Bonus Episode: Complete 💩 Job Market Advice

28 Nov Bonus Episode: Complete 💩 Job Market Advice

Even people with little or no expertise in the job market have started to look around and say, “Uh-oh. Maybe, um, things are not so great after all… maybe these stats we’re hearing are complete nonsense…”

Yet we still have so-called experts telling people, “Just go get another job. Go stir up a side hustle. Just get yerself over-employed and you’ll be fine.” Riiiiiiight. OK. Sure. 😒

People who thought that The Great Resignation would last forever are on the same wavelength with realtors who thought the FOMO & YOLO of 2021 would also last forever, too. Now those folks are going bankrupt and dealing with layoffs.

Link I discuss in this episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX3wRssu8Ug

Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

Welcome to the Causey Consulting Podcast. You can find us online anytime at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And now, here’s your host, Sara Causey. Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. Welcome back. Man, those holiday breaks go by so quickly, don’t they, but it was necessary for me. It was coming at such a good time to be able to truly rest and relax and decompress, all the way around, give my voice an opportunity to rest my lungs, my brain, my spirit, all of it. And now here we are back again. So it seems to me that even people whose expertise does not lie within the job market, people who may not look for work very often, people who may only have a cursory understanding of how the labor market works in general, are starting to look around and say, Hey, wait a minute. Wait just a minute. I think perhaps we’ve been lied to. I think perhaps unemployment is not really 3.7%. And there’s not really one or two legit open jobs for every one unemployed person. By Jove. I think we’ve been fed a lot of BS. Yeah. And on a similar note, it seems to me that we’re still getting a lot of BS advice, like this standard operating procedure, boilerplate, bullcrap advice that we get during an economic downturn or recession. I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times already. Don’t buy coffee out, quote, go into the Starbucks or the local coffee shop that you love so much, and paying five or 10 bucks. For something extra special in the morning, just brew your coffee at home for pennies on the dollar. Stop eating out. That includes even fast food joints because the dollar menu is non existent. Now. The value menu isn’t much of a value anymore. So just cook at home. eat ramen noodles, eat hot dogs, subsist. And you’ll be just fine. And it’s like, what? I remember hearing the same kind of advice back in 2008. And I’m like, How is this supposed to help me? I don’t buy coffee in coffee shops. We’re not going out. We’re not spending money on subscriptions, and frivolities and fun. So where’s the actual, quote, expert advice that’s going to help me live better during a downturn, because this is not helpful. Apparently, they think everyone in America goes to Starbucks on their way to work. Or everyone in America is eating meals out of the house just constantly. I guess they think that no one in the entire US cooks at home or brews coffee at home, which is absurd. Likewise, we’re getting the advice of just pick up extra work, figure out a side hustle, or two or three, make yourself over employed now. Don’t go on social media like a complete moron and advertise that that’s what you’re doing. But you know, if you can have two or three jobs simultaneously, without letting too many plates fall, are you gonna be just fine? Right? Yeah, about that. So I’m sitting out here with a bird’s eye view of the job market. And I’m like, Where are all of these jobs supposedly asked, What kind of work will these people be doing? I mean, from all outward appearances thus far, it seems that this recession is going to take a bigger toll on so called White Collar knowledge workers than it will on blue collar workers. So where are all of these jobs and side hustles supposed to come from? If the solution to making it through this recession? For whatever length of time it’s going to be? Whether we’re talking about a few months or a few years. What I want you to think about is what if it’s just simply not an option? What if the option does not exist for me to have a full time job and a part time job or a part time side hustle? What if the option is not there for me to be, quote, over employed, and try to work two or three full time jobs remotely with like 100 different laptops and tablets on my desk at one time? What if that option simply doesn’t exist? I’ll be honest with you, it didn’t exist for me. Back in the Great Recession. I had one full time job. And I remember trying to do you know, other things that you get told about how to save money or make money during a downturn, like having a garage sale or a yard sale, try to get rid of things that you don’t need somebody out there will buy that stuff from you. Hmm, well, that wasn’t my experience. I remember having a garage sale and making almost no money. And people did show up. It wasn’t like, okay, but you only had two or three people. No wonder it failed. No, I had people coming up all through the day, as I was out there trying to sell stuff. And it was pitiful. You’d have people coming up going, Yeah, I want to buy this t shirt. Will you take 10 cents for it? Yeah, I want to buy this box fan. But I can only offer you like 50 cents when you take it. I mean, you got a lot of hagglers. A lot of people who were just like, yeah, I want this, but I don’t have any money. And so they would offer you I mean, really and truly pennies on the dollar for your stuff. And it’s like, okay, well, I mean, it’s 50 cents better than nothing at this point. Like, by the time I factor in the fee of what it costs to put an ad in the paper, am I going to actually make any money from this endeavor? Or was this pretty much just a waste of time. So we get these pieces of advice, whether it’s go have a yard sale, or stop drinking Starbucks or go work 15 jobs at the same time? What if those conventional, I’m using air quotes here, conventional pieces of wisdom, don’t work. I could not have gone and found another job. Probably if my life had depended on it. I did everything that I could to hang on to the full time job that I had. And I made it my mission to become intrical to the operation, so that no matter what I would be the last one standing. Maybe if they close the doors entirely, I’d have to go out and look for another job. But man, I wanted to be super important to the operations. So they would not get rid of me. I wanted it to feel like the pain of not having me would be a hell of a lot greater than the pain of having me and having to consistently pay me every two weeks. The idea of quiet quitting, never even remotely entered my brain at that point in time. Unemployment was high. And I’ve told the story before that every day, people would show up or would call on the phone asking, Are you hiring? Do you have anything I’ll come in, I’ll sweep the floors, I’ll scrub the toilets, whatever you want me to do, I just really, really need a job. And I remember the receptionist sitting up there. And no, we’re not. I mean, you could you could drop off a resume or you could leave an application on file. But we just don’t have anything. And this would go on day after day after day after month after month after month. So if you had a job, you did whatever you needed to do, to hang on to it. And the idea of will just go pick up more work. This is such a holdover in my opinion from the great resignation and the so called labor shortage that we heard about over and over and over again, folks, that’s done. It is done. And over with in terms of white collar knowledge work, the great resignation is done. And it has been. It has been. So unless you’re thinking okay, well, I’ll go out and try to pick up extra work. Maybe I’ll get a retail job. Maybe I’ll work part time and fast food. Yeah, you probably could do that. I think a lot of those businesses are still hiring, at least for right now. As we go further into this mess, they may not be there may be some companies that decide to just do automation. I hate to be the bearer of bad news there but they might just going to depend on how bad this situation gets. But the so called experts that are out here telling you just go find some more white collar work just, you know, get your two or three jobs, pick up a side hustle, sell all the crap you got in your garage, really? Who’s buying it? long pause there so you can think about it. You know, I’ve told stories before about days and times in my part of the Midwest where normally you would not be able to squeeze another human being into a garage sale and they would have nobody It would be sunny and 75 Perfect weather, a beautiful Friday or Saturday afternoon, no one. And the owner sitting there in the driveway in a lawn chair looking depressed as hell and totally dejected, like, where are all the shoppers? So it’s like, Who are you going to sell this stuff to? I hate to sound gloom and doom and Debbie downer here. But it seems to me that if you were going to try to unload unwanted stuff for money, you may have missed the boat. I know, nobody likes to hear that. We’re supposed to get on the air and just have a lot of hopium. And everything’s gonna be all right. Don’t worry about it. But I’m trying to be honest with you here. Based on my real world observations, and I am not seeing people crowding into yard sales and garage sales, they can’t wait to buy your stuff. In fact, I heard from a friend of a friend who works in estate sales. And I had asked her like, well, what are what are you seeing? You know, because I’d had some conversations like that earlier in the year when it was still so nice outside. I mean, it’s turned off cold now. We had like, no foul. It basically went from being 80 degrees to being 30. Like slam bam, here you go winter. Okay, great. Thanks, because that’s gonna help everybody’s health. And so I had had kind of asked her again, like, Okay, what what are you seeing now? Are there people maybe that are going to try to pick up things affordably as Christmas gifts or what’s going on in the estate sale world. And she basically described it as being like the experience that I had, trying to do the garage sale back during the Great Recession, people coming up wanting to just give pennies on the dollar for stuff. Yeah, I’m gonna buy this radio. We sell it to me for $1. Yeah, I want to buy this bag of clothes. We sell it to me for like five bucks. I mean, just beat people wanting to haggle and pay basically nothing at the estate sale, along with some people shoplifting. And just feeling like well, I mean, this is not a store per se, what can they really do? It’s my word against theirs. So they’ll just shove something under their shirt and walk out. We’re living in crazy times. It seems to me that these experts are giving you advice about making your coffee at home buying generics, don’t eat in a restaurant, have a garage sale, try to work five or 10 jobs at one time and just live off of nodos and Red Bull. I don’t know what planet they’re on. I can’t tell you what to do. I always say you’ve got to make up your own mind. I’m just opining here for your entertainment only. But if it were me, Lord have mercy. I would not want to be dependent on having a yard sale. Or trying to work multiple jobs at once and hope that that’s going to be alright. Because I’m telling you. So we go further into this mess. I don’t think that unemployment is going to peak at five and a half percent. There’s no freaking way. I just don’t see it happening. And I remember what it was like, when so many people were unemployed and suffering during the Great Recession. Those people just wanted a job period, not more than one. And I think that a lot of these experts are giving you bullcrap advice. It’s almost like they’re placating you. They’re trying to keep you on that pablum. You just take your little medicine little baby and hush. If times get tight, go have a yard sale. If times get tight brew your coffee at home. If times get tight, try to work more than one job. Now, we’re not going to really factor in to this advice that there may not be the opportunity to have more than one job. If you’ve got a full time 40 hour a week job. You may feel damn lucky that you have that. No, we’re not going to tell you that. Okay, we just want to publish some fluff pieces and some hot air and some hopium to keep the masses low. If we just tell you publicly go pick up some extra work have a yard sale you gonna be all right. Maybe we can’t. We won’t film it any panic. That way. We can kind of control everybody in the hoi polloi. If we tell them that, okay, okay. In the Orlando minor video that I’ve linked to below, where he talks about 40% of real estate agents are going bankrupt. That’s another industry where they thought that their poopoo didn’t stink for a while right. Oh, how the tables turn. There was a post that he reads. I think it was maybe from Facebook. I don’t know what the situation is. He doesn’t really explicate it very well on the video. But he shows this post from social media and I want to read it to you now. It says Hello all. We moved to Cummings, Georgia last year from New York, we bought a house by bidding over 50k than the asking price since the facing was North. Okay. I work for a company in downtown Atlanta, and they are asking to show up in office four days a week. And my wife recently got a job and her office is in bucket. We have a four year old and a one year old. The commute is taking an hour and a half each way these days and getting hectic for me and my wife with young kids, and we don’t have any other help at the moment. Can you please advise if there are any better ways to manage the situation? That’s tough. That is tough. So you’re talking about a scenario that I think we will see more of people who got into the FOMO and the Yolo of 2021. They bought a house and the heat of the moment they over bid, they overpaid. They may have waived an inspection. They don’t really know what all is wrong with the place but they’re finding it out. And now they feel trapped. But then you add to the being house poor the come on back. I know that we’re all supposed to rah, rah and cheerlead and get very excited about the walkouts and the resignations at Twitter. Oh, they’re really sticking it to Lauren Ilan. They’re really showing him. Huh? Are they? I’m sorry, but I don’t think so. It’s been made very clear, to me, at least, that he wants people who are loyal to him and loyal to the company. It’s like Zuckerberg, there’s probably some of you here that shouldn’t be. And if you want to self select out the door, that’s cool. That’s what these oligarchs and tech Lords want. If you don’t want to be here, if you’re not going to go along to get along, and comport with the agenda, leave, there’s the door. And I think we will see even outside the tech sector. And outside of Silicon Valley, I think we will see more companies doing exactly what this poster is talking about, you need to come on back to the office. So somebody who has their butt in a bind because they grossly overpaid for a house or perhaps they took the company at its word. They may have been working for a place that said remote is here to stay, and we have no plans to ever ask you to come on back. Help fast forward in time, now you’re supposed to come on back. So they moved off. They might be thinking what I’m never going to have to go back to a brick and mortar office. They’ve said we could work from anywhere. So screw it, we’ll just leave, we’ll move out to the country. Go hang out, down by the river and live in an RV. We’ll go wherever we want to go. And it’s going to all be fine. Mm hmm. Yeah. So that’s quite a gamble. And as this poster is talking about, they’re now having to have a total of a three hour commute every day, and I have a four year old and a one year old. Oh, and then they also bid over 50k. On house, I’m sure their realtor was more than happy to tell them that was a good decision. Probably their broker to everyone involved in it was probably like, Oh, let me just sit here and CO clap and egging you on. It’s not my money. Yep. Don’t be naive. Please, please do not be naive. If you’ve been sitting out there thinking, well, I’ll just pick up extra work and it’ll be fine. Mouth, I’ll try to take on two or three full time jobs. And, you know, I’ll just get an extra long desk and have more than one laptop and it’s going to be all right. Is it? Do you know whether or not you’re in an industry that’s well insulated from a recession or you’re not? But then also think about the hedge fund warnings? You know, I recorded that episode, where the hedge fund had said, please do not assume that you have lived this before because you haven’t. So even if you’ve been in an industry that historically in the past has been a pretty well insulated from economic ups and downs. I wouldn’t get too cocky and assume that’s going to be the case this time around because we may really be in for something awful. I know. I know. gloom and doom not supposed to say things like that, but I just want to be real with you. Do I foresee a situation where you can just sit at home and work two or three jobs and brew coffee at home? and have a yard sale and everything’s gonna be alright. For the vast majority of people. No, I don’t see that. Look, I’m not Nostradamus. I’m not a psychic or an all seeing Oracle. I don’t know for sure. I’m just giving you my opinion for your entertainment only. And in my opinion, my considered opinion, I don’t, I just don’t see that happening. I don’t. And so I think these experts that want to give us trite, silly advice, shame on them. It’s not helpful. It is not helpful to anyone to be told, brew your coffee at home, have a yard sale, get rid of the stuff you’re not using. And, you know, go pick up a side hustle, ya know, go get you a part time job. The only thing that I can really say to you can’t give you advice can’t tell you what to do. The only thing I can really say to you is have you asked yourself that question. What if it’s not an option to be over employed? What if I only have one full time? 40 hour a week job? And I’m damn lucky to have that. How am I going to survive it wargame that out? Please. If it were me, I wouldn’t want to have that information. And to know ahead of time, I would not want to wait to get absolutely blindsided. And then try to cobble together a game plan on the freefall down. I have been there and I have done that. And let me tell you it sucks. That first iteration of self employment that failed spectacularly? Yeah, I was pretty sure that I was going to be able to cobble together a parachute on the way down. And it didn’t work out. And it took me some real time and real effort to rebuild my life. Debt and financial trouble are easy to get into and difficult to get out of. You can spend a lifetime basically getting a credit score over 800 and looking so good to the bankers on paper. And you can obliterate it in basically no time. Then they’re done that. I don’t wish it on you. If you can think about these things in advance, get your strategy together, get your mind right. Stay safe, stay sane, and I’ll see you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a quick second to subscribe to this podcast and share it with your friends. We’ll see you next time.