J: Okay here's one: "I work for a large retailer in Cincinnati and since November I was promoted to Assistant Store Manager. I went through training and started at a new store. I've been working at the store for the last 5 months. Today, I received an email that said they reviewed my application and decided to pursue other candidates. Did I just get passive-aggressively fired?", and that's from "shouldIgotoworktomorrow?". Um...you know who I am gonna ask about this?
T: WHO!
J: Laura Dale. Lemme see if I have...
G: Well that's gonna set a pretty wild precedent, right? I guess we can address it with Laura when she's on the call.
L: Oh I'm here-
T: Oh!
L: I'm on the call, what's happened [several people stammering]
J: Yea, sorry. I beeped in another call so you didn't hear it ring [all chuckling]
G: Laura was waiting by the phone and presciently knew that her campaign had paid off
L: Yea I just, you know, I had a real sense that now is the time, advice is needed. Go.
T: [singing] "This is the moment" Uh, what's it like, Laura, to be the only person to cash in that chip, to hoist us on our own pittard? To be on our show.
L: To be the one person that did the goof of "Hey if the boys can just confidently say they're gonna be on a thing and get on the thing, I can do that to get on their thing"?
T: Yea.
J: Here's the thing Laura, it would have worked with literally anyone. I'm glad it was someone we like and treasure, cause it woulda worked with anyone and it's only gonna work once. This is it.
L: Yea, when I did my "LauraKBuzz Will Be on 'My brother, my brother and me', I had a bunch of people tweet and go "Wouldn't that be funny if I did that to get on your podcast", and I was like "Do it then"
T: That's how it works, keeping paying it...backward?
G: Has anybody done the Joe Rogan one yet? We could just...don't you think? Get on there, plug our show, steal some of his audience, now we're the Rogans...
J: Laura, did you hear the question that I read before you answered?
L: The question just came into my mind like some wonderful premonition and I have advice for you, I'm glad that you realized I was the person for this. So, this person thinks that they've been passively aggressively fired, I disagree. I think they're unfireable now
J and T: Ooh
L: Like I don't think you can fire someone who you never hired.
T: Whoa
L: They're a glitch in the matrix now. They're just "Ya can't fire me, ya never hired me, who am I? I don't know"
T: "I'm a ghost in the machine"
L: Yea! You don't have to show up for work, you don't have responsibilities because if they try to fire you, "fire who?"
T: Laura there is one issue there and that is if paychecks do not come.
G: And that was my question, if you're not hired, have you been getting paychecks for the last 5 months and if the answer is "no", my follow up question is more of a statement and it's Boooooy you sure like Best Buy, huh? You suuuuure like the work there, huh?
L: Well, I'm assuming, let's say that you have been getting paid for the last few months but you haven't been hired. Can you talk to your bosses and go "Hey, you know Tom who we didn't hire months ago, we thought about it hard and we didn't hire Tom? I think that we should hire Tom" So that you can get paid for doing the job twice.
J: Are you saying you should use your sway as an employee of the company to get yourself hired?
L: Yea! I think you should use your position as assistant manage to get yourself hired
J: You could use yourself as a reference... "I have a close dear friend that works there already - it's me"
G: Yea and then you can be two assistant store managers, you add them up, that outranks the manager.
L: Yea
T: You are also then unstoppable because if you answer only to yourself, like "I am my own assistant manager and my assistant manager is myself" then i'm pretty sure you can just restructure the whole company at some point and when someone is like "who said you could do this?", be like "My manager" and then they're like "who's you're manager" and you're like "Me, I'm my own assistant manager"
G: The old manager forged a recursive power loop that I exploited and now I have become unsto- I have become Galactus now.
J: I used to work at a telemarketing place that had a bonus that you would get paid if you brought a friend in and got hired there, that shoulda been a tip off that that was a bad job huh? [G laughing at this] In retrospect that shoulda been a pretty big red flag.
T: That happens a lot, because I have worked so many job in my life, I still have that retail stink, that when I am just walking around any retail store no matter how am I dress, at least once I will be asked 'do you work here', no matter what I'm doing, I give off a vibe of like someone who should work here. It might be that. There are lots of people who worked at Best Buy with me whose names I did not and will not know.
L: Are you suggesting that maybe like the on paper resume was too terrible but like in person Jimothy showed up and it was just like "You seem like you would work here, here's your paycheck"
G: Travis is suggesting that both he and Jimothy possess a retail-esque frame, a body- a carriage that seems to- maybe it's Travis' broad shoulders or thick hands.
T: It might be my gait. I have a retail gait.
G: If I saw you, if you were a stranger to me and I was at the Staples and I saw those- your thick hands, reaching for a big thing of paper, I would just assume those hands have been thickened by paper lifting and you are an employee here.
T: "That's an employee who knows his way around a crate, look at those hands, those are Crate Hands" They would be right!
J: Hey Laura, is it true- are the rumors true that you have a book coming out this week?
L: I do have a book coming out this week and I'm mildly terrified, you've all done books before, I don't know how you do it. It's a lot, books
J: Laura?
L: Yes
J: When I- here's one of the prime ones I've learned, when somebody says "You have a book coming out" that is a good time to say the name of the book [Griffin and Travis laugh].
L: "Uncomfortable Labels", it's a book about being trans and on the autism spectrum and how that's really common but no one talks about it and it's coming out July 18th and it's in book places and you should all check it out
J: We got a book coming out this week too, buy them both
G: Yes, get a combo
T: A twofer
J: I have heard they are good companion books
L: Yea, exactly, if you don't buy both of them you're missing out on some of the secret special lore of The Adventure Zone [the hosts other podcast, it's a D&D based thing that they wrote a book for], you know...
T: It kinda weaves between both of them, see if you can solve it
L: If you look at the same page numbers in both books you can crack the code and find out who Angus McDonald [character in TAZ] REALLY is
T: Yes...
G: Uh oh
T: That is truth, the books do share a lot of similar words
G: I wish people could say stuff like that on one of our podcasts and me not have an actual panic attack [Griffin is the DM for TAZ and writes most of the plot]
[All laughing]
J: Laura, this book is available this week on Jul 18th, please go buy it. Laura, congratulations on your extensive campaign to get on our show, and it's success.
T: Please close the door behind you on your way out.
L: I'm glad I didn't have to pull the "Shout at Syndee until she lets me be on" card [Syndee is Justin's wife, they do other podcasts together] cause you know that was ready to go.
J: That was lined up. Yea please lock the door on your way out, burn it, and then put bricks over the door, this door never existed
G: This has been great. But never- no one else.
J: Never again.
[pause]
J: YOU can come back through the door
G: Yes
J: But others can't follow your lead
T: It's like the wardrobe in 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe', it might not work the same again, you know? Maybe you'll end up on Joe Rogan's show. Joe Rogan is Mr. Tumnus in this ... [all laughing] ... he's a very Tumnus-esque figure, he's been described numerous times.
J: Laura K Dale, thank you for your time and your treasured insight.
L: Thank you so much
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