Ep. 182 — Woah, Baby!

I haven't used Twitter to complain about a problem with the company publicly in a long time, but I went to Twitter and I started a thread just telling my story, and I asked you guys to retweet me and at them and comment and you you came through to like a hilarious degree. I loved it.

Was they kept saying, it's not covered by the warranty. We're so sorry, nothing we can do. And I kept pushing and pushing, and anytime they would like, you know, they would get quiet for a couple of hours, and then I would just go find people would tweet, and then it would just bring it back again. And after day one we got more retweets and it's just like they couldn't ignore it. Finally I got a message from them saying, we have forwarded your we have forwarded your

case to our returns department. Here's your order number or here's your case number. You should get an answer in three to five business days. And I asked my husband, like, has that happened before? And he said, no, that's actually really good. It means that there's a chance we'll get a refund. And so three to five business days ended today, so I had husband call them up and they said, our refund and our exchange has been approved. Yes, it worked.

I can't believe it, so I haven't. Actually I'm not gonna claim it on Twitter that I've succeeded until I get that like new dishwasher in place, because I'm still dubious, like because right now, because the thing is, we bought it through best best Buy, but it was an LG dishwasher. LG is saying that they've approved it for the warranty now to be replaced, but that Best Buy is going to reach out to us now to arrange like an

exchange and a new machine or whatever. So I'm gonna keep waiting before I like call a complete victory because I don't know, like I don't know Best Buy, like what if they try and play something. I don't know. I'm just a little suspicious. But this is amazing. Thank you guys so much.

So he wrote a tweet like this is outrageous. And when I tell you, she got like, I don't know, like I tenn dollar gift certificate. But I remember this was probably like five six years ago, but I remember thinking, you you got more butter on your bagel via Twitter. Hmm, So I use it very rarely, only if the normal means don't work, because sometimes and it's definitely not to

obviously abuse. That's only if like a company has made a mistake and they're refusing to acknowledge it, and you, I think you have to have like a huge following. I did. I've used it, I would say less than five times in like five or six years, and without fail, I've at least gotten it escalated and you know, so yeah, no, yeah, show the shit good news.

is when when when? So I've I have started to tell people some very big personal news for me and Husbie we are expecting our first child.

mind is going to ask you. And like, unless people are trying to foist, you know, tequila shots on you, there's no there's no like natural way to just tell people. So I've I've had a lot of really awkward, funny conversations with folks, especially when it came time to tell people at work, which I started doing a couple of weeks ago, and that was a whole agonizing you know,

when do I tell? You know, we had our review process typically happens in June, and I was thinking, oh, might as well just wait till after the review, Why have that cloud anyone's thoughts about me? But then I was like, oh whatever, the reviews got pushed till late July, and I'm like, this is I'm tired of like I'm tired of, you know, pretending like nothing's different in my life. I'm out for all these doctor's appointments and missing work and stuff. So I think I owe it to the

team to tell them, you know, what's happening. And everyone's been so everyone's been really cool about it. And I'm the first person in this office here to have a kid. Not that there's no people have kids in my office, but I'm the first one to like get pregnant here. So I feel like, okay, I'm going to set an example for what, you know, what's acceptable for a pregnant lady to do. And I'm just like, I talk about it. It's not a big secret.

I'm like, great, awesome.

my sister Karen has Lily. But it's just like it's honestly, there's nothing more fun than being an auntie or an uncle because like I'm like, of course you can't have ice pops for breakfast? Are you crazy? I don't care what your mother says, you know, like you can do

whatever you want. They're just the best. Honestly, being an auntie uncle is it's awesome because you get all of the you know, all of the love, none of the major responsibilities because I'm like, okay, time to go home, Roman and to mess up your own house because Aunty's taking a nap. So yeah, yeah, just like, honestly, I think you're gonna really you're gonna see like a different inside to your siblings. So you're gonna be like, oh,

so clearly you love the kids more than me. Like I will literally call my sister and I'm like, can you put Amelia on the phone please? Thanks, Just like Hi, Hi, I'm like, so, how was your day? Oh my gosh, how was that girl at school? It's just the messing with you? Hi? Hi? Hi? You she can't even speak And I'm like, all right, so it was great, girl. I'm gonna come by tomorrow tell your mother to have you ready. So yeah, your siblings are gonna be in love with your baby. That's awesome.

But yeah, yeah, you're right. I'm the first one of my siblings to have a kid, so I do feel like, oh, I get you know, this kid's gonna get all the attention because there's not like my siblings don't have kids to like distract.

So like it's mostly all women. Shout out to komone on my team. She just recently had a baby, but I want to say that in the last two years, we've had one, two, three, four, four babies in the last two years, so a lot of baby's going on at Bungetessa Enterprise. And it's kind of come up that there's like a struggle with how do we because we work digitally and a lot of the moms actually stay

home with their children. And if you've ever baby, said anyone under the age of four, you know just how hard it is to get work done and to care for your child. And so we came up with a solution that I'm hoping will really help and work, and I just want to share it and I would love to know, like at your jobs, what solutions do they have if they even help with child care. So here's a solution that we've come up with. So, as you know, the Budgetessa, we have a large audience is about eight

hundred thousand women worldwide. And so what we decided is We're actually going to do some sort of like almost like budget theese babysitting, where I'm going to reach out to the audience, share the basic vicinity and state where the women who have children who are looking for childcare on my team, the Unicorn Squad, the women who have children that are looking for child care, We're gonna look for dream catchers in those areas, vet them so and you know, I used to be a school teacher myself,

So vet them, background check all of that, and then that way the women on the team can have access to at least three or four different dream catchers that you can you can hit up if you need childcare assistance. So if you're like, oh my gosh, major meeting and I know the baby's gonna cry, I know I can hit up you know, Georgia, Thelma, Luise or Sharon. And then too, we as a company are planning to offer like a childcare credit to help. So I'm gonna look

at what the numbers can dictate. So let's just say we set aside two percent of our gross income toward childcare credit and that ends up being I don't even know, like what two percent of our gross income. Just say, for the sake of ease, it's thirty thousand dollars. And so we've got say like five women, So thirty thousand dollars of out of by five women, that would be what is that six thousand dollars thirty times five, Yes, yeah, six thousand dollars. So then that would be the credit

for the year that you could use toward childcare. So that's kind of.

That went over my head. I used to I remember when Carol first went back to work, I used to babysit Roman every Tuesday and Thursday for like half a day, and I remember how top that was with just him, and so because that's not my life now, it's not an issue that I would have paid attention to until it was brought to my attention. And now I'm like, okay, how do we make it that you are able to to you know, like work efficiently but also live life efficiently.

I really because I told my team what's really important to me, more than anything else, truly is them. I want to run a heart centric company where the focus

is you, the individual, the woman. And we do have some men, but specifically because you know, we cater to women, and so it's really important to me that the women who who work on the team feel supported, not just professionally but personally and so and to work from that angle first, So personal, honestly first, and because I know once we get your personal together, the professional because I hired you because you're dope, I'm not worried about your

capability of doing the work. You're here already. People kind of like vet themselves out, so that's not the component that I worry about. I just want to make sure that everybody is okay. I've got this. Don't know if it's like a libra thing or impact thing. I've got this really big thing about that I need the people around me to be okay or I can't feel okay. Like if you're my sibling, if you're not okay, I'm like, well,

what do we need to do? Significant other? Whoever? Like if I think that there's something that's wrong, not like like something lightly you're like, oh, you know, I had a bad day at work, but I'm talking about like something that is like fundamentally wrong. I can't rest with it. And so knowing that people were struggling in that way, I was like, what, why did you guys not tell me? I didn't even think about this. We need a solution.

with their work. It's something they have to do on their own, and they can't tell their employer, they can't tell their manager because it'll be seen as them being week or not contributing like other team members. And I feel like the fact that you, you know, like as a manager, you need people to feel comfortable enough and confident enough telling you. So, yeah, how did you guys start that? Like, how did you first know it was an issue?

I wish I would have known. So we actually added they were actually just a six point plan I called our pivot plan to pivot toward that not being an issue anymore. So one of the things that I meet with my lead team on Monday, it's for women and we used to meet we meet women Monday mornings and Thursday mornings, but Monday was getting a little redundant it because they're so efficient. It was like, well, we kind of work everything out on Thursday. We don't even need

these Monday morning meetings. So instead we are changing those Monday morning meetings to our mental health check in Monday morning meetings. So on Mondays, instead of talking about business, we're not talking about business at all. I am checking in with you as a person. So we get on the call. What's happening, Like, you know, the baby's not drinking, this one has the flu, you're tied, whatever that looks like,

that is your opportunity. I want to just talk to you, like as a woman to woman, I could say, you know, IVF is like a struggle, I'm tired, I'm not sure about this, Like I want all of that out on the table, and because that will really get it'll help me to understand, like what are you really going through and how can we support you in your personal life and not just you as a lead team member, but you meet with your teams and to have mental health check ins with them weekly too, so you can bring

that to the Monday meeting, whereas maybe you're like, I'm fine, but you know what, one of the customer service young women, she's really struggling and so but I wouldn't know because I don't speak to her regularly. And so that's really important to me to like, yes, to be in the know professionally like oh, marketing is down or whatever, but more importantly for me to be in the know personally, because sometimes people are really struggling or they're going through trauma.

If you're going through trauma, why are we sending you a blog post? Write? No, that's all we do here, you know, like if I find out that something is happening, we all stop and secretly we're like, okay, nobody send work to such and such because I just found out that her uncle passed away. And she'll be like, hey, guys, is there any work? Then nope, there's no work. Are you sure? Because nope, we're actually good today. You actually

could take the rest of the day. And just like and it doesn't reflect in your pay, it doesn't reflect in the level of responsibility. You don't get penalized for being a human being. I want to run a different type of company where you can bring your whole self, your wife, your your mother, your your your significant other, self, your your you know, whatever self that encompasses you. You could bring your whole self to this company and it's embraced

and it's part of the whole. I don't want it just for you to like, this is not just work for me. This is life. You know. You spend so much time here with these people, and I'm like, no, it has to mean more than that. And so like I feel like someone one of my saving graces is I never worked in corporate America, so I don't really

have them. I don't have to unlearn those things. So I'm really this is the approach that happens when you teach preschool, honestly, and I feel like that's what I'm bringing to the table because Miss Charlene, when I taught preschool, this is what we did. She was my co teacher. We talked about our life and how you doing, girl, And oh, you have cramps, Well you know, I'll take the kids outside. How about you lay down on a

cod Oh like you and your boyfriend broke up. I'm gonna come by this weekend and I'm gonna we'll watch movies and So that kind of like care for each other as women in the workplace is what I experienced when I taught preschool for ten years, and I think that it made us better teachers. It made us just better, you know, it just just made us better. And I want to bring that to the company and we just like I said, we have some some pivot points that

we can do to make it better. So I'm excited, especially for the childcare credit to roll out and to finding you know, childcare options for the people who need it.

up to your employer. And any good manager, whether you are you know the budget needs to or you work for a company, any good managers having a one on one check in at least bi weekly with their direct reports, and you need to use that time tonight, And I'm constantly harping on this to my people, it's like it's not and I and I make a point. I'm not

the best at small talk. Sometimes I'm like very much like goal oriented just when I get to the point, but I force myself to, you know, learn about each person. Not that I have to force myself, but you know how it is when you're just like focused on the work,

but open up about myself. And I think by talking about my pregnancy and not making it some big secret saying I do need time off every few weeks to go to the doctor for the morning, like and and not making it something that's I should be ashamed about because I'm not so that they feel when they're ready to start a family or they need to ask out,

you know, time off for their kid being sick. Believe me, I'm cash all the all the flexibility I've given my team when it comes to childcare for their kids, I will be granting it to myself as well. And good and uh yeah yeah, And it's not just about the money. But that's that's amazing. I think that that it will make a huge difference and just show where you where your values are, you know, for your team, and that'll trickle down awesome.

I don't know. She basically wants one hundred percent childcare custody as soon as this child is in the world, so we'll have support, Like, you know, I've got my I'll have my maternity leave, my husband's got his paternity It's not amazing, but we'll probably we'll be able to cobble together probably five to six months off to be home, and then I plan on I plan on just letting myself figure out what I want. Like people are asking me, what's your childcare plan? Is your mother in law going

to move in? You know? Are you going to put him in daycare? And I'm like, how do I know? And what I need until it's like in the world, and I don't know if I'm gonna, like, I might be so crazy you staying at home and I'm gonna want to go back to work immediately, or I might negotiate work from home for a few extra months, Like I don't know.

the baby. I'm so glad she's here. And then my mother stayed for a couple of months, and then my sister Tracy went. Then like my sister Lisa went, so Karen was very much like, you know, please tag tag the next person in. So you just don't know you're gonna feel until you get there, and there's nothing wrong with either way.

or something we do. All.

So first question, let me see, let me see, let me see ooh for this question comes from let me see what's her name? Oh? At Meme seven zero two on Instagram. She says, I'm loving your podcast, but I need some help. I feel completely lost. I'm forty one years old and I've never invested, but I would love to start. I work as a childcare provider in my home. My husband works outside of the home. Where should I start? Well, forty one, I mean it's over for you, Like, why

are you even trying? I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. That's so young. Yes, yeah, I mean forty one. Forget about your age when it comes to like investing, like,

just start when you feel ready, honestly. And so if you're working from home and your husband's outside of the home, I would ask is your husband get access to a four to one K If he does, and even better if his company matches his contributions, I would definitely start there because you don't want to leave money on the table if they're going to match you know, a percentage of his savings. You, as an independent you know, working for yourself, don't have the same Bennett or don't have

the opportunity to get match, So I would first start there. Secondly, you can easily open you know as far as like the you know options you can go to like any any firm like a Vanguard, a Fidelity, uh TDM Error Trade and open a starter just an I array individual retirement account that you can open and start saving in. Personally, there's also a step I array, which is an option if you are self employed I would say, check with

an accountant. So first investment I think might be good for you is invest in, you know, a consult a consultation with an accountant, someone who can give you really

solid advice to get you off the ground. It may cost a couple hundred bucks, but think about just having someone give you that shove in the right direction and select the right account for you, and then just start setting aside however much you feel comfortable with each month, you know, warranted that your day to day expenses are covered, and you are you know, you have a decent sized emergency fund, then there's no need.

starting early, but it's never too late to start. I mean I started early, backtrack by taking all that money out, that started a little later. And you know, either way, you're in the game. That's really what's most important. That getting in the game is better than not being in the game.

be a little aggressive with your investing too. Like, don't think you need to just like keep your money in a savings account because you're not gonna especially if you're starting a little bit later, you're not gonna you don't have the potential to earn what you might earn, you know, if you were to invest. That being said, you're also not twenty one, so you don't want to be over invested in stock. So that's why I think it might be a good idea for you. Start with maybe a

consultation with a financial planner or an accountant. Just get someone who's fee only, who will charge you a flat you know rate just to get you started, and someone who isn't gonna, you know, want to take a cut of your future you know, earnings and your investment account. Or if you want to do even simpler, what is that app called Acorns. That's the one where you can sign up and it rounds up your does it round up your purchases and then it saves yep.

get a better understanding. But you can literally sign up for Acorns tonight just so you get started, even if it's twenty bucks a month. So it's something It's not about the twenty bucks. It's about the habit of I am setting aside for my future. I understand that it is my younger self job to take care of my older self.

a home and the next few years. I think to get there, my first step should be to pay off my car. But I find that idea unsettling because honestly, people cannot drive in Atlanta. So I was thinking of saving the amount in an online savings account. If I were to save up enough money to pay off my car, do you think that I could negotiate how much I owe with my lender down by having a lump sum Banks? Interesting, I was gonna say that.

you eight in a lump sum. Because here's in general, this is what I found about lenders, even when I was going through my foreclosure and stuff, that the only time that they are open for negotiation is when you haven't given them anything for a while, because at that point they're like, just give me something, even when you're going for modification. So modification is like when you're trying

to get your like so for a mortgage. And when I couldn't form my mortgage anymore, I applied for modification. And that's when they're trying to modify my mortgage to a lower monthly payment. And the only way to qualify for modification was for me to be late and consistently late. So I wasn't late, So when I first applied, they would not they would not give me modification because in the bank's eyes, so you're telling me, person who pays on time, that you don't want to give me the

money that you've been giving me. Why should I take less when you're give me my money now? I'm not advocating for you not to pay, like like, well, I'm just gonna be laid on my in my car payment and then see if they'll take a take less money because you don't want to tank your credit score and your chances of getting a home. But I'm just saying that lenders typically don't look to settle or negotiate when

they're already receiving your money. Like I'll take yourself out for a minute of like it's you and just like imagine somebody owed you money. They owed you a thousand dollars and they were giving you one hundred dollars a month, and it's been four months and they paid you your hundred dollars on the first of every month, never been late. And they're like, hey, girl, I know I owe you six hundred dollars, Can I just give you four? It's like no, I'll just continue to give my hundred dollars

a month for the next six months. Thanks, you see what I mean. So there's no real benefit for the bank. So, like I said, I'd never heard of it before. I'm not gonna say no, but I just don't know how likely that is.

start to ask. But she said, so you're to your point because I had the same thought. You know, what's in it for the bank to negotiate someone who's been paying their auto, who's been paying their note on time.

But Gen actually said, if you tell them something like, you know, be truthful about your situation, if you're truly struggling, if you think you're about to file bankruptcy, or you've got other debts that have been piling up, you know, since you originally took out the loan, and you ask them how to how they can help you, you may find that they may be actually sympathetic to your cause. And one of the reasons that Gen points it out is that yes, you can say, why would they negotiate

with you? All they have to do is repossess your car if you stop paying. But Jen said, it's people don't realize it's actually expensive for the lender to repossess cars and they have to sell the car for wholesale, which means they would get less than probably what they wanted to if they were able to trade it in or something like that. So they may not even want to take the car back in most situations, and that may give you some negotiation leverage when it comes down

to it. So it's not a no, it's just more of a depends in this particular case with listener Binks. You know, she's thinking, let me pay off my car so I'll be ready to purchase a home and have you know, that'll help you lower your debt to income ratio, which which is a big factor for getting approved for a mortgage or even just getting a better mortgage rate.

So I do think it's a good idea. I would just say, you won't know unless you ask your lender, and you will go into the conversation, and Jen agreed with this. You'll go into the conversation a lot stronger if you can say I have this lump sum and I can pay off the car right now.

hashtag not my Aeriel, which became a whole thing. There were think pieces written on it. Black Twitter went insane. Of course, we're all defending why we need you know, why a mythical character, you know, can be any shade of the rainbow. And then an article came out this week that actually people looked back, where did this hashtag

not my Ariel come from? Turns out it was Russia. Yeah, so that you know, if you haven't heard like a lot of the reason like, what's there there's these Russian like there's these companies that just hire people to stoke flames on Twitter, just to you know, get Americans all riled up and at each other's throats, and they created this hashtag purposefully to tap into what actually worked, which is like this latent understanding, this latent expectation of racism

in America, and god, it was like minorities versus white people, and you know, just all this unnecessary debate, which is not because like it was started by these Russian these Russian bots on social media. It like distorts what's really going on. Are people really that upset about a black aerial or is it just Russian bots making us think that we have you know, of course, I'm sure there's a handful of people in America who you know, are very upset about this, this in black Santa Claus and

everything else. But I just I got to do a brown break for buying into the social media rage machine and just like jumping on the bandwagon and chiming in, because you could just be proliferating a completely false, a completely false like narrative. Narrative, Yeah, thank you, narrative. So just think about it and and you know, do your Google to see where things originated from before you believe what's really going on.

is her name is Lashanda Lynch. And for years that has been intense speculation about who's gonna take over the reins of the most I mean, honestly, the James Vond kind of like series is like the most durable and profitable film franchises in history, and so the fact that they're getting a black woman is like, wait a minute. She is thirty one years old. She is a newcomer.

better than I could have imagined. Like I didn't even think beyond it's got to be a dude, which you know, I should question my own, you know, my own thought process, but the fact that it's a woman and they have a woman writing it, Phoebe waller Bridge, who who's like a writer and actress that I've really been a fan of She's actually writing the script like this is major, I'm excited major.

do black people want to see bridal magazines? As if black and brown women don't get married? I mean, are you kidding me? And so when she did the first first run of the first issue of Muduluchi Bridle. They told her, do not print more than three thousand copies. They were actually gonna which I don't know how Jackie managed to shout out to Jackie so she was able to convince them to like roll it out to all the Barns and Nobles. Meanwhile, Jackie was like a scientist

or something ahead of the time. She had no printing experience, none of this. She just was like, I wanted to get I got married to my husband. There were no magazines available. This sucks. I'm going to start something. And she had gotten really into photography and started this magazine. They told her, don't print any more than three thousand copies and we'll just sprinkle them in a few Barns

and Nobles around the country. She did a ten thousand dollars run that means like just amount that you print at one time, and they were like, not ten thousand dollars, ten thousand issue run. They were like, yo, you're bugging You're crazy. It's sold out in like three days. They're like, do you have more? Because black and brown women get

married and they'd like to see themselves in magazines. They could not believe Barnes and Noles could not believe how quickly it flew off the shelves, and that was like, I don't even know. It might have been up till like ten years ago, but it's been forever ago and she's been killing it ever since. So this is just, you know, sometimes we forget like black and brown women they care about finance, Black and brown women get married, Black and brown women like we do all the things.

So having representation is always going to be a win for you. Rihanna Tallas that we actually like to wear makeup too, I imagine that, you know. And so now you see literally every makeup brand many do you notice they all have like fifty colors. Now I'm like, so yeah, it's just like this is just such an awesome thing, and I just love that, like we're starting to normalize, like, you know, brownness and make it just mainstream because we

are mainstream. And so yes cha, I can't wait, can't I wait, can't wait?

should we be recording into our eighties. I mean, come on, if I if I can still see my computer screen, I might I.

just go to go to iTunes, leave a review. Let your friends know. It helps so much.