Episode 486： Why I Haven’t Stopped Working During The Pandemic
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
196.77802
Summary
In this episode, Pat McAfee talks about the need to go back to work and why it s not the right thing to do. He also talks about how important it is to take care of your family and why you should not have to work.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
You know, there's an underground community right now in America, probably in the world
00:00:25.320
as well, that is thinking the same thing, but they're afraid of voicing their opinion
00:00:28.340
because of the amount of backlash they may get both publicly and privately from their
00:00:34.820
Just recently, Elon Musk sent out a tweet saying, free America now, that caused havoc.
00:00:41.900
Thousands of people responding saying, all you care about is money, you billionaires,
00:00:46.700
you want your people to go to work so you can make all the money in the world.
00:00:53.100
Then you had Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, is doing a press conference, the
00:00:58.900
And one of the reporters says, people want to go back to work.
00:01:03.260
And he's talking about, you know, they're worried about losing their jobs, losing their businesses.
00:01:15.260
Meaning, and then he says, if you want to get a job, why don't you go work in the essential
00:01:19.140
She says, there is no jobs in the essential industry.
00:01:27.100
Meaning, low income families, they're doing better than before.
00:01:32.060
Not they're doing great, they're doing better than before because they're getting bigger
00:01:35.140
I had a guy that was here cutting my hair, 18 year old kid.
00:01:39.140
He's the son of one of my good friends who cuts my hair.
00:01:45.780
He says, I'm making more money in the last week than I made in the last two months because
00:01:52.220
But the poor is doing better, the rich is going to be fine, middle America is getting
00:02:00.240
People send me messages and they criticize me and say, Pat, you're at the office every
00:02:11.200
I've missed three days of work since they announced the economic shutdown.
00:02:15.840
When I say three days of work, I don't mean during the weekday.
00:02:21.460
One of the Sundays I missed because I spent the entire day with my son who was sick and
00:02:25.480
tired of not being able to go back to school and being around his family and his peers.
00:02:29.340
He missed it and I had to have a very serious conversation with him.
00:02:32.100
The other two days I just dedicated to my family and friends and we had a good time at
00:02:36.120
But every other day, including Saturdays and Sundays, I've been at the office every day.
00:02:44.960
They asked this question for me and they said, Pat, you're being irresponsible.
00:02:55.200
Yeah, but it's not the responsible thing to do.
00:02:57.020
Don't you see what's going on around the world?
00:02:58.520
I said, you know, I see this in a different way than you do.
00:03:07.300
This is a very respectful woman, someone you would know.
00:03:09.860
She gets up and she tells me, she says, you know what's the closest thing men will ever
00:03:15.960
You know what's the closest thing men will ever experience to the pain of a woman given
00:03:26.580
She says, I've given birth to two kids and I've started a company.
00:03:31.660
Giving birth was so painful, so painful when I went through it.
00:03:35.580
Running a company was extremely painful and it lasted a few years.
00:03:43.540
The agitation, the running out of money, the trying to keep people, the employees leaving
00:03:48.260
you, customers being taken away from you by the competitors, sleepless nights, arguments
00:03:52.600
with your husband, your wife trying to keep your face together, your emotions together,
00:03:56.140
trying to be a parent and cook and eat and exercise and make sure your mom and dad are
00:04:01.820
good and your finances aren't good and you're meeting with the doctor and you're dropping
00:04:05.100
off your kids at school and you're picking them up and you're doing homework and you're
00:04:08.540
trying to be a good parent and you're trying to be a good spouse, all of that and I'm about
00:04:14.780
She said, it's the closest thing to having a baby when you have a startup.
00:04:18.660
You see, a lot of people who've never started a business before, they just look at business
00:04:24.520
owners and small business owners and they say, look at these guys.
00:04:32.600
Starting a business to me is like having a baby, except it's my baby.
00:04:43.020
But I also have a baby that I started that's a company.
00:04:53.980
This is giving them three the life that they have today.
00:04:57.480
For somebody to tell me you can't go to work, I'll pay a thousand dollar fine every day
00:05:05.920
You may say that's not the right decision you're making.
00:05:11.020
We look at a lot of this data with people dying.
00:05:20.160
Anybody who loses a loved one that is gonna sit there and say, oh, it's just a normal
00:05:28.840
I am in the insurance industry and one of the toughest calls I ever liked getting is
00:05:34.220
when the client called me telling me they died and they're sending me a death certificate.
00:05:39.100
And I would get these stories of people that were our agents.
00:05:49.580
And we have a decent sized agency, which means this has happened many, many times with our
00:05:53.860
I don't like to see the mother's face or the father's face or the husband's face and they're
00:05:56.740
looking at me like, you know, I don't want that experience, but it's part of life.
00:06:01.200
There was a book written back in 1982 by Barry Bluestone.
00:06:08.160
And it gives us data with the cause of unemployment to the number of deaths, people dying, death.
00:06:15.400
And he says per 1% of unemployment, 37,000 people die.
00:06:21.320
When unemployment goes higher, 1%, 2%, 3%, cause of it is 37,000 people dying.
00:06:28.180
Well, suicide, stress, heart attack, not paying bills, stressed out, arguing with your wife,
00:06:42.180
He stops having these negative thoughts because he's being useful, his life is worthy.
00:06:47.420
There's a reason to want to live because you're part of a team, you're part of a company, you're
00:06:57.020
And every time unemployment goes higher, it's 37,000, 37,000.
00:07:08.120
Coronavirus, you can put the numbers right next to it.
00:07:15.000
So this whole topic about this virus and this whole topic about everything we're talking about,
00:07:20.120
I am not here to say let everybody go back to work.
00:07:26.060
They just said we're not going to do places where it's over 50 people and here's the options
00:07:30.680
that people have, certain people staying home, businesses opened up, restaurants, bars, but
00:07:35.020
not big functions, not big events, and they've gone about their business.
00:07:44.140
That doesn't include how many businesses went out of business while all these bigger companies
00:07:48.400
are being bailed out and the middle America people are getting their tails handed to them?
00:07:55.060
So again, I didn't tell you you're going to like my message here today.
00:07:57.580
I don't think you're going to agree with my message here today.
00:08:00.180
But some tells me there's some of you guys out there that are sitting saying, I don't
00:08:04.140
know, Pat, I kind of relate, but I'm scared, man.
00:08:17.840
There's a lot of us that have babies, our businesses that we built, that we love, and
00:08:29.920
We did it to support our kids and we did it because we wanted to feel useful.
00:08:34.280
We wanted to feel significant to build something special with the community of people that
00:08:46.480
I'm not telling you to do anything, but this is what I'm doing.
00:08:57.000
And by the way, if you haven't already subscribed to Valuetainment on iTunes, please do so.
00:09:01.620
Give us a five-star, write a review if you haven't already.
00:09:04.500
And if you have any questions for me that you may have, you can always find me on Snapchat,
00:09:12.320
And I actually do respond back when you snap me or send me a message on Instagram.