Normal Gossip - S3 Ep7: The Science Behind Gossip with Eshin Jolly

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

Dr. Eshin Jolly joins us this week to teach us about the science of gossiping!!! Eshin is a post-doctoral researcher in the Computational Social Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at Dartmouth College.  Follow Eshin on Twitter @Eshjolly.  You can support Normal Gossip directly bybuying merch or becoming a Friend or a Friend-of-Friend at supportnormalgossip.com. Episode transcript here. Follow the show on Instagram @normalgossip, and if you have gossip, email us at [e-mail] or leave us a voicemail at 26-79-GOSSIP. Normal Gossip is hosted by Kelsey McKinney (@mckinneykelsey) and produced by Alex Sujong Laughlin (@alexlaughs). Credits recorded by Ben Sattinger. 

Alex, do you think that we should tell them our little secret? I think we should. Our secret is that we are going on tour this summer. Woo! We're going to be sharing a new gossip story with you all, but this time live on a stage. There will be special guests and glow sticks and games. It's going to be so messy. You can get tickets at normalgossiplive.com.

And bring your secrets. Because we're going to read them. It's like, it's complete chaos energy. Like mathematically, this is the fucking butterfly effect, right? Like this is just, you're ruining people's lives. Hi, and welcome to Normal Gossip. I'm Kelsey McKinney. In each episode of this podcast, we're going to bring you an anonymous morsel of gossip

from the real world. Today, I am thrilled to welcome the first doctor ever to be on this podcast, Dr. Eshen Jolly, is here to teach us about the science of gossiping. Eshen is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the computational social effective neuroscience laboratory at Dartmouth College, where he also completed his PhD. His research focuses on how humans form psychological impressions and construct neural representations of other people and ultimately how these representations change as they are transmitted between individuals.

Eshen, welcome. Thank you. Super excited to be here. I'm thrilled that you're here. Can you start me off by telling me what all those words mean in your mouth? Yeah. So I did my PhD at Dartmouth and currently working here right now as a postdoc. I'd say like I'm mostly interested in understanding how people think about other people.

And so that can happen sort of at the level of, you know, our psychology, what are our thoughts and feelings, what are other people thinking and feeling. But I'm also super interested in the underlying sort of neural representations, meaning like what is your brain doing? Is it sort of computing things in a particular way when we think about people? How does that change as we learn more about people? Is it sort of that's a general area I'm interested in? And then I try to kind of pull from inspiration of a couple of different fields of research

and science, some social psychology, some behavioral economics, and then cognitive neuroscience. And so I really like trying to be more interdisciplinary where I can to try to answer some of these questions. How do you study this? Like, are you just putting people in a room and being like tell each other your darkest secrets? Like, what are you doing?

Yeah, so one thing I try to do in my research is, you know, traditionally in sort of experimental psychology and neuroscience work, we're designing experiments that are trying to sort of isolate some aspect of the real world and studying it that way. I think that's been sort of the predominance paradigm of science, psychological science. But what's sort of interesting is all the real interesting stuff that we wonder about that sort of nuance and the interaction between things are kind of stripped away in the lab setting. What does that mean?

So what I mean by that is sort of maybe I'm interested in how you're sort of forming an impression of another person. But I want to sort of like control very specifically the information I give you that might bear upon that impression. Like what do they look like and some behavioral snippet of something they did, right? But if you're in the real world, there's like so much more that shapes your impression of a person, right? It's not just how they look in that moment and what they did then it's what they did

a week ago and who they're connected to and their friends and what do you know about them? And so part of what I try to do in my sort of program of work is bring some more of that like naturalism back into the lab. And so we try to design experiments where we're sort of isolating things so we can study them in a controlled manner, but we're also injecting at least some of this sort of natural energy that people might bring. And so that might involve sort of asking people to have conversations, but as they might just with friends outside of the lab setting.

I'm curious, like, OK, so you get two people in the lab, you have them essentially gossip with each other with as many controls around them as possible so that you can theoretically take something out of it. What what are you finding? Like, yeah, so I should I should back up a little bit. So please one one tricky thing about doing research where like people are doing a lot of interactions. It first is a sort of coordination, logistic scheduling problem, right?

We need a certain amount of people, two or three or four, however many to show up at the lab at the same time. And so they pay college students, right? Yes, yeah, right. But it turns out if you're in the middle of the woods, there's just not enough college students all the time. So what we ended up doing was sort of running this all online. And so essentially people are, you know, reasonably familiar with sending each other

chat messages in various forms and things where it's like, OK, maybe we can leverage that mode of communication here. And so what we basically did was I sort of built a little web game that was and by game, I should probably say by saying like an economic game, not like Super Mario Brothers or something like that, which would probably be way more fun. But it's the kind of economic game that's that's called the public goods game. And so we took that as a starting point. The sort of idea of a public goods game is it's it's modeling sort of capturing this

idea of the the tragedy of the commons that we sort of maybe sort of see in the world, right? It's we're all sort of dependent on a resource. We're all sharing and dipping into it. And in order for it to keep going, it needs to sort of requires all of our sort of lifting there. But people can also free ride. And so you can create this tension between, you know, I can get everything for myself or I'm helping out a group of people. OK. And so what we basically do is we we use that as the sort of foundation for a kind

of game. And then we sort of tweak it in particular ways where one tweak we make is you're playing in a group with five other people. So these groups of six in this game. And in some versions of this game, even though the entire sort of group is affected by the actions of other people and actions here are how much do I want to contribute to this group money pot? OK. And the group money pot is our shared resource in this tragedy to comment. So we all contribute.

We all benefit because we're going to sort of multiply that hot taxes. You know, everyone's going to get it back in some way. Right. Yeah. Your taxes are in theory actually working for you theoretically. Yeah. Yeah. And so what people are basically going to do in this game is sort of make that decision, the pots can get doubled, and then we're going to sort of distribute it back to people and approximately doubled.

And in some versions of the game, you can see what everyone is doing. That's just sort of set up of a game like this. But we want to sort of create a situation where maybe, you know, one of the contextual factors in real life that leads people to want to talk about other people is the fact that we can't actually absurd for everyone's actions all the time. Right. Like. And so we're like, OK. Hmm. Yeah.

Right. Or like, what are other people doing? And so we created this scenario where you sort of imagine a little social network and there's six people. And so I and in that network can see what my neighbors are doing. Right. And I have one other person. I'm sort of exchanging private messages like DMing basically in the game. Right. Really more like tweeting it. We sort of made a little character.

OK. And they can see the two people that you can't see in the game. And so we've set up this scenario where you're all in a little neighborhood. But my the people I see are different from people you see. But we're all you have to share information in order to understand what's going on. Right. Right. Yeah. So we created this scenario. And so what we can basically do now is sort of look at what happens when people are in

this sort of context where they can't see everything and they have the ability to, you know, send these messages. Like gossip is as a concept scientifically or folk intuition wise, like kind of messy to define concretely. Right. I'm well aware of that problem. Oh, yeah. And everyone brings really strong opinions to the table. And so, you know, one of the core arguments that we try to make in this work,

because this is what we think the data are showing us, is that gossip is actually pretty like multifaceted. Right. It's not just trash talking. It's like there's something else going on there. Right. It's a mixture of a bunch of things. So one way to think about these sort of annotations we get on the messages is like, how does the mixture change when people can and can't see?

And so therefore, like we're comparing those proportional differences between things. So when people have that uncertainty, they can't see everyone proportionally more discussions about like, what are the people doing when they can't see everybody? You know, it's not that they don't talk about other people, but there's a lot more like, hey, so like, where are you from? Like, what do you do? Things that have no bearing.

Yeah. And it's and it's, you know, like it could just be like, are they just chit chatting and it doesn't sort of have any meaningful sort of impetus on anything. But what we actually find is those messages are actually kind of important. And one one of the sort of takeaways from this sort of first set of analysis is that, like, when there is this kind of informational uncertainty and there is an opportunity to resolve it, maybe with other people, people are going to absolutely spontaneously do this.

You don't need to tell them to like, you know, that's kind of interesting. Yeah, like information foraging is sort of people like, you know, it's interesting, all familiar with. Yeah. It's funny because I feel like if you're playing that game as someone who doesn't know what's going on, you're probably like, oh, this is a measure of like generosity or selfishness, or it's a measure of like how cooperative people can be when in reality you're like, what are you guys saying?

And you're side DMs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, kind of a fun position to be in for you. Yeah, it is. And you know, and it turns out like people love doing experiments like with other people, you know, it's like fun to oh, there's an actual other person at the end of the line, this is great.

And so so it's kind of cool because we're getting these sort of like real little chat conversations happening. So now what we did was, OK, so we have this idea of like how this mixture of conversation topics is changing. How does this actually sort of affect behavior? Like what are people behaving differently in this situation? So, you know, one hypothesis we can test is that, you know, one of the important things about gossip is that it's a it's a sort of tool for vicarious learning

so we can benefit from other people's experiences, right? And so one way we sought to test this is, hey, if we can predict how you're going to act in a future round of the game based upon how everybody in your group is behaving on a previous round of the game, including the people that you can't see, and if we see those people influencing your future behavior in this game, there's no other way for you to actually get that information. Except for your cousin. And that's exactly what we find, right?

So it's like, here's the behavioral evidence that the people you can't see when you can gossip end up becoming strongly predictive of your behavior in the game. And so that's kind of like people are obviously using this to learn and sort of influence each other. And so that's super cool. What's also really neat is that at the end of the game, we ask people sort of how much they enjoyed playing with all the players

and if they want to play with them. Oh, no. And it's a pretty simple sort of rating scale kind of exercise. But what it allows us to do is be like, OK, so they're talking about stuff, their behavior is changing, now how do they feel about people? Right. And so what's cool also, as you might imagine, is that not only do you sort of change your behavior when you learn about people you can't see, but the way the people who talk to each other view people ends up

becoming much more similar than people who can see everyone's actions or people who like aren't talking to each other. So we sort of think about this as like, you know, vicarious learning. You can sort of think about learning from other people, both in like, what should I do next? But also like, how do we feel about this person? Right. Do we feel the same way about this person? And I think that's one of the most interesting things about gossip.

This sort of like conversation under the conversation, right? Right. It's like allyship, right? Of like, you and I are on a team and we share information and therefore your enemies are my enemies and your friends are my friends. Yeah, absolutely. OK, I have one more question for you and then I swear we're going to do the gossip story. How has studying gossip and the way that people interact with each other affected your own behavior or your own like perception of other people

gossiping? Or has it? I guess it could not. Yeah, so there's at least two ways to answer this question, one which will like make me sound more like an asshole. But they say they say, you know, research is research. And so I think one takeaway is that, you know, if you're finding yourself talking about other people a lot, you know, there might be a natural inclination to be like, oh, that's don't do that. That's bad. It's taboo. And that's the sort of way we think about gossip.

But I think there's a sort of like more subtle thing to think about, which is like, hey, maybe if your experiences can help somebody else, like maybe it's good. And like, quote unquote, trash talking is not trash talking if it actually benefits somebody else. And so I think for me, it's like, maybe I've just been gossiping all this way because I'm awesome, which is not true. Or, you know, maybe this is the way that I ought to think about gossiping in the future and other people ought to think about it, where it's like, let's just not like cast this whole thing off as a terrible thing to do because people are going

to do it anyway. You're not going to stop them from doing it. And so then you can say, hey, am I am I making the environment more chaotic in a bad way, you know, by like creating more confusion or am I actually helping resolve some uncertainty and sort of build some relationships here? And I think, you know, bringing that way of sort of utilizing gossip in every day could be a, you know, I think maybe that's what the research suggests and sort of what I try to do and hopefully what other people might sort of take away from some of this.

Do you consider yourself a gossip? Like, would you identify as a gossip? That's hard to answer. I mean, it's not that I don't like gossip. I love gossip, but I guess it depends on what it's about. Uh huh. You know, I think there's like the high in, you know, I've heard, you know, like in some of your previous episodes, like the high stakes or low stakes gossip.

Some low stakes gossip can be really boring. But if the story is really juicy, it's great. I think high stakes gossip just has like more anxiety, but like sort of more consequence to, right? And so I like to know what my social environment looks like. And not in a nefarious way, but just like, yeah, what am I doing? Like, how am I navigating this? What's going on?

You know, like, yeah, maybe other people don't need to figure this out. I'll, I'll like pass down some of my knowledge and then they can help me out. And, you know, so is that a no? Uh, that's a yes. Sometimes it depends. Incredible. Are you ready to do this? Let's do it.

Today's tale opens in a familiar hell, possibly to you. Close your eyes and imagine you are our friend of a friend, Zoey. You are sitting in the driver's seat of your car. Your music is on, you're parked, you are watching the numbers on your clock. Tick up very slowly because over your dead body, are you arriving at your hourly wage job a minute earlier than you absolutely have to? You are like relishing this moment alone, right? In your car, you're like, I'm going to have to interact with customers for eight

hours. I need one second. What are you listening to on the radio? Ooh, depends on how I woke up that day. Okay. Some like, definitely some like metal. If I'm like, I need, I need to like, I need to channel this like social angst and frustration into something else. And then I'll be, you know, more palatable at work.

That's probably a good go to. Okay. Yeah. I think I'll stick with that. While you're like chilling, listening to your metal, you are imagining what you will do after work, right? You're like, if I just survived this day, which is the same as every other day, I can like go to the bar with my friends.

That's ideal. There is one minute left in your relaxation time when a big truck pulls like right in next to you. There are plenty of other spots in this parking lot. The stufas pulls in like close enough that you'll have to like squeeze out your driver's side door. And on top of that, his music is like so loud and it's such a decibel that like it would shatter your eardrums if you roll down your window and it's

country music. Oh, no. Country music is like the one genre. It is like loud enough that when the alarm on your phone goes off that you have to go into your terrible job, you don't hear it. You can only like feel it vibrate. Oh, no. How are you?

How are you feeling at this point? All of the benefit from listening to metal has just been evaporated. Yeah, just a comment. Yeah. I'm like more angry and upset than I was when I got into my car. Right. So our friend of a friend Zoe is the same. She's like, I'm feeling super stressed.

She's like, I always feel low key stressed at work because I have to talk to customers all day. And on top of that, her shift is from 2 30 p.m. to 10 30 p.m. Which is like just a bad time to work. Oof. Yeah. Oh man. Yeah.

You can't even like hang out with folks easily after that sucks. It's ruining your life. When you work in customer service, you are not allowed to park in the front of the store. This is like a common thing because good spots are for customers. You, the worker, are supposed to park in the back of the store so that you like appear inside the store, like a little helper robot who can like help you send money.

So you only exist within the building. So where Zoe has parked at the back of this strip mall where she works, she gets out of her car into the like hot, hot American Southwest sun. And she's facing a long beige building plot in the middle of a bunch of parking lots that contain other strip malls, you know, with stores called like vapor that sell jewels or whatever. Sure. Sure.

The back of Zoe's building has three doors, one for each of the stores in this like strip mall, the door on the left goes to an axe throwing place called great expectations. Okay. Okay. Uh-huh. I've seen that trend. The man who parked right next to her with his country music, he's the manager of

great expectations and his name is Ricky. Okay. Okay. Yep. That checks. Okay. The door in the middle where Zoe works leads to an escape room called escape artist.

Okay. A bunch of employees are clearly like pulling in at this exact same time because both of those two stores, great expectations and escape artist open at three o'clock PM. So it's like two 30. It's time for us to all get here. So as she's walking to the door, she's like waving hello to her coworkers and to the people who work at great expectations.

No one is going in the door to the right of the three doors because the door on the right doesn't open till five PM. The door on the right is for the rage room, which is named smash. Wait, is this, this is a real strip mall that this is have. Wow. Okay. How are you? How are you feeling about our, our three potential stores?

I'm just confused. Yeah. Oh man, Zoe, I hope you can find another job. Yeah, it's that feeling is going to get worse. Okay. So every employee at all three of these workplaces like knows each other vaguely because like they all park at the same parking lot, you smoke outside, right? And they have like short lunch breaks.

So people are spending a lot of time in this parking lot. So Zoe is like not surprised at all. When Ricky, the manager for great expectations follows her into the escape room office instead of going into his own business. She's like, he probably just needs to like talk to someone who knows what's going on here. It's kind of like a no man's land in this whole strip mall, but he doesn't like go to the bathroom or go talk to one of her coworkers.

He like peels off into her manager's office. Okay. We're not going to learn Zoe's manager's name because it's not important to us and it will get confusing. But she is like frowning the whole time Ricky is talking to her. So he's like, this can't be good. So she can, she can see what they're, they're talking, but she can't hear what they're saying.

Exactly. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. So she's like, she puts her little jacket in her bag into like whatever cubby or locker and she goes over there and she's like, what's up? And her manager is like, you don't need to worry about it.

Go get your room ready. Okay. Have you ever been to an escape room? No. Okay. So escape rooms are like puzzles that visiting guests are trying to solve. So they can like vary in size, right? Like summer for like a bachelor party and summer for like a two person date.

Right? Yep. Yep. The way they work as a visitor is you arrive at escape artist this place, you sign some contract that releases all of your liability and then you are led into a room by your guide. These are the employees. The employees are very helpful.

They explain you how the game works, maybe even where in the room to start. And your goal is to get yourself out of the room. Right. Okay. But they do not describe it as a game. The minute you are inside the room, the employee begins this like theatrical performance, like it is real. You are now inside, for example, a who done it murder mystery.

And all you have is this letter on the table halfway written before being abandoned, right? And they're like, figure it out. So it's like, it's like a themed murder mystery escape room. Okay, gotcha. Yes, all the rooms are themed. Okay. Okay.

As an employee, your job starts before these guests get there, right? Zoe has to go into her room and make sure all the clues are set up and like none of the objects are in the wrong place. So the employees also have to be like experienced designers to make sure that the game works, right? Yeah, like they can't find the clue that would get them out too fast or something like that. Exactly.

So like some of the things that the players will do are like manual things, right? It's like turning a knob or pulling something down. And some of them are mechanical, right? We're like, if you pull a book, a trapdoor opens. Okay, gotcha. So you have to make sure all of these things are running smoothly. It seems extremely stressful.

Yeah, that's very stressful. Okay, so once they set up their room and walk the players through like how it works, the employees go to a control room that they call at this place heaven. Okay. And in heaven, the employees are God. They can see every single thing happening in every room. This reminds me, it was on a flight and I watched the Uber story that Joseph working on it.

He was, and I swear, maybe I'm getting it wrong, but I don't really give a shit. That doesn't matter. Yeah, exactly. They had their surveillance program, I think was called heaven. Oh, is it? I think it was like heaven. There's a gray ball heaven. There's like the one where they were like showing a different version of

app to local politicians to get around like legality issues. Oh, that's right. And then there was like heaven where they could just like listen into everyone at any time. And it's so scary. Anyway, so that's what I'm thinking of now. So that's basically what they're doing, except it's only people who have signed a waiver and are inside these rooms, right?

And their job really, the reason they have this is to watch their own players. So like if the visitors get stuck, they can be like, we need help and an employee can come over the God, Mike, and like give them a hint, right? I'd be like, I would try this. Heaven is also where the employees get to gossip about their reoccurring guests, right? So there's like a family that comes to play once a month. There's this place is like frequented by like people in the area.

It's like, OK, and they'll like do the same. Is it the puzzles will change or they just they're like, I need to show off to my friends that I'm actually really good at doing it. OK, thank you so much for saying that because one of the guys that they gossip about is this guy they call Nose Ring, obvious reasons, who brings every single one of his first dates to escape artist and then pretends to have never been there before. What a dish.

Oh, man. Knowing that heaven exists, would you ever talk shit inside escape artist? Oh, yeah. Yeah. You would? Yeah. Even though they can hear you? Yeah. Yeah. I think that would be fun. I think that would be fun. I think it's just because of, you know, being a grad student, you're like, I know I know what you think about me being a participant, you know,

what I'm trying to what strings I'm pulling. So I would give it I would, you know, it's just for fun. That's part of why we chose this for you is that there's kind of like a mouse. Oh, yeah, experiment box thing. I'm trying to be happening. Not creepy, because there's definitely the like science side of my brain that's just like, this is a sick setup for an experiment. Yeah. And I know colleagues that people are trying to do this.

Right. So it's essentially in these rooms, it's like big brother. In there, right? Like it's mic'd up. There's cameras everywhere. Like if you're an employee who wants to talk shit about your boss, you're going outside, right? You're not doing it inside. Yeah, this is interesting. Now I'm like, all right, maybe depending on maybe Zoe's relationship with their

colleagues, there's like a there's a there's some catharsis opportunity here. I don't know, but it's risky. Yeah. So Zoe is in her room, like making sure everything's ready to go. When she hears her manager on the God mic, which comes into like every room saying that everyone who works there needs to be at great expectations at two forty five for some kind of strip mall meeting. OK. This is annoying because one, Zoe does not know what a strip mall meeting is.

I've never heard of one of these things in her two years at Escape Artist. And two, she's like not done with her room. Right. So she's like, now I have to hurry. I have to like rush out of here to make this stupid strip mall meeting. Yeah. And I'm assuming this is like never happened. But like no one's called the all important strip mall meeting. No, this is because what? What do they have to be? What the hell is going on?

Yeah. Right. So they have to they have to go back outside to get to great expectations, right, because that's how this is set up. So they go out to their hot sun. They write they walk the like 100 feet into great expectations and like inside the vibe could not be more different. OK. Have you ever been ax throwing? No, that's no, I've seen videos and been confused.

OK, so unlike Escape Artist, where there are a bunch of little rooms and a bunch of like dark hallways. Oh, it's like bowling alleys, right? It's like it's like lanes, right? Yeah, exactly. There are like no dividing walls in all of great expectations. It's like lofty and open like a high school gymnasium. Yeah. I mean, that guy from earlier could probably, you know, his strategy would pay off way harder

if you could just impress 10 lanes at the same time. Just imagine. Don't take that tip. OK, so like the throwing alleys are like spot lit, right? Like it's like it's a place. There are bars everywhere, like so many bars. The stereo system is playing like poison and it's like freezing cold. So the entire 10 person staff of Escape Artist is like huddled together

in their like matching gray escape artist's shirts, like waiting for this stupid meeting to start. Oh, man, I feel for them. Meanwhile, the axe throwing staff, they don't have anything to prepare for, right? Like the guests are going to show up and they're just going to like pick up axes and throw them. So like the axe throwing staff is just like laughing.

They're like chewing bubblegum. There is no bubblegum allowed in the escape rooms, right? Like every escape room employee is like annoyed. I'm seeing a metaphor here between like free deal in Texas America versus what America thinks like the USSR was like. OK, OK. At this point, the meeting has not started. It's running late.

Zoe remembers that she forgot to change like the clock hands in her room. And she's like, this is a problem because that's an important clue. The meeting was supposed to start three minutes ago. Are you stressed? Yeah, I don't I don't even know what takes. But yeah, I'm just like dancing and what. OK, so finally out comes Ricky, our manager slash country music playing truck driver.

You may remember him. Yeah. Try not to call him a manager is like kind of a loose term. He doesn't really like manage anyone. And most of what he seems to do is obtain new t-shirts for the great expectation staff. OK, so this is like a cause of great envy for the escape artists because they have one shirt. They have this like one gray, very soft shirt.

But they're like in great expectations and every single member of the great expectation staff is wearing like a different colored shirt. That checks. I'm sure this guy is this seems like this kind of manager that like stole money from like the PPE loans and things like that. Like, I don't know that checks, but I would not be surprised. They're like, this is not fair. They get all of these nice shirts and they don't even do anything.

Right there, like anyone can do that job. We're like working really hard over here, trying to like make puzzles and like help people solve them, whatever. At this point, it's 250. Everyone's mad. Zoe's manager is like, Ricky, do we have a time frame for this? And Ricky's like, we're starting soon. Oh, man, this is getting worse.

As he says the word soon, the door to outside opens. Uh-huh. An in walks girl, Kyle. Girl, Kyle is one of three Kiles on the staff at smash. The room, but girl, Kyle is the only girl named Kyle. OK, also, she's the manager. Oh, my God. Here we go.

Girl, Kyle used to be the manager at escape artists, but she was like really bad at the like puzzle design aspect of it. And so she switched jobs because it is much easier to run the smash room. Yeah. OK. Girl, Kyle is wearing like oversized Nike basketball shorts. She's wearing a giant black t-shirt that says smash in a metal font. Her hair is like in braids so long that they almost reach her waist. And she's like wearing sunglasses and a hat inside,

which she does not remove behind her is the staff of the rage room. Everyone at the rage room is like a fucking linebacker, right? Like they played high school sports. They're like jacked. Oh, here we go. And because girl, Kyle is like a small person in general, she looks even smaller compared to this like mass of linebackers behind her. But she has that energy is like, this is my team.

Yes, that's like she's what she's like, this is my this is these are my guys. OK, these are my guys. Yeah, exactly. Do you know why the escape room people might be immediately nervous to see the smash room people? I mean, there's a bunch of gigantic men walking into there. I don't know if that doesn't make you nervous. And if there's some like secret super athletes in the escape room crew that we don't know about.

No, there are not. OK. So part of the problem is just that they're like a line of jocks, right? And so everyone like tenses up immediately. But the other problem is that we I mentioned this off hand earlier, but the rage room people are not supposed to be here until five o'clock. The fact that they're here at two fifty is a very bad sign because the rage room people are never early. Girl, Kyle walks in with her crew of like boys and Ricky gets nervous.

You know, he like turns his hat backwards and stands up and like tries to be casual and he's like, OK, I got this call from corporate and the people who own great expectations now own smash and escape artists. Oh, I see what's going on here. This is the like, OK, what's the social hierarchy here? What's the pecking order? You know, who's the who's the real boss?

And so she has to bring her line back. OK, this is getting fun. OK. OK, I want to know what happens. No, keep going with what you were going to say. She has to bring her line back. I mean, she has to bring her line. You know, that's the ultimate posturing move. It's just like, listen, we we know we know who's the boss here.

Right. Yeah. It's a manpower thing. Oh, yeah, yeah. And she's she's bringing that big dick energy, you know. Oh, yes. Yeah. Here we go. And I, you know, and so he's he's probably like, I need to I need to show that I I'm running this place, right? And I feel for these people that they're just like

we're caught between the worst of two possible sort of like power plays. Yes. So all the escape artists like gasp when this information is revealed, Zoe can like hear all the rage room guys asking girl, Kyle, they're like, what is this me? Like, what's happening? And she's like, because Ricky is still talking. Ricky is like an email is about to be sent from corporate.

He's like, nobody's jobs are going to change at all. You will all do the same things and be paid the same. The only thing that's going to change is the name on your paychecks will be different. OK, I don't believe that for a second. Why? There's always more to the story. Things are just never that simple

when it comes to like managers telling you anything. So I'm just waiting. I'm just waiting. What's OK? What's what's the actual cost? They have to. OK, obviously, none of the escape artists believe him. None of the employees in general believe him like of any of these. I mean, he seems like a questionable person to like follow into leadership, right?

Like, yes. And girl, Kyle is like, if nothing is changing and everything is the same, why is this notice coming from you and not from the big wings? Mm hmm. And Ricky is like, well, you know, the owners of Great Expectations bought your companies. So I've been given the job as general manager and will oversee all three stores.

There it is. Yep. There it is. Oh, man. Does she sick them on him? Yeah. Girl, Kyle is like, so you're all of our boss. And Ricky is like, well, it's like I'm here to help if you need me. OK, yep. Bullshit. Why are you so immediately disbeliefing? I mean, there's a reason I'm in academia and maybe trying to stay, right?

Which is that like that corporate life is very hard to stomach sometimes. And that manager speak is just, you know, you they know. And if he doesn't have self-awareness, it just makes it worse. Yeah. If your manager ever says nothing is going to change, some like siren should go off in your brain. Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So everyone's in chaos because, one, bosses are not just here to help you if they need if you meet them.

Like they ever never to the escape room. People are like, we don't have fucking time for this. Like our guests are coming. We have to go. So Zoe's boss is like, all right, are you done then? And Ricky is like, oh, yeah, I guess so. And so they all like hustle back outside and back to their own door. Zoe like sprints to her room. She gets the clock fixed.

She has just enough time to take one deep breath before her guests show up. She like runs them through the rules. She goes to heaven where she like chats with a co-worker and they're trying very hard to be optimistic, right? They're like, maybe at least now we'll get new shirts. That could be a benefit. Someone please give them new shirts. Yeah, I know.

A few of the employees who have like been there for longer than Zoe are like, yeah, at least he somehow didn't put girl Kyle in charge of us again. Like that's something, right? They're like, that was a nightmare. Got to look for a silver lining where you can find it, right? Yeah, sure. So Zoe's like having this conversation while she's having it. She's like watching the camera for her room

because the players who have like they found the clue they were supposed to find there are starting to get frustrated. So the rooms Zoe is watching today is set up like a hunting lodge. Like there are like deer heads on the wall. And her group has like been moving pretty quickly through the puzzle. So she was like not worried about them. They haven't gotten stuck on anything. They found a book with a clue in it that led them to the clock that she had fixed

that led them to another clock. And that clock was pointed at a gun on the wall. So they were like, OK, so they take the gun down. The gun clearly does not work. And as I just want to clear with that, I mean, you said south. So like, oh, that's right. No, it's safe. OK, so for the next what the players need to be doing is they've gotten this

gun off the wall. They need to point it at the first clock and pull the trigger. OK, when they do this, the clock is supposed to swing open through a like mechanical thing, right? The trigger is like somehow connected to it. There are no bullets involved. This is supposed to work by like a transmitter in the gun. And a receiver in the clock.

But Zoe is watching them and they have the gun pointed at the clock. And this guy's pulling the trigger over and over again and nothing is happening. Oh, no. What do you do here? Oh, what do I do? So she doesn't want to give it away. Right. But she has to come in and fix the gun. This is hard. This is why I don't have Zoe's job. Well, the first thing she does is because she's a minimum wage employee,

she calls her manager over and is like, the gun is broken. Because it's not your problem, right? Yeah. And for weeks now, this kind of problem has been happening at Escape Artists. Like a mechanical piece of the room will just stop working. The escape artists used to have this guy who worked there, whose whole job it was to fix the broken mechanics in the rooms. But he moved and the company just like never replaced them.

Now Zoe is like, oh, yeah, because they were selling the company to the axe people. And so, of course, they didn't replace this guy that we need. Yeah, yep. The assistant manager is like, I'll add the gun to the list, but like that does not give her a solution. Yeah. What about these people now? What are they going to do? Do you have any ideas for how she could get them to flip the clock down?

There's a part of me that just is like, they should just grab an axe from the other room and just they'll just find an axe and then light up the clock and have them just chuck it and see what happens. I like this. I like this destructive plan. Yeah. Zoe is like, I'll just pretend they were never supposed to get to the gun because they clock clock gun.

Yeah. See, again, she's way better at her job than I would ever be. So when they finally ask for help, she's like, she's like, if I were you, I would be looking at where the hands on the clock point because the release point is right at the top of midnight, right? OK. Mm hmm. So they go, they press it, the clock falls. OK, she seems to be getting things under control. Yeah. Yeah.

Adds the gun to the list. The rest of the puzzle goes fine. That group escapes. Cool. Do you think that adding the gun to the list gets it fixed? Absolutely not. Why? When's the last time anyone's made a request for something that shouldn't be their problem and it just continues to be their problem?

Yeah, exactly. So, of course, this doesn't get fixed. And meanwhile, things are getting like worse and worse. Over a period of a couple of weeks, Zoe's favorite co-worker quits. He's like, I'm sick of having to think on my feet this whole shift. I'm really not being paid enough to have to come up with solutions for mechanical problems. Zoe's like, I completely agree with that. But like, I like working in the escape room.

I like thinking about how people like move through space. And I like it when like a guest surprises me. So even though it's stressful, it's like, at least I'm not just like manning a smash booth. Zoe could probably be a very successful PhD student. I'm just saying. You can recruit her. So Zoe makes it like another paycheck period after her like work wife leaves before she's like, you know, maybe I could get a less stressful job.

Like maybe I could get one that even happens during the day. So she decides she's like, I'll get drinks with my manager, tell her about it. She gets drinks with her manager and her manager is like, I hate to tell you this, babe, but I quit today. My last day is next week. What do you think she should do? She should quit. I mean, absolutely. I mean, your manager is like, I'm leaving unless she loves.

Again, if she loves escape rooms that much, she'll do so much better in academia. We're paying you shit. And most people don't care about what you do. I just I want to emphasize how bad this job is that you're recommending academia of like a step up in security and like safety. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Zoe feels the same. She's like, I cannot work here and do three people's jobs for a minimum wage.

Like that's ridiculous. But her manager is like, well, something to consider is that Ricky wants to hire you to be the manager of escape artists. Interesting. OK. The benefit here is there's a huge pay bump. OK. And Zoe loves the escape room. Yeah. Do you think she should take the manager job?

She should ask, like, what bullshit it comes with? Do you think that someone would tell you the truth if you ask that question? Yeah, she got to suss it out somehow. Zoe does not think this. Zoe is like, I'm taking this fucking job. Yeah. OK. And she's amped. And the reason she's amped is like the managers don't get to work the actual rooms a lot, but every quarter, the managers get to choose one new room

from like a book that corporate sense over. So she becomes like master puzzle maker now. Exactly. OK. OK. OK. That I could see. OK. And she's like, I've known about this book the whole time I've worked here. I've always wanted to like do it myself. Like there's one in particular that she's like, I really want to do this puzzle, which is like for the smallest room.

So it's only two people and the people in the room get handcuffed together while they solve puzzles and do their activities. OK. Zoe's like, I think this room will be really popular because a lot of people bring dates here. Yep. Yep. And she's like, even though I would like literally never go on a date to an escape room, because she's like, she's like, I've watched perfectly happy couples walk out like fighting.

Yeah. And just the thought of that guy that comes in there just manipulating every date. So Zoe's like, I love this room because they're handcuffed together and they have to be handcuffed together to eventually find the key. And then to get out of this room, they have to press buttons on opposite sides of the room in tandem. OK. This is like a like a nuclear war codes launch. Exactly. Type it. OK.

Exactly. Zoe's also like, I can design this room so that it doesn't have a single mechanical function because those are still broken. Look at her anticipating the future. What do you think her first priority as a manager is? Oof. See, like I don't know enough about what Zoe is like outside of work to like,

you know, I could see her being like, I want to be a better manager. So let me at least do the bare minimum to make sure everything is OK, because her previous manager wasn't or it could be like, you know, now's the time for me to like finally accomplish this thing I've been doing, which is, you know, like seeing through this puzzle I've been dreaming about. Yeah. Zoe is kind of a mixture of both, right? Where she's like, I really want to finish this puzzle and I want to make it good. But also I can't do that because all of my employees are constantly

coming to me and annoying me with their mechanical issues. So she's like, I figure my best move is that I get someone hired to do the mechanical job for me. Yep. And then I can focus on my room. OK. Seems reasonable in theory. Yes. And she's like, I need to get this done quickly because people keep quitting. OK, like people keeping like this sucks. We're short staffed. I'm not having fun.

You're a new manager and you forgot to do our payroll. I'm out of here. The whole thing's falling apart. Yeah. It's going great. Everything's fine. How do you manipulate Ricky to hire the person that you need? What I think she needs to do is play the other manager from the smash room. Girl, yeah. Girl, girl, Kyle. OK, she needs to tap into the, you know,

the clear lack of Big Dick energy that Ricky has. So that insecurities, I think, her biggest opening, like, you know, this person's playing for your job or there's something going on here and I can help you out if you can take care of this hiring problem I have. You know, OK, so you're saying not get girl, Kyle, to help you but use girl, Kyle, as a threat to get Ricky to help you. Yeah, I mean, I think so because girl, Kyle seemed to be like this is beneath me. Like, she's already the alpha and 100 percent, but nobody else knows that.

So you're not going to convince her to do shit, right? So like, you need to go to the person that is clearly not the alpha here who's like so worried about, you know, getting backstabbed and just, you know, oh, my God, sounds so terrible as a researcher. I'm just manipulated people's fears. That's how you win them over. That's that's correct. OK, so that's not what Zoe does because she's not like thinking. She's not playing three dimensional chess. OK.

Like, she's like, what I'm going to do is I'm going to make Ricky miserable. OK, every time there's a mechanical issue, I'm going to call his cell phone and describe it to him in detail. And this level of annoyance will work. How does it backfire? It doesn't backfire exactly, but she keeps showing them to him and he's like, I don't care about this. Like, I'm not I this doesn't matter to me.

Like, you can call me all you want. I'm just going to block your number. You can forward be all the videos you want. I just like, I don't care. And so finally, she gets it through her head. She plays your three dimensional chess game and she's like, listen, the more people we lose and the worse the escape room is, there are the less business it's going to bring in.

And right now, Smash is the only profitable business. There we go. How do you think that's going to look to corporate? Perfect, absolutely perfect. That sort of quarterly revenue anxiety fear that this guy had is going to absolutely fall for it. I love it. And Ricky, who like probably, you know, can't read a ledger

and has no idea whether that's true or not is like, oh, shit, that does seem like that could be very bad for me. So like two weeks later, he comes to Zoe and she's like, OK, he's going to finally tell me that I get to hire someone, right? This is going to be great. He does not do that. He comes to Zoe and he's like, I have hired you, someone to run the mechanics at the escape room.

Oh, no. Oh, no. Ricky's like, his name is Nicholas. He'll start tomorrow. He knows so much about the rooms. Like it seems like he'll be a great fit. You're welcome. Mm hmm. He's like, I think that all of you will like him.

Do you think that's a dig? All of you. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, Zoe's like, I don't have time to deal with this like backhanded compliment because like everything is understaffed. Everything's still a disaster. She's like, Ricky, you still need to get me more employees.

I need more people like the mechanical guys are going to fix this to your fucking job. And Ricky is like, oh, yeah. So I brought that up with corporate and they decided that we'll actually just cross train everyone. Oh, shit. I'm just imagining being in the escape room and like the God voice is just like a jock

that has like a voice that's like 10 octaves deeper than me that just elicits the worst fears from like high school. Yes, this is exactly correct. But it is also that like the job at Great Expectations is like teach people to throw axe, make sure they don't hurt anyone. That's it. The job at Smash is like hand someone a baseball bat

and goggles and then like sweep up the glass that they've made. There is like not a lot of complex Oh, yeah. work happening in those places. Yeah, you. Yeah. Those jobs are still probably like fucking hard and torturous because customer service is absolutely awful. But they are different kinds of jobs

than the escape room people are doing. Oh, yeah, totally. I get it. I mean, I think now I'm regretting the throwing the axe at the clock comment because I don't know what that says about my puzzle solving ability. Zoe's like, well, this is terrible, but at least I'll have like someone to fix the mechanics soon. OK, OK, OK.

Yeah. Her help arrives the next day. His name is Nicholas, as promised, but he is not a stranger. He is nose ring. Oh, fuck. Oh, the reason he did so well in his interview and that Ricky thought he was uniquely qualified is because he brings all of his dates there.

Oh, my God, this is great. I love this story, so fucking. I mean, like now I'm just like, yeah, this is hedge. Oh, I have this like. Had they just, you know, this could have been prevented this whole thing. Yeah, that's what's getting to me. Oh, man. Yeah. Well, how do you think they could have prevented it?

Like, what would you gossip? I mean, like, this is the point. This is exactly the point, right? Had, like, fucking, you know, like want to be alpha, Ricky, just like taken a second to get input from the person who's like going to be most affected by this hire would have learned like, no, no, no, there's no way we can hire this person. In fact, we're banning him from this new puzzle that I'm creating.

Yes. Totally avoid the situation. Ah, yes, classic corporate bullshit. It's also to me where I'm like, I think that where your move is like, I'm going to make Ricky pit against like, I'm going to pick girl Kyle against him and use it to my advantage. I think my move would have been to align myself with girl Kyle and then be like, get me someone. Yeah, yeah.

OK, none of this matters because it's not what Zoe did. Nicholas, who we will now call nose ring, Nicholas. OK. Is not good at fixing the mechanical problems of the rooms. What is he good for at this point? All that experience. Nothing. They now the like mechanical problems are just less consistent

because he's like trying to fix them. And so sometimes that works, but sometimes it doesn't work. So instead of it being like the gun is broken, it's like sometimes the gun is broken. Yes, this is a unique pain that I know that I think probably some other academics can deal with. It's the like my code was working and here's what like why it was not working. And the worst is like, I don't even know why it's not working.

It works sometimes and I can't deal with this right now. So I'm with you Zoe. I get it. Yeah. And it's like if the gun doesn't work, you can set up the clues in the room so that like people can still do the puzzle and you don't have to pay that much attention to them. Yeah, you're battling you're battling a dice roll, right? Like, how do you how do you how do you win?

How do you like to control this situation? It's exactly. Plus half the people in heaven now are randos from great expectations and smash. Wait, this is wait. And they've wait there. It's not like that they're coming right after. This is like a it's they are being cross trained at the same time that Nicholas is starting.

So like now you have this problem where like the games are broken. Sometimes the people leading the guests through the games barely understand like how to do it when Zoe trains them. They like can't remember the order of operations in the room even after playing them with a cheat sheet in front of them. They have like no chance. I mean, this checks the giant jocks. I mean, they're probably better destroying the puzzles, I'm guessing.

Right. And can help them. Yes. Well, yeah. And so this keeps happening, right? We're like the rooms are so delicate because they're made for clues. So like once one of these like great expectations guys left an iced coffee in one of the rooms and it like diverted the players in there for 20 minutes because they're like, well, why is it so cold? Why is this here?

Like, what is it doing? Yeah. OK, that's OK. Now my brain is getting sickle a little bit, too, because it's like, how are people supposed to know what to take seriously anymore? You basically destroy the entire concept of an escape room. Exactly. Nice. OK. I mean, not nice, but like nice. Nice, this sucks.

Yeah, this sucks. This really sucks. Yeah. Right. Yeah. OK, so the other. So remember how like the way out of this? What was Zoe's way out of this earlier? Do you remember? They asked her for a hint. Yeah. And the clock she pointed to the you can tip it over with the the hands

like follow the hands. Yeah, exactly. So the ideal hint in an escape room is one that leads your players to the right answer, but not immediately, right? Mm hmm. Now we have like two separate problems happening in heaven. The great expectations employees are like chill, woodsy, hipster guys who like want to do edibles and make jokes. So when they give hints, the hints are like, think about jack-o-lanterns.

Fuck, that's complete. Do you know what this means? No, I don't know what that clue means at all. But I can now I am sort of OK, you're not not only if you ruin that the escape rooms, but now you're ruining heaven, right? You're ruining the reliability that like, can we even trust God's word anymore? Right?

Like the answer has always been no. But yeah, in this case, yeah. Right. OK, so the guests, when they get this clue, like some of them are like pumpkins, right? And some of them are like spooky and some of them are like knives, because knives are what you need to make jack-o-lanterns, right? What the Axe Boys meant is jack-o-lanterns, the mushroom, which are apparently a mushroom that is bright orange.

How? OK, I like Axe Boys, first of all, that's I like that. So the Axe Boys are trying to like direct them to an object in the room that is the same color as the jack-o-lantern mushroom. Hmm. There's board games about this kind of clue. I'm blanking on the name. It's super fun. But that I'm guessing is not what they're trying to do. No. In this establishment. Meanwhile, in heaven at the same time,

the Smash Jocks cannot like understand the idea of a hint. So for the same problem, the Smash guys are like come over the intercom and they're like traffic cone. The next clue, as you might guess, was hidden underneath the traffic cone. So this is less of a hint than an answer. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Just give me the answers to the test, man. I have practice in the morning. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. OK. All of this would not be a problem if Nicholas were better at his job because you could just give them a script. Oh, my God. OK. All of these cross-trained employees, they can't handle this. Zoe ends up like working a room, most of her shifts, in addition to managing just so that she can like be in heaven to put out fires. Yep. Uh huh.

What do you think she should do here? Quit, first of all. I don't know that this situation is salvageable. I'm just going to say that might just be me and my anxiety. This cat is really helping me now. As someone who quit a job in a fury once with all of my colleagues, I agree, you should quit in a situation like this. That's the right answer.

Zoe, though, is like, I'm a manager now, right? Like, I need to manage the situation. So she's like, Nicholas, nosering Nicholas, can we go outside for a minute? It is hot outside. So he has to like shade her eyes because it's so bright. And also, she has to look up at Nicholas because he's extremely tall. So she's just like staring at his nose ring while she's talking. Exactly. And she's like, nosering Nicholas.

Listen, what do you need from me as a manager to be able to fix these issues? Like, do you need tools? Do you need training? I'm here to help you. Yes. And Nicholas, to his credit, apologizes profusely. He's like, I'm so sorry. I'm like really trying my best. I think I'm just nervous around all of these people and I really want to be good at this.

He's like, I really do have the skills to do it. I promise I will fix the gun today. Do you believe him? No, absolutely not. I mean, she has like countless experience just watching this guy from heaven, right? Like she could probably make a pretty good inference on this. Yes. Zoe is like, OK, well, he did apologize.

Like maybe he'll be he has fixed the gun once before. So like maybe he'll be able to do it. But by the end of the day, the gun is still not fixed. Classic nose ring, Nicholas. And during his attempt to fix the gun, he left his own keys in the room, which confused the guest for 45 minutes. I the fact that this is all taking place in this game, I just love the like tiny little blips.

It's like it's, you know, complete chaos energy, like mathematically. This is the fucking butterfly effect, right? Like this is just yes, you're ruining people's lives. Yeah, because also you've been ruined the lives of the people in heaven who are trying to like get the guests off of your stupid keys. Yeah, right. Yeah. OK. For a few weeks, Zoe is having to like have come to Jesus meetings with Nicholas every week and every week the same thing happens.

He apologizes, he seems upset, and then a few more things get broken when he tries to fix something else. OK. What do you do at this point? I mean, can he like, you know, like, can we empathize? Like, is there something else going on? I'm trying to look for anything with this. I'm really trying to look for anything with this guy. Zoe is like, she has no sympathy left for him, right?

She's like, good for her. She's like, if this man were able to do his job, he would do it. Mm hmm. And she's like, you know what? I'm going to annoy Ricky again. Let's see if that works this time. So every week of the manager meeting with Ricky and girl, Kyle, Zoe presents a list of Nicholas's failures. OK, OK. She does so under the guise of like,

I just really need help managing this like employee that I have. But girl, Kyle and Ricky, like neither of them actually manage anyone. So they are like useless here. Oh, my girl, Kelly is like, well, if your employees respect you, they'll do well. Mm hmm. And so he's like, I don't think that's a real thing. Yeah. See, an alpha would say that. You just need to command respect, fear and intimidation.

So Zoe's like keeping the the files from heaven of like all the rooms he's messed up in a like folder on her computer. And every time she emails Ricky, she's like ceasing someone from the parent company. To be like time to go over their head. Yes, to be like, would you like to step in and do something? Do you think that anyone steps into anything? Of course not. Yeah. Yeah.

All of this comes to a head one night in October. OK. Here it is. Oh, I'm ready. I'm ready. Clutching the kitten tightly. Yes. Do you remember what kind of date room Zoe was making? Two. Yeah, I was like a two person. They have to wear handcuffs, nuclear launch codes to get out, find the key. Yep. Yep. Exactly. OK. So they've done like a few test runs of this room on like off hours

with like couples and with members of the staff and all of this stuff. But I have to question question. Wait, so does nose ring Nicholas doesn't get like employee benefits where he can now just bring dates for free, right? I'm sorry, I just find out. Technically, he does. But everyone on staff hates him because he makes everyone's life harder.

So why would they let him? Yeah, OK, that's good. That's good. So he needs approval and they're just going to veto that. Exactly. OK. OK. OK. All right. Sorry. That was distracting. I had to come back and I think other people will have it. OK. So Zoe is like they've run her room a few times, right? They've run it with employees.

They started running it during off hours. But this is like its real debut because this is like the first true test of the room. Can it hold up under pressure for the four Friday night time slots? Can the employees manage it? Will it work? Here we go. For Zoe, she's like the best case scenario would be one in which I sit in heaven and babysit my room all night and everything goes according to plan.

And I reset the room perfectly each time. OK. Yeah. It's her baby. This does not happen because it is like the end of a payroll period. And Zoe has to be at her desk. So she has like a feeling of dread, probably like the one that you and I both have sitting in the pit of her stomach at the thought of like not being able to babysit this room. Yeah.

So what she's done to make her life as easy as possible is she's put like the best people on the complicated rooms because she's like, I do not have time for people to be getting confused in those rooms. Yep. Yep. OK. She put two guys from great expectations on her room because she's like, this is a simple room. There are two of you, which is twice as many people as there usually are. Twice as many brain cells.

Exactly. And there are no there are no mechanical things in this room. Yeah. So I can't fuck it up. Yes, this should be fine. I think she's on the right track, but always something's going wrong. The first round of guests goes fine. Great. We love it. Second round of guests. Fine. We love it. OK. Two for two.

In the third round, Zoe's walkie goes off and her heart sinks. She's like my poor room. But guess what it's a problem with? It's the gun in the hunting room. The trigger is not working again. So the walkie is for nosering Nicholas, right? The walkie is like nosering. You need to come in here and get it done.

Yep. Zoe's like, at least it's not my room. She's like almost done with payroll when the final round of the night starts. And she's like starting to feel overconfident, right? She's like, my room's doing fucking fine. The great expectation boys have got it. She like stops to chat with someone in the hallway and is like, you know, doing a little gossiping when Zoe's favorite employee buzzes through the walkie talkie and is like, Zoe, we got a problem up here.

Oh, shit. See, when you invite Karma to fuck with you, it always does. It always does. It always does. So she runs to heaven, right? She's like dodging boxes of props and like people's stuff. All of her employees are gathered around one screen. Would you like to guess which screen it is? Her baby. It's her room, the handcuff room.

Oof. This is it in front of everybody. What happened? And the Axe boys look at her and they're like, how do we distract the guests? And Zoe is like, distract them from what? And she gets closer to the screen. The order of operations has gone correctly. The people in the room have lifted a rug that needed to be lifted. A heavy trap door that needed both of them to open has been opened.

The painting off the wall has revealed a code to the safe. The safe is open. The players are still handcuffed together. OK. The key to their handcuffs was supposed to be in the safe. So theoretically, they should be out of the room by now or at least standing on the opposite sides, trying to figure out how to push the buttons in tandem. Instead, the two of them are sitting on the floor handcuffed, staring at the safe. Talking. Oh, my God.

Her big debut is I made a prison. Yes. I made a jail cell for these people on accident. So Zoe like snatches the headphones off of the Axe boys so that she can listen in. And the players are like still trying to solve it, right? They're like, OK, so what would the empty safe mean is emptiness a clue? Right. They're like trying to like work around it. Zoe's like, great, they're busy. She's like, who set this room up?

And the expectation boys look at each other and they're like, we did. And she's like, aha. And where was the key when you reset? And they're like, they're like, it was in the safe. And Zoe's like, are you sure? And they're like, yeah, we reset it after the last round. We put the keys in the safe and then we went outside to smoke. Wait. So he's like.

So the key was in the safe and they're like, yeah. And she's like, you promise. And they're like, we promise Zoe's like, I think we need to prioritize finding the key over like anything else because she's like, we need the guests to get out of this room. And we do not want to compromise their gameplay. Yeah. Yeah. Once they start talking about like, maybe we're actually in prison. What have we done wrong?

Exactly. Exactly. And she's like, on top of that, like these aren't like cop handcuffs, but they aren't like children's handcuffs either, right? Like they're not going to be able to just break out of them. So Zoe's like, the worst case here is we would have to call like the firefighters to come get them out of these handcuffs. And she's like, it's Friday night. Like the businesses are packed.

All of them. If the firefighters have to come and cut handcuffs off of my guest, that's going to look really bad. This is a nightmare that I didn't know that I like, yes. Oh, my God. And then like the fire truck showing up and it's like all the other strip mall, all the fucking God and like everyone just talking shit about her as a manager. Oh, my God. Yes.

And everyone's like, why are the firefighters here? Like, is the escape room on fire? And it's like, no, we just got two people stuck in handcuffs. Yeah, exactly. Oh, Zoe. She calls Ricky. She's like, Ricky, you need to fucking do something. All this is happening within like 30 seconds, right? She calls Ricky. She's like, help me. And Ricky, to his credit,

recognizes that this is a real problem because he's like, this could be extremely bad for us. So he's like, I'm sending over reinforcements now. Ricky sends 10 of his staffers who were working over to like look for the key. So now you have like a bunch of people looking for the key. Wait, and they're in the room with a couple or like elsewhere? Okay, okay, okay. Elsewhere. They're like looking around elsewhere

because the assumption is that the couple would have turned everything. Yeah, I'm just like, it would have been really weird if you're just pick up to someone, a bunch of people walking in and they don't say anything to you and they just start looking at the room. No detail. Oh, shit. I think something's wrong. Yeah. OK, so they're like looking outside. They're looking in the expectations boys' cars.

They're looking like in the smoking little ashtray, right? They're looking everywhere for these keys. Meanwhile, mayhem is now occurring because they have sent in reinforcements from the X place and the rage room. And so there are now not enough employees there. Oh, man. So like the bars are unattended. So both Ricky and girl, Kyle, after like 10 minutes of people looking for the keys are like, actually, we need our staffers back.

Like, things are getting out of control. You can't. We need to send them back. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any ideas? No, she should have quit. I just don't want to run away. Burn this place down. This is the problem with all the work. Is the answer is always just.

Yeah, I know, I know, yeah, just walk out. Yeah, it's fine. OK, I mean, there's a few ways she can take this. And I guess it depends on how how she's like, this is fucked. I might as well just. So one thought is the narrative of the room changes. And OK, she gets someone to come in like, you know, it's a survive, you know, a home invasion. OK.

Someone comes in with an axe and they're supposed to just lie sort of saw style and they're going to chop the handcuffs, right? But, you know, I don't know. I don't know what else to do. I just need one of the other guys from the room. You know, I think what I'm laughing the most at is that, like, in both of these scenarios where I've asked all the room, you've been like, what if I had an axe?

I mean, there's a place conveniently located next to the small arms supply. It's true. OK. What Zoe does is she's like, these rooms are recorded. All the video. Oh, wow. See, she would be a fucking fantastic PhD student. So she's like, here we go. We're rewinding, right? We're rewinding the room.

So she like rewinds to the last guest who left the room, right? The axe boys like poorly reset the room, but they do reset it. Like she watches them drop the key into the safe. OK, OK. So theoretically, the keys should be there. OK. Right. Yeah. The boys go off to smoke. She fast forwards. She keeps watching and guess who comes into the room.

No Zring Nicholas. It's fucking Zring Nicholas. It's always fucking Zring Nicholas. He comes in, he opens the safe, he takes the key out and he leaves again. OK. And wait, and she hasn't gotten them on the on the radio at this point. She's just reviewing the footage. OK, people are still calling him and he's just like nowhere to be found. Oh, shit. Does he show up for work that day?

Like he's there on the Friday. OK, OK. Oh, he's there. OK, OK, OK. He's supposed to be on fire. Oh, boy. Here we go. Zoe is furious because she's like, this is not an accident. I have video of him taking these keys out of this room. And like, why would he do that? Meanwhile, the couple in the room is like, can we have a hint?

They're like looking inside the safe. Zoe is like zooming in on the camera on like various parts of the room. Everything looks the way it's supposed to look. But she, because she designed this room, notices everything that's wrong. So Zoe, God bless her, notices that on a high shelf, there is a small black box that should not be there. OK, OK. And neither of the players are like tall enough to see it. And Zoe is like, I know what that black box is.

It is the little black box that is for gun cleaning and tinkering that Nicholas is supposed to use to fix the hunting room gun. OK, OK. So how do you get the couple to that box? Oh, this is tricky. OK. It's on a high shelf. I mean, what's her state of panic? Is it just, you know, does she go like a jock style clue?

She's a professional. OK. So she wants to still maintain the experience a little bit. So it's not like, look up above this thing for this black box. Right. Um, maybe she. OK, so she like describe something about, you know, being in high places or, you know, like some something more poetic and see if the couple, you know, like throw

some romance in there or something like that, you know. Mm hmm. So what Zoe does is she buys herself time by hitting a button that turns all the lights in the room red and she just announces the safe has been breached. At this point, the couple starts freaking out. And then she comes on and is like, if what you seek was not down low, you may need a change in perspective. OK, she's great. OK.

So now they're all looking. They're both looking around frantically, right? They're like, up high, up high. Zoe high fives, whatever acts guy is by her and to Smash Bros. She's like, hell, yeah. The couple finds the box quickly inside. There's like a long metal toothpick that you use for like the gun. For some reason, I don't really understand this part a lot.

But because the handcuffs are not super strong, that's fine. Like the minute they put it in there, the pop open. OK, nice. The couple frees themselves. They manage to hit the buttons on the opposite walls with one minute left. How do you feel? Man, Zoe is a fucking champ. That's amazing. Yeah.

Zoe like feels like she ran a marathon, right? She's like, oh, she's absolutely so tired. But she's also like, I am maybe an escape room prodigy. Like I'm a genius. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well deserved. Do you have any questions at this point? I don't think so. I think I'm I'm gloating with her a little bit.

OK, Zoe has a question. Her question is where the hell is nosering Nicholas? Oh, yeah. I mean, I fucking forgot about that guy a long time ago. She's like, why did he take the key? Why is he so annoying? I hate him. Do you have any theories at this point? Any feelings?

I mean, the two that I mean, either this guy's just a fucking idiot. And it's this carelessness that injects this chaos into the escape rooms. Yes. Or. He has somehow learned something about what Zoe and the other people think. And this is some ploy on her big day to to make her look like an idiot. But I don't know if he's that clever. I don't know. I don't know that I know enough to know if he's that clever.

But those are the two possibilities I'm entertaining right now. OK. Nicholas did not come back to work after the handcuff. OK, OK. And like it drove Zoe crazy. She's like, where is he? Yeah, like, yeah, this was bad, but it's also like not a crime. Sure. So people are just like calling him and calling him.

And he just like doesn't answer. OK. The Wednesday after this terrible Friday, Zoe goes to the manager meeting. Ricky is like sweating, right? He's like clearly stressed and he's like, this is not working. Things on Friday were out of control and they're like weren't enough people. And I just need you two to be a little more organized.

Of course. Of course. Classic non manager managing. Is he like, does corporate know about how Friday night went down or no? We don't know that. Yes, they do. OK. Wait. And how did. OK, go. Yeah, yeah. Yelp reviews. Oh, shit. OK, so they get it in the worst possible way. Not like, hmm.

Well, they don't. So like they don't get the review that like the room was. OK, because like the couple got out, they solved the puzzle. What they get are the reviews from Smash and Great Expectations, where people are like, there were no bartenders. Oh, crap. OK. And so now they're like, what the hell happened? So Zoe is like, you know, in her head, she's like, it's not my fault that the employee he hired is incompetent

and actively caused a problem. This is her opportunity. This is her opportunity. But she's also like, I feel a lot of guilt, right? She's like, it's my store that had the problem. It's like my store that pulled staff from the other two stores. She's like, this is so like Ricky is telling them he's like, we have the worst profit Friday night in six months because like there was nobody at the bar. Yeah.

Zoe is like trying to decide whether or not she should respond when Girl Kyle like comes in Smash Room swinging, right? She's like going on and on about how Ricky's company bought up their two stores. There have been problems that didn't exist before. It's like not his fault that the employees have to be cross trained, but it is his fault that they're all basically useless. She's like, how did you not hire people who would be able to work three different jobs? Like I shouldn't be punished for this.

It's your company's fault. So he is like grateful because she's like, thank God, Girl Kyle is doing the screed, but Girl Kyle at the same time is like, my employees won't be working anywhere else. Like I'm not getting in trouble for your fuck ups again, right? Like I knew this was coming. So this would screw everyone over because there are no longer enough staff for the other two stores.

This is the power play. So Ricky is like, I'll talk to corporate. Girl Kyle is like, and you'll tell corporate that Zoe gets to choose who replaces Nicholas. OK, OK. And Ricky is like, OK. OK. Zoe is like, this is a little weird. Why do you think Girl Kyle went to bat for Zoe? Who? I mean, she clear.

Well, OK. I mean, to be honest, that's surprising. First, I thought that you can't trust her because she's she's running shit here. I don't know what is her ulterior. There's an ulterior motive. I don't know what it is. I don't. Yeah, it's making me. I don't know what it is after Ricky leaves. Girl Kyle is like, can I talk to you for a second?

Yeah. And so he's like, yeah, absolutely. What the hell is happening? Like, why are you suddenly on my side? And Girl Kyle is like, oh, I'm not on your side to be clear. Girl Kyle is like, I'm fighting for my side. Yeah. My guys hate working with you. You are making them all really stressed out with your little game. And she's like, trying to manage their schedules.

I'm in talk them down off this cliff is going to drive me to an early grave. So this is not about you, but good luck. You're a happy side effect of me looking out for myself. Exactly. So this all does everything at this point makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Your only remaining question is where the fuck is no is ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. And why did he steal the key? Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, I do not know, but I have been provided three options.

OK. So this is what the employees have come to. This is what they think happened. Wait, are we going to get no reservations in this story because I'm not going to be able to please wait. OK. One, we have the Occam's razor option, which is he's incompetent. Who knows what he was doing? Yeah. Option two, which you correctly guessed, revenge option.

Maybe he found out that Zoe and the other employees hate him and are trying to get him fired and he chose to ruin her night. Yeah. These are the options that they have for a long time. They're like, this is it. But at drinks the next week, one of the escape artists kept saying over and over again, the girl in Zoe's room looked familiar. With the girl. OK.

He was like, the girl playing that game just looked really familiar to me. Like, can you pull up her records? Has she been here before? OK. And Zoe pulls up her records and is like, well, she didn't book a room. Like, she's never booked a room here. OK. But the employees keep pushing. They're like, no, that girl, like, she looked really familiar to us. I swear she's been here before. We gossip all the time.

Can you pull up the waivers? OK. Which everyone signs and Zoe's like, I sure can. So she pulls up the waivers and she finds that this girl in this room had been to the escape room before on a date with Nose Ring Nicholas. Is it possible? Oh, wait, OK, OK. That Nose Ring Nicholas was actually trying to sabotage the date happening in the room and not Zoe.

I mean, yeah, I mean, he seems that short-sighted to me for. OK, OK, I thought this was like a girl found out she was getting played by Nose Ring Nicholas and like haunted my girlfriend's past situation. She's like, I want to get this fucking guy back. I wish. Oh, man. OK. I mean, I guess it could have been. Oh, man. Which of these options feels the most true to you? Which one do you believe? OK.

It's definitely the third option. It's because you think so. Well, OK, here's my thinking. I don't know if I'm right, but my rationale is if that girl is familiar. And Nose Ring Nicholas knows her. It's revenge against the girl because she's been on a date with him before. And now he's like, no fucking way. Maybe maybe, in fact, there, we don't know anything about them outside of this entire situation. So maybe she's actually going on a date with somebody else.

And so he's like, what the fuck is this about? I followed my, you know, this person here, this girl, I've been hooking up with my girlfriend, the love of my life, who fucking knows? And she's doing fucking escape rooms, which are my thing with some other asshole. Someone else. Yeah. You believe that shit? Fuck. The only updates I have for you at the end of this story is that the companies did stop cross training after this terrible night.

Zoe was allowed to hire a new person and she nepotism hired her former work wife, who did a great job and now all of those things work. No one heard from Nose Ring Nicholas again. Like he just like ghosted the whole escape room industry. But he did like three months later, send a resignation letter. We three months later. Yes. What? We have seen the resignation letter.

It has like eight typos in it. So I don't think it's the kind of thing he spent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Making. Wait, do we think that he's clever enough that he's like, well, if I wait enough time, they're never going to be able to tie this back to me. I don't. I think that's a good idea.

Or maybe he or he's just incompetent enough. He's like, oh, shit, I never actually resigned from that place. Right. I think maybe he was like, oh, am I still working? Am I still employed? She's like, you have to ask that question. There's a lot of other things going on if that's the question. Whose side are you on? Who do you agree with at this point at the end?

We're at the end. I mean, I'm I stand by Zoe. She's handled this entire thing amazingly, navigating the fucking social politics of this workplace. Yeah, you haven't been alphaed into girl Kyle's team. No, that being said, though, I am a little disappointed. I mean, I think that I think that she could have gotten more if she had just like, you know, been a little bit more of an asshole, you know,

because like, you know, like she could. What do you think she could have gotten? Like, I think she could have potentially taken advantage of the corporate, like what the hell is going on and been like, listen, my place was fucking bumping on Friday night. It's not my problem that they can't fucking staff bar at these two other places. And they're like, oh, well, the numbers agree with you. And, you know, you were working that night.

We believe you. And then suddenly there's a new manager. Wow. I think that would have been a great idea. And also we will never be working. And thank you so much for coming on the show. It was an absolute joy to have you. Awesome.

So much fun. Thanks so much. Thank you for listening to Normal Gossip. If you have a gossip story to share with us, email us at normalgossipatdefector.com, or you can leave us a voicemail at 2679 gossip. If you love this podcast and want us to keep making it, become a friend or a friend of a friend at supportnormalgossip.com. You can follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at Normal Gossip.

You can follow Kelsey on all social media at McKinney-Kelsey. This podcast was produced by Alex Sujohn-Loughlin. Defector's Projects editor is Justin Ellis. Our editor-in-chief is Tom Le. Jay Tolviera is our production assistant. Thanks to the rest of the Defector staff. Defector Media is a collectively owned subscriber based media company. Normal Gossip is hosted by Kelsey McKinney.

And remember, you did not hear this from me.