Rezzie Review

I'm nervous. I'm excited. I'm nervous and excited. But I am feeling a little agitated. I mean, we shouldn't start bubbling positive, right? No. We're corporate drones and we're miserable.

Ross, what do you hate? God, I'm so glad you asked that question. I feel like that should be asked in more interviews, but what do I hate? I hate people who take their time. crossing the street at stop signs. I get it if it's a stoplight and they've got the little walking ticker going on. Take all the time you want. But when I come up to a stop sign,

And I'm a car and I'm faster than you. And you haven't even begun to walk across. Let me go. Just let me go. I'll get out of your hair. I'll get out of your hair. Please. Or at least when you cross. Give me a little hustle. Show me, like, hey, sorry, man. Like, hey, sorry, buddy. Like, acknowledge that you're wasting my life. Please. That's it. I agree. A shred of hustle. Yeah, please. What do you hate? I hate flip-flops. And I don't care if you're on the beach.

in the middle of Punta Cana and the sand is burning the bottoms of your feet. I don't want to see your little toes. Creepy little toes. Creepy little toes. I got nasty little toes. With a thong in between the big one and the other four. Yeah, I'm good on that. Yeah, well, I had reefs in college, you know, with little... Beer up and around the bottom. You still wear flip flops. I see it in your content. I do wear flip flops. As the flip flop place, I'm not going to lie. I'm not a cool dude.

Of course not. I've never been a cool dude. You're the one who's like, anyone need a bottle opener at a party? Everyone's like, no, we're good. Everyone's six years younger than me. Six years younger drinking vodka sodas. It's not cool. I plan on never growing up. So.

Why don't we introduce this thing? What the hell are we doing here? We're doing what two young adult white people should do. Start a podcast. Start a motherfucking podcast. Absolutely. When should people listen to us? Probably never, but... Always at the same time. Kind of just on the background on a repeat. Literally not a single person asked for this. No one asked. We're gonna do it. We're gonna give it to them anyway. We're gonna give it to them anyway.

I think the goal of the podcast is to sort of be your work besties, right? Corporate bro sitting here, corporate Natalie. It's like we're on your team, but we're not. Exactly. We're in spirit. We're people you want to invite to your company holiday party, but please don't because we're too tired. Right. Exactly. We want the invite, but we're not going to show up. Exactly. But again, measure our self worth that way.

100%. But let's just address the real elephant in the room. The podcast is called Demoted. Demoted. You should probably not listen unless you want to be demoted. Right. So it's all the things that you want to say, but you can't say because you're a professional, end quote. Absolutely. We want you to wake up in your co-worker's bed after the holiday party. immediately dm our podcast instagram to let us know and we're gonna we'll break it down

We'll break it down. Step by step, you'll send us every little gory detail and we'll talk about it. We want to know. That's it. And everybody else wants to know. We want to bring everyone together under the mistakes we've made and the mistakes they've made. One big family or Ohana. Right. As they say at the Salesforce.

Perhaps we should paint a picture. For those of you not watching live, rather just listening to our voices, Ross and I are sitting in two deflated yet extremely fuzzy beanbags. They are fuzzy. They're also funny. They're also funny. They were supposed to expand over the course of 48 hours. It's been two weeks they've been sitting here. Two weeks. I thought we'd be way higher off the ground. I have zero back support. I am arched forward. My abs are engaged.

Fully engaged. I'm in a Barry's boot camp class right now. I'm sweating a little bit, both from caffeine, but also from this posture. Totally. We got post-its on the wall. It spells out demoted. We're like arts and crafts people. We just got the post-its. We went crazy. We have two mugs beside it. Like we're trying to just Be cool. We're trying to be cool, but we're also trying to teach you some stuff. You'll also learn some stuff. We're going to talk about

News. I mean, not all the time. We're going to talk about pop culture stuff. We're going to talk about what even is AI? How do you use it? I mean, not today. God, we need to study that, but generally speaking, you know, concepts. We're going to need a pre-read from our producer before we get to that. Yeah, exactly. We're not going to walk in here not knowing shit and sounding dumb. We're going to sound dumb a lot, probably. A lot of talking, not a lot of knowledge. Yeah.

Water cooler stuff. Totally. We're besties. That's why we're here. Exactly. Exactly. But we will give some advice.

Let's be clear. We will. Whether you choose to use it is up to you. And I think just for our first episode. Hopefully all of you follow us and know us. But if you don't, we actually have our resumes. If you don't, why the hell are you here? How did you find this? Our SEO must be insane. Or you have shitty friends who recommended it. Definitely. But we have each other's resumes.

printed out in front of us what better way to introduce ourselves than our resumes on a corporate-esque podcast yeah let's talk about like i mean who are we i kind of want to start off with First jobs ever. I'm not talking like paid job. Yeah. Like maybe it's on your resume. Maybe it's not. I mean, I saw you were like doing. something around bohemian beads. You were, uh... You were an arts and crafts peddler? I would say a bit of a jewelry saleswoman.

Wow. Not my first job. I was always a hustler. I know you're the sales guy here, but I have a pretty extensive sales background from selling my parents' used magazines. Which magazines? Oh, just my dad's old men's health. Just going two doors down. Hey, Tom. My dad's old, and I was like, say it. Say it. Not Playboy. Damn it. Shoot. Damn it, Pops. Love you, Dad. All right. And.

Just going door to door. Anyone want this crinkly old newspaper? No, they don't. They don't want this magazine. I would sell anything. What were you selling these for? Like 50 cents. Hey, I found this men's health. There's a couple pages stuck together. I don't know how that works. Stop it.

They're my dads. Yeah. No, fully. And then I do lemonade stands like literally off season. It'd be like November. I'm like, get the lemons. No one wants a fucking lemonade right now. No one wants a lemonade. I'm freezing. I'm going to park it out front. Right. Yeah. But you played the like, I'm a cute little girl, so.

I'm going to hustle you into buying some shit. Totally. I would sell, and what led to the jewelry business that I'll talk about, I would sell little friendship bracelets. You know when you make your dad a friendship bracelet, and they're like, oh, sweetie, thanks.

I don't know because I was a cool kid. You were a cool kid. My parents were too affirmative of that kind of passion of mine. So much so that I thought I could make a tray of friendship bracelets and just peddle them around town. And what were you trying to buy? You were trying to make a bunch of money and you were like... fill my piggy bank. Right. You're trying to buy a house in Pack Heights and you're like, does $18 cover it? Absolutely. That was the goal.

Were you cashflow positive at that point? Well, my parents bought all the stuff, the lemons. Yeah, they didn't teach me about sort of the cost associated with starting a business. Right, it's all profit for you. It's all profit. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah. So then I'll talk about band jewelry is probably what you're referencing here on the resume. CEO, founder, you started at the top. I did not say CEO. I did say founder and sole employee. I decided to make chokers in college.

I went to one, like, gem show of my mom. Show of her apparently an hour. Sorry, go on. I was like, anyone with a neck, I'm going to put a freaking choker around it. And I had reps at 10 different colleges and sororities selling my stuff. Wow. You had a full-on MLM network.

100%. Look, look, look, if you just buy 10 of my bracelets, all right, then you resell them to 10 of your friends. Totally. You can buy a house and pack ice one day. Yes. Okay, wow. So that was me. That was my sort of pre-this resume.

career. I'll ask you, what was your first paid job? My first paid job was also a sales job. I was slinging salad dressing. Fine salad dressings. My aunt has a salad dressing company. Virginia's Live a Little Gourmet Foods. Check it out. in fancy markets.

So I'm obsessed. So actually working in a market. I was. So I would like a little eighth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade psychopath during the summers. She would give me boxes of salad dressings. I would set up shop in these, these fine markets. So like, Woodlands Market, Paradise Foods, or like a Luke's or a Brian...

white guy names those markets not like a safe way yeah you know you know if you don't know those markets good for you right the place where cheese is 15 bucks 100 you know and and produce is also just absolutely outrageous but i would set up shop there i'd be mixing you know i'd be hands together

scrounging up some some eats totally people would come up and sample them like oh my god you're live mixing i'm live mixing but i'm wearing a suit yeah oh real sus dressed it up they're like look at this little psychopath yeah sweating yeah do you want some blue cheese

People would ask me questions, and I actually... I'm a whore for samples, so I would probably be fired up. Oh, they were rolling through. I was killing it with the divorce crowd. Oh. I mean, it was a... it was pretty easy for me i realized later though i wasn't getting commission

I was just like hourly. Yeah. I was like 50 bucks. I was getting 50 bucks, however long it took. So I was like, I was really motivated to sell until you sold all of them in the box. 80 unis. Wow. That's, that's short for units. By the way, as one says. But I remember this one woman came up to me and she was asking me,

I don't remember which dressing it was, but she asked me when it expired, and I actually didn't know. And being an honest chap that I am, I was like, I honestly don't know. And she goes, well, if you're selling them, maybe you should know that. I went to the back. I bought a rope. I hung it up. No, I called my aunt panicking. She told me, and I went and found her, and I was like,

It expires in like six years. You're probably good. Six year shelf life on this? Wow. Yeah, it's like the blue cheese network. Yeah, Lincoln bio. I mean, for your bomb shelters. Totally. Pop those down there. Yeah, throw them down there. Live a little. Gourmet foods. You'll eat for, well, six years. Amazing. It sounds like. So, yeah, I learned a lot of valuable lessons there. And then let's jump.

you know before we get into the nitty-gritty here i know there's a lot of really fun accolades on this resume what was your first sort of welcome to the corporate world moment oh my goodness welcome to the corporate world again so I guess the salad dressing selling led me down the path of sales. Of course. To answer your question, what was my welcome to the corporate world moment? I was at Oracle on my very first call. My manager's listening. So we're sitting there, cubicle, gray room.

and we're using a splitter so this is before wired or wireless headphones and so he's got his plugged into mine And, you know, we're sitting there like chill bros. And I looked this guy up on LinkedIn. And not to say I judge people, but I can look at their LinkedIn and be like, this guy's probably a douchebag. And he's wearing aviators. He's based in like Boca Raton. So it looks like your LinkedIn.

Right. It takes one to know one. Totally. I call this guy. And, hey, it's Ross Pomerantz. I'm calling from Oracle. Pause. And then he just lays into me. He asked me to do things to him with my mouth that I didn't want to do. Stop. First cold call. First cold call. And my manager, he takes off his headset. He's like, well. It can only get easier from here. Like literally the first cold call and I was like, okay.

That wasn't so bad. I mean, this is a good story. I love sales. I love sales. I mean, all I gotta do is blow some people and I can close. Totally. So, what was yours? That's incredible. Yeah. I'm glad that probably stuck with you for a really long time. I'm still working through it with Kyle on Mondays at 1 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. Of course, therapy. Kyle's my therapist. We'll reference Kyle probably a bunch. Kyle's going to come up a lot if you listen to this pod. Yeah.

so i and out of college was eager to join a little firm called Deloitte. Oh. And everyone was doing the big four interviews. I did my case interviews. Who are the big four, by the way? This is consulting. Consulting. Deloitte, PwC, EY. Right. Ernst. Ernst. And then there's... And the other one. And the other one. Oh, fuck the other one. Is Accenture? Yeah, that sounds right. That's a big one. I say big four a lot. I should probably check my sources. Where does Bain and BCG and McKinsey...

Well, thanks for that slap in the face, because those would be the big three that are for sure above the big four. Oh, okay, okay, okay. So, like, the big four, it's like, there's, like, Ivy League, and then there's, like, NESCAC, and this is, like, NESCAC, like, small, good schools in the Northeast. And they're bigger firms, and they do audit. the big three are solely strategic consulting. God, it's super strategic. Yeah.

So much strategy. Okay, go on. So my sort of welcome to the corporate moment is I'm thinking, Consulting. This is travel. I'm going to be staffed in New York City. Live this lavish life. Have a New York boyfriend. Emily in Paris.

of New York fully Emily in Paris I'm gonna have like maybe I'll just get an apartment here because I'm here so often because I'm staffed here in the Big Apple right why not start with a second home exactly and I'm picturing this amazing just consulting life and then I get my first The sorting hat places me on my first project, and I'm staffed in the middle of Missouri, and we're staying at a Holiday Inn.

And there's five misfits on my team. Chilling at the Holiday Inn. Holiday Inn. And no hate on anyone who's listening from Missouri. I loved it. It was awesome. I've been there and I did not love it. It was not what I was expecting. And also it's not like St. Louis. It's not a big city. We were in a small... Little podunk town Just you and...

Oh, of course, the team. Who are these chaps, these gals who are traveling with you? So we talk about, you know, everyone's starting their job and they have this whole squad of their friends and these like new associates and they're all hanging out in the office every day. That's what it does. I'm the youngest.

One on the team, I'm 22 years old. The next is, and I have no skills. I don't know why I'm there. I don't know why they're sending these 22-year-olds around the country. Like, why do I have to be there? Not sure. Personality hire, I guess. Someone's got to do it. Totally. Then there's a senior consultant. I'll redact names by using... Fake names. Exact names. So it's easier for me to remember. Perfect. Perfect. Aiden, we'll call him.

Aiden. And really quiet dude. Okay. He's like 35. Oh, okay. I didn't know anything about him, his personal life, whatever. I'd see him on the plane with his briefcase. And then he... We went to one happy hour towards the end of the project, and I see him smoking an American spirit. Oh, my God. I'm like, Aiden, you get it. Yeah, why did I not reach out to you earlier? Yeah, totally. He ended up getting in trouble for overexpensing things, but that's a separate story.

Next level in line manager, Srini Voss. Srini. Srini and I became very close. We would go to Orange Theory classes, the only workout class available when I want to, I don't know, move my body before I eat cheese curds. Not an ad. And we'd go together. He was in an arranged merit. to a woman in India. Wow. Srini. Who Srini had never met. Oh. And so we'd talk about it. He sort of...

would tell me how he's nervous for the wedding and he's going to meet her right before the wedding. What's he nervous for? I don't know what he's nervous for. It's just a lifetime commitment. Get over yourself. Yeah, seriously. Srini, we have a presentation in like two hours. I know. Let's relax. And Srini, if you're listening... I'm sorry for exposing you in this, but the final week of the project.

Serenity tells me he has feelings for me. Oh, shit. He caught feelings at the Holiday Inn. He caught feelings at the Holiday Inn. Son of a bitch. Damn it, Serenity! I don't know if it was me on that rowing machine or what it was. Got it. Got it. Yeah. So I said, Serena, you have a woman waiting for you back home. You got to go. Who loves you. She doesn't even know you, but she loves you. I know she does. So we had to part ways.

The next would be the senior manager, Kelly. Kelly. We'll call her. Kelly Blue Book. Kelly has been working at Deloitte her whole life. basically living at this Holiday Inn in different forms across the country. She's a Holiday Inn platinum member. Totally. Kelly hasn't felt the touch of a man in what must be about 15 years. Right. She's miserable. And I'm looking at Kelly, I'm like, that's what I'm going to be. If I stay here, I will be Kelly. And Kelly is synonymous with a bunch of...

consultants at this level who just stay at these firms for a long time. Lifers. Lifers. Yeah. Total lifers. Career over everything. Yeah. And then lastly is the partner who flies in. for one day, like 12 hours. This man lives on a plane, comes in, gives the presentation that I've obviously handcrafted with such care I could never speak. Is that where the please fix comes from? Please fix.

this is the guy who says please fix and then comes in and is like alright I'll present this now I think a few of those layers before will hit me with the please fix and then he just comes in and he's like so who's this client what are we doing yeah and who are you yeah and who the why the fuck are you here yeah so that's my team

And it was fun. It was great. Did that for a couple of years. That was my welcome to the corporate moment. I was like, these are my people. I guess these are my people. Yeah, this is my life now. Totally. Is that where the whole like resilience?

Oh, you do see that on my resume. Yeah. Resilience professional. Professional. Yeah. Yeah. Both resilient as a professional, but also a resilience professional. Extremely. And just a resilient person in general. A lot of grit. You know, you got the grit award, which I see here.

That's like a participation trophy. It's like a guy. What does GRIT stand for? Growth, results, integrity, and teamwork. Just all the things that people sort of say I exemplify. So most improved award. Most improved. Basically what happened was. The company was going through it, as they do, and I made a music video for the company. You know. as a guy does, who a lot of people like. We get hate for personality hire. It couldn't be more you.

It's crazy. Like, you're making a music video on the side. Yeah. Making dials. You know, hey, everyone, you want to get in this music video? I'm quickly whipping up. Honestly, I got our CEO to throw money out of his Tesla. Okay. It was fake money. I got him to do it. It was the Eminem song without me, but we changed it to two, three.

It was a bit of a stretch, but honestly, the flow was kind of gas, and maybe one day I'll surface it. I was on YouTube, but after I'd left the company, they continued to report it so that it had to come down. Okay. They didn't want any acknowledgement of my existence. No. They erased you. It happens. It happens. It happens. I'll dig it up one day. People are like, damn, boy got bars. That's true, though.

I had some bars. Let's run through some just unimportant stuff that I'm seeing on this resume. So Stanford Business School. Yeah, I see Forbes 30 under 30. So you took off two years of work just to play beer pong, correct? That's correct, and I lost in the finals, and one of my biggest regrets. Oh, okay.

Yeah, but I say virtual assistant company. That's for people who want to, quote, hire someone from the Philippines and feel like they're important. Okay. We have a great team of virtual assistants, women who want side hustles. I want to help the people in the creator space like you and I. Well, now I'm a dick. Well, now you're a dick, but I see that you started an investment syndicate capital.

Yeah. Awesome. Can you mansplain that to me? I would love to mansplain that to you. So where do I start? So are you familiar with the stock market? You're familiar with the stock market? What's that? So look, I'm going to have to speak slowly because I know. You're a woman. I'm not kidding. Totally. No, hold my hand and walk me through it. Yeah, so there's this thing called the stock market. Stocks go up and they go down, but they mostly go up. Yeah. No, okay, so Scorp Capital is...

an investment syndicate for go-to-market professionals, anyone who wants to invest in private companies. We all know the stock market, public companies. Yeah, but what about those early-stage companies that have a lot of upside and a lot of growth? So we band together. We're sitting in this little room in the heart of Silicon Valley right now. Right in the heart of San Francisco.

That's the Silicon Valley heartbeat. That's what you're hearing right now. Or it's a homeless guy going through our trash. I'm not sure. But we love it here. We love it here. Can't get enough. Anyway, Corp Capital, it's a pretty... It's a cool little thing. And I see that you're an advertising intern.

awesome projects here ocean life insurance yep yep i see rubio's fresh max yeah i mean they really wanted to highlight the guac totally yeah you like to rip on marketing but what's up advertising intern okay so it's more of like there's like marketing and there's like creative which is like adjacent to my yeah i'm i'm a fraud you're a total fraud i'm a fraud but just that was when i learned i didn't want to be an advert

Yeah. Because it wasn't like I get to go make cool shit like whatever I want. Totally. You can't. Tell your CEO at Oracle to throw fake money at his Tesla. No. That's a real job. I mean, that is like moving the needle. Yeah, of course. That is revenue generating activity. Absolutely. Which is the most important activity that I've ever done. So then, I guess, this is our brief corporate experience. Anything else from your resume you want me to highlight?

Um, I mean... Any other, just accolades? Q3 2015 was clearly a big one for me. Oh, yes. 140%. Oh, of course. Of course. People still talk about that quarter? People are still talking about it. They still talk about it. My God. Did I miss anything on here? No.

Nothing. I don't see a podcaster on here yet. What these resumes are missing is our journey and our foray into the content creation world. Yeah, that's true. Which we should maybe speak on now. corporate sellouts right i mean people ask us all the time they're like how did you guys meet I took your name and likeness that you had been curating and fostering for years.

I said corporate bro, you know what? I'm going to be corporate Natalie. How does that sound? And then you went and did it bigger and better. And now everyone's like, you're a piece of shit, Ross. I'm like, oh, well. Thanks. At least I have Kyle. Yeah, at least I have Kyle. Kyle says I'm great. Kyle says I'm awesome. My mom says I'm pretty good. Yeah. She said she loved me the other day. Yeah. That was a breakthrough.

We met, we did a business jargon romance video that Ross scripted, filmed, edited. And basically everything in between. But people watched because you were in it. I kind of showed up. The talent has arrived. I was like, oh my God. You taught me how to use TikTok then because I was not a TikTok. You used a camera and you...

And you lip sync and you do this. And I was like, oh my God, you can make a video in like three minutes. No, we filmed this business jargon romance video for hours. We're filming for hours. And I'm like, all right, you want to whip out, you want to like bang out a couple of TikToks while we're here and just together. And you're like.

sure, should we get our laptops out and start writing a script? I'm like, no, no, no. You're just going to lip sync to this. And guess what? It did extremely well. And it did better. It did better. Yeah. Just goes to show you, effort is pointless. Effort's pointless. I've always said that. Yep, here we are. I've absolutely always said that. But yes, we... That is when we met, and ever since,

We've been making stuff together. We live in the same city, which is great. We live in the same city. We're like the only two creators I know that are... In San Francisco, I mean, I'm sure there's some other ones. I know a few others, but yes, it's nice to have you in the comedy space. I don't have a ton of friends.

Yeah, well, so I've invited you to my Halloween parties. I've invited you to my housewarming party. I showed up as a pirate. I used to text you guys all the time and say, come over, let's hang out, let's party. Right. I was trying to prep for this and talk about sort of our social, what we've done socially together, and I realized you've never invited me to a single social event. Okay, so... The reason for that is I don't go to social events unless you invite me to them.

I'm not a planner. I'm not like a plan ahead. The amount of outbound texts I've sent for events that me and my friends are throwing. I remember once you texted me at like 10 p.m. like come out like we're all partying and I was like I'm like.

You're like, it's a Friday. I'm done. I'm in. I'm toast, dog. I've had four edibles. I'm in the shadow realm right now. You think I'm going to get out of these joggers and come outside? You think I'm going to go? But then you show up to the Halloween party dressed as a pirate.

That was a blast. I was extremely chill. And then, of course, every time I feel like we party with you, there's like a gaggle of us that end up at your apartment until like four in the morning. Totally. So fun. Just talking about the future. Just literally. Future of work. We're watching YouTube videos. Right. Yeah, it was fun. We watched Hans Zimmer. You did put that on. Yeah.

concert in the Czech Republic. Then I realized this is the last invite Ross will be getting. Wait, you guys gotta watch this. All my friends, by the way, Ross, I'll take the clicker. Hand that up.

You know, I was mansplaining my music taste. Fully. So that was fun. That was extremely fun. So that's kind of our social life. That's the hope for the pod is that we can share those kind of off-camera moments with all of you, really. Be a little bit more of our true selves behind the scenes. Like, what do we do besides?

act a fool on on social media videos totally which is not much the answer is not much it's truly not much but we'll fill in the blank space for you all here yeah i'm kind of a nerd behind the scenes i don't know what to say you are a little I think that's what people don't realize. I feel like I'm very social extroverted. I think that translates very well. I think you're actually quite an introvert.

Nothing better than sitting cross-legged in a dark room, hunched over my video games, crisscross applesauce, shrimp mode. Why don't you tell the followers your video game? Oh my god, I mean, I built my PC, I've got a whole, like, command center in my room.

I've got three monitors. I love how you're talking with such confidence and pride. Like, I'm so embarrassed. I just sat up. I'm like, should we? Yeah, you sat up. I'm like, should we edit this out? I'm so embarrassed. Also, my back is in shambles. I know my back is breaking. I don't know. So you're a gamer.

I mean, yeah. I've been gaming for a long time. I played competitively back in the day. Halo, Dota, Warcraft 3. Are you on Twitch? I played WoW. I am on Twitch. Okay. I do this thing called Hot Drops with a Dog Pound. That's my group. We're called the Dog Pound. Whenever we're dropping in, dogs start barking. Please. Anyway. It's a way of life. It's something we do. What do you do for fun?

What do I do for fun? What are your hobbies besides slinging beads? So a lot of beads. A lot of bohemian style jewelry. I live with three other women. So we just have a fun... Crash pad. One of them is a teacher, which is always fun to get that humor. Noble work. Noble work. Sixth grade teacher. Okay. Another works at a little company called Amazon. Amazon. Product manager. Oh. The other works at a bank.

Wow. And so we're all kind of, the three of us work from home and that's fun. There's like the teacher and then three sellouts. Total sellouts. I mean, you're out of the game. I mean, now you're a creator. I'm like setting up the ring light in the kitchen. They're like, Natalie, I'm on a call. Can you not? But I like to travel. I don't know. We'll get into it. This is episode one. We won't give the whole breadth of who we are. I think we should probably transition.

Just a quick, swift transition. We're going to transition to a couple, a confessional and a story. And these are holiday party themed. Yes. What we're going to do is we're going to read it. We're going to diagnose. We're going to recommend. And then we'll transition to the next one. Yeah. And we'll start by saying we love when you share your stories with us. We love stories. We love stories. And just a plug for the pod. If you want to share your stories with us, the email is...

Demotedpodcast at gmail.com. We're not big enough to have like... Demoted at demotedpodcast.com. Of course not. That costs money. That costs money and we're not ready to invest in this yet. There's holes in this wall. These mics were enough for me and we'll see where it goes. Yes. Okay. And once again, I don't know if I have a core strength to do this every week. No.

sit in this goddamn chair. All right. Okay. So let's start. So I received this message from one of my followers. I'm not kidding when I say I fully blacked out at my company holiday party. Not even kidding. The last thing I remember is asking my VP if he has a cigarette. Then nothing. I've received three texts from my coworkers since the party. Here they are. I died when you started talking strategy with Camilla. FYI, Camilla is our chief people officer. Oh, God. Are you and Jose a thing now?

I have no idea the context of this, and I'm wondering if we kissed. The last one, you woke up and chose violence, LMAO. Wow. Do I acknowledge these things or deny till I die? I literally haven't shown up to the office since then. And I said I had COVID to buy myself time. Wow.

Some bold moves right there. I'm terrified for you. I'm terrified for you as well. You have to turn COVID into a terminal illness and just get the hell out of there. Yeah, or I mean, I think maybe behind the scenes you talk to Jose. How bad was it? Were we...

Were we in the new mother's room doing some dirty stuff? Right. Or was it just kind of a public fun kiss on the karaoke machine? Right. What was it? Were you grinding in the middle of the dance floor? Totally. I don't know. Was I bent over touching my toes? Right. Pop, pop, lock and drop. It came on. Are we a thing now? Are we dating? Yeah. Are you my boyfriend? I mean, talking strategy, the pupil ops person.

is also bold. You've made some great videos on me waking up in Vegas after telling our CEO What's that bit? It's so good. Yeah, walking out, basically heading down to the all-company breakfast after blacking out and giving my CEO some unsolicited advice. Totally. As the new hire. As the new hire. Yeah, that's a bold move. I do think sicker.

thing about a cigarette is here's the thing about a cigarette it bonds people totally i'm not a cigarette smoker but i've dabbled you know what i mean like at the right place at the right time I've been in Vegas and I have smoked a cigarette. Did I cough and have to put the entire thing out? Yes, but did I take a puff?

Of course. Do I occasionally ask my friends for a sip of their cigarette and they look at me like I'm a weirdo for saying it like that? Just a tiny little sip. I just want a sip. A slurp. Right. I just want to feel that little head rush and then be like, ah, I get why this is so bad for you. Totally. I love it. Totally. I don't think SIGs and the workplace are totally acceptable. Do you think they are?

I make a lot of vaping bits about Gen Z. I was going to say the vaping is kind of the new accepted. Middle ground. I mean, if you're ripping some marble reds. Sig's inside is not cool at the Oracle office. Some menthols. No, they were cool outside. Oh, my God. Oracle. Yeah. Was there a smoke situation? Outside, yeah. Twin Dolphin. You would go outside and you'd go around the corner and you'd see just like...

15 people pacing around, ripping cigs, looking down, like, the Ben Affleck, like, ugh, like, just exhaled a cigarette. My life is so miserable. But it was kind of fun down there. You just kind of goss. And the use of cigarettes in this is definitely aging you, right? Because now it's the vapes. Now it's the vapes. Did you see the vape transition? Oh, yeah. Well, this was, again, before the tiny little pocket. vapes. This was back when vapes

Looked like giant tubes. Looked like big old dildos walking around. You're like, what the fuck is that thing? You're like, don't worry. It's cool. It's my... Massive cloud comes out. Whoa! That was sick! Do a smoke trick! It's a whole magic show. I never went down that route. Okay. And again, I never bought cigs. It was just... People will be like, let's go for a walk. Times are tough right now. I'm down. I'd roll with.

Cigarette came out. I'll have a sip of that. Sure, you're my friend. Totally. Sip of a cig. A little sip of a cig. Okay, so what should this girl do now that we've talked all about ourselves? Yeah, sorry. This girl should probably...

Well, I guess she hasn't gotten a call from HR. That's true. So it hasn't been formally reported. No. maybe she's been reported missing the scariest thing with a blackout is do you act like you own everything that you did or do you say oh gosh i was so because i've had like professional people be like sorry i was a little tipsy last night and i'm like oh god i mean i guess you're owning it but like

Yeah, I think the first step is try to assess damage. Try to have some conversations. Maybe go to your work bestie and say, hey. give me give it to me straight yeah what went down totally you know and then you adjust off of that well straight to jose it's like what are we that would help straight to jose yeah slacking hey jose Four weeks ago. I know I haven't been online in a while. I know I've been just completely out. Been thinking about you? Yeah.

Sorry, babe. How are we? So that's a tough one because you're going to have that cringe for the rest of your life. And as long as you work there. Totally. So I'd start whipping up that resume. Right. Or at least until next year when someone else does something even more dumb.

Because every year it seems like people just get progressively more aggressive. Totally. And now that people don't get to go outside or see each other very often, these holiday parties, they do be popping. I love holiday parties. I know we're past them now when this is being released, but...

One recently hit the news or maybe it was from a while ago. So yes, one did hit the news and it was Taco Bell. Yes. And it was actually, it was in 2022, but the story dropped in. Because of a lawsuit. Basically, long story short, this woman was invited to a Taco Bell holiday party. And I'm going to read a little excerpt here. Because, uh... The people need to know. Let me just... This is public. This is...

This is published news. I've been dying to talk about this with Ross as we were setting up all the cameras, and he's like, let's just save it for the pod. Let's save it for the pod. So give it to me. Okay, so let me just set the scene real quick. This is a Taco Bell location, a Taco Bell store. The store manager invited this woman, Alana.

to come to the holiday party. He had put up wrapping paper on all the windows. So you couldn't really see in. And this Taco Bell was obviously closed for business at the time. Here's where I'll pick up in the middle of the story. So around midnight, after Alana had stepped outside for a short time, she walked back into the restaurant and saw a co-worker quote,

having sex with his wife in front of everyone at the party, she alleges. Again, alleges. The co-worker's wife, Alana claims, was also kissing her female manager and another female co-worker at the same time. First of all... Sick. Shocked, disgusted, and outraged, Alana alleges that she first ran out of the restaurant, but then, and this is really important,

Then she went back inside to retrieve her guacamole ball. Oh, you can't leave that behind? Absolutely not, only to find that her manager and the other co-worker involved in the sexual encounter mere moments before were now vomiting. One threw up in the trash while the other vomited into her guacamole ball. According to the complaint. No. People were fired. I would assume. I mean, as far as I'm reading, these were all...

This is alleged. I'm starting to feel better for the girl who DM'd me. Yeah. I'm starting to feel a lot better for her. I mean, the guacamole boy. Guac barf? Can you ever use that bowl again? Never. I mean, my God. Imagine witnessing that sexual act and being like, hang on.

Where the hell is my guacamole bowl? I'm not leaving without that. I got to go back in there and see more of this. Right, yeah. There's a full-on orgy going. Yeah. But I got to get back in there and get that guac bowl out. Like, get out of there. It's Saving Private Ryan of guac bowls. There are casualties. People are getting... Shit is going down. Imagine being the manager of that Taco Bell and being like,

Yo, we are going to get freaky weird at tonight's party. Someone get the wrapping paper, cover the security cameras. Let's get weird. Right. Now you got to wonder what's in your chalupa. I'm wondering. I'm wondering. For sure. I'm not going to not eat Taco Bell because I already have low standards of what it is. I just know what it does for my soul, which is all positive. All positive, but I know a little too much right now. I know a little bit too much.

That's insane. I have yet to hear a story that nothing tops that. There's Jeff and Shayna having sex over there. Totally. Shayna's kissing. There's Jeff and Shayna, Maureen and Carla. It was sort of a group orgy. This guy dancing, that guy's taking a smoke break. It's all there. It's just a holiday party. What do you want? What else do you want from me?

Right. It's a freaking holiday party. Have some fun. Merry, merry. Relax. Merry, merry, bitch. It's the holidays. Have some freaking fun. So, yeah, I mean. So, all right, we'll think on that. We'll think on that. That's a wild story. Yeah, okay. Think about it. Let's, once again, move to some of our segments.

So one segment we want to do is a segment called Promoted or Demoted. You see that this podcast is called Demoted. This is just a creative way of saying, do we like that or do we not like it? Right. This or that? Yeah. It's not necessarily do we agree at You kind of have to vibe check it. Good vibe, bad vibe. Would we promote it? Yeah, would we demote it? You know, we go off of a feeling that this is not a scientific method. Let's just be clear about that.

There are some equations going into it, but we'll see. Some machine learning. So... We'll just do socially questionable things at work. Our producer's given us a few... A few scenarios. I keep adjusting myself in this sack that I'm sitting in. It sounds like I'm holding something and it's my abs because my lumbar is broken. Totally.

Let's do some socially questionable things at work. Dressing inappropriately. This feels like it's targeted right at Gen Z. Right at Gen Z. I'm going to demote it. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm going to demote it too. Not to be an old school, old timey boomer alert. But you just, you can't wear a crop top to work. You just can't do it.

I don't care what role you are. I don't care if you're expressing yourself and you want to show your whole mid-drift. I don't care. Right. Save it for the holiday party and talk about it. Totally. Right? There's a time and a place. There's a time and a place. It's right there. Demoted. Demoted. All right. Using the company bathroom as a full-on locker room. Promoted. I've taken many sink showers before. I don't think I've ever taken a sink shower.

I think as a woman, you just get so oily and disgusting in the office. You probably do as a man too, but you just don't care because you stink and you love it. A little body odor. But I'm like, I need to put on deodorant. I'm like wiping my pits. I'll do it in the bathroom of this studio apartment later. I'm a big sink shower girl. Interesting. I'm promoting it. I've changed many a times. I've stripped down and stripped up.

All of the above. Be resourceful. There's a reason you have these amenities. Put your butt in a little hand dryer. Right. You know, the classic go-to move. Right. You've done that a bunch. What you do is you grab your ankles, you angle up towards the dryer, you turn it on, and you just hold for a little bit. You just hold. Okay. Lock the door first. Lock the entire door. Heating up broccoli cheddar soup in the main kitchen space. Oh, God. I will, like, this is a hill I'll die on. smelly foods

in the kitchen space are just, I'm so against it. You won't do it. I won't do it and I won't stand for it. What if it smells kind of good? So you like the smell of heated Parmesan? No, so yeah. Broccoli in particular just smells like a... Smells like a foot. It smells like such a foot. I'm trying to send an outbound email here. It's all my feet right now. I don't want this foot in my neck. And it always happens early.

The early lunch people. Those are the ones who microwave the nasty shit. Oh, this is at 10.45. 10.45, 11.15. I eat at 12.30. We're IMF. Intermittent fasting. Oh, yeah. I'm not allowed to. Of course. The rules of IMF, I mean. Because the rules of IMF. Yeah. Keep your Chilean sea bass to yourself. Please. Demoted. Demoted. Oversharing personal information.

I think it's another kind of Gen Z thing. Yeah. Or a boomer thing. Also boomer. Really? I think it's a non-millennial thing. The boomer's like, yeah. I took my little son Chris to soccer practice. He's a striker. And I'm like, I don't give a fuck what Chris is. Oh, so yeah, not necessarily like inappropriate person. Not even inappropriate, just telling me he's just useless shit. Like the kids. Right.

And I think I'm just unique in that I hate kids. I can't stand them. Totally. A bunch of freeloaders. Get out of there. You know, why did they get to board first on planes? I'll die on that hill too. Completely. Oh, I'm sorry. You had some sex. and you decide to have and have kids and you want to continue your genetics. Oh, that is so selfless. Why don't you get on the plane first?

How about me over here by myself? I can't wait till you have a kid and we get to replay this podcast. I'm carrying six strollers. Yeah, you're like so into it. I'm like, it is. Such a great thing that they let the kids board first. Yeah. What I love? Being a dad. Yeah. Absolutely not. Yeah. Using their, like, the dad mug that. Their kid got them for Christmas. Oh, yeah. World's best dad. World's best dad. Yeah. Like, over-explaining it for 45 minutes. No, I'm going to bully my kid. Yep.

Probably. Shove him randomly. Yeah, they're gonna need Kyle. I'm gonna be... what premier like 1k global services totally i'm gonna board timmy i know you're four years old you're boarding in group three totally hate to say it dog check the boarding pass what does it say it says group three so you're gonna have to go after those 75 years. I've been working 35 years to get this Premier 1K status. What have you done? Right. Exactly. Demoted. Demoted. Napping in the new mother's room.

Just demote it. Don't even go in there, dude. Don't even go in there. Don't even go in there. So those of you who don't work in tech at these swanky little joints we call offices, the new mother's room is like a designated space. Melking. Pumping. What is the word? Sorry? feeding their Why don't you do this one? Anyway, we'll just demote it and kind of move on. Demote it, move on. Okay. Laughing in the face of your manager during your performance review.

I think that's fucking hilarious. Getting any point of feedback and just laughing at it. And so how do you feel about everything I just said? Are you kidding me? That was a good one. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah. Wow, I thought you were going to say something real. Oh, my God. Give me the real stuff now, boss. So am I getting more like stock options or? Totally. I'll take a better equity package for sure. So promoted. Promote. Being an over apologizer. I'm so this.

I used to, I actually, I used to like apologize for me. existing and it's such a woman problem. I was going to say there's some gendered elements to this. Completely. And I refuse to apologize for anything now. I'll run over someone with my car. I'm like, well, why were you hustling across the stop sign? Show a little hustle. Maybe next time I won't step on the gas. Yeah. Yeah, don't do it. I do think it is a genuinely limiting in a lot of ways. It just...

I don't know, as someone on the other side, I tell people to stop apologizing. You do, you've told me that. Yeah, I just, I don't know, it doesn't feel... Like you're valuing yourself. Don't apologize. Don't apologize if you have something to apologize for. Like truly. You know? Your existence is okay. Then it means something when you apologize. Like, oh, wow, they feel really bad for that. Yeah. So I would say don't do it. Demoted. Demoted. Hugs in the office.

Tachi, literally. Tachi. Tachi Sabi. I'm a hugger. Yeah. I'll say it. So am I. But I once went to hug a manager on a project. Like a very kind of just not that social guy. Kind of CFO vibes. And he's like, oh, sorry, not a... I'm good with a shake. Hit me with I'm good with a shake. Okay. I'll just... And you're awkwardly there, both arms up, like you're about to go in for it. I'm hanging. I'm hanging. Wow. And that's...

It's one thing to get stood up on a handshake or a dap, but a hug? Horrible. So either we all have to commit to doing it, or we're never going to do it. It's risky. As a dude, I'll never go for it first. Someone else wants to come in, I'll hug all day. Do you hug? This is kind of, yeah, it's interesting for like when... fans and people recognize you on the street.

Sometimes I'll go in for a hug and they're so taken aback by it. Yeah, so I will do that. If they give me a really nice compliment, I'm always just like, God, I didn't hear that. Get in here, buddy. Same, same. And sometimes I'll develop. put up the wall first because I'm scared and I don't want to give a little soft kiss on the cheek oh yeah we make out usually yeah thank you

Promote hugging. I'll promote it, but I won't do it. If anyone wants a hug, I got a lead. This is one that our producer slipped in. Yeah, not subscribing to this podcast. Demoted! Yeah, you got to subscribe to the pod because you're going to get more electric content just like this. So that's the promoted or demoted segment.

Hope you enjoyed it. It's basic. It's basic. It's easy. We'll do one every week. Or we won't. Or we won't. We'll see. Yeah. So let's end on just a high note. What are some of our hopes and dreams for this podcast? If you've listened this far and you haven't given up yet.

Our hope is that you'll keep listening. Please keep listening. Weeks to come. I mean, what they're not going to know is the 46 minutes we're going to cut from this episode that they'll never hear. Yeah. Because it was garbage. Absolutely. So hopefully they'll never see that. And we'll also, if you've gotten this far, we'll give you a little insight.

We re-recorded this episode. We did. We literally recorded a first episode, different kind of topics, but we were like, this is, now let's do it good. Yeah. This was horrible. Yeah. You gotta get the first one out of the way. You gotta just do that. delete it, bury the file. I wanted to fight both of us by the end of it. I FaceTimed Ross and he was mad at me. He's like, yeah, it was fine. i was like yeah i mean it's content i mean you know

It's like one of your silly little TikToks, I guess. You're so mad at me. No, I wasn't mad. I was mad at us. I was mad at our performance. So generally, we want it to be the biggest podcast ever. We want it to be the biggest pod ever, but we also believe there is this white space. to use tech jargon again, from the old white dudes on CNBC talking like mad money and the little crypto boys on TikTok who don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

Totally. We're trying to keep it real, but educate, but also mostly keep it real. Yeah. And for all my female listeners who didn't understand that, it's just a safe space. It's just a safe space. Yeah, my point is we're trying to be inaccessible. professional, unprofessional pod. Totally. And I don't think that's great.

So some segments that you might have heard today, and you'll hear in the future, we might do a little bit of role play. Yep, do a little. Non-sexual. Right. Just sort of. Random role play. Random role play. Weird. We're in the office and this situation is happening. We might because Ross, as mentioned, really wants to talk about kind of the tech news, kind of unpack it, kind of rant.

We're going to do a corpse plane segment where I'll let all of my followers fast forward five minutes and allow you to kind of mansplain a topic to me. Yeah. And that sounds great. What I'll do is I'll spread my legs a little bit to take up more space. Totally. Really, really emit that alpha energy that everyone loves so much. And then we'll just press play on the AI conversation. Right. And I'll talk about things like why SVB failed or what AI is.

and the whole OpenAI CEO swap because guess what, people? AI is kind of the future and it's going to affect your work. So maybe you should know about it. Totally. See, I'm already getting fired up. You're already getting angry. I'm already getting condescending. Okay. I'm already getting condescending. Save it for shit we hate. We'll do a course plan. We're going to do Would You Rathers.

We'll do confessions as we did before. Confessions, would you rather, crazy workplace stories. And one day we're going to host the biggest live show of all time where our followers are going to co-mingle. And hook up. And hook up. And it'll be the best day of everyone's life. It'll be the best day of everyone's life. So that was episode one. That's episode one of Demoted. Tune in next week on Demoted. Demone