Show Crap Jobs Some Love

Frank Butler  0:17  
Hello Busybodies, welcome to another episode of the Busyness Paradox. I'm Frank Butler here with Paul Harvey. 

Paul Harvey  0:23  
Good day. 

Frank Butler  0:24  
And what are we discussing on today's show, Paul?

Paul Harvey  0:27  
Crap jobs. 

Frank Butler  0:28  
Huh

Paul Harvey  0:29  
I always pick the fun ones. Crap jobs. 

Frank Butler  0:31  
Yeah, no, this is interesting. 

Paul Harvey  0:33  
The paradox of crap jobs. And also the paradox of non-crap jobs...I should really come up with a more elegant way of stating all this, but that's why I want to talk about. Crap jobs, not-crap jobs, and the interesting things that are happening in both of those ends of the job spectrum right now. But first, I think we've got some fun new busy bites to chew through.

Frank Butler  1:00  
Yes, we do. Actually. The first one, the question came up a few weeks ago about can my employer force me to not wear a mask. And at that time, the CDC guidelines had specified that the employer cannot actually make you not wear a mask, because the guidelines of the CDC were the way they were, you actually have some buffer some protection because of the CDC guidelines. But now they've changed right now we're seeing a transition. In those guidelines, we're seeing mass not being required, if you're vaccinated, and so on. However, there are still mandates about or at least guidelines rather. And it says, basically, if you're not vaccinated, you should consider wearing one, etc. So I would say right now we're looking at an environment where, because the CDC guidelines have changed, and even state guidelines from the health department's of the state levels have changed those protections of saying, hey, can my employer forced me to not wear a mask has changed, which means basically, they probably can, at this point, especially if you're vaccinated against date dependent, what have you. Now, obviously, you could push back and say, No, I'm going to wear one. But at the same time, if you're at an at will state, you know, you do this at your own peril, I think.

Paul Harvey  2:18  
You're not going to get fired for wearing a mask. But maybe you suddenly lose your job for some other reason. And you're in a natural state. Of course, this is all in the US context that we're talking about here, your internet real estate, and now the burden is on you to prove that you got fired for your desire to wear a mask. And as abstract and weird as the sounds. It has happened. There was this example a few weeks ago at tax preparation office in Massachusetts did exactly that wouldn't allow employees or customers to wear masks.

Frank Butler  2:48  
And let's note that was still when the CDC guidelines were saying, Yes, everybody should wear masks,

Paul Harvey  2:52  
Right? They were fined $136,000. I think that's fine. Probably wouldn't happen. Now. Now that the CDC guidelines are gone, I think it's more likely that you would see the kind of pressure to not wear a mask in more overtly customer facing occupations, maybe staff at restaurants, something like that, right. So as weird as it sounds, that this could actually happen. It is sort of happening sometimes with some logic to it. Sometimes it's just silly political stuff. Who knows, but it's becoming an issue. So we thought we'd mentioned it. 

Frank Butler  3:25  
No, absolutely. I figured we'd give you some clarity on it. Sometimes I feel uncomfortable not being masked, I am vaccinated. But there are some occasions I'm like, there's too many people in here. I'm just gonna throw it on just in case, because there are cases of break through basically being vaccinated, but still getting that Bill Maher, for example, is vaccinated. He was recently diagnosed with having COVID really have the idea is that the vaccine is supposed to help you not experience the symptoms. Yeah, it literally I think I saw that story the other day, two or three days ago about Bill Maher. But basically, yeah, having that vaccine, you can still get it in some conditions. And if you do, the symptoms are not supposed to be as severe. So there's that element. It's a precaution

Paul Harvey  4:06  
After we've been wearing them for a year, what's a few more weeks, we're used to it now. What's the big deal?

Frank Butler  4:11  
Yeah, I would like to see more people getting vaccinated, quite honestly, the more the virus has an opportunity to infect someone, the higher the likelihood it has to create a new variant duty, which could become vaccine resistant, and so on. And I think that segues nicely into the idea of requiring vaccinations, whether it's at universities or at schools, even at workplaces in order to work there, you have to be vaccinated. Can they make you do that? It depends on the context, I think state level, it becomes a little bit trickier, because it's state, by state and so on. But private organizations can make those decisions.

Paul Harvey  4:47  
I think as it stands now, even we both work at state universities. I believe they have the latitude right now to make the call themselves. I think every even public schools can decide on their own if it's something they want to Pursue or not? I know the CDC has said that they're not getting in this mess. Their recommendation is that everyone get vaccinated. And that's it. They're not making any recommendations on requirements,

Frank Butler  5:10  
Right. And our university, for example, or at least our board, has determined that the university system is not going to require vaccines or vaccinations for the faculty, staff and students. Oh, really? Yeah, they recommend it. But it's not required in this is one of those things that comes up because some people are upset about it, right. Some people want them to be required. Other people were like, No, you shouldn't get it, you know, it's an untested, whatever. There's a lot of different factions and views on it. But at the end of the day, we can still require people to have certain vaccines. So coming to university, for example, measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, the MMR is a requirement, you have to have been vaccinated against those. Now, obviously, there are some religious reasons why you can choose not to or health concerns to avoid a vaccine. But for the most part, you have to have that vaccine to come to a university. And given that we are not a required organization, we do have a little bit more latitude or leeway on these kinds of things. And by not required, I mean, you have the option of not going to a higher education institution, after you're finished with high school. The law requires you to go through high school, I think for the most part again with exemptions.

Paul Harvey  6:19  
16, but college is optional. Yeah. And there's, again, we're talking about the US, there's so many colleges, if you don't want to get the vaccine in school, he says you have to there's a School B, C, and W that don't require it. So even if you want to go you still have choice of where to go.

Frank Butler  6:35  
Exactly. And this is what kills me. So there's a private school here in town. It's a highly reputed institution. And they've said that they're going to require faculty and students to get vaccinated. And there are parents who are upset about it. And my thought is simply, you have plenty of money to afford this tuition is not cheap. You can send your kid literally anywhere. You don't like it, send them somewhere else, or public school. That's not going to happen. But I mean, you could. So stop complaining about it, you don't like it, you get to spend your money, how you want to, you get to make the decision, you might like the school, if you want to keep your kid in that school, then get vaccinated. They've made that decision. It is up to you to make the decision as to whether or not you think that's valid, or buy something else.

Paul Harvey  7:20  
Yeah, you cannot force your weird anti-vaccination policies on everyone else at a private institution. So go home.

Frank Butler  7:27  
Exactly. The whole thing is that is a private institution, they can make their own choices. I think what's been interesting, though, with the face-mask and the things is that the flu has been very low. This year, we're seeing a low uptake of flu. I've seen a low or I've heard as well, there's a low uptake and cult. I mean, that update, there's no that calls have gone down, right? It's the spreading of viruses, like the flu virus, like the cold virus have gone down tremendously. Because we're wearing face masks,

Paul Harvey  7:54  
I didn't get - to my wife who's a nurse's chagrin, I did not get a flu shot this year. Because my doctor told me I'm still like, in the latter stages of recovering from this weird tech confection thing is that basically you get a flu shot, but it's gonna make you feel like garbage because of everything else you got going on in your system. And he said, You know, like, I'm not gonna tell you to do it or not do it. I asked him, he said, Well, everyone's wearing masks and stand six feet apart. And all the social distancing, like seems like this is the year, there's not going to be so much to worry about in terms of getting the flu. But to listen to the news, it was like oh my god, this is predicted to be the worst flu year ever. how's it gonna be the worst flu year ever, if we're all staying inside and not going near each other and wearing masks and right washing our hands. So I didn't get the flu shot for that reason. And then that's how it turned out. So I think we're gonna see masks going forward, like, just like they have in Asia for a long time now, because not getting the flu not getting colds is nice.

Frank Butler  8:46  
No it is nice. I mean, that's how you eliminate some of these viruses. Again, the MMR vaccine has eliminated for the most part, polio and mumps and so on, except for in those areas that polio vaccine tend to be the polio vaccine to but but we've seen like, measles pop up in areas where there's a large anti vaccine faction, and you see measles pop up in those areas, but not anywhere else

Paul Harvey  9:10  
And mumps. Who in the hell gets mumps in this day and age? Yeah, starting to see maps again. 

Frank Butler  9:15 
It just blows my mind. It's like these things work. These things truly work. And I know people are like, oh, we're just guinea pigs. They've been testing this stuff for years in terms of how they administered the mRNA. That's the first mRNA vaccine. But this stuff has been actually vetted in other ways. 

Paul Harvey  9:31  
Every human being that's ever lived has been a guinea pig so that we can have what we have today. And so yeah, we aren't guinea pigs to some degree. You know, they're figuring out stuff that will help future generations to exactly

Frank Butler  9:43  
I would have actually signed up to be in the trial phase even Yeah, because I wouldn't know because of my tech stuff, but well, you have a medical reason not to do so.

Paul Harvey  9:53  
Ordinarily, I would have.

Frank Butler  9:55  
Anyway, so those are two things that kind of stood out and we wanted to address Now the other one that's a little bit of a shift, it is related to the impact the pandemic has had. But not due to COVID, or vaccines or anything, was HSBC Bank has actually gotten rid of their entire executive floor in their London headquarters. And what they've done instead is they're going to a hot desk, I believe they called it. Yeah, hot desk on an open floor plan for executives. Now. I don't want to get too deep into the open floor plan idea and how terrible it is, and how it doesn't work. And there's plenty of research that doesn't support it. But more focused on the idea that I think this is going to become more and more common for a lot of companies is this idea of hybrid work environments, because that's one of the things HSBC said. And another thing is, they always had a lot of empty offices, because a lot of their executives are traveling a lot. So why do you have all this unnecessary space when you can create this quote, unquote, hot desk environment, where people use the space that's available instead of just having fixed space all the time, and people aren't there. So I think this is a trend that's accelerated more so do the pandemic. It's interesting. And it hasn't cost savings elements to it.

Paul Harvey  11:08  
It's fascinating, because I think this is a trend that was kind of starting to die out, like the Open Office, fad had kind of run its course and people were coming to the conclusion by and large that nah, this isn't that good. But the idea is that it fosters a more collaborative environment with less hierarchy. And you'll have less symbols of hierarchical levels, like the boss with a closed door and everyone else in their cubicle farm, like, in theory, it makes sense. In practice, like you said, it's kind of lame. But all of a sudden, we got this pandemic thing that's starting to make the economics of it a lot more sensible, right? Seems to me that is making like a kind of surprise comeback.

Frank Butler  11:48  
Right. It really is. And it makes sense in this context, if you're not there all the time, right? I feel like that's not going to be so bad as it would be if it was your work environment every day. And so I could see this, especially if you're in a hybrid work environment, where you're maybe in the office one or two days a week, and you're traveling other days, it doesn't seem like it would be that interfering. And I think there's some benefits in this case, which is you get FaceTime, and be able to talk to others and really share what you're doing what you're working on, it could be really good for collaboration and ideation, or whatever people like to call this idea generation stuff, creativity type of activities. So I think there's some benefit to this.

Paul Harvey  12:27  
And you can talk to people without worrying about breathing the same air so much. If you're in a cubicle together, having a meeting or even an office, right, it's pandemic thing, we probably would have been able to work more collaboratively. If we had more of these open office spaces, you could say you can stand like 10 feet apart and not have a wall between you.

Frank Butler  12:43  
Yeah, exactly. And just to kind of round that out. HSBC says they're looking to reduce 40% of their office space. If you guys know HSBC, they're a global large bank, they're one of the big ones. So it's very interesting what's going on, somewhat related to the pandemic, as our next series of are really the topic for today's episode, I want to start with what kind of is the busy bite in a sense, which is this idea of labor shortage or terrible jobs. Right now we're seeing a huge glut of workers filling in some of these quote, unquote, essential jobs or minimum wage type jobs. And I've seen this impact ripple through so my wife, for example, my wife, and I, rather, we use home chef, and that's one of those send you a pack of meals, three, four days of meals, dinners, we prepare them, they're great. Well, they canceled our order on us this past week, because they didn't have enough people to pack these things and ship them out a buddy of mine, his company, they're spending, they're paying $1,000 signing bonus for their line worker jobs. Basically, they're not minimum wage paying. But the whole thing is being driven that unemployment is paying a little bit more than some of these jobs. And we're talking about unemployment is paying close to $15 an hour at the moment between the federal support and the state support close, not quite but close.

Paul Harvey  14:06  
It varies by state and such. But right. And this is, of course, in the US that we're talking about here.

Frank Butler  14:12  
Right. For our international listeners, I know we have those in countries like New Zealand, China, I've seen Cyprus, which is very cool. UK, Germany, listeners, we appreciate everybody who's listening to our show from all over the world. Again, our show tends to be a little bit focused on what's going on here in the US. But both Paul and I have good real international experience. So we can sometimes contextualize some of these things to to discuss what other countries are doing a little differently than we might be.

Paul Harvey  14:43  
This is not one of those times. I don't know how unemployment benefits work in other parts of the world.

Frank Butler  14:49  
Yeah, I would say that my experience was with Germany...seeing it happen in Germany. And actually in the UK when we dismiss people, people were a little bit less concerned about being fired or laid off. in those environments, because I think partially they had health insurance, and they were being taken care of. But I also think that those countries have done a little bit better job,

Paul Harvey  15:09  
The impression we get is that every other country does it better. My experience in other countries has not always borne that out. But, you know, a lot of them do, obviously.

Frank Butler  15:18  
I think we could do better for sure.

Paul Harvey  15:20  
But we are doing apparently pretty good right now better than we usually do.

Frank Butler  15:24  
Yeah I think we're doing right now.

Paul Harvey  15:26  
And that's what brought this topic to our attention to it phenomenon that their unemployment benefits or unemployment compensation for a lot of folks right now, is just enough that they don't need to take crap jobs, they can say, I want to take my unemployment and hold out for something better, kind of an unforeseen consequence that depending on your perspective, is either good or bad. I think it's kind of a good thing. That's it's not really enough to, quote unquote, live on and nor is it designed to be for at least not for a long term. But making sure people have enough financial security to maintain their human dignity is kind of a win. I agree. I agree. And I gotta say, this is not in line with, you know, what has historically been my perspective on this stuff? Like the whole idea of a basic What do you call that a basic living? No. What do you call that when everyone in a country gets paid a certain amount of money just for, like, existing? 

Frank Butler  16:23  
Oh, you mean, like a universal basic income,

Paul Harvey  16:25  
yes, universal basic income. I always thought like a true American, that was just madness. But things like this kind of make you think a little bit that providing a base level of security does kind of take a lot of bad stuff out of the equation. And for our purposes, it puts more pressure on companies and managers to treat employees at the low end of the pay scale better than they traditionally have. In a lot of cases.

Frank Butler  16:49  
Yeah that's the key. Like, I keep thinking about that aspect of it. If they had created a good work environment, and they hadn't maybe required too much work, not enough downtime, or no, no stimulus in the actual day in itself, you're on the line, and you're doing the same thing over and over again, and you're getting limited breaks, it's tedious. It's not stimulating, it's not helping you grow. There's no benefit to you to continue doing that, necessarily, or anything. So I feel like this shortage in all cases, is really weeding out. Maybe some of the worst cultures of companies too that really shouldn't exist to begin with.

Paul Harvey  17:27  
Right. And we're seeing in the article that you're mentioning here, examples of restaurant owners, they particularly kind of pick on posting things on social media saying, you know, people are lazy, they don't want to work. I can't get anyone even interviewed for my dishwasher job or whatever. And he's seen the responses like, nope, you just haven't made that job, a job anyone actually wants. And so, right, if people don't have to take your job, they're not taking it, that's not a bad thing.

Frank Butler  17:56  
See, and that, to me is what really is infuriating. When people say, oh, people don't want to work, I don't think that's the case, I think people want to feel valued. They want to engage socially, in some dimension, whether it's with co workers or with customers, whatever it might be, I think people would love to work in a fast food job. For the most part, if you're giving them something to work for, beyond just crap pay.

Paul Harvey  18:22  
My second favorite job of all time was at a fast food restaurant. I was 16, you know. It can be almost any kind of work can be enjoyable if you put the effort into it. But as we've seen, that's not often done, especially when you know, they're just always gonna be somebody else filling out an application to to take the place of everyone that you burn out and send out the door. 

Frank Butler  18:42  
You know, kind of going that in that line. I remember seeing somewhere that McDonald's I think average employee 10 years, something like two or four hours, or it used to be.

Paul Harvey  18:52  
I don't know what the number is. But yeah, fast food for decades has just decided we're okay with 1,000% turnover rates. It doesn't, it's bad, it doesn't make sense, makes your job harder as a manager makes your job harder. You're always onboarding people, you're always training people,

Frank Butler  19:06  
I saw somewhere, somebody had said something along the lines of paying people more or increased minimum wage in another country. And all it did was change the price of a hamburger at McDonalds not hamburger but like a Big Mac by 25 cents. And if you think about it, that's a small price to pay to give somebody a more fulfilling pay in itself, right? Somebody who can then maybe start taking care of themselves a little bit more, and take care of their families or whatever that situation is maybe not need to take a second job and not have time to help raise their kid just having better things around them to help them improve their quality of life.

Paul Harvey  19:42  
And I still don't know that I like the living wage argument. There are some jobs I think you're not really meant to support yourself on there are jobs that are really best done by teenagers moving through that phase of life and not basing a career on it. But as you spend a couple decades thinking about this stuff, Then you kind of wonder about the the bigger picture cost of not keeping up with inflation and that sort of thing with minimum wage increases. Yeah,

Frank Butler  20:09  
here's just a quick stat. So you just mentioned minimum wage increases with inflation, this one actually is minimum wage has not kept up with productivity and productivity, just talking about the lessons money, I guess we generate per employee per hour or something along those lines. But if we kept up with productivity, minimum wage should be about $24. And some change.

Paul Harvey  20:32  
I always think you and I, we got the worst end of this deal. When we were that age of doing minimum wage type jobs in the mid 90s. We got the tail end of that really long stagnation, where I think it was like 375, in the 80s, or something, and it like, crawled up to 425. And it stayed there for a long time. And then all of a sudden, late 90s, it started jumping up to like, eight 910 12, whatever dollars play, dammit, man, a year ago, I was doing that kind of work. And you're making like $4 an hour more than me.

Frank Butler  21:00  
Yeah. But back then, at least for me, it taught me that I didn't want to make that little money. But that's different. That's because I grew up with supportive parents that were middle class. Again, I can't say that it was something that I was going to be stuck doing necessarily. But it was a good lesson in the type of motor it was a good motivator for me because I had the support to do so I know not everybody has that support. And that's something that again, I feel like we need to be very cognizant of, if we want to get more for ourselves. We also have to help bring everybody else up with that, if that makes sense.

Paul Harvey  21:37  
Yeah, that's a good point. And the relative, you know, the perceptual angle, I never really thought about, like we were, you know, we're broke is dirt with my mom and raising three kids. For me that minimum wage job when I was 16. Well, I was actually 450 an hour. So a quarter above minimum wage. To me, that was like just big money. Like, I had cash in my pocket. Like if I wanted something like a magazine, like I could buy it right, but you know, it's all relative. Yeah.

Frank Butler  22:02  
Yeah. I mean, that was it too. For me at that age is like, Oh, I could save up, you know, a week salary at 425 an hour, which is what I was making. Actually, in one job. I was making technically less than minimum wage, which because I was getting paid weekly. I think it was $150 a week and it actually ended up being a 40 yard day. And then I would go work at UPS at night, you know,

Paul Harvey  22:24  
Ha, you were salaried, man

Frank Butler  22:25  
It was bad. And eventually, like they had me working so hard. The guy who's actually supposed to be running the program was putting in less time making way more and I kind of mutinied on a pay cut so I get extra which was nice, especially because at night I would go I said ups I would work at fed at what is now FedEx, but they were aquired by FedEx, it was called RPS.

Paul Harvey  22:47  
RPS. I knew a lot of people work for RPS.

Frank Butler  22:50  
Yeah, I was I was there right at the UPS strike. So I would work that job at night. And originally it was just a loader. So I'd be a sore like somebody would sort him out. We had three trucks in Savannah, and I would be in one of the trucks loading it up. I learned Tetris that way really, like I think my Tetris skills came in really nicely, pack a truck up where everything's nice and packed in so it's not going to fall over. But then ups went on strike. And we were going from handling about five to 800 packages a night to having to cap out at 5000 and are unloader quit and I ended up being the unloader. And I was unloading on average 5000 packages a night and getting paid minimum wage. And it was brutal, right. I mean, it was brutal. It was a good lesson for me, and a lot of ways. And as I get older, the more I reflect on, okay, it's one thing to be a college student or a high school student doing that job. It's a whole nother thing, if your entire livelihood depends on it. I know a lot of people have that perspective of, Hey, you know, I did the same crap as a high school student, or I was in college. And now I'm making, you know, six figures, yay. Other people have to just go through there. That's not the reality. The reality is a lot of people are living this life, well beyond high school, or they can't go to college because of the situation they're facing with their families. And while I'm not a huge lover of the idea of universal basic income, I at least feel like we need to do better taking care of those frontline workers, especially now these essential workers. We're not doing anybody any favors. I think what we should have realized is saying, Oh, look, they still have to go to work and put themselves at risk, not just themselves, their families at risk at the end of the day, because they had to go to work. There was no vaccine at the time, there was no treatments that we really had that were successful with battling COVID. Yet, they were still expected to go to work. So I think that's the key is that people, it's not that people don't want to work, it's that

Paul Harvey  24:49  
people don't want to put their life at risk for a small amount of money,

Frank Butler  24:52  
right? Or if they got laid off, and they're finally being taken care of. That gives them a little bit more time to find a better Fit for the risk that they're taking for really, truly terrible pay.

Paul Harvey  25:05  
The counter argument is that the market dynamics should equalize things a little bit like very few places actually pay minimum wage in New Hampshire because of the cost of living. They won't fill the jobs that way, historically speaking. So just there is, the argument you'll get is that market will take care of it. And in some cases, it will. But if there's an endless line of people so desperate for a paycheck, that they'll do this work for minimum wage, it won't always correct itself. Exactly. Right. We need to rein this in and talk about some other stuff. But before we do, I propose an intermission.

Frank Butler  25:43  
So folks, what we're going to do is we're gonna play some intermission music from Monty Python's quest for the holy grail, it's going to be 30 seconds long. So the moment you hear the song, there's usually a fast forward button for 30 seconds jump in your podcast app, or even on the podcast website. So if you're going through buzzsprout, or what have you, just hit that 30 seconds, the moment hear the music, and you'll be at the next section. So enjoy your break.

And we're back everybody, we were just talking about these market forces, we really talking about minimum wage and how the market forces based on cost of living different states, etc, are going on. So Paul, let's pick up where we left off.

Paul Harvey  26:54  
Yeah, so we have this paradoxical situation where unemployment is high. Well, employers are understaffed, the supplies there, the demands there, but they're not meeting in the middle, because the supply doesn't want to work for what the demand is trying to pay. So they can afford, at least for a little while to hold out because of the unemployment assistance. You know, wise economic minds can debate the pros and the cons of this government distortion of labor, market equilibrium and all that. But I'm just thinking, and you know, I'm a fairly libertarian guy, I'm not saying Yay, government intervention here. I'm just thinking that if you're an employer, and your wages can't compete with a measly unemployment check, maybe you need to rethink how you're running that aspect of your business. But then we've got a paradox on top of that paradox, where at the lower end of the pay scale, we have people working less than traditional economic theory might suggest, while at the other end, we have people working way more hours than their jobs actually require them to that, of course, is the phenomenon from which our show gets his name. But the pandemic has kind of put a lot of this under the magnifying glass. That was the focus of our 'BS Jobs' episode a while back, of course. So we started seeing this kind of silly term work ism, popping up to describe, you know, the tendency of those in higher income, salaried positions to work more and more hours, reversing the trend that we saw through most of the 20th century, where as you got more successful, and more highly compensated, climbing the ladder and all that stuff, people would work less, you would spend more time playing golf for whatever, you'd have more free time. And that was sort of a dream, you know, climb the ladder, get to the point where you're not working as much. Apparently, we stopped doing that at some point. So why is that, Frank?

Frank Butler  28:53  
Well, you know, going through these articles - we've got two - they're dealing with this idea of workism. And and really is this is afflicting somewhat termed the millennial generation. And I don't another like lousy term, Paul, and I don't tend to like categorizations that much. You know, if you have to put a label on it, that's what it is. One of the things I'm seeing here tends to be the trend. This is just this is just me sort of spitballing on the driver behind a lot of this, but I think social media is largely to blame. Think about Facebook and how that's created. FOMO for example, that fear of missing out seeing people who are always happy I know that's had impact on other people's relationship. Oh, look at they're always doing stuff. You never know about the backend turmoil. And there's been studies that have shown that people who post more on social media, even though they might be posting Oh, our life is perfect. The reality is that they actually have worse connection in their personal life with their significant other despite what that outward image is being portrayed. This one article here is why are young people pretending to love work? Well, this this idea of their posting on social media, it opens up even in this one Article with an Instagram post of the hashtag hustle or this idea of never wants at the start of my workweek not in the morning coffee shop line night in the crowded subway commute. Not as I begin my bottom was inbox slog email. So let's talk about email. We've got episodes on that. Have I paused look at the heavens and whispered thank god, it's Monday, that's the opening, because that person is saying, This is insane how this workism is kicked off. But it's all being triggered by what we're seeing in social media post. Here on this other one that's talking about religion of work ism. cult, right now we're creating a cult cult of workers in this case, and it's people posting on social media, talking about their work, and all these kinds of things. And I just feel like it's that idea of we're trying to stand out, but at the same time trying to create community. And the misguided aspects of that, I guess, I don't know that. There's more to it than that. But that's, I think, driving some of this weirdness that's going on. Because there used to be that idea of, hey, you hit a certain point, you get to enjoy the fruit of your efforts, fruit of your labor. Yes. And now you get to take it all, you know, we know that CEOs put in long hours and stuff, but some of that's on a golf course, in some cases in while that's work, it's still kind of fun to go out there and bat a ball around or whatever. Club a ball...swing a club...

Paul Harvey  31:28  
I'd never played golf, I'm not sure what the terminology is.

Frank Butler  31:30  
I've played a lot in the past, but I haven't in many years at this point. So I would fear what it would look like I already had a bad slice back then. I'm sure it's like, tremendously awful now. But, you know, it's one of those things that I don't get it, in some cases, why people are doing it to themselves. And I'm sure it's because they're being getting those endorphins from the likes and the follows. And all those little things that social media is actually designed to do, which is to tap into your sort of that gambling side of things where you go play slot machine, and you win just that 10 cents, even though you spent $1 already, but you like oh my god, I want 10 cents. Let's keep going right? And that's what that plays off of. And I think that's a reward mechanism, right? It's a, it's a non monetary reward mechanism. That's probably not working as intended. That's why I can say,

Paul Harvey  32:27  
I don't know if you've ever heard the podcast called The Truth, I think it's called, they had an episode this past week, just kind of parodying that, where there was this ongoing social media campaign, or whatever you call it called, "Like or I'll kill myself." So everyone would end their YouTube video or whatever, like, "like or kill myself!" And then people started killing themselves because they didn't get like enough likes and stuff. And finally, someone who's like in that mindset says, Wait a minute, what the hell are we doing? This is insane. How do you not see this isn't a that's, that's an interesting angle. I hadn't really thought about the social media aspect of this.

Frank Butler  33:06  
So you actually tap into something that said in this one, I'm going to read right from this Atlantic article that was posted. It says there's something slightly or slightly sorry, there's something slightly dystopian about an economic system that has convinced the most indebted generation in American history to put purpose over paycheck. Indeed, if you were designing a black mirror, Black Mirror being a show on Netflix that talks about technology and sort of that...I don't know...that the fear of 

Paul Harvey  33:32  
...in a dystopian way

Frank Butler  33:35  
Yeah in a dystopian way. I mean, there's some crazy stuff on that show. Black Mirror labor force that encouraged overwork. Without higher wages, what might you do? Perhaps you'd persuade educated young people, that income comes second, that no job is just a job. And that the only real reward from work is the ineffable glow of purpose is a diabolical game that creates a prize so tantalizing. It's rare, that almost nobody wins. But everybody feels obligated to play forever. And again, I feel like this is that thing that's going on this tech aspect of things. And I will give you guys my general take on Facebook. It's not good. 

Paul Harvey  34:16  
No

Frank Butler  34:16  
I don't like Facebook 

Paul Harvey  34:17  
Never liked Facebook. History has proven me right!

Frank Butler  34:20  
Right. If you really look at the psychology behind Facebook, and the way they can truly change perspectives incorrectly with false information. This is exactly what I think we're seeing these really counter intuitive outcomes in what people are doing. Like we should be working less because of the technology available to us. Yet technology is working against that by creating these, I would say dangerous attitudes.

Paul Harvey  34:52  
I mean, that was the topic of our first real episode, wasn't it? The business and the 40 Hour Workweek, yeah, you know, the irony that we should be working less with all this technology, instead, we're working more,

Frank Butler  35:04  
Don't get me wrong, there are certainly going to be jobs that you're going to be busting butt for, or there might be seasonality in jobs. I mean, thinking about CPAs, who have to do tax work going up to April 15, or whatever that deadline? Absolutely. Right. 

Paul Harvey  35:18  
And there's nothing wrong with wanting to work what I mean, from a person who worked most of my 30s away and 20 is away. Yeah, when you find something you love doing, there's nothing...do as much of it as you want. It's the when you find something that you are okay with doing, or it's, you know, it's fine. It's a job, don't act like you're so obsessed with it, and then put in 80 hours a week to show the world how obsessed with it, you're why, to what end? What are you accomplishing?

Frank Butler  35:42  
Well, and I think that's key to that, again, in this Atlantic article here, the author does talk about and I should find the author's name real quick, the author is Nikki Lowe, staff writer, but here it says...

Paul Harvey  35:55  
We'll put it in the show notes

Frank Butler  35:57  
...time for happiness. And the author does say that they're not doing a good job of that themselves. They're guilty in this area, too. But the true thing is that you've got to find time for yourself, you got to find work life balance, I can tell you that if you're going to slog yourself without any downtime, or you work 18 hours a day, and we've talked about this in other episodes. It affects productivity effects, creativity affects happiness, it affects how you are at home, it affects having a home life. If you're working 18 hours a day, there's no way you got time to devote to somebody else, or have somebody else to help devote time to you. It's not good. It's funny because this is a complete tangent, but I was watching HGTV House Hunters international and there's an irony there. But this digital nomad, quote unquote digital nomad was looking to create a community in Vietnam or Taiwan or something along those lines. It was one of those Pacific Island type nations or Asia Pacific nations rather, but I don't recall offhand. But it was really funny because he was looking to become a digital nomad. And he was a marketing guy, and he's doing social media marketing, blah, blah, blah. But then he wanted to settle down somewhere as a digital nomad and create a community for digital nomads, which I was thinking does not mean that you're no longer nomadic. That's the irony piece would point but neither here nor there, there was that drive to find community. People feel like maybe those clicks, those likes, the shares those comments and so on, are then being a part of a community but it's so not tangible, that it's not really filling a void that you're that you need as a basic human level, right? We're, we've kind of not been individual in terms of we can go off and serve survive on our own independently, right? Our nature as human beings has been to have some type of community, it doesn't need to be big at all. In fact, usually, they were quite small. And we would build cities because you need to build cities around need, right? To get food, to get shelter, to get clothing, those sorts of basic necessities. But you got to create a real tangible community, not a digital community, it's not going to replace somebody touch somebody is hug somebody, you know, support

Paul Harvey  38:14  
It's community theater

Frank Butler  38:17  
Right

Paul Harvey  38:17  
It's the it's one of those things that's particularly dangerous, not unlike most drugs, that it scratches the itch, you know, it tells your brain that, yeah, you're getting the stuff you need. Here, you're getting the community but, but you're not really getting the community. So you're simultaneously depriving yourself of a basic human need, while fooling yourself into thinking that you are part of some community. That's not a real community. But I do think just so we don't come across as middle aged guys, economical is damn kids and their social media. It's, I mean, we use social media to Frank more than me, but we're not like bagging on that as the only cause here. And part of what kind of creeped me out about quote unquote, corporate America when I first started in the kind of the finance and accounting realm, was this stuff going on? Was this like pretending to love work stuff, the younger you were, the more it was coming not from our managers so much as us, you know, we'd have these like employee development things, and go watch some like, dreadfully boring presentation on the minutiae of some accounting technique that's being used in some departments somewhere, and everyone would just go Wow, that's so interesting. I really love that so fascinating. Like I literally saw you falling asleep drooling on yourself, like that was not found, like what is this constant need to just be so enthusiastic and solely devoted? And as we've talked about before, you know, turning it 20 or 30 hour a week job into a 60 or 70 hour week job, for the same reason. Like, why are we fooling ourselves and this predates social media, and this was back in the late 90s, early 2000s. So I think it's been exacerbated by or sounds dirty. I feel like I should not use that word. 

Frank Butler  39:57  
I don't know, that's one of my favorites...exacerbated

Paul Harvey  39:59  
I do. I love that word. But it's been..."amplified", perhaps by social media. But I think it was already there to begin with.

Frank Butler  40:08  
You're right. It was there, and I think there's also that idea of youthful energy too. I mean, as I get older, I certainly can't know grind all night anymore on all nighter like I once did. I need sleep. I need less sleep than I used to need, in some cases, but but you know, when I needed to, I could turn it up and be fine. Right? We recovered a lot faster. And I think there is something with age that does that to you. But at the same time, we probably shouldn't have some of these behaviors being encouraged the way they are. I think you're right, it's been amplified. Because now you're seeing it go on a large scale, and you're no longer alone, right? You realize you're no longer alone in that, because you might not have somebody to, to look at and go, Oh, okay. They're not working in that same time. Right. And I think that's one of those dangers. And we're going to talk about this in another episode, we had a listener, email us with some really interesting stuff to talk about. And we're going to talk about that in another episode. But one of those ideas is that now we're getting stimuli. It used to be just email, right? I mean, truly, it was email, maybe at AOL Instant Messenger. Then we started adding texts. Now we have our mobile phones that now you got WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, not only your email for work, but your personal email and all these other types of communication devices, or apps rather. And you're just getting overstimulated. And you're seeing that there's so many more people probably going through the same stuff. And nobody's taking a moment to reflect on it and go, this sucks. I'm seeing more people's lives through a picture or a video, realizing that it's only 10 seconds, maybe. And then you're not seeing the other 23 hours and 50 seconds. And you're more often than not the person posting their 10 seconds is not, you know, subtly hinting that this is me all the time. Hey, we've all done that. We post the highlight reel, but we kind of act like you know, our whole life is like this. Right? Exactly. That's the that's the danger. That's the challenge. So I think that's something that we should live leave our Busybodies to reflect on is think about time you're working. If you're the manager, for example, think about the time that you're seeing your employees spend on things and maybe try to say, Hey, take a break, sometimes, it's okay, we're getting things done. Or you're an aspiring manager, 

Paul Harvey  42:33  
We're gonna evaluate you by the output, not the number of hours you spend killing yourself to produce the output or fake killing yourself, just to make it look like you're busting your butt, when you don't need to don't reward that behavior,

Frank Butler  42:45  
Right, don't reward that behavior.a Exactly. Or if you're an aspiring manager, think about how your actions might be encouraging others. If you want to work a lot of hours and you're enjoying that, go for it. But make sure that you're also being aware of the impact you might be having on others, and to communicating that with others. And I think that's the key is that if you're a manager, or you're an aspiring manager, or aspiring leader, think about the others,

Paul Harvey  43:10  
If you're an employee in general, yeah, I mean, like the example I was just giving, your peers can be just as much of a reinforcer of these tendencies as your boss in some cases,

Frank Butler  43:23  
Right

Paul Harvey  43:24  
Even if you're the new...the lowest level of whatever at your organization is, you still have peers that you might be influencing in these ways. 

Frank Butler  43:33  
Exactly. So just be more aware. I think that's the one thing that we do poorly these days is lack of awareness of others. I see it on the road, people were pulling out, they don't look and see if there's a car there. No, I think that's a, maybe a symbol or metaphor for a larger problem is just we're so into our own world, that we're not really being as considerate of what others are dealing with. And I think if you're a manager, you're a leader, or you're somebody who's living this lifestyle of, Hey, I'm grinding or it's whatever. Just maybe take a moment to see if you're having a positive impact on those around you. It's good boy, I like it. So anyway, I think that's it for us, folks.

Paul Harvey  44:13  
I think so. I'm gonna go pick up my daughter at preschool and we're gonna go do something that's not work. Probably, if it stopped raining, go to the playground.

Frank Butler  44:21  
I've got a faculty meeting. So that's what I'm going to do.

Paul Harvey  44:25  
So I'm the slacker.

Frank Butler  44:27  
See, you got to be working. Paul, you got to be putting in that grind. 

Paul Harvey  44:31  
Alright, nevermind. Go put my kid in front of the TV.

Frank Butler  44:33  
Give her the ipad, let her play games. 

Paul Harvey  44:35  
Yep. 

Frank Butler  44:35  
Thanks for listening, everybody. Reach out to us. If you have anything you want to share anything. If you've got tips and tricks that work for you. We want to hear it. We want to share it. We appreciate you listening. Take care, everybody.

Paul Harvey  44:46  
Bye, folks. 

The Busyness Paradox is distributed by Paul Harvey and Frank Butler. Our theme music is adapted from its business time by Jemaine Clement and Brett McKenzie. Our production manager is Justin Wuntaek. We hope you enjoyed this episode, and we'd love to hear from you. Please any questions, comments or ideas for future episode topics to input at busynessparadox.com or find us on Twitter. Also, be sure to visit our website, [busynessparadox. com](busynessparadox.com) to read our blog posts and for links to the articles and other resources mentioned in today's show. Finally, please take a moment to rate and follow or subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Spotify, I-Heart Radio, Google podcast or your preferred podcast provider.

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