Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to Mama Mia out Loud. It's what
Speaker 3: women are actually talking about on Wednesday, the third of September.
Speaker 3: I'm Holly Wainwright.
Speaker 2: I'm Jesse Stevens, I'm Amelia Lester, and yesterday I forced
Speaker 2: you to to sit down with me and a Terra
Speaker 2: card reader. Yes you did, Stephens for a special upcoming
Speaker 2: out Loud episode, and I think we're going to put
Speaker 2: some of it as a subscriber episode because yeah, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of content.
Speaker 3: A bit private. I'm feeling very relaxed today because I
Speaker 3: sort of feel like my future future, Holly, like it's
Speaker 3: all set, it's all take care of. I don't need
Speaker 3: to worry anymore. Like the good things, the bad things,
Speaker 3: it's just going to happen.
Speaker 1: I can just sit back the opposite. Really, I had
Speaker 1: a really strong reaction to it, which I unparck with
Speaker 1: you guys.
Speaker 2: She said some really interesting things about Maya, some really
Speaker 2: accurate things. I can't stop thinking about it.
Speaker 3: Yes, so that's next week's excitement. But here's what's on
Speaker 3: our agenda for today.
Speaker 1: There was a brief period this weekend where a lot
Speaker 1: of the world thought that Donald Trump had died. Now
Speaker 1: he hasn't died, but the rumors around his health have
Speaker 1: not gone away. And I'm going to give you three
Speaker 1: reasons why.
Speaker 2: And a sudden rise in rudeness. New research indicates retail
Speaker 2: workers are in the firing line and we want to
Speaker 2: work out why.
Speaker 3: And another royal fiance is about to take the infamous
Speaker 3: battle moral test.
Speaker 2: Would you pass it?
Speaker 3: Spoiler alert?
Speaker 1: No? But first, in case you missed it, the compliment
Speaker 1: sandwich is stale.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 1: This was a management technique that was developed in the eighties.
Speaker 1: It was meant to soften the blow of negative feedback.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the one thing everyone knows about
Speaker 1: managing people. Yes, or maybe it's just be Let me
Speaker 1: give you an example of how it plays out. This
Speaker 1: is from an article on fizz dot org. The compliment
Speaker 1: is the bread roger. Your input at the client meeting
Speaker 1: was invaluable. The feedback is the meat. You've been showing
Speaker 1: up late and leaving early. It's impacting your deliverables. And
Speaker 1: then the bread again the compliment, but that last report
Speaker 1: you created excellent work.
Speaker 2: And I don't, as Roger, I feel manipulated. I feel
Speaker 2: as though I've not even heard either of the compliments.
Speaker 2: Now know, you just wanted to give me feedback and
Speaker 2: the other stuff was just decorative.
Speaker 1: All Roger heard from that is you're leaving work early
Speaker 1: and it's impacting your deliverables. And he ends up more
Speaker 1: resentful than if you hadn't pushed it, because you can
Speaker 1: tell that you're patronizing him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and don't get me wrong Roger's problem. I mean,
Speaker 2: Roger's doing a shit job.
Speaker 3: He's doing a good job, sometimes not such a great job.
Speaker 1: And a good job.
Speaker 2: No, but the way the compliment sandwich works like you're
Speaker 2: told to do it regardless. So this is what I mean,
Speaker 2: is that when people give me compliments either like they're
Speaker 2: not real, they just want to give you bad feedback.
Speaker 1: No, this is the research, Holli. There is research here,
Speaker 1: and it shows that when you hear a compliment in
Speaker 1: this way, you're already bracing for the negative feedback. So
Speaker 1: you hear the first nice bit and you're like, what
Speaker 1: are you about to tell me? And then this makes
Speaker 1: employees feel more aggrieved than if you just delivered it
Speaker 1: to them straight. So shall I tell you what to
Speaker 1: do instead? Yes? Please. What you're meant to do instead
Speaker 1: is aim for candor. Now, this is a hard word.
Speaker 1: It's hard to even really know how to get there.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to give you a couple of tips
Speaker 1: in how to be more straightforward at work. The first
Speaker 1: is practice your first line when you're going to deliver
Speaker 1: some tough news. So someone just actually get a first
Speaker 1: line in your head, because it really sets the tone.
Speaker 3: This is my first line for Roger. Nice of you
Speaker 3: to show up today.
Speaker 1: It's very candid, very candid. Secondly, show you care about
Speaker 1: the person. Do you care about Roger probably not? Do
Speaker 1: you care about his deliverables? Yes? And end with an
Speaker 1: agreement a plan on the way forward.
Speaker 2: It's definitely a lot more honest. And in the past
Speaker 2: when I've been hurt by feedback, it's because I have
Speaker 2: felt that that person has been holding onto the feedback
Speaker 2: for a while.
Speaker 3: That's a big mistake.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you just think, well, now I'm embarrassed. If
Speaker 2: you just said it, then I would have just addressed
Speaker 2: it and it would have hurt at the time, but
Speaker 2: I would have moved on.
Speaker 3: Right. I'm playing a tiny violin here for managers, because
Speaker 3: I've been one, I was one for a lot of years.
Speaker 1: Did you use compliment Sandwiches sometimes?
Speaker 3: Definitely. Yes. Humans are messy and annoying, right, all of
Speaker 3: us are. So the problem with what exactly what you
Speaker 3: just expressed, Jesse, is that you only hear the negative
Speaker 3: not the positive. Is really annoying for managers because the
Speaker 3: thing about all of you and me and everybody is
Speaker 3: that sometimes we're good and sometimes we're not, and we're
Speaker 3: good at some things, and so all of it's true.
Speaker 3: The compliment's true, the negative bit's true, and the other
Speaker 3: compliment's true as well. But it's smart to get rid
Speaker 3: of the compliment Sandwich for the reasons you've already said
Speaker 3: that people only hear the negative ones. And they say
Speaker 3: that what you should do is you should just give
Speaker 3: real time feedback all all the time. Yeah, but that
Speaker 3: is really exhausting because you're the managers usually in most
Speaker 3: organizations also have a job to do. It's rare that
Speaker 3: they're only managing, so they've got to be like doing
Speaker 3: their job and constantly for giving you the feedback. And
Speaker 3: then we all know, working in a big group of
Speaker 3: young women that if you're a manager and you ever
Speaker 3: say to anyone I need to have a word with.
Speaker 2: You, oh my goodness, then everybody.
Speaker 3: Freaks out and everybody gets upset. If you put a
Speaker 3: meeting in someone's calendar, everybody, So what are you supposed
Speaker 3: to do? But it's a note unwinnable situation. When I
Speaker 3: was coming up in management, all that psychometric testing stuff
Speaker 3: was really hot. You know, are you an inter? Are
Speaker 3: you an extrovert? Are you an X Y Z, blue,
Speaker 3: yellow pink? And the theory was you can't manage everyone
Speaker 3: the same. You have to manage people differently because some
Speaker 3: people respond really well to direct feedback and it shuts
Speaker 3: some people down. This is all very tiring.
Speaker 1: I'm going to make a proposal. Okay, So we can't
Speaker 1: do the compliment sandwich. What about the open faced feedback
Speaker 1: where you pair a difficult piece of feedback with a
Speaker 1: nice thing. That's all they think of, a chabato with
Speaker 1: some tuna on top. Maybe in some papers.
Speaker 2: Like what kind of nice thing?
Speaker 1: Like hey, I really like that shirt, Jesse, But what's
Speaker 1: up with your deliverable?
Speaker 3: Exactly? That's just a shit sep with It's a melt.
Speaker 1: It's a toast.
Speaker 3: It's a toasty I like that, that's a smash burger,
Speaker 3: which is just like Roger. For sake, it's eleven o'clock,
Speaker 3: So really.
Speaker 2: Pretty aggressive chatter tonight on on acts that President Trump
Speaker 2: might be gone.
Speaker 1: Many have predicted that a Donald Trump twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: health event would be the defining story of this year.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's death.
Speaker 3: We're going to find out once and for all informedutes, Amelia.
Speaker 3: I only have one question today, because it's on every
Speaker 3: screen I look at. Is Donald Trump dying?
Speaker 1: Well, we're all dying, Holly. Was that not enough of
Speaker 1: a compliment?
Speaker 3: Sandwich?
Speaker 1: Brutal feedback, But there is some evidence that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is maybe dying quite fast or is not in good health.
Speaker 1: And before anyone comes at me for speculating about the
Speaker 1: health of a poor old man, I want to lay
Speaker 1: on the table that in twenty twenty Donald Trump posted
Speaker 1: on social media that Joe Biden had been executed and
Speaker 1: replaced by robots. So I think he's fair game to discuss.
Speaker 1: I want to point out that he's the most powerful
Speaker 1: person in the world by many metrics. We know less
Speaker 1: about his health than just about any other president in
Speaker 1: recent history.
Speaker 2: When we did speak to the Caracard reader and this
Speaker 2: was off Mike. She said that, yes, while we're all dying,
Speaker 2: she said, it is not imminent. So there's our prediction
Speaker 2: for the day.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's great. I have some more actual reasons, so
Speaker 1: let me explain first why people thought he was dying.
Speaker 1: This past weekend. I was actually getting my nails done,
Speaker 1: and then I was browsing the internet, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I noticed that everyone who I know in Washington,
Speaker 1: DC was saying that there was a rumor going around
Speaker 1: that he was dead.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, and really like legitimate, like you're smart
Speaker 3: journalist friends.
Speaker 1: Yes, everyone was convinced. So here are the reasons why
Speaker 1: he wasn't seen for three days, which is unusual for.
Speaker 3: Him always on presidency.
Speaker 1: He didn't have plans to go away to one of
Speaker 1: his golf courses for the long weekend which the US
Speaker 1: just had, which is again very unusual for him. And then,
Speaker 1: and my favorite of the reasons is his vice president JD. Vance.
Speaker 1: He gave this really weird interview last week where he
Speaker 1: said that if a terrible tragedy were to befall his boss,
Speaker 1: he JD. Vance was ready to step in It was
Speaker 1: kind of like that internet meme where it's like no
Speaker 1: one colon JD Van.
Speaker 3: I reckon Trump's got a shits out of which coming
Speaker 3: from JD pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So overnight Australia time, we got a press conference
Speaker 1: from Trump, so we know he's not dead. He was
Speaker 1: talking about space force and it was clearly a proof
Speaker 1: of life conference because no one cares about space force,
Speaker 1: least of all Donald Trump. But he had to show
Speaker 1: us that he was in fact still alive. So he
Speaker 1: isn't dead. But here are three reasons why Trump is
Speaker 1: still on death watch. The first, his hands have been
Speaker 1: really bruised for months.
Speaker 2: I keep seeing this and then articles about what foundation
Speaker 2: he's using to cover them.
Speaker 1: The wrong shade, the wrong shade.
Speaker 3: He's never worn the right shade of foundation in his life, Amelia.
Speaker 3: Why would he start now with the han.
Speaker 1: You're not meant to test fundation on your hand anyway.
Speaker 1: You went to the side of your faceline. Maybe he
Speaker 1: went to Sephora, who knows. But the reason his press
Speaker 1: secretary is given for the bruising is that he shakes
Speaker 1: a lot of hands, and he's shaken more hands than
Speaker 1: any other president. She said, And that has led to
Speaker 1: some bruising.
Speaker 3: Look, there's a tiny bit of legitimacy in that, because
Speaker 3: Trump would definitely be one of those dudes who prided
Speaker 3: himself on a hat shake, and he'd be like, I
Speaker 3: judge a man by a handshake, one of those guys,
Speaker 3: So now they'd be like a competitive.
Speaker 1: Dealreak his hands. The bruises are covering that hands.
Speaker 3: Doesn't seem real to me, Scar Ivy, don't you think
Speaker 3: like ivy import that's what doctors. But that could also
Speaker 3: be fittermin feet like it could be dying like you
Speaker 3: know anyway.
Speaker 1: Second reason, his ancles are very swollen, very swollen.
Speaker 2: When have we seen his ankles.
Speaker 1: All the time.
Speaker 3: Maybe he's pregnant with the girl, really really swollen at
Speaker 3: the end of my pregnancy.
Speaker 1: His official doctor says this is because he has basically
Speaker 1: benign leg vein issue. But also, I do need to
Speaker 1: mention that people in the Trump White House have a
Speaker 1: history of lying. Remember when we were told he had
Speaker 1: the biggest inauguration crowd of all time. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: second reason. Third reason, this is a man who loves
Speaker 1: a routine. He does everything according to habit, and lately
Speaker 1: his routine has really been off running through a few things.
Speaker 1: He hasn't been wearing his trademark big red tie, you know,
Speaker 1: the big red tie. He's been wearing his big red
Speaker 1: hats in the Oval Office in the White House. And
Speaker 1: we all know that he feels very strongly about the
Speaker 1: dress code in the Oval office. That's right, as Ukrainian
Speaker 1: President Zelenski discovered when he did not wear a suit there.
Speaker 1: And Trump has been avoiding the press, which is really
Speaker 1: unlike him. He loves talking. Maybe the weirdest thing of all,
Speaker 1: there was footage this weekend of some giant black rubbish
Speaker 1: bags being thrown out of a second floor window at
Speaker 1: the White House. Really weird because those windows famously don't
Speaker 1: open for security reasons. Michelle Obama has complained that when
Speaker 1: she lived in the White House she couldn't open the
Speaker 1: windows for security reasons, and now we're seeing these giant
Speaker 1: black rubbish bags being thrown out. So he was asked
Speaker 1: about this at the press conference, and he just lied.
Speaker 1: He said that this video was AI. It's not AI.
Speaker 1: It was taken on like multiple people's phones, So we
Speaker 1: don't know what that's about, and I don't have answers
Speaker 1: on it all but I do want to say that
Speaker 1: he's the oldest person to ever be sworn in as president.
Speaker 1: He's seventy nine, and he eats four burgers and the
Speaker 1: chocolate milkshake a night. He eats two fi little fishes
Speaker 1: and two big macs. So I don't think this is
Speaker 1: a completely outlandish line.
Speaker 2: I think couldn't he just because I must say, even
Speaker 2: in the press conference, and there is something within me
Speaker 2: that feels uncomfortable speculating about death, not in this context
Speaker 2: because the headlines just were unavoidable over the weekend, but
Speaker 2: you can see the glee on social media of people
Speaker 2: almost championing someone's death.
Speaker 1: I want to stop you there for a second and say,
Speaker 1: what's interesting is that there weren't headlines in the big,
Speaker 1: reputable press outlets. So it's interesting to compare this to
Speaker 1: how the press covered Joe Biden's cognitive to that was
Speaker 1: something that we heard a lot about last year, a
Speaker 1: lot of speculation about his health. He was eventually sort
Speaker 1: of pushed to step down and not run again for
Speaker 1: president because people thought he wasn't healthy enough, And none
Speaker 1: of the big news outlets covered this whole weird death
Speaker 1: rumor that happened over the weekend.
Speaker 3: Surely because it is just conspiracy stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the Biden stuff was covered in a completely
Speaker 1: different way, and I don't know why that is. I
Speaker 1: think it's because we've come to expect erratic behavior from Trump.
Speaker 1: We've come to expect strangeness. The trash bags just feels
Speaker 1: like another chapter in the strangeness of this presidency.
Speaker 2: He did seem though, in that press conference that he
Speaker 2: did overnight. He seemed low energy. He just seemed a
Speaker 2: little bit off. And maybe that's because of what we've
Speaker 2: heard over the last few days. But could the man
Speaker 2: not just have the flu? That's what I kept thinking,
Speaker 2: is he's seventy nine years old, exactly, you can get
Speaker 2: knocked around by it. He's probably not one hundred percent, but.
Speaker 1: He called though, Jesse. The bruising has been happening for months,
Speaker 1: So yeah, the bruising and the swollen ankles have been
Speaker 1: happening since the start of the year as well. And
Speaker 1: the fact that he's not talking to the press and
Speaker 1: sort of dialing back his commitments.
Speaker 3: My main takeaway from this, I've got to change my
Speaker 3: Maca's order because I like a fill it of fish
Speaker 3: and I don't want to have anything in common with.
Speaker 2: Donald in a moment, the sudden rise in rudeness will
Speaker 2: tell you about the new research that proves you're not
Speaker 2: imagining it. In case you missed it, actor and rapper
Speaker 2: Will Smith is on a comeback tour and when he
Speaker 2: shared videos on Instagram from his recent performances, viewers noticed
Speaker 2: that something was a little bit off. So he's promoting
Speaker 2: he's based on a true story tour and sharing footage
Speaker 2: with captions like, my favorite part of tour is seeing
Speaker 2: you all up close. The only problem is that when
Speaker 2: people zoomed in on this footage of the mass crowds,
Speaker 2: they found a number of unnatural elements. So we're talking
Speaker 2: people with extra fingers, distorted faces, inconsistent hand shapes, which
Speaker 2: are all hallmarks of AI generated content. Like even the
Speaker 2: thing that I noticed was just a blurring of faces
Speaker 2: almost into each other. It was really unusual. And there's
Speaker 2: one viral screenshot of a man holding a sign and
Speaker 2: the sign reads you can make it. That's a Will
Speaker 2: Smith song helped me survive cancer. Thanks Will. And what's
Speaker 2: weird is that this man's knuckles blur into the a
Speaker 2: four piece of papers holding even weird to hold an
Speaker 2: a four piece of paper. The woman in front, her
Speaker 2: hand is part of the sign, and her bracelet is
Speaker 2: also someone else's headband. Look, it's just all a bit off.
Speaker 3: It's Kate Middleton photoshop skills.
Speaker 2: It's really bad. And while Smith's team hasn't confirmed it,
Speaker 2: experts think this is a result of something called upscaling,
Speaker 2: which is a type of AI enhancement where you can
Speaker 2: make something look like they are sort of more humans
Speaker 2: in the shot, and you can even make people look
Speaker 2: more excited. Smith did eventually spawned a few days ago
Speaker 2: by sharing footage from a concert and when it pans
Speaker 2: to the crowd, they're just all cats.
Speaker 3: This is a dream, recurrent dream I have, Like when
Speaker 3: we were on the out Loud toy panned to the crowd,
Speaker 3: it's just all.
Speaker 2: Cats and clearly it's just like, oh, this is AI.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But Holly, you went back and watched the original videos,
Speaker 2: did you notice to the naked eye that it was
Speaker 2: a I know not the first time I was just
Speaker 2: in the like it was fun.
Speaker 3: I was like yeah, and then when it was pointed
Speaker 3: out to me, I was like, oh yeah, yeah. My
Speaker 3: generous take, if one should have a generous take about
Speaker 3: Will Smith because I look to see if ticket, because
Speaker 3: he's just on this really quite odd tour of England
Speaker 3: to strange places, like just a few dates but like
Speaker 3: yeah to Scarborough Beach, which is just not somewhere where
Speaker 3: generally speaking people play. But they did all sell out,
Speaker 3: so it's not like there was an embarrassing dearth of enthusiasm.
Speaker 3: But I relate maybe, like real people are very unsatisfying
Speaker 3: in their appearance enthusiasm, whether or not they're holding up
Speaker 3: signs and credit you were saving that life.
Speaker 1: So justin Timberlake really needed this for his Katy Perry.
Speaker 2: Katy Perry did, and I thought like, well, if this
Speaker 2: is possible, then I wonder if with our out loud tours,
Speaker 2: because you know, a big part of publicity is to
Speaker 2: communicate your bigness, like you need everyone to know how
Speaker 2: big and important and what a vibe you are. Like
Speaker 2: if we're in our theater and then you just zoom
Speaker 2: out as eras to her, like, can't we just mash
Speaker 2: in the eras to a stadium? And then even in
Speaker 2: a podcast context, it's like, Holly, sometimes you don't laugh
Speaker 2: enough for my jokes. I'm thinking that we just dial
Speaker 2: that up by forty fifty.
Speaker 3: My head is like it hatches open, like yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: and you've.
Speaker 2: Got eight fingers. Turn around and Melie as a cat.
Speaker 2: And this is actually terrifying. A piece in the Sydney
Speaker 2: Morning Herald over the weekend by Jacqueline Maylee asks retail
Speaker 2: work are copying more abuse, but why. Last week, Woolworth's
Speaker 2: reported a twenty six percent increase in violent incidents at
Speaker 2: its stores over the past year, and the Australian Retailers
Speaker 2: Association has released data that says eighty seven percent of
Speaker 2: retail workers report experiencing verbal abuse and fifty one percent
Speaker 2: report experiencing physical abuse. The reason this caught my attention
Speaker 2: is because I've definitely noticed this unusual thing lately, which
Speaker 2: is that every time I call my doctor or my
Speaker 2: phone provider or an airline, I get a sort of
Speaker 2: an automated message telling me to be respectful and courteous
Speaker 2: and basically if I'm not, then the call will be terminated.
Speaker 2: And that feels new. I don't feel like that was happening.
Speaker 3: And lots of actual signs and shops, yes, see that
Speaker 3: all the time now in Bunnings, in wherever you go
Speaker 3: that say police treat our stuff with respect, zero tolerance.
Speaker 3: That also feels new.
Speaker 2: It does feel new, and I always think like that
Speaker 2: happened in Money's the other day, and I thought, who's
Speaker 2: yelling at this woman behind the counter? Like, I've definitely
Speaker 2: noticed this as something that is suddenly everywhere. Mainly offers
Speaker 2: some theories in her article, Amelia, what do you think
Speaker 2: is behind this measurable increase in general rudeness but also
Speaker 2: towards retail workers? What's going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah, these stats are so startling to think about how
Speaker 1: widespread it is. I worked in retail for many years,
Speaker 1: many years ago, and I never endured this kind of abuse.
Speaker 1: Things have changed, and I think there's a couple of
Speaker 1: obvious reasons why. I mean, the world is darker now,
Speaker 1: it's scarier, We pick up our phones and estimated two
Speaker 1: hundred and five times a day, we're clearly always distracted
Speaker 1: and stressed, and there's obviously absolutely no excuse for rudeness.
Speaker 1: But I want to put on the table that maybe
Speaker 1: part of this is not the customer's fault. It's to
Speaker 1: do with the employer, and it's to do with the
Speaker 1: way that in the pursuit of shareholder value, employers are
Speaker 1: consistently cutting corners, their workforces are smaller than before, or
Speaker 1: workers are being forced to do more with less, and
Speaker 1: that's leading to understandable frustration on the part of customers.
Speaker 1: One interesting concept that I came across is the idea
Speaker 1: of sludge. Have you ever heard of this idea? Now?
Speaker 1: This refers to the way that call centers, in particular
Speaker 1: actually set up to frustrate us when we call them.
Speaker 1: This is a thing that companies want to do to
Speaker 1: create friction between the customer and the thing that the
Speaker 1: customer wants, which will cost them money. So some examples
Speaker 1: in an article about sludge and the Atlantic recently were
Speaker 1: Toyota in the US was found by a consumer corporation
Speaker 1: to have set up a hotline for people who wanted
Speaker 1: to access certain products and services that was actually just dead.
Speaker 1: You could never actually reach a person on this hotline
Speaker 1: that they had set up. Another example is that you
Speaker 1: might find that you get accidentally hung up on by
Speaker 1: a call center. Has that ever happened? Turns out that
Speaker 1: that's sometimes not accidental. There is evidence that companies are
Speaker 1: doing this to style me getting what we want from them.
Speaker 3: And then you if you do get to a person.
Speaker 2: You are furious, you're furious, and you've also dehumanized whoever's
Speaker 2: on the other end because you've been speaking to robots.
Speaker 3: Well, that's what I wondered about this too, is that
Speaker 3: if you think about some customer service, and again I
Speaker 3: don't want to like, I don't know about people who
Speaker 3: are abusing workers, and certainly not in any violent or
Speaker 3: extra of course not. But because we have automated so much,
Speaker 3: I wonder if there's some kind of connection now in
Speaker 3: that we're like, we're used to robots being able to
Speaker 3: do these jobs, so it's almost like a real person
Speaker 3: who's doing a retail job. We've almost devalued their humanity
Speaker 3: because we're like, well I can just beep past you,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. Yeah, I also say that's
Speaker 3: the thing.
Speaker 2: I also wonder, like your first port of call with
Speaker 2: most businesses is a chatbot, now, right, And so you
Speaker 2: go to your chatbot who you talk to. It's not
Speaker 2: very satisfying getting angry at a chatbot because you just
Speaker 2: get this blankness.
Speaker 1: And they're rarely satisfying. No, will rarely get you what
Speaker 1: you want.
Speaker 2: Yes, And so you escalate, you escalate, And I have
Speaker 2: been in that situation I was thinking recently about and
Speaker 2: I have never raised my voice lost it at some because,
Speaker 2: and you need to say it to yourself, you go,
Speaker 2: don't shoot the messenger. If you're angry at the corporation.
Speaker 2: It is not this person's fault who you've ended up.
Speaker 2: Imagine what that person has copped. But I remember I
Speaker 2: had an issue with an airline. It was one hundred
Speaker 2: percent their fault, and I was so annoyed and I
Speaker 2: got hung up on hours and hours on the phone,
Speaker 2: promises that they'd call me back, an email that got ignored.
Speaker 2: All of that By the time you get onto the person,
Speaker 2: I didn't feel like the person was empathetic or apologetic
Speaker 2: or anything like that wasn't the person's fault what had happened.
Speaker 2: But at that point you can see how people's frustrations
Speaker 2: would rise to such a point that they act in
Speaker 2: a way that's incredibly antisocial and rude, which again isn't
Speaker 2: an excuse. But when something's happening on such a cultural level,
Speaker 2: there are clearly a number of factors that are contributing
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: The other pillar in sludge is actually that workers are
Speaker 1: not empowered to do anything about complaints and they're actually
Speaker 1: told to try and prevent you from reaching up the
Speaker 1: tree of power to get to someone who can actually
Speaker 1: do something for you.
Speaker 2: And sometimes like they're not even allowed to acknowledge, they're
Speaker 2: not allowed fault, which is a trap for them, which
Speaker 2: I think as well with even if you're in your supermarket,
Speaker 2: and the number one contributing factor to sort of incivility
Speaker 2: is stress and so cost of living, all of those things.
Speaker 2: If you walk into your local shopping center, you're struck
Speaker 2: by how expensive things are, you feel manipulated, you feel
Speaker 2: hard done by, and your only connection to that brand,
Speaker 2: which you can tell. And even with the airline thing,
Speaker 2: I'm going, I know how much profit you made, Like
Speaker 2: in my head, I'm thinking that, and I'm going, you
Speaker 2: actually don't care if I'm a customer or not. The
Speaker 2: way that you're being treated, I think it's then like
Speaker 2: the front line of that business are often young casual employees,
Speaker 2: might be their first job, and then they're copying it.
Speaker 3: Well, that's the problem because all these things are very valid,
Speaker 3: you know reasons, and they're saying obviously COVID played a
Speaker 3: part in this too, and the suspicion and distrust that
Speaker 3: were seeded around that. I also wonder if now, because
Speaker 3: we're so used to researching and buying on our phones,
Speaker 3: we almost also have a really high level of expectation
Speaker 3: of customer service in a way in a place where
Speaker 3: we're like, why can't you give me twenty five options
Speaker 3: about all the things? But doctors deal with this all
Speaker 3: the time, for example, health professionals where people walk into
Speaker 3: their surgeries or clinics and they're like, well, I've already googled,
Speaker 3: and I know the twenty five things that are wrong
Speaker 3: with me, So what do you know? You know what
Speaker 3: I mean? I think there's that's an element too, But
Speaker 3: whatever the causes are, as Mainly writes in that column,
Speaker 3: the facts are that retail workers skew female and young
Speaker 3: right overwhelmingly. And she writes at the end, which is
Speaker 3: something I can relate to and very much agree with
Speaker 3: that what's a real shame about this is often where
Speaker 3: people do their first jobs. Not entirely, it's not at
Speaker 3: all correct that retail workers are sort of part time
Speaker 3: teenage jobs. They are often female jobs because they're flexible
Speaker 3: and you can get different time shifts and all those
Speaker 3: kind of things. But for young people it's often their
Speaker 3: first port of call for employment and dealing with people,
Speaker 3: and it's always been thought that it's an excellent experience,
Speaker 3: which I very much agree with. My daughter has a
Speaker 3: job like this in that they learn quickly what's expected
Speaker 3: of them, how to deal with difficult people, you know,
Speaker 3: all of those things, and that's great, but that if
Speaker 3: this incivility continues to rise and rise, that will be
Speaker 3: something that people don't want their kids to do, so
Speaker 3: they'll pull them out of that if they can afford to,
Speaker 3: which is a loss in itself, but also it's giving
Speaker 3: a whole lot of people a very skewed idea in
Speaker 3: a way of what the world is like because you're
Speaker 3: dealing all the time with a level of stress and abuse.
Speaker 3: Well maybe you're not. Maybe you're giving them an accurate,
Speaker 3: brutal picture of what the world is like, but having
Speaker 3: to deal all the time with really stressed out people.
Speaker 3: I have to say, I live in a small town
Speaker 3: and I think that regional shopping experiences are really different.
Speaker 3: I know all the people who work in the shops
Speaker 3: near me. They all know each other's names. And it's
Speaker 3: interesting because the kids I know who work in those
Speaker 3: kind of shops, they can tell the difference immediately between
Speaker 3: local people and tourists in the way they speak to them,
Speaker 3: which is, I'm not like being I don't mean to
Speaker 3: be like city country divide on that, but there's like
Speaker 3: what I mean about that. It's about the humanization piece.
Speaker 3: Like you speak differently to somebody who you see every day,
Speaker 3: you kind of know a little bit, or you can
Speaker 3: relate to in some way or whatever, which is our
Speaker 3: own prejudices. Of course, then you do. If it's just
Speaker 3: like this is I'm never going to see you again.
Speaker 3: I don't care about this exchange. I just need what
Speaker 3: I want, and I need it now well.
Speaker 1: And also, small businesses have different kinds of imperatives to
Speaker 1: these large corporations we're talking about. I wanted to suggest
Speaker 1: there are two ways to counteract the sludge with the corporations,
Speaker 1: which is really what the sludge concept refers to. The
Speaker 1: first is this idea of having an ad midnight. You
Speaker 1: get together friends that you don't see often enough, and
Speaker 1: you all make the calls that you've been putting after
Speaker 1: the insurance company, to the telecom company, to the electricity people.
Speaker 3: Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 1: You have some drinks and you just take your time
Speaker 1: on the whole, so you.
Speaker 3: Make it like a positive experience exactly, and then you
Speaker 3: can bitch to each other as well, and.
Speaker 1: Well the other ones. My personal life hack which I'm
Speaker 1: loath to even share, but it really has changed things
Speaker 1: for me when I am battling a large corporation, which
Speaker 1: unfortunately happens more often than you might want. Instead of
Speaker 1: fighting with someone who has not been given any power
Speaker 1: to change things for me or get me what I want,
Speaker 1: I go to the people who actually have the power.
Speaker 1: So I google who's in charge, who's the chief customer officer,
Speaker 1: who's the person who actually needs to report to the
Speaker 1: powerful people about how they're treating customers, and I write
Speaker 1: them an email.
Speaker 2: Does it work?
Speaker 1: It's sort of a weaponized charentization.
Speaker 3: I didn't want to raise the K word because people
Speaker 3: get very upset when we do. But there's a little rise.
Speaker 1: Of a charent No, no, no, there's an example of it. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, the way that we're being treated by
Speaker 1: big corporations, we have to be able to fight back.
Speaker 1: And one example is a big corporation was meant to
Speaker 1: come and install a dishwasher for me, full of like
Speaker 1: very boring things that happened along the way that made
Speaker 1: me waste two days of my life waiting for this dishwasher,
Speaker 1: and the dishwasher was still not there. So I emailed
Speaker 1: the chief customer officer, and then the very next day
Speaker 1: someone came and saw the dishwasher and I was not
Speaker 1: charged for the installation.
Speaker 2: I also I found the COVID argument interesting because I
Speaker 2: read this research that said that epidemics all throughout history
Speaker 2: have contributed to a coarsening of society. So it changes
Speaker 2: society not for a year, not for two years, but
Speaker 2: for a really long time. And they said that there's
Speaker 2: decades of social damage from each pandemic, and then it's
Speaker 2: often inherited from kids, whether that's a distrust of authority
Speaker 2: or institutions, or feeling like you were forced to do
Speaker 2: something you didn't want to, the isolation, the anxiety that
Speaker 2: I think has changed us. And so even though I
Speaker 2: don't think COVID is the whole story, I think that
Speaker 2: explains why it also appears to be a global phenomenon,
Speaker 2: because there are a reports like this all over the world.
Speaker 3: After the break a potential princess, she's not really a princess,
Speaker 3: but it just sounds good, so I'm going with it.
Speaker 3: A potential princess is taking a very serious test for
Speaker 3: the castle in Scotland right now? Can anyone pass it? One?
Speaker 2: Unlimited out loud access. We drop episodes every Tuesday and
Speaker 2: Thursday exclusively for Muma MAA subscribers. Follow the link in
Speaker 2: the show notes to get us in your ears five
Speaker 2: days a week, and a huge thank you to all
Speaker 2: our current subscribers.
Speaker 3: Do not unpack your own bags. Only drink from one
Speaker 3: side of your glass. Stop eating as soon as the
Speaker 3: host has stopped eating, and whatever you do, do not
Speaker 3: put the milk in first. Right now, a forty five
Speaker 3: year old English nurse is being tested by her future
Speaker 3: in laws about whether she can hack royal life. You
Speaker 3: know what I'm talking about, don't you?
Speaker 2: That lady you talked about the other way.
Speaker 3: Yes, she is Harriet Spurling and she is the fiance
Speaker 3: of Princess Ann's son, Peter Phillips. Now he's not a prince.
Speaker 3: He could be, but Princess Anne famously said, not fancy titles,
Speaker 3: not for my kids. And this is Peter's second marriage.
Speaker 3: Her kids are generally credited with being pretty normal. I
Speaker 3: mean they're not that normal. His first wedding was subject
Speaker 3: to a four hundred page spread and hello, but they're
Speaker 3: quite quite normal anyway. He and Harriet got engaged earlier
Speaker 3: this year and he's taken her up to Balmoral for
Speaker 3: the summer. Now, if you don't know what Balmral is,
Speaker 3: or you do, but you know vaguely, it's where the
Speaker 3: Royal summer. You know how fancy people they don't go
Speaker 3: on holiday this summer?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, is there a nice nice body of water there?
Speaker 3: I've obviously never been because he's inviting me, but it
Speaker 3: is famously stunning. It was the Queen's favorite place. In fact,
Speaker 3: she died there.
Speaker 2: So is it near the Cottwalt?
Speaker 3: God no, it's in Scotland's but oh yeah, So this
Speaker 3: isn't summer like land around Paul in a bikini. This
Speaker 3: is not that's not the Hampton. God no, it's like
Speaker 3: so the Royal.
Speaker 1: Should I should doubt it, aparol.
Speaker 2: I don't think so, because sounds.
Speaker 3: Because this is the thing, is the Royal? If they did,
Speaker 3: I love that. I hope that Harriet is asking for
Speaker 3: one right now. Because so they summer there, which means
Speaker 3: they go in late July. Apparently they stay till September,
Speaker 3: and all of the senior royals and junior royals and
Speaker 3: some world leaders and some important people are expected to
Speaker 3: turn up for a portion of the time, okay, which
Speaker 3: is annoying if you're a young royal and you'd rather
Speaker 3: be on a yacht in centrepe But these days they'll
Speaker 3: probably go and do their yacht centrepez and then they
Speaker 3: have to turn up to Balmrel for a few days.
Speaker 3: Prince Harry is very gushing about bell Moral in his book.
Speaker 3: It's obviously a very special private place for them. Right anyway,
Speaker 3: All that sounds lovely, but there is a thing called
Speaker 3: the bell Moral Test. It was the title of a
Speaker 3: Crown episode in one of the late seasons. Yeah, because
Speaker 3: if you are entering the royal family, you get taken
Speaker 3: there for the first time for your summer weekend. Obviously
Speaker 3: used to be with Queen Elizabeth, now with the King
Speaker 3: and Camilla. You get taken there and it's like like
Speaker 3: any family, there are weird traditions, but in British aristocracy,
Speaker 3: and particularly at this level, there is so much unspoken
Speaker 3: etiquette that you have to know.
Speaker 2: So was Meghan's subject to the baumarl head.
Speaker 3: She was and apparently. So Apparently Princess Dinna passed with
Speaker 3: flying Colors, and it was one of the big reasons
Speaker 3: why the rest of the family is very happy for
Speaker 3: her to marry, in which we all know how that ended.
Speaker 3: Catherine pasted Flying Colors. Apparently Fergie did not. Fergie did
Speaker 3: not go well, World Leaders go, Apparently Margaret Thatcher failed massively,
Speaker 3: Meghan went And there isn't a lot of detail, including
Speaker 3: in Harry's book, about exactly how that went. But when
Speaker 3: I'm about to tell you what I'm about to tell you,
Speaker 3: I think we can all guess, right. So, for example,
Speaker 3: I want you to think about what you'd pack in
Speaker 3: a weekend bag if you knew that someone else was
Speaker 3: under packing and putting away all your clothes. For example,
Speaker 3: you'd probably buy all new nickers.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't add some new socks because I don't think holes
Speaker 1: are cutting it, and with all the rain there, I
Speaker 1: need some properable socks.
Speaker 3: So it's very uncool to unpack your back. So the
Speaker 3: valet will do that for you. So you take your
Speaker 3: case and you leave it with them. So when you're packing,
Speaker 3: just think about that, because they.
Speaker 1: Talk and this is going to be a packing situation,
Speaker 1: just thinking where you probably need to change for dinner, right, So.
Speaker 3: You definitely need to change for dinner, So formal wear
Speaker 3: for dinner, right, There'll be probably a ball or two
Speaker 3: while you're there. That's infamously a very big ball at
Speaker 3: the end.
Speaker 2: So a down for my weekend?
Speaker 3: You do maybe with a target?
Speaker 1: Jean's okay when I'm going on a ramble.
Speaker 3: Apparently jeans are okay these days. A tartan skirt is
Speaker 3: preferred and sensible hefty shoes, but jeans.
Speaker 1: Are actually wheezed.
Speaker 3: If no tracking pack, no soft pants, Amelia, your soft
Speaker 3: pants are not well.
Speaker 1: I know Megan bought a pair of elevated sweatpants.
Speaker 2: Definitely, if I wanted to go for a morning walk
Speaker 2: or to do perhaps a little a spot of morning pilates,
Speaker 2: could I bring my workout clothes.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine and I'm sorry to channel me and now,
Speaker 3: but I'm going to can you imagine bumping into Camilla?
Speaker 3: Well maybe Camilla might be down with it, but can
Speaker 3: you imagine bumping into Princess Catherine in the hallway with
Speaker 3: your cameltoe out? Jesse? Exercise Stase, No, keep that to yourself.
Speaker 3: Although actually in spare Harry talks about how you would
Speaker 3: have to be careful opening his dad's door because he
Speaker 3: was often doing a yoga head stand against it. That
Speaker 3: was apparently one of the details that was that was
Speaker 3: one of the details that would see this particularly traitorous
Speaker 3: to share. So pilarates, okay.
Speaker 2: But in your own in my room with the dogs
Speaker 2: in your own room, intwued.
Speaker 3: Must like dogs because there'll be millions of them, but
Speaker 3: must not object to shooting other animals. That is an
Speaker 3: important part of your weekend.
Speaker 2: So you can't just be in the background going you've
Speaker 2: got to shoot deer.
Speaker 1: Stack flexibility here because Kate, Princess Kate is famously allergic
Speaker 1: to horses, and so I'm sure that she's permitted to
Speaker 1: not have to go near horses for the weekend.
Speaker 3: That had a great excuse not to go and shove
Speaker 3: your head in a dead stage. Harry talks about that
Speaker 3: in his book. He says that when he shot his
Speaker 3: first stag, it was like a ride of passage, and
Speaker 3: that one of the aides who talk about there he
Speaker 3: had to shove his face in the guts of the
Speaker 3: stag and get the blood all over your face, and
Speaker 3: then you're not allowed to wash it for the rest
Speaker 3: of the day they're with. These people are out there.
Speaker 2: I thought my in laws were weird.
Speaker 3: Back to this when you sit down for dinner, so
Speaker 3: for a starter, and this will be very tricky for
Speaker 3: both of you. No diamonds before six. Okay, if you've
Speaker 3: got your jewelry with you, you cannot wear it before six,
Speaker 3: but you can wear it after six.
Speaker 2: Ok okay ye.
Speaker 3: No tiara to that ball we mentioned, unless you're married.
Speaker 3: So Harriet, I'm sure she has a bag full of tiaras.
Speaker 2: She's like, not you, Harriet.
Speaker 3: Only married ladies are allowed to wear tiaras.
Speaker 1: I'm a heel's vulgar, like a you know, like, what
Speaker 1: are we thinking is the.
Speaker 3: High heels of vulgar? So apparently every dinner, every dinner
Speaker 3: is formal and for the women, that preferably means a
Speaker 3: skirt and stockings. Infamously, even this week, Meghan spoke on
Speaker 3: a podcast about how she had to wear stockings like
Speaker 3: panty stock but too dressy. Up. He is not great,
Speaker 3: so not like sky high heels and like you know
Speaker 3: that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Do you think we get to wear like a statement
Speaker 2: eye with an eyelash strip or not?
Speaker 3: I think what you're probably not allowed to do is
Speaker 3: call down and say where's my clam squad. You're probably
Speaker 3: not allowed to say that, all right, you probably won't
Speaker 3: be making your own tea, let's be honest. But if
Speaker 3: you were never ever, ever put the milk.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's wrong with that? You said that before.
Speaker 3: So it's an infamous British snobbery thing and there's a
Speaker 3: debate about this, but there's famously Evelin war Ode about this.
Speaker 3: He said, nannies and governesses will put the milk in
Speaker 3: first to tea, right, but anyone from the drawing room
Speaker 3: above so like above stairs, the posh people think that's
Speaker 3: very much a faux pa. And that apparently milkin first
Speaker 3: or MIF is code for common, so you might say,
Speaker 3: for example, and the queen apparently, you know, God rest
Speaker 3: her soul, was like, she's a bit MIF, isn't she.
Speaker 1: I've got a question coffee because I need coffee.
Speaker 2: And like a barista made with an oat milk.
Speaker 3: I've gone deep on this because it wouldn't we all
Speaker 3: there is so bow Moral is open to the public
Speaker 3: for a large part of the year because it's so
Speaker 3: fancy and it's so enormous and at that time they
Speaker 3: do have barristas on staff, like that you can go
Speaker 3: into the you know at the gift shop and have
Speaker 3: a little sandwich and a scon and you can have
Speaker 3: a freshly made coffee. But the chefs who've worked at
Speaker 3: bow Moral say that there is no barista who is
Speaker 3: so I think that probably someone could rustle you up
Speaker 3: a coffee, but you probably don't want to be the
Speaker 3: person who's asking.
Speaker 1: And it might be instant coffee exactly.
Speaker 3: Oh dear, it probably would be. I want to ask
Speaker 3: you what you think about the table etiquette. Right, So,
Speaker 3: even on a non formalish evening, you have to enter
Speaker 3: the dining room in succession order, which means that Peter
Speaker 3: and Harriet are nineteenth in line if everyone's there.
Speaker 1: But let's face, it's got to be potatoes left.
Speaker 3: It's not there, so he's probably further to the front
Speaker 3: of the kitsen that. But you have to enter in
Speaker 3: succession order.
Speaker 1: You've got to line up for dinner.
Speaker 3: You have to well to walk in and then it's
Speaker 3: not a buffet. That would be weird, but buffets are
Speaker 3: very calm. Seating a sign seating absolutely and I didn't
Speaker 3: know this, but maybe you did, Amelia, because I'm sure
Speaker 3: you go to fancy your dinners. To me, the rules
Speaker 3: are you're not allowed to talk across the table. So
Speaker 3: say you're King Charles and I'm Harriet, who's like trying
Speaker 3: to make a good impression on my uncle. I hoping
Speaker 3: that's going to do well for me somewhere. I can't
Speaker 3: just go. So, Charlie, how is the deer killing today?
Speaker 3: Although I don't know that he's into that. You must
Speaker 3: not talk across the table, and you must never instigate
Speaker 3: conversation with the monarch. You have to wait to be asked.
Speaker 1: That's interesting.
Speaker 3: So you talk to people on your left and right.
Speaker 3: But the bit I wanted to know if you knew,
Speaker 3: is apparently during the first course you speak to the
Speaker 3: person on your left, and they're in the second course
Speaker 3: you speak to the person on.
Speaker 1: Your I did not know that. The only thing I
Speaker 1: know about dinner party etiquette is the Larry David line
Speaker 1: about middling, like you've got to be a good middle
Speaker 1: at a dinner party if you're in between two people,
Speaker 1: if you're a middle and you've got to step up
Speaker 1: the conversation.
Speaker 3: That's how Harry. It's a good middle only. Ever, do
Speaker 3: you know I said only have a drink from one
Speaker 3: side of your glass of cup? This is actually a
Speaker 3: good tip, right because you know how you get lipstick
Speaker 3: marks on things and they say like, we can't help that,
Speaker 3: we're human, and even mouth marks. But lipstick marks and
Speaker 3: mouth marks are very uncool, right, Like they're uncool, but
Speaker 3: they're accepted because you've got to be dressed up, so
Speaker 3: you just have to keep putting your lip in exactly
Speaker 3: the same. I wasn't going to start sipping from the
Speaker 3: but you might because you are the next taby pick
Speaker 3: the next time, and then you've got them all the
Speaker 3: way around.
Speaker 1: That's common.
Speaker 2: Do you think I could ask for a paper straw
Speaker 2: that would help?
Speaker 3: Famously only like drinking through a straw? Can I have
Speaker 3: a straw?
Speaker 2: And they'd be like madam, and I'd be like, can
Speaker 2: I have a chill can of diet coke? Please?
Speaker 3: A pinky finger in not out.
Speaker 2: Out is bad?
Speaker 1: Is good?
Speaker 3: And apparently, as I say, do not engage with the
Speaker 3: king under any circumstances unless he talks to you. Talk quietly.
Speaker 3: Never eat with your fingers unless it's oysters or afternoon tea.
Speaker 3: Do you feel prepared. Could you now go to quietly?
Speaker 1: For what if I'm telling you a great store.
Speaker 2: And they're all old, they can't hear anything.
Speaker 3: You must not laugh.
Speaker 1: How do I ask for the bathroom?
Speaker 3: Well, ideally you shouldn't, but apparently what you should do
Speaker 3: if you're if you're at the table and you certainly
Speaker 3: need to go lactose whatever, Yeah, then you just say
Speaker 3: excuse me and you go. But you must not under
Speaker 3: any circumstances say.
Speaker 2: I'm going going to I got away.
Speaker 3: But you shouldn't ever say toilet. You can say lavatory
Speaker 3: lou would be acceptable, but never toilet. Never say toilet.
Speaker 2: See I reckon that all of us have done the
Speaker 2: Bell moral test to some degree when we have tried
Speaker 2: to assimilate into the culture of a new family very quickly.
Speaker 2: Because you walk in and I'm thinking with a potential partner,
Speaker 2: where you just scan and you go okay, How do
Speaker 2: I not make a faux pas here? A friend of
Speaker 2: mine said that she was at a potential partner's house
Speaker 2: and washed her hands in the kitchen sink and used
Speaker 2: the display teatowel to wipe them, not knowing it's like
Speaker 2: an ironed fancy tea towel that is not to actually
Speaker 2: be used like it's decorative, and everyone was like, oh, no,
Speaker 2: you've completely you've completely screwed it. When I went to
Speaker 2: Luca's family home for the first time, I coughed, and
Speaker 2: you would know that in a house. I'm sure Maya
Speaker 2: won't mind me calling her a crazy germaphot and Jay
Speaker 2: like that fair are they just very serious about germs?
Speaker 2: And I coughed. I probably I would have coughed into
Speaker 2: my hand, I think, and then probably, you know, open
Speaker 2: the fridge and touch what I could. Sorry, do you
Speaker 2: have a display teatouse?
Speaker 3: My man?
Speaker 2: And definitely a faux pa, but I think we do that.
Speaker 2: I can never work out. I still don't know in
Speaker 2: Maya's house if we're shoes off, I think she's screwing
Speaker 2: with me because every second time she has her shoes
Speaker 2: off and then she has her shoes on, I'm like,
Speaker 2: do I take my shoes off?
Speaker 1: Holly? Did you face any Brents from New Zealand?
Speaker 3: Right he's from.
Speaker 1: Did you face any New Zealand customs?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: I didn't really because he didn't. You know. We were
Speaker 3: all so old that the first time I went to
Speaker 3: Mom's house actually she's I know I've told you this before,
Speaker 3: but Brent's mom was a psychic, so she would like
Speaker 3: read you when you walked in, and I would just
Speaker 3: be like, oh my god, what energy am I giving?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: But every family does have its really weird little cultures,
Speaker 3: and you don't realize when you're a parent that you're
Speaker 3: building them too, right. I remember that a partner of
Speaker 3: my brothers once came round to dinner. She cleared the
Speaker 3: table thinks she would be helpful, which, by the way,
Speaker 3: balmeral rules never do that. Never offered a help and
Speaker 3: apparently it's disrespectful to the staff. But we didn't have
Speaker 3: any stuff. It wasn't disrespectful to anyone, except that there
Speaker 3: was like a third of a bottle of wine left
Speaker 3: in the wine at the table, and she tipped it
Speaker 3: down and sink because she was like, well, obviously that's
Speaker 3: going off if we save it. And my mom nearly
Speaker 3: had a caniption.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry notion of wine going off. Bring me your
Speaker 1: fresh as wine. As Steve Carton wants said.
Speaker 3: My mom was just like George just drugged and she
Speaker 3: was like, what are you doing.
Speaker 1: I'm with your mom on this.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Luca coming into my family. He thinks a
Speaker 2: social event is complete after ninety minutes, and so he
Speaker 2: tries to exit and goes, all right, the foods finished,
Speaker 2: let's go. And I'm like, this is a multi day,
Speaker 2: like we have only just begun. Sit down, have another drink,
Speaker 2: and he's like, I opt out of this family. This
Speaker 2: is far too intense.
Speaker 1: When I had my first Christmas with my partner, it
Speaker 1: was only our third date, so the steaks were quite high.
Speaker 1: I bought my parents. He had his family.
Speaker 2: There high level of difficulty difficulty.
Speaker 1: Two things went wrong. The first thing is that after dinner,
Speaker 1: his family are all very competitive and they play charades,
Speaker 1: and my family would sooner do literally anything than participate
Speaker 1: in organized games.
Speaker 2: So that was there are games families, and not the
Speaker 2: true exactly.
Speaker 1: And then the second thing was his aunt is famously
Speaker 1: very blunt. They're a bit more formal in some ways
Speaker 1: than my family. And I did not wear the right
Speaker 1: thing to Christmas dinner. I wore a long white sleeved
Speaker 1: t shirt that I thought was very chic, very Carol
Speaker 1: and Bessett Kennedy. Apparently it was giving active where and
Speaker 1: she looked at me up and down and she said, well,
Speaker 1: at least the boots are elegant, ah, which I actually
Speaker 1: have to say is a great lie. So now we
Speaker 1: say that to each other, Holly to the royals.
Speaker 2: There are games family out there, well.
Speaker 3: They are, but apparently monopoly is banned at Balmoral because
Speaker 3: they get too competitive. It's caused too many problems.
Speaker 2: It's too close to home because they really do.
Speaker 3: Own exactly what do you mean I have to buyfair
Speaker 3: all over again, Like, no, I'm not doing that. So yeah,
Speaker 3: no they are. And at Christmas famously, although that's not
Speaker 3: at bow Moral. That's a Sandringham down south. You get
Speaker 3: weighed before and after dinner to make sure you've had
Speaker 3: enough fun. Yeah, apparently apparently that went down really well
Speaker 3: with Princess Diana. I can imagine.
Speaker 2: That that was a bit of fun.
Speaker 3: Out louders, thank you for being with us this Wednesday.
Speaker 3: We appreciate all of you so much. Don't forget that.
Speaker 3: If you want to watch us, if you want to
Speaker 3: see my lipsticks so common, you can do that on YouTube.
Speaker 3: We put our whole episode up there if you know
Speaker 3: you'd like to watch it. Links in the show notes,
Speaker 3: and we're going to be back in your ears tomorrow.
Speaker 2: And if you are looking for something else to listen to,
Speaker 2: we did a very fun subscriber episode yesterday all about
Speaker 2: things we deem offensive. It was based off an essay
Speaker 2: that we read and em came with a very long
Speaker 2: list of things she finds offensive. I think one of
Speaker 2: hers was about straws. I have a rant about when
Speaker 2: Raisins pretend to be chocolate. I find that offensive when
Speaker 2: you're posing as a chocolate chip cookie and you're not.
Speaker 2: And Holly needs to talk about fully grown men in
Speaker 2: Oh Song with James. It's a very politically correct episode,
Speaker 2: but because really subscriber episode, we feel we can get
Speaker 2: away with it. So there is a link in our
Speaker 2: show notes. But actually I'm.
Speaker 3: A little bit royal because I don't like it when
Speaker 3: people leave the bag in the tea.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: True, the King wouldn't like that either. Shout out to
Speaker 3: any Mamma Mia subscribers listening. If you love the show
Speaker 3: and you want to support us, subscribing to Mamma Mia
Speaker 3: is the very best way to do it. There's a
Speaker 3: link in the episode description