Transcript
Welcome to business pants. We are free flow. We are. Matt Ari. Jesse Damien today's podcast. Business pants, corporate theater. Let me hand it off to our MC. And get the show going. Our corporate theater players. This week, all the extraordinary Courtney Cook. Phil Haack, Ashley kutza and Mark McGee. This week on the show, we have an impressive and delightful Cornucopia of sketches that truly demonstrate this skill and hard work here at the business pants corporate theater. Up first. Based on an article. From Business Insider. That details a full list of major companies require their employees to return to the office. We have a sketch called. The Phantom of Clarkson Corp. Did you get the documents? Are they all in order? Which one the ones that we sent you this morning? She needs them. Cold. Eyes. Oh hello Harold Harold. Who the hell is Harold? Steadily Vise grip, choked to death by overwork and cruel and operatic management know there is only the fence. I'll call security. No, no, he's harmless. The company knows about him. He lives in the basement. I might dwell in the bows of the soul is still building but my spirit is on every floor, in every office in every Corridor. He Ventures out to use the bathroom every now and then. Oh, come on. Wait, what is this? Beware of the cold, corporate vice grip on your life. Harold, used to be Harold tuber from accounting. He worked for the company for over 30 years, and one day, he just snapped Legend is that his supervisor had him, working 75 hours, a week, with no time off for 18 months, straight. Jesus. I was bound to my desk by the heavy chain. Three and inhuman daily quotes that reduced my once confident nature to a bubbling puddle of nervous, human Jello. Like I said, Harold snapped one day ransacked the whole accounting Division and disappeared. He was found a few months later living in the basement, the company investigated and ended up firing his supervisor for overworking his department and put safeguards in the effects. So that wouldn't happen again to any other employees Harold kind of became a company folk hero after that, the phone of Clerks and core is amazing. But they let him live in the basement. Yeah, he's got a nice little setup down there and they leave him food from the cafeteria every day. He makes appearances once in a while but he's nothing to fear. I love his cape. What is it made of laminated? Spreadsheets. Yeah my children. Who have gone just putting in some extra hours Harold. We're we're about to head out. No, that's where it begins. Since Clarkson's covid, restrictions eased management has been calling employees back to the office. The thinking, is that productivity increases when workers are in the office together, a lot of companies are doing this now. Oh, that is why I've seen more of you Milling around lately. It's almost impossible for me to privately, refresh myself in the 12th floor. Bathroom anymore. Clarkson wants us to be in the office at least three times a week. Now they're also threatening to terminate workers who don't comply bastards uncompromising. Corporate, Sweatshop bastards, I guess I can understand the company's reasoning. Maybe you do build more of a work Community when everyone is in the same space I don't know. It's not like we worked at home, totally isolated. It seemed like we had twice the amount of meetings I felt I was constantly on Zoom with a group or an individual. I almost found it difficult to have time just for my regular work and we definitely had to be more detail. The way we documented our hours, they just couldn't accept the fact that you were enjoying a bit of Freedom. It made them lose their controlling Minds. That they couldn't be literally peering over your shoulders. As they're syrupy drool, dripped unto your keyboard and their foul oniony breath. Made your eyes water, Jesus. Has nothing to do with this lot. The pandemic was a godsend to the age-old concept of the corporate office. No longer was it just a mundane beige and gray grid was endless rows of identical cubicles. The office was now anywhere any employee chose to work and it was beautiful. If only I had the ability to venture out on my windowless, three by three block to work. Some days in my apartment with an open window glasses, covering my walls and my cat stuff on Rachel Alberto and Queen Victoria's sitting on my lap. Oh what a different path. My pathetic. Existence would have taken, you know, I kind of agree with you here Phantom. I think this is a control thing. They're trying to make us think that the only reason the working at home option existed was due to covid. But it had been a popular option for many years. Prior they are just extending their bony talents and saying, come back to the next. Dear children, come back to the nest. But it is a nest of vipers. Deadly, controlling Vipers. Vipers have talent. Oh, you think you pour? Ratcheting up. Harold, calm down. There is no, that is only the Phantom. Where does the organ music come from? You know, we've never been able to figure that out. What are you going to do about this new in-office policy gentlemen, what are you going to do? I'm not sure we can do anything. It's their company. Their company, their company, a wrong. You are the company of my children. You, you are the heart and soul and without you, there is no company. The worker is the company, make them remember that. Make them never forget that. How do we do that? Yeah, look inside my left side, keep pouch. I have 107 black Sharpies distribute them amongst the workers and have them, right? I am The company wherever they can on the doors on the desks chairs, foreheads, Windows, computer, monitors, television, screens, bathroom mirrors. I've already done all the bathroom mirrors on the 12th floor anywhere and everywhere you can. It's very hard to erase a black sharpie. Yeah, I'm not sure vandalism is the answer but I do like the overall message just maybe not such a literal form per se. You've got to beat them over their heads with their boy. that's, The way they listen. Say what if we literally beat them over the head? We could beat them to death with clubs golf clubs. That would be more sporting. Don't you think golf clubs? What a release? Okay, okay, Harold, we we got to go, excellent, go, go, go, real lives. I'm off to refresh my self again on the 12th floor. Speaking of please tell the chefs to stop putting so much pepper in the buzzer squash soup. It lights my holding up like a Christmas tree. Farewell, My Children, remember my words and heed my advice, especially about the clubs. Well, that was something. Yeah. He's a character, something wrong Harold. My Cape seems to be caught on the corner of this chair. I may not make it to the 12th floor in times, so I suggest you both run run like the wind my children, this is something you need not Witness. There is no Harold, only the friend. Oh shit. I'm very excited about this next piece. It's the first in our series of CEO, confessionals where we ask a CEO to turn on her phone and record, her observation on the job. You may notice that the audio and editing is a bit unrefined. But she's that is because this is a true CEO confessional recorded on her iPhone 4 , 1 4. In this piece. Our CEO is common on a conversation between her workers. and his on a recent New Yorker article called, why everyone feels like their Faking, It the concept of imposter Syndrome has become ubiquitous Critics, and even the ideas, Originators question, it value. Oh my God. I just had the craziest experience in the third floor. Woman's bathroom. Okay? I was coming down from a sweet meeting on the elevator. And all of a sudden a bunch of people got off and I assumed it was the first floor because I was on my phone and I wasn't really paying attention. So I followed everyone out. And said I'm not in the lobby, but I am on the third floor. I don't think I realized I was on third floor at the time, but I really realized I was not on Lobby. I never, I never go to the lower floors but I think maybe marketing or maybe hr's down there. I don't know. So instead of getting back on the elevator, I decide to go to the bathroom before I go to lunch, you know. So I go in. I do my thing. And all of a sudden, I hear these two women come in. and they don't know, I'm there, obviously, because they do not quiet their voices or whisper or anything and it just got so intense. They were talking all about like being a woman in Corporate America. First, I'll back up. Okay, first one woman comes in and she is sobbing, she's crying so hard and I'm thinking oh God like you know how am I going to get out of here, right and then this other woman and older woman comes in she's like Oh my God. What happened? You know you did you did you not get the promotion? You know you were in there for really long time and we were all like waiting for you to come out. Meanwhile, this this young woman is crying now. I'm like Hearing through the cracks of the bathroom stall. So, there's these two white women, maybe I've seen them. I don't know, I don't know. I don't really recognize them. and she's like, no, I got the promotion and The older woman's like, well, why are you crying? And she's like, because I can't take it anymore. I, I feel like a fraud. I feel like a failure. I feel like failure. You just got promoted, and I'm assuming you got a raise. And she's like, yeah, I got a raise and she's, like, I keep getting raises, I keep getting promoted and it doesn't matter. I can't stop feeling like a total fraud and then then at that point, the older woman's like, oh, you just have imposter syndrome. and she's like, Yeah, I know. I have imposter syndrome. I mean, obviously, I haven't posted since she's like no, no, it's a thing. It's a thing. We all have it. She's like, oh, it's called being a woman. She's like, here's what you need to do. Here's what you need to do. You need to get this book. It's called the middle finger project. It's, it's called like trash. You're imposter syndrome and live the unfuckable life you deserve, but she's like, I have that book. Okay. Well, have you done the workbook? There's the there's this exercise where, you know, draw your imposter voice as this creature or this monster. So that you can, like, cross-examine all these like negative self-talk. She's like, I've done that. What about the Mason jar? Were you put affirmations? She's like, Jar. Okay, so this goes on and on and on and on and she's basically like girl, you got to play the game, girl, you gotta suck it up. This is how you get ahead and she's like sobbing like, you know, I put this mask on to do this job and I'm not even acting like myself. It's like it's like I'm conforming to this idea of who I'm supposed to be in the more I do it. The more fucked up. I am because I have to keep it up. I have to keep up this facade. I mean, I'm like, oh my God. What is happening in the third floor? Bathroom right. She's like they're gonna find out and it's like I'm I feel like I'm constantly going to be busted and by the fraud police like they're going to figure out that I don't actually know what the hell I'm doing. And then all this other woman walks in and it's the woman whose voice I immediately recognized. She's a, I think her name is Stephanie. Had I don't know. She's the CFO secretary and she's, she's got this, like, awesome voice this, like no BS. She's I've always liked her anyway and she is like she comes and she's like why the tears ladies, you know? She's like, what were you watching some white woman show at lunch some Steel Magnolias nonsense and then they get to talking about this whole imposter syndrome thing. And and then the older woman goes, you Up this way as a black woman. I could hear a pin drop and I don't know what happened. No one said anything for like, 10 seconds and I was trying so hard not to breathe. And I was holding my breath, I was like, I'm gonna pass out in here and she's like you must this way as a black woman, like an imposter And this woman takes him in it and she's like, you know, I don't have a crisis of self-doubt, you know, why? Because I know that connections and privilege or what get people here, she's like she says to the young. She's like, doesn't your dad work here? Isn't he in Senior Management? There's nothing wrong with me. She's like why would I think something's wrong with me? I am enveloped in a system that is failing to support me. She's like I don't have imposter syndrome. This in this environment is hostile. No wonder no wonder. You feel like something's wrong. Oh my God. And then she's like this whole imposter thing, they are making us think that we're the problem. She's like, Fuck that. There are the problem. This environment is the problem and I'm like, oh my God, is she talking to me? She's like, Fuck that. They're the problem. And then she's like I don't let them tell me I'm the problem. I tell them. Stop telling me I should fix myself at work. When the thing that needs fixing is the place I work, and she's like, White women, stop buying into this whole imposter syndrome. Crap, it's not a syndrome, it's not syndrome. It's an internal experience. You're having that makes sense. In a lot of ways. But at least this corporate world, she's like, at least this corporate world is a realm that you can see your reflection and some degree. I mean but this whole like, you know, I've got imposter syndrome rant. It sounds almost like you're proud of it. Just like the communal. Sorry. To say she was, like the self-deprecation. It's like, oh, you know, oh, you know, she goes. See it for what it is. You're smart, you're prepared, you do the work, So what you have bad days or feel insecure? Sometimes don't let them tell you. There's something wrong with you. Damn. Before I get to our last sketch. Let me once again. Thank our business pants, cooperator, in alphabetical order. They are Courtney Cook. Philip hook, Ashley cutter, and Mark McGee. Let's end Today's Show with a wonderful audio mashup between Monty Python's classic sketch 20th century Bowl. and are very own business pants, corporate Theta, sketch called dead men don't get can, but please enjoy, Hell, the 21st century has done it again. Remember when certain things and characters were funny because they were ludicrous. Ridiculous over the top certainly not something that could exist in the real world in real life. Well, cut to this year when newly appointed owner and ruler of Twitter, Elon Musk. I'm so sorry fired his Executives for simply answering his questions, honestly, and helpful. That's right. He asks a question the person answers it candidly and politely and this person is rewarded by musk's firing him. Subsequently everyone else took the hint and answered musk with whatever he wanted to hear, whatever the hell that may be. It's so absurd. It might as well just be a sketch from Boys, I want you to know that I think you're the best six engineers and advisors and social media today. Here's my problem and I want your help and expertise to fix it. Now look, this is ridiculous. I have more than 100 million followers and I'm only getting tens of thousands of impressions. I want answers. Now, before any of you speaks, I have an idea as to what's going on. It's great. You like it. Yeah. Do you like it? Oh yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. What do you like best about it? Oh, Well, you haven't told us what it is. What? I like what he likes. What do you like? Oh, I like what he likes. I like what he likes, but he likes just crazy about what he likes. What do you like about it? I agree with them. Good. Now we're getting somewhere. Let me continue on what I'm thinking. There's obviously a breakdown in code somewhere. I mean, I have my little blue, check the most popular person on the planet, and I'm a free speech advocate. So I speak my mind and gentlemen, I'm also hysterically funny. So the only explanation is that we have a bug in the cold somewhere, that's y'all need to fix. He tells us why it is. This is something else. I don't know how to say this, but I've got to be perfectly Frank. I really and truly believe. The story of yours is the greatest story in history. There's one thing I can't stand. Say Yes man. Get out. I'll see you never work again. What do you think? Well, I just because I have an idea. It doesn't mean it's great. It could be lousy. It could yeah. What do you think? It's lousy. Oh yeah. Same or if I may offer an alternative explanation, Mr. Musk for your declining reach. Just under a year. After you made your surprise offer to buy Twitter for 44 billion, public interest in your antics is waning Let me show you this. Internal data, regarding engagement with your account, along with this, Google Trends chart, So our last April you were at Peak popularity in search ranking indicated by this score here at 100 today. Unfortunately, Mr. Musk you were to score of 9. Now we Engineers have previously investigated, whether you're reaches, somehow, been artificially restricted as you suggest, but we have found no evidence whatsoever that the algorithm is biased against you. Go on. Okay. Well, as far as morale is going, we haven't seen much in the way of longer term, cogent strategy. Most of our time is dedicated to three main areas, putting out fires mostly caused by firing the wrong people and trying to recover from that performing a possible tasks and improving efficiency without clear guidelines of what the expected end results. Are we mostly move from dumpster fire to dumpster fire from my perspective? Furthermore, your product feedback which comes largely from replies to your tweets, often baffles your workers, there's times you're just awake late at night and you say all sorts of things that just don't make sense. And then you'll come to us and be like this. One person says they can't do this one thing and a platform and and then we have to run around chasing some outlier, use case for one person, it doesn't make any sense. The San Francisco headquarters, who's landlord has sued Twitter for not payment of rent, has a Melancholy are when people pass each other in the halls, or told that the standard greeting is, where are you interviewing? And where do you have offers? When you're asked a question, you run it through your head and say what is the least? Fireball response? I can have to this right now. They are see, he spoke his mind. He said my idea was lousy, it just so happens that my idea isn't lazy. So, get out of here, God damn, pick us a get up, get up, get fired, you're fired. You. What I think it's an excellent idea. Are you a? Yes man. No, no. I mean that maybe things against it. You think it's lousy know? I mean it takes time. Are you being indecisive? Yo. Yes, I hope you three gentlemen, are good to be indecisive what now you doing? Hey, what are you all doing using pencils? This is Twitter gentlemen. If you've got to drop anything, drop your goddamn phone right now. I want your opinion of my idea. You. Know heart attack. If there's one thing I can't stand its people. What do you think? He didn't ask me about him. Oh, he's asked me last night. I'm asking you the one in the middle. About the one in the middle. Yes. The one in the middle. You the one in the middle? What do you think? Come on. He says plunge. Yeah what is plunge means. It's a great idea but possibly not I'm not being indecisive. Right. Plunge. Okay. Yeah, yes. Plunge for me, too. All three of you think spun now, we're getting somewhere. No, wait, I know. I just need tweets. That are even funny. Okay, all right. Now, I'm opening up Twitter on my phone. I am starting a new tweet, and I tweet something funny lie. Good evening. I'm a comedian. Not a news right here. I tweet something funny. Stock tweets to rock tree, and I Tweet back. He can't take it anymore. I like that. I like that. I can't take it anymore. I think I'll just tweet out all the funny things you guys say, when I fire you. Hello, who are you? Are you an out of work? Executive layer fired. Roll the credits. It's lousy. We are bored super metrics and we will be back tomorrow without this silly voice. I promise And please go ahead. Share this podcast with your