Latest / You're Not Too Much / Arguments with dudes on the internet: LinkedIn/Facebook edition

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Arguments with dudes on the internet: LinkedIn/Facebook edition · You're Not Too Much

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  I have been doing the internet antagonizing, and I apologize deeply. I asked
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  one question, and all of a sudden he had so much less to say. I do not want my
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  money to support people who actively suck. All right, here we go. I'm gonna
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  pretend I'm pushing record because that feels right. Okay, I'm pressing record.
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  Boop! Hi everybody, I'm Lauren Howard. Welcome to Different Not Broken, which is
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  our podcast on exactly that— that there are a lot of people in this world
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  walking around feeling broken, and the reality is you're just different, and
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  that's fine.
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  I got into an argument with a dude on the internet again. Arguments with dudes
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  on the internet. It's like a thing I do. Actually, I got into two last week.
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  These are always cantankerous dude bros who get what they deserve.
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  But it used to happen fairly frequently, and I don't know if I just don't pay
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  as much attention now or I have scared off the majority of the cantankerous dude
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  bros, but it has happened twice in, like, the last week, and it feels like
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  hearkening times of yore, and I kind of like it. But anyway. It's almost the
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  same argument every time, cuz I talk a lot about remote work and trusting your
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  employees. Wild idea, I know. Treating your employees like adults because they
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  will act like adults. Shocking. How could you ever believe that people would,
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  when paid fairly and treated like adults, would do their jobs? Shocking.
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  Impossible to believe, right? But I talk about this a lot on the LinkedIn box.
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  And inevitably on one of these posts, there is some dude bro who wants to point
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  out that remote work is ineffective. You have to watch your team all the time.
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  If you don't, they will take advantage of you. If you don't micromanage them,
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  they will not do their jobs.
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  [Allison] Arguments with dudes on the internet. Arguments with dudes on the internet.
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  I had one not that long ago who said that he managed a call center, and if
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  people were not watched and monitored for call activity all the time, they just
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  wouldn't take the calls. They just wouldn't take the calls. They would not do
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  their jobs. They had to be watched and monitored all the time, 100% of the time.
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  And he had a lot to say. And then I asked one question, and all of a sudden he
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  had so much less to say. Shocking.
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  It's a really simple question. I ask it a lot. It really, like, for some reason
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  brings their very bullish, I know everything about running a workplace attitude
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  down to maybe I have less to say. And the question is, how much are you paying
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  them? And then I just wait for the silence. Or the like, full Porky Pig. Because
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  the answer is never, oh, we pay them really well. It always boils down to, well,
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  it's an entry level job.
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  So I pay them entry level wages. So that's what you're saying. Because if you
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  were paying them well, you would say what you were paying them. What's an
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  entry-level wage? Minimum wage? 'Cause we know— there's lots of data that shows
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  that's not a livable wage. $15 an hour? Barely a livable wage. Barely a livable
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  wage. In most places, still not a livable wage. Double that is barely a livable
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  wage.
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  So tell me, how are you paying people who are doing this shitty awful job that
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  even you don't wanna do? 'Cause if you wanted to do it, you would just do it and
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  you would do it better than they are, right? And you would reap all the rewards
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  of their big salaries that you give them. How much are you paying these people
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  who are doing the worst job in the world? Nobody's working at a call center
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  because they want to, or because it's a cushy gig. Let's put it that way. They
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  might like their jobs, they might wanna work there, and I'm certainly not being
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  negative toward those people who work in those jobs. Everybody needs to work,
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  everybody needs to eat. If that's the way you pay your bills, good for you. But
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  nobody's working there with their feet up on their desks enjoying the high life.
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  I worked in a call center for a long time.
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  It was awful. And I worked in the call center that was rated the best for both
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  customer service and employment in the world. So those were the best conditions,
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  and it was awful. I got yelled at constantly. People would yell at me for things
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  that had nothing to do with me. I got graded on surveys that people would do
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  about their experience, except if somebody talked to somebody after me but
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  before they got the survey, they would grade me on what the other person did—
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  experiences that you could listen to the call and tell did not even align with
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  what the call was about, and I would get penalized for it. I would get penalized
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  for things that other people on my team did. I would get penalized for things
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  that other departments did.
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  It was all a game rigged to make sure that you never got recognized for
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  anything. And guess what?
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  [Allison] I got paid shit.
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  I was fresh out of college. I thought I had to go get a job at a big company so
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  that I could have upward mobility. It was all shit. Oh, and by the way, I think
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  I was making $13 an hour at the time. Even making $13 an hour on a team full of
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  people who also made $13 an hour, I still showed up for work every day. I still
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  did my job at 100%. Our computers were not monitored. I worked in a team of
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  people, all of whom showed up for work every day.
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  We had no attendance issues whatsoever. So I don't want to hear about how you
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  have to micromanage your team. I don't want to hear about it. I've been on that
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  team. What are you paying them, and why are you expecting them to treat you with
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  benevolence when they can barely pay their bills on what you're paying them?
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  While you're also treating them like shit? I have never asked that question, and
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  I've asked it a lot, and been given an answer of anything other than the bare
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  minimum. I've never once had someone say, I am paying this person well, I am
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  paying this person at market or above market or well above market, and they're
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  still not doing their jobs. It is always, well, we're paying them what we can
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  afford.
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  Well, then your business is failing. 'Cause if the only way you can run it is
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  to grossly underpay people, you're bad at business. You're doing it wrong. And
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  then you wanna blame your employees for the fact that you are bad at business
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  and underpaying them as a result? Next time somebody wants to insist to me that
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  people aren't capable of being autonomous at home, or people need to be
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  micromanaged to do their jobs— and it's not just next time, it's every time—
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  it's one question: what are you paying them? You seem to be okay with something
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  that the rest of the world really isn't. There's the platitude— whatever people
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  say— "Don't get into fights with pigs. You end up messy and the pig enjoys it."
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  That is my general take of people on the internet who are not saying things
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  directly to me, especially on Facebook.
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  [Allison] Arguments with dudes on the internet. Arguments with dudes on the internet.
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  [Allison] Arguments with dudes on the internet.
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  For the most part, I'm like, I'm just gonna block you and move on. You don't
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  want anybody to tell you any different. You're not gonna listen. You are too
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  deeply entrenched in whatever white nationalist version of 2026 you wanna be
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  living in. And so me reminding you otherwise is not gonna benefit anyone. And
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  that is usually my take. Except I don't know what happened with the fucks I
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  normally give, but they seem to have escaped. And I have found myself not
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  arguing with people on Facebook because I don't care what they have to say back.
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  They're just bad people. It's fine. But just being like— doing that thing where
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  you're like, "I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, I'm not— yeah, I'm going to. Yeah,
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  I'm gonna. I have to. I can't not." Like, these people who have been posting
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  that they picked the Turning Point USA halftime show, the consolation prize
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  halftime show for butthurt white people who don't realize that 14% of our
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  population speaks Spanish in their homes and 22% of our population speak a
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  language other than English in our homes. So it is not like you are not running
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  into people who don't speak English or who don't speak English as their primary
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  language. They're everywhere, especially Spanish.
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  We would not have so many forms translated into Spanish if we didn't have that
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  many people who prefer to speak Spanish, and that is not a problem. That is not
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  a problem.
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  [Allison] Arguments with dudes on the internet.
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  Most of the people who signed up— and if you signed up to be part of the
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  alternate halftime show, you don't get off the hook. Fuck you, dude. But also,
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  most of the people backed out because they got so much hate for doing it. They
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  were like, yeah, no, this is not what we meant to do. We meant to be quietly
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  hateful, not outwardly hateful. Sorry, our mistake. We'll do a better hateful
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  next time. But then on top of it, it was headlined by a guy who wrote songs
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  about being a pedophile.
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  When your president was recently identified in a giant dossier of documents as
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  a goddamn pedophile. And these are the people who are fighting for traditional
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  family and the whiteness of America. Hmm. Yeah, for some reason that in
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  particular has broken my brain in a way that the filter that is usually like,
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  this stupid internet person is not going to care that they're wrong or that
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  they're a bigot or that everything that they are saying is hateful and racist.
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  They're not going to care, so just walk away. My fingers do not do the walking.
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  They do not. I have been doing the internet antagonizing, and I apologize.
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  Not to the people I'm doing it to— they deserve it and they deserve more. I
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  wish for them much more antagonizing, I'll put it that way. Like, it's not
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  benefiting anybody for me to argue with these people, it really isn't, but it
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  does make me feel better for like a second. And some of it is on business groups
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  that I'm in, and people are like, why are we talking about the halftime show in
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  a business group? And I'm like, because if you suck, I want to know before I
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  spend my money there. I do not want my money to support people who actively
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  suck. So if you could let me know which one you watched, so that when I am
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  selecting a plumber, I am picking the plumber who doesn't suck or only uses
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  suction to fix my plumbing issue. That would be my strong preference. Anybody
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  who thinks that there is such a thing as things that are not political has never
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  had a hard day in their lives.
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  Fuck you very much. I am going to make decisions on where I spend my money
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  based on who it is supporting. And if that means that you have a Trump bumper
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  sticker on your work car, I will find another— whatever job you do that I would
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  see your work car, which might be a stretch because I don't leave my house or
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  look outside very often, but you know the point. I'm gonna apologize to the
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  universe for laying down with pigs because they do enjoy it, because getting
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  people angry is their goal. But I will remind you, to all of the people who are
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  butthurt that we allowed a country that does not have a national language to
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  feature in a private sporting event— a privately owned company— the NFL is not
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  publicly owned, meaning it is not a government entity. A private company was
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  allowed to pick somebody who does not sing in English. They were permitted to
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  allow him to put on a concert that— if that is a problem for you because it
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  doesn't center you in it, equity feels like oppression when you are the
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  oppressor. So you're butthurt because something isn't about you for once, and
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  that's okay.
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  Please go be butthurt somewhere else and not on my feed. And now we'll go to
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  Allison, who has this week's Small Talk. A question from Nate in Provo, Utah: "I
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  don't trust compliments at all. If someone praises me, I assume they're wrong or
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  being polite, but criticism sticks forever. How do you recalibrate that without
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  swinging into arrogance?" I don't think you need to worry about swinging into
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  arrogance. That is not a thing that's gonna happen. I probably could swing into
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  arrogance pretty easily, but I think that is a very human thing.
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  Somebody can tell you 10,000 good things about yourself and you're like, "Yeah,
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  maybe." And then someone says your feet smell and you're like, "Uh, that has to
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  be true." And that's just the way we're wired. Negative things outweigh positive
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  things in importance to us. And it is because we assume that everyone is out
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  there saying awful stuff about us and they just haven't told us yet. And so when
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  someone says something nice to us, we're like, well, you're probably gonna leave
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  and say something shitty, right? That's how this works. No, the reality is that
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  when you're not immediately standing in front of someone, they're probably not
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  thinking about you and they probably have nothing to say about you. And if it's
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  somebody who is a garbage enough person to say things out there that they
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  wouldn't say in here to you, then their opinion probably doesn't matter anyway.
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  In the grand scheme of things, people don't have time to think about you and
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  don't have time to make opinions about you.
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  Everybody's just trying to survive. There is this internal training that we
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  have that people are only telling the truth when they're saying something awful.
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  And if you've spent any time on the internet at all, you'll know that that's not
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  true, because a lot of people say awful things just because it gets them
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  attention. We can't give more credibility to the awful things than we do to the
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  good things. I think the question is not, how do I get more used to this without
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  swinging into arrogance, but instead, "How do I start believing that I actually
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  am worthy of all of these things that are being said about me? That I am not
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  just making it up and taking compliments that I don't deserve?" There aren't a
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  ton of people out there who give compliments that are unearned. There just
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  aren't.
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  People are not generally effusive about things that they don't like or don't
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  enjoy or don't think were done well. If you would've believed them if they were
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  saying something awful, you should believe them if they say something nice. But
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  also, I say this about imposter syndrome a lot because there are a lot of people
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  walking around with this imposter syndrome telling them that everything they've
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  done in their career was just a series of failures that other people didn't
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  notice, and that they have failed at everything they've done. They've made it
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  all up. They're a giant fraud in the role or the position that they're in, and
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  they're just waiting for somebody to find out. That is actually arrogance
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  because that means that you are so much smarter than every other person that you
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  have encountered that they could repeatedly miss that you are bad at everything
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  that you do. The universe is so very much on your side that it has allowed you
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  to repeatedly fail without any of the intelligent people around you noticing
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  that you're full of it. That didn't happen.
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  That can't happen. Nobody— you're not gonna repeatedly do a terrible job or
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  make things up and have nobody catch on throughout your entire career. You're
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  taking the power and the agency out of the people who have given you the
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  positions, given you the promotions, given you the raises, given you the
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  whatever in your career by thinking they must be wrong 'cause I'm just a giant
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  idiot. It's not true. It's not the way it works. To answer your question, I
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  don't think you're at risk of swinging wildly into arrogance because I don't
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  think that's how you're wired. If you have to ask this question, that is not how
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  you're wired. But also, if you would believe somebody when they said something
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  shitty about you, that means that if they said something nice about you, that is
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  also true.
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  And you don't get to pick and choose which one they're telling the truth on.
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  Don't worry about being arrogant— baseline believing that you deserve nice
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  things and compliments does not make you arrogant. Thanks for being here, guys.
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  Have a good day. Love you, mean it.