Pre-recorded from Joe's mom's basement, welcome to another Greatest Hits Rewind episode
of the Stacking Benjamin Show.
Hey everyone, I'm Griffin the Intern, but you know what?
We've become such good friends this week, you should just call me the Fintern.
For our last Rewind show before the guys come back on Monday, let's go back to 2020 for
an interesting roundtable discussion with our team of frequent contributors on how to navigate
awkward money moments.
Plus, halfway through the episode, there's a great discussion with our wonderful HR friend
the Evil HR Lady on how to communicate via text when interviewing for a job, so I hope
you enjoy that segment as well.
As I mentioned, this episode originally aired in 2020, so ignore any mention of current
events.
Joe and OG will be back on Monday with special guest Oscar Munoz.
Oscar was the CEO of United Airlines, and we'll discuss how a health emergency didn't
stop him from turning around United.
It's a takeaways for your career coming on Monday, I hope you listen, and as for me,
I'll see you again in 8 weeks.
Enjoy, Fintern out.
Phil, Phil Connors, Phil Connors, I thought that was you.
And from Joe's Moms Basement, it's the stacking Benjamin show.
I'm Joe's Moms Neighbor Duggan, welcome to National Have Fun at Workday.
Woo hoo!
Yeah, baby!
Oh man, we are going to have some fun today because we are going to talk about all of
those awkward conversations about money.
How the heck do you get through them and not lose friends or teeth or both?
I hate when that happens.
Here today to help us add fun to those conversations we welcome from the Afford Anything Podcast,
Paula Pant, and from this podcast, OG, and from LenPenzo.com, it's Bozo the Cloud.
I love that guy.
Wait a minute, Bozo's still working?
How old is that guy?
Like 137?
Nah.
We didn't get him.
We just got LenPenzo.
Plus recruiting via text.
Wait, that's a thing?
Yeah, it sure is LOL.
So if you need to brush up on how to text professionally, we got you covered.
Today, midway through the show, we'll talk to the evil HR lady Suzanne Lucas and throw
out a magnified money trivia question.
And now, the guy that thinks fun at work means playing board games, boring it's Joe.
So, I'll see you.
Imagine if we could do podcasting the board game.
How great would that be?
Hey everybody, welcome to Friday.
I'd like to be the first to welcome you to Friday.
I am Joe Salcy.
I average Joe money on Twitter and we got the band back together today because coming
to us from the desert, incredibly prepared, ready to roll.
It's our good friend, Paula Pant.
I have never been more prepared for anything in my life.
I've spent weeks cramming for this podcast recording.
It is incredible.
I don't want to call you a liar, Paula, but I'm going to pull back the curtain for people.
So Paula's being very facetious because I think Paula, we told you that we'd like you
on this episode about what, three and a half minutes ago?
Maybe three and three quarters minutes ago.
Luckily, luckily, I think your acumen, your ability to come up with it on the fly and this
piece are going to go hand in hand.
Well, why thank you.
I pride myself on being able to think quickly.
And a guy who wishes he could think quickly, but he's way too old for that.
Underneath.
Underneath.
Los Angeles.
I'm actually crying at that remark because it's so true.
Oh, I'm right behind you on that escalator, big guy.
It's Led Penzo.
How are you, man?
I'm doing great.
Hey, let me ask you a question about board games.
Is Yatsi a board game?
Yatsi is a yelling scream at each other while you mark stuff on paper game.
Isn't it?
Hey, I've just got to brag though.
I got 612 points on Yatsi.
Holy cow.
That is a ton of points.
Nice job.
Beat that stack in Benjamin's world.
Right to us actually show us the proof.
What's up, buddy?
You were just out flying early this morning.
Boy, are my arms tired.
He's here all week.
My mom's in town, so I was able to jump in the old arrow plane and go do a couple of,
yeah, big long trip.
We went to Waco and then we went to college station and then we came back up to Dallas.
That's fun.
It's fun.
It's part of your flight lessons.
Kind of, yeah, a little bit.
Yeah.
Good time.
You know what you don't need a lesson on, but a lot of people do OG?
No, what are you going to do?
We're all juggling life, a career and trying to build a little bit of wealth.
The Brown Ambition podcast with host Mandy and Tiffany, the budget needs to can help.
How can I protect myself from identity theft?
I think the first thing is to be aware of what phishing attempts look like.
So check that email address.
But now it's like coming to your text.
You get phishing texts now?
Girl, yes.
Talk about this to IRS.
I'm like, girl, so you texting now?
With your lack of funding.
Brown Ambition.
Wherever you listen.
Stackers, this is so funny.
If you're somebody who likes intelligent conversations like stacking vegiments, but you have kids
and you want to get them interested in the world around them, who's who's smarted?
Which is by the way, the best name for a podcast for kids.
And this is great.
Who smart is the world's funniest educational podcast for families from history to science
to pop culture?
They make learning fun for the whole family.
It's beloved by homeschool families and classroom teachers for its ability to spark conversations
and natural curiosity.
It's a perfect length for car rides, your fun educational breaks during the day.
They have more than 300 original episodes.
Everyone under 20 minutes, impact with great stories and real facts from.
Get with their amazing voice.
They're trusty narrator.
You've got to listen to this guy.
And what it is such a great show.
I've been addicted myself.
And here's the deal.
My kids are 28 now.
So I can't make the excuse that I'm listening for other people.
I'm listening for me.
So listen to the most recent episode, just the titles.
What's the biggest fish in the ocean?
Are chickens, third cousins to T-Rex?
And by the way, of course, the answer is going to be different than you might think
it is.
How do invasive species invade?
Is a Pacific garbage patch a floating island a trash?
How do countries pick their national symbol?
It's all over the place.
And by the way, how did Lewis and Clark become famous American?
Explore some of my favorite board games, Lewis and Clark.
And they cover all of this with intelligence, but very fun and very appropriate for the
whole family.
So if you want to be a smart parent, look cool for your kids.
Make sure your kids have fun learning who's smarted available wherever you're listening
to us now.
Just search for who's smarted.
Where are you listening to us now?
We got a great show today.
We got Paula.
We got Len.
We got OG.
We got the band back together.
Let's get this party started.
Hello, doggings.
And now it's time for your favorite part of the show, our stacking Benjamin's headlines.
All right, guys.
Our headline today comes to us from Go Banking Rates.
And when I read this, I thought there is no better piece for the Stackey Benjamin Show
to talk about than this one, because these are things that have happened to all of us.
And nobody, I'm reading each of these topics that our mutual friend Cameron Huddleston
at Go Banking Rates brought up.
And I thought, what a fantastic list.
So we're going to borrow this from Cameron and talk about a few of these different awkward
situations.
And I'm sure you guys have all been in these.
I'm going to read Cameron's beginning to this piece.
She writes, bring up the topic of money in a pleasant conversation can quickly take a
turn for the worse.
Why, what is it about money that makes it such a touchy subject?
You probably already know the answer.
We feel so much shame around money says Dr. Brad Klont, a financial psychologist and
associate professor at Creighton University.
We feel a shame.
We have too little.
We feel shame that we have too much.
When the topic comes up in conversation, we feel we'll be judged by others, he said.
Let's dive into these.
You guys ready?
Paula, we're going to go ladies first, which by the way, normally is a polite thing, but
I think we're talking about awkward buddy.
I have a feeling these two yahoos are just going to ape whatever you say.
Yes, what Paula said.
Here we go.
Your colleague asks how much you make.
Talking about your salary can be difficult and awkward in any situation, especially this
one.
You're making small talk with a colleague and he asks, so how much do you make?
How do you handle that, Paula?
What's difficult about this question is that it requires me to put myself in the position
of somebody who is a W2 employee.
No, no, no, no.
You find it to don't you find that in the blogger community too when you go to a place
like FinCon as an example where you're surrounded by your peers that let's say it's at FinCon.
Somebody's like, so how much do you make off of a Ford anything?
If it's a peer who is doing similar type of work, like if it were you or Len, I would
just state the number.
Well, nobody listens to the show, so why don't you just tell us right now?
If it were a person, like a member of the general public who does not understand the
work that goes into blogging, like all they see is they equate it with basically writing
along Instagram posts off the fly, like what I had for lunch today sort of thing, then giving
that number might do more harm than good in that it might give them the false impression
that the work I do is overcompensated relative to the workload because of the fact that
they're not in this industry and they don't understand how much work happens behind the
scenes.
Yeah.
So that's the reason I would share it with a peer, a colleague, but not with a person who's
not in the industry.
And they also, by the way, Paula, don't know the moat you had to swim to get there as well.
Right, exactly.
Because.
Yeah, they don't know all the years of hustle, of unpaid hustle that went behind it.
Yeah.
So let's go to the W2 employee.
Then somebody at work says, so how much do you make?
I tell them.
You do tell them.
Yeah.
Not awkward at all.
No.
I tell them.
You know, it's not really a much of a secret.
I mean, it's close.
I mean, at least in my company, people know what your level is.
If they know what your level is in the company, your job classification, the salary tables
are published.
And then there's a range.
There's a narrow range within that range that you have to be in.
So it's not really that big of a secret.
If it was a big range, how do you think you'd handle it?
Okay.
So, well, now you're talking workplace potential.
Yeah, it'd be a little more dicey because you could cause some tension there within,
if it's within your work group, immediate work team, that could cause some problems.
If it's people who you don't work with generally, I don't think it makes a big difference at
all.
There could be some animosity there if it's within your own work team.
Oh, gee, is it any different for you if it's family?
Gosh, it seems worse if it's family, right?
Well, that's what I'm thinking.
For me, like I'm trying to think about awkward.
I think if a family member asks how much I make, it's even worse.
I just say like way more than you.
Just think of a number.
Put another zero on it.
Now double it.
In your face, brother, right?
Yeah, exactly.
I don't know.
It's always been such like a taboo thing.
And I think it's also relative to like who's asking.
Like Len was saying, if it's somebody that's in a similar position or in the similar company
or the step below you or the step ahead of you or whatever it is, like they're in the
ballpark, right?
If you make 80 grand a year and you tell somebody who makes 75,000 that you make 80 grand,
like that's in the ballpark.
But if you make $80,000 a year and you try explaining that to a college kid who makes
10, 50 an hour, to them, there's just more money than exists in all of the world.
So I think it's important to kind of be in the same group if you're going to kind of
start talking about that.
People that are somewhat experiencing the same level of success that you might be in.
Pollage is a change for you if it's family.
Other than my parents, I would not tell my family simply because that could then lead
to the follow up questions of, can I have a loan?
Can I borrow some money?
Yeah.
That could lead to that type of scenario.
I feel that with my family.
I also feel there's a judginess.
I mean, I've got some, the goodness is most of my family doesn't care, but I have a few
members of my family that just want a reason to dislike me because of the, what they see
is a big amount of money I make.
And then there's other members of my family that really would like to put me down because
I don't make nearly as much as they do.
And for them, it's all a status letter, climate, annoying thing.
You know what I mean?
It just, yeah, there's just no upside.
By the way, Dr. Klahn says, if you don't want to answer the question about the size of your
paycheck, he says use humor.
Respond by saying something like, oh my gosh, not enough.
And then nobody's really going to press you to be more specific, like deflect, just deflect.
Next, we have Pollage first on that one.
So Len, you're on the hot seat for this one.
You have to donate to a charity, but you don't want to.
Well, that's happened a bajillion times to me that there's a particular charity that I
just, not because I'm not feeling generous, but because I don't believe in the charity,
for example.
And I'll just say, you know what, I've used my charity budget.
I've already given and I've given all I can at this time and I'm sorry.
That's that's a pretty easy one for me.
There it is.
The white lie.
It is a little bit of a lie.
Sure.
It is a little bit.
Yeah.
But I think that's the easier, I think it's the more gracious way to.
I don't think anybody wants to hear that their charity is, you know, thought of as not being
worthy by somebody else.
Oh, gee, that you too, or do you say, no, I don't believe in the charity and I don't
believe in charities.
Charity begins at home.
No, I think that the best way that I've always used to handle this is what Len said, which
is that's a great idea.
And we've already been over our budget for this year.
I'd love to add it to our list for next year.
Just remind me, you know, when it comes up again or whatever, you know, something down
the line.
I'd love to help in other ways.
You know, it doesn't have to be money, right?
Is there something coming up?
There's an event of some kind that I can donate a gift certificate to or hockey tickets
or something.
But what if you're like Len and you really don't believe in the charity's mission?
It's a charity that you don't really love.
You just said, well, what if there's a different way I could get involved?
Yeah.
Well, so maybe you can get involved in a different way.
I mean, otherwise, if you totally don't want to be involved at all in it, then just say,
gosh, I'd really love to, but we're fully committed right now.
Paul, anything to add or is that your approach?
Yeah, that's almost exactly my approach.
I basically say, hey, at the beginning of every year, I set my charity budget and my
giving plan for the full year.
So for this year, I'm that's already locked in, you know.
What did they say?
But Paula, that's why I just said happy new year to you and it's five seconds after the
day.
No, we'll let that one go.
Oh, gee, you're on the hot seat now.
Okay.
Everybody asks to borrow money from you.
Who's the person?
Do I get to?
Friend?
It says, if it's me, I already know the answer.
Sorry, Joe.
No, fresh out.
Yes.
Friends or family?
Yeah.
So family is a little bit different than friends, to be honest.
My wife and I have gone back and forth on this.
Unlike, you know, what do we want to be involved in?
What don't we want to be involved in?
And what we decided to do was if the request was reasonable to grant it with a couple
of different things in our mind, first, we had to assume that we were never getting
the money back.
Secondly, we have to detach ourselves from the outcome of how that person spent the money
or spent subsequent money.
Because when somebody owes you money and then they're like, dude, this trip to Disney
was out of this world and you're going, really, Disney, that's weird.
How much was it?
That number is really close to like what they owe you, you know, you can get really mad.
So you just go, I'm not getting it back.
I'm unattached from the outcome of what you choose to do with it or in the future with
your money.
But this is it.
You know what I mean?
And we don't put those restrictions on there.
But the funny thing is, is that we noticed that when we just kind of were like, oh, yeah,
cool.
Here's the money.
What are you going to pay me back?
Or just kind of a made for a real awkward like family time?
Instead, everybody knows that they owe the old cheese money and they don't ever ask again.
So you make it as awkward as possible.
It's a little self-serving, but no, we don't bring it up.
But you know, are you going to ask the guy that you owe money to for more money?
Probably not because it's likely to happen.
Yes, right.
You know, you're likely to get reminded of it.
So we have pretty much lent everyone in our family money and only once.
So that's how we did it.
Because nobody's paid it back.
Correct.
Yeah.
I was going to say the Disney story I know is not a, it isn't a fake story.
Well, it's not.
It's like that meme that was like the mori meme that says like, you didn't have enough money
to pay your kid's tuition or something.
Your new Xbox says otherwise.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, when you just like remove yourself from that, it just makes it so much easier.
So that's painful.
Paul, anything to add?
I take a different approach.
I say flat out, absolutely not.
No.
And what I'll tell them is, which is true, in the past when I have loaned money to people,
it has completely gone haywire upside down.
Those people never paid me back.
It created a lot of animosity.
And then I saw them subsequently spending money on trips to Jamaica and getting new kitchen
cabinets, but not paying me back.
You seriously had had that.
So OG had the Disney trip.
You had Jamaica and cabinets?
Yeah, I had Jamaica and cabinets and it permanently ruined the relationship.
So based on those experiences, what I've learned is never give a loan to anybody.
And so I'll flat out tell somebody I based on those experiences, I have a no loan policy.
I will consider a gift, but not a loan.
And we must never use the L word because there should never be any indication that this is
a loan.
And when I say that, then they immediately back down because people feel comfortable asking
for a loan.
People do not feel comfortable asking for a gift, even though they have no intention
of paying you back.
So when I frame it as, look, I'll consider giving you a gift if that's what you're asking
for, but I will not give you a loan.
And they won't do it.
All of a sudden, yeah, all of a sudden their request goes away.
Yeah, that's amazing.
I'd take it.
Offer me that anytime.
And speaking of that, you're not going to bring up the 20 bucks.
I owe you, are you?
No.
Anything to add there?
Have you had that moment?
Have you had the Disney trip or the Jamaica trip happen to you?
Well, I've, it's happened a couple times.
Yes, I learned.
What I do now is if you're going to ask me for a loan or for money, I put you through.
There's a means test.
I have 41 separate items that I go through.
I'm serious.
I'm serious.
It's hard to say.
I've laughed because I know you're serious.
It's my second most popular post ever.
It's gotten over a half million page views.
And it's stopped by my blog.
It's there.
It's called Dear Friend.
You're 41 reasons why I'm not lending you the money.
And if you fail, 41, 41, and if you, if you fail all 41 of those, or actually, if you
fail, even one of those, you ain't getting the money.
So I'm going to lead to that in the show notes, by the way, everybody, so that you've got
lens list.
That's incredible.
I was going to say, I've just known you long enough to know there's probably a 36 page
application, but that's a means test.
That's even better.
It's a means test and it's foolproof.
All right.
Who are we up to?
We're back to Paula.
Paula, you're Palm sweaty.
Absolutely.
I'm so, I'm shaking.
I'm nervous.
I don't know if I'll be able to come up with an answer to the next question on the fly, but
let's try it.
Okay.
How about this one?
This is for the Jamaica trip person or somebody back in the day before you had your current
feelings about loaning money.
Somebody didn't pay you back or somebody forgot to pay you back.
Do you remind them?
Do you say, Hey, where's my cash?
Do you say, How was the trip to Jamaica?
Can I see pictures attached to a $20 bill?
It depends on the relationship that I have with the person.
So of the, I'm thinking right now of five people who have never paid me back for money
that I've, various amounts of money that I've loaned to them.
And let me get my pin cushion.
I'm going to stab you.
My food, you doll.
Put your food.
You do.
I'll see.
I'm going to have a show.
I've got five, yep, five people up there.
Who's losing a knee today?
What did you say, Len?
So I thought Paula was a faster learner than that.
I know, right?
Yeah.
I think after the first three or four, that's how nice Paula is though.
Yeah.
Oh, so of those five, two of them, I did not broach the subject because we, we just didn't
have that type of relationship.
We didn't talk very often, even before the loan.
And I just didn't feel comfortable bringing it up.
Two of them, I brought it up multiple times, typically through email, I'll go send them
an email saying, Hey, do you think you can pay me back yet?
Or, Hey, can we set up a payment plan so that you can pay me back in installments over
time?
So two of them, I did that.
And then one of them, ugh, was the worst when I brought it up.
She got super contentious and the whole thing blew up.
That happened with me too.
Just immediately in my face about all the reasons why I shouldn't have even asked.
Yeah.
It's amazing.
How people will turn it around.
Yeah.
Against you.
Yeah.
Crazy.
What's that OG?
I was going to say the one thing that we have used with this that was actually helpful for
everybody, I had a situation where on the phone with somebody, I heard somebody talking
about how they had X dollars worth of this.
It wasn't a school loan per per se, but something required for their job that they had to buy.
So it's like equipment or something that they had to buy.
And I was listening to the story about like, oh yes, company that they use, it's got
a jillion percent interest and we're paying it back and that sort of thing.
And I said, I said, well, you know, I might be interested in helping you out with that.
Let me work out some numbers.
And what I heard, what I, I knew the answer, right?
Hey, we're getting charged 30% interest on 3000 bucks.
We're making minimum payments.
I said, well, I'll do you one better.
I'll pay you off the $3,000.
Why don't you pay me $130 a month?
We'll do it for X period of time.
We'll work out to be a 10% interest rate.
And by the way, the great news that you'll be paid off with this in, you know, 36 months
or whatever, as opposed to 17 years.
So I kind of turned it wasn't alone.
It was something that I brought to them as have got money just sitting there.
I can go get on Prosper, one of those lending application places where you give people money
for, you know, whatever.
I just did that internally and it's worked out fine.
The way that we handled it.
It did work out.
Yeah.
Because I wouldn't have done this crap in a million years.
Hey, they already are paying the current stuff.
PayPal.
Yes.
I ended up on a subscription payment on PayPal for, you know, for that period of time.
So automatically comes out.
Yep.
Never has missed one.
In fact, it's almost done.
It'll be done in June or something.
And I was talking to the person.
I said, Hey, I think you got to really trust the person to do that though.
Also on attached from outcome, right?
Like, Hey, this is what I'm doing.
It's priced correctly based on the risk magnitude.
You know what I mean?
Like it's a return, but it's got to be a return commensurate with a junk bond, which
it was.
But the byproduct, I think was number one, it helped the person, which I think was really
great.
The other thing I was talking about to them the other day, I said, Hey, you know, you're
almost done with this.
I don't know anybody in your business, but maybe you just keep doing the 130 a month.
And why don't you put that in your investment account or something and said and, and they're
going to do it, which is great.
So that is cool.
You were able to help somebody, but you must have considered that a gift as well.
You know, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
No, there was going in with the same expectation.
Yeah, probably not going to get paid back.
And if it does, great.
You know, but we put some parameters around it so that it was more likely to happen, right?
PayPal will haunt you forever.
If you miss a payment subscription, those remind you every 24 hours.
Len, somebody made it through your 41 point checklist.
They went through the valley of fire.
They got money from you and they didn't pay you back.
Which limb did they lose?
Well, that's not for me to decide.
That's my uncle, Sarah, man, a coochie to decide.
So that just runs in the family, man.
You kid me.
He's a pencil.
You don't loan him money.
Or you don't not loan him money.
Excuse me.
You don't borrow money from him.
What am I talking about?
Yeah.
Hey, you know, OG was talking about giving out your own loan.
Why did that for my neighbor, we had a block wall being put in and on his side, I wanted
to split the cost and he didn't have the money.
And I gave him a no interest loan for $200 a month.
I think it was for two years.
Just being a good neighbor.
Once.
Yeah.
And I figured, you know what?
And if he doesn't pay, I want that wall really bad.
So yeah, I'm going to eat it.
But I just, you know, I hoped and kept my fingers crossed that he would pay me $200 a month.
And he did faithfully.
God bless him.
You know, it's awesome.
So yeah, I was going to say we had the exact same thing in our house with a with a fence.
We had a shared fence and we were doing it anyway.
We mentioned it to the neighbors said, Hey, we're going to put a fence up, you know, or
redo the fence.
There's anyone there.
So we're going to redo the fence.
And she said the neighbor said, Well, just tell me how much our section is, you know, send
me a copy of the invoice and highlight what our section is.
And we'll just pick up half of it.
I said, Great.
So a fence comes in built a month later, nothing two months later, it's Halloween.
And you should see the realization on her face as she had little kids as we opened the
door for Halloween and it just dawns on her.
Damn, I owe him money.
But we did, you know, she just said we would like didn't say when.
And so you kind of totally play it off, right?
Like, Oh my gosh, I totally forgot to.
You're like, Oh, really?
I, you know what?
I didn't even pay attention to that.
I didn't even, are you sure?
Why don't you check?
Go home and check.
Gosh, I swear you might have already.
I'll look in my notes too, but I really, I think you're fine.
You know, and then we got the check and then I was talking to my wife and I'm like, so
how long do we wait to cash it?
You just like immediately go to the bank tomorrow morning or do you just kind of like,
yeah, it wasn't a thing.
Oh, you brought that over fine.
I'll get to that later.
So we gave a four day hold and then we took it into the bank.
Bam.
I want to go through these next ones fairly quickly.
Len, your friends always want to split the check evenly, even though you had less their
gluttons than they also want you to pay more.
You know what?
I never complain and I just, I suck it up.
So I just split it.
That's fine.
Just don't go with them.
It's not worth the hassle.
Yeah, Paul.
It ain't worth it.
You know what I do that's terrible is I pay attention while we're all ordering and I just
order to keep up with everybody else so that we're all equal, which sometimes results in
me drinking to the level of a person who's six feet tall, which just never goes well.
Yeah, what a question with me.
Yeah.
Really two bottles of cake.
We want to rethink that strategy.
So I'm sure I'm sure taking Len's approach of like just deal with it and that money lost
is the tax that you pay for not having a stomach ache the next day would probably be a much
wiser choice.
Much healthier anyway.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
OG.
Yep.
I don't ever say anything.
If it given the opportunity, I'll pay the entire check.
If not, and somebody is although I did learn.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
You said given the opportunity, you'll pay the entire check.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All good for dinner after that.
He totally does.
I do.
Yeah, but I don't argue with it if you say you want to split it.
Like you get one chance.
And I'm not going to go, no, let me pick it up.
We're not going to have that game.
If you're like, hey, let me throw in on that.
I go, great.
That's it.
But I want to ask about this because, you know, I mean, we are all, we're all lucky
enough to have money coming in.
And you know, I mean, I use lucky partly in air quotes, but partly not.
I mean, there is some privilege there, right?
But if I'm back me in college and my financial picture was horrible and I didn't have much
because I didn't bring, you know, because I don't have any money.
I'm working three jobs.
I got no money.
I remember those days about running out of gas and having to walk a mile with change
that I found in the seat of my car.
No, I totally.
In both ways.
Well, no, that's not that bad.
And uncle Joe story, but it is bad.
I mean, I seriously ran out of gas and had to walk a mile with change that I had to
dig forever around the floor of my car.
And luckily I found like 85 cents and then convinced them to let me borrow the, I mean,
I had no money.
If you would have stuck me with half the bill then and I came there specifically knowing
that I couldn't afford that, what do you do then?
That's on you for showing up.
Don't show up.
Yeah.
I mean, you're going to go out on the town.
You got to write the check, man.
I think what I would have done back in the day and tell me if I'm wrong here, I would
have, as I'm ordering, as I'm ordering, I would have just done what seems like I'm being
polite going.
Oh, by the way, those two are together and those two are together and I'm ordering by
myself, whatever, like helping the waiter.
That's what I almost done.
I wouldn't have said who's together.
I've just said, Hey, put me on a separate check.
That's what I told the wait, the waiter waitress.
I'd said that just put mine on a separate check, please.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I feel the same now.
I will generally try to pick up the check, but that's part of feeling gratitude about
people wanting to go out with me.
I mean, hey, how often is that the twice a year that happens?
Oh, do you have to pay people to go?
I have to pay people.
That's how I feel too.
I'm really weird when you're trying to split it between your kids, though.
You're like, Hey, I'm going to need some bread in the jar there, Nick.
He's like, What do you mean, dad?
You're like, you know what I mean?
Right.
Your spree rides over.
Yeah, you're seven years old now, pal.
Time to pay for your part of Applebee's.
I'm pretty proud of myself.
One of my kids texted me today and said, Hey, how much do I get paid if I do this maintenance
on the outside of the house?
Basically.
I'm like, Nice.
I like work.
Yeah.
Hey, before we get everybody's big takeaway on this, a big takeaway herb, I guess a big
rule of thumb.
Paula, you're in awkward money situation.
What's kind of the rule of thumb?
You mean in terms of splitting the bill?
No, just overall, you find yourself in an awkward money situation.
Do you have like a center point that you work from?
I guess if I'm thinking clearly, I suppose that the general fallback would be to state,
Hey, I am not comfortable with X or Hey, I feel X.
Yeah.
I think that I think there's a lot of power in just in using the phrase, I'm not comfortable
with that.
Yeah, Len, you.
I think that the thing I would say is, you know what?
It's okay to be uncomfortable talking money with strangers and maybe you're not quite immediate
family.
But when it comes to your immediate family, your kids don't hide anything.
I think everything should be fair game because that's how they're going to learn.
Yeah, I love that too.
OG.
Yeah, I like that.
I think that all of the awkwardness is between your own ears.
Most people don't care that much and will not remember, you know, you're sitting there
talking about the story of, you know, how are we going to split this bill?
And you're like, I don't want to be that guy.
And you know, nobody's going to remember that 10 seconds of like, yeah, but I just had the
water.
So I'm going to go with the salad and water and I'm throwing in my five bucks.
It's weird.
And you just get it.
You just go, I just had the salad and a water.
So here's my 10.
The thing is, I think what's important about that is be right.
Don't order a $12 salad.
Everybody else, like Paula said, everybody else is ordering $30 entrees.
You've got a $12 salad.
Don't be thrown in 10 bucks.
Be right on your number, at least.
Like if you're going to split it, so to speak, so just get over it.
You guys never going to believe this.
Did you know that companies now recruit using text message?
Len, you're the other old guy here.
Can you believe that recruiters now will chat with you via text?
No, that's amazing.
Isn't that amazing?
And it is totally amazing.
And imagine Paula, just imagine some of the conversations that some people might have via
text with a recruiter that maybe they shouldn't have.
I can see this being a buzzfeed article.
I can definitely see this going haywire.
Well worse yet, the evil HR lady got a hold of it.
Suzanne Lucas, she's a frequent contributor to the show.
But let's talk to her about maybe cleaning up your language a little bit.
If you find yourself talking to a recruiter via text.
And coming back down the stairs.
So happy we get to talk to her again in 2020.
It's our great friend, the evil HR lady herself.
Suzanne Lucas joins us.
How are you?
I'm splendid.
Well, happy new year, by the way.
How do you celebrate the new year in Europe?
I don't know about Europe in general.
You can't speak on behalf of all Europeans.
I can, but I choose not to.
Yeah, right.
Right.
And German, you don't say happy new year.
You say a good slide into the new year.
Oh, I like that.
Yeah.
That's an interesting phrase.
Go to a root, a noise y'all.
So it's an interesting little difference there.
So how did you slide?
How did you slide into the new year?
Well, I was all alone on New Year's Eve and I ate food and I watched television.
And then I went to bed.
Why does that sound like the perfect New Year's to me?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I mean, I thought about going down and watching the fireworks.
There are only two blocks away from where I live.
But that I was like, it's cold.
I'm going to bed.
Hey, I had pass.
I was reading the Evil HR Lady blog like I'm known to do.
And I came across this post and what caught me first was what was the headline that recruiting
by text is a thing.
And I thought about that for a second.
I thought I've never heard of somebody being recruited by text, but I suppose that's the
new frontier.
It could be, I could be on my phone in a recruiter text.
Me?
Is that what you're saying?
No, I mean, not usually like you get just a text from a recruiter out of the blue, although
who knows that may happen one day.
But you get communications when you've applied for a job or whatever and you've given them
their number.
Although in fairness, I was going to say, you know, we're curious to be that bit.
A LinkedIn message is essentially a text as well.
True, yeah.
Yeah.
So you can use text messaging and in its different forms, it's not just a direct text message
from your phone, text messaging system, iMessage or whatever it is back and forth.
But there's all sorts of different programs and such that people can use.
I was thinking about this just as you were speaking the number of times and I don't even
know about it.
I will just Facebook message somebody or direct message somebody on Instagram or, and really
to your point, it's all text messaging and it's the same.
But you say in this piece that we may need to clean up our act a little bit because we
go into Textville and just texting people very quickly.
A lot of us have adapted this slang that might not play so well with a new employer.
Yeah.
Like I say, you need to text like a grownup and by a grownup, I don't mean your 18 year
old friend being like your English teacher mother.
It's still a business communication.
You know, we kind of went a little bit casual with email and every once in a while I get
emails from people written in text speak as well.
And I'm just like, no.
Yeah.
And give me some examples of that.
Like I'm thinking of the letters you are instead of your maybe 15 emojis instead of
none.
Yeah.
Let's not do that.
Let's do none.
No, actually I like emojis.
But something that you need to be much more familiar with someone before you use them.
You know what I'm saying there?
No, absolutely.
Keep it very professional.
Use more precise language instead of the relaxed language.
What you also mentioned then your next point here Suzanne is that people often will go
back and forth very quickly via text.
But this is a professional thing.
So you got to kind of give people a little time.
Yeah.
And I think that's important and especially from the recruiter standpoint, you know, if
I text you and one of the things that I find annoying about a lot of text messages, I
mean, I think it's good, but it's also annoying.
It's a lot of systems you can see if someone's read your text.
Yeah.
So like you read it, why haven't you responded?
We need to make sure that we're not demanding things that we don't have any right to demand.
I don't work for you yet.
And even when I do work for you, you don't expect everyone to respond immediately.
If I text the candidate when that candidate to work, they may have seen it come up on their
phone, but they also don't want to formulate an answer while they're sitting across from
their current boss or they want to take their time and think about something which is fine.
We shouldn't expect immediate responses.
That said, most people will respond much more quickly to a text than they will to an email.
But still I get your point that just because they read it, they might have to loop in other
people.
I mean, there might be there might be some investigation that they're doing.
They're trying to say the right thing.
I've had that before too.
I'm like, just give me a little room to breathe before we go to see.
Next up, you say to give people options.
I'm in the middle of a piece like that myself with negotiation with somebody.
And they did this literally Suzanne 10 minutes ago said, hey, would it be easier to jump
on a call or should we keep this going by email?
I like that a lot.
Yeah, I do too.
That works out better because people have strong preferences.
I mean, personally, I think text messaging is a gift from the gods.
It's like so often there are things that you don't need to call someone about.
You know, you can just quickly get an answer.
And that's amazing.
But not all people feel that way.
And some people prefer speaking to texting and we should all be sensitive to each other's
names.
I think you're going to find some generational differences as well.
The younger folks are Gen Z's, especially have grown up with phones in their hands.
My daughter writes papers on her iPhone instead of typing them on her laptop.
Really?
I mean, she will type them on her laptop, but I have seen her.
I cannot imagine writing a thousand words with my thumbs.
But for her, no big deal.
For someone like me, if we're going to have a conversation or if I need to write an in-depth
answer, I want to do it somewhere I can use a keyboard.
So if we're doing WhatsApp, I have that on my laptop too and I can type out a full paragraph
response.
If we're using just Apple iMessage or whatever, I got to do it on my phone.
That's going to be a pain.
And I'm also thinking that it depends on how long a conversation we want to have.
And don't get me wrong, I would never do like a paper like your daughter does on the phone
because it's more of a long form thing.
And I found that when there's either misconceptions or people reading stuff into a text that I
didn't mean, like that happens a lot more in text than it does via phone because of the
form.
It's easier for people to misconstrue what I'm saying or misconstrue my intent.
And I found that when I've had trouble communicating with people, that's been the case.
I'm using the wrong avenue of communication.
Yeah.
And it's important, I think, to think about all of those things.
And for me being an old study daddy, I wouldn't advocate just hiring someone based on their
text messages a lot.
True.
It can be part of the recruiting process, part of what you're using to reach out to candidates.
You're still going to want to talk with them or you're still going to want to give them
a test to see if they can do the job that you're hiring for.
It's important that it's just part of it, but it's absolutely a viable part.
I love that as a place to end it, that this is an add on and not the end all be all.
What else is going on at the Evil HR Lady Blog?
I'm sure you've got something cooking right now, Suzanne, as we speak.
I do have things cooking.
I have just read about the world's worst Danny job.
And you can head over to EvilHRLady.org and look for the nanny post and it'll make your
teeth fall out and also make you really glad that you're not a nanny.
I'm thinking because it would be, but I'm sure there are some nanny jobs which are fabulous,
but this one is not one of them.
And I break it down as to why it's a bad way to recruit anybody, not just a nanny.
That's crazy.
It sounds like it's going to be a job that makes me think that podcasting is fantastic
and I love what I do now.
Dancing is so much better.
I recall when my daughter was in daycare, there were a set of triplets in her class.
And I said, what job do both parents have that they can afford daycare for triplets?
And then I said, wait, if I had toddler triplets, I would work just to pay the daycare bill.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, even just having twins, Suzanne, look at what happened to my hair with twins.
It's gone.
That's right.
So hair restoration, don't have to imagine adding one more to that.
I can't.
I have no idea how they did.
Of course, people ask us that with twins.
Like, how did you do it?
And you just say, we didn't know any better.
You know, I mean, it was.
You did do it.
Yeah, it was what it was.
Suzanne, happy new year or happy slide into the new year in the new decade.
Yes, and have a good slide into the decade too.
Hey, there trivia fans.
I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug.
And today we're helping you celebrate National Have Fun at Work Day.
You know what I think about when I think about fun at work?
Not being at work, am I right?
But since that wasn't really an option, Joe and OG would consider, let's switch gears
from the roller coaster that is work just to roller coasters.
Ready?
Richard Rodriguez holds the record for the number of hours consecutively on a roller coaster.
If you were cashing in personal hours, how many personal hours would he have had to request
from HR to break the record?
I'll be back with the answer right after I go ask Joe's mom if I can get some time off
to go study for this blood test I got next week.
Well, that might not be a thing, Doug, but we'll let him find out a little bit more about
that.
The score of this, by the way, Lem Penzo leads with two.
Paula Pant has one OG doing the opposite of what he did last year.
Starting off slow, you must learn your lesson OG from last year.
That's right.
I'm going to come in hot.
That means you get to decide do you want to guess how many hours Richard Rodriguez needed
to ask HR for to break the record?
Would you like to guess first in the middle or last?
I'm going to go last today.
Paula, you are second, by the way.
No thanks to you.
Big thanks to Gwen Mers.
Given that I'm second, I will guess second.
She will guess second, which means Len, you get to do the honors, my friend.
Yes, imagine that.
How many hours?
I know I wasn't going to be going for it.
Let me ask you this.
You're saying asking HR.
This person was writing for more than an eight hour day.
I only have to ask HR for eight hours, right?
You see what I'm saying?
That actually is correct.
We did not, Doug and I did not do the question that way.
We thought it was a-
So you want me to ask HR for the time going home and sleeping and eating dinner and all
that too?
They would correct you, but we didn't.
Why Paula did I have the engineer go first?
Why didn't you say first?
What?
Okay, so if I have to ask HR for all 24 hours for permission to use in every 24 hour of
the day, I'm going to say my goodness.
That reminds me, you know, there's a big roller coaster, an old roller coaster here
at Magic Mountain, Six Flags Magic Mountain in Southern California called the Colossus.
One time I was, oh, how many years ago, around Halloween, they run that thing backwards.
Have you ever been on a-
Oh, yeah.
Are backwards?
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
I was never so sick in all my-
Oh, my-
You just got no idea what the hell's coming next in your neck.
Oh, my-
I mean, back then I could handle roller coasters, but not backwards.
And oh, my God, I was deathly ill after getting off that roller coaster backwards.
Hey, Paula.
They have that one in Cincinnati.
Have you been to King's Island in Cincinnati?
I worked at King's Island for summers when I was in high school.
That's so awesome.
What was the one that there was the really old roller coaster where they ran one forward
and were on backward all summer long?
The racer.
The racer.
Yeah, they ran one forward and one backward.
That's a kick-ass coaster.
Oh, my God.
It's great.
Great.
Tons of fun.
And you run it backward?
Did you guys ride it backwards?
Yes.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, my God.
I still have nightmares from that.
Okay.
Anyway, so how many hours could this guy ride a roller coaster?
I would say, shoot, I don't know.
Was he allowed bathroom breaks?
Was he allowed or is this nonstop?
No.
So here's the deal.
Guinness gave him for every hour he rode.
They give him five minutes.
Wow.
Okay.
And he could decide, by the way, what he did with the five minutes, he could take a shower,
he could eat, he could stretch, I could do all the different things, five minutes per hour
that he rode, take it whenever he wanted, he was still was on it.
He went between, by the way, two different roller coasters.
One called the big one, the other one called the big dipper.
All right.
Well, then I'm going to, heck, you could probably do that for quite a long time.
I would say, I'm going to say 18 hours, 18 hours.
Paula, what are you thinking?
Well, so my thought process is if he has five minutes, a five minute break every hour,
that is enough time to be able to go to the bathroom and to eat.
You know, at least just shove something in your mouth very quickly in terms of food,
granola bar, whatever, or have a glass of water.
And so given that he can eat and he can go to the bathroom, that means the limiting factor
would be sleep.
So the question then, in my mind, becomes how long could a human being go reasonably go
without sleep?
And I don't know what the answer to that is, but I would guess maybe 36 hours?
Neil, no, actually longer.
Let's make it 44.
Are you speaking from experience?
Well, no, I can just imagine being awake for 30.
You know what?
I probably have been awake for 36 hours.
Yeah, I'm sure I've done that.
Oh, gee.
I like Paula's line of thinking here that once you eliminate the biological needs of food
and restroom breaks, you can kind of just, I mean, you don't even have to be awake for
rollercoaster, right?
I mean, and you know, on the food side of things, couldn't you just take a granola bar
in your pocket and are you insinuating you can sleep on a rollercoaster?
If you are tired enough, my friend, you can sleep anywhere.
Trust me, it'd be rather disorienting.
I imagine.
I don't think you can.
I think you'd have the weirdest dreams ever.
You'd be like, you know, what kind of rollercoaster is like the teacup where you're spinning around
and you're going to be 35 seconds to close your eyes or is it like, you know, like a
Millennium Falcon type thing?
So Paula was at 44.
What was, what was Len?
18.
Yeah, I think it's going to be over 44.
I feel like the numbers like in the two and a half day range.
So just because I can, I'm going to say 45.
And so I'll take everything north of 45.
And we thought the ghost of Chelsea Brennan was long berry.
Well, but she is the downside now too.
So she can live in what she does have the downside now.
That's right.
Well, we would let you see if she needs it, but we're going to wait on that for just a
second.
All right, Len, you got 18 hours.
You're almost a full day.
It's in the bag.
I won this one.
He's got it.
Paula, you've got, well, midway between 18 hours and 44 hours pretty much.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm feeling good.
I'm feeling better than then 2019 rules.
You do what I love.
That's right.
Paula gets halfway between 18 and 44.
Doesn't she?
She does.
Exactly.
I'm not so confident.
Oh, gee, you got everything north of 45.
And I think the real numbers closer to like 70 something.
I think it's closing in on three days.
Well, see what it is.
Let's see what it is.
Doug, take it from here, man.
What's the answer?
Hey, gang, Joe's mom's neighbor Doug, back with you and hope you're all having more
fun today than I am stuck down here in a basement with these dorks.
Hey, Joe, you know, we could at least have a karaoke machine down here or something.
Yeah, you know what?
That might not be a great idea.
Who wants to hear Len sing?
At least, you know what I bet Paula's got an amazing voice.
She's carried the show so far until this trivia segment.
Speaking of today, we asked this question in honor of National Have Fun at Work Day.
If Richard Rod Riga as the guy who holds the record had to go to HR to ask for hours away
from work to break the world roller coaster record, how many hours would he have had to
ask for?
The answer?
If you said 24 hours, you are way off because Richard might have done better asking for
two weeks of vacation, Richard Rod Riga's from the old US of A broke the record by riding
the big one at the Big Dipper roller coasters and pleasure beach in Blackpool, England for
405 hours and 40 minutes stretching from July 27th to August 13th, 2007.
That means he would have had to have asked for 406 hours of sick time.
And I can't believe he or any human probably even has in the bank.
So yeah.
What?
What about sleep?
I challenge that.
Ask an answer, dear honor.
They go, G at it.
I can't believe 45 is the closest.
He's off by a factor of 10 and he still is the closest.
I can't believe that.
I want to see video of that.
It depends on what kind of roller coaster it is.
I mean, if you're going upside down, a lot of loop de loops, none of that, you're not
going to be able to fall asleep.
But if it's just like a straight roller coaster, how is that any different than falling asleep
in a car or a train?
It's just a jerk's hard to the right or jerks hard to the left.
I mean, you're just what kind of I mean, is it like a kitty coaster?
Is it top thrill dragster at Cedar Point?
I mean, did anything about these?
These are actually not huge roller coasters.
I went and looked at them while Doug was coming up with this.
You know what else is fascinating is that this is, if any of you guys seen that war, the
Pac-Man war, where the two guys are going back and forth to break the world record of
Pac-Man, it was this big documentary a few years ago.
No, you're looking at me.
Nope, I'm unaware.
Nope.
This was a similar thing.
At the same time that they were doing this, it was another guy in Germany who was trying
to break the record as well.
So they were going head to head and the other guy pulled out after a day and a half because
he was dehydrated.
So I had been the other one guy pulls out of the day and a half.
The other guy goes 400 hours.
Wow.
Wow.
Hey, let's take out the magnifying glass and up somebody do better with their money.
Today's hotline call comes to us courtesy of magnifymoney.com.
When you head to stachybejamins.com forward slash magnify money led, you know what happens
then.
Uh, you get your money magnified.
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You find out those financial products you use every day.
You feel bad about them because they're nowhere near best in class.
Over 92% of those products available use every day available online and ranked at magnify
money head to stachybejamins.com forward slash magnify money for more and to take a little
break from what we've done historically, I thought it'd be fun to take something from
our Facebook group because we have such good conversations in our Facebook group.
By the way, if you want to join it's a Facebook.com forward slash I stack Benjamin's Nathan asked
this question.
Hello, everyone with taxis and upon us.
I have a question about tax professionals.
I've seen the same person the past couple of years from a major service and I really like
what she does and is fairly priced.
However, when I was trying to talk to her about what I should claim on my paychecks to
get less of a return, she didn't seem very knowledgeable in that situation.
Didn't really answer my question.
My question is this is a tax prepare not a tax professional.
Should I be researching for local tax professionals to be more knowledgeable on what I should
be claiming and do tax professionals also do taxes for you are most fee based and are
they much more expensive than just going to somebody at a major firm or by having software?
Thanks in advance.
This is a good question because that time of year, Paula, what are you thinking?
So a tax prepare, like if you were to walk into and I'm not going to name names for the
sake of not getting sued, but you know, the big brand names of tax preparation, big box
brick and mortar tax preparation.
Rhymes with smach and smart flock.
Exactly.
Oh, gee, I'll take that bullet.
Can you give me one more hand, OG?
No, that's all you get.
I really don't believe that you will get a lot of value out of taking your taxes there
as compared with using software on your own computer.
But if you have a complicated situation and it doesn't even have to be very complicated,
if you really have anything more than a W2, if you have anything that's other than super
simple, I think there's a lot of value in going to a CPA because a CPA will be able
to give you advice and a CPA will also prepare and file your taxes for you.
But more importantly, or equally as important, they will give you advice and guidance about
your taxes, particularly if, and it took me years to learn this, even though in hindsight,
it should have been obvious, contact them in late November or early December, send them
your year to date, like profit and law statement for a business that you run, send them, send
them all of your financial data for that calendar year up to that point and then say, hey,
are there any moves that I should make in December prior to the end of the calendar year?
That is how you get the most mileage out of your CPA.
I love that idea, Len, the idea of a checkup before the year ends.
Absolutely.
Yeah, that's a great idea because if you think of a lot of things after the year ends, it's
too late for that year.
So, yes, and I'm all four CPAs, by the way.
It's hard to beat a CPA when it comes to tax preparation, a real CPA.
Yeah.
Oh, gee, anything to add there?
Sure, there's other designations that count as well.
The other one that comes to mind is an enrolled agent, so that's somebody who's specifically
authorized to represent you as it relates to your taxes with the IRS.
Specialties matter in terms of, you know, if you're a W-2 employee that, you know, you've
got one interest statement and a brokerage statement, you don't really require a specialty.
If you're a small business owner that has a whole bunch of real estate investments, probably
need a little bit more specialization if possible.
I'll throw a little bone to the tax prepare that you're using presently in that the W-4
for 2020 does not allow you to make changes to it anymore.
So if you remember, years ago, you used to say, hey, I want to do single in three or married
in four or whatever, and that would adjust your withholding.
Now you just check single, married, or married, fine and separate, and then you can add stuff
to that.
You can have more withholding taken out of your check if you want, but you can't necessarily
do less.
Well, I guess if you changed your filing status on your W-4, that might affect it.
But that old, hey, can I do married in two, but I really got three, you know, that sort
of manipulation.
I've seen anyway, somebody might correct me if I'm wrong here, but I've seen that it
just is what it is now.
So yeah, for tax advice, I like the CPA, the enrolled agent can answer a lot of straightforward
questions about filling stuff in, but tax planning, I think is not something the enrolled
agent does a lot of og.
I think this is just as true for financial planners as it is CPAs.
You're going to find some CPAs who are brilliant at having that discussion, like Paula said,
in November.
Here's the stuff you got to do.
You got two months to get it done.
Let's do some actual planning work.
But you can also find a CPA that's like, hey, I just put numbers from one sheet to the
other and sign your return.
You know, you just got to spend some time interviewing them and see what matches up.
But I would start with if there's something going on in your world that requires a specialization,
try to find somebody that's a little bit more specialized.
And like Paula said, if you've got a relatively straightforward situation, you can use an
online program like the free tax USA program.
And for most people, if it's straightforward, using software now is the answer.
I'll tell you here's here.
I was going to say, I'll give you a little hint.
The software that you get off the shelf or you go online to buy is the same software
the CPA uses.
It just doesn't give you the questions.
Hey, let me say this though, about software.
Software is great.
I use it.
I've been using it for a long time.
And my cousin Kevin, who I talk about, he's a CPA, who by the way, they are licensed to
represent you before the IRS as well.
Yeah, CPA is our yep.
But there are tax software is not foolproof.
And I got an audit or I guess it's a I got a letter from the IRS a couple of years ago
now, I had underpaid my taxes by $3,500 because of an air in the software for the state of
California.
The software company came back and paid the interest and penalties.
But I was I boy, that hurt.
You know, you still that was $3,500 extra bucks.
I had to come up with that I wasn't planning for, you know, it just that it is what it
is.
But like I said, I'm not anti software at all.
I've been using it forever.
I was going to say most of the, you know, the top programs all have guarantees that if
they mess it up, which in your case, land happened, that they'll make it whole.
But you're right that still when you get the letter from the IRS, it doesn't make it
anymore fun.
No, no, never send your letters.
They're like, you did a fantastic job, sir.
Hey, really appreciate your heart and accurate work.
Best of luck in 2020.
Letter for friends letter from the IRS high five.
We got some of your money.
You did it right.
Because then it'd be like the chance card.
I'm monopoly.
You're like, ah, crap, I'm going to jail.
You don't know like almost every IRS one letter that you get is they're always bad,
right?
Yeah.
Never a good one.
So the Irish doesn't send some good ones from time to time just to keep you on your toes.
Yeah.
Just, just, well, I guess technically they do in that sometimes they'll send you a letter
saying, Hey, you overpaid.
And so now we are paying you back with interest.
That is true.
Never happened in the history of mankind.
I've had that happen.
And then I get more worried.
Paula, do you get more worried when you got more worried when I got that letter?
I'm like, Oh crap.
They're really paying attention.
The downside to that is that then the IRS will send you a 1099 interest form so that
you can report the interest that you earned from the IRS.
Yes.
So now that's one more form that you have to keep track of.
I was just really taken with the fact that they believed that when I claimed my two pets.
So that was cool.
Sir, Sir, last year you had independence.
You're like one guy.
Yeah.
Sorry.
One.
We put Fido in the dirt last year.
Yes.
My, my child named Fido.
Yeah.
Thanks for that note in the Facebook group to join the Facebook group head to Facebook.com
forward slash I stack Benjamin's got a question for our team of crack professionals here.
Head to, I didn't say crap professionals.
I said crack professionals head to what they're smoking.
Maybe not.
I had to stankamagemons.com forward slash voicemail.
That's going to do it for today.
Paula, you were incredibly prepared.
That was amazing.
So prepared, more prepared than a tax prepare is prepared for taxes.
I hope not.
However, you were way prepared.
What's going on and afford anything?
On the afford anything podcast, we have an interview with Jeff Kreisler.
He is a behavioral scientist who talks about the ways in which we trip ourselves up when
it comes to our spending decisions.
What are our cognitive biases?
How are we our worst enemies and what can we do to save ourselves from ourselves?
We also have an interview with David Stein.
He is the host of the podcast, Money for the Rest of Us.
He talks about 10 questions that you should ask yourself before purchasing any investment.
He's such a great guy.
He's super smart.
Really good interview.
Just a good man too.
Just a guy that I really, really like.
Then besides 41 ways to make sure you never loan money to anybody ever, what else have
you published at leadpeds.com?
You know what?
Just for the fun of it, I ordered some Omaha steaks.
Oh, I would go.
Then after I did it, after the fact, I'm like, what was this really a good deal?
I mean, was it really?
I forget what it was.
I paid 70 bucks for some steaks.
Anyway, so I went back and I ran the numbers based on what if I went somewhere else and
got the steaks instead of Omaha's.
Actually, the answer was quite surprising.
Stop on by, check out and see how stupid or how smart I was getting my Omaha steaks.
I love how land finds a way to get Paula thousands of dollars in sponsor posts from Omaha steaks.
It passes it off as a taste test and he writes it off on his taxes at the same time.
Brilliant.
Oh, gee, what do you got going on this weekend, my friend?
Gosh, I have such a funny story about Omaha steaks.
Maybe we can talk about a little bit later.
Oh boy.
Oh boy.
What are we doing this weekend?
Nothing.
I think this is my favorite answer.
Yeah, we had a busy weekend, a couple of weekends ago.
This happens to be the next four weeks for me.
Super, super, super busy from a work standpoint.
We break everything down in my household into when is the next break?
I tell my kids, hey, you just got to keep your together for like three more weeks.
You got 15 days of school or whatever it is.
They've got a break around President's Day weekend, Valentine's Day weekend.
So we're going to go do something.
So we got to keep our together for like another two weeks and then we'll have some time off.
That's fantastic.
All right, guys, that's going to do it for today.
Thanks everybody for hanging out with us.
Thanks to everybody who's left us a review of this year podcast.
Take it from your dog.
What should we have learned today?
So what should we have learned today?
First, take some advice from our roundtable team.
Don't be ashamed or shamed into awkward money situations.
Use humor, deflect, or just brush it off when someone maybe asks you a question.
You're not comfortable answering.
Secondly, we learn you can use new technology like texting as a tool to either recruit or
be recruited, but you need to write like a grownup if you want to be taken seriously.
LOL, BFD, KWIM, IDKWIM.
But most important, if you want to have some fun, don't have corporate dorks like Joe
and OG plan the fun.
Better blow this popsicle stand and head down for some real fun at the sizzler.
Real fun means shrimp.
You know, from a steak place, they're always the ones that make the best seafood.
Thanks also to Suzanne Lucas, aka the Evil HR Lady for joining the fun again.
You'll find all her great advice at evilharlady.org.
All a pants appears courtesy of a FordAnything.com and the A FordAnything podcast.
Len Penzo, the captain of skepticism, appears courtesy of LenPenzo.com.
This show is created by Joe Salcihai, produced by Karen Rapin, and engineered by the amazing
Steve Stewart.
Online, visit us on Twitter at sBenjaminscast or on our Facebook page.
I'm Joe's Moms neighbor, and if you could only know what it really smells like down
here.
SB Podcast may receive payment on the show from sponsors and guests in the form of books,
giveaway items, discounts, or other remunerations.
That's a big word.
There's no way you take advice from these dorks, but like Joe's mom always says, don't
take advice from people you don't know.
This show is for entertainment purposes only, and before making any financial decisions,
consult with a real financial advisor.
Dissecting politics with exclusive interviews, commentary, and humor.
Useful idiots with Katie Halper and Erin Matte.
I really don't like sharks, and I think we live in a very shark-again, this-stick world.
The whole one thing to keep in mind is sharks are not out there trying to eat surfers and
swimmers.
They'd much rather eat fish, but in many cases they mistake us for their actual prey.
When they do bite, they usually move on.
That's supposed to make us feel better.
Useful idiots.
Wherever you listen.
Thanks for watching.
Bye.
Bye.
Welcome to the after show.
This is the part of the show that doesn't exist.
Oh gee, you got some Omaha Steaks.
I've never gotten Omaha Steaks.
I've heard from people that got Omaha Steaks land before we go to OG.
I've heard from people that have gotten Omaha Steaks, and they get just countless offers
after that that do not stop, and they can't get rid of the Omaha Steaks salespeople.
Well, I'll let you know.
I don't know.
I haven't had that problem yet.
Didn't have that.
Maybe.
No, but hey, I'm just getting started here, so.
Yeah.
When I worked at American Express, I was a manager and then they're vice presidents above us.
I don't remember why, but I earned some Omaha Steaks.
I don't know.
Somebody sent me a package of them, and it came to my apartment when I was living in
Michigan.
But it came the day after I started a week-long vacation out of town.
They send you the steaks in a styrofoam box, or at least they used to, with some dry ice
or some kind of cooling mechanism.
Anyways, there was like, nearly a packaging label on there.
I mean, I think it might have said Omaha Steaks on there, but it was really nondescript.
I get home, you know, whatever, a week or 10 days later from this trip, and I'm like,
whoa, a package.
And I opened it up.
And surprisingly, it was breathtaking how foul those pieces of meat were after sitting
out on my porch for a week or 10 days or whatever.
All of them, it seems like in that case, you'd call them.
I did.
I did.
I called them.
I said, hey, I got this delivery.
Yeah, I wasn't home.
I've been home for him forever.
Like what do you know?
And I bet they took care of it, didn't they?
And then, yeah, I said, no problem.
You'll get rid of right here.
We'll send you a good to be home tomorrow.
We're going to overnight them tonight.
And they make you return the bad steaks.
No, I cooked them.
No, I didn't.
Best weight loss plan OG's ever had.
I couldn't.
It's like right up there with coleslaw.
I couldn't get them out of the house fast enough.
That is, if you ever want to clear out a room, open up a box of oma-hostakes of a sitting
on your porch for roughly a week and a half and see what happens.
Paul leaves that around for when people ask, can I borrow money?
Yeah.
Just a second.
Sure, I can't.
Yeah, sure.
Let me just serve you dinner first.
As much as you guys need.
If you live through this, I will loan you money.
Yeah.
That gets rid of Len's 41-point plan right there.
It's like, unfortunately, it triggers a manslaughter charge.
It's so annoying.
Can't believe it.
You know, we had today, obviously, being, have fun at Workday.
I was thinking about workplace pranks and some fun people have had at work.
We had a guy when I was at American Express, OG and I, telling American Express stories.
But when I was at American Express, we had a guy in our office who would page himself.
And this guy, OG, would sometimes work in your office too.
His name was Tom and Tom would get on the, we would be meeting with clients talking about
serious either asset allocation planning, maybe estate planning.
Who knows what was going on in all these offices, maybe 30 financial planners.
And overhead, you'd hear Tom so-and-so, line three, Tom so-and-so, line.
I'm sorry, that's me.
And he'd hang up and we'd all have to explain to our clients.
Yeah, that's Tom.
Yeah.
So it's my boss.
Yes.
And he's crazy.
And he was.
He was crazy and our boss.
Paula?
Oh, I had a friend who at parties or at festivals.
He would pick up a megaphone and he would yell out, attention, attention.
I need attention.
Thank you.
Yes, he does.
I had a friend when I was in Texarkana who was in charge of maintenance at the tire factory.
And he said, and Len, you'll appreciate this.
There was an engineer who gave them hell all the time.
It was always just cranky to work with and difficult on the maintenance guys.
And you know, the maintenance people at a plant, they have one or two things going on.
Either they're working their butts off or they have to sit and wait for something to
go wrong because they need the plan to keep operating, right?
So they're sitting and waiting.
So this guy was such a pain in Texarkana only for a few days a year.
Would it get below freezing?
And on one of those days after the engineer had been exceptionally annoying, they strung
all the hoses together, took them out to the guy's car and turned on the water.
And every hour in 15 degree weather, they hose down the guy's car.
So after an eight hour shift, they come out and everybody else has this light frost on
their car and Mr. Engineer's got like two inches of ice all over his entire vehicle.
He also told me that his spouse had a, his wife had a bumper sticker machine, you know,
that make these homemade bumper stickers.
And he would leave the parking lot with iHeartSheep on his bumper.
And he had fun with this guy all the time.
Len, you've got to have stuff that happens.
I can't imagine the stuff that goes on where you work.
Some of the stuff, I don't know if I should say on the just because, you know, I get in
trouble.
But one thing I can think of a long time ago, first started out in engineering.
I took me a while to remember this, but actually it's pretty funny.
There was a group of us young engineers and there's this one guy who was kind of really,
kind of an oddball, one of the oddball engineers.
I guess they're all world oddballs, but it was an oddball amongst oddballs.
And what we would do is every day for about two weeks, we took his desk, we moved it to
another desk somewhere in the building and we set up his office.
So it was like eight or nine consecutive days.
He'd come into work.
He wouldn't know where, because we were in this huge, huge building with tons and tons
of desk.
So find his desk every day for about, it had to be eight or ninth consecutive days.
So we would just move everything as all of his pencils, as all of his work staff, as
calculators, his name tag.
Come on, come on.
Who didn't think of this, by the way?
I said, I don't care if they lay me off either, because I told Bill that if they move my desk
one more time, then I'm quitting.
I'm going to quit because they've moved my desk four times already.
We did more than that.
That's who they make a movie.
You just happened to have that clip on hand.
I just know that clip well enough.
I called it up halfway through his story.
I'm like, oh my...
Just recreational listening.
You're like, I was just listening to that right before I started recording.
I didn't even listen to Len Zanser, Paula.
You think I'd pay attention during this show?
Paula, what are the papers you must add something?
Actually, it related to that office space clip.
When I was at the newspaper, the guy who worked at the desk next to me, he had a stapler on
his desk, and I didn't.
And so any time I needed to staple papers together, I would go to his desk and I would
say, excuse me, I believe you have my stapler.
And it was just this recurring joke where I would do it over and over and over every single
time I had to staple something.
And so a year goes by, and it finally comes out that he's never seen office space.
He's got no idea what the...
He didn't catch the reference, and he just thought I was a giant weirdo.
No, which it turns out you are.
But not for that reason.
Exactly.
That is awesome.
But you know, the guy that has stories, I'm sure, because he worked with a bunch of
first-year financial planners at one point is Mr. OG.
I've got two.
One is related to me and one is related to somebody else.
So the one related to somebody else is there's a person who was in our office who was just
an insane chain smoker.
I mean, out of this world could not go more than 10 minutes without puffing out a pack
of cigarettes.
She's a new advisor first year, and my friend is her manager.
Kind of sort of drew the short straw, I think.
But anyways, in the setup that we had from American Express was you didn't get to practice
on clients.
You had to sit with the manager for years, year anyway, of all of the meetings.
And you just like literally sat in the corner and didn't get to say a word other than hello
and may I get you some coffee.
So my friend's the manager.
He's doing this meeting with new advisor and this family.
They're in the middle of whatever presentation they're doing.
And she says, hey, I got it.
I'll be right back.
Excuse me a second.
And so she walked out of the office.
You know exactly where she's going.
She walked around.
It's better.
Walked around to the front of the building where the conference room was and then stood
in the window with her face pressed against the window watching the meeting while like
smoking like crazy.
Just like nuts.
Like just so distracting was this is your this is your trusted financial professional.
Yeah.
With her face pressed against the window.
On the outside freezing cold here a thing.
Not a thing.
Yeah.
You know, in the good old days, you could actually smoke in your office.
Oh, well, that would have solved the problem.
Oh my God.
That is that when I was oh my God, everybody smoked who were smokers.
That was my God.
Can you imagine your clothes every day, Len?
Yeah.
I remember we had our secretary again.
This one I was really young engineer.
This was our secretary was right outside in this main, like a vestibule or whatever.
And then all the other offices are kind of around her and this one older engineer, he
was right right next to her.
His offices right next to her and he would smoke like a chimney and she would just and
she was a non smoker.
Oh, she used to complain to him, you know, that darn cigarettes, you know, put it out,
you know, and the guy would just keep smoking, smoking, smoking, smoking.
Didn't care.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Nobody cared.
Yeah.
That's how it was.
Favorite, it's not a really a prank, but joke, I guess, when I was working with, still work
with this family, but the husband worked for a law enforcement agency, like a federal law
enforcement agency.
And so he calls me, we're friends.
He says, Hey, I'm in the elevator.
I'm coming up.
You know, I'll be there for, you know, he's coming up for his meeting.
I said, Hey, you want to do something fun?
And he says, Sure.
What?
I said, can you badge the front desk lady?
Pretend like you're looking for me.
And he goes, Oh, yeah, totally.
So, so he gets up there and he opens the door and he comes in and, you know, he's, he
looks at the part, right?
Black trench coat.
And he does the whole like, Hello, I am officer or sonus and flips his badge open, flips it
back and goes, I'm looking for a, and he gets his book open.
He goes, Mr. Oh, gee, is that how you say that?
And we got some questions for him.
We need, we need to talk to him right now.
And I'm like walking toward, because I'm just trying to see how this wants to play out,
right?
And I can see the secretary, because he can't see me like the way that the angle was in
the desk, but she can see me.
And so she's, she's like got these like saucer eyes, right?
And she's kind of like shaking her head like, No, no, no, no, no, don't want to go this
way.
So she like, so she, she calls my office and she says, Hey, there's a guy here to see you
from, I don't know, he's got a badge and a gun.
He says, he needs to talk to you.
And I'm like, uh, okay, um, well, tell him I'm, I'm, I'll be out in a minute.
And so she could see my office door.
And so I grabbed all the papers off my desk and I just ran down the hallway the opposite
direction and out and then, and then, and then my buddy just said, he's like, Oh man,
the terror in her eyes.
He's like, I know what you were doing.
I could tell what was happening.
He's like, I could just see her going.
I'm also going to jail because I'm somehow involved in this.
And you know, there's paper flying as I'm running down the hallway, you know, so anyway,
so we had a good time with that.
Do you remember when you had paper bags and I was a box boy and they sent me next door
to the thrifties I worked at a grocery store, they sent me to the thrifty, you know, like
the ice cream, the place that makes ice cream to get something called a bag stamper because
they said, you know, you know, the, the logos that they used to put on the paper bags.
But they said, you know, you had to go to thrifty to get the bag stamper because that's where
the logos went on the and I believed in that I went to the thrifties in my box boy uniform.
Oh, ask for the manager for the bag.
Oh my God, I was so embarrassed.
When I worked at the restaurant when I was, you know, 15, I was a bus boy and we played
the same pranks on everybody.
So I just got it and then I was part of the club, but they had Mr. Ivan Haid, I B E N H A
D.
He, he ordered room service, he wanted just a plate of parsley.
And so you'd have to like go into the kitchen and be like, yeah, I need a plate of parsley.
They go, you need a what?
And so you're like, I have Mr Haid and room 306 wants a plate of parsley.
They're like, Oh, yeah, he always wants those.
And they're like, you they told you not to just you just have to leave it out on the front
of the door, right?
You have to like knock on the door and then run away.
Like he doesn't want to interact with any of the staff.
And you had to go get the loin cloths from somebody in housekeeping and they'd be like,
Oh, no, there's no we move those.
They're not housekeeping anymore.
They're over in such and such a place.
And you just be going all over the whole this whole restaurant resort thing going.
Yeah, I'm looking for the loin cloths.
They're like, Oh, yeah, did you check housekeeping?
Like everybody was in on it.
Except the guy who was getting it, you know, like, I was the new.
Check with the ground supers for the golf course.
They sometimes they have them over there.
Like, all right, I'll go over there and walk across the entire resort.
Hey, guys, like, yeah, can I help you?
Yeah, I'm looking for the loin cloths.
Oh, no, that's definitely in the kitchen.
The kitchen.
You know, and just like you guys are laughing, eventually you turn the corner and everybody
like, ah, you've been had one or just played a parsley in the loin cloth.
Oh, my God.
Ugh.
Uh.