Corporate Strategy
Corporate Strategy
Working With People You Cannot Stand Part 2
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We roll from a chaotic vibe check into a pile of “I just can’t” workplace moments that perfectly explain why the week feels brutal. Then we get practical about using AI to stay afloat and about handling toxic coworkers you depend on without sacrificing your time, energy, or reputation.
• our top “I just can’t” triggers at work
• why stress shows up in sleep, migraines, and burnout
• using Claude to save time and push through stuck tasks
• keeping a human in the loop to prevent AI mistakes and rework
• the cross team dependency problem when you need “Jermaine”
• malicious compliance as a tactic for toxic process lovers
• building strict process, SLAs, and meetings to force resolution
• handling the occasional “Sandra” by avoiding or reframing the interaction
• why your energy belongs with your team and real stakeholders
• side quests on NyQuil, mushroom gummies, the Apple foldable, and product quality
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Puppy Cold Open And Vibe Check
SPEAKER_01Welcome back to Puppy Strategy. This is the All Puppy Podcast, and we have strategies for you. My name is Anthony, I'm your puppy wrangler. My name is Michael, and I'm your puppy cowboy. And this is Penny, and she is a puppy. Now, I've heard rumors that these creatures do indeed roam the earth.
SPEAKER_00I have heard that too. And even though, contrary to proper popular belief, you know, even though they do walk on four legs, I actually heard they can walk on two.
SPEAKER_01I've heard the same thing.
SPEAKER_00They're just fooling us all.
SPEAKER_01They are fooling all of us all the time.
SPEAKER_00It's more efficient.
SPEAKER_01Maybe we should also go down to four limbs. I would feel much better about my life if I was on four limbs, just kind of dogging around all day. I think that's the that's what I really need to do.
SPEAKER_00You know, people who aren't watching right now aren't gonna understand that there is a pup on the table for the first time ever in corporate strategy history, and it's real.
SPEAKER_01It looks like she looks like a teddy bear. She does look like a real teddy bear. Uh, and that's where you'd be surprised to find out she is in fact a pup.
SPEAKER_00You are in fact a pup. You're a really cute pup, too. So do you think she's gonna sit up here the whole time? No, I'll put her down. She's she's hating every moment of this, but uh you know what a fun way to start the pod. Wouldn't you agree? I mean, why would you be listening right now? If you're not watching, what are you doing? Go to YouTube, go to corporastrategy.biz and watch this intro because she is the cutest little pup. She doesn't really know where to look in terms of the camera, but she is staring at me and she is incredibly cute. She doesn't know what to do.
SPEAKER_01She's so nervous. She uh earlier was um thank you, Penny. Thank you, Penny. Thank you, Penny. Next time. Next time, next time. Maybe you'll get a full-time job and we will pay you with biscuits. Uh earlier she was speaking to Michael, basically demanding attention, demanding pets. Uh she she does talk. She's a talk. Oh, yeah, I can definitely hear it. She was vocal. Yes. And uh that that resulted in her being put on the table.
SPEAKER_00Which she so patiently and so kindly just sat there. She just sat there, waiting for direction. She didn't know what to do, she didn't know how to handle the situation. But yeah, she just sat there. It was great.
SPEAKER_01And I think that's a that's a good segue right into life in general, because who knows what we're actually doing here. Vibe check.
SPEAKER_00Oh, nice transition. Michael. Anthony. How are you doing? We started talking about in the very beginning of this. We're like, so what are we talking about today? And both of us could kind of feel there was something, or we were just totally blank. We're like, I don't think we have any idea what we're talking about. And then we remembered we do have something to talk about, and it's been planned. So that's I think indicative of how this week has been. Hectic, crazy, and so packed it feels like we haven't talked in like a month. I don't think we have talked in a month.
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, I I would agree. I would agree with that. Yeah, yes. The I think my my body language speaks mountains.
SPEAKER_00Anthony just looks exhausted. Like he's a little bit hunch forward. His eyes have this glaze over, like you like you didn't get enough sleep last night. I I think I slept 13 hours yesterday.
SPEAKER_01Really? I'm not even kidding. I I took some Nyquil and I zonked out around nine-ish.
SPEAKER_00I mean, that's what I time I go to bed every night. Uh, but I got up at like eight. That's pretty good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so that's not 13 hours, but that's you know, almost.
SPEAKER_00Still 11 hours, which is wild.
SPEAKER_01I needed it. Uh I had a splitting, so I thought it was a sinus infection, but I think it was just a migraine caused by stress.
SPEAKER_00Because we were going to do this podcast yesterday. You text me, like, listen, my brain cannot do what we need to do.
SPEAKER_01No, I still have a little bit of it. Yeah. And you know what really helps is all the bright lights in this room.
SPEAKER_00I'm sure staring into our podcast lights right now is very much helping.
SPEAKER_01See, it looks, it looks like we're in a room full of fluorescence. See that fluorescent light back?
SPEAKER_00Which would actually be worse, I think.
SPEAKER_01It would be much worse.
SPEAKER_00So this is at least better than that.
SPEAKER_01We're we're at the uh in an Inatech headquarters initiative plus technology.
SPEAKER_00Plus technology equals Inatech.
SPEAKER_01Yep. I did file my TPS reports today. Did you? I did. I did. So what would you say you do around here? Uh I'm a people person. Oh, good. I take the needs of the customer and I deliver it to the software team.
SPEAKER_00Every single time I watch that movie, it is so relatable still. Like things you see in that, you're just like, this is just how like they depicted it so well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Mike Judge is a visionary. So I don't know if you know Mike Judge personally, like I do. I don't. Where besties. Good you do. We're besties. So Mike Judge has this prolific catalog of content. I'm gonna I'm just gonna name off some things Mike Judge has done. Name them. Beavis and Butthead. Okay, great. King of the Hill. Wow. Office space.
SPEAKER_00Idiocracy. Wow. Silicon Valley. Oh, no way. Yeah. I should know that. I've seen it like three times. All Mike Judge. What a guy. What a guy. Mike, you're welcome on this podcast anytime.
SPEAKER_01I would love to have if I could have anyone in the world on this podcast, it would be Mike Judge.
SPEAKER_00I don't understand creative minds like that. He is a genius. I don't get it. Like my brain doesn't work that way. No. Nor mine. Like to create.
SPEAKER_01My brain hardly works for the job I have employment for. Listen, at this point, I'm barely just hanging on. I I it's a thread. It's a thread, and I have scissors, and I'm looking to cut.
SPEAKER_00You want to cut them immediately. I want to cut that thread. I want to cut it in half. See, at least my week has not been as bad as your week because physically I'm okay. And I actually exercise pretty much every day this week, every morning, which is a huge win. Nice. Because last week I was slacking, and the week before that I was a little bit sick, and I went like two weeks not feeling up to exercising. But I've been feeling good. I mean, so it's just been hectic. It's been it's been busy but productive busy, so I'm not upset about it. So I'm tired, but in a good way.
SPEAKER_01You know, I I'm actually looking a little thinner, but it's mostly just because uh I I'm not you're not hungry? Well, I I still eat, but I'm just you know, it's the stress. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I'm just I'm I'm stressed, I'm stress weight lossing. Isn't that crazy? Like psychologically, what it can do to your body. Yeah. Stress. I mean, I'm telling you, that's why I got sick, yeah, like three or four weeks ago. It's because I didn't have any of the symptoms you had, so I don't know what you got. All of them. But it but it's so weird because your body can just like shut you down, all just based on what's going through your head, your stress, your anxiety, and like it's just crazy what the mind can do. I know. Mind is a powerful thing, it is. Watch it fly by while the pendulums swing. I don't know the next lyrics, but I know the song. Okay. Well, why don't we start with some fun?
Top Three Workplace I Just Can’t
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00We've been doing this top three. You look like you're having a blast. We've been doing this top three, and it was pretty fun last time. And so I feel like we gotta do the the top three in the workplace. Uh-huh. I just can't moments. I just can't. I just can't. I just can't. Where you just have that moment where you're just like, I just can't with you.
SPEAKER_01I that list is infinite.
SPEAKER_00All right, I'll start. 4 p.m. on a Friday. This is urgent. I just can't. I just can't. When that happens, like I almost want to message back and be like, it's not that serious. We have lives.
SPEAKER_01When you're on a meeting and it's a document review and you've already sent the document multiple times, and then they start the meeting with, where can I find this document? I love that. I love that. And then you just say it's in the chat. It's in the multiple emails, the chat, the SharePoint. I think you're just saying this because you didn't want to read it. I think you know exactly where it is. I think this is a convenient you know, I blame Microsoft a lot. Yeah. And I think uh this is my punishment. Yeah, people actually use Microsoft's a scapegoat because they suck. Yeah. Uh to compensate for their laziness or their inability to do work. When it's like, no, Microsoft, Microsoft deserves the shade because they suck, but you're you're taking it too far. You're blaming your own ineptness on Microsoft.
SPEAKER_02That's not fair.
SPEAKER_01I agree. Hey, Microsoft, pro tip, fire more people. Just throwing it out there. Just keep firing until you're down to like two.
SPEAKER_00I want to see you operate on a two employee staff. Or maybe just focus on Mac as a product line for you just for a second. Like if you can make your software work better than it does on the browser, I legit like don't want to ever use a Microsoft product on a Mac. I go to the browser. I go to Chrome. It works better in Chrome than on my Mac. Hard disagree. You think so?
SPEAKER_01The browser version is unbelievably unusable. For what product? Uh any? Any? No, no, no. Teams and outlook. Okay, Teams is better. Teams is better. Teams is better, SharePoint is better. Word, Excel, PowerPoint. Good freaking luck.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I agree with those three. You know how you fix this, Mike. But Outlook and Teams, browser is always better. You know how you fix it? Huh? Burn them? Fire more people.
SPEAKER_01It seems to be working great for you. So I suggest you continue to fire just until you get one employee per product, which would still leave you with like 8,000 employees. So you'd be set.
SPEAKER_00I mean not as many as Google if you were to go by those regards, because Google probably has 50 billion products that they have out there. Yeah, and Google has no employees, it's just a bunch of robots.
SPEAKER_01So Microsoft, pro tip, just hire robots. Look how effective your company could be.
SPEAKER_00All right, in my next top three. Okay. You're in a collaborative session, you're depending on someone to do something, and you get into the session and be like, okay, nobody made any comments. Uh I think we're good to move on. And then they say, Hey, I don't have access to the document.
SPEAKER_01The floodgate of comments you're about to get. When you say, We're ready to move on.
SPEAKER_00But the fact they say, I don't have access to the document, meaning it's the first time they've even attempted to look at the document. But isn't that better than the previous one where they they could have, but chose not to?
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, that's bad too. I agree. I mean, this is like on the escalation scale, at least, at least they're lying to some effect, as opposed to, oh, I don't have access, period. Like you do. You definitely do. You you damn sure do.
SPEAKER_00I I can't even. I can't even. No, this is I just can't. Not I can't even. That's next time. I can't. I just can't. What's your next? I just can't. You got two more. I only got one. I get two more? Yeah, you get two more. I just can't move on. I just can't.
SPEAKER_01Oh one of my one of my favorites is when you and you don't really have to deal with, I don't think you have to deal with this as much, but when you're in content creation, you're you're in a people pleaser, right? Like your goal is to take feedback and to incorporate feedback into whatever it is you're content creating. One of my favorite, I just can't. This is gotta be it's probably the top of my list, not yours, but the top of mine. Hey, I incorporated all your feedback in this document. What do you think? I think the previous version was better. That's brutal. That is brutal. Because because it's it's the reverse psychology of hey, I just did every single thing you asked me to do. Not because I wanted to, but because I was being respectful of you. And now you're telling me the previous version was better, but you're not acknowledging the fact that it was your dumb idea that got us here in the first place. Like somehow now I'm the dumb one. It's such a it is such a mental jujitsu. It really is. They make me feel like the idiot for doing what they asked.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I just can't.
SPEAKER_00I just can't. That is tough. It is tough when you I I've been through this many times, I think, on like strategy PowerPoint presentations where they say, Oh, I really want to see this, this, and this. And so, yeah, you try and take a swing at it. And they're just like, No, that's just not it. And it's like, it is exactly what you're saying. You told me to do this. I only did exactly what you told me to do. And now you're saying it's not hitting the mark. This is what you asked for. And the worst is when they don't even remember what they asked for. So they think it's your idea. And you're just like, wow.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00That's a good one. It's great. That one.
SPEAKER_01Thanks. Yeah. Thanks for wasting all of our time and making me feel bad. It's really good. This, you know, masterful uh executive move there. That stuff. I just can't.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I get that. Yeah. I wouldn't either. I'm stuck between two. But I think the one I'm going to choose for my last one is you're in a meeting, you talk about something for like an hour, and then they ask a question, which is like so blatantly just part of the whole conversation fundamentally that.
SPEAKER_01They just didn't pay attention.
SPEAKER_00You just had no idea what we were talking about for an hour. We had this in a company that I worked for when we were like developing web and app products. And we get all the way through the whole entire thing, and someone goes, Yeah, I don't know if we should do this for the web. And we're like, This is for the app, buddy. This is a whole hour of a conversation around only app related stuff. Where were you? Where were you during during this conversation? That I just can't. And everybody just looks at that person and they're like, I'm not gonna say anything. I'm just gonna go on mute and we're just gonna let this be. You know those people. I just can't.
SPEAKER_01I just can't.
SPEAKER_00I just can't.
SPEAKER_01Uh final. Final one. Final, I just can't. You took a deep sigh. I'm a little worried. When you when you were asked to go and create something, record something, build something, do something. And then someone comes in and says, nah, we don't need this. Ooh, that's tough. Or if you're six months deep. And you didn't want to do it in the first place. And in fact, it wasn't even your project to do. But you did it because you were asked. We don't need that. That is tough. I just can't. That is tough. That's real tough. Would you be shocked if I told you I'm like six for six this week? Oh my god. No, all of these.
SPEAKER_00Just your whole week is you just can't. I just can't. You just can't all. I just can't. No. And what do you do when your whole week is you just can't? Jump out a window. We are on a second story. We are on a second story. If we were on a first story, I wouldn't be worried, but in fact, we're on a second.
SPEAKER_01Unfortunately, there's uh awnings on both sides, so it would catch me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, you're not gonna go very far. No. And you got something in the way, like that's a lot of extra stuff.
SPEAKER_01You know, it's gonna be tough.
SPEAKER_00It's gonna be tough. And there's a screen on the other side. You're not it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. And listen, that amount of work is not worth it. It's not. I've already put in the work, and as you know, it was not necessary. Listen, that window, the window having so many different steps, I just can't. I just can't. I just can't. Make them thin. You used to just be able to jump out a window. Remember the good old days when you could just jump out a window. Just go. Just jump. When you could smoke in buildings. You remember the good old days?
SPEAKER_01Remember the good old days? Go into Red Lobster, and it wasn't smoking, no smoking. It was just, hey, the cheddar biscuits might have ash on them from the table next to you. And that was just how things were, and they were good. Life was good. Life was good. Pizza Hut had the red checkered tables, the big red coat. Ooh, those were good. They had that dessert bar where you could get all the dessert pizza and cinnamon thing you could eat. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Every single one of the restaurants was like the little as the name implied. I see them now in their different businesses, and I just crack up because I'm like. That was a Pizza Hut. That was a Pizza Hut. There's no getting around it. That was 100% a pizza hut.
SPEAKER_01You used to be able to just go into an Olive Garden and get soup, salad, and breadsticks. Unlimited breadsticks. For eight dollars. Yeah. And it was truly all you could eat. You couldn't eat more. You couldn't leave there unfulfilled. Eight dollars.
SPEAKER_00Eight dollars. Now what do you get? I haven't been to an olive garden, I don't know, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I think the unlimited soup salad is like over ten, but I think the real the real problem with all of this is like a McDonald's Big Mac combo is like $12.50. That's insane. Like you could you could actually go eat at a mid-end fast food joint, like a kava or a chipotle, and spend less money and get more food than you would get at a McDonald's. And better quality. Well, that goes without saying. But I mean, that in itself is just what are we doing here? What is happening? I I just can't. I just can't. That's the whole this is the whole episode.
SPEAKER_02I just can't.
SPEAKER_00I just can't. Well, uh, that's our vibe check and our top three. And uh this podcast, uh, we just can't. So we'll see you next week. I have a I have a confession to make.
Letting Claude Do The Work
SPEAKER_00Oh no. I don't like the way somehow you're getting more and more casual. And I'm seeing some energy build up, and I'm really worried. About what's about to be said.
SPEAKER_01So I have a new I have a new friend at work. Oh uh his name is Claude. And I mean, we pay him, obviously. He's a he's a full-time employee that works more. Works non-stop, really. And let me tell you, when I just got over the hump of, you know, I'm good at my job. I should do work, I'm paid to do work, and said, Claude, why don't you take the wheel? Claude is much better than me. At my job. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00Is this like a model improvement thing? Or is it an at the application layer? You just think the app's really good. It's got to be at the model layer because what you do is not really application layer focused.
SPEAKER_01I have found now, when using when putting uh Mr. Claude on a project and applying him with the appropriate context, which I mean is all me at the end of the day. I am the context. I am the context. So never forget this. No matter what happens, I am the context. Uh Claude is just faster. He's better. Yeah. He's much nicer than I am to work with. That's a fact. I would fire myself. I would fire myself in a heartbeat and replace myself with Claude, and I think the improvement would be substantial.
SPEAKER_00So I know there were new models that came out. Is it just because of that? Or is it just because you decided to let Claude take the wheel? You never have given full control anymore.
SPEAKER_01No, it is. I am using the new models. I'm using uh the new models are impressive. I'm using a licensed subscription now versus what I was doing in the past. Claude proof. Which meant that I could actually like take advantage of projects and build up, you know, libraries and uh what are the um skills. Well, I am using skills, I am using skills. I'm using M365 and Atlassian, which is incredibly helpful. Yeah. But I mean, I they should just fire me and replace me with Claude.
SPEAKER_00I think that's a great idea. You know, you're kind of saying the premise of my business right now. Just get rid of me. That should be your business's name, is just get rid of me. Just get rid of me. Well, you see, the problem is the companies don't know how to do that. Oh, I'll which is why which is why my company exists.
SPEAKER_01Have you tried asking Claude on how to effectively remove uh hey, listen, if you don't want to ask Claude, I know who you can ask. Microsoft. Because I think they just fired 1600 more people this week. Oh, good. You know, as you do. Don't stop. Don't stop there. Go for a record, man. You promised the FCC you wouldn't fire these people. So how many laws can you break? Keep on keeping on. Push that envelope.
SPEAKER_00What's rock bottom look like? So has it really been that much better for you? Like, have you been really impressed? Is it making you more efficient? Is it making the output better? What are you seeing?
SPEAKER_01Uh, I'm seeing that I would have jumped out of a window if it wasn't for Claude this week.
SPEAKER_00Is it purely because it saved you time?
SPEAKER_01Yes. So, example, uh, I'll have an I just can't moment, and I'll take that moment and give it to Claude, and I'll say, Claude, I just can't. Can you? And Claude's like, can do, buddy. And then it'll go through my work and it will do the thing that I just can't. Yeah. And I'm like, you know, I I actually couldn't. So thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Because you, you, sir, you can.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Huh. I mean, so This is a big confession from you. I'm kind of impressed.
SPEAKER_01I've debated whether I should ever bring it up to you or not, but like I think I'm at the point now where I'm accepting that I will be jobless. I will be homeless. The question is like, will I be hungry? And I think that answer is also yes. So now I'm planning for the future. Joblessness, homelessness, hunger. Uh, just trying to get like a head start mentally on like how to prepare for that.
SPEAKER_00I working with AI deeply, I think we are much further off than most people think we are. We get a long way to get homelessness. No, no. On the technology and capability front, I am still so unimpressed with things I needed to do that are beyond certain levels of complexity. Where I'm just like, I would have been better off just doing this myself. It that might be true for the kind of things you do. Yeah. I think it does depend on the domain. But I still notice, like even with Claude, Mr. Claude, some would say, I have to be very strict about don't touch that thing that I just perfected.
SPEAKER_01This is why projects are so important. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, well the thing is is I have it in a project, but it will, we will go through a long context, like weeks of work together on things. And then we'll randomly just like go back and change stuff. And I'm like, why why did you I modify that did you say always allow? I did I do always allow. What the hell is wrong with you? I don't do a pro I trusted enough. So this is why I'm going to keep my job. Because I don't just let the robot do whatever it wants. But this is I review every change. But you're saying exactly your job's not going anywhere because of this. No, no, no, they could get rid of me. They can get rid of you, but I still need a human in the loop. Yeah I mean a monkey could do my job. You just hit enter well I'm happy that you can come to this podcast and you feel like this is a safe place to admit these yeah no.
SPEAKER_01Someone told me I need to start telling it please and thank you otherwise it's going to kill me and I'm like, well don't encourage me to be ruder. Don't encourage me to be meaner to the robot. Think about the repercussion I want to live underneath its oppressive thumb? No. Terminate me. I don't even I've seen those rifles they shoot purple lasers. I mean John Connor that's his job. That's not mine.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I don't even type correctly in AI anymore. What the hell? So many misspellings and you wonder why you even use it bad. No but I have I give it a ton of content it gets it. It doesn't need to be just like it just goes and it doesn't but the problem is it hallucinates. That's what it does. It thinks oh I gotta go update that thing because you said this thing. It's like no no no no since I have a step back.
SPEAKER_01Since I have built my project I've not had one hallucination. Wow it's impressive. But I'm a very I'm a very precise prompter yeah and I've gotten a little loose I will also say so I joke about I joke about me getting fired and that's mostly just wanting a package but the the truth of the matter is my genius knows no bounds and I enable Claude to be great. So for those who are looking to hire uh an absolute genius of a human being firstly your company needs to have less than 10 employees I've decided that I need I need small.
SPEAKER_00You can't do big can't do large companies but I will make your Claude sparkle. Your Claude will sparkle under my leadership. You know something you've always been great at is leveraging the tools you are given to build processes to be efficient. Like this is a skill set you have I never even thought about that before. Yeah I'm a tool. You are you are great with tools and leveraging them. I am a tool sounds very interrogative you're not a tool you're a being you're better than an Atlassian suite the Anthony suite oh yeah the Anthony suite of utilities you should start you know what you really should do okay I'm gonna propose something that actually is very very controversial. Instead of working hourly or working for a salary we should all have a personal subscription plan for our employer oh okay let's do this thought experiment let's do that you see where I'm going to go so in order for my employee has to or my employer has to choose what subscription model they want for me as an employee. I run my own business so this doesn't make sense to me anymore but I'm putting myself back in the context of working for a company they can pay a monthly subscription cost at a low rate if they want but then they get what they paid for. If they submit too many requests I'm gonna stop working.
SPEAKER_01You used up your subscription so you can't overload me it's subscription based subscription based employment employment and and I mean the great thing about this is you don't like if you don't like the employee then you just simply stop paying the subscription yeah you just end the subscription now this does this does create a huge problem for ethics compliance any kind of regulation because like at-will hiring firing but I mean if I don't know and we're well we're in a right to work state we're in a right to work state but like you still have to take the ethics and compliance training anytime you started a new company. Yeah so like you don't want you you don't want to pay a subscription for your Netflix account to have to read through and take your ethics and compliance training what you might have to is you make you bake that in to the pre-setup for the subscription when you subscribe to PeopleFlix the commoditization is a one time setup cost. Well no the people on board through you we have a legally compliant ethics HR training program that every single one of our subscription offerings for you has gone through. So you know you're only getting people that understand the difference between harassment and bad attitude like you have all this onboarded so then when you rent the human being when you let's just call it indentured servitude for whatever the subscription plan requires they're good to go they're starting on the project right away there is no onboard there's only go go go go and then I don't want to pay you anymore I no longer have to I cut it off I just cut it off even better I don't know that I'm following working an ad plan to this so every for every hour the person works they have to watch an ad for your company listen I don't know where your examples are going but I think the subscription model's interesting of Michael's gonna go create a new company after this call I think it's I'm gonna I'm gonna go I'm gonna walk the street with my head hung in shame Michael's gonna go create a new company I'm an employer and I want to pay Anthony at his lowest subscription cost per month.
SPEAKER_00Right and he gets to choose okay cool that's all you get you've used up your credits for this month sorry your subscription's over I only I know you want to be for the whole month but you used up all your tokens in one day. So my employment you paid you used up your subscription that's it and then if you want more you can pay me more for the premium subscription it's a it's a good enough model because then you would you would be like hey I'm done with development I need some UX so I'm gonna swap I'm gonna swap over to Janice who is highly rated on the UX development front and use some of my tokens on so what if we just treated people like LOM models and not even L it could be anything. It's people language models his mind is just melting.
SPEAKER_01What if you just made a pool of people and whoever gets it first gets the token and then they take the token and they put it in their account and then they can cash out the tokens once per week. Ooh but we get a cut of all cash out.
SPEAKER_00Yes this is 30% of the cash out cut uh yeah we get the cut yeah oh that's good but I think actually I think the employee is protected in this sense with the subscription plan because you as the employer of this employee you start a subscription you spend your tokens you spend your tokens you have to have Janice work more.
SPEAKER_01What happens if Janice is garbage that day and doesn't do good work then they take it up with us.
SPEAKER_00I don't want to deal with Janice you cut the subscription yeah but and then you get them you get somebody else to be the subscribe I want a refund because the tokens I spent on Janice were wasted what if she did the opposite of good work I'm not even thinking of this from like the company angle I'm thinking from like if I'm gonna go work for a company yeah I can be a contract 1099 just work hourly with whatever this company has they can pay me hourly they don't have to pay for benefits they don't have to do any of that because I'm a 1099 employee or I could be an employee I could be tied to them with my heart and soul and I could let them abuse me in every way they're going to same thing for 1099 employee but 1099 employee has to make sure they make them happy because they get fired at any point or you put it back on the employer to say you have a subscription to me make sure you monitor your subscription because if you use up all your tokens your usage is actually going to stop at some point. Oh you can't abuse me as an employee you know what the greatest outcome of this would be is like the I forgot I had a Netflix subscription problem.
SPEAKER_01Exactly and then you just kind of fade off to the background I'm just collecting tokens like Microsoft, Facebook Twitter, they're all giving me their tokens.
SPEAKER_00Everybody wants you to work for them they kind of forgot you were there because they haven't done this guy works everywhere.
SPEAKER_01He must be great I'm gonna sign up for the Anthony subscription service. This is interesting. Yeah companies will forget because you're not actually part of the team you're doing this is how we hit the next level of Hellscape truly like this is I you gotta be careful when you say these things out there because like some company's gonna create this what Palantir is like salivating right now and they don't know why. They're like oh this isn't this is a great way to ruin more lives. Great. Yep Microsoft Microsoft inspired 2000 more employees hearing this idea in anticipation of the tokenization of work.
SPEAKER_00Yep yeah this is our future this is great. I think this is actually where we end up you want to create it and get ahead of it? Yeah maybe maybe try and do some good around it I have to think about this a lot more because I don't know why my brain at four o'clock on a Friday thinks this is interesting but it does.
SPEAKER_01You're you're hey go get it go get him tiger all right we actually do have a topic today.
Hard Coworkers Part Two Setup
SPEAKER_00Nah but it's kind of a short topic because we already did part one of the topic and we didn't think we'd talk about it so much and then we did and we had a hard stop. So now we have part two of the topic last week we were talking about if you weren't here and if you weren't I'm just no one's listened to it because I didn't upload it. You're right. Well if they watch the live episode on YouTube which some people do. Give them the TLDR give you a TLDR we talked about dealing with hard to work with negative terrible coworkers. You're talking about me we did start to say that maybe Anthony on this podcast and I did target him specifically. It was very targeted he felt very attacked I guess is the right word yeah it's I told you this is not a safe space I don't feel safe but we talked about on the last episode so if you didn't listen go back to it how do you deal with someone who's like directly on your team you have to work with all the time like we gave you a bunch of practical tips of like how to deal with this person. And whether it's you run, you get away, you bring it up to your manager, how do you kind of put it in a way that makes you look like a positive person, not a complainer all that great stuff was in the last episode. But we came up with like two other facets which are probably less stressful to you but still stressful in a lot of ways. The first one being somebody you depend on for something but isn't on your team. So imagine like you have like a back end team that you have to work with to enable your front end team thing and you're like, oh great I got to go talk to John again I got to go deal with his team but he's just a pain in the butt to work with. And then the last one which it's person that's a pain to work with but you don't really have to deal with them. You just know they're toxic but they're just like out there and you run into them occasionally and you're just like oh God this person's the worst. So we thought we'd start breaking those two down.
Handling Toxic Cross Team Dependencies
SPEAKER_00Break them down. How do you deal with the the dependency one the one you're kind of stuck you have to work with them. Anthony you can't do your job until Johnny does his job over on the dependency team but he is a nightmare to work with it's one of those people I actually can think of a few right now working on certain contracts where I'm like I don't really need this person for 70% of what I do but I need them for 30%. And every single time I just dread getting to a conversation with them. There's a really easy fix for this one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah? Yeah become more intolerable than they are fight fire with fire. You fight fire with fire and I'm not even joking. Like I'm truly not even joking. This is interesting because this malicious person is you need them for something but whatever they do is just the worst to deal with find out what they don't like and use it against them. Like hey I hate doing this over email only send them email and don't respond over Slack teams meeting requests be like hey sorry I I exclusively work in email I really need all of this in email and then push back I don't know how this is but you need them you depend on them they don't depend on you.
SPEAKER_00Right they depend on you no you depend on that right you depend on them so but they're toxic you need them to do something you need them to do something so what is what is it you need them to do give me an example what do you need me to do okay so imagine it's like a a back end you're like hey I need you to return this back to the but we're talking development terms. They're a back-end team you need them to return something from the sour the source system to the front end so you can display a widget or a UI thing or enable capability. And you have to be okay I got to go like put in a ticket with their team because this is their process and I got to get a meeting on with them and I got to talk to them about what I need and exactly how it should work. And then they're gonna argue with me about semantics about how we should do it on the client side versus they do it on the back end side and we're just gonna get into this whole discussion. It's gonna be painful.
SPEAKER_01So what does this person hate more than anything in the world? Ooh this person What grinds their gears that makes them just insufferable because insufferability comes from inability and generally it's their inability to do something that makes them insufferable.
SPEAKER_00So what is their insufferability I think what they hate is not using process and trying to be forced to do things quickly.
SPEAKER_01So this is perfect thank you. This is all the context I needed in order to get exactly what you need out of this person build the most rigorous obtuse process possible that only they have to work through and you know what will happen? They will hate it so much that you'd be like hey just this time let's just skip it. Just skip the process if you can just give it to me directly that'd be great. This is just you're you're basically just saying reverse psychology then bingo. Yeah these people suck like there's no reason to placate them right like should you try no or hear me out should you no don't you even try should you try to at least be nice to them should that be an attempt before not no because like I have tried to befriend these people and it never works. No that's why yeah that's exactly why kindness is not a language these people speak they're they're scum sucking bottom dwelling reptoids like they are they're not of human ilk sadly we all know who we're talking about right because like that person that just no one wants to interface or work with because they're insufferable you have to match their insufferability. That's how you get them to do things. I swear to you it works.
SPEAKER_00Yeah but how do you how do you understand what the motivation is for them to act like that it's not worth it. You just don't it's you don't try to get into have they been burned before have has my team always suck getting things to them so I can improve it. You don't even try I'll tell you why it's not worth it.
SPEAKER_01I'll tell you exactly why and like I'm it might sound like I'm being really facetious right now I swear to you I'm not and this is going to make all the sense when I tell you exactly all right I'm ready. You don't need to give these people any kindness attention or care because that should be spent on your team and the people who actually do good work. I agree. The energy needs to be put where it matters yes and the second your team notices like oh Anthony's going out of his way to be really nice to Jermaine and Jermaine sucks. Like I wish Anthony would spend time with us like helping us be better mentoring managing monitoring working to improve our system versus like catering to Jermaine it's gonna turn your own team against you and other people will like everyone hates Jermaine. Yeah everyone hates him he sucks so you need to match his suckiness on trying to get things back from him so when you finally need something it's like hey Jermaine I'll give you this one like just don't go through the process just do it give it to us on the slide we're good make it easy for you like and he will give it to you and you will not have any issue. But the one thing you cannot do is placate these people because it hurts both sides.
SPEAKER_00Yeah I never thought of it like that. I do think you only have so much energy you should only put it where it actually matters. Exactly I I agree with that a hundred percent there's a part of me that's a people pleaser. I've gotten a lot better from that over the years thanks to good and hard coaching from many mentors. But if you are a people pleaser this is going to be hard for you but it's super important you realize where you spend your time and energy matters. And yeah if the people that actually matter you're not spending time and energy with them you're hurting your own career. Yeah that's the truth. You only need management to like you. Yeah management and your team your your initial team because that's who gives feedback to your management group.
SPEAKER_01The second you get outside of anyone who is part of your sort of review reference think of it like this if your manager would go talk to this person and say hey do you think Michael deserves a promotion like what's the chance they're gonna talk to Jermaine yeah they're not going to because they hate him too yeah like that's they know he's difficult they know he's difficult. What's it's not worth it they're not gonna ask him like hey is Michael worth a promotion no they're gonna ask your team they're gonna ask your manager they're gonna ask people who is in your direct sphere of influence that's who you need to like you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. All right give us give us how you do this for someone you have to request things from okay so I have to submit a ticket on their board I have to fill in these form fields and then I got to get on a call and do a demo with them or walk through of the request. So that's what I have to do to get something from them?
SPEAKER_01To get something from Jermaine. Oh my god. So that's a perfect setup for me because what I'm gonna do is I'm going to create the most obtusely long just overload requirements document that leaves no room for guesstimation or question.
SPEAKER_00You're making my brain go, right? And then you set up like seven meetings with them. And you say listen Jermaine I just really want you to understand this is what you guys want. Yes and just take up all of their time. Ruin their day.
SPEAKER_01God knows they've ruined enough of ours like ruin their day. Put like a two hour meeting on the calendar say we're gonna walk through line by line this 27 page document just to make sure you understand all the requirements. And like if they're like no I can do it on myself they're like I don't believe that you can insult them. Insult them I'm not what are they gonna do? You can't go to HR for that yeah like I don't believe that you understand what I need to get across to you so we need to sit down I don't know that you're getting the point.
SPEAKER_00We have to talk through this I need to explicitly tell you exactly what we need and why we're doing it.
SPEAKER_01Please invite your entire team. Yeah invite everybody and your manager. I want them present. Like ruin their day and I promise you what they will do is anything possible to not have to work with you again. Yeah. Including giving you exactly what you want and getting out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah fine fine I just got to get it to you. Yes. You kind of have to become the toxic person. Yeah going so you said a couple things I think first of all try just don't uh don't just jump straight to this as my only tip. Well you but the problem is you've you've done this before you get to this point. Yeah the context is you've gotten to this point because of something else. Right you learn Germain is toxic year working with them.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Yes yeah don't just assume someone's toxic because you got a bad response once like this is usually a trend. So just note that before you go this way I do love the going over their head and bringing in their manager to be like hey I just want to walk you guys through this I want to see if this is a better format for you and just inundate them. And then the manager will probably be the manager won't even know that Jermaine has this process. The manager will be like you wrote up a seven page document for a button and then you're like yeah Jermaine told me I have to use this process and he requires this documentation. So I spent three days writing this documentation to walk you through it now and the manager's gonna be like this is for a button.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00What are we doing? Right so I think that's a really eye-opening opportunity to showcase their manager to be like you are just wasting everyone's time.
SPEAKER_01There um there's a there's a I love this a phrase called malicious compliance. Yeah yeah yeah big believer in it right like when things are stupid comply with the stupidity and match the energy of stupid yeah right and I think that's how you deal with this specific kind of instance. Yeah. Because you're not going to get fired for doing exactly what they want and going above and beyond. Right. You will not get fired for that. But they will get tired of your nonsense and will give you exactly what you want in order to not have they will look at you the way you look at them which is exactly what you want.
SPEAKER_00Avoidance is key. There is also the case that this person doesn't have a process. And so I think in that case if you if you need something from them but they don't have a process that's when you do what Anthony said at the beginning which is you create a process. You're like hey it's a little messy so like this is exactly how I'm gonna get this thing to you every single time and like can you I want to make sure you've got two days to respond to this right and like really put the process back on them and like force them to comply and be like no no no that's not how it works like well I need this thing so we got to figure this out bring in your manager we can talk about this build build absolutely egregious SLAs like we're gonna have a check-in daily we're gonna do a daily stand up specific to this yeah if there's no processing your whole team present if there's no process start creating it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah okay I'll set up a daily meeting so we can go over this right create a new Jira board to like a thousand fields in there make them all required in order to create a ticket like don't give them an option it's required.
SPEAKER_00Just start doing everything you can to be like we've got to figure out and if anybody this will get escalated.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00And when the manager comes in you say well yeah we always depend on them for things they didn't really have a great process so we were trying to help them and like this is what they agreed to. This is what we need Yeah, this is what we have to have. And then they'll go and talk to Jermaine and be like, Jermaine, they need a button, dude. Can you go give them a button? Go give them a button. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's the best part. It's like you won't get in trouble. It's funny. Like Jermaine will get in trouble. Yeah, because he's taking more time. It's a good tip. Yeah, it's a good tip. Hey, man. I practice.
SPEAKER_00We've all had this happen. And I always try, I've tried the people pleaser, the nice route. But I've gone to the escalation route over their head. But I've never tried something like this just because I just didn't feel like it. I jumped to escalation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you're welcome.
SPEAKER_00But if you jump to escalation without doing this, the problem with that approach is the manager will then be like, Well, did you even try to work it out with this person? Bingo. And so if you're like, yeah, I spent the last three weeks trying to work it out with this person and we still haven't gotten our button. Then you have all the proof you need to be like, Yeah, we've done everything we can. Yeah. And then it gets right put back on that person.
SPEAKER_01And that's why it's so important to like over-rotate. And you can, you know, use an AI. Like, use an AI to just make things insufferable. Oh, hit them with AI slop. Hit them with AI slop. And they'll be like, this is written by AI. It's like, yeah, I know. I wanted to make sure we really covered all the bases here. Like, just be egregious. That's the important thing. Ping them every day if they don't have a process.
SPEAKER_00Hey, is this done yet? Just set up an automated reminder and Slack to ping them every day. Hey, is this done yet? Daily check-in at 4:30 their time. Daily check-in at 8 a.m.
SPEAKER_01their time. Yeah. Just a quick five-minute meeting. Actually, we gotta we gotta uh book in the day. Fuck, because this is this is really important. So 8 a.m. morning check-in, 4 30 uh ending check-in. Just to make sure.
SPEAKER_00You know what's so terrible about this? This is what also what happens when leadership doesn't understand something and they feel like they need it's like getting out of control and they need more control. What they do is they force the team to say, you will set up a morning and afternoon check until we get this figured out. And then you get in the calls and everyone's like, We don't really need this. Like, we already got a plan. And it you you know these. I've been on these, and then you're on there for like two minutes, and everyone's like, All right, cool, bad. But leadership said we had to do it, so we're doing it. And that call will stay going until the problem is solved. Yeah, it's true. My old manager.
SPEAKER_01How are you into that call? Yeah, by giving me the button.
SPEAKER_00My old manager used to she would call it forcing the problem, forcing the issue. And being on meetings every single day until we figured it out, whether it was helpful or not. And then it's funny because the problem usually at that point was been going on for weeks. Then the person in charge sets up the meeting so it comes from their calendar, everyone feels like they have to be there because this person's big and important. And then magically, somehow, it gets solved painfully in four days, even though it's taken three weeks. It does work. Yeah, it sucks, and you think, oh, this is so stupid. Like, why are we gonna spend an hour a day? But it does work. I hate to say it, it does. I I completely agree. Completely agree. All right,
Dealing With Sandra Without Engagement
SPEAKER_00last one. Last one we have the person that is insufferable, but you really only have to deal with them like in town halls when they raise that stupid question, or at like happy hours, or you run to them in the halls or like group meetings, and you're just like, oh, this person, and everyone knows it. Everyone's just they're just waiting for this person to chime in. And you're like, oh, here goes, here goes Sandra again. Sandra's chiming in.
SPEAKER_01Why why Sandra? I mean, Genevieve was right there. Janice, Jermaine, Genevieve. We already had, yeah, I could have gone with another.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, fair, fair. I could have gone with the zh. You gotta keep it in the zh family. All right, so Sandra. Oh, so I know how do you spell, you know, when you zhuge something up? Yeah, you juz. How do you type that? I'm not French, I don't know. Okay, fair enough.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we have to ask uh one of our French viewers how you use something.
SPEAKER_00We have a lot of Northern European viewers. Yeah, uh Quebec. Yeah, like so. If you know how to spell zhuj, please put it in the Discord or in the chat because I want to know.
SPEAKER_01I don't know, I don't even know what to Google.
SPEAKER_00I literally sent our UX.
SPEAKER_01Those characters don't exist on my English keyboard.
SPEAKER_00I I sent a message to a UX team I'm working with the other day, and I was like, hey, here are my initial slides. Feel free to and I just blanked. I was like, I wanted to, I just want to say zuj. But what do I type? So I said spruce. Z G H F E Z G? Z. But my lips never come together, so I don't think there's an F.
SPEAKER_01Well, uh in Chinese, you have the X. Yeah, the X, which I think is a much better usage of the letter Axe.
SPEAKER_00It's so difficult because it doesn't exist in English language what they do for a X. Make the sound. It's like a like to say thank you, it's sh, yeah. But it's it's interesting because they also have like a C S noise, which is like sutso, but it's not the same as like a s or uh, it's like a T S almost.
SPEAKER_01Jap Japan uh Japanese has the same idea.
SPEAKER_00Which doesn't really exist in English anymore.
SPEAKER_01I mean uh except for like tsunami. How much better is X for Tch than it is for a xylophone?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like we already had a letter for that. It's Z. Right. We don't need two of them, and we certainly don't need them right next to each other. Zhuz feels like it needs a Z, an H, a J.
SPEAKER_00But I think we can see we could use like the Chinese X for Zhuzh. Zhuzh zh it. Zhuzh, yeah. That's so weird. Yeah. Okay, sorry, the third person. How do you deal with this Sandra?
SPEAKER_01I love the Sandras, particularly because I don't have to really interface with them on the reg. Yeah. You just know they're gonna pop up. You do know they're gonna pop up. And and maybe because I'm a little bit of a rat bastard. But I kind of enjoy interfacing with these people. You're evil. It's mostly for like morbid curiosity. Like, I love to hear what stupid thing they're gonna say because it brings me joy and entertainment. So if I'm at an event, I will say, Hey Sandra, long time no see. How's it going? And like Sandra's gonna say some of the dumbest things I've ever heard in my life, and I'll be like, oh, cool. Glad to hear it. All right, well, I gotta move on, but thanks. And I I actually keep these people kind of close, you know? You just save these memories, these core memories with them. Yeah. For what? Just your own sick. You know what's even better? Is bringing someone with you. Hey Sandra, have you met Michael? Oh no. That's our problem. I'll be right back. I gotta hit the restroom, but I think y'all are gonna hit it off.
SPEAKER_00This is so evil. This is what you do if you have a really close friend and you have this relationship with them. This is how you keep that banter going. Or like if you have a good relationship with your manager and you have talked about this with them before, this is like a perfect opportunity for you to do this.
SPEAKER_01I have legit heard some of the dumbest things I I could never imagine because I genuinely enjoy talking to some of these people. You do wonder Well, I don't have to work with them.
SPEAKER_00You do wonder like what they're I do this. I think about what people's motives are when they say things because a lot of the rat race is people's motives. And what are what motivates them? Is it empire building? Is it more salary? Is it trying to get promoted? Like, what what is it? And so I like doing that. And these people, unfortunately, they usually don't even know what their own motive is. Correct. They have no clue what they're trying to do, they just think they should do it. It's just in their nature, and it is interesting. And it just goes back to that Michael Scott from the Office meme. Why are you the way that you are?
SPEAKER_01I mean, truly, these are the Michael Scott's. These are they are, they are the Michael Scotts.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I love these people, these people bring me joy.
SPEAKER_00And they think they're doing, and this is like indicative of just the core of Michael Scott. He thinks he's doing the right things.
SPEAKER_01I worked with so many of these people at Big Corp back in the day. Especially in like Oh, oh, hello. You may have heard. I hope that got picked up by the mic. She's talking again. Uh, especially when I got into sales and marketing. There's so many of these types, and like truly, it is a thrill. It is a thrill for me. It's it's tough.
SPEAKER_00I think well, you you can either go this route, which is fun. This route is fun. Because you're not required to work with them. Yeah, yeah, you have no tie to them, so you just kind of ignore them in every other setting, but then you bring people along just as a joke, get them tied into that. And then later on, when they come and they're just like, I hate you, Anthony. Or did you do this like gritting their teeth? It's the funniest moment. I do love moments like that.
SPEAKER_01I mean, the if if you want the easy, obvious answer, it's just avoid them. Yeah, just avoid them. Because you don't have to. And just ignore them, don't let it affect you. You it's outside of your control, let it just go by. But I promise you, life is more fun, especially when you but because in the in the germane example, you need them for work. And that's why it's frustrating because it's like this person's insufferable and I don't want to work with them. But in the Sandra, it's just like, I'm gonna see you maybe twice a year.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you're gonna say the dumbest thing imaginable. I'm gonna remember that. It's gonna make me laugh. I'm gonna bring it up on my podcast. And this is just this is just gold for me. Yeah. So, you know, yeah, you can avoid them, but take advantage of these little moments because you never know when you might run into like a truly dumb human being. And I I do realize we're surrounded by them, but like the opportunity to interface with them and just take in the dumbness and wonder like, why are you the way that you are? Don't ask them. In fact, you can play along with it.
SPEAKER_00The the answer is actually they don't even know that they're doing anything wrong or weird, or they just think they're doing the right thing. They don't even know they are the way they are. Yeah, like I know I'm a weirdo. I've accepted the way that I am.
SPEAKER_01You have accepted the way that I am.
SPEAKER_00They don't know. They have no clue. They have no clue. And I think that's the thing is when you're trying to figure them out, you're just looking for something that brings you joy. Yeah. Don't expect actually to understand the the way that they are.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_00Because there is nothing there. There's no gear in the machine. No. They couldn't even explain it. They couldn't even explain it if you asked them. Yeah. It's a weird one. But they exist everywhere. And if your company's just gonna let that fly, that's what they do. Okay. All right, that's it.
SPEAKER_01It is impressive.
SPEAKER_00The people who work with Sandra know. Yeah. They're like, dude, she's the worst. Well, I think it's because it's no harm, no foul territory. They don't actually know enough to do anything bad.
SPEAKER_01But for someone, Sandra is the germaine. Could be. Right? Because they're insufferable.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's true. Yeah, every Sandra is someone's germaine. Right. Well, maybe not.
SPEAKER_01Maybe they're not remember who we defined the other person as in the previous.
SPEAKER_00I don't remember either. It's probably Janice. Probably Janice. We love throwing a Janice under the bus. Janice gets throw her under the bus every time. If your name is Janice, I'm sorry. So sorry. But it's yeah, I don't know. Because every I I think there are certain companies which just push those people into a corner of something inconsequential that actually doesn't matter and that nothing has a dependency on. Yeah. So I don't know that every Sandra is someone's germaine, but I do think that there are a lot out there that are someone's germane, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_01Yes. I think the germaine is probably the most common. Yeah, I'd agree. The most common, uh, awful person you're gonna have to interface with in your work. It doesn't matter where you go, it doesn't matter what you do, unless you're a small company. God bless you, hire me.
SPEAKER_00Uh if you're a small company, if you're like an an employer of 50 or less and you have a lot of these people, that's a red flag. Your company will fail. Your company is hiring the wrong people. Yeah. If you're in a company of 50,000, like, okay, there's gonna be a couple, like you can't avoid it.
SPEAKER_01It's like when I was, you know, my previous startup now integrated with my current company, the, you know, I was employee number four. Yeah. And I would say like the first 50 were honest, like, yeah, we had some duds. But like our dud is like most corporates good. Right. Right? It's good as a dud for a startup. And like I would say, on the whole, like the first 50 employees we had were just solid. Right. And it it's why we got the momentum we did to eventually get acquired. Right. Yeah. You gotta have that solid foundation of employees, especially a startup. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. If you're at a startup that doesn't have that, you're in trouble. Yeah. You can't have germane.
SPEAKER_01You really can't.
SPEAKER_00You really can't. Like a Sandra is the best you can do. You cannot have a germane.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I didn't think you'd have a Sandra. You can't afford it. No, you really can't. As a startup who's trying to survive. So you're right. You're right. That was a fun topic. Hey,
NyQuil Mushroom Gummies And Tech Rants
SPEAKER_00great topic. We did come up with something to talk about today because we already were continuing from the state. We came up with it last week. Look at us. We're genius. Genius. We've been doing these for a little while, so we get the hang of them. Yeah, we uh like what, seven years? Eight years? What year was it this year? 20 years? I think it's six years. I think it's six. I think this year July was six.
SPEAKER_01We're at like episode 230. 30 something 30 something. 230. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah. You know what, you know what time it is when you go to the dentist? What time is it?
SPEAKER_002 30. I don't get it. Really? Oh, 2 30. Uh yeah, yeah. This is Friday, brain. My brain's fried. I was up at 4 30 this morning. 12 hours ago I woke up. Can you believe that? 12 hours ago, I was asleep. Yeah. I woke up. You were still asleep. I was asleep. Sound like I was gonna stay asleep. I was on Nyquil. NyQuil is also the best. Nyquil is the best. I didn't figure that out until adulthood because my I just never had NyQuil as a little kid. Man, it's the best.
SPEAKER_01Dude, if I feel like I'm coming down with something, it's like NyQuil 9 o'clock.
SPEAKER_00Immediately throw Nyquil in for like three days. My liver hates it, but it knocks me. It forces you to sleep so you recover faster.
SPEAKER_01Remind me to show you before you leave today. I've got these. Uh Sarah got me these gummies that um they are mushroom gummies. Not that kind of say where we're going.
SPEAKER_00Okay, hold on.
SPEAKER_01Firstly, everything is legal. Everything was purchased at our local grocery store. It's just like the healthy grocery store. So there's these gummies that are literally covered in like a slime, not like a slime slime, but like an actual fungal slime. And when I opened the bag the first time and I saw you know what I mean, like when I say slime, I mean like a fungus. Like there is a mushroom colony growing on these gummies. What is this? What in the world are we talking about? Is this legal? Can I eat these? Like, is this gonna kill me? And I I tell you what, they knock me out. Really? Yeah. Like it just puts me in a state of like zen calm. It's like lion's mane ashwagandha, and it's covered in slime. Uh it is the most heinous-looking thing you'll ever see. I'll show you. Does it taste okay? It tastes great. Weird.
SPEAKER_00And it works. Weird. The thing I hate about NyQuil is I'm always groggy. Yes, I'm still groggy. Yeah. You can tell. Yeah, it hits you hard. I got the NyQuil fold going on. Yeah, you do. You got the yeah. Like the iPhone.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I got the text next.
SPEAKER_01Duo. Yeah. Wait. Okay, hold on. I know we're well past mental 30. Uh what's going on with Apple?
SPEAKER_00I I I have not had time. New CEO. Okay. They finally released their foldable phone. No way. The iPhone Duo. I thought it was a joke. No, it's real. Okay. Why is everyone acting like it's a joke? I'll be honest, if it weren't for the price point. What's the price point? 2000. You're getting two screens. Yeah. Even with that, it feels expensive, but it's Apple Premium. Okay. I somebody some one of my friends sent me a note and he's like, imagine how many Mac minis you could buy with $2,000 today. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, I mean it's crazy to put that when you put it in that math, it sucks. The Mac minis are expensive now, too. Yeah, they are going to be able to do that. You can only get two. I'll be honest, I kind of want the duo. I mean, I've always liked the idea of the foldable. Well, you probably remember this. We we had a company event at one point. I won an iPad mini. I love that iPad mini. And the duo is basically an iPad mini when you open it up. Right. I kind of love it. And Apple Engineering is so good, like I'm confident it's going to be great. So is it a price point? Is it the only problem? That is the only problem that I'm having right now because it's a Gen 1. Okay. And it's $2,000 for the base storage. So if you want like a terabyte of storage, dude. That's going to be like $3,000.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Which is wild. So uh I just pre-ordered the Steam frame. Yeah. Which is the new Valve headset that's coming out. And like the difference between what was it, two 256 gig and a terabyte was like an extra $300. Yeah. And I'm just like, whatever. Like just do it. It's it's I agree with that. You don't it is a first world problem. It is a first world problem. Um, we're all gonna be dead in five years, and it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things because money is just a it's just a social construct. We've got to end this podcast before we go down a dark rabbit hole. So buy the duo, buy the Apple Duo. Uh Apple, I have not told you to fire your employees.
SPEAKER_00If you'd like, uh you could sponsor this podcast. Well, you have to say, are you gonna get the duo? No. I think I might get it. Uh I'll be honest with you. I would love to see yours. I'll probably wait for a V2. Yeah. I'm I'm see the problem in the conundrum I'm in, I'm I'm in the update cycle where I'm on the 15 Pro. I'm on the 15 Pro. Yeah. So we're many years behind at this point, and I'm like re it's my time to upgrade that I usually do.
SPEAKER_01Does the duo have a replaceable battery? Ooh, I don't know. That's why I'm gonna wait for the V2. Yeah. I I basically swore that you can buy another phone until they put the replaceable battery in there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Right to repair, I don't think is on the duo. So it is on the 18s, though.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, I might just get an 18. But I mean, I don't know. This I'll tell you, Apple, I I don't want to simp for like the largest company on the planet, but like the hardware is so good.
SPEAKER_00This is the only thing I can trust that won't break in my life. We talked about last episode or a couple episodes ago. If my Teams goes down and I'm presenting, I just hop to my phone. Apple, Valve, Nintendo.
SPEAKER_01That's it. Yeah, yeah. Those are the only freaking hardware manufacturers out there that make quality product. Yeah. It's crazy. Everything I buy, Sony, just throw that. Like you might as well just buy a dumpster if you're buying a Sony product.
SPEAKER_00Because that's where it's gonna go. This is the reason that people ask, why don't you move to like Windows or Linux? And I'm like, the hardware on my MacBook on my iMac, it's incredible. Why would I ever leave? I still have a 2012 iMac that still runs. It's slow because the software sucks, but the hardware is great. I've never had issues. Well, is a you look at brands that used to be good, like NVIDIA and LG.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I used to.
SPEAKER_00I just think NVIDIA's got better. No, sir. Well, I don't know about GPUs. What okay? What does NVIDIA sell, Michael? They sell TPUs. Please sell the microphone. Tell me what NVIDIA sells. They sell TPUs, they sell AI training hardware. They've been doing other okay, fair enough. Fair enough. GPUs is the main thing. I don't use their GPUs. No, you don't. I don't know. Their stock is going crazy. Nvidia a company for.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, fair enough. Their stock is going crazy. They melt their own GPUs all the freaking time now. Just you pay $3,000 for a 50-90 for it to melt itself to your PSU. Is this your problem? You overclock it? Unacceptable. No, I don't overclock anything anymore. I used to be the overclocking fee. You were. You were the overclocking guy. I overclocked everything. Now I underclock for fear that it's going to melt itself. Because you can't trust Nintendo, Apple, Valve. That's it. Yeah, there aren't a lot of grids. You really, there's It's so sad to say Sony used to be like the premium. Yeah. You buy Sony headphones, you buy a PlayStation, you buy a TV. You think a product that's gonna last you 10 years. Even like Nike too.
SPEAKER_00Nike is like in shittification. Dude, things don't last anymore. I agree. I agree with all that.
SPEAKER_01They're paying the slave children like 10 cents to make these shoes. Where's the quality? I mean Yeah, the quality's awful. Like I agree. You can't employ child slaves and also have bad quality products. It's unacceptable. You can't do both. You choose. Yeah. Choose one or the other. Nike.
SPEAKER_00Alright, we gotta end this podcast before it gets really dark.
SPEAKER_01Alright,
Patreon Plug And Closing Credits
SPEAKER_01we'll see you next week. Hey, just a reminder that Nestle has made uh undrinking water, undrinking water for all of their customers. Just a quick reminder. If you want if you want more companies to pick bones with, hey Apple, once again, if you want to sponsor Corporate Strategy, the podcast, it could have been an email. You can do so by going to our Patreon. I'd love to see your your big Apple logo on our Patreon members list. Uh, you know, Apple, I've noticed some of your keynotes recently suck. And they could have really benefited from my lecture on how to present and speak publicly. And you can only get access to that if you're a patron. For $10 a month, Apple. Your keynote skills would improve drastically. So I'm just I'm throwing the offer out there. Um Apple and other listeners who might be interested in learning more about public speaking and delivering presentations. Uh sign up for our Patreon and help support our show.
SPEAKER_00I was about to say, not only do you get this ad-free and you keep it ad-free for everyone, so you're not even just helping yourself, you're helping the greater good of everybody who listens to this. You also get free stuff. Free stuff. You get a free, how long is the course? Hour? Uh 45 minutes. 45 minutes of someone who's done this professionally for such a long time, really successful in their career. Like that's just free stuff. I mean, you're technically you are paying, but it's 45.
SPEAKER_01You're you're paying, but you're paying to keep the podcast alive. You're not you're not paying for the content.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's true.
SPEAKER_01You're paying that for the fruits of your heart. Um, it is the PBS model. We don't pocket a dime. Everything goes right back into podcast hosting fees, the platform. Uh Michael needs medicine badly. I need mushrooms. He needs his medicine, and that's part of the fee. Uh, we do our best to keep this as user, viewer, listener friendly as possible. So we thank you for those who are our patrons, and we invite the rest of you to join, especially you, Apple. Uh you can you can check out our Instagram. Uh shout outs, yeah, shout out to you and your wife. We've been doing things. You've been doing some great work.
SPEAKER_00We've got shorts on YouTube, we've got it on Instagram, and we got it on LinkedIn going. What about that TikTok? I hear all the kids are there these days. Yeah, we don't know how to tick tock. That's a thing we're learning. Neither of us TikTok, I don't talk the tick, I don't do any of that.
SPEAKER_01I don't think it's actually allowed in this web domain. Like, I don't think you can reach it from my house. It's blocked on your network. Maybe that's where we go next. People come in my house and they're like, Can I get access to your Wi-Fi? I'm like, here's the link. And then like, why is it asking me to input like information? Like, because that's welcome to the Thunderdome. Why do I have to enter my social? You ain't getting access to anything in this house.
SPEAKER_00What if it's what I give you access to? What do I have to consent to blood samples? This is weird. Actually, funny note, I am not on his Wi-Fi for reasons that I will not disclose publicly.
SPEAKER_01You should not. Uh sign over our Patreon, check out our Instagram. Please share the podcast with your friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, the Janises, the Germains, the Sandras, all of them deserve to listen. It's actually how they get better as you share them. Yeah, if you can actually share this episode with them and say, hey, uh, I'm not saying FYI. You're a Sandra. People think you're a Sandra. Just maybe listen to me. I like it. You did it all. Did it all. All right. Well, thanks as always, Michael, for being a great co-host with me on Corporate Strategy, the podcast. It could have been an email. As always, I'm Anthony. And I'm Michael. And you're on mute. We'll see you next week. Next week.
