The Fisherman’s Dilemma with Melissa Riddle

Mary and Melissa are back, and this one gets a little philosophical, spiraling in the best way through the realities of running a business in modern capitalism, from training to the absolute chaos of tipping culture, it’s equal parts “how is this working so well?” and “how are we still functioning?” They also dig into how technology has changed the game, for better and worse, and why it might be time to rethink how we approach work, ownership, and success altogether.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:15

My business is your business. It's all up in my lady business. With me. Very easy.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

Welcome to All Up in My Lady Business. Once again, I have my partner in crime, Melissa Riddle, in the uh the co-pilot seat today. Hello. Thanks for taking time out of your uh your afternoon to come and rap at me, rap with me, cut it up and spin it around. Uh we are recording this the week before Christmas. That's right. Here in in Chicagoland. And uh I am not feeling very jolly this year. How is your jolly factor going?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

I mean, my jolly factor is always diminished. Uh the holidays are not necessarily my favorite time of year for many reasons, just whatever. Uh they've improved since making a person and having a target for sort of the, you know, get to see somebody else be super happy. Um is enjoyable. Um but still the like obligatory spending and you know, all of that stuff kind of weighs. I I famously uh have this refrain about millennials fix it, and now I think I need to move on to like another generation.

SPEAKER_03 1:35

Uh millennials fix what?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Just it's like my hope was that uh these sort of traditional obligation things would kind of come out of our culture or whatever th because of younger generations. And that was sort of the the millennials fix it, uh came out of that. Like thinking like, okay, well, I it's clear that mine's not gonna deal with this dumb thing, but maybe millennials will. No. You know, uh now I feel like I have to even go past millennials to uh even even younger the Gen Zers. Gen Zers potentially to kind of cleanse us of some of this stuff that's just antiquated and not that helpful. And Christmas is one of those things.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

Well, yeah. I mean, I, you know, I think that that's like a I I I don't know if millennials can necessarily fix it, but I think that men I think that you know it's funny you say the millennials fix it because I actually think millennials kind of made things harder. I I like to think of like social media as like millennials' revenge for like for like, you know, like causing the crash in 2008 that basically made it so that I mean, you know, commerce has not been the same since that first, or no, it wasn't the first, but the one that really impacted us, the recession of 2008. And so they like, you know, there were no jobs. And so that was when like social media was coming out, and they're like, oh, we're gonna make it complicated and hard and things that older people can't figure out. So they have to hire us to do this thing that only they can do well. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Yeah. Maybe uh I was thinking more just on the level of getting rid of these sort of imposed things that feel like they've Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

No, I think you're right about that. I'm saying the opposite. I'm saying what millennials did bad for us. But they didn't, it was just a reaction to the fact that there were no jobs.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

I guess we all, even our generation, messed some things up. I don't know. I don't think about us that much anymore. But yeah, the end of year stuff and sort of all of this kind of free, um, what do they call it, you know, post post mortem of the year and thinking about all of the, you know, many, many successes uh that we had. And uh, you know, the things that still feel like how do businesses survive when they have to dig out from kind of the heaviness of bureaucracy and compliance and it's very expensive I feel like it's I mean, I feel like life in general is very expensive for everybody.

SPEAKER_03 4:00

Like I don't think you can have a very cheap life anymore. No cheap life. Like I feel like it's it's so hard. Like every you like you have to have a cell phone, and I'm like true god, I took my glasses off and I feel like my face just went. Um I'm putting that back on so you don't have to see that. The what was I saying? Cheap life. Cheap life. Yeah, you don't have like they're like you have to have a cell phone and that's like$70. Like when I was like a 20-year-old, like, you know, like electric bills were like$30. And like in the winter, the worst it would get was like$100, and that was like bananas. Like it feels like, you know, you can't everything's expensive. We have been going over all of our books and everything and trying to get everything ready for the, you know, for the next year, kind of looking at what happened and what didn't. And you know, just the the amount of money that I have to spend on dumb stuff that I and it's like I and I don't own anything anymore either. Like I don't own my QuickBooks, you know, like my QuickBooks is all online. And like if the cloud goes down, my books go with it. Yeah. Like that's crazy to me. You know, it's like I have all these different softwares I have to use to process everything, and it's so expensive.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yeah. Lots of subscriptions and stuff. And you know, I was Matt and I were kind of talking about this the other day and just like the how like the idea of a subscription, you know, is relatively young, you know, in the arc of capitalism. And how, you know, so it like just took hold so completely, right? That like what you're describing of just even, you know, how we consume entertainment. Uh it used to just be magazines, you know, the only thing we subscribed to was like Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

There were no there were no like boxes of crafts that showed up every four months or whatever. And you know, but but it also like it's it's like all these little things that every time I say it used to be like this, I feel like I sound like an old person that's like, everything was better when I was young and I and it was it was different. It was different. But I do feel like a lot of the things that the the technology has done is to replace people and you know, to make it so you don't and you know, for some smaller businesses where, you know, you can't afford to have an IT person or have a HR person or have any other, you know, two-letter disciplines in your in your orbit. I was reading an article about I don't remember what, but basically like the plastics, uh the the the rise of plastics came out of during World War II when we made all these factories to make bombs and stuff. Like after the war was over and they didn't have to make bombs anymore, they're like, well, we have this factory, what are we gonna do with it? And basically that's where like the plastics of it all was like, well, maybe we can use it. You know, there's this all, you know, we have different all these scientists that came over after the Nazis got, you know, that came over and kind of developed all these new products around plastics and all these other things. That, you know, it's like we we created the plastic problem because we had these giant factories. And instead of just realizing, like, okay, we can just shut them down and do something else, they had to like figure out something else to do with them. And now we have this plastics problem. I mean, maybe it's uh probably way more complicated than that, but I it does it does ring like that could be the that could be some truth in that.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

I think so. You know, I think we talk about this frequently because it comes up so often and and whatever, uh, is you know, this idea of like industries propping up industries and like the the lobbyists of those countries, like the tape industry waiting for the holidays when that, you know, people consume, you know, a whole bunch of tape, preventing us from coming up with a better way to wrap gifts. You know, just how like the innovation has such a hard time grabbing hold because there's so many forces trying to keep the status quo because there's so many industries that benefit from nothing changing. And that drives me endlessly crazy.

SPEAKER_03 8:06

Well, especially when you look at a place like China that I feel like we are fed a lot of like anti-China, like you know, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

I mean, some I was like, you know, sending letters to our representatives about Tibet, you know.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, in terms of their like human rights issues. Exactly. But I think but on the positive side of things, I think there are some things like you know, they're they very are heavily investing in renewables right now. And they're trying to make it so that they are completely off anything fossil related by like 2030. Yeah. And like, and they're like on the way. Like they're and and like, you know, they've they're actively trying to make things like better and easier and future-proofing them. And then we're like, no, there's five rich guys that make money off of the remaining coal that is at the center of the earth. And so instead of like being like, sorry, rich guys, you either have to like innovate or, you know, I mean, what's that's the buggy whip, you know, like buggy, like buggy whips were like a thing everybody had to have. And then the second the cars were made, the buggy whip, you know, was no longer necessary. And that guy like, you know, had to had to find a new job.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

It's gotta invest in, you know, I mean, again, we're trying to solve the world's problems here on a podcast, but like, you know, putting I think the idea that you if your industry is like technology replaces your industry with a bigger, better um, you know, idea or whatever it is that like that just means you you're done or you have no, you know, expertise anymore. Like obviously there are other countries that when a a primary industry or a utility or whatever it is that's that exists uh goes by the wayside or the expertise changes, you educate the same people to do the next thing. It's like it's I guess you have to be, you know, willing and able to um take that education on and whatever. But like that that's where I wish, you know, when it comes to these guys with all of these gajillion gajillion dollars, you know, it's like we could fix these problems by training a workforce to do the thing that is the better thing instead of just holding on to the past until our, you know, nails bleed.

SPEAKER_03 10:25

It's the difference between like capitalism and and commerce. You know, like it's like, you know, in part I mean, and all this kind of stems back to, you know, in Reagan, who ruined uh the world, in my opinion. Uh, but he, you know, he changed the the the tax rate. Like the tax rate used to be 90% for like the corporate tax rate was 90%. And that was graduated. Like it wasn't like if you make a gazillion dollars, it's all taxed at 90%. It's like the first hundred thousand is taxed at 30 and the next million is taxed. It's like it goes up. So it's not like I think everyone hears that, they're like, oh God, that's that's not true. Or that would have been, it's like, no, it was graduated. If I was getting taxed at a 90% rate, it would very much behoove me to reinvest in my company. You know, buy open other locations so you can employ more people or pay everybody better because they are um because that you've got all this money. And that's how like minimum wage goes up. And that's how, you know, we we wind up becoming, you know, we want to progressing as a society is because we're taking that money and putting it back into the business, the like thing that made it possible for you to make money in the first place. And I get it, I'm like the owner of a company, like I'm the man or whatever, but like I have been very much forced to invest all of my money back into the company because I'm at this weird sweet spot where I like I make uh make enough money to like be a comfortable person, but I'm not buying a second house. I'm not buying a Rolls-Royce, I'm not, you know, I I'm able to afford the life that I have.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

I mean, it's basically just there's this, you know, I guess diminishing returns, you know, at some point in growth and like the amount that you have to invest financially or time or labor or hiring or all of the different things that are required for growth. It's like if I have to spend this much to make this much, you know, but then I also have to do all of these other things in order to take that step, then, you know, is it even, is that what I want? Is it even worth it? You know, when I had my own business, that was definitely a major contributor to me deciding just to move on, because as a, you know, a single op, you know, person, you obviously have a huge um limitation on how much you can do because you're one person and you only have the time that you have. But to grow, even adding one person requires just an onslaught of, you know, like I said, uh compliance and you know, all of that stuff, that major investment, it's like nearly impossible to do it in ways that, you know, uh just like floored at the people that are, you know, able to build a business that's beyond just themselves because it's well if you yeah, I mean, because it and I think that if I were to try to start toast and jam now, it would be I I don't know, I don't know if I could do it.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

You know, I feel like I kind of was doing this at a time when, you know, like for I mean, first of all, you know, it's like I think about the internet and I'm like, well, at my bot my job couldn't at least the way I'm doing it would not be able to be wouldn't have been possible like um to do it like up and up, you know, completely. Yeah. I mean, well, the internet of it all made it possible for me to like easily download music. And, you know, I could email people and I could get, I I was able to, you know, the internet makes it easier to like find people and whatnot. So like, and I was in like this nascent, you know, 2003, 2004 when I was like beginning to DJ weddings and things. It's like, you know, there was a lot of change technology-wise that made it possible. Um, but when I started Toast and Jam, you know, like everybody in this industry and still does in the wedding industry, almost everybody's a 1099. I think we've covered this a million times. And so it was really easy for me to add employees because there was no real onboarding. It was like they gave me their um social security number and filled out on a W9. And that was, you know, the extent of my, you know, I didn't have to get them insurance. I didn't have to onboard them. I didn't have to get them into payroll. You know, I just was like, you know, it's like they would come, they would work, I would write them, they would give me an invoice, which was just a piece of paper that had their name, the date of the event, and then the amount that I was paying them. And then I would pay them. And it was really easy to bring people in. We never had, you know, I mean, I had insurance and I had, you know, that had some marketing expenses and things like that. And it made it really easy then for me to be more generous with the DJs and you'll be able to give, even though it wasn't legal, like I, as I found out when I got audited, to give them bonuses. Like you can't give bonuses to subcontractors because that changes the nature of the relationship. And it made it possible for me to like rent boats and you know, take people out and have parties and we could go out for drinks after weddings, and I would buy everybody drinks because I had the money for that. And it was great and I loved it, and it was super fun and it was the best. And, you know, and I I don't know, I it's like I had enough money to live on and that was good, you know. Like I didn't need much more than that. And then, and then when everybody got made, you know, employees in 2017, it's like all of a sudden, like because I was the canary in the coal nine mine on workers' comp, that was I always bring up workers' comp is the worst. Like it is, it is the absolute worst. And it's like, and we wouldn't even really need workers' comp if we had subsidized healthcare. I think about all the things that would just go away. Like if we did if we had subsidized healthcare. Because if we had subsidized healthcare, we wouldn't have to worry about whose fault it was that an accident happened. The accident happened. And like that could be covered by the like the legal side of things could be covered differently. Like if you were negligent or whatever, that's a that's a different, but the actual like injury that happened to somebody and like they're saying, well, you know, this happened, like whenever I have had injuries on my body, like when I got physical rehab or whatever, it's I always get all these letters from the insurance company, like, how did you get this industry injury? Was it work? Was it what you know? They're always trying to find a way for them to not cover it. Um and anyway, so like getting workers' comp, it's like when I made them employees, like I had to pay the highest rate. That first year, my my workers' comp policy cost me$26,000. So like all of a sudden, just 20, like from 2016 to 2017, like that's you know, that's that is three boat parties right there. You know, like, well, maybe it's two boat parties. Those were pretty expensive. But it was but the but the thing is that the boat parties, like, I'm sure people would be like, there's some people like, I'd rather have money than the boat party. Sure. I get it. But I also feel like the boat parties were like, we never got to see each other really all that much. This was like morale boosting and we got to be around each other and have fun times.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

And like a holiday party and you don't have, you know, just here's sixty dollars or something. Like I would non-monetary benefit to Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:09

To like me showing them how much I appreciate them. And I could I could Yeah, and I could take the boat money and I could buy myself a Hyundai or something with that money uh or a down payment on a Hyundai. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Infrastructure is expensive. Compliance is expensive.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

And I and it's not that I don't want to be in compliance, but it does feel like all of the compliance that I am in is because of the bad behavior of other businesses before me. Like I'm paying for the mistakes of other, like of other business owners that haven't been ethical or, you know, didn't want to, you know, own up for mistakes that they've made. And I'm not saying that I am perfect and I have done everything correctly, but I've always tried. Like my heart's always in the right place. I'm never thinking, like, how can I fuck over these DJs and pay them$50 less so I don't have to, you know, like there's that's never part of my calculus. My calculus is like, you know, and no, and nobody knows and nobody cares. No one cares about the things I have to deal with. And I mean, honestly, I barely care about the shit that I have to care about because I am angry about it. When I made them employees, I I was like, well, now I can give them some kind of benefit. You know, they're like, you know, like I can at least try to make this, you know, like that there's they get something from making them employees because no one could really see the value of it, like when I did it. Yeah. And so I was like, well, give them a 401k. I've stolen the youth of so many of these people. Like, but at that time I had like six or seven DJs that um were only working for me. And so unless they had their own IRA or something, you know, they weren't saving. And not that I should necessarily make that my business, but I was making it my business. Like I, you know, so it I was like, well, I'll I'll pay to do a 401k. Well, it's expensive to manage that alone. Uh, and then I can't really match it because it it would be so expensive for me to match it that I would be, you know, I shouldn't be having to require I like it, it's like it's one of things where I'm like, why are we even doing why do we do like retirement this way too? It's like weird that we even put that through businesses too. But then you'll fix it. Not gonna happen. But my point is that I had, you know, it's like I I try to do this nice thing by having a 401k and it's super expensive and I can't be as generous as I want to be. And I feel like I get kind of dogged for that because I don't do that. And it's like, well, I'm I am I'm trying to do something because I can't do healthcare. I can't, I it's I could do healthcare for full-time employees with the part-time, especially. You have to be working every single pay period or be on some kind of you know, paid leave.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Um, you know, like you could argue that the entire business is a seasonal business, you know, like just so much that's different about how this type of business runs that, you know, again, we're always just trying to um, you know, figure out where we fit. What do we have to do in order to be um, you know, on the up and up. And even that, you know, requires investment, requires time, requires expertise, time, um, you know, all of those things to, you know, to sort of make make happen. And, you know, even just like this past uh couple of weeks with the the resources for, you know, sexual harassment training and bystander training, obviously something we believe in wholeheartedly is needed and should be required, but it's like held hostage by money as well. Like you either have to pay out to you know third party organization to manage it for you at you know the cost of I think we, you know, figured out some like over$25 per over dollars per person because you have to do the two different trainings and then pay for the time to take the training. And then, you know, those were the the two, but then there's two of the trainings, the bystander and the sexual harassment.

SPEAKER_03 21:02

So it was gonna cost me like over two grand to well over two grand to make everybody compliance for a for a problem that most likely we wouldn't like if anything sexual harassment for drunk people on dance. That's the thing. And that's the that and that's like the that's like the sad thing is that like the our DJs are barely around each other. And I think all you have to have a boat party. Uh you have to have a boat party, but even those were mostly women back in the day. I only had like one male employee. Uh but I do feel like, you know, like you have to take sexual harassment training because a lot of and and I'm gonna probably I'm gonna assume this. I'm sure some of my, but I'm assuming it's men who do the most the majority of the harassing. I'm gonna just go out on a lin there. Uh and so basically this the sexual harassment and the bystander training, like that's all there because men can't behave. So instead of like saying, hey guys, quit making it hard to exist in the world, we're like, well, let's cut, let's create, let's give training so that we've got plausible deniability if Something bad happens that we can say, well, they watched the sexual harassment video. So, you know, we don't have any complicity here in the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

And we're not volunteering that information, that structure to anyone to have who wants it. We're going to force you to pay a premium on the training so that people can have the information. So it's just completely insane. And Chicago, you know, offers the like some version of a free training, but it's bureaucratic. You have to apply at a certain amount of time. You have to get approved. You know, everything is just a big, you know, uh, I want to say circle jerk. Um I would say circle jerk of, you know, and then the whole, the whole thing is like, why, why should this information cost money? Like, why is this not something that we just provide to anybody who wants to know how to sexually harass someone or know how to intervene in a say, you know, a situation that is both safe for the person who's being harassed and for the person who's intervening? Why does that have to come at a premium? I mean, I know capitalism is the answer, but it's just so frustrating that this isn't just available and that everybody agrees and everybody takes the same one. So we all know that this is the gold standard for how, you know, what the expectations are, instead of having the, you know, llama something or another version of the training and the gusto version of the training and the meeting.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

City of Chicago and the state of Illinois and then the federal version of it. Like it's just, it's and it's and it's because they it's the capitalism. It's it's not the commerce. It's not like it's not like the federal government or the government in general that is being like, you know, hey guys, we're gonna provide all this to you and make it easy so that like we like none of us have a reason why we don't know this.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

And and and your people are sexually harassed.

SPEAKER_03 23:55

Yeah. And, you know, it's like I think about like I keep getting these notifications from the Illinois department, tax, like my tax Illinois. I keep getting these, I like this past like three weeks, I've gotten an email almost every day. And it's like, log in and look at this and see that you've done this thing. And then I log in and it's it's I don't thoroughly understand it, but it seems like I've done it. But I keep getting the notifications anyway. And today I finally like I was going through the letter and it, and so because so during COVID, they were they were allowing people to go on unemployment when lockdown first happened. And all my deges were employees, and so I had to put them all on unemployment, you know, which whatever. Like I had it. I again, I was I was grateful that I was able to give them something that was able to make their lives at least somewhat easier, especially considering our job was were completely eliminated. But the cool thing is that prior to uh COVID, my unemployment rate was at the lowest possible because I'd never used it. Like no one had ever used my because I so I'd had unemployment from 2017 until 2020, never used it, no one had ever used the unemployment. Everybody goes on unemployment, and my rate went from being 0.04% or something to 4%. And so, and it's exactly like how insurance works, where you know, take if if you don't have any claims for a certain amount of time, your your rate goes down. Um, and so my rate was going down, and my rate was going down. Uh, but it shouldn't have risen in the first place. I shouldn't have made my experience, my rating go up because of something that I had no control over. Uh and so today I get this letter and it's like, you know, it was like uh letting me know that it looks like it's going down again. But then there's all these things like if you want to protest this, and I'm like, I'm like, I wait, is this a good thing that's happening or a bad thing? Like I can't even tell if what's happening is good or bad. I don't know if it's something I should be protesting. And it and it's so, it's so labyrinthine and there's no one to explain it to you. And then if you do call, if I do finally go, okay, I want someone to if I do call the Department of Labor, first of all, getting to a human is next to impossible. And then when you finally get to someone, they are so condescending and so just like cannot, they can't deal with this phone call. Like it's like, well, don't you know your experience number? Well, why don't you know this? I mean, that I mean you you used it, you used it, so why don't you think you should have to use it? And my or you should it's like, and it's like I feel like someone's yelling at me and I'm because I'm stupid, because I don't understand the labyrinthine. I didn't get into this business to understand unemployment insurance.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

Sure. I mean, I get that no one does. I guess it's just really um, you know, again, it's one of these things where everything props up everything else, even if it doesn't need, you know, to be as labyrinthine as as it is, you know. It's like even just, you know, navigating this whole property tax thing that so many people are embroiled in uh, you know, recently is just like there's just so many, you know, ancillary industries that, you know, rely on people not knowing, basically, and then reaching out, you know, hoping for expertise or hoping for assistance. And some people can finance that, and some people just get, you know, scooped up in it and have to hope for the best and hope that they have a way to pay for things.

SPEAKER_03 27:15

It's just well, the property tax of it all is really frustrat is is really annoying because it I mean, especially like in in our in Chicagoland, tax dollars pay for the schools. And so it's like you know, another fun thing. Yeah. Uh and you know, it's not like when your taxes go up, you get like I would be fine with paying more in taxes if it meant that I was getting more things for it.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Or I got an itemized list, you know, of what what that increase was covering, right?

SPEAKER_03 27:44

Or I could vote on how it's spent. That's what I would really like to do.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

I mean, I would really that the theory, you know, if you choose the people who are going to make the decisions about how money gets spent by both. I guess the thing.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

I don't, they're not though. They vote the thing is is that I feel like that this is the hard thing, the hard truth about we've gotten so far away from the intentions of these things, and which is especially clear to me because I've been watching the American Revolution documentary by Ken Burns on PBS. And really, it's like nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. It is bananas how everything we're on a hundred-year cycle. Everything just keeps repeating itself every hundred years. Like as soon as the person who was a like the last person who was alive at the beginning of the hundred-year cycle dies, we just start it all over again.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Yep. Hit the reason.

SPEAKER_03 28:31

Um I mean, but I do think that you don't own anything really. You know, the property taxes are there. Like I bought this like little like DJ that this little like it's like a little, I it's right over there. I could find it, but it's like a little tiny DJ rig. Like it's like the size of my of it, like it's actually smaller than my keyboard, you know, and it's it's just a two-channel little guy to and I got it because I was like, oh, this would be fun for like ceremonies, or it'd be good for like when I'm like I can plug it into my computer and then I don't have to get my whole rig out to like set cue points or like you know, get songs ready to be played out in the world. And you have to have a subscription to a different Serato. So like, you know, it's like with Serato, which is the the DJ software that I that we use or I use, it's like the software is free, but you have to buy a piece of machinery to make it work. Okay. But the software is free. With this, you buy the piece of machinery and you also have a subscription. It it only works with Cerrato Lite. It doesn't regul work with Serato Regular. So there's another software I have to pay for to make this thing work. That should be illegal. Yes. That should be illegal. That should be illegal. Like you, it's like nobody really owns anything. And it and I think there's I I just I want I need a revolution. I really want a revolution.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

Nothing makes sense. Nothing makes sense. You know, like it's so hard. Like in my job, my sort of default setting, I guess, and communicating basically anything, whether it's to a client or to an you know, one of the DJs, anyone on our staff is like, first it can, I can run it through my logic filter and it makes sense to me, then I know how to communicate around it. I know how I like to say what I mean, because it has passed the test of like, even if it was like a a price increase, things that are painful, you know, that you don't want to, as long as you can sort of find the way to make that change logical to people, it doesn't hurt as much. You know, there's understanding. And I feel like things are so painful right now because logic has completely flown the coop. You know, like you can't chat hear anything and feel like, oh yeah, completely I get it.

SPEAKER_03 30:48

Or or that the thing is happening like because it's gonna ultimately make everything better for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Sure. Yeah. And you know, people are willing to make, you know, sacrifices when there's purpose, but yeah, their logic and purpose. I just I don't, you know, if somebody told me when I go to the grocery store that this this is a great sidebar story that's somewhat related because I was about to bring in corn uh to talk about corn, like for farmers, like more for corn because it was gonna make, you know, families in the co the corn belt, you know, do better than like and I knew that that's wait, what? Wait, start over. Wait, what? Start over. Okay. Well, let's go back to so one of my my favorite little local spots is the patio. Do you guys have the patio? Do you know what the patio is? It's I guess it's more of a western suburbs thing, but there it's this great chain that I don't know how to adequately describe. It's some somewhere between like fast, casual, sort of Panera, get a number, you know, sit-down place, but but local and cool. And they do, so like what I had last night was a pulled barbecued pulled turkey taco, which was freaking fabulous. Okay. Um, but they do like, you know, like a half, a half chicken, sort of maybe like a Boston market, but not on like the level of Boston market, but it's huge and you know, you pay and you sit down, whatever. Uh, and it's really cute. So there's one in Lombard, and uh, and and I love it. And they have lots of gluten-free options, which is why I also like it. Um, but it's not super expensive. Anyway, Evelyn got uh a hot dog plane. Um, and one of the side options was either a a piece of corn on the cob um or fries. And so she picked corn, but she also wanted fries, and so I got her an order of fries and cheese sauce because she is a cheese sauce a holic. Um, and then we go and sit down, and then they bring it to us, and there's no cheese sauce and there's no corn. And so I was gonna walk back up and I hadn't gotten a receipt because I generally don't get a receipt because it just is a waste of resources, right? I'm paying what I'm paying. Why do I need a doctor? I'm not balancing a checkbook. And so uh then the caught the lady who brought the food to the table and I said, We're missing corn and cheese sauce. And she was like, Okay, let me, you know, check on this. And then she came back to the table and she's like, Do you have your receipt? And I was like, No, I didn't have one printed. Uh and then she's like, Okay, so she leaves again and then she comes back with cheese sauce, but no corn. And then they they weren't gonna give us corn. Like the corn wasn't happening. And so you couldn't, because you couldn't prove that you bought it. Because everyone's getting fries, no one's getting corn, the corn is not like the thing. And it was just so like, I don't know, I guess a representation of just how tight, you know, everything is on every every business. It's like, you know, and you're trying to make decisions, like I'm not gonna make you print out a receipt so that your overhead for paper is reduced, but then I have to be able to prove that I didn't get the thing you said I bought that I told you I wanted to buy at the at the point of transaction.

SPEAKER_03 34:14

And also, and then also the concept of like, um, hey, we we or even if they were like, hey, we went back and went into the computer and saw that you didn't get corn, do you want it? Because we didn't charge you for it. And you know, or like, hey, here's the corn now. Keep your receipt in the future. Like, there's so many, and and it like, and the thing is it doesn't endear you to the place.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

It's just it it puts you through this like just you know, analysis of like what just happened here.

SPEAKER_03 34:43

Yeah, it's almost like they're like accusing you of trying to like, well, I'm not gonna say I want the corn, but then I'm gonna child.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

Um, and then you know it's uh a nibbling, whatever they call it.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

You're not getting a full cob.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

We're not getting a full cob. Half a corn here. Um and also my kid picked a vegetable, you know. Like we're gonna we're gonna poo-poo on that, even though it's yeah, but whatever. It's got the juice, it's got the juice. It sure does. It's a national, uh, national treasure. But anyway, back to the main point, which is the you know, that I would be happy to pay, you know, when I could for these, you know, extra things. And I guess just like we talk about death by a thousand cuts in the office in the context of like all of these kind of subscription things that build up and then all of them cumulatively rob us of true growth and and profit often, um, that we just like even having to have like a moral conversation with myself about whether or not to round up to contribute to St. Junes or whatever, just like everywhere I go, or the analysis of whether or not I'm a bad person because I don't tip for a service that doesn't require anything to for anybody to do anything additional for me.

SPEAKER_03 36:00

It drives me bananas. Drives me bananas. I hate it.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

It's just an onslaught. It's just it's so everywhere. And then you just kind of wonder, I don't know, like this is you know happening within the business. It's happening every time you leave the house. Like, and I don't know, I guess it contributes to me not wanting to ever leave the house or go anywhere.

SPEAKER_03 36:22

Yeah. Last night I went to uh there's a a really fun organization here in Evanston called the Pink Poster Club, which is like uh and they uh we threw with that so uh a couple weeks ago I DJ'd uh Melissa knows this, but I'm gonna say this for the gen pop that I I DJed a I I got back from Thanksgiving uh and was just feeling sad and gross about the world. And uh I a friend of mine was like, what if we did a fundraiser really quickly at the you know, next month for something? And we within we in two and a half weeks, we pulled together. I was gonna DJ at the American Legion, which is like a, you know, it's like attached to a golf course here in Evanston and sold 80 tickets and I was able to donate almost$3,000 to the to a homeless shelter that it was it was it was really fun. Anyway, the Pink Poster Club's co-hosted it with me. And they are an organization that kind of they tried to amplify like I things are going with ice and you know, they helping like it started off with like a post, like making posters for a protest, and it's just kind of turned into this bigger thing. Um last night they had a meetup at a brewery here in Evanston, and when I got paid, when I I was closing out my tab, and the server was like, Oh, there's already 20% on here. And it gave you the opportunity to give more money. And I was like, first of all, that's great that they automatically add the tip in. So I don't have to think about it. And I'm glad that they told me. But it was also like, do I look bad if I don't give her more? Like I had this like, you know, like, is she expecting me to give more even though I've already done 20%? And I I didn't, and then I've been thinking about it. Yeah. Like, should I have given more? Was I supposed to give more on a like$11 tab? Like it wasn't even like it definitely stays with you.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

I don't know what the cumulative, you know, mental effect of all of this sort of, you know, I guess there's just sort of this lack of consensus, you know, in the world right now about what's what's reasonable, who needs things, you know, versus what's just out there, you know, like as a as an option. You know, it's like you you weren't usually confronted with the option to tip somebody in a in a drive-thru, you know, let's say, you know, in the past, and then no one has really come up to say like that this is um, you know, here are the criteria. There's no, you know, there's no uh etiquette or or general consensus around things anymore. I never worked in restaurants, so you know, the idea of being paid, you know, a very low hourly wage because you were dependent on a tip is something that I, you know, I only know anecdotally from being in the world and not ever having to kind of depend on that or understand how that structure works. You knew that you tipped when you went to a restaurant and you tipped your server. You knew that. Like everybody knows that. And you're a bad person if you if you don't, because it's I guess kind of optional, but it's just very much baked into the world. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:28

I mean, it's you're you're relying upon everybody being a part of like we all agreed that we give, you know, 20%. You know, like it used to be 10% was for good okay service, 20% was if they did a really good job, and anything more than that was yeah. And for the most part, when you are waiting tables, most people understand that. So, and some people are gonna give you more and some people are gonna give you less. So, you know, like when I waited tables, I could I knew I would make like like back when I was waiting tables at Wishbone, I would make like for lunch, I would make$90. Like it was like, and sometimes I would make like$120 if I had some wait, what?

SPEAKER_00 40:02

The oh the Jerry Seinfeld, like the even Steven, you know, of it all. Like you get a loss here, you get a gain here. And just no matter what, like it always kind of we had that with like our grocery bill. It didn't really matter like what we did. It was always$160. Yeah, take, you know, five more, five less. And we would just be baffled because nothing went into it to make it that, you know, week after week after week, but it always was. That was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_03 40:29

And so and so anyway, when I would wait tables, I was I would get, you know, my I would make my rough amount, and I always made that much amount. And then and that was that was fine because that worked. I mean, I everybody understood it. But I feel like with like tipping on a situation where the person is like, and I think everybody knows that servers we're making. I was making like$217 at the time that I was waiting tables, and I think now minimum wage is like for uh non for servers is like five dollars an hour or something. Um, they just raised it in Evanston to$15 an hour. But anyway, uh tipping on servers where they're getting paid ostensibly a, you know, a a regular hourly is difficult for me to like, you know, like you're you are getting paid to do this. Like when I was waiting tables, I wasn't getting paid. Like I literally was at the, you know, like relying upon everybody understanding the social contract that you're supposed to pay for that and having to pay more. I would I mean I wonder how much money I've spent this year on tipping on things that I never used to tip on.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

It's hard to even like process, you know, and that's I think where like you you don't even know because there is such a lack of consensus around it. You don't even, yeah, I wouldn't even know how to even go about figuring that out because from one moment to the next, like I feel like, okay, yes, I'm gonna do this now. No, I'm not gonna do this. I don't even know what my own criteria, you know, for saying yes or no is.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

Or even what's the what or even like what's assumed by the server. Like like uh our office for those uh is it's located in Logan Square across the street from uh Bang Bang Pai. And and we uh we go there a lot to get, you know, various things. And it's like I feel like I have to tip there because I see them so often, which you would actually think would be like the opposite. Like, oh, I see you all the time, so I give you I tip you every fifth transaction, but I don't feel like I can do that. I feel like I have to tip every time. And so it's like, and they're not doing anything more than just asking me a question and then handing me something. Like it's not yeah, and and it's it makes me say things that sound miserly or Scroogey where I'm like, uh, you know, it's like, but it's you know, an extra two dollars here, an extra three dollars there, and I mean, I guarantee you in a week I probably, you know, tip out fifty bucks on shit that I never used to tip on.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

Yeah. I was thinking about, you know, how this sort of intersects with like DJ performance and stuff like that. When again, these are kind of industries where gratuity is normal, right? Or has has always sort of existed as a norm, is that you would, you know, tip somebody for an excellent performance above and beyond the base rate of the service. And I guess there's a world now where I'm kind of like, you know, are the DJs getting sort of pulled into this lack of clarity? You know, like where, you know, maybe they're seeing less, you know, gratuity or less expectation that they're gonna get that tip.

SPEAKER_03 43:30

Well, I actually think they're getting tipped more than I used to. Like, and I I do think they are, to the point where I've had some DJs like complain to me about like, you know, not getting tipped. And, you know, and it's like you know, it it used to be, once again, um, like back when I was DJing all the time, when I was doing like sixty, seventy weddings a year, you know, like I would say, like I used to get tipped like every third wedding. Okay. You know, like it would be you know, like every third or fourth wedding. Um Uh and sometimes it would be like a sweaty$20 bill that they just put in my hand and were like, oh my God, that was the best night of my life. I cannot believe how good this was. Here's 20 American dollars. And they'd be like, you know, and I'd be like, all right, cool. Now I'm, you know, this covers my coffees for the next two days. Like it's I I don't. And then sometimes I would get handed an envelope before I even walked in the like as I'd walk in the door that had$400 in it. And I hadn't done anything, you know, and it's I mean, I had I mean I yet. I mean, I was going to go on and do amazing things for those people.

SPEAKER_01 44:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:30

Um, so there's, but I think now it's a little bit more like assumed you're going to get it. So when the like, you know, grumbling that like, oh, I haven't gotten tipped in a while is like, you know, it was sort of like a bummer, and now it's like almost like angry if you don't get a tip.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

Sure. I mean, I think that's kind of the the thing that I guess matters in all of this analysis is like the expectation and and how you frame your life and what you're capable of doing based on what you're assuming you're gonna get and then what the consequences are if you don't get it, when there's always that sort of optional will you, won't you, you know, kind of um out in the ether. You know, like I think in industries where, you know, tipping is definitely like, you know, waiters or whatever, it's sort of mag imagine like if people are getting tipping fatigue, as it were, like are they experiencing, you know, a loss, you know, a loss of income or whatever because they um can't expect as much as they used to anymore because that they used to be the only industry or one of the few industries where that was the understood, you know, transaction between service provider and receiver. So I don't know. I guess I just like being somebody who's on a a stable um of being paid does make you wonder about, you know, the people out there in the world who were those few industries and how it's affecting those industries when now everyone has their hand up to kind of participate in that.

SPEAKER_03 46:04

Well, and it it the life has gotten so much more expensive too. I mean, my electric I mean, my electric uh if these electric bills are like affecting me to the point where I, you know, like I like can only imagine if you're living in like a drafty, you know, apartment that has shitty windows and isn't badly insulated, which is like everything I lived in up until I moved into my first condo, you know, like when I was 30. Like I every every place I lived in was a drafty nightmare and our electric and gas pills were out of control, but out of control meaning they were$75 versus$30. Like it's and it's you know, like if I got I mean, I have the office, we had a we had a our electric bill last month was$400 and something, which is what? Yeah. Like I I kind of want to look at that because I'm like, why is it$400? But is that because of the data centers that are hogging all of our energy and everything's gone up? Or were we using more of it? Was it more expensive?

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Like, I don't, I don't even know. Are we just, you know, leaving doors open and it's drafty and the heat's just, you know, having a hard time keeping up? Who knows? Uh, I do still have weatherproof the office on my list. I haven't sure.

SPEAKER_03 47:12

I wasn't saying that to make you weatherproof the office faster, but I just it's more thinking about like the people that are trying to just live a like a like a like a like a like a cheaper life, you know, like a more frugal life. And it's like it's not even really an option anymore. But I don't think that wages have really kept up with that either. It's because we've been artificially suppressing minimum wage because you know, the rich people don't reinvest in their businesses and they they're not buying, you know, lights and they're not, I mean, not everyone buys lights to beef their business up, but I feel like I I feel like I'm always kind of reinvesting my money into the business and you know, trying to make things better for everybody. But then, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:52

I never as you know, the one often sort of taking your amazing intention and ideas and figuring out ways to help them be birthed into our little world.

SPEAKER_03 48:06

You're my you're my idea doula. Is that what you are?

SPEAKER_00 48:09

I'm I am your idea doula. Yeah. I don't know. I'm always trying to last just kind of end on a high note. So yeah, I'm always making up crazy mashups.

SPEAKER_03 48:22

It's like the first are your favorite thing in the world.

SPEAKER_00 48:25

They're my favorite thing in the world, but they're also just like my brain's default setting is to like hear syllables and then think how we could incorporate these syllables into um a more efficient and also humorous uh situation. And last night we were out and about, and somebody, well, Evelyn pointed this out, um, and I will read it to you, but I'm also gonna show it to you. It's a sharcutor tree. It's a sharcuter tree. That's pretty cute. And uh I immediately was like, somebody's out there doing the good work.

SPEAKER_03 48:57

Yeah, well, I will tell you uh on uh so Taylor Swift has the docuseries that is coming out around this time. There's they released two episodes last week and then they're kind of parsing them out. But anyway, last Saturday I had my my friends from my group chat, the showgirls, uh, we uh got together to to watch the episodes and we we made um Taylor Swift themed food. And uh my friend Shaska made an egg dish that we called Fresh Out the Scramble, which is like Fresh Out the Slammer. And then uh there is Eversmores, Michelle made Eversmores, and she also made Death by a Thousand Biscuts. Okay. Um and I made a fruit salad that I called Master Rind. Uh so does that fall underneath your your funny portmanteau of it all? Yeah, pun it punny sort of things, yes. The death by a thousand biscuts kind of ruined me. Like I died, it was like the best thing I've ever heard in my life. Ruined, destroyed. Um, I feel like this episode's been just us kind of collectively bitching about capitalism.

SPEAKER_00 49:58

I mean, but also, you know, sort of poking at like how do we, you know, ask the hard questions and do you know like I don't know what to do with it.

SPEAKER_03 50:06

It's like things it's hard because I, you know, it's it's you know, it's like that whole parable of like the fisherman who gets told he should, you know, start a business and he starts a business and he works for 30 years and never fishes, and then he sells the business and then spends his retirement fishing. It's like he got into this because he loved fishing, didn't fish for 30 years because he's running the business. It's like me. I I feel like I am the fisherman. Like I was started off DJing. I started this company where I didn't get to really have fun in it, and then now I'm back DJing again with the with the HFDs.

SPEAKER_00 50:38

Yeah. We love it. All I want to do. All I want to do. I think there's a world we can get to where you're just HFD um A T T all the time.

SPEAKER_03 50:51

I like that. I like that. I'm really glad that you are a part of the business with me and you make everything go so much better. And uh I really appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

Likewise, Mary, I mean, I really do think that this the whole magic is, you know, again, this confluence of your brain and intention and you know, desire to run something that really does employ these amazing, you know, sort of talented people that weirdos say, yeah, weirdos or people who just, you know, a nine to five was not, you know, the world that they were gonna thrive in and giving, you know, a real platform profession, you know, something that people could do that can be all the things. Like when I say to people in our sales calls, like you know, the uh doing, you know, improvisation and being obsessed with music and being on the radio, and then this sort of being a wedding DJ was like this, you know, confluence of all of these things that could occur simultaneously and then also be a legitimate way to um finance a life. And you know, again, when I say to myself, does this make sense? You know, I'm always kind of putting it through that uh that kind of filter. Um, does this make sense for how we want to operate? I think there's a certain sadness that is as challenging as it is because of all the things that you have to overcome in the world, you know, and the expenses that you have to overcome in the world to have something that can both be a real business and be profitable and be an amazing atmosphere, you know, to work in and serve people the way that we want to serve them, our couples.

SPEAKER_03 52:37

And, you know, it should be easier to be and I will say that like, you know, before like all of these technologies that came along that were supposed to make our lives easier, they all made everything harder. And I I don't think people have really like I I think we get so uh dazzled by the newness and what we call progress and the things like it's it's like how AI has been, everyone's been investing so much in AI and no one is using it. And so they're like Microsoft was doing all this stuff to basically get people to use their AI, the copilot, and no one was using it. And they they were like trying to pay people to use it and no one was using it. So now they have stopped trying to make people try to use their AI because no one wants to use it. It's like I don't want to outsource that much of my brain. Like the the more you outsource it, the less your brain works and then it's gone. So I don't know. I I would l really love to return to a you know ludite or fuck the internet.

SPEAKER_00 53:36

The pendulum she is swinging, you know, would be pretty cool to have some balance, but we'll see if we're we ever get there.

SPEAKER_03 53:45

Well, this is the last show that we're recording in 2025.

SPEAKER_00 53:49

Bullshit. That's true, but it blows my mind.

SPEAKER_03 53:54

That's all. That that we're at the end of 2025. I can't get out of this year fast enough. All right, Melissa. Well, it was great conversation. Us kind of tying up our postmortem on the year. Answer is that capitalism sucks, is basically. Um, but uh to everybody else, thanks so much for tuning in. And uh special thanks to Melissa Riddle. Always happy to be here for being my number two and my number one. It's a Fibonacci sequence. Um, all right, guys, peace out. Peace.

SPEAKER_01 54:28

Ow, ow.

SPEAKER_03 54:30

Thanks for listening to All of the Millady Business with me, Mary Missy. Uh, we'd love for you to like, review, subscribe, follow us at All of the Millady Business on the RAM. And if you're a female identifying person and you want to dance, you can follow. I mean, everybody can follow us. But if you want to be a part of the magic at hot squat dance party, sign up for the male to find out where to media if you want to look for each other, yeah, or anymore else. You know, money's same color everywhere. Why is that postingampedias.com has the buttons and listen to my radio show. I have a radio show on trip radio at trip radio.org. That's Mondays. Every Monday called today's episode of Princess by Chiron Data Peace Fun. Host and performed by