Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I’m Rhett. – And I’m Link. This week at the round table, the dim lighting, we are helping you guys out in the business sector. – That’s such an over promise. We should have talked about how we were going to platform this. I think the honest answer is we asked you to ask us questions about work. – Workplace situations that we can help breathe our perspective where otherwise it may not need to be wedged. – And we shouldn’t promise that we’re going to help because I kind of feel like– – Because then when we do help we’ll seem awesome. – Under promise and over deliver but that’s not even what I mean. What I’m saying is that– – That’s marriage, not work. – It’s like a doctor giving, it’s like a non doctor giving medical advice. I think that we should always premise every single question and answer episode with, we’re not experts. Do not take any of our advice. How do you say this? What is the correct legal way to say this? – No horses were harmed in the making of this Ear Biscuit. – That’s definitely true. No animals, period, I don’t think. – Well there might be an insect under my foot right now. – Oh gosh, why did you have to make me think about that? – Who knows? You’re not really the type to hedge – To hedge? No, no, I feel like we’ve been hedging. – Do you know that we’re– – My voice is also getting raspy – Are we gonna go somewhere with these workplace situations and you’re hedging because we’re gonna be wedging ourselves in, and it may not turn out well if people follow our advice? – I’m just saying that– – I don’t know what advice I’m giving, by the way. – If we try to platform ourselves as a bastion of advice, then people may be disappointed. Because we’re not, you remember Dr. Ruth? – You don’t have to convince me, well, I’m generally aware but I don’t know what happened to her. – Nothing happened to her. I’m just saying we’re not her. – Remember, lest we forget the lessons of Dr. Ruth, you know what happened to her – She was also giving sex advice which we haven’t done yet. I’m not saying we’re going to at some point, but – That’s a category. – Maybe 2027. – The category was just workplace situations. – We got some really good questions. Let me tell you right now, you guys, we didn’t even give you that much time to respond to this question. But there’s so many good questions. – But if you’re not following us on Twitter and Facebook, that’s where we’re putting this stuff out, so if you want to be part of the responding to prompts, then keep an eye out over there. Rhett and Link on Facebook, and on Twitter. That’s where we’re doing it, right? – We’re Rhett and Link everywhere nowadays. – We’re also Mythical, in places, for different types of stuff. – But that’s different, that’s about the Mythical vibe. – Right. Let’s go with this one from Kyle, first off. Just because it’s on the first page. I have a coworker who sits next to me and sings to himself at a moderate volume nearly all day. He only sings the catchiest things that get stuck into your head and it drives me mad. – Stuck in your head is what, I don’t want to make Kyle sound like a moron. – Oh yeah, I put a to in there. Example, Everything Is Awesome. So Kyle’s over there working and then he’s got a co-worker, sitting next to him and he’s like ♪ Everything is awesome ♪ – This is maddening. Oh, gosh ♪ Everything is awesome ♪ – So, this person sits next to you, Kyle. Man, this is almost unbelievable, that this is happening and you say it’s moderate, a moderate volume. A few key details. – Is it everything is awesome when you’re living in your jeans? I can’t remember. – Yep, I think actually something about dreams. – When you’re fly fishing streams. – Moderate volume, nearly all day. – Now first of all, this seems kind of crazy but totally believable because when you, if you’re really susceptible to ear worms, everybody’s susceptible, but if you’re really suscept, and even people who aren’t particularly weak for them, sometimes you just find yourself singing it. Last night at the dinner table with my family, right before dinner Lincoln had his laptop up and for some reason he pulled up– – Hold on, your kids have the laptop at the dinner table? – No, before we go to the table, where like, the kitchen counter, he pulls up, he thought it would be funny, he pulls up one of the most annoying YouTube videos and starts playing them, like the apple pen, pineapple pen, he went he pulled that back out of the vault. And then there’s this other song that they are obsessed with and it’s, hey, you got any grapes? He goes up to a lemonade stand and keeps, it’s a duck that keeps waddling up to a lemonade stand and ordering grapes and he goes on for way too long, it’s an animated– – Ducks like grapes? Because grapes will kill a dog. – I’m so Dad right now. I don’t understand it, I’m so annoyed by it. But then we get to the dinner table and we’re having a legitimate conversation as a family and then every few minutes one of the kids starts singing it. – You got any grapes? Doesn’t even sound like a song to me. – I could look at their face and tell that they didn’t even, oh, crap. Are we burning? – The water, it landed, we’re gonna catch fire in here. Don’t block the shots, guys. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to Ear Biscuits for those of you who are just listening and not watching. – Towel. – Are we still rolling, Kiko? That’s the most important thing. – The main thing that you need to know if you’re only listening to this, is. The sun fell from the sky, the dim lighting has become really bright because the lighting fell right in the middle of the table, knocked over Rhett’s Ear Biscuit jar, onto his phone, which is kind of wet but it’s okay. My water’s fine. This is Kiko that was Jacob. They’re trying to clean up and make sure this place doesn’t short out and just burn down. But somebody’s gotta man the helm. ♪ Everything is awesome ♪ ♪ Everything is cool when you’re part of a team ♪ ♪ Everything is awesome ♪ ♪ When you’re living in your jeans. ♪ – I can’t wait to watch it back. I don’t know if the shock on our faces was covered by the fact that that big, the big ball came down right in front of us. It could have been the end, guys. – Listen, the worst is over, guys, don’t panic. It’s cool. Everything is awesome. Okay, we’re back. – We got the light back up. So we’re getting back in here. – I’m still wet. – And you know what, I have a little more information now. ♪ A duck walked up to a lemonade stand ♪ ♪ And he said to the man running the stand ♪ ♪ Hey, bum, bum, bum, got any grapes? ♪ – Oh, I’ve heard this. – I’m such an ignorant internetainer and you guys are probably screaming this if you know. It’s The Duck Song from March 23, 2009. You know how many views this thing has? – Let me guess. The Duck Song, 2009. 274,000,000 views. – That’s a crazy guess, and you’re still low. 318,000,000 views. – Hey, for a blind guess, that’s not bad. – I can’t even see that as 318,000,000 it’s so crazy. It’s got a million thumbs up. 318,000,000 views. There’s a sequel, too. – For another time. – Let’s move on. So, my kids, just to finish that little anecdote that left us– – You should, that’s your fault. – It’s my fault. As we were, I was talking to Christy and the kids. If it wasn’t one it was another one who was singing the song and I would look at him and I could tell by the look on their face they didn’t know they were singing The Duck Song. It was just an ear worm, so your brain just starts playing it in your head. – I can totally relate. – But what do you do about it? – Because even today, we had a song, you’ll find out on the GMM later, but we had a song that was in our heads all day that we were randomly singing. I think I have a solution to this. Now you could do the direct approach, the direct honest approach. Just say, hey man, you’re annoying with your music, don’t do that, that’s no fun. – I don’t think it will work, by the way. – Here’s what I would do. You be the guy that’s singing the song to himself. Okay, go through the chorus a couple of times, and I’ll say what I would do. ♪ And he said to the man running the stand ♪ ♪ Hey, bum, bum, bum, got any grapes? ♪ – No, no, no, sing Everything Is Awesome. Sing a song I know. – What difference does it make – You’ll find out in a second. You have to sing the chorus of Everything Is Awesome. ♪ Everything is awesome ♪ ♪ Everything is cool when you’re part of a team ♪ ♪ Everything is awesome when you’re living in your jeans ♪ ♪ Everything is awesome ♪ ♪ Everything is awesome when you’re on a team ♪ ♪ Everything is awesome ♪ – And then I’m looking at you like, what happened to you, brother? – Every time the guy starts singing, sing louder than him in a slightly different key, and he will stop. – That’s tough. – He will stop I guarantee it. You will embarrass yourself. You will lose friends, but you will gain your sanity back. Try it three times. – You’re saying you’ll lose him as a friend or other friends? – You may lose other friends because they’ll be like why is this doofus singing Everything Is Awesome – So loudly. – Off key. It doesn’t matter, it’s worth it. You will get your sanity back. – And lock eyes with the guy when you’re doing it? – Yeah, if it’s a cubicle situation you peek over the top ♪ Everything is awesome ♪ Slur your words a little bit. ♪ Everything is cool when you’re part of a team. ♪ He will stop. He will never do it again. That’s the solution to that, Kyle. Try it and then report back. – The most surprising part about that was how easily you sang off key. That’s not an easy thing to do on purpose. – I’m like a wolf that howls. Before you ask another question, let’s take a short break. – Yeah, we need one. We just took a long break trying to fix this light. – Well it’s not really a break. It’s a break to let you know about something that you can add to your life. – What’s going on at mythical.store these days. Don’t you want to know? ♪ We’ve got the Cotton Candy Randy ♪ ♪ Tee shirt it’s really cool ♪ ♪ Everything is awesome ♪ ♪ When you’re wearing a Cotton Candy Randy tee shirt ♪ – I gotta work on that. – He’s a cult favorite, guys. – Everybody loves him. Actually you know what the thing I love about– – You’re starting a cult. – The thing I love about Cotton Candy Randy is he’s so polarizing. The most polarizing thing– – I know I’ve heard, we’ve heard this. – And I absolutely love polarizing things. That’s why some of you hate me, and some of you love me. – People don’t hate you, Rhett. – Because I’m polarizing. – They’re talking about me, let’s just keep it off the air. – And I absolutely love Cotton Candy Randy and I love the fact that so many people love him and hate him. – I know, you said this and I said if you hate it, wear it out of hate, but you can also find different things at mythical.store. – You don’t like me talking about Cotton Candy Randy. You just got upset with me talking about Cotton Candy Randy. – You’ve already told them that. – Me talking about Cotton Candy Randy is polarizing for you. – The whole thing you said about polarizing, you’re saying it like you’ve never said it, but you’ve said it before. – Not everybody listens to every Ear Biscuit. I’m saying it for the new people. – If you want something else, there’s other stuff at mythical.store, and if you want to know when new stuff hits mythical.store sign up for our Mythical newsletter. It’s free, it’s intriguing, it’s entertaining, it give you behind the scenes. A recent issue, our wives contributed to the newsletter. That’s mythicalmonthly.com. Is that how you sign up for that? – I believe so. Here’s nother question. Hannah, (beeping) this is a doozy. There are four, you know what, I didn’t want to, I’m not gonna say her last name. – We’re gonna beep that. – Did we say Kyle’s last name? – No. – Because we said we wouldn’t say the last names. – You did what you give me a hard time about doing all the time, which is– – I said don’t say their full name and then I said it. – You told me three times, then you did it. – I should have told myself. – I’ve marked it out. – I should have done that. Hannah blank, there are four student workers in my office. Hannah, myself, Olivia, Katrina, and Melissa. Our boss refers to us as Heather, Hannah, Christina, and Melanie, respectively. We’ve corrected her many times that she is not calling any of us by the proper names, but she has yet to change to using our real names. How do we get our real names back? Now, asterisks on Hannah, and that is, when she uses Hannah, despite being my name, she is always asking for Olivia. Hannah never actually refers to me. So she’s got one name out of four right but it’s referring to the wrong person. So she has four names wrong. – I had to draw a little diagram to understand this. So her, the boss calls Hannah, Heather. The boss calls Olivia, Hannah. The boss calls Katrina, Christina. – Yeah, okay, that one’s the only one that makes sense, so far. – And the boss calls Melissa, Melanie. And she’s been corrected. – Many times Many times? And she keeps going back? Well this is just, this is a power bit, I think. – Hold on, but as someone who gets people’s names wrong all the time. – Yeah, it’s a power play for me. (laughing) – It’s not a power play. But you don’t do this. – You think I’m stupid. – You don’t do this. – I’m in charge. – No, no you don’t do this, well, we’ll say, today, have we talked about this? – It just happened, what do you mean have we talked about it? – No, no, the Johnny, Jahdi thing? We haven’t talked about it? I thought we talked about it in a Mythical More. – No, we just talked about it with a person an hour ago. – We met somebody the other day and they said, they introduced themselves as Johnny, and it was, to me it was relatively clear they said Johnny, and Link said that back to the guy, “Jahdi?” You made up a name that doesn’t exist, and then– – I thought he said Jahdi. – And it was really funny to me and then an hour ago, well, two hours ago, we met a guy named Chris, he introduced himself as Chris and Link said, “Cruise?” (laughing) so he automatically assumes these names that are very unique, but the two most common names on earth, Johnny and Chris you assume were Jahdi and Cruise. Which is similar, but different. But as soon as you were corrected, you stopped. You didn’t keep doing– – Yeah, I’m not a jerk. – So this has been pointed out to this person. This is… – It’s weird. I mean, it is a– – Could be a power play. – Working theory that the boss could be throwing the power around here, I know that’s your name but I, it’s like, to me it’s akin to the power play when you call, you give somebody a nickname. Like, unless you’re like a recreation grade school soccer coach you just can’t go around giving people nicknames, you know? – I would have thought you’d be a nicknamer. – And I think I’ve been very tempted by it and I searched my own heart and I realized that it’s, it’s like looking down my nose at somebody. It’s like, who am I? I don’t have the right to change somebody’s name or to decide how it’s pronounced or anything like that. – I do agree that, in those instances, when you give somebody a pet name or a nick name, that’s a power play without a doubt. – So I don’t know if that’s happening here. – But these are more alter egos. This is getting somebody’s name wrong, and if you’ve tried to correct her multiple times at this point. – You’re saying, and if we believe the best about the boss. – If we believe the best about the boss, which we will choose to do, we’ll choose to be Mythical and do that. – Nice. – I think that this is an opportunity for alter egos. You guys, you may be, Hannah, Olivia, Katrina, and Melissa at home, but at work you’re Heather, Hannah, Christina and Melanie. – You’re super. You’re super workers. – It’s super alter egos. You guys can dress, I would do diff, I would, be left handed at work. Can you do that? – Especially if it involves a lot of handwriting. – Can you be other-handed? – Or like, I don’t know, anything that involves a lot of dexterity. – Just be a different person. – Like a batter. – Wouldn’t you love to say well I’m Link at home, but I’m Charles at work. I mean, wouldn’t you love to be able to do that? I think this is an opportunity for somebody. – It would be, it opens up a world of possibility. It’s kind of like when you go to a new school and you’re like, I can be somebody new. – When you move. A lot of kids do that when they move. – Or it’s like when Peter Dinklage, he used to be called Chip, your neighbor. And he was called Chip and then one day he shows up at school and he’s like, “Call me Peter.” – And we all did. – We all did. – Took a while for me. – Yeah, because you had grown up calling him Chip and then you had to call him, so, okay, so you know what? Hannah you need to see this as a blessing. You need to see this as an opportunity. I love that. – It’s confusing because one of your friends is known as you. – And I was talking to Olivia just then, by the way. – That’s the confusing part. Now we’ve got two questions that I think can be addressed together, although having read them I do believe that they’re, at least in my opinion there’s a different tack for each one of these. – You want to read them both, though? – Sure. James, he thought I was gonna say something else after his James, that’s just his name. Says, my office mate often comes back from lunch and has eaten so aggressively that she has to use a flosser to dislodge the whole chicken she has just eaten. – A flosser? Is that a job description? Like somebody comes in– – A utensil. Unless this is a place where they have a flosser on staff. – Makes me want to clean my teeth right now. – Then spends 20 minutes sucking said bird carcass parts out of her teeth. What do I do? And let’s couple this with a question from Melissa, OMG I have a coworker across from me who eats unshelled sunflower seeds all day. Crunch, snap, spit, crunch, snap, spit, all day. – What are they spitting if they’re already unshelled? – I think, unshelled, like, they haven’t been, had the shell removed yet. I think that’s the use of that term in this context. All day, then add tap, tap, tap of the paper cup he spits the seeds into. So we’ve got two annoying office mates. We’ve got coworker who sits across and an office mate. – Well the first person, James, who has to endure the sucking of the bird carcass for 20 minutes, at least you don’t have to endure the tap, tap, tapping that Melissa has to endure – [Both] All day. – So James we’re just trying to put yours in perspective. Because you can leave for that window of time. – You have pinpointed a problem, that is exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking that for the flosser, you take a walk. This is your break time. – Avoidance. – When she comes back and she breaks out the floss that is your cue for a short break. – 20 minutes. – 20 minutes. A 20 minute walk around the building. Take an important phone call. This is an opportunity. – You’re turning these into opportunities. – Melissa, on the other hand, this is an incessant crunch, snap, spit, crunch, snap, spit all day. And my advice here, and I don’t know if it’s possible. I don’t know if I would be capable of this. but I believe you have to learn to love it. – No, I disagree. – But I think it can be done. I think you can learn to love something. I think the power of your mind. There are people who have done deep meditative practices and they have taken even pains that their body is experiencing and they found a way to focus in on them and actually to begin to gain pleasure from them. And I don’t think I could do it but I read a book where somebody did it and I’m thinking that maybe Melissa can take a chance and see if she can learn to love snap, what, spit, crunch, snap, spit, crunch, snap, spit, whatever it is. – Take a chance on loving. – But what do you think? – Spit, snap, spit. – You don’t think it can be learned to be loved? – I don’t know you kind of guilted me into agreeing with you because it seems so metaphysically higher plane. – You gonna tell the guy don’t eat the thing you love? – I think again in the spirit of believing the best about someone you gotta make sure you don’t build up so much animosity that it explodes in other ways at work. You don’t want to be a pressure cooker towards your office mate, who, again, believing the best in this instance would be, you know, he doesn’t know it. He doesn’t know that he’s tapping, he doesn’t know that this is audible to anybody else, or she, I don’t know if they mentioned the… – No, it’s a man. He spits the seeds into… – But then, I don’t know, I do think this is delicately and almost apologetically approach and say, I know how much you love sunflower seeds. Trust me. – Oh this is the opening salvo? – I just wanted to say it penetrates my ear hole so hard. Don’t use those words. – Maybe rephrase. I wouldn’t say penetrate or hole. You can think about it ahead of time. – I agree with you, Rhett. Let’s move on. I don’t know. Kate. – We’re trying to find ways not to be so confrontational, right? Is that ultimately… – Even while being confrontational there’s gotta, I think that’s something you would have to talk about. An office mate, that implies, I picture two people in one office. So this is like an arranged marriage. I had an office mate and I just had to become friends with him. – You learned to love him. – I learned to love him, but also learned to be honest about the things that weren’t working because you know what, it goes both ways. And you’re opening a door and you could, that could be part of it. Opening salvo is I know how much you love sunflower seeds, trust me. But it’s, it makes it difficult for me to concentrate, do my job, et cetera, et cetera. – Honesty, could work. – And then by the end you’re saying and I’m sure there’s things that I do that might make it difficult for you to do your job and I want to open the door for you to tell me those things in a safe place. – What if you started with that? What if you said, hey Darryl, whatever his name is, is there anything about me that annoys you? What if you started with that question? – Okay, let’s go with that. And then Darryl’s like, no. (laughing) You’re great. And then what? – And then I think he would naturally say well is there anything about me, well I’m glad you asked. – No, but let’s say that doesn’t happen. So let’s go through it. – Then you learn to love it. – Start over. – Hey Darryl, something I’ve been meaning to ask you. You know, we’re office mates and we share this space, and sometimes when people share a space with each other there are little quirks and stuff that can get on each other’s nerves and I’m trying to be more conscious of that. So serious question, is there anything about me that annoys you? – No. (laughing) And that’s it. No. – That’s the end of the conversation? Okay, cool. I’m gonna learn to love the fact that you annoy me with your sunflower seed spitting. It’s an internal conversation. You wouldn’t say that out loud. – You can’t trap somebody, but then you can– – I think there’s a good way to do that. I think, you’ll figure it out, Melissa. – Kate. Sorry we wouldn’t be more helpful. Kate asks, how do you deal with a ravenous coworker who snoops around after everyone has left and steals everyone’s snacks and candy from all of the cubicles? #EarBiscuits. If you’re not familiar with cubicle culture as I am, this may come as a surprise to you that many cube dwellers have a little stash of candy or treats that they put in a bowl, like a dish that you would normally see on a great grandparent’s coffee table. So that, it’s a really smart thing, because when someone comes to your cube to have a work conversation they get a little reward. It’s Pavlovian. – Pavlovian. – Whenever I go see Darryl I get a few sunflower seeds. (laughing) – That’s not the best treat, though. You want something individually wrapped. – One of those strawberries that has the gushy strawberry center– – That’s wrapped and looks like a strawberry? I gotta unwrap this thing? – You would never buy that, but somehow someone has that and Tina has had them. They’re from 1984. – Have you ever seen one of those? Have you ever seen– – In a store, no. – For purchase. – No. – I don’t believe they’re available for purchase. – They’re just, I’ve eaten them. Whenever I’m presented with one I’ll eat it. – Anytime a candy is wrapped like the fruit that it represents, I eat it. I’ve never said no to that. – Can’t think of another example but I agree with you. And so that’s a good idea. That’s just unsolicited advice for cubicle dwellers. – Treats, have treats. – But somebody’s going around and stealing them. First of all, this would just be something cool to catch on camera. – Yeah this is definitely a hidden camera situation. – But then if you’re gonna set up the hidden camera to catch them, you might as well go one step further and plant a little naughty, naughty. – You’re saying poison them? (laughing) – No that’s not what I was thinking. But yeah that is what it sounded like. I meant like a spicy strawberry candy wrapped– – Okay so don’t poison them. Again, all of our advice is to be taken with a grain of salt. – Next time this falls it’s gonna hit me. – And I was just asking the question, I wasn’t suggesting that you should poison… A hot treat. – A hot treat. – Take the strawberry, unwrap it. – Nasty. I was saying put something inject something nasty– – A turd? Is that going too far? – Or spicy. – You could die eating a turd. – But then they’re gonna leave. But then at least you’ll know. You kind of want to, if you play a prank on somebody you kind of want to see them eat it. I don’t think that, when she’s stealing it that she’s eating it right there like a squirrel. – You’ve gotta put cameras in everybody’s cubicle. Hold on, this is all worth it. – No, after night one when they steal the good candy, you know who it is. Night two you put the camera– – How about putting a tracker on the candy? – So swallow the tracker? You know wherever she’s going at all times? – But then what happens is you follow the tracker on your computer to a certain address and then you look up that address and then you tie it to the coworker and then you know who it is. – I’m second guessing the whole hidden camera thing in general because I think you might get fired for that. There’s like a privacy breach in that. – Well I think, seriously– – Maybe like a, one of those hunter motion operated cameras that just takes photo of the candy. – Like a cougar? – Yeah, just set that up so you get the cougar. That might not get you fired. – This is all taking, this is taking too many resources and too much time. To set up trackers and turds in there. – That’s what people in cubicles live for, man. – You’re right. – I’m sitting in my cubicle back at IBM days and I’m just looking for something to live and breathe for. – I think you can start a movement, though. If this is something, I mean– – I want to catch. Maybe a snare. – It feels like the context here is that this person is stealing everyone’s snacks and candy so if Kate knows that this person is stealing everyone’s snacks and candy, that means that there has been talking amongst multiple people. You’ve got the beginnings of a movement here. An uprising. – If it’s everybody’s candy then it’s easy to find out who did it. It’s the one cubicle that still has candy. – They’re probably stealing, they probably don’t have, these people don’t– – Eating their own candy? – Have their own candy. They wouldn’t be stealing. I think that you this might be a mass email, like a company email situation. This may graduate to that because it’s technically theft. To whom it may concern who is stealing all of our candy. – Who is this? This seems passive aggressive. Is it coming from the boss or an employee? Employee is passive aggressive and over reaching. – I think it comes from a movement. It says, from– – So like a listserv. – It’s a petition everyone signs it. We are a part of the Candy Union. – We, the Candy Union all believe and agree that it is wrong and morally apprehensible to sneak around– – Apprehensible? – Steal, yeah it makes me nervous. Steal my candies. Steal all our candies. – I think there’s some good advice in there somewhere. – What kind of world are we living in if you’ve got to lock up your candy every night? – Here’s a question from someone I am going to say his last name because I love the way his last name sounds, and we’ve said it before. Nat Pua, Pua, Pua. Pua asked another question. Nat, we’re not always going to answer your questions just because your last name is Pua, but he had a good one. I know you’ve discussed it in the Book of Mythicality, which I own and love. – Hot tip, if you want a question read on Ear Biscuits, include a plug for our merch within the question. – Pua knows all. But how do you know when it’s time to leave the 9-5 job to pursue that something else that you’re also passionate about? This is a good question and one I think a lot of people are probably wondering about. – I know many of you right now are listening to this in the midst of doing something that you’d rather not be doing. It doesn’t connect with the deepest most inner you. It may not utilize your highest and most refined skills and it may not reflect your, where you want to go in life. But first let us say that we are here for you and we’re glad to be a part of taking the edge off a sharp environment that you find yourself in and you may not be able to make a responsible decision to get out of at this point. That was my– – Comforting voice? – My comforting, kind of pick you up and it’s not gonna change overnight but maybe the advice we’re about to give can help you in the long run. I have some thoughts. You want to go first? I’ll just skip to it. I think anything, as you start to pinpoint where your passions lie, find ways to invest some time and energy and resources, that may be money into developing that skill or gaining experience there or just starting to channel your passion into something outside of work hours. So it’s going to require some sacrifice. It may not be, it most likely will not be responsible for you to just quit your 9-5 and then try to start something up. We were very practical and we can get into that, but I think that’s where my advice is gonna land, and we can go into some of our experience if you want to. – I was gonna basically say the same thing. You don’t quit, you don’t jump ship when you don’t have another ship to jump into. I think you’ve got to build a framework that there is a practical– – Maybe build a rowboat. Let’s go with the analogy. – And a responsible, yeah, a rowboat or a lifeboat of some kind so that, and obviously it depends on what circumstance of life you’re in. If you’re married with children, if you’re the breadwinner of the home or whatever, which was the case with us, you have a special responsibility to your family. You can’t just jump ship and be like, I’m going to find myself and find what I’m passionate about and then meanwhile you’re all going to starve. You don’t want to do anything like that. If you’re single and you can support yourself and you don’t have a lot of expenses you could possibly quit. But I think that having something that you’ve actually invested your time into and there’s some sort of practical path towards a career, so, speaking from our own experience, before we were doing what we do now we would get together once a week at night to do comedy. Sometimes that was writing a song, but we were constantly working on what we were passionate about. We had no idea that it would ever be a career. We had no idea that we would ever, that things would get to this point. There was no career path. There was just this very, very small seed of an idea that we just put ourselves into. We scheduled this regular thing once a week and that became the seed that grew into what this has become. Because we said, all right, I don’t want to stop doing this steady job, but we want to try something else. At least a little bit. I think you’ve got to at least have that. – If your passions aren’t being employed by your employer, then you’ve got to, if you’re passionate about it you’re going to be willing to sacrifice some of your extra time to invest in that on the side. And if you’re also good at it and opportunity aligns, then I think you’ll be ready to jump at something. When there’s more of an opportunity or when that rowboat gets built and it’s got some oars and you can, you have a destination you can start paddling towards. You complete the analogy. Paige asks, I work in retail and am always bored. Any tips to pass the time? Now Paige isn’t saying that she wants to jump ship and get out of retail. Maybe there’s upward mobility in retail, and maybe it’s just where she’s at for the time being that it gets boring at times. I’ve walked into retail situations and I’ve, boy, I don’t even, I’m just there as a customer and it drains me. I leave as floppy as a Ziploc bag full of water. You know sometimes how you’ll have– – Water. – As a Ziploc bag full of – Ice and then it melts. – Ice and it melts, and man, there’s nothing more flaccid than a Ziploc bag full of water. – Did you have to use that word? – That’s how I leave clothing stores. If I never went in another one in my life. From the moment, I could be the most vital human and it’s just like, (water draining) it just sucks the turgidness right out of me. It’s just so draining. I can’t imagine working there. – Well you haven’t helped Paige. I just want… – Sorry, Paige. – You’ve laid the groundwork for a great answer here. – I’m just feeling her pain. Sometimes that’s all you need. Someone to give you a verbal hug. – Just to be sympathetic. First of all neither of us have any retail experience. This is not a job that we ever did. I don’t think that either of us would have been good at it. But I think you’ve got to get somewhat creative. I don’t know what kind of retail you’re in, but– – Because you’ll never, because you have to stay engaged and do good at the job so that you can move beyond it. But if you suck, if this festers, then you’re gonna get fired and that’s not gonna lead into any opportunities. So I see where you’re going with this. Something that’s like– – And something related to the job, because what I don’t think you can do, which I think a lot of people do, is if you get disengaged with your job, and you replace it with engagement in something that is tertiary, that isn’t related to your job, you’re on your way out. In other words, if you do what I did in the waning years of my engineering career and you just go online and learn about ultralight airplanes and crow hunting and et cetera, you’re not long for this engineering world. So that means don’t just consume yourself with social media or just gossiping about other coworkers or wasting time, wasting the company’s time. I’m not saying you’re going that Paige, I’m just saying that can be a temptation in that environment. – Making paper airplanes with the printer paper. – Yeah, I think you’ve got to do things– – Perfecting your design and throwing them. – Exactly. I think we’re talking things like, let’s just say you work in a clothing store. – Retail. – Retail clothing. – I thought retail was clothing. – It could be like– – Convenience store? – Pottery Barn, too. That would be retail, wouldn’t it? – Sure. – But probably clothing. – That drains me too. Anything that drains me is what I call retail. – The only non clothing retail I could think of was Pottery Barn. I dug so deep and that’s what happened. Pottery Barn. I haven’t been in a Pottery Barn in a long time. Sure it’s great. Folding tee shirts. I’m thinking about this because I was recently in a retail store and I saw a girl using the tee shirt folder. – It’s like a flat, plastic thing. – And she was using the tee shirt folder and I was like that’s neat, and yeah, it would be neat for a little bit. But what if she was like, I’m gonna do a new way to fold a tee shirt. I’m going to perfect the one handed thing. And then you start doing it and you get really good at the one handed tee shirt folding and next thing you know you’ve got a crowd. – Oh, it’s like busking. – Next thing you know you’ve got people showing up, watch the one armed, well no – [Both] She’s got two arms. – Watch the two-armed girl fold the tee shirts with one arm. And next thing you know you’ve got a line of people who, they’re coming, they’re– – I waited in this line, I finally get up here and she’s got two arms? I heard wrong. – And she’s folding and then you get where you can do two. Look, she’s folding two tee shirts XS, XS extra small on this hand, and extra large on this hand and I don’t know how she does it. And next thing you know people are buying tee shirts – Buying those shirts. – left and right. You’re working your way up to manager. – The shirt says this shirt was folded by the one-armed tee shirt folder. – And then one day– – No, and then smaller, it says, and unfolded by me. – And then one day you’re sitting in the top of the sky scraper with your glass office looking out over the New York city sky line because you are the CEO of this place. – The what? – CEO and you have a little plaque over there. – That’s out of tune, the wolf is back. – And people, (howling) and they reminisce the people reminisce. And they’re like, you see her, you see her? She’s on the top of this company, she’s on top of the world. You know how she started? Let me tell you a little story about folding tee shirts with one hand. That’s how legends get started, Paige. – I would recommend just hiding in the middle of the clothing rack, and jumping out and scaring people. – That’s a shortcut. That could also work. You could work your way up to the top doing that. – Nat Pua. Let’s just say his name in between any of those. – Every once in a while. – Lucy. I work at an elementary school. How do I get my 5th graders to think I’m cool? – This is easy, Lucy. Fridays are GMM day. – Cody asks, what do when a crappy coworker gets more recognition than you, the one who really deserves it? – Cody’s got strong opinions about himself. – He left out the word you, too, what do, what? What do I do? – What to do? – What to do when a crappy coworker gets more recognition than you, the one who really deserves it? Cody, I would challenge you here, if you believe that you are less crappy of a worker than the more recognized coworker? I don’t know your situation. You could be right. But I would challenge you to just try to put an objective lens on the situation and look inward. Maybe there is something that’s crappier about your work than you know about. Or, maybe there’s an aspect, maybe there’s another criteria that you are not using to judge your work or your crappy coworker’s work that someone else, like your boss, has seen. That could, may very well be. I think a lot of us have a tendency to get bitter with other people being recognized or compared to people or just not seeing in someone else what someone else does. And it’s because you have a limited criteria of what success is. For example. Someone, and I think this could be me in many instances, looks at, on paper, like results, in efficiency, results, quality, measurable things, and can compare myself to someone else and say the numbers don’t lie. I am out-performing this person. But there could very well be, it could very well be that that other person is more likable. – The intangibles. – I’m just giving an example. I think it’s, never underestimate the power of being likable. You can say it’s being nice, or that it’s being, you know, when you work with people, be somebody worth working with. I think you could, that could slip into being some sort of political, I’m gonna make somebody believe, I’m gonna butt kiss or I’m gonna make somebody believe I’m great or I think they’re great and start playing games. I’m not suggesting that. I’m just saying, as one example, and it could be anything, it could be different things that you’re missing. As one of them, never underestimate being a coworker worth working for, or working with. Or, you know what I’m saying? – Well I, yes, I do. And I would say as a boss, as bosses, I would say that in the instances in the past years of being a boss when we evaluated someone’s performance you’ve sort of got two things, right, you’ve got your performance and then you’ve got those intangible things, like you’re calling it likability. – Again, I’m just giving that as one example. I think there’re some other things that are not as measurable. – And likability doesn’t mean oh, he’s cool, or whatever, it also means, plays well with others, works well, has a positive attitude, there’s lots of things that contribute to it and I would definitely say that our evaluation of people’s performance has often been influenced by, well, you know, so and so is struggling in this role, but man, he’s got a great attitude, he really brings a great, his attitude sort of lights up the room, he’s great to work with– – Thank you. – Yeah I’m talking about Link. He’s really suffering and struggling in his role here as co-host, but he’s a real likable guy. – We keep him around. – But when you’ve got the, nine times out of ten, or ten times out of ten, if someone is struggling in their performance and they also happen to be difficult to work with, or there’s just something else that just makes them not likable that is something they do have control over, then it makes it very difficult for us to have a positive evaluation of them. – But to get back to what Cody’s saying, because that may not be the case with you, Cody. I do think, to echo the last thing you were saying, we’re encouraging you to focus on the things that you can control. You can’t control how another coworker is perceived. If you try, that could be very dangerous. It could be sabotage. – Yeah you don’t want to get into that. – Focus on yourself and how, you know what, maybe you want to ask for feedback from your superior, without drawing a direct comparison to anyone else when you go to that person. Just ask him for, excuse me, ask him for honest feedback. – Yeah I wouldn’t mention anybody else’s name. – No. – Catherine asks, what do you do when a coworker thinks they’re hilarious but they aren’t? It seems so bad not to laugh at all but their humor is that bad. – Oh this is tough. When somebody thinks they’re funny and it’s like, you know maybe you like them as a person, they’re honestly trying. Man, there was a guy, back in the IBM days. We called him Baron. The Baron. – Was that his name? – It was his last name. He would come around and he always was yucking it up with the jokes and they were always painfully, they were just cringey. And it was the type of thing that, he would put you on the spot. It was so many years ago I don’t have an example. He kind of had this Michael Scott from The Office, that was his name, right? – Yeah. – Kind of vibe that’s like, zero self awareness. It’s not like he’d be telling a joke to a group, he’d be telling a joke to you, and he’s looking right at you. Now it’s time for you to laugh and you’re like, courtesy laugh. And that stokes the fire. – Ah, the courtesy laugh. – It’s cold-hearted to just stare right into his could and be flat faced. – But you know you’re pretty good at that. A lot of people might thing that I would be the one that would do the stone face and you would do the courtesy laugh, but you know just as well as I do– – I can be cold. – That you’re, you can be, I’ve seen this in my 30 plus years of friendship with you that you have a tendency, when somebody does that, and maybe you didn’t do that at IBM, but many times me and you have been talking to someone and they’ve said something that’s not funny and I look at you and I can tell, he’s not going to respond to this and you’re stone-faced. And I’m like if I do this, this is gonna get so awkward so I’m just like (laughs) – And you know why? – I’ve gotten into such a habit of doing a courtesy laugh because I’m a people pleaser, but also because I’m also always with you and I know you’re not gonna do it and I have to do it – You’ve gotta double up. And that’s good on you because I’m not proud of, I think the reason why I can be, I’m stone-faced is because I’m more concerned about what other people observing this think about me than I am about what he thinks about me. Because if I laugh, if I don’t laugh, he might think I’m a jerk. But if I do laugh, everyone else thinks I’m a chump who has no real sense of humor. Dang, Link actually thinks that guy is funny. – But you also know I’m gonna laugh. – If it’s just us. – I think if I wasn’t there you’d probably laugh. – Well that’s why I keep you around. – If the courtesy laugh fell back on you you’d probably do it. – Even though your performance is par, or subpar, I keep you around. – I’m so likable. – For that reason because you’re very, well I need you in that sense. – But the question is how do I get somebody to stop? – Here’s what I think. – I think you gotta do the stone-face. – No, I think there’s a, I, this is what I think it is, I think there’s a way to graciously say, something like this. Here’s an example, I don’t know what you would call it, but, like, Baron, man you have a refined sense of humor. It’s just kind of like, thats sounded a little sarcastic but I didn’t mean it that way. It’s more like trying to find the beauty in the fact that this guy, his sense of humor is not funny. – You mean to say something as opposed to laugh? – Yeah, say something to him, just kind of like, call him out on the fact that, I didn’t find that funny, but I really enjoy the fact that you said it anyway. That’s pretty mean. – But what if that leads to him doing it more. I’m not trying to, I’m going to give similar advice. – I have had experience with this guy, that once he knew that I still really liked him, nothing that I just said, it all sounded like a jerk, but I don’t know how. But I did succeed with Baron. He knew that I didn’t think he was that funny. – Oh, so it worked. – But I thought that he was funny because he always tried to be funny. We were friends. It was like, I love you man but I don’t get your jokes. – So you actually said that? – Yeah, eventually. – Well then that worked. If it worked for you this would be– – Typically the type of people that do that, – what Catherine could try. – There’s a sweetness to them that they’re likable people in general. It’s not like the boss in Office Space. – Right. – That guy deserved no mercy. If they’re like Baron, this guy who’s like, super sweet guy who just doesn’t, he just can’t for the life of him make a funny joke, but he can’t for the life of him stop trying, you gotta love him for it. – Well I don’t have any advice here because I don’t think I would be able to apply my advice. Because I’m a courtesy laugher. You’re always gonna get a laugh from me although you can probably tell that it’s fake. – Definitely. – Spicy110, no name. That’s just it. Spicy110. Suggestions on separating home and work when you work at home and don’t have the space for physical separation. – One of the things that we’ve always said. We’ve always valued an office. – Space. – So even before we even had any idea what this Rhett and Link business was gonna be, we had an office. It was a free office. We used the basement of my father-in-law’s, one of my father-in-law’s dental offices. Or like the admin headquarters of his dental practices, and it was just like storage area that if you ever watched the old school Rhett and Link cast or some of the stuff on our channel way back in the day, that was that space in Lillington. We always have valued this. I mean, both married with children before we started doing this job, so we really needed to find a way to get out. Now I realize your question is that if you don’t have space for physical separation. – You’re giving them a verbal hug. You’re feeling their pain because you don’t feel like you could do it. That’s good. – We’ve always said that, I know the way that we work and I think for different reasons. For me, I’m so easily distracted and for Link, you, it’s not that you’re distracted, it is that you’re kind of driven crazy by, you’re more frustrated by not being able to get into a quiet space. For me if I’m in that space I’m gonna get drawn into things. – I’m angered by it, you’re enticed by it. – Right. But for both of us, not being able to get away is a huge problem. But let’s try to answer the question in a way that, I would say. First of all, if there is any way to have some sort of shared workspace, because there are very affordable shared workspaces now, there’s all these, I don’t even know the name of it but basically you can get these work, share deals where there’s basically a desk somewhere. There are affordable options for people. – Like a coffee shop is very affordable. Well I don’t know what kind of work you’re in. If you’ve got to be on the phone or something. – I’m kind of assuming you need something that’s not out in public. – Like a library park bench situation. – If you want that separation the easiest way to create it is to create physical separation and try to find a way to create physical separation if you cannot find it in your home. Let’s just assume you can’t do that, you can’t afford that, there are no realistic options for separation, what do you do? – Closet. – Closet. – Push all the clothes to one end of your closet. You get in the other end. Close the door. I’m imagining there’s kids running around. You might want to, they never know you’re in there. – That’s still physical separation. There’s no space for physical separation. You’re saying find space, you don’t think there’s space, find the space. – Yeah, find the space. – I’m saying, let’s just assume there is no space. This is a yurt. Let’s say this is a closetless yurt. At this point I think you’ve got to have some sort of physical indicator on your body that indicates work time. – Like a bucket on your head? – It could be a helmet. A helmet is not, a work hat. I’ve got my work hat on. I got my work glasses on. I got my work shirt on. What it does is, it puts you in a frame of mind that, I’m working now, and it puts the other individuals who may be in your space with you, they’re like, oh, Mama’s got a bucket on her head, she’s working. – So it can’t be a literal bucket, you know that. Because if you’re saying a hat. – Helmet, hat, pair of awesome glasses, a wig, the work wig. We could sell that. Mythical.store. The wig for the working person. And she just put it on and Mama means business. Daddy’s on a roll, he’s got his work wig on. What would it look like? It would be like a sharp, like a professional cut. – Slicked down? – We’ve gotta have multiple models for whatever– – I think it’s big. – Some of them are big. We sell 12 of them. – I think it’s, there’s curly, a lot of curls, and the hair on the sides comes down. – Like a curtain. – And it goes down over the ears. – Muffles the sound. – And goes a bit forward to serve like blinders. – [Both] On a horse. – The work wig. For the man or woman who wants to work like a horse. It also has a feedbag. Because you don’t have to get up, and probably while we’re at it we’ll attach one of those – Two drinks. – Stadium pals. That you just, the external catheter and you just pee right into a bag. You don’t have to get up. You’ve got a helmet on, you’ve got the trough to eat and you’ve got a catheter. – Somebody sketch this up so that we can patent it. – Work wig. – The work wig, complete with– – Comes with feedbag and pee bag. – Sound suspression, sound supression, – Sound suspression. – Blinders, pee bag optional. – Pee bag is optional? Poop bag we don’t have one of those. – We don’t have one of those. – If you gotta take a crap you gotta go to the bathroom. You need a break anyway. – We did not help at all on that one. A lot of these I feel like we’re helping a lot. – You want to end on a good one? You don’t think that was a good one? The work wig sounds, workwig.net. – Let’s end on a high note. Bert. A coworker with a nose whistle. (laughing) – Is that an instrument? Or is that a condition? – Might as well be sitting next to a foghorn. Foghorn is low. (honking) Nose whistle is like if your nose is built in a weird way and you start working and you’re really deep into work and you almost get into a meditative state with those long breaths. (humming) it’s a higher pitch – It’s tough to emulate unless you’ve actually got a booger that’s creating this situation. – If it’s a booger it wouldn’t happen every day. This must be. – Well it cold be a deviated septum. – It must be anatomical, an anatomically engendered. – Foghorn-like nose whistle. – Nose whistle. – This is a problem. – But I bet it only happens when you get into that work state where it’s like, the slow breathing. – You think noise canceling headphones would help? Because a lot of people have a misconception about noise canceling headphones. They think that they cancel everything but really they just isolate certain frequencies that are monotonous in the background and then they take those out that’s why you get sort of like the engine noise but you can hear the person talking to you on a plane. – If you wore the quietcomforts in this, Bert, you would actually hear much more of just nose whistle. – I’m sincerely asking the question. Is a nose whistle sustained enough to be recognized as a frequency that can be – [Both] Chopped out. Because the other thing you could do, this is not a great solution. – So first we’re saying, Bert, try noise canceling. – Try. Get a pair of $300 headphones and then take them back if they don’t get rid of the nose whistle. But another, this could potentially work. You get a laptop computer. You get an audio editing software. I don’t know if GarageBand is capable of this but probably. – It’s getting pretty desperate these days. – Roll with me on this. – I get pretty pro. – And then– – I don’t know what you’re doing, but– – You put headphones into the computer so that, and then you’re sending that sound. – You sound like a dumb person. You put headphones into the computer, what does that mean? – You attach your earbuds to the external jack of the computer. – Okay, to the laptop. – And then you set it up so that you’re running your, all the sounds of the room through the laptop and through the audio software and then you break out the filter that isolates certain frequencies and you turn it– – You’re talking ProTools, man. – I haven’t worked in GarageBand in a few years so I don’t know if it’s capable of this, so you may have to go ProTools. I know Logic can do it. – You’re talking about frequency isolation filter. – And there may be an iPhone app at this point. Or just a phone app at this point that can do this. The problem is, so you let the nose whistle start and you move the isolation, the frequency back and forth until you nail it and then it’s gone. – Now Rhett knows this because in all of our years of editing all of our internet videos, I don’t know what the, how we came up with this delineation, but I was much more of the editor, like cut and style, and details, but then when it came to an audio pass, I would pass it off to you because that was more of a figure out a new thing that then applied to fixing certain problems like this, like, oh there’s a hum in this particular shot. The shot before and after it don’t have it, so it’s very distracting in the middle of say a dialog. And you could, you could use these filters to find it. So you’re saying apply that particular thing. – Yeah the downside is you have to listen to everything through a laptop. You gotta carry this laptop with you. – Because it’s like you’re live recording your work environment. – It’s sound processing. That is isolating that frequency. – Well it’s what happens in noise canceling headphones dynamically, but it doesn’t– – You’re doing it manually. This could be an awkward setup. Otherwise, here’s another potential solution that may be simpler. – Punch them every time they start doing it. Like when your spouse snores. I don’t mean like punch them hard, I mean like nudge. – This person’s not asleep. They’re just there, breathing. Let’s just assume that– – I say just go up to them and before they know it you’ve grabbed their nostrils. – No, no physical contact. You’ve gotta be passive about this. How about this. This might be a better idea. I doubt that it’s anatomical. I’m guessing that it is a recurrent sinus infection of some kind or this person just has certain shaped boogers and it just works itself out. So it’s a recurrent thing but it’s not all the time. We’re talking about a nasal issue. You need to get one of those oil diffusers that you’ve got at your house and you put in some sort of decongestive– – They’ve got oils for everything. We’ve got one at home that says digestion. I’m like, really? – Don’t give them the digestion, give them the decongestion. – I’m gonna smell something and it’s gonna help me digest better? I bet you believe in it – But I know there are decongestant oils. – I like the smells. – And so you put, and you really pump them. You might have to get four or five of these things and this person may say, why do you have so many oil diffusers in our office? I’m just trying to liven the place up. And you keep adding an oil diffuser every single day until the nose whistle goes away. Until you get to like 20, at which point it would be excessive and then you would do the other thing I talked about with the laptop. – Because if you were to go the direct route which we often recommend, have the awkward conversation. Well, if it’s anatomical, and I do believe that it is, what’s the person gonna do? That’s like saying, that mole on your chin is really annoying me, can you have it removed? – Well the mole doesn’t make a constant noise. – I know but it’s still is kind of the same thing, it’s like, can you go to see an ENT and get them to ream out your nostril. So that I. – Maybe the breathe strips for snoring, speaking of snoring, maybe they would work. – I bet it would work. – Every morning you could come up and you’d be like, you look so great and you just touch them on the nose and you– – Now you’re doing the touching. – But I’m doing gentle touching. I’m congratulating. You’ve got to touch somewhere else. Touch the shoulder and be like, you look so great and that’s when you attach it. You attach it, put a sticker on their nose. – I did not consent to you touching my nose bridge. Your fingertips are so sweaty. – No, that’s not sweaty, it’s oil. – Really? It’s like from the diffuser. You just diffused my nose bridge. – My hands are hot, man, I got hot hands. – It smells, I can’t smell it. It doesn’t stink. – They’re not sweaty they’re just– – It’s gonna help with my digestion. – They’re hot. – Okay that’s ludicrous. Are you telling me you’re gonna– – I gave three different options just pick one and deal with it. – But you could give them nasal strips as a Secret Santa. – You gotta apply them with your hands, though. – Secret Santa is a good idea, any time of year. – But then he just thinks he’s snoring. How does he know I snore? – There’s a note from Santa. – I heard you snore. No, it’s not about snoring. – You have a nose whistle, bro. – Or you could start recording it and then loop it into a track. Create a new beat with it. – I don’t know. – I think we have helped at least one person. – I think we’ve done it. – Somebody got help today. – We’ve done it. – I’m sure. Some people probably got misguided advice, but again, it’s why I did the disclaimer at the beginning. – The light falling should have been a sign for us not to continue. – It wasn’t, it was fate for us not to give advice tonight. – We pressed on and now we’re gonna reap what we sewn. And here you are with us. You know what? We’ll speak more at you next week. Come on back. Tell your friends. Bring them over. – If you dare. – I’m curious how you would describe Ear Biscuits. Let us know. – Let us know. Describe Ear Biscuits in an online short social commentary. With #EarBiscuits. – I legitimately would like to know how you, you would describe this show if you were gonna recommend it to someone. So please let us know. We’ll look into that. – We’ll be interested in that. – #EarBiscuits. And thank you. – [Rhett] To hear this Ear Biscuit in its entirety and make sure you don’t miss an episode, follow the links in the description to subscribe on apple podcasts or anywhere else podcasts are available. – [Link] To watch more Ear Biscuits click on the playlist on the right. – [Rhett] To watch more of our daily show Good Mythical Morning, click the playlist on the left. – [Link] And don’t forget to click the circular icon to subscribe. – [Rhett] Thanks for being your mythical best.