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Episode at Home
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Join Dave and Jake as they talk about treating people as people, give resume advice, chat extensively about working from home, advocate for workers rights, ridicule Elon's Optimus "robots", and cover even more in this week's episode!
Intro:
- Cult of the Lamb - Darkwood Purged
Outro:
- Cult of the Lamb - Clauneck/Lamb God
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Transcript
Introduction and Mystery Jokes
00:00:26
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going today, Dave? It's going so well. Oh, my God. That's where swell came from. There it goes. We solved it. All right. Well, that's one. We only had a quota for one mystery, so we'll just call it there. Move on. Well, if you're looking to some other mysteries, some modern mysteries.
Meme Culture and Recognition
00:00:54
Speaker
Gotcha. Gotcha.
00:00:56
Speaker
Is that a show modern mysteries? It sounds like it would be I'm going to assume it is sounds like a discovery or history channel thing because history channel goes into like Here's history and aliens. What was that last bit history? Could aliens have caused this and you're just like World War two reenactor footage or something like that. like I don't know there's Actually, I think there is photographic evidence. One of the people on the Dota Discord, ah him and his wife actually met that guy, the ancient aliens guy and his wife. Right. That's actually pretty great. yeah The frizzy haired aliens. aha yeah he i I am kind of curious what it's like to be one of those people that's known for like a very specific segment or meme or something like that.
00:01:52
Speaker
And then just have that kind of define how strangers interact with you for a period at least a period of time. I feel like it would be nice, a little nice, yeah for
Internet Fame and Public Perception
00:02:05
Speaker
some of that recognition. Like, hey, you're so-and-so. That's cool. You're like, oh, hey, thanks. But if you don't want the attention, you're just like, oh, I just got to get these groceries today. Then I got to stop by the doctor's office. Someone's like, hey, aren't you? And you're like, no.
00:02:20
Speaker
I think it probably also depends what you're known for, right? yeah Like, because I know that, um, or I've heard that overly attached girlfriend. like she basically just like dropped off the face of the earth from like an internet standpoint for a time because everyone was just you know as they would expect right as you would expect um about like someone who's really well known in an image macro um but then came back and was like okay I'm actually gonna start building like a brand and stuff like that I don't know if she sells anything or whatever but basically coming back into the limelight a little bit um and
00:03:00
Speaker
I think that's good to like reach a level of contentment where you're like, okay, I can acknowledge the past and the fact that this one photo has defined so much of my life and try to shape that into how I interact with, you know, at least the internet and the future. Yeah, it's, it's a good thing to I think step away from like that because then people's bad news. Brian was another big one. Yeah, like. I'm sure if he came back and did anything, he would have enough of like the basic good grace of, oh, we know them from the Internet, right? Right. Yes. Yeah. Which is one of the reasons why I think the the Hawk to a podcast wall.
00:03:49
Speaker
I don't what i think it's going to be good, or people will be like, oh, she shouldn't be doing this, blah, blah, blah.
Workplace Identity and Online Personas
00:03:56
Speaker
I think there is still something kind of cool in that. Right. You're using what you got, right? Like your you're using some of the exposure you already have to try to springboard into something else. Yeah. Which I mean, that's Hollywood, baby, so.
00:04:13
Speaker
like What are you going to do? What do you think I'm using this podcast for? Exactly. This is a planned decade long springboard. Oh, you've done a lot of podcasting. Oh, yeah, you know, the the first three pages. I just list all of the episode names in order instead of a date range. Mm hmm. Yeah, you got to fill that out somehow.
00:04:40
Speaker
um
00:04:43
Speaker
I'll also like. many I mean, I'm going to cue that one up for for resumes, because i have I have feelings about resumes, but um yeah, I think the other factor for if you're coming from meme culture or that's how you were launched into notoriety, um it probably also depends on like what the image macro was, right? Some of them adopt very easily. Other ones are like not nearly as I don't know if there's like a negative connotation almost attached to the, uh, the format. I wonder if that changes how people perceive you. If you're trying to jump into something else, like launch a podcast or something like that. But I mean, it's stupid, but yeah.
00:05:31
Speaker
Because it's really that only thing they are associating you with. It's similar to the guy who played Joffrey on Game of Thrones. Right. That's a good example. That's literally the only thing you know about that person. Now, you should be able to separate TV in real life. But again, there's something dumb in our brains that makes that connection. And then a lot of people will just be like, oh, I'm going to go on that impulse
Impact of Memes on Personal Life
00:05:55
Speaker
without any further thought. Right.
00:05:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's a that's a really good example, actually, for like how the human psychology interacts with it, because I know that he's had people be jerks to him. And it it also takes me back to the Jar Jar Binks. Well, Jar Jar Binks is a perfect example. that's might be go to I was watching a ah completely like unrelated YouTube sketch thing of some guys where the premise was ah George Lucas had stolen Star Wars, like the script for Star Wars, basically from some other guy um using time travel. He tried to travel back, did it first, and then later informs the guy at George Lucas's end of life. He's like, hey, you made Star Wars. You did all this stuff. And they go through and it was like, did I do Jar Jar Binks? And george George is like, well, the voice was mine. i made And it's like, uh huh.
00:06:52
Speaker
ah But yeah, it's. You know, you just hope it works out. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think I'm going to do one minor thing of soapboxing. Yeah. Because I'm on the Internet a lot and I see a lot of stuff like we were talking about with um how Internet people are perceived and then how they're treated. Mm hmm. Say it again. Feel like we talked but before. Everybody's a person.
00:07:21
Speaker
Like you have your online persona, like here I'm a podcaster and more social and vocal than I would normally be in a public setting. right um There's a degree of character there, right? In the same way, those other people are people as well.
00:07:36
Speaker
um And even if Hailey Welch is famous for making a humor about a blowjob and being popular from that, okay, let let her do her thing. She's not a dick to anybody. She's like giving money to animal shelters.
00:07:58
Speaker
yeah just and I think in general, people don't want to see other people succeed or be happy if they think it's beyond their reach or they haven't quote unquote paid their dues. Right. Because if you're working for like.
00:08:20
Speaker
30 years in the mines and then let's say your kid down the street gets like a record deal because they have an amazing singing voice and immediately like they're making so much money. um I understand like the gap there and we're like, what the fuck?
00:08:42
Speaker
um But you shouldn't shit on and tear down this kid because it's not the kid's fault. Right. Or having a success. um Yeah, there's there's some other angles to that, too.
Crafting Effective Resumes
00:08:55
Speaker
Like I do think to a certain extent eat the rich. Right. I get that. Right. But when I you say eat the rich, it kind of has to translate into meaningful policy. And in my case, it's just like, OK, well,
00:09:11
Speaker
people who make the most money should pay the most taxes. Hot take. There you go. But like um when it comes into like judging someone personally, I think that's kind of a bridge too far, right? Regardless of whether someone was lucky and broke out into like Hollywood or TikTok or whatever the crap or whatever reason they're popular like you can't necessarily make judgments about their character based off things you don't like um from their situation and the opposite is also true right like as we've seen
00:09:47
Speaker
people that are perceived to be very kind, generous, nice, or don't have any controversy around them. There's still people and can very much do bad things, right? So yes, early judgment is kind of is kind of the problem and in all of these cases. Which is why if you're going to be a part of a meme, make sure it's a good meme. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
00:10:14
Speaker
um Though it's very rarely, I think, do the people who use these image, like they they launched into, um what would be the word for it? Like public awareness based off of an image macro or something like that. Very rarely, I think it's like planned, right? Like this is it. yeah I'm going to pose like this and then you're going to use this image and it's going to spread all over the place. It's going to be, people put text on it and that's how we'll know we'll made it. We've made it. but bottom Bottom text. Yes. Yo, if I ever get a butt tattoo, bottom text, for real do that. That would be so good. One cheek, two cheek, bottom text. That's pretty good. That's probably the definition of a tattoo that'll like become less legible as you age, unless you really are working the clothes.
00:11:07
Speaker
so You mean the fact that it's not constantly getting ah sunlight and exposure and moisturized? I mean, I don't know your routine, but who's to say? I sneeze and I sweat out of this gamer chain. Yeah. But the other thing you mentioned, which I'm curious about, how many pages should a resume be?
00:11:37
Speaker
Because people do come to us for like professional advice. I would say one to two. Period. um Because it really should just be, here's how to contact me. Here's my information. right And then it should be.
00:11:57
Speaker
Here's some high level skills I have. If you're looking for buzzwords like Microsoft word or can Google things, et cetera. I have found that the meta right now is just to copy paste AI 200 times in your summary. And then you can go down to skills underneath that. That usually gets you in the door. You're good then.
00:12:21
Speaker
Yeah. It's. I don't like overly long resumes or padded resumes because it's yeah, it's really obvious. But no, you should have a couple of things in your job history points for that specific position. Right. Yeah. OK, follow up question, then you know, you're down to two pages. At what point do you not include? Do you not include hobbies? Do you what do you include from school?
00:12:53
Speaker
stuff like that. We're talking for people around thinking like, if I'm a prospective employer, yeah, I don't give a fuck where your hobbies are. OK. Because that's stuff you're doing outside of work time. Right. Like, obviously, if I see that you have like ah hobbies, video games, somebody like, oh, hello, that's a personal in. right Right. But if you're still shit at everything else, I'm not going to hire you. Right.
00:13:21
Speaker
That's interesting. That type of stuff might be for like a icing on the cake
Remote Work vs. In-Office Debate
00:13:28
Speaker
type thing. Because like if you're second, if you have to go to two pages, but you only have like one paragraph in the second page looks bad. That's true. So like you would want to add something like that in there, maybe be to kind of space it out. Right. um But yeah, I'm not looking for.
00:13:48
Speaker
hobbies or what's the only said? I think hobbies or more stuff from school, but that's kind of a softball. We know that the stuff in school gets dropped off as you ah more time passes beyond school. Yeah, I'm pretty much just going to be looking at previous job experience. Yeah. Is this your first job? If not, somebody else should be able to vouch for you to be like they were here and they were good. Yeah.
00:14:16
Speaker
Yeah. Um, I agree. I was going to try to be like kind of contrary. And the reason for this is cause I've done like hiring. Um, and I shouldn't say done hiring. That's too much. I've done interviewing for people in the past. And, um,
00:14:35
Speaker
Like the hobbies do matter, but I agree. It's less than the, uh, it's less than the, the work experience. And when I say hobbies do matter, I mean, it's just, do you do anything other than work? Cause we have had, I've interviewed people who literally were like in my free time, I only study and research tools for work and.
00:15:03
Speaker
That on its own could be maybe kind of okay. It's a little weird, but like kind of okay. It's not bad to you know aggressively be improving yourself, but same person was also like, hey, i what what do you ah dislike about like your co-workers or your manager and stuff? And they he's just like they don't work hard enough. And they're kind like and that's that's a bit of a flag. It's like, OK, what do you kind of do to help them if they're not being as productive as you want? And they really didn't have good answers and stuff. And so you can kind of all I'm saying is if someone literally doesn't do anything in their free time,
00:15:45
Speaker
it's It's also a kind of a flag for me, because it means that they probably don't have any balance, right? They might just be on the road to an overwork implosion, or they're trying to sell themselves really hard in this interview, right? Or maybe they have other hobbies they can't mention, right? so
00:16:07
Speaker
Yeah, you obviously like a rounded individual is best because you don't want to have somebody on the team who's terrible at work with other people. Yeah. Because that's always going to come up at some point and having had a few jobs, it is such a fucking hurdle. Yeah. For some people.
00:16:27
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I would I'm not in any sort of position where it would be like my decision ultimate call on whether someone like gets hired or not. I usually tell. Well, actually, usually for not, if you're involved in interviewing, you probably have a say in the not, but maybe not the yes. Right. Like you could disqualify someone, but you're kind of just passing down the chain to the next person. But like. Yeah, it's being like social skills, the ability to communicate,
00:16:57
Speaker
And the ability to work with other people, like collaborate to any degree, is so much more important than being like the ultimate genius in my book. Yes, because one can be taught easier. um I feel like a lot of the social skills thing Like if you haven't picked it up now by the fact that you're an adult, I don't want to necessarily invest the time to teach that to you versus, Hey, here's the company stuff we do. Here's what the day-to-day job is and some of those skills. Yeah. Yeah. I hate when people can't communicate. I've seen lots of instances where that just causes problems.
00:17:40
Speaker
Hey, how's that going? Still working on it. OK, that doesn't provide me any detail as far as your current state of where you're at, when things are going to be done. If you are struggling at things, you're going at a slower pace than normal. um Do you have any questions? Do you have any blockers? And people will just be like, oh, I'm working on it. It's the verbal equivalent. Because I'm not their boss. I cannot chew them out alive ah for that. Right.
00:18:08
Speaker
It's kind of the verbal equivalent of just responding with an arrow pointing to the right. When someone asks you how it's going, you're like, OK. All right. Well, OK. I acknowledge you've asked me a question. OK. Yeah. Cool. That's actually the um I've talked to you about how I'm invested in articles and studies and things ah like that about work from home. Because we're both work from home. um And the a lot of people in the tech sector still are, but not everybody. And a lot of the major companies are like, hey, we're going to call people back in. you know Either it's hybrid, which they would have already done for the most part, or like companies like Amazon are like, absolutely, you must go to an office.
00:18:58
Speaker
if you are with not within range of an office, you must quit or move so you can go to the office, like that kind of seriousness, damn. And so I'm i'm always curious about like the pros and cons to the in-person ah situation versus like work from home.
Remote Work Efficiency and Management
00:19:19
Speaker
And obviously as someone who appreciates work from home, that's the one thing, right? Like for employee satisfaction,
00:19:28
Speaker
People like being able to work from home. Hot take. um But there are companies that don't. And one of the things they mention is it's harder to socialize or it's harder to have impromptu connections and things like that in the workplace. What's your take on that?
00:19:47
Speaker
Lies. okay Lies. um There's a guy who I work with, Kyle, and we've hit it off great because we ended up talking about video games. We found out both like video games, like, oh, if you played this, you played that, yeah um going back and forth. And I've never met this person in person. But like if I were to meet like up at a company party, I'd be like, oh, I'm going to look for Kyle. We're going to hang out.
00:20:12
Speaker
right right house listening to this, he's like, Oh, shit, I gotta go to these parties. Got it. But like, I don't need this social interaction to do my job. Yes. Like. I'm enough of a functioning human being that when I go out into public, I will behave a certain way. I will be polite to people. I will interact with them. I will try and be clear. And if I'm not being clear, I will try and clarify.
00:20:41
Speaker
um But. that That's it. but I don't need to be able to run into somebody at the water cooler to be like, oh, I can trust these people to work with them. I'm an adult. I'm here to do the work. It's not. OK, it might be people I don't like. I'm still going to do my work, right? Yeah, exactly.
00:21:03
Speaker
You don't need to be a break room roomed dweller. Yeah, I don't think there's any strong case for having to go back to the office outside of that's what we liked and it's familiar. um I know some people do just like having people around or it's easier to separate between ah work and home life, but I don't know. There's ways to address that as well. I feel right. Yeah. It feels just like a weird thing to be like, this is the one thing. If we don't have this, it's all going to fall to shambles. No. Look at every other company that's been okay. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And that is the thing. I think like work from home sometimes gets a bad rap because of either
00:21:53
Speaker
like misconceptions or just a need for control, I suppose, right? Because usually when people are surveyed um about work from home, they'll mention, I like it because I could do chores between meetings if I needed to, right? But like a boss hears that and they're just like, I'm literally paying them and they're not like doing their job or something, right? Here's the thing though, right? Yeah.
00:22:16
Speaker
At least from my personal experience, I don't know if I expressed this on the podcast before or not, but there will be a lot of slow periods in my work because how they organize projects and timelines. So and I've notified them like, hey, I don't currently have anything to work on. You're not sitting here trying to find.
00:22:38
Speaker
like opportunities to slack off, it's legitimately this is the pace of how things are going. Yeah. And the position. Yeah. And I even have notified in the past saying like, Hey, this is where things are at. Like, what's up? What do you want me to do? ah So I want to utilize that time that I've told them is available and they have not.
00:22:58
Speaker
I wanted to lock it down for anything. I'm like, OK, well, then I can run an errand. I can take the dog out to pee. I can sleep in a shower. like Like I can use that time for something else. Right. Because I've already told you that you're paying me for essentially nothing at the moment. And and you then you said, OK. Right.
00:23:20
Speaker
Yeah, I think I think part of it. I agree with what you're saying. I think part of it is from a management perspective for the people who are trying to push back for return to office. Like they see people as progress bars, essentially. Right. You get however many work days or however many like work days and work hours in each day. And you think like, oh, this person is working for eight hours, so I should get eight hours of effort. And it's like realistically at office jobs, it very rarely works like that. There are some days you're more busy. There are some days you're less busy. It even doesn't matter if you're like in development or something like that, working towards a project, there's going to be bursts of productivity where you accomplish like more than you did in the last three days. Mm hmm. Right. Like that ebb and flow is just it's the human psychology of how it works. Right. Like
00:24:16
Speaker
And it's awesome when you get those bursts of productivity, but it's also you're not always in that state or it wouldn't be a burst. Yeah. Usually it's because other people are asking you questions or asking for other things. Hmm. Like there are lots of distractions in a day to day.
00:24:36
Speaker
job, yeah whether it be you're directly working with customers or just people on your team, et cetera, et cetera. And no two people really work the same. See, I never understood like the straight quote unquote mathematical measurement of, oh, they need to be actively working for eight hours. Well, is it the eight hours of work or is it that the thing's done?
00:25:03
Speaker
Because if it's like, quote unquote, eight hours worth of progress, it only took them two hours. Bully for them, right? Yeah. um You can technically get more done now because this person is crazy good at working at this little section or piece.
00:25:19
Speaker
um
00:25:21
Speaker
but Yeah, it's not a one to one thing and it very much varies. but I think it's easier to tell like if somebody's actively doing nothing and then is the problem, are we not giving them enough work? Um, are they working slowly because they're understanding something, right? There are ways to like figure that out and see, yeah but to assume like, Oh, this is not getting done because people are working from home. You'd have to show me some fucking evidence for that. Yeah. Cause
00:25:55
Speaker
I think sometimes there's a little bit of, and i'm actually first I want to touch on what you just said, because I agree that like in results are what matters. right like Metrics are what matters. um And understanding the impact of what feeds into that is what matters. right So if it's like, hey, my work from home employees aren't getting as much done from my in-office employees, that would be a piece of evidence. That would be something you could potentially use. um Yeah, that would be valid.
00:26:23
Speaker
but Like a lot of times it's not that information that's like put forth alongside these these work from home or these return to office mandates. um Also, people hate the word mandate. If you throw a mandate on anything, you can guarantee that people will dislike it. um but The, uh, yeah, that's not, that's not the of evidence that's really being presented a lot of the time. I did want to mention that sometimes there's a little bit of like a poison well effect for work from home and that someone will fill out hear an antidote, an anecdote,
00:26:59
Speaker
of like, oh, this person took their kid to school and I thought they were working or this person like played video games over lunch or something like that. And they just imagine it's like that would literally be impossible if I had them chained to their desk in the office. And it's all just. It's dumb, I think it's short sighted to think of it like that from a business perspective, it should very much be are these people growing in their position are Do they have an interest in going in the position first? Are these people like interacting with their coworkers in ways that improve the business? Are these people getting their work done?
00:27:42
Speaker
And my answers for all of those questions need to be empirically comparable to results in the office as well.
Home Work Dynamics and Promotions
00:27:50
Speaker
right Because legitimately, I think I'm more responsive most of the time now than I was when I literally was sitting in the office because I'd be going for coffee breaks. I'd be at someone else's cubicle. right I'm never at someone else's cubicle when I'm working from home. And these business people would be like, oh, it's awesome. They would be encouraging.
00:28:12
Speaker
being at someone else's cubicle, because that's like inner office, collaboration, team building or whatever. I'm like, OK, sure. The price you pay is I'm not at my cubicle. If you send me messages, I'm not getting them yet. You have to leave a note on my whiteboard. Right. Like, um yeah, i maybe it's when I was brought up and the access of information that I have.
00:28:38
Speaker
um yeah I don't understand what I'm going to call, I don't want to say the old world, because it makes me sound like um the new generation. yeah um But I still think that we have a lot of systems throughout various things, work being one of them, where it's like, a hey, um this archaic thing has been around for a while. We've never looked to update it in any way, shape, or form. Yeah.
00:29:03
Speaker
And that's part of the allure of some of these startup companies is people want a different view of things. A lot of people do not like the idea of, oh, it's a cubicle nine to five. right That's like a literal hell for them if they have like a more creative brain or they need to be doing something else or they need to be have access to nature. And then Google will have something where it's, hey, you guys can work from home. You can have like creative meeting sessions. um And it's a peeling trick. Oh, I get to try other things and work doesn't feel like work. Right. Yeah. Like it allows you to exist as a person as well. But yeah, there's lots of different ways that you could approach it. But I think that people need to leave dead of offices behind. Hmm.
00:29:55
Speaker
Like we have the technology. I feel like we should be leveraging it for good and instead of steering away from it. yeah And if you're like, oh, but the network's bad when people are remote. OK, fix that. Fix that. Don't just complain about this thing. Address it and do something.
00:30:11
Speaker
um
00:30:14
Speaker
yeah Also like. I don't know if you ever looked up the rates to rent office space. It costs money. But yeah, I know it costs money. It is not cheap. Yeah. Yeah, I think um more than people would like to expect. I'm fine talking about anything else, but like more than people would like to expect.
00:30:36
Speaker
um Management a lot of times just wants to see people. Right. Like visually, they're reassured seeing workers at desks because it kind of informs more of a sense of control. And on the opposite side, this part also remains true. um If you're a worker and you're looking to see growth or promotion or whatever, it's way better to be seen than not. That's also just kind of human psychology, where literally one of the most like the highest contributing factor to getting a promotion is
00:31:12
Speaker
Is the person responsible for making the promotion do they see you more often than other people? oh Like Which is yeah it's sad like no one's gonna say that that's fair, but it's proximity bias. That's the word for it. It's like if you want to Progress you want other people to see when you're succeeding um And just see you in general not ah If you're silently toiling away in the mines and no one's perceiving your successes and stuff like that in a meaningful way, um or talking to you and stuff like that, then that's just the corporate ladder. But it's it's the hellhole, basically. You're not necessarily escaping it just through hard work.
00:31:56
Speaker
yeah
00:31:59
Speaker
I still feel like there are ways to implement a system that would acknowledge that, but yeah I'm sure today that in general, some of that is going to be lost in a virtual space compared to a physical.
00:32:13
Speaker
It'll probably phase out if virtual continues to like be a big component of it, and more people get used to managing in a virtual space. Because I think that's at least going to take another five years before people are comfortable. Yeah. Because I'll still get the random, oh, hey, are you looking for a job? Here is job posting.
00:32:35
Speaker
um It talks about like two skills and they always say it's like, oh, it's hybrid to start and then in the office two days. Mm hmm. Because they a lot of these companies think that that's the olive branch where it's like, hey, um like this is going to be cool and all, but I would like to have you back in the office. Well, they're conditioning you to go back into the office. Yeah. um Which I fucking hate, but.
00:33:08
Speaker
Yeah, different companies have done different things too. I mentioned Amazon, some of the others. Dell had a policy or they have a policy last I heard of they still have remote workers, but if you work remote, you cannot be promoted. They literally are just like.
00:33:28
Speaker
both like carrots carrot companies use carrots and sticks and they're just using the stick of just like, Hey, if you want to see growth, you're going to start showing up in the office. You're going to move closer. If not, it's fine. If you leave the company, we don't want to pay you severance. Yeah, it's, it's really fucked up. Um,
00:33:52
Speaker
I was going to say something about like, Oh, it might be limiting for somebody, but. I mean, before this technology existed, that's just how things were. But again, now that we have this option,
00:34:06
Speaker
utilize it, leverage
Self-Advocacy and Work-Life Balance
00:34:07
Speaker
it. yeah Don't be a stinky old white person. Thank you. Thank you. Hate those guys. and They're so stinky. This is actually the last point I have on the topic, but workers' rights also. right like If this is something that legitimately makes your life better as a worker,
00:34:29
Speaker
At the end of the day, it shouldn't just be, hey, 100% all of the business concerns all of the time. If that was the case. businesses wouldn't pay you money. right that's like If you really, really cared about the the business like line at the bottom and how much money they made and how productive everything was, everyone would work for one company. That company wouldn't pay anyone any money. And that you would like have a company store where you they basically are like, hey, here's where you get your lunch.
00:35:04
Speaker
um We've come a long way since that was accessible. So also, hey, work from home improves my quality of life massively. That's the number one factor for me. um And I will work to be productive and do what I need to do or reach out to strangers, even if it's an uncomfortable situation or something.
00:35:27
Speaker
Yeah. In order to make sure that that stays an option in the future, because at the end of the day, I don't want to work for my entire life and then die. Right. Like I want there to be some other stuff mixed in there. So ah we all point out, Jake, for not wanting to follow the American dream. Yeah. What a what a Marxist. I'll work for most of my life. i'm and But no. um Yeah, legitimately it's also okay to advocate for yourself and to ask yourself what you want and to try to, to push for that. So I think that applies even past business. Um, even if you have like a loving spouse or significant other,
00:36:14
Speaker
They don't do your work or work with you um or see other people that you might socialize with day to day or throughout time. You are always going to be your best advocate. That's not to say you won't have other advocates in your life, but you are going to be your best advocate. Right. So in the case that Jake was talking about before, as far as like having your job success noted,
00:36:42
Speaker
You can send an email to, yeah, your manager or something else or. I don't know. There are ways, there are ways to do things. It's right. No one thing is so cut and dry, especially not people. Yeah.
00:37:00
Speaker
Unless you're a serial killer, you have very specific methods. I mean, that was yeah um absolutely good advice to be your own advocate. If you want something, just ask for it basically. And you can do so in a a comfortable way if you want to, right? Be like, Hey, I want to see growth. What can I do?
00:37:26
Speaker
to show that I've exhibited growth at this company. Get people into scenarios where they have to literally quantify what they need from you in order for you to get stuff from them. And then if they fail to deliver, sucks to suck, you're now working for someone who fails to deliver and you know it, which is nice. Information is power. and but like At what point have they ever reached out to be like, hey, we just want to check, ah do you guys want ah do you guys want a raise? yet i most More money, thumbs up, thumbs down. Just yeah, fill out the survey, we have an excel sheet going, pass it around. have No, they don't want to pay you more money, that is an expense for them. yeah They lose money by paying you money.
00:38:11
Speaker
so It's not in their best interest to give you more money. Right. and So one of the ways as a worker is to like say, hey, I feel that my work is worth this much. I've been here X amount of time. I've led these successful projects of advance. I've taken on more responsibility. And I think that my services are worth this much per year. Right.
00:38:42
Speaker
you're an asset to whatever company you work for. It doesn't really even matter if this if you're if you work a part-time job or something like that, you still have the skills that are necessary for them to get through the day. I'm not a huge, like, there are things about capitalism I really don't like, there are things about capitalism I really do like. what The way it's up supposed to work is in a competitive market, which is you pretty core to the ideas of capitalism, like,
00:39:11
Speaker
The reason that you're working at your job is because they will pay you the most, provide you the most benefits, and it's the best fit for your life because your skill set is such that you're needed, right? Like, that's the whole point. So if they're not paying you enough, if they're not giving you enough benefits, if they're not accommodating you, and some other place literally does better, capitalism, baby, switch over to the other place if you can, right?
00:39:40
Speaker
um And that further incentivizes companies to treat their employees well because they want the people who are going to have good ideas, get a lot of work done, make them a lot of money at the end of the day more than they pay them, generally, if it's a business, right?
Individuality vs. Being a Cog
00:39:55
Speaker
Yep, I would agree with that. oh So just don't forget that you your role as a cog in the system is sometimes to be an important cog or to have weight, you know?
00:40:10
Speaker
Yeah. Also, I will say. In case somebody had some misgivings, you're thinking I was going in a certain direction. um I think that if you are a shit worker, you're a shit worker. It has nothing to do with where you're working. Right. OK. Yeah. Like whatever your mentality is, you're bringing it to work, whatever your work ethic is, it it does not matter about where you are working at all. Because I like to think of myself as A good worker? Mm-hmm. Because I get my stuff done, I'm like, what else do you want me to do? And they're like, oh, we don't have anything right now. I'm like, peace. Right. I'm going to go wash the dog. Mm-hmm. Take the dog to the dog wash. Yeah. ah Very common things, pet owners. You guys understand. but Yeah, I just I hate the random correlations. They're like, well, actually,
00:41:07
Speaker
but Well, actually. Hit you with the M, actually. I just want to stop doing things that, like, straight up doesn't make sense. That's fair. Or is just actively not beneficial to me? Mm-hmm. Just because, oh, that's the way it is. Right. Yeah. It's important to have standards for how things are done at the business as well, right? Like, yeah. That's really what it comes down to in my book, is, like, what do you want?
00:41:38
Speaker
What does the company want? Are those in the same direction? Get that bag, get what you need. Don't overwork yourself. Don't be taken advantage of. Your identity is not your career. A job is a way to make money to afford things to sustain life.
00:41:58
Speaker
There are some people to whom I would interject. There are some people to whom their job is sorry, their career is basically their life. And I i don't judge that necessarily from the outside. But I don't. I think and if you want with that to be your life, that is fine. Yeah. But I don't think that people should have the idea that they are solely defined by their job that if they're just working like fast food hourly, that they should be like.
00:42:27
Speaker
Oh, this isn't a good job. Therefore, I'm a shitty person or something like that. Yeah, it's jobs or ways to make money. Right. And if you're at the, there is there are people, I know that there are ah absolutely people to whom like their job is their most satisfying, the most satisfying thing they get out of life. And props to them, like that is absolutely some sort of American ideal um as far as being an independent, reliable worker that just goes and goes and goes and goes and goes.
00:43:00
Speaker
I know I'm infusing some negative connotation to that, but if that's what if that's what you want at the end of the day, then awesome. But do not expect, in the same way I don't expect everyone to um focus on themselves, like their own work-life balance and stuff like that, um because I like it.
00:43:20
Speaker
um I want the people who are 100% business and 0% personal life to also understand that I aim for something closer to 50% business, 50% personal life, right?
00:43:32
Speaker
so It's why it's why these episodes are an hour long. That's all I'm saying. Right. Like I was advocating. It has to go straight back to work. No, I was I was going to say that um one of us was advocating for two hour long episodes, but the other person was like, I can't put that much time into the office. We're going to get that down a bit. That would be a bit of a change. That would that would take a day, I think.
00:44:04
Speaker
between preamble. But do we have to play Smash twice? I don't know. Yeah. Two hour long episodes. I like the idea of us like restarting the, hey, so what's been going on? We haven't talked to you in like ah three hours. Well, we've had like, we have had episodes in the past where we basically scrapped it. Or just like, OK, first recording, it didn't work. For one reason or another, it's out.
00:44:30
Speaker
um It's very, very rare. like Our standards aren't that high. But but um there's a lot of inertia to doing a double record.
00:44:41
Speaker
right yeah You're not going to be as sharp. The ideas aren't going to feel as fresh. Even if we if even if there's like a technical outage or something, and it's like, oh, we just lost the part where we talked about um like baboon mating habits in the Congo or something like that.
00:45:00
Speaker
We'll be like, okay, well, we got to cover all those points again. You can tell it's a little bit more dry in the second time too. Yeah. I also think that like even when you're hanging on Discord with people, check yourself and like people's energy on hour one versus like hours two or three.
Balancing Work and Mental Health
00:45:20
Speaker
ahha Yeah.
00:45:22
Speaker
I think your brain can only do so much in a day. Exactly. Like if you have like a 17,500 word count and like that's what you get for the entire day, at points you should be like, i yep, that sounds good. Exactly. That's the same for work too. I don't know why it's like the work the work episode, but um recharging and stepping away from it,
00:45:49
Speaker
legitimately becomes part of a healthy cycle to be more productive over the long run versus like burning yourself out. i I don't know if anyone else has been in this situation where it's like they're pushing up against something, they're struggling, and then they left it alone and came back and the problem was not as difficult to solve after like a night's rest or a walk around the building or something like that.
00:46:14
Speaker
That's a joke. I know everyone's experienced that, right? oh And yeah, that's that's the other factor. so Balance. You got to have some type of break, one, because it's stressful to not to have your brain on all the time again. Everybody has a certain amount of like capacity in different things, whether it be here's my socialization capacity, here's my emotional capacity, um here's my focus capacity. And just not doing that thing, even for a little bit, even having like 15 minute breaks, I found is like
00:46:58
Speaker
just It gives you a second to breathe. yeah Touch your ass. You're like, I still enjoy work, but like we're halfway done yeah type deal. Or just anything. Because like for me, if I'm doing ah work stuff actively,
00:47:13
Speaker
right I will sometimes try and break it up of, oh, I got these things done. OK, I'm going to maybe interweave and some errands are taking the dog out and then I'll come back and approach these other things. so Right. And I already know what I'm going to do at that point where I have time to think about it. um But also time to just de-stress. Exactly. Yeah.
00:47:38
Speaker
If you think of everybody's mind as like a ah coiled spring. Exactly. I was thinking of an analogy like that, actually. Because, yeah, it's it's wrong to assume people are just.
00:47:52
Speaker
Like satisfactory generators or whatever, or some generator in a survival crafting game where it has constant output all the time. That's a, that's a mistake for management to think like, Hey, our employees are always at 100% output. In reality, they're closer to cattle. Like you need to feed them. You need to make sure that their basic needs are taken care of. You got to give them the one tree for shade. Exactly. It's a different type of simulation where.
00:48:22
Speaker
um you You get out what you put in or you should when it comes to relationships with people work or personal and I mean if it's imbalanced on either side, you're gonna have a bad time and work or personal um and Yeah, so That's where you can life, you know Which brings me to my next point, um balancing. Do you like to use the giant wooden stick when you're up on the high rope or? i I would probably feel more comfortable with it. Same, because like if I dropped, I would try and grab either side of the stick. Oh, yeah.
00:49:09
Speaker
Assuming, you know, I had the reflexes and the ability to do so. Yeah. So I mean, just be on the stick on the rope. Oh, so you're saying you stand on the stick. You're not holding the stick. for I am holding the stick. you But as I fall, I looped my arm back around and save myself. Oh, gotcha. Like on both sides of the stick. You do the the Bruce Lee thing. OK, yeah. um Then I could see that. That's a zip line for some reason. My fear would be I would probably, we're just exploring like ah actual phobia of ah high heights. that It's gotten a little bit worse when I'm
00:49:47
Speaker
ah As I've gotten older or sorry a little bit better since I've gotten older but um There's a my fear would be trying to get my arm around on both sides and getting a grip Would be less of a sort of like less of a chance to survive compared to trying to grab the rope itself With at least one hand, right? Yeah I think that might give you a better chance of just not immediately dying. Though you lose the stick. I will concede you lose the stick. No, stick. Now, the question is, um ah for the dog and small child that are above you, a mouse on a cup on your nose. Right. Yeah, that one that one's going to be tough. You don't even grab any of them as the old topple. You grab any of them.
00:50:34
Speaker
you You make a zero, zero sacrifice option and you just grab every one and not the rope and you just fall. It's their responsibility to grab the rope. Yeah. Just kidding. It was all a part of the act. whom Turns into the prisoner's dilemma for acrobatics. Pretty sure this is how Robin's family died, actually. so
00:51:02
Speaker
Yeah. Isn't it kind of crazy how like there's like the business side of making money where you go to work for a company to do a thing and you become a cog as a part of that larger machine versus People were independently like, um I like singing. Yeah. People seem to like me singing. Maybe I can make a thing out of this or people who just do street performance stuff or who work in a circus to be like, hey, check out this cool shit that I can do. And I've practiced. And people are like, yeah that's worth money. Yeah. And it's like to them. No, seriously, because that idea is so foreign to me as far as.
00:51:45
Speaker
Hey, um remove the the baked in security aspect and go into entrepreneurship. And I'm like, I'm not wired that way. No, i'm I'm not either. I'm very much like I respect
Passion Careers vs. Stability
00:52:04
Speaker
it. I really do respect it. I think that the current financial situation for our country right now, which you know is the U.S., I think for most um first world countries,
00:52:16
Speaker
doesn't necessarily say that the people who are pursuing passion as a career um do as well as the people who conform to whatever the highest paying jobs and secure jobs would be. right Or to re-summarize everything I just said,
00:52:36
Speaker
There are really safe, boring office jobs that pay good amounts of money versus risking making less money doing the things that you really want to do day to day. Yeah, I think it starts out as a. Hey, what do you want to do when you grow up? Mm hmm. And then they show you these positions that are like, I want to be for jobs in the service sector. You're like, wow, I want to be a nurse. Yeah.
00:53:07
Speaker
but Like at that point, you don't really have as much in the way of passions or hobbies. Maybe you did pick up. Oh, I really like sports. I like doing some art. I like music. um But no, then I feel like it it changes a little bit when you get older. I think if you're sticking with something past your 21, that is probably going to be a thing that you stick with. Hmm. But.
00:53:34
Speaker
Again, it's a a balance, right? Because you might just say, I appreciate what I'm doing more than this percentage of financial gain. yeah Like, if I am able to cover my cost of living and I enjoy doing this, I'd like this to be my life. I don't have to worry about other shit. I don't have to worry about office politics.
00:53:56
Speaker
It's just me doing the thing that I love and people paying money for that, right? I think that's that's pretty ideal if you can get that as a balance and then obviously even better if you can make a progressive living off of it and generate money. And even better than that, Star Trek gets to the point where there is no money and it's just like, hey, we're going to take care of your health, we're going to take care of your food, we're going to take care of all your stuff. And what do you want to do? I mean, that would be really cool to actually
00:54:32
Speaker
man, it's hard not to get like political on some of this shit when you're just talking about a life in general, but as far as like if we wanted to provide for every single person, good, good. Absolutely have the money and resources too. Absolutely. But it would require some people giving up money require a lot of people working together. Um,
00:55:00
Speaker
But I mean, as humanity, I don't think we have enough of a drive or care for our fellow man to do that. yeah um I think some of it is just local stuff where like, you know a lot of your day to day, quote unquote, politics or local issues or things going on in your part of the world. um So you don't often as look,
00:55:30
Speaker
as often look at other places. So again, it's at ah that context bias of its proximity. um Yeah. Yeah. I'm not sure where I was going with the the the but moral grandstanding, but it's one of those things where we could do these things, but we need to be able to communicate and we need to want to actively change the norm. We have to advocate for that because just assume other people aren't because they haven't. Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:08
Speaker
Yeah, that's the that's the major jump between us and Star Trek, actually. right Well, there's the sci-fi stuff as well. But from maya from a society perspective,
00:56:20
Speaker
We're not there yet. Human nature is not there yet in order to enable something like Star Trek. And from all the anime and stuff that I've watched, I don't think human nature is going to be. It's like a 20-20 narrative slope. It's like a 2080 movie. And they're like, they have like the bully trope, like, eh. And you have like the purchase, like, I don't trust these people who don't look like me. and
00:56:48
Speaker
Yeah. When you, want when you, uh, you see, uh, the, the cyber, the dark future for cyberpunk and edge runners and you're like, there's no way that's going to take 50 years. It's going to be that bad way sooner than that. Well, did you see that Tesla apparently just revealed something about like personal home robots? so try miss Yeah. other miss units yeah This is the second time. Oh really? Yeah. So the first time I believe was in 2021 and it was literally a person in a robot suit. Oh, okay. I thought you were trying to say like, they're trying to sell a person like Jerry will come live in your home. That might be the way they could ship it. Beep boop, Jerry is here.
00:57:37
Speaker
But yeah, they had their, cause this is their theirre their cyber there their cyber cab day or whatever is what they're trying to show off. Cause what they want to get is cars that people can just basically have work as ah autonomous cabs. And they're like, it'll be two to three years. And if you go back like 10 years, literally every year, Elon is like, it's going to be two to three years. So don't expect anything basically is the takeaway.
00:58:05
Speaker
Maybe something will happen. Oh my gosh.
Elon Musk's Promises vs. Reality
00:58:13
Speaker
They could successfully delay the next Skyrim forever and between the two of them. um Not Elder Scrolls, Skyrim. They literally just released in Skyrim.
00:58:24
Speaker
um But yeah, the they there was a little bit of a controversy for the Optimus units at this this Gala type thing or whatever, the after party, because they are robots or they seem to be robots, but they were like pouring drinks and they were interacting with people.
00:58:42
Speaker
and Elon loves to do this where he lets you assume a mistruth or a lie and then just never provides any clarity. So he he lies by omission is the word basically. So like.
00:59:01
Speaker
Everyone at the party just thought that this was AI, that these were robots and stuff, right? And then someone had asked one of them, like, hey, how much of you is AI? And it's like, it just responded like, it's a secret. And they're like, yeah, yeah, but I mean, like, ahs some or none. And they're like, maybe some. And you're like, eh. And ah then it came out that it's a,
00:59:26
Speaker
some of them are at least some of them are teleoperated to some degree. We don't know what how much, but literally just a person with a remote or likely like a suit that it's just like controlling the robot in. um But it wasn't clear. They literally did not say how much of this was AI or just humans controlling robots. So that's that's basically the equivalent of just having a trailer for a video game. and You're like,
00:59:56
Speaker
Uh, buy it. It was like, ah we didn't see any gameplay or anything. Yeah. It's just because if you're not showing the actual thing yeah as what you're presenting it as, it's not done. It's not ready. You shouldn't be building hype about it. It's fun. And to be fair, like the the main thing of this whole get together wasn't to sell like the Optimus units, but like Elon as a crazy person,
01:00:27
Speaker
He is just a say snake oil salesman. My approximation of Elon has only fallen over the last many years. And to my great shame, I didn't used to dislike him. But I think early on, people heard like, oh, he's making a flamethrower like, oh, that's cool. Let's make a electric your car. Oh, that's cool. And that was the extent of information that people looked into or got, at least for like myself around college. I was like, oh, this guy makes cool things.
01:00:55
Speaker
And then now I've been paying more attention to news and stuff. I'm like, this guy's a raging dickhead. For me, I can tell you exactly what it was. It was he was talking about the inevitability of leaving Earth if we wanted to survive as a species, which is like true, actually. It takes a longer time scale than most people want to really like think about.
01:01:22
Speaker
um and there's a whole bunch of caveats but if we want to like ever live beyond just a big rock hit earth in the wrong spot like you do need to leave earth right but his whole thing was like okay we'll go out and like settle Mars and all this stuff and like this is awesome no one's thinking about like no one else is even trying to pursue this um And then I heard about how he treats human beings, like close to him, his family members, ah his workers, like his board. And I'm just like, this guy's actually just the worst. that was That's what flipped it for me. Because for me, it doesn't matter if you want to pursue mankind and colonies out in the stars and stuff like that. If I know that day one,
01:02:14
Speaker
You're going to make it like the worst form of human like settlement or colony or government or whatever, because you yourself are just a terrible person.
01:02:26
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Like who do you want to settle the first colony? Do you want? Would you want Hitler to settle the first call? it Probably not. No, his ideas are not going to be very good for for mankind as a whole. Not saying that Elon's Hitler, but like he has some bad ideas and he treats people poorly. That's enough.
01:02:45
Speaker
Yeah. I don't think you want anybody with um terrible, terrible ideas to be given that much power and authority. Exactly.
Future of Work and Technology Impact
01:02:53
Speaker
Right. Would you give up your autonomy to call in the Overseer Elon Musk? You should answer no. Some people would answer yes, but you should. You should answer no.
01:03:05
Speaker
Um, man, remember when Sims was, had a different meaning. Yeah. Simpson stands. That's all we got left. Everybody's a simpler Stan. But yeah, that's, uh, that's, that's, that's about it. Advocate for yourself. Don't work for Elon Musk. And, uh, it's going to be a long time, probably before you have,
01:03:34
Speaker
an autonomous cab that costs less money than what we would pay an Uber driver. so yeah People are cheaper than robots. As long as that is true, you will not see robots. I mean, they're definitely cheaper to make. yeah ah I don't know how I'm going to turn that into an outro.
01:03:57
Speaker
If you can think of a way to make robots cheaper than people, give us your ideas. Send those in soapstone podcast at gmail dot.com or join the discussion on Facebook or it's entirely robots discussing facebook dot.com slash soapstone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night.