The Pursuit of Enough [The Zero Dot Podcast #34]

As the great Jim's Bigigo once said, I love to work, I love to run, I love to water ski,
snowboard, jet ski, skydive, parasail, hang glide, rollerblade, mountain bike, bungee

jump.

Well, I'd love to do those things, if I ever had the time.

All that and more here on the Zero Dot Podcast.

Oh

Podcast for the quietly overwhelmed and the cautiously hopeful.

When our chips are down and resources are low, we are most powerful.

Fighters of humanity, a balance of science and art.

Welcome to Team Human.

This is the Zero Dot Podcast.

Welcome, welcome, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, doys and girls, everyone of all
ages.

I'm your host once again, Sam Kirk, here to spotlight for you all the amazing, wonderful,
incredible things that Team Human has done, will do, and give us all that energy, that

little bit of reprieve, that little bit of synergy, if you will, as we keep moving forward
in the trenches that is 2026 and onwards.

I'm your host, like I said before.

Our co-host John Merrick will be back once he's done battling battles in John Land.

And you know our producer, Daniel, he's behind the scenes making sure we sound as crisp
and clear as we possibly can.

So once again, I it seems like I'm alone, all by myself.

Whoa.

Ah there's that ghost again, that voice.

What is

You're not alone.

I'm not alone Am I significant?

Oh.

I think you are.

That's pleasant.

That's nice.

I like this voice.

It makes me feel better about myself.

Folks, that is the voice of lovely Crystal Kirk, smartest person in the room, my lovely
wife, human resources aficionado, and above all else, spicy literature enthusiast.

Welcome, my lovely guest host.

How are you doing today?

Good.

How are you doing today?

I'm doing very good.

I'm gonna pretend like we haven't been talking all day as if we don't live next to each
other, but it's fine.

No, don't don't lie to them.

We literally wake up, don't speak all day until the podcast happens.

So I've literally haven't spoken to you all day.

We have separate bedrooms, separate separate castles.

No, it's it's much better.

We don't have separate bedrooms.

We just look at each other, give give like a little man nod, little yeah, little like nod,
and just don't speak.

Doom scroll.

And then send each other Instagram links that we thought were funny.

Exactly.

With context.

Zero context.

Here you go.

Yeah.

And then the occasional, Sam, I need your full attention on this.

And I give you my full attention.

Yeah.

And it's for something very pressing.

Yes.

And it's some kind of recipe for pistachio ice cream or something of that nature.

This was specifically today's was an off a gato espresso martini at the bar down the
street.

So

When she says down the street, literally down the street, as in across the street, as in
we could walk there right now.

But folks, we are dedicated to the Zero Dot Podcast Cause.

We knew we had an episode to record, and I would never, ever skirt those responsibilities
for you.

Ever.

Not once.

You're right.

We are giving up the chance of immediate gratification for our lovely listeners.

Yeah.

And those that like to uh watch the video podcast of this, although there's no video for
this.

Still, listeners, we appreciate you.

Yeah.

We appreciate you so much.

Well, um, it's been a little bit of a week, hasn't it?

It's sure.

has.

It's been a really long week.

Like I feel like maybe multiple weeks have happened this week.

Yes.

Yes, that is true.

It has been a whole two weeks since we last spoke.

Because we don't talk up until this point.

but yes, so it's it's been a very long week that has extended for two weeks that has felt
like an eternity.

Yes.

Well, I think it would be a good time for us to dive into um some good news for the week,
some things that we should probably be mindful of before we dive into our larger topic

about, you know, feeling like we are doing enough in this world.

Feeling like we are committing enough.

And how we kind of stave off those feelings and all the other good stuff.

So with that, let's talk about some lovely good news.

I'm ready for some good news.

This news comes from a very unlikely source, Neil deGrasse Tysonable.

we love, we stand a king.

Yeah, we do.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of the absolute GOATs.

this is a podcast, the Zero Dot Podcast, all about science and heart and art.

So Neil deGrasse Tyson is the bastion of science education.

And this came from his Facebook page, believe it or not.

Um many other sources reported it, but he kind of echoed the sentiment.

The headline is: Ireland is installing a 200 megawatt-hour battery that stores electricity
using nothing but carbon dioxide gas.

No lithium, no cobalt, no rim.

No rare minerals at all.

More specifically, Neil deGrasse Tyson says, quote, Ireland is about to install a 200
megawatt carbon dioxide battery, a completely different approach to grid storage that uses

CO2 as the working fluid instead of lithium or any other rare mineral.

A new 200 megawatt to uh our CO2 battery project has been announced in Ireland
specifically to store renewable energy and ease grid congestion as the country's wind

power capacity grows faster than the grid can absorb it.

The technology developed by Italian company Energy Dome works by compressing carbon
dioxide gas into a liquid state using excess renewable electricity, storing the liquid CO2

in large above ground domes, and then allowing the CO2 to expand back into gas and drive
turbines to generate electricity when the grid needs power.

Neil says, quote, the appeal of CO2 batteries for grid storage sits squarely in their
material simplicity.

Unlike lithium ion batteries, which require lithium.

Cobalt, nickel, and manganese extracted from geographically concentrated mining
operations.

A CO2 battery uses only carbon dioxide, a gas that is literally a waste product of
industrial processes available everywhere on Earth in unlimited quantities.

The system has no degre degradation problem comparable to lithium ion chemistry, since CO2
molecules do not wear out through charge cycles the way battery electrodes do, giving the

technology a theoretical operational lifespan measured in decades rather than years.

Ireland's grid faces a specific challenge that makes this technology well suited for it.

The country has come of Europe's uh this country has some of Europe's best wind resources
and has been deploying wind turbines aggressively, but the island geography limits

interconnection capacity with the broader European grid, creating regular periods of wind
surplus that must either be curtailed or stored.

A large-scale CO2 battery provides

long duration storage that captures wind surplus and releases it during calm periods,
keeping Irish electricity prices stable and reducing dependence on gas peaker plants, Neil

deGrasse Tyson writes.

Wow.

That's really cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I I'm really curious on like how it catches the carbon dioxide, how it turns it to a
liquid.

That's crazy.

And like super cool renewable energy, like advancement in technology.

Like it's also really interesting to hear that Ireland's um wind grid is capturing so much
renewable energy that they can't even use it.

Right.

So they need it, they need to find a way to store it.

That's really uh

I find that fascinating.

I mean, that's one of the best problems to have, right?

Like we are generating so much wind power that there's times in which we have excess power
and where do we put that somewhere, right?

Yeah.

Um, I love this kind of ingenuity.

I love the fact that we're focusing on something that is as as Neil deGrasse Tyson says,
it's infinite.

Like we have an overabundance of CO two everywhere.

We literally expel CO two in our not just our manufacturing, but human beings expel CO
two.

Don't know if you know that, but we we actually do that.

So using that waste byproduct and putting it towards energy storage for an entire country
is just wild to me.

And I'm super happy to see stuff like this.

Um, you know, uh you, my my lovely wife, have been probably aware that I've been kind of
obsessing over bicycles lately.

And one of the things I've been kind of focusing in on is the different materials bicycles
are made of.

And like I have one bicycle that has carbon components to it, and in the bicycle world,

Carbon isn't the best thing ever because it fails incredibly quickly and it doesn't really
biodegrade really nicely.

whereas aluminum and chromally steel does, and it's one of the things I'm like thinking
about as like an earthy guy now, trying to be, you know, more, you know, nice to the world

and so forth.

So when I hear about something like this that an entire country is dedicating towards it,
and it sounds like the company Energy Dome, it's an Italian company, which I think is

ironic but funny, um, working on compressing carbon dioxide gas into a liquid state.

And again, that entire process that you're really interested and fascinated in, I mean, it
just makes me happy.

I'm just I'm just super delighted by it.

Um, this this echoes a sentiment that I was reading up earlier on uh over here at
positive.news, where Europe is leading the world in tackling pollution.

Uh the source writes: European nations are leading the rest of the world when it comes to
protecting the environment thanks to their embrace of renewables and efforts to cut

pollution.

But most countries are off track when it comes to meeting climate goals.

So finds the latest edition of the Environmental Performance Index, EPI, a biennial
research collaboration between Yale and Columbia Universities, US marking 117 nations on

their stewardship of the environment.

It is a comprehensive analysis of countries' ecological performance.

So there's more findings there at positive.news.

But again, this just echoes the sentiment.

I love to hear that, you know, for us here in the United States, our friends across the
pond are doing some really amazing things and changing.

how we harness energy and being kind to

There's actually something that I read recently that I think it was Switzerland or maybe
like the train from Switzerland to France.

They actually um changed their um tracks so that underneath the track is a solar panel.

And so like the train, yeah, like it's a rail, you know, it's the railroad, but it is um
it's all solar panel paneled um tracks.

I'll I'll send you a picture.

It's really cool looking.

Yeah.

So

panel tracks in Switzerland?

That is uh

I remember 'cause I it's like butt switcher Switzerland, it's B U T T E, but I thought it
was spug.

The butt.

We like that.

Yeah, I mean I that's just that's just fantastic.

You know, if we do enough of this stuff, we we might might live a couple more cycles, I
think.

I think we might make it past whatever twenty twenty six is.

What do you think?

I I think so.

I think um, you know, climate change has been kind of wild.

I feel like it's really you know, we're getting really different weather than we used to.

And um I would love to see that reduced.

Do you remember like in COVID when nobody was driving so there was less pollution and they
were like, my gosh, the dolphins came back?

Uh huh.

Like, um, just, you know, think about those times sometimes.

Yeah.

No, the weather's been crazy.

I mean, a couple of weeks ago we had some of the hottest weather we've ever had.

Then we had some cold weather come back.

Then we had thunderstorm, thunderstorm, thunderstorm, then we had hot weather again.

Now we've had thunderstorms.

Our friends in the UK are going through another hot spell right now.

Another one.

Yeah, it's it's brutal for them right now.

Um, yeah, I mean and I I love hearing the sentiment.

when I was a kid, we just dealt with it.

Yes, it wasn't quite as hot.

It wasn't quite as hot.

You know, there there really is a difference between like being in like the mid 85 degree
weather in like Fahrenheit and being like ill gross hot versus being like a hundred and

ten degree weather and humid and hot.

Like the significant differences.

on top of that, I mean, when the ozone layer is depreciated as it is, the sun hits you
even harder than it used to.

Um so yeah.

we love our mother earth.

They've actually done a lot of work on repairing the ozone layer.

I think that's really interesting because you heard about it all the time in the early
nineties when you're in school.

no, the ozone layer.

But they've done so much work and the ozone is like kind of repairing itself really well.

Specific to the Paris, France area that I was reading.

Like they're the ones uh Paris, France and London has done a lot of because of reducing
carbon emissions and everything else in those areas.

Yeah, it has been repairing itself.

I wish the United States would learn a couple lessons from that front.

Um, but uh yeah.

If only, if only.

No, we love our our gas guzzling freedom units, our our our our gasoline.

We love that stuff.

Don't you dare take it away.

It's a human right.

Wink wink, nudge nudge.

Irony, irony, irony, the opposite of Wrinkly, that kind of thing.

Um, yeah.

So good news.

I love it.

Makes me happy.

Yeah, it's really it's really good news.

Yeah.

If only there was just nothing else going on that we just focus on that forever.

I mean, I could keep thinking about it for a little bit longer if we want.

Yeah, we could.

We could really just fixate on this for just a little bit longer.

But sadly, we do have to roll on and talk about some things we should be aware of.

If you insist.

Guardian.com gives us a good little level set here on things related to our good friend
Mark Zuckerberg, aka the founder of tech company Meta, also known as Facebook at one point

or another.

Also Yeah, their headline here is Wyoming Titans wastewater rules after Meta data center
contractor flushed contaminated water.

Meta said it was working with officials to be a good neighbor, and drinking water supplies
were not affected.

That's what they are saying.

But the the larger story says that officials in Owen being said a contractor for Mark
Zuckerberg's tech company, Meta, flushed bacteria contaminated water into public sewers

during construction of a controversial new AI data center.

my gosh, there's so many things behind that.

You got Mark Zuckerberg Meta, you got bacteria water, you've got an AI data center.

And it's all happening here in Wyoming.

The incident prompted water authorities in Cheyenne to implement strict safety regulations
on how wastewater from such projects is disposed of, according to the Wyoming Tribune

Eagle, which first reported the incident.

Meta has ordered its general contractor, Fortis, that's F-O-R-T-I-S, to cooperate with the
Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities, B O P U, to ensure there is no repeat, the newspaper

said, insisting it wanted to be a quote unquote good neighbor.

The company, however, noted that contamination by the rare but naturally occurring, I'm
gonna try to pronounce this, Copriavitas did not affect drinking water supplies, and that

its contractor's own water testing by an independent environmental specialist found no
trace of it.

Of course they didn't find that.

The incident comes amid growing nationwide backlash to the construction of resource-hungry
data centers, which opponents say place unbearable demands on local water and energy

supplies.

According to data center map, the US has almost 4,500 data centers, some consuming up to
300,000 gallons of water each day, equivalent to the demands of about 1,000 households.

The Cheyenne contamination was discovered in February during routine testing of wastewater
discharged into public sewers from the cooling system of the data center campus in the

High Plains Business Park, the Tribune Eagle had reported.

And officials identified GOAT Systems LLC, a Delaware-based contractor on the 800,000
square foot facility known as Project Cosmo, as being responsible.

The city permanently revoked Meta's authority to discharge waste into Cheyenne's water
treatment facilities, where it is recycled and used for irrigation in parks and other

public spaces.

We don't like that.

No, that doesn't sound great.

There are a lot of things to be upset about here.

Yeah, uh a lot of things to be upset about.

I mean, A I w we we are we are not a fan of okay, so there are have been some good stories
that have happened as a result of AI, like being able to find breast cancer uh a little

bit faster now.

But we've seen some studies of that.

So we loved stories like that.

But that

is what AI should be used for is like helping researchers find patterns.

Right.

Faster.

Yeah.

Quicker.

More efficiently.

Using AI to I don't know, plug up our phone with 10 gigs of AI data that we don't want.

uh, and Mark Zuckerberg, uh all all all these conglomerates are focusing on AI right now.

Um, but it breaks my heart to know that this thing that they're building in that no one is
asking for, that nobody wants, is causing harm to other people.

it's creating bacteria, it's getting people sick.

Um and

As long as they just say, we won't do it again.

So sorry, my guys.

We'll be a good neighbor.

That's perfectly fine.

That's okay.

We're just we just we're expected to just deal with it.

Yeah.

Or flabric acid here in the zero dot room.

Honestly, while the there's so much controversy around data centers to begin with, because
they take up so many resources, they take a lot of energy, they take a lot of water.

And to hear that there's been any kind of concern that uh contaminated water has gotten
even even into the irrigation systems, even if it didn't get into our drink into their

drinking water.

Right.

Having it go into the irrigation systems is really still concerning.

Yeah, it it and that should create pause for everyone.

Absolutely.

Any effect to the earth creates a change, good or bad.

And having such a callous well, it didn't affect the drinking water, you should be fine.

And then we will we will go ahead and ensure there won't be a repeat because we quote
unquote A want to be a good neighbor.

End quote.

You really think that Mark Zuckerberg could afford better PR than this, to be honest?

think that wouldn't he?

Uh yeah.

I mean uh Mark Zuckerberg there's a lot of uh documentaries.

There's the movie The Social Network.

There's lot of depictions of him as a character.

So I won't attack him on that front.

But the SIF that I've seen has been kind of wild like

Some of some of his just tone deaf behavior in regards to callousness towards other human
beings, what they might want, um, collecting personal data.

Fun fact, if you post anything on Facebook or Instagram, Mark Zuckerbert owns that data
now.

It's all his per the privacy agreement that you uh you sign when you make an account
there.

Um and it's just we just because we just allow him to do it, we just we just think it's
okay.

Um and whenever we do get pushback, it's um

I I'm always happy when authorities uh of of so of a governmental nature here in Wyoming
do something about it and say, Hey, look, we're we found it.

We saw you do it, we're gonna hold you accountable for it.

That's that's the good news here.

the bad news is is that we gotta be mindful of this stuff.

It's like we have to be an eagle eye.

Like literally, it's called the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, but I feel like we all have to be
eagle eyes in figuring out when this stuff is happening because they're just gonna keep

doing it without if we don't kind of put a a spotlight to these kinds of things.

Yeah.

And and I mean this is not the story, but like Michigan is still dealing with water
issues.

They don't have clean water yet, still.

Michigan, yeah.

I mean, we shouldn't be fucking with people's water.

Just don't fuck with water.

Like I feel like that's that's a pretty cold take, right?

Don't fuck with people's water.

you would think that um, you know, first world countries like ourselves would probably
have um, you know, solutions to water, food, healthcare, and yet we do not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Have you seen the meta glasses?

They are um they're glasses.

Just because you um kind of brought up the the fact that every time you post something on
um Facebook and Instagram, uh Zuckerberg and and actually Meta owns that they have these

meta glasses that are they you know they have a little camera in them, so you can actually
like you know how you take your phone and you like take a picture of something and you can

like Google search it, the image.

It's like Google Lens.

Google Lens, yeah.

The the glasses are doing that for you like in real time.

wow.

And um I'm just curious, I don't I haven't looked at this at all, but I'm curious to to
see like the legalities of if you are recording people.

Like let's give the creepers an easier way to creep on people by giving them literal
cameras on their face.

Yeah.

I mean Yeah, I mean that's a great question.

The one thing I do know where things get weird is wiretapping and like audio recording
without consent.

But videotaping apparently is fine.

Is it really?

Yeah, there's been a couple of cases I've run into I've read that like

'Cause you don't have a reasonable right to privacy, like in the street, basically.

I maybe that's the logic.

I don't know.

But there's been cases where like the individual had been recording the whole thing on
their phone camera and it was video and it comes out in a court case and they're like,

Hey, you you didn't have the legal right to record this, this audio.

But it's not just audio, it's video and audio, and that's okay.

But if it's certain states, like I think Pennsylvania is a state like that, um, if you are
recording someone, you have to let them know I'm recording you audio only.

But if it's video, it's totally fine.

Some states are two party consent and some states are one party consent states.

Apparently the the whole video camera thing, that's okay.

You if you're on if you're on quote unquote candid camera, that's okay.

I guess it's like a surveillance camera thing.

I I I don't know the legality, I don't know how it all works.

I could be wrong, but that's what I've seen.

Like video cameras are okay.

But I mean, you're right.

Like that the question of like if you're constantly recording at all times, what does that
mean for privacy?

And I guess again, the argument that you just brought up is well, if you're outside then

You've you've foregone privacy.

Yeah.

I mean, um, theoretically like you have the opportunity to be surveilled like just going
into a store because they have like video surveillance in the store.

So like you're you know, kind of waving that right.

Yeah.

You're gonna be videotaped.

Yeah.

It's wild.

Yeah.

Wild.

Just something I you know, something else that Meta's doing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, uh no one's asking for this AI stuff.

No one wants it.

Some people some people want it.

People who can make money off of it.

Yeah.

Right.

Okay.

I mean, no nobody wants it in actuality, but there are definitely people out there who
think that they can make a quick buck off of it.

Quick buck at the expense of what?

Our humanity?

Uh did I say the quiet pirate out loud?

might have.

You might have.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ugh.

Um, I also your your story about the water made me think of an Instagram reel that I saw.

Sorry, m I am on Instagram.

Um the uh School River.

They did a they did a scoop of the School River and then they put it under a microscope
and there's algae snails in there and they're cleaning the bottom of the river.

So and I saw a really cool video of it.

Go algae snails.

Yeah.

Saving the day for us once again.

I love it.

You know, wh who what's that fish that like eats nibbles on your feet when you put it in
water and

yeah, you get the little pedicure, the fish pedicure.

I don't know the type of fish.

things like that.

I love it when nature finds a solution.

Nature always wins by the

Life uh finds a way.

Life finds a way, Mustafa.

You are a really ruin in that reference.

Thank you.

course, always.

Um Yeah, I love it when nature finds solutions to things.

Um I also love it how humanity seems um incessant on reinventing the wheel.

Absolutely hate it.

I sent you this image a bit ago and and I actually Daniel saw it too and he thought it was
just absolutely disgusting.

to remind those that are listening for the first time, I'm

Uh a f a fancy word for what I do is called leadership consultant.

I just call myself a speaker.

I'm a communicator.

I I work with people of all different kinds of walks of life, professional or otherwise.

Um, and I communicate to them things that are, you know, tangentially related to the self
help industry, but mostly leadership stuff.

Um in the industry that I'm in, man, people are finding all different kinds of ways of
like literally trying to market themselves.

And this one little blurb I saw that I came through on LinkedIn was just hilarious.

I won't name the person.

'Cause I I I respect everyone.

I want people to, you know, do whatever they want to do.

But the blurb is this is this person and it's a big giant text saying, reinventing the
wheel when it's what leadership requires.

And I absolutely lost it when I saw this headline.

Cause I'm like, why are you reinventing the wheel?

If it does need to be reinvented, what are you doing?

It why would leadership require that you reinvent the wheel?

And the sub blurb here is we often hear, quote, don't reinvent the wheel, quote, as advice
to save time, follow best practices or avoid redundancy.

But in leadership and business, that mindset can quietly become a ceiling on innovation.

Read the full post for more insights.

Wow.

They literally want you to do the opposite.

So so I have a great idea.

I'm going to reinvent the wheel.

Perfect invention, by the way.

Perfect invention.

not been able to beat it by the way.

We've tried triangles, we've tried squares, we've tried everything.

The wheel seems pretty primo.

Let's reinvent that.

I'm I'm pretty sure we can improve upon it.

Yeah, exactly.

We would never.

Sometimes I feel like that's the AI space.

Yeah.

We we're trying to solve a problem that doesn't need to solved.

Um there there's a few perfect things in life right now and you know, let's ruin all that
by uh having AI gurgle stuff back to us that we all like and it all becomes kind of the

same thing.

But I really like an echo chamber, you know.

I like to hear myself tell myself the same things over and over again.

Yeah, yeah.

Well what's that I think George Carlin has a joke about that.

Like when you're in your own house and you fart, you go, hmm, that smells kind of nice.

I'll stay around here.

But like if someone else farts, like, ew, gross, get your get your shit away from me.

Like we like our own farts, right?

Like that's that's probably that is true.

It's how our our noses are tainted in that regard.

Uh well.

Thank you, Wyoming, for doing what you gotta do.

I'm sorry, Zuckerberg's doing that.

we'll keep an eye out on things like this.

Again, I want to make it very clear here on the Zero Dot Podcast.

AI as a technology has a purpose.

There are things about AI I quite like.

When it comes to stuff like this, uh I I'm asking the question, did anyone ask for this?

And Crystal already answered it.

The rich people swindling over our eyes.

They they get something out of this.

They make a couple bucks off of this.

We did make the good point of like for research purposes to find patterns and things.

Like there is a space for AI in the broader landscape of the world, but maybe maybe not
maybe not at the expense of contaminating our water.

Yeah, let's not do that.

Let's not do that, shall we?

Takes us to our main topic today for the Zero Dot Podcast.

Question I have from my guest host here and everyone listening in.

Do you think we do too much?

How much is enough?

And more importantly, are we running away from authenticity in our pursuit of enoughness?

What do you think, hun?

I think that's a really great question.

I think that it is um I think it's a big topic because like we have um, I don't know if
maybe we're like coming out of a hustle culture, a grind culture where you have to have a

side hustle and you have to make the money and you gotta do the thing.

And like obviously that's indicative of our economy and how things are not affordable,
inflation, et cetera, et cetera.

Um, but also like are we kind of coming out of that now?

I feel like there is like a little bit of a finding your passion to pay your bills thing
kind of resurging.

but are we doing too much?

What do you think?

I I think a switch happened for me in my early twenties from like, you know, you gotta do
what you gotta do to make a living.

Mm-hmm.

And then you gotta spend the the remaining amount of time that you have for your
obligations, and the rest of that time is your free time, and the rest doesn't really

matter.

And I don't I don't remember exact I mean, it could have been trauma, it could have been
something else, but I I do recall this feeling of like I'm sitting there.

On my couch on a Saturday, watching a TV show or playing a video game, reading a book,
maybe I'm going on bike ride.

And something hits my brain.

Maybe someone told it to me.

I don't remember.

You're not doing enough.

What are you doing?

You're not doing enough.

And then I'd watch successful people and I'd like, you know, wonder what it is that they
do to be successful.

And something gets fed through your brain again.

Maybe it was I don't think it was I this was before social media, uh, for me anyway.

But it was like, well, they're hustling on the weekends.

They're hustling in the evenings.

They're, they're waking up at 4 30 in the morning.

They're, they're getting the things done.

And then at some point that mindset trickled into me a little bit.

uh, and and I adopted some of it and it made me even more successful.

But I would I would say it was a poison, because it's it's kind of silly.

And uh I don't know.

Um I I don't know the source.

I know that.

I don't want to make this a gender issue, but I think in some ways, uh I think the great
man carrying thing YouTube channel has said this on another interview, and I agree with

him some a lot.

White men specifically, uh, just always want a war to fight.

They're craving a war.

When there's no big war, they invent a war.

They invent something in their mind's eye.

and I think that's definitely a very real thing.

That says a lot about the patriarchy, but it does, doesn't it?

Yeah, it really does.

Yeah.

Um, I I do think that that like that initial guilt punch of I'm not doing enough is is
pretty like it's part of like the cycle of like maybe anxious thinking or just like um

like a burnout sort of impression.

Like you're doing the thing.

then you're gonna stop doing the thing and then you're gonna feel guilty for not doing the
thing and then there's a motivation wish.

Guilt is really bad.

It's so bad, you're like, I want to avoid that feeling.

Like I will feel guilty if I don't do the thing.

So I will I mean, I guess some people will just say, No, I'm just gonna run away from it
and then they get even more guilt.

But some people will go, No, I don't wanna feel guilty at all.

So I'm just gonna give in and do the thing.

I'm gonna give in to the anxiety and just do the thing.

Right.

Is that um like an avoidance of sitting in silence for yourself?

I feel like that is like a common theme and that I hot hot conversation.

Yeah.

Hot topic.

Um

I I I mean, you know how I feel about this, but I'll I'll just say to our listeners, I'm
I'm always incredibly sensitive to the behaviors that we do.

That is us running away from the quietness of life.

Um some things you're meant to sit on, some things you are meant to literally just sit in
it and let it be.

And um the people I talk to in confidence that say, I can't, I won't, it's too painful.

And then they wonder.

later why they're suffering from anxiety or depression.

not saying that that's what is doing it, but that's just something that always comes it
doesn't help, right?

Um so I always try to challenge myself in what is the thing that I'm processing that I'm
running away from or potentially not give myself the ample space to kind of sit in.

Um, like last week we talked about the passing of my mother.

I am

Of the people in my family, I've probably been the most open about the passing of my
mother.

Uh I've been open to speaking about it.

I've been open about telling people how I'm grieving for it.

I've been open to the feelings.

Uh every day is a little bit of a different challenge.

and that's difficult because what I want to do is say literally nothing to anyone, shut
the world out, and then once I've done that, distract myself.

But I'm trying in every way that I can not to do that.

trying to give myself space.

I'm trying to give myself

The space that on certain days when I have that feeling of having not done enough, that
I'm like, Nope.

I just went through a pretty traumatic event and what I had just done was absolutely
enough.

Yes.

But that's hard.

It

It is, it's so hard and it's easy for me to sit here and be like, rest is productive also,
but to do it, to actually feel okay in doing it, is difficult.

It's a difficult thing.

What has allowed me to get through it is to feel like it is okay to not be okay.

It is okay that I don't feel comfortable with this.

I'm a big believer in, you know, your feelings are just feelings.

They don't mean anything.

I mean, they mean something, but like they also don't.

Like they're just feelings.

Um, it's okay to have the feelings, it's okay to not be comfortable, it's okay to be
miserable, etc.

Um, and then you know, part of what spurred this conversation is I was I was literally
just singing your praises to another individual.

I think it was yesterday actually.

I said to you that I was ha not having a great day and that I felt like I hadn't done
enough.

And you said, you know, you a you asked me, Well, what have you done?

And I told you a couple of things that I'd done.

So, you've done plenty of enough today.

You're fine.

Says, No, I still feel like don't feel like I've done enough.

And so you said, All right.

Why don't you go ahead and empty the dishwasher for me?

Okay.

So I did that.

Says, great.

Fantastic.

Now you can say you've done something.

You've emptied the dishwasher.

I'm like, no, but I don't feel like I did anything though.

Well, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna load up the dishwasher now that you've emptied the dishwasher.

And now for the rest of my evening, I'm gonna sit on my ass and play the Sims Four and
have a great time.

And I'm gonna have no doubts about that whatsoever.

So what are you gonna do about that, Sam?

And I was like, God fucking damn it.

And the person I spoke to about this was like, Crystal's a fucking legend.

Let's go.

Let's go.

Compliment.

eh Yeah.

But no, that's that's part of what sparked this conversation is uh when is enough enough
and how much of us trying to fill our day with enoughness is running away from our

authenticity.

I am I'm finding out every single day.

For whatever reason, I've keep reminding myself of this, that I am my best self when I do
a lot less.

When I allow myself to do not too much in one day.

Now, what's the balance between doing a little bit versus not doing anything versus doing
too much?

I don't know.

I'm still finding that out.

But when I do just a little bit and I give myself permission just to do a little bit, I am
my best self.

When I do too much, I am harried, I'm distracted, I'm not quite focused.

I am grumpy.

Yeah.

I get real grumpy.

And it also reminds me, like, I don't think human beings are meant to check off boxes on a
checklist.

And if that's how I feel I have to get things done, that's a good sign for me to like, All
right, I'm doing too much today.

I don't know if you've seen the meme, but there's it's just a a thing that it's like, did
you know peasants had more time off than we do now?

Because um, like they would literally take winters off.

Like they still had like chores and stuff to do, but like they wouldn't be expected to
work as many days as we do now.

Like I find that funny.

My God, man.

If if peasants saw what we do now, they'd be like, You're not living well.

What the heck's up with that?

We also it's also related to what I think is knowledge work.

Like um we have this idea that knowledge work is well, you're just sitting on your ass.

So yeah, you're using your brain, but who cares?

Like you can do this forever.

Whereas when you have physical labor at the forefront of what you're doing, there's a
certain amount of physical labor you can do every day.

There's only a certain amount before you're tapped out, you're done.

But when you're doing knowledge work to your point, like when are you done?

When do you shut your brain off?

Yeah.

Um, I just don't do that.

So

I mean, yeah.

Um there's a there's a very famous anecdote slash story.

Who knows if it's real or not, but it goes something like this like two lumberjacks work
in the woods.

they work the same amount of time, they in the same amount time, they leave when they're
done.

the only difference between the two is that one lumberjack guts gets a lot of more wood
cut than the other one.

Let's call him John.

Yeah, the one's Jack.

And so John's getting tons of wood cut.

Faster and more efficiently, um, just more productively in the same amount of time that
Jack uh tries.

And the only other difference between John and Jack is that John, about halfway through
the day, is gone for about an hour, then comes back an hour later and continues the rest

of his lumberjacking and is able to keep up, do the pace, et cetera, and beat Jack every
single day.

Every single day, Jack outputs a certain amount of wood that he's he's cut up, and John's
always got a bigger pile.

And eventually this gets Jack so fed up.

He's like, All right, John, what's your problem?

You're gone for an entire hour every single day when we work, and every single day you
have more wood than me.

What the heck is your problem?

What's your deal?

Where are you going off to in the woods for an hour?

Like, what's going on?

And John says, Oh, well, I go back to my log cabin and I sharpen my axe.

That's

Yeah.

You know, um a lot of us are jack in this story, right?

Like just keep working harder, keep working harder, keep working harder.

When take a break, sharpen yourself, get yourself up to snuff, then keep keep at it and be
steady, be consistent.

Consistency is greater than just keep churning the butter, as they say.

And that's a folly that I fall for too many times, even though I know it's a folly.

I still do it.

There's a guilt, there's a shame, there's a I'm not doing enough today.

Yeah.

I gotta be doing more.

Are you um are you aware of like the the maxing trends?

Like all the all the maxing.

All the maxing that you could do.

I'm aware of that.

I'm also aware of the countermaxing.

Um

What is CounterMax saying?

This is new.

it's disgusting.

So there's there's look maxing, right?

Looking as attractive as you possibly can.

There's like

Literally breaking your jaw so that have a snatched jaw and

Yeah, stuff like that.

And then there's countermaxing or or uh the opposite of maxing.

Yeah.

Where if mining uh the most famous case that I saw was a guy spent like a year working on
his one deltoid muscle and just that muscle.

So he looks like a deformed ape because one muscle is super deformed and the other is not.

And I'm like, What are you doing, man?

It's obviously for content for clicks, but like but like it's the opposite.

How do you get that idea?

He thought that being a looks maxter was dumb.

Let me do the opposite.

And so we did.

They're both dumb.

Um Yeah.

Yeah, no, I yeah, when I read about the people that break their jaws to make them quote
unquote perfect, it it made me made me really sad.

And obviously there's a po a part of this that is is for content to your point, that is
it's supposed to be sort of exclamatory, supposed to be very out there.

But at the same time, it's impressionable people are looking at that content and running
with it.

Yeah.

I

I had braces not too long ago and I got my teeth all quote unquote fixed up.

Mm-hmm.

And I still wasn't really happy with how my teeth looked.

I was like, my smile isn't quite how I imagined it would look and all that good stuff.

And I pushed back and forth on my orthodontists a couple of times and 'cause he had to
like close my case out.

Like he's like, You're done.

Like we're we're good to go.

Like and then he was implying if you want more work done, I'm gonna have to reopen your
case and you have to pay for another amount of money for this and 'cause I already paid

for it all.

And he dropped this bomb on me.

He was like basically like

Well, I mean, there's nothing I can do about the fact that like one side of your jaw is
like like a centimeter longer than the other, and that's a result of how your teeth were

how your jaw was brought up when you were a kid.

And that hit me and I was like, Really?

That's that's the path that's like holding me back from having a better looking.

That was a lie.

That that you know, Maury thinks that's a lie.

Yeah.

Like

But like it made me go like I'm I'm not gonna fucking reformat my jaw to make my smile
better.

Um and that's the line that I made for for that.

Like I'm okay, I'm just done, like we're good.

Would you say your teeth are enough?

In that moment when I realized what extra level it was gonna take for me to get there, I'm
like, Yeah, they're fine.

This is what I wanted to talk about with the looks maxing is like if you're constantly
trying to like optimize, be the most efficient, do 10 things at once so that you can get

all the things done, are you really ever going to find out what enough is?

Because there's always another tier that you can get a little bit better.

Like what where is the finish line when you're trying to get to enough?

That's a great question.

I don't think there's an answer.

I think that's why you asked it.

I I love ans asking these very unanswerable questions.

I also want to say that I am so anti-optimization at this point.

I know.

And I used to be an optimizer.

I used to try to optimize stuff, and now I'm like, nah, fuck it.

I'm not gonna do that anymore.

I think any optimizer on social media, if if you look at their profile page and look at
what the hell they're selling, it's always some kind of product, some book, some tape,

whatever.

It's the whole antithesis what XeroDot's all about.

We're never gonna sell a book or tape, it's just our podcast.

It's all free.

If you want to be a

A Patreon member, which we'll you'll we'll we'll talk about that a little bit later.

You can absolutely dive into our Patreon.

In fact, let's talk about right now.

To be our Patreon member at the patreon.com/slash zero dot media for the whopping fee of
three dollars and nine nine cents or your regional equivalent.

You can be a member of ClubZero Dot, where you get access to longer extended versions of
our podcast.

You get them earlier on Mondays as opposed to Wednesdays, and you get super secret access
to our super secret show that we're working on in the in the in-between weeks that you

get.

First peek look at to see, hey, what else is Zero Dot working at?

Because Zero Dot is more than just a podcast.

We are an enterprise, an entity of some sort, uh a multimedia company that's doing many
things more than just the podcast.

The podcast is just the beginning.

If that sounds interesting to you for the fee of $3.99, you can join and be a member of
ClubZeroDot at patreon.com/slash zero dot media.

We'd love to have you.

It'd be awesome.

And thank you.

All those who are are current members.

We'll give you a shout out a little bit later in the episode.

Thank you so much.

But yeah, I uh I I I hate hate optimization.

Um I almost have like a gut reaction whenever someone says the word optimize.

I hate it.

Well, I remember a lot at the beginning of our relationship, you would talk a lot in the
quadrants.

So like, I need some Q four time and I think you should take a second to explain what that
means before we really get into it.

But um

Yep.

Yeah, go ahead.

There's the the four quadrants.

Q one, Q two, Q three, Q four.

Steve Covey came up with this matrix uh four quadrants.

Um basically imagine a grid, a box.

And the top left corner of the the grid, the box, the first mini box of this box, is Q
one, quadrant one.

The top right corner is Q two, quadrant two, the bottom left corner is Q three, and the
bottom right corner is Q four.

Q one is the stuff that is important and urgent, meaning

It's critical to life.

It's things that are important to you.

It's like a pressing matter.

It's an emergency.

It's a crisis, pressing problems.

Q2 are things that are important, but not urgent.

So they're longer-term projects.

They require some planning ahead.

uh It's a goal that you have in mind.

It's things you don't want to lose sight of.

Then at the bottom row, you've got Q3, which is stuff that is very urgent, but

Not very important.

So all the interactions, the distractions, the fires that we put out every single day,
that doesn't really move the needle very much in terms of our lives.

and then you have Q4, which are considered time wasters, busy work, procrastination, you
know, distraction, joy, our recreational rest, hobbies, all that stuff, right?

And the general idea is that if you balance your life well, you should be focusing on
things that are Q2, uh sorry, Q one and Q three.

Through no, sorry, Q one and Q twos are important.

The stuff that's important and urgent and the stuff that's uh important and not urgent
should be the kind of the bed rest of what you do.

You should avoid Q three at all times because that's just noise, just a bunch of
distractions.

And some schools of thought think Q4 should also be ignored, but Q4 is a very important
aspect of rest.

There's it's an important aspect of just recharging time.

Like, hey, I've done a lot of busy work this week.

I need this weekend to be a bunch of Q4 time, playing video games, reading books.

watching movies, spending time with myself, going on a bike ride, exercising, just stuff
that has no value beyond just the fact that I'm just doing it, right?

So when I was talking about Q four, you were saying when I was a younger person.

Yes.

When when we were first started dating, you talked a lot about how you needed your Q4
time.

And that would be like, Oh, Crystal, you must go to the other room while I have my Q4 time
and play my video game.

Um, so I'm glad that you've grown out of this optimization of while you know, while Q4
time of course is important, you're not optimizing this Q4 time, right?

You're like, you've gotten to a point where you're like, okay, the work is done and now
the rest begins.

Yeah, when I when I became aware of

Just the natural, like by four or five o'clock, I'm not doing anything that's worthwhile
anymore.

The only thing I can possibly do is rest and kind of do nonsense stuff and get ready for
dinner or whatever and have a sunsetting time.

I call it the sunset.

You know, we talked, I think, I think it was the first episode of the Zero Dot Podcast.

Daniel asked me and John, like, hey, what's a good morning routine?

And I actually was counter that.

I'm like, I don't care about your morning routine.

I care about your evening routine.

What's your ritual to get into into rest and mode?

when I got into that space, I'm like, no, this is fantastic because that Q4 time, quote
unquote, in the evening, every single day, um, is instrumental to me being recharged the

next day.

Funnily enough, that's what it's for.

That's what you're supposed to do.

Exactly.

Um and yeah, as when I was a younger person when we were dating, I was like, I I I had my
I was mapping out my time in terms of quadrants and I was that optimizer person.

I was that jerk.

It wasn't it wasn't a jerk move.

It was just like a it it felt like it was the end of a conversation.

Like, mm, it is Q4 time now and I must do Q4.

Yeah, I must do Q four.

Do not talk to me about things that are Q one or Q two.

Mm-hmm.

in Q three obviously I was I I pretended like I was doing nothing that was Q three.

I have no distractions in my life.

I'm living a perfectly sanctimonious life.

Um Yeah.

I remember that.

I'm glad you have a ritual to like um to sunset because I think ritual is really super
important.

Like, I am more of a morning ritual person.

So like having my coffee sitting for a moment and then getting ready.

I think that's all really, yeah.

It's important to like start or end your day.

The little things we do to signal something to our brain that okay, we're starting this
phase now, we're doing this, whatever you call it.

If you wanna call it a ritual, you wanna call it a routine, you wanna call it a a
standards of procedure, whatever you call

A standard operating procedure.

Step one, open peanut butter jar.

Step two

smear on body.

Step three Wangle your jangle in front of your wife.

She likes it.

Okay.

Oh my.

I didn't know we were that kind of podcast.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah.

You gave me the opportunity.

I had to go for it.

Yeah, you're right.

Um Yeah.

Uh

A lot of young men are all about optimization.

And we try here on the Zero Dot Podcast to give people an antidote to that of some
capacity.

Um and I I I just wanna I'll I'll add my my my healings and my two cents to this.

I find myself in this mode of like, why aren't I doing X at this level that I want to be
doing it in?

And it could be anything.

It could be a work project, could be a hobby project, it could be whatever.

And it's always this level of expectation.

I'm like, I have to ask myself, why am I expecting anything out of myself?

Why am I doing this?

W where's this expectation coming from?

Who's expecting this from me?

Is it myself?

Is it

My boss?

Is it my my other boss?

My real boss who's That's me.

yeah, that's that's you.

Yeah.

uh is it my peers?

Is it my friends?

Is it is it whatever I think people expect out of me?

Like where's this expectation coming from?

And I asked myself that question enough times to be like, Well, no one's expecting
anything out of me.

Okay, well then go fuck off with that nonsense and just put the time in, a couple steps
ahead of time and just just move forward with it.

Um

And I offer that to anyone that is thinking that I need to optimize their day more.

If there is if there's a video or a resource that you have found that it resonates with
you, don't let me tell you that that's wrong.

I want you to follow your bliss and like whatever resonates with you.

But in my experience, every routine, everything that exists out there that is there to
better your quote unquote life and make you more efficient, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

blah, it's nice for a minute.

It reaches a failing point because all things reach a failing point because nature always
wins.

And then we feel bad about ourselves, or we feel like we failed, or we go, I know what the
problem is.

I found the wrong routine.

Let me find a different routine.

And it just goes over and over and over again.

It's a cycle.

Everything is very cyclical.

Yeah.

And I offer everyone that if you found yourself in that cycle, you're not alone.

You're not crazy.

There's nothing wrong with you.

That's how these things are built.

remember when uh minimalism was a thing?

I think there was like a some kind of documentary on Netflix that like popularized it
again in like the twenty fifteens or twenty seventeens, like maybe right before Yeah,

maybe it was maybe it was after that too.

There's like a bunch of guys that were like the minimalist bros or whatever.

And

So um specifically there's like a uh a trend of millennial minimalism because there was
such a boomer maximalism.

Right.

Um, like buying all these different things, very consumer driven.

Yep.

Um, and now there's like it's the joke of like the millennial gray and then like super
minimalist like look of everything, um, furniture and decor wise.

Uh so yeah, that's yeah, minimalism.

Yeah, I mean, I remember feeling bad I wasn't as minimalist as I wanted to be.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and I think about uh I think there was an interview, Stephen Colbert was interviewing
uh Keanu Reeves.

You know, what's the one thing that you're holding on to that you should get rid of?

And Keanu Reeves, who you think is like the most zen guy ever, is like, mmm, mmm, and I'm
paraphrasing, but he's like,

I I'm probably more of a pack rat than I believe.

I can't get rid of anything right now.

And I think Colbert poked it.

What about all your motorcycles you have?

Like, don't take away my motorcycles.

Just don't do it.

Like I need them right now.

And uh I don't know that stuff like that has made me feel better about like uh
accumulating things.

Yeah.

It's okay to have things that you value.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I I used to I still do, but I think I still feel bad accumulating things.

I'm like that's another thing.

We recently moved into a home and one of the reasons I like the home that we live in now,
uh, it's small and it's it's gonna force us to be conscientious of stuff like that.

Mm-hmm.

Because having a big space and having to fill it with things also gives me anxiety.

True story.

It does.

So limiting that and allowing me

When I see a thing and I go, well, we don't have space for it and I can go, Nope, we don't
have space for it and I can just cancel that in my brain.

you can at least decide whether you it's worth getting rid of something.

Right.

How's this related to uh doing enough?

Having enough?

Being enough?

Because in America we only are enough if we have purchased the right thing.

the narrative about myself that I am a a a reader and a book person means that I have to
have as many books as possible.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I uh as a video game enjoyer, one of the narratives is you have to have tons of video
games.

And there have been times in my life when I had a lot of video games.

But I would have had a lot more hadn't I not gotten rid of them a couple of times.

A couple of times I kinda purged myself a little bit of the stuff that was like on a shelf
that I was never ever using, but it was just there because I wanted to make myself feel

important.

Yeah.

Those achievements that you get.

Yeah.

And give you that little dopamine hit.

I achieved something.

I own a thing.

Ergo, I've achieved.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

think that's something that you have to grow out of as you get older.

Or maybe not.

Maybe that is the thing that makes you happy, but

Maybe.

So what do you do when you get home from work and you feel like there's so much you need
to do and want to do?

And either you're chained by guilt or you can't and you're physically exhausted.

Like what are your mechanisms that you do to kind of manifest and handle that?

I do very unhealthy things.

Like I sit on the couch and you've seen this.

And I will play a YouTube video really loud and then I will also be playing a video game,
but then I'll also be checking my phone.

I would say that this is a very unhealthy coping mechanism that I have to drown out all
the noise of my brain working, you uh know.

so I don't recommend anybody ever do that, but

You know, I appreciate that, but I want to give you some solidarity because I I recently
just stumbled across this individual on the social medias and I showed you a few of their

their clips.

And I think this person would have a a finger to point at you and say, Whatever you're
doing is not a problem.

for our listeners, we're gonna play a a YouTube short here, but I think the audio will
suffice.

Let's take a quick listen.

Here's everything I did this weekend instead of blowing my life up.

Hi, I'm Abby, recovering alcoholic slash former chaos demon.

It's 8 a.m.

and I'm starting my day with a coffee.

Wellness influencers say you shouldn't have caffeine on an empty stomach, but I literally
used to smoke crack, so I do not care.

Sobriety has given me many gifts.

Namely, I no longer wake up drenched in my own sweat with vomit and some random man's DNA
in my hair.

So seeing as I feel pretty fresh, I head to the gym and work on my snatch.

Not that kind of snatch, get your mind out of the butter.

My partner Steph gets home around the same time as me and makes us some delicious ham and
cheese croissants.

He burnt them a little bit, but that's okay.

Steph is a literal angel, and that's probably the worst thing he's ever done in our
relationship.

Nothing like the toxic men I dated before him, whom I selected primarily due to my
unresolved self-esteem issues.

Sunday I did the food shop, laundry.

And watched a horror movie.

A few years ago, I would have looked back at this weekend and thought I was so lame.

But now I'm just grateful it didn't end with a concussion or a criminal charge.

Honestly, sounds like a great weekend.

Like a goddamn great weekend.

You're gonna need to make me those little croissant things.

Yeah, I think I'm gonna have to.

Absolutely.

Um I I love videos like that.

And you know, we're big fans of the plant slant here on the Zero Dot Podcast.

Any any video that's like, yeah, you know, there's probably like a better version of you
that's doing something else, but also you're doing doing the best you can as long as

you're not, you know, shooting people, killing people, smoking crack cocaine, you know,
whatever.

Go you girl.

Like you wanna sit on the couch and have on three different screens?

Cope however you gotta cope, right?

Yeah.

And I appreciate that because that's what I need to remind myself all the time.

Like when I am thinking about if I'm not doing enough, I'm comparing myself to an
invisible entity that does not exist.

And I think I need to be as good as that entity.

I need to realize for every upper echelon entity that I'm shooting for, there's a downward
one that I could have been and I'm not.

Right.

It's kind of like when you're playing a video game with like a ghost mechanic and you're
trying to beat the ghost the ghost.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A little bit like it has an optimal path that it's doing.

You know what you know what I mean?

And you are doing the best you can with the path that you've been given.

Also, yeah, to take that analogy that ghost is taking the optimal path.

Let's use the analogy of Mario Kart.

It has practiced that course thousands of times, and the thousandth time it got this one
crazy good pin turn and it made the record, and it has never been able to replicate that

once.

And the expectation that you should be able to replicate the optimized path every single
day on routine, on command.

Ridiculous.

It is.

It's ridiculous.

It's absolutely ridiculous.

And yet we do it all the time.

We fall for it.

So we shouldn't try to optimize.

We should just do our best, make the best choices we can in the moment, and um and try
again tomorrow.

Try again.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

trying to think of uh something recently where I'm like, ah, falling off the wagon.

I should try again tomorrow.

I uh I find that I do this a lot to myself.

Like I'll get very overwhelmed at work with all these little tiny micro things that I have
to do and not just like, you know what?

I need to put everything away.

I need to shut the computer off for now.

And then when I come back the next day, it's like usually like I can prioritize a little
better or like it didn't take as long as I thought it was gonna take.

So I was just able to like pop through it in the morning or whatever.

Um

So I always find that taking even taking a fifteen minute break of something and coming
back can kind of just like reset you.

There's actually a psychological phenomenon of going through a door will actually kind of
clear your mind a little bit.

Yep.

Um, that's why you forget things when you move from one room to another.

Yep.

If you've have ever forgotten something after you left a room, it's not your fault.

That's literally how that works.

Endorse just sometimes do that to you.

Do little bit of a reset there for ya.

a couple maybe a week ago, I indulged in way too much pizza.

Mm.

And I remember feeling bad as I was doing it.

But I gave myself permission, like it's okay, you're gonna have a lot of pizza now, and
tomorrow you're gonna wake up and you are see what better decisions you can make in the

morning.

Mm-hmm.

And I did actually.

And I felt better.

Good.

And in retrospect, it allowed me to say I needed that pizza in that moment.

Mm-hmm.

Which I I realize as I'm saying this, if you're listening to this and you have an eating
disorder, do not listen to me.

Like I I'm speaking from my own experience, but like in that moment I needed to eat all
gorge on all that pizza.

I it was a comfort food.

I was grieving all of this stuff.

And the next day I was able to kind of process and eat healthier food and

I also have that habit with myself as well.

Like in my eating habits, you've seen me where like there's days where I eat a lot and
there's days when I don't eat a lot.

Mm-hmm.

I give myself permission to really pay attention to just what I think I want and need in
that moment and I just do it.

But when I start feeling bad about it and I think I'm not optimizing, I get into trouble.

Sure.

So I I give myself permission to do that.

I mean, it's good to give yourself permission to like maybe you're not optimizing your
nutrition, but maybe you're optimizing like a little self-care instead.

Like it is a balance.

I was having a conversation with somebody about this recently and um we're talking about
whether like we could justify a dessert for like a wellness thing we were doing at work.

And it was like, I can justify it because

You know, ice cream's good for my mental health.

You know what I mean?

Just because it's not good for my physical health doesn't mean I can't figure out a way to
make it healthy.

I was just talking to a guy who says, Yeah, I gained a little bit of weight once I quit
alcohol and that's because instead of alcohol I was having a lot more ice cream.

Yeah.

And he's like, Yeah, I'm gaining weight, but I'm not drinking alcohol anymore.

I says, All right, that's great.

Pick your poison, right?

Mhm.

And that's okay because if you, you know, you just have to be self aware.

You have to think critically about yourself when you can, when you have the space for it,
and say, Okay, well, now I need to stop with the ice cream because that's becoming my new

alcohol.

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Also having friends to check on, you'd be like, Hey, you all right there?

Yeah.

Just having like a little bit of a checks and balances there is helpful.

It can be hard to have that that true friend network too.

That is true.

Yeah.

I uh I've been finding in our in my friend groups

Maybe it's my generation, maybe it's the newest generation, maybe it's just what world we
live in right now.

But we'd it's harder to come across those friends that are like really gonna check in on
you and like hold you accountable and be friendly with you.

It's more like you're gonna have friends that are like your distraction buddies and and
your supporters, but that's it.

Mm-hmm.

Um it it's it's a different I don't wanna say it's a different world, but it's it's always
a different world.

Every year it's a new different world that we're living in.

And that's why I find that interesting.

And that can be hard.

That can be challenging.

I think

that's part of growing older also.

Um, there's that Mike Barbiglia joke of like there's this little bit of distance between
me and everybody else.

Yeah.

And um yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

But is it because I'm not enough or hey, I brought it back?

You brought it back.

Look at that.

You're always doing that.

You're always on theme with that.

I try.

New section here in the Zero Dot Podcast comes thanks to our lovely Patreon members.

Uh, once again, if you want to be part of our lovely Patreon, Club Zero Dot, you can join
by going to patreon.com/slash zero dot media.

And it's there usually where they get longer extended versions of our episodes.

And in some of those episodes, we've done the following feature that we're gonna do right
now for them and they loved it, which is where we go on Reddit.

And we find stories, people looking for advice, especially on the career side of things,
life advice, anything of that nature.

And they want advice.

And hey, we give our zero dot slant on those things.

And I am accompanied by a lovely HR aficionado right here in the room.

So I can't think of anyone else better suited to help answer some of these questions as
they relate to what we call career guidance.

How do you feel about that, honey?

I feel like I'm going back to work, but that's all right.

I'll I'll accept it just just this once.

You know, do some little consulting on the side here.

And just just to be clear, we're we uh even though I am an official consultant and you
officially work in HR, this is just our opinion, nothing more.

Our opinion based on our experience.

This story comes 18 days ago as of this recording.

Uh the title is My Boss Quit and the company decided I am the new manager, quote, without
pay.

So how do I stop doing two jobs?

my goodness.

This is hot off the presses too with only eighteen days.

All right.

I'm ready.

right, so they say this My boss quit two months ago, and the company just decided they
don't need a new one because I'm doing the work for free.

When he left, everyone panicked, but I stepped up to keep the department running.

I've been doing his meetings, his budgeting, and his long term planning on top of my
actual workload.

I thought I was proving that I deserved this title and a massive raise.

Well, I had a meeting with the VP yesterday.

I thought this was finally it, the promotion talk.

Instead, she told me that the department is running lean and efficient under the current
setup.

They decided to put the hiring process for the manager role on indefinite hold.

She even had the nerve to thank me for my ownership mindset while confirming that my
salary and title are staying exactly where they are.

So basically, I saved them a six figure salary, and they rewarded me with a pat on the
back and more work.

I am literally a manager without the pay or the authority to actually handle the people
who are now slacking off because they know there is no real boss around.

I tried to explain this isn't sustainable, but you just gave me some buzzwords about agile
workflows.

Am I supposed to just sit here and do two jobs or that's the end of the post?

My gosh.

This is a story that like definitely happens a lot.

Yeah.

Um, it's really upsetting that he's not getting any um pay bump, even if he's not getting
the title.

This is I feel like this is what I see more often is they'll they'll give you the title
but not the pay bump, or they'll give you the but, you know, maybe they will give you a

little bit of a raise, but they won't give you like what the actual manager was making.

yeah.

That's that's kind of how I hear this a lot.

But this is like, yeah, thank you for doing the job, by the way.

Yeah.

the what I'm sticking to right here, what I'm hearing is the quote, When he left, everyone
panicked, but I stepped up to keep the department running.

On my side of the fence, that's the first mistake.

Um, totally get that.

Person just leaves, suddenly everyone's in disarray, things are chaotic.

You're trying to create some some sense out of that.

And then in that way you rise up well beyond your your your lane, we'll call it.

And then the expectation is, the quote is, I thought I was proving that I deserved his
title and a massive raise.

What actually happened here is you proved to the company you're willing to do it for free.

when doing it for the amount that you've been making the whole time.

Yes.

And so I don't like this.

This makes me very upset because I want to be the person that says, yes, absolutely, rise
up from your bootstraps, do the hard work, have your employers see who you are, get that

promotion.

That isn't the world we live in ninety nine ninety-nine percent of the time.

ah

that it's I I'll say that there are scenarios where this will work, but I think it needs
to be a smaller company or a company that is just like better managed than this one,

obviously.

Um

I think this would've worked if before they made this assumptive leap, they had a
conversation with the P P and say, Hey, look, we've got an issue.

I'm happy to step up and I'll show you my stuff and if I'm able to do it well

We need to discuss compensation.

Yeah.

I think that would have been really great.

Cause then there's no assumptions being made.

The expectations are super clear.

And at the very least, if the VP then still comes back and says, Well, we're really happy
that you're doing what you're doing, we're not gonna give you more pay because we're in an

agile framework, you've basically given them notice like, Okay, I rose up, I fixed a
problem.

You're not going to meet me on my level after I've satisfied my part of this bargain.

I'm gonna go look for other work.

Yeah.

What would you say for this person to do in this particular situation?

In this particular situation, I I I I have questions about how a lot of the language is
summarized, so I don't know exactly what this person said to the VP um to communicate what

they had done.

I'm not sure what the VP has visibility on in terms of what the amount of work this person
has taken on.

Cause let's let me pretend I'm a VP for a moment.

We had someone leave and then suddenly very shortly after

Things get back to normal and things are running fine.

On my end, zoomed out.

That's all I see.

Things are running fine.

Oh, wait.

And we lost someone and the department's running fine without that person now?

Oh, then there would be no reason for me to believe that we need to replace that person in
any type of capacity from like just a f efficacy perspective.

So my question would be, what what did we really speak to the manager and the VP about
when it came to what I'm taking over, what I've done?

How are you showing your work on everything you've done?

Because oftentimes when we step into a leadership role, we do the royal we a lot.

We did this, we did that.

But if you do that too much, then you don't know what's the work you are doing for.

So I'd ask the question about that, but let's assume that you did everything right.

You had a meeting with the VP.

You spoke about the fact that your boss quit two months ago.

You've taken on all of these responsibilities, you've done all of these things, you've led
all these meetings, you've made sure the department is running.

you're the person doing this.

And on top of that, you're taking on your current workload and maybe even talk about the
fact that it's eating up into hours, especially if it's a salary position.

And that, you know, I was happy to do it for the time that we did, hoping that we get a
replacement.

Now that you've told me that you're not getting a replacement, here's the work that I've
been doing.

Exactly.

And then, you're gonna do that?

Okay.

Well, so then I'm gonna go back to my other work then.

Here's the work that needs to be done.

Um, and looking forward to getting that replacement done.

Yeah, that's absolutely where I there's a couple of ways that you could kind of handle
this.

And I'll do the sort of correct way and then we'll work into petty.

the correct way to do this is to literally write process documentation down of everything
that you have been doing and and say that you'll you'll share that with them.

You stop doing it and and tell the VP that you can share that with them.

Um if there's an interest, but also that

you're not training a replacement.

Like if unless you're not unless you're gonna pay me for training a replacement, I have
process documentation and and withhold it if you need to.

Like go to the VP with um with every single question now.

So budgeting documents.

Okay, well I need somebody to do budgets.

Um I was doing it this way before.

What do you want to be done?

And and literally bother that VP until

They realize how many decisions that you've been making on the fly.

Yeah, yeah.

I like I said, I think the first issue was the person stepped up immediately to helping
everything run smoothly.

The assumption was made that if I do this I'll prove myself.

And that can be a kiss of death in many different ways.

Um

it definitely depends on the company and not every company will appreciate that.

Very, very few will appreciate

Like again, it I've seen situations like this where it's like, Hey, this person left.

We need someone to fill in this spot, ASAP, who can do it.

And the the kind of wink wink nudge was, you do it, yeah, you'll get the position,
whoever's doing the work right now.

And that's usually small smaller mom and pop places.

But like bigger corps, who use the word like agile workflows.

I hate that.

No, I do.

I we do use agile at work too and I don't like it.

I it's like, oh no, we're so agile.

Oh, are you?

That's a w that's a way of basically saying you don't want to plan for anything, but
that's fine.

Um

It's a it's a way to say that you're reactive instead of proactive.

but now that he's been told specifically we're not filling that position and it's
definitely not for you, this is the time for you to stop doing that work.

Stop doing the work and on top of that, look for other work.

Look for other work.

Um, if you I feel like looking for other work might be incendiary.

Maybe this is a good job for you.

That's totally fine.

Um be ready to look for other work.

Um, take a long vacation.

Take a vacuum this is a really good time to take two weeks off and figure and have them
figure out the next.

Especially if you've got the PTO, use it.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

if you're about to find another job.

Use as much PTO as they will let you use before you leave.

Hundred percent.

the top commenter here, top one percent commenter.

You just learned your employer's mindset.

Time to look for another job using that sweet manager title and double your pay.

They edit it later.

I'm famous now.

Adding professional Reddit director advisor to my resume.

It got two thousand two hundred upvotes.

Nice.

Uh this is actually a great spin on a bad situation, someone says.

Use your agile mindset to jump the fuck out of there, someone said.

Someone said agile is fucking cancer.

Too many companies are trying to make it work for shit it's not designed for.

Yeah.

If you don't do software development, you shouldn't be doing agile.

Yeah.

Um let's see.

let's see another post that I saw that I liked.

Alternatively, if your job title and your job description haven't changed, then stop doing
both jobs.

Be more direct with that VP.

Quote, look, thanks for the compliments, but this is a business relationship and I'm not
doing all of this to be nice.

I saved you and this department from a really tough spot in exchange.

You have nothing to offer me.

End quote.

You have you have them over a barrel, OP.

If they fire you, they're right back into crisis mode, except worse.

And they have sent the message to everyone else that stepping up will not be rewarded.

Very true.

Yeah, that's that's my main thing as I brought up.

Like I'd question how direct we were with this particular person.

Do we set the guidelines?

Yes.

I've done this to help us out.

I do not expect to keep doing this for free.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is time to stop doing that extra work.

Yeah.

Which feels shitty.

I mean it doesn't feel good.

I'm sorry.

Yeah.

But that is the world that we live in right now.

Yeah.

Poor OP.

Wait a second, we want to give a big shout out to our Patreon paid members over at
patreon.com slash zero dot media.

Big thank you to Rags, David Rivera, God of Grunts, Aid, JP, William Kirk, and Robert
Restant.

It's thanks to you and members like you that invest in the Zero Dot Promise and the Zero
Dot Podcast that makes this magic happen.

Thank you so much.

What do you think?

Another one?

All right.

All right, our next one comes hot off the presses at twelve hours ago.

my gosh, that's really ha that's smoking.

Smoking hot.

Once again, from career advice.

The title is quote, can someone explain not the right fit for the culture to me like I'm a
moron?

End quote.

Yeah.

Here here's the here's the post.

I actually have had a lot of interviews in the in the few months I've been looking for a
new career.

Hiring managers have my resume, therefore they see my abilities.

It's like when I get to the team interview, the actual people I'd be working with, it all
falls apart.

I'm very likable.

Customer service and people pleasing are my specialties, smile emoji.

I also can easily run the flow of a business from open to closed by myself if necessary.

I would love to work in a team environment though.

I have great work ethic.

I'm a dedicated employee.

My work history shows that as well.

What am I missing about these peer interviews?

I'm a mature woman of 50, but literally look 35.

So I don't think it's my age.

It's actually usually brought up at the interview when they're doing the math, how young I
look.

I love working with people of all ages and supporting in management to make their work
days easier.

Willing to listen to any constructive criticism or advice, thank you.

I literally feel like I'm in grade school and I'm being chosen last for kickball.

I know.

no.

Okay, I want you to I want you to start with this one.

Okay.

Um I wish we had more details what they're actually saying when they say, Hey, sorry, but
you're not a right fit for the quote unquote culture.

That's probably all OP is getting because it's extremely risky for a recruiting department
to give you actual details and actual feedback.

Yeah, I what I'm sticking to is the last piece for the culture.

Mm-hmm.

Because the quote is not the right fit for the culture.

If I was really doing the game that you're implying, which we've done, you say, sorry, we
looked through your resume and all your qualifications.

It's not the right fit at this time.

And that's all we say.

And that's the easiest, safest way to dismiss a candidate, to move on.

And there could be a bajillion of one reasons for that.

It could be that we had someone else lined up.

It could be whatever reason we want to do, right?

We'll we'll just say not right fit right at this time.

And we might say, we'll hold your resume on for lit further consideration, or it might
say, good luck to you in in future, whatever.

When they say for the culture, that's where I'm getting stuck, just like the OP is getting
stuck.

Like and just to be clear to my audience and my listeners, I hate the word culture when it
comes to describing a workplace.

Um, I'm often brought on to many companies and

The main thing people say is, oh, we are changing and adapting to the current work
dynamics.

We want to make sure we maintain our culture as it is.

And I'll give you a spoiler warning, listeners.

You can't.

You can't keep the culture the same while changing dynamics in the workplace and
everything.

The only thing you can do is choose where things change, but you can't keep things the
same.

So when the word culture gets in, my nose gets stuck up and I go, What the hell does that
mean?

Just like the OP said.

At the same time, if I delete the for the culture part and just say,

Not the right fit.

It sounds like that's just the most boilerplate thing they're saying.

They don't have to give you any further explanation.

They don't want to give you any further explanation because there could be a bajillion
different reasons why they're disqualifying you.

Um, and I would recommend to the OP it's not about the age.

I don't think it is anyway.

It could be

The thing is is that they're actually mentioning how old how young she looks in the
interview, which is a huge red flag for me.

If they do bring it up, if if anyone brings that up, that means they're considering it in
any in any context.

And they should not think it is illegal if you are over forty.

any person that talks about that in the interview itself is should already be a red flag
during the interview, regardless of if you get the job or not.

I also would say any job that says not a right fit for the culture in their literal
writing to you or their description to you why they didn't get the job, you dodged a

bullet.

You you dodged a bullet.

Any company that is hypersensitive to that at that level on the hiring phase, um, and
that's their explanation for disqualifying you.

you don't want anything to do with that kind of company.

Cause that's basically what what they're saying is they wanted someone who thought just
like them, who would appeal to them just like them.

I often hear companies that have this kind of language use a, we're a family business or
we we work like family, which is just a nice way of saying everyone works their hardest at

all hours of the day, um, out of fear of losing a job at some point.

Um so uh for me, if I was the OP, I understand.

What's going on?

I understand did they they didn't say how many jobs they've they've lost out on.

It seemed like it was a lot.

Several months of jobs.

Okay.

I would say it's only a matter of time until someone does pick up on them and give them
the offer they're looking for.

All these, I think, are dodge bullets.

And also let's not disqualify the fact that um the fact that you got interview is amazing,
but a lot of people are not getting picked up because of AI.

They're using AI bots to scan you know resumes really quickly and

They're looking they're cherry picking what they're looking for.

Um

So your resume being written correctly right now is like the most important thing.

Yeah.

I think that specifically for I there's two possibilities.

Maybe they're just saying they mean not the right fit in general to be boilerplate, but
they felt like it sounded better with for the culture.

Or they're specifically trying to call out like, hey, your um, your resume is good, your
experience is great.

Um

However, we have either enough people just like you or you are not quite like the people
that we have here.

Like I think that is the like the mindset of the recruiting team at this these particular
jobs.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

The other thing that I picked up on is the OP says I'm very likable, customer service and
people pleasing are my specialties.

So okay.

These are things that are hard to pick up on in an interview in the first place.

Yes.

And again, I'm taking the OP's thing totally at face value.

Whatever they're saying, let's assume they are really good at these things.

Great.

People pleasing, if they literally use those words to describe themselves, to me would be
a turn off.

Yeah.

even in roles where I want someone to have a great bedside manner and like be able to talk
to people.

Because people pleasing implies a lack of authenticity.

Mm-hmm.

And if it were me and I'm hiring.

And they literally use those words to describe themselves, that that'd be a question mark
for me, like, oh what do you mean by people pleasing?

What do you mean by that?

Just describe that a bit more for me.

Tell me of a time when you use these people pleasing specialties to your benefit.

What was the impact of that?

Right.

And I wanna get an an an idea of what what they give me.

I'm glad you brought this up.

Can you read that whole part again?

I'm very likable and people pleasing.

Like that whole sentence and a half, I think it was.

Very likable, customer service, and people pleasing are my specialties.

And then sh there's another sentence up.

I can I also can easily run the flow of a business from open to close by myself if
necessary.

I would love to work in a team environment.

I I a lot of this is super generic, unfortunately.

Like even in even in this where OP's like really trying to put themselves forward, a lot
of this is really generic and I feel like basically everybody who comes in is gonna be

saying the same thing.

So they're looking for the somebody who's got something more than I could do it by myself,
but also I like to be on a team.

I'm really customer service oriented and I'm people pleasing and I'm really likable.

Like these are all like, you know.

You're on Tinder, you're gonna s not swipe on this person.

Yeah, that's a great call out.

So the the next sentence is I have a great work ethic.

I'm a dedicated employee.

My work history shows that as well.

Here's my question.

Okay, your work history shows that.

But then you're saying I can run the flow of business.

I would love to work in a team environment.

That's almost on the level of like hypotheticals, what I would do.

And as an employer, when I'm interviewing, I don't give a shit about hypotheticals.

I care about what you have done.

Yes.

That is a super important thing.

Um, is to make sure that you're taking your cues from your past experience.

These are things that are provable that I've already done and that I will do for you.

Yes.

Yeah.

Right.

Um by the way, fun advice for anyone.

If you're in an interview and you get asked a hypothetical question, it's a bogus
question.

uh the only questions you should really be asked in a behavioral interview are past tense.

What are what have you done in the past?

'Cause that's what a good employee, a good employer should be looking for.

Yeah.

Um some of the comments say, at fifty, they shouldn't be able to calculate your age by
your resume.

Take some things off of it.

Yep.

If you're failing at the team stage, they don't like you.

What makes someone want to work next to someone all day is not people pleasing and
customer service.

They want people they can connect with.

Be more genuine.

Yeah.

That was my my call out of like, hold on, that's that smells a little funny.

Uh someone says this is true.

You may be the most qualified, but they also just don't like you.

Unfortunately, you can't just predict what they think.

I've passed on people because they were just not approachable.

Um

Someone says, I will only show one job if I can't add a job before two thousand one.

So you're thinking that my age holds me back from clicking with twenty to thirty year
olds?

I love talking to younger adults, hearing new trends, fun places to go to eat, et cetera.

I'm there to work though.

If I'm hired for a fast paced environment, there shouldn't be too much time for
socialization.

that's the OP saying that.

Okay.

That sounds like OP.

I it it I think that OP's misunderstanding that comment.

They the problem is, and I and I don't know if this is absolutely the problem.

It does sound like there's potentially some age discrimination happening.

Possibly.

It's possible.

They shouldn't be able to figure out your age based on your resume.

You should really only be doing three or four jobs from the past, you know, ten years or
so that are the most important and relevant to

the job that you're applying to.

Yeah, the I will only show one job if I can't add a job before two thousand one.

So it sounds like from two thousand one this person's had the same job or they had a gap
in their resume for a bit of time before they got their most current job.

is that the commenter or is that O P?

Wow.

Okay.

And so she then they continue.

So are you thinking that my age holds me back from clicking with 20 to 30 year olds?

Okay.

So she's 50, working in an environment with 20 to 30 year olds.

I love talking to younger adults, hearing new trends, fun places to go to, et cetera.

I'm there to work though.

If I'm hired for a fast paced environment, there shouldn't be too much time for
socializing.

The well someone responds to this OP's counter response, they can tell you're 50 and they
see you as a mom, possibly, especially with the long resume.

You might be too chatty, asking them questions they don't want to answer.

Many younger people don't want that, trying too hard, etc.

I think that's going into something that maybe we don't have enough info on.

Yeah.

This is hard.

This is this is a difficult thing because there's probably is a little bit of age
discrimination going on.

And then she's also kind of not she's not popping in this interview.

She's got a generic, unauthentic sort of presence.

Yeah.

I the fact that she's identified that she's applying for jobs where it's mostly twenty to
thirty somethings and she's fifty.

It doesn't matter what you look like.

The life experiential difference is massive enough that that could be a culture shock on
either side.

I'm curious to hear how old the interviewers tend to be, if she can tell their ages,
roughly.

Yeah, I I'm looking, I don't see any other comments.

Here's another thing.

this comment series.

Yes, the thing about being overconfident, too much experience not fitting in is a thing.

People who are a fifty don't socialize or interact in the same way as someone twenty or
thirty.

They see the older worker as mom.

They don't want a mom.

Okay, I don't care about that part.

But there is a such thing as being overly confident.

eh

overly qualified.

Overly qualified.

They don't want to have to pay you more for work that they can get somebody less
experienced to do.

Hmm.

Yeah.

This one comment says, they do not like you.

I do not know you or them.

Maybe I would like maybe why maybe I would not like you either.

Maybe I would not like them.

It is illegal to discriminate against people because they are over 40 or because of their
gender.

If the reason they do not like you is because you are over 40 or because you are a woman,
that then that is illegal.

They are smart enough not to admit anything that could be used against them in litigation.

You say that you look 35, but 35 year olds have different resumes than 50 year olds.

I'm suggesting that you update your resume.

You do not want to give away your age via application materials.

Yeah, I think that is like the real quote unquote answer here.

All right.

So we have a couple more things from OP.

So OP's like, Hey, so they can just add up my work history and know my age.

Should I omit some work history?

I just thought a gap would be bad.

I will only show one position if I can't go past two thousand one.

So once again

They have a a a a stable

They have a stable, but they've been in this one job since two thousand one.

Yeah.

Um someone responds, I feel like a job you had before two thousand one is no longer
relevant.

Yes, that's that's pretty accurate.

If we're even when we go to validate um background information, we're not doing jobs that
are over fifteen years old.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the OP says heard, going to change that.

Thank you very much.

Someone says, I'm 35 tomorrow and I don't even include my job from twenty seventeen on my
resume.

And Bond says, Okay, I'm gonna drop all of my jobs unless they ask about gaps.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think in this case, less is more.

That can don't give too much.

I I what I coach people on their resumes, I say, Don't give me your life story.

Give me give me the most recent five to six, seven years.

Give me the most relevant beats.

Um don't give me

It's a very old school thing to get like a pamphlet of a resume and like Yes.

You can have executive resumes, you can have longer portfolios, but for a resume for these
types of jobs it should be a one pager basically.

Um plus a cover letter if you wanna include a cover letter.

It depends on the application system.

I can say that if age discrimination is happening, it does it is not productive to dwell
on it.

It does not help you in any capacity.

very difficult to prove in this type of um

In this type of scenario.

Like you're getting very, very little.

They're smart enough to say it's a culture fit.

And um and hopefully they're smart enough to not have notes for their for the employer's
sake at least.

Um, it's it's very unlikely that they will have notes indicating that as well.

Yeah.

Good luck to you, OP.

Sounds like you got some good direction.

But yeah.

I also OP's never listening to this, but if but if they ever did, I would say keep
applying.

The fact you're getting interviews is a is a lot.

Some people are not even getting interviews.

your resume must be in good shape enough to get the interview.

So So just some tweaks, it you can get there.

Okay.

I know you said just one more, but I have I think this one just caught my eye.

Rule of threes, right?

At least one more.

All right.

And thank you again, my lovely guest, for accompanying me on this journey.

Once again, this is Reddit from Career Guidance.

And again, I'm a leadership consultant.

My wife in crime, my guest host here is an HR aficionado.

So we we know a couple things about this space.

These are just our opinions, of course.

Last one from seven hours ago.

my gosh.

So fresh.

So my manager wants me to use AI, but I don't want to.

What do I do?

man.

Okay.

I've got a big smile on my face 'cause I love this one.

I I feel I feel like I'm gonna be controversial, but go ahead.

Let's go.

Hi everyone.

I'm in a bit of a weird situation.

Me, the only Gen Z, is very hesitant about using AI, whereas my managers, Gen X, are
completely obsessed with it.

They are bringing it up in meetings, suggest we use it at every available opportunity, and
constantly talk about the benefits.

I'm only in a small team, five to six people, so there's pressure on me to use it as
everyone else does.

The one time I did use it,

Pull up some stats, it was all wrong, and I had to do it manually again anyway.

I don't like to use it as I'm very aware of the environmental impacts, et cetera.

And I just find it doesn't work for me when I don't complete the whole thought process
myself, if that makes sense.

It leaves me unable to explain the reasoning for why something happened or why we did
certain things in meetings.

My workload hasn't been affected by me not using it compared to those that do, but I'm
constantly being asked why I don't use it.

One of my managers jokingly said they will convert me into being AI obsessed within the
next two years.

Is anyone else in this situation?

How do I explain my views on it to my managers and colleagues?

Should I just use it anyway despite it going against my views?

Wow.

Actually that's a really impress I that's not where I thought this was going at all.

Um

Yeah, I before we get into anything else, I'm seeing a lot of Gen Zers who are anti AI
right now, which warms my fucking heart.

It's extremely valid because there's a lot of issues with AI.

Yeah, I love that Gen Z, the younger kids, they're very, no, this is bad.

Like they're sniffing it out.

They're going, no, something's not right about this.

Yeah.

Um and yeah, I'm seeing Gen Xers, millennials, being more adoptive.

I did work with a um a company two weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago.

Um the CEO of the company literally told people in the workshop to start using AI more um
to be to help them write their emails.

And then use AI to help interpret it what the emails mean when you get an email you don't
understand.

And I'm like, so no one's reading and no one's writing to each other.

That's what I thought to myself in my head, like that's the most bonkers thing I've ever
heard.

Nobody that is a problem.

Nobody's gonna be reading the emails because they're just gonna be feeding it into AI.

It's so stupid.

It's it's whatever.

So yes, what are your thoughts on this?

Um, I I find that super valid that that AI is a problem.

And if their work is not suffering, I thought maybe like I thought maybe that we were
gonna get their work is suffering or their boss is requiring them to increase their AI

output by whatever percentage.

This is just, you know, their kind of it sounds like kind of cool Gen S Gen X manager is
kind of like, don't worry, you're gonna love this eventually.

You know what I mean?

Like they're they're like giving room.

For them not to use it.

So if it's not a mandate and you don't feel like it's helping you because you have to redo
the work that AI does, which another really valid complaint, like if the AI is not set up

correctly, if you're not prompting it correctly, it's going to give you false data.

So it's way more embarrassing to go into a meeting with incorrect information than it is
to actually understand and do manually the things that you're doing.

If this ever changes and you're starting to be required to, I do think if you value your
job, you should probably try to do a little bit of it, at least, you know.

Well, okay, so this person there's two things there are two criticisms.

One, they don't like that it gives bad data and so they can't speak.

They also say they don't like the environmental stuff, the impact.

Of course.

That's legit.

I I can get behind that.

Um

Yeah, I I think I'm with you.

You know, uh if you're able to do all the same work at the same efficacy and even better
without AI, and there's no mandate you have to use AI, then keep keep doing what you're

doing.

Exactly.

What I can suggest if this OP thinks AI is gonna be a mandate for their team.

A start looking at other work.

B, this is this is

This does not address the environmental impacts issue.

Cause I am also sensitive to this.

But if you are less sensitive to that aspect, you can on public domain, you can get your
own AI bot and you can start training it against yourself.

Mm-hmm.

And so you're not using the company's AI, like copilot or whatever.

You're using your AI to help streamline things.

And it's it's geared towards you, your language, everything you've got, and it doesn't
have any of the outside noise and it's more accurate to you.

That is a way.

To do that.

I'm not saying it's a the way.

You also want to be careful, depending on the industry, you don't wanna be feeding your
work data into your private AI bot.

There's probably gonna be some policies again.

confidential stuff.

Yeah, I'm with ya.

which is why I I'm so surprised by these companies with those mandates say, yeah, go ahead
and use Copilot like

Well, you have to use like a private co pilot server and it's all like internal whatever,
whatever.

Well, hopefully your IT department has figured that out.

If not, it is what it is.

I still have doubts, but I understand the le legal part of that.

But yeah, I mean, um, we know a colleague who was forced to use AI.

And uh they had the same thing: like, I don't think this is solving any problems.

It's it's actually slowing me down significantly.

It's getting worse data.

And only in cases when they were forced to use AI did they use AI.

And when they did, it says full disclosure, I used an AI prompt to do this because I was
asked to do it.

Here's what it came out with.

It's not mine, it's just here's what it came out with.

I think that's a really valid thing for um OP to do here too is when they're using AI and
it is spitting out bad data, take a moment to be like, This is the bad data that came out

with it.

Um, here you go.

But also I could tell that this was wrong.

So I did it myself and I now understand it a million times better.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So um some of the comments say managers pushing AI when it gives wrong stats is peak
irony.

Yeah.

Like they want you to use tool they want to use a tool that makes more work for you.

And they just ask, tell them it messed up your numbers and you had to redo everything.

Most managers respect concrete examples more than environmental arguments, sadly.

Keep the eco stuff for yourself, lead with the fact that it gave you garbage data.

Yeah.

Um

Yeah, and OP says the worst part was it was the day of the presentation that I found out
and had to do everything again anyway.

Ugh, that's uh AI sounds great without knowing what it is talking about.

It makes stuff up.

The similarity with many managers is astounding.

And someone says, Yep, that's true, lol.

Uh AI doesn't just mess up numbers.

It will hallucinate, sure, but it really only does this with unspecified goals or
expectations.

If you give it actual data and you ask it to say,

concrete a V lookup in Excel, for an example, or other time-consuming macros, formulas, it
does that very well.

If you ask it to infer data, yeah, we'll it will make shit up.

There's loads of misconceptions on how AI works and when it will hallucinate, but
providing it concrete data and asking it to put it in charts, graphs, or other formulas,

yeah, your chance for weird things happening are much lower.

I work with several models on a near daily basis for implementation stats, and I rarely,
if ever, get odd things back with specific examples and correct usage of comparing data.

This is across Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, et cetera.

I have to vet this data as well, so it's not like I'm j just plugging in the results back
and getting and saying excellent as I paste it into a presentation.

That's really valid because they're a like they have set up the AI prompts to correctly
pull complex data.

It sounds like it sounds like this workplace is just being like, my gosh, we gotta
co-pilot now.

So just throw all the stuff in there and it'll work when they haven't taken the time to
like set macros up or like actually build out these like data sets that that it needs.

I don't know if that's OP's job.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean that goes back to our upbringing of like Wikipedia is not a valid source for
documentation.

And now Wikipedia is kind of more reliable in some cases than being asked to use AI
blindly is ridiculous to me.

So like if you choose to use AI, it's still on you to validate the data's correct and you
have to do that on your own.

Absolutely.

No this comment says, play along, wait for the bill to come in for AI use, and the company
will cut back.

Or maybe the AI bubble bur p pops or bursts.

And someone responds, My wife is a dev at Ford Motor Company.

They initially made them log their AI time requiring usage daily.

After a few months, they changed their tune.

Now they have a limit of how much they can use it.

Turns out it costs too much.

AI usage does cost much.

does.

It's it's a very expensive tool.

Mm-hmm.

yeah.

I th this individual, I I my heart goes out to you.

I would say keep doing what you're doing.

If you're forced to do it, use it in full disclosure.

And if it makes you feel uncomfortable, look for other work.

That's my read situation.

Yeah.

I um I am not quite as strict as you are with your with your AI like you know, concerns.

Like obviously I'm concerned about the environmental impacts.

I do think that it is um something that needs to be completely vetted.

If you're putting something into AI and getting something out, you need to understand that
before you give it to somebody else.

Um but I do use AI in my work.

It sometimes helps with like

documentation or just organizing data better for me.

I do use it to help me write my emails because sometimes I just don't have the brain space
for that.

And I have to send X amount of emails in an hour.

So

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I and then I I asked the question, you know, in any workplace where that's a a valuable
tool.

What about the workplace process is so outdated that the AI tool is useful?

And what I mean by that is like you just said emails, right?

Like I gotta send an email this one person.

And you're obviously having AI cultivate it, craft it, make it sound a certain way, and
you just don't have the brain space for it right there and then

Like what about the process of the workplace and everything else makes it so that way that
has to be that email in that specific format that we've seen a million times?

Like something feels outdated about that.

Like we're using a tool to help streamline that, but I feel like we're doing a lot of
redundant processes in in in the process.

That's possible.

Um, I would say that the reason that I do it is because I'm understaffed and me taking on
um 10 minutes to write an email that AI could do in two seconds um after I've prompted it,

you know, say nicely that I'm not interested in whatever this is to this vendor or
whatever it is.

Um

Yeah.

As opposed to, you know, I'm also in a very like we were talking about with the Q one,
twos, threes, and fours.

I have a lot of Q three work that comes my way where it seems like it's urgent, but it's
just not important.

Right.

So, but you don't know that until you've fully vetted whatever that thing is.

So I have a lot of people running into my office saying that something's so important, but
really it's just that the mail is here.

Um and it's like great, thank you.

Great, thank you.

Thank you.

You didn't need to run up to my office to tell me to interrupt my work.

And yet AI has just written an email while I was talking to that person so that I can just
copy paste and send it.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

But I also I I devil's advocate.

I mean, you just talked about this the other day.

The Friends episode where Joey Tribiani.

Yes.

Uh

There's a okay.

So it's an episode where Monica and Chandler are trying to adopt a child.

So they wrote a um they're having people write reference letters.

So they have Joey write a reference letter to um the adoption agency.

And he wants it to sound really smart.

Yeah.

So he uses a thesaurus for every single word in the letter.

Yeah.

And it's almost it and it was it was so bad that you just couldn't read it.

Um

And yes, I have had people write like um like performance improvement plan documentation
using AI.

And it is almost unintelligible because the type of AI they were using just made it sound
like they used a thesaurus for every single work.

Yeah.

Um, and sure it made sense, but that's just not how people talk or write.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a part of it too.

I I 100% get that.

And that is why you need to vet whatever you're sending.

That is why you need to be like, I fully just like this OP, this Gen Z O P, um said that
they don't understand necessarily how AI got to an answer.

And so if they're in a meeting and they've had AI do a thing for them, they feel like they
can't speak on it.

That's the same thing.

Like if I if we if you read your documentation.

Two weeks later and you don't understand it because you had it fed through AI.

Yeah.

That's a problem.

Absolutely a problem.

For sure, for sure.

need to be an active participant in AI.

You can't let it run your job for you.

Yeah.

And for this OP, you know, the fact that we are seeing a a cognitive decline in the newest
generation of of workers right now because they grew up on things like this.

the fact that you are sensitive to that, the fact that you want to be able to understand
and speak to the data says a lot about you and I hope you take pride in that.

So thank you, OP.

That wraps up just about another episode of the Zero Dot Podcast.

I think we got a lot done today, don't you think so?

my gosh, we talked wherever about a lot of really cool things.

Yeah, we definitely did.

I think we're done.

Yep, done.

There's not gonna be another episode of the Zerdot Podcast.

Except there will be in about two weeks.

So, thanks to all of you for listening in.

You can check out the Zerdot Podcast at theZerdotpodcast.com.

We are broadcasts everywhere where podcasts exist.

That includes Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, all that other good stuff.

Wherever you find podcasts, we are there for you.

We'll see you back in two weeks.

I'm your host Sam.

This has been Crystal.

We'll see you next time.

See you next time.

Cheers.

Cheers.