This week, Chris has some helpful air conditioner info for this God-forsaken, hot summer. Next, we look at two Supreme Court decisions: first, we examine the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s abortion decision from last year; and second, the court also broke with precedent in deciding that race can no longer be used as a factor in college admissions. Is this a good thing or bad thing, and how will colleges respond to the ruling? And finally, it seems that there’s a push from employers to get their workers to return to the office, even though studies show that workers are happier working from home and are just as—if not more—productive out of the office.
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This week, Chris has some helpful air conditioner info for this God-forsaken, hot summer. Next, we look at two Supreme Court decisions: first, we examine the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s abortion decision from last year; and second, the court also broke with precedent in deciding that race can no longer be used as a factor in college admissions. Is this a good thing or bad thing, and how will colleges respond to the ruling? And finally, it seems that there’s a push from employers to get their workers to return to the office, even though studies show that workers are happier working from home and are just as—if not more—productive out of the office.
1. Topics
2. Additional Resources
3. Merchandise/Support the Show
4. Contact Us/Follow Us/Rate/Subscribe
New episodes every week!
Listen, rate, follow, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts!
Follow us:
5. Credits
This week, air conditioning, abortion, affirmative action, and the Moral Authority, also known as Elon Musk. Welcome to Subpar Talks. Hey everybody. Welcome to Subpar Talks where we have conversations about everything. I'm Jeff.
Chris:And I'm Chris.
Jeff:Thank you again for joining us, and yes, it is time for our standard disclaimer. Listener discretion is advised. We will curse from time to time, perhaps a lot, and depending on the episode, we will touch on some mature subject matter and we inject our humor into a lot of this stuff. So if that is not your thing, then perhaps we are not your thing. But for everybody else, settle in because here we go with this week's topics.
Chris:So we're obviously not gonna talk about this every week, but it's a daily thing for us. It's fucking hot.
Jeff:Yep.
Chris:It's just hot. I'm upset about it. I get tired of being hot. I sweat doing nothing.
Jeff:Yeah.
Chris:Just to even think about stepping outside. It's crazy.
Jeff:Well, you know, it makes people irritable and crime goes up during the summer, like statistics.
Chris:Oh, just for that?
Jeff:Well, I don't know if they've made that connection, but there's definitely something there that, that it's hot, people become irritable, they're more likely to fly off the handle.
Chris:Yeah.
Jeff:And there you go. And I can totally get it, sitting in a pool of your own sweat.
Chris:Yes.
Jeff:I'm ready to take somebody out.
Chris:Yeah. See, that makes me think of the movie Falling Down.
Jeff:Oh yeah.
Chris:You know with Michael Douglas?
Jeff:Yeah.
Chris:That's when he went off at the beginning of the movie, he was sitting in his car, stuck in traffic, no air conditioning. He just got out.
Jeff:Yeah.
Chris:And everything that happened after that, none of it was planned. He was just, he had just had it like, I'm getting the fuck out of the car.
Jeff:Yep.
Chris:So, great. I haven't that, that reminds me, I haven't seen that movie in forever. I need to pull that up and watch it.
Jeff:Yeah, it's been a while since I've seen it.
Chris:Maybe it'll help me feel like he's, he's commiserating with me.
Jeff:Right.
Chris:So I brought up this topic because I came across this article, um, today and it's always been a question of mine, I think is so, you know, especially with programmable thermostats now and thermostats that learn and everything is. What's the best way to handle the temperature in your house when you're gonna be gone? So if you're gonna be gone for a few hours, you're going on vacation, whatever, should you be setting your thermostat higher? People were even questioning, turning their air conditioner off. That's never gone occurred to me. I know. No, that has never occurred to me. I've only thought, okay, let the temperature go up. You know, X number of degrees. To just save on that during the time that you're not home. Right? But then the question is, now it's gotta cool back down when you get home. Exactly. Is this helping you or not? So this article actually answered some of those questions, but here's the bottom line of it. It says, if you were going to be gone for over four hours, that you could turn your thermostat up. By up to four degrees, and I thought that seemed pretty reasonable. So let's say that you would normally keep your air conditioner. I'm just gonna throw out, you know, 74 degrees, okay during the day, Uhhuh. Then if you let it go up to 78, if you're gonna be gone for more than four hours. And it put that stipulation on there because obviously now it's gonna take. X amount of time to cool it back down. Mm-hmm. But the whole idea is you don't want your air conditioner working too hard then to cool it back down. And so if you turn your air conditioner completely off, then it's gonna be going up by more than four degrees. By the time you turn it back on and you want it to cool back down, it could actually be overworking your air conditioner. So not only is that an energy issue, but you could actually be reducing the life of the air conditioner itself. Yeah. Okay. Well that's good to know, but I sure as shit wasn't gonna turn my AC off when I leave the house. Nope, that's not happening. Do you turn it up, say you're gonna be gone for like. I don't know. Hour, two, three hours. Do you turn it up? I don't. Not for that. No, I don't for that. If I, and here's the thing. See, I work from home, so I'm never normally gone. Anytime when I go it, I mean, yeah, obviously it's planned for this or that, but I'm just saying mm-hmm. I'm not gone. Every day, eight to five, for example, if I were, then I would program my thermostat differently, but, but I, I just program it for the temperature I want when I'm home, home during the day and the temperature I want at night. And I do let it go lower at night because I want cooler, right? I, I don't, sleeping hot is the absolutely worst thing. Oh God, it is the worst. My dream is to live in a place where I don't need air conditioning. That would be all right. I mean, I, I do like the way air conditioning feels, but it's the very idea that you need it. I know. Yeah. So how do you feel about cold weather? Are you okay with needing heat? Yeah, I'm okay with that. I don't mind that. Yeah, I'm okay too. I just don't like hot weather. But yeah, I'm okay with that. So when I say I don't need ac, I was thinking of a cold climate. Mm-hmm. You know, we used to live in Michigan. We had an ac, but we could have gotten away with not having one. I mean, there would've been some hot days for sure, but we could have gotten by without having one. But it could also be in a more temperate climate like, I think probably like Bay Area, you know, San Francisco, places like that you could probably get by with without an ac. Yeah, but I don't know. Except those horrible times when they actually get the heat wave. That's what would worry me. I feel like I would always need the air conditioner. Like it's gotta be there as a fallback. Because even like Pacific Northwest, Washington, Oregon, holy shit, they can get over a hundred degrees. I know they'll have heat waves. Yeah. Was that last year that like Seattle, Portland's like 110 degrees something crazy. Yeah. And you know, a lot of people up there don't have acs. Right. That would be unbelievable. So anyway, there's a little tip for you. I do actually turn my air conditioner warmer to, you know, I'll let it get to like 85 or something if I'm going out of town and, and that, yeah, that means like I'm, I know I'm gonna be gone for, you know, a couple of days, then I will let it go up and then set it to come back down before I get home. So that by the time I walk in the door, it's already nice. Nice and cool. Yeah, you got the fancy kind, but yeah, I, yeah. Turn it up before you go out of town. It's the way to go. So we just hit the one year mark since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court. Yeah, and I came across an article that was talking about, you know, what have been essentially the aftereffect or the aftermath in Texas specifically since that, now Texas, before that was overturned, um, had already passed a law or laws restricting abortion. Here. This is almost kind of an anticipation of. Um, expecting that that's the way it was going to go. But of course, it couldn't completely be enforced at that point because it hadn't been overturned yet. But in this article, it was talking about, as I said, the, the aftermath, and I think that's a pretty good word to use here of mm-hmm. What the effects have been in Texas and just a few of them as saying that. There has been a much greater hardship put on the social system, just the support for people going through this. I mean, obviously people who have unwanted pregnancies, and let's just throw this out here right now because the next thing I'm gonna mention speaks to this point is also higher maternal mortality. Yeah. And so on that social system, this is not just unwanted pregnancies, this is pregnancies where they may be wanted, but they have issues, they have health issues mm-hmm. That are endangering the mother and or the child. And there was one thing in this article that was talking about a mother who, like they had been trying to get pregnant for a long time. She ended up getting pregnant and pregnant with twins. And it was one of the twins who was developing abnormally, and there there were brain issues and all kinds of very serious organ problems with one of the twins. And this was actually threatening her life, so whatever. Mm-hmm. And I don't know exactly how, uh, or why, but it was, and, and so that development was affecting her life. She had no options here. They actually had to go out of state and I think they went to Colorado. Mm-hmm. But, you know, the, the articles talking about the number of people who were having to go to New Mexico, Colorado, and, but I, I think, you know, it was also calling out how most of the abortions tend to be in lower income households. Yeah. Which of course that can speak to more unwanted pregnancies, but mm-hmm. The very idea that all of this happens and now these people don't have options, it's just angering. Yeah. It really is. Because people shouldn't be put in that position, and I'm tired of hearing. More and more people say that other people can't do things like you don't get to say everything that I can and can't do, and I'm, I'm really. Tired of it. It's happening too much. It's happening more often and it's happening on more and more subjects that we didn't even used to hear about. Well, the, the same people who say they're, uh, you know, they hate the government or they're skeptical, really skeptical of the government, or they don't like government control or whatever, then they turn around and they support banning abortions across the board. Right. Makes no sense. It's inconsistent. Yeah. So, It's the same thing and it's entirely predictable as far as what the result has been. It's the same thing that generally speaking, it's gonna be the poor people who are hurt the most by this, because you're talking about money, so you're talking about access to birth control. Mm-hmm. And. You're talking about transportation. If you have to get an abortion, well, somebody who's weighed down the fuck in close to Mexico, you know, in, in Texas, what are they supposed to do? Right? You got somebody poor who they, they don't have tra reliable transportation. And then you're talking about where you're gonna go, like Louisiana, I'm sure they're. Laws are, I don't know what their abortion law is, but I'm sure it's just as restrictive or almost as restrictive as the one Texas has. And then probably the same for Oklahoma. And then you're talking about, okay, New Mexico, that's hundreds and hundreds of miles. Yeah. And how's she gonna get there? How's she gonna get back paying for stuff? You know, it's just, it picks on poor people. Yeah. And another thing right there is not only getting there, but the idea of them having to take off work. You know, you gotta get time off work for these things. And if we're talking about lower income people, then you're talking about different types of jobs that may not be so flexible. Maybe they don't have that time available off work. Are you gonna get fired because you're taking that time off of work? Yeah, I mean, there are all kinds of issues that go along with that. And so then what's the alternative? Well, then you have this baby that you can't afford in the first place. And, and now what kind of environment is it being born into? And we already know if it's born in Texas, it's gonna be subject subjected to the horrible heat that we already have. And we already talked about how that makes people miserable. So imagine being stuck in a room with no AC and you have a newborn that you didn't want in the first place. Oh my gosh. I don't even want to be in the room with myself when it's like
Jeff:this. I know, I know it. So the whole impetus behind abortion rights in the first place stems from a 1965 Supreme Court case called Griswold versus Connecticut. And very quickly here, Connecticut had a law that banned any type of contraceptives in the state. You couldn't do anything with contraception in the state of Connecticut. You couldn't own it. You couldn't sell it, you couldn't, uh, planned Parenthood couldn't counsel anybody on the proper uses of birth control. Like anything and any, uh, everything and anything related to birth control was illegal in Connecticut. That's insane. It is insane. And the Supreme Court overturned that law. Uh, by saying that there is a general right to privacy in the Constitution, and that means that the decision to have a kid is a private right. And when you ban contraception, in effect, it's government leaders deciding whether you're gonna have a kid or not. So that was 19 65, 19 73. You have Roe versus Wade. So the question in that was, does the right of privacy in the constitution extend to after conception? Because with birth control, you're clearly talking about before sex. So does the right to privacy encompass a woman's right to have an abortion? And if it does, you know, how far does that go? Well, the Supreme Court answered that in 1973 by saying yes. Women had a right to have an abortion up to a certain point. Well, now last year in the Dobbs decision, this Supreme Court says, no, the right of privacy does not include a woman's right to have an abortion. If that is the case, then how far back are we going to go? I mean, if you say the right of privacy does not include that. It's hard to imagine what's more private than that. The decision of whether you are going to, to bring a pregnancy to full term, right? Like what's more private than that? And it's hard to think of anything. So how far back are we gonna go? I would imagine you could find probably at least four conservative justices right now who would flat out say there is no right to privacy in the constitution. And so then it becomes, well, you know, what are the implications of that? And I guarantee you the birth control issue is gonna come up because you've got Republicans in certain states, Texas included, who they wanna restrict access to things like the Plan B pill. Mm-hmm. Um, they don't want that to be available because they think it's abortion, which it's not, but, Science has never stopped them in the first place. So why stop there? It's a mess. It is.
Chris:It really is. And, and like I said, it is just angering be well, it, it's angering for the subject that we're talking about by itself, but it's scary. Yeah, for, like you said, what those implications can be and the, the idea that you know, what is the right to privacy and the decisions that you can make, they could extend that to gay marriage. They could extend that to, to all kinds of things, and, and that's, that's where it's scary. It's a slippery slope, but not just in theory.
Jeff:Exactly. So I'm gonna go into teaching mode for a second, but, uh, I'm gonna make it really fast, but I think it does help explain, maybe explain the, the Dobbs decision. Not justify it, but explain it. So there are essentially two philosophies when it comes to interpreting the constitution, and that's what judges have to do, right? They have to interpret the law. So one of those is originalism. It's a very conservative philosophy. A lot of current Supreme Court justices who are conservatives subscribe to this theory, and that is that whatever we see in the Constitution today means exactly the same thing as it did when it was put in there. Mm-hmm. So whatever freedom of speech meant in 1791, it means exactly that Same thing today. Whatever equal protection of the laws means and are meant in the 14th Amendment back in 1868, it means exactly the same thing today. The other theory is the Living Constitution theory, which says that provisions and their, their, the meaning of provisions in the Constitution change over time as society changes. In other words, the constitution has to adapt to our changing society. And part of the Living Constitution theory is judges should consider problems in society, and if they can correct those problems by making a decision, then they should absolutely do so. So you can consider the implications of your decision. People who subscribe to the Originalism theory, they don't consider the implications of their decision at all. They think dealing with implications of things, that's the legislature's job to deal with it. Living Constitutionalists say you absolutely should consider the implications of what you're doing here. So when you have the justices saying that there's no, no, uh, the, the right to privacy does not include a woman's right to have an abortion. They don't care what the implications are. Because they don't see that as part of their job. Yeah. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that they're heartless. They might be, but they just don't. They don't care. They don't care what the implications are. Whereas on the other side, absolutely read the dissenting opinion in the Dobbs case, and there's a lot of language in there about what is this gonna mean for women if we say mm-hmm. That they don't have a right to an abortion. What's that gonna mean? And they talk a lot about, yeah, what has come to fruition a year later, so, right. I don't know if that helps explain it, but it is definitely at the core of the competing philosophies for how we interpret stuff in the law and the constitution.
Chris:Well, on the, now that you brought that up on that subject of thinking that we have to go with the original, Language and what that means, and not considering the implications, but like you said, then leaving that to the legislature. What is the legislature to do then? Because it seems like if they were to pass a law to try to alleviate any of those implications, that would be declared unconstitutional too. Well,
Jeff:I mean the, the legislature could, and some states have done this, where you have Democrats in control. You could pass a law that preserves, uh, protects whatever the right word, is, the right to have an abortion. I mean, you can actually write it into the law and you don't have to, you don't have to justify it by saying that's a, a right to privacy or anything. You could just write that under the law that a woman has a right to have an abortion, you know, up to a certain point. But you're gonna have way too much opposition in states like Texas, where you have Republicans in control, and those types of bills won't get anywhere. Now, the people in the legislature, they're not concerned with how you interpret the Constitution, right? To privacy, originalism, living constitutionalism, they don't care about any of that stuff. So in terms of who's heartless? Yeah, I think we have a lot of legislators who are heartless. They just don't give. Flying. Fuck what happens as a result of banning abortion? They don't care. Right? Yeah. So I think, yeah, that you have a lot of them who are heartless and they say they, it's about protecting the kids, right? Protecting the children. That's a bunch of bullshit. Uh, if you really cared about protecting kids, then you're gonna have a lot of programs in place to make sure that those kids. Have a, you know, some kind of meaningful life. And so you're gonna shore up the foster system and you're gonna have stronger, you know, pre-K programs and, and things of that nature, healthcare, all that. But what states like Texas, do they just continue to cut that stuff? Yeah. Cut the funding to all of it. Yeah. Right. I feel like I got up on my soapbox there, but whatever. Speaking of Supreme Court decisions, and this one was a few weeks ago, was the court declaring that colleges and universities, so anything in higher education you can no longer use race. As a criter criterion, you can no longer use race as a factor in admissions. So they overturned a lot of precedent there. Supreme Court precedent with, yeah. Affirmative action. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that was expected. I mean, the Supreme Court right now is so conservative. It was expected, uh, it was more about how far. Would they go, but I don't think anybody was surprised by the decision. So was
Chris:there anything in there regarding how far they went?
Jeff:Well, okay, so I, I haven't read, I haven't read the opinion. I've only read, uh, news accounts of it a couple, uh, evidence. So you can't use race as a factor in admissions. If applicants to these institutions want to, like in their essay, you know, when they're applying, if they want to put in there how race has affected them or how racism has affected them, then that's okay. You can consider that, but you just can't consider that person's race when, uh, they apply. Okay. Yeah, and I'll tell you right now, so was it last week we talked about how I was conflicted with the whole transgender athlete thing, and I think I've, you know, made up my mind, although I might, could be persuaded pretty easily the other way. Right? This is another one of those topics that I've wrestled with for years, uh, and I've, I've gone back and forth with it. I've mostly been on the side that yes, colleges and universities should be able to consider race because America's history, I mean, that's one aspect of it. How government businesses, you name it, have have fucked over people of color in this country. Mm-hmm. And women, but we're talking about race, so, From that aspect, I was like, yeah, they should be able to consider it. And colleges and universities and the military institutions like that, they like a diverse environment just for various reasons. They want a diverse environment in there. So from that standpoint, yes, they should be able to consider it. On the other hand, how is it fair to a white person, somebody like us, how is it fair? If somebody is applying to an institution and they are a black person or Asian or Latino or whatever, how is it fair if they are put ahead of us simply because of their race? When I as a white person had nothing to do with their oppression or their ancestors' oppression, or anything like that? On the other hand, I am white and I have undoubtedly been privileged by a lot of the institutions that did discriminate against their ancestors in the past. So should something not be done to make up for that. But I guess this is where I am, and maybe I'm talking myself through this now. I don't know, and I'm interested to see what you say, but I'll end it with this. I think I'm okay with the Supreme Court's ruling because I think what colleges are gonna do now, and a lot of them had already started doing this, is not so much considering race, but considering socioeconomic status. So considering underprivileged individuals, which. Again, considering our country's history, a lot of times those individuals are going to be people of color, so maybe that's the direction that colleges should go. I don't know. It's a complicated issue and I saw people arguing about it on Twitter, and I'm like, really? You're gonna argue about this and 140 characters, or whatever the fuck it is, like, right. How do you even start that? So, yeah, it's tough.
Chris:Well, the way you just said that is, is that the way that they should go or the way that they might go? I think that's the question. Is it the way that they will go because, you know, to consider that socioeconomic status because that's, that's the question, right? They, they may or they may not.
Jeff:Well, I know that. Of course, it depends on the institution without a doubt, but I think the vast majority of state run institutions do want that diversity in a student body, and they want to give opportunities to people who have traditionally not had those opportunities. And like if you're a first time, first one in your family to go to college like that, that I think. I think universities want that type of thing. And so I think, I think they're gonna be looking for ways to create diversity. It's just that now they can't consider anybody's race to do so. Mm-hmm. But that's speculation on my part.
Chris:Well, and I, I could see that, you know, maybe the socioeconomic standpoint is the more. More fair way, if that's a way to say it. Yeah, because like you, because then. Okay. If that favors, I, I'm trying to pick my words here for what's most accurate. I guess if that favors people of color by looking at that socioeconomic status, then it still accomplishes what the affirmative action was meant to accomplish. Mm-hmm. Um, however, if that is a white person who is in the same type of situation, I. As that person of color, then the white person still has the same chance, the same opportunity, which, which makes sense too. I, I will say, you know, as you said, you know, you've tried to kind of decide how you think about it, and, and I've wrestled with it over time. I feel exactly the same way that you did. I don't, I don't need to restate. Anything that you said, because I do, I can see both sides of it. I have felt both ways. I could probably feel both ways sitting right here talking about it. Yeah. That, that I, I understand the idea of, of needing to write prior wrongs, but I will say this, like at the time that I was going to to college, and this wasn't about the admission, but it was about, The, like, I was looking for scholarships and my situation was, I felt a little bit unique. I, I know that there would be other people in this situation, but um, on paper there was, there was money in the family and so, I couldn't be considered for any need-based scholarships. Mm-hmm. But the frustrating thing about it is I didn't have access to any of that money that was on paper. And so I might as well have been in considered, you know, for, and, and I, it sounds strange for me to say this because I know that I was not socioeconomically. Underprivileged. Mm-hmm. But on paper, as far as what was available for me to go to college, I was, yeah. And I knew that it was gonna be completely up to me to take care of it, to pay for it. There wasn't money coming my way. And so when I went. To apply for scholarships. It was very frustrating to see scholarship after scholarship that I could otherwise qualify for in that financial aspect. Mm-hmm. But I couldn't apply for it because I wasn't black, I wasn't Native American, I wasn't, uh, Hispanic, uh, you know, whatever it happened to be. It's like, well, these scholarships are, are pointing out race specifically for whether you get the scholarship or not. It was very frustrating to me. Mm-hmm. On the other hand, you know, at the same time I could see why they would be in need of those kinds of things. So yeah. Of, of those opportunities. The, the scholarships and so on. And then certainly when it comes to. Do you get admitted or not? Based on the same criteria,
Jeff:and so here we go with the implications of it, right? The six, yeah, it was a six three decision. The six conservative members of the court, they don't care what the implications are of this. They just, they don't care. They, again, they might be heartless, they might not, but they just don't even consider what the implications are gonna be. The three liberal justices are very much in tune with what they're fearful of, the implications are gonna be and the admissions people like. Okay. Let me give you a scenario. Like who, who would you choose here? Let's say you have, uh, what's a good. Rich asshole name. I'm probably gonna offend somebody, but Tucker. Okay. Let's say you got Tucker. He's living in a stable two-parent home in the suburbs. He doesn't want for anything. His parents are able to get him a private tutor. He has private tutoring for his s a T, he's, he does well in school. He participates in a bunch of extracurricular activities. He's a member of all these clubs in high school, and he applies to college and he's got like a 3.8 gpa. Okay. And then you have. Jamal, he's black, he's living in the inner city and he's got two other siblings and uh, it's a single mother and Jamal has to help her take care of his two siblings and his mother's working two jobs. So a lot of times Jamal has to feed the kids, gotta get dinner on the table because she's working and. He's scraping by in school. He doesn't go to a very good school because he lives in a bad neighborhood and there's not a lot of tax dollars going to it. So the school's kind of run down. He doesn't have the same opportunities as Tucker does. And Jamal skates by in high school and he's got a 3.3 G p A. They both apply to the same school who's more deserving to get in. Yeah. And that's the type of stuff that that. That's the type of stuff that admissions, people, committees, whatever they are, they're gonna have to, to decide. But now you can't consider the fact that Jamal is black and the reason that he's in the situation he is in goes back generation after generation after generation because of discrimination. And you can take it all the way back to slavery and it just, you start thinking about it like that and you're like, well, fuck me. Like, what do we do? What do we do? And I think it's, it's one of those things where we as a country have not had a full reckoning with our past, but I'm not ready to say that part of the solution should be to continue to give preferences based on race. But again, I, somebody could probably change my mind in about five minutes.
Chris:Well, we're also going the other way with having the reckoning with our past. Because I think there's been plenty of time that people didn't want to talk about it. Mm-hmm. Now I think there's a lot of people that want to talk about it even less.
Jeff:No, I know. Yeah.
Chris:We're trying to, to ban information, ban books, ban access to those types of things, and as though, yeah. It didn't happen. It wasn't as bad as it was. Well, that was then, and this is now. This kind of stuff doesn't exist anymore. And I will say that was part of my problem too, in terms of my attitude back being in high school and going to college is thinking, hey, That stuff was a thing of the past. You know, why? Why should this be affecting me now when I wasn't alive in the 18 hundreds, nobody that I know was alive in the 18 hundreds, we as in we and my circle. Had zero to do with any of that. Mm-hmm. And that may be true. I mean, well, it was true. That's not to say that, that some of those even specific ancestors didn't have anything to do with it. I don't know. But that's not the point. That was what I failed to realize and have come to realize is. That, wow. There are a lot of places that what led to that in the past are very alive and well and thriving. Those, yeah. The, the attitudes, the situations. And like you said, the reason that Jamal in this example is in the situation that he's in. I is, all of those things are a factor in that and it, it took me a long time to come around to that realization I did a long time ago, but it took me a long time to get there.
Jeff:I'm gonna be interested to see what colleges decide to do. Cause now they're gonna have to scramble and figure out how are we gonna handle this? Because as I said, I know most of them, they want that diverse environment. But now they're not gonna be able to consider race. So how do we go about achieving that same diverse student body? Definitely something to watch.
Chris:So we've talked about this a few times before in different ways for different reasons, but the whole idea of whether or not employees should be forced to return to the office. Obviously ever since Covid. I think somewhat before that, you know, just because we have greater access to remote resources, we're already seeing some things change, but not nearly in the way that Covid brought about. Right. Um, em, employees having to be sent home because of the, the whole covid crisis and everything being shut down. Forced everyone to change whether they wanted to or not. Mm-hmm. And so now we've got the whole question of do employees come back or not? The reason I'm bringing this up right now is that. They've been doing these studies now for at least the last couple of years since Covid, and as people could go back to the office and kind of looking at what happened during Covid in terms of productivity and worker satisfaction, all of those kinds of things, and comparing it to, okay, now what's happened since Covid and. People going back to the office versus people that have not gone back to the office. What's the productivity levels of, of one versus the other satisfaction levels of one versus the other? And, and the stats are just overwhelmingly showing that people are more productive when they're outside the office. I, I don't really think that's, A surprise on, I think what people's beliefs are and what the reality is are they just don't necessarily match because prior to. The whole Covid incident. And let's just back up even farther than that. Let's just say go back to, to 2000, for example. Mm-hmm. And you start thinking of just allowing your, your employees at large to work at home. I think the overwhelming idea is they're just gonna be goofing off. Right. Oh my gosh. You, you've got, you don't bring your employees to work. See, it's not a matter of, of whether they can work at home, but would they? Mm-hmm. Well, of course not. They're gonna be watching tv, playing with their kids, going out to the pool, whatever. No, they're not gonna be working. But whatever your belief is and what the reality is, they just may not match. And then you gotta kind of adjust your beliefs to say, well, Reality isn't really proving that to be true. Yeah. And so I think it's very interesting that these stats are coming out saying that, that that's not the case. And yet we still have companies and executives that are insisting on people returning to the office, the the one area where. It's been proven now that it can be better in the office, and I don't dispute this at all, is in mentoring and collaboration. Yeah. They actually looked, for example, at two different programmers. One programmer who was in the office with other programmers and a programmer who was at home doing the same work. The programmer in the office was writing less code. Well, that could be distractions. Talking to other people, all kinds of things. Yeah. But one of the other things that they did recognize is that the person who was in the office was able to help collaborate and comment on code more than the person who was at home. So, There are clearly two sides to all of this, but I came across another article today and this. Just irritates me. Mm-hmm. It's because, and, and what irritates me about it is it kind of goes to all of these other topics that we've talked about is where you can think one thing and you, and you may have good reason for, for thinking what you think, whether, you know, it's, it's based on information that you've seen in the past, it's just what you've always known, whatever it happens to be. Mm-hmm. But then, There's a, a guy called, uh, David Sachs, and he was one of the, the founders or slash co-founder of PayPal, okay. Um, Elon Musk was too, and so both of these people were cited In this article, David Sacks says that it is no way to build a great company by allowing your employees to work from home. Elon Musk then said that, Having your employees work from home is morally wrong. Morally,
Jeff:morally wrong. Fuck him. Yeah, exactly.
Chris:So this is a guy who probably doesn't go to work very much at all. Nevermind. Where are you working from? Yeah, right. How much is he in any office, anywhere? But he said it's morally wrong and this was his basis for it is, let's say that you have people who are a company that is creating, he termed it something that is consumable. And so that could be anything. It could be a car, it could be food, it could be a computers, anything base. I would say anything that kind of has to be made manufactured, something that's tangible is that people have to show up. To create that. Right. And I was trying to think of any examples. I'm sure there are examples where that's not true. People could do certain things from home, but typically you're gonna think, yeah, people are working in a factory, whatever. And so then how is that fair? And this is his morally wrong justification, is that some people would get to work from home. While those other people are required and have to show up to work. My problem with that is you could make the same argument for those same people by saying, well, the factory worker has to stay on their feet while I sit in an office. Right, right. I mean, you can't draw equivalencies between jobs and every type of situation that those people are in, and I find it irritating that they're looking to ignore the current data that we have in favor of just what their beliefs are and their beliefs do not match up with what. The reality of the studies say anymore. And so what's angering me about that is that that is what we are seeing in the world. More and more about everything is people are holding onto beliefs in spite of the evidence that proves them
Jeff:wrong. Yeah. It's like our July 4th episode talking about the flat earthers and the people who, uh, you know, they're confronted with evidence, but they stick to their guns, they stick to their beliefs. That quote by Elon Musk surprises me, what the fuck does he care, uh, morally wrong, that's knows. Just ridiculous. That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard. I.
Chris:So I have a theory about that. Okay. And I, I could be wrong here, but both of these people are in the ultra rich category. Mm-hmm. Okay. We're not just talking someone who's well off makes some money. These are ultra rich people. Yeah. One of the things that ultra rich people tend to be into is real estate. And what's happening to the commercial real estate market because of people going to work from home. Okay. It's, it's getting hit hard.
Jeff:Yeah, it
Chris:is. And I came across some other figures that said, and I, I, this was shocking. It said that that market may not recover until about 2040. Oh my God. Now that's a long time. But one thing that stood out to me about that is that's nearly a generation from now, so is it gonna take a whole generation to work out of the people that we have currently working, work out that mentality that they can work from home? Like we're gonna have to gradually bring people back over time, over time, get them used to it, and it could take almost a generation to make that happen. It puzzles
Jeff:me. Well, one, that they're not looking at the evidence. You would think like business-minded type people would want some, some hard evidence on stuff, and then that they would gravitate toward that, whatever the evidence shows. But here they're not. But I don't get this. Like you want your workers to be productive because you're concerned about the bottom line. Well, there are ways to measure productivity. Right. Like for, for the vast majority of jobs out there, you can measure whether your workers are being productive or not. So why do you care where they're being productive as long as they're doing it? I can understand the mentoring and the collaboration and all that, and there's a certain intrinsic quality that you, you get when you're with, you know, like-minded people and there's camaraderie there that, that. I don't know that you can necessarily ma uh, measure that, but we know workers feel more satisfied when they have that comradery with their coworkers. But other than that, you can measure whether workers are being productive or not. So I just don't understand why they're going back on that. And what are workers doing? Are workers, I'm assuming workers are upset because, well, we've talked about this in the past, but workers like flexibility. And when you're allowed to work from home, you've got a lot of flexibility.
Chris:Yeah, well there's a lot of backlash from workers. You know, people are leaving jobs if they're being required to return to the office if they don't want that. Now, granted, there's some people who would prefer to work in an office and you know, that's great for whatever that is. What, what they get out of it. And yes, there are some jobs that are going to be more benefited by that collaboration, mentoring, and so on. There are other jobs like mine. Not saying that mentoring and collaboration aren't important, but there's also kind of a time and a place for it. Mm-hmm. And you know, that doesn't mean that it's part of every day, for example. And so what we've done is we've gone to some offsite places like hot desking and things like that. Where we can do that at a scheduled time and for scheduled purposes. Now we'll jump on calls as a, you know, kind of on a whim when we need to also, but we also have those scheduled times, and that essentially equates to what some other people say, you know, C, come into the office. Once a week, twice a week, whatever. I don't have a problem about that either. Where my problem is, is if we know that things can be better in another way and maybe differently than we've thought about before, we've measured that. Mm-hmm. We see what it is. Not only may it be more productive for the company that they're getting more work out of those workers, but you have happier workers. Right, right. Because of that flexibility. Yep. I mean, if I am one of those employees that doesn't want to be in the office anymore and spending an hour to an hour and a half a day commuting and paying for childcare, et cetera, et cetera, Yeah, I, I can view all of those things as benefits of working for this company that allows me to work from home. Not only am I more productive for the company, but I'm happier as an employee and why would I wanna leave that company? It just seems so shortsighted to me in the face of all of the evidence to the contrary.
Jeff:I'm gonna pick on an entire generation here, but impugn, I do have some personal experience with it and it, I call it the boomer mindset, and I've talked with some of my colleagues about this. The Boomer mindset is, how could you possibly be working if you're not in your office? Right? And. Covid threw us into this environment that nobody was familiar with, and I think it did cause some of the boomers to kind of second guess this because, hey, we're still operating, like things are still happening even though we're not in our office. And then my institution, we stopped having classes on Friday. A few years ago, and then it was like, well, why do faculty even need to be there on Friday then? And the boomer answer was, well, what if a student comes by? Mm-hmm. And of course, every single faculty member under the sun is gonna tell you that's once in a blue moon. Then a student's gonna come knocking on your door and wants to ask a question or just chat it up, or something like that just hardly ever happens. Hello. We have other ways to talk to students anyway. If we're at home, zoom, whatever, it just, it, it doesn't make a lot of sense. So it was like pulling teeth, but we finally got it to where we don't have to be there on Fridays. So yeah, it's a changing world and there's a lot of resistance to it, and I think there is something to your real estate theory there.
Chris:I just, whether that's correct or not, I, I'm like, you there, there's got to be something else. It can't just be, because Elon Musk, for example, he's not a boomer, so it, right. It can't just be that mentality. I feel like there's got to be something underlying it and it's not being said. And I, and I came across that separately looking at the real estate aspect and thought. Wow. I wonder if that has something to do with it. Like, Hey, I care whether this real estate sits empty, and the way that I can make sure that it doesn't is put this out there that I think people should be back in the office. Morally wrong. Yeah. I don't know if Elon Musk is in the, the best position or be talking about morals.
Jeff:I was about to say that exact thing. Like if people are taking their moral cues from Elon Musk, there might be a bigger problem there. All right. That is another episode. If you like this kind of stuff, then this is your kind of podcast. We are your kind of people and you should absolutely, without a doubt, positively follow us on whatever platform you listen to podcasts on, because that way you're gonna get new episodes delivered to you every single Tuesday when they drop. And while you are there, go ahead and rate us. We would be really grateful if you'd give us five stars. And while you're, while you're there, go ahead and type something. It doesn't matter what you type, but the way these apps work is if you type something, it makes it easier for people to discover the show. We have a website. It is Subpar Talks dot com. You can email us there. You can leave us a voicemail. If you have suggestions for topics we should cover on future episodes, please go ahead and do that. We are on social media on Twitter. We are at Subpar Talks on Facebook. We are Subpar Talks. If you wanna follow our personal Twitter accounts, you can do that as well on there. I am at@independentjeff
Chris:and I am at Chris Bradford tx.
Jeff:We have other social media links on our website, you can check those out. And last, but never, ever least share Subpar Talks on social media with your friends and family and colleagues and whoever you encounter in your life. Because the more people we have listening to this show, the easier it is on us to get this content to you every single week. I think we should title this. I don't think the platforms would allow this, but we should title this episode Sons of Bitches.
Chris:Sons of Bitches. That's exactly right.
Jeff:It fits, right?
Chris:Yeah.
Jeff:It's a good fit. All right. That is another episode and we will be back next week. Until then, so long.