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Speaker 1: What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to

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this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon

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to three on WBT Radio and Charlotte. And if you

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want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream,

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my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron,

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go to dpeatclendershow dot com, make sure you hit the

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subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your

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smartphone or tablet, And again, thank you so much for

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your support. I did get a message regarding the previous topic. Well,

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the last two to so first hour we covered TikTok

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and why you should not have it and deep Seek

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the new AI also owned by the chi cooms why

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you should not use it or download their app. But

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also how like, we are a very stupid society for

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not recognizing the threat that is China, and we just

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continue to willingly voluntarily give it all of this information,

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knowing that they intend to use it for our demise.

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But we are stupid. And I told I advise people

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don't be dumb asses, But I know that may be

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a bit too much to ask. Michael wrote me and said,

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the American people are dumb as a box of rocks

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when it comes to these Chinese owned apps, they are

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willing to sacrifice personal and national security in order to

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be able to watch stupid videos made by stupid people.

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I agree with your comment, stop being dumbasses. Well, look,

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I will say this, just like every platform, there are good, entertaining,

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informative quality content creators on TikTok, No doubt about it, right,

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no doubt about There are people that are producing very

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good content, stuff that is of value. They could also

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do that on a different platform, and I would recommend

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that they do so, but I can't make them. Trum

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might but I can't. I'm just trying to advise people.

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Don't use these things. Don't give the communists who are

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interested in our demise, don't give them what they seek.

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They are not our friends. They are not our friends.

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Do you understand like we may we may see them

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invade Taiwan soon? What do you think happens when when

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they do? North Korea is right now fighting on behalf

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of the Russians against the Ukrainians, right North Korean forces.

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North Korea is the knife that China wields. I did

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not come up with that saying China has used North

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Korea to destabilize its region for decades. Okay, they keep

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North Korea afloat. So again like this is these are

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the actions and when you start then farming out the

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AI tech to to other dictators and authoritarians around the globe.

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What do you think China is doing with all of

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their quote loans that they give to these impoverished countries

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to set up airports and docks and stuff ports and

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all that, and then oh they can't they can't make

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the payments and then China seizes it Panama Canal, what

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do you think is going on with that? Like, what

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do you think China is doing? Hello? So if you

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got to see the cat videos, you can see them

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on other platforms that are not trying to kill the

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American society. And I would just ask that you that

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you just you know, don't That's all all right? So

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Google's former CEO says, I know this is like a

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tech heavy deal, but trust me on this one. Okay.

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Google's former CEO says that the tech giant is losing

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out to open ai. This was from the summer, Okay,

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that the Google AI product is falling behind, it's losing

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the race against Open ai and anthropic these are other

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AI models. Why why is Google falling behind remote working?

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This is what? This is what the former CEO and chairman,

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Eric Schmidt said. He was speaking to students at Stanford

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University during a lecture in April when he was asked

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about the lead that started like open ai and Anthropic

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currently have over Google when it comes to AI. He said,

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Google decided that work life balance and going home early

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and working from home was more important than winning. And

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the reason the startups work is because the people in

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startups work like hell. He says. I'm sorry to be

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so blunt, but the fact of the matter is if

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you all leave the university and you go start up

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a company, you're not going to let people work from

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home and then only come in one day a week.

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If you want to compete against the other startups, you

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can't do that. When I started up my company, me personally,

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when I started the podcast, I was waking up at

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five in the morning and going to bed at eleven

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at night, and all day long, except for when I

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would eat lunch with Christy. She would come home. We

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were up in Asheville at the time, and she would

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come home. Her office was fairly close and she would

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come home and we would eat lunch together, and then

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I was back to work. Every single thing I did,

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I worked six days a week minimum, right, Every single

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thing I did was for the startup. Was to make

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that a successful operation. That's what startups do. And if

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you're starting up, you're not having people that are only

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working three or four hours from home every day. I'm sorry,

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but this guy is correct. He is correct. Schmid was

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Google CEO and chairman for ten years from twenty and

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one through twenty eleven, before handing the reins back to

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the Search Giants co founder Larry Page. He went on

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then to serve as Google's executive chairman and technical advisor

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before finally departing the company in early twenty twenty. To

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be sure, according to Business Insider, Google has been easing

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away from a one hundred percent remote work arrangement for

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employees since twenty twenty two. One hundred percent remote work,

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one hundred percent. Nobody, nobody has to like, that's nuts.

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Have you seen that movie with uh, what's his name

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one of the Owen brothers and uh not Luke Owen,

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No Wilson, yeah Owen Wilson, Yeah, yeah, not the Owen brothers,

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Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughan where they go to work

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for Google. Right, have you seen what Google does for

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their employees at their They've got like little cry closets

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and stuff. They've got ping pong tables, arcades, cafeteria, they

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have all this stuff and then they send everybody home.

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And you've been like that for two years. Google employees

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are currently working on a hybrid model where they spend

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approximately now three days in the office, two days wherever

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they work best, whether that's at the office or at home,

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per the company's twenty twenty two Diversity Annual Report. Google

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also began tracking office badge attendance and using it as

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a metric in performance reviews. This is according to internal

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memos that CNBC got ahold of. So they were one

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hundred percent remote and then they started going back to

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a hybrid model. Three days. Yeah, three days in the

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office and two days wherever you work best. So oh

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I got a coffee shop. Uh huh. Of course, not

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everybody believes in magical hallway conversations, as these things are

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dubbed by critics of this return to the office movement

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among CEOs, But there's no question that working together in

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the same room makes a positive difference, said Google's Chief

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People office that they have an office chief people Office,

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it's like hr, I guess yeah. But this was in

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an email by the chief People officer. Fiona Chichioni or

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Chizoni wrote in an employee email obtained by CNBC. Not

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everybody believes in magical hallway conversation. Okay, So here's the thing.

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I don't have to pick sides in this, Okay, I

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don't have to, like just because like the managers are saying,

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everybody has to be back. I don't automatically defer to

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them because they're managers, right. Just because their managers doesn't

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mean that they actually know what works best in this scenario.

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They have ideas or maybe they've got orders, they have

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theories and such, right, But I think it really depends

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on the office culture. If you work in a crapulent office,

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you're probably going to be more productive if you don't

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have to be in said crapulence. Right. If people don't

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want to come back to the office to work like,

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you might have an office culture problem. And that is

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a lot of times personnel related. Have you ever seen

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that TV show The Office? Here's a great idea. How

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about making an escape to a really special and secluded

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the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether

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you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to

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for a big old reunion. Cabins of Asheville has the

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their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of

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the Blue Ridge Mountains, centrally low between Ashville and the

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entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It's the

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perfect balance of seclusion and proximity to all the local

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memories that'll last a lifetime. RTO people rt OH Return

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to Office Return to Office is making get another return

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to the headlines. As the new year starts, more firms

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have announced that they are trimming back on even the

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three day a week plans that many had settled into

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when unemployees balked at RTO after COVID. Do you know

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that there are people who have entered the job market

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today that have never had to go into work net nuts.

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I mean, I'm not saying there's a lot of them,

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but it's a not small amount. JP Morgan made their

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announcement being at the office will now apply to all

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their employees, which is in keeping with what CEO Jamie

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Diamond has as a philosophy, which is be at the office.

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And this has got people upset once again. People don't

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like to be at offices when the office culture is

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not great. But part of the other reason people don't

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enjoy being at the office is not really being at

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the office. It is driving to the office. Yeah, that's

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part of the problem. It' see, because when you say

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you got to come back to the office, it's not

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just for that eight eight and a half nine, or

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in my case, you know, twelve hours a day that

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I'm that I'm at the office. Yeah, it's the commute, right,

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So now I am required rather than a commute of

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you know, twenty feet down my hall into my office,

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my home office. Now I have to shower. I mean,

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you know, because I care about what my coworkers think

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of me, I do take showers. And so now I

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have to like walk down the hall, go past my office,

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get into my car, pay for the gas, drive on

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the streets with a whole bunch of people that don't

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know how to drive, and do not realize that we're

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not in some sort of a simulation where they're the

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main character. And then you know, park, get to the office,

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maybe have to fight off a couple of muggers on

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my way into the uptown office, and then start the

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clock right, and then after that do the whole thing

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in reverse. And look, I leave the office here, I

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leave the studio at like three three oh five, And

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sometimes it'll take me almost forty five minutes to drive

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like eight miles. It's nuts. So if you know, you're

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chained to the desk or the microphone as it were.

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And that's another reason why people don't enjoy the into

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the office the rto experience. And there's another thought here.

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Maybe this will let companies fire a bunch of people

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or they'll just quit on their own. All right, I

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hope you had a happy holiday season. But tell me

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if something like this happened at your house. Your family

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and friends are gathered around. Maybe y'all are in the

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living room and you're laughing, swapping stories, reminiscing, and then

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somebody says, hey, Dad, remember those old VHS tapes? Did

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you ever get them transferred? And then the room gets

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all quiet. All eyes are on Dad, who says, oh,

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you know, well, I've been meaning to but I just

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having gotten around to it. Look, don't let those priceless

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memories sit in a box for another year, all right.

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Create a Video has been helping families in the Charlotte

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a discount for you. And next year, instead of talking

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about those memories, imagine gathering the family to watch them together.

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Talk about a memorable gift. So do what I did.

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Trust the experts at Creative Video, conveniently located in mint

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create avideo dot com. Yeah, so return to the office.

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JP Morgan Chasing Company telling all of its employees to

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return to the office five days a week, returning to

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the attendant's policy that was in place before the pandemic.

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The largest US bank, which employs more than three hundred

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thousand people globally, is expected to announce the change. I

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think at this point they already have. This was from

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a couple of weeks ago. It was the beginning of

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the year they put this notice out that replaces the

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three day mandate for many of its workers. The CEO

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has previously criticized the federal government for not requiring workers

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to be at their offices more regularly. Okay, so funny

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that the CEO should mention that Donald Trump has now

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told all of the Fed workers to go back to work,

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Go back to the office. Everybody begon the pool. Okay,

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back to work, everybody except for the ones that have

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been put on paid leave the DEIVI. So here is

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a former federal employee going onto the tricom app TikTok

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to tell the secrets about the incompetence and waste in

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the federal government.

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Speaker 2: I used to be a federal employee, and I'm going

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to tell you why I don't feel bad for federal

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employees being forced to come back into the workplace. I

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worked for the Army Corps of Engineers for almost a year,

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and the abuses that I saw by government employees was

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astounding and shocking. I worked as a realty specialist, and

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that is someone who manages government own lands, so when

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farmers and Ranchersley's land to Gray's cattle, we would manage that.

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When I was hired, my boss brad that it was

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basically impossible to get fired from the federal government and

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that in her entire time working for the government, she'd

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only seen one person fired, and that person assaulted a

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fellow employee. She wasn't even fired for assaulting the employee

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at work. She was fired for lying about it because

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they caught it on camera.

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Speaker 1: So I can't assault.

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Speaker 2: When I worked for the government, we were allowed to

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work fifty percent in the office and fifty percent from

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home for the most part. In some cases, if you'd

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work there, like I think over ten years or something,

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you could actually work from home three days a week

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and work from the office two days a week. I

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use the word work very loosely. One employee spent his

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time remote working running his own farm. Another employee bragged

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about drunk driving and going out to lunch with her

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friends for Margarita's when she was supposed to be remote working.

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No one would log into their computers and you can

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see it because they're not on teams, and no one

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ever checked. Ever, there's some called the eighty twenty rull

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where eighty percent of the work in government is done

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by twenty percent of the people. And this is very

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very true. People who get a job in the government

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a lot of times find out that it's very difficult

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to fire them, and they take advantage of this. One

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employee would come into the office. His start time would

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be six thirty, and he knew nobody would be there.

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And when I came in at seven thirty and I

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was the next person to come in. He was snoring

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at his desk. Every single morning. Another employee would take

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the government truck on an almost daily basis so that

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he could go out to lunch and then go and

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take a nap in his favorite park under a shady

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tree in the government truck. One of the very first

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things I did when I started working for the CORE,

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I spent three months cleaning up their real estate files room,

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which was a disaster. The government is used using an

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antiquated system that was developed sometime in the nineties and

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using regulations that haven't been updated since the nineties to

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manage our dams and our government lands.

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Speaker 1: That sounds about right.

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Speaker 2: Our government is filled with the most incompetent and most

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lazy people and an occasional hard worker, and those hard

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workers are severely punished every time they outwork their colleagues,

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because then the colleagues realize people will see that they're

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lazy and they don't want to have to work more.

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They're just buying time until they retire. Same in almost

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every case. My point is some of our government organizations

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haven't been maintained or updated in so long that you

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basically need to create a new organization and start from

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scratch because there's almost no way to transfer it over

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and there's so much red tape in between, it'll never

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get done.

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Speaker 1: Hmmm. Now that's an interesting idea. How about like we

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have the Department of Education, so we set up another

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agency called Department of Schools or something, and then you

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build that one better theoretically, and then you get rid

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of the Department of Education. Then it's like, well we

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cut the whole department. Sorry, so it's not like we're

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firing you, we're eliminating the whole department. And then when

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the Department of Ed is gone and the only one

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that remains is the Department of Schools, well then I

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would shut that one down to actually, but no, if

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you were trying to replace it. This is just an example.

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People like you replace it and then then after you

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shut down the DOE, now you have the DOS and

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then you just rename the Department of Schools back to

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the Department of Education. I'm just spitballing here. I haven't

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really thought this through.

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Speaker 2: But I know that our government is inefficient because the

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people working for it are not doing what they need

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to do to take care of the rest of us.

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So no, I don't think government employees should get the

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benefit of working from home. If our government is not

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working for us, we shouldn't have to take years to

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do anything in a technological age.

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Speaker 1: That's true.

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Speaker 2: They choose to take that long. That's a choice. So

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they can choose to do things faster and more efficiently,

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and then they can choose to get remote work back.

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I don't feel bad for them at all, all.

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Speaker 1: Right, So she goes by uh Sasha the Great on TikTok,

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But don't go watch it because it's TikTok people. If

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you learn nothing from the first hour of the program. Okay,

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I do have I have an email. Here are a

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couple of emails. This is from A Jeff. It's simple chemistry,

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00:23:01,799 --> 00:23:05,960
the two most common elements in the universe hydrogen and

348
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dumb ass Y's that tracks too, Jan says, okay, So,

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regarding the commute, going into the office takes me fifteen

350
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minutes each way, which lets me switch my focus from

351
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the house to the office or walk the thirty feet

352
00:23:25,640 --> 00:23:28,680
to the home office. Dealing with a pair of incredibly

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stupid cats never getting away from the house and various

354
00:23:32,319 --> 00:23:35,200
issues associated with it, including what needs to be fixed,

355
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the eight to ten daily Amazon deliveries for crap, my

356
00:23:38,640 --> 00:23:42,720
wife orders, screaming neighbors, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Oh,

357
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and the walk to and from the home office goes

358
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right by the incredibly well stocked liquor cabinet. I wish

359
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:52,680
I could go into the office. Unfortunately, they do not

360
00:23:52,799 --> 00:23:56,759
have a dedicated space I can use. Yeah, so, look,

361
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everybody is different here. I want to acknowledge that everybody's different.

362
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Some people can actually work remotely and be more productive

363
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or as productive or almost as productive as they are

364
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in the office, no doubt about it. I am one

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of those people. I am self directed. You do not

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need to tell me to work. I will work. I

367
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wake up, I walk in, I start working. I eat

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my breakfast while working, I take a shower, I get

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in my car, I come to the office, I work,

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I leave the office, I go home, and I keep working.

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That's my I work all the time. You don't have

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to tell me to work. Now that being said, there

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are benefits of being in the office. Like just a

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couple months ago, before the Christmas break, I was in

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the hallway and I ran into a sales guy, and

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we started talking and we started coming up with some

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00:24:46,559 --> 00:24:50,640
ideas and like some opportunities. He can go make a

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00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:53,119
sales call, talk about a potential client and all of this,

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and so like that's one of the benefits that you get.

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I mean he did, like he did leave the company

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shortly thereafter, so it never worked out, but like you

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00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:06,519
know that it could have turned into something fruitful. That's

383
00:25:06,559 --> 00:25:09,359
a true story. All right. If you're listening to this show,

384
00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:10,960
you know I try to keep up with all sorts

385
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:13,000
of current events, and I know you do too, And

386
00:25:13,079 --> 00:25:16,519
you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources.

387
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:20,240
Why Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which

388
00:25:20,319 --> 00:25:23,200
is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's

389
00:25:23,319 --> 00:25:26,759
an app and it's a website and it combines news

390
00:25:26,759 --> 00:25:28,720
from around the world in one place, so you can

391
00:25:28,759 --> 00:25:32,079
compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out

392
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:36,759
at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put

393
00:25:36,759 --> 00:25:39,720
the link in the podcast description too. I started using

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00:25:39,720 --> 00:25:42,640
ground News a few months ago and more recently chose

395
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:44,640
to work with them as an affiliate because it lets

396
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:48,279
me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom

397
00:25:48,519 --> 00:25:51,480
The blind Spot feature shows you which stories get ignored

398
00:25:51,519 --> 00:25:54,440
by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check

399
00:25:54,559 --> 00:25:59,039
dot Ground, dot News, slash Pete. Subscribe through that link

400
00:25:59,079 --> 00:26:01,680
and you'll get fifteen p sent off any subscription. I

401
00:26:01,799 --> 00:26:05,119
use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature.

402
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:08,119
Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it

403
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:11,319
also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape

404
00:26:11,319 --> 00:26:14,160
more transparent. So I do have the ability to do

405
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:18,480
the show remote. Okay, I can do this show remote,

406
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:21,960
but I do come into the office every day because

407
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:27,319
I believe in office culture. Sorry, I just I think

408
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:29,039
the boss is listening, so I want to make sure

409
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I get that on the record. Ahead of the performance

410
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:36,400
review in September, Amazon CEO Andy Jesse sent employees a

411
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:38,839
letter warning them to prepare as the company was going

412
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:41,240
back to being in the office the way we were

413
00:26:41,279 --> 00:26:46,359
before COVID. Naturally, Amazon employees blew a gasket, demanding data

414
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:52,680
driven rationales for the scheduled January two change in work policy. Unsurprisingly,

415
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:56,079
they haven't received the demanded justification from their employer, according

416
00:26:56,079 --> 00:26:59,160
to bees Wellborn writing at hotair dot com. So they

417
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:02,000
try so yeah, Amazon is like, we're going to go

418
00:27:02,039 --> 00:27:04,359
back to the opposite. It's more effective and efficient. And

419
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so then the employees, knowing that they work for a

420
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logistics company, they're like, really, what's the data to support that?

421
00:27:10,759 --> 00:27:14,440
Shut up and get back to work. Amazon's CEO Andy

422
00:27:14,559 --> 00:27:17,960
Jase said that what we have been told is that

423
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:25,680
it leads to increased collaboration between teams and innovation. But

424
00:27:25,839 --> 00:27:30,200
whenever the union apparently asked for data, which is famously

425
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:33,160
Amazon's bread and butter, they never are willing to provide it,

426
00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:38,359
cannot provide the data to support it. So and this

427
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:40,359
is one of the other things in this debate is

428
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:44,680
that a lot of times it's just the fields. It's

429
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:49,200
there are managers and upper management or whatever that they

430
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:52,119
just want everybody back in the office. Now, there are

431
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:56,880
actual economic side effects here. You know, if you're paying employees,

432
00:27:57,799 --> 00:27:59,880
that's one cost, but then you also have the cost

433
00:28:00,079 --> 00:28:03,319
of the building and the HVAC and the maintenance and

434
00:28:03,359 --> 00:28:07,640
the janitorial services and lighting and all of it. And

435
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:11,119
if you've got people that are in the office three

436
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:13,920
days a week, but it kind of rotates all around,

437
00:28:14,079 --> 00:28:18,400
you can't ever shrink your footprint, right because it's not

438
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:20,319
like you can go dark for two of the days,

439
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:24,200
so you have to keep all that stuff running every

440
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,279
single day, even though the employees are not there every

441
00:28:27,319 --> 00:28:32,319
single day. The businesses and vendors who surround the Amazon

442
00:28:32,359 --> 00:28:37,039
headquarters in Seattle are delighted by this news, by the way.

443
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:41,000
They're so happy. And this is another part of this conversation,

444
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which is the areas around the businesses that will now

445
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:52,400
be returning to work. They are going to benefit, the restaurants,

446
00:28:52,559 --> 00:28:56,160
the hot dog vendors, the guy selling the fake rolexes,

447
00:28:56,279 --> 00:29:00,200
all of it. Like they're all going to now enjoy

448
00:29:00,799 --> 00:29:05,960
the economic activity. Right, There's a larger problem going on

449
00:29:06,079 --> 00:29:11,359
across America where the downtown districts emptied out. It was

450
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:14,200
happening before COVID, no doubt about it, but COVID made

451
00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:17,039
it way worse. I remember we did this last year.

452
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Some we got like some report on the on the

453
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occupancy levels in uptown and it's something like, I mean,

454
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:28,599
it was a really high number. I mean, I want

455
00:29:28,599 --> 00:29:31,559
to say, a third, like one out of every three

456
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:35,799
offices or vacant in Uptown something like that. And that's

457
00:29:35,839 --> 00:29:38,839
not unusual. There are some markets where it's worse. In fact,

458
00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:42,000
like I think in San Francisco. I think they're into

459
00:29:42,079 --> 00:29:45,039
like single digit percentages of people who actually are in

460
00:29:45,119 --> 00:29:47,839
the downtown. I mean, besides all of the vagrants and stuff.

461
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:50,599
I don't know that actually I just made that stat up.

462
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:52,880
I don't know, but it seems true. It could be.

463
00:29:52,920 --> 00:29:55,519
It seems like it could very well be true, right,

464
00:29:56,279 --> 00:29:58,519
And that's one of the other problems here, is that

465
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people don't want to go back to work in a

466
00:30:00,519 --> 00:30:06,519
downtown district that's been overrun thanks to terrible policies by

467
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:10,960
state and local leaders. A lot of moving parts here,

468
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A lot of moving parts.

469
00:30:14,839 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 2: Oh.

470
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Speaker 1: One of the other ones was the I saw what

471
00:30:17,039 --> 00:30:20,359
Charlotte Area Transit they're now going to start basically running Uber,

472
00:30:20,759 --> 00:30:23,720
which why not just give vouchers for Uber? Like, wouldn't

473
00:30:23,759 --> 00:30:26,599
that make more sense? Just give people vouchers for Uber

474
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:28,400
and let them make their own calls and stuff. Why

475
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:30,200
do you have to create a whole freaking fleet of

476
00:30:30,319 --> 00:30:34,319
vehicles and do it yourself? Like I whatever, But I

477
00:30:34,359 --> 00:30:36,119
think it's better than a lot of the bus routes.

478
00:30:36,279 --> 00:30:38,599
All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you

479
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:40,640
so much for listening. I could not do the show

480
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:43,200
without your support and the support of the businesses that

481
00:30:43,279 --> 00:30:46,359
advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support

482
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:48,079
them too and tell them you heard it here. You

483
00:30:48,079 --> 00:30:50,720
can also become a patron at my Patreon page or

484
00:30:50,799 --> 00:30:54,440
go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much

485
00:30:54,440 --> 00:31:02,599
for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.

