226. Ranking the Wildest Workplace Stories of 2025 (So Far) - Summer Sessions Episode 4

0:02Hello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. We are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne, I'm a charter occupational psychologist.

0:16Al Elliott:My name is Al and I've got a strange voice today. Hang on, let me do that again. My name is Al and I'm a business owner. I didn't know what happened there, sorry. I'm pup the energy, Al. Yeah, come on. Yeah, my name's Al and Jesus, I've just banged my microphone and we're here to help simplify science hi hi hi hi yeah you probably guessed by straight away that this is not the most professional episode we've done none of our episodes apart from the ones that guests are particularly professional but what we do on a tuesday in august we tend to try and have august off so on a tuesday in august we do a little bit loosey-goosey yeah um if there was a video version of this you'd see that we both drink a little glass of rosé wine yeah what my friends call a path which stands for palers rosé thank you for helping my edit there by editing yourself no problem we did so last last week we had uh nick cuttey and john white we were on their podcast nerd journey so we gave you that if you haven't gone to listen to part two it's out now uh definitely go and listen to that week before that we did remote work roulette where we just said all the places that we've been and where you might want to live might want to work then what else we do for august ask old people ask old people yes ask old people we we mourn the loss of aol dial-up um and dove into reddit's ask old people feed to answer some questions and the first week what do we do the first week i think that oh the f up files the f up files yes yeah our own personal and career disasters um it's what we're calling our summer sessions and this is kind of our last summer session really because next Tuesday where we're not quite back to this week and work we are talking a bit more seriously about what what does the next three four months look like I don't say Q4 but you know we're all thinking it and what you might be able to do in terms of people and culture in that time to have an impact well you will be able to do something because you've got all right from like the second week in December yeah not really much point in doing anything everyone's in a really good mood anyway but when people come back from holiday or vacation if you're from across the on then they're probably in quite good moods so it's probably a good time to say guys shall we shall we continue the joy if you listen to last that you haven't listened to last thursday's episode we had joel zaff on talking about uh sorry joel zaff sorry talking about bringing joy to the workplace so go and listen to that but anyway lee what are we doing today today we are going to be ranking the wildest workplace stories of 2025 so far this is going to be fun yeah so regular listeners will know that this week in work our normal Tuesday format has a news roundup and you know it's my favourite time of the week and I miss it so I've brought some news back into my life.

2:51So I've pulled together the biggest headlines so far this year. Some are funny, some are shocking, some are really just sad making.

2:58Al Elliott:So I think this is how Leanne's told me it's going to work is basically we've got seven stories. I've not seen them Leanne has but seven stories. We'll pick one at random and then leanne's going to read out the recap or i'll read out the recap so you know what's happened and then we're going to talk about it and at that point you can decide whether you want to stop the podcast or keep going yeah um but if you do want to keep going for each story we're going to give it a grade um so a bit like a school report card for americans or like you're getting your a-level gcse results a plus means it's brilliant for workplace culture f means total fail how can you even look at yourself in the mirror how do you sleep at night bad as we go we're going to ask the same sort of questions like what does this tell us about work in 2025 or is this progress or are we sliding backwards and obviously will people still care about this story in five years time yeah and that's it really nice and simple headlines but a context and then our take it might be spicy it might be indifferent let's see al right okay so after this very short break we will look at story number one chosen by random leah give us a random number i thought we're going to the break first.

4:02Al Elliott:I know, but I'm building a curiosity. I'm opening a curiosity hook. Four. Four. So if you want to know what four is, join us after the break. The dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across three teams and four systems. And in our case, it's about 216 ,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it. What you should be doing is using HubSpot because why? HubSpot connects it all. Every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talk to a customer, marketing already narrows the full story.

4:40And when you know more, you grow more.

4:43Al Elliott:Nice. Check out HubSpot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.

4:53four that's the number you chose for yeah so as i chose it do you want to read it out i'll read it

4:59Al Elliott:so pulling it out of the hat uh actually clicking on the tab on google docs so soham parak working for startups this is brilliant okay so this is what happened unless you haven't heard of it as i tell you the story you probably will recognize it on july the 2nd playground ai founder suhail Doshi posted a viral warning on X. That's Twitter for us boomers. PSA, public service announcement, there's a guy named Soham Parekh who works at three or four startups at the same time. He's been preying on YC companies. Now this post got 20 million views and prompted dozens of other founders to share identical experiences.

5:35Al Elliott:A database created on July the 4th revealed, I see, I kind of like this guy, revealed Parekh had had 19 jobs since 2021 with five starting in just the previous month. On July the 5th, Perak appeared on a podcast admitting to working 140 hours per week across multiple roles, claiming dire financial circumstances. Just to put that in context, I believe there's 160 hours in the week, 140 hours in the week, I can't remember. So despite the controversy, he landed a new job at Darwin Studios. I didn't know that. I did not know this. Okay. So the reaction was the tech community split between calling him a scanner and admiring the audacity.

6:11Al Elliott:I'm definitely falling for the latter of those two. it did create this broader discussion about remote work trust and hiring processes with some worried about the impact on legitimate indian remote workers shall we talk about that then we'll go to the question in a second yes so what are your thoughts is this the same because i remember you telling a similar story is this the same dude that you told the story about so i thought in that you said that he wasn't actually doing the work but he was doing the work well this is what i remember from the story and this is the bit where the idea is kind of cool because people were saying he's a genius people saying he's absolutely brilliant he's like a top rate engineer which is cool however what what was happening was um Bobby I'm on I'm on a podcast that's our little dog scratching himself um and uh and so what he did was he'd go in and say he'd get a full-time job and then he'd come up with all these excuses and one of them was like a drone hit his house like a military drone hit his house then he was in hospital I mean I'm not sure the timing of that but i'm i'm hoping it wasn't around that time no no no and um and also because he lived in india then he said he'd got himself um a permit to live in the u.s but he hadn't so it's the point here where i'm slightly disappointed because if he was able to kept to hold down three jobs for example and do them all brilliantly and he worked and he did work 120 hours a week but he did that for three years he went great generational not generational wealth but a decent amount of money cool but it seemed like he was scamming a little bit yeah there's a dude on youtube who's getting a bit a bit famous now he's like he does financial advice in a very angry way have you seen him he has like two people one person will sit down and basically call them torts and yeah but then help them get themselves out of debt and stuff like a very angry dave ramsey yeah well he he has admitted himself on somebody else's podcast that he got to that point of being able to go self-employed because he worked two jobs remotely and took the salary but his point was that he looked through his contract there was nothing in there said that he couldn't he hit all the performance indicators he was meant to nobody knew the difference in that circumstance my only question mark around what we'd call over employment excuse me is whether you are taking that opportunity away from somebody else and in such a tough job market that is problematic now i'm going to jump in there and say, if you are taking that opportunity for someone else because you're not doing the work, yes.

8:37Al Elliott:If you've taken the opportunity from someone else because you are better and you can still, only doing 50 % of your time, you can still do a better job than someone who spent 100 % of the time, I'd say that's natural selection. So I'd say that's meritocracy at its very best. So I think that I agree with you. If this person's taken a role and is not doing the work, then they're taken away from someone else. If they've taken the role and they are doing the work and they just so happen to can do two at the same time tough i think we'll have to agree to disagree on that one on the nuance of that one i think over employment is definitely a thing isn't it whether it's with multiple organizations whether you're a contract with many contracts whether you've got a couple of side hustles going alongside your full-time job it's a thing it's just the way it is because people need money man like it's it's really tough out there isn't it the minute with continues to be inflation everything else i in terms of rating this as a as a problem I'm gonna I'm gonna go it's kind of like d so it's a bit it's a bit poor it's a bit problematic and I think the main problem comes from taking opportunities away from other people and potentially ruining remote work for everybody else because the headlines that entrepreneurs and business owners and leaders are picking up on is that people can't be trusted to work remotely because they'll do things like this and I think that's probably the minority in the fact that he's gone viral and is in the news and all over podcasts across the world is because it's a fairly rare thing in terms of holding down multiple high-paid jobs with tech startups i'm sure everyone's got a side hustle yeah and i think a lot of companies do encourage we had becky on recently who encourages high side hustles at her digital agency um but yeah look i i can't help but admire the guy i just think where it fell down was he didn't do what he was paid to do and if he'd delivered everything he was paid to do then i'd be like guys you've got no redress even if it is against the terms of his contract you know i'm like well we've all done stuff which is against the terms of our contract maybe not you speak for yourself i know i definitely am so what are you going to give it i give it a d it sounds like you're going a bit higher yeah i'm going to give a c i'm going to give it a c now just remind me see am i am i what am i grading here because i'm a bit confused just like how how how good is it or bad for it for work in general workplace culture impact has it had on workplace culture yeah or in terms of stories like this and the impact they might have no i think no in that case then i'd go with d because it's had a negative impact on if it if it gets like 10 of people who were slightly for work uh remote work and now they're like oh no we're not we're not doing remote work because of that guy i remember that guy then I think it's bad for mobile.

11:23Okay. That's a D then.

11:24Al Elliott:That's a D. Sorry, dude. Wow. Okay. Lee, your turn to read the story, my turn to pick the number. Yes. I'm going to go with number six, please. Number six. Oh, this is a fairly recent one. I'm not sure this would have entered your world. Let's see. Sydney Sweeney's Jeans or Jeans American Eagle ad. Oh, yeah. Yeah. so this was july um so about a month ago so what happened if you haven't heard of it american eagle uh which is a clothing brand in the u.s launched their fall autumn campaign featuring sydney sweeney um she's a very famous one from i want to say euphoria i don't know where she's from i've just seen i've seen a lot of her yes a lot of her and also a fair amount of her yes she is she is famous for many reasons um so the the tagline of the campaign was sydney sweeney has great genes j-e-a-n-s this campaign then included a video where sydney sweeney says genes g-e-n-e-s are passed down from parents to offspring often determining traits like hair color personality or even eye color my genes are blue while the camera then pans to her blue eyes you might think this is harmless well criticism began very swiftly on tiktok and x with users calling it eugenics propaganda due to the blonde blue-eyed actress discussing good genes.

12:48A few days later, a White House spokesperson got involved.

12:52Al Elliott:Of course they did. Yeah, that's what we need. I believe that Donald Trump is a big fan of Sydney Sweeney and I cannot imagine for why. But this White House spokesperson called the backlash cancel culture run amok and Trump went on to praise both Sweeney and the ad campaign, leading to a 23 % stock rise on August the 5th. So yeah, in terms of the reaction, it generated a 50 million readers across 3 ,000 news articles, 18 times more normal mention volume for the brand. Critics argued it echoed historical eugenics messaging while supporters praised it as pushback against woke marketing. So the question is, Al, is this calculated corporate strategy during a dei backlash that delivered massive results or is it harmful messaging that echoes historical eugenics and should have been caught well i think it's both and i'll tell you for why i think that it is harmless um and i think it is deliberate because i think the agency who did this is genius because they've gone do you know what they could do jeans is like jeans and once we did a jeans thing once an american egos like we can't do that and they're like, yeah, you can.

14:03Al Elliott:And now they've got millions, potentially hundreds of millions of pounds worth of earned media from it. Is that the right term? Earned media? Basically not paid for. Media, everyone's talking about it. We're talking about it three months, two months later. I've seen so much stuff on there. And also, this is right. Here's a boomer. He's a boomer account that is probably going to get me canceled. I think there are a lot of people in the world where there's not a whole lot going on in their life and they're just looking around. They I cannot wait to find something to be outraged about. And they saw this and they went, it doesn't even apply to me.

14:37Al Elliott:But I'm outraged. And I think that's what's happened. And I think there are a few people who've gone, yeah, is this like a sort of a Nazi thing? Can we say Nazi? I don't know how to believe that. I just did. You just did? Is this like, like you said, this is all about blonde hair, blue eyes. Man, I think just there's bigger things to worry about than a pair of freaking jeans. What do you think? oh we are so gonna get cancelled for that yeah well i've said it not you i oh do you know what i think it is i think it is people's window of tolerance for this level of bs has shrunk down massively because we're seeing such a rollback in human rights in terms of of diversity and equity and and various minority groups including women and the rollback of of women's health and DEI initiatives in organizations and the rise of racism and hate crimes and it's anything that is potentially fanning the flames of this and causing more divide I think understandably people are speaking up and going this seems a little bit problematic would this have been as problematic three years ago maybe not maybe not also wouldn't it have been as effective three years ago and that's what irritates me about marketers like we're all angry of course we're all angry we're frustrated we're feeling a bit segregated and we're feeling a divide and we're feeling a bit sensitive and vulnerable and you're going to poke that bear to make some money of course you are because that's what works that's the behavioral science behind it all but man if you used your powers for good what a world but you can't use your powers for good this is the problem is that if you want to affect change and marketers want to affect change they want people to move to american eagle brand to buy their jeans then they've got two options they go American Eagle jeans are really nice.

16:25Al Elliott:Or they go, Sydney Sweeney's got great jeans. Maybe, maybe it's a, you know, I don't know what I want the alternative. You know, what were they trying to say? But anyway, my point is they had to go down this route. Otherwise it's just like, oh, we've got nice jeans. You should maybe go and buy some. They didn't have to go down the route, but I admire it. I think it's a bold advertising campaign. I think it was intentionally meant to fan flames. and I think that there's probably some 1 % of the complaints are probably genuine and have got genuine points behind them. I am sorry, but my personal, and this is not the opinion of the podcast or Leanne, but my personal opinion is 99 % of people just saw something to get outraged about and went, yeah, great.

17:10Al Elliott:Right, do you remember back about 15 years ago on Radio 2 where Russell Brand, although he's no longer a good guy, Russell Brand and who was the other guy? oh yeah and they um it was really famous who's he what's he called jonathan was granddaughter or something phoned someone's granddaughter and did something weird said some horrible stuff yeah i'm bearing man russell brand has now been yes in court for rape and sexual assault charges so yeah so i think that maybe yeah maybe russell brand was anyway that's a different conversation my point was that when they had to look at me to go and where the hell are you going with this out the point was that the bbc got about 200 complaints for when that went out and then when it hit the papers the next morning then they got about 20 000 complaints now those people hadn't heard the original stuff they were just like this is terrible right i'm going to go and complain about it and it's like really fair enough but equally i think there's an element of when these things hit the news or hit social media an element of education as to why this is problematic okay for example you spoke to enidore not so long ago and now had a complete rethink about how you describe people where you'll catch yourself you go oh i met this incredible woman today and you're like wait a minute why don't you gender them i met this incredible person today let me tell you about them i think there's a of course there is a there is a balance so we can continue to have conversations and be creative and empathize and learn more about each other in an open honest way that doesn't feel like we're having to to tiptoe or walk on eggshells equally i just think any messaging that causes more divide in the for the sake only of of infamy and profit doesn't sit nicely with me fair enough so on a scale of a to f what are you giving it um another day i think it it do you know it reveals deeper problems in our culture in our organizational life in our leadership um i don't think it's necessarily the ad campaign i think it's how it was done the timing of it and and how people will now also use it as another kind of kind of marking point to go oh well all this dei stuff is just complete bs because remember how trump backed up the sydney sweeney campaign and he said it was fine and she was just selling jeans so it's the creep that makes me uncomfortable it normalizes these types of of divisions and segregations and that i'm not down for fair enough fair enough well my instinct is to give it a c because i don't think it's i don't think it's made work life better in any way but i also don't genuinely don't believe it's made life work work life much worse so i'm gonna go with c which stands for which also is the word cancel starts with C.

20:03Al Elliott:Lee, have we got time for one more before a break or should we go to a break? Let's go to a break. Okay, we'll see in a second. Did you know that the UK's number one management podcast, that's us by the way, and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network? We actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work. And we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode. And two out of three of us are devilishly good looking. And you're not going to say wit. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you, we need to do this in threes.

20:38Al Elliott:The HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination. Or business professional. Seamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. We've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioural science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business and brands as well. It is. It's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing.

21:13But there's also just some really interesting episodes that will be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better? It can. and are we all just status seeking monkeys i am go and listen to nudge wherever you get your

21:28Al Elliott:podcast but come back yeah come back definitely come because nudge isn't as good as this so come back i'll cut that out keep that in

21:38welcome back if you just joined us you rebel you're my kind of person this is what we're doing we're taking some new stories from the past um past eight months or so we're recapping and we're having a little bit of a say on how they might have impacted workplace culture organizational life so far we've heard about uh the indian um guy who had 1200 jobs and lied about doing them all and sydney sweeney um for that jeans campaign so let's go on to the next one al do you want to

22:07Al Elliott:is it your turn to pick numbers yeah my turn i will go with um number two number two and what What was the number? What was it? What are you laughing at? What number two is? Is it? What, as in like, no, no, I'm being childish. What was the previous number we did? Was it six? We did four and six, yeah. Got it, okay. So go on, tell me. Jamie Dimon's work from home rant. This is funny. So this takes us back to February 2025. 75 JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Diamond lost it at a town hall in Ohio when an employee asked about a petition signed by over a thousand staff requesting hybrid work policies. So Mr.

22:56Diamond exploded and I will beat myself out. He said quote don't waste time on it I don't care how many people sign that effing petition don't give me the s that work from home friday works um he went on to continue ranting about zoom calls a lot of you were on the effing zoom doing the following looking at your mail sending texts to each other about what an a-hole the other person is that's the beauty

23:22Al Elliott:that's that's why i like those kind of zoom calls because i can text you and go this person's a bit of a knobbing. Yeah so anyway that audio leaked in February went viral pretty much immediately. About a week later Jamie Dimon did apologize for language but doubled down on his return to office policy. So there you go. Some reactions said it was support for authentic leadership. Critic. Come on you can do this. The critic said it was a boomer CEO meltdown. well he was and business media covered it pretty extensively as an example of generational workplace divide we have talked about this on the podcast before al where do you know how have you reflected on mr diamond's behavior well to quote uh to quote madman i didn't think about him at all uh i think do you know what if that's his opinion that's fine that's his opinion he didn't go to the newspaper he didn't go on tv and give that opinion he gave it on a relatively private or albeit public albeit company, but a relatively private call.

24:25Al Elliott:Someone's taken that and they've just played it and released it. It's like, this is what Jamie Dimon thinks of this. So first of all, that could be out of context. I don't think it is, but it's possibly when this is what some people say about remote work. Remote work is shit. And he went back and go, but of course I think it's great. Now, I don't think he did do that at all. I think we know he did do that. But it is possible. But still, look, this is this guy's opinion. He is far more successful than you and I are ever going to be. he earns far more money than you and I are ever going to earn and then the majority of people in the world are going to earn if he wants to do it that way let him do it that way I don't think it's fair I wouldn't do it in my company I wouldn't do it in his position but do you know what that's his company well not his company but he's the he's currently presiding over it let him do it what do you think I think that it's another example of it's not about the business decision you've made it's about how that decision is executed there's no need to be effing and blinding on a town hall with a thousand staff what message does that give in terms of the environment you're creating it's very it's very dictator like it's very hierarchical dictatorial yes exactly it's just it's old-fashioned it's treating your your people like children clear this is a cultural cultural issue that's been going on for a while where they've treated their people like children so they are acting out in ways that might seem um uncivil in a workplace in terms of not engaging in an important meeting perhaps um it do you know what the remote hybrid in office whatever its context and culture exists independent of that context this for me isn't about work from it's about control and it's from it's coming from somebody who feels it slipping because everything he knew the world that he built his success on is changing at such a pace that he is scared about what that means for him so that for me is his fear driving a state of emotional dysregulation that's directly impacting his people and his business not cool fair enough no i mean i don't think it's cool and i think also because we're very bullish on the whole remote work thing So I think it is kind of a little bit harmful because those people, but I think all it's doing is finding those people who are on the fence and going, I'm not sure I'll do remote work.

26:52Al Elliott:And they go, I follow Jamie, Jamie Dimon. Okay. Well, if he thinks that I'll think the same, or it's just ammunition for those people who are already on the other side of the fence on the remote work is rubbish side of the fence. And it's just giving them ammunition to go, told you I was wrong. Told you I was right. Told you I was right. You're wrong. I'm right. But those people who love remote work and are very happy with that stuff to do remote work i don't think it's i don't think it's gonna make a slightest bit of difference to them so i think it's like a sort of a swing state as they call it don't they in the uh in the american and uk elections it's only really affecting like maybe the 10 or 15 percent people who are still collecting in for collecting opinions and deciding whether to go whether they can do remote work or not so absolutely like i said it's not about it's not about remote or in office it's not even about the businesses made it's how it's being handled and again examples of this very aggressive leading leadership style being normalized to the point where some people are praising it as authentic leadership that for me is hugely problematic that in to be fair that's a very very good point but then having said that the people who are praising it probably the people who want to be like him um they're not you know you're not going to get the the the john ameaches of the world praising it john ameach's the world gonna go this is a lot of rubbish don't be doing that that's total rubbish so right i agree that i think it's it wasn't cool the way the way he spoke what he said um i agree that it's a very bad um template for management but i also maintain that anyone in the age of 35 would look at that and go well what an arse they're not going to look at that and go oh maybe i should be more more more dying i don't know love the manosphere andrew tate the rise of this type of more toxic masculinity on social media i don't think it is bound to an older age group anymore maybe yeah well that case that might change my change my my score so maybe i'm going to give this an f f hard f hard f oh dear okay well there you go we look forward to your letters um lee we've not chosen the odd number yet okay then i will go for number five number five so story number five is you did something leanne's got a great newsletter called linkedin af and if you're if you under the age of 35 you know what af stands for um and it's every comes out every friday and it's really really good she finds like you know the best comments on linkedin then she finds the like the funniest things there was one guy and i can't remember who it was who said something about going to a coldplay concert um with yours with your cmo and then the most embarrassing thing was people know you're going to a coldplay concert this is what we're talking about you will know what we're talking about here you've got to july 16th andy byram ceo of astronomer 1.3 million no 1.3 billion with a buh billion uh tech company he went to um he went to a coldplay concert with kristen cabot that this is the this is the worst bit the the company's chief people officer uh kiss cam arrived on them obviously thinking these two couple canoodling a little bit older isn't that nice pr look how lovely people people old people are still in love and they were like i dived out and then just hilarity ensued and their world blew up obviously by and resigned cabot resigned a few days later but there was it was just all over social media for about three days wasn't it yeah the bit that i don't remember many people talking about was as the camera zoomed in and caught these people who had both i don't know i told you but both having affairs i know you know that both having affairs with each other then there was the it was christine's um second in command the chief people officer but she was probably head of hr or something was she she was there and had the biggest shit-eating grin on her face that's the story that's the story i want to hear i spot here oh it's just it's just so awful in so many ways it's so awful cringe-worthy awful because it's initially you're kind of like you absolute idiots being so like pda when you're having an affair you're both married you're with people from the company yeah then you get you know then you get put on the big screen and then you hide you could have even styled it out potentially not got the attention because they hid so chris martin went well either you're really shy you're having an affair if they just kind of released each other and wade like i'm like ah it probably would have moved on and maybe would have got picked up maybe not i don't think it'd be as big as it was no no so then so that's all so on one hand it's like fools what did you expect but then on the other you know nothing about having an affair yeah come on now this is like a fair 101 apparently he's he's out this isn't his first rodeo i bet it isn't i bet it isn't sorry carry on um then you think about the dynamics of of it being like the workplace ceo head of people is oh oh um it couldn't have been the finance person could it so that's that's that's kind of that makes it worse and then it's the thing that it's like these two poor people their careers man that's that's hard to recover from they're so well because it's in australia as well isn't it and i've worked a lot in australia with senior level professionals it's a small freaking world in terms of were they based in sydney was it or melbourne i don't remember wherever they are that professional is going to be very small and you're world famous at this point like people are going to know who you are and then their families and how all that's been ruined so i kind of went from my whole thing was like fools to oh that's really bad for kind of workplaces to these poor people and their families how are you going to recover from that in a way that is even manageable i hope they're okay because that is traumatic well you're kind of taking the wind out of my comedy sails here a little bit because you're quite right yes that is pretty pretty tragic um not great for anyone i would say we're going to get some emails from down under shortly i would say that a man who has an affair and then gets put on the big screen is famous around the world actually might not do as badly in australia as you thought as you might think um some of the people we've some of the companies we've dealt with in australia they're slightly if i say 1970s sort of mindset maybe maybe be i think regardless of i'm not sure i'd go there with australia i don't think it is quite that but i think you're right he'll feel he'll fare better than she will oh yeah without a doubt she's she's ruined and that's not fair and it's not right but oh how do you how do you come back from that when you're ahead of people that's the worst bit isn't it i wonder because i heard that the that the other woman who was with her the one who did the big grin they've been working together for a while and i wonder if that other woman just when she saw the kiss cam went brilliant i'm chief chief people officer now whether that's what went through her head like i've got it i'm done i don't know you can't know can you how calculated that that was or how in the moment that was it could be that she's been going on to her colleague for ages this isn't right it needs to stop can't believe you've got the audacity to come here this is really dangerous blah blah that then it happens and she's been like, well, that's karma.

34:24Or whether she's tried to style it out and been like, oh, we're just laughing here, right? We're just like, you don't know. People are always quick to make women villains, aren't they? In terms of like, muah ha ha ha, this is my plan all along. And I'm not sure that was okay.

34:38Al Elliott:I thought really genuinely it wasn't meant anything to do about being a woman. We're going self-referential, self-referential here. It was about being a person and she was just looking very happy. But then the other thing is perhaps she just saw herself on the big screen and went, I'm on the big screen. Yeah, I'm on telly. Which was basically life when people were on the screen and then they point at the screen, not the camera. Yeah. And they're like, no, no, that's not what the camera is. The camera's over there because just, did you see the advert that Astronomer put out a few days later? Yeah, it was Gwyneth Paltrow.

35:07You talk about this.

35:08Al Elliott:Really simply, Gwyneth Paltrow did a little advert for Astronomer. Gwyneth Paltrow is the ex of Chris Martin from Coldplay. Was there any kind of affair thing going on there or not? I don't believe so. but they're consciously uncoupled, did they not? Sorry, I'm sick in my mouth. Yeah, so she did this thing, and it was quite funny, but at the same time, might have been in poor taste. But then also at the same time, maybe the guys, the media guys there were in law frenzy and going, we have to do something. And someone went, get Gwyneth on the line. Yeah, but the worst thing was as well, when was it Andy, what's his surname again?

35:42Al Elliott:Burnham? Burnham. No, right, Byron, sorry. Andy Burnham's the Manchester mayor. I'm sorry, Andy, not you. He released a statement saying that it said, or they released a joint statement saying that it was they should have had to sign a release form or permission for the for the camera to go on them or something absolute nonsense and not focusing on the right thing to the point where then the next Coldplay concert went viral a clip from that of Chris Martin saying so what we're going to do now is put people randomly from the crowd on the big screen if you don't want that or if you're here with somebody you shouldn't be then you might want to stop doing whatever it is and it's like and that went viral it's like you're making it worse yep yep you're digging a hole and it's not going well so so in terms of for what this has done for workplace culture we've got nothing above a d so far i don't i can't imagine this is gonna be above a d lee what are you scoring it oh do you know what i think i'm gonna be fairly because i don't think it's as bad as everything else we've seen i mean it's really not great but at the same time it's two consenting adults entering entering a relationship that is ill advised but nobody nothing illegal is happening here um i think it's average i think i think there's some bad which is everything we've talked about i think maybe there's some good in terms of i wonder how many affairs in the workplace have since broken up yeah or how many people might be a bit more mindful about entering a relationship with their subordinate in the future i'd hope there's some lessons learned from this so i'm gonna go average c i'm gonna go b okay because from what you've just said that i was originally gonna go c as well but i'm gonna go b even possibly a because of those reasons you just said there it's made it hopefully will make some people rethink what what how they're doing things at work and um maybe actually rethink it so they can hide it better but still yeah no i'm with i'm with you b b i'm speed that's what i'm sticking with b so b solid positive overall not without its flaws yes okay talking of b the number three rhymes with b and looks a little bit like a b without a back so will you tell me not story number three i will number three do you uh duolingo's ai first revolution oh i don't know this i don't think oh you do do i'm sure you do so this has kind of been happening all year so duolingo you know the app like you learn different languages on uh their co lewis von Ann announced that the company would gradually stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle and become AI first.

38:11It's one of the first big organizations to really come out and say make this claim they're going to be AI first. So Duolingo has already replaced 100 workers primarily writers and translators who create all the kind of quizzes and learning materials that the company is very well known for. This actually followed earlier cuts in January 2024 when Duolingo cut 10 % of its contractor workforce. Again, it's a company shifted content creation to AI. So the CEO, Von An, said teams must prove they can't automate work before hiring and candidates AI facility will be evaluated during hiring. So basically what they're saying is that if I'm a hiring manager and I want to make a hire, prove that AI can't do it before I give you that budget.

38:59a former worker said that the ai output is very boring um duolingo has always been known as a very fun brand very quirky about um about yeah just just kind of being that that lovely app isn't it that helps people learn and engage um but it has received criticism for some mistakes

39:18Al Elliott:coming out currently um or recently in the content in the content yeah um which you know after this criticism again the ceo walked back on his comments and said that um that i do not see ai as replacing what i employees do but potentially augmenting it um so yeah there was a journalist brian merchant who pointed to this as part of an ai jobs crisis that's a series of management decisions being made by executives seeking to cut labor costs and other users have criticized the company online with many threatening to delete the app over quality concerns and ethical issues so yeah is it an honest innovation al is it about scaling education globally through the inevitable use of ai or is it corporate greed just destroying the creative job industry thoughts i don't think that's very particularly creative to translate something oh i think i think you just translate something i think if they were writing stories then that's creative but no so no i'm not gonna i'm not gonna class that as creative like do you know what there's have you seen this at what level have you got up to on duolingo though because i'll be honest i've not really got past the kind of general quizzes does it get a bit more complex as it goes on buenos dias donde esta mi coche that's about as far as i've got uh but do you know what what's funny about this when i saw this i do remember this story now and there's a meme that that you see quite often like these sort of like cheeseburger or whatever you see these these websites and it says me going to bed at 2 at 2 a.m and then it's just got um it's got the duolingo owl or whatever it's called thing going let's review your mistakes and i like the idea that whether this ceo that he's basically someone's done memes about him going let's review your mistakes without outsourcing to ai look i'm gonna be really not surprising i don't know what i've been drinking today but i'm really grumpy today ai's here just get on with it so ai took their jobs so what boohoo that's very sad for the individual people but from an actual like generally as look at me going come on al pull it rein it in my point is this i can replace al cancel him not me okay basically you can still say with ai and with al because that's the way my uh my name is look the point is ai is coming for our jobs ai will take our jobs if you've ever gone to notebook lm i've been listening to podcasts on notebook lm that they've been creating from documents and they're pretty good they're like 60 % good, 70 % good, better than a lot of other podcasts I've been listening to.

41:47Al Elliott:We're replaceable. Everyone's replaceable by AI. The point is, that was a shame, but then when the calculators came in, people who were adding up on a reckoning machine were replaced. It's just the way the progression. Don't shoot the man from Duolingo. Be angry. Mix my metaphors. Don't blame the game. Don't blame the player. Blame the game. Lee. School me. I'm going to get some wine from the fridge while you're schooling me no and you know what this is this is a difficult one actually because i don't i agree with you i'm not i'm not against ai coming into organizations i think it's happening whether we like it or not i think it's how it's done the ethics of it really interests me and i don't think there's many organizations out there that are really thinking about the ethical implications of this the societal implications of this because i think it is yeah this is huge this is like this is bigger than the internet i think this is this is bigger in terms of its impact on employability i just think it's a very bold claim at a fairly early stage of ai to make the bold declaration we are going to be ai first and i think from a marketing and branding perspective that was the mistake because i think putting it so publicly it's not necessarily about being innovative because you're not using a whole new ai thing that doesn't exist anymore you're using an llm probably or something similar to translate stuff so i don't think it's the flex that the seer thought it would be oh no i might have changed mine slightly because i didn't know it was a flex well i don't know it's like why else would you come out and say it oh because if you're if you're laying people off for it ah now yes if he's come out and said sorry totally interrupted to do there but i won't carry on no no please my point was that if he comes out and goes yes we're going ai first and as a result we've got rid of all these people and look it's all ai aren't we clever yeah no you're a knob well that's what the story was in that case then i'll either edit what i've just said out or i just won't bother but yeah i've changed my i've changed my mind and here we go do you know jamie diamond they are going to use people are going to use what i said about five minutes ago as my rant this will be my jamie diamond moment of going oh well boo hoo just get on with it there you go okay we're gonna context anyway leanne would you like another glass yes please yes please um yeah i do you know i think i think but i think we're both on the fence a bit on this one i think it's again it was how it was handled the flex just didn't land right the ethics of this are barely being figured out they're barely being discussed let alone figured out true then we have kind of the element as well of kind of this is fairly a fairly new shift and transition legislation could potentially come out i just think to be so bold about it when you're not an ai company i don't think that's necessary and i don't think it's going to make people feel better for losing their jobs because that should be just going it's not personal i'm going ai first oh well that's all right then okay i have done a u-turn i have done a u-turn and i'm gonna say this is an f oh i'm gonna say it's an f because it's this person is flexing that's not cool i think that i don't think so what i've changed my mind about is the story is about the the ceo going yeah but we're going ai first isn't that cool whereas if the story was about the ceo replacing humans with ai be like well of course duh we're all gonna do that but if it's about that then it's an f from me okay that was that was a u-turn um i i think i don't think i'm not sure it's that bad i think this is happening i just think how that's been communicated to the world and how it's being managed within the organization is is naive so i think i'm going to give it a c i think it's average i think there's some good aspects because again it's sparking conversation around people actually replacing people with ai and the problems that come with that both in terms of quality quality and ethics and how that brand is is perceived within within the market um yeah i i yeah it's very it's average it was it was yeah fair enough fair enough okay so we've only got time for one more we've got about three minutes left really i know so which number are you going to choose look at which one they are okay these are ones that we like well let me check do you want to hear about 200 uk companies going to a four-day work week yes or do you want to hear about quantus being hit with a record fine for illegal layoffs no a good news story to end a good news story i like a good story go on then i'll let you read this one al okay let me find it so um number one number one so more than 200 uk companies have permanently adopted a four-day working week with no pay loss and this affects over 5 000 workers two years after participating in a ground making experiment these companies chose to make the policy permanent so the pilot was conducted by four day week global that's not joe o 'connor is it that's the that's different i think it is different yeah uh yes a four day work no no not them you want to go for joe o 'connor he's he's the guy who knows everything uh so it made up with 24 companies um and joe ryle the campaign director said the nine to five five-day working week was invented 100 years ago and it's no longer fit for purpose we are long overdue in update brilliant lovely uh basically what they're saying this is the the facts uh the company's revenue stayed broadly the same despite the fact that nobody worked what people worked only four days uh in fact it rise rose by 1.4 on average the staff leaving decreased by 57%, not 5.7, 57%.

47:37Al Elliott:57%, guys. 15 % of employees said no amount of money would induce them to accept a five-day schedule. The milestone comes as other companies push staff back to offices like Jamie Dimon. This is fabulous. As far as I'm concerned, it's an A from me. There we go. Good night. We'll see you next week. Lee, talk us through your thoughts. Yeah. A's, A's. A's across the board it's it's just make good sense the key thing here and I love that quote from Joe Wilder campaign director the nine to five five day working week was invented a hundred years ago and is no longer fit for purpose it is no longer fit for purpose especially in a world that is so fast-paced so always on so blurry in terms of boundaries I honestly don't think it's it's sustainable we're going to go back to the day where people have a heart attack at 35 because it's just too much it's just too much and as we can see it's not good for businesses either that's insane so at 1.45 on average increase in revenue so you're making more money even though you're paying people the same for them working less very much in the bunny ears because they're probably working much more productively in the four days that they've got staff with 10 or staff attrition so people leaving decreased by 57 percent that is incredible that have you ever seen anything that was someone went i implement this and my my retention increases by whatever that would be that's incredible no and that means you're looking at an employee engagement right probably within kind of the 70 80 percent mark which is unheard of in these times and it's probably saying the organization's millions depending on the size of it um over just one year this is an absolute no-brainer for me an absolute no-brainer i heard you know i was talking to audrey tang the other day he's been on podcast fabulous very happy to call her one of my my friends now and i was talking to her and she was talking about how charles darwin was misquoted you know survival of the fittest i said that was misquoted it's survival of the best fit oh yeah so it's not like survival of the fittest oh hustle culture bro jamie diamond with people that are going to hustle until we're all dead that's you know we're we're the we're the strongest that are going to survive like that's no it's those that are the best fit so i think it's the organizations that are savvy enough to go no we need to change this for our people for our business for our sustainability are gonna are gonna survive and thrive love it no-brainer four-day work week is brilliant we've done a couple of episodes on it um most recently with Jeanette Ramsden from the Curve group um and we also talked to one of the researchers behind the pilot yes we did with Joe O 'Connor on uh we had Ferry Cazone who if you're on LinkedIn and you know and you know a digital PR guy from Romania that's Ferry funny guy um and then we had um I forget his name he's got a really cool name like Bert Bryzinti or something or Brent Banks but Bernard Banks something Banks and we'll put the show notes I'm sorry about that Mr Banks I've forgotten um but yeah look the quote here i think is really telling like leanne said the five-day working week was invented a hundred years ago yes it was but people went to work and they came home from work and there was no phones there was no fax machine there was no computers 40 years ago maybe you might bring home a laptop computer of a computer at home 30 years ago you definitely had a laptop 20 years ago you probably had a phone or a blackberry 10 years ago you had an iphone now Now you've got iPad, iPhone, laptop.