ROAD TRIP!!
Nashville didn't know what the HELL hit them!
The boys made their way South for two of the most popular conferences of the season this week.
In addition to wrapping up the two events, news about Indeed, Rectxt, JazzHR and more are covered en route on the way home at 80 MPH in Chad's car.
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Announcer: Hide your kids. Lock the doors. You're listening to HR's most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry right where it hurts. Complete with breaking news, brash opinion, and loads of snark, buckle up, boys and girls. It's time for the Chad and Cheese Podcast.
Joel: Rock and roll. Ooh, rock and roll.
Chad: And roll.
Joel: To everyone. Fa-fa-fa-fooling. Are we ready?
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: I really think you should just open the show with that little hair metal melody that we just did there. That was good.
Chad: God gave Chad and Cheese to you. Gave Chad and Cheese to you.
Joel: God gave Chad and Cheese to you.
Chad: As we're listening to the, what is it, the ... Oh, there it is. Oh, Hair Nation on XM.
Joel: Aldo effing Nova.
Chad: Aldo Nova. We heard that on the way down. Go ahead and turn that off.
Joel: If you ever carpool with Chad, you are instantly thrown into 1987-
Chad: Transported.
Joel: Mansfield, Ohio.
Chad: Oh, jeez.
Joel: Hair metal heaven. Good God, my nails are black for some reason and I'm wearing too much Aqua Net right now. Welcome to the show, everybody. The mobile post show hangover edition of the Chad and Cheese Podcast, our first ever on the road. Chad's behind the wheel, I'm riding shotgun. We're headed home from Nashville.
Chad: On I-65-
Joel: Back to Indiana.
Chad: Going 80 miles an hour.
Joel: On I-65. FedEx, RVs, this is middle America right here.
Chad: Oh, yeah.
Joel: There's a little green on the trees, which is nice. We don't have that quite yet in Indiana. Pit stop at McDonald's to reload for me.
Chad: Reload.
Joel: I'm ready to go.
Chad: Hattie B's ...
Joel: After a night of Hattie B's hot chicken, I need a little bit of equilibrium in my guts. So we're ready to do a show, let's see how this goes.
Chad: Okay.
Joel: Are you ready?
Chad: Yeah, let's do the shout outs.
Joel: Okay, so shout outs. It's a lot, 'cause we saw a lot of people this week.
Chad: Okay. Run through.
Joel: Number one, let's just do a quick one to Team Shaker and Team Talroo and Team Uncommon, who were at the SHRM Show.
Chad: That's right.
Joel: We also saw Honeit, we saw XOR, we saw ...
Chad: JobAdX.
Joel: JobAdX.
Chad: Yep.
Joel: Sponsor. Yeah, we saw a lot of companies that have either been on Firing Squad or sponsors or are just friends of the show, so big shout out to them. Shout out to Laura King, a attendee of our Smart Stage show, loved it. You're not as comfortable telling the listening audience what she said in a direct message to you, so I'll let you decide whether or not you want to share that.
Chad: Yeah, no, Lauren, we appreciate ... And we actually had a few people come up to us and say that the 18 minutes that they spent on our Smart Stage presentations were probably some of the most true, straight to the heart ...
Joel: Can I just read it?
Chad: Go ahead.
Joel: Alright, alright. Chad, you followed up and said, "Thanks for coming." And she asked questions and talked to us afterwards, and Lauren King said, quote, "Thank you, Chad. Learned more in your 18 minute talk than I learned in the entire three days. Thanks for sharing your wisdom. We've already set up a meeting with our promotions team to dig into particulars for the Google for Jobs stuff. I've subscribed to the podcast and look forward to listening."
Joel: Well, if you're listening, Lauren, thank you.
Chad: Thank you so much.
Joel: And happy listening.
Chad: We'll put in a ...
Joel: Yeah. Yeah, no sound effects on this show. A lot of people will be very happy about that, I'm sure.
Chad: Oh, I'll put 'em in.
Joel: Oh, you will put 'em in? Okay. No crying babies though, I'm sure. Alright, let's do a shout out to Andrew and Rob from SHRM, not only were they very hospitable in buying us dinner the second night-
Chad: You're talking about Roy.
Joel: Oh, Roy. Rob Roy.
Chad: Rob Roy.
Joel: He's Scottish, right? No, he's not. Sorry. Yeah, did I mention we've been on a four day social bender, if you will, so I'm not quite as sharp as normal. Yeah, Roy, sorry about that, and he's a marine too, so he may come whip my ass. Shout out to Frenchie the Frenchie, Hamlin the dog.
Chad: Hamlin. Hamlin.
Joel: I'll let you take this, 'cause you just love the four-legged animals.
Chad: This is the funniest shit ever. So Talroo brought an Instagram star to their booth and they had people lined up to get their picture taken with Hamlin, the Frenchie Instagram star dog, right? So Joel and I obviously had to do it as well, and we had what I'd like to call a Stepbrothers moment.
Joel: That's what we were going for.
Chad: I think we pulled it off.
Joel: I'm guessing most of our listeners know Stepbrothers and the promotional pictures for the movie where they're sort of in the sweaters, sort of the 80s high school photo opportunity, the hand on the shoulder, the looking up. And we added a dog.
Chad: A dog, yes.
Joel: To that photo.
Chad: Hamlin.
Joel: So we've got more than enough "you guys are creepy as fuck" comments from that, and that's kind of what we were going for. So if you haven't seen that on social media, go check that out.
Chad: And I'm hoping that Talroo takes it to the next step and gets that done in an oil painting, and they can put it in their lobby. 'Cause it has their logos behind it. It would be perfect.
Joel: Or yeah, or maybe when we go do Unplugged, they could have a big picture of that-
Chad: Ah, that's a good idea. I like that.
Joel: ... behind us, for the show. That was good stuff. Shout out to SmartRecruiters, we always fall for this.
Chad: We're suckers.
Joel: Top 10 lists ...
Chad: We are suckers.
Joel: Must listen podcasts, etc. So they were pretty nice, SmartRecruiters said, quote, "The show listens like classic morning radio with irreverent attitudes and frequent sound effects, which is a nice change of pace for an industry known for buttoning up. Enjoy, but headphones is a must, headphones are a must, if you are at work or around the kids." I like that, that's a pretty good synopsis of the show.
Chad: They're right, we take a boring ass industry and sex it up.
Joel: Sex it up is a little bit aggressive, I think.
Chad: No, no, I like sex it up.
Joel: Yeah, yeah, we pimp it out. Alright, Maurice, StaffingTec, that's your boy, give him a shout out.
Chad: Mau. Man, Maurice Fuller. We also ... Hopefully, we're in a very loud after party and we did an interview with him, hopefully that'll be good enough quality-wise to send out. But Maurice, great show, man. Didn't get a chance to stay for the whole thing, but what we did get to see was pretty awesome. We'll talk about it here in a minute.
Joel: Yeah, we'll round up the shows here in a minute, but yeah, the Staffing group is quite a raucous bunch as opposed to the TA crowd.
Chad: Oh, yeah.
Joel: So we're hoping that the audio will come through from the frat party that was the StaffingTec after hours. Can't believe I didn't start with this, shout out to Abby Cheesman, holy cow.
Chad: Abby Cheesman, she looked so good in that Chad and Cheese Podcast shirt.
Joel: She did, she did. Spelt correctly, no E after the S, I wish people would get that. Anyway, long time listener, first time meeting her. A pleasant girl, Skill Scout, T-shirt wearer, all around cool chick I think, for sure.
Chad: Yeah, yeah. And Elena had better also get us some social love after she gets her T-shirt from Abby.
Joel: Yeah, we won't go into the whole T-Shirt battle with Elena. Apparently-
Chad: I got you, I got you.
Joel: Apparently there are hoodies locked up in a vault somewhere that you have to go way above and beyond to get, so Elena's pretty stingy with the swag but hopefully I can eventually get a Skill Scout T-Shirt. Shout out to Brian and Brad, currently our favorite Canadians-
Chad: Canucks.
Joel: ... that aren't female. Yeah, a couple Canucks from Vancouver, we'll talk about them in the news items, but they joined us for some hot chicken, and if you haven't had Nashville hot chicken from Maggie B's ...
Chad: Hattie B's.
Joel: I can't recommend it any more. I was able to get to damn hot. I wasn't going into the what the cluck or shut the cluck up territory, but ...
Chad: So Jen Tharp from AT&T said that's her jam. The what the cluck with extra pickles I think she said, she said that's her jam.
Joel: If she can do that, I am not worthy.
Chad: She's a hot chicken baller.
Joel: 'Cause the damn hot was about as hot as I could go.
Chad: She's a hot chicken baller.
Joel: Alright, who else do we got? I got Eryn McHugh, joined us for dinner with Shaker on the first night. She is-
Chad: Eryn with a Y.
Joel: Yes, Eryn with a Y. A proud Irish heritage kind of girl who likes her Irish whiskey.
Chad: That's right.
Joel: Which is a rare thing. So I was glad to meet another Irish whiskey fan. She also gave us a shout out after the show to her friends and her brother pitches for the Houston Astros, which I thought was a nice little side note.
Chad: Oh, I did not know that. That's awesome.
Joel: Yeah, and let's do some rapid fire, the usual suspects. Johnny Campbell, Tim Sackett, Don, Katrina Kibbles, who else? Who else am I missing from the-
Chad: Kibbles in ...
Joel: ... usual suspects from SHRM and Staffing shows?
Chad: I can't remember. I just woke up.
Joel: You just woke up, yeah. Chad never sleeps actually, I'm pretty convinced of that. Alright, that's enough for the shout outs. It's commercial time.
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Chad: It's show time.
Joel: So let's get to a show wrap up, just to reiterate. We spent the whole week, four days, between SHRM Talent and StaffingTec, here in Nashville, Tennessee. Chad, what were some of your takeaways from the show?
Chad: The Gaylord is a big fucking place, number one.
Joel: It's a big fucking maze that made me feel like a rat in a trap.
Chad: It's like a casino. It's gorgeous.
Joel: It is.
Chad: But it's like a casino in Vegas where you get lost, yeah, but there's no gambling. So yeah, there was that. So ...
Joel: Pretty sure Brendan Fraser and the weasel are in there somewhere.
Chad: Thank god they were lost. I thought it was really interesting 'cause this year it seemed like literally there were double the amount of people. I don't know if it's because the space where the conference was was tighter, but it seemed like from a vendor's standpoint, there were more vendors and it also seemed like there were just more attendees as well. So that was pretty awesome.
Joel: It was very well attended. Very well attended. SHRM made a lot of money on that show.
Chad: I would say yeah.
Joel: It probably speaks to the health of the economy and what hiring's doing that there were so many people. And Nashville's a cool place.
Chad: It is.
Joel: It's not Vegas, it's a newer, unique place to come. So I'm sure a lot of people made the trip to Nashville.
Chad: Yep. Smart Stage was also pretty cool. So we didn't have a formal presentation, we had one of the Smart Stage, actually two Smart Stage presentations, and got a shit-load of people, standing room only in some cases, had a good time and had a lot of good interaction. I think HR just loved to hear our bullshit.
Joel: These were sort of TED Tal k-y, 18 minute really specific focus topics. The first day we spoke on our automation and AI, second day we talked about sort of Google one platform to rule them all, I think was the topic of that one.
Chad: Whose podcast will come out.
Joel: Yeah, and that was day two towards the end, and that was pretty well-attended, so I was pretty impressed with that. I thought it was going to be a pretty empty room, but there were a lot of people that came out for that.
Chad: Yeah, I gotta say, that too for SHRM is usually around that time, you wouldn't be able to get a crowd like that that late. We were the second to the last presentation, but yeah, we got a shit ton of people. So that was awesome, so great job on SHRM for that.
Joel: Yeah, a lot of feedback too I heard on the speakers were pretty top notch. We spent a lot of time with the vendors just 'cause that's our thing, but the people we talked to were really complimentary of some of the presentations. Johnny Campbell in particular, we did an interview with him, he talks about a presentation that really moved him. So the quality continues to be up. Although there were no super big names, they did a really good job of I guess getting some needles in the haystack, some secret gems there that people know about, so.
Chad: I do have to mention the Ellis brothers though, Torin Ellis and James
Ellis.
Joel: Yeah, they look just alike, too. They look just alike. Yeah, the collection of orange skinny ties that James Ellis owns is very impressive.
Chad: Yes. It's pretty amazing.
Joel: And Torin's beard is getting impressive as well.
Chad: Impressive. I think-
Joel: Shout out to that.
Chad: ... almost out of control.
Joel: Yeah.
Chad: Yeah. It's good stuff.
Joel: I feel like maybe a competition is in order. Torin, 'til January first, 2020, let's see how crazy we can get these beards.
Chad: Oh, that's horrible.
Joel: Yeah, that's bad.
Chad: Yeah, so SHRM, really had a great time at SHRM, and then we went across town, actually-
Joel: Buttoned up. Polite.
Chad: ... downtown.
Joel: SHRM Talent.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: And then we landed in the frat party by StaffingTec.
Chad: Yeah. So the feeling at SHRM versus StaffingTec is so different. And it's not just because it's a different conference. It's because of the attendees, right?
Joel: Yep.
Chad: And pretty much everybody that was at StaffingTec ...
Joel: Suit and tie.
Chad: Suit and tie, I mean, at least blazer or something like that. And they're in sales mode.
Joel: Yep.
Chad: Staffing companies, vendors. This was a very tight conference, a lot of content, and I mean, there was a shit ton of business getting done at that conference.
Joel: Yep. The whole show was pretty much get buyers together with sellers.
Chad: Well, yeah, and then-
Joel: Even the presentations were the vendors.
Chad: Yeah. And really being able to ... I think next year, Maurice, you can get some Chad and Cheese on the stage and we do some panels and I'm saying that as a more than one, because we'll dig deeper into those guys and have some fun with it. But great conference, man.
Joel: The Chad and Cheese Live Show was made for StaffingTec.
Chad: Oh, god, yeah.
Joel: Like marriage made in heaven. I'd say we'd be a good addition to StaffingTec.
Chad: Well, it was like there were 60 or so vendors that were there, and many of them, I'd never heard of before. Many of them. So that was a really good show to go to.
Joel: Yeah, we're going to have some really good Firing Squads coming up in the next few months, because there were a lot of companies that we met, startups, interesting ideas that we'll get on the show. But yeah, that was really great. Two great shows, I'm going to give them two thumbs up for sure.
Chad: Oh hell, yeah.
Joel: Hopefully we'll be invited back. I don't think we wore our welcome out with either one, and we'll rock it again next year.
Chad: Yeah, everyone knows SHRM, but if you don't know StaffingTec and you are in the staffing industry, dude, for me right now, that is like a given. And we'll definitely be back, if Maurice will have us.
Joel: Maurice will have us. Alright, you ready to get to the news?
Chad: Let's do it.
Joel: Alright, we actually have no order I think at this point, so we'll just go down the list here.
Chad: Yeah, it's kind of hard to have order at 80 miles an hour.
Joel: It is. 82 actually. Damn, we're gonna get pulled over. Alright, just quick check, we're passing through Munfordville, Kentucky, as we go to the news.
Chad: Munfordville.
Joel: Alright, JazzHR. JazzHR adds candidates self-scheduling to their recruiting tools. New features allow candidates to self-schedule their own interviews. What a concept. Group multiple interviews into a single interview session to simplify setting up candidates with multiple interviews, sync your JazzHR with external candidates such as Gmail and Office 365. Schedule and manage multiple interview events at one time. You're a big fan of this.
Chad: Yeah, how can you not be, man?
Joel: Put the power in the hands of the interviewee.
Chad: So recruiters don't have to spend their fucking time doing this stuff, just let the system do it. There's no reason why scheduling has to happen through a human being. Allow that perspective candidate or interviewee to go and pick a time that works for them and be done with it. So to have an applicant tracking system, and JazzHR, if you don't know out there, is an SMB system, so more of the small medium sized business, this just makes good sense and I think anything that's lightweight, and we've talked about this with Hire by Google, is easy, it's an easy win for this market because they really don't have shit for tools as it is. So anything that you provide to them, they're going to be happy.
Chad: So I think this is a huge win for Jazz and Jazz users.
Joel: I think this is a perfect time to bring up one of our favorite scheduling solutions, good time, dynamite.
Chad: Dynamite.
Joel: It's pretty clear that the whole ... I'm amazed at how much scheduling and rescheduling and postponing and yada yada that goes on with human beings doing this, and it's just ridiculous. So the more and more companies that are automating this, putting it in the hands of the interviewee to figure out and then just telling the hiring company that this is when the interview is, I think that's all very healthy, it's efficient, it's time-saving.
Chad: It's too easy.
Joel: Money-saving, and if you're ATS or solution or if you don't have any kind of automated scheduling solution, you need to probably look into that immediately.
Chad: So what JazzHR needs to do next, because we actually talked about anti-ghosting or ghosting magic, right, anti-ghosting magic, is they need to get a lightweight texting company involved now because at this point, as somebody schedules, then they receive a text and then they receive other follow-up texts to keep them warm. And we have heard that you'll go from 20% show rate to 80% show rate just because you're staying engaged with them. And we have a great, I don't know if it's great because it's new, but we have a company, the Canadians, that just launched today.
Joel: Yes. So going back to Brian and Brad from Canada-
Chad: And hot chicken.
Joel: And hot chicken. Yeah, so we met these guys, so their name is RecTxt, which is sort of a naming nightmare to describe that to sales on sales calls, but at least they're not GoRecTxt.io, like some people we know, Canvas.
Chad: Yeah, 'cause that was so bad for them, right?
Joel: So I went to go chat with them, see what's going on, and they were like, "Oh, yeah, we're officially launching tomorrow," which is of this recording is today.
Chad: Yes.
Joel: So these guys are selling themselves as I guess a working man's lightweight, blue collar-
Chad: Texting.
Joel: Texting solution. They also have a Chrome extension that they talked extensively about to where you don't have to leave Chrome to message folks, you can do it right there from the browser. So we'll get them on Firing Squad at some point here in the near future, but you've heard it here first: RecTxt.com. That's R-E-C-T-X-T.com. I don't know if they have the .ca for the Canadians yet or not, so if you're listening north of the border, let us know if it's a .ca in your neck of the woods.
Chad: I just think it's funny from a sales standpoint where you're like, "Yeah, no, we're RecTxt.com. Oh, no, no, no, without the E. No, no, the E in Rec, but not the E in ... Oh, shit. R-E-C ..." You know? It's like every time they do it, they're gonna have to spell it out from Jump Street.
Joel: Do you remember Recs and Effects and Das EFX? Yeah, that's what I kind of thing about with this. But anyway, when we talked to Aman Brar from Canvas, I don't know if we got this on tape or not, but he talks about you're going to see segmentation and specialization in texting, and he said basically if you want to flip a quick million, create a text recruiting business around healthcare or drivers or sales people or whatever it is, and you'll quickly find an exit. I don't know if that's exactly what these guys are in for, but I think we're going to start seeing a lot of texting solutions like this moving forward.
Chad: Yeah, I think the Emissarys of the world are in the fucking driver's seat right now.
Joel: Yeah, Emissary, a sponsor, full disclosure.
Chad: Yeah. Back of the T-shirt, man.
Joel: Yeah, back of the T-shirt. And you made it really big on the back of the T-shirt.
Chad: Oh fuck yeah.
Joel: It's almost equal weight to the front of the T-shirt.
Chad: Oh yeah.
Joel: But anyway, Emissary's in the catbird seat, and I don't think they've taken money. I think they're self-funded at this point, so yeah, Ewen and company are in a good position right now if I do say so myself.
Chad: They are.
Joel: It's commercial time.
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Chad: It's show time.
Joel: Alright, well let's go to Indeed in Australia.
Chad: Again?
Joel: Listeners of the show will know that Indeed in Australia is essentially a dumpster fire, according to their Glass Door reviews. A lot of unhappy employees, but looks like they're making nice with the newspaper community down there in Australia, and taken it to SEEK, clearly the number one provider there in Australia-
Chad: Easily, yeah.
Joel: ... for many, many years. So anyway, the news is ramping up multi-platform commercial arrangement with media and entertainment company called Nine, that's not nine newspapers, it's just the company Nine, through partnerships Indeed will use a significant chunk of its marketing budget to sponsor key print and online sections of the Nine metropolitan mastheads, again, that's the company Nine, not nine mastheads. They include the Sydney Morning Herald, which I can only assume is one of the biggest, the biggest probably, newspaper in Sydney.
Chad: I have no clue.
Joel: The Age, which I don't know, and the Brisbane Times, not the Brisbane Times as we've learned from our video, my job friends in Australia. The type will include in-article job listings, a job forecast, an Indeed-branded content series, and a weekly quote "Ask the expert" end quote column in the print career section of each title. This feels like a story from 2003.
Chad: It does.
Joel: I mean, I know Australia's a little bit behind the times, but that would be really behind the times.
Chad: So I mean, this is really a move for Indeed to have a me too moment against SEEK, because SEEK has the competitor of Nine.
Joel: Yeah, so SEEK is partnered with News Corp, which we know all too well in America with Fox and FS1 and everything, so yeah, pretty much the same thing with ... News Corp is probably the bigger entity, if I had to guess.
Chad: I don't know. I don't know how big the papers are, but again, it does feel circa fucking 2001.
Joel: Totally, totally. And all the career builder relationships with Gannett and McClatchy and they've said goodbye to those for a few years now, and sort of left it to the Recruitologys and the Pandos and the JobAdXs of the world.
Chad: Well, I spoke to those guys and asked them why. There's got to be some kind of ROI for you guys there, and to be quite frank, it was no, these relationships have really become a pain in the ass, and they just aren't worth it. They were at one time, to an extent, but they definitely are not worth it today.
Joel: They're very high maintenance because you have to train sales people at the newspaper to sell your products and they expect you to sell their products, and when that doesn't happen, there's like what's the point?
Chad: Yeah, I'm wondering on the Indeed side, because they're having problems with their ...
Joel: Morale?
Chad: Glass Door and morale and all that shit. And if they're looking to pretty much outsource some of this sales ...
Joel: Yeah, there you go. For those of you bitching on Glass Door, you won't have a job for much longer. It's gonna go to the newspaper folks at Nine.
Chad: So real quick, we're in Kentucky, which is definitely still feel like conservative ...
Joel: It's sort of the American Outback.
Chad: Yes. And I can't understand, there are adult superstores all over the place.
Joel: Yeah, we're passing a Lion's Den adult superstore. For those of you who know Kentucky and the Midwest. So what was your point? We're in Kentucky, there's porn ...
Chad: Yeah, that was just, yeah, we're on the road.
Joel: You were just feeling like we weren't having a porn moment and we-
Chad: Commentary, yeah.
Joel: ... needed one here real quick, and Indeed somehow inspired that. Alright, let's move onto the next story, 'cause we're clearly flipping into oblivion here. Let's talk about robots at Walmart. The headline, "Walmart plans to add thousands of robot helpers to U.S. stores."
Chad: Helpers.
Joel: Alright, this year Walmart plans an aggressive expansion of technology that will automate a range of low-level tasks within its fleet of U.S. stores, freeing up its associates to do more, ready for this?
Chad: Yes.
Joel: Specialized work.
Chad: Huh.
Joel: The plan is to roll out 1,500 new autonomous floor cleaners called, quote, "Auto-C", 300 additional self-scanners dubbed the Auto-S, they need a real marketing-
Chad: Yeah, they do.
Joel: ... person in naming these things. Okay, in addition, 1,200 more fast unloaders will automatically scan and sort items from trucks, and 900 more pickup towers are expected to retrieve customers' online orders. It means that shoppers might soon encounter robots gliding up and down the retailer's aisles, scanning for inventory, maneuvering around shelves, and scrubbing the store's expansive floor space. The story goes on to say that the people that are still left in the stores ...
Chad: Humans.
Joel: Will be able to have conversations and real human interactions with customers.
Computer: Shall we play a game?
Chad: So yeah, there's no question, jobs, unloading jobs, I'm sure that's not the most fun in the world anyway, but still, they're gonna be jobs that are lost. But one of the things that we talked about, and Fred Goff from Jobcase actually talked about this in his presentation at AI Summit at TA Tech was that robots and algorithms are not going to take jobs right out of the gate. They're going to take tasks, right? Now this is, in this case, there are jobs that are going to be lost, because I'm sure there is a person at night that ...
Joel: well, somebody's got to do this stuff.
Chad: Right, does the floors, right.
Joel: Jobs will be lost, for sure.
Chad: The autonomous scanning and that kind of stuff, those are tasks that other people do right now, I believe, they don't have any autonomous robots that are going through and actually stocking the shelves, but they are doing inventory, right? So yeah, it's kind of ... There are tasks that are gonna be gone, but there are definitely jobs that are gonna be gone too.
Joel: My question is how long is it gonna take before someone goes into the recreational section of Walmart, grabs an aluminum baseball bat, and takes it to one of these robots? 'Cause you know that's gonna happen. Or grabs a spray can paint from the paint aisle and writes, "Fuck the robots" on one of these robots. They look a little bit like if you're a Doctor Who fan, the robots in there that say, "Delete" or whatever, I forget the name of them. But yeah, they look a little bit like that. They're begging for a little beat down with an aluminum bat.
Chad: Yeah, the thing is, they're in store, so I think people will be a little reticent to take a, knowing that there's cameras-
Joel: You've seen some YouTube videos of people doing crazy-ass shit in Walmart, right?
Chad: Yeah, it just won't be as prevalent as I think you think it will be. I think the Amazon drones that are delivering packages, I think those things are just gonna have fucking bullseyes on them, dude.
Joel: Yeah. That's gonna be a whole new sport.
Chad: Oh, yeah.
Joel: Robot bashing, for sure. Alright, let's move into one of your favorite topics, minimum wage increases. Alright, this time we get news from out of Bank of America. They aim to raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour by 2020.
Chad: Wow, that's fast.
Joel: Working its way toward that goal, the bank will begin by increasing wages to $17 an hour this May.
Chad: Wow.
Joel: That's a nice little bump there.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Bank of America's minimum wage has come up by $4 since 2010. The 2017 tax overhaul has led other banks to raise their minimum wage as well, including JPMorgan Chase, which says it pays some workers between 15 and $18 an hour. I am not familiar with the 2017 tax overhaul and what it means to banks, but this is sort of a combination of government intervention and the banks making the choice themselves to raise minimum wage. So I think we can both agree, we might be in sync on this story.
Chad: Here's the thing, though, they are from an optics standpoint, it just makes a hell of a lot of sense. And obviously, if they're going to $20, then they're probably paying their people pretty well right now, which I think is pretty awesome. But yeah, this is a great way, once again, to hopefully push regulation away, so instead of regulation $15 wage across the board, minimum wage across the board, this is, you could say, well, Amazon's doing it, Target's doing it, it's $20 here, so maybe they can push it away. So I think this might be a part of that. And saying hey, get off my lawn.
Joel: Yeah, clearly this is indicative of market forces saying, "You know what? 15 isn't enough. We need to up it even more if we're going to retain top talent, recruit the best people." So to me, this is some great indication that the market is moving even beyond the government regulation to give people a higher wage and recruit the best talent.
Chad: And it's hard to get talent right now.
Joel: It is. I have a real life story. I am a Chase banker, and we have a Chase near our house and they have, in the Indianapolis area, they are basically automating four branches of Chase. So the one in our neighborhood is basically automating.
Chad: Okay.
Joel: So the only people in there are going to be loan officers, the big ticket items, and as you walk in ...
Chad: Is it like McDonald's kiosks?
Joel: But there's nobody taking orders. There's no tellers whatsoever. So
you go in, there's two kiosks, you do your entire banking through that. For now, they have someone helping you do that. But the goal is you'll eventually get used to this thing. So while they are increasing wages, they are also taking people out of the equation, so there is some balance there that jobs will be lost, but the best of the best will be enjoying higher wages, apparently.
Chad: Yeah, and we've already talked about this at McDonald's, right? Where they're doing that now, it's the whole liaison to ... We actually just stopped and got yourself some breakfast burritos and you did use one.
Joel: We did, unashamedly. The breakfast burritos are quite tasty at McDonald's. But yeah, you walk in, this is another funny side story. So we're on vacation with the family last week, so it's my three kids, wife, and me, and we walk into a McDonald's that no one is in, as far as ordering. People are at the tables eating. But my wife defaults to the ordering screen, and I'm thinking, "There's no one in line. Let's just walk up and order." My wife rarely agrees with me, but in this case she did. So the kiosks might be great if there's a huge crowd, but if there's not many people, it's much easier to say, "I'll have the number two with a Coke."
Joel: However, she loves the mobile app. The mobile app where you order on there, you pull in, it knows you're there, the food's out in five minutes. That's a pretty solid solution.
Chad: It's a timing thing. It's routine. So what they do is they want you to go, it doesn't matter if people are in line or not, they want you to go there first just from a process standpoint, so they don't have to have cashiers and they just have the people who bring the order. That's it.
Joel: Here's what I want to see. I want to see facial recognition on these things, and I want to walk into the store-
Chad: No. It's already done, dude.
Joel: No, they're not doing orders.
Chad: No, no, they are. Okay, not in McDonald's, but I got a place called Fresh Take, in downtown Columbus.
Joel: Is that a restaurant?
Chad: Yeah. And the only way that you can order is through a kiosk. There is not a person. And you can save your order for later by your phone number or facial recognition. So you can walk up, facial recognition, I'll just have what I had last time, boom.
Joel: That's what I want to see. I want to walk into McDonald's, "Hello, Mr. Cheesman ..."
Chad: Already happening.
Joel: Yeah. It's not happening enough lately. But eventually we'll get to a point where ...
Chad: Hello, Mr. Cheesman.
Joel: Eventually it'll be like, you pull up and your whatever will be like, "Welcome back to McDonald's, Mr. Cheesman."
Chad: Would you like your same order?
Joel: "Can we get you your regular?" Like yes, please, and as you're walking and they're cooking it. Anyway, wow. I kind of like that world and I'm a little bit creeped out by it.
Joel: It's commercial time.
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Chad: It's show time.
Joel: Moving on to the next story, and I guess this is the last one, we're gonna end on this. And you love this idea, I will probably love it in a few years.
Chad: Oh dear.
Joel: Alright, dad creates app that locks kids' phones until they message their parents back. Discuss.
Chad: Yes, yes, yes. So when you have teenagers, you are the least important person in their life, in the world, right? So getting a text back in some cases is almost fucking impossible, and I have to remind them, we pay for your phone.
Joel: Give an example of an urgent situation where you were like, "I have to talk to you soon." Or, "I need a response soon." And they just ignore you?
Chad: And again, you want to know where your kids are at, right? And they're teenagers, so they're out and about doing their thing. So when you're like, "When are you going to be home? Where are you at? Who are you with?" That kind of thing, those are the things that you want to know, and when you get the, "oh, sorry, I didn't see that," or, "My phone's slow with texts."
Joel: My battery was low, I turned it off, it was on sleep mode 'cause we were in the movie.
Chad: Always an excuse. So you give me this app, and they have no fucking choice but to respond to you so that they can use their phone and do Snapchat and Insta and take 40,000 goddamn selfies ...
Joel: How mad does it make you when you've texted them and in between texting them and not getting a response, they've posted stuff on Instagram or wherever else? Does that just get under your skin?
Chad: How could it not?
Joel: Like really, you've got time to post a selfie but not reply to your dad?
Chad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to punch you in the face.
Joel: Have you threatened to take the phone away until they reply in a quick fashion?
Chad: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Joel: And where does that go?
Chad: So that's a double-edged sword now because Julie is like, well, look, Tristen has an iPhone, Ema has an Android, and she'll say, "Well, I can see where he's at" because she's got like Friend Finder, and she can see where he's at. So if he doesn't have his phone ... But I'm like, yeah, I totally get it, but he's still ... I feel like it's a disrespect if your dad or your mom reaches out to you, you get back with them, right? I'm not asking them to constantly message me, but when I message them, I expect ...
Joel: It seems like you could have an extreme enough punishment that they would, no?
Chad: No.
Joel: Nothing works?
Chad: Yeah, they're teenagers, dude.
Joel: Just excuses.
Chad: They're teenagers, dude.
Joel: So we both love this app.
Chad: Oh, yeah, and you're going to love it in a few years, I promise.
Joel: Yeah, so we bought our 12 year old an iPhone, 12's kind of an okay age I guess, right?
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: You should start learning some manners I guess, and it actually is good 'cause when were on vacation and we were at a museum, we said, "Hey, Cole, go do whatever the hell you want, we'll text you when we're ready," and he was pretty responsive and responsible.
Chad: Yeah, imagine if he was in a museum in Chicago and he didn't respond.
Joel: Well, if I'm there waiting for him with a two-year-old that's melting down, there's gonna be hell to pay. But yeah, any other way, yeah, it would be very frustrating. And yeah, you could just leave him and say, "Find yourself, get yourself back home."
Chad: You have the Uber app.
Joel: Yeah, I guess that's the flip side, right? Fine, we're out of here, get yourself home.
Chad: Yeah.
Joel: Anyway. So the app is called RespondASAP, which is an appropriate name for this app. It looks like it's for both iPhone and Android, so if you're out there and this is an issue for you, download the app, again, it's RespondASAP, lock your kids' phones if they don't reply to you via text.
Chad: Totally done.
Joel: And with that ...
Chad: We out.
Joel: We out.
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