Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Everyone & Bears

Episode Date: March 23, 2022

Comedian Ashley Ray joins Emma Choi to discuss a super cool and dangerous job opening, Emma interviews for the position and we pitch a reality TV show to the creator of "Love is Blind."Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Coming up, bears, help wanted signs, and reality TV. I'm Emma Choi, and this is Everyone and Their Mom. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Everyone and Their Mom, a weekly show from Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, where we take a break from the news to fall down a little rabbit hole instead. I'm your host, Emma Choi. This week, we're discussing a crazy new job opening with writer, comedian, and famous Twitter tea spiller. It's Ashley Rae. Hi, Ashley. Hello. Hi. I'm so glad to be here.

I'm so happy you're here. Ashley, I'm so glad to be here. I'm so happy you're here. Ashley, I'm so excited to talk about this story. There's a job opening in Montana for a, quote, grizzly bear conflict manager. Pack your bags and head to Montana for the opportunity to work with local wildlife agencies to manage bear populations and mitigate their contact with humans. Have you heard about this? I have. I read the article and it sounds amazing. The job is, I believe, in Montana, middle of nowhere, and it's very much working with bears. Speaking of, have you ever seen a bear before?

Only in the zoo. Like, I think if I saw one in the wild, I would be terrified. Like, I don't know, a wolf, I'm like, okay, you're kind of like a dog. But a bear to me is just terrifying. It's fully animal. Yeah. Okay, well, let's get into the story. Finally, a job that's bearable.

Ha ha ha ha. Ashley, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is looking for someone to move to Montana to, quote, manage grizzly bear conflict. The grizzly bear population in Montana has expanded into human territory in the last couple of years, and has caused a lot of grizzly on human action, and not in a good way. Hey, get off my lawn! So the job is basically the person who is mitigating the contact between bears and people, right? Yes. If you were confused and thought that grizzly conflict management was between different bears, no, this is human-bear conflict. Hello, bear. Hello, person. Let's keep this civil.

Ashley, I'm not going to say that I didn't not think that was true. And as you might have guessed, this is not a regular nine to five job. Okay. According to the listing for around 100K, you'll fit your time between camping in the field and quote, an adequately lighted, heated and ventilated office. Which makes me feel like they're looking for a lizard, right? Yeah. Yeah. The job itself sounds insane.

insane. The skills listed as necessary start off pretty much mundane, like, quote, a balanced perspective and a strong communication and relationship-building skills. And then it gets, like, hard left into stuff like, quote, significant grizzly bear handling experience. And this

is true, being comfortable with biting insects and large animals such as bear and goose. And it's also talking about you might need gun skills, how to fly a small plane, boating. Like, who is this person they're trying to hire? It's just Bear Grylls. Yeah, that's the only person. Like, they should just send him an email.

Yeah, I have so many questions about this job listing. Like, what is significant in terms of grizzly bear handling experience? And what does grizzly bear handling experience? And what does grizzly bear conflict even mean? Are we talking like physical brawls? Or am I going to have to tell Smokey and Grizzly that this is a safe space? And maybe the scratching tree was just a way to deflect the real itch in their lives, their relationship. Ashley, do you think you could do this job? No, no, absolutely not. I think if I did it, it would turn into some sort of like Yellow Jackets reboot where like the bears have started a cult and they are eating me. Yeah. Ashley, can you imagine the first day of this job? Like, have you had many first days at office jobs, restaurants, retail. And I feel like your first day, you're always kind of like, phew, I don't have to really do anything.

Like, this is my day to just sit back and learn. No one expects much from me. And I feel like this is a job where you don't have that luxury. Yeah. It seems like immediately boots on the ground. Can you fight a bear? One of the notes was like, we don't you fight a bear one of the notes was like you don't have we don't recommend fighting a bear but if you could fight a bear that would be preferable have you ever had a

first day that was as hectic as this first day seems like it would be oh yeah i i worked at a like fast food health restaurant that was the most miserable job i've ever had. Yeah, it's it was, you know, people coming in and being like, there's not enough avocado in my green smoothie. You did you cheated me out of my acai. And I think they were like, it was people who I think have that bear girl boss mentality. Oh, my God. Yeah. And then you're just like back there on a line, like trying to make as many like healthy buffalo chicken salads as you can. that alone tells me i could not deal with the conflict between bears because i could not even deal with the conflict between me and like the headline cook i would just be like i'm out of here we're out of chicken i can't deal with this anymore well we were talking about girl bosses

what do you think a girl boss bear would be like? Oh, my gosh. She is, I think she's, like, dominating the forest. Like, she's looking beautiful. Like, her pelt is just always glistening, glowing. You know, but also she's not afraid to get dirty. Like, she's fighting off anyone who comes for her cubs. Like, you know, she's willing to gatekeep their safety in a way. Absolutely. This girl boss bearer has read Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In, right? And she's telling the other girl bears being like, look, you can raise your kids and catch the salmon,

okay? You can have it all. And she's like, I think they instead of gatekeeping, they're like, we're gate tearing down to steal a farmer's livestock. Exactly. Ashley, I'm so curious as to what this interview process looks like. Yeah, I can see it. Maybe something like, what is your five-year plan for befriending these bears, you know? I'm imagining it like it's an interview, right?

With like what you're saying with like, you know, the five-year plan. What's your greatest weakness, right? Which hopefully isn't your physical body. And then from you're getting you're led into a separate room okay or breakout room on zoom where you have to like demonstrate your physical prowess yes right yeah i think like what's your greatest fear is it not bears great question yeah and then you're going to like a and like an outdoor challenge something like a double dare challenge where you have to like retrieve a bunch of flags, you know, shoot some things. Obviously, having a gun was very important in the job description. It was featured prominently. Obviously, the question is like,

how much do you love your gun? And then I think the final stage of the interview process is you have to watch The Revenant and they just watch you watch The Revenant to see how you're reacting. Yeah. You know, and if it's anything too extreme, then you can't. No, you can't. And you kind of have to be like, I see where the bear is coming from. Not too many people speak grizzly bear, so figuring out how to mitigate conflict with a bear is a little bit more difficult. Can you introduce yourself for us? So my name is Matt Hogan. I'm the regional director for the Fish and Wildlife Service. This is so exciting to talk to you because my friends and I have been really interested in this job posting.

You are part of the team that's actually hiring the position of grizzly bear conflict manager. Yeah. Is it true that when you see a bear, your first instinct is to say hi to it? Well, your first instinct would probably be to run, which would be a bad instinct. Unless, of course, you're with a friend and you're faster than them, and then it might not be such a bad thing. Just kidding. You know, we were really curious about how someone becomes qualified for a job like this. Are you getting a lot of applicants?

Ideally, and all joking aside, we will have people who have actual experience handling grizzly bears. They're big animals and they're dangerous animals. And so having some experience is pretty critical. But also a big role of these conflict managers is dealing with the conflict with people. And so having someone who knows both bears, but also people is pretty important. It sounds like, do you have to be the most interesting person in the world to apply? You do have to have a pretty robust skill set and a pretty unique person, but it's a pretty spectacular opportunity. Absolutely. Yeah. So you sound interested. Would you like to, there might still be time for you to apply if you'd like.

Matt, would you be up for mock interviewing me? Sure. Let's try a few questions on for size. Have you ever wrestled a grizzly bear before? I would say I've emotionally wrestled emotional grizzly bears. I grew up with an older sister. So in that way, I would say, yeah, definitely. How did those turn out for you? I lost most of it. She's in the Navy now, but I would say emotionally, I made a mark. And so when you lost, what did you do to compensate for that? I was very humane, right? I cried a little bit and I really tried to mitigate conflict between

myself and I. Am I doing okay? Is that what you're doing? You're doing okay. I think so far we're creating a little bit of a bond here. This might work. Great. Okay. Did you ever set a culvert trap for your sister? Yeah, I know what that is. Sure. I definitely, I did something called the Dutch oven, you know, as you might be familiar with. And did that work pretty well? Oh, it did. It was 100% effective.

Maybe I should talk to her as a reference just to make sure that you're actually being straight with us here. Let's do a role play. So you're out in the job. You drive into someone's farm yard and inside their chicken coop is a grizzly bear. What would you do? Great. Well, first I would see if the chickens have laid any eggs, right? Because those cost a lot at the farmer's market, fresh laid eggs. So if yes, I would pocket

those, save those for later. Second, I would see if the bear is wearing a hat and a little pea coat. If yes, he's Paddington bear and I would get his autograph. If no, it's a regular grizzly bear. I'm kind of demonstrating my problem solving thinking right now. You know, it's impressive. Yeah. I like the way you're going with it. Yeah. Okay, great. Third, I would look the bear in the eye and say, hey, bear. And then if the bear seemed angry, then I would offer it a hand to shake quietly. And hopefully that act of gentleman-ness would impress it. Well, it's probably the most unique interview we'll have.

I'll tell you what. Don't call us. We'll call you what. Don't call us. We'll call you. Just stay by your phone. Yeah. And yeah, we'll be back with you sometime really, really soon to let you know if you've got the job. Well, good luck with finding your perfect person, even if it isn't me. Thank you so much.

Thanks for your interest. What's your thing at work? Do you worry about defining like your whole deal too early? Because I definitely worry about that. Oh, I feel like I come on strong and I let people know pretty much right away. This is how it's going to go. Once I like once I get past like job interview, Ashley is very like oh my gosh my five-year plan and then i show up the first day and i'm like yeah i'm probably always gonna smell like weed uh you know okay so when i get here i'm gonna be the girl who like spends the first 40 minutes of the day making my own coffee yeah you

need to do that thing to establish dominance immediately. Like my first day as an intern at Wait Wait, I told Peter Sagal that I was threatening to quit, you know, and I kept that for a year. And you know what? That does not work with grizzly bears. There's no way that you can establish dominance over a bear. You know, that that would not work. No, not at all. They're ripping my Starbucks out of my hand. I'm like begging for my work wife to help me. Your work wife is your gun. Yeah. So this is a conflict management role, which with Bears is really helpful, but would absolutely

ruin reality television, you know? Oh, yeah. Because like, all reality television is, is life without any mediation. Just producers telling you to be like, keep going, keep going. Yeah, like aren't you so mad at her for drinking the last Diet Coke? And yes, we have more Diet Coke, but like let's just focus on this energy and this anger. Exactly. Yeah.

You know, actually this, this grizzly bear job as a reality show. Now that another pitch I'd watch. That would be amazing. Is it a survival show? Is it a dating show? What is it? You're a hundred miles outside of Bozeman? Romantic. It's like the real den bears of Montana. And they each have their own tagline too, you know, being like, like, I may be a bear, but I'm also a woman. They say I'm fierce, but I'm actually pretty cuddly. Everyone wants to be me, but nobody wants

to feed me. Just to start off, would you introduce yourself to us? I'm Chris Colan. I am the creator of Love is Blind and some other shows. Yeah, so you've produced a ton of really well-known TV shows, reality TV shows, including Married at First Sight, Wife Swap. And right now your show Love is Blind is blowing up on Netflix, right? So Chris, for our listeners who haven't seen Love is Blind, would you mind just explaining it quickly for us? Absolutely. Yeah. Love is Blind is a show where people who want to be loved for who they are on the inside and are interested in finding someone to have a committed relationship with, lifetime relationship with, they choose someone to marry without ever seeing them based solely on their conversation. What about love interests you? love interests you? To me, having produced a lot of these shows over the years, I think the most exciting shows are about love because I think that the stakes are so real and so big

for the people who participate. And, you know, you talk about Married at First Sight, Married at First Sight, we have eight babies that have been born out of the couples that have been on that show. And Love is Blind, we have several successful marriages. And those last way beyond, you know, whatever you see on the show. And that's really exciting to make that kind of a difference in people's lives. You're like a modern day Cupid. A little bit. A little bit.

Yeah. So we asked you here today because, first of all, we're really big fans. And we've also been talking about jobs that manage conflict. And as someone making reality TV, especially ones that deal with relationships, you work in a medium that depends on conflict. It does. You know, it's funny. I always say to the cast, I literally always say this to the cast every season. I say that, you know, we're really transparent with them. Producing drama and producing conflict is actually really easy. But, you know, allowing real love to

blossom is really hard for us. The focus is really, you know, how do we allow the love to happen? Yeah, definitely. Do you get invested in your cast members falling in love? to happen. Yeah, definitely. Do you get invested in your cast members falling in love? Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we root for them. You know, when we're on the wedding day and you literally don't know what's going to happen, it's incredible. It feels like it's the Super Bowl. And I mean, you want the popcorn and it's just, it's really exciting and unpredictable. And again, really, you know, real. Yeah. When I watched Love is Blind, I'm like, oh my God, like these two people like have to get together. Like they totally should get together. Like, do you ever manipulate things? So you kind of like have a hand in it or do you just let things play out completely naturally?

The biggest temptation is to want to manipulate things. Yeah. Because, you know, you're a producer. And so you want things, you know, you root for things and you get invested. And, you know, the hardest thing and honestly the best thing that we do on Love is Blind is we don't interfere at all. I mean, in season one, one of the things I remember very vividly is there's a guy named Barnett, if you've seen season one of the show and Barnett was deciding between Elsie and Amber. And I remember sitting in the control room and the producer who had been doing his interview came in and said, Oh my God, he, he really truly has deep, deep feelings and loves both of these women.

He could go either way and I could probably push him, you know, or try to push him to go one way or the other. And, and, you know, what do you think? And I remember thinking, Oh my gosh, you know what? LC is really the right choice for him. I remember feeling that. I remember like, I Amber, like Amber's crazy. And then thinking to myself, you know what? We cannot influence him in any way. He has to make the decision. And so we just listened to him and heard him out. And ultimately he picked Amber.

And he's still married to Amber. And it was obviously the right choice. And I was totally wrong. What was it like when you saw conflict happening? But you knew, and you knew it was really good for the narrative of the show. What's that feeling like? I mean, you know, you always want a great narrative and a great narrative often involves conflict. wouldn't be that interesting to watch, but also it probably wouldn't be a very well-deserved result and journey for them, right? I think if you don't have anybody who's been in a relationship,

I think if you've gone through conflict together and you've come out the other side, that it makes you stronger. Absolutely. Yeah. So we should mention that you made the show Man vs. Bear, right? Yes. So we've been talking about this job opening in Montana for a grizzly bear conflict manager. And as someone who is a professional TV developer, can we workshop an idea with you real quick? Yeah, love it. Okay. Okay. So is there any way to make a bear dating show? Okay, stay with me. We're calling it the real dead bears of Montana. Okay.

And we're getting bears, you know, talking it out, dating each other a lot like what you do. I like that. I like that. Yeah. And I think that in my experience of working with pairs, you have to keep them all separated from each other. You don't want the bears to come in too close of contact with one another. So actually— But what if they did?

Well, I mean, there's probably a love-is-blind-esque application, so you could probably keep them separated and have them interact through the pods. And then, you know, when they come together, who knows what would happen? Oh, Chris, love is bare. Okay. Yeah. I like that. I like that. That's a good one. Coming soon. Here's my favorite part of the podcast. This show is brought to you by Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. This episode was produced by Hayley Faker, Zola Ray, Lillian King, Nancy Seichow, and someone named Tony Ravioli. Hey, Lillian, can you introduce yourself to us?

Hello, Emma. My name is Lillian and I'm your co-worker. Our supervising producer is Jennifer Mills and our two kids stacked in a trench coat is Mike Danforth. Lillian, you were the one that pitched this story for our show this week, right? Absolutely. With my entire heart, I wanted this story to be what we did the podcast about. Once again, thank you, Lorna White, for making our sound as crystal clear as a mountain stream. I hope you live forever. Thank you to NBC News for the reporting in that clip you heard about the job opening. I just think that we're living in a bear's world,

and it's important that we all know what to do if we come across one. Thanks to Matt Hogan for talking to us about the listing for the Grizzly Bear Conflict Manager, and for being the funniest person I've met at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. You are my friend now, Matt. Both exhilarating and frightening. Chris Colan, creator of Love is Blind, thank you for teaching us how to love. The bear is always one.

Thank you to my co-host, comedian, Wait Wait panelist, and buddy, Ashley Ray. Do you want me to say bye? You can find Ashley on HBO Max and as the host of the podcast TV I Say. Follow her on Twitter for the time of your life, at TheAshleyRay, and on Instagram at TheAshleyRay. That's T-H-E-A-S-H-L-E-Y-R-A-Y. Where did you learn about bear safety? A couple years ago, I went camping in bear territory, so I did a lot of research. I'm Emma Choi, and you can find me at WaitWaitNPR and on Zoom with

my head in my hands, trying to explain what it means to just vibe. Okay, I'm done. This is NPR. Do you want to share some of your tips with us? Sure. If you're coming across a bear, you should say hello to it. Most of the time we come across a bear, it's probably going to be a black bear, which are friendly. They're kind of the nation's Paddingtons in a way. But the best thing about black bears is that if they attack you, you have to fight back. So you have to punch them in the face and in the nose and in the throat and in the eyes. And then you're probably going to win.