Uh one of our favorite restaurants that he used to work at. Um it's a family owned thai place, I don't know if you like thai food, I right, I love Typhoon um for a while it was carry out only and it was spooky because you know the restaurant is huge and you go in and there's like the hosting and the bar and the only light was at the bar and then there was a little door in the back going to the kitchen, that was it.


A lot of it around where I live, mm. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. All right.


There was one guy working the bar bringing food from the back, you know his expediting carry out orders from the back, answering the phone and it was it was crazy, it really threw me um we haven't dined at a restaurant since March, we will do carry out, but I haven't eaten in anywhere since since March and I'm not.


Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh, mm. Mhm. We have a couple of kinds but it's not I can count on one hand how many times we've done it. Uh But we've had similar things to we had where I live, we don't have a lot of options in restaurants. So we had a mexican restaurant that we like to go to a lot. It's also a pretty big place and we went in there and everything's dark in there, even though the register it was dark.


Yeah.


You walk up to a dark register and get your food and pay and get out.


Mhm. So when you were dining in um did you have to like is it okay to take off your mask while you're eating or did did you have to like?


But nice book. Yeah, the rules are you're supposed to wear your mask so you get to your table and then you can take it off and then everybody, you know, that works, there has to wear a mask the whole time.


Uh huh. Right, understood.


It's probably not as safe as you want it to be. But yeah, we have smaller kids, we wanted to get out of the house. We we've we've gone out and done that a couple of times.


How old are your kids?


Yeah. Uh We have 1/5 grader in a second grader.


Oh so they're 11 and eight.


Yeah, almost 8, 11 and seven, yep.


Very cool. So you guys are are your kids going to school on campus? Are you doing remote learning?


So my kids go to a small private school, so it's small enough that they think it's safe for them to go there. They've got they all gotta wear masks all day, they got petitions between desks but for right now fingers crossed, they keep going. But the bigger cities around us, see I don't live in Toledo, I work, I live near Toledo, they've all went back to homeschooling. All the bigger cities around here are all home schooling, so I think it's only a matter of time before they started doing that to get needed to but Okay okay.


Yeah. Right. Right. Right. So when it when I your kids go to school and they get to see their buddies at school when they come home, are they still is it okay to have Playdates with friends and hang out with neighbors or how is that working?


Right we've done that a little bit too just because since they're around them already at school we feel it's safe enough to maybe do that a little bit but it's not something that we do a whole lot. Yeah.


Mhm. Mhm.


I just I just I can't imagine how tough it can be on younger kids who are learning how to navigate that social network and when you know a third of your day it's spent you know just like just like your folks you know it's been away from home um and that gets rubbed, it that gets disrupted.


Mhm. Very hard. Uh huh. Mhm.


Oh man.


Yeah.


I just I.


Yeah, when they were home school and last spring it was rough, especially for my because it was the first grader at that time and my fourth grader was they'd have class an hour or two a day.


Mhm.


But my first grader they just sent stuff home for him to do, they didn't really have a class that he's learning. So I was a teacher and I was working from home and I was teaching and it was kind of a stressful situation.


Okay. I can yeah. Yeah I uh I can imagine I was talking actually wasn't talking, I was texting with a friend last night and his youngest is 20 how old is? Andrew interest, 21 21 22. And um he's thinking he did go to school, I want to say he was going to school in Ohio because he was playing baseball, I want to say it was Ohio, he was he was playing baseball, he got on the baseball team, didn't like Ohio came back to Alabama was playing for different team and I know it was baseball and as soon as you said baseball, my eyes kind of glazed over and I should have paid better attention but I didn't and that's okay with Dave and that's why I used my um anyway, here's youngest is going to come back home and go to school at U A.


Mm mm. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm, mm.


B. Um And uh so we'll see.


Right, see how long this lasts, where we can get uh they're probably going to do some kind of home schooling for quite a while, a lot of places I think.


Yeah, it's, you know, I'm glad, I'm glad Pfizer announced the release of the vaccine and I'm really glad to hear that it's got 90% efficacy.


Right, yeah.


Great. Um start distributing it. Give me about six weeks and if you know, my neighbors aren't dropping like flies.


Right.


Oh yeah, get in line, I'll get mine.


Yeah, okay, I feel the same way.


Um I uh although I think it might be okay with my husband because you know, I'm not shopping all the time.


Mhm. Uh huh.


Uh huh. However, however when I do and it's it's just been the grocery store. I kinda I kind of tend to lose my mind, so like yesterday we got three bags of kettle chips, were they on sale?


Uh huh. Yeah. Uh huh. Nothing wrong.


Right. No, no they weren't on sale but I had to buy something, I'm at the store and a kettle chips.


Uh huh.


Yeah. Yeah yeah uh snack bars, yeah but I don't know I guess it's kind of okay, I um I realized that I don't have to have new stuff all the time and I'm I'm quite content staying at home.


Uh huh. Yeah. Mhm.


Um But when I do I guess yeah when I splurge, I splurge at the grocery store, so since you guys um have you discovered that your cooking at home more?


Mhm. What's wrong with that? I wish I could say that, I mean we are do you cook at home? But by the time I work at home then I gotta go pick up my kids and then I come back and I work some more and I help them with their homework and it comes time to make supper, sometimes I'll make supper, sometimes I'm done by that time I'm like I don't want to sit there and spend an hour making supper too, so we'll run into town and get something to eat sometimes too.


Mhm. Right.


So a lot of people say that they cook more at home.


Yeah.


I think this has caused me maybe to cook less at home just because I need the time to get out and get away from the house.


Right. Yeah. Yeah. No I get it, I get it. Um I know when when my kids were little uh there were several days when you know what it was, what kind of cereal do you want?


Okay. All right.


Right, That's what we're having for dinner.


Mhm. I wish my kids would eat cereal for dinner.


So pick Oh really?


I mean, they don't like kids do not a serial.


Oh God, wow.


They're weird. I don't know.


When, when I was just about ready to snap and it was, what kind of cereal do you want?


All right.


They were celebrating. You know, it's like, I want captain Crunch done, I want whiz banks done, you know what, you get your own thing and Tooty, fruity is done because I'm mommy is about, mommy's about to end up on the news.


Uh huh, definitely. Mhm. Yeah. Right. Mhm. Yeah.


No, it is harder when they're younger and that's one thing Dave and I were texting last night, we were talking about a mutual friend of ours and he's like, uh does victor still do is is acting class?


Mhm, mm.


I'm like, I don't, I don't know. And and they've said, well he had the kid and he kind of disappeared and I went, well, you know, his his family is young and young, families demand, you know, a lot more time.


Mhm. Mhm. Yes, they do.


And Dave goes, I don't miss those days.


Uh huh.


And I said, I don't either.


Right.


I honestly don't.


Mhm.


Um, empty nest. No.


You know, first of all, my nest isn't completely empty. However, you know, my youngest, you know, he, he comes and not the youngest, my youngest is in Savannah, My oldest just turned 26.


But true.


Um, he's got his own life. He's got his own friends. Um, did I see him yesterday? I don't think so. I don't think I saw him at all yesterday and he lives downstairs in the dining room and I didn't see him at all.


Uh huh. Uh huh.


Um, and it was so funny. Got a couple of weeks ago, you know, my phone went off, it was like 11 in the morning and I see it's him and I wake up freaking out and he knows I'm high strung and he goes, it's okay, it's okay, I have a flat tire, I'm okay.


Right. Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh.


I don't have the triple A card, I'm okay. And um you know, I'm like, whoa, this guy is falling, the sky is falling.


Right, christmas, I look forward to that time.


Um But other than that there they're young adults and their little self sufficient and if they need something, they know where we are. And yeah, after that, my time is my own. Um It'll come, it will come and you'll have gray in your beard and you'll have gray in your hair.


I'm already tonight. Uh huh.


Um But but it'll come and it'll be it'll be cool because when they do call or phone or text, well it's because they really want to.


Mm. That would be nice then. Yes.


Yeah. Yeah. And it's not you know that you know, I need you or it's my homework or no, it's like how you doing you doing okay?


Mhm. Yeah. Yeah, that will be nice.


You know what you've been watching?


Uh huh Oh um I think we've got our 25 minutes and it's been nice talking to you.


Yeah, it'll be great. It'll be great. Okay. It's been a pleasure talking to you.


Yeah.


I hope you have a great day.


I hope you do too and stay safe down there.


You as well. You and your family stay safe. Stay healthy.


Well do you have a good afternoon?


Okay.


Bye.


Yeah. Goodbye.


Remember how to end this though?


All right to it. Yeah. You know, I'm looking I'm looking at the open tab. I don't know if I close the window or if I click or if I click through and then close the window.


I'm guessing that but you're supposed to to do. Yeah.


Right? Yeah. Return to this browser tab. Open a new tab. You know, it was opened. We've had our video chat. I hope this works. I'm going to click through, fingers crossed.


Okay. I think we'll be again we've got more than enough time so uh.


Okay. All right. Ah Here we go. I'm going in.


Mhm.


Ah All right, okay. I'm going to close you out now, you as well.


All right. You have a good day like.


they don't want to go? Okay. Yeah I think that's good.


Hello?


Hi I can can you hear me?


Can you hear a meeting? Yes, loud and clear.


Perfect.


Yeah how are you today?


I'm good thank you, how are you?


What? Yeah I'm doing well thank you not here.


Um Uh huh. Good. No covid yet? Mhm.


What about you? How have you been? Okay good.


Yeah I haven't gotten it yet hopefully.


Hopefully none of us do except but I have no idea what to talk about.


Yeah. Yeah. No. Uh huh.


Yeah.


Uh huh. Yeah it's difficult to start a conversation.


Right they didn't you any kind of tips or anything?


Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well as you may here I have a german accent.


I can hear it a little bit Yeah.


Yeah, I'm originally from Germany and I came to the United States in 2000 and seven.


Oh that's cool.


Yeah. Yeah.


Is there anything thing in Germany that you miss do you get to go visit a lot?


Yeah. Yeah. I miss my family over there because they are still there. I haven't recently the last time I was there was in 2013.


So it's been a few years.


Yeah. Too long.


I believe my sister's boyfriend's family is from Germany they were he is from here but his father is from there so yeah his father has the accident and he doesn't and it's kind of cool to hear and um Larry yeah he was born here.


Oh no. Yes. Oh no. Uh huh. So he was born here.


Yes so that's probably a while.


I see. Yeah I was born, I was born over there.


Yeah and so is there anything interesting over there like cool locations to go see and that kind of thing?


Yeah. Oh a lot. Yeah. There's beautiful locations at the Rhine River uh in 2013.


Yeah. Okay.


Last time I was there with my wife, we actually went on a boat to on the Rhine River boat tour. That was amazing.


Mhm.


I've never done it when I lived there. Okay.


Well if you're on vacation you should just explore new things anyway so.


Oh yeah that's right but that way I even explored my own country and uh saw things I haven't seen before, that's fine.


Yeah. Mhm. Well there at least there's always new things to see, it could be the same stuff over and over again, so I don't think getting to see new places even if it is where you do live.


Right. And then we have there's that big cathedral in the city I come from cologne.


I don't know if you know cologne, it's okay.


I don't um and a few things um my husband is military and so he's been to quite a few places and that's one place that he hasn't been too, so haven't gotten a study on it too much.


Okay. Yeah. Okay.


Um He would stuff.


Yeah I have fun. I have not been in the cathedral whole lot when I when I lived there but I did go to it when I visited.


Mhm. Yeah. Mhm.


It's kind of funny.


Catch them. It was. So what? Because I haven't um like I said looked it up so what is it that's like Really? Really? Because I know it's a magical place, so what is it that just really stands out about it?


Uh the cathedral?


Mhm. Yes sir.


Oh it is it's huge, it's a gigantic cathedral.


Oh I see, catch up.


Do you know the cathedral in new york? I can't remember the name I said is it some Patrick's?


I don't I haven't been there um I've been from north Carolina up to Chicago.


I'm not sure. Yeah.


Um That's about I'm trying to think.


Oh yeah.


I've been to Virginia north Carolina, south Carolina Illinois, Chicago can look at all. We we drove straight across so we went and went through like so many states.


Uh huh.


It was hard to keep track of when you've been.


Oh I see, I just want to say it's actually the cathedral in new york is modeled after the cathedral in cologne.


Mhm. Yeah. Okay. No. Yeah. Oh imagine just on a much bigger scale.


You have seen that one in new york. You kind of get an idea of how the cathedral in cologne would be. Yeah mm them almost the same size.


The one. Okay. Really wow that's cool.


Yeah I think so yeah I've done I've done a couple of tourists in the U.


That's cool. So and mm.


S. To I've been in uh uh on a drive on the on the east coast from Georgia all the way up to new york back to all the way up upstate new york.


Yeah that got you at the the absolute weapon. Catch up.


Yeah that was kind of cool. And uh another year I did a drive with friends from again from Atlanta Atlanta Georgia too.


Okay.


Columbus Ohio that was in the wintertime when it was it was cold.


Our kindness my husband. Okay. Yeah at least you were in the car right?


Yeah.


Right you're really cool.


I mean you could have you having a motorcycle all the way up then it would have been really cool.


But yeah I got it I got to see a little bit and I have lived in uh in history the first four years and then we moved to Indianapolis and lived there for another three years before we moved back to Missouri.


Mhm. Just are you in Missouri now?


Uh huh.


Sure. Um Born and raised in north Carolina so.


Could not my wife and I we really like north Carolina from pictures but we haven't been there.


Yeah it's the mountains are pretty.


The V.


Yeah like the mountains.


Chip the beach is okay now when it comes to beaches I prefer Virginia beach myself. My husband was stationed there for six years. Well so I definitely prefer the Virginia beach area. Um But the mountains in north Carolina are really pretty. Um in the mountains in Tennessee are really pretty, so.


Uh Yeah friend driving through Tennessee on that tour from Atlanta to columbus Ohio we drove right through it but it wasn't the wintertime so it wasn't as pretty as it probably would look into the spring or somewhere.


Mhm. Oh it's it's really nice in the fall like. Right probably right.


Oh yeah.


This time when the leaves are change, it's really cool because they do have certain spots where you can pull off and just look over and it's it's really cool so it's definitely I don't know like we're more beach people.


Oh hold on. Uh huh. I would love to see that. Uh Uh huh.


Um I have little ones though so you know they like to stay busy and be in the water but for like a quick little weekend vacation, the mountains are really nice to go to and just kind of get away from everything else.


Oh sure. Mhm.


So I definitely agree with going out.


I used to I used to be a beach person but when I got older it kind of turned around and now I'm more like a mountain person. I prefer the mountains.


They're kinda half and half depending on the time of year. It is um like like Uh huh.


Are you close to the beach? Are closer to the mountains?


We're right smack in the middle.


All right in the middle.


A freak.


Okay.


It's like the same amount of time to get to either.


Mhm. Oh.


So it's, it's pretty cool.


Uh huh.


We're not really um near any big cities or anything. I mean we are but not like closest city, like huge city is 45 minutes away. We're out in the country so it's nice, it's not too busy, it's not super crowded.


Out oh nice.


Um We have farm animals, like it's yeah, we we just kinda were like being out in a way, so we're right smack in the middle over both people.


We are not far from Kansas city actually. We are but we're not in Kansas city, we are in a suburb, in a small town nearby but going to Kansas city it's maybe just 30 minutes or so.


Hello? Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh. Okay. Um We're near, have you ever heard of charlotte?


Uh huh. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah.


Okay, so we're like 45 ish minutes away from charlotte as that's the closest city that's around.


Oh I see. Okay.


So I mean it's not, I don't really like going to charlotte.


Right.


I do want to have to um I mean if you need a specialist or something like that, typically we have to drive the shark kind of thing.


Mhm. Yeah. Who are? Yeah.


Um The big malls are up in that area so if necessary will go.


Yeah. Okay.


But it is not my favorite place to be.


Yeah we we haven't been in Kansas city even once this year but yeah.


Yeah. Yeah. Uh I don't think we've been anywhere this year hey.


Yeah. Yeah.


But we got in a vacation.


Yeah.


We did head to the beach for week, nine days. It was kind of we were going for a week and then we decided we were going to stay an extra weekend.


Yeah. Uh huh.


So that was nice. But we no because we home school we don't have to deal with the school schedule.


Oh yeah.


So when we want to go I just plan it right, we're going and we just do school either the week ahead or a week behind and they it all balances out in the end so we go in september when the rest of school is in and we get to be out, so.


Mhm. All right. Mhm. Yeah. Oh that's nice. See they don't have home schooling in Germany.


Yeah. Really?


Yeah that does not exist. There's a kind of it's mandatory that your kids have to go to school.


Oh goodness.


Well their education system is probably a lot better than what we have here anyway.


I don't know, I never went through this education system here so I have no idea.


It's I mean it's it's not it's not good.


Um I was home schooled but my husband was in public school and we decided when we had kids so that's what we were going to do and it's been great for us.


Uh huh.


Uh huh. But especially with the virtual learning that they're doing now, it is very difficult, the neighbor kids were doing that and they were struggling and so now they're actually being home schooled by me as well.


Yeah I just wanted to say I think for your kids it should be easier now because uh nothing has changed for them, They get home all the time.


Right. Right. Um We've been homeschooling my oldest is in the fourth grade, so I've been doing this for counting kindergarten for five years. Um Oh my goodness, that's a lot.


Mhm.


So um for me it was just we're just going to start right back up when we normally will they finish their cool and um the only difference is we don't do as many field trips as we normally would because everything is still um either shut down or you have to schedule certain appointments.


What? Yeah. Yeah mm mm that's pretty neat.


Um And that kind of thing, but other than that our life is just same as it was before, so it's kind of nice.


Yeah.


Mhm. But I mean it's an experiment, but like I said, yeah, yeah, I've got to have a better um school system than we do anyways.


Yeah, they don't have that in Germany, that's too bad.


Um Yeah.


Yeah it's kind of complicated the school system over there. They have like three different here, they just have high school and they have three different types of schools. I don't know an english word for them, but they are green, one goes only know to go only until 10th grade and one goes until 13th grade only the one that goes to 13th grade allows you to go to university afterwards.


Okay. Mhm. Mhm. Uh Okay.


The other you can only uh work a job or you can you can do some extra school like two or four years extra. And that qualifies you for your university as well. I did that but I I never went to university.


They won't let you leave, What are you doing?


I actually worked, no.


Yeah. Um I did not I didn't go to college and my husband didn't go to college. He actually decided to get his C. D. L. And he's now a CBO truck driver and um military so he kind of the military is more part time now, he's an active reservist so he only does that for months now and then he is a full time studio truck driver.


Uh huh. Uh huh.


So I mean you can definitely do what you need to do with that for us. We don't put as much emphasis on going to college because we have been able to succeed without doing it um With just the hard work that actually needs to go into it.


Yeah. In my family nobody went to college, but my parents didn't, my brother did not, I did not, I I have I went to uh to the extra school after after the regular school, I learned economics and then I learned taxes and I got a job as a at a tax consultant and that worked with taxes.


Oh yeah Yeah. Mhm. Yeah that's how it so um us yeah. Mhm. Right okay.


But sadly that doesn't do anything for me here because german tax law is totally different from american tax law.


No. Uh huh mess I got.


So my south africa doesn't do me any good here.


Yeah. Yeah well and there's a different currency in America, don't I had to um because I own my own business so I had to learn how to do all of that from the ground up myself. And it is very confusing um at least on this part of it, it's very very difficult to learn um and it does take a lot of effort to remember how to do it and then like every different section has its own different amounts or percentages of what can be taxed and food gets taxed separate from this and it's I was like oh my goodness.


Uh huh. Yeah. Uh huh. Uh huh.


So yeah, I can see how it would be way different to do it from Germany to american because this America stuff is difficult to say the least.


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.


Okay.


Unfortunately I lost my my main job in february.


Yeah.


I I did have a pretty well paying web design job, but uh my partner at that time in the air we decided to split up with the business so she she's doing the business now by herself and I don't have a job.


Fuck. All right. Oh yeah, same all of them because it's it's not, do you know what a comic con is like where people go and they dress up and they come?


Yeah, that's that's why I'm on here. That's uh yeah. Yeah, mm.


So with the stuff that I make, I would go and I would go to the conventions and I would sell it. But then when they shut everything down, they said, oh, you can't have big groups of people anymore. So all of my jobs for the year have been canceled, that I haven't I haven't worked since my last con was in february.


And Oh. Oh wow.


Um So I'm on here, I'm doing prolific and I'm doing amazon's um in Turks and um doing this because I think it's pretty much that you're going to be shut out Hell.


Yeah. You know, I'm also good, what what I'm doing? I do prolific and micro workers. Yeah.


How does that one work? Is that one kind of the same?


Kind of like mturk it's pretty very similar, but the jobs pay a little better.


Oh, and it's Microsoft microfiber?


My co workers dot com.


Oh, I'll have to look at that one because this is, yeah, so, I mean, with them shutting everything down, it definitely makes it difficult to do anything else at the moment, but I'm enjoying the prolific one, like, um I just started it in august and I like, I like that it's a lot different.


Yeah. Okay. Yeah.


I like that I get to work when I well I didn't I didn't even know that they did this kind of thing.


Yeah. I think I started it in in june that took me that long to find it.


Um I mean I did swag bucks, which is kind of a survey site where you earn points, but I've done that for probably 13 years a lot.


Uh I know that. Yeah. Oh wow.


Um and then um I didn't realize that I knew there were other sites kind of like that, but I didn't know if there were sites were up here is your job, you automatically get it you're done.


Her.


So I like this a lot better. I've actually slowed down this five bucks side because I like that I can do this and not have to push for a goal every day, so I enjoy doing the prolific jobs.


Yeah, I am uh the most actually the prolific is uh is great.


Um And they yeah, it's honestly it kind of shocked at how much they were paying for stuff.


Oh. Uh huh.


Not complaining, no, complete.


No, no, nothing.


But I mean I have three Children so from the ages of 8 to 3 so for me I have to be able to do something that I can work in between doing other.


Yeah.


I can't I don't have somebody kids so I can go out and even try to get even just a waitressing job.


Wire Yeah, that's very good.


So I am very happy to have found something like this where it's online and I can do it and I can work with it around the kids.


Yeah. Do you have the extension installed?


That makes us sound when something comes in?


Okay I do. It's oh I've got one that one and then I have one for the mturk that um the hit catch or one where you can automatically put it in and as soon as the drop pops up for a certain person it will automatically take it for you.


Yeah. Oh, come on. No. Yeah. Yeah. How? Mhm. Yeah. Oh, not in.


Uh Yeah that one helps a lot. I get a lot of jobs I can kind of scan through the list and go click click click click click and it puts all of them into the queue. And then when I get about 20 jobs I'll go and just go through job after job after drop. And it ends up a lot better and a lot faster to get jobs that clicking on one, getting it doing it then having to go find a new one.


All right. Uh huh.


I've got a whole list of them sometimes 20 or 30 jobs and read them ready to be clicked on.


Okay. They don't have anything like that on my coworkers, but they have a similar feature when when there are jobs that you like doing, you can uh put the employer into your list and then all the jobs when you lock in, they are marked green, they have green line, you find them immediately, but you don't have to search for them or they're black, they're yeah.


Yeah. Uh huh. Oh I'm definitely not look at that one. I'm right in the name now.


Micro workers started calm.


All right. I mean um definitely always interested in finding new jobs that are you know any anything extra that I can put towards. Um So all the stress isn't on my husband and so I like being able to help where I can so I need it.


Mhm. Oh yeah, mom, he was kind of the other way around my wife, she works for the government.


She has a great paying job. So when we are not totally lost because I lost mine but of course I'm trying to do anything I can do to help them. Well until I find something uh better bye.


Right. Right. Because you don't want it to fall on one part. I mean that's it, that's how we are. We don't want it to fall on one person. We want it to be you know a little more equal. So well I may not bring in because matt my husband does have a very good paying job, shockingly.


Yeah.


The Cdo driver pays more than the Navy did. But I mean it's a nice balance um where he works and I keep the kids during the day and I do a few things here and there and then when school is over I work anywhere from 3 to 2 and 2 to 3 to like nine o'clock, but when he gets home he takes over on the kids, so it's definitely split about 50 50.


Right. Yeah. Right.


Um And while he's like, you know, well we're okay, well do we need to do? And I'm like, I don't know, it's a partnership for me, so I'm like it definitely should be split more than just me going up, you're going to go get a job and I'm gonna sit at home and do nothing.


All right.


I like the I like the online stuff, it seems to I'm very computer savvy, so it seems to work better for me to be able to do this kind of stuff, so this is my first time doing any of the video chats.


Um So these pop up often.


Oh that's it. That's already my third time. Yes, I did these two times before.


Oh cool. I tried to do one last week on here, same group.


Uh huh.


Um My partner never showed up, so I got the bonus of a dollar 50 but I'm like, I wanted to do the job.


Yeah that happened to me last time. My second time I got rescheduled three times. The first two times nobody showed up and finally I got scheduled in the afternoon and then the person showed up the other two were in the morning. That that never worked.


I set an alarm on my phone.


I was like, I am not going to forget that I have that job.


Yes.


But I like that this company, I don't know how the other ones are, but I like how this company they let you do it over and over and they are like capping you like, oh that person skipped out. So you're only allowed to get the bonus once that I like that they'll pay you to do it however many times until you get a partner that talks.


Yeah. Bride.


So I do like that.


I'm loving the prolific. I like the way that it works and I like how quick things are. Um I mean and it is good money. So there's that for what we're doing.


It's good money set my in laws.


Right. Yeah I like that correct.


I I take go ahead.


I don't know I just said I like that too.


Yeah. All right. So I I don't know if you do it. I tend to work outside of the house if I can like if I can take it with me. My husband had a he had a minor it wasn't a surgery but he had to have the camera put down his throat to look at a stomach. Um And so I was right on him. I like sat in the car and was doing prolific in the car. Um And I take it to the in laws house when we go over there on weekends and I'll sit there on their couch and I'll just work and they're like you can't make that much doing it and I'm like you have no idea, don't judge it if you won't try it.


Yeah I've never tried it on my phone.


So I well I have a for the kids school we have a problem book.


I have to admit that I always do it at home.


So whenever I go out of the house I'll just take their Chromebook with them and I'll do it that way.


Yeah. Yeah. Oh good.


So no, I don't know if it works well on the phone or not, but I'll take the little, the little miniature computer stay out and hey and do it that way.


Are the, all right thank you. Okay too.


So I have four.


Oh wow we are just one.


We have four. And normally she doesn't want, she doesn't normally get up on me, but I don't know, she's like be good today, but we've got four cats, three dogs, nine, yeah, nine goats, 10 ducks and 20 chickens.


Yeah wow wow.


We have a food. So I mean what?


No we were living in an apartment. We have just one cat.


Yeah, we've got right at two acres of land, so we've got some room to spread out um a little bit. Um Now we're looking to buy something with a lot more. But um I make soaps. That's my job. My job is to make soaps and so we have the goats for the milk so I can use that in the soaps.


Uh huh.


And then um of course the chickens and ducks are for eggs. So we teach our Children have to be more self sufficient versus your stuff comes from the grocery store, there's no nothing else that comes from it. Um Our kids know start to finish, they've raised chickens from eggs, I mean they're running around in the yard now um regarding we do experiments with different kinds of soil and we turn into um their science projects, they just planted pumpkin suits earlier and they like cut open a pumpkin and play into the season side of it.


Yeah. Mhm. Uh huh.


So we do have a little bit of a farm so that the kids can see where things come from.


Brother. That's good.


Mm It's definitely different from your typical life but yeah I wouldn't trade it, they enjoy it.


That's interesting. Uh huh. Right. Right. Yeah I have to I think at least one more side I can give you.


Nothing you're doing it so. Okay.


But I have never done it.


Mhm.


It's called PICO workers.


Have to go.


It's it's kind of like the same like micro work because what I've never done it, I think they don't pay as well there.


Uh huh. Yeah.


So I concentrated mostly on micro workers.


Yeah. Oh I mean sweat books does well, trying to think, I think my name's our spy bucks, prolific mturk and yeah.


Yeah. Uh huh. Mm. I have tried entered but I gave it up because I couldn't link my bank account to amazon for some reason. It never worked.


Oh goodness. I mean you can also get it, try to put on an amazon gift card, so if you, yeah, it's a lot, well you can do it for christmas money trying to but it's yeah, it's one of those things that's kind of like, but paid viewpoint, have you ever heard of that one?


Yeah. Yeah. I do that. All right. Uh huh. What is that card?


Paid viewpoint?


Oh yes. Uh huh.


So I do that one. Um and I never, it's not a lot but it's about $10 a month on there for doing like if you really quick like maybe 2020 question surveys, it's very easy and the money.


Uh huh. I used but I've recently I have stopped doing it because yeah it's easy and uh they paid nice but sometimes they get just 10 cents for for one of those surveys and then sometimes more sometimes it's more than a dollar or so.


Yeah. Six. Yeah. Yeah.


But not always.


Yeah. It just depends um on what it's on.


Yeah. Yeah.


I get a lot of diaper ones on there because I have a three year old, so they're like, here take this one.


Yeah. Uh huh.


Um So I think it just depends on the person. I don't think my mom makes as much there as I do.


Bye. There's another one. Oh wait uh what's it called?


I don't know.


Right.


Please.


Uh huh.


Just slipped my mind a pine cone research my ankle.


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I used could be, come on.


Pine cone research staying up. They don't have a whole lot, but they sent you uh they sent me like one or sometimes two surveys a week and each one of them pays $3.


Yeah, mm hmm. Mhm. I used to do that one and I did it for I think like three or four years and then all of a sudden they just stopped swinging the surveys and now it won't let me make a new account.


Okay. It's yeah. Oh no, I know that.


There is another one it's called life points and that one does decent because the survey pays like 100 75 points ish and it takes 600 points to trade down for $5.


Yeah. Football. Yeah mm.


Um I mean you can earn $5.1 day if you do two or three surveys um Depending on the amounts.


All right.


So that one I do when I have um time later on the day because you can turn, I mean depending on how much time you put into it, you can definitely earn some.


Yeah.


They they gave me a study last week where I put in what I had bought for the week, which wasn't much, but and they paid me $10 to keep track of it for the week.


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah wow.


I was like, I'll take it.


Uh huh. Uh huh.


How bad.


Okay.


So that one's a good when I do like life points.


I think that's really the only ones that I'm doing at the moment. Um If you like the kind of work like this, there's crowd source to where you do.


It's more like um the internet where you do the different little transcription jobs. Um But it's uh.


It's crowdsource dot com.


Yes crowd. Yeah, crowdsource is.


Uh huh.


Yeah. I do something that's called user crowd. They have little tests but they pay like each test pays like between 20 and 60 cents but you get quite a few of them and uh accumulates fairly fast.


Yeah I have that one. Um I think we do a lot of the same ones. Um My mom does a few other ones.


I just can't remember what um what they are. Um And shit, we're in the same household so she can't do the amazon one.


But I've never I've signed up for some of these other testing sides but you have to kind of sit there and then talk your way through it.


Ah Yeah.


I I don't know, that's not my thing.


Yeah it's not mine either.


Right?


Um I guess I mean I like I did five books earlier just enough to get my daily goal without pushing it through.


Yeah. Yeah.


Um But my mom does really well on that one.


Okay, wow.


She can make a couple of 100 on five bucks a month. And I'm just sitting here like how to be your ways because I don't know.


Uh huh. Okay.


Um But she does a lot of the gold surveys and they somehow she on there gets a lot of products to test, But when she gets the products sent to or she'll test it out.


Uh huh. Yeah, wow, I'll let you.


Like she's getting dishwasher taps, they'll pay your $5 to test them events.


Yeah. Mhm wow, that's nice.


You'll get an extra 10 to 20 for the survey after that. And I'm just like really really?


I got probably this uh Pinecone research.


Yeah.


They sometimes uh I get a survey and then they asked me if if they can send me the product then they send it to me, I use it. And a couple of weeks later there comes another survey, another $3 and what I get $6 plus the product.


All right. So you right. She got have you seen the shark vacuums? Like really expensive vacuums factbook sent her one paid her money to test it and then we got to keep the vacuum great.


Yeah. Uh huh. Oh wow, wow, wow.


I was we don't even have carpet but this one is made for carpet and hardwood. And so she got it to test it on the hardwood. I'm like this is the best vacuum I've ever used. I love this thing. She's like you can't keep it man.


Uh huh. Uh huh.


But they had I think I think the survey afterwards was like 20 maybe $30 for testing a vacuum.


But wow.


I'm like really?


Mhm, wow.


But she gets them. I don't know. It's insane. So I mean five bucks is definitely worth it if you can figure out out of how to do it.


Uh huh.


Um I think she just has the gold surveys. I think that's how she gets the products and survey.


No, I've tried swag books months ago, but I never made much on it at all.


Yes. Yeah. Thanks. Um Now if you do um Rab Universe can get a lot of points. Um If you have a smartphone and you download the apps, those can pay a couple bucks for just playing a game on your phone when you're laying in bed. I mean let's be realistic you can play a game on your phone when you're out waiting in the car somewhere um and get paid for it.


So if you can get any of the um the games to test off of there, they also do a thing now where it's like double points so they're double the amount that you get paid on.


Yeah. Close up and.


Um rave universe and Adgate media and in the gold surveys and that's how she does that those are the three things she does and she does well with.


Mhm. Oh I have something on my phone and on my computer it's called Honey Game, it just runs in the background, it shares your band with, it needs some of your bandwidth but you don't have to do anything and it just accumulates money.


Mhm. And it's called what honey drink?


Honey gain. You find it Honey game dot com.


Oh that's cool.


It's a small it's a tiny little program, you can install it on your computer and you can also install it on on an android phone corn. And uh just they just pay you money for sharing your internet.


And no.


It's not much but you can you can earn depends on how many devices you you you have.


Sure Angel.


I kind of make $20 takes me a month and a half or so to get $20 from it for doing nothing basically it just runs on your own and only a computer.


Okay. Right. Yeah. Right. I have um two of the chromebooks for the kids and then one desktop so may be able to do 20 a month.


Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. And. Right.


I'd be kind of nice so.


Yeah you have it on three devices. But uh but then that's kind of tricky because they are very a while ago they have limited to two devices per I. P. Address. So so I have my phone and my desktop run on the same I.


Okay. Yeah.


P. Address on my laptop.


Okay.


Uh I use a different we have a how do you say different wifi channel for guests?


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.


So to call from Comcast I bought for my laptop. So the lab has a different I. P. So I can run three devices. Oh yeah it's lower but it's fast enough for that.


That's smart. That's smart. That's smart. So well I.


But if you have only um one of uh by if I. I. P. Address you can only run two devices.


Okay well we have the guest one and then we also have an extender um to make the wifi stretched the whole length of the house.


Uh huh.


Um The extender has a separate um I. P. Address as well so I should so definitely thank you.


Uh huh. Yeah that's your word. Yeah and you don't have to do anything for you just want to the ground.


Right. Hey God, I love free money. So, but thank you very much for those two websites because I haven't heard of them.


And I'm definitely going to check them out.


Yeah Micro workers doesn't have as many jobs as uh entered but uh it varies between 1005 100 sometimes it's only like 600 drops on there.


Okay. Yeah. Okay. Mm hmm.


And I only do a couple of them. There's a whole lot of jobs I wouldn't even do.


Sure. Well, there's so many people that do in Turkey that it's kind of hard to get some of the jobs sometimes. So that's a little slower.


Yeah, they're sometimes jobs that pay really well, like 50 cents per jobs.


Might be kind of nice. Okay.


Uh And those go away really fast.


Okay.


But they have like usually 40 or 50 people can do the job.


No. Okay.


And if if you're on there all the time, it's no problem to get them.


I can show you catchable.


But if you're away from the computer for a couple of hours, you might actually miss out on some.


This this one's up and running all day long from the time I get up until the time I go to bed.


Yeah.


So it's always got that it's always got the different tabs open so I can go and check it throughout the day.


Mhm. Yeah.


So yeah, that's smart set.


Yeah. I like my computer, all my computers. I like run 24 7 because of that honey game thing that runs overnight as well. Okay, so I rarely ever restart the computer.


I don't, I do like maybe once a week.


Yeah. Uh huh.


But that's only to I got one computer that's got issues of its own for too long. It stops working.


Yeah like it won't open up certain things or it's really slow.


I might get issues if it's on for 10 days or a little more than it sometimes gets a few issues and then I have to restart it.


Yeah that have so other than that the other one stays on pretty much all the time too so I can definitely have it open and doing things in the background while it's not doing anything else.


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah.


So but I think we have yeah we've gone up said that's all right.


Yeah. Mhm. Way over time.


Um It was nice talking to you.


Um Maybe we can get paired up again later. That would be fun. But thank you so much for talking with me and for helping me out telling me about those other two things.


Right.


Um Because I'll definitely look into them.


How are you? Welcome there.


So but I hope that you have a fabulous day and we'll forget to do the survey when we get off of this one because I forget.


Right. And now another 20 minutes?


I know right it's all right it's okay.


Right. Uh huh.


But yes, so thank you very much for talking to me.


Oh, thank you very much.


Uh Yeah, and like I said, I hope you have a great day.


Mhm. Yeah, I hope you two.


Thank you.


I just closed. I think we just closed the top.


I think so. I hope so.


Yeah, mm.


All right.


Bye.


But.


Okay. Right. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. All right. Uh huh. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Really? No. Oh, yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. First. Mhm. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yes. Mhm. Yes. Mhm. Mhm. Okay. Mhm. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Uh huh. Mm. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. What? Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Uh huh. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Trying to get pregnant. Yeah. Okay. The professors. Yeah.


Yeah. Yeah.


Mhm. Your dog?


Oh hello june okay how are you?


Hello? How are you? Not bad. So is this your first time doing this or?


My second one? I did one on friday to how about you?


Okay. Uh This is from, well, my fifth successful one by 61 total.


Oh wow that's exciting.


Have you been having good conversations with people?


Yeah.


I think I've only had one that was kind of dry, but other than that everybody's been nice.


All right okay.


I did figure out that they match a woman up with a man.


Yeah. Okay well that makes sense.


I figure I was wondering how it goes because, you know, the first couple times from like it can't be luck that I just keep on getting a woman there has to be and then, but then by like the fifth one I was like okay now I know what's going on, how they try to figure out what they're looking for.


Right. Yeah wants to be a plan behind it. Right. No that makes sense.


So now I understand that okay, they mix it up that way, so.


Oh first couple of coincidence after you hit three you're like okay there's a pattern for me.


Right. Exactly. That number four, number five.


Yeah wow.


And I was like okay, that's it. I know what's going on. So yeah, how long have you been doing prolific for?


Makes sense. Oh um so I feel like I registered ages ago but I really just started doing it over the past couple of months.


But I told you I registered agent ago, but I really just started doing it over the possible. Uh huh.


Uh now that I'm working from home I've got a little bit more time on my hands to focus so.


Uh huh. Yeah. Uh huh. Okay. Right, yep.


Right.


Yeah, I think that's pretty much the same thing as me right around March is when I, but I don't think I couldn't even remember how I found it, but I signed up for it and I think I've made like like $1000 at this point.


Right wow that's impressive.


Yeah.


I've not made that much but I'm on basically all of the testing websites and that sort of thing just because they're easy and who can't use extra money.


Uh huh. Right. Right. Well the one thing I like about this is it has a very low payout.


Okay. Yeah. Mhm mm.


So like what? You know it's £5 which is like what $7.


Exactly mm.


So so it's easy to you know bang them out and then it takes really well considered compared to the other ones.


Yeah. Do they really do well And this one I feel like there's more opportunity because I'm on a lot of different ones but half the time I don't qualify for the stuff that they send me.


Oh yeah. Well. Right. Okay.


Whereas there's only been one that I've not been able to do because I didn't qualify and it was because I have two supervisors, not one that was the only reason.


Yeah. What? Okay. What? Oh yeah.


So I mean this one feels at least more accurate I guess for they send you what you can do.


Right. Well because I mean I I use I don't you might use a survey junkie.


Yeah. I've not done sir. Well I think I did it like years and years ago but I didn't keep up with it.


Good work. Okay because I I found that one and that's the only other one I do and that's just exactly like what you said where like they they have like 20 available on a day and don't get accepted for like percent of them.


Mhm. It. Mhm. Exactly.


So you know they give you like three cents for each rejection.


Yeah. Right.


Then most of the time it's like 80 cents for each survey you do.


Yeah. Oh. Mhm.


So it's just a grind to do it where with prolific.


Right. Yeah.


You know I I had one that was like I don't know 20 minutes long and it paid 10 bucks so.


Yeah exactly, definitely more more buck for your time with prolific.


Oh right.


The other one I do most of the time is user testing which is actual like website testing. Like they'll have you checked the website to see how functional it is and that one would be like 10 bucks a pop.


Yeah. Okay. That's cool. Right.


But it's if they send you anything they think you might remotely be qualified for.


Oh. Mhm. Oh come on.


So you'll get a couple of questions into the initial survey and they're like, sorry, you don't qualify after all and you don't get anything for doing the initial survey because it's a higher payout if you do get through.


Oh how much time do they look for you to put in with playing with the website?


So they're really reliable. So it's really nice if you do get through but it can be hard to qualify. It's about 15 minutes. Um Well that's what they say.


Okay.


They say it's 15 minutes and you get paid 10 bucks. I'm kind of like seven or eight minutes. Like it depends. I guess how good you are navigating websites because a lot of it is okay. You want to register, where would you go click where you would want to go if you were going to register? Well, if you're good at navigating websites and finding that information, they allot you probably 45 seconds for that task.


Don't want only. Okay.


It only takes me like 10 seconds to figure that out. So Yeah.


Now is it a thing where like that you have certain tasks you have to do in order to be done or do they just give you a general lot in the time you have to reach?


Right. Got it. Oh, uh they give you specific tests they want you to do because essentially they're either testing their testing. One of two things are they're testing, does this website actually work? Like is it programmed correctly and it's functional or they're testing, does it make sense to somebody using it? So they'll ask you like, okay, find where you would register and then they ask you, okay, how hard was it to find that when you click on register, do the questions make sense?


Okay. Yeah. Out of that, I understand the question.


Is that information you would expect to fill it, stuff like that?


Yeah, nobody. That's not bad.


Yeah.


What else did?


Um And I use another one.


Intelligent, intelligent.


Um I think it's called it has it's also called the user tool.


Mm I mean it's another one of the functionality of absent website usual.


I think it's another one testing functionality of apps and websites. Usually sometimes they have live conversation ones on both of them and but primarily they're both on like functionality of websites and apps, wow.


Okay thank us. I was thinking about all right, that's cool. I keep on trying to find one that will do like the consumer product testing.


Um There's, they don't come up with uh at least not for me tests.


Okay.


I can do very often, but it's like buzz agent like be Zzz like buzz like a bee but without the U.


Right.


Biz agent and they do consumer product testing. I tested a candy for them one time.


Mhm.


That was fun. And then I tested what was the other fantastic shampoo or soap or something maybe.


All right.


No, no it was like a year ago. I don't even remember anymore. The thing about that one though is they want you to post reviews but at which I'm not as comfortable with.


And mhm.


But on the flip side, like facebook for example, you can make a post that no one can see but you, so it's a nice hey, let's get around it a little bit where you're still posting your review, it meets the requirements of posting a review.


So Okay.


But if you're not comfortable being like, hey, I was paid to test this, you don't have to show it to the entire world.


Right. I was gonna say it's like I'm just gonna say it's not like one of those like amazon reviews were like I'm a paid tester for this thing and can see what Uh huh.


Yeah. Oh, exactly. Um yeah, and everyone in the world can see it like, or you can have specific people see it on facebook, which is kind of nice because if there's someone I think will like it, I'm happy to make them aware that I did it, but I also don't want to spam everybody on my facebook friends list with, by the way, I tested this.


On. Oh right right. You don't wanna be that person be like hey by the way because almost yeah yeah I'm sure they probably have some way of tracking that I quit.


Exactly, exactly. But I probably get less tests because I don't spam a billion different social media is with my review, but I mean Okay. Yeah, I mean they're primarily just for the free item. You don't actually, I don't think with most of them you don't get paid in addition to the free items.


I can't stop.


So it's kind of like okay if you're also paying me $30 maybe, but mainly you're just sending me something for free.


No, that's certainly didn't think. Uh huh Yeah.


So yeah, so there just haven't been pretty good so far.


Yeah it's hardly upsetting if you get something crappy, really good on this.


They're they're very into established brands. Like the candy I tested was a line that sweethearts was going to put out at least.


Okay, that's cool.


I think it was sweethearts. And then I think the soap I tested was like, it was like dial or some like really common brand that's everywhere.


No something right.


Very established. Not like random indie stuff, which I have nothing against, but with a more established company you kind of know, I mean they don't tell you what money for, but you can pretty much guess that it's going to be a Fortune 500 company that you're testing for.


All right, you're more familiar with it.


So you kind of know what you're getting into.


Right. Right. Rather than somebody who did a Kickstarter and start throwing you know, like it's made somebody's bad though now.


Exactly, exactly.


Where are you from?


Um, I originally, I'm from Illinois, but right now I'm in Iowa, so midwest basically.


Yeah. Uh huh.


What about you?


Yeah, New Jersey.


Okay on my customers?


No, that was right.


That worker in New Jersey? Well, I say that I have a lot of customers everywhere because we're countrywide.


Mhm.


But I talked to a lot of people from New Jersey, uh, so far so good.


Cool. No. Uh How are you guys doing the whole covid thing?


So they just switched just to working remote because um, I'm in billing so we're all essential because most people still need our services.


But on the flip side, we are losing a lot of business, not because they don't want to work with us anymore, but because businesses are closing down due to covid.


Right.


So it's kind of like so far we're okay, it doesn't seem like anything terrible is going to happen for the company, but seeing the number of cancellations is a little bit concerning.


Well, now, how how is it like around you, like, like it's all like all the restaurants open, you have to wear a mask when you go outside any of that stuff go okay.


Oh from um so supposedly we're supposed to be wearing masks, but no one cares, some of the stores are a little bit more particular, but even then a lot of them are in for, a lot of them can't enforce it. So they just kind of let people do whatever they want restaurants.


Yes.


There are still rules I think you have to get take out still. Um or you have to be able to sit outside or they have to limit the number of people inside.


Okay.


But for the most part people are pretty much acting like Covid is over, which I think is interesting.


Well, it's curious how it is in, you know, the midwest, because you know, New Jersey, right, I'm 30 minutes away from New york city, so I've got a billion people around me.


Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah.


And um we went through like everything shut down like essentially from March to really like july like blocked in your house.


Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah.


That was the end of it.


Mhm.


Uh huh. Right now we're you have to wear a mask. What like when you're outside, just like walking around, you don't need like a parking lot, something like that park, you don't need it.


Yeah.


Um But if you go into any sort of store you have to do it otherwise to kick you out. And restaurants, they have they've had the outside dining for a long time now uh since july but they just started 25% indoor dining, I want to say september, that was nice.


Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Okay. Risk.


But again you have to wear your mask until you sit down. Once you sit down you can take it off obviously to eat and everything like that, but once you're done you have to put it back on, get up to pay and everything.


Yeah. Right. Mhm. Yeah. I feel like people here are not taking it seriously enough. That's for sure. Especially because numbers aren't great.


Mhm. Mhm.


I mean we haven't been hit as bad as some other places, but our two biggest employers in town both had covid outbreaks.


Uh huh. Really?


So I'm kind of like ok guys, it's in the two biggest employers like come on, people got to take it a little bit more seriously like most of the setting, it works in those two places like okay.


It's just it's just the main very soon. I find it amazing how it just traveled everywhere.


Like like you know obviously you know it's going to hit the coast because the flights come into so you know, L A.


What? Yeah.


New york but then how it just, you know, went everywhere.


It's just amazing.


And really quickly to it seemed like at first it was just something you were kind of hearing about and then literally three days later they're like it's hitting the us everyone stay home.


Yeah. Right.


Okay.


Right. Because well because I remember hearing about it in december, was that one of my uh some soccer games and one of the other dads, he's a pharmacy rep.


Yeah. Yeah.


So he goes to place selling whatever that we sell.


Mhm.


But you know, I asked him, I'm like, oh have you run into anything yet airports where like, you know, they ask you where you traveled or anything like that.


Yeah. All right, wow.


He's like what are you talking about? And I'm like, oh well there's this you know this coronavirus thing in china where like you know, I'm imagining that you know it's going to be hitting us soon because you know, nothing shut down. He's like no I haven't heard anything. He's the guy just came back from texas and then that was december. Then you went through like february. Let me like, you started hearing like little first of it was then when March happened, it was like the end of day, everybody's got it like everybody was like getting it that was dying.


Uh huh. Right. Mhm.


And then it I think we went up to family.


It's crazy.


I think we went up to 700,000 cases or something like that in New Jersey.


I've been like that. Yeah.


And then and then I mean, I did that. I think we've had 50,000 deaths.


All right. Yes.


Something like that.


Yeah.


Then it dropped down and we were having like, I don't know, like 300 like in my county we were having like one or two cases a day here and there and but in the state of the whole it was like 304 102 100 like, you know, low fluctuate.


Mhm. Yeah.


Like nobody hang anymore. And now all of a sudden back up to like 1200 what?


Yeah. Yeah. I think it's because we I think country wise, we opened up like way like before it was actually like the reason it dropped was because most people were following, you know the mass and the social distancing and mainly staying home uh Because that's what they've maintained in europe and in Asia, but everyone's pretty much acting like it's back to normal.


No. Yeah. Right from right. I Yeah, so I don't remember the cloud, right?


Like actually read I think was I read an article today talking about how people are referring to Covid as a past thing that's happened. Like people are going to talk about, oh do you remember back when Covid was happening and we all had to be quarantined? And the person, the person who is writing the article was like except that it's currently happening right now and you're still supposed to be social difference in this isn't over.


It's sort of anybody.


I mean my kids have to do the hybrid thing where they go to school for two days, then three days their home, they do the virtual stuff and it's just like, uh like, you know, I don't, my my wife brings him to school because you know, I don't want to put them on a bus and I have to wear a mask and it's stupid, but you know, it's no fun to do that.


Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah. Let me Yeah.


You know, I'll just drive you, you put your mask on really good to school and that's it. I'm not gonna for showing a 40 minute bus ride and it can take me 15 minutes dump you off.


Right.


Uh huh.


Try and make the transition easier.


So it's just like, and then I think they're talking about in november, we're going to open it up to full five days a week, but half days and then they're aiming for december to be full time.


Yeah. Pretty hot. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. My work is talking about, they kept saying like ok you'll be back in the office in May and then they said july and then they said september and then they were like never mind end of the year as soon as, but so right now that's what they're planning is having us come back I guess technically beginning of New Year's when they're playing on having us come back and I'm just kind of like, can I not?


Yes. Mhm Right. Well, you know, it's funny because like a lot of people I talked to that do like telecommuting, like to work and everything.


Yeah.


Their businesses are just like to stay home, like it's working out well, you know, there's no law, there's actually people work more when they're delicate moving.


Yeah. Mhm. Yeah and I wish that they would do that because I personally am like I'd say a good 30% more productive at home than I am uh at work because I get really bad headaches and part of what makes them worse is a lot of different things making noise at the same time. And since I work in Billy and we're department of like 12 people, it's not uncommon for us all to be on the phone at the same time.


Oh right.


That's too many voices for my brain to concentrate on at once. I can't just focus on the call I'm on, so I'll get these like terrible, like have to put my head down nauseous headaches and at home I can control, I can turn the lights to what I can handle, I can keep the noise where I need it and I can get way less headaches.


Oh careful.


So I'm I wish that they would let me just say working from home. But the like my boss's boss's boss, the head of our division of a county. And she doesn't believe in working from home.


No.


She doesn't believe people can be productive that way. She also doesn't believe in work hours that are longer than eight hours a day. She doesn't believe people can be more productive more than eight hours a day.


Okay, Okay. Mark.


So she puts restrictions on our department based on her belief system.


So like that's it. Like after eight hours you just, your your work quality, this increases to the point of nothing, leave that later.


Okay. Yeah. Yeah, basically, she she believes that like after you hit the eight hour mark, your brain is useless, it just stops and I'm like, wow well, and I'm just thinking like, that doesn't make any sense at all.


Funny when you're up for like 16 hours a day. Uh huh.


Because like even just thinking back to when I was in school, like even middle school and I even just high school and college, middle school as at school for at least 87 or eight hours and then I had 3 to 6 hours of homework and got completed.


Right.


So clearly something was happening in my brain, like it's not like I've done to the school day.


Wait what?


My brain was just like off.


Right, just shuts down, you're like, okay, you're going to sleep good to hear.


All right, okay, well what does she cook on autopilot at night?


I'm like who? Who worked eight hours goes home and goes to bed, you know? Fuck on someone, right?


Because that seems dangerous. Like I'm presuming she makes herself dinner.


Like I'm gonna do like I would ask her, I'm like, I'm concerned about you driving because eight hours, obviously you should not be in charge of £4000 of steel to go down.


Does she just do it? Like Yeah, well what kills me is she's there before I am, she comes in at seven half. I leave late because my boyfriend and I share a car, so I have to wait for him to pick me up and he gets off two hours after I do.


Mhm.


Um she's still there when I leave half the time. So she's working 12 hour days most she's working 12 hours days, like three days a week, a couple of days a week.


If you just want to go, that's too bad.


She goes home at her normal time, but the rest of time she's still there when I leave. So why is she able to work 12 hours successfully? But somehow the rest of us just stop at eight hours and the nothing else happens.


You guys have any sort of like overtime at all or now, like what you like the rest of you, like you guys have anything like that or I'm just curious like it's just like something she just says to avoid paying overtime, like well, okay, no small.


Right. She's salaried. I'm sure she's salaried so mm theoretically. And and like she can't prevent that because like we're on calls with customers. So if they need people to stay late and answer the phone, like they need people to stay late and answer the phone, she can't stop that. But it's not very common for us to have over time. Yeah. No, I I think she she just doesn't like flexible work schedules, like our company as a whole mandate that that you're allowed to do one half day and then work like nine and a quarter hours the rest of the time. So she has to allow that one. But people have been pushing for four tens and she doesn't like that. So that's where, you know, we'll know people can't work effectively more than eight hours, it won't be productive enough, she's like flexible and she doesn't like working from home.


I love to know what she thinks about doctors that works like 24 hours left.


Yeah. Mhm. Right. Well presumably that after the first eight hours, their patients should be very concerned.


That was good to see everybody else that goes over there. You couldn't die.


Right.


He's forgetting everything he learned in those eight years of school mm Yeah.


Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if like because she's a she's a little bit older, so I'm not sure if maybe it's like a belief system that she grew up with, like everyone should work 58 hour shifts a week and you know, like and everyone should work in that and like she's just unwilling to move, but the VP of finance, she's a little bit younger than her and she was like, well she literally said to me the elevator one day, she said, well maybe once some of these uh more traditional people retire, we can get some flexible scheduling in here, so she wants it.


Okay.


But apparently she can't overrule the people who have been with.


Yeah.


She's only been to the company like four years.


What?


I think she came from another company where she was VP.


Uh huh. What?


So she's qualified.


Yeah, wow.


But apparently she can't take on the more traditionalists who have been here for 2030 years.


Mhm riots inefficiency. She's global. Did not have that much input for somebody who's been there forever mm Doctor you by a doctor.


Yeah. Mhm. I might just get my doctor to see if my doctor can come up with something uh Where I have to be allowed to work from home at least part of the time.


Uh huh Right.


That feels kind of like cheating. But to the same token already I'm already on FMLA to be able to not get fired for calling out at least once a month for my headaches. So I feel like if they can if I cannot call out at all it's you know, unless I get really sick and work from home part of the time. That's a pretty good compromise. But we'll see what they say.


Well that's the other thing, I'm like, you know, okay, say your second, you're working for more often, you're probably still going to work because your home, what do you like, like you know, almost dying with a fever and you're laying in bed other than that you're gonna be like all right, well I can still do something, right?


Yeah, exactly. We're going to get something done. Yeah. I can still log on and take a phone call probably unless I have no voice.


I can Right, so I mean right there that would eliminate all the time benefits and everything like that.


Yeah. Well and if I am having a bad headache day, it's like because I can, no one can see me so I can turn all the lights off so it doesn't aggravate my headache and I can and I can have really low volume like on everything I need, I can keep my phone it just loud enough that I can hear the customer and then I can work through my headache versus if I'm having a bad headache day and I know I have to go into the office, it's just not possible.


Oh great, you can lay in bed and do it, you sleep?


I can make it maybe an hour and then I'm like okay I have to go home like this is too painful to live.


Mhm mhm Yeah.


I cannot do this today, We'll see what happens.


Right yeah, no I agree with you. Mhm mhm.


I'm really hoping that they'll come up with something. They already closed down one regional office and said they're just going to work from home permanently, but there's only like nine of them. So they were like, why bother paying for an office.


Well that's what you're what do they need to be open for? They work? Well, what is the benefit of having people coming to work versus having them telecommute? Like obviously you do building, but what else goes on where they need people physically to be at the office first of all more?


Yeah. Yeah. I mean, personally, I think it's way less necessary than they seem to think it is because I think most jobs as is proven during covid can be done remotely.


Well, I think Yeah, no, absolutely.


Like, I think most jobs you don't need to be there physically, some of the billion department does need to be there physically. That's definitely true.


What?


Um, to process checks and that sort of thing, but there's no reason that half of us couldn't work from home part time and then we couldn't rotate like half of us work part time from home, you know, one week, the other half work from home the other week, like there's no reason and we'd use way less resources at the office.


Mhm Yeah Right.


But then again, they just bought us this fancy new building and remodeled it.


Mhm This is sit there empty, that's what it Uh huh What terrible timing, think what back, what piper?


So they're probably like, we did not pay all of that money for a new building only to have everyone stay home. Yeah. Right. Well, I mean I guess the transaction had been in the works for a while, but they spent I I started two years ago when I started, they were remodeling the new building. So it took them probably a year longer than they thought it was going to to finish the remodel after I started.


Yeah, wow, they just need more space or they I think that's the second word.


But yeah, they did just redo the whole building and moved a bunch of people over there. So yeah. Um I think they needed more space and part, well, I mean I don't know that this is their motivation, but now we contain one square block of downtown, first or 1st and 2nd to second.


Oh wow.


So I think that maybe that because we were kind of pushing further down into second to third. And so now with the new building, we should be able to be fully contained in that square block. And I wonder if that was part of the motivation was to keep it like we're one square block of town.


All right, Yeah, sure. Right, right, Well, there's always that sense of, you know, well that has to be on the block who facing the right way Okay, at home?


Mhm. Yeah. All right. We'll also our old entrance was on second, not first, which is not the main street. And so I think they wanted the building that was on first so that they could have people, Yeah, so they can people coming into the building that they wanted them to come into. Of course, now that Covid is happening, that was supposed to be our new entrance. But now we don't have security because they have them they're not having security come in so they're like everyone use the old entrance and that's where you should refer all the customers to like okay, what was that point?


Well yes, Uh huh Uh huh, horrible.


Yeah. Yeah. Oh wow. All right. He will get worked out one way or the other.


Mhm Yourself? Yeah, I hope you end up working at home, I mean, you know, you can do it, right?


Yeah. I'm gonna put yeah, I'm gonna push for it because I'm way more productive. All of my work is done by, I don't know, 10 a.m. Every day I get in at eight. So then the whole rest of the day I just have to take phone calls and help new people.


Was that right?


And I'm like, you guys could pile on so many more reports. You could give me like 18 more reports and I'd still get them all done every day. Do you realize how underutilized I am right now. You could literally just have me work from home and I can do all of the reports myself every single day.


Well, that's just like you said like, you know, you're you're comfortable, you don't have to like, you know, like you said like drive in, get read all that other stuff, we're sitting there in your pajamas as we like eating a bowl of cereal, doing what you need to do and we're like, okay, take him out.


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll see what happens.


Uh huh.


Okay.


Yeah, no, I agree with you. Hopefully they right, yeah, right now because you're going to get you know what, you're gonna get everybody that's within, you know, six ft of them, six they touched they touched the door.


I guess it also depends on what happens with Covid too because of Covid stretches on long enough because they keep asking the surveys like are you guys comfortable coming back to work? And my answer is always no, he's downtown is way too busy. I'm not comfortable coming back. So there are 1200 people who work for us. Like if one of them has Covid, we're all fucked. Like. Mhm And then they're going to go ahead and get another 18,000 people sick. Like one bad elevator ride will take out an entire department if not more like so Yeah.


They this everybody, you know just oh, yep. Then if and then if nobody is symptomatic, then you've got those people are walking around spreading it until something, you know? And depending on how you react with it. I mean like I know for example with the kids schools, if they have one person test pause if they shut the school down for two weeks.


Mhm. Yeah.


So you know, depending on how quickly you do that or if you're just like, okay, well they're going to self isolate then you've got more people that have it.


Yeah. Yeah.


Is this the the the massive domino effect in the ass?


Uh huh. It really is. And like we've been really lucky so far because no one because the people who traveled when it first had to quarantine and then we shut down the company basically and we were all working from home. So no one in the company got it yet. But like if they bring us back, it's only a matter of time.


Yeah.


Mhm.


Oh, absolutely. I agree already.


Well I think we hit our 25 minute mark.


Well, it was a pleasure talking to you.


You too.


I hope you get to stay at home.


Thanks. I appreciate that. I hope that your kids are able to go to school successfully and safely.


Mhm. There you have a good night, right?


You do right.


Yeah. Uh huh. Mhm. Yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. You know? Yeah. Mhm. Lot of everyone control Yeah. More right now. Yeah. Okay.


Uh huh.


Hello? Mhm.


Hello there, are you?


Hi. I'm good. Um This is the first time I do anything like that.


Me too.


Right, So we don't have a lot of guideline.


Okay to know.


Wouldn't you think that it's all about That?


Yeah, I was reading over it looks like all we're supposed to just talk for 25 minutes. I'm not sure about what though.


I think that they said that it was open ended, I'm going to start a timer so that we actually do it will have 26 minutes because they said uh it's invalid if it.


25, it's less than 25.


Yeah.


It's invalid.


Yeah. Have you I'm doing it through prolific. Is that what you're doing it through to?


Yes. Uh I found it on Reddit actually, it was on record as an option and uh started checking it out and I was like okay, I can live with this, like it's not bad because I've done other things like this and it's you don't make money.


How did you find walks? Right. Yeah. Mhm.


What, wow.


No, it's not too much about the money. It's a little bit here and there. But I find that these studies more interesting and in some spikes it was so frustrating because I without for a bunch of questions and then they say like we don't qualify, sorry, that's frustrating.


Oh yeah, I had that with swag books. I sat there and I would do surveys and spent like an hour doing a survey and then the last two questions. Oh yeah, I know you don't qualify. Yeah.


So I'd rather have just a little bit and and just uh make sure that I'm qualified from the beginning, I think they're pretty good at about doing now.


Absolutely. Yeah, they've been pretty good so far. I was doing a before I got a prolific, I was doing close captioning on videos and stuff.


Don't ever do it. It is not worth it. Thank you sit there and spend a couple hours captioning the video and then they just take it back to your like, oh no, you need to change this and this and this and this, and then you end up being like $2. So I was like, you know, I'm literally doing this just to spare change for emergency funds and things like that uh prolific has been the best so far at it, as far as making a little bit of side money to have in case of emergencies.


Mhm. Yeah, this was money for sure.


Yeah, Yeah, yeah.


Uh Yeah my income is down to I rent uh spaces and everything is down right, I was I was taking care of an older lady at her house and then her daughter moved in because she didn't have a job so I wasn't necessary anymore and Uh huh.


Oh yeah. It's been pretty rough right now. I've been fortunate enough I've been able to work throughout this entire thing, but it uh it's not worth it. Sometimes there's a lot of recent exposure. Oh yeah. Hopefully all this will be over sometime soon.


I know.


Uh We don't see that. Practice, some type of normal. I don't I don't know if this is gonna be our new normal, but it has not.


I know. Maybe not, we're going to be our new normal forever. I don't know, but I was talking to my sister in line, I said the funny thing is I noticed that some people like I go out walking because I get nervous so I go out walking, some people are totally by themselves like hundreds of feet away from anybody and they have a mask on and then on the other extreme other people are like rubbing against you and they don't have the math gone.


Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Oh yeah, okay, I take it off in the car just to be on the safe side, but I mean if I'm by myself, I don't see a reason to wear it, thanks.


I always keep my math like here and then if I see someone I put it up. But uh just in case. No because it's not just like in the air like some kind of uh science fiction right?


I yeah, I mean it's like I work as a 911 dispatcher so I've uh I've had quite a few people that have come down with and have died from it, so I'm like, you know, there's so much of it being a myth or a hoax or whatever.


Where everybody protected from the scores or whatever.


I'm like, you know, I don't think so because I've seen it firsthand where people have gotten it and died from it, so it's like just wear your mask. It's not that hard. Just put on the mask, that man.


Well another thing about having this big conspiracy is that it's all over the world.


Oh yeah.


Mhm. Like my niece has the grandmother abroad that died.


Right. Yeah. Uh Absolutely.


So how could they being in on it together? You know a lot of money.


And then, you know, it's it's unfortunate too because the hospitals are having to lie about their numbers and that's what's frustrating to is, you know, someone gets in a car accident dies and their coating it as covid related. And that's just because they can't get the supplies they need, they can't get the supplies they need. So they're faking the numbers so they can get the supplies that they need because they don't have them to begin with. I mean as a whole, it kind of shows a failure across the board. Like everybody's kind of messed up across the board on this, nobody was prepared for it. So now when it did happen, were, you know, looking stupid. It.


Well I have a friend who's daughter works for the state department in uh I don't remember what the name of it is that it was about the controls, her her her function with more marketing.


Mm.


Well she saw that department like funded until it only had one employee.


Yeah. Yeah.


So there was it wasn't a big priority for anybody.


No.


I think we have a humorous that that were like advanced or something.


Mhm. Yeah. Yeah.


But we're just we're human so there's no amount of uh technical or advancement that renders us invulnerable to the nature.


Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. They like Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think once we have a vaccine, when that day comes, everyone's like, oh, you know, you don't take the vaccine and they're just gonna mind control you. I'm like that's what I said about the flu shot, like.


Mhm. Oh gosh. I don't know. I've gotten some baby. We're from people my cousin uh an old friend from childhood that I recently got in.


Mhm. Oh.


She got in touch with me and I'm thinking wait a second.


Uh huh.


This is a person that is relatively um educated and uh he sent me something about the vaccine is going to target our R.


Right. Right. Mhm. Yeah.


N. A. Make us into robotic non emotional people that are good workers.


Yeah.


And I'm saying there's so much bad thinking about that. First of all.


Yes. Okay.


Mhm.


We were we've made great advances in DNA but we're not that sophisticated yet that we can do that.


Yeah. And Yeah.


And then we were totaling an emotional, we wouldn't be good workers.


We would be awful workers.


Yeah. I mean if you look at it too, it's uh a lot of people are unemotional at this point, a lot of people are lacking empathy and sympathy in this day and age and that's kind of the people that we have now is all these people that don't care about their fellow man. Like it's all me, me, me, me, me and it's pathetic really to watch all these young people are so worried about themselves instead of trying to do better or people that are younger that are looking at trying to make it a better place for everybody. And you got the genetic uh millennials that are just like, oh, you know, I look out for myself. It's yeah, it's because I've fallen a millennial thing and it's, everyone classifies that group as just selfish and I got two kids that are, you know, I got one that's very much trying to make everything better and the other one's just too, so she doesn't know yet, but I'm like, you know, if everyone just had the same mindset as a 12 year old life would be easy.


I didn't know I had 500 millennial daughter. I don't think he's like that. Mhm. Well, yeah, But I do think that goes across the old stands because I've noticed, II was thinking I mean I'm 57, so I was looking at AARP for example already and what I noticed is that grandparents sometimes are being selfish too.


It doesn't have to be the way it is. But everyone, so me, me, me, me, me and this whole covid thing has really shown that a lot and Yeah. Oh, thank you. What? Oh yeah.


Because what I'm thinking that very much about the future of their grandchildren, they're thinking about themselves first.


Right. Uh huh. Thank you.


So I think that it's the age and it goes across it may be more in one age than the other because it's only natural, for example, teenagers are always going to be Mimi because they have to be because there is a big transition in their life and maybe that's true of older people because they're facing death.


Yeah. Mhm. Oh. Mhm. Yeah.


But I don't see that that anyone generation has a corner on the market of blue hell fit we heard of.


Yeah, absolutely. Like I work for Medicare um years ago I worked for Medicare to call center and then I worked for the health insurance marketplace as well. And uh, one thing I noticed is you had a lot of elderly people that were just, you know, their biggest concern was make sure their medical bills are paid and that was their big thing. They wanted to make sure their bills were paid. And then when I go into the marketplace side of it, I'd have people calling, younger people calling. And I had a woman called me up one time and she was, you know, we were going through the whole process. And of course, the first start was frustrating and we're going through the whole process. And then at the end of it, I'm like, you know, she was only getting the wrong person. So I was like, you know, don't do you need an insurance for yourself? And she was like, she was gonna be real with you, I have cancer. I only got a couple of months to live. I'm just doing this to make sure my kids are taken care of when I'm gone. And I was like, you know, that's very unselfish, like that's literally woman's dying and that's what she's worried about. But then you have some of these people that will be the same age that or you know, I can't go get my hair done, I can't get my nails done and all this stuff. And it's like, you know, people in this world have bigger problems than you right now, like your hair and your nails aren't the big problem. So it's uh oh sure I went about a razor at this point, I got a for father's Day, the wife and kids got me a razor and I just started cutting myself because I was like, it's not it's not worth it doing what I do for a living to go and put somebody else in risk of getting a disease or putting myself at risk getting and giving it to the whole police department or all the firefighters and I was like I just start cutting myself, I haven't done a good job yet but I'm getting there, I'm hoping.


I haven't done my hair at all, but it doesn't matter. It's so little. Yeah, well they're they're priorities obviously. Uh I don't know, I guess this is a test for all of us, but I know that there are people that are being uh I'm lucky.


Okay, it must be nice to. Yeah. Absolutely.


I mean I have enough and I have a good emergency fund that I've kept.


Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Mhm.


Mhm.


Yeah, that's out right.


But I I see that some people have been pushed to the edge because even in this suburban, I live in a suburban middle class kind of tract house and uh I saw two homeless people.


Oh yeah, there mm let me wait.


I saw one girl with a giant um like uh roly roly um suitcase, that was everything she had.


Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. Okay. I don't Yeah.


And I saw in the park that I go part uh walk by that it's like a bike high park.


Yeah. God. Uh huh.


I saw by sleeping with all the stuff around them.


Yeah. Yeah.


So I'm thinking, wow.


Four.


I guess they're looking for security. They don't want to go to the city where they get more in the city, but they're also harassed more.


Yeah. Absolutely. Like the I know around me There was two homeless shelters ever opened and right before all this started, there was a homeless shelter for men in a homeless shelter for women and the city shut them both down so they didn't have the funding for anymore and shot them both down and then you turn around and all this happened and everybody's getting kicked out. Everyone's um suddenly doesn't have some sort of with, and it's it's really sad to see it. I mean it's it uh it kind of opened my eyes here recently, especially because I'm looking like, you know, I had an emergency fund set up, but then with the costs, everything, everything is going up in price because of all the everything that's going on. So I'm like, you know, I'm having a dip in an emergency fund to make ends meet now because I think it's time to find another profession and find someone higher paying because I'm in there, I'm in there about 42 plus hours a week, just struggling to make ends meet. So I'm like, you know what? It's noble, it's a good cause. But I got a family to take care of bills today, I gotta got food to put on the table and things.


Yeah, well our focus is land on it in a certain way.


So I'm like, it's even just little things like that. It's like I told my boss says I'm like, you know, you can't make a living like this. Like I got the paperwork for my retirement And I will be 75 years old, bringing home $1,000 a month if I stay where I'm at right now. I was like, there's no way I was like thanks for the opportunity, I'm gonna start looking just so you know, so you might want to go ahead and get ready replacement. I mean even in uh even in public safety looking at like that, you know, it's everybody is defund the police and all cops are bastards and all that stuff. But then who do you call when you have problems and that? It's uh it's such a strange society we live in now. It's such a Yeah.


It depends on what we're exposed to. Everything happened, good, bad, ugly everything at once. But it's what is being shown to us and what is being shown to us all the time.


Yeah. Right.


It's causing us to be afraid of everything and and that was true of the right enough the left and of everybody there just making us afraid.


Mhm. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think uh like with the next election I've already said you know it doesn't matter who wins this next election, it really doesn't you guys whether trump wins or whether biden wins Either way, it's the person that comes after that that has to clean up the mess that's going to be the one that matters. Is it like right now the nation's torn? Everyone's divided. You got the you got the the internal civil war kind of deal going on right now and uh whoever wins, it's not gonna matter either way, it's still going to be a problem because we don't have I don't see either one of them the uniting the nation. We need somebody who's gonna step up and take the role and say look were torn, were broken, we need to be put back together and whoever.


Well, I think most of us probably look at both extremes and find something we agree with here and something we agree.


Oh, oh, okay.


There is just a different way of looking at things.


Yeah, I gotta do, Yeah.


But nobody is bringing people together that way.


It's all the my way or no way. Kind of mentality right now, it's really unfortunate. It really is. And uh it kind of goes back to the whole selfishness thing, you know, like there's no compromise, it's my way or no way. I want what I want and you can't have what you want and that's all there is to it. And it's a such a weird world.


It's a fear response because they found that people are more when people get beautiful they become more extreme and whatever mentality they have whether they are a traditionalist or they are like cutting edge by person that wants to change things.


Yeah. Oh, all right. Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. What? Yeah. Yeah.


Uh They become more of that if they're afraid so. I don't know.


Yeah. No.


I know that that that that the media outlets they're looking at the bottom line all the time but they're really irresponsible by by being so uh not balanced.


Mhm. I Oh, yeah.


And they went in the way they handle things because I can put on black foods and I can put on CNN and after a while I get sick of both of them.


Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Absolutely.


There's it's like cartoonish.


Yeah.


Either somebody is like an evil person on this side or somebody with an evil person on that side.


Exhale. Yeah. Okay.


Um They're more like, and I have I have family abroad and it's the same way and I said, hey wait a second, why not be uh why not saying okay this politician or this public person is corrupt?


What? Okay. Right.


They took a bribe or whatever that's understandable. No, they have to say they think babies for breakfast, that's not believable, That frightens me.


Yeah. Mhm. Absolutely. That's like the this whole election. Like I, you know, honestly, I don't know either. Science politics, That's all I've heard, is. one sniffs, one sniffs little girl's hair and the other one is unaltered. So I'm like, okay, so what is their viewpoints? Like, what are they gonna do? Like, the health care system, I guess I work from there. Um Yes.


That's right. It's because everything is so expensive.


Oh yeah. Like, I've watched the elderly people and their that are on Medicare going bankrupt and trying to figure out how they're going to pay for their medications. And I'm like, like I watched the presidential debates and when it comes down to healthcare, all I've heard so far is, well, I have a plan. What is it like, what is the plan? Like? I also tells me about the whole Medicare for all things Medicare already has, like me or you went to the hospital and we got a got a Standard procedure, $500 would be charged with us. Medicare would get that same bill, same procedure and say, no, you can only take a $25 payment for that and that's it. And that's all you're responsible for. That's all I'm responsible for is $25. But the way the health care system works now is me and you get a bill directly, $500. You're responsible for the full 500. If you just took those numbers that Medicare already has for every procedure that's possible and held the insurance companies accountable for only charging those numbers. That could save a lot of people a lot of money like I got on both sides that are diabetics, I got elderly people on both sides and I've watched this struggle and uh even now like I work for the, I work for the county and are in charge is garbage.


Uh huh.


And I'm like, you know, if there was some standard and some uniformity across the board and all you can charge me is what is acceptable across the board, then we'll be fine. But you got insurance, you got the hospitals overcharge you and me $7,000 for going in there and getting a shot. And uh they get away with it, they get away with it and they sent us a $7,000 but we're stuck with $7,000. But They they don't have a '00 yeah.


Yeah. I'm a little scared because I had an incident where I got a couple of weeks ago food poisoning and uh I had to go in, First of all, I was scared to get covid when I was in the hospital.


Yeah. Oh yeah.


And then second of all, they didn't take my insurance, so I don't know what's going to happen.


Yeah. Yeah.


I haven't had a bill yet, but I'm thinking it's going to take some of my emergency fund away, you know?


Okay. Oh yeah. And say we shouldn't have to live like that. That is not how we should have to live like um it just, it doesn't make any sense to me, especially as far as insurance, we should not have to live in fear of whether we're going to get our medication our next meal or rent.


Well and you don't know more than you. I'm not, but I remember talking to a person in the office when I was getting my son's braces done and she was saying, well I called the insurance company over and over again because depending on who I get, I get a different uh response.


Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.


So I'm saying what, it's so arbitrary.


Oh yeah. That's like my oldest, she needed braces and I went to the dental school And they were like you know if you go to an orthodontist it's gonna cost you about 20, out of pocket? I'm like yeah no that's ridiculous.


Yeah, my sister and she hasn't gone to the dinner for a long time and uh they and my brother and she had told somebody that they had plans for and then now her mouth moves major work.


Like she's a kid, she needs braces, they're like well we'll do it, you know we'll do it here if you want and a student will do it And it will be about 3000 out of pocket that you have to pay up front. I'm like what makes you think I got three grand just sitting on the side that I can be like You go take my $3,000 have a nice day. So I'm like that's part of what I'm doing prolific is to try to save that extra money for emergencies, like literally two days ago, my dishwasher just completely crapped out on me. So I was like alright cashed out and went and got that thing girl. But then that puts me back because I'm like I wasn't expecting that makes sense to come out. That was money being saved for something else. But it's uh it's always something it okay. Oh yeah. I mean it's it's insane. Like a couple of years ago I had a abscessed wisdom suits and uh they were like, oh you know, needs to be removed. So I'm like all right, cool. Take it like it's right there, just take it. And I went to the clinic, they were like, well no that's outside of our realm. And they were like negotiate your search. So in the meantime, apparently got super infected and uh they put me on all kinds of medications and everything and they were like all right, come back and we'll take it out. I wasn't in that doctor's office for maybe 10 minutes and walked out with the $1300 bill. I was just like, I was like, this is insane.


Yeah.


That was before I started working for Medicare. I was like, even then I was like, you know, something's not right here. I was like, I wasn't this guy just made like $7800 an hour For me to sit in there for 10 minutes him come in, take the tooth. And then that was then that was the end of a $1,300 gone. Like as soon as I uh as soon as I got my employer and saw they offered a dental insurance, I was like, I'll take it, Give me all the dental 100% whatever they got is now my wife, she's on my dental and she has needed major dental every single year. You know like the dental insurance help. I'm still coming out of pocket a lot interest is one of those things where if you don't take care of it now it's gonna be more later and they get the money that's for sure.


Yeah. Yeah they do. I don't know. Green uh did you get, did you do a survey in which they were saying like uh well this is how much a doctor all the all the time that he spent in his getting his degree and all the things that he has to do.


Yeah. What? Yeah.


So you know this is a salary and then the salary of a technician and the things that they had to do to get that and whatever and it seemed reasonable, right?


Well. Yeah. Yeah.


But when you look at the whole of society it doesn't seem reasonable.


Yeah. Yeah. Uh huh.


There is something all that are making way too much.