AI and Everything Else We Hate with Melissa Riddle

SPEAKER_00 0:00

People should use uh AI judiciously, which judicious. Does that mean a lot? Judiciously? I thought it meant like with a measured approach.

SPEAKER_03 0:11

Um it's funny because I think about like spread butter judiciously on the piece of bread. I guess it would be don't put too much butter on. Yeah. I always took it as like put a ton on. Very easy. Hey, today we're in all up in our lady business back with with the M Dog with Melissa Riddle in the house. While her trees are getting cut down outside. Hey, Melissa.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

For the record, the tree had a had a fungus uh and and had to go. So I don't want to start the day off with me uh being a tree murderer. Um, just wanted to qualify uh that it, you know, I couldn't save them.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

So it's okay. There's a tree, the city planted a bunch of like elms had either Dutch elm or whatever the thing was that was like attacking trees. And like every tree on my side of the street was basically um destroyed. And they planted, they replanted a bunch of trees. And apparently my neighbors even like played or by people in my house at the time, like paid more for like a better tree and it totally died. And every other tree on the block is kind of thriving.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

And so it's really sad because you know, the best time to plant a tree is what you had to go for the premium tree, and it just, you know, yeah, it didn't it didn't have the genetics to hold it together. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

It's like purebred dogs, you know, they have all those problems that mutts just don't have scrappy knows how to survive, man. Yeah. Been time tested, road tested, mother approved.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

Um, but uh yeah, it's uh it's another day in America here in America on the pod. Um and I feel like uh I think we should tackle the topic of AI.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Yeah. I mean, we can definitely jump into it. We've had so many uh uh brush-ups uh lately with its um the pros and cons of it all, mostly cons, I think.

SPEAKER_03 2:30

But it's weird. It's like I've I think it's really weird that they released AI like commercially. Like I feel like that was just too much power to give to the general public.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

I feel like it's like anything where I truly am so unaware of the actual depths that it has um sort of, you know, inroads into our foundation.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

Like you don't realize even how much you you're using it, even like not me personally.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

I have very like guarded boundaries, you know, like it's not on my phone. I've opted out of literally everything that I can possibly opt out of as an individual related to AI, and um, you know, like it will never uh cross my my Gmail. Jim and I can suck it.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

Yeah, I I hate I hate AI chatbots. Like there was that brief moment where you're like thinking about maybe getting one for the website, and I'm really glad that we didn't do that because I hate them. I like the shittification of everything in the world is like it's maddening. It's like nothing works. Everything has a glitch in it, and it's like I don't know how to like it's just it's it's made everything a little shitty, and we've all just kind of accepted it. Like there's no paying for a premium option that is premium. It feels like the highest tier is the only tier and you're getting lowest tier service.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Yeah. I I like I said, I there's so many different ways that I don't even realize that it is in my, you know, in my day to day. I think one of the things that's the most, I guess, uh, revealing to me is like when I talk to my mom, like how much her generation or at least the people that she's around seems have like embraced it and are like using it on a regular basis. And I know in her sphere in particular, it is really like fuel for conspiracy theories and like all this stuff. And I only get, you know, wisps of it here and there through through her. But it it is wild how you know, uh, it's like Facebook in 2016, you know, where it's just like you're in such a vacuum, and now you have this thing that can actually directly talk to you that you take as an authority, being able to kind of either uh reinforce or encourage a train of thought, provide, you know, evidence for for you to then just end up, you know, kind of taking it at face value, even though it, you know, echo chamber.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

It's also like the way it talks to you. It's like, hey girl, you know, it you should uh, you know, like you're right. That is weird that, you know, you couldn't make a spreadsheet that has a pivot table. Yeah. Like, let's, you know, let's let that's use some real data and not that lame data that your competitor's using. Like it's it's like uh and I think that some people get taken by that. They're like, ooh, really, they make me feel smart. They're validating all my choices and all the things that I'm doing.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Yes. Uh, and that just seems like a terribly slippery slope that I want no part of. Um and it's wrong a lot. That's the other thing, is it's wrong a lot. Because but then you don't have a tool to validate whether it's wrong. You do. I mean, it's this guy. Not if you're using it for an area of expertise you don't possess. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

And for those of you at home without cameras, I was pointing to my head.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Oh, cabeza. Yeah. Um so yeah, um, I think, you know, you're i i I keep kind of going back to it feeling like when the internet, you know, first existed and we first had access to like Google and search engines and stopped using books, you know, to get information and we believed everything as, you know, current. And if it lived on the internet, you were either totally embracing it or completely skeptical of it. And now, you know, it's like it feels very much like that again, which is weird because like I think about being, you know, 18, 19 when I first started engaging with the internet. Me too. And then um, you know, and now here I am two plus decades later, sort of with this other very similar feeling frontier. Um, and just kind of wondering, like, you know, all of the same things, kind of in a way.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

It doesn't, it doesn't feel good. It feels like, um, it it feels like I don't know, like I don't know. I it it it can't I don't I don't know how to say this. Like it's it's like I I don't want to think about my brain. I already feel my brain's getting mushy enough. Like I feel like there's already a mushy this happening just with general, you know, age and whatnot. Um and I do think that, you know, the the Chat GPT can really take the place of a lot of basic thinking. And I don't think we can like not do those things because if we don't do those things, it's like we we if we lose the step right here that's between like the idea and then the solution and we didn't do anything to make it happen, like then what is it even? Like people are like, oh, we can take away we're gonna make all these spreadsheets that used to take three days and now it's gonna take one day. And it's like, okay, yeah, what do we do with that extra three hours now that you've taken that away? A, they're gonna find a way to fill it. Yeah. And but the other thing is that it's like, if all this data is just like, you know, your AI talking to another person's AI, like, then it becomes, it's not no, if no person is touching it, then it doesn't mean anything. It's like it's it's meaningless. If it can be done by the computer, it's meaningless. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Also, I mean, just as a person who considers herself to have spent the last, you know, I guess, what did I 25 years in some form of service and learning how to speak diplomatically about things and compose, you know, beautifully written, uh, well-considered emails to other human beings. Uh, now I just assume that everybody thinks that just my, you know, experience using language uh is now, you know, just a robot.

SPEAKER_03 8:38

I take offense to that. Well, and then and then also the ability to like, you know, I think about how we, you know, people can it's like you can you can sound like you have expertise in something that you have zero expertise in. And, you know, it's like we have to deal with a lot in the in at Toast and Jam with people like putting our contract into into Chat GPT and then, you know, thinking then that they can come back and beat back every single clause in the contract. Negotiate.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Um, which yeah, I think we've obviously encountered that on a a vendor B2B sort of level. And now we've encountered it, you know, the first couple of times uh on a client hiring us basis. And it's it's truly wild, uh, but also makes me really grateful that I'm not uh and that we're not uh just a single op, you know, DJ company out there sort of having to, I guess, get bullied um by people. We have enough, you know, like infrastructure to be able to push back against that and and enough knowing enough people are gonna hire us regardless of whether we allow them to kind of bully us over their AI version of our contract.

SPEAKER_03 9:58

Well, and you know, our contract is something that I have, you know, like when I first started the company, it was like four paragraphs and now it's three pages. You know, and it's just because over the years I've you I've used my my my contract as a cudgel to uh keep, you know, certain unsavory people at bay and the types of things they ask of us. And, you know, it's like the the thing that I think people forget a lot when they're hiring people, say vendors that are coming in to do a one-time event, you know, like we're doing 14 in one night. They're doing this exactly one time in their life. And so, you know, they're getting all these people together. They're getting together the photographer, the florist, the cater, all these people. And then they're bringing in, you know, 150 wild cards that are their guests. And, you know, and you're putting emotion and a lot of money and then alcohol, dousing that. And all of a sudden you've got a recipe for um potential disaster. And so it's like we don't know what we're entering into. And it's crazy to me that people expect us to have these like fully reciprocal contracts that like, you know, protect them as much as it protects us. And it's like, okay, well, it's not the same. We're not this isn't the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

No, it's really not. And uh yeah, keep there there isn't there isn't enough uh similarity, analogous, you know, sort of things out there to be able to like really drive that point home like solidly enough, I think, for people to understand the dynamic of, you know, us coming to you and why that leaves us more vulnerable than if, you know, you were coming into you were coming to us. You know, it's it's a very different, a very different situation. So anyway, the indemnity and the insurance and you know, all that stuff is definitely tricky to navigate. But I I really wish that there was a way that I mean, the way is is the way that we have stuck to, which is just you might have these AI resources or whatever, but we don't have uh we're a small woman-owned business without a lawyer on retainer. Like you this is our contract. If you want to work with us, we're here, here it is.

SPEAKER_03 12:12

Like well, and it's also it's like we've got 20 years of runway behind us, you know. Like, is it runway or road? I don't know. But we it's we've been around for a long time and had if any of these things were gonna be a problem, they would have been a problem by now. Uh knock on all the wood. Sure. But it's also like difficult because it feels like um it just seems like there's so much more of it. You know, it used to be that it would just be like, I went to law school or I'm in my third year of law school and I'm doing contracts right now, and I know that this, you know, indemnity clause is not a hundred percent in my favor. And it's like, okay, well, I'm not changing it, law student.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Although it wasn't designed to be.

SPEAKER_03 12:52

Yeah.

unknown 12:52

Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

So thanks for picking up on that.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

Well, and it's, you know, to explain to the listeners out there, like one of the biggest issue we always have is indemnity, which is, you know, who's gonna pay the legal bills if shit goes south? And it's like, you know, we're we're in charge of our gross negligence. Like if we do something wrong, we'll pay for it. But if everybody at the place gets sued, we're not going to like pay the legal fees for everybody there. And so we have the client indemnify us. So it's like, you brought us in here. So if something shitty happens that's not our fault and we get sued for it, you're paying for it. Like we we didn't come in here, we couldn't control who was walking in the door. And uh, and then they get all high and mighty, and it's like, well, no, you're gonna indemnify me. And it's like, well, I'm not though. That's I why would I why would I pay the legal bills for you when it's something that I didn't do wrong? It's like, and then it even when you explain that, it doesn't seem to like really get, they're not like, oh, oh, okay, I get it. Like it's like, no, I really they just willful ignorance on the magnitude of the event that they're throwing.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Yes. I think the other big one that cracks me up that I would love for you to explain to listeners exactly what a certificate of insurance is. I mean, this I hope that people care about this weird arcana of our job, but you know, it's people can have to certain this is I think this is a a global misunderstanding that you're about to I mean a global misunderstanding for people in service industries who have to carry insurance and prove it.

SPEAKER_03 14:22

So okay, go ahead. Yeah. So I mean we have to we have to sometimes provide a certificate of insurance to for certain venues, usually the venues um where we have to name them as additionally insured. And I think they think that that means our insurance is not covering them. Um, and that's not what it means. What it just means is that every time we change our insurance, you get notified. So, like if I was told I had to get insurance for uh for an event that I was doing, and if I was shady, um, I could get a uh I could get a COI for one day. Like I could buy it and then send the COI, the certificate of insurance over to the person, say, look, I've got this insurance, and then I can cancel it the next day. So it looks like I've got a million dollars in liability, but I don't really. So that one day. For one day I was covered and it cost me like$28. And then for me to get the like the actual big, you know, it's gonna call it cost a hundred, a couple hundred. And so it's, you know, this is why you want people to hire actual real vendors instead of just like a guy off the street, is because we actually have insurance. And, you know, if you get named in the COI, then you get notified. I sometimes think about the many, many entities that are just getting just letters constantly being notified of, you know, of like we worked there like four years ago and we're still still getting like notifications of our insurance changing. Um but whatever.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Yeah. It it really well, it it never goes away. We may change, you know, aspects of policy, but all the certificate of insurance is doing everyone is sending a note if we ever change our insurance. That's it.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

If we change if we go up and if we go up in coverage, down in coverage, add a new, uh, a new, what do they call it, stamp or whatever into it, like it's it all just winds up.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:09

Uh it and it's it's sort of, I'm not gonna say it's meaningless. I mean, it's it does feel like a lot of the times though, that we as to like, you know, where we are at in the industry, like we get punished for the sins of um like smaller, shittier companies that, you know, don't try to cover their ass. And it does seem to be DJs a lot that they're kind of coming down on.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Uh, they do like to come down on us. Sometimes I'll go back and forth and back and forth, or like a particular venue will be like, you know, like want to have the event date on the COI. And it's like, where? Yeah. In the additional insured, please, you know, put on the side like that. This is for, you know, 822, 2005. And it's like, do you really want to get like eight copies of our COI for the eight times that we're performing, you know, at your venue this year? All this is is a notification to these people in the event. Anyway.

SPEAKER_03 17:03

And it and I think it sounds good to ask for it. Sure. And I I think it, I mean, I it all, you know, even I mean, we've also had a scourge, uh, as I'm saying to the listeners more so than Melissa, because she knows it. Um, but a scourge of like venues that want us to sign contracts with them over the event. And so it's like we have our contract with the client, and then they want to have this other contract that's with us that says, like, you know, it's policy driven. It's like don't, you won't be there more than five hours or AI driven, right? Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Yeah. It's like everyone thinks they're an attorney now. Oh.

SPEAKER_03 17:40

And that all but but what's galling, what's crazy is like I, you know, like I've signed some of them over the years, but I don't really I don't like signing things that have anything to do with outside of our thing, because it's like we're coming, you're you're coming to us. You're bringing us in. Like we didn't ask for this. Um, well, we guess we did technically ask for it.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

Um we want to DJ your wedding, but you're still bringing us to wherever you're having that.

SPEAKER_03 18:07

Yeah. And if that and those venues will, and it's and I really feel like it's always DJ based. It's like, because I think there's a lot of DJs that when you hire just some anybody can call themselves a DJ. Let's just start there. Anybody can call themselves a DJ. And I think that when people are getting married, uh, they always have a friend. Everyone has a friend that could DJ it. And uh, and it's so it's like, you know, you could have some joker with, you know, you know, uh consumer grade, you know, bows, speakers, and you know, you know, trying to just pull it together, and then they don't know how to, they don't understand volume, they don't understand who's who's important here, they don't understand what order things are supposed to happen in. And so things get broken, things get off, you know, like there's or they don't know how to load in, like, yeah, you know, there's like everything.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Like what even even if you're uh, you know, a single op that can't even qualify truly as a single app because you don't have enough actual DJing performance under your uh under your feet to be able to even use that terminology. But there's not a whole lot that we can break and mess up. Um there really isn't. So, you know, and and the service that we're providing relative to the overall cost of the event is fractional at best. And so it's it's just such an overreach to look to us to be able to say, okay, you're bringing us on site with all this alcohol and all this food.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

What if you, you know, somebody weather we have no control over?

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Nothing, you know, and so like but what uh a speaker could tip over it, you know, like uh we could, you know, uh even like a faulty outlet that we plug into is still not us. That's you know, like there's just like there's just not that much. Uh and the other sort of thing that this ties into that I I find, you know, so interesting is like this um uh tr uh attrician's the right word, but just like this wearing away of um the acceptance of the cost of doing business and the impulse to kind of put those things on to other businesses. So like from a venue standpoint, like you're gonna have to refinish your floors if you allow people to dance upon them. Like that's yeah, that's just part of it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

Or if you're bringing in a different, you know, you're bringing a different cater, a different florist, a different everybody has like a different, you know, cart, you know, how the tape that they put down, like, you know, there's any number of things.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Yeah. And and so like these, you know, expansive like lists of things that you can and can't do at certain venues in effort to like, you know, preserve just normal wear and tear, and then, you know, the hoops that you make everybody jump through to prevent you from having to make normal improvements and maintenance, you know, associated expenses that come from running a venue or come from whatever, you know, these just there just seems to be so much of this going on. And I'm like, does the DJ have to pay for it?

SPEAKER_03 21:16

I have a th well, and you know, we've also had situations where we've taken the contracts and like we had a, we we had one recently and we actually had our lawyer take a look at it because we were like, this seems like a terrible agreement. Like, I don't know, like she looked at it and she like saw it, like she looked at for one second. Like I emailed it to her, and within 10 seconds, she was like, Why does it say this? Why does this that's weird? That doesn't, those things counsel each other around. She just like looked at it and said it out loud. And I'm like, ha ha, for free legal advice. And uh and we went back to the client. We're like, we're not signing this. Like it, you're you're making us come like it was the way it was written, it was going to make toast and jam completely liable for and it was on a boat. And so it was like anything can happen on a boat, and if anything bad happens, it Was going to make it so that we were completely responsible for it, and every other vendor that also signed that thing. This is a fun thing. Yeah, there's like six vendors associated with this event, and all six of them are signing the same thing that's all making it so that everyone's indemnifying everybody. And so, like if someone gets drunk and falls off the boat and they sue everybody involved at the wedding, that's I mean, just the circle jerk of of and of liability is yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

The circle jerk of buck passing uh is gonna be um a t-shirt.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

And it does feel like it's like the that they are making they're ha using chat GPT or whatever to make these contracts. And then when we point out, like I had a human look at this and they saw it was wrong and they were like, Nope. Like it was like this this ego, like they couldn't handle that, you know, that something was that that, you know, they're like, this I this has been signed for 14 years. And I'm like, okay, well, yeah, I that's cool. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

And it, you know, it's uh I to me it's more of just this like fundamental understanding of like just accepting your your part in it. You're deciding to have a venue on a boat, right? Like, why would it be anyone else's up like anyone else's responsibility to make sure that your boat venue is protected from every possible thing that might occur on it?

SPEAKER_02 23:23

And that's not possible. It just isn't it's just not possible to cover everything.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Just not not logical. We didn't decide for you to have a venue on a boat and then make that available to people that want to hire us to DJ. We didn't we didn't make you do that. Like we just want to DJ for this person that wants us to DJ for them.

SPEAKER_03 23:43

Well, and they're not telling the client this either. They're not saying, oh, by the way, we're gonna make our clients our all your vendors sign this awful agreement. And so if you don't let them sign it, then they can't come on this boat. And so it kind of like so it puts every and they don't tell you about it until like a month before the event. And it it's like, you know, I also think that part of this has to do a little bit, like not, but like some of the venues that we've gotten to, they've but they've they're places that have been bought by private equity. And the when they get bought by private equity, you know, they've got corporate coming in and they they want to also limit their liability because they've got a they've got a hundred other companies that they put money into, and the other 98 are gonna fail. Uh so when they fail, we got to find out how to, you know, protect ourselves from liability. Right. And so they, you know, come down with these law. They don't, they're not looking at the business, they're not looking at what it actually does. They're just like, let like we got into we got into it over a a venue that wanted us to have like$350,000 worth of some kind of coverage. And we had like$275,000 worth of coverage. So it was like a difference of$50,000 or something. Like it was roughly negligible. And it's like the amount of damage we could do at$250,000 is the same damage we would do at$350,000. Like I don't, like, I can't imagine what we would do to cause.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

It's catastrophic no matter what, but also the potential for a day DJ to do catastrophic damage to anything is next. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

So the difference between$350,000 and$550, whatever it winds up, it's like it doesn't matter. It was like, we I mean, make it$110 million. Like it's I any way you slice it, it's not gonna be real. But that's but that's the other thing is with the insurance, it's like, you know, when we, you know, when we have to like adjust our insurance to go from$350,000 to$500,000 of meaningless insurance, that's just more money the insurance company gets for insurance that we're probably most likely never gonna use. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Yeah. I mean, that is the problem with insurance, right? Is it's only it's only worth it when you need it.

SPEAKER_03 25:49

Um and then after you need it, they drop you.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

And then after you need it, they drop you. Um, but yeah, it's it's we're we're propping up all of these, you know, in institutions of this industry by, I don't know, AI legitimizing it, right? Like, so the sort of takeaway is that like it's a burden for us. It's an expense that drives up our cost of operations, which in turn drives up the cost of our services. All and then all of that difference just goes into insurance, into sort of a false sense of security around if something catastrophic happens, right? And it just feels like if everybody would just take responsibility for their actual liability in a situation, then we could keep our costs down and, you know, perform for whoever we want and pay our DJs what you know we need to pay our DJs and have, you know, amazing, more amazing events.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

Yeah. I mean, it's I would the amount of time that we have to spend doing non-client, non-DJ related stuff is like my I feel like my whole job is just regulation. All I am doing is dealing with regulation, and it is really unfun.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

And it's really truly super unfun. I mean, sometimes it's a good thought exercise. Um, but at the end of the day, I would much rather be focused on, you know, how to make toast and jam just better and cooler and more accessible to more people than figuring out how do I make sure that this venue feels okay about, you know, well, and our DJ.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

It also feels like, I mean, and I can say this with almost all regulation, it all just seems like we're just like paying the price for somebody else's bad behavior that they couldn't, they couldn't make held responsible for their own bullshit. But then they have to make these like bigger rules around it. Like I think it is, I think I like I get that like we have like when we made everybody employees, we had to just start doing mandatory sexual harassment training once a year. And they're crazy about it. Like you have to do it. And again, I I mean, I am not against sexual harassment training, but I am against it when I'm having to do it because the the reason you're not having sexual harassment training because of stuff that women are doing. You're having it because men are doing things. And so yeah, most of the time, I would, I mean, I bet I could say with with alacrity that 90% of the time, oh, you know, I'll give them 85. I'll give them 85. Yeah. 85% of the time that sexual harassment is being perpetrated by a man. And so it's like we're all paying the price because men can't fucking get trained to keep their dicks in their pants and they can't keep themselves from saying shitty things to to women. I mean, it's like shocking to me that we just, it's like this is the price we pay for women being in the workforce, is that men will have to start not being pieces of shit. And we have to then now everybody has to sit through two hours of this bullshitty year that we have to pay for.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Well, that's the other part of it is the propping up of these sort of, you know, tertiary industries that like exist just to be paid per person to communicate information that should be free, right? Like there and of course, Illinois has like programs that you can apply for uh to have a reduced cost way of distributing this information. Um, and yeah, you want to stay compliant. I mean, it's just the bureaucratic, whatever, the circle jerk of book passing, you know, literally and figuratively. It's just uh, you know, it's it's wild to have to every year there's some new thing that I'm looking into trying to unpack with you that's like the paid time off leave thing in Chicago is labyrinthine.

SPEAKER_03 29:47

And like I, it's like I can't figure out how to make it even work for us. I mean, and it's, you know, I don't know. I don't know where like the we're where we're necessarily going with this.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Um, but I think AI has added a an irritating complexity to navigating these issues because it gives people a false sense of security that they're experts on things that they are not experts at, but then also gives them a sort of resource that's propping up these other industries that makes everything more expensive. I mean, and to me, that is the the essential problem, you know, here.

SPEAKER_03 30:23

Yeah. And I it's like, and I feel like, you know, when I think about like, you know, project 2025 and like my version of what I would do if I was gonna do like a project 2028. Like, I mean, I mean, I do feel like AI is Pandora's box, the ultimate, ultimate Pandora's box. Ultimate, ultimate. Um, oh my God, I lost my train of thought. This keeps happening. I think I'm getting early Alzheimer's.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Um, we have a lot of thoughts and and no script or outline.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

Can you, I mean, listeners at home, can you believe we're just pulling this out of our asses? Can you believe this is coming without research at all?

SPEAKER_00 31:01

We would be doing this if microphones were present or they were not. Um it's true.

SPEAKER_03 31:06

This is Melissa and Iana. We get nothing when we're done when we're together, so we're just bitching about everything. But oh, that's what I said. My my version of 2028. Like, I want to make it so that like whoever loses a lawsuit has to pay the legal fees of the other side. I want that as a law. I want it real bad. I want that because people, no one would sue if there was a possibility that they could have to pay the legal fees of the other side. I mean, I and I and it sucks. And I don't know. I just feel like that would be kind of a good solution to a lot of our problems.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Really, it's kind of like the way I always say I don't get into an argument unless I know I'm gonna win because uh it's like I'm I'm not even gonna spend the mental, you know, sort of energy on it. In fact, uh my new screensaver, Mary, I haven't shown you it. Uh oh, wait, it went away. How sad. How does how does one's background on their computer like revert to something else? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 32:05

But it it's kind of like, I mean, it is it sort of like when you um like attack Iran in a war of choice and then they close the Strait of Hormuz and you're like, I didn't see this coming when everybody in the world saw this coming. And uh and is that is that you don't you don't you don't get into kind of situations like that?

SPEAKER_00 32:23

No, but it was it's more said something to the effect of I know I've been in separate bull, but I'm also correct. So what the hell do you want me to do? Like, where whatever, you know, it's just like uh I'm right.

SPEAKER_03 32:39

I get into I get into fights I I can't win all the time. Yeah. I mean, it's you know, I mean, I'm I'm I'm like that dog that just kind of gets in there and I'm like, give it to me. I'm gonna fight.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Yes, I am insufferable, but I am also correct. So I literally don't know what you want me to do. Just I just don't. That's like my it's my new like, if I have to like calm myself down because I'm giving myself a hard time about having to say something to somebody that I have to say to them. Is it me? Uh it's not you. Um uh but I have to say a lot of things and I have to what were we watching? Oh, of course, what were we watching? Drag Race? Below Deck. Those are the only two shows I watch though, so um, and traders. But anyway, we're watching Below Deck and Daisy from the season, a lovely uh headstew, was like, I changed my management style to fit, you know, the person, you know, that I'm like whatever. And I was like, golly, I really wish I was better at that, you know, because I just want to be like, don't we all agree that we're just trying to make this place awesome?

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

And I tell you this thing that is required in order to make this place awesome. Uh so I'm gonna tell it to you. And I just want you to realize that the only reason I'm telling you is because I'm trying to make this place awesome.

SPEAKER_03 33:55

Well, and that's I mean, and you know, that's also just sort of the the long and short of what's happened, you know, post-COVID, the lack of everyone's suspicious. I mean, the insidification, you know, it's like there, it just feels like, and I think it, I think it, I mean, I know I, of course, I want to put myself out there as the, you know, the victim of these things. So I don't want to be in the same blob as um, you know, a Jeff Bezos or whatever that is um, you know, they really are awful. Like I and I feel like, you know, I feel like businesses where the boss is so far removed from the workers, it's really easy for a bot like for a like a you know the CEO of Starbucks to say, let's close all of the unionized stores. Because he's never gonna see those people. He's never gonna look those people in the eye. And it's like really easy to do that when you've never, when you don't have to see your employees. And that's why I feel like when like there should be like small business and then like big business should not even there shouldn't even there should the the regulation should be completely different. Like I I don't, I mean, I know that there's some really shitty small businesses out there, but like if you've got less than 50 people, like you know all your employees, you know, like you, you know, you have looked them all in the eye. Like it's hard to make decisions that are going to affect their lives when you're not, when you have nothing to do with them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

Um, there's yeah, there's so much that's difficult about all of this. Um, but the AI stuff just feels like so many self-inflicted wounds, so many, you know, death by a thousand cuts of like trying to build something that's really meaningful and intentional, and especially in an industry like we are in, where we're supposed to be celebrating love and union and family um and inclusion and you know, all of these different things to spend, you know, 80% of your day just trying to figure out how to communicate to somebody in a nice way why it's important to do X thing or why it's um, you know, not my pro my responsibility or our responsibility to make sure you can refinish your floors annually. Like I just want everybody to kind of own their own shit. Come on.

SPEAKER_02 36:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

No one's owning our shit.

SPEAKER_03 36:14

No one owns my shit. I would kill for some, I would kill to offload my shit to someone. Um, but you know, then I but then I wouldn't feel like it was really mine.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

I I want I want my shit to you would for sure, like even if it were reasonable for you to offload your shit, would still feel like it wasn't your shit because you just hold yourself to a a very different standard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:39

It's a standard that sucks though, in many ways.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

It's a standard that sucks.

SPEAKER_03 36:43

Um, I wish well, I think about like how like like my son, I love him. I love him so much, but he can't like he does he's kind of a bare minimum guy. Like, you know, like he, you know, he if the teacher says write two to four sentences, he will write two sentences. And it's like, I don't feel like I think three words each. Yeah. There's a there is a noun, a verb, and a direct object. Uh, or sometimes a participle phrase. Uh maybe I don't actually remember what a participle phrase is. I used to, I used to know what I used to love? I used to love diagramming sentences. That's really cute. I was I'm I was so good at it. Ugh, I love diagramming sentences. Um uh anyway, I don't know. You love him. Oh yeah, but he just it's like, and I I just it's weird because I don't think I could I I've never been able to do that. No, mostly because I'm not allowed to. If I do the bare minimum, then then it's like I I get failed. Whereas like Sebastian's like, you're cute, you're you're a white guy, you're gonna get an A.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Well, I do think that that, you know, we're not to like come veer off track completely, but man, this is our podcast, so we do whatever the hell we want, but motherfucker. Um you know, kind of thinking about what you just said in terms of bare minimum and also like is is managing expectations. And I think that's has always been such a hard thing for me to do, and probably for a lot of people to do, because it's like, especially when when you first start at something, right? You wanna like you want to demonstrate your buy-in, you want to demonstrate how good you are at it, you want to really like show how awesome you are at something to somebody. If it's an employer, it's like I'm showing up, you know, on time and like doing all the things. Um and then like if you're a person who is an overachiever, then you know, right out of the gate, you're kind of like, I'm awesome at everything, you know, and you establish yourself at uh it's like the the straight A student that it just gets like the pat on the back, and then the like D student who gets$20 for every C they get. It's like if you establish yourself as a straight A student, it is really hard to drop back down to being a C student. Um and uh I guess I don't know, in terms of setting expectations, uh especially for like clients and stuff, like I'm very like protective is the right word, or maybe just aware of the fact that like I have perfectionist tendencies. And if I say that I'm going to do something or demonstrated even through reputation, that this is something that you should expect. And then we don't, you know, if we miss the mark, it literally feels personal to me.

SPEAKER_03 39:29

No, I I I mean, I don't know if my perfection is as high as yours, but I but I definitely have a hard time not taking anybody, you know, not taking things personally when Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

And I don't know, it's just really challenging to so I guess my my thing that I'm trying to like understand more in our business since I'm not from this industry, is really like having a more measured, realistic approach to what like like how close to perfect you can get, you know, how how perfect a live event allows you to truly be. Um, because it does assume, even like we were saying, going back to contracting, like we we tr we really don't have that much control, you know, or influence on on things. And so to sort of even use language like, you know, your perfect day or like any like anything that has to do with like this ultra-high level of confidence and assurance around something like perfection or, you know, flawless or like all these languages, you know, this language that we use is so pervasive throughout the wedding industry, I think. Um when I almost feel like we should start saying something like, we're gonna give it our fucking best. Yeah. Like we're gonna leave our blood, sweat, and tears out there. But at the end of the day, you know, if you have lame family members and you have a venue that is gonna sound like hot garbage no matter how much high-end equipment we bring into it, like them's just facts. Like, and I'm really like, you know, going through a whole thing around the the lack of control aspect in this and then how we communicate the that whole idea to couples and still have them understand we're gonna bust our asses, but that if it sucks, it's not our fault.

SPEAKER_03 41:28

Yeah. I mean, I I I you know, I I go into every event assuming that we're all going in trying to do our best. Like, you know, it's I I can't imagine a DJ going into one of these, no matter how mad they were at me or whatever, to just sink a wedding. Like, you know, I I think I mean it, if nothing else, the ability to get our equipment out of there is, you know, hard.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

How much can preparation, you know, really even offset something that happens on site that is outside of your control and that might become something that you are pointed to as being the reason it didn't, it wasn't perfect. I'm sorry, I didn't understand what you just said. Let's use Brouwer as an example since that one is most, you know, recently in my head as just being a or or the exchange, these massive spaces that are gorgeous for all the reasons you want to get married there, but from a sound quality perspective are totally tough.

SPEAKER_03 42:23

They're just tough.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

They're right, right. And so like trying to communicate that if it doesn't sound good, your impulse might be to think that's the DJ's fault. But in reality, it's just physics and sound waves, yeah, and volume and air, all of these things that you know conspire to make things sound good or make things sound bad. And so, you know, uh it could sound bad and then people aren't dancing, even if we're doing, you know, a great job programming and reading the room. But because it didn't, you know, sound great, you you pers you you think that this was the DJ's fault.

SPEAKER_03 43:09

We get we getting blamed for something that we have no control over.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

Yes, but also setting the expectations properly so that you know we can insulate ourselves from that blame, I guess, properly. So, or at least manage expectations, I think is the the real thing that I am learning is the difference between um like uh uh perfection and like communicating around um what's really achievable, what what we can really um be control, be responsible for. Like the thing we c absolutely can't control is our effort, our intention, our planning, our organization, our equipment, like to an extent, you know, but like there's so many other variables that impact the service that we're there to provide that we can't, you know.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

It's the mobile of it all.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

It's the mobile of it all. Yeah. So just kind of, I don't know, me sort of realizing that like I'm trying to control some control the uncontrollable.

SPEAKER_03 44:10

Um but also But the only way you can control the uncontrollable is by like having the best gear possible. By having, you know, understanding the event from top to bottom and knowing when everything is supposed to happen. So even if it happens and it doesn't go perfectly, like I was, I was there, I was present, I did it. Like you know, and you know, it's always doing your best and really feeling like you're doing your best.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Cause that's, I mean, and I think that we've talked about this in the office a number of times before, too, is that if you show up for all of those things up until you know, the day of you're there, you're present, you're on time for your events, you're engaged, you're listening, you're documenting, you're, you know, doing all of those things and you are laying the groundwork for a successful event that hopefully weathers any kind of weirdness, right? Even a a wonky sounding room. Um but if you you miss one of those milestones, or you don't show up, or you're not engaged, or you're taking a meeting from your car, or any of these things, then you're setting yourself up for failure if anything goes wrong, right? That's the thing that's gonna someone's gonna go back to. I don't know. Melissa's on her journey of, you know, not not being from the event world and really understanding what uh what it means to be live in a room with a bunch of intoxicated people.

SPEAKER_03 45:37

Um and some people are really good at handling that kind of pressure, like myself. And like other people just can't, you know, it's like I like I thrive in high stress environments. It is I love it, I love just the deadline being right here.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

Like no. Me way less not that. No. No, you are not that person at all. But it's cool, and I I uh just to make it personal for a second, like it's sort of interesting to kind of uh have an analogous experience to like, you know, real life, like accepting uh that you don't have, you know, control over everything, even if you try, try, try, try, try so hard, right? That's the number one reason I don't think I could ever be a DJ, is because there would be too many variables for me to be comfortable going into it, thinking I can make all of this stuff happen, and then I would just come out the other side. Dead.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:30

Um, probably just from an actual heart attack because I couldn't control something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:35

But not because of effort. Or not in control.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

No, no, and it's wild. I mean, you have to you have to be both confident in command and then able to kind of take anything that that comes your way. That's not my it's not my natural flow state. Um well, I I think you're doing a great job. Um I I should stay in the office is you know where things are more controllable. And I can ask chat GBT for help. Just kidding. People should use uh AI judiciously. Which judicious does that mean a lot? Judiciously? I thought it meant like with a measured approach.

SPEAKER_03 47:13

Um it's funny because I think about like ju like spread butter judiciously on the piece of bread. I guess it would be don't put too much butter on.

SPEAKER_00 47:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:21

I always took it as like put a ton on.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

People should use uh AI judiciously. Which judicious does that mean a lot? Judiciously? I thought it meant like with a measured approach.

SPEAKER_03 47:34

Um it's funny because I think about like ju like spread butter judiciously on the piece of bread. I guess it would be don't put too much butter on. Yeah. I always took it as like put a ton on. Remember when I said I like to uh I like to uh diagram sentences and I do.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

Anyway, judiciously.

SPEAKER_03 47:54

So try to use AI as little as possible. Um, but also, you know, don't use it to put legal documents into and then use that, then use the arguments that chat GPT gave you for your ability to argue something because you know what it sounds like? Chat GPT.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

Whenever you whenever you leave those lottery overnight, you guys. We know we know that didn't happen. But and and then also just like consider like if you're enjoying something, because you're an entrepreneur, you put a lot of effort and you're, you know, you're enjoying having a career that is of your own design and you're making people happy, that you shouldn't look to other people that are coming to make their dreams come true and your venue responsible uh for your dream to continue, you know? Like just accept that we all have costs associated with doing business and we should not use Chat GPT to figure out ways to make other people responsible for these things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:56

You hear that government? Anyway, um well, thanks Melissa for complaining about the things of our job that annoy us.

SPEAKER_00 49:03

Yes. I mean, you know, there are things that like Google, you know, I think you gotta use it as as a tool and not as a replacement for thinking. Um it has it has its place. Um, don't give it your social security number. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:17

I just think about like just two computers battling each other. I feel like that's just all AI is. Well, thanks everybody. Thanks so much. We'll talk to you next time. Next time. Thanks for listening to All of the My Lady Business with me, Mary Easty. Uh, we'd love for you to like, review, subscribe, follow us at All of the My Lady Business on the Gram. And if you're a female identifying person and you want to dance, you can follow. I mean, everybody can follow it. But if you want to be a part of the magic at Hot Swatch dance party, sign up for the meetings to find out where our next party's gonna be. And if you are looking for a T chicken, hot one in the area, or anywhere else. You know, money's the same color everywhere. Fly us out. Twistedcamt.com has the best. And listen to my radio show. I have a radio show on Chirp Radio at chirpradio.org. That's Mondays. Every Monday, we call them TwitchM T S T. Today's episode is produced by Shiraz Data Team Song, composed and performed by You guessed it, Shiraz Data. All right, guys, peace out.