Sales executive criticised for ‘entitled’ op-ed about moving to Texas

A sales executive is facing backlash after writing an op-ed criticising Austin, Texas, after he briefly relocated his family there for work in 2015.

Last week, Brett Alder, a director of semiconductor business development for Hamamatsu, reflected on his time in Austin in an op-ed for Business Insider, in which he found issues with everything from the price of living in the city to the cultural “blandness”.

In the piece, which lists 11 points “everyone should consider before relocating,” Alder begins his complaints with the weather in Austin, which he describes as “wet,” “annoyingly cold,” and oppressively hot.

“Although we had a huge yard and our own half basketball court, we really only felt like going outside about three to four months of the year. The rest of the time it was too windy, too hot/cold, too mosquito/horse fly/fire ant ridden or pouring,” he wrote.

The list also includes his grievances with “no public land, nowhere to go, dishonesty, Yelp, and rudeness,” with Alder, who only lived in Austin for a year before reportedly moving his family to a $1.8m home in San Jose, California, also referring to the city as a “conservative dystopia” and a “monoculture of blandness”.

The rambling op-ed criticises the cedar trees, the city’s drivers, who are allegedly “terrible,” as well as the schools, which Alder refers to as “micro-managed military academies”.

“I'll probably take the most heat for this one, but Austinites are rude,” Alder wrote under the heading: “Rudeness,” adding: “The service is also generally awful.” 

Alder concluded the article: “It was an expensive mistake, but my family and I now see California in a completely new light. We feel very fortunate to be living in the Bay Area.”

On social media, where the op-ed has since gone viral, Alder has been labelled “entitled” and “whiny,” while others have called the list the “worst article ever written”.

“The most white privilege thing you will ever read. Like dude, let it go, just move back or write a Yelp review,” one person tweeted.

Another said: “What a shallow, privileged, out-of-touch view of life. I’m sorry you just figured out Yelp reviews are not gospel. Also, you moved to the wrong Texas city. Houston or bust.”

“Man moves to Austin and is surprised to find that it is in fact, in Texas,” someone else tweeted.

According to Alder, who has addressed the viral article on Twitter, he originally published the list in 2016, but republished it recently after Business Insider reached out.

“That time when you screamed into a pillow like five years ago and then @businessinsider is like: ‘Can we publish what you screamed?’ he tweeted alongside a link to the article.

In a later post, Alder announced his intention to retweet some of the “best” responses to his op-ed while acknowledging that most of them were “hating on” him.

The Independent has contacted Alder for comment.