Indeed Tanks & Starbucks Forces Joy

Strap in, folks—this week, Chad and Cheese are officially "off the rails on a crazy train!" Ever wondered what happens when Indeed's traffic tanks faster than your crypto investments? Or what happens when Florida tries to fix labor shortages by turning middle-schoolers into overnight dock workers? (Hint: It's exactly as sane as it sounds.) Plus, get ready for some emotional whiplash as they mourn George Foreman—yes, the grill guy—and attempt to wrap their heads around "forced joy" at Starbucks (because nothing screams genuine happiness like a corporate-mandated smile).

Oh, and they kick things off with a very Scottish morning routine involving potatoes, kilts, and whisky—trust us, it makes as little sense as it sounds. So tune in for the podcast that brings you questionable job strategies, suspect parenting advice from Florida, and a Snickers coffin—yes, a Snickers coffin. Because if you're gonna go, you might as well be nuts.

It's Chad and Cheese, the podcast your HR director warned you about!

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Joel (00:38.35)

Yeah, we're going off the rails on a crazy train. What's up kids? This is the Chad and cheese podcast. I'm your cohost Joel governor hot wheels Cheesman.

Chad (00:49.09)

This is Chad "smack dat" Sowash.

Joel (00:52.632)

On this episode, Indeed dives Florida's gunna Florida and who'd you rather? Let's do this.

Chad (01:00.45)

Yes.

All right, we don't have any girls on the show this week. I don't know who's gonna

Joel (01:07.746)

No girls. Anyone else we can highlight on the show that we don't do enough of that may be in the shower or eating breakfast in bed? What?

Chad (01:17.429)

wait a minute. wait a minute. I think we've got we have video right out of the gate

Joel (01:23.116)

All right. Listeners will know Stephen McGrath. If you're listening, sorry, you got to go to YouTube to catch this. Or if you're following him on, on, on LinkedIn, but this is our friend, Stephen McGrath and a typical morning in the life of our favorite Scott.

Chad (01:44.908)

brushing his teeth. A potato? I didn't know potatoes. I didn't know potatoes. No, I think it's a potato. Yeah, he's using it on his face. Highland Park.

Joel (01:46.766)

love the haggis canna haggis. I that was a lemon. That's a potato.

Chad (01:58.466)

Bert or I'm sorry, Scotch.

Joel (01:58.85)

All right, all right, Stephen, that had better be iced tea or apple juice, because if you're wasting that, it's a crime.

Chad (02:04.322)

Probably, probably apple juice, probably apple juice. But what thing that he is doing though is he's putting ice in it, which is one of my favorite things to do. He's ducking his face.

Joel (02:14.03)

He's putting his face.

Chad (02:18.976)

It's a cold plunge, a cold. there we are in the background. Imagine that.

Joel (02:20.28)

Fighting, fighting aging. there's our, there's our favorite show. Little scented candle. yeah, the shower scene.

Chad (02:26.658)

Imagine.

Nothing like in a shower time.

Joel (02:31.911)

I didn't see underwear in the kilt, the kilt, check and cock.

Chad (02:34.483)

chicken cock, always.

Joel (02:39.566)

god. that fucking.

Chad (02:41.698)

A normal morning from Steve McGrath. Steve McGrath. I love it. Yeah, and for everybody who has been listening, and if you don't know, you'll hear Steven throughout the show because he does a lot of sound effects for us.

Joel (02:56.011)

One that he doesn't do, but could.

Chad (02:57.728)

Yeah. Mmm. That one's really good. It's Canadian, but it's good. I like it.

Joel (03:04.191)

It is good. Yeah. Mike Myers. Yeah. The Canadians are still really, really mad at us. I understand. I understand. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. Let's.

Chad (03:10.018)

They should be why why are gonna fuck with them everybody loves Canada? you asked fucking

Chad (03:21.078)

Hit it. Do it. I know.

Joel (03:21.422)

Do some shout outs. This is just you and me this week. The old timers will enjoy this episode. My shout out goes to, to Matt Lavery. I know some of our listeners will know him. He's been at, he's been at UPS since the Clinton administration. And he's probably going to get 50 like hit ups for sales demos because of the shout out. I apologize ahead of time, Matt, but you know, at our age, Chad,

Chad (03:31.584)

Love that guy.

Chad (03:46.079)

yeah. Sorry, sorry Matt.

Joel (03:52.514)

This business is so much about the people. 20 years ago, would have been like the companies are cool and web 2.0 and like that was the thing. But now like I can only look at so many startups and get excited. So many business trends, but like the people in and out, like they are rock solid. Matt Lavery, we were in Chicago this week. Matt is a South side Catholic Irish, like to the bone Chicago guy.

Chad (03:55.339)

It is,

Joel (04:22.264)

Took us out, took us a couple of the hack a job guys out to a pizza place. So apparently pizza in Chicago is not the deep dish stuff. That's more of like a, I don't know, a hook to get people to come to Chicago and try it. But the real pizza is pub pizza, which is a really thin, almost cracker like pizza. Yep. So we go to this place. That's authentic on the South side. we have three large pizzas, old style PBR on tap. So we're enjoying all that. And there's a shot.

Chad (04:26.786)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (04:39.17)

Always my favorite, yeah.

Chad (04:46.335)

Eh?

Joel (04:50.978)

There's a drink called the handshake in Chicago and this place was legit Chicago. The table next to us clearly was hearing the hack a job English accents and realized we weren't from there and said, I'd like to give you guys a handshake. And I'm thinking, okay, I'll shake your hand. And Matt goes, okay. Here we go. And it's a drink. It's a shot of this thing called Malort liqueur. It's not as it's not surstromming. I'll tell you that it makes surstromming look like a filet and you

Chad (05:01.363)

huh. Yeah.

Chad (05:13.174)

which is fucking horrible.

Chad (05:18.176)

Yes. That's a good call. Yeah. Good call. Yeah.

Joel (05:20.694)

steak and freets, but, and there's an old style chaser to it. So we did the handshake, did the whole Chicago thing, had a great time, had some great Italian beef, owls, which, which Matt recommends. anyway, Matt is one those people. Like I love to see every time that we're on the road. love to talk to, nine out of 10 times. He's the smartest guy in any room that you're in. and he's just a nice guy, just a salt of the earth Midwestern dude.

Chad (05:25.186)

That helps.

Chad (05:34.188)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (05:42.821)

god,

Joel (05:48.662)

So Matt Lavery, a shout out to you, my friend. I look forward to seeing you again, hopefully soon. Minus the handshake. I don't need any more.

Chad (05:54.166)

The people. minus the handshake. Bring it down a little bit, but, also up with good memories and RIP to George Foreman, the boxer, two careers in boxing. He had his early career, then he retired and he came back in his forties. go ahead and play that beautiful beam footage real quick.

Joel (06:02.178)

Mm-hmm.

Joel (06:11.318)

Yep. Yep.

Yep, some George highlights.

Chad (06:22.892)

Damn. That's those younger years. Not gonna fuck out of guys. Damn.

Joel (06:31.118)

40 George.

Chad (06:32.834)

in his 40s. Look at him. Jerry Clooney. He came out of retirement for that shit.

Joel (06:36.974)

Cloney, yeah.

Chad (06:40.162)

mouth guard.

Joel (06:40.29)

Ha, mouthpiece.

Joel (06:44.792)

hahahaha

Chad (06:46.528)

Just done, dude. So RIP George Foreman. my favorite, my favorite, favorite fight was, it's November 25th, 1994 in the MGM grand in Vegas when he was 45 year old years old, George Foreman knocked out Michael Moore, guy who's like 20 years younger than him at two minutes and three seconds in round number 10. I mean, if you ever watch boxing,

Going 10 rounds, especially being 45 years old. He did that knocked out Michael Moore 10th round to win the heavyweight belt. It was amazing. I remember again, 1994, we were still, still very young, in watching boxing my entire life. The sweet science. My dad was a huge boxing fan and watching Foreman come back. That to me was just amazing. I love those memories. How about you?

Joel (07:30.99)

Mm-hmm.

Joel (07:36.654)

Yeah.

Joel (07:44.226)

Yeah. So I, so I from the boxing, don't forget one of the greatest pitchman of our lifetime. the George Foreman grill. I mean, when he came up, he was a salty, mean son of a bitch. And in a world where like sugar Ray Leonard and Ali were really, you know, flashy taking camera time. George was just this bad-ass MF, that would fuck you up.

Chad (07:48.278)

grill. That smile, the smile. Yeah.

Chad (07:58.346)

yes he was.

Chad (08:12.758)

He would walk through motherfuckers. Yeah.

Joel (08:13.166)

And, and, and, and when the George came out, it's like, he's everybody's uncle. Now he's like, Mr. Mr. Personality. And, uh, that thing was a huge success, even more so than his boxing career. I mean, I don't as a single guy in my twenties, like. Thanks to the George, I had a decent meal, a healthy meal from time and time again, between the, between the burritos and the tacos and the burgers, man. So I mean,

Chad (08:19.404)

grill.

Yeah.

Joel (08:40.492)

George the boxer. Yes. But George, second act, a boxer slash entertainer slash pitchman, was, was just as, just as interesting, to me. did not, however, pitch chicken cock, which, which I'm sure our friends at chicken cock would love to have him as a spokesperson, but, you, can have your own bottle, Chad. What, what's, what's going on with free stuff from us?

Chad (08:53.782)

He did not. He did not.

Chad (08:59.043)

Anybody

Chad (09:03.618)

Well, you know, Joel, that's a very good question. Kids, remember, there's always free stuff from the Chad and Cheese, chadcheese.com slash free. Just register. We could, I don't know, maybe send you a Chad and Cheese t-shirt from Aaron App, big Aaron App sloth on the back. Bourbon barrel aged syrup from our kids over at Kiora, the kids up north. They're also sponsors of shout outs. Craft beer.

Chad (09:33.548)

Craft beer from the data geeks over at Aspen Tech Labs. you need, if you're into data, especially jobs data, go see those guys, Aspen Tech Labs. Whiskey from Van Hack, another Canadian company. And another Canadian company, if it's your birthday, you're going to want to get rum with plum, but you can't do any of those. You can't get any of those for free unless you go to chadcheese.com slash free and register to win.

You you can.

Joel (10:04.654)

Canada loves us. Like if you just, I just can't believe it. They love us. All right. Uh, celebrating another, another trip around the sun, uh, this week goes to Megan Sharp, Dan Cheeseman, no relation. Uh, are one of our favorite Swedes, Elan Mart Martin, Martin's on, uh, James Holliman, Paul Beriga, uh, Thomas O'Hara, Simon Evans, Robert Murrah, Todd Hanford, Derek Christiansen, Nate Menard, Doug Reese, Judd Whistler, John Ride.

Chad (10:09.23)

You

Good.

Joel (10:33.678)

Rob Locker, Jeremiah Anderson, Lori Golden, and Jessica Rush. And last but not least, my sister Holly celebrates a birthday this week, this week. By the way, Chad, it almost made the show, it was in the shred. Grayscale, Tech's recruiting, just got some more money. And just quick shout out to our friends at Keora, have not taken any money, have bootstrapped the whole thing.

Chad (10:39.543)

Ooh.

nice! Happy birthday! Yes.

Yeah. Ty Abernathy.

yeah.

Joel (11:00.654)

If you're looking for an alternative, maybe acquisition or whatever, check out our friends at Kiora. I'm an advisor, by the way, full disclosure, but yeah, I was, I was happy to see more money go into the tech recruiting space. Like that's, it's going to be going to be good for them.

Chad (11:12.258)

Oh, hell yeah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Well, real quick, I want to talk a little bit about, oh, know, Shaker recruitment marketing, who, you know, they are our travel sponsor. We did just this week have 35 high level recruiting leaders in a room sharing ideas, focusing on talent problems and solutions. And the Chad and Cheese closed out the show. That's right. With the Big Bang with...

Joel (11:21.462)

the road again.

Joel (11:38.734)

you

Chad (11:39.71)

Super fan Jane Curran, who's global head of HR operations at JLL, Matt Lavery, our friend Matt Lavery, global director of sourcing, recruiting, and onboarding all at the RL100 in Chicago at the the Pendry. So Jamie, Bobby, and the team, they pulled together a great session, great sessions, events, and there were no recordings. So you got to remember kids, if you're a practitioner in our space,

Joel (11:44.664)

money.

Joel (11:54.638)

Chicago.

Chad (12:07.136)

and you want to get into these closed door sessions, go to RL100. They're in Boston today. They're going to be in New York in a couple of days, but they're going to come back and there's going to be more of these. So check out RL100. These guys do a great job.

Joel (12:13.102)

Mm-hmm.

Joel (12:21.174)

Yeah, no doubt. favorite part of talking to, Jane and Matt was, Jane's they're both super fans of the show. Shout out to them while they're listening, both of them. she's like, I really missed the soundboard. I wish that we could have the sounds while we're on stage talking. and I said, yeah, I need, I need like a Jim Kramer style, big red buttons pushing. I don't want to, I don't want to carry that shit around, traveling, but it'd be nice.

Chad (12:27.99)

Yeah. Love them.

Hahaha

Chad (12:41.09)

Yeah.

Chad (12:45.338)

You

Joel (12:46.848)

If we had a something like that, maybe someday somebody sponsor that and ship it around the country and we'll, we'll do it.

Chad (12:47.66)

That's what coal's for. That's what coal's for.

You

Joel (12:58.03)

All right, Chad, honey, I shrunk the job board. of March of this year, Indeed's traffic has been declining based on recent data from our friends at Statista. In February of 24, unique global visitors were 641 million. Wow. But by February of this year, total visits fell to 372.9 million. You did the math on this and it's a 41 % drop.

Chad (13:13.89)

Hmm.

Chad (13:26.657)

One of our listeners did that.

Joel (13:28.066)

Yeah, or listeners. Never fear though, because Indeed is apparently blasting its user base with offers from online courses by Udacity. Chad, this is the kind of shrinkage that would make George Costanza blush. Your thoughts?

Chad (13:43.17)

Yes. Okay, well, I'm to break this down into two things. First, we're going to talk traffic and then we're going to talk focus. So first traffic because it's the cornerstone of indeed's power. Let's just go ahead and put that out there. Indeed is so fucking strong because of the traffic that they get. So when you see these similar web numbers and the geographic breakdown, you've got to ask yourself why indeed's top 20 most traffic countries are all down. We're talking 12.5 % down in the U.S., which is

big because it's indeed the largest market. And according to similar web is 41%. They have 41 % penetration in the U S although we're seeing double digit drop and over half of those 20 traffic countries. it's, it's big stuff, right? So did the U S traffic drop have anything to do with them closing off search?

Joel (14:30.872)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (14:37.696)

Right? Remember kids, because they put search behind the wall and now you get a register before you can actually do any type of job search whatsoever. Not, not sure. What do you, what do you think about the traffic side?

Joel (14:52.632)

So there are a reasons that I see. I will withhold my four horsemen commentary this week in light of three, three reasons that I sort of have outlined for indeed traffic drop. Number one, it's pretty easy. There are fewer jobs, not only economically, but what the most, most glaring number that we heard in Chicago, it is, it is Chatham house rules. So no names will be mentioned, but let's just say a big employer.

Chad (14:58.402)

You

Chad (15:05.799)

huh.

Joel (15:22.35)

uh, told the crowd that they had decreased their indeed spend by 44%. They're obviously not the only big employer that's making some of those decisions. And if you have fewer jobs, there's going to be a few, there's less traffic. Um, that's pretty obvious. Number two, think that solutions like LinkedIn, Google search and social media just offer things that indeed doesn't. Uh,

Chad (15:48.642)

They're sticky.

Joel (15:49.538)

Yeah. LinkedIn, it's a network. It's games. It's it's, it's video. It's like, it's, it's, it's a professional social media site. And then you have search and they may not want to admit it, but Google for jobs and people go into Google and seeing jobs directly in Google and then clicking on LinkedIn. If, if they already have a profile, that's kind of probably where a lot of people are going. So, and then in tech talk, our friend, JT, who I think will be on, this week or next week or the one afters.

Chad (16:09.41)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (16:14.729)

Next week,

Joel (16:16.962)

I mean, she loves Tik Tok as a job search site, and apparently replacing the resume and just being a part of how people are looking for jobs and opportunities and learning more about companies. So indeed has a decision like, okay, of those three, which can we be more like at it's LinkedIn? So we see indeed super focused on how do get more profiles? How do we get more data? How, how do we get more of a LinkedIn type presence? I say good luck to them. and then number three, I think from a macro.

Chad (16:41.25)

Mm-hmm.

Joel (16:46.434)

perspective, remember the great resignation. That's over. mean, you had tens of millions of people change jobs saying I'm leaving, I'm out of here. You had the world, you know, sort of re realign itself. That's over. The employers have the power. People are staying put in their jobs. They're concerned about, well, I have a job. What's, what's the economic and the political environment. So people aren't moving. They're sort of in pause. And if when they're in pause, they're not looking for jobs. So those three things.

Chad (16:50.786)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep.

Chad (17:12.961)

The Great Stay.

Joel (17:14.604)

Those three things, mean, less jobs, less movement and more competition. think it's been a really, really bad thing for Indeed. we're seeing in the traffic numbers.

Chad (17:23.19)

Yeah, and also in Chatham House Rules, we talked about how chat GPT and lot of the LLMs could start because we're looking at Gen Z actually using these large language models instead of going to Google, right? And now it's funny because last night Google actually pushed out that their newest Gemini rendition is like kicking the shit out of everybody else. And I mean, this is going to be a race back and forth all over the place. So...

Joel (17:44.334)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (17:51.778)

What can Indeed do to fight back on that? I don't know. Because if, if these large language models actually start looking at real time data just for segments, like jobs, right, just segments, you don't have to look at the whole fucking internet for that shit, kids, just segments, they could be powerful and they could crumble Indeed in a heartbeat. Now, let's talk about the focus piece real quick. Indeed is trying their best to attack the market segments like healthcare and technology. They've even started a course

Joel (18:06.382)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (18:20.908)

discount program with Udemy. Now as someone in tech, would you think that they would be sharpening their skills on Indeed? Yeah, I doubt it. They're going to be on Hackerank, Hackerjob, Tescarilla, GitHub. mean, they're just all the... They're not going to be on Indeed. Indeed's focus is... I don't know where it's at, dude, because they've got performance-based jobs, ATS, interview platform, forced registration for job seekers now, trying to target tech candidates.

Joel (18:35.33)

Mm-hmm, linked in.

Chad (18:50.7)

trying to offer courses through Udemy to tech candidates, targeting healthcare professionals, trying to become a staffing company, and the list goes on. I mean, these guys are throwing every bit of spaghetti at the wall, and it just doesn't seem like there's any focus. Now, I understand Recruit is probably lighting a fire under Indeed's ass to find new revenue streams, but this is fucking ridiculous. And one of the companies spread themselves too thin.

Joel (18:52.962)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (19:19.574)

They didn't guard their flanks and a smaller player took them out. Well, those companies are monster and career builder. We've seen this before. It's almost like Chris Himes forgot the history of this fucking industry or he's literally just lost control. I don't know. I don't know. So dude, I have no clue, but this is incredibly erratic behavior from indeed.

Joel (19:42.446)

or he doesn't listen to our show because we always have.

Chad (19:50.102)

Right.

Joel (19:51.224)

You've given years. I'll give mine. there was a time when simply hired and indeed we're sort of one and two or one a and one B of where sort of the future of search would go indeed was incredibly focused. Here's what we were Google for jobs. We're not trying to be NASCAR or anything else. And simply hired had a program where they would, they would blast your resume. I forget this. was like resume zapper maybe. So they partnered with a resume.

Chad (19:55.575)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (19:59.318)

Yeah. Yep.

Chad (20:06.56)

Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Joel (20:19.756)

like distributor for a fee, you could get your resume everywhere. And they sort of took their off the ball, started offering these partnership services. And it was kind of confusing is what the hell did these guys do? What's their business model? And you see indeed now going down the same path of not being focused. How do we get revenue? How do we, you know, how do we get blood out of a turnip?

Chad (20:40.866)

huh.

Joel (20:44.322)

you know, because we need to make more on the bottom line and we're not making it on jobs and clicks and whatever it's like, let's, let's ship out learning. Let's do some resume writing stuff. And that's what we're seeing from indeed. It's historically not a good idea to get unfocused from what you do for a living.

Chad (20:57.356)

Yeah.

So it was interesting because when Indeed first started and Simply Hired first started, we partnered with them at Direct Employers to give them jobs from corporate career sites because we had the feeds and they wanted those feeds. It was just work that they didn't have to do. It was good. It was actually a great partnership. Totally fucked us. Not Simply Hired, but Indeed. But when you went to Indeed, they had an incredibly small staff and they were focused on one thing. That was job search and that was being able to monetize job search. That was it. That was it.

Joel (21:15.757)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (21:28.192)

Then you went to Silicon Valley across the street from Google was simply hired and Gotham and their team had like 50 fucking people right out of the gate and they were doing all of these things. They had these labs and they had this and they had that. And I'm like, you could not just to your point, you could not plan to have two incredibly different cultures, incredibly focused indeed, not so focused simply hired. And it seems like

Joel (21:37.208)

Yeah.

Joel (21:52.366)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (21:56.916)

as you are pointing at indeed is turning into simply art.

Joel (22:01.292)

Yeah, I'm really intrigued by the whole, generative AI business and how that, how job search plays into it. And I got to think if the New York times can do a deal with open AI to be like a new source for their, for their searches and whatnot. I mean, if indeed isn't on the phone to some of these services perplexity and open AI and grok and whatever, to get some, like be a, be a funnel for job.

search or listing somehow. They should be, shouldn't they?

Chad (22:34.206)

No, because these LLMs are actually going out to all of the actual source of truth. Indeed is not the source of truth for corporate for corporate jobs, right? So they can work directly with the companies and give them direct traffic, not going through a registration bullshit site, going through all these hoops like indeed. it's so funny because indeed it's like we're all about the job seeker. We're all about job seeker experience. Really? You're to make me fucking register before I can even do a job search. So I think there's no way in hell that a company

Joel (22:35.319)

No?

Joel (22:41.005)

Yeah.

Joel (22:51.287)

Yeah.

Chad (23:04.148)

like OpenAI or Google or anything, are going to actually partner incredibly closely with Indeed. And I think Google, they see the error of their ways in actually providing the weighting to Indeed with SEO early. Obviously, they took it away to some extent, but they still have some pretty powerful SEO.

Joel (23:25.314)

Yeah, I think it would benefit the solutions to have like real time data on jobs and not send people to dead jobs maybe. And I don't know if they're doing that now or not, but there might be an opportunity. Who knows, but more or less indeed, man. Come on. Come on. Come on. All right. Let's, let's play a little, who would you rather Chad, one of my favorite games that we play in light of,

Chad (23:41.871)

all over the place.

Chad (23:47.735)

Yes.

Joel (23:51.864)

George Foreman, here we go. We've got Jolly versus Lumber. Are you ready? Here we go. Jolly, a New York City based workforce optimization platform raised 16.5 million in a Series A funding round led by former Tesla CFO, Zach Kirkhorn, who will also join its board. Jolly lets employees earn customizable points for value adding actions like taking extra shifts, redeemable for gift cards or high value items. The platform claims over 100-

Chad (23:53.558)

You

Joel (24:21.774)

frontline employees, employers, sorry, with 30,000 essential workers across the United States. That is jolly. And in this corner, have lumber. They've raised $15.5 million, just about the same amount in the series A round building on a $5.5 million seed round. The San Jose headquartered startup claims over 100 U S clients providing time tracking, payroll, and other HR.

Chad (24:37.494)

Mm-hmm.

Joel (24:49.496)

features. Lumber plans to triple its current team of 40, but no timeline was reported. Jolly and Lumber together sounds like a pretty fun weekend, but you can only choose one for who'd you rather, who you got.

Chad (25:06.988)

So Jolly, okay, so you know, I'm a stickler for leadership and the CEO has no experience in our space. Looking at their solutions, they all feel like nice to have solutions instead of must have solutions. And when you check out their About Us page, they have some very high powered men. And I emphasize men because they have 12 or 11 men, 11 people or 12 people, my bad, and one single woman. So was like, what the hell? Lumber.

In the case of Lumber, it's focusing on a niche being construction, which needs better workforce automation, no question. Hiring platforms, including scheduling, time tracking, job costing, payroll. mean, the actual solutions it seems like they're putting together actually makes sense for the construction industry. These are all tier one needs of the construction industry. And I like the CEO's focus, FinTech background.

And everybody knows blue collar operations need to catch up to 2025. One thing I didn't like about either one of them. They've number one, Jolly has jobs listed on their site. You click on it and it opens your email client up. Like it's 1999. And then lumber says, Oh, would you like to work? Would you like to work for us?

Joel (26:11.918)

Yeah?

Chad (26:27.904)

Here, send an email to this email address. It's like, guys, you're in this fucking space. You gotta get at least those basics right, but at the end of the day, it's 2 a.m. in the bar. They're both dressed like 1980s Valley girls, but I feel lucky to see Lumber still available. I'm going to go with Lumber.

Joel (26:30.615)

God.

Joel (26:36.835)

Yeah.

Joel (26:41.23)

Ooh, hello.

lumber.

Joel (26:49.45)

All right. This one was interesting. I do like both of them. They're targeting groups that I think are in high demand, high growth. You I love me a good wave for that surf and that I do on a regular basis. Historically, companies have struggled to align the motivation of frontline employees with sort of the interest of the business and financial expectations. The deskless worker,

their satisfaction on the job is at an all time low. So anything, any company that comes along and says we can help people be happier is a good thing. with a name like Jolly, it's gotta be fun, right? And by the way, props to them for owning Jolly.com. Geez, if this were a firing squad, they'd be awesome. So I think there's a need, and we have a story later about

force joy. like these, hopefully services will help do that. I think lump, the lumber is great. lumber fi.com is not as good of a domain in my book. There are quite a few competitors. This was kind of the thing for me that I didn't realize I did some searches. So in lumber, you have a company called rivet, work yard, our Coro Bridget. you have quite a few comp competitors in a pretty niche space. from what I can tell,

Um, it's not like there are two companies that doing all the construction on in the U S yeah. So it sounds like a big way, but if you go to go to what Jolly's doing, sort of the frontline worker management system, mean, obviously Chad and she sponsors fountain Harry all do that, but you, and you have beekeeper. But after that, there's not a whole lot of options around this space and frontline, uh, satisfaction. So for me, I think there's a bigger Tam.

Chad (28:20.012)

Sounds like a wave.

Joel (28:46.254)

for all frontline workers as opposed to just people doing construction. There's not a lot of competition. We've seen results like with Fountain, with UPS, really making a difference in their business. So I think this is going to carry over with Jolly. So for me, Jolly gets my vote for who I would rather. That's right. Splitting it down the line, baby. Okay, let's take a quick break. Come back and we'll talk about Florida.

Chad (29:05.666)

Splitting it, splitting it.

Joel (29:19.054)

Florida is gonna Florida Chad. Have you done the search of your birthday and then Florida man to see what new stories come? Okay. That was a fun game. It's a yeah. Search your search, search your birthday and then Florida man and see what comes up. Don't put the date of your birthday because just the date that actually. Okay. So Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, your boy, legislature.

Chad (29:20.94)

Jesus.

Chad (29:25.8)

No. No, no, no.

Chad (29:36.641)

Yeah.

Chad (29:41.334)

Mm-hmm.

Joel (29:44.332)

are advancing a bill to loosen child labor laws, allowing 14 year olds to work overnight shifts on school days. What to offset labor shortages from you guessed it, immigration crackdowns. The bill, which passed a committee five to four awaits full Senate approval elections have consequences people. Chad, your thoughts.

Chad (30:06.506)

Yeah. So wait a minute. thought the immigrants were taking our jobs. I mean, you mean DeSantis and all those other fear mongering Republican ass clowns were actually lying to us? Is that what I'm hearing? So I guess if immigrants are kicked out, who will do the work? Not the white collar government employees that this administration is cutting by the thousands. The answer is kids. Kids. Florida is trying to rectify a stupid immigration policy coupled with

ice shock troops by having kids pick tomatoes in the fields, work the docks, and who knows what the fuck else, right? So why were federal child labor law provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act enacted in 1938? Why, you might ask? Well, number one, kids were dying. Not a good thing. Number two, we need an educated population. United States of America is ranked the 29th smartest

country in the world. 29th smartest country in the world. US isn't even ranked in the top 10 of reading, writing, and math and science, right? So, but, but hell no. Florida wants a whole state full of Florida men. I mean, this, this to me is just fucking ridiculous. And you're right. We, they knew this shit was going to happen. They knew that these individuals, these immigrants, because this actually happened during COVID.

when we had when we had supply chain shocks, right? But yet they still did it. And they want to put 14 year old kids not just not not Ron DeSantis kid, 14 year old kids, poor kids to fucking work. I mean, this is a fucking this is a class system, dude.

Joel (31:33.688)

Mm-hmm.

Joel (31:43.694)

Mm-hmm.

Joel (31:55.256)

So there's some line of thinking around this of, you okay with a 14 year old making your Big Mac? And for a lot of people, that's fine. The problem is you can't have 14 year old Big Mac workers because there are no immigrants, but then have the farm not being farmed or agriculture and frankly dangerous jobs being done because

immigrants aren't doing them. So you might be okay with a 14 year old making your Big Mac. Are you okay with them, uh, chopping lettuce or whatever, right? With sharp knives and things like that. Most people would say no 14 year old slaughterhouse would be fucked up. Uh, that's like, yeah, that's a world no one wants to live in. Uh, for sure. I mean, you talk about, yeah, you talk about.

Chad (32:34.69)

slaughterhouses.

Chad (32:43.294)

I am a dock workers, slaughterhouses. mean, where do you think the immigrants did the work? I mean, they did the hard fucking work, man, and it was on these hard, really shitty jobs. So why do you think they're doing this? And I it just blows my fucking brain, dude.

Joel (32:52.151)

for sure.

Joel (32:58.048)

Why do I think, why do I think the Republicans are doing it? Because it gets people elected when you scare people and thinking that all the immigrants are going to rape your daughter and kill your like it's fear mongering at its best. And I mean, there probably was a little bit of looseness in the, in the border that was, taken advantage of, but it wins elections, scaring people wins elections. So now we're dealing with the consequences.

Chad (33:01.569)

Yeah!

Chad (33:12.918)

Yeah, it is.

Joel (33:25.966)

We don't have enough immigrants are scared to get a job. getting the hell out of the country. Uh, so now we're in a situation where, well, shit, we don't have enough people to do the job. Okay. What do we do? Well, 14 year olds. That sounds like a good idea. And, and the part about like the part about like letting them work overnight on school nights and stuff like that, that's ridiculous. Like that is not a recipe for a successful country. I mean, I'm a firm believer that in.

Chad (33:47.927)

Yes.

Joel (33:55.63)

the next election, like we're going to be begging for immigrants to come to America. We're going to taste higher prices. We're going to taste less options. We're going to have lower growth. And those immigrants are going to start looking pretty good. And I didn't even throw in the story about a 14 year old whose hand got cut off or who maybe died, right? Those are going to start coming.

Chad (34:16.694)

Yeah? Yeah?

Joel (34:20.154)

and in addition to just like closing the border and deporting everybody, like the Trump administration this week, decided to rescind the legal status of over half a million immigrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti. So the U S already is facing a labor crunch and the problem will only be exacerbated as we shift away from manufacturing in China. yeah. We're going to make more stuff in America with your immigrants. Tell me what, how that makes sense. It just doesn't. So at some point.

Chad (34:39.926)

Yeah. Yeah. With who? With who? Yeah.

Joel (34:48.78)

We're going to be begging for immigrants to come back. We're going to say, sorry, we didn't mean it. Trump is gone. Come back. We need you to make our shit and serve our shit and whatever. So Mark, my words, if the dim, the Democrats should be like setting this up as a, as a major part of their platform going into the next election, because I think people are going to be like, Whoa, wait a minute. We, we wanted certain immigrants to leave, but not all of them. This is really bad for us. So, yeah, Florida.

Whatever what's happening in Florida is going to happen everywhere. I've hearing stories about like Wyoming, Nebraska, like these are people that count on immigrants to do the work. There's no one to do the work. So more than just higher prices, you may not have shit. They're just not there. Shit ain't going to go to market because there's nobody to fucking do the fields and do the hard work.

Chad (35:24.108)

Yeah.

Chad (35:28.898)

Yeah, Iowa, yeah, no.

Chad (35:37.258)

And you think inflation was bad before kids. Fuck. And again, it's the basic math and we've been talking about this on the show for months now. The workforce imbalance, we're gonna have the biggest workforce imbalance we've ever had in American history period. Fucking period. We are letting all these white collar individuals go, right? You see all the tech people, you see all the government people, see all, they're going out.

Joel (36:00.728)

Yep. Government.

Chad (36:05.546)

And then we're pushing all the lower wage and skilled jobs that the immigrants are doing, we're pushing them out. Those white collar workers are not gonna do those fucking jobs. So what are we gonna do? We're gonna put kids to work. Exactly, none of this fucking computes. None of it. Ask ChatGPT, I bet it says it's fucking stupid.

Joel (36:18.594)

while saying we're gonna make everything in America.

Joel (36:23.842)

Yeah. Yeah.

Joel (36:28.686)

It only computes if Tesla can crank out robots to take all these jobs and make Elon richer than he already is. It's pretty crazy, my friend.

Joel (36:44.206)

Well, no wonder we need forced joy, Chad. Forced joy is a thing, apparently. Yeah. Yeah, you will be happy. Companies like Starbucks and Tiffany, where I get all my jewelry, by the way, are requiring employees to project positivity and passion due to low employee engagement. This trend, driven by a disengaged workforce and a stalled labor market, is a form of, quote, emotional labor, end quote, that has become increasingly prevalent

Chad (36:46.754)

You will be happy. You will be happy.

Joel (37:14.496)

as hard skills are automated. Chad, what are your thoughts and be joyful about it.

Chad (37:20.78)

I'll try. I'll try. So remember office space and Jennifer Anderson when they kept telling her she didn't have enough pieces of flair and how that just pissed her off. Remember? Yes. Okay. Okay. Well hit it.

Joel (37:30.254)

wait, I'm gonna give some visual to that. Here we go.

Chad (37:58.105)

wow.

Joel (38:03.758)

Jennifer Aniston's so hot. Can I just say that?

Chad (38:32.258)

Okay, okay, okay.

Chad (38:41.25)

So, okay kids, let's break this down. Let's break this down. The average wage for a barista in New York City is $17.74 an hour, while the living wage is $2,804. Baristas are getting paid...

Joel (38:41.87)

99 classic, the 1999 classic,

Chad (38:58.53)

$10 less per hour under the living wage, right? So how the fuck are they supposed to be happy? Especially when Brian Nicol has been at Starbucks for around a year and he's already pocketed $100 million in bonus compensation. So we act like we don't understand why Gallup's poll shows employees are disengaged. Well, fuck man, without those baristas, Starbucks can't generate revenue. While Nicol's dumb ass is saying,

Joel (39:02.552)

Mm-hmm.

Joel (39:19.0)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (39:26.75)

I'm paying you incredibly low wage. Just be happy that you have a job and smile. Right? So we wonder what will bring out the pitchforks. It's shit like this. People aren't getting paid enough and then we're telling them to put on more fucking flair. People are working 40 hours a week, not being able to make ends meet and they're told to smile. It's fucking ridiculous. It's ridiculous.

Joel (39:46.102)

Mm-hmm.

Chad (39:55.05)

Living Wage.

Joel (39:55.352)

You know, the old man screaming at the clouds in me wants to like, this was a thing when I worked these jobs, like smile, be nice to the customer, be engaged, ask how their day is. Like it was just sort of training. And if you didn't do it, you were in trouble. I was so young and vibrant at the time and a great smile.

Chad (40:00.162)

Hahaha

Chad (40:16.62)

You were a kid at that time.

Chad (40:21.431)

Yeah, yeah.

Joel (40:25.388)

It's sort of odd to me to think as a 53 year old man, like we have to tell people to be, to be, to be happy at work, to smile at customers. But apparently we are. And probably part of that is like, people have options. I can go deliver door dash. I can do only fans. Like, you know, I'm doing this because I want to be like, do I have to be happy about it? Can I just serve the latte and sort of get on with my day? The fact that that Starbucks now has to write stuff on the cup that sort of custom to the person or, know,

Carpe Diem, Tony, or what like that's a little bit over the top. But an employer has a right to tell you to do it. If you don't want to do it, go do something else. I wonder to your point of living wage. I feel like there's a sort. I feel like customers are mad at everything they do now says, do you want a tip?

Chad (41:22.124)

Yeah, because these people aren't getting paid.

Joel (41:22.946)

And it's not, I want to tip because they were nice to me. They did the extra thing. Like consumers are mad because they're just required to tip where the whole tip, the whole tip system should be, I'm to be nice to you and write Carpe Diem on your cup because you might put a little fiber in the, in the tip jar after I do it. consumers are mad about tipping. No one's tipping or they feel bad about it. now employees are mad because, everyone's asked to tip 20 % automatically.

If you don't do it like no one's doing like fuck them. So I'm not going to be nice and put carpeting them on the, on the thing. Let's just go to Europe, pay a living wage, tap and go. Customers are happy because I don't have to wait around. I don't feel pressured to leave a tip. Boom, done. You know, here's like our system is fucked up and everyone's mad about it. And this is the disengagement is part of that. So I let's embrace Europe and tap and go.

Chad (41:54.124)

Yeah, right.

Chad (42:04.171)

Yes. I know.

Chad (42:11.414)

Yes. Yeah.

It is. Well, you've got the grown ass adult who's Ethel, right? And she's in her 40s, let's say, and she's just not doing OnlyFans or DoorDash. Maybe she doesn't have a car, right? So the options are very limited for a lot of these people. To be able to think that there are options out there. I live in Columbus, Indiana, right? It's a vibrant little town, but there aren't a shit ton of options, especially for people who have low skills, right?

Joel (42:24.161)

Ethel, okay, yeah.

Joel (42:36.664)

Uh-huh.

Joel (42:40.238)

Sure.

Chad (42:45.898)

If you're not paying a living wage and you're working at Starbucks, I just can't be happy about that, right? I have to do the job because I have to get some kind of money and then maybe go have a side hustle somewhere else. it's just back when you and I were kids and we were flipping burgers, right? That's just not the way it is today. And you're right with the tip system. I love Europe, man. I go, I tap, they look at me, they smile and they walk the fuck off. They don't ask me for a tip.

Joel (42:53.357)

Yeah.

Joel (43:13.464)

Yeah, you're making money, I'm getting my shit and getting out of here.

Chad (43:13.794)

They don't ask me for any of that shit. And I can stay for three hours. I can stay for three hours instead of them trying to push me out because they need to turn the table to get more tips, right? We are in a system that needs overhauled completely. And this administration is taking this deeper down, just a hole that's already bad.

Joel (43:35.95)

Mm-hmm. Well, I hope for Ethel's sake, if she's on OnlyFans, that she's not Ethel on OnlyFans because nobody is subscribing to a chick named Ethel who's 40. Like, she better spice that shit up if she's gonna be on OnlyFans, Ethel. Let's take a quick break. Guys, if you like the show, leave us a review. Go to wherever you listen or YouTube, like, give us, give us, we gotta outpace ZipRecruiter.

Chad (43:43.745)

OOF

Chad (43:58.065)

yeah. Subscribe.

Joel (44:03.477)

and their shitty podcast. So go out and help us keep ahead of zip recruiter, leave a review. And when we come back, we'll talk about death.

Chad (44:03.702)

Ha!

Chad (44:16.084)

That was ominous. Okay, good.

Joel (44:17.41)

That was ominous. Sorry about that. We're going to lighten it up at the end here, folks. Don't worry about it. so Paul Broome, a British care assistant known for his humor. That's humor spelled O U R, made an unusual request in his will to be buried in a Snickers, the candy bar Snickers Snickers themed coffin after his death, his loved ones discovered he was serious and honored his wish, creating a coffin resembling a half unwrapped Snickers bar with quote,

I'm nuts and quote written on it. is nuts reflecting on his playful personality. The coffin brought light to his funeral, earning praise from attendees as a fitting tribute. His funeral arranger, Ali Lego noted it celebrated his unique character and helped his family cope with loss through humor. Chad, your take on this chocolatey goodness of a story and what would your themed coffin look like?

Chad (44:54.626)

Hmm

Chad (45:14.188)

So it's funny because this is not an American story, but we can productize and monetize the shit out of everything, right? And this just goes to the example that the UK is turning into a little America. I mean, they're selling shit all over the place. I think that is crazy. Did it say how much the casket was? Because it was custom. Okay. I guarantee it was not cheap. You're on your way out. Yeah, you're on your way out.

Joel (45:22.414)

Mm-hmm.

Joel (45:35.298)

there were no pricing in the store. But it's priceless, come on.

Chad (45:42.698)

So for me, and same question to you, but for me, I'm getting cremated. I just want my ashes on the beach on the southern coast of Portugal and have a nice day, right? Now, what does the urn look like? That's a good question. I never thought about that. I never thought about that.

Joel (46:02.062)

I was thinking cremation too, but this story has me thinking again. And if I were to have a custom casket, Chad.

Joel (46:17.134)

maybe I could be cremated and put in a bowl, like put my ashes in a burrito bowl and then like top it, top it off and then like just put me, yeah, put me out. in researching this story, I was like, come on, are there custom coffins? You bet your ass there are custom coffins. if you, there's a site called we wrap caskets, whatever the hell you want, man. Spider-Man.

Chad (46:20.354)

yeah. Chipotle brown sack. Yeah.

Chad (46:33.025)

yeah, yes sir.

Joel (46:42.222)

movie themes, whatever. if you're a hunter, you can have a camo casket. If you like chicks, there's one with tits and ass all over it. Like anything you want. they got it. So yeah. and no word if they had to get Snickers to sort of underwrite it. we should get with our friends at chicken cock to see if they'll do a casket maybe for, for a lucky, lucky listener.

Chad (46:59.062)

doubtful.

Chad (47:03.842)

I'd rather not talk about that.

Joel (47:08.27)

rather than to talk about about death. But how about a dad joke to even lighten things up a little more. This was told to me no joke by the desk, the front desk person in Chicago when I checked in. He had said something about my credit card and I made a joke about like you sound like my wife and he felt like comfortable enough to tell me a dirty dad joke. So here we go. What's the difference between a bonus and a boner?

Chad (47:12.153)

Okay.

Chad (47:22.146)

Pantry? Okay.

Joel (47:36.716)

the difference between a bonus and a boner.

Chad (47:40.258)

Your wife only wants the former.

Joel (47:44.184)

Close, your wife will happily blow your bonus.

Thanks Chicago, we love ya, our kind of town. We out!

Chad (47:50.89)

That is misogynist. We out!