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717 - WFH feat. Libby Watson (3/24/23) (Patreon)

Published:
2023-03-24 22:40:35
Imported:
2026-06

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Content

We’re joined by our good friend Libby Watson to discuss her new article for Defector digging in to Medicaid estate recovery, where the state uses home seizure to reimburse itself for medicaid benefits. We then look at a New York Times piece railing against “work from home,” and discuss a certain segment of the management class’s hysteria over employees having a modicum of work/life flexibility.

You can read Libby’s piece for defector here: https://defector.com/the-home-sized-hole-in-the-safety-net

Follow Libby here: https://twitter.com/libbycwatson

Files

Comments

owen

First. Also, I’m gay

J. A.

2nd and I'm gayer than owen

MC Prescott

Late slop is still good slop

J. A.

Yes

Mike Loudin

Hell yeah. Libby is an awesome guest

Ernest Ambrus

Can we get regular flavor slop instead of slop with added guests GAWDDANN

Mark

An OG

J. A.

Uhhh actually Sherlock solves things by noticing things not by knowing things

Harry P. Ness

Fuck yeah a high tier guest returns.

🐷

My mom worked from home doing medical transcription and constantly had her job move overseas to cheap remote labor. When they realize they don't need you in the office they may realize they don't need you at all.

Tim O'

Thank you Mr. Trap House, have a nice weekend

Shauna Seroquel

Libby and Doktor Janega within 48 hours (ish!) of each other? This is the Chapo equivalent of Lilith Fair 💕💕😽

Houthi & the Blowfish

You guys, the separatist group has been playing a lot of Subnautica.

J. A.

Gentlemen the American deal is getting better and better!!!!

J. A.

Baby that street works both ways...

J. A.

Oh yeah you're right!!!

Roy

It's like Old Man Warner used to say, "libby watson slop, hogs be ready to bop"

Deli Outlaw

I was able to move my dad from Oregon to Minnesota because Oregon wanted him off there books, they paid for his flight and mine, and he is now in long term care in Minnesota but the state monitors his money he has 121 dollars a month spend on phone bill and personal items(cause the state covers everything else) I am lucky my dad doesn’t own anything and was living off social security alone for the last 6 yrs which was only 830 dollars a month. I am thankful that Medicaid was there when we needed it cause he would be dead otherwise but it does always work out for everyone

ScottB

Fan-fucking-tastic episode, Libby is one of my favourite returning guests

SCB

Chapotraphouse?

Blorst of times

Mysterious freelance saboteurs or possibly a gang of drifters

Elizabeth Warren Moon

I am an attorney who specializes in helping people in SE Michigan with nursing home Medicaid planning. Almost all people I help are squarely middle class retired teachers, auto workers, etc. Medicare covers pretty much everything for seniors healthcare except long term care. This is because when Mcare/Mcaid we’re set up in 1964, heart attacks/strokes/cancer just killed you and were cheep. long term care was expensive in 1964 so it was excluded from coverage by Medicare. Now a hip replacement costs more than a year in a nursing home.

Tanner McCullough

On the disability payment side, the government is wild with how they claw it back. My wife had it in her 20s, and due to misfiling on the government's part, she was overpaid. They've been making her pay back their mistake for 6 years now, with interest. She's barely touched the prinicipal. Not sure how many people with long term disabilities can make that happen, totally fucked system.

Kommi Koo

That bit about guilt, and believing you should've dotted your i's when dealing with the government really struck home. Currently going through the wringer dealing with medicaid, and the social security office. My mom's been in a prolonged bipolar episode for the last two years, and that feeling, along with worry about retribution from the government has contributed to several visits to the loony bin. And shows no sign of getting resolved soon. These people are criminals, and should be hanged. In Minecraft.

MKatieUltra

Ed Zitron had a good take on Salesforce in his Substack, basically they promise AI and “blockchain” without really innovating anything but it keeps the stock price happy. Kinda the Elon Musk model. Also S/O to Xavier Renegade Angel!

Michael Keith

Utah state gov used to do 4 day workweeks but some dickhead legislature made it his pet project to get rid of it. Now state employees work 10 hours 5 days a week instead of 4 days a week. And our asshole governor who says he loves and appreciates us so much refuses to change it back the way it was even though everyone hates it

Jeffrey Miller

I should celebrate Libby's return by eating some BBQ Food tonight!

Arid

Holy shit, please develop the Prof Wolf soundboard. That guy was fucking awesome

William

Feels like there’s something precarious about the situation if all it took was $3400 and a spot of sunshine to start causing the gears of the machine to gum up. Also love how lazy this piece of shit is to think writing an op ed will change something

William

Not exactly wrong to describe the CIA as a non-state pro Ukrainian group tho

Gideon Weinerth

The need for mentorship that supervisors provide is hilarious. I had to teach all of my bosses essential things about computers, mathematics, and even basic word processor functions. I was mentoring them!

E

The Death Panel pod for health justice informed by historical materialism

Sam Schick

Deeply felt gratitude about the NYT “the daily” coverage, that shit is like mainlining an uncritical consensus mindset. In response to Libby, I am f a s c i n a t e d by the homework of reporters who parrot narratives that are favorable to US foreign policy, the genius of Silicon Valley, and the economic status quo. Their work is always disappointing and should be torn apart in an 8th grade critical thinking exercise, if that even exists anymore.

William

lol “we” decided to keep working . This motherfucker lol

Ahmed Razick

I legit got banned this week from resetera for questioning the official narrative on the Russo-Ukrainian War. Throw back to freedom fries. They did it unironically while the 20 year Iraq War anniversary thread was on the first page.

Dennis

In WW1 they did the same thing with German foods. “Freedom sausage” instead of Wiener-schnitzel

Declan Kennedy

love a Libby episode, top tier friend of the pod

Konrad T. Howitz

Libby: SVB employees were "Woke from home". Genius.

NYCM&AHole

Jerry Nadler took the shit in the broadway show

John

Podcasters' privilege for not one of three people to know what the fuck salesforce is

Sam Schick

Also the “is our reporters learning” line is totally underrated, only for the elder millennial heads.

NYCM&AHole

They need to put food on their families

justdave

Best show ever made

tanmantincan

The guest appearances have been bangers recently, loving it

Antipaganda

You are NOT liable for the debts of your dead parents. Don't spread misconceptions, Chapo! The estate of the dead person is liable for any debts left behind. So if the debts outweigh the assets, yep, you get nothing. But you are never actually stuck owing money unless you volunteer like a sucker.

Eli Zuber

Lmao matt's grand entrance from silence at 45 min in

justdave

You think the A-team is responsible?

leah

incredibly relieved to find out that nobody else knows what salesforce is

Sean Carton

@john x1000000... "champions of the working class" who have literally never had a single drone job... ETA--I love this podcast but that was tone deaf beyond belief

Joe

Chapo doing Mystery Science Theater 3000 to Official State Propaganda was worth waiting the extra 16 hours for.

Jay

“Woke from home” was very funny.

electradescending

Sidepocket, now that's a callback, used to play that on NES as a kid.

Jessica S

“Excess savings”?? If excess savings is a thing, can we say excess profits or excess compensation is real? These fuckers really do hate us. How dare we have enough money to wield some agency instead of working with blind fealty lest we lose our job and be out on the street the next week. How much money do you want to bet that he wrote that from home, lol.

Ardy Rezv

Any thoughts on the Aoc military requirement thing?

UltraCoil

Salesforce is, in practice, a scaffold onto which you can drape any organization which otherwise would have trouble appearing to do or produce anything of value. Originally it was just a way to optimize sales processes by, like, tracking if your sales team was actually doing anything ever day, which is the state of being most despised by the salesperson. Over time SFDC (the hip industry name for it) absorbed more and more business-service features until it, itself, became a byzantine system in which you needed specific expertise - and so it spawned a sprawling secondary market of experts, expert trainers, middleware, addons, seminars, competitors, and support staff. So much of software-as-a-service platforms, SFDC above them all, is providing a narrative and almost game-like structure to justify the existence of bullshit jobs. What do you tell you boss you do all day as a marketer? Why, SFDC has these graphs of your Lead-Gen stats and Customer Funnel to show them! Why aren't your support team getting good reviews? Hire an analyst to set up new workflows in Salesforce and connect it to a bunch of industry-standard (AKA: Entrail reading) KPIs! In my opinion SFDC became leviathan by (after its initial success as a sales management tool) providing a systematic framework to justify the existing and growing market of fake/email jobs. It's the nexus of a massive network of Business-To-Business service platforms, all of which use SFDC themselves and try to sell their services to one another. They symbiotically connect with tech money and finance service groups, rent commercial property, and generally just move the money around in the ways that keep society limping along - all while keeping the university-educated employed at something vaguely professional. The bubble will pop eventually, probably when the banks fall over again. Don't know why I wrote all this, but I've done it now so I sure am going to hit Post. I know all this because I work for one of SFDC's various sub-remoras.

Michael S. Judge

As the Epstein JPMorgan documents are demonstrating, Jamie Dimon definitely knows what "works for kids"

ahmed

Oh man this brings back memories my brain chose to repress for some reason

YukiNukem64x

Quick, someone call the poop doctor!

MLVF

Yup

Matelda

Are you paid by the state? I mean even if you are, having a lawyer is probably not characteristic of most people who need public benefits

Karl Childers

wait what's salesforce, why should i know what salesforce is

Karl Childers

that was actually a very helpful explainer, thank you. thank god i work a plain-ass blue-collar trade job and never see this bullshit.

Karl Childers

nvm UltraCoil explained it really well below. sounds like some weird white collar bullshit to make fake jobs for college people.

calvin kilby

Lol expecting gamers to have any understanding of geopolitics

Dru Heff

My job is doing the same. Fired half of our staff and expanded their Manila office. Pretty sure me, and the other half of my team, is next on the chopping block once we get these Manila employees fully functional.

calvin kilby

Just walk away...walk away...

Karl Childers

lol its weird how when your job is real you actually have to show up and do it. speaking as a machinist.

dabbledogg

Covid "lockdowns" and remote work had no effect on workers. Everyone i know worked every day of it... you know, unless they got sick and died.

Gary Alexander

Ranking ways people sell their labor by how real they are is a type of politics and it isn't left wing.

Benjamin Cantor

Isn’t it a pretty common crm platform as well. I believe organizations also use it to capture and resolve customer/client complaints. I think it all basically rolls up to the obsession with data. Develop a central repository to capture, aggregate and analyze every conceivable data point for customer interactions.

dabbledogg

Simping for article writers and bankers is real marxism, eh comrade? These are the concerns of petit bourgious trustfund babies

Tim Mullen

Will has always been really good at describing the existential dread of the commute or of Sunday evening

Karl Childers

unless you're comparing jobs based on their material productivity in the marxist sense, in which case when you do that it's very clear that some jobs are materially necessary to the reproduction of human society while others have far more to do with serving abstract financial instruments and shuffling money around. no hate for anyone who has to work whatever job they have to work under capitalism, but let's just say that under communism some of these jobs could absolutely be eliminated with no loss to society at large. machinist and electrician are not two such jobs.

Gary Alexander

Plenty of mid and low level jobs in banking and finance - as in the people selling their labor working on spreadsheets and not the people at the top earning capital gains off investments in abstract financial instruments - are transferable to any kind of bureaucracy and don't become more real *for the workers themselves* via this transfer. Plenty of people doing logistics for machinists and electricians, from whatever remove, so you actually have tools and materials are working "an email job." Unless I suppose you imagine those truck drivers and sailors know where to deliver their goods through divination.

P

"or whateva"

Gary Alexander

Article writers, even the power worshipping dipshits, are selling their labor. Bankers, at least of the kind you're implying, aren't.

dabbledogg

Sending the emails is the least critical part from gathering materials, manufacturing, shipping, handling, building. It will hardly be the militant action of the googletariat refusing to go to the office that brings capital down.

Gary Alexander

Whether it's the least or most critical job is irrelevant to their status as workers. There's little evidence any group of workers are going to bring capital down any time soon. But there's quite a bit of evidence that saying some people who sell their labor are real workers and other people who sell their labor aren't real workers doesn't help that cause.

dabbledogg

I look forward to the college educated email babies being assigned their share of the labor under socialism. Should be entertainment for the rest of us.

Karl Childers

i'll use an analogy in my own line of work. some of the parts i get paid to make are garbage. they're poorly designed bullshit from startup companies which never intend to provide any product or service, i'm only making parts for them so they have something shiny to point to while they run their investment ponzi scheme. other parts that i make are critically necessary in the manufacture of semiconductors. the skillset is the same, but some of the work is bullshit. same applies to people who do spreadsheets, logistics, etc. the skill is not the issue, its the work. some jobs are more bullshit than others, some jobs are entirely bullshit, but i would say that under capitalism all jobs are at least somewhat bullshit.

Lono's Oboe

You guys should check out the TV show "Life" starring Damien Lewis as a cop who got 50 million after being sent to jail for ten years. He becomes a Buddhist and goes back to being a cop. He drives a Ferrari and uses zen philosophy to solve crimes. It's terrible. It's awesome

Gary Alexander

Yeah man communism is all about sending Marx to work in a quarry for the laughs.

dabbledogg

If i have anything to say about it.

Gary Alexander

Josh Hallway looks forward to your support.

dabbledogg

I will not be voting. But you middle class big tent demsocs will definitely be finding a new reason to side with the democrats, again. I get it, i fell for it in 2016 and 2020 also

dabbledogg

Im just arguing with you for laughs, i dont care. If you want to call the meme makers at occupy dems proletarians, its fine. Whatever

Gary Alexander

We don't get to choose who is a worker or who isn't based on how cringe they are. That's an actual burden of having genuinely left-wing politics that isn't just a hard hat aesthetic with a different set of slogans. But you're right, this argument has run its course.

dabbledogg

Congratulations on your very left politics.

Karl Childers

jeremy wins the not being mad award for not being mad

Steeeeve

I am genuinely always thrilled to see a Libby ep, I seriously think she could be fourth mic but I know she'd never do it

Evan Scott

As someone who doesn't have an email job I think everyone who has an email job would be required to be in the office 5 days a week. You guys need to go outside

Evan Scott

Also anyone who knows what Salesforce is should go to jail

Jaime Christley

love to tune into the Chapo radio hour 2x a week to learn about some new howling cunts who ought to be flayed in the public square

Jaime Christley

"excess savings" Brace noise please. chop it up slow it down put it back in 3 times

Ahmed Razick

Ya that was my fault. I got triggered basically by liberals and progressives calling the Ben of Ben and Jerry's a tankie. I was like a CEO isn't a tankie. Like I could be a tankie and one of those conditions is not being a CEO. He wants to end the war for cash money reasons more then he hates Ukrainians. They never replied to me pwning them on tankies. They did by the implication that Putin made a logical decision. He choose wrong but still he made a decision based on thebpercieved threat of NATO. You can't discuss this event if US imperial overreach is off the table for discussion.

Jaime Christley

"a 1930s standard of living"? which person are you thinking of, Mr Rattner? Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother"? or the Monopoly guy?

Adam Bojak

I am an estate planning attorney in the Buffalo area - if anyone has questions about how to prevent Medicaid/DSS from filing a lien against your home or taking all your assets, hit me up.

NYCM&AHole

Lol can’t wait to find his emails on little St James

will michel

the american economy is basically just a massive real estate scam. it doesn’t surprise me that deep state sickos want people back in the office

Misha the Homeless

I'm commenting 16 hours behind you because I was so busy doing gay stuff, mostly sex (of the gay variety), so I'll let others decide who's gayest around here

James Houtsma

Really glad the 4-day workweek is still being advocated for but, as somebody lucky enough to work a full time 4-day schedule for the past few years, I have to add this: make sure the work days remain at 8 hours MAX and the pay is increased to account for it. 10-hour work days (or longer) rob you of your ability to do much of anything after it’s time to punch out and it doesn’t take long before you are using your extra day off as a rest and recovery day.

Praxcheat

actually, in person connection IS better than online connection but what the bosses are wrong about is that we should spend our in-person time with our job instead of our friends, families and communities.

UltraCoil

For sure, but there a bunch of CRM platforms and you only see SFDC on billboards (or I, at least, dont see any others). I think SFDC is so gargantuan, and particularly ubiquitous, because they take it beyond just serving as a huge data repository and actively, consciously try to cultivate the management/work culture that supports their model. They spend absolute tons on conferences, advertising, and sponsoring personalities in the industry to elevate the Best Practice like it's some solved, platonic model for structuring an organization/vendor. There's no real data that marketing does anything remotely commensurate to the budgets that get spent on it, yet SFDC has all these plugins and assumed data points about marketing spend and the proper marketing>sales>support cycle. It's constantly hinting through its structure that there is a formula for Peak Business, and if you'd only commit it would finally realize the dream of big data for you. Most service platforms try to integrate and upsell, but SFDC doesn't just sell their own presence - they make sure to encourage embracing their entire pantheon of other 'solutions', but they're solutions to the problems and challenges SFDC themselves have elevated. They've made this whole cultural model to accompany their product. And to be fair, it does *work* (so far) because capital needs places to keep the money from going stale, but SFDC mystifies that in a way that lets people talk seriously about sales cycles and product release windows, and it lets it support a huge nest of PMC and white collar hangers-on.

Michelle B

Good episode - Libbys reporting is awesome. Long-term care - not so much. My godmother is in a long-term boarding care facility after a stroke here in LA. It charges $300 a day for her room plus $400-500 more for her to have a caregiver who helps her do basic things like move to a chair or go to the bathroom... Not a nurse mind you. A lot of these people don't really seem to have the experience they need to do this job. Even if you were a person who grew up in the time where a two-story house in LA cost $25,000 instead of $2 million dollars and you managed to live frugally and save enough to retire (she was a teacher) they will claw any savings you had back from you the second you get sick. When I heard the number all I could think of was the fact that this is the cost of a luxury hotel in a lot of places that aren't LA. She couldn't have afforded it when she was working...let alone in retirement. Just wait until it's people our age who could never afford the house to begin with :(

Jaime Christley

The thing I keep returning to again and again is that capitalism, in spirit and letter, only makes sense if you are completely insane. Competition is good, huh? Problem solving? Keeping a cool head under pressure? *employees want higher wages and better benefits and improved workplace conditions* oh noooo my tummy hurts oooooo please won’t anyone think of the C-suiters?

Terrance McDonald

I always laugh when I hear Matt say something for the first time, like 30 minutes into the episode lol.

Jaime Christley

(Once again credit to Brace and Liz for approximately 60% of my internal sound board.)

JV

that was kinda surreal at the end, i've also just finished portal 2 and then went on to try out side pocket and was likewise baffled

JV

bit on the nose that felix literally disappeared halfway through this one as well...

Smackledorf

Working at home is lonely and sad though.

Steeeeve

She fits in seamlessly

Cam H

Get these boys back in the office together.

I am become reply guy

So is getting gussied up to sit in an office only to realize everyone is faking it.

Ian H

Haha, Libby's reference to people sleeping on the train is very relatable. When I lived in Chicago I did 4 new restaurant openings as a salaried sous, pulling 70-90 hr weeks for months on end each time. I got to where I could sleep from the moment I stepped on the red line, and wake up reliably right at my stop. I could sleep *standing up* as long as I had a pole to myself.

justdave

I worked in pizza place as a second job during covid that catered specifically to the wealthy/stupid, anyway, they would go there to 'work from home' and complain that the bpd chick wasn't wearing a mask

Jaime Christley

Anything can be lonely and sad if you put your mind to it

justdave

My only friend was a homeless black lady who would set up shop 4-5 times a week. I would make tea for her, then she would listen to Alex Jones on a little mp3 thing (my wealthy, good looking, liberal, boss's SON kept trying to get me to throw her out)

etienne

perma-wfh is a great way to turn a minor life hygiene issue into being a human wreck, at least for some people [like me]

etienne

I remember a couple years ago when chinese software devs were posting the code 996ICU everywhere they could to pass the message that working 72hrs on the reg will send you to the hospital. but I guess Obama Brain Trust Guy is built different

etienne

also the other side of the equation with the reduction in hours that the average *working* american works compared to the first half of the 20th century is that *your wife* would not work outside the house.

justdave

*holding a grieving widows hand* - 'you should try and cultivate a more pleasant inner state'

Alec

The SalesForce is actually the newest branch of the armed services, did you not get the memo? By making fun of their CEO you are betraying american men and women in uniform.

Richard R

Mentorship is fucking dead. Even in fairly serious professions like social work, we get supervision. But no boss EVER goes above and beyond to improve the strengths of their supervisees. I do need mentorship--it's an emotionally, spiritually demanding job, and I need help with more than just "how to do therapy." But that's not work that improves money making for the agency, so it doesn't happen. Actual mentorship involves improving life, not just improving the bottom fucking line.

J.P. McD.

Yea I think they ignored some real problems like this, and the fact that being on Slack a whole work day with pings coming in is almost certainly mentally and productively worse than occasional in-person desk chats (however, in the office you’d still be using Slack so it’s a moot point). (Definitely not saying office should be required though)

J.P. McD.

Complete shocker and came here to post that

J.P. McD.

I think it does make a lot of sense if you’re willing to accept the premise of unrestricted private property, which almost everyone is

Michael Polacheck

David Graber's best book, "Bullshit Jobs" shows that covid reviled to many how pointless their work really was.

Kyle Petty

Oh wow The mentorship portion really hit home. I'm currently getting my Masters degree to be a high school teacher and so I technically have mentors either coworkers at the high school or professors/a field supervisor from the university. It's like a lot of people have been saying on here that a mentor really just means someone that gets to flex, dominate, or put the newcomer through shit. I've heard from almost seven different people some variation of the phrase, "Well if you can't take this now as in unpaid year-long intern, How will you be able to take it when you have the real job?" To which I say, It's a completely different feeling actually being paid with a contract and having my own classroom, instead of paying over 70K to conform to every each person's arbitrary preferences for a curriculum. It's never about cooperatively trying to build skill or proactively provide advice, The whole template is to just make the situation as difficult as possible and then point out/discipline when something doesn't go well. 🤣🤣🤣

Gwen Rebecca

"Salesforce" is just the app that runs on the iPad cashiers turn towards you at the store, that's pretty much it

Jaime Christley

""Well if you can't take this now as in unpaid year-long intern, How will you be able to take it when you have the real job"" that's some sociopathic shit

Samuel Matthew Hilton

Matt and Felix are quite quitting this episode in solidarity! ✊️

justdave

Ya, I heard you are becoming a teacher cus people your own age don't want to talk to you

Kyle Petty

Exactly this is a profession where the students have nowhere to go and are essentially forced to listen to my rants

Kyle Petty

It's actually quite a sweet deal, let's hope that the industry doesn't get privatized which seems to be the direction that we are going in

Barnabas

Libby rules, have her back 👍

Poppy Chulo

I think the boys are best when they can chop it up without any guests. Sometimes guests are good but thinking about the best episodes they generally had none.

justdave

Whatever, can I have the bathroom pass? *we both know I'm just going to smoke in the parking lot*

Kyle Petty

"Hey you can't smoke that doobie on campus, Plus you're underage!" (Teacher proceeds to pocket said doobie)

Josephus Franks

Genius Libby Watson - hears the Repub explanation (it was doing woke gender stuff) and the Dem explanation (they allowed work from home and missed out on the fruits of office culture) for SVB's collapse, and without missing a beat, comes up with "it's woke from home" 😆

Dan Abbamont

SalesForce at least makes a regular product businesses actually need and have been for a long time. More like an Intuit. But who knows if or when they’ll diversify into the metaverse or crypto bucks

justdave

I'm just kiddin friend, I would have never graduated high school if it weren't for a very special teacher- who I threatened to murder if they didn't let me graduate

Ryan O. Smith

My best estimate is that 70-90% of all office jobs are just producing and looking at powerpoint presentations (lovingly called “decks” by those in the industry).

Ian H

That line definitely deserved a bigger laugh.

chronye

ehh it’s basically just a digital rolodex

chronye

not afucking chance wfh is equally productive as going in

Cardboard

What was the song at the end?

Jorge Ramirez

What’s wrong with Felix? He’s been mediocre for months now

Cam C

New season of COD

Tim N.

My company recently migrated to a Salesforce platform, it has been a complete disaster. It's been almost 12 months and still no one has any metrics, and internal data seems to have been shotgunned into the new system. Let the good times roll... downhill.

Laaren

If you're reading this, you deserve better form our government. We all do.

etienne

their API is like gazing into the eye of Kthulhu

etienne

a hilarious thing with Salesforce is that I did a half-baked integration with them like 8 years ago and used my personal gmail and started getting newsletter mail from them, but then I lost this job and deleted my account, but still get the newsletter. I can't get them to stop because my account is in some half-deleted limbo state and no one is answering my support ticket. I'm gonna get couple salesforce emails per day until this google account dies probably

Jaime Christley

The endgame for all these "disruptor" companies is to fully manifest as the maniacal advertising robot from Philip K Dick's short story "Sales Pitch"

Slik Smoothie

The name is ron desandwich its always been rob desandwich

Joe

Will talking about the agony of commuting home is why the boys are different.

Doug Cartel

achievement unlocked: ate 10,000 apple seeds

Kerri

Incredibly funny guest on this one boys, we love to see it!

Doug Cartel

"moral hazard" is one of those holdover phrases from the days when they used to cut your balls off if your IQ number was 2 points below the median or whatevr

Doug Cartel

One of the first things we learn in pre-teenage education (so mainly in middle school but maybe in elementary school too, in some cases) is "caveat emptor". You always get a lesson on Rome and you get to learn about "caveat emptor", which basically says that if someone tricks you and steals your money, it's your fault for being stupid. That is always at the root of american culture when the bible can't explain moral travesties like poverty in the modern day. If the bible doesn't work, just say "let the buyer beware" and you can shrug off any economic injustice.

Jeremy

Might have already been said, but worth noting that the Salesforce guy (Mark Benioff) is a second cousin of one of the Game of Thrones guys. Really great family there if you look into it, wonderfully demonic.

Damen Irving

Sorry, long post. It’s not that health care is so bad in America for most people and getting worse (we’re already pretty well acquainted with that), it’s when I hear stories like this where people are getting totally screwed and yet still feel like they’re lucky to get what they have, that it could be worse or that they feel like they deserve the shitty care or stuck with unpayable bills. How many people I’ve seen internalize this mentality is completely heartbreaking. It’s a learned trauma response from a system that has completely commodified human life. That someone is getting a bonus payout, moreover getting government money to take advantage of the weakest people in our society is utterly depressing but the biggest motivator for me as a leftist. It’s such a vital entry point because it’s so visceral, so obviously wrong and a thing that most people have to deal at some point life—for themselves or for their loved ones. A leftist movement in a America that doesn’t lead with the absolute horror of our health care system is no leftist movement at all.

Emily Oliver

What’s the song at the end?? Please someone tell me

Jeanne

By Tim Heideker

Josephus Franks

As someone who only comes up with great lines 6-7 hours after the fact, I was also jealous when Libby immediately pointed out that Zuckerberg praising in-person interactions was hilarious considering he just shifted his entire business model on virtual interactions

DoctorShields

Imagine a Richard wolf soundboard. Disgusting.

justdave

Now you know how it feels

Sardonic

In my experience as somebody who has supported salesforce in a semi-enterprise way, this is mostly true but there are valid use cases for this kind of software, if it wasn't this it would be bespoke industry-specific software or custom stuff, so having a somewhat unified customizable platform that people can use wherever is useful, in theory. It is the everything bagel of software platforms. and yet, In practice, salesforce is a fucking mess, there's like 5 different ways to do everything, it's own weird ass scripting language, weird ass query language, and is just thoroughly unpleasant to wade through. Bad documentation, too many different carveouts, eons of technical debt and kludge. I had this misfortune of encountering it in a higher education context where it was sold to the decision makers with an educational framework as a complete product, and it still required way, way more customization to even remotely get working, and nobody wanted to invest the resources to even come close to the vision that our leadership was sold on. For us, it was as much a complete piece of enterprise software as a pile of building materials is a house. Anyway that's salesforce, I hope we get rid of it soon

wolfgang

the work from home part was.. not good. Signal support for ‘the worker’ is fine but we’re now contradicting the viewpoint(from the svb ep even)that tech companies have used their power and products to isolate, atomize, decimate the other, to force positivity and narcissism on us(if I can borrowing form byung chul han). Giving people the freedom to work from home is fair but to assume not leaving your home for days, with the only contact to the outside being an internet connection is quite sad.

Derek Spieker

The Salesforce tower in SF has this light installation at the tip of the building. My friend calls it "The Eye of Sauron".

leah

People who work from home go outside and socialise dude. A lot of local businesses like cafes have been doing great since the pandemic because the wfh crowd can take their friends

dd

Well said. First episode in months I haven’t wanted to finish (and didn’t).

dd

Not knowing what Salesforce is and being automatically dismissive of it is just embarrassing. They sound like children either this shit.

dd

(Not everyday but) I miss the office!

David Andrews

Work from home doesn't work well if you're trying to do something creative

Adam Murphy

As someone who uses Salesforce every day, even I can't describe what it is easily.

Ashley Cagle

I am professionally creative and It’s been working great for me for 3 years.

Jay

Y’all clearly haven’t worked in a call center if you don’t know SalesForce 😂

Jaime Christley

There’s so much projecting and assuming going on with the WFH comments. Look, it’s not for everyone; some people find it absolutely miserable. Others have made it work for them in a way that’s convinced them that they’re never going to return to the old ways. Some other people figure out something inbetween, or shift their strategies over time. The employee class isn’t a bunch of helpless dumbskies. I mean, I am, but most are not.

Doug Cartel

For the last two years they were telling me the Great Resignation was about bratty employees trying to find better jobs and now they're claiming it was just old people retiring?

Ryan Johnson

That has nothing to do with the core issue. WFH undisputably gives workers more power. What they do to socialize in their (increased) free time is of no concern

Andy West

They might come to that same conclusion for workers that they make come into the office everyday. Chopping heads is management's favorite trick for juicing revenue numbers.

Andy West

Yes, "4 10s" is not truly a 4-day workweek. Or 9/80 schedules. That's just the same amount of work you were doing before crammed into fewer days, which is worse.

vermouth

r/antiwork ass shit lol pretty boring

Chantz

I think the point about necessary jobs = requires in-person is a misstep. Lawyers can easily wfh but a functioning society needs them, just as an example. Maybe not all the ghoulish white collar attorneys, but certainly ones who do pro bono or social justice work. Just cuz I don't leave my house to do the job doesn't mean it isn't an important part of society :/

vermouth

💨💨💨

Russell Sugden

Estate recovery wouldn’t be a problem with 100% estate tax in place. No one inherits anything. Job done

Calvin Bishop

I personally like working in person because i like being around other people and I like keeping a separation of work and home. But i think it’s important for people to have the choice, especially when the job technically can be done at home

Tim O'

I watched Hereditary yesterday and that lady turned out great doing her art job from home

Brad M

cHiNA iS An aUthOrITaRiAn cOuNtRY How do you guys spend so much time dunking on all the U.S. mouthpiece "journalists" publishing constant lies and yet the entirety of your opinion of a massive country with actual existing socialist ideology and practice amounts to... Whatever the state dept. tells you to think?

wolfgang

peepee has friends, i’m jealous. also projecting; I don’t leave when I work from home. The point is that “we have slack and zoom for that” and “opting out of our office’s culture shouldn’t have consequences” ignores the more insidious aspects of what work has become for many. anyway I’m sure your social life is fulfilling and I hope you enjoy your work day.

James Wallace

They are an authoritarian country. That's not always a bad thing. People are fucking dumb.

Jaime Christley

Still chuckling about “As productivity increased since Keynes’s time, we could have cut back our hours on the job far more than we did and easily maintained a 1930 standard of living.” Bro in 1930 the number one job for men was wearing a tuxedo 23 hrs a day and riding around town with a Tommy gun in your lap and mowing each other down in the street what the fuck are you talking about

Mark Kobzik

The analogies from Will on WFH working in an office is a religious ritual, employers see themselves as “benevolent parents” giving their “children” (an allowance - i.e. a salary- were so spot on. At the end of the day, these CEOs are grasping at straws to figure out how to rationalize getting people back into an office; and the tautology becomes so evident with the double-sided nature of arguments like Zuck’s: people are productive in-person, but let’s build a meta verse! I think corporations are desperately trying to justify commercial real estate leases, despite all the talk about “collaboration” and “creativity” being lost. And most people can see right through the facade.

Arthur G. Pym

China is just US-style capitalism without the pretence of democracy. Doesn’t have much to do with socialism.

Tymon

lmao

Padjoe

Love that Libby digging some seriously esoteric shit on snes virtual console. Side Pocket is a glorious time capsule indeed.

Mike B

I wish I did not know what Salesforce is

Snooder87

It's amusing to hear people say that in the comments of a podcast that is often recorded from the podcasters' homes.

Snooder87

WFH expands the available pool of jobs people can do. Previously if your job sucked, but was the only employer in your city, it was harder to quit since you'd have to move. Now, you can just switch jobs without uprooting your whole life. Which means that employers in places that used to be a captive labor market have to actually try to retain their workers.

Emily Richardson

I was cracking up at how sinister they were making it sound, but if you didn’t use it and we’re just on the outside looking in I can see their characterization of it so clearly 🤣

David Andrews

How many people do you pay out off your own pocket? I run a small company and can tell you that we have had very bad experiences with WFH. Some people work while others do not.

justdave

They don't respect you David, they aren't your friends David, fire them David. buy a house and a farm, leave this shit behind, it won't save you- if you need a ranch hand with experience with all animals, including feral/wild ones- let me know! (I'm 30 with nothing but scars, so I'm perfect for the dangerous stuff)

Post Void

Had to turn this one off (second part) when you started saying "well we don't work at work anyways". Speak for yourself. At times, I really do hope ChatGPT steals the jobs of everyone mentioned in the article. Learn an essential job if you want to be essential, and stop crying you have to drive to your watercooler time wasting job.

Valerie

I appreciate how every criticism of WFH is always caveated with "this is also an issue with working in an office". It's almost like WFH isn't the problem, but that WFH lays bare the systemic problems with our work culture in a way that can't be ignored under the artificiality of office workplace semantics.

Karate-Robo Brian Dennehy

I was laid off from a corporate job where it was hard to legitimately say I did more than three to four hours of actual work in a day. Now I work from home for a company that outsources the exact work I was doing at the other job and I absolutely work seven to eight hours a day if not more. Is any of it "necessary" or "meaningful", who the fuck knows?

m@tt

It’s kind of a blur but i swear i used to work ~8hrs a day at the office and then drive home, mostly disconnected until the next business day. I now work ~12hrs a day from home, and permanently connected to incoming requests/notifications. WFH worked for me!

absoluteboi

thats probably cause you suck david. the company i work for has not stopped rolling out new products since we all went remote. in fact we went from being a small company to buying out our biggest competitor in just a couple of years.

Percle

autistic man yells at cloud

Andrew Mueller

How sad do you have to be if the job you lie about having is a Longhorn Steakhouse assistant manager position?

CE

I guarantee your essential skill, and the identity you gain from it, will be as fleeting as a vapor in the reality in which the world is faced.

Prick Commenter
>>105064907

And if I’m an independent physician (look up what it means to practice not inside a monopolistic hospital system before you answer)? Pure ignorance on your part.

justdave

Prick for the win 🏆 👏

Ryan

Just here to show love to “woke from home”, 10/10 line.

hotspur

libby's Woke from Home was actually a pretty awesome quick joke

A M

big shoutouts to side pocket. fun fact: the sequel for the sega saturn was adapted in the US as "minnesota fats, pool legend" and has some of the funniest, most amazingly 90s horrible FMV scenes in any video game

KyleMSherry

A little late to listening to this, but great episode. There were parts of working from home I didn’t like, but last week I totaled my car because I fell asleep on the Long Island Expressway driving home from work - really would’ve loved a day at home then!

wolfgang

that same argument from the employers point of view looks like neoliberal offshoring, and it’s pursuit of total efficiency. also non local, non “captive” labor has little chance of unionizing. Don’t get me wrong, “showing up” doesn’t always need to mean physically showing up but when you do, its another way for labor to come together and prove their value

MinkL0af

I must say I fall into the sliver of people who has an office job, I have been working from home since COVID (hybrid schedule for a while now), but my job is 100% pivotal to the economy, AND I still have to actually work hard as fuck for 8 hours a day, AND I get paid like shit. All of the stigma of the WFH desk jockey with 0 of the benefits. Absolutely cucked. Been trying to find a better job for years now. Been to dozens of interviews and, surprise surprise, all of these people who are complaining that they're short staffed because nobody wants to work anymore are absolutely refusing to LET anyone work anymore. Every hiring manager's job for the last two years has been to interview as many people as possible and make absolutely sure that they never fill a single open position to give as many people interview-induced schizophrenia as possible.

davidagnome

The cruelty is the point with Medicaid repossessions. It’s hard to get poor workers to hate programs that care for them but a lengthy means test and repo-ing what little wealth grandma might have — that will cause widespread resentment.

Khemith

Bill Fucking Clinton. He's worse than Trump in all points that matter.

Jim McKenna

I wish I did not agree with you. The best thing about Trump was the dingdong was all talk. Clinton knew how to get authentic evil done.