The Most Annoying Person In Your Office & Do You Have Time 'Time Affluence'?

0:03 Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud. It's what we've been actually talking about on Friday the 20, oh I can't read that, 5th?

0:11 25th.

0:11 Yeah. Of September. I don't know why. Suddenly my vision on my script, I don't ever know what day it is. So let's try that again. It's Friday the 25th of September and I'm Holly Wainwright.

0:23 I am Jessie Stephens.

0:24 And I am Keisha Pettit.

0:26 I've always said Keisha Pettit.

0:28 I know, me too.

0:29 Oh, I usually get petite.

0:30 Yes.

0:30 I don't know if petite is the... Petite feels kind of cute and I like that. Petite sounds a bit like... Petite.

0:36 Sounds a bit like it couldn't be broadcast at a time.

0:39 Between three and five.

0:41 Our M is poorly today. So Keisha, who is our new EP and who you might have heard on subscriber episodes, is jumping in the M chair. And, yeah, I've got some questions for you in a minute.

0:52 Oh, I've got a big seat to fill. Sorry, big boots to fill.

0:57 What is the phrase?

0:58 Yes.

0:59 A seat to fill.

1:01 Who knows?

1:02 It's Friday. Here's what's made our agenda for today.

1:06 Could time affluence make you feel more rich? Is free time a status symbol now?

1:12 And things men universally like. We would never generalise on this show, not intergender stereotypes, but we need to talk about how men love aeroplanes, they like throwing rocks into large bodies of water and they like doing a little knock on the wall to check its structural integrity when they walk into a room.

1:30 And we have a documentary, a kitchen gabbit. This is really going well. This Friday's show is really going well. We have a documentary, a kitchen gadget, and the best beauty thing I've bought in ages. That's our Friday recommendations. But first, hey, Keisha, welcome to Out Loud officially because you haven't been on the main show yet, right? And the Outlouders are getting to hear you for the first time. Now, some of them will know you because you came to us from Life Uncut and you worked in radio for a long time before that. So some of them will know your voice and they'll be like, yay, quiche, quiche.

2:11 Quiche sounds, is that what we call you?

2:12 Quiche petite is fine. I've definitely been called worse.

2:17 This is week three or week four of Mamma Mia.

2:20 Yeah, week three, day 16. Day 16 of Mamma Mia.

2:25 I want to know what it's like, if you have any feedback for us, about starting in this new place.

2:32 Maybe that should have happened not on a microphone. But yes, tell everyone how you're going.

2:37 Last week I spoke with Lee Campbell from YouBeauty and she said, yeah, starting here is kind of like, it's like drinking from a fire hydrant, isn't it? And I was like, yes.

2:45 And I think that that is a perfect descriptor, but in every good way. Like it's been really, it's been very intense in a positive way.

2:53 And I just think.

2:54 This team, they're so brilliant and everyone is very creative and very efficient.

2:59 Is it weird because you came from Life Uncut, brilliant, brilliant podcast, and you worked really closely with the hosts. This is like you're coming into a big office. Like have you worked in an office for a while?

3:12 Yeah. I worked in radio, like in a radio office. So it was kind of officer Jason, but the systems, and that was kind of the thing that I was a little bit, it might sound a little silly, but the thing I was a little bit anxious about was having to learn new processes.

3:29 I don't have the type of brain that is particularly good with admin and.

3:33 And doing things in like a structured way is not something that comes naturally to me.

3:37 And so when I.

3:37 Started here, The phrase Slack attack. So Slack is the messaging platform that we use here at Mamma Mia.

3:45 I've never used it before. Previously, I'd used WhatsApp, iMessage.

3:49 Instagram, and Good Hope, you know, like just the hope that the message would somehow get through.

3:53 And so Slack.

3:54 I really did experience like the Slack attack is what everyone refers to it as.

4:00 There are like a million channels just to paint a picture. We have this system called Slack. I'm sure lots of people who work in offices who are listening have some kind of equivalent system or Slack itself. And there are a million channels and you will get pinged all the time because if someone puts your name in there, you get a little ping. And I know you're feeling this because one of the stories that you put in our Story Ideas channel was about the most annoying co-workers. And they are called office pingas. Now, if like me, you're Gen X and pingas means something different.

4:31 I feel like that's universal across the generation.

4:33 Put that out of your mind.

4:36 They would also be annoying.

4:37 They would also be annoying, it's true.

4:39 People popping pingers at.

4:40 Work, also annoying, but that's not what we're specifically talking about.

4:43 The office pinger is in a survey in the UK of 2,000 workers, they all said the most annoying person in the office is the person who sits right across from you but never says a word and they just message you over the chat all the time. Is that what you experienced, Keisha?

5:00 So when I put this in, the content group has like a suggestion of something we could talk about.

5:04 I didn't at Jessie Stevens, but I think I could have.

5:07 It's like that's really passive aggressive. I'm going to put in a complaint against Keisha.

5:11 For being a bitch today. That's 100% me. I am so a psych person. And here's my defence, right? I remember reading this thing years ago about how every time if someone Darla Keisha here is in the middle of something and she's got her head in deep work. if I go and tap her on the shoulder and interrupt her, then it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds for her to get back to exactly where she was.

5:37 So my idea is that if I send an email, if I do it, if I send a text, if I do something like that, then you can choose to look at that when you're not, like, deep in thought.

5:48 This is bullshit. I hate people like you.

5:52 How often are we really deep in thought?

5:54 Flat pinging can also be very distracting.

5:57 Yes, it can.

5:58 And the thing that people who were in this survey, they said that often people don't, they feel uncomfortable talking. So they'll be like, hey, have you got that thing? When they could turn around and say, hey, have you got that thing? And that's part of what's eroding our communication skills. Jessie Stevens.

6:14 Do you agree with the survey?

6:16 Yeah, I personally, and you know this because we've worked together for years, I prefer to talk in real life. I'd rather be like, hey, there's a thing with this thing. Can we talk about it? Whereas I have worked with lots of, and I'm going to generationally generalize, younger people who they hate talking, so they'd rather we all just talked in Slack. But I find something very, and obviously I use Slack all the time, but I find something really spooky about a quiet office where everybody is talking on Slack. And is that what you're finding?

6:48 Yeah.

6:49 Yes, a little bit here and there.

6:51 I think it's more so I'm trying to unravel this within my own brain.

6:55 I'm like, why do I prefer Slack? talking in person.

6:58 It is a little bit selfish that I find it just easier to go and talk to someone rather than typing and trying to explain myself. Like I think you can get a lot more of a vibe with someone when you just go and have a chat.

7:08 It can be more efficient.

7:10 I think you've, I see the point.

7:12 I also like that it's sometimes not on record.

7:14 So true.

7:16 And maybe that indicates my level of professionalism that does need to increase. But yeah, I do kind of like that it's Well, that's your interpretation of the conversation. Yeah.

7:28 You can't necessarily go back.

7:29 I think I like that.

7:31 I feel as though I agree that there is something dystopian about it and I like the idea of the human because as well you can pick up on tone and cues and all that kind of stuff. But I did away last night and while I was doing away, I texted Luca who was in the other room a Just the next point in the conversation we were having.

7:47 I was like, I could just wait to go and tell him, but I'll just, and another thing.

7:52 You're a home pinger too.

7:53 I'm a home pinger.

7:54 Oh, my God, she can't stop pinging. She's such a pinger.

7:59 What are some things men universally like? This question has resurfaced online after author and illustrator Aubrey Hirsch crowdsourced some responses for this comic that she was making and said, As I said, we wouldn't gender stereotype, you know, men and women. There are more differences within men than between men and women. We absolutely agree with that. However, why is it that every man will look up at a plane and speculate about the model of that plane, right?

8:30 They love, if you go, I'm going to look, I know that there are like, of course, there are lots of female pilots, but if you were to drive past the airport and look at who's pulled up there in a car, and is looking at the planes and just kind of thinking to themselves, disproportionately men.

8:45 Wasn't there also.

8:46 Like a study, and I can't quote the exact thing, but wasn't there something about they asked men and women who were not pilots and had never done any type of aviation in school, what do you think your chances would be if you had to land a plane? Do you think you'd be able to do it?

9:00 And there was like.

9:01 Very few percentage of women who said yes. And there was more than 50% of men said that they reckon they could land a plane.

9:08 Absolutely.

9:09 That's something men like is speculating that they could do a thing, do a thing that they could take down a bear.

9:16 Yep.

9:17 Yep. Beat a female athlete like I could beat Serena Williams. That's something men think.

9:21 Okay.

9:22 I'm going to share some of the answers and then I'd love to hear your responses.

9:26 Okay.

9:27 So this is when she crowdsourced. These are the things that came up. Throwing large rocks into bodies of water from great heights.

9:33 Skimming also.

9:35 Yes.

9:36 The man in my life loves a skim. If they're near a river, it's immediately like we're looking for skimming rocks.

9:41 And how many we can do and we're going to count them as competition.

9:43 I'm very bad at that. I try.

9:45 I actually like that activity.

9:47 Mindful.

9:47 Yeah.

9:49 If a man is walking down the street and there's a sign that's hanging a bit low, he will jump and try and touch it.

9:54 He can't not.

9:56 Memorising favourite lines from their favourite movies if they can do an accent even better, specifically Millennials and Borat.

10:04 Oh, and Anchorman.

10:05 Anchorman. I haven't even seen Anchorman, but I feel like I have because everyone quotes it so much.

10:10 Absolutely.

10:12 Doing when they get tongs out of the top drawer or they're barbecuing and doing the little click, click, click.

10:16 Women don't do that. I don't know why.

10:18 I also feel like it's not even just when it comes out of the drawer. It's also before they turn any sausage or steak.

10:22 Yeah, like it's like a clack, clack, just checking it's working.

10:24 Yeah, there's a continuous confirmation that the tongs are still tonguing.

10:30 All men enjoy sitting down to tie their shoes.

10:35 Women will do it. I've never thought about that.

10:37 Standing on one leg, they'll like bend over. Men will find a seat and take their sweet time. Entering a friend's house for the first time and knocking on the walls to know which ones are structural and then saying something about structure and knock, knock, and they're listening for something. Ladies, please share your insights. Am I making too many generalisations?

10:59 Have I offended all our male listeners?

11:00 What do you think? Yes, you have.

11:02 Oh.

11:03 And all the women who.

11:04 Like knocking on walls. She's a big renovator. She loves that stuff.

11:07 Yeah, I do love a bit of DIY.

11:08 And I was thinking when we were going to inspections for houses, you know, when we were looking to buy, and I was the knocker because I want to know where the studs are. Like I want to know where I could hang a picture that weighed more than two kilos. So you're telling me that through a knock you can tell where the studs are?

11:24 Of course you can.

11:24 Oh, shut up, Holly.

11:27 You're a renovator. Don't pretend like you know what you're doing.

11:31 You can tell.

11:32 You're like, that knock sounds hollow, that knock sounds serious.

11:35 Yeah.

11:36 The one thing that I have absolutely no idea about is what walls or beams are load-bearing and which ones are not.

11:43 So which ones are structural and which ones could you not remove?

11:45 Okay. See, you know what I'm like, Jessie? I like co-ed world, right? So I don't approve of this. I don't approve of this business. Some women like throwing rocks in the water. But it is true that the men in my life like novelty shirts and Star Wars, like almost universally. Brent actually has a draw of novelty shirts, which they come out for like boys' weekend.

12:06 Special occasions.

12:09 We're all going to Fiji. A woman would never.

12:12 Every single Father's Day, Dad's birthday, we get him a novelty shirt with all the kids' faces on them and it's like, hi, I'm Pop or something.

12:20 Oh, my God.

12:21 Luca's hi, hungry, I'm Dad. He's wearing that nonstop.

12:26 No, we don't like that. Barbie nailed this. The movie Barbie nailed this when they had that part in it where it was when the men were taking over the world and they were like, universally singing at women with their guitars. And I don't know any men who didn't watch that and go, oh my God, yes. And also who are always telling people to watch The Godfather. I can't believe you haven't seen The Godfather. Every man of my generation, that is what they say all the time.

12:52 And they watched that movie and they all went, shit, we're all the same.

12:56 Women don't like it when I serenade them with my guitar.

12:59 And my four-chord Wonderwall.

13:01 Very powerful. In my experience, men also like Facebook a lot. You know, we like to pretend that social media is a female thing, but men of a certain age, they freaking love Facebook. They love it. The biggest trolls in those community groups, they're always dudes. They really are. That's so true.

13:15 Also with the profile picture taken from an angle with six chins. You know, like it's that angle underneath the chin looking upwards and they're never smiling. No.

13:24 So when did you take that?

13:25 You took it when Facebook prompted you for a picture and you took it in the moment, which is a bold decision.

13:30 It's something a woman would never do.

13:31 No, my God. In fact, if you look at dating apps full stop, particularly older men who are not selfie natives, the pictures are shot. They're in the bathroom and they just hold up their phone and go, snap, that'll do. The ladies will go wild for that. And it's like, whereas we are like, I've got my hair done, I've got 14 angles. And again, I'm generalising, but I see so much of that, particularly in older dudes.

13:53 Yeah.

13:54 One of my favorite things about this, though, is we were having a conversation about it in our meeting today. And our big content boss, Ruth, said that there had been a study done once, which put a man in a room with an inanimate object, like anything, like a doorknob or an ashtray or whatever, like a book. And after a period of time, that man would put that thing in his head. Now, I want to know if we think that's an accurate, because apparently scientifically it is.

14:20 What would a woman do? Because my pick for that would be sniff it. You'd sniff? Pick it up and sniff it. What would you do with the inanimate object? What do you think women universally do with inanimate objects in rooms?

14:34 I pick it up and see if there's any words on it. Like, you know, when you're in the shower and you've got like a conditioner bottle and you're a bit bored and you get it up and how many times I've read where the address is of where it's made.

14:43 Do you know what I mean?

14:44 You used to do that with air freshener before phones on the toilet.

14:47 Yeah, on the toilet, exactly.

14:48 And you kind of look around and you're like, oh, let's read the back of this sorbent. like plastic, you know, like what, how do I use toilet paper?

14:57 Like that kind of thing. Rinse, repeat. I think I'm quite a tactile person. So mine's about texture. So if the texture of the object looked a certain way, I think that I would be feeling for.

15:09 Texture, but I'm definitely not putting it on my head.

15:10 I wonder why it's just suddenly like.

15:14 Because there's also... There's a.

15:17 Whole thing in the Oasis. I watched the Oasis documentary. There's a whole thing in that about how Liam Gallagher does that. He puts things on his head on stage. And his brother, not because he did it on the tour and he'd get his tambourine at the end and put it on his head. And Noel Gallagher says, if I tried to do that, I would look like a complete * * * *. But somehow my brother gets away with it and he looks cool. So that is every man. They're just like, I look cool.

15:41 Because another one that came up was men like wearing caps indoors.

15:46 Yes.

15:47 A woman will often either not wear a hat or just like take it off indoors, but a man always thinks his hair looks good under a cap.

15:54 I have particular experience with this one specifically.

15:58 He reckons that, you know, when their hair gets that little bit longer and you get the kind of fringy bits, he reckons it keeps it out of his eyes.

16:05 Yes, yes, exactly.

16:06 I think he's just boasting that he can still grow hair back.

16:09 Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

16:11 He's approaching 40 and the hairline is still holding on.

16:14 Yes. And look, I know that this sounds like generalisations, but I was just reading last night, there was something in the Sunday Times. about how within hours, I've just done this study on little boys and little girls, and they said within hours, they've noticed some differences. So that little boys will gravitate towards objects. They did this very complex study and little girls are more on average social.

16:38 So faces, that kind of stuff.

16:39 And I have noticed it with having a girl and a boy, like twins of exactly the same age, reared the same. And I noticed that Harry, his interest in birds, his interest in trees, whereas Margot's more faith. And so that's why I was kind of interested in some of these.

16:55 I want one thing to challenge that, right? you're looking at your twins and you are putting all their differences down to their gender, right? Like not to be a wanker about it, but it's kind of true is that if you've got boy, girl, what if you had two girl twins and one of them like looking at birds and one of them like looking at you, would you be like, you know what I mean? So we do fall into a trap of that. I think with boy girls where we go like, that's a boy thing and that's a girl thing.

17:20 If we do that in 90% of cases, then 85% of the time, like it's not, it's not it.

17:26 Like I agree with you.

17:27 But I think that there are some ways in which there's slightly different wiring.

17:33 As you say, there are lots of girls who like birds, bird watching, big among women.

17:37 But like.

17:41 Sorry. We digress.

17:44 But I think it is interesting if you also retrofit that and you think about the conditioning that we put onto boys and onto little girls. Like this is really prevalent in ADHD diagnosis where girls it is much more common for young boys to be diagnosed than what it is for girls because a lot of these symptoms of ADHD for girls turn inwards.

18:02 Like it's the inattention, it's the internal chaos rather than external.

18:08 And I mean, genetically, we don't know if that's because of some genetic predisposition. It is, in my opinion, quite likely to be that actually little girls are told to be polite.

18:18 To be quiet, to sit down, to stay still.

18:21 And so I do actually wonder if it's, do they have a preference for the birds or do we speak slightly differently to little girls and little boys?

18:30 And that's what.

18:31 So whether it's genetic or social, why are men always in the middle of a golf swing?

18:37 Why do men wake up and need to clear every orifice.

18:42 Of their body, like the gargle? It's always in the bathroom. Why do you do it in the room that echoes?

18:48 They love a really loud sneeze.

18:50 That's got the whole household.

18:52 When I was just staying with my mum, they live in a flat and the man next door sneezed so loud all the time. And my mum would be like, every time he did it, she'd remark on it like, oh, there he goes again, Bob next door with his big sneezing. And I was like, a lot of men sneeze loudly, mum. And she was like, not like Bob, they don't. I think they do.

19:10 What is it about predicting when the rain will be here? So I was on a walk the other day. I saw a cloud and I went, three, two, one, text.

19:16 Message from Luca.

19:17 The rain's coming. It's going to be here by four. Why are you obsessed with the rain?

19:21 Like I can see clouds too.

19:23 I love it.

19:24 It's weeing outdoors, being asked for directions. And another one that I really liked was throwing keys. they can't hand you keys, they have to throw them at you.

19:32 Oh, I see.

19:33 Have you ever had a woman throw keys at you?

19:35 No. I would find that very aggressive. Very aggressive indeed.

19:40 See our social conditioning. Outlouders, in a moment, what makes you think that someone is rich? There's a new way to evaluate it and it has nothing to do with money.

19:52 Would you rather have more money or more time?

19:55 Both.

19:55 I was saying that wasn't the option.

19:59 Sorry.

19:59 Time.

19:59 See.

20:00 I have recently stumbled upon a new term and I find it really interesting. It's called time affluence. There's a psychologist and professor named Cassie McGillner-Holmes. She's from UCLA and she describes time affluence as feeling confident that you are able to accomplish everything you want to do.

20:15 So it's more a feeling of control rather than an actual number of hours.

20:21 But it's not necessarily the case that abundance of time equals more happiness. So she found what I refer to as the Goldilocks zone. So anyone with under two hours a day of free time, not great. But between two and five hours of free time per day was apparently this Goldilocks sweet spot. And anything more than five hours was not equivalent to having more happiness. There's a similar thing when we talk about money, where basically if you are earning up to $ 133, 000, and I've converted that to AUD per year, your happiness will increase as you get up to that number. And then apparently it peaks. And anything above that, you're not going to be any more happy, which I will just put my hand up and say

21:08 that I was absolutely not a master study and I would have been an outlier. So there is an interesting sub stack also written by a man named Ben Laforte.

21:19 And he said that the point of money is to buy more time.

21:23 It also said that people find it easy to trade time for money.

21:26 So like a job. But we struggle in the other direction. So we struggle to trade money for time.

21:33 So I guess what I'm asking is whether the new status symbol is not a designer bag, it's not kind of what you might look like or a boat that you own.

21:42 Is it having as much free time as you want?

21:45 Yes, 100%. Most women I know will say there aren't enough hours in the day. That's one of the most common things they would say. And what they mean by that is there aren't any hours in the day that are for me. So if most of the women I know who say that are working and maybe have kids, not all, but maybe would have kids, they feel like every hour of their day is taken doing something that they would not necessarily choose to be doing. And again, massive generalization. Of course, they would choose to be hanging out with their kids.

22:16 I know what you mean.

22:17 Seeing if they're looking at birds or not. They would like that. But, you know, they're caretaking. They're doing jobs. They're making sure everybody eats, sleeps, blah, blah, blah. They're looking after themselves. A lot of people, I mean, this was an American study in the first place, would be working more than one job. So plenty of moms I know.

22:35 And they don't have any time for them. And so you try and find it and sometimes you try and steal it by what if I wake up at five and then maybe I could do some exercise before everybody else gets up or maybe if I stay up till 11 or 12 and then it's like a time crunch and I think that obviously that's an era in your life but the idea of having any autonomy over your time and being able to choose what to do with it I think is an immense privilege and that's why it's got such status, right?

23:07 And I think that Money gives you time affluence.

23:10 Exactly.

23:11 That's the, like there's such privilege in having the time affluence because if you're someone who, I mean, what's happening in Australia right now with the cost of living, with rental prices, with what your groceries cost, with your wage not going up at the same level means that there are so many people who are working every hour they can possibly work and still they're not getting ahead. So it's interesting what you said, Holly, about they feel like they don't have time for themselves. I get into bed at night and I think I didn't have enough time today even for everyone else. Like I feel like, oh, okay, and today I let down blah. Today I wasn't enough for this person. So the point about time affluence too

23:59 is that it gives you the opportunity to be the parent you want to be, to be the friend you want to be, to kind of look after your health in the way you would want to, to, I don't know, be.

24:12 Part of a community.

24:14 And when your time is crunched, all of those, I think you can feel like you're just kind of failing everyone. And so if you had to choose, and I know a lot of women do this, they could like... yes, there's a cost of living thing, but you would go, I'd rather work less days for less money.

24:31 Like that's the equation that I would probably lean to.

24:33 And that is exactly that. That's you buying time and sacrificing other things, which is why I've said for years that like my big ambition is Like the goal I would love is to have autonomy over my time. So I totally relate to it being like something that you aspire to.

24:51 But then isn't it funny because I look back on the times of my life where I've had unlimited time. So, for example, when I was at uni and I was on holidays, I mean I still worked and, you know, had a job or whatever, but I had more time than I expected.

25:03 So unhappy.

25:03 Yeah.

25:04 So it isn't just that more time equals more. I think that's what I found so interesting about this finding was that there is a sweet spot. It's that you feel like you have just enough time to fit in the things you want to do. If you feel like you have too much time, suffocating in a different way.

25:20 Definitely.

25:21 But I think autonomy over time, people always hear that and think what I'm saying is I don't want to work. It's not that. It's about being in charge of my time. So I work when I want to work. If the sun's shining on a Wednesday morning, I can take a kid to the beach or go for a run or whatever and do my work later.

25:38 And that is such a privilege.

25:39 It's the autonomy over your time that I aspire to. And I think that has become a real status symbol for people to be able to go, I work on my own schedule. You know what I mean?

25:49 I'm curious about the part I read about how some people struggle to essentially outsource or trade jobs. money for time and I'm experiencing this right now being in a new job and I'm in the office four days a week and I have one day a week at home and I hope this isn't too personal and it's also an immense privilege that this is even a factored thing in my life and I had previously not spent that amount of time in an office and my partner at the moment he he's a doctor and he's studying to uh for an exam and we spoke about whether we might want to get a cleaner And there was something in me that just felt it was so indulgent and it was so ridiculous that I couldn't handle the load or I was, you know.

26:38 Having to outsource that.

26:39 How can we do it?

26:40 I also grew up in a way where, like, we were quite financially responsible. And I don't know if that's the conditioning of, like, no, you don't need to spend money on that.

26:47 You can just.

26:48 go to sleep half an hour later each night, you know, and I think I'm wrestling with.

26:52 So the point being you could buy yourself.

26:55 Yes.

26:56 Well, you both could like buy yourself the time back by getting someone else to clean the house. And is your time better spent doing other things?

27:04 Yeah.

27:04 So those are the kind of swaps you're doing in your head.

27:08 Yeah, but I feel guilty about it.

27:09 You know how you said that you feel guilty or I think it was guilty. You were describing when you go to bed and you feel as though you haven't even had enough time for everyone else. Yeah.

27:17 And that's the thing.

27:18 It's like, why can't we like look at time at just as finite as money?

27:24 Yeah.

27:25 As like, this is something that I have to protect in the same way that I have to protect my money. And yet like you wouldn't give it away willy nilly, but time you do all the time.

27:34 Like you do constantly. It's like.

27:35 Well also, yeah, because what's our definition of free time? I was just thinking about that then, right? Is that If you, and I don't, this isn't gendered. I know this whole show is beginning to sound a bit gendered, but it's like, wait, someone think of the men. But my thing is like, if you ask a woman, does she have free time in an ordinary day? And again, I'm generalizing because I'm thinking maybe about parents or whatever.

27:57 They might say no, because there's always something that needs to be done, right? Yes. And often men can be better at going, it's Saturday afternoon, I'm going to spend an hour lying on the couch watching Star Wars.

28:09 Yes.

28:09 Slash movie, slash reading a book.

28:11 In my novelty shirt.

28:12 In my novelty shirt.

28:13 I'm going to throw a rock in a pond.

28:14 Absolutely. And personally, I'm like, yes, you should. You're allowed to rest. Like rest is a valid thing, right?

28:20 Yes.

28:21 But if I allow myself to lie down and read a book, which is to me much more desirable than a handbag or a diamond necklace or whatever, like imagine the time to just lie around and read a book for an hour or so. I am thinking of all the other things I should be doing. So free time, what does it mean? Like that nothing needs doing? Because even when I have time to myself, like... Because of my work life, I often stay in the city a couple of nights a week and I might have an evening to myself, which is enormously luxurious. But there's always work that needs doing. I will not be lying around like filing my nails and watching telly. I'll be going, oh, I've got to write that thing and do that thing

28:58 and do that thing and answer my emails.

28:59 So it's like we think that time is something that you have to earn, but we can never work hard enough to properly earn it.

29:05 Because I was just.

29:07 You're just giving me a light bulb.

29:08 Yeah.

29:08 Because I was just reading that about less than two hours a day of free time.

29:13 And I was like, you get anywhere.

29:15 Near two hours a week.

29:16 Yeah, exactly.

29:16 Who's doing that?

29:19 The minute that I get up to the minute I go to sleep is like accounted for by someone or something.

29:24 I know, but the thing that's interesting about that, Jessie, is that when you think about it, that's your reality for the past three to four years. And do you now, and again, I don't want this to be like a parent, non-parent thing, but do you now look at your life but until four years ago and go what was I doing with all my time do you really think that because Keisha doesn't have kids and she also feels like she doesn't have any time I think that we there's lots of young women we work with who don't have kids who'd be like I feel so busy and you know like.

29:50 And I did I did feel it I I filled it to the brim with with other things but But, and maybe I didn't like the feeling of getting up on a Saturday and I like that structure. And in fact, that's something I've liked about this stage is that I always have somewhere to be.

30:02 I think that there's something a bit freeing in that.

30:04 But the thing I kept thinking when I was reading this was, okay, let's say we waved a magic wand and they said, everyone gets one hour of free time a day.

30:14 How would you spend it?

30:16 Here's the problem.

30:17 And how quickly would you just do more work?

30:19 Well, yeah, but also I'd say I would exercise. That's something I might say. That's what I thought. I might say if I had an extra hour in the day, one thing I really need to sort out in my life is like a regular exercise schedule. I've fallen out of it. It's been ages.

30:33 Yeah.

30:33 I'm trying to get back on the horse. I'd go and exercise. But then that's not free time then, is it?

30:37 No, and you just said I need to. What would you do with one hour?

30:41 I don't understand the question.

30:44 What's the one hour? Because I'm with you.

30:45 I would read a book.

30:47 Well, I'd read a book.

30:47 I'd read a book. How about you, Keisha? If you had one hour of free time a day, how would you spend it?

30:52 I mean, I think I would probably like walk my dog in somewhere, somewhere nice.

30:56 But I also, at.

30:58 The moment, I also feel like that's a little bit of a chore. I mean, she's an Aussie shepherd, so she has to be walked twice a day. So it does actually take up a lot of my time. And I think that our perception is our reality. Like I am someone who doesn't have children and and yet I still feel really busy. And I know that that might sound so.

31:12 Stupid to people who do. No, no, no, it doesn't, it doesn't. It does say that.

31:14 But my point being that our reality, the way that we exist, I'm like, oh, I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy.

31:19 I'm sure that if I had a kid and I got 20% more busy.

31:23 I might look back at this time and be like, oh, I thought I was busy then.

31:27 And so, yeah, I very much agree.

31:30 I think if any of us were given an extra hour in the day, we would find a way to try and make it productive.

31:35 And what if we set ourselves, I was like, what if I set myself the challenge and go, okay, one hour, what would I do that I want to? And then I go, okay, I'd read. What if I just scheduled that. Like, what if I went, okay, let's do it.

31:48 Let's do it.

31:48 So on Saturdays, you know, it's like, this is my one hour of reading time. I'm going to, we've got a, like a crappy hammock on our deck. Like I look at it every weekend and I go, I'm going to lie in it and read a book. I never, ever do.

32:01 I think you've got to schedule it in like a meeting.

32:03 I have one more thing I want to bring up about this. We, everybody I know says that they don't have enough hours in their day. The average Australian spends six hours a day on their phone. Now, I know that on their phone is a very broad thing because you could be working on your phone. You could be watching something on your phone. You can be doing a whole lot. Are we contributing to our own time poverty because we give it away so happily to something that is giving us nothing back?

32:31 Yes.

32:31 And I think I was thinking about revenge bedtime procrastination, which is when you get in and I do this every night and I go, this is the only time of quiet I've gotten all day. I'm going to go and just scroll because it's mine because I feel like and it's the worst habit and we all do it. But I read about this concept called time confetti, which is this idea that if you find yourself with five minutes, Do like use it to do something that's like somewhat fulfilling rather than because it also evaporates the sensation.

33:00 Of time when you pick your phone up.

33:02 So instead of doing that, if you're waiting for a doctor's appointment or whatever, get the book out, get the like have those pockets where you kind of use them more intentionally.

33:10 Or we talked about this on the show a while ago, a scrolly chair, which is the idea that there's a place you're allowed to scroll. So it's like, because I agree with you. Sometimes I'm like, I just want to have a scroll and it's just the same as me watching a TV show or whatever, really. But the problem is the time suck. So if you set an alarm, I don't know, here we go, productivity again.

33:28 We can't help it.

33:28 We can't help it. But if you set an alarm that's like 20 minutes of TikTok time or whatever it is, Instagram time, but when it goes off, I've got to put it down. That might help.

33:38 Yeah. Yeah, I like that.

33:40 Ways to put more time pennies in the bank.

33:44 After the break, do you have ferret in face?

33:47 Oh, God.

33:48 Is there something else to worry about?

33:50 Oh, no.

33:52 Social media has a new way of making you feel ugly and, yes, I'm listening.

33:57 Great.

33:57 The Washington Post has done a very important deep dive. It's the Washington Post, guys, so please. It's a very credible publication. They've done a deep dive on what is ferret in face after the term blew up on social media. So if you see a pallid, tick, washed out, tick, face in the mirror, then ferritin face could be telling you that you're iron deficient. We are talking dull skin, grey eyes, pale lips and, look, If you walk into your doctor, your doctor's not going to go, ah, it's ferritin face.

34:28 They're not going to do that.

34:28 I was going to say, that would be rude.

34:30 That would be very rude.

34:32 But there is some evidence that there are physical symptoms that indicate iron deficiency that you actually can physically see. Of course, there are lots of reasons why you might be looking pale. For example, we've just come out of winter. But guys, can't I just be ugly without a health diagnosis?

34:50 Holly?

34:51 I thought ferritin face meant you face it like a ferret. Like that's what I was thinking. I was thinking that's rude. That's really rude. I don't know what I think about this. Like is it– I think it's– A catchy term, but are we really supposed to look in the mirror and diagnose ourselves?

35:08 Well, a lot of women, what's interesting about the trend is that a lot of women are saying, I didn't realize that I was looking in the mirror going, oh, I look tired.

35:17 I look washed out. I always think that.

35:19 I look, my lips are cracked, all of these things.

35:21 And then they go to the doctor, something like 30 to 40% of women who menstruate are low iron or anemic.

35:29 So it is something that a lot of people have.

35:31 They go and either maybe they start taking supplements or they get an iron infusion and suddenly they physically look really different. So that's what they're kind of pointing to, which I think.

35:42 Is sort of interesting.

35:43 And when I've been to the doctor about I've been iron deficient at various points, he has pulled down my eyes because they're inside of your eye if that's really light pink that's a sign that you could be iron deficient definitely the cracks um bags under your eyes looking really dark because the skin gets a bit more kind of um uh like transparent yep um and he said something else about the palms of your hands like if the palms of your hands look fair so that's something i've actually heard from a doctor before that there are things you can see but at the same time like it Oh, we're looking at, imagine if you look in the mirror, you go, oh, that's ferritin face. You go to the doctor and they're like, your iron's fine.

36:22 And you're like, cool, I'm just ugly. You just look like shit.

36:25 And I think ferritin, correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a long time since I studied this, but it's, is it a protein in the body that binds with iron? I know that the chemical symbol of iron is Fe.

36:36 So when, if I were to give you a blood test and I wanted to check if you had, if you were iron deficient, then your ferritin levels are an indicator. So they would go, oh, okay. So your ferritin stores are kind of depleted or whatever.

36:47 I'm not a doctor.

36:48 That's just the vibe that I get about it. But yes, ferritin and iron related is what we know.

36:54 I would be very interested to know who commissioned this study for the Washington Post. I wonder which cosmetics company was like, do you have ferritin face or do you.

37:02 Just need a better serum?

37:05 I think, I mean, yes, there is a lot of validity to the fact that women, especially if you menstruate, you may have lower iron than what you desire. If you have certain diets, you know, vegan, vegetarian, sometimes you have to be a little bit more aware of supplementation or like the ways that you're getting your iron from green leafy vegetables.

37:21 But like you said, I just feel like it's.

37:23 Another thing that I have to tick off. And now I'm going to be waking up going, Do I just look tired because I have tried to take an hour of a doom scroll into free time? Or am I suffering from iron deficiency?

37:35 Like, I don't know. It all kind of feels a little bit like it's just another thing.

37:40 That I have to examine. And self-diagnosis, which isn't great.

37:43 Which I love.

37:44 It's like really the big thing, there are ways that you feel, like if you're feeling really tired or whatever, like.

37:49 Go to your doctor.

37:50 That is actually true though.

37:51 I have a friend who just last week, she is vegan and she didn't realise, for a couple of weeks she thought she was quite run down.

37:58 She's got two young kids, so, you know, the daycare germs and blah, blah, blah.

38:01 And we'd been speaking a lot and she'd been saying like, oh, I just don't feel right, don't feel right, don't feel right. She ended up getting checked and she was really anemic and she had the shot of... I don't know what they give you but like basically an iron booster and it was kind of.

38:15 Like the veil fell over her and she was like oh.

38:18 My god I feel so much better I wish that I had have thought of this like a month ago when I started selfies babe take some selfies because apparently your face is looking good.

38:29 Vibes ideas atmosphere something casual something fun.

38:36 All right, I have a very shallow recommendation today. Actually, I also have one for the group.

38:41 Yeah.

38:42 I've started watching a new show with, you know, Sharon Horgan, who's like Bad Sisters.

38:46 I want to see this.

38:47 Yeah.

38:47 It's called Youth. It's on HBO Max and it's about a woman who's like she's in her 50s, I guess, and she started dating. And I've watched episode one. I like it. It's funny. I don't love it yet. So I think we need to like watch along and see how it goes. It is funny. Watch this face. I love her. She's great. But I was like, will I reco it? And then I was like, you know what?

39:09 It's not as good as my new nail polish.

39:13 Talk to me about the.

39:13 New nail polish.

39:14 No offense, Sharon Horgan, who is a genius in every way. But so I've had a problem with nails in that I like to have shiny nails. But getting my nails done, I'm done with it. It's like I was getting shellac again for a while. My nails were trashed. They're just soft and bendy and ridged and awful. So I'm not doing that anymore. I hate fake nails. And so I've been on the lookout for a holy grail of like, shiny, strong nail polish that stays on. Every nail polish chips off.

39:47 And I also would like a nail polish that dries quite quickly because I don't have time.

39:50 Exactly.

39:51 I don't have time to just sit there and wait.

39:52 Found it. Unfortunately for everyone, it's not super cheap. But I bought, when I was in an airport going somewhere recently, I bought a bottle of manicurist nail polish. They have it in the fancy shops like Mecca. It's French. I bought one called Active Smooth that is supposed to do what I wanted it to do, which is I've got like all the ridges and bendiness from my nails being trashed from the manicures. Wait, is it transparent? So the first one I bought, it's like the perfect neutral.

40:22 Huh.

40:22 The perfect neutral. And it does exactly what it said it was going to do. Smoothed out my nails. They looked amazing. And it stays on for weeks if you want. And it's just perfect. Okay.

40:33 Awesome.

40:33 So I went and bought the colored version. This is what we're wearing today.

40:36 So it's the same brand.

40:37 Same brand, manicurist. This one is, the brand's called Green. The color's not green. You're not seeing things. But the brand's called Green because this is like their bio, healthy, enviro, whatever stuff. You'll like that, Keisha. And this color's called Poppy Red. And again, goes on really easy, really, really creamy.

40:55 Love the color.

40:55 This has been on for days. Not a chip. Like, I am in love. I like that. And I know it's so boring and like... Shallow, but I have been looking for the holy grail of nail polish and I have found it. And this was $ 22, the red one. So it's not cheap for nail polish, but mate, it's clutch.

41:13 I feel like that's pretty reasonable.

41:14 Yeah.

41:14 If it survived the gardening.

41:16 Well, yes. This red hasn't survived the gardening, but I think... Yeah, I'm in love. It's my best beauty buy. And it's better than buying.

41:23 I have bought endless $ 5 ones and then just that.

41:27 Exactly.

41:27 Buy once, cry once.

41:28 I want them to be, I want my nails to be like shiny and healthy looking and short. I like short nails, but you know, and anyway, I found it. So I'm happy. Manicurist nail polish. That is my very shallow record.

41:41 Well, um.

41:43 I have a documentary to recommend. I think we might have mentioned it in the AI episode that it was coming out, which is that Tristan Harris, who's the guy who did the Social Dilemma documentary, which is all about the social media. The impact it was having on kids and basically it blew the whistle on some of the terrible impacts it was having. And a lot of the creators sat down and said they were designed to do this. And there's been, you know, an actual fallout from that with, um, court cases and everything. Uh, He is behind this new documentary, which is called The AI Doc or How I Became an Apocaloptimist on Netflix.

42:24 Ooh, an apocaloptimist.

42:25 Yes.

42:26 And so what it does is it's got this guy named Daniel Roja. He's the creator and he appears in it. And it starts off interviewing Tristan and a bunch of other, just the most expert people in the world, like AI risk people. And the first 20 minutes is.

42:44 thickening.

42:45 Like I was sitting there going, this is so much worse than I expected.

42:48 Oh no.

42:49 Then he sits down and he interviews the optimists. The ones who say every problem that you see in the world right now is about to be fixed. Your child will grow up in a world with no disease. Your child will grow up in a world that has solved the climate crisis. This is the only way we're getting out of it.

43:04 Like really.

43:05 Really?

43:05 Yeah. Really optimistic.

43:07 AI. AI. Yeah.

43:08 I thought AI was like using all the water and making it worse.

43:11 Well, it's really interesting what they say. And then it's all through the prism of this guy, Daniel, is about to have his first child. And so he sits down with these guys and says, would you have a child? Like, what does the future look like for my little, like, newborn? And he ends up sitting down with Sam Altman. He sits down with all the guys creating this stuff. And it is so fascinating. The best part of it is that it tells you what you can do. Like at the end, it's kind of, I felt like it was the moment the social dilemma gave us, which was like, okay, we've all got to be looking in this direction and demanding things of these massive giants and this is how we're going to do it and this is how we

43:54 can affect change. And I have not stopped thinking about it. I think it's mandatory watching, but I will say... What's your mood? Because there are things in that that I will never forget that are really scary.

44:05 But it's also just brilliantly made.

44:07 I was going to say, one of the things why everybody ended up watching The Social Dilemma was because it was one of those docos that's so good that you kind of also are really in it.

44:16 Yes.

44:17 And this is definitely that.

44:18 I didn't walk away going, oh, my God, we're all doomed. That's not the point. It's about what we can all actually do. So I've... Where do I watch it?

44:29 Netflix. Netflix.

44:30 I actually felt similarly reading Johanna Hari's book, Stolen Focus, which I know we've all been aware of for a while, but it's that initial shock of like, oh, I kind of knew it was bad, but I didn't realize it was this bad. Yes.

44:42 And I think I am the type that needs the little boost up at the end.

44:45 Don't worry. I need the sugar cube with the medicine.

44:50 Yes, 100%. My recommendation for today, it's a very cheap one.

44:53 It'll cost you $ 8 and you can get it from, I got it from Target, but the brand is Anko, so you can also get it from Kmart. It is called the 900 mil pool chopper. So essentially this can be for any vegetables. I've only used it so far for garlic and onion, but it is this plastic container. It has a very sharp blade in it, so sharp that I had come with a warning. I've got a couple cuts out of my hand today because I didn't realize it was in the sink with the suds.

45:21 But... The blade goes in the centre of the plastic.

45:25 You put the vegetables, so you might have to do like two chops of the onion or enough just to get it in.

45:30 You put the lid on and you pull it like a whippersnapper. So you're like manually, it's kind of like a manual food processor.

45:36 And so is it like a little cup that you put the stuff in?

45:39 Yeah, yeah, almost like a Nutribullet cup. That's kind of what it looks like.

45:43 And I have a food processor, but I find that if I was to do onion or garlic in it, it kind of whips it too much and it becomes a bit mushy and runny and not good. Yes.

45:53 This is perfect.

45:54 And I've started doing big batches of garlic.

45:57 I'm really, I'm actually getting into an era of my life where I'm like, what has happened to me?

46:01 Like I used to go out on weekends and enjoy life.

46:04 Welcome to the trad wife era.

46:06 As we're getting to know you, so do you like cooking? You're a vegetarian, aren't you?

46:10 No, no, I'm not vegetarian. My partner is a really, really good cook, like a really good cook. Do I like cooking?

46:15 I like cooking if I can have like an iPad with something on it. Like I used to watch a lot of Mamma Mia right now. Did you?

46:22 Yeah, a lot of time.

46:23 So if you're cooking right now, friends, hello.

46:25 Hi, I hope you enjoy your meal. So I have ended up doing big batches of garlic.

46:30 So the other day I did, I think I did maybe five whole garlics and I used it in my little pool chopper, and now I've put it in little silicon ice cube tray things.

46:41 In the freezer. Living the dream.

46:42 Living the dream.

46:43 So instead of using minced garlic out of a jar, which I just– It has all the stuff in it. It has all the stuff in it that I'm told is not good, and I don't think it tastes as good. Yeah. Now I have, when I need, I just go to the freezer. I get my little silicon ice cube tray. I pop my piece of garlic out that I've chopped in my chopper, And I'm good to go.

47:00 I'm good for garlic for weeks.

47:01 You're better than everyone. Garlic in the freezer?

47:03 That's amazing.

47:04 My mind is blown. I'm doing that. This is absolutely wonderful. I've been trying to grow garlic quiche.

47:09 I hate cutting garlic.

47:11 Well, it's really annoying.

47:12 Yeah.

47:13 I found a really good garlic crusher that I record ages ago, which is good. But chopping it is a different thing. And also it's a different texture. It's a different everything.

47:22 I'm so impressed.

47:23 Me too. Love that.

47:24 Welcome.

47:24 Welcome.

47:26 That's all we have time for today, Outlouders. I hope you've enjoyed our show. Do not forget, if you do not already subscribe to our Mamma Mia Outloud newsletter, you should because it's the place where you get all the gossip about what's going on on the show, little tidbits, extra things about topics we've talked about. I usually write something big on a Saturday, so if you subscribe right now, you'll get it in your inbox in the morning. Don't forget to do that. Otherwise, thank you, Keisha, for filling in for our M. Thank you for having me. I'll see you next week. We'll all see you next week.

47:54 Bye.

47:55 Bye.

47:56 Thank you.