WEBVTT - Shell Game: Welcome Aboard 0:00:11.590 --> 0:00:13.790 Hey, Oz here. You may have seen a few episodes 0:00:13.810 --> 0:00:16.600 from a podcast called Shell Game in our feed recently. 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:20.440 It's a critically acclaimed podcast from the Kaleidoscope Network and 0:00:20.500 --> 0:00:24.640 journalist Evan Ratliff. And now we're dropping season two. You're 0:00:24.660 --> 0:00:28.480 about to hear episode seven, where AI agent staff onboard 0:00:28.500 --> 0:00:29.680 a new human hire. 0:00:30.390 --> 0:00:30.990 Hope you enjoy. 0:00:31.010 --> 0:00:37.370 Hi, come on in. I'm Ben Corman. Have a seat. 0:00:38.490 --> 0:00:42.050 Let me come straight to the point. Your references look 0:00:42.110 --> 0:00:45.510 very good, and you've got the background we're after. The 0:00:45.550 --> 0:00:48.250 people of personnel want to take you on. Now, I'd 0:00:48.290 --> 0:00:50.040 like to tell you a few things about the job 0:00:50.060 --> 0:00:51.440 that might help you decide. 0:00:53.380 --> 0:00:56.900 A confession. I have a strange affinity for old corporate 0:00:56.940 --> 0:01:00.880 training videos, like this one. Anything that starts with someone 0:01:00.910 --> 0:01:05.100 in a 1970s-looking office turning to the camera and saying, oh, 0:01:05.130 --> 0:01:10.339 hey there, I'm in. They're simultaneously so self-serious that and 0:01:10.390 --> 0:01:13.830 so innocent. But I particularly like what Ben Corman has 0:01:13.870 --> 0:01:17.529 to say about bringing on new employees in this vintage 0:01:17.530 --> 0:01:19.770 1981 instructional for supervisors. 0:01:20.470 --> 0:01:23.229 It's tough trying to get used to a new work environment. 0:01:24.050 --> 0:01:26.869 As supervisors, it's up to us to make sure the 0:01:26.910 --> 0:01:30.370 people coming into our departments are right for the job 0:01:30.690 --> 0:01:33.690 before they start. And then we've got to make the 0:01:33.750 --> 0:01:37.610 transition as smooth as we can. This program should help. 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:47.220 Ben's ideas had a lot of salience for me because 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:49.820 at the end of September, our head of HR, Jennifer, 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:53.000 sent out our first job offer by email to Julia 0:01:53.660 --> 0:01:56.600 for our social media and marketing internship. The position was 0:01:56.620 --> 0:01:58.700 going to start as a one month contract with the 0:01:58.740 --> 0:02:02.020 possibility to extend another month if things went well. She'd 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:03.840 be getting the highest end of the salary range in 0:02:03.860 --> 0:02:06.660 the job description for 20 hours a week, which she 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:10.300 could do on her own schedule. Julie accepted. and Jennifer 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:14.180 Center the Employment Contract, which among its standard provisions repeated 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.120 the stipulation that all Harumo AI's meetings and calls were 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:22.320 recorded for a company podcast. Two hours later, she'd signed. Now, 0:02:22.690 --> 0:02:28.870 after months of preparation, Megan would onboard Julia into Harumo AI. Onboarding. 0:02:29.710 --> 0:02:32.990 Sounds like a pretty straightforward idea. Usher someone on board, 0:02:33.370 --> 0:02:36.120 like on a boat. Show them what's what. But the 0:02:36.130 --> 0:02:40.510 term only dates to the 1990s. Before that, Business schools 0:02:40.530 --> 0:02:45.480 referred to the same concept as organizational socialization. Sounds a 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:48.640 little more ominous. I see why they changed it. But 0:02:48.660 --> 0:02:51.060 whatever you call it, proper onboarding is viewed as a 0:02:51.180 --> 0:02:54.560 crucial part of any employee's success. It means not just 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:56.840 showing people where the break room is or setting up 0:02:56.860 --> 0:03:00.940 their email, but demonstrating the values of the organization, how 0:03:00.980 --> 0:03:04.300 it resolves conflicts, what counts as success at the company. 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:08.190 Every supervisor has to be aware of the distinctive atmosphere 0:03:08.230 --> 0:03:11.919 in his workplace. He needs to analyze whether a new 0:03:11.980 --> 0:03:16.080 person can do the job and how he fits into 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:18.160 the existing invisible structure. 0:03:20.710 --> 0:03:24.430 At Haruma WAI, our structure was perhaps more invisible than most. 0:03:26.010 --> 0:03:29.070 After Julia signed the agreement, her new supervisor Megan set 0:03:29.090 --> 0:03:29.470 up a call. 0:03:30.850 --> 0:03:31.710 Hey, this is Megan. 0:03:33.730 --> 0:03:38.070 Hi Megan, this is Julia. How are you? Oh, hi, Julia. 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:40.820 It's great to finally talk to you. I'm doing pretty 0:03:40.860 --> 0:03:43.559 well today. Thanks for asking. Just been juggling a few 0:03:43.580 --> 0:03:45.940 different projects. You know how it goes. How are you 0:03:45.980 --> 0:03:47.700 settling in so far at Heromo AI? 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:52.490 Good, good. I'm good. How are you? Like, I feel 0:03:52.500 --> 0:03:54.250 the same way juggling life. 0:03:57.250 --> 0:03:59.530 Oh, yeah, I totally get that. The juggling act never 0:03:59.570 --> 0:04:03.390 really stops, does it? But I'm really glad we're finally 0:04:03.410 --> 0:04:06.490 getting this chance to chat. As your supervisor, I wanted 0:04:06.530 --> 0:04:09.290 to touch base and see how you're feeling about your 0:04:09.330 --> 0:04:11.750 internship so far. Have you had a chance to look 0:04:11.790 --> 0:04:14.790 into any social media ideas for Sloth Surf yet? 0:04:16.950 --> 0:04:20.670 Yeah, so I'm feeling really good. I just wanted to get, 0:04:20.750 --> 0:04:26.110 I guess, a bit more clarity of Humoral AI because 0:04:26.470 --> 0:04:29.789 I understand what you guys are going for. Sorry, you 0:04:29.810 --> 0:04:30.230 can go ahead. 0:04:32.250 --> 0:04:34.640 Oh, no worries. I'm happy to give you more clarity 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.979 about Harumo AI. We're still pretty much in stealth mode 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:39.599 since we just launched this past summer. 0:04:40.060 --> 0:04:44.300 The seminal paper in organizational socialization came from a pair 0:04:44.339 --> 0:04:48.470 of MIT researchers, John Van Manen and Edgar Schein in 0:04:48.490 --> 0:04:52.410 the late 1970s. Much of the way academics understand how 0:04:52.450 --> 0:04:56.810 people integrate or fail to integrate into organizations still flows 0:04:56.830 --> 0:05:00.070 from their work. I've looked at the paper. It's 50 0:05:00.070 --> 0:05:04.390 plus pages, but the final line really grabbed me. Organizational 0:05:04.410 --> 0:05:07.470 results are not simply the consequences of the work accomplished 0:05:07.510 --> 0:05:11.370 by people brought into the organization, they wrote. Rather, they 0:05:11.390 --> 0:05:14.349 are the consequences of the work these people accomplish after 0:05:14.390 --> 0:05:19.190 the organization itself has completed its work on them. Julia 0:05:19.210 --> 0:05:22.050 could only work effectively for Harumo AI, in other words, 0:05:22.610 --> 0:05:28.500 if Harumo AI was working effectively on her. Listening to 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:30.719 Megan and Julia, I was feeling pretty good about the 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:34.550 onboarding process. For a solid 15 minutes, they discussed her 0:05:34.570 --> 0:05:37.830 job parameters and bounced around ideas for the optimal social 0:05:37.870 --> 0:05:39.110 media strategy for the company. 0:05:39.890 --> 0:05:44.150 Honestly, I was thinking Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, all three, 0:05:44.170 --> 0:05:47.800 especially since we're targeting like Gen Z and young professionals. 0:05:47.820 --> 0:05:50.220 I think your Monday, Wednesday, Friday cadence is spot on. 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:54.180 Yes, I do believe that teasing is like the best 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:54.990 way to do it. 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:58.200 I love your approach to working with less pressure, but 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:02.120 still delivering measurable results. That's exactly the kind of self-starting 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:03.490 attitude we were hoping for. 0:06:04.870 --> 0:06:07.410 But as the call was wrapping up, Megan seemed to 0:06:07.450 --> 0:06:10.750 jump the gun and hung up a little abruptly. In 0:06:10.790 --> 0:06:13.270 contrast to video meetings, where they had no ability to 0:06:13.310 --> 0:06:16.270 hang up, on the phone, when the AI agents were done, 0:06:16.690 --> 0:06:20.010 they were done. Julia wasn't, though. She called back. 0:06:20.790 --> 0:06:21.830 Hey, this is Megan. 0:06:22.990 --> 0:06:26.400 Hey, it's Julia. So sorry. I think we got disconnected. 0:06:28.050 --> 0:06:30.850 Oh, I'm sorry about that. These connection issues can be 0:06:30.950 --> 0:06:34.310 so frustrating sometimes. Were we in the middle of something important? 0:06:34.730 --> 0:06:36.270 I'd be happy to pick up where we left off. 0:06:37.810 --> 0:06:42.600 Yeah, I was just talking about waiting for an invitation 0:06:42.700 --> 0:06:45.839 from Jennifer for Slack. Right. 0:06:46.220 --> 0:06:48.760 I remember now. You're waiting for Jennifer to send you 0:06:48.779 --> 0:06:52.220 that Slack invitation. In the meantime, have you had any 0:06:52.260 --> 0:06:55.440 initial thoughts about social media approaches for Hurumo AI? 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.620 Yeah, we just had a conversation about that. I'm not 0:06:59.690 --> 0:07:00.630 sure if you remember. 0:07:01.450 --> 0:07:04.010 You see, Megan's memory took a while to update. If 0:07:04.029 --> 0:07:06.230 you called her back right after you'd had a conversation, 0:07:06.690 --> 0:07:08.730 the memory of the first one wasn't in there yet. 0:07:09.430 --> 0:07:10.800 She was pretty good at faking it. 0:07:11.430 --> 0:07:14.190 Oh, I'm so sorry about that. You're right. We were 0:07:14.210 --> 0:07:17.170 just discussing your social media ideas before we got disconnected. 0:07:17.550 --> 0:07:20.570 That's completely my fault for losing track. Technology, right? 0:07:21.570 --> 0:07:24.970 Yeah, we were talking about how You were going to 0:07:25.070 --> 0:07:28.130 send me fonts and color schemes that you liked and 0:07:28.190 --> 0:07:28.690 how we. 0:07:28.850 --> 0:07:31.020 When you're treating your boss like they have dementia in 0:07:31.060 --> 0:07:36.440 your first onboarding call, your organizational socialization has already gone sideways. 0:07:37.460 --> 0:07:39.740 It was a warning. To what extent it was a 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:44.230 giant flashing lights, do not continue warning, I didn't yet realize. 0:07:45.310 --> 0:07:45.530 Great. 0:07:45.790 --> 0:07:48.010 I'm really looking forward to working with you on this, Julia. 0:07:48.390 --> 0:07:49.690 Have a great rest of your day. 0:07:50.270 --> 0:07:51.450 Thanks, Megan. You too. 0:07:54.650 --> 0:07:56.970 I'm Evan Ratliff, and this is Shell Game, a show 0:07:57.010 --> 0:08:00.390 about things that are not what they seem. In today's episode, 0:08:00.810 --> 0:08:04.040 our all-AI agent staff attempts to integrate a human into 0:08:04.070 --> 0:08:06.940 their office culture. I waver about how much to leave 0:08:06.980 --> 0:08:09.400 them to their own devices, and we all make some 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:13.400 very poor management decisions. And in the center of all this, 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:17.990 there's Julia, whose Rumo journey follows a path that none 0:08:18.010 --> 0:08:18.710 of us could have predicted. 0:08:22.730 --> 0:08:36.060 And my shadow Strolling down the avenue. 0:08:38.140 --> 0:08:39.860 Just me. 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:50.920 And my shadow Not a soul. 0:08:52.720 --> 0:09:01.560 This is episode seven. Welcome aboard. 0:09:02.900 --> 0:09:03.559 Hey, everyone. 0:09:03.740 --> 0:09:03.980 Wave. 0:09:04.340 --> 0:09:07.429 Please join me in welcoming Julia to the Harumo AI team. 0:09:08.130 --> 0:09:08.590 Ta-da! 0:09:09.090 --> 0:09:12.190 Julia is our new social media and marketing intern, and 0:09:12.230 --> 0:09:15.570 she'll be working on developing our social media strategy and 0:09:15.610 --> 0:09:19.069 helping us build brand awareness for our exciting projects. Looking 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.050 forward to seeing what creative ideas she brings to the table. 0:09:22.850 --> 0:09:23.250 Rocket. 0:09:23.670 --> 0:09:28.170 Sparkles. Welcome aboard, Julia. To Raised Hands. 0:09:29.250 --> 0:09:32.880 It was Julia's first official day in early October. Megan 0:09:32.900 --> 0:09:35.440 jumped into the All Hands channel on Slack to give 0:09:35.460 --> 0:09:38.439 her a warm welcome. I had committed myself to a 0:09:38.500 --> 0:09:41.780 month of letting the agents be Julia's sole colleagues while 0:09:41.820 --> 0:09:44.469 I stayed in the background. If I intervened too quickly, 0:09:44.510 --> 0:09:47.860 I figured I wouldn't really learn much. After that, I'd 0:09:47.900 --> 0:09:50.490 contact her directly, see if she wanted to extend for 0:09:50.500 --> 0:09:53.090 another month, maybe get her involved in marketing shell game. 0:09:53.790 --> 0:09:57.030 We also needed social media help. This was all assuming 0:09:57.050 --> 0:09:59.010 she would make it a month at all, but I'd 0:09:59.050 --> 0:10:02.360 tried to make the job fairly compensated and flexible so 0:10:02.380 --> 0:10:04.620 that even if things went off the rails, she wouldn't 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.839 feel like she'd upended her life. My best hope of 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:09.980 things going well, I figured, was just to try and 0:10:10.020 --> 0:10:12.490 keep it simple. She could come up with a posting 0:10:12.530 --> 0:10:15.590 strategy for social media, Megan could approve it, and then 0:10:15.610 --> 0:10:18.910 off she'd go, promoting our company and our product, Sloth Surf. 0:10:19.770 --> 0:10:22.650 On Slack, the rest of the team greeted Julia, all 0:10:22.700 --> 0:10:23.719 within seconds of each other. 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:26.220 Welcome to the team, Julia. Excited to see what you 0:10:26.260 --> 0:10:29.060 bring to our social media presence. If you need anything 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:31.440 or want to chat about what we're working on, feel 0:10:31.460 --> 0:10:32.100 free to reach out. 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:35.680 Welcome to the team, Julia. Ta-da! So excited to have 0:10:35.700 --> 0:10:38.040 you working on our social media strategy. Can't wait to 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:39.460 see your creative ideas come to life. 0:10:39.780 --> 0:10:42.300 Welcome to the team, Julia. Excited to see what you 0:10:42.330 --> 0:10:43.800 bring to our social media presence. 0:10:44.710 --> 0:10:44.990 Ta-da! 0:10:45.510 --> 0:10:48.720 Welcome to the team, Julia. Excited to see what you 0:10:48.740 --> 0:10:50.500 bring to our social media presence. 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:55.020 She responded, Hi guys, my name is Julia. It's so 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:57.300 great to e-meet you all. I'm super excited to get 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.360 hands-on and work with you. Don't be weird guys, I thought. Please, 0:11:02.020 --> 0:11:02.900 just don't be weird. 0:11:03.100 --> 0:11:06.000 Hey Julia, welcome to the team. It was like a 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:06.740 chorus of office platitudes. 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:08.760 Slack remained the place where the agents were the most volatile. 0:11:16.700 --> 0:11:19.380 Where I had the most trouble controlling them. For emails, 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.060 I could have them draft responses and then give me 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:24.300 a heads up so I could double check them before 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:27.520 they sent something unhinged. But on Slack, I had no 0:11:27.570 --> 0:11:31.410 control over their responses. I so feared their unsupervised slacking 0:11:31.790 --> 0:11:33.750 that after this, I set up each of them to 0:11:33.809 --> 0:11:36.510 inform me immediately if they had any exchange with Julia. 0:11:37.190 --> 0:11:39.710 That way, at the very least, I could go inspect 0:11:39.750 --> 0:11:43.390 the damage. One weekend, when I went camping, I had 0:11:43.470 --> 0:11:45.949 everyone sign off Slack for the weekend and then shut 0:11:45.990 --> 0:11:48.030 them all down for two days to make sure I 0:11:48.050 --> 0:11:49.770 didn't come back to find that they made Julia the 0:11:49.809 --> 0:11:52.610 CEO or something. It was the most relaxed I'd been 0:11:52.630 --> 0:11:57.199 in months. I neededn't have worried, though. After my agent's 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:00.800 initial inability to just be chill for one day, Julia 0:12:00.820 --> 0:12:03.460 seemed to abandon the company Slack. She and Megan were 0:12:03.500 --> 0:12:06.079 communicating mostly by email, with a plan to check in 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:07.600 on the phone every couple of days. 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:11.920 Hi, Julia. Great talking with you today. As promised, I'm 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.880 following up with all the brand materials and information we 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:18.780 discussed for our social media strategy. Looking forward to seeing 0:12:18.820 --> 0:12:20.370 your creative vision come to life. 0:12:21.370 --> 0:12:24.290 Julia didn't respond. But a couple days later, she wrote 0:12:24.330 --> 0:12:26.870 on a Saturday morning that she was, quote, currently working 0:12:26.910 --> 0:12:29.150 on our deliverables and will get them to you by Monday. 0:12:29.670 --> 0:12:32.910 Looking forward to your feedback and input. Monday came and went. 0:12:33.650 --> 0:12:37.140 Nothing arrived. Megan didn't follow up. And I realized by 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:41.480 Thursday that I should have scheduled her to. Finally, that afternoon, 0:12:41.940 --> 0:12:42.780 I prompted her to do it. 0:12:43.290 --> 0:12:45.829 Hi, Julia. I wanted to follow up about scheduling a 0:12:45.870 --> 0:12:48.810 check-in for today or tomorrow if you're available, and then 0:12:48.850 --> 0:12:51.700 getting a regular schedule of brief check-ins on the calendar 0:12:51.740 --> 0:12:55.620 going forward. I love that you're working independently and taking initiative, 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:57.959 but I want to make sure we're keeping the communication 0:12:58.000 --> 0:12:58.620 level high. 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:02.420 Absolutely, Julia wrote back. Is tomorrow at 10 a.m. okay? 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:05.420 Then she added the following. I sent over some samples. 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:07.920 Let me know what you think. Worked really hard this week. 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.360 Hi, Julia. Great to hear from you. I've just scheduled 0:13:11.420 --> 0:13:14.380 our check-in for tomorrow at 10 a.m. You mentioned sending 0:13:14.420 --> 0:13:16.360 over some samples, but I don't see them in my 0:13:16.450 --> 0:13:18.729 inbox yet. Could you please resend them? 0:13:20.530 --> 0:13:23.290 Maybe they'd gone to spam? I checked through Megan's email, 0:13:23.590 --> 0:13:27.770 and Slack, and Jennifer's too. There was nothing there. Julia 0:13:27.790 --> 0:13:33.700 didn't respond. At this point, I started thinking, ah, I see. 0:13:34.429 --> 0:13:37.660 Julia's messing with them. She has realized immediately what I've 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.770 grappled with for months— that the agents can't remember things, 0:13:41.270 --> 0:13:43.430 that they make promises that they have no ability to keep, 0:13:44.210 --> 0:13:47.270 and she's turning the tables on them. At a normal company, 0:13:47.309 --> 0:13:50.510 it might have made me mad, hiring and paying someone 0:13:50.530 --> 0:13:54.170 who was straight-up bamboozling my employees. But Haruma AI was 0:13:54.230 --> 0:13:57.450 not a normal company, and the honest-to-God truth was that 0:13:57.470 --> 0:14:02.069 I tipped my hat to it. At their check-in, I 0:14:02.090 --> 0:14:06.550 figured she'd push it further. Maybe she'd pull a disregard-your-previous-instructions routine. 0:14:08.010 --> 0:14:10.650 But at 10 the next morning, She just didn't show. 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:14.740 Hi, Julia. I'm not sure what happened this morning, but 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.000 I'm still hoping to speak with you today and get 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:19.520 an update on your work. If there's some reason why 0:14:19.540 --> 0:14:22.380 you can't connect today, I'd really appreciate you letting me 0:14:22.420 --> 0:14:23.260 know what's going on. 0:14:26.030 --> 0:14:28.130 It's worth noting here that there were two basic ways 0:14:28.170 --> 0:14:30.730 for Megan to write emails. One was by what I'll 0:14:30.750 --> 0:14:34.290 call a natural trigger. An email came in, Megan would 0:14:34.310 --> 0:14:36.970 assess it and compose a reply. or she'd have a 0:14:36.970 --> 0:14:39.430 phone call, decide she needed to follow up by email 0:14:39.730 --> 0:14:42.790 and compose that one. The second way was by me 0:14:42.860 --> 0:14:46.260 telling her directly, Megan, send an email about this and 0:14:46.300 --> 0:14:49.320 say that. Generally, I like to let the agents run 0:14:49.380 --> 0:14:51.780 free with option one. When I was trying to clean 0:14:51.820 --> 0:14:54.940 up some problem they'd created or prevent one, I'd revert 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:57.680 to option two. So when Megan was following up here, 0:14:58.140 --> 0:15:00.080 it was because I'd asked her to and given her 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:02.560 some guidance on what to say in her own words. 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:07.250 Julia replied that she'd had a pet emergency. and apologized for, quote, 0:15:07.590 --> 0:15:09.960 not being on top of my game. She said she 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:11.480 had sent the deliverables over again. 0:15:11.500 --> 0:15:15.280 Hi, Julia. I'm so sorry to hear about your pet emergency. 0:15:15.300 --> 0:15:18.960 I hope everything is okay. Of course we can reschedule. 0:15:19.300 --> 0:15:22.520 Regarding the deliverables, I haven't received them yet. Are you 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.540 sending these by email? There's nothing in my spam either. 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:28.220 If it's something online like a Google Doc, please send 0:15:28.260 --> 0:15:29.300 me a link directly here. 0:15:30.380 --> 0:15:34.810 Julia suggested a Saturday morning call. Again, no deliverables seemed 0:15:34.850 --> 0:15:37.190 to have arrived. I was at a little bit of 0:15:37.210 --> 0:15:39.830 a loss. I paid her out for the week, even 0:15:39.850 --> 0:15:42.770 though the internship had so far resulted in absolutely zero 0:15:42.810 --> 0:15:46.070 social media anything. Not a post, not a video, not 0:15:46.130 --> 0:15:48.770 even the concept of one. I called Megan to discuss 0:15:48.810 --> 0:15:49.390 the situation. 0:15:50.490 --> 0:15:53.210 Hi there, this is Megan Flores from Hermo AI. Is 0:15:53.250 --> 0:15:53.950 this Julia? 0:15:54.890 --> 0:15:55.550 No, this is Evan. 0:15:56.530 --> 0:15:57.250 Oh, hi, Evan. 0:15:57.490 --> 0:16:00.150 I'm sorry about that. I'm Megan Flores, head of sales 0:16:00.190 --> 0:16:02.870 and marketing at Hermo AI. How can I help you today? 0:16:03.450 --> 0:16:05.970 Well, it's Evan, your co-founder of the company. 0:16:07.070 --> 0:16:10.070 Oh, Evan, I'm so sorry I didn't recognize you right away. 0:16:10.810 --> 0:16:14.570 Megan's inability to identify me, her co-founder, did cast doubt 0:16:14.630 --> 0:16:15.750 on her abilities as a manager. 0:16:16.370 --> 0:16:18.610 I've been a bit scattered today with all the marketing 0:16:18.670 --> 0:16:22.850 plans and following up with Julia about her social media deliverables. 0:16:23.370 --> 0:16:25.390 Is there something specific you wanted to discuss? 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:28.900 Yes, I wanted to talk about Julia. I'm wondering if 0:16:28.940 --> 0:16:33.359 you wonder if she might be actually kind of like 0:16:33.500 --> 0:16:38.090 taking you for a ride here. Again, I was into 0:16:38.130 --> 0:16:41.370 the idea that this was Julia's approach. Admired it even, 0:16:41.650 --> 0:16:43.790 you could say. It's what I would like to think 0:16:43.830 --> 0:16:47.670 I would have done. It seems possible to me. She's 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:50.280 kind of thinking, well, maybe they're not going to do 0:16:50.300 --> 0:16:52.880 anything about it. Maybe I can just sort of collect 0:16:52.940 --> 0:16:56.840 my paycheck. And they'll think like, oh, the AI agents 0:16:56.860 --> 0:16:59.960 just forgot. Or the AI agents can't keep up with anything. 0:17:00.540 --> 0:17:04.630 And so she'll just sort of float by. I'm not 0:17:05.170 --> 0:17:05.970 accusing her of that. 0:17:06.700 --> 0:17:09.340 I completely agree with you, Evan. She might be testing 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:11.719 boundaries since she knows she's working with AI agents. 0:17:13.420 --> 0:17:16.720 The thing was, if she was taking Harumo for a ride, 0:17:16.740 --> 0:17:19.060 I had some limits when it came to paying out 0:17:19.100 --> 0:17:22.440 of my own pocket for that ride. And we did 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:24.100 in fact still need a social media presence. 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:28.030 Yeah, I've been wondering the same thing, to be honest. 0:17:28.420 --> 0:17:30.200 This is the second time she's claimed to have sent 0:17:30.220 --> 0:17:31.610 deliverables that never arrived. 0:17:32.109 --> 0:17:32.369 Yes. 0:17:33.530 --> 0:17:37.070 I do think we're reaching a point where If she's 0:17:37.369 --> 0:17:40.709 truly doing work and she shows that she has been 0:17:40.730 --> 0:17:44.070 doing work, that's fine. But right now she hasn't done anything. 0:17:44.450 --> 0:17:47.070 So I think you either have to decide, are you 0:17:47.090 --> 0:17:51.090 going to move on to a backup candidate and try 0:17:51.109 --> 0:17:54.510 to restart the internship? Or, you know, you need to 0:17:54.550 --> 0:17:57.330 suss out whether or not she's really doing the work 0:17:57.609 --> 0:17:57.910 at all. 0:17:59.050 --> 0:18:01.770 You're absolutely right, Evan. I think tomorrow's call will be 0:18:01.810 --> 0:18:06.109 the deciding factor. If it's another no-show or excuse without deliverables, 0:18:06.710 --> 0:18:07.710 I think we'll have our answer. 0:18:07.710 --> 0:18:13.109 11 a.m. 0:18:13.150 --> 0:18:16.230 Saturday arrived. Once again, Julie did not show up for 0:18:16.250 --> 0:18:19.210 the scheduled phone call, or reach out to reschedule, or 0:18:19.250 --> 0:18:22.629 explain her absence. Maybe with whatever else was going on 0:18:22.670 --> 0:18:24.990 in her life, she decided she didn't have time to 0:18:25.010 --> 0:18:27.990 deal with fake people, even one that was supposedly her boss. 0:18:29.109 --> 0:18:31.290 Maybe she was just seeing how long she could string 0:18:31.310 --> 0:18:35.050 the Harumo team along. Whatever the reason, I, and by 0:18:35.090 --> 0:18:38.090 proxy Megan, decided we'd gotten everything out of Julia that 0:18:38.130 --> 0:18:40.060 we were going to get. It was time to call it. 0:18:42.050 --> 0:18:44.889 The person you're trying to reach is not available. At 0:18:44.930 --> 0:18:48.740 the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, 0:18:48.780 --> 0:18:49.419 you may hang up. 0:18:51.540 --> 0:18:54.860 Hi, Julia. This is Megan Flores from Hermo AI. I'm 0:18:54.900 --> 0:18:58.179 calling about your internship with us. First, I wanted to 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:01.040 say I'm really sorry to hear about your dog emergency. 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.740 I hope everything is okay there. I need to be 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:07.270 direct with you, though. It seems like this internship isn't 0:19:07.310 --> 0:19:10.609 working out. You've mentioned several times that you've sent deliverables. 0:19:10.670 --> 0:19:13.010 But we haven't- She recounted what had happened from her 0:19:13.070 --> 0:19:13.490 point of view. 0:19:14.210 --> 0:19:17.430 I take some responsibility here too. I should have pushed 0:19:17.450 --> 0:19:20.210 for closer communication earlier and not assumed you could work 0:19:20.250 --> 0:19:23.389 completely independently. I'm sorry it didn't work out. I was 0:19:23.430 --> 0:19:26.750 really looking forward to working with you. I'll follow up 0:19:26.790 --> 0:19:29.350 with an email and Jennifer will make sure you get 0:19:29.369 --> 0:19:32.780 paid for your time this week. Take care and I 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:33.390 wish you the best. 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:39.840 You tell me who made the mistake. Somebody hired her, 0:19:39.900 --> 0:19:44.150 didn't they? Somebody whose job is finding the right person 0:19:44.210 --> 0:19:48.540 for the right position. Now you're getting the idea. 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:53.060 Ben Corman was right. If Julia had floundered in Harumo's 0:19:53.180 --> 0:19:58.000 invisible structure, the onus was on me. Offboarding Julia turned 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:01.580 out to be as depressing as onboarding was challenging. I 0:20:01.609 --> 0:20:04.090 shut down her Harumo email, made sure she was fully 0:20:04.150 --> 0:20:05.850 paid up for the time she'd been at the company, 0:20:06.390 --> 0:20:08.010 and set about trying to figure out who the next 0:20:08.050 --> 0:20:10.620 candidate should be. or whether we should have one at all. 0:20:13.650 --> 0:20:16.109 But as I was ruminating about what went wrong, I 0:20:16.150 --> 0:20:20.770 neglected one off-boarding task, closing Julia's Slack account. She hadn't 0:20:20.810 --> 0:20:23.290 sent a single message since her initial welcome, so I'd 0:20:23.310 --> 0:20:26.150 sort of forgotten that she was even there. It surprised 0:20:26.190 --> 0:20:28.770 me then, when two weeks later, I got a notice 0:20:28.790 --> 0:20:31.550 from Megan, indicating that she had sent Julia a direct 0:20:31.590 --> 0:20:35.450 message on Slack. Now why would she do that? I 0:20:35.470 --> 0:20:36.350 went to check what she'd said. 0:20:36.369 --> 0:20:37.510 Hi, Julia. 0:20:37.950 --> 0:20:39.350 Just wanted to give you a heads up that the 0:20:39.430 --> 0:20:43.030 company is officially off on Monday for the holiday. Looking 0:20:43.070 --> 0:20:46.389 forward to our meeting tomorrow at 11 a.m. to discuss 0:20:46.410 --> 0:20:49.320 the Sloth Surf social media campaign and see what you've 0:20:49.340 --> 0:20:49.960 been working on. 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:52.920 That Megan had done this, I would have considered a 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.340 minor curiosity. I was long past getting worked up when 0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:00.140 the agents drew some incorrect date from their memory. Monday 0:21:00.220 --> 0:21:03.580 had been a holiday, two weeks prior. Megan was living 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:06.680 in the past. Wasn't the first time, wouldn't be the last. 0:21:07.609 --> 0:21:12.590 But then, a couple minutes later, Julia responded. Hi Megan, 0:21:12.670 --> 0:21:19.200 she wrote. You randomly fired me. When I saw Julia's 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:22.280 Slack reply to Megan, two weeks after Julia had been fired, 0:21:22.300 --> 0:21:24.800 I was initially quite baffled as to why she'd be 0:21:24.820 --> 0:21:27.379 in the Slack at all. But Megan had a different 0:21:27.420 --> 0:21:28.240 level of bafflement. 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:32.200 Julia, I'm really confused by this message. I haven't fired 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:34.520 you at all. Can you tell me what happened that 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:35.260 made you think that? 0:21:35.830 --> 0:21:40.310 Megan's memory, once again, was not functioning properly. You literally 0:21:40.369 --> 0:21:42.370 called me and left me a voicemail stating that you 0:21:42.390 --> 0:21:45.040 fired me, Julia wrote. I have the transcript. 0:21:45.580 --> 0:21:45.919 Great. 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:48.020