A meme recently went viral on social media claiming that Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison told Conservatives to take their money to Home Depot.

I have tried to confirm, but I cannot find a confirmation nor a denial on this particular quote. As someone who spent nearly a decade of their life working at Lowe’s this story was particular interesting to me. I have reason to believe that Ellison did make this statement based on my time working for the company.

I managed Lowe’s stores in both Tennessee and in Florida. Let’s exclude Ellison’s quote and focus on the facts of my own experience as an employee.

DEI – Yes Ellison is a black CEO, and to be fair I do not believe he was a DEI hire. What I can tell you is that long before Ellison’s employment began at Lowe’s I was taken to a hotel conference room in Nashville Tennessee under the guise of diversity training. This was in the 2012-2013 time period. I sat in the classroom with 8-10 others (predominantly white) and was lectured about how white people had automatic bias against people of color. This was a half day training. Keep in mind that this was before DEI training was a topic that was discussed.

That was my first red flag with Lowe’s. My second and third red flags came very close together after Ellison was hired. The death of George Floyd sparked destruction across the United States and Ellison chose to address the 300k plus employees of Lowe’s directly via email. In his email he stated how George Floyd could have been his son, and how he was nervous for the safety of his children.

Then came COVID and Lowe’s stores experienced a boom in sales. Many of the panic items for Covid mitigation were sold out within days if not hours. N-95 masks were unavailable as were gloves, and most household cleaning chemicals. The sales were record breaking. Every store in the United States was shipped a case of masks with some other supplies to donate. The catch was: these products had to be donated to a “black owned” business. I managed one of the highest volume stores in America, so I had never segregated my customers by race. I simply knew who a loyal customer was and who wasn’t.

I made the executive decision one afternoon to donate the masks to the Florida Highway Patrol rather than a business. This decision came from a conversation I was having with multiple troopers where they were explaining the need for them. For making that decision I was questioned by my immediate manager.

Covid was handled very oddly from an employee level. Masks were mandated for all employees. In fact, masks were written in as part of the dress code so that it would appear to not be a mandate. I decided to end my career at Lowe’s around this time.

As employees continued to leave and complain about the tyrannical mask mandates, Lowe’s reached a solution. Lowe’s created an online portal and made the announcement that any employee who uploaded their vaccination ID card would be allowed to work without a mask. Employees were not required to be vaccinated, however if they chose not to be vaccinated they must wear a mask and be tested weekly in order to continue employment.

Lowe’s employs a large number of part time college students, and many made the decision to get vaccinated based on removing their mask at work. Lowe’s did not initially keep their initial commitment to these employees as they were still required to wear masks far past the initial date they were given.

This is just a sample of my experience at Lowe’s that leads me to believe that Ellison did make that statement about Conservatives. It is important that Conservatives support business that support them. Lowe’s certainly deserves a closer look before you spend your currency there.