Recruit Holdings' "Alleged" Cartel
- Chad Sowash
- 7 hours ago
- 37 min read
Robots, Cartel Price-Fixing, and Tipping Bans
The Chad and Cheese Podcast—HR’s most dangerous show—returns as hosts Chad Sowash, JT O’Donnell, and Maureen "Mo" Wiley Clough take aim at corporate greed, runaway AI, and workplace absurdity.
Bro-Culture Meets Brand Disaster: After honoring the late, great Dolly Parton’s legacy of giving back, the hosts tear into Good Good Golf and Callaway.
Low-to-No AI Trust : Humanoid Robots, digital twin startups, drivers replaced with automated hubs, Chad, JT, and Mo question whether CEOs actually care that 80% of young workers deeply distrust corporate AI.
Amazon’s Token-maxing gone wrong: The gang reviews Amazon's 860% token-maxing overage.
Japan’s Big Staffing Cartel: The Japan Fair Trade Commission raided Recruit Holdings, Adecco, Manpower, and others over an alleged price-fixing scheme.
"Last week I said Indeed should sponsor Spaceballs 2... and this week I'm starting to think that Recruit should sponsor a Japanese version of Orange is the New Black." - Chad
Banning the Tip Screen: US restaurants are starting to ban tips, replacing them with fixed wages up to $40/hour. The crew breaks down how paying predictable, living wages cuts server churn, ends back-of-house pay gaps, and saves customers from the dreaded "Starbucks screen shame."
ENJOY!
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION
Chad Sowash (00:34.744)
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene. That's right, kids. Welcome to the Chad and Cheese Podcast. HR's most dangerous podcast. I'm Chad "working nine to five" Sowash.
JT O'Donnell (00:48.402)
I'm J T, "someone needs to push good, good golf to the ground" O'Donnell.
Maureen Wiley Clough (00:51.791)
And I'm Maureen, aka Mo, "You Can't Make Old Friends" Wiley Clough.
Chad Sowash (00:57.906)
That is that's aggressive, JT. and on this week's show, recruit is allegedly pr price fixing, humanoid robots are kibbutzing, and companies are deep sixing. Tips. Let's do this.
Maureen Wiley Clough (00:59.897)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (01:15.048)
There it is.
Chad Sowash (01:19.006)
And we don't hear that enough. So I I had to play it right as the transition. So yeah. and we're gonna need we're gonna need a lighter mood. And let's just go ahead and w I mean we're just gonna do it. first and foremost, where are you guys at? You are you Mo, are you back? Are you on the island? Are you back in Seattle? Okay. We're done.
Maureen Wiley Clough (01:22.455)
Lightens the mood, thank you. I think we do
JT O'Donnell (01:23.868)
It does. We might need it as at the end of this one. We're gonna need a shot of it. Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (01:39.321)
I'm back. I'm back. I'm back. We are done. We're done. We're done with the island. No more Gilligan's Island. Yep. yeah, back in back in the big city. Back in the big city. and getting ready for the school year. So yeah, summer. Sayanara. Later. It was.
Chad Sowash (01:46.854)
No skipper.
Chad Sowash (01:52.04)
Okay. Well that was an experiment. That was an experiment. And and are you in the in in the cabin, J T?
JT O'Donnell (01:55.699)
Yeah.
JT O'Donnell (01:59.026)
I am in the cabin, eking out what I can for golfing before the travel season hits and reality sets in. But yeah, it's good.
Maureen Wiley Clough (02:02.319)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (02:04.037)
yeah.
That's gonna hit us soon. That's gonna hit us soon. Well, let's go ahead and yes, no. yes, a very good point. I'm in a bar. So if you hear, you know, talking, you hear yelling, you hear kids running around. Yes, I'm in Europe and that's you know, I'm in a bar. So that's where I'm at. It's all good. It's all good. but let's go ahead, let's jump into shout outs. And shout outs are brought to you by those lovely.
JT O'Donnell (02:10.013)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (02:10.358)
You're in a bar. It looks like you're in a bar. You're killing it.
Ha ha
Maureen Wiley Clough (02:25.208)
Good to be. Killin' it.
Chad Sowash (02:35.215)
Lovely the Chad and Cheese t-shirts. They are soft, they are stylish, and they are free. All because those crazy kids over at Aaron App, you know, the employee referral software for modern hiring teams, you are a modern hiring team, aren't you? Well, they knew you needed a cool and comfortable t-shirt. And you can get one for free. I said it free, but not unless you register at chadcheese.com slash free. And check out Aaron App at Aaronapp.com.
JT O'Donnell (02:38.267)
Mm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (02:48.584)
Ha ha ha.
Chad Sowash (03:05.041)
dot com. So here we go. You know it is, you know it is. Mo, what you got?
Maureen Wiley Clough (03:12.94)
I can't not shout out Dolly Parton. I mean, may she rest in peace. What an icon, a a complete legend. I can't stop marveling at how the entire world seemed to stop for a moment and despite all of our division, just mourn this one person. Like, if you can stop the world and make everyone grieve for you, you did a great job on this planet.
Chad Sowash (03:18.372)
my goodness, yes.
Chad Sowash (03:31.431)
Uh-huh.
Maureen Wiley Clough (03:35.369)
And she just she made the world a better place. She actually, like, instead of becoming a billionaire or trillionaire, right? She or probably couldn't have gone to trillionaire, but instead of becoming a billionaire, Dolly Parton decided to give so much of her wealth away to ensure that kids could read. What if we could inspire other billionaires to be that good hearted? Wouldn't the world be a better place? Like she was one of a kind. And I just I I have so much deep and abiding respect for her. And I think she was incredible. And I
Chad Sowash (03:49.745)
Yeah, I'm not thinking.
Chad Sowash (03:56.06)
Yes.
Maureen Wiley Clough (04:04.867)
I'm so grateful that I made this trip to Austin in 2017 when I was like eight months pregnant with my daughter to go see her in concert because that was the one and only time I got to see her. And yeah, she was she was a legend. I mean, I have like several Dolly Parton books in my home, including this one in my hand. And I just I she was amazing. She was absolutely amazing. And Grim Reaper, dude, there were other people to choose, really. You had you had to take her.
Chad Sowash (04:05.251)
Sim, sim.
Chad Sowash (04:10.789)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (04:20.05)
Three.
Chad Sowash (04:31.643)
god, yeah. Seriously? Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (04:33.506)
Like there were few other choices you could have made. Same age bracket too. Come on, man. So anyway, shout out to Dolly. She was the freaking best. Truly.
Chad Sowash (04:42.597)
A national treasure born in Tennessee, died in Tennessee. I mean, just an amazing, an amazing woman. An amazing woman. Yeah. So R I P to R. A. P. to Dolly. I've got less. Well, maybe mine's a little bit more dystopian. mine
JT O'Donnell (04:45.542)
A legend.
Chad Sowash (05:11.087)
So my shout out goes to the 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing. So if you've been online this week and you haven't seen videos of robots running the hundred meter dash faster than Usain Bolt, or a I don't know, robot roundhouse kicking, another one, robots weightlifting and tons of other sports like table tennis, high jump, soccer, relay racing, there were like literally 30 purely competitive events just around sports.
Maureen Wiley Clough (05:11.288)
Yeah.
JT O'Donnell (05:11.731)
Ha ha.
Chad Sowash (05:40.621)
did you guys see this?
Maureen Wiley Clough (05:42.434)
Mm mm.
JT O'Donnell (05:43.131)
I saw the highlights. Crazy.
Chad Sowash (05:44.406)
okay. It looks like looks like robots are in our algorithm, JT. Moe's gonna have to she's gonna have to you got Dolly. You know what? Well, the total robots who participated were over two thousand and that's a three hundred and eleven percent increase over last year. Three hundred and eleven percent. That's
Maureen Wiley Clough (05:50.798)
I got dolly all day. That's all I have. I was just like crying, Dolly. my gosh, everything. Tears and tears.
JT O'Donnell (05:54.397)
Ha ha ha.
Chad Sowash (06:12.977)
What I call a beautiful disaster. Get it? 311. Anyway. there were also twenty-one scenario-based operational tasks in the competition. They had industrial assembly, material loading and handling, supermarket res restocking, medicine sorting, you know, like in your local pharmacy, ho housekeeping and cleaning, bed making, clothes folding, firefighting operations, no shit.
Emergency incident handling, search and rescue, and many more, right? So this competition isn't just about sports, it's about tasks and it's about jobs. Plus, Business Insider is reporting that former Uber drivers are now servicing Waymo cars. They're not driving. And Amazon and Amazon is developing an internal initiative to build quote unquote fully automated.
Maureen Wiley Clough (07:01.528)
What?
Chad Sowash (07:09.371)
delivery stations, you know, robots for the last mile stuff like sorting, loading, and staging. So shout out to all those robots out there. We're we're gonna be in Utopia soon. We're not gonna have to do anything.
Maureen Wiley Clough (07:23.47)
Hmm, I don't like this.
JT O'Donnell (07:25.811)
Do you remember the show Battle Bots? It's probably still on where people make the home like it just makes that look so basic now, right? Like who watches that show anymore? Yeah.
Chad Sowash (07:28.202)
yes. I love it. Yep, I love it.
Maureen Wiley Clough (07:28.481)
Mm mm.
Chad Sowash (07:33.349)
It does. It really does. So yeah, it was it was it's fun because you see the okay, so the hundred meter dash. Some of those robots were going so fast and they can't stop that they're going so fast. So they literally have like a wall, like it's a padded wall, and they all run into the padded wall. And it's fun to watch how fast they're going, but it's even more fun when they hit that wall and some of them like do backflips.
Maureen Wiley Clough (07:46.846)
Yeah.
JT O'Donnell (07:48.963)
Mm-hmm.
JT O'Donnell (07:58.877)
Facts.
Chad Sowash (08:00.752)
And then you see sparks coming out and some going on fire. I mean, it is amazing. It's amazing. Anyway. It is. It is. Until they take over. Until they take over. So yeah. So you know, for for the robot overlords, I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing with you. I'm laughing with you. Yes. J JT, what'd you got?
Maureen Wiley Clough (08:04.751)
Might enjoy this. Yeah. Sounds cathartic.
It's what the world needs now. Yeah, until then.
JT O'Donnell (08:11.774)
Love it. Until they take over. Fair.
Maureen Wiley Clough (08:17.005)
Ha ha ha.
Yeah. We love you. Mm-hmm.
JT O'Donnell (08:25.15)
So mine's pretty dark. If so you know I'm a golfer, and ironically, yeah, I just this year I got a new set of Callaway clubs. So shame on Good Good Golf and Callaway. if you didn't see it this week, Good Good Golf is a bro brand. They started out in social media, started building out apparel and started doing co branding opportunities. They did one with Callaway, and this week one of the bros, one of the founding bros, thought that the
Maureen Wiley Clough (08:27.279)
I know. It's a trend.
Chad Sowash (08:28.08)
not another one.
Chad Sowash (08:34.586)
nice.
Maureen Wiley Clough (08:35.523)
Ooh.
Mm-hmm.
JT O'Donnell (08:53.17)
The advertisement, a great idea for an advertisement would be for him, a girl is checking out the new driver, the new Callaway driver in his bag. He promptly walks over, pushes her to the ground, stands over and says, Don't touch my driver. it was quickly taken down, but damage is done. It's everywhere. Go check it out. What was more disturbing was good, good golf's awful initial reaction to what they had done.
Chad Sowash (09:11.017)
Dude.
Maureen Wiley Clough (09:12.111)
It's unbelievable. It's hard to watch.
JT O'Donnell (09:21.64)
Like they had to backpedal later on. Callaway's was like, we don't condone it. Also not very strong, but at least better than good, good golf's initial reaction. and now it's just blowing up from there. But I mean, it's we you've seen it. It's disturbing. It is a disturbing video to watch. and it's just a shame, right? Like it makes me go, Ugh, about my clubs and how it was reacted. It's like, I don't know, it was bad. And you know, the runner up to that is Target. Target's probably like, Woo!
Chad Sowash (09:23.442)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (09:36.119)
It's awful.
Chad Sowash (09:42.162)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (09:42.382)
Right.
Maureen Wiley Clough (09:48.92)
god. Taking the heat off.
JT O'Donnell (09:49.791)
Thanks, good good golf, because we had a huge mess up this week. But good good golf's worse if like Target's like, Look over there. Don't look you know, with Target with their their Halloween costume. Like again, I don't know what's going on this week, but yikes, and shame on good good golf. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (09:50.898)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (09:56.507)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (09:57.582)
Brands.
Maureen Wiley Clough (10:01.785)
Mm-hmm.
Who's in charge? Who are these people in charge? How are these decisions getting made? And how are they going from incubation to execution? Green lit I I do not understand who these morons are.
Chad Sowash (10:05.933)
S
JT O'Donnell (10:14.896)
Is it just the yes, like everybody's like, Yeah, that's a good idea 'cause he's running the show? I don't know. Do you know what I mean? But clearly, where was the voice of reason in the room to go, That might not fly? You know? Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (10:19.639)
I yeah, it could be. Exactly. Even if women were in the room, for example, at Good Good and Callaway, like they certainly were stampeded on, like not listened to whatsoever. It's just, it's disgusting. It's and the minimizing of it is what's really upsetting to me. For people to be like, you're being too sensitive. No. Are you freaking kidding me? Like unreal. Unreal.
JT O'Donnell (10:35.868)
Right. Exactly.
Chad Sowash (10:38.681)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, the the thing for me is as a man in the room who plays golf, okay, I also played, you know, football in high school and I play physical sports. Golf is not a physical sport. The thing that really is pissing me off about this whole manosphere thing is they're trying to make everything testosterone. Everything is manly. And it's so it's so much and to me, and to me
JT O'Donnell (10:39.892)
She's pushed to the ground. Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (11:01.194)
Yeah, it's fair.
Chad Sowash (11:06.801)
This just shows that you're just a weak little asshole to be able to do something like that. Well, first and foremost, you're hip checking a woman in her back. In her back. I mean, if she saw it come and like elbowed you in your face and you got a bloody nose, that'd be more fucking funny than that was. But yeah, at the end of the day, I I watching this shit as a dude, I was in the military. I taught frickin', you know, mixed martial arts in the military. I mean, just
Maureen Wiley Clough (11:14.863)
It's disgusting. It's so gross.
JT O'Donnell (11:28.531)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (11:34.863)
All the little things that you just do in but that doesn't have to be who you are. You don't have to be this testosterone piece of shit like these guys are. It's just
Maureen Wiley Clough (11:41.179)
Right.
JT O'Donnell (11:44.69)
Yeah, not when we now make up twenty eight percent of the golfing market, women, and growing, right? With plenty of purchasing power. Plenty of purchasing power. So yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (11:50.15)
Yes.
That's a huge growth market for them. And I bet from Callaway standpoint, I mean the the good good golf guys are probably because they're a bro, they they don't care about that. But Callaway, you know fucking Callaway does. hell yeah. Callaway, I I would kick good, good golf in the nuts and to the curb. And to the curb. God, fucking idiots. Okay, let's let's get on.
JT O'Donnell (12:03.187)
Right. Calories should care. Yeah. Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (12:07.821)
Really bad look.
You and me both. I love it. Cancel these losers. Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (12:21.021)
Crazy travel sponsored by Shaker Recruitment Marketing. if you're looking to fuse AI into your tech stack, and who is not? I mean, everybody is. Everybody wants that ROI with AI. Everybody wants ROI with AI. you can go to Shaker.com because they have 75 years in the business. Even before AI was AI, or at least we know it today, they were in business. So check them out, shaker.com. Seriously, there's so much fucking noise that's out there today.
Maureen Wiley Clough (12:28.505)
Ha ha.
JT O'Donnell (12:30.376)
What? What is this AI thing?
Maureen Wiley Clough (12:31.927)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (12:49.905)
With all of this technology, inner space, and all the different spaces. It's hard to navigate. So you need somebody to be able to help you, go ahead and find shaker.com and tell them Chad and Cheese sent you. we are going to wreckfest in Nashville. All three of us, we're gonna be there. We're only we're only missing Joel. He took the day off.
Maureen Wiley Clough (13:08.493)
Woohoo.
Chad Sowash (13:12.423)
this is happening September 23rd and 24th. Joel and I are going to be emceeing the disrupt stage on day one. You're both gonna be on the innovate stage, right? Innovate, yep. Day one. So stop by. And if you haven't got your tickets, go get your damn tickets. I don't know what you're I don't know what you're waiting for. but on the first night of Wreck Fest, you can also come on over and see the four of us because we're all going to be at Old Red's Rooftop Bar.
JT O'Donnell (13:21.2)
Innovate. Yeah. Hmm?
Maureen Wiley Clough (13:22.704)
yeah, baby.
Maureen Wiley Clough (13:28.879)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (13:41.005)
where you can have a drink with Chad Cheese, JT Mo. And it's it's a different venue than last year. It's actually bigger, better, awesome, awesome event space. then I'm gonna be are you guys gonna do anything in in Nashville? Anything fun? Do little sightseeing? Okay.
Maureen Wiley Clough (13:57.569)
No. There's nothing to do there, you know? They don't have good music or cool bars. No good food. Just gonna sit at home. Yeah.
JT O'Donnell (14:00.244)
Yeah, I don't yeah, yeah.
Chad Sowash (14:01.406)
Okay, so it if you if you if you have not and it doesn't sound like you have, you should try to get into the Nash Trash bus tour. It is fucking hilarious. You've got these two older ladies with hair to Jesus, and you go on this pink bus, and they're they're comedians, and they take you on a tour in the bus.
JT O'Donnell (14:04.789)
I mean the people watching alone. I mean, come on.
Maureen Wiley Clough (14:17.385)
Ooh.
Maureen Wiley Clough (14:23.247)
No
Chad Sowash (14:30.033)
And they tell you about all the places and they have all the little funny bits and whatnot. It is fucking amazing. Nash Trash, you two should definitely be on it.
Maureen Wiley Clough (14:38.359)
We should have a Chad and Cheese bus tour next year. Let's do it. Wouldn't that be rad? Yeah.
Chad Sowash (14:41.083)
You know what? We could do we could try to do Nash Trash because I mean
JT O'Donnell (14:43.646)
There's right. And the bicycle tours. I th like the pedal bikes. We we could we could do a pedal bike.
Maureen Wiley Clough (14:46.669)
Ooh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Options. We got options.
Chad Sowash (14:48.187)
You know Yeah, no, I do like that. I do like that. Okay. Too many, too, too many options. Too many options. after that, I'm heading to Cabo. I'm the best man over for Chris Long and the lovely Marin Marin Hogan. They're gonna tie the knot. I'm so excited. Julie and I's first time to Cabo, so we're pretty excited. Have you guys been to Cabo? You? Okay. Anything, anything you want to tell me? Anything I should do, should not do.
JT O'Donnell (14:52.508)
I mm little bar crowd with the pedal bikes?
Maureen Wiley Clough (14:55.555)
Mm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (14:59.977)
amazing.
Maureen Wiley Clough (15:09.966)
Ooh. Yes, I love it. It's sick. It's great.
JT O'Donnell (15:11.997)
I haven't.
Maureen Wiley Clough (15:17.096)
I mean eat everything in sight. That's what you should do. That's what you should do. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (15:20.125)
Yes. Well, since I can't get good Mexican in Portugal, I am definitely going to do that. then on October, wait a minute. As you were, right after that, almost forgot about that. You can't forget about Collaboration X. Shit. That's in the Omni in Dallas, September 29th through the first. I'm gonna be there actually as a judge for Shark Tank.
Doing some other kind of hosting duties. So that should be a blast. First time at an SIA event. Can't wait. Then on October 6th, we have the e-Recruitment Congress coming up in Amsterdam at the Musikebouw, which is fucking amazing. Where Levin and the House of HR crew will actually have, listen to this, kids, humanoid robots working the show. I shit you not. They're going, yes, I I I should you not.
Maureen Wiley Clough (16:13.209)
What?
JT O'Donnell (16:13.438)
Go leave in.
Chad Sowash (16:14.567)
It's gonna be a blast. It's gonna be a blast. Mo's like, I don't know if I can handle it. anyway, I love this show. We've this is like our fourth year of going. and then last but never least, Workdays frontline hiring event. This is the first time and only time I'm going to Vegas this year. It's on October twelfth. I'm only doing this for Paradox. I'm only doing this for workday. I hate going to Vegas, but we're doing it this year.
Maureen Wiley Clough (16:18.359)
I don't I don't know.
Maureen Wiley Clough (16:34.851)
Wow.
Maureen Wiley Clough (16:40.631)
Ha ha
JT O'Donnell (16:41.982)
Same.
Chad Sowash (16:44.273)
For any, for any of these events, go ahead and go to chadcheese.com slash events. that's chadcheese.com slash events and get your tickets. What are you waiting for? And one quick mention: if you haven't registered to play fantasy football with the Chad and Cheese powered by our friends at Factory Fix, head over to chadcheese.net slash fantasy dash football. There's only 10 teams open, so register now, cross your fingers.
Maureen Wiley Clough (17:01.099)
Ha ha.
Chad Sowash (17:13.369)
And let's begin. I love NFL football. I know mo I JT you want to play, right? Okay, okay. I y I you won in, we'll get you in. We win, you win.
JT O'Donnell (17:19.486)
Sure. I'll definitely do it.
Maureen Wiley Clough (17:23.544)
Ha ha ha.
JT O'Donnell (17:23.72)
I I you know, I mean, I I love random picking. I love I told you this story in high school. The guy no, true story, in high school this guy was running a a fantasy football where you just had to pick the winning team every week, right? And he wanted more money. So he comes over and he says, Do you want in? Like it's X dollars. And I'm like, what do you gotta do? And he's like, Well, you gotta pick who wins. And I'm like, Great. I sat down, I go, What color are their shirts? What color are their shirts? What color are their shirts? And I picked the entire thing by colors of shirts and one.
Chad Sowash (17:29.213)
I love random picking.
Maureen Wiley Clough (17:31.681)
Ha ha
Chad Sowash (17:38.805)
yeah yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (17:48.099)
No.
JT O'Donnell (17:52.498)
He was so pissed at me, he gave me the money, would never let me play again.
Maureen Wiley Clough (17:53.015)
It's amazing.
Chad Sowash (17:55.464)
Guess what? You're in. You are in because th that's exactly what I want to see this year. All right. You know what? it is what it is, right? Not to mention you can always use
JT O'Donnell (17:57.79)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (17:59.723)
I love that. That's too good. That's so good. A win is a win, man. A win is a win.
JT O'Donnell (18:00.68)
That's about as accurate as you know in the stats. You know what I mean?
JT O'Donnell (18:09.544)
A win is a win.
Chad Sowash (18:12.369)
That's right.
Whoo, this is what we're calling our AI block kids. Imagine that talking about AI on the Chad and Cheese podcast. A report from Gallup and Bentley University says, quote, Americans' familiarity with AI has grown over the past two years. Today, 70%, 7-0% say they are somewhat or extremely knowledgeable about AI, but highlights from business and society reports say they don't trust businesses.
Maureen Wiley Clough (18:21.71)
We are
Chad Sowash (18:43.495)
To use AI responsibly, go figure. Nearly 80%. Listen to this, nearly 80% in the 18 to 29 age range, they don't trust businesses with AI. 70% from 30 to 59. 30 to 59, they don't trust businesses. and 75% for those over 60s on the employee experience side.
Maureen Wiley Clough (18:44.569)
Weird.
Chad Sowash (19:12.389)
Jim Harder from Gallup writes, organizations are investing heavily in AI adoption to improve employee productivity and efficiency, but Gallup's latest findings suggest that access alone does not improve or weaken the employee experience. It's totally flatlined. And last but not least, news that twins or twin one AI has emerged from stealth.
With 20 million in seed funding. 20 million emerging from self. Probably because they have AI in their title. Anyway, it's it's AI, it's AI powered digital twins. it's a platform for professional knowledge workers. Twin One is developing digital AI twins designed to represent an individual's professional knowledge.
Maureen Wiley Clough (19:43.853)
God, God. Mm-hmm. Always.
Chad Sowash (20:08.209)
Judgment and context. I mean, what could go wrong, right? JT? JT, what could go wrong with that?
JT O'Donnell (20:16.136)
Yeah, yeah. A little scary. A little scary. Look, I mean, we know this is coming and we all in our little private WhatsApp chat, we're always talking about like guardrails, guardrails. We just we need more guardrails, you know, more more checking in on what's being done here. I mean, but then we know what's about to happen, right? Like the the bad actors are gonna come out and it's gonna crash and burn and be super public, and it's unfortunate, but it's gonna take some pretty bad crashing and burning.
Maureen Wiley Clough (20:27.748)
Need
Chad Sowash (20:32.283)
Yes.
JT O'Donnell (20:43.358)
You know, for us to start to everyone to start to pay attention. You know, we got lawsuits coming out left and right in our space, but it still doesn't seem to be enough to make people take notice. So my question to all of you is like, what's it gonna be? Like, how bad is it gonna have to be that the you know, that moment that makes everybody go, Okay, I guess we should pay attention now? I I don't know. Pretty scary.
Chad Sowash (20:53.457)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (21:05.693)
Yeah. I think Zuckerberg and and Meta just got hit. Literally, I saw on the feed right before it was like sixteen billion dollars for for for yeah, b billion for for social media. So you're right. I mean this is gonna this is is slowly coming home to roost for the social media platforms. The question is can they catch up to AI faster? What are your thoughts, Mo?
Maureen Wiley Clough (21:06.851)
Ha ha ha
Mm.
JT O'Donnell (21:13.586)
Right.
Billion. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (21:27.885)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (21:32.303)
I mean, when it comes down to the whole digital twin thing from the first point, the first story, like I I'm just I'm so blown away by it. Cause like we all see what they're doing, right? And I would say over my dead body, but I think that that's kind of what they want. You know, it's like they want us to train all these machines and then push us out of the way. And it's just it's utterly terrifying though. And we all we all see it coming. But with regard to the concept of like when is enough enough.
Chad Sowash (21:38.341)
Come on. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (21:51.342)
Don't say that too loud.
Maureen Wiley Clough (21:59.981)
I don't know, Expedia just did layoffs and they laid off like SVPs and VPs. And I'm like, maybe once it starts inching towards the top and AI displacement, right? Like maybe once the executives start to get a little heat under the collar about like their potential replacement, maybe that's when suddenly there will be a shift away from an AI first policy. That might be what it takes, right? When the people at the top start feeling it. But it's I mean
JT O'Donnell (22:06.932)
higher.
Chad Sowash (22:14.66)
Mm-hmm.
JT O'Donnell (22:22.202)
And when and when there's no job paying high, high six figures or seven figures that they can go to next, right? Like 'cause when they start getting hurt in the pocketbook, maybe now they'll pay attention.
Maureen Wiley Clough (22:27.691)
Yep. Yeah.
That's when they care. Exactly. So it's gotta hit in the wallet or they're not gonna give a damn. And that's just how it is. And I I don't know. I I don't know who they think is going to be buying products and services over the course of time as we continue to boot people from the workforce and pretend that there are jobs when there are none and fake these unemployment numbers and, you know, lie about figures. It's just like w this is all just such an elaborate scheme, you know, like but we all see it and it's infuriating. It's absolutely infuriating to see what's going on.
Chad Sowash (22:46.084)
Yeah, yeah.
Chad Sowash (23:00.992)
I agree. I agree. So beside the fact that companies are saying they are having layoffs due to AI, which in most cases is total bullshit, I believe I believe a big problem we don't talk about is that AI in business has a narrative problem, a story problem. And and think about it, who is telling the story? Because the biggest voices like Altman, Musk, Zuckerberg,
Maureen Wiley Clough (23:11.531)
AI, air quotes.
Maureen Wiley Clough (23:20.803)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (23:28.421)
They've totally shit the bed saying that it's going to take all your jobs. And then in the next interview, well, wait a minute, it's gonna create jobs too. It's gonna create jobs too. And I think the biggest problem is that shareholders and investors have allowed a bunch of dudes with God complexes to have the ability to get on a microphone, meaning they can have a national or and or global stage whenever they want it to talk about s subjects.
Maureen Wiley Clough (23:34.338)
no it won't.
Chad Sowash (23:56.174)
They have literally no experience with. So, anyways, after months and at this point, years of contradictory statements flying out of the idiot CEO mouths and them fighting back and forth like six-year-olds on the fucking playground, the over the public airwaves at that, they are we really surprised that the public doesn't trust AI? I mean, let's be clear, the public doesn't trust these assholes, right?
Maureen Wiley Clough (23:56.335)
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Maureen Wiley Clough (24:12.899)
Yeah. It's insane.
Maureen Wiley Clough (24:24.995)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (24:25.678)
They know they're the ones running the AI company. So AI doesn't just have a narrative and story problem. No, it's it's a delivery mechanism. It's a problem. A bunch of inept storytellers are at the helm of these companies. And at this point, Altman, Musk, and Zuckerberg are just overpaid versions of Mary Mo, Larry, and Curly. then, last but not least, you start seeing companies pop up that say no recruiters needed.
Maureen Wiley Clough (24:48.705)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (24:56.174)
We're your AI sales force or the twin one story, where they are developing digital AI twins designed to quote unquote represent an individual's professional knowledge judgment and working context. I mean, can you imagine why? Why why are employees discouraged? Why are they disengaged? I mean, would you be engaged if you thought that they were trying to actively replace you? Well, I mean, soon.
Maureen Wiley Clough (25:11.156)
Let's see how that goes. Right.
JT O'Donnell (25:24.242)
Yeah, but also I I mean, so you know how we talk about art imitating life? We have so many movies that have of sh shown you what goes horribly wrong when when the bots take over, right? Why? I mean, how many times are you gonna use it? Shall we play a game on here? So the point there is that I just think more people are catching up to what AI is. I mean, I still a year ago, I would say less than half the population even understood it. So did they care? No.
Chad Sowash (25:28.654)
Yeah. yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (25:31.342)
Yep.
Chad Sowash (25:33.188)
Don't mention Terminator. Stop it.
Maureen Wiley Clough (25:34.723)
Yep.
Maureen Wiley Clough (25:38.797)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (25:44.025)
Yeah.
JT O'Donnell (25:50.271)
But now that again, as it gets more mainstream, more people understand what it does, it's very easy to associate it with the art that we've seen, which is this could go horribly, terribly wrong. And now there's stories to back it up. You know, the leaks and things like this stuff's the bad stuff's been going on. It's just it didn't make sense to people and now it does. So
Maureen Wiley Clough (25:58.935)
Yeah. Exactly. I think
Maureen Wiley Clough (26:06.991)
Right. It was almost like the sci-fi stuff was working against us initially because it sounded so far-fetched, but now that we have real world applications and horror stories emerging, people are starting to, I agree, wake up to the fact that it is in fact occurring. Good times. Good times.
JT O'Donnell (26:17.179)
X. Yeah.
Chad Sowash (26:20.625)
Yeah, yeah.
Chad Sowash (26:27.77)
We'll be right back.
Maureen Wiley Clough (26:28.653)
Ha ha ha.
Chad Sowash (26:31.226)
Alright, kids, this block is sponsored by Free Whiskey. You can't you cannot beat. You can't I mean you can try, but I don't I don't know how. I don't know how. anyways, the only way you can get free whiskey is go to chadchees.com/slash free. Thanks to our friends over at ProvenBase. That's right, provenbase.com, who is helping recruiting and sourcing teams uncover and engage specialized hard-to-find talent across
Maureen Wiley Clough (26:37.027)
Can't be that. Mm-mm.
Chad Sowash (26:59.15)
Thousands of sources. Not just a couple of sources. Thousands of sources. On to the next piece of news. You're gonna love this. Recruit holdings. You've heard of these guys? You've heard of these guys, right? Huh? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how we have to always talk about these assholes in indeed. Anyway, it's not often in the staffing space that we have a raid on an alleged cartel. Yes.
Maureen Wiley Clough (27:11.193)
Time or two, time or two. A time or two.
JT O'Donnell (27:12.637)
Mm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (27:18.701)
Ha ha
JT O'Donnell (27:19.996)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (27:29.259)
A fucking cartel. So apparently so apparently Japan Fair Trade Commission are investigating indeed's parent company recruit holdings for a cartel activity in a connection with suspected violations of J Japan's anti-monopoly act, which is what we call antitrust here in America. reports suggest executives
Maureen Wiley Clough (27:30.455)
Ha ha
Chad Sowash (27:53.516)
Shit from five companies, including recruits, recruit staffing and staff service. That's two of recruits companies, alongside with competitors, Parasol Temp Staff, Adeco, and Manpower, two other very big companies, allegedly, allegedly agreed around November of 2022 to raise dispatch fees charged to clients by about 100 yen per hour. That's 63 cents USD.
JT O'Donnell (28:07.044)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (28:22.67)
Which allegedly started April twenty twenty three across clerical positions nationwide. That's a lot of a lot of clerical positions. Now that across the board raise might have not been looked, you know, too bad upon if the raise was passed down to workers. But guess what? The core narrative in the Japanese press was that while the fees increased.
JT O'Donnell (28:32.641)
Yeah.
JT O'Donnell (28:44.541)
No.
Chad Sowash (28:49.902)
To corporate clients under the guise of general wage inflation, the money allegedly went toward padding agency profits rather than reaching the people being listen to this number about 1.5 million workers. Imagine how many hours 1.5 million workers worked over those years. Apparently, this whole thing caught fire and sparked significant.
public backlash in Japan, media outlets accused these staffing agencies of piggybacking or free writing on the government's national push for higher wages. So the government was saying, look, you need to pay these people more. And they're like, Yes, we're going to. And they started skipping money. Anyway, in Japan, cartel violations can trigger administrative surcharge payment.
Maureen Wiley Clough (29:37.805)
Such bullshit.
Chad Sowash (29:44.285)
orders with base rates around 10% of relevant sales during the violation period as well as potential criminal referrals. Now last week I said indeed should sponsor Spaceballs too, the movie, the sequel. And and and and this in this week I I'm starting to think that Recruit should sponsor a Japanese version of Orange is the New Black. What do you think, Mo? What do you think?
Maureen Wiley Clough (29:58.607)
Great movie.
JT O'Donnell (29:59.15)
Ha ha.
JT O'Donnell (30:08.062)
Ha ha ha.
Maureen Wiley Clough (30:08.257)
there we go. There we go. I mean it sounds like it. It sounds like it. I mean, I just can can companies get any more evil? Like it like where's the bar? Like it's just come on. I mean everything Dolly wrote in nine to five is true, right? Like they're just taking everything. It's it's yeah, it's definitely worried. She should do a sequel. man, she can't anymore. Yeah. So sad.
Chad Sowash (30:18.381)
I know, hear it.
Chad Sowash (30:24.93)
It's worse.
Chad Sowash (30:30.038)
Allegedly.
Maureen Wiley Clough (30:32.983)
She was one of a kind. But yeah, allegedly. Allegedly. Yeah, it's just the bar keeps on getting lowered. It's a it's a it's a damn shame. It's a damn shame.
Chad Sowash (30:42.626)
That's a damn shame. GT?
JT O'Donnell (30:45.3)
I just think it's interesting, like you said it was twenty twenty two is when this went down, twenty twenty two.
Chad Sowash (30:49.69)
yeah, that's when they agreed and it didn't start until April of twenty twenty three. That's what was alleged.
JT O'Donnell (30:55.892)
Still, I mean, the fact that they got away with it for three years before getting caught, right? I mean, it just it's incredible. You run those numbers. I just it's the the problem is like for every one that you catch, there's a hundred that aren't caught. You know, that are flying under the radar that are doing that. There's plenty of companies out there right now, especially in staffing, that are like we're not like think all the staffing firms right now that are tanking because they have no contracts.
Maureen Wiley Clough (30:59.917)
Ha ha
Chad Sowash (31:01.37)
Oof.
JT O'Donnell (31:24.2)
And if they don't have an alternative source of income, right? So I look at, for example, Ron Stad has Rise Smart, Adeco has Lee Hegarrison. So what they've figured out parts of their business where the outplacement, all the people getting laid off, we'll make money off them that way because we don't have the contracts. But you're talking about so many other small to medium sized players who have not built that outplacement. By the way, contact me. and so they don't have that revenue stream. So what are they gonna do?
Chad Sowash (31:24.377)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (31:36.825)
Yeah.
Right.
Maureen Wiley Clough (31:46.831)
Ha ha ha.
JT O'Donnell (31:52.222)
they're gonna go do tactics like that as a way to start to make up on the margin. And I guarantee if we looked under the hood, there's way more than them that are doing that right now, unfortunately.
Maureen Wiley Clough (31:59.117)
Ugh.
Chad Sowash (32:01.506)
I'm sure, but let's get the big ones first. And as I said, as I said earlier, imagine how many hours one point five million people worked over those years. Well, I imagined and I calculated for a one year one point five million workers part-time equals around two billion hours at sixty-three cents, at sixty-three cents USD. That's one point two bu b billion dollars per year.
Maureen Wiley Clough (32:02.064)
You're probably right.
JT O'Donnell (32:04.245)
Absolutely.
Maureen Wiley Clough (32:11.907)
Crazy. Ooh.
Maureen Wiley Clough (32:29.943)
Chad Sowash (32:30.958)
Let's talk about full time. Let's talk about full time. that equals about 2.7 billion hours, okay, at 63 cents per hour. That's about 1.7 billion dollars USD. So just let that sink in. One year and a group of five staffing agencies, recruit being the largest in Japan, are basically skimming billions off the top.
Maureen Wiley Clough (32:33.625)
man.
JT O'Donnell (32:59.539)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (33:01.292)
Allegedly. and I got and I gotta say, last but not least, huge thanks to Julie, my wife, the job board doctor so wash for digging in pr digging in and performing the forensic work on this. if if you want any more, just go to jobboardoctor.com, spell it out, jobboard doctor dot com. She literally gets into the weeds on this shit. it's it it's amazing some of the shit that she does, to be quite frank.
Maureen Wiley Clough (33:02.287)
Ugh.
Maureen Wiley Clough (33:16.473)
Wow.
Maureen Wiley Clough (33:30.809)
Hm mm
Chad Sowash (33:31.087)
and how she bring her to me, I have no clue.
JT O'Donnell (33:33.967)
you took you took the words right out of our mouth. You beat us to it, Jed.
Chad Sowash (33:38.191)
Boom! Boom! Gotcha. and we go from one to another. It's Amazon, kids. Anyway, Amazon has several internal reports that show how AI is causing the company to overspend on various projects. The biggest blunder so far is that they spent 1.8 million dollars.
Maureen Wiley Clough (33:40.441)
too good.
JT O'Donnell (33:46.716)
Mm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (33:59.275)
No.
Chad Sowash (34:06.89)
in a failed Claude Sonnet AI deployment, which was supposed to match art author details with listings on Amazon. Seems pretty basic, right? Yeah. Representing you would think play apparently Claude Sonnet was having problems. Anyway, that represents that represents eight hundred and sixty percent increase over the allocated budget that was only detected
Maureen Wiley Clough (34:17.133)
That seems pretty easy. Yeah. Even a robot could do it.
Maureen Wiley Clough (34:26.631)
Chad Sowash (34:36.426)
Some five months after the issue started. Five months? Five months. Okay, so I was wondering how anthropics revenues were jumping so quickly, JT. is this a bug or a feature?
Maureen Wiley Clough (34:40.323)
Dude, really? my gosh.
Maureen Wiley Clough (34:52.335)
It's a very good question. Haha.
JT O'Donnell (34:55.348)
100% a feature, right? It's only as good as you program it. well. You know, operator error, learning curve. We've all had our learning curves on Enthropic. As somebody who codes on Cloud all the time, for example, I I mean, I have had projects where I'm 30 hours in and I realize I've built something that's broken, right? And so, and that's those are the ones I've caught. So gosh knows what you know, they were laughing all the way to the bank on that one. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (34:56.313)
Ha ha ha.
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (35:02.093)
Cash.
Chad Sowash (35:02.382)
Yeah. Oops.
Oops.
Maureen Wiley Clough (35:15.401)
Ha ha ha.
Maureen Wiley Clough (35:22.905)
Seriously. Do you think any of these employees are like pro like actually programming these things incorrectly on purpose? I wonder. Because it's like, hey, they think they're trying to replace you know? Like maybe they're just like, hey, let me go ahead and send down this rabbit hole that I know is not going to actually work and cost my company a shitload of money. I don't know, maybe. And be like the AI's not good. Is that what's happening? I don't know. Or is the tech that bad? Not sure. But yeah, it could be a feature. Like, let's get people hooked on the shit even if it doesn't work. Make all the money, laugh all the way to the bank.
JT O'Donnell (35:33.747)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (35:37.227)
Yeah.
JT O'Donnell (35:37.332)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (35:50.458)
Yeah.
Well, I mean, first off, you have to remember that these companies, and I blame these companies first off, because they played the whole token maxing game and they're like, we can do this so quickly and we can find better ways so much quicker and so on and so forth. And instead of actually doing the hard work of sitting down with their staff and looking at different ways they could prospectively restructure
Maureen Wiley Clough (35:57.535)
Huh.
Maureen Wiley Clough (36:04.503)
yeah, beautifully.
Chad Sowash (36:20.954)
processes and jobs and tasks and all of these things, right? They didn't do that. They're like, let's just feed it all into AI. We're gonna max out our tokens and next thing you know, they're like, shit, that's a lot of money. shit, that's a lot of money, right? Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (36:26.255)
Mm mm. Substart.
Maureen Wiley Clough (36:32.585)
shit. Yep. The wild, wild west. I mean the wild wild west is what like what they asked for and that's what they got, you know?
Chad Sowash (36:41.378)
That's exactly what they got. But I mean this this feels like token maxing due to slacking. Like they be people weren't even paying attention. And I can't imagine I can't imagine that an employee would or a team of employees would allow a budget to go over one point eight million dollars. I could be wrong. I could be wrong. Somebody could have left. They could have actually set it up, set the project up, said fuck off Amazon.
Maureen Wiley Clough (36:46.169)
Yeah.
JT O'Donnell (36:49.181)
One hundred percent.
Maureen Wiley Clough (37:03.159)
Hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (37:09.583)
Be kinda legendary.
Chad Sowash (37:10.638)
They could they could have hit the door, right? Yeah, hit the door. And the next thing you know, one point eight million dollars. But to be fair, that's reportedly the well, it's not the only Amazon projects that's that's blown through its budget. But still, but still, let's not let's let's put this into perspective. Like you're talking about, Mo, Amazon's latest quarterly revenue sits at more than a hundred and eighty one b b billion dollars, meaning
JT O'Donnell (37:13.257)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (37:20.471)
It's not a lot to them. Mm-hmm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (37:26.829)
Yeah, just one.
Maureen Wiley Clough (37:39.064)
Yeah.
JT O'Donnell (37:39.292)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (37:40.571)
1.8 million is only 0.1%. So is this something that they're gonna give a shit about? Yeah. I mean it's it's gonna be they are they gonna write it off on tax? I mean I don't know how this shit works. That's more money than I'm gonna fuck around with, right?
Maureen Wiley Clough (37:41.763)
Yeah, drop of the drop of the pin.
Maureen Wiley Clough (37:48.031)
Mm-hmm. They're just betting. Placing bets.
JT O'Donnell (37:54.228)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (38:00.687)
Mm-hmm. Right. Well, we all thought we had to like, you know, be good stewards at our corporate jobs and like, you know, dot dot our I's and cross our T's and all that stuff. And it turns out you could just go like below one point eight million. I mean, who knows? Maybe those people are gone. I but I I doubt it if it took five months to to uncover this blunder, right? It's just wow. Wow.
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (38:27.982)
We'll be right back.
All right. This is blown by, kids. This is blown by. I love this. this is about something we talk about on the show every now and again. Tips. So the BBC put out an article this week called What You See is What You Pay. Why some US restaurants are banning tips. That's right. US in America, where we are the tip.
Maureen Wiley Clough (38:34.126)
That's
JT O'Donnell (38:44.211)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (38:57.913)
America.
Chad Sowash (38:59.694)
Culture, right? We are they're looking at banning tips. All of us on this pod being American, we've lived this topic, right? And we've talked about tips on this show several times, but never companies banning tips in the U in the US, where tips are embedded in our culture. the story cites that across the US, a growing number of restaurants are banning tips altogether.
JT O'Donnell (39:01.236)
Mm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (39:06.137)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (39:27.669)
raising menu prices to pay staff fixed hourly wages up to forty dollars an hour. Proponents argue it eliminates income inequality, which I appreciate, and wage bias also get that by convincing customers to accept higher menu prices is is a little bit harder. A little bit harder. Now, one of these companies has been doing this for about five years, just right after COVID. So it's obviously working for them.
Rachel Miller, chef and owner of Nightshade Noodle Bar. I like the name of that, Nightshade Noodle Bar. In the town of Lynn, Massachusetts, you should check them out, JT, says the people breaking their backs and mines in the kitchen were taking home a fraction of what servers made on tips. From the same hours, our prices are higher than comparable restaurants because they carry the full
Maureen Wiley Clough (40:01.987)
Ha ha ha.
Chad Sowash (40:26.756)
cost of paying people properly. So could the American tipping culture finally be facing its breakpoint? Bo, what do you think?
Maureen Wiley Clough (40:36.676)
I mean
I've always been annoyed by the fact that they have as an institution, I mean, all the institutions are pushing the responsibilities onto the average everyday person. And so I've always found it annoying that companies, restaurants specifically, would ask the the patrons of the restaurant restaurants to actually go and make up for the difference in pay that they should be paying their employees and giving them health insurance and all that stuff. And I've seen in Seattle where I live well like a lot of restaurants that are actually coming to the table with this. Like we give our restaurant workers health insurance.
And we give them medical, you know, all that stuff. We give them fair pay, et cetera. And they add in that tip automatically. And I always am happy to see it. I think that a lot of people they don't think about that when they're going up to pay at the register. They don't think about what they would have put in as a tip. And so it's a it's a leap. Like, why is this so expensive? Well, it's expensive because of XYZ. But I think you can like untrain that out of people. And I think that that that is something that I would love to see more of. I love that article.
Because it it highlighted this woman who said, you know, I really don't like that people who are expected to make up the difference for these people's paychecks, that these patrons are going to be able to make these like sort of biased gut check feels a part of these right, right? Cause, you know, maybe you don't like the person who served you because of some like really horrible reason, right? Like people are biased and awful. And so there's discriminate exactly. They still there did their job exactly the same way, but people reward
Chad Sowash (41:49.432)
yeah.
Chad Sowash (41:56.302)
Yeah. They still did their job.
Maureen Wiley Clough (42:03.201)
others differently. And so you're leaving it up to a very biased populace to make make someone's paycheck. And I don't like that at all. So I'm I'm all about increasing equity and in that regard. So I I really do like that. But I don't know. The tipping culture has gotten a little bit out of hand in the United States for sure as well. when it comes to like, well, how much are you supposed to tip? Like I sometimes you come up and it's like 20, 25, 30 as the options. And you're like, I don't want to be the cheap A hole who like
does twenty but twenty is like supposed to be for exceptional and they just handed me something. You know, it's like exactly it's shaming and I'm always I'm always like, dude, I can't be that person and exactly.
Chad Sowash (42:31.277)
I know.
It's it's shameing. It's shameing.
It's like going to a Starbucks. It's like going to a Starbucks and then they ask you, How much you want a tip? You're like, You gotta go to custom first and then you gotta go to no tip. You're like
JT O'Donnell (42:41.012)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (42:45.643)
Right? I know. And then you're like, this is so awkward. And then you take you hold up the line and you're stressed. You're like, mass, right now, you know. So if people could take that if people could take that off my plate and just bake it into the prices, I'm all for it. And it makes the restaurant workers happier and have like that sense of calm, knowing what they will earn instead of having this question as to like how much will you take home? And again, also the back of the staff house getting like what they deserve is huge.
and by the way, I was in line recently at a a local establishment behind a literal billionaire and guess what? I took the same percentage as he did. So there's that. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (43:22.904)
Sounds like I don't know, like taxes. Okay, go ahead.
JT O'Donnell (43:26.676)
Yeah. Yeah. I so okay. I have so much to say on this, right? As somebody who's work. So one of the things that we've seen post-pandemic is that in a bad economy like what we have now, where people try to save money is on the tipping. So we are starting to see more people not tip because their bill was so high, they're like, I can't afford that. So a lot of servers are saying they're not making nearly the money that they were making before. Okay. I think the argument about the back of the house is working just as hard.
Maureen Wiley Clough (43:29.635)
Mm.
Maureen Wiley Clough (43:37.679)
Ugh, so sad.
Chad Sowash (43:38.447)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (43:43.182)
Yeah.
Chad Sowash (43:49.571)
Ooh, good point.
JT O'Donnell (43:55.035)
And the front of the house is making money is a fair argument. I know of one place that I frequent where it is a flat 25% that is automatically put on and you are made aware of it. You do not tip. And what they get is the best of the best in servers because all the servers know that the more they can upsell and the better job they can do, the bigger the bill, 25% on a bigger bill, right? So that mentality is there and everyone's happy in that environment.
Chad Sowash (44:11.034)
Okay.
Chad Sowash (44:16.474)
Yeah, it is.
JT O'Donnell (44:23.41)
Right. Everyone knows they're getting tipped well. They're getting great service and they get the best of the best. So I think that model is very interesting. But I want to tell you something. And I'm mad that I don't remember the town it's in. It went viral. A bunch of servers told me about this. The automatic thing you were talking about, right? Like it used to be 15, 20, 25. Now a lot of us see 20, 25, 30. There was a bar, a bar where majority of its drinks. They knew people weren't looking at it and they looked at the trend and everybody was hitting the first one to give the lowest tip.
Chad Sowash (44:35.642)
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (44:38.925)
Yes, yes. Sliding scale. Yep.
Chad Sowash (44:51.918)
Yes, yes.
Maureen Wiley Clough (44:52.852)
interesting. Huh!
JT O'Donnell (44:53.14)
She know what they did? They went a hundred percent, fifty, twenty five, and all the drunk people were hitting the low one and getting a hundred percent. And they blew up and people don't know any better. By then they're gone. You can't go back and ask for your tip money back. And that's how they fixed that problem. So, I mean, that's when they're getting inventive when stuff happens like this. So, yeah, tip culture's getting a little crazy in the US, but I think there's gotta be a better way to handle this. And, you know, we'll see.
Maureen Wiley Clough (44:58.723)
That's awesome.
Maureen Wiley Clough (45:07.087)
my gosh.
Maureen Wiley Clough (45:11.939)
That's hilarious.
Maureen Wiley Clough (45:17.87)
Mm.
Chad Sowash (45:20.856)
Yeah, I I I'm I'm seeing the same thing happening in parts of London and it really pissed me off because I go to a brunch place and I'd it not not a cheap brunch place in and around Reginson Square and Regenson Park. And and I know it's kinda like, you know, really nice area, but it it's an expensive place to have brunch. And then they're automatically adding the tip.
To your bill and you're like, just pay your fucking people and get it over with. Can we just make it simple? I'm I don't want to do math. I don't want to play the game. I don't want to have to choose. I just want to come in here as a customer and have an experience, right? And so when we talk about the actual business side of the house, so why do you think staffing restaurant positions are almost always considered high turnover?
Maureen Wiley Clough (45:58.383)
Mm.
JT O'Donnell (46:06.025)
Mm-hmm.
JT O'Donnell (46:18.174)
Mm-hmm.
Chad Sowash (46:18.444)
It's because they make so little money and the tips are inconsistent. That it a dollar more per hour across the street is a big enough incentive to leave. Not just servers, cooks, busers, the whole damn staff, right? So this isn't just about f fairness and equality and transparency. It's about smart business people who don't want to spend a good amount of their time filling high-churn positions. Yes.
Maureen Wiley Clough (46:29.615)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (46:41.519)
Yeah.
Maureen Wiley Clough (46:46.157)
Very true.
Chad Sowash (46:48.231)
You find great people, you pay them well, and they stay.
Maureen Wiley Clough (46:53.261)
What a concept. What a concept.
Chad Sowash (46:55.684)
Can we just can we just do that? Can we just do that? Know what else we can do? And you're gonna love this.
JT O'Donnell (46:55.774)
Shocking.
Maureen Wiley Clough (47:03.679)
here we go.
Chad Sowash (47:05.198)
yeah, that's a dad joke. Okay, so why did the restaurant ban tipping? Why did the restaurant ban tipping?
JT O'Donnell (47:05.213)
no.
Maureen Wiley Clough (47:18.329)
Got nothing.
JT O'Donnell (47:19.838)
Not enough.
Chad Sowash (47:21.338)
'Cause it only made sense. Ha Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene JT, Mo, that's another one in the can and we out. Later.
Maureen Wiley Clough (47:23.567)
there we go. I wa I was like something about a cow, I don't know.
JT O'Donnell (47:28.34)
Jolie Jolie Jolie.
Maureen Wiley Clough (47:34.851)
We out.
JT O'Donnell (47:35.325)
We out.
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