like Simon drop their competitive streak and resolve to complete team-driven collaboration. One can knock our great capitalist system and the collaborative business organizations that thrive within it all they want. At the end of the day, the beauty and harmony that arises from getting a career competitor to sit down and work in perfect collaboration with other individuals is something so great, so poetic, that the greatest artists could not be entrusted to capture its beauty.

After a few hours pass Simon and I take a break from our swiveling office chairs and head up to the patio to battle each other in Ping-Pong. We get bored with patting each other on the back for too long and revert to what we know best—shit-talking, battle royal-like competition.

Unfortunately, I’m no match for Simon’s Ping-Pong skills. After beating me a fourth time in a row he throws his arms ecstatically into the air, ping pong paddle whipping wildly towards the clouds, and marches triumphantly toward me singing the theme song to Rocky and beating his chest like an ape.