“Woke” Workplaces are Killing America

Are workplace values shifting too far?

In this bold episode of Uncommon Sense in Current Times, Peter Demos discusses the impact of “woke” ideology on the workplace with Andrew Crapuchettes, the founder and CEO of RedBalloon.

After being fired from his CEO role for refusing to push political narratives, Crapuchettes launched RedBalloon to connect employers who value hard work, merit, and freedom with employees who share those values. In this interview, he exposes the hidden dangers of DEI hiring practices, why some companies now see college degrees as a red flag, and how RedBalloon is helping professionals stay true to their beliefs — without risking their careers.

 

Editor’s Note: The transcript that follows was automatically generated and lightly edited, so please be aware there could be typos or other small errors. The Stream is working toward a transcription service that does fast, accurate, and reliable work; thank you in advance for your patience!

00:00:00:05 – 00:00:27:05
Revolution of common sense. Revolution of common sense. A revolution of common sense. Truth was once common sense. But today truth is uncommon. Explore biblical truths around faith. Business and politics with Peter Davis. Uncommon sense in current times.

00:00:27:06 – 00:00:48:07
Hey, folks, welcome to uncommon sense in current times. Today, you know, you gotta think, if you’re an employer and employee, what we have seen many times is the woke agenda has actually suffocated actual work. a lot of people are more obsessed with these foolish ideologies more than they are about actually getting work done. So I’m excited today to be here with Andrew.

00:00:48:07 – 00:01:16:03
Crappy shirts, on the show, in 2021, he founded the Red balloon. he believed it was finally time that businesses started screening for for values, strong values, diligent work ethic and not pronouns and, and, the identities or whatever else anybody wants to kind of play in now with the interview process. Red balloon has grown into America’s largest and most successful non woke job board and talent.

00:01:16:04 – 00:01:21:09
connector. So, Andrew, thank you so much. I welcome you to the show. I appreciate you being on today.

00:01:21:10 – 00:01:27:04
Yeah. Well, thanks for having me, Peter. I appreciate what you’re doing as well. and grateful to have the conversation.

00:01:27:05 – 00:01:47:09
So, so 2021 is when you found it, obviously, when you kind of go back to 2021, woke culture is really ramping up. I mean, it’s moving really fast. The vaccine mandates were hot and heavy. There were people that were getting fired, were that had Christian objections to it. Even churches were getting rid of people that didn’t want to have the vaccine.

00:01:47:11 – 00:01:57:09
There was all sorts of chaos, division, everything that was happening during that time. So is that the motivation for you to start Red balloon?

00:01:57:10 – 00:02:15:02
Well, I wish I was that clever. actually, the motivation was in 2020. I’m running about a $50 million tech business that I’d helped build, but it’s all a bunch of time. So I was just the CEO, just a salaried employee. And my board came to me and said, look, you’re a little too conservative and Christian for our liking.

00:02:15:03 – 00:02:33:05
and so we’re going to need you to start pushing masks. We’re going to need you to start pushing vaccines, start pushing, a narrative on George Floyd and BLM and all these things. I’m like, look, we’re a data company. Why would I jump into the political fray? but my board basically said, look, you’re either going to do this or we’re just going to fire you.

00:02:33:05 – 00:02:52:11
And this is a business that’s going 25% a year with a 40% margin, right? So I would consider us by most, you know, business terms, wildly successful. But, I was fired not for, for for performance, but for perception. And so, I was going to take a year off. I’ve got five kids. I’m doing land development.

00:02:52:11 – 00:03:09:07
I’ve got plenty of other things to say. Grace over. but a friend kind of challenged me there, like, you know, you just had to make a decision between your job and your values, and there’s going to be a lot of Americans that have to make this decision. This is before the vaccine mandate came down. and you should make a job board where people can be free at work.

00:03:09:07 – 00:03:26:02
And I’m like, okay, I actually don’t want to start another business. I just got fired from a 20 year CEO career. I’d like to take a little break, but sure, I’ll make a job board. So my brother and I go in our basement, in my basement, and make a job board over a weekend because we’re a couple tech guys and we’re like, Ta-Da!

00:03:26:02 – 00:03:41:11
We did our thing, we put it out on the internet, and then the vaccine mandate hits like literally weeks after we launch this thing. And our thesis was, if you want to get a vaccine, you’re an adult, knock yourself out. But you should probably talk to a doctor, not your HR department, about what you put in your body.

00:03:42:00 – 00:04:01:04
which was shockingly controversial in 2021. So it was, it shouldn’t have been right, but it was right. So, so anyway, so I kind of come out with that stance. I do some videos on LinkedIn just so people know about the job board, and then I’m like, okay, now I can get back to, you know, playing golf, hanging out with my kids, driving my tractor.

00:04:01:05 – 00:04:18:02
and I get this call from Fox and Friends and they’re like, hey, we heard that you have the nation’s leading job board for companies that don’t have a vaccine mandate. And I’m like, what are you talking about? I have like 20 businesses on here and like a thousand job seeker. So we’re like the most rounding error of rounding errors for job boards.

00:04:18:03 – 00:04:35:06
And they’re like, you’re the only one who’s willing to say this right now. I’m like, okay, I will happily come on your Fox and friend show and talk about freedom in the workplace. and it turns out when you do that, sometimes you get thousands of additional employers and millions of job seekers. And all of a sudden, I had a business, even though I didn’t mean to.

00:04:35:06 – 00:04:41:06
So anyway, there’s there’s the backstory of why Red balloon and why we got going.

00:04:41:07 – 00:05:00:08
All right. So one of the things that you talked about, and I don’t know if it was on that particular Fox and Friends, but you talked about in a Fox interview, you talked about the litigious nature of of people. Now I’m in the restaurant business in the hour business 35 years. I’m all sort of a lawyer who did employment law, both as a plaintiff before I got back into business.

00:05:00:08 – 00:05:25:00
And now I actually deal with it from the defense side. So I have a lot of appreciation for this. On all sides of the coin. I’ve seen the increase of it. I’ve also seen, a decrease depending on what we got going on in our, in our culture and our company culture. So but I have to ask, in spite of all that, because obviously you kind of you spoke saying that basically it’s not a good thing.

00:05:25:01 – 00:05:44:09
but you had a case to say, look, my Christian values were discriminated against and in violation of, of, you know, the, you know, in violation of the Civil Rights Acts, you know, that protect your religion or your religion, you know, and all the different things that go along with it. I’m not sure. What state are you in?

00:05:44:10 – 00:05:47:00
I’m in Idaho. We are. Okay. Right? To work. State.

00:05:47:01 – 00:05:56:07
Yeah. So. But but nevertheless, it’s still one of the protected classes. Why did you choose not to go that route as a means of standing up for your faith? Standing up for your beliefs?

00:05:56:08 – 00:06:20:07
Yeah, it’s a good question. I, I kind of made a decision. So, to answer that question, I have to go back a little bit. I live in a small town, Moscow, Idaho. love this town, love this community. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, did the.com thing, got tired of traffic and liberal. So I moved up to Idaho and I started all these businesses, a variety of different businesses, including this one in Moscow, Idaho.

00:06:20:08 – 00:06:45:00
the, the, the business was at this point short of the University of Idaho, the biggest employer in Moscow. we were driving a lot of economic prosperity. and I knew that if I went into a lawsuit, in 2020, which, we have some liberal judges, even though we’re in Idaho, I knew that it would be a battle, and it would be in a long gated battle that would be hurtful to the business.

00:06:45:03 – 00:07:02:08
And we, potentially harmful to some of the jobs of my friends because I had hundreds of friends working for me at the business. and I knew that it would just be a long battle. And they offered me a severance. And I thought, you know, this is probably the the lesser of two evils. and so that’s why I made the decision.

00:07:02:10 – 00:07:16:10
because I actually just really cared about the people that work there. And I didn’t want them to have to all have to pick sides and get pulled into a big a, battle between me and the board. that being said, I obviously, I think I had a very good case, and I probably could have done very well.

00:07:16:11 – 00:07:32:10
No, I mean, absolutely. Again, coming from a from a former plaintiff’s attorney, you know, I I’ll just tell you, the volume of people that come that have no case at all, the volume of people then then you have the next level of the people that have a case but have no damages. So you’re not going to take that.

00:07:32:10 – 00:07:45:03
I mean, you know, or it’s just it’s so kind of sad and pathetic. It’s like, you know, there’s not wasting their time. So when I hear the story that you’re telling me, you know, my, my, my plaintiff’s mind from 30.

00:07:45:03 – 00:07:46:03
Yeah, the antenna goes up.

00:07:46:03 – 00:08:09:07
I mean, yeah. Know it’s I’m salivating, almost like, you know, this is awesome. This is great. I’m so I’m so upset that you did not hire me, even though you don’t want me as a lawyer anymore. right. So. All right, now I’m going to kind of kind of flip it a little bit because one of your videos that you said and I and I’m in a I’m quoting here, it says, and if you’re an employee who’s tired of cancel culture workplace, then come to Red balloon and find your future.

00:08:09:08 – 00:08:38:03
You shouldn’t have to choose between your job and your values. Now, I love that idea. I wrote a book on the duty of Christian civil disobedience. I think we ought to stand up for our rights, to stand up for our faith. But how? How does this work if my values happen to disagree with yours? What if my values are, you know, critical race theory and I believe in oppressed and oppressor and I believe in this, does that not by nature violate exactly what you’re trying to do?

00:08:38:04 – 00:09:03:09
Yeah. I mean, we want so here’s the thing. In a workplace, you want diversity of ideas, you want diversity of thought, you want diversity of background. Right. Because that’s actually where innovation comes from. It comes from seeing things from different angles. And not everybody having the exact same, worldview. That being said, you are working for a company where you have such a diametrically opposed worldview about everything, you are never going to be able to work together.

00:09:03:09 – 00:09:19:02
You’re not going to be able to speak the same language when it comes to if I say blessing customers and you believe that the word blessing is the worst thing that ever happened, well, you’re going to hate your job and you’re going to hate working for me. and so that’s what I’m talking about when I’m talking about values alignment.

00:09:19:02 – 00:09:38:02
I don’t need everybody to be lockstep on every bit of their worldview. In fact, when I hired people at my last business and even this business now, I let them know, look, I am a conservative Christian CEO, and here are some of the ramifications of me being that, but it is not a prerequisite. It is not a weird thing.

00:09:38:03 – 00:09:56:10
but this is who I am, and I’m. And I’m not going to apologize for that. and if you are uncomfortable with that coming and working for me, you should know before you take the job. And it turns out, in 20 years of doing that, I had about three people say, you know what? I’m not comfortable. I’m like, okay, well, let’s save each other a bunch of time.

00:09:56:10 – 00:10:18:06
And, this probably isn’t the right job for you, right? And that’s what I talk about, is you want to be able to enjoy working together with the people around you. I mean, you know, 75% of employers have had a labor based lawsuit in the last five years. And some of that is from, you know, somebody like, hey, I got fired for being a conservative Christian.

00:10:18:07 – 00:10:34:04
and, you know, people were like, did you really? I’m like, yeah, the board said, you’re welcome to be a CEO. Happens to be a Christian on the weekends, but you’re not allowed to be a Christian CEO. I’m like, oh, hey, I’m glad you know what that is. And B, I’m glad you think that I am that. But no, I’m absolutely not going to walk away from that.

00:10:34:04 – 00:10:59:07
Right. So, so but but regardless of that, most of those lawsuits are coming from someone, traditionally from left leaning job seekers who are easily offended, who everyone needs to walk on eggshells around them, who think that they need to be treated like snowflakes, generally coming out of a mainstream university. that’s where the vast majority of those lawsuits have come from.

00:10:59:08 – 00:11:17:11
and so, you know, when we start working with an employer, we’re going to understand, okay, what are the things you’re trying to accomplish with your next employee? What are the cultural distinctiveness that are really important for you? You know, for some of our employers, it’s all about ownership or it’s all about taking responsibility. Where some of them it’s you know, we work really hard here.

00:11:17:11 – 00:11:43:08
Everybody works a minimum ten hours a day. that’s kind of the the core value of what we believe as an employer. Well, if you’re an employee that is totally opposed to that kind of culture, then you shouldn’t go and work there because it’s not going to be a fit. And so for Red balloon, we are trying to bring together people who generally are center right, both on the employer and the employee side who want to focus on hard work, merit and the values that made America great.

00:11:43:08 – 00:11:58:04
That’s our thing. If there is a job board or a company that cares more about Dei, ESG, critical race theory, Marxism, whatever it is, Lord, bless them. They’re welcome to find their people and, compete in the marketplace.

00:11:58:05 – 00:12:02:02
They they can go to the to to one of the other liberal job boards. Right?

00:12:02:02 – 00:12:04:09
Yeah, exactly. There’s plenty of them out there for them. Yes. Correct.

00:12:05:00 – 00:12:23:02
You know, I, I find it interesting to hear what you’re saying. You’re one of the things that we’re very open. I mean, our purpose statement is, is we’re to glorify God by serving others. And you know, and the very first piece of our orientation is, do you have to believe in God to work here? We’re like, no, this is what drives us.

00:12:23:02 – 00:12:43:08
But it’s not necessarily, you know, it doesn’t mean that you’re required to do so. And I’m shocked at the volume of employees who come through one. Just recently I heard, believed in Mother Ocean one. we’ve had three, oddly, three people that that worship for God of Thunder, which I’m like, yeah, you know, if, if, if Marvel is a.

00:12:43:08 – 00:12:44:09
Big Marvel fans.

00:12:44:09 – 00:13:06:04
Or I mean, you know, then probably the Norse god did not survive at Marvel is the only one that can resurrect him along with Iron Man. so but but but but I see this diversity that come that comes in, but they’re not adding to it. Whereas we’re looking at people a lot of times of do we think they’re going to fit within our culture or will they have the work ethic?

00:13:06:04 – 00:13:26:02
Will they have these problem? So it sounds like what you’re doing is you’re kind of saying the same thing, which is we want you to have the strong work ethic, the the pieces that make it. But we also know that, hey, in order for you to fit with this company, you better kind of know and understand it. Going into it is that am I summarizing that correctly?

00:13:26:03 – 00:13:43:02
Yeah. That’s correct. I had a friend who, took a job with a company in Provo, Utah. and he called me, like four months in and he’s like, hey, everybody, here’s a mormon. I’m like, really? You’re in Provo, Utah. And you didn’t realize, like, what in the world like, and this is just a full disclosure, right? What do you believe as a company?

00:13:43:05 – 00:14:03:07
What are the kind of the driving values of what you’re trying to accomplish? and when I would hire people, I’d say I’m an unapologetic conservative Christian. And here are the ramifications. We have a kegerator in the office. We have a great time, but don’t get drunk in the office. That is not acceptable. we have a really fun time together, but I have zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

00:14:03:07 – 00:14:25:06
If there’s anything, it’s even on the line. If there’s any porn on any work computer in the office, you’re fired first time, right? That kind of thing. Or there’s no gossip in the office. If you have a problem with someone, you go and talk to him face to face. If you have a problem with me and come to my office and tell me, you might get a raise, because I know that I have blind spots as a CEO, and there’s a very good chance that you’re going to point one of those out.

00:14:25:06 – 00:14:41:01
And I’m grateful for that. And I’m going to give you a raise, maybe even a promotion. But if you come to my office and say so-and-so over there, I don’t like the way they smell or I think they’re doing a bad job, that’s called gossip, that’s talking behind their back. And either I’m going to fire you on the spot, or I’m going to go get that person.

00:14:41:01 – 00:14:58:03
The three of us are going to have a super awkward conversation right now. And what that produces is a culture where innovation can thrive because, you know, if you say something stupid, which every good idea comes from like nine stupid ideas, you can say something stupid and you know someone’s not going to be talking about your behind your back later.

00:14:58:04 – 00:15:18:09
There’s not going to be a political game that’s played. it’s all going to be straight forward, right in your face. Right? Well, that produces a great environment. And I said, that’s just the ramifications of my belief system. As a conservative Christian. This is how we’re going to run the company. And the problem is I think a lot of, whether it’s Christians or liberals or conservatives, they’ve abdicated that culture setting.

00:15:18:09 – 00:15:39:00
And it’s the CEO’s job to define the culture. In fact, was it Ben Horowitz says, culture is what your employees do when the CEO is not there. What do they do when you’re not present, when you’re not part of that conversation? and that is so important for CEOs to realize if you just hope culture will happen, it will happen and it will be a bad culture.

00:15:39:02 – 00:15:51:03
And so that’s really at the heart of it. I don’t need everybody to agree with me. But if they’re if they hate the culture that I’m trying to set and they’re going to push back against it, they need to go find an employer. That’s not that K that way.

00:15:51:03 – 00:16:19:08
Yeah. You know, so so we’re not talking about again, having different thoughts even from a conservative perspective. I might be a a Donald Trump conservative and you might be a Jeb Bush conservative. right. We’re not talking about that as long as we’re a work, it’s done. But it sounds like, though, that when you got fired as the CEO from the board, it sounds like at least from their perspective, you were crossing that line.

00:16:19:08 – 00:16:43:07
It didn’t have to do with your performance, clearly. So as a result of that, were you crossing that line from a conservative perspective on it and how you’re speaking about it, or was the speaking that you were doing off camera? Was it because the result of gossip from those below, like, how did that how did that transpire? Because I could take that story and argue both ways with it for my limited information.

00:16:43:08 – 00:17:03:00
Yeah, absolutely. they were asking me to do things that I was uncomfortable with. They said, we need you to make a statement about George Floyd and about this is about systemic racism. And I said, I’m running a big data company. Why would I jump into that fray? and then they wanted me to make statements about Covid, and I’m like, why would I make a statement?

00:17:03:00 – 00:17:25:08
I’m not a medical professional. I’m a data CEO. That doesn’t make any sense to me. And so we kept bonking our heads on like, no, I will not do those things because that is a against my principles and bad for business at the same time. and so that’s when they actually paid a law firm in Boston to make a dossier on me and find out where I went to church and all these other things.

00:17:25:08 – 00:17:45:09
And this is back to yes, there was a lawsuit just waiting for a good lawyer to jump on here. but again, I didn’t want the carnage in the families of my friends, to, to happen. So, but but but you’re right. I mean, you don’t want if if I’m working for a company, like, right now at Red balloon, I can say whatever I want, right?

00:17:45:09 – 00:18:04:00
I can make, I can make Biden jokes online. I can do whatever I want because I own the company. I am my own boss. Right? But when I’m working for a board, I understand authority. and if they said you may not do this and it’s part of your job, will you pay my salary? so, yes, I’ll, I’ll fall in line to a point.

00:18:04:01 – 00:18:19:08
Right. And that’s where that’s what we were running into with some of the Covid stuff. In the BLM stuff. It’s like, no, this is this is not in the pail of your, you’re not allowed to give me instructions on these things. And even if you were, I have a higher authority, so I’m not going to do it.

00:18:19:09 – 00:18:39:01
So CEOs change all the time. Like how do we how does Red balloon ensure that companies stay like, stay on that same idea, that same platform? Or do you just expect them to weed themselves out? Because, I mean, you take Walt Disney for example. Yeah, Walt Disney was a pretty conservative company, say, 75 years ago, you know, but yeah, right.

00:18:39:02 – 00:18:56:04
I mean, but but at some point in time and some of it’s like a light switch, some of it’s like a dimmer switch. So when you have that, how do you ensure that these companies remain accountable. how do you ensure they do it, or do you just have the expectation of you’re not going to find people here anymore because you changed?

00:18:56:05 – 00:19:21:00
Yeah. I mean, the good news is there’s some really big job boards out there, like in deed or ZipRecruiter or monster. and they’re going to go to those if they really want to find value alignment. So the nice part is people generally just weed themselves out, right. If they are, if they’ve kind of changed their worldview a little bit, if they’re drifting left, they are going to run away from Red balloon because they don’t want to be aligned with a brand that is just living their values out loud.

00:19:21:01 – 00:19:37:08
and so and that is a good thing for our employers because it also means employees and job seekers are doing the exact same thing. we it’s funny, we have so we will cross post some of our postings on to LinkedIn. And so those people will come over to Red balloon to kind of apply for the job.

00:19:37:09 – 00:19:55:11
and we were getting about a 40% bounce rate at that point. But some of our employers were saying, hey, we’re getting people applying that have nothing to do with our values. They’re, you know, from, you know, India or they’re just, totally woke. And we don’t want to hire people like that. We came to Red balloon to hire, hardworking meritocracy based conservatives.

00:19:55:11 – 00:20:15:10
Right. Make sense? So we just put a big American flag on that landing page coming from LinkedIn. And the bounce rate went from 40% to like, 80% because people were like, oh, American flag. I know what that means. These people, and they didn’t want anything to do with it. Well, it solved the problem, as a side note, like, why should the American flag be a filter?

00:20:15:10 – 00:20:33:00
But it is so right. That’s that’s what we do. So, you know, we’ve had probably three employers over the years that have signed up. and, and I just gave them a call. well, one of them was a Chinese porn site, and so. Oh, well, took their money and never let them see the light of day.

00:20:33:01 – 00:20:54:01
I, I don’t feel bad about it at all, but, like, one company whose, company in California, they had a big black square on their site and a big dye thing, and, like, they were like a basket making company. Like they weren’t they didn’t have anything to do with cultural engagement or any of those things. So I just call them up and said, so you’re posting on Red balloon, and yet you’re kind of pushing this, you know, particular worldview.

00:20:54:02 – 00:21:10:07
that’s not going to resonate with our job seekers. You’re of course welcome, but it’s not going to work. And she’s like, what do you mean? I’m like, well, so when you push BLM and die, that’s going to ostracize you from a lot of these other people. She’s like, oh, I didn’t even think about that. I just thought it was the thing I’m supposed to do.

00:21:10:09 – 00:21:25:10
And I’m like, well, again, you can do whatever you want. It’s a free country. At least it used to be a free country. It’s a free country, and you can do what you want. but you’re not going to. Our job seekers are not going to resonate. She’s like, oh, I’ll take that stuff off, because I want the kind of people who show up, smile at me, shake my hand and work hard.

00:21:25:10 – 00:21:29:00
So that’s what Red balloon has.

00:21:29:01 – 00:21:55:03
that’s that’s seems to be sadly, a novel concept, right. Nowadays. So I, I’m all right. So again, I’m, I’m looking at this from a lawyer’s perspective, and it seems like you have done an outstanding job maintaining the voluntary. It’s not like you’re required to be a certain way, but you also know that no one’s going to align by coming in, and you’re not requiring certain people.

00:21:55:04 – 00:22:05:11
so. But have you has anybody attempted to come after you legally or through reputation? You know, because social media is, you know, that’s a it’s the Wild West that’s, you know.

00:22:05:11 – 00:22:06:08
Oh, yeah.

00:22:06:09 – 00:22:24:01
I, I’m assuming that the, the reputation piece easiest social media piece you’ve had 1 or 2 negative comments on in your day. but yeah. So have you had any legals and how are you how are you navigating those challenges with them that are coming up?

00:22:24:02 – 00:22:40:11
Yeah. On the social media side, absolutely. And it’s so funny because like Reddit, everybody on Reddit thinks that the first person to realize that they’re swearwords in my last name and they’re like, oh, look at all I like. And they’re all like, they’re like, think they’re like a genius. They’re like, oh, his name says crap. Oh my word.

00:22:40:11 – 00:22:46:03
Right. Anyway, so which I find very amusing. You have to find it amusing. and there are.

00:22:46:03 – 00:22:48:08
Many, you know, you overcame that in sixth grade, though. I’m.

00:22:48:09 – 00:23:11:11
Yes, I did, I did, or I would be, like, hugging myself in a straight jacket, so I, I really didn’t have a choice. Right. So, so no, there are thousands of people on Reddit that say nasty things. And in fact, I was just telling my assistant, I have some troll in Arizona who has called me, every 15 minutes today to leave swear words in a voicemail about how horrible I am for standing for freedom in America.

00:23:11:11 – 00:23:31:08
I mean, bless bless his heart. I’m like, you really need a job, dude. but so do I get those? Absolutely. We do have a labor lawyer on staff. and conveniently, her name is Laura. So it’s Laura, the labor lawyer. Which is cool to say, triple L, and so she, actually briefs our staff every single month.

00:23:31:09 – 00:23:58:05
we do EEOC based training. How do you make sure that we are crossing our T’s and dotting our eyes, but still focused on the values that the company our customers want to accomplish in their hiring? And so you need to understand that even in, you know, the People’s Republic of California, where there’s not as many protections for businesses and there’s lots of protections for job seekers as a business, you are allowed to talk about yourself and your culture all you want.

00:23:58:07 – 00:24:18:05
You’re not allowed to ask a job seeker, how old are you? Do you go to church? When’s the last time you showed up at church? Like those things are illegal? but what you can do is say so at our business, we believe that the Constitution really, really matters. and we believe that God is in heaven and we are on earth, and, you know, you can say all these things.

00:24:18:05 – 00:24:34:06
That’s what we believe as a company. does any of that resonate with you? But you’re allowed to ask that. And I think the reason that employers tend to use our recruiting services, so we do the job where we also do recruiting services is because they don’t have the reps in hiring, and they don’t know what they’re allowed to ask.

00:24:34:07 – 00:24:54:11
and they’re a little bit terrified. And so we’ll actually take that whole recruitment and interview process over for them and only bring people to them who are a good culture fit, a good skill fit, and very unlikely to sue them. and, and that’s a value. Right. And we do it for under $10,000 and we, I think filled 350 positions like that last year.

00:24:55:00 – 00:25:07:10
So we’re an at scale recruitment agency that does it for a lot cheaper. And we’re going to help you of the, avoid some of the people, who might actually really hurt your culture at your business or bring you a lawsuit.

00:25:07:11 – 00:25:15:03
Is there certain industries that that seem to do better with you than others, or is it pretty much across the board?

00:25:15:03 – 00:25:44:09
you know, Peter, we’re good at everything. Oh, sorry. no, we we tend to be more focused on white collar. We do a lot of, media based stuff. We’ve done a lot of work for Tucker Carlson and Louder with Crowder. national religious broadcasters. We help fill their CFO position. so we do that stuff. we end up actually doing a lot of construction workers, because construction, you know, managers, they don’t necessarily know how to hire.

00:25:44:10 – 00:26:04:02
they really want someone that they can hang out with for 8 to 10 hours a day. that doesn’t, you know, hate their worldview. and so it’s worth it for them to, to pay us $9,000 to get them someone who actually has skills, someone who’s going to stay around and someone who’s going to be fun to hang out with and, you know, not be opposed to having a beer with you after work kind of thing.

00:26:04:02 – 00:26:11:03
So, but I would say predominantly white collar. So it media, but then quite a bit of construction.

00:26:11:03 – 00:26:35:06
So, so we’re kind of getting toward the end and I’m curious because there’s so many studies done on the different, you know, you got boomers, Gen X, millennials, Gen Z, you know, and and I tend to because of the nature of my industry of being restaurants, we generally focus on Gen Z, Z millennials is usually where we hit millennials are into management, Gen Zs, which are beginning to move to management.

00:26:35:06 – 00:26:52:08
But mostly our lives. but I remember when I was a Gen X Gen X lawyer, there was all these articles written on how to handle us, and they were all wrong. Like, it was so funny. Like they were all, like, completely wrong about this. but but do you listen to the experts? And they were correct. I do the same thing.

00:26:52:08 – 00:27:12:01
I see the same thing. When you read about millennials and Gen Zs, they kind of tend to ignore it. but I have personal experience with it. From your experience, where do you find do you find hope with the Gen Z versus millennials, or do you think, do you think that Gen Z is or worse than millennials? What are you seeing based off of this?

00:27:12:03 – 00:27:15:10
And I know, I know I’m making it super simple, but yeah.

00:27:15:10 – 00:27:16:06
Right.

00:27:16:07 – 00:27:20:10
Where do you where do you see this as, as a whole from our workforce.

00:27:20:11 – 00:27:40:11
Well it’s interesting, I don’t I actually don’t put it into the demographic categories and neither do our employers. And I’ll tell you that with some data here. So we did a survey of all of our, employers. And we also surveyed all the public square employers. So we had 80,000 employers between the two organizations that we surveyed. And we asked them a whole variety of questions.

00:27:40:11 – 00:27:58:08
One of the questions we asked is when you see a bachelor’s degree, and we asked them about Gen X, Gen Z, all the gens, and, and and honestly, on those, the focus was, look, if you get the right person, they’re the best employee you’ve ever had. And if you get the wrong person, they’re the worst employee you’ve ever had, right?

00:27:58:08 – 00:28:17:04
I mean, that’s honestly where it comes down to. But we asked them also about college degrees. And we said, when you see a bachelor’s degree from a mainstream university on a resume, is that a positive or a negative or a neutral right? 40% said it was a neutral. They didn’t care if that was on there. Which is interesting because a lot of those bachelor’s degrees cost a lot of money.

00:28:17:05 – 00:28:42:05
Yes, fascinating. To me, 42% of our employers said is a negative for a bachelor’s degree from a mainstream university. And I asked them like, why? And they’re like, well, why would I want someone who has been trained as an anarchist at a Marxist, Marxist university for four years, like when you put it like that? but interestingly enough, they would rather hire someone without a degree, even in some.

00:28:42:05 – 00:28:58:03
And these are tech businesses. you know, obviously if you have an engineering degree, that’s going to have some positive outcomes. But man, if you have a psychology degree from a state university, any employer in their right mind is going to run as fast as they can the other direction. And that was kind of the interesting thing.

00:28:58:04 – 00:29:19:08
That was the bigger differentiator for our employers, whether it was Gen X or, millennials is actually no. They cared a great deal about where their training was. Did they learn by, you know, having a construction job for four years, or did they go to University of Alabama and get a psychology degree? that was a bigger differentiator for our employers.

00:29:19:09 – 00:29:40:00
You know, for me, I look at it as if you got a bachelor’s degree and did not work at all during that period of time. Then then I don’t have anything to do with you because you have no idea. You’re all social influence of work is based off of a professor who is likely tenured, who has a distorted view of an employer employee relationship.

00:29:40:01 – 00:30:00:07
And that’s right. It is shocking to me how many parents encourage their children not to work. And I’m like, they go to school assuming they showed a class and assuming it’s not online classes, which my daughter right now is is a full time student, and only has to show up to class three hours a week. The rest is online, and she’s almost done with the semester and she graduates in May.

00:30:00:08 – 00:30:17:10
I mean, you know, so so because she’s able to do this, I’m like, you know, she but she has three jobs while she’s doing this. So I look at this and I’m like, okay, that to me is impressive versus somebody that just has to show up to a place six, 12 hours a week, and then we and then expect that to handle stress.

00:30:17:11 – 00:30:42:00
I 100% agree. I’ll even go beyond just what they’re getting trained versus like the fact that they have no life experience with it. And I think to me that is such a huge difference because people I bring in that are college educated, especially into management. Oh, it’s awful. They just they don’t understand it. So, 100%, 100% agree they’re all right.

00:30:42:00 – 00:30:53:11
So I’m looking for a job or I’m an employer and I’m looking for workers. help me, help me understand. Where do I go? How do I find it? What can I do? All of that?

00:30:54:00 – 00:31:12:05
Yeah. So if you go to red balloon dot work, it’s not.com, because that sounded too much like communism to me. And we want work, not communism. So, red balloon dot work. if you go there as a job seeker, everything’s going to be free to you. We want to make sure that you have the tools necessary to go and have a fruitful career.

00:31:12:06 – 00:31:29:03
we have a bunch of free resources on there. There’s the employee bill of Rights and Responsibilities, written by our own lawyer, the labor lawyer. and you can download that for free. So we have a bunch of free resources for you. You can fill out a job seeker profile, join our resume database, and then employers might just tap you on the shoulder.

00:31:29:04 – 00:31:47:08
and you know that when you check out the jobs on red balloon work, you are looking at employers who care more about hard work and meritocracy than Dei and ESG. That’s it. because that’s the type of people that we attract, and that’s the type of employers that we have. so if you’re a job seeker, go, it’s totally free for you.

00:31:47:08 – 00:32:07:02
Check it out, tell your friends. It’s amazing. also, if you’re an employee or an employer, sorry, I did it backwards. Easy for me to say. if you’re an employer and you want to hire, there’s basically three things that Red balloon can do to help you for 200 bucks a month, you can post jobs and be in front of about 150,000 unique job seekers every single month.

00:32:07:03 – 00:32:25:06
and maybe get your next great employee. I was actually, talking to my friend, Donald Trump Jr today, and he said, man, it is better to it is worse to, get a bad employee than than it is, than getting, putting a lot of effort into getting a good employee. It’s worse. Anyway. You understand what I’m saying?

00:32:25:07 – 00:32:42:01
Don’t get a bad employee. It’s bad. so, so that’s what Red balloon does. So you can post jobs if you want us to do a recruitment service that’s under 10,000 bucks. And we will, scour the nation for your next best employee, and it’ll be a delightful process for you. And then we also have hiring software.

00:32:42:01 – 00:32:47:11
So we do a lot of things, that will make your life better. And we would love to have a conversation with you.

00:32:48:00 – 00:33:07:09
Well, Andrew, I appreciate it. for those again, who are interested in changing jobs, looking for looking for employees again, that’s red balloon work. you can also follow Andrew on x. I won’t bother to say the name and let you try to figure out how to spell it on there, but, but but their link will be in the in the description notes below.

00:33:07:09 – 00:33:15:09
So, but Andrew, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for what you’re doing. I think it’s awesome what you’re doing, and I greatly appreciate it.

00:33:15:10 – 00:33:18:11
Thanks for having me. And I hope that everybody has an amazing day.

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