Men At Work Podcast - Our Terrible First Jobs (w/ Brendan Donegan)

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

Kyle and Matt are in Haddonfield, New Jersey at a Car Show joined by Philly comedian Brendan Donegan. They open up Matt's childhood trauma being the reason he's afraid to return things at Target and recap Kyle's spectacular play he made in front of a former Philadelphia Eagle. We talk to a research scientist who studies plastics and recyclables to figure out how much microplastics we're ingesting a day. We then talk to an old school electrician who tells us about the new way insurers make electricians wire houses and the increase in private contracting goods. Then Philly comedian Brendan Donegan comes on to talk about our worst first jobs out of college. A retired AT&T telegrapher tells us about the day the government broke up AT&T and flying to the Philippines to train workers who were about to take his job. Finally we end with a small business freight salesman who tries to win our business. WE'VE GOT A NEW SPONSOR! Thrive Flower sells real cannabis products outside of the medical system. They have 9 strains of flower, 6 strains of pre rolled joints, 4 strains of vapes, gummies, and lemonades. They are the first and only company offering same day cannabis delivery within Philly. Order your cannabis at https://thriveflower.com/ and it will be delivered in about an hour. Use code menatwork15 for 15% off orders. Simply choose “same day delivery” during checkout. This applies for Philly residents ONLY. 00:00 - Intro 5:43 - The GREATEST Commercial Ever Made 6:25: Intro x2 13:02 - Research Scientist 22:34 - Old School Electrician 29:11 - Our Worst First Jobs (w/ Brendan Donegan) 50:30 - Photographer w/ a sick car 57:40 - Retired AT&T Telegrapher 1:05:15- Freight Sales Follow Brendan: https://www.instagram.com/brendandone... About Us: The Men At Work Podcast asks one question: What do you do for work? After that the conversation flows from there. We’ve met substitute teachers, Bangladeshi t-shirt moguls, a real estate broker tight with LeBron James, and more. And we’ll record anywhere. Random sidewalks during an eclipse, a baseball game, a bar crawl, casino, and more. We like to find out what people do for a living. If you want us to come to your event email us at: [e-mail] If you want more bonus content from every episode check out our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/menatworkpod Follow Us: The Pod: https://www.tiktok.com/@menatpodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/menatpod/ Follow Matt: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattpeoplesco...https://www.instagram.com/mattpeoples... Follow Kyle: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kylepagancb/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kylepagancb Follow Vito: https://www.instagram.com/vito_visual...

It's a dirty business, man. It's a dirty business. I still remember the number, like when you would hit our contest, which is what you were like striving for your sales goal for the year. When I hit that, I think it was probably like $75,000. What you make the company in the course of that year, give it a ballpark number. What do you think?

Two mil. It's good guess. No, you strong guess. $624,000. Oh my God. You're like, hey, we're going to cut you a piece of the pie and we're going to give you a nice 75 piece. You're like, hey, we're going to cut you a piece of the pie, and we're going to give you a nice 75 piece. You're like, are you kidding me?

I made you half a mil. Three, two, one. Welcome back to another episode of Men at Work podcast. We're out here in Haddon Township at the Brews and Crews. It's a car show in Haddon Township. We're doing a little home and home here. We were in Philadelphia last episode. Now we're in the Haddon Township where you reside.

Yeah, dude. Welcome to my domicile. Welcome to my dojo here in suburban New Jersey. I know you city folk are absolutely mesmerized by seeing just houses and things like that. So I was excited to bring you guys out here, man. The Brews and Crews sounds like a DUI. That's what most of the guys are going to be doing to get home here. Get home from here, but you know, it's a good time. Everybody's pretty excited. Some cool shit here, so I'm excited.

Yeah, I drove out here and I went right by a homeless guy. I was like, how'd he get out? Yeah, I know. Dude, they travel. They're making a long trek these days. And you know we're never

going to send him back because he's not paying the toll. Is that what it is? He's never coming back. How's he going to get the toll? I'll compensate. I've actually scratched by a couple tolls myself,

very honestly. I didn't have any cash a couple times and the lady just screamed to me and I was like, I'm just going to go ahead and go. that what happens yeah get like a 400 ticket in the mail whatever it is damn you just got to be forthright you got to let them know hey look i have three dollars and 22 cents do you want to count change today and they go no i don't they

are sticklers about exact change yeah it is wild all of them and they're all very me i used to remember did you ever hear the rumor that the people that worked in the toll booth were making like six figures? No. That was like a popular thing in New Jersey is they would say like, oh, what are you, a toll booth worker? Which meant like you made a lot of money without working hard. Well, I think it's like our big dogs, our blue-collar babies, the union has probably taken care of them. But it's also like the pension has to be amazing. Or maybe it was back in the day.

I know obviously there's not really a lot of people around here anymore doing the old tolls whenever I go by. I mean, I have an easy pass. I'm not an asshole. I think if you don't have an easy pass you are the generation of an asshole makes no sense yeah if you're not but you didn't have a an easy pass at that point i do now thank god i've learned from my mistakes but there was about a year period where i was going to and fro drexel university to visit my beautiful baby girl in college and i would just go cash every time really it was the only five dollars that i would have for the entire

day stop at a wawa take out a couple beans just to go just to go get my heart broken do you know how redundant you're sounding how so going to wawa free start charge by the way shout out to wawa yeah just to get you know a 20 ounce so that you can pay the toll instead of just getting the easy pass and then going up to your bank account like why are we such why are we such lazy people i couldn't figure out how to get an easy pass i was like 19 did you go to the bridge yeah of course you go to like frank s farley plaza you go to any plaza on the way down the shore any plaza on any pennsylvania highway and you get a and you get one they advertise it yeah but i know but i'm scared i was a 19 year old scared guy you know me as a 28 year old scared

guy you think i was more brave when i was 19 i'm not going to get an easy pass we need i need mental help we need to send you to scared straight or something like that i'm already scared dude you got to give me the brave straight what else are you scared of just about everything which is kind of nuts because i'm a bigger dude but everything just makes me gosh darn nervous are you scared of like is it the interaction that makes that tweaks you a little bit i think i'm gonna say something wrong and they're gonna call me out like i always think i'm gonna say something wrong and then a huge microphone's gonna drop and then an intercom will go and look like attention everybody this dumbass said that he doesn't know how to get an easy pass pass pass and everybody laughs at me that's what i think's gonna happen there is no doubt in my mind

that you hate you'd rather sit and have a gift that you don't want then return it to like a target or a walmart because you don't want to deal with the interaction of like them being like do you have your receipt and maybe you don't have your receipt or this or that this last year i bought a suitcase thing for my girlfriend spent 220 dollars realized it was the wrong one and i just bought it and then bought another one instead of getting your 220 dollars back that's right have you used it no it's in my storage unit that's insane i haven't even told my girlfriend about this it's crazy dude you want to bring me yeah absolutely i need you to come and do normal interactions with me because you're very like this that this that and i'm a little kind of

antsy that's why we have a nice dynamic here so i need you to just come in my regular life and just help me out wow man a 220 dollar luggage Yeah. And the next one that I bought was like 140. So I should have been spending less money. Wow. That's actually hilarious that the one you actually gave her was cheaper than the one you bought. It's the one she wanted, dude. What is it though? Like, is it just like, are you afraid of making a fool of yourself? Maybe so. I think it's growing up with red hair. You're a little more on edge. Truly, it is. Every movement you make, everybody's like, ew, he's got red stuff on him. Dude, don't blame. Huh? Don't blame your childhood bullies. Don't blame your childhood bullies for your trauma. Yeah, they gave me guff and I got roughed up as a kid and now I'm a little more

on edge. I don't believe that. You played sports in high school. You had to be somewhat popular. Yeah, you know, I got the job done, but not well. You know what I'm saying? I was a prom king, but not the handsome one, the funny one. You were bullied as a prom king? No, at that point I was crushed. Okay. All right. You were a prom king?

Uh-huh. Yes, I was, dude. Put a little picture here. I'm shocked. Yeah. Prom king, Mr. Gloucester Catholic, that was everything, yeah. How many people in the graduating class? Like 122.

That's still pretty good. Not bad, yeah. I had everything. Yeah. How many people in the graduating class? Like 122. That's still pretty good. Not bad. Yeah. I had 250. I came in like third or fourth. Really? Yes. One of the worst days of my life, obviously.

We'll get them next year. Yeah. You know me. Yeah. The ego is just insanely humongous. Well, you're Mr. Cool. At this point, our viewers have seen you absolutely bawling out at the charity game over there. You want to recap your greatest accomplishment, your greatest play of all time?

Yo. Hello, Kyle. What are you doing? Nothing. Sitting here watching the game, smoking some Thrive. Are you all alone? Who's that? Yo, pick up the phone yo

what's up what you doing son nothing just chilling killing true true Nothing. Just chilling. Killing. True. True. I am so sore. Yeah, I can imagine. There are parts of my body that I didn't even know could be sore. If everyone's watching, I'm going to be hunched over. I'm going to be leaning to the side. This part of my body hurts.

This is okay. The left part of my sternum hurts. I just pointed to my back for some reason. My right toe is killing me. My left knee hurts. I have turf burn on the right one. I made a diving tackle to save the championship game. An incredible play, I got to say, dude.

It really was pretty impressive to watch. Jason Avant was so, so excited, which was actually the most hilarious thing in the world because he wasn't even my coach. Oh, really? He was on the other team? He was on impressive to watch. Jason Avant was so, so excited, which was actually the most hilarious thing in the world because he wasn't even my coach. Oh, really? He was on the other team? He was on the other team. Oh, my God. And it was like four seconds left to go.

The guy throws it up. Interception by a guy named Jervis, who was actually on Survivor. 54 years old, dude. That dude, he had like four touchdowns in that game. Amazing. 54 years old. I can barely get out of bed.

That's crazy. Like at 31, i can barely get out of bed that's crazy like at 31 i can barely get out of the bed this dude is like running crossing routes that any and he's built like he could literally be in training camp in like six months yeah like it's insane and uh and so he intercepted it jumped over everybody and uh he's running down the sideline. I'm coming from the exact opposite sideline. And I chase him down, grab his flag, and people went nuts. I am the weirdest runner of all time, though. Yeah, I mean, I will say as my height, like my strides, you can go a little bit. They don't make sense. No, they don't. Like I should be running like a gazelle. Well, that's a little I mean, but I should be running like a gazelle. i'm not saying i should be as fast as a gazelle but i should be running like a gazelle i'd say your top half chops air like a gazelle you move like your body it looks like your lower

body is letting you down the whole time but your top half's like look i'm here to play that's what i saw from the video i saw big chops it was pretty impressive i'm a top runner you're a top right you're a top dude yeah i'm top yeah yeah absolutely no i thought it was sick but i was pumped i run like they did in scooby-doo like but your top is the legs my top my top is the legs yeah i'm like i'm pumping so hard and the legs are just like standing absolutely still oh i wish i could do the noise whatever that noise is oh that's so funny yeah man but that's still sick. I mean, you got Nashville. You know, Philadelphia recognized your athletic feet. You almost said Nash.

Yeah, I didn't want to be too. I can't get you too big for your bridges here, dude. That was still. My God, were you impressed? Do you think I had that in me? I was pretty pumped to see it, dude. I'm not going to lie to you. I said, look at this freaking guy go, dude.

You know what it was? Forrest Gump when he gets his legs off. Yeah, that's what it was. I was running without the braces. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, you're running without braces oh my god yeah hey listen uh former uh all catholic honorable mention here nine points per game at lansdale catholic okay so put some respect on my name a little bit absolutely man i looked at the presence of greatness and it never gets lost on me no i'll be honest with you. I don't know how many charity games you've been invited to.

Dude, I'm being complimentary here. What the heck is this? I don't know how many charity games you've been asked to attend. Yeah. Pretty big deal if you didn't know. There's a fine line, obviously. And obviously you've done corporate America stuff, and I've done corporate America stuff. So when you do get to the softball game, you get to the basketball game, it's like, like all right you don't want to be the hard ass you don't want to like you know take

Mary from accounting into the post yeah throw a bow in her fucking sternum and dump on her yeah um so I kind of was like trying to tow that line because like I'm playing with like I'm playing with like legit pretty good athletes and then you're also playing with like big brothers big sisters the marketing corporate events coordinator like so you gotta be like all right toe the line like two minutes in i was like full bore ready to go they the first team we played came down scored on us right away and i was like all right this is fucking over now it's all yeah it's on now i'm glad you're like a pretty like your default is a nice guy because jason avant walking towards you after that play if you would have talked shit that would have been the funniest thing of all time i was talking shit though you let him know you let him hear i was talking shit during the game

i was talking shit how's thomas uh former eagle defensive lineman or offensive lineman i forget yeah he used both his timeouts with eight minutes left to go in the game i was like dude you did learn from andy reed like what kind of clock management is that so i was talking shit to him he could eat me legitimately eat me he's probably like six three four hundred pounds uh barrett brooks was my uh coach he's a former offensive lineman for the eagles he's probably about six four three twenty three fifty he's a big dude and there's some other linebacker from back in the day who i never heard of jason avon could still suit up though yeah he looks still jacked still in crazy shape i was like oh my god these guys just don't ever they just they can't get it out of their brain.

They just have to be elite athletes. Charity events are cool, though. Invite us to your charity event. Yeah, I'll play, dude. Let's play a little hacky sack. A little pickleball or something. Yeah. Most importantly, I want to thank our blue-collar babies.

That was your cue, man. Anyway, keep going. We want to thank our middle class. Oh, I skipped that. I skipped a couple. Middle class. Do we have to take a break and go around the corner and talk? Yeah, please don't hurt me.

I'm sorry, sir. Please. And we want to thank our white collar criminals. The best fans in the world. We really, really appreciate everybody who's tuning in. The numbers are staying strong. We're 12 episodes in, 13 episodes in. So we really do appreciate that.

The followers are growing and everything. It's all thanks to you guys. Yeah, man. I didn't know if you know this because we weren't on podcasts before. We are on Podcast Now, Spotify, Apple, and wherever you can get your podcasts. Obviously, we've been on YouTube this whole entire time. And then the Patreon, patreon.com slash menatworkpod. That's continually growing.

We love you guys for that. Right now, we are running a $1 tier. That's the Cheeto tier. The first 50 people that get in on that will get $1 a month, and that's just extra bonus content. A lot of man on the street stuff. I think we have me and Vito are going to do are gonna do a four to five minute stand-up set oh i can't wait absolutely soul crushing i'm there i'm legitimately nervous are you and we're

gonna put your set in there too so you better bring it no you have to pay to watch my set can't fool around anymore no i'm excited but that's that's stuff with the patreon dude we do crazy shit and if you pay us to do it we will probably do it whatever you suggest just let us know we do the craziest fucking shit yeah we do wild x kind of stuff man dude x rated on the patreon that's all you can get yep no clothes full body closing optional um all right let's let's let's see what kind of people go to a car show let's get some pals hey guys we do a podcast. We ask people what they do for a living. You want to hop on like three minutes, just talk about your job, anything you want to talk about?

You're going to give a fun job. It's a good time. You don't have to say the company's name. Just talk about what you do. Just what you do. We got a fellow teak man here, dude. Here you go. So we got a...

Oh, shit. Hello. Teak. I don't know. We're not frat guys, so I don't really know what Teak is. Yeah, man. What's your name? My name's Mike.

Mike, how are you? I'm doing all right. I'm doing all right. Here for the car show. Yeah, yeah. What kind of... What do you do for a living? What kind of guy...

What kind of work do you do that you love car shows? Well, totally unrelated and probably the opposite of what I do for a job. I'm a research scientist. Oh, what do you research? Recycling, plastics. Got it. I love it.

So all the plastic bag bands and things like that. I play with straws and plastic bags all day. How many microplastics am I ingesting a day? So many. So many.

I kind of like them at this point though. I think they're making me stronger. I don't really do the microplastic stuff. I do like the how the plastic dissolves and how it fragments and then someone else takes over once it got it messages the little pellets it's not my problem but so you see like the microplastic stuff is happening a lot is it really like a thing to worry about um i don't the answer

is maybe yeah i mean not to make this a giant science conversation because you asked you said down here yeah we love to hear um Yeah, we'd love to hear. But it gets to the point where it depends on what's in the microplastic, so what's it made out of, and the shape of the microplastic. There could be fibers. There could be flakes. There could be all sorts of different shapes. And I'm not an expert in microplastics by any means.

Sure. We'll ask you one question. What's the healthiest microplastic to ingest? Yeah, fiber sounds good. Fiber does sound good. No, fiber, like polyesters. Oh, yeah. The plastics that are in your non-cotton shirts. I've had a dog that ate a polyester shirt before he survived.

Absolutely. Yeah, he was better after, honestly. I've had some concentration of these that's bad for you. I don't know, man. Okay. But, yes, I play with straws and bags, and I recycle. Okay. It's kind of like my pitch for myself.

Glorified trash man. I like that. Kind of. Nice. That actually gets paid well. All of my colleagues, they get to do fun stuff. They go in the field and they catch jellyfish or they're in the field on boats and doing cool stuff.

No, no, no, no, no. So there's this new, in Jersey, I think it's in Philly too, where the plastic bag ban. Yes. Is that one of those things that it's like somebody's got to come up with an idea or is there actual studies behind it that say this may help? There's absolutely studies behind it, but the goal has to be you have to reuse the bag right you can't keep buying one every time i go i buy a new bag that's the problem you're not that's the opposite of what you're supposed to do yeah that makes it worse okay oh you guys are allowed to have plastic bags as long as you buy them so they're not even

plastic they're kind of like these woven bags or you know a lot of times it's like a brown paper bag type thing brown yeah brown paper bags they can be plastic depending on the type of plastic as long as they're reusable. Got it. It's kind of like there's some farce in this in that you'll see companies or you'll go to a business for takeout, and they're going to say in the container, they're going to say reusable plastic. Right. You're never reusing that. No.

You know when you go get a gyro and it comes in a container with some rice, you're never reusing that. It's going right in the recycling bin. Yeah. That one felt like it was always like kind of like a lob for an alley-oop to businesses to be like, oh, you can actually charge them for bags now. Yeah. I mean, I think they're kind of taking advantage of that a little bit. It doesn't bother me. I use the bags all the time at home. Are you like a, are you like a recycling Nazi? Oh no, no. That's why I say, you know, you asked about when you started this conversation, you said, what kind of job do you do that that brings you to a car show? I have a 1991 Oldsmobile that is in violation of the Clean Air Act.

And I just like the car. You know, it takes 93 fuel. It's bad for the environment. It gets like between 16 and 23 miles to gallon. Yeah, it's the opposite of what I do. So not even our world's greatest scientists that are trying to make sure this fireball in my face right now comes down to us and burns us to a crisp. You can't help it, man. The car is in violation of Clean Air Act,

but it's legal in New Jersey. Anything after, I think, I don't know, what's the date now that you don't need an inspection anymore? It would never pass. Oh, really? There's the date now that you don't need an inspection anymore? You're asking the wrong guy. It would never pass. It would never pass. Oh, really? No.

So there's probably some irony in you driving home in this old car with your reusable bag and going, I'm saving the planet. No doubt. No doubt. I didn't say that I was perfect. Taylor Swift's private jet is flying over top of you as this happens. You pour so much hours and time into your into your work. And I feel, you know, in the back of your mind, you're probably like, it's not we're never going to solve this in a way. But like, like, how's that feel? I mean, we're never going to solve it. Sure. Not maybe not in my lifetime or this this generation.

You know, I kind of accept some of that. It's just it's just what it is, you know it is. But I do support the notion of transitional change. They talk about green energy, renewable energy. Got it. And really the way that it should be framed is energy diversity. Okay. Go more. And energy security and diversity in that people don't want wind power.

Well, I'm like, well, if you have five or six different sources of major sources of energy yeah that's a good thing regardless of what it is so if you have oil if you have natural gas if you have nuclear if you have offshore wind if you're using uh biogas from from composting facilities these are all good things they are energy diversity and security some of them are good for climate some of them are less good for climate change i know i know nuclear energy is a really big sticking point with people right now, but people seem to be like, who are proponents of it, being like, this is the cheapest, it is the greenest, and it's probably the best in terms of it. Are people right? It's risky. If you look at France, it's a big country for nuclear energy, and they're

predominantly run off nuclear, but it's a big issue. And I mean, what was the Oyster Creek just shut down down in South Jersey. I mean, this is something that's probably seen in the news. What happened there? They shut it down. It's life expectancy, and they shut it down. But they have the casks that are holding the former isotopes or whatever spent nuclear rods are, and they're going to be there for the rest of time. Yeah, because that's going to take –

Oh, wow. I'm reading a book actually called Nuclear War by Annie Jacobson. Okay. Don't read it if you want to think that we're ready for a nuclear invasion, because we're not. Yeah. And they're talking about how a thousand years it takes for plutonium to just lose its radiation.

Yes, and that's why they're stored this way, is that this is a location that you'll never step foot on, that will never be built upon ever again, that at least, again, in our generation, will never be used for anything again while they just store spent nuclear rods there. So it's less about fear of an explosion, like a nuclear explosion,

and more about how it seeps into the environment around it? Partially. I mean, I think the perceived risk of these things is so great that would you want one in your backyard no not at all true is it and that's that's a big issue new jersey because no matter what you know you think there's bad parts of new jersey new jersey is pretty affluent no matter where you go yeah we have a very high standard of living pretty much everywhere you are in new jersey with the exception of a few locations. A select few.

Right. Wow. So one more thing before we let you go. What are you working on right now? What are you like? Yeah, something you're excited about. I spent the entire day working on bioplastics. So this is like your plastic straws and things in a frame.

Excuse me. Your bioplastic straws. Yeah. So bioplastic is the only difference between a regular plastic and a bioplastic is the carbon source being that, is it from fossil fuel or is it from corn? Oh. It doesn't mean it's better environmentally necessarily, and it doesn't mean it's biodegradable. Okay.

Oh, so what, it's just a, is it a cost effective thing or is it marketing? A lot of it's marketing. Wow. And that's, that's a big publication that'll be coming out hopefully in the next year, about a year and a half. I'll be honest with you, brother, man. The planet can die. I'm not doing a paper straw. They're not my favorite. They suck. I just bail on the straws.

They do stink out loud. That's true. Are you happy how coffee shops have switched to the lid that's more like the sippy cup lid? Yeah. I don't need the straw. I stopped using straws years ago just because I thought they were weird. I don't need the straw. I stopped using straws years ago just because I thought they were weird. Yeah.

And I was like, what am I using them for? I think it's good, too, if you're trying to retain some level of the false masculinity of like, I don't use straws. That's right. I just suck it out of the cup. I'm a manly man. I don't use straws. That's right.

Of course. That's right. Okay. Absolutely. Well, dude, good luck saving the planet. Yeah, man. Thanks for doing it. It's been fun.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much, man. Yeah, back it in, brother. It's a nice fucking car. Are you a car guy? Are you into like trying to get a fancy type of thing? No, if you give me an Audi and a shore house,

I'll be the happiest guy in the world. That's what, that's my goal. Yeah. Literally to have an Audi and a shore house. And I don't even know if I want an Audi anymore. Thanks. Um,

like an Audi Q8, an Audi Q4. I think I like, those were just like cars that I really enjoyed driving when I used to valet, but then I used to drive like Honda pilots and Honda Accords. And I was like, this is fucking amazing. Yeah. I hear that.

I'm, I'm big on that. I'm not a car guy. I need like a nice place to live. A car comes very distantly second. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, shore house, shore house and an Audi. And I know that, you know, that's luxury baby.

Like that's when, you know, when our parents are growing up, what was it? It was, uh, I don't know, like a four-bedroom rancher. Yeah, for like $45. Yeah. Had a high school diploma. Yeah, we just bought like a nine-bedroom mansion and it cost 11 bucks and I had to kiss the real estate agent. Yeah.

It's like, must be nice. It's crazy. Not I'll rent till I die, baby. You'll owe nothing and you'll like it, they say. We are going to be a generation of renters, yeah let's get this hippie where's he at straight ahead the old guy hey how you doing how are you we just asked you what they do for a living just need three minutes of your time take a load off oh Oh, billows.

We're having a great time out here in Haddon Township at the car show. Yeah? Got a bunch of nice different kind of cars here. Yeah, we love this place. Yeah? Great day today. Lived here for a while? Yeah, I've been here for about 20 years, over 20 years now.

Yeah, long time. Where are you from beforehand? Where are you coming from? Maple Shade, New Jersey. Maple Shade, right down the road. Yeah. Now, what do you do for work? I'm an electrician. An electrician.

Oh, God. New collar baby. The foundation of America. So how long have you done that for? About 35 years, 40 years. Do you love it or do you hate it? What's the verdict? I love it.

Really? Yeah, it's great. It's hard work, though. The manual labor doesn't get to you at all. Good days and bad. Yeah. And yes, it does get to me some days, but I take the good with the bad. Union or private?

Private. I work for a private contractor. Nice. Your own place or no? No. No. Nice. Nice. How do you like it? Were you ever a union guy or were you... You get by. I get by. I like it. I don't mind it at all. Yeah. Commercial or are we doing more home? Residential. Residential. Nice. I like this. Mostly in this

area. It's like a nice power dynamic. You're like loading over top of us. I feel like we're reporting to you, sir. Oh, residential. Residential? Nice. Mostly in this area. It's like a nice power dynamic. You're like loading over top of us. I feel like we got it. We're reporting to you, sir. So yeah. Yeah, it's great. I'm looking at you directly in the sun right now. You are really, he's powered. He's got the higher ground right now. And we got the little woman with us today, Missy. Hi, Missy. How are you? Beautiful to see you. Come on.

Absolutely. We got another one. We'd love to have you. All right. That's a great thought. So what do you like about your work? So you don't like the job. Okay. So we hate the job. It's a job, but it's not bad. Yeah.

It's different every day. And you make a living. What's your specialty? Big circuit breaker guy? You big... Electrical circuits, outside lighting, small jobs. I do small ones. I don't do the big ones anymore.

What kind of big ones were you used to doing? New homes. How was that? It was a monotonous thing I had to do for about 10 years. Yeah? How's the regulation on that? Today, it's so out of control with all the nonsense. What's the nonsense?

Yeah. The regulations, the code. All the old-timers getting out of it. So as two guys who have never done anything blue-collar in their life, what kind of regulations did you guys have to, like people have to go through nowadays that they didn't have to in the back? When you're wiring a house, you have to put smoke detectors in every bedroom, one on every floor.

You've got to have an outlet within six foot of the doorways. You can't put, you have to put a light in a crawl space if there's mechanicals down there. And if they decide not to put mechanicals, they still sometimes make you put them in there. A slew of stuff. And then what did it used to be like? We could do a whole house in eight to ten hours, rough it all in, wire it. And how long does it take now? Probably two days.

But you hear these stories about when people buy an older house, they're like, ah, the electrical's all fucked up. I mean, are they going by the standard that it is now, or is it the electrical is actually better, so the old stuff was bad all along? They usually make a big huff. The insurance company make a big huff about this knob and tube wiring and all. Yeah. What's knob and tube wiring?

We don't mind us asking. It's a wiring that's been around for a million years, and it's okay if it's left alone. Oh. But the insurance companies make the people to buy an older home, they squeeze them and make them replace it. The entire thing? Yeah, the knob and tube. If it's in there, to give them insurance at a decent rate.

What's the new line of wiring that we're doing? It's Romex. It has a third wire, and it has an outer casing on it. The knob and tube don't have an outer casing. It's a single strand. It goes through these porcelain knobs and tubes. It never touches the wood or anything like that. It's been around for a million years,

and I've never really had an issue with it. You know, I feel like if someone did a little bit of research, I wouldn't be shocked if you could just find, like, Romexes in bed with, like, big insurance companies or something like that. Did you just make a pun about being shocked? No, I didn't actually, but shout to me. Look at that, dude.

He's heard that one a time or two. Very nice. But the government and the insurance companies are in one unit. That's what I feel like. So when we're overcharging people for the insurance, so the insurance companies can make a bit more profit. My inspection is insane this year.

For the cars and stuff, have you done an inspection lately? I haven't been there in years. Oh, not inspection. Registration. Registrations have gone up 60%. It insane what do you mean like they just they're more thorough they've just become expensive like oh my god no one has an answer they're just like i was talking to you the material for electrical yeah it's unbelievable what the material cost the romex wires to be 44 a roll is now 112 and that's within five years um sometimes they're just so far out,

I can't even believe it. They get fuses. They used to be $3 a piece. They're now $24 for two of them. Holy sh... I mean, circuit breaker and everything. Everything's gigantically inflated. So where do you think happens to, like,

you know, private contractors and stuff for electricians? They have to pass it along, that's all. You know, it's almost embarrassing sometimes to tell them how much the material is. You actually feel guilty. If you can look it up at Depot, you'll see. That's what it costs. Now, is that good for contractors

that the prices are up? Because then you can charge your people or no? No, it's a shame because you've got to charge them more money and you're giving them a high estimate rather than being within reason. The material is unbelievable. Triple. Oil filter for my truck.

If I get to buy a motorcraft oil filter, $399 at Walmart, okay? Yeah. Within the last three years, it's up to $12 for the same oil filter. Same brand, same model. So everything's way off. Jesus. I mean, I always wonder about, like, people in your line of work. How often are you getting relatives calling you out?

Like, hey, can you stop by? We got this thing that shit out for today. How often is that happening, and are you kind of over it at this point? I don't have any relatives left. No? Like a friend or something? Well, sorry to hear about that. Big ups to the homies.

But you have a friend or something that ever kind of hits you up and says, oh. Most of the stuff I do is for my friends and my enemies and all that. The enemies, huh? Dude, I love that. Yeah, my friends and people call me back. You know, their brothers, their neighbors and all that, you know? And enemies. And enemies, huh? Dude, I love that. People that I, yeah, my friends and people call me back, you know, their brothers, their neighbors and all that. Yeah. Well, we'll let you get back to Missy, but what's one car you're looking at today?

Let me see. I'm looking for a 1970 Buick GS or 72 GS 455. Okay. You just don't see them. Yeah. They're not around. Well, keep an eye out. There's somebody who's got a

yeah if you happen to see one let me know we'll flag you down let Missy know alright yeah thank you so much man

appreciate it no I'm re-talking to you that was great thank you so much that was electric boogie woogie woogie hello folks dang dude

yeah man I'm too nice for the puns that was almost as good as the Colorado Water Basin joke that you that I still laughed at as I was editing the podcast that's what I did dude

I can't believe she didn't laugh at that last episode i think she was terrified the entire time i watched that back too and i thought that we were lauding over her bren what's up young man get on here come on this side so i don't have to look into the fucking uh i i knuckles dude because i'm the clammiest fucking boy here you go this this town this side of haddonfield this is good this is the uh below six foot side so we'll get you. No, this is the Kyle doesn't have to strain his eyes while a guy is literally standing next to him who's six foot seven. And he's like, yeah, he was giving us the business. So where's Prada?

What? I'll put my hands on if I have to. You can smell the chalice in this. Introduce yourself, dude. This is comedian Brennan. I'm not even going to try your last name. Donegan. Donegan.

I should have known that. Good Irish Catholic boy. That's right. Philadelphia's own finished what? Second in Philly's funniest last year? No, I was probably somewhere around four. Finished second in Philly's funniest last year?

I had heard rumors of fourth, but we don't really know. I just wanted to legitimize yourself to the fans that this guy's funny. I appreciate the attempt. Yeah. But yeah, I was up there in the finals past couple years congrats yeah they still hang the banner for final fours they still do they still let them know man you're in the top four you're a thousand point scorer of being in philly's funniest that's true dude out of like 300 fucking losers i well i mean i imagine there's some people that didn't make it who deserved it

were pretty talented but you know what can you do fucking losers remember who they were though no i can't either no well you know just you know good guys good questions podcast of the car show dude this looks pretty sweet i tried to park my corolla in here they said sir you need to have hubcaps to park can i go they didn't let the donuts in no yeah i got four donuts 200 000 miles on that puppy and uh it's still kicking, though. Yeah, those things last forever. It's what they say, a Japanese car, unless somebody nukes it. Don't touch me.

I'll kind of know that one. That was good. That was good. Just date. I would appreciate that stuff. I'll tell you what. Speaking of a car show, Brendan and I have driven to some gigs together, and driving in that car, boy, do you think it's going to explode or implode at any moment the entire

drive? Well, yeah. I mean, it's definitely a dangerous vehicle. But when you're a bad boy like myself and you're not driving, what is it, a Ford Chick Bronco? Look, some people's girlfriends. It's the girl sport mode, whatever that is. It's like a baby blue. Baby blue sport bronco but we got we

it's good to have uh somebody is similar to myself who moonlights as a comedian what do we do for a living here brendo what do we do uh can we can we speak on it what do you do i'm a stripper yeah government is that what you're asking yeah we talk about jobs here dude yeah government we want to hear about the day job a little bit yeah government government stripper government stripper the pension must be a lot of red tape a lot of uh a lot of red penises yeah gotta get through but yeah no government job boring like i i couldn't even tell you what i do yeah if you ask me like for a description it's just like a boring desk job are you sure you guys aren't just like cia operatives from another country like that's like oh two guys who work for the government who are both moonlighting as comedians and stuff like it's kind of like that's like yeah but they probably want somebody to be moonlighting as more successful

no no no I need to break in this open mic circuit you know we got the guys they just found like you hear about those eight people that they found in LA New York and uh Philadelphia who had who had attachments to ISIS like i'm just literally looking at the next two guys they're gonna get yeah that's awesome he was just doing open mics at a tap house yeah that word opening something else what a cover well if you are going to recruit anybody to get into isis a local open mic would probably be the hot spot yeah i mean it's like you could talk those guys into anything for just what like five minutes of stage time or just yeah exactly mean it's like you can talk those guys into anything for just what like five minutes of stage time or just yeah exactly or it's just like the amount of like dumb

people who kind of try comedy it's like that group of creatures in there is probably your best bet of like recruiting some some terrorists yeah i mean it really is like a good point it's like the disenfranchised either join 4chan or they go to an open mic right so if you're trying to take advantage of guys who are like well the world's always done me wrong unfortunately it probably is exactly some guy who just wants his voice heard who's like they don't know about all these ideas that i have yeah they're gonna learn one day dude exactly kill that spider holy hell oh my lanta careful he's got diabetes dude almost went directly into my mouth, dude. I would have been so pissed.

It literally is sitting right there. But just the way that you aimed it, we're like, hang on a second. Don't flinch and don't move. This is for the podcast and content. I was like, dude, you're about to flick this directly into my nostril? I just met you for the first time. Oh, my God. Flicking poisonous, venomous spiders at you.

What kind of person do you think Matt would be? I would have just taken it too. I would have just been like, it's his podcast, dude. I saw that happen. I was like, no way. He's flicking it right out. Dude, I bent that shit like Beckham. I am so scared of spiders.

Are you really? Yeah, a little bit. We got to keep you on edge, dude. Holy shit. Well, this is kind of an interesting thing to bring it back to what we do for a living. Being a comedian at night, do you notice how often you're getting asked about being a comic at work? So, as you know, I transferred to a new department and nobody knows yet. Every job they eventually find out, I've been holding it down tight until this fucking podcast.

No one's found out yet. And it's been amazing, dude. But you do feel like you're just always living a lie. yeah you know i blocked everybody at comcast did you really i blocked them all except for my buddy who knew i who i didn't care like he was like my best friend on the team yeah who so was my best friend um because you didn't want them to know or it was like it was it i didn't want to answer questions yeah exactly i didn't want to go out and oh i saw what you did or like people are whispering about like you know kyle's out there interviewing people on the street he doesn't like give a fuck about his job exactly you're exactly right yeah but they have to know like especially nowadays like it's like nobody likes

working for the government nobody likes working for the man nobody likes working for a boss so like everybody's just quiet quitting yeah it really is a lot of like you know people all understand that's the weirdest thing about working at like a desk job is we all have this understanding and it comes in even like the vernacular and the anecdotes that everybody uses like almost the end of the week thank god we're getting out of here but you can't openly be like this place fucking sucks i hate every second that i'm here but jobs also quite firing all the time true like oh my girl my fiancee is going to like her third round of layoffs in like six months oh my god like how about we just like you know not yeah dude somebody

was just telling me about this stop me if you know who it is but they were talking about how they got laid off and at the end they played like they had like some uh some like song that they played them out and they're like all right and now and they played them out on this like happy they announced like 3 000 layoffs and then they were like to make you guys feel better we had this like i i don't know if it was like a band or something but they like played them out with like some happy music and they're like goodbye can you imagine they so you got the people got fired and their way to think that they would make them feel better is to play them off with like a like a like a roll the credits it's like how much money did you spend on that entertainment you just laid off three is this going into my is this cutting into my

severance those are our wages for the past three months well you used to work in sales right yeah i did recruiting for like six years which is essentially sales and god i was just not i hated it did not enjoy it was not built for it because i'm just not a liar dude and you just have to like you have to like whenever you whenever there was something that i believed in i could sell it good but i didn't believe in anything ever so like brennan you got you got to just sell it with conviction i'm like but what if i believe this is all bullshit and they're like yeah it's not the point yeah you got to just sell and i just god i i hated it what were you recruiting um it people we had the same job coming out of college yeah yeah same thing uh tech systems okay i was

that's a huge one yeah i was some small one in mount laurel called patriot consulting that's not around anymore uh but we were selling it guys for sap and oracle implementations yeah and uh i would call i would I would smile and dial every single day. And it was the worst day of my life. Oh my God. That's what I did for like six years. So you actually had to be pretty good at it. I only lasted a year.

It was, yeah, I did okay. But yeah, I just absolutely hated it, dude. And like you grind and like the office that I worked in was in Radnor, Pennsylvania. So and I was living in South Jersey, like right after I graduated college because I had so many fucking student loans. I'm like, I'm never going to be able to move out on my own. So I had to drive from South Jersey. It's like an hour plus, you know, on the Schuylkill every single day. One way you get there, you got to get in by like eight.

So I got to leave my house by 6 30 you do that all day you get home it's like 7 30 p.m you have no time to work out i wasn't doing comedy at the time i had nothing i i hated my life it was brutal and then i just like slowly crawled my way out of it you know they really had to get out did they do the did they the bullpen stuff yeah we would have a red zone what we called our morning meeting every single morning um that you would have to like stand and we had a big office it was like 50 people in there and you'd have to stand up and like kind of like go over the business that you're working on in front of everybody and i would always get shit on dude like

because they would like hey i couldn't lie they'd be like did you do the references on that person i'd be like i i did one the other one didn't pick up and they they would just like absolutely torture in front of the entire office they would actually like talk shit and like hand it to you or what they said just not they would be like now to walk me through the thought process of why you would think that i'd be like, look, you got me, dude. I didn't do it. Dude, and they would have a board. Can we take this offline? We would have been in this. I really liked the people who were there.

I wasn't Texas as a material. I did interview for them and they didn't give me the job. Look at you now, though. It all worked out. Look how tall you are, dude. There you go. I could have got this tall without the job. How much you're making and how tall you are on the

board every morning it's pretty funny but it's insane i mean people stealing clients from each other people stealing work from each other like it's insane it's actually like surprise there's never been like a movie about it like someone's never made a movie about it i know it really could be a sitcom like of uh or or like a reality show if they did a reality show of a recruiting firm dude it would be it would be incredible because also you're young it's like they hire mostly people out of college so it's young people in their 20s where i met my wife and everyone just winds up banging and they're like the one rule is like you do not hook up with the people that you work with and they really say that and then they take you out to a happy hour and get you like hammered yeah

uh after you've been working like a 12 hour day, like 6 p.m., provide no food. And you'd be like, I'm going to hook up with this chick. And I'm going to drive home from Radnor to South Jersey hammered, dude. Do you remember you would call people? So they did this at our job where they would, you know, we'd had like a database where you could find people's phone numbers. They would really try to harp on us to call them at work. And this is their thought process. They go, well, like, you know, where else are they going to be?

If they're not picking up their cell phone, you get their desk line. You'd have to call in to like the secretary and go, hey, can I ask for you? Like trick them. And they'd be like, who is this? And I'd go, it's a personal call. Like this is what they would teach us, dude. you'd find you'd sneak your way into like find their desk line they'd be like who the fuck is this i'm like this is brennan donaghy from texas and like don't don't ever call me here again dude dude for making like 17 an hour those women were

the most powerful people at those companies there would be so many times i'd be on the line with somebody and like you know you catch people at work they're busy and they're so annoyed and i would almost like be on the other line wanting to whisper to them like dude i don't want to be doing this it's just my job still on the voice so i couldn't so i'm like dude brother i hear you but they're watching me and i gotta make calls i also can't imagine like being a lifer at one of those jobs where you get to like your 40s you have kids and stuff and you still are coming in every day like let's fucking sell yeah i remember like the best year that i had i was like doing pretty well i hit like our contest for that year and i remember thinking like i worked so hard to get to that point it was like you're putting you're working

it's your entire life you're working crazy hours, insane. And then looking back, I look at the numbers. It's like, I think I made like $75,000. It's like I literally threw my life on the line. And then you go to another job, and it's like your starting base salary or something. Oh, my God. That's funny. I could afford like an okay one bedroom. This is pretty sick, man.

You got to earn it, dude. We're not going to just give you a lot of, dude. We're not going to just give you, a lot of those companies, we're not going to just give you a base salary and benefits. It's like, if you come in here and you prove to us that you're not a fucking loser, dude, then sure, we'll toss you some benefits

and maybe some dental. But otherwise, let's see how this thing goes. With how gung-ho they are at sales jobs, and I guess you guys both had to have seen this, if you're taking a couple days off in the the summertime what do they look at you like do they look like treat you like absolutely there's no work from home yeah yeah and this was like when i worked there was pre-covid so it was like working from home they were like what are you what are you a gay if you took a vacation for more than three days, they would be like, oh, look at this young buck thinking he's just traveling the world.

I'm like, I was in Wildwood for two days, dude. I'm like, I just need a breather. Yeah. There's no lifestyle balance. If you took a mental health day, you are the biggest pussy I've ever met. To be fair, if you ever text me that you were taking a mental health day, I'd come to your house and give you a noogie immediately. I could never let that happen. i wouldn't say it i got fired on the same day that my um student loans kicked in oh oh my god like three to four month grace

period i think it is my i remember i remember getting the text from my mom as i'm sitting in the car after i got fired because i was fired like fridays around like 9 a.m that was when they did their big firings and stuff yeah Yeah. What a horrible time before the weekend, too. It was paydays at least. Hey, think about this for the long weekend. Couldn't it have been Thursday? So I could have maybe had a three-day weekend. Maybe Monday so you didn't have to work out the entire week.

That's true. Like, yeah, if I would have sold something, would this have changed? Like, I feel like, no. But, yeah, I remember going home and I cried in my apartment. You cried? I cried in my apartment in the kitchen. Being fired has got to be a jolting experience where you're just like, I remember going home and I cried in my apartment. You cried? I cried in my apartment in the kitchen. Now, I always like to hear. Being fired has got to be a jolting experience where you're just like, even though you hated

the job, which is probably the best thing for you, you're still just like, I can't believe I got fired. Yeah. You know? It is funny. Like, it is hilarious. Like, you suck. Like, that's like them just saying that, like, you are not good enough.

Yeah, you're not good enough. Yeah. It's like getting broken up with and having your replacement, like like clearly better than you are right in front of you yeah yeah when you cried didn't i always like to find out how men cry dude like you always do analyze people cry were you were you standing sitting standing it was a standing cry that's respectable standing i just remember looking at my bank account i remember looking at my bank account and I think my rent at the time was $750 and I had $768 in my bank account. And I was just like, I don't know how I'm going to live. Yeah.

Oh, my God. It's got to be the firing and knowing you have bills seems like that amount of stress would shut me down. When I graduated from college, I remember my Sallie Mae loans alone. And that's not the only loans that I had. And by the way, I went to school for a communication degree. Yeah. My Sallie Mae loans. But you weren't a D1 Kentucky basketball player?

No. I mean, I tried to walk on. Just wanted to ask. I tried to walk on. They go, we haven't had a guy 5'7 since Muggsy Bogues. Yeah, it's a basketball team. They wanted you to moonwalk along. My Sallie may loans were like a

thousand dollars and i'm like making you know i think i i started out making thirty four thousand dollars like when you start at that job yeah and i'm like i'm gonna be in the just from student loans if and i was living at home with my parents at the time i'm like i'm in the hole like so much without even paying anything else. I don't even have a life yet and I'm already in debt. How does that happen? I remember I would just stare at a spreadsheet of my student loans every day and I'd be like, how can I figure out a way? Every day I go into the office, I fucking fire up the computer, I pull up the spreadsheet and I go, if I could just think of an idea to somehow get rid of these.

Like I genuinely would be like, maybe it's an app. Maybe I can think of a cool app and then I'll hit it a bit. Because otherwise I'm like, there's no solution to get rid of this. I don't know what I'm going to do. Being so screwed that you become entrepreneurial is the new American dream actually. Did you ever find yourself becoming that guy you hated? yeah i think you definitely get caught up in it like once you start to do see a little bit of success there then all of a sudden you're it's like when you hit a shot and pull and all of a sudden you start circling the table you're like you know you're like walking

around the office like you start drinking the beer by whipping it back in your mouth kind of thing yeah there's definitely like some uh you start drinking the Kool-Aid after a while. And then when you see like other people get successful, because that's the thing. It's like, it's such a horrible job for so long. But like if you do well, there are people that make insane money. You look at them and you're like, damn, dude, like that is, that would be really nice. Yeah. But then you look at, eventually you realize like the cost of,

of what it takes to get there. And you're like, I don't want to, I don't want to do that. But you get caught up in that, chasing that for a while, thinking like, dude, like that's what I got to do. I got to make as much money as possible and just forget happiness. I mean, I would be calling people in like fucking Texas at like 10 o'clock at night, being like, are you going to show up to your'clock at night being like are you gonna show up to your job tomorrow yeah and they wouldn't show up and they're like i'm making like a 15 20 hour

spread on this thing yeah this is like that's like three thousand dollars yeah dude or they would take like a a nice contract and then they would be like look i'm gonna leave for this other job and you'd be trying to talk them off a left like look watch me what is the big deal of a job that it's gonna offer you 250 000 you're're going to stay on this three-month contract yeah yeah yeah that was the thing i heard at ronstadt they told you that you a lot of your job was just calling people and being like please for the love of god go to work just go to the factory job and like anything could happen in the business of people like it's people's lives so like like my wife for example she had a guy that she hired three times and she kept going to bat for him.

He fell asleep on the job three separate times and kept getting fired. And she was like, well, dude, at this point, you're making me look real stupid. He was a real sleeper pick. It's a dirty business, man. It's a dirty fucking business. I still remember the number, like when you would hit our contest, which is what you were like striving for your sales goal for the year you were making. So, like I said, when I hit that, I think it was probably like seventy five thousand dollars. What you make the company was in the course of that year.

Give it a ballpark number. What do you think? Two mil. It's good gas. Six hundred and twenty four thousand. Oh, my God. We're going to cut you a piece of the pie and we're gonna give you a nice 75 piece you're like are you kidding me i made you half a mil over half a million dollars it's so gross man the whole thing and you just you just get suckered into it because you get to wear a button down for the first time and you get to go to a happy hour in front of girls and be like i do actually have a real job yeah right you i'd be also i look young now imagine me at 24 like meeting with actual business professionals.

Be like, here's the thing you need to know about the industry, guy. And he's like, dude, Raul, you're in your dad's suit right now. I'm like, that's not important. I can picture that, you going up to a girl, tugging on the bottom of her skirt, being like, hello. I was literally, like, swimming in my suit, dude. Like, how's it going? Like, handing out business cards, dude. Yeah, the cufflinks hanging over midway through your palm.

I know that. It is such, like, it's the total fake it till you make it situation. Like, you're just lying through your teeth. Dude, I've never, I haven't talked about that in, like, six years. Yeah. I feel like some demons came out right there. Nine years, honestly. Yeah.

It's traumatizing. It sucked. Yeah. It's the worst day of my fucking life. When you actually get legit Sunday scares, and I don't know if you guys get sunday scares i haven't had sunday scares not to brag in about like six years yeah so this is your full-time gig right yeah it's fucking awesome yeah it's sick but that's what's like you take all those shitty jobs over the years and that like just teaches you i think the most important thing is like what you don't want to do and then you can

slowly figure out like what you like and be like let me try to figure out a way to do that yeah for me stand up you know anything you want to plug before anything you want to throw out for no let me see um and make it tasteful south jersey bad boys podcast check that out and uh got a website coming in dude it's super professional brendan donning comedy for my dates dude just check it check it the fuck out. Date. Check him out, man. Yeah, dude. Love that, man. Congrats, dude. Thank you.

As much as it hurts me to say, Brendan, one of the best comics in the area. So check out the boy out. As much as it hurts me to say. It kills me. Dude, it looks like you're back in the fucking bullpen right now. That's right, dude. It's only because he lets me open for him to places. So I have fucking Troy over here.

He's just telling you about your work. You cross-reference that? Yeah. Like, you want me to, you want to come to a casino and open for me for 50 bucks for seven people? Matt's like, let's do this thing.

And we had fun, didn't we? In the Corolla? In the Corolla. I was so scared, dude. Yep. I had to share a bed in a casino. That was a separate time. That was multiple times.

All right, guys. I didn't know you were sharing beds in a casino. I got you your own fucking room, you asshole. Yeah, that was your bed. I didn't mention it. Yeah, dude.

He'll sleep with you. It's great, dude. Just know that for the future. Awesome, man. Thanks so much, man. Thank you, own fucking room, you asshole. Yeah, that was your bad. I didn't mention it. Yeah, dude, he'll sleep with you. It's great, dude. Just know that for the future. Awesome, man. Thanks so much, man. Thank you, guys. All right, brother. How are you, folks?

If you'd like to sit down if you're done showing your car. Yeah, come take a seat, man. Come take a seat. What's your name? My name is Jared. Jared, nice to meet you. Pleasure, pleasure. And you're here at the car show.

That is an Alfa Romeo... Alfa Romeo 4C Spyder. Wow. 2018. Pleasure. And you're here at the car show. That is an Alfa Romeo. Alfa Romeo 4C Spyder. Wow. Pretty sick. They made the Spyder from 2016 to 2020. Of course, they had it ready earlier overseas, but we got them in about, we got them in 2016. I remember a Spyder. I was trying to win it for, remember McDonald's used to do the Monopoly? Yes. They did a Spyder one year. And I remember it was a a Spyder. I was trying to win it for... Remember when McDonald's used to do the Monopoly? Yes.

They did a Spyder one year, and I remember it was a yellow Spyder. I was 10 years old, and I really, really wanted it. Oh, wow. I didn't win. Like the old Happy Meals and stuff. Yeah, the old stickers. Those were the days, man. Those were the days. So when did you pick this thing up? How long have you had it? I actually had this literally just less than a year. I got it

4th of July last year, and I've been loving it ever since. I can't believe it's already been almost a year yeah it's and it was a hell of a hassle getting that car because there's a story that goes with it um let's hear we'd love to hear how you there were only two available at the time this one had the least amount of miles so that's the one that sparked my attention i wanted to get the lowest miles possible, so this one had it, and it was in the middle of no-name city in Wisconsin. I think it was called LaSalle, or I'm going to have to get that corrected because, again, I forgot the city or where I bought my car. Sure.

But they didn't actually believe I was legit because I called and I said, oh, I wanted to make a purchase over the phone, but it doesn't resonate well with them because they've had fraud in the past. So calling over the phone incites fraud? They think it was fraud because it's a normal thing to us. A bunch of fucking Gen Zers running this company or something? Oh my God, he called me. It's fraud.

Well, to be fair, how were you selling over the phone? You might have sounded a little fraudulent. Were you very fraudulent? I was probably aggressive because I literally was just trying to get it before another one was taken off the market because they were just hard to get last year and now are they auctioning are you like going in the price is going it's a set price just yeah it was a set price it was a decent price for the miles and it looked like to be in great condition in front of photos that they had i even had a company a third party, go out and check it out for me.

So I didn't have to make the trip that I ended up making anyway. OK, so funny thing. I went in the first time, like on a Monday to go to LaSalle, whatever, Wisconsin. And my flight canceled and you had to take two flights. You had to connect to Chicago to go get there. So I wasn't able to do it that day. So that really sparked, you know. Yeah, of course of course i'm like uh like hmm is he really coming like yes i am actually i'm starting to get on their side now yeah you should have snapchatted them um so what

do you do for a living that affords you a beautiful piece of work like this i am actually an owner of a photography company wow really yes we do uh, events, and during the week we do architecture, real estate, things like that. Okay. Yeah. Now, are you a photographer yourself? I am. I am also a photographer, master photographer and owner. A master photographer.

So what's the difference between your run-of-the-mill guy we got back here, a master photographer? Not to say that he's not, of course, a Boivito. It's a fancy term of saying that i could basically photograph anything not saying like that like i'm i'm the best photographer sure but there's nothing that we do not do so you can just call yourself a master of photography or is it because you it's a good question i mean i guess like obviously all photographers like it's like hey i do family portraits i do weddings and it's like if i graduate from those then i guess you could be a master photographer and you said you did architecture so yes yes so it's it's it's rare to find a photographer that covers all those fields

got it so i like to call myself the master photographer so so we try to always ask at least once an episode we ask what we call a thoughtful dumb guy question now i don't mean this in any way to sound mean no from my perspective of photography it's did you take a picture of something cool or not i don't understand the art behind it now people make money on and stuff like yeah yeah just like i could take the picture in my head i'm like i can take a picture but i'm sure there's a lot more behind it give us like if you're explaining to a dumb person like us it goes into that it gets crazy you know with lighting and you know even with photographers

who know it even better than me, because obviously with photography, you just keep learning and learning, and lighting is a major part of it if it's not like 90% of it. How's this light right now? Yeah, how does it look? This light is great, but some photographers would be like,

oh, it could be a little bit lower, it could be a little bit less contrast, things like that, or whatever they're gonna fix and post that i think but there's like a perfect situation or a perfect scenario that these photographers really get to make every picture that that one picture that you're looking at just make it look a million times better like is it it's finding the perfect time even more so than finding an angle or something like that exactly finding the time finding the sunlight finding just the even amount of shade that you can get just whatever resources you can use to make to perfect that photo now this might sound a little mean when you're taking pictures and you're you're you're behind the camera you're looking at this person and it's their big day are

you ever kind of looking and being like they might just be ugly they're not gonna like how these look you can be totally honest at least once or twice you might be like i'm not gonna lie there have been rooms where the light like i said about the lighting we're going back to that there have been rooms or you know uh scenarios where their venue just did not have the adequate lighting that i was expecting and a lot of the venues we've been to, but there's always some that, you know, catch us by surprise. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. But how ugly they are?

No. The venue themselves do not look that good. And then I get crappier photos. Or I'm worried about it because I think I'm getting crappy photos. But, you know, we managed to fix it and make it look better. But not every – you're not going to be shooting in a perfect setting every single time So those those issues do come you've never met an ugly person in your life. I like that Why do the family portraits always have people wearing white. I'm just looking at it. I'm just thinking of Mike with that. My cousins, they get like a beach photo every five or six years.

It's just they're all in just white linens. White linen button downs every time. I think a lot of people like that white breezy or airy look. That's what's in. And a lot of it is done at the shore, at the beach. And they just believe that blends well. And it does. It looks like a nice, comfortable time when you're getting those photos. You look really beachy and they just believe that blends well and it does it looks like a nice comfortable time when you're getting those photos you look really beachy and things like that so i think

it's just like a nice it's that airy light look well thank you so much man we appreciate you thank you guys for having us photographer industry learned what a master photographer is too oh you want to shout out the business real quick before you hop off just oh yeah once again i am jared museau of jared museau photography is, you can find us on Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram. Just JarrettMuzo.com. G-A-R-R-E-T-T-M-U-S-E-A-U.com. I'm glad you said G. I didn't think it was going to happen. Everybody thinks it's a J. There you go. And thank you.

You want to come on? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's a Zoom PodTrack P4. Yeah, we like it. What's your podcast called? So we're called Men at Work. We just go around talking to people what they do for a living. That's a good idea.

Thank you. Why don't you come down, sit for a little bit, talk? What do you do for a living? I work for AT&T. I have a foreign company. That's exciting. I'd like to talk. I have AT&T.

I got some questions myself. Different AT&T. I know. AT&T's got a lot. They got a lot of. There we go. I have AT&T. I got some questions myself. Different AT&T. I know. AT&T's got a lot. They got a lot of. There we go. There we go. We suckered them in.

I guess you did. So what's your name? Rich. Rich. Yep. I'm Kyle. This is Matt. Matt, good to meet you.

Great to meet you. And what, you retired. Yes. A little behind baseball. We did already talk to Rich a little bit. But you used to work at AT&T. Yes, I did. Okay.

The original AT&t now that's that's the thing like at&t when i first got into the corporate america world i didn't understand i thought they were a cell phone company but they've been no when i started out in 74 i used to work on telegraph what was that what's telegraph telegraph dot dash dot dash you're talking to guys who have never even seen a typewriter. It was, oh, God. 1993 and... 96.

96. Yeah. You were born in 1996. As far as I know, yeah. Telegraph is what they used in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s. And it was left over when I started. Got it. So a high-speed circuit would have been like 56K,

so it could operate a computer, and your iPhone is much more powerful than 56K. And it was a lot of voice circuits, private line voice circuits, for corporations like Cigna, Disney. So what do you mean by private line? Yeah. Instead of picking up the phone and making a phone call, they had their own private network throughout the United States and the world.

So where did your job kind of morph into after Telegraph? Okay, so the company split up in 1985 before you were born. Yeah, sure, of course. It was the Judge Green decision, right? You don't know that. No, it was an antitrust monopoly. AT&T used to be the long-distance company in the united states of america and they called her ma bell and she used to own all the local bell telephone companies bell of new jersey c&p bell pacific bell tell all of them and mci was a long distance company competing against AT&T for long distance the

government got involved and they made AT&T break away from the local phone companies spun them off so MCI could compete loyally equally with the rest of the United States MCI got eventually purchased I by Verizon. I'm not sure. AT&T could not really function as a long-distance company. And eventually Southwest and Bell purchased them back in 2000, I guess it was.

Something like that. So why is it still called AT&T then, if they got purchased? Well, AT&T was the name. The brand was so strong. The stock market is labeled T. A lot of things went, I think, apparently wrong with AT&T. They started outsourcing their work

to different countries. They used to travel to the Philippines and work there. They were laying off people in the United States of America. It is a different phone company than it was when I worked there. And they were laying off people in the United States of America. So it is a different phone company than it was. When you worked there?

When I worked there, absolutely. Were you always there? I was there for 40 years, yeah. Wow. So it's so crazy because, you know, our generation, I haven't been at a job for more than three years, I think. Yeah. You were there for 40 years.

That's insane. It is insane. So you were in Philippines a lot. Was that you're just sitting there and you're working at the job or do you have free time to explore the area? What's that look like? Well, first time over there was a shock because you land after 15, 16 hours of flight time and you're greeted by police officers with MK-45s at the airport. A lot of security at the airport and you land at like 10 o'clock at night and they put you in a limousine which is the size of

some small little Toyota. Yeah. And you're going through streets that are very poor. People living on the streets. All of a sudden you arrive and they will put us into a five-star hotel. And you have to get three security checks to

get into the hotel with dogs mirrors and all that and the bombs and they were checked then you go into the hotel and it was like nirvana it was absolutely beautiful then you would go to work the next day and we went to work at six o'clock at night i guess because we were supporting the United States, which was 12 hours behind. And we were training Filipinos how to write orders for AT&T. So I got to ask, though, were you training people who were going to take your job one day? Yes. That's crazy. Wow.

See, that's why I feel like people our age hate corporations, because that just feels dirty. Right. It was. Yeah. It was. I mean, you look at the skyline in downtown manila and it was comcast and verizon over there and insurance companies and it's

that's rotten but so you knew and while you were training you knew like all right i'm just setting this up for them to start outsourcing that was something you're aware of even at the moment was basically save your ass so do what you had to do yeah sure so i went to i'm sorry it occurs on your no we curse all the time so it was yeah that's exactly what it was and then eventually filipino's corporation got too expensive and they outsourced it to a company up in bradislavia or someplace like that by that time i was editor jesus somewhere with a tax break and a poor car. It's crazy. It's insane to hear.

Wow. So I do a podcast, too. Go, shout it out. It's the Sound of Rich Show, wherever you are. Sound of Rich Show? Yeah. A guy I met from high school. Love it.

We got together after 52 years. Yeah. We started chatting away, and we said, let's start a podcast. He used to be on the radio down in Vineland 50 years ago, I guess. And it's been like you guys. Yeah. We're having a good time with it. This is Sound Rich, just like 30 years.

This is young Sound Rich, yeah. We're still into telegraphs also. Yeah, of course. I'm 28. Okay, so it's not 30 years younger. It's like 50. We were getting the benefit of the doubt. We were getting the benefit of the doubt. We were getting the benefit of the doubt.

You're a young guy. AT&T didn't age you a year. Of course. No, not at all. That's why I got the bald spot in the back of my head. Yeah, those 16-hour flights didn't, you know, those three checkpoints of security didn't age you at all. And it wasn't even for his class.

Oh, what? No, it wasn't. Jesus Christ. So we've had people on our show from our class. Did you ever hear of Tommy McCarthy? I mean, there's like 17. W-O-G-L Radio. I know W-O-G-L, yeah.

He was a music director for 26 years. No kidding. Like you knew a lot of the old guys. Highlit, Jerry Blavitt, and people like that. Yeah. We've had some book writers on our show. Sweet. And we reach out and we get some different people.

Are you enjoying it? It's a hobby that's turned into a job. It's fun. That's what it is. It always becomes a hobby then it's a job. Yeah.

I mean, you talk... My wife's waiting for me. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you talk, you talk, you know, every day of your life. Sometimes it's just so,

you know, put it on a recorder. Yeah, might as well. Put it on camera. Well, I'll be looking for this. Thank you. Please, absolutely. He'll have all the places to get it and everything. Okay, nice meeting you well. Put it on camera. Well, I'll be looking for this. Thank you. Please, absolutely. He'll have all the places

to get it and everything. Okay, nice meeting you guys. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Take it easy. Take it easy. Maybe we'll contact you and have you on our show.

Sure. Would love it. Hey, do you guys work for a living? We're just looking for... We do a podcast where we ask you what they do for a living. We're just trying to do one more

before we get out of here. Mine's like not that interesting. What do you do for a living? No, it's interesting. We love to hear. I'm a living. We're just trying to do one more before we get out of here. Mine's like not that interesting. What do you do for a living? No, it's interesting. We love to hear. I'm in sales. There we go. I'm an account executive.

There you go. Sales for what? An international freight forwarder and domestic trucking company. That's actually something I don't know anything about, so I'm actually interested in. Interesting. Can you name the company or name the freight? Yeah, specialty freight services. Okay.

How much freight are you towing? A name the freight? Yeah, Specialty Freight Services. Okay. How much freight are you towing? A lot of freight. They've been in business for like 35 years now. Pull apart the freight for me. What happened? How much freight are we towing? How much freight? Just off the top of your head.

I mean, a lot of freight. They say they're a $65 million company, so that's a lot of freight. And it's family-owned. Wow. If you think about what FedEx is doing compared to them, they're doing pretty good too. And it's family owned. So what exactly are you? You're an account executive.

What are you selling for the company? Are you selling the freights themselves? Are you selling? No, the service. We're like the middleman. So if anyone has a product they need shipped on a pallet that's larger than like postal, they come to us because we have our broker's license. So they come to us, use the broker's license,

and then we're able to set them up with a carrier to move the shipment. So are you selling like an entire service or you sell like, Hey, I have George in maple shade that can take your freight out to California? No. So we're asset based. So we have our own trucks and it can go on our own truck. But basically if they need something without the, like further than the distance we do, then we will use like other carriers to go further and stuff like that so if they need something moved they'll come to us and then we'll just put it out um on the dot system and then other people will like drivers and stuff on that system if they're qualified can decide to choose to get the pickup yeah so kind of like that so what do

you do yeah what's the day-to-day look like my day-to-day is a lot of cold calling visiting customers yeah yeah but i mean i'm on the road most of the day so i like it because i'm an active person i don't like to sit in an office and i'm not in the office so um i go and make cold calls or i'll take customers to lunch i'll bring bring them in stuff, make sure everything's okay. What's a trucker like to eat? Well, so I usually I'm not working with the trucker. So I'll go to like, for example, I was in Vineland today, Vineland, New Jersey, and I was visiting a blueberry company. It's like a huge blueberry company, but you need your produce shipped. It's really crazy. Once you start getting into the industry, you realize how much like everything we buy is shipped. Yeah. So the industry is huge huge so it's kind of interesting cool so you're part of

like a mom and pop uh shop that you said you're it's a family-owned kind of uh situation but yeah another family worked for it now is it pretty competitive where you're out there kind of talking shit to other salespeople or it's competitive because we're going against like fedex and ups and stuff i mean fedex does freight, but then there's other giant carriers, like T-Force is a big one. And then like Old Dominion, Estes and stuff like that. What's your name again?

Gabrielle. Gabrielle, I didn't even think of your name. I apologize. Gabrielle, I'm Kyle with the Mango Tree Limited. I've got three tons of mangoes that I need shipped out of here. Stat, Sell me. So I always directly go to our service. So usually these bigger carriers, you can't get in touch with anyone directly. So if there's anything wrong with your shipment, any problems,

you can contact me specifically at any hour. What if my mangoes fall over on Interstate 80 at four o'clock in the morning? Are you going to be awake, Gabrielle? Well, we have a great insurance claim. Well, we do all of our insurance claims in-house, so we can handle that. But, Gabrielle, I want to talk to you. Will somebody be there at the phone 24-7? I will be, yes. I can answer the phone. I mean, that's half of sales, getting the sales in itself

is being available to the customers and stuff like that. Sure. If you can't be available to the customers, you're not going to get half the sales you do. So 4 o'clock, my mangoes fall on I-80. I mean, I've answered on a Friday night one of my customers that needed a shipment to go on Saturday night, like 9, 30, 10 o'clock.

Oh, God. Those are the worst. When you're at a bar and you're half in the bag and you've got to pretend to do a work call. I've been there many a times. Yeah, I hear you. I like it. I mean, yeah.

But, I mean, I like it. Good. Well, you sold me. So if I ever do it on that Mango Company Truck Limited, I will reach out to you. And there's a lot more into it. But, yeah, that's all I did. You did. I literally did know nothing about this job.

And now I do. And I feel like a smarter person. I appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, anytime. And everyone use specialty freight services. Specialty freight services. Hit them off.

Countrywide? Yeah, actually international as well. Oh. Not bragging. A little small mom and pop going national. Going international. And it's not just trucking. We do air, ocean, everything.

Holy shit. Jack of all trades. Oh, that could be you guys right now. Yeah, it could be. There we go. A couple mangoes on there. All right. I do believe she'll be up at 4 in the morning if my mango truck fell over.

Thank you so much for coming on. You're welcome. Thank you very much. Yes, that was great. All right, well, that's it. That's everything. Everyone's leaving, so we're going gonna follow um thanks for everyone who's listening blue-collar babies the middle class mommies the white-collar criminals and you the one percent

because if you made it to the end of this i freaking hate you for not investing in this podcast i mean you obviously like it like 13 episodes in so like if you just shoot us a line at minute podcast at gmail.com it'd be really nice and then if you go to the patreon patreon.com slash men at work pod if you want more of this sweet sweet bonus content yeah you can find us there we're running a promotion for one dollar a uh one dollar a month uh for the first 50 people to uh to subscribe um other than that maddie anything you want to say before we get out of here not dude check the page tell us what you want us to do we like seeing a lot of people commenting uh in our in the youtube videos letting us know where you'd like to see us that's what we do dude tell us where to go uh and we'll be there so give us some ideas we love it yeah all right

we'll talk to you later