This week we start the episode by listening to the Goldfinger/Good Charlotte 9/11 tribute: The Innocent (not bowling rock) Then, we dive into the most important news of the week: Matt Walsh's wife calls him out on twitter for a baffling encounter she had with his fish guy, including her husband's many other domestic failings. ALSO: The wealthy tech-bro failure from WeWork has a new venture--tricking tennants into maintaining his rental properties for him. FINALLY: A CEO is being buillied by their (articulate!) staff and isnt sure how much more abuse they can take. Music: Radi*head - Weird Fishes Sandrider - Circles Starflyer 59 - Happy Days Are Here Again -------------------------- Support the show for $5/month and get a weekly bonus episode of Minion Death Cult as well as our brand new weekly live show: DEATH CHAT 500 (also available in podcast form). That's TWO bonus episodes a week. Also get access to our entire back catalogue including BUTT FEST 2000 with Bryan Quinby; live-reads of My Antifa Lover, Rodham, and Ladies First: A MAGA Hat Romance; movie episodes like Believe, To Die For, and Loqueesha; and hundreds more. Sign up at http://patreon.com/miniondeathcult
The liberals are destroying California and conservative humor gone awry... Conservative humor gone awry is going to fascistphonia today.
So stay tuned.
We're going to take a few pictures of the desert and how their policies are actually messing it up.
It's not beautiful when you go across that border.
I'm gonna show you guys exactly what it does.
We'll show you exactly what it looks like when you're in the desert.
Oh, they're remarkable stuff.
Stay tuned.
Okay, I'm Alexander Edward.
And I'm Tony Boswell.
The world is ending.
Improperly motivated tenants are responsible.
We're documenting it.
What's up everybody?
Welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for listening.
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Well, actually, no, it already happened, huh?
We reached the year, didn't we?
There goes my joke.
I think we've hit the year that Double Team takes place in.
Unsure.
Not sure what year it takes place.
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Those are a lot of fun.
We're doing one right after this one.
You can hear, if you subscribe at patreon.com slash miniondeathcult, you'll hear our episode on Bowling Rock, Technically, it is a ButtFest 2000 episode that Brian Quimby was gracious enough to let me host.
He let me host an episode of ButtFest 2000, our collaborative show exploring butt rock through the ages.
We did one over on the MDC Patreon feed on a genre I call bowling rock that May or may not exist.
I think we gave Fair evidence that it does exist had a lot of fun talking about that Yeah, I think that was probably the deepest dive into Bowling Rock that's ever happened.
I think that this is going to go down.
This is going to be taught in music theory classes later on.
I'm looking forward to that.
I think we really figured some stuff out.
And you'd be surprised.
I'm not going to say who was and who wasn't Bowling Rock because I think it's worth listening to.
But I was shocked that some of the ones we decided weren't Bowling Rock and some of the ones that were in were in fact Bowling Rock.
So yeah, great episode of Budfest.
Gotta love it.
Gotta love it.
Bowling rock.
It's not quite pop punk.
It's not quite ska.
It's not quite surf rock.
It's not quite butt rock.
It's somewhere in the middle of all of that.
Generated a lot of fun discourse in the Facebook groups and on Twitter and stuff.
So I'm eager to hear other people's suggestions of potential bowling rock bands.
I think we're going to get into that on Death Chat 500 a little bit more.
Some listener feedback and, you know, whether or not Whether or not your faves are compromised as Bowling Rock, we'll be talking about that.
There was one that I did want to bring up on the Minion Death Cult main feed.
We talked about Goldfinger.
Goldfinger being at that intersection of like pop punk and ska and just uplifting music, you know, you can bowl to.
This song, I was unaware of this song.
Have you heard of this Goldfinger song, The Innocent?
No, no, obviously not, because I heard some snippets earlier and I was like, what is this?
So no, I did not ring a bell for me.
This is courtesy of listener Brendan.
This is a Goldfinger 9-11 tribute.
Oh shit.
Featuring members of Good Charlotte, like either Benji or Joel or both Madden brothers together, and a guy from MEST, I believe, which is like, Jesus Christ, you could have stopped at Good Charlotte.
You didn't have to keep digging.
Yeah.
Let's listen to a little bit of The Innocent, the Goldfinger 9-11 tribute.
The start of Armageddon, it was just another day.
We all saw the news.
There's nothing to say.
So many friends are missing.
A family member's gone.
So we all pray that God help them be strong.
So this is like bro hymn tribute for all of New York City.
Yeah.
That got really sad really fast.
The start of Armageddon, it was just another day.
We all saw the news, nothing to say.
I'll play a little more of this.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the Goldfinger 9/11 song, not Bowling Rock.
Not that I don't think it's bone rock, you know, it's it's too serious.
It's way too serious.
This is too heavy.
Yeah.
It's weird, it's like patriotic a little bit, right?
They're saying like we stand together and nothing will be the same.
Yeah.
- Oh shit. - I know why.
I could tell you why.
There was like a whole manifesto about it.
I have no idea of why.
Yeah.
- Yeah. - Believe it or not, I think it might, it might've had something to do with the lifestyles of the rich and the famous. - You know, they are always complaining, always complain.
Always come plain-ing?
What's that about?
Wow.
Plain?
Wow.
Wow.
It makes you think.
Girls don't like boys, girls like invading Iraq.
Did that, did that, is that like an incel anthem now you think?
I mean, it came off as that when it came out.
The real line, for anybody unfamiliar, that's Good Charlotte's, girls don't like boys, girls like cars and money.
But I remember the music video.
Something they had plenty of.
The music video, they hired a bunch of Uncle Tom women to dance in front of the camera saying, yeah, we are gold diggers.
We're bad.
Can you believe that shit?
It was sad.
It was a sad day.
It was a step backwards for a lot of people.
Yeah, um, I don't think I need Pop Punk to, like, reckon with 9-11.
No.
The only proper response to 9-11 was Rock Against Bush.
All that stuff.
Sure.
No effects led the charge there.
No effects was the right thing there after 9-11.
Are any of those bands good?
On Rock Against Bush, probably, right?
It's like fat records fans.
I think, I don't know, there's probably some bangers on there.
Like, I remember it being important, you know, like, uh, let me see.
Let me, I'm looking it up real quick.
Uh, Sum 41, no.
Uh, anti-flag.
Hold on, hold on real quick.
Oh, never mind.
I was going to say when this came out, it would have been fine, but this came out in 2004.
So no, I would have been completely over Sum 41 by that time.
Um, The Offspring.
The Offspring have a song called Baghdad.
Oh my, we gotta listen to Offspring's Baghdad.
Holy shit.
The Get Up Kid's got a song on here.
Lion and the Lamb, that's probably not a good song.
Okay, we're gonna listen to Rock Against Bush on Death Chat 500.
That's where, because we got a show to do here, so.
That just happened, okay, cool.
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Let's start the show.
Did you see that Matt Walsh's wife is tweeting, Tony?
I heard.
I've heard things about Matt Walsh's wife tweeting and it's really upsetting.
If you have a reason to not like Matt Walsh, now's your time.
Why was I not following her?
Damn.
What a poster.
This is like, this is top tier stuff.
So this is Alyssa Walsh.
Alyssa Walsh 21 on Twitter.
And her photo is just her with Matt Walsh.
Her photo is like, then probably on the premiere of What Is A Woman or whatever.
First tweet, today at Matt Walsh blogs, so she fucking tags his ass in this post.
Today at Matt Walsh blogs, fish guy showed up and I was quickly requested to come downstairs.
He frantically told me that Matt let the fish tank water get below 50% and now he had to fill it back up with cold water that would put the fish he brought into shock and possibly die.
50%?
That's, that takes so long.
For a tank to, it evaporated down to 50%?
What is going on in this guy's office?
Or den?
Or what, what is he, is he smoking?
Is he just like, smoking too many cigars down there?
Heating up the, the atmosphere inside the room too much?
Something.
Is he drinking the water?
Does he take a little drink of the water every once in a while?
Take a little shot of fish water?
Uh, next tweet.
Apparently, in his 30 years in the fish business, a tank had not evaporated like that.
This is unprecedented levels of water in this fish tank.
He pointed out that Matt ordered the wrong lid for the tank, which furthered the evaporation issue.
I told him I pointed out the water level numerous times and that I wasn't responsible.
That's- so she's like- She's like getting defensive with the fish guy now.
Yeah.
She's like, uh, no, I, I'm kind of with the fish guy.
This is all to make it clear.
This is all Matt's fault.
She wants to make it very clear.
This is Matt's fault.
Um, and that everyone knows that.
I had nothing to do with the water.
In fact, I pointed it out.
Nobody would listen to me.
They called me crazy.
I said, the water is disappearing.
Yeah.
And Matt, Matt said, Matt said, no, honey, you're imagining things.
There's another universe where gaslighting is called aquarium levels.
Yeah.
Aquarium leveling.
Are you aquarium evaporating me right now?
Is that what's happening?
Are you tank draining me right now?
I told him I pointed out the water level numerous times and that I wasn't responsive.
He then informed me that the thermometer was smoking when he came into Matt Walshblog's office and had he come much later the thermometer would have exploded and the tank could have also.
I found this amusing.
He did not.
He was concerned for the fish.
Yeah, so this is just a personal thing.
It's not really part of this tweet, but so she did the the thread Uh, the thread count, like how many numbers, the numbers of tweets that are going to be in this thread.
You put a little number at the end of each tweet to indicate this is one of 10 tweets or whatever.
Uh, but she didn't know how many tweets this was going to take.
Uh, so she did one out of question mark, one slash question mark for the first tweet, two slash question mark for the second tweet, et cetera.
Uh, this is like not an, not an uncommon thing to do, but I still read it as an actual question mark.
So like the first tweet, um, Is, and now he had to fill it back up with cold water that would put the fish he brought into shock and possibly die.
And then the second tweet, I told him I pointed out the water level numerous times and that I wasn't responsible.
I don't know.
It's funny.
It's like, it's like already a kind of aggressive or like passive aggressive.
And then the question mark at the end, it just tickles me a little bit.
I think that's how I hear it, too.
I think that's accurate.
I don't think this is an accident.
And then the last- I think she is getting some tone across.
The last one is he was concerned for the fish?
Yeah, I guess?
I guess the fish guy was worried about the fish for some reason?
Man, these fish guys.
Jesus Christ.
It's a deal.
Get a life, dude.
The thermometer was smoking?
What does that mean?
I've never had a thermometer in a fish tank.
I don't know what that means.
I'm assuming that's just a colloquialism for very hot, because there's no way a thermometer is like emitting smoke, right?
Like a cartoon.
What is happening in this fucking room?
Is this room a sauna?
It's bulging at the top and boiling red, and then it expanded, and then the letters HOT grew into the bubble of the expanded thermometer.
Exactly.
It's not funny when it's not a cartoon, and when it's real, it's quite terrifying.
That's hot mercury getting all over you.
Right when the fish guy entered the room, he said the thermometer spawned a human face and belched out flames.
Well, yeah, I don't.
The thermometer would have exploded.
So like, splattered mercury everywhere, I guess?
Is it a mercury thermometer?
The tank could have also- how is the tank gonna explode?
What the fuck is going on in your house?
It's just a water tank, right?
Like, these fish would die anyways, right?
These fish are being cooked in this water, right?
I don't, okay, so let me, let's read more of these tweets.
Cause I don't even know if there's fish in there yet.
Oh, I didn't think about that.
Okay.
I tried to change the subject and asked, and asked why Matt had only bought three fish.
Fish guy said he would come monthly and add three to five fish because it would stress the fish out to have all 20 be put in the tank at once.
Okay.
But that's like all caps.
So it's okay.
Then, I was told to feed the fish 8 times every 30 seconds?
Nope!
What?
That was not- you were not told that.
You were not told to feed the fish 8 times every 30 seconds.
That- I don't even know how that makes any sense.
So when she says the fish guy, she just meant she housed 8 Ambien and she's talking to the hat man.
The fish guy, this reads like a lucid dream.
The fish tank was half empty with water and she told everybody that the water was missing, but her husband wouldn't believe her and tried to have her committed.
There's a fish guy downstairs with nobody else home.
He just let himself in downstairs, I guess.
And he's only got three fish because he can't put all of them in at once.
The thermometer was smoking.
And then he's got a she's got to feed the fish eight times every 30 set.
What does that mean?
It's like fake.
It's like fake numbers.
Who even who?
Did they just decide they wanted to get 20 fish?
I don't know where they just had the tank.
It's been empty.
You know, there's there's a whole plan for this.
How are you in the dark about this?
This is clearly being planned.
They have a fish guy.
Well, it's Matt's fish guy.
This whole thread is like a screed against Matt for making her deal with the fish guy.
What's this guy's fucking deal?
You just had twins and you're trying to get 20 fish?
Calm down.
Uh, I was told to feed the fish eight times every 30 seconds.
What is that?
How can you do, how can you feed them?
They can not even finished eating in the first 30 seconds.
What do you, like, this doesn't make sense at all to me.
Uh, I was told to check the water levels every few days.
Okay.
That's like pretty common sense.
Yeah.
It makes sense.
Check the fish daily.
In addition to feeding twice a day, eight times, 30 seconds apart.
She's just saying, she's just saying numbers.
But, I mean, they're consistent, at least.
At least they're the same numbers, but like, what the fuck?
She has to be mishearing this, right?
I don't understand.
Add water when needed and put some form of an organic water shocker or something into the tank.
Don't know what that is.
I don't think you need to add anything with electricity into this situation though.
Yeah, don't do that.
I told- next tweet.
I told him I had six children to take- six children.
Six children to take care of and these were Matt Walsh blog's pets to feed and take care of.
Fish guy looked very nervous.
Again, like he's- it's not- It's not to him who feeds the fish.
He's just telling you what has to be done because you're the one there.
She's like, I don't care about they're not my fish, man.
Lay off.
I will say, though, this is correctly more directed at like Matt Walsh being the problem and not the fish guy, which I appreciate because this is probably really annoying.
Like they have they have brand new twins, like brand new twin infants right now.
And and like some guys just shows up with some fish and is like, yo, this tank is fucked.
And she's like, why are you even here?
Well, I mean, Matt called me.
I mean, she's like, yeah, I don't know.
I don't know why.
Well, he's not here, so I can't help you out.
I feel I feel bad for this poor lady.
I don't.
She deserves some fish problems, alright?
I wouldn't say that about just about anybody, you know?
But she actually does deserve the being harangued by a fish guy.
A fate I wouldn't wish on a lot of people.
But her, yes.
Yeah, her she deserves.
Get her ass, fish guy.
Fish guy, welcome to the resistance.
This is what being an ally looks like.
He's not out buying the Harry Potter game.
He's giving Matt Walsh's wife guff to her face.
Setting her, making her do chores.
I love that.
Making her do incomprehensible Sisyphean tasks.
The kids must not be very old either because like they can be part of this fish maintenance.
I feel like.
Right, it's a good lesson for how we have to care over those beneath you.
God deemed beneath you.
Like fish or Democrats.
They're yours.
They're yours to control, like God said.
I told them I had six children to take care of and these were Matt Walsh's blog's pets to feed and take care of.
I think the kids already killed them.
The kids took the fish out and killed all the fish.
That's why they're getting new fish.
Yeah, wow.
I can't wait to hear what the fish guy thinks about that.
I bet he's not too into that.
Fish guy looked very nervous and mentioned again how the fish could die.
Water levels must be maintained.
Check the water temp daily and feed way too many times.
IMO.
Overfeed him in my opinion.
I'm not a fish girl per se.
But A times 30 seconds sounds, every 30 seconds does sound pretty wild.
What is a fish girl?
Do we have one clear answer or is it like culturally determined as I suspect it is?
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
I think it's my place to say what a fish girl is to be honest.
That's what I'll say.
We need to ask the fish guys.
Ashley, ask the S. No, we need, we need fish girl guys.
We need some fish girl guys.
Yeah.
We need fish girl guys.
Any fish girl husbands out there?
To tell us how often to feed the fish girls.
I bet it's some crazy number.
Okay, this is the banger.
In summary, Matt should not be a fish keeper.
His two beehives deserted him.
The dog does not like him.
The cat gave birth on him.
And we have children everywhere in this home that are the priority.
God help the fish, at Matt Walsh blog.
I'm just gonna say, God put the fish in your dominion, all right?
It's not like you're the surveyors of the land here.
Man, what a tweet.
Tagging him.
Tagging him in this.
Imagine being this petty.
Imagine, imagine being this petty.
Imagine opening up Twitter one day and just seeing like a tweet, a tweet from like, from Ani being like, I sure wish that Felility would feed the fucking cats.
That'd be cool.
I really wish she'd change the fucking shit in the litter box.
That'd be fantastic.
Never.
This is so messy and so petty and so fucking funny.
Like, your dog hates you?
Dude, you suck.
You're the worst.
Your dog hates you?
Oh man, his two beehives deserted him.
This is like, again, this is like dream stuff.
I feel like I'm reading a cartoon.
Do you know what kind of like stress it takes for a queen to relocate?
Yeah, they don't do that on a whim.
They must really be annoyed by you.
Yeah, it takes a lot.
It takes a whole lot.
Because, you know, the only thing you do to maintain a beehive is, you know, clean it out every once in a while.
But if you don't do that, it just becomes an overgrown beehive.
And it has to get really, really overgrown before they decide to up and leave.
Like, that sucks.
You literally have to do nothing.
Uh, yeah, I think we should, uh, hue back to tradition when men were stoic providers and, you know, masters of the land and all that.
Oh, and also the, the two, like traditional homesteading things.
I've tried three, I guess now, uh, just blown up in my face.
Almost literally the fish man told me, um, But yet, like, your bees left.
Your bees fucking flew off.
Uh, fuck you, guy.
The dog doesn't like you.
That's, that one's hard.
That's amazing.
That one's really hard to do.
Congratulations, Matt.
And then the cat gave birth on him.
Well, the cat likes him, I think.
Yeah, I think that's actually the nicest thing a cat could ever do to you.
Some biggest sign of affection is birthing on you.
I mean, bonded with a cat?
That's pretty suspect behavior, dude.
Not very traditional.
It's true.
Yeah, what happened to men?
What happened to men?
Maybe you should never let cats give birth on them.
Yeah, instead of doing a front flip cannonball while holding an axe in each hand into a frozen lake, instead of doing that, I guess guys want to be midwives for kittens now?
For kittens?
What does that even look like?
It's cute, yeah, okay, it'd be in a Richard Scarry book, sure, that doesn't mean it's what I want to come home to.
What does that look like?
Did he just not move?
Was it on his lap?
Was he aware that it was happening?
Was there a towel involved?
I don't understand.
What happened here?
Did the cat just jump up and start shooting him out like a gremlin?
Exactly.
It was from above and landed on him.
Hell yeah.
That's what it was?
Um, maybe he just, he doesn't have the arm strength to lift the cat off.
I mean, the cat was pregnant.
It was lifting more than one cat.
So, think about that.
Uh, the dog does not like him.
The cat gave birth.
This is, man, what a, this is one of the best tweets ever.
And it's like, it's one of those things where it's like, she doesn't think, she thinks she's like good naturedly, you know, taking the piss out of her husband.
And this is like, We're probably doing their work for them by saying her name.
She wants to be a public figure like he is now, probably.
I mean, it's what her branding suggests by having her first and last name as her Twitter handle and the photo of them together at the red carpet premiere for Let's Lynch Trans People, the movie.
I do think that a good move for that demographic of people is like wife who hates their husband.
That's a really good lane to fall into.
It humanizes him.
It humanizes him because one of the major complaints about Matt Walsh is that he's a fucking demon.
That he's like a demonic sociopath whose Twitter bio reads theocratic fascist.
Like, he is trying to give the persona of, like, a Superville.
Like, that's, like, that's his whole thing is, like, he just made a video against some, like, TikTok, some trans TikTok influencer or something, like, saying the most awful things he could about her, like, about her appearance, about her humanity.
Like, very sociopathic stuff.
So I feel like this might be a concerted effort to, like, make him seem like just a real husband who forgets to... who forgets to... that half the fish tank has evaporated somehow in the last three days.
Not only that, but I think they're trying to gatekeep husband hatred.
Trans women can't hate their husbands like cis women can.
You don't understand the real visceral hate I have for my husband.
It comes from somewhere you don't understand.
They're going to try to make that a marker of a real woman.
You know, quote, real woman, they're going to be like, oh, well, you probably like your husband.
It's actually pretty.
It's actually pretty sus to me.
Well, I think it's it's like it's like a release valve or like it's like signaling, because I think naturally, like women just hate men.
Like, you know, men are men are kind of awful in a lot of respects.
And so this gives like If you're annoyed with men, or you like to dunk on them, or whatever, this gives you permission to be part of the right-wing movement.
It gives you a lane.
Very true, yeah.
The natural state of the sexes is war between the sexes, and men rule, women drool, that sort of thing.
So this allows that to still function.
Do you really think, what's her name from that show?
What's the futuristic dystopia where women are brought to heel and they have to wear the clothing that they wear?
You know.
They're brought to heel?
I don't know.
They're subservient.
They're like slaves.
They wear the clothes that everybody wears.
Oh, Handmaid's Tale?
Yeah, Handmaid's Tale.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't even remember what I was saying now at this point.
Well, no, I think you're right, though.
I think this is a little opening the door to to the misandrist feminist, you know, like, hey, is your motivation for being a feminist like the hatred of men?
Well, we got some stuff for you.
Let me let me show you how much I hate my husband.
You got to you got to actually get yourself a husband because that's someone you're really allowed to really hate.
Yeah.
And you won't know real hatred of that husband until you've had six children with him.
Like, you can say you hate men, but have you ruined a life?
Right, and then once you get married, you have six children with him, and then you'll really start to hate them.
That's how you, uh... That's how you crystallize your hatred.
That's how you realize it in its purest form, and coincidentally, you're just, like, automatically part of the quiverful movement now.
And if those six children aren't doing the job, you can always get between three and twenty fish.
Yeah, but introduce them slowly.
Slowly, yeah.
Don't want to shock the system.
We're fishes.
We're fishes.
I don't know why the innocent die.
- Okay.
Again, have I got a documentary for you?
It's called Loose Change.
It's called Loose Change, yeah.
Alright, so Tony, you're a renter, right?
You're a rentoid, you rent your apartment you live in.
Fortunately, I am a renter, yeah.
Yeah, man, wow.
I don't even remember what that was like, to be honest.
It's the fucking worst.
Yeah, okay, so if you had to say, like, the number one problem, or the number one, I don't know, con of renting, as opposed to owning, is that you don't feel like you own.
Um, yes, in the sense that, like, so for instance, my my place was recently remodeled.
I kind of right before I went in, they like refurbished it, you know, and they put in just the worst shit, just like the cheapest, worst things of all time.
Oh, like, like decorating.
Yeah.
OK.
No, no, like bad materials.
Yeah.
Things just dilapidating already.
I've only been here for three years.
And I can't I can't like I can't and have no reason to like replace the shower tiles.
You know, I don't own this place.
You know, like I would love to do like I love the cupboards are awful.
I hate the kitchen cupboards are the worst kitchen cupboards.
They're not the right size for anything.
They're like.
They're like just oddly sized anyways.
So yeah, I hate that shit and I can't do anything about it because it's just like, oh, it's not my place.
Right, right.
That is true.
But I'm not talking about actually having any say over what goes in the apartment, how it's kept up or anything.
I'm just talking about the feeling of owning it.
Like that good, warm feel.
Like if you could have that feeling, Like you did own it without any of the real world application of that.
Oh, sign me up.
That might be something.
OK, I have an article here from Bloomberg.
Adam Neumann.
That's how you would say it in German.
So I don't care how this this American says his last name.
If this if we were in Germany, it's a German name.
Neumann.
Adam Neumann says his apartments will make tenants want to plunge their own toilets.
The WeWork co-founder spoke publicly at length for the first time about his new residential startup, Flow.
Oh, no.
So this is the guy who was a co-founder of WeWork, which if you're unfamiliar with that, it's a real estate company that tried to like, you know, what's that word?
Disrupt the office space, the like office space industry.
We're trying to amplify renting out office space.
Oh, and surprise, surprise.
Not even really that much of a surprise, to be honest, because he bankrupted the company.
They forced him out.
I think he lost the company billions of dollars, something like that.
Yeah.
Which is crazy, because it's like, how do you bankrupt a real estate company?
Yeah, a real estate company.
You had like infinite customer base.
You're renting out the option to walk in the door and like use the amenities.
You weren't even like it wasn't even a shelter thing.
You wouldn't have it wasn't even like a traditional renting thing.
Like you weren't even a regular a regular landlord.
It wasn't even easier than a landlord.
Well, in my mind, it's kind of a stupid idea to even try to go down that road.
We're going to we're going to have like an Uber for renting an office.
Like who wants to rent an office?
I'll work in my fucking bedroom for free.
What the fuck are you talking about?
No, I'm going to say there's there's room for something like a co-working space.
That was like the idea.
But that's how they pitched it.
They pitched it like this is a co-working space.
This is where, you know, you're going to catch the vibes of other people creating and you're just going to you're going to ride that wave.
And you can also rent, you know, this meeting this room for an office.
Like, I kind of get that, you know, I get it.
But that's never it.
But like as susceptible As the people who like are in the income bracket to rent out an office space, you know, as like, you know, rich, rich young people.
Wretched is what I meant to say.
Wretched young people who are in the financial position to do this.
They are susceptible to grifts.
They are susceptible to like Silicon Valley, Hucksterism or whatever.
I think they're still so anti other people and anti other people's vibes that it that it would not work.
It would not worry.
Do you want to work in a space with other people?
You know that city you're like developing to try and get away from specifically to get away from the rest of the people in the city?
How about you enmesh yourself with them for eight hours a day and pay me to do it?
Yeah, still I can understand why it didn't work, but it's very funny that Yeah, this guy's, I guess, just, yeah, a billionaire or a millionaire and has a new venture called Flow.
This is a residential, residential startup.
Man, a resident, that's what we're calling like being being a real estate landlord, being like a high volume land.
Oh, it's just a residential startup like that.
It sounds like what they would call You know, Elon Musk working out of his garage.
Oh, it's a startup in a residential area.
Like, that's how soft that name for it is.
Very funny.
I mean, I don't like that because if this is about housing, the idea of flow is not good.
I want stability.
It's also very funny that it's called Flo and he used a toilet metaphor.
In this speech, he uses, like in the headline, he wants tenants to plunge their own toilets.
In Adam Neumann's residential real estate company, Flo, he's hoping that if his residents, quote, feel like owners, regardless of their actual equity ownership, of course, he didn't have to include That in here, that they would ever be part of the equity ownership of this dude's fucking real estate company.
They will plunge their own toilets instead of calling the superintendent.
You're so hateful.
You think that renters are such pieces of shit that like...
That they take a big, fat dump in their toilet.
Just out of spite.
And they clog it up.
Just to spite you.
And then they just call their landlord.
That's what being a landlord is.
A landlord is mostly going and, like, plunging shit.
Like, if my fucking toilet backs up, I'm gonna plunge it myself.
I'm not gonna call my goddamn landlord.
Most everyone's gonna plunge their own toilet.
This is...
Oh, I guess you're gonna plunge it with pride, though.
I'm gonna plunge it and feel good about it.
There's so much going on here.
I think the answer is, like, this guy has never plunged a toilet.
This guy doesn't realize that you're supposed to just plunge a toilet.
Like, whoever clogs it, plunges it.
That's like... Exactly.
Because, I mean, and if you can't get it with the plunger, then you call the superintendent.
But I love the implication that angry, unsatisfied tenants are doing direct action against their landlords by taking a huge dookie and shoving it halfway down the pipe.
That's so good.
Maliciously eating fibrous things.
Just eating a really particular diet.
Just bread and beans for a whole week?
Yep.
That's it.
I'm trying to fuck this guy up.
I'm trying to fuck this toilet up.
I fucking hate my landlord.
I need him to come plunge this dookie for me.
Yeah, one time, you know, I'm a proud landlord.
One time I went to a tenant's restroom, you know, on a tenant's request when it went into the... it's my bathroom, really.
Yeah, exactly, yeah.
I looked out of the toilet and I was like, oh, this is diarrhea.
How did he clog?
How did he clog the toilet with just a big pile of diarrhea?
Sure enough, there were solid turds in there.
He just waited to call me until he had diarrhea on top of the blocked toilet.
So it was like sticking out of the water, which is the stink.
That is real stinky when that happens.
Um...
Do you know how hard it is to train your body to do a really solid shit followed by like a runny shit?
It takes discipline.
That's how much I fucking hate my landlord.
I use the Wim Hof method to help orchestrate my body's bowels.
What method is that?
I'm not familiar with it.
It's the guy who, like, breathes really heavy and, like, goes in ice water.
Well, yeah, it is a lot of core work, for sure.
Yeah, exactly, yeah.
Yeah, so, again, in reality, I think this is, like, not so much an inferred war on landlords that he's talking about, but...
Just like an assumption that that's what you have to do when your toilet clogs is you just call somebody else to deal with it.
But then people in the replies here on Insider, in the comment section on Insider Business Facebook page, most people were like, uh, fuck you, dude.
Like they just hated this guy for obvious reasons.
Uh, but some people like Dylan here says, wait, dot, dot, dot.
Do some people not plunge their own toilet if it gets clogged?
Didn't know that level of laziness existed.
And Martinez replies, it does.
Yep, it sure does.
So I just love this reaction from like a small subset of humanity, at least on Facebook, which is you see a wealthy guy who fucking like scammed his way into more money with a bad idea and then got bought out of his own company because he fucked up so bad.
Like literally fell upwards the whole time.
And then he talks about how you need a superintendent to plunge a toilet.
And some people are still like, wow, yeah, I'm with this guy.
Other people are just too lazy.
Yeah.
I mean, it must be real.
This guy said it's real.
Yeah.
It's definitely real.
I know that.
Oh, I don't know anyone who would do that because I don't hang out with those kinds of people.
But they're definitely real.
I went to, um... Like, you don't want to have to call somebody if you plug the toilet up.
Like, you don't want to make it somebody else's problem.
I mean, a tenant would, though.
I guess that's the difference between a landlord and a tenant, is a tenant just wants to inflict as much misery on the landlord as possible.
I wish that was true.
Like I had an issue with my plumbing recently where I'm so like last year we had like a septic issue where my septic tank was basically like full, I guess.
And it was like coming up through the shower.
It was awful.
And then we fixed that.
And that was after a while after me being like, oh, I could probably fix this.
And then you're like, oh, never mind.
I can't fix this.
It's terrible.
And so then they fixed it.
And then recently, Whenever I would drain my kitchen sink, it will come up through the shower.
And again, I tried everything, all my plumbing knowledge, I used all my plumbing knowledge to try to fix it myself.
But then it was like something I can't fix.
And then I went to my landlord.
Like that's, that's what happens.
And also when I was doing things like flood and fire mitigation, that's what always happens.
Nobody wants to call these, like nobody wants to take care of this.
No, it feels like you're going to get in.
It feels awful.
It feels like you're going to get into trouble when you tell them, even if it's not your fault, even if it's their fault specifically, it's just like a conversation where you, and it's also a vulnerable position to put yourself in because you have to be depending on somebody else and you have to like, Is the way I ask them to do this going to determine whether or not they do it?
Do I have to be extra nice to them when I ask them to fix this thing?
How often do I have to bug them about it?
What's impolite?
If I'm too impolite, are they going to say, fuck the whole thing, you fix it, or take me to court?
I don't have money to fight this in court.
I don't know.
There's a lot of A lot of externals that would go into, you know, not plunging your own toilet.
Dude, and the plumber, because the plumber was like, oh, it was, you know, you have all your plumbing connected, you have a septic, it's an old house, whatever.
He's like, just don't put any food down the drain, dude.
And I'm like, I don't put food down the drain.
I don't have a, I don't even, but I don't even have like a trash, I don't have a trash, what do you call them?
Trash compactor on, yeah, like in Star Wars.
Yeah, I don't have a trash compactor.
No, not trash compactor, whatever.
Garbage disposal.
Because my landlord doesn't want me to have that because those up your insurance.
Wow.
So because I don't have a garbage disposal... That's right, I fucking remembered it, huh?
Because I don't have a garbage disposal, little tiny bits of food add up to where it's like, that's not my fucking fault, dude.
Like... Yeah.
I don't have a garbage disposal because my landlord won't let me have one because people think it causes more flooding.
You just put a little mesh screen in your drain, dude.
I'm on your plumber's side, alright?
Get your shit together, bro.
Okay.
He fixed it, though.
Your landlord fixed it, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, they fixed it, yeah.
The plumber was even like, he's like, I don't think you do.
I don't think you do do this.
Just, I have to tell you not to do that.
I was like, thank you.
But see, Tony, what if, like, You got rewards points every month you rented from your landlord for being a good tenant.
Wouldn't that incentivize you to pay the plumber $60 an hour out of your own pocket to fix your landlord's pipes?
That's what they're proposing, huh?
I don't even know.
So let me read more from this.
They will plunge their own toilets instead of calling the superintendent.
That was one of the takeaways from a talk Neumann gave at a conference organized by Flow's major venture capital backer, Andresen Horowitz.
The investor released new footage this week from the closed-door event, which took place in November, the first time Neumann spoke at length about his business.
Noyman had remained tight-lipped about what Flo actually does ever since Anderson Horowitz invested $350 million in August.
Flo will own and operate multifamily residential apartment buildings and has plans to debut in cities such as Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Miami, and Nashville, Tennessee.
Even in the new video, which runs for more than 50 minutes, Neumann is coy about core aspects of the business, such as how Flow will simulate ownership for tenants while maintaining control of the buildings.
Yeah, you're gonna like, you're gonna like, do a Google Yelp review.
Like, you're gonna do a Yelp review for it, and they're gonna give you investor points.
You're gonna have, like, an app that has ownership points, and you get to exchange those points for, like, $10 off next month's rent.
I would almost be okay with something like that.
If per se, I was renting the property and not the house.
So that I could do things to the house.
Something like that.
But I was paying a really cheap price.
But you know that's not going to be happening.
You're not going to be seeing some crazy savings by going with flow.
No, they're gonna tell you, oh no, you're paying for the right to do this.
You're paying for the opportunity to plunge your own toilet.
They took that, so this is what I wanted to say earlier, they took, he took that fucking meme, like, the two cultural memes where, that are true, where it's like, oh, if a worker gets paid more money, they'll feel more ownership over the company, and they'll do a better job, and they'll want, they'll be incentivized to keep their job or whatever, which,
Is, of course, true, but it's like, you know, one of those, like, liberal capitalist platitudes that, like, Dan Price, the cool millionaire, will tweet out about why you should raise your employees' wages, is because it makes, it gives your company more profits, you know?
And it's like, it might be something the Teamsters would say about how successful UPS is, you know?
If you pay your employees a living wage, they actually do good work, and you actually, like, attract talent, or attract that level of whatever, effort.
that level of labor, um, took that, those two ideas and was like, oh, we're just going to trick tenants into thinking they have the ownership that like, um, you know, comes, comes from like, you know, communities where people do have like an investment in that community communities where people do have like an investment in that because you bought a house, you were able to buy a house here and, you know, And so you have an investment in who your neighbors are.
You might like look after each other's homes when somebody goes on vacation or like get to know, you know, babysit for their children or something.
And not that you don't do that if you don't rent, but I'm talking about like the material sort of at like, like keeping up the yard, like, uh, Decorating for Christmas.
Decorating for Christmas, doing like quality of life or like aesthetic upgrades, you know, keeping it up in your neighborhood.
And he thinks that he can like trick people into feeling that community, for lack of a better word, which It says right here, the idea of monetizing, quote, community was a major selling point of Neumann's last business, WeWork.
Yeah, the one that failed, the business that failed, that he had, that he fucking drove into the ground.
Oh yeah, that's the whole, that was like, you said that was the whole appeal of WeWork and it is going to be this like trick, right?
They're just going to be.
Hoodwink thinking they can present their individuality, but what it's gonna be is you're still gonna like, you're gonna be able to customize your house, I bet.
But what that means is you get to pick a color that's not white for your wall.
And you're gonna pay a premium for individuality, which is ownership, because it's yours now.
You customized it.
You picked between the, you know, you picked between the Sunflower Yellow, the Burnt Orange, you know, the Olive Green and the Royal Blue accent wall.
You picked the one you wanted.
And now it's yours.
That could be a possibility, but the thing is, tenants already do that.
People who rent already paint their walls and then they just paint them back if they move.
And of course, from the landlord's side of this, you'd be like, well, that's not allowed.
They don't have permission to do that.
What this program would do would be to give you permission in a contract form to do that.
But in this next paragraph here, I think it, like, indicates what he's actually talking about.
The idea of monetizing, quote, community was a major selling point of Neumann's Last Business We Work.
I love monetizing community.
Just that thing that we say, we pretend like capitalism is coherent with.
We pretend that capitalism can somehow support the idea of community.
We're not pretending that anymore.
We're like saying, no, we're going to try and like carve out some sort of profit just by going after the literal community.
The whole point of community is to kind of like live outside of the capital's aspect of it.
The whole idea of community, the biggest example is barring a cup of sugar.
You know?
Yeah.
But now it really is like, uh, oh hey, can I, can I get a cup of sugar?
I don't know.
Do you have a couple flow coins?
For a couple flow coins, you can ask for sugar.
I'm just low on flow coins right now.
And you know, that's how we, that's how we get the water.
Although he was ousted as chief executive officer of WeWork in 2019, he hasn't given up on the notion.
Flo's goal, he explained, is, quote, to find a way to share with the resident a portion of the value that they create.
That value, quote, is going to make them feel ownership.
And it's not just ownership.
And then the sub quote, I feel like I'm part of something.
It's, quote, I actually own part of something.
So they're going to get like percentages of shares in the company.
From the guy who tanked his last company.
Yes, you're going to be paying fucking $1,700 a month for a studio, or probably more, $2,400 a month for a studio apartment.
Also, we're not going to provide plumbing services.
You're going to have to figure that whole thing out.
But, you'll get shares in a company that may or may not exist in one year.
You know what's really gonna suck?
Is the lawsuit that's gonna come out when, and no one's getting in trouble for it, when people sublease these places.
So that someone else is renting, paying more money than the actual rent, and then also not getting whatever the equity's supposed to be.
That's gonna happen.
Well, isn't that legal?
Can't you sublease?
It would be determined by the contract that you signed with Flo, I guess.
No, because now you're an owner, and the coolest thing about being a homeowner is the opportunity to be a landlord.
Exactly.
And now you can do it through Flo.
Noyman quickly added that quote, the word ownership is a very complicated word, but he continued, if there's perceived value and if that value appreciates over time, then I feel like I'm part of a community.
And I don't even know if I would go as far to say they're going to get stuck.
Maybe they'll get stock options.
They'll get the option to buy stock.
I don't know if that's really what stock options are, but you know what?
I bet it is.
I bet it.
What it is is that you now, you now like own this portion of the property, right?
So that if hypothetically flow were to sell the property, you would get that cut as, as probably like your exit package.
You know what I'm saying?
It's probably like your, That's probably how it's going to be said because there's no other way for that to make any sense.
Yeah, maybe.
And also, I bet this does, is because you have ownership, now you're also responsible for the property insurance.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, they're taking all of that stuff directly out of your checking account every month.
Or they just give you, like, dividends.
They give you dividends of, like, a pool.
Like, they pool a percentage of your rent with all the other tenants and then they give you, like, dividends off of that or something every month.
And then it goes back towards your rent, and so then now your rent's cheaper, but is it really cheaper?
Or do they just raise it so much that you can still barely afford it while getting these supposed dividends back?
How much you want to bet they're just going to leave like pieces in the lobby once a month.
An important element of the business proposition is that renters who stay longer are more profitable.
Neumann said his theory is that people who feel a sense of ownership will stick around.
It's more like people who can afford to stick around.
Well, nobody wants to move like nobody wants to have to move again.
You know, if somebody is in an apartment, like, I rarely hear, not rarely, but more often I hear that people are comfortable in their living space, if they have a living space, are comfortable in their living space, then like hate their living space and want to leave.
Totally.
Like, I have a list of reasons why I want to move, but I have a longer list of reasons why it doesn't make sense to move because I'm actually okay.
Because I am surviving and I'm fairly, like, I'm not distressed over my situation, so therefore all the other things I do need, I'm okay with sacrificing because the change would be still tumultuous, you know?
Yeah, it's like that thing...
Where it's like, well sure, things could be better, but they could be a lot worse, because I've been in a lot worse, and I know what that's like, and I would rather have the current, like, whatever stage of comfort I'm at.
The plunger factor would be an added benefit for Flo.
Quote, if you're in an apartment building and you're a renter and your toilet gets clogged, you call the super.
He said those fucking tenants that that's what they do.
This is either like a disparaging remark against tenants who can't even plunge their own fucking toilets, or it's just he's so out of touch.
He thinks that that's what you do when a toilet gets clogged.
Yeah, I think that's exactly what it is.
I don't think he's ever actually had to do these transactions himself.
No.
And then it just goes on like, you know, gobbledygook tech bro, inspirational business speak.
WeWork famously made its mission statement to elevate the world's consciousness.
When discussing Flo's financial services arm, oh my God, dude, there's going to be an arm of financial services.
So you're just going to be like in debt.
Oh my God.
You're going to live in Flo.
Flo's also going to have like a low income option that's just going to be like drawers that you can like sleep in.
What if the place where you lived was also a payday advanced loan company?
Yeah.
Don't worry, we also own several manufacturing facilities, so if you need help getting a job, you know, we got you.
Jesus fucking Christ, man.
Somebody get to this motherfucker right now.
They're gonna team with Amazon.
Since leaving WeWork, Neumann has gotten into crypto, and Flow's financial services arm will include a digital wallet for handling cryptocurrencies, Bill Bloomberg reported last year.
Goddamn.
Yeah, that makes sense, because I went to the Flow website, and that's what Flow, like, what Flow is right now is just that.
And because they're, they're, they're trying to say, like, the future of culture and community is what they're, but it's, it's his digital wallet right now.
Yeah, this is like a bunch of the, I don't know what you would call them, the part of the right wing that's like super obsessed with the World Economic Forum and like not eating the bugs, or not necessarily the bugs, but like the walkable cities, the people who are like railing against the idea of having a walkable city designed around like people.
Pedestrians.
Yeah, pedestrians.
This is like their worst nightmare.
But it's true.
This would be bad.
This would be very bad if the people who owned your apartment, your home, were also involved in the speculative Bitcoin market, and also were a financial services company that you had to pay your rent through them.
You had to have a fucking digital wallet, and that's how you pay your rent every month.
Insane.
Yeah.
No, thank you.
There's a reason why, like, there's a reason why car dealerships can't give out loans.
They have to work through a third party.
Like, that's a real law, you know?
That makes sense.
So wild.
Couple of responses here from Insider Business.
Mina says, I am sick of my tenants.
Just sick of them.
Dot, dot, dot.
You could just stop being a landlord any, any, any day.
Anytime you want.
Like, Just stop it.
Um, who, where are you going to live, Tony?
If the landlords stop being landlords, where are you going to, who are you going to rent from?
Huh?
I didn't even think about that.
I did not even think about that.
Somebody has to fucking do it.
And the least Mina should be able to do is go online and, and like vent their spleen.
You know, this like, let them come.
Oh, now they can't even complain.
Landlords have to hold up society all by themselves and they can't even complain about it.
And it's it's it's true.
I forget that I can't I wouldn't be able to be here without them, because like, although I pay much more than the mortgage on those places and much more than the property taxes places, I'm not a landlord.
So I don't get those.
You know, I don't get those credits.
It's kind of like I don't get to park and, you know, I don't get to park in like veteran parking because I wasn't a vet.
So therefore, I don't get landlord rates because I don't I don't deserve them.
If I if I if I deserve them, I would be a homeowner if I deserved it.
You have to earn that kind of stuff.
I'll get there.
I'll get there one day.
I mean, maybe some people just don't have it in them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't got that dog in me.
Actually, if my landlord asks, I actually don't have that dog with me.
That dog is not with me.
So if my landlord does ask, there's no dog.
Last one here was from Seren, who says, people should read their rental contracts.
Mine was not sent to me in a timely manner.
I signed before I got to read it and am responsible for all maintenance and repairs as if I were an owner.
Regardless, that sucks.
Sounds awful.
I'm sorry that happened to you.
You should read your rental agreement, but that seems predatory.
They shouldn't have done that to you.
Regardless, I am smart and handy, so haven't had too many real issues.
Had to call a plumber once.
However, I am 35 and have had countless roommates both younger and older who have been completely and utterly incapable of doing anything.
Some of them had literally never once touched cleaning supplies.
It has been shocking to me how ridiculous some tenants are.
Wait, hold on.
So you this person wasn't even a tenant.
It's still a tenant today, right?
Yeah.
And they're getting fucked over really hard by their landlord.
It's just like, oh, funny.
I've had shitty roommates.
So therefore, yeah, tenants are bad.
I didn't think about that.
Yeah.
She's like, my landlord, the people who have like control over my housing situation, like tricked me into paying for all the upkeep on their property.
But listen, I've had some roommates who seems like they've never even touched a sponge.
So who's to say who's at fault here?
I mean, they got me, but they could have got my roommate.
So I don't blame them for putting that in the contract.
Brad says, wow, yeah, it's so hard to snap a picture at signing time.
I don't know if that's sarcastic.
I don't know really what they're trying to say there.
Saran replies, it was a digital signature not attached to the lease.
LOL.
I'm not even sure that in itself is legal either.
Shrugging emoji sweating emoji didn't receive a digital copy of lease for at least six months after asking several times It might have even been longer than that Jesus but renters right everybody like how do you have this mind like?
How do you have this mindset It sucks, and that's a real thing.
I mean, that's one of the biggest, that's why landlords reign supreme so hard is because we don't know our rights.
Yeah.
We don't know our rights as tenants.
Like, I don't know, I'll put this out there, if anybody knows, I'm pretty sure the fill dirt that they used from replacing the septic tank, I'm pretty sure the fill dirt they use is dirty.
Yeah.
It's like, you know how you see signs for like clean dirt needed?
Clean dirt, yeah.
This is definitely dirty dirt.
Um, like, do I got anything here?
Do I got a, do I got an angle here?
I don't know.
I don't think so.
You probably signed off for that.
I probably said, yeah, give me the dirty dirt.
That was our backyard.
The backyard that I spent all last summer digging up.
The reason I pulled so many rocks and concrete out of it was because they filled the entire backyard with like filled dirt, like, like, uh, like construction dirt, like dirt from a fucking construction site.
Yeah, like this has like little bits of glass all throughout it.
And it also smells when it rains.
It's great.
Yeah, it's tight.
Ty, last one.
Ty says he isn't wrong on this one.
The problem with tenants is they don't have, quote, skin in the game.
As such, they mistreat their rentals and or expect landlords to do everything, even though they can easily take care of it if it were their own house.
It's not their house.
Why would they take care of it like it's their own house?
Yeah, exactly.
Also, yeah, because we no one expects to get their deposit back.
You don't live your life in a way that you think you're getting a deposit back.
You think that'd be cool if I do, but you just kind of surrender that you're probably not getting your deposit back.
So, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and I'll keep it dirty.
Another cool thing about being in a union is often you have access to free legal services.
Uh, so I was able to have my Teamster lawyer send a threatening letter to my last landlord about giving me my deposit back.
Uh, and then they just gave it, I didn't have to like take them to court or anything, you know, cause you can't use a lawyer in small claims court, uh, but you can use them to send a threatening letter, uh, to, to the other party.
So, I think it's cool that you have a copy of that that I could just copy and paste and do a couple edits in when I get out of here.
So yeah, thank you for that.
Yeah.
I mean, you can.
Yeah.
I'm an expert now.
I know how to do that kind of stuff.
So it's just me imparting knowledge.
Cool.
Cool, cool, cool.
Yeah.
All right.
Last thing I wanted to talk about here.
This was posted into the Facebook group by Shay, I believe.
So thank you, Shay.
This is from the Sydney Morning Herald.
This is lifestyle and relationships advice, or also business advice.
I'm the CEO, but my staff are bullying me.
What do I do?
So these questions are answered by a Dr. Kristen Ferguson, who tackles questions on the workplace, career, and leadership in her advice column, Got a Minute?
This week, a CEO being bullied by their own staff.
Wow.
I love that so much.
Yeah, let me read the question.
I am in an unusual situation where I am the CEO and I am being bullied by two of my staff members.
I wish this were an unusual situation.
Sadly, this is happening everywhere.
Just CEOs in this woke environment.
Now CEOs, they're not given the respect that they used to command.
Yeah.
It's a sad, sad day.
They don't quiver in my presence anymore.
They talk openly about wages and stuff.
It's disgusting.
What's a good prank you could do on your CEO?
Like a strike?
Like a fake strike?
I mean, a real strike would be even prankier.
That's even a better prank, right?
Really commit to the bid.
I am in an unusual situation where I am the CEO, and I am being bullied by two of my staff members.
They are both smart, articulate, and argumentative, and I find myself having to have support staff for any meetings with them.
So she means like, I have to have backup.
I have to have like, not just backup, but like a support animal in the form of one of my employees there to keep morale, to keep me calm during these meetings.
Amazing.
It's got so smart.
It's so smart and articulate.
They're definitely like black, right?
Do you think they also take credit for like, I know we just hire really good staff around here.
So I kind of did this to myself.
Yeah.
Even though they had nothing to do with the hiring process, I'm sure.
The articulate comment.
I think she means articulate like Obama was articulate.
Yeah, well spoken.
It's got to the point where I feel sick every day that I go to work.
But hey, we all know there's no sick days for CEOs.
CEOs don't have that luxury.
Can't clock out.
They undermine me publicly, tell me what work they will and won't do, and have team meetings.
See, this is why, see, okay, now I'm, I don't know how cool this article is because this might be anti-union propaganda.
This might be, like, seeding a question into an advice column that proves you don't need a union.
You can actually just be a dick to your CEO.
You can tell them what you will and won't do without any sort of collective bargaining or union representation there.
Yeah, that's actually, that's a valid point here.
You know, they're just, this is an example of, you know, the CEO of your business is probably just like the CEO.
No, it's fine.
How many people have ever been in the same room with their CEO in order to disrespect them?
A small business CEO, maybe?
Do they call them CEOs?
Do they just say CEO?
Yeah, I don't think so.
Yeah.
Um, they undermine me publicly.
Tell me what work that they will and won't do and have team meetings that I am excluded from.
It's it almost sounds like they're running the company.
Sounds like they have way more control over you and are just maybe annoyed with you at this point.
Yeah, you're just like you don't help at all.
You just give us the worst fucking ideas all the time.
Like we can't fire you because you're a stakeholder, actually.
But like you, you don't help.
You just.
You're inefficient to be around, to be honest.
That's what I'm going to say.
I have always been kind and considerate to all my staff, so this is a shock.
It seems, as employees, that they have all the power and I have none.
Okay, now it's back to being Marxist propaganda for me.
We're good now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's, that's absolutely true.
And I guess, theoretically, you don't need a union if everybody in the company gets together to bully their boss on an agreed set of terms.
It's like a union without the paperwork.
Yeah, so just get that and you'll be fine.
You don't need the union.
It seems like labor should be entitled to all the wealth it creates.
Help me, Dr. Kristen Ferguson.
- What's happening? - I love this so much.
OK, so here's the answer from Dr. Ferguson.
You are the CEO.
That means you do have the power to change the situation you are in.
You can either remove yourself from the job if it is too stressful for you to handle, or else you can deal with one or both of the employees causing so many issues.
The fact that you have to support other staff to work with them as well should be all you need to know to act.
Okay, this is where we realize Dr. Kristen Ferguson might be reading her questions too quickly.
Because she misinterpreted part of it.
The fact that you have to support other staff to work with them.
She thinks that the CEO said that she has to force other staff, she has to support other staff in their endeavors to work with these two same problematic employees instead of needing them for her own personal backup to support her.
But...
But also, because you're the CEO, you're using them for billable hours, so you're supporting them.
That's true.
And having them in the room.
I don't know.
Being kind and considerate to staff is important for any leader, of course, but you also need to be able to act decisively when needed.
I would recommend you speak to your HR partner or whoever provides you with employment advice and let them know the inappropriate behavior by two staff members has to end, and this may involve performance counseling and or job loss.
Ask them to support you to do that as quickly as possible.
There will be a process to go through and there will be a range of legal issues for you to consider.
However, it is imperative, and I really can't emphasize this enough, it is imperative you act.
You are not fulfilling your duties as CEO, and I am confident that others in your organization see what is happening and are frustrated by your lack of action.
You need to fire them hoes.
They need to be gone.
That's so funny.
They're making you look weak.
They're all laughing at you.
Ryder, they are all laughing at you behind your back.
You're a mockery.
I am.
This must be like a new CEO because like, yeah, what you do as a CEO and this happens, you go to human resources and what human resources does is they figure out a way to get rid of you legally.
That's what they do.
Human Resources finds a way to be like, OK, yeah, this is they're doing their job, but they did like for me, for instance, they're doing their job, but they did work from home off of a personal computer, which is clearly a violation.
So they got to go.
That's what Human Resources does for the CEO.
This I mean, you're totally right, but like I mean, in most states, you don't even need a reason.
Like, in most states, you're like an at-will employer, at-will employment.
Like, isn't California an at-will employer?
Like, you could just fucking fire people for no reason.
Yes, but then you're at risk of them getting unemployment.
You don't want them to get unemployment.
Just want to salt the earth.
I think this is a position where she can't fire them because maybe the other shareholders, the other stakeholders like these employees be like because they're efficient and they run the organization.
This is all speculation, but I just why wouldn't you fire these people?
You know?
Yeah.
I also like, however, it is imperative that you act.
No matter what you do, your job as CEO is to act.
You have to be changing things.
Gotta do it.
Even if it's for no reason, even if it makes things worse, you still have to start changing things.
We need a new software for the program that we've been using for the last 10 years with no problems that everybody already knows like the back of their hand.
We need a new program now.
Because I'm CEO and that's what my job is.
My job is to fuck everybody's life up and for them to know that it was me.
Part of that job is being the sacrificial lamb or the figurehead for the most asinine, arbitrary decisions in a business's history.
Yeah, I mean, I do get the idea, though, that this CEO is not very good at their job and that this, like, saying yes and no and what I'll do and what I don't do and getting excluded from meetings is because they're not good at that aspect of the job.
They're not helpful in the meetings.
But this poor CEO is like, yeah, you're not good at your job.
They're probably going to fire these people for sure.
I think probably they're gonna talk to HR and HR is gonna be like, internally, like, yeah, I know why they treat you like this, because you're really fucking annoying.
So it's just going to like say the bare minimum to, oh yeah, well, we'll devise a four-point program on how to deal with this issue.
We'll touch base and circle back here in two weeks, all right?
Ms.
or Mr. CEO, and then they're scot-free, you know, for about 14 days.
All right, that's the episode.
Thank you so much for listening.
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