Ever feel like you're screaming into the void while talking to customer support? Welcome to the Verizon episode.
In ROI Podcast™ episode #486, Law Smith and Eric Readinger walk you through a 22-hour odyssey trying to solve one simple Verizon trade-in issue—and in doing so, shine a spotlight on the hellscape of AI-powered customer service, endless chat resets, and the real ROI cost of wasted time.
We dig into:
- Whether AI bots are actually making support worse
- How corporations weaponize the “illusion of choice”
- The emotional and economic toll of bad service
- Why project management means nothing without time awareness
- Time as your most precious asset—and how companies steal it
- Nostalgia, comedy, and a little financial truth bomb for dessert
If you've ever asked, “Am I talking to a real person or just yelling at a toaster?”—this episode is for you... Verizon customer service, AI chatbots, live chat nightmare, time management, ROI Podcast, business comedy, satirical business podcast, bad support stories, illusion of choice, telecom frustration, passive investing, Christopher Nolan, funny podcast about work, digital operations, customer service horror stories, Eric Readinger, Law Smith
Episode sponsored by
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Hosts’ Eric Readinger & Law Smith 🔗s
@LawSmithWorks https://www.LawSmithWorks.com
@Tocobaga https://www.Tocoba.ga
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Law Smith (00:00):
Go both ways. All right,
Eric Readinger (00:03):
we're going there. We're going with the the
same one. Okay, no complaints.
Law Smith (00:12):
Mike Shinoda, I did a
Eric Readinger (00:15):
longer fade out. Should be a lot smoother
transitions.
Law Smith (00:19):
White, white. Wrap up, wrap up.
We need to get, like, no limit,studio style, yeah,
Eric Readinger (00:37):
you think that'll work on the prop.
Probably, I can make that it'sgonna do that a bunch. Or we can
get,
Law Smith (00:45):
if we can get, or did you have doggy style
Eric Readinger (00:49):
album growing up? Yes,
Law Smith (00:53):
for those that are really younger than 30, rap, rap
album, it's
Eric Readinger (00:59):
supposed to be trim out. You're not a producer
trying to hurt my feelingstoday. What are you doing, bro,
Law Smith (01:09):
some people call me cool. Eric, the the
Eric Readinger (01:14):
I have to look into this immediately.
Law Smith (01:16):
Why it's not fading out. Why me look because fade
Eric Readinger (01:21):
out on pause. That's on the pie. It's like if
I hit the button again, end oftrack. Fade Out, direction,
duration, 120 seconds. So itshouldn't just cut out. Hard,
What?
Law Smith (01:32):
What? Okay, you're gonna go with a slow fade out, a
two minute fade out. No, it
Eric Readinger (01:37):
would just start fading out at that point, and
it'll go away quicker.
Law Smith (01:41):
I want to get you to log like its own buttons for
turntables, no like DJ kitty therays, unofficial mascot. Got to
show my kids that if anybody'slistening hasn't seen that,
that's just a good time. Just acat that looks like he's DJing.
It's fun. Oh yeah. I mean, it'sgreat on all levels, you know,
(02:03):
yeah, all levels, yeah.Everybody should find that
funny. You
Eric Readinger (02:08):
sure about that, at least about the cats
Law Smith (02:11):
or the dogs? First off, cats don't mini feelings.
Dogs have feelings, yeah, bigtime, yeah. They have empathy.
Cats not so much. They're morefearful for themselves, yes,
yeah. And Garfield
Eric Readinger (02:26):
lasagna loves it.
Law Smith (02:28):
Why does he hate Mondays? He doesn't work, right?
Eric Readinger (02:32):
Lasagna is this guy, did your cat? That dude,
Jim, John, John. John's freeoccupant, John or Jim doesn't
matter. Don't feed your catlasagna. You're terrible cat
owner.
Law Smith (02:44):
It kicked Odie off the table. Yeah,
Eric Readinger (02:47):
man, Odie is the real protagonist in that show.
Law Smith (02:50):
I mean, odie's just there for a good time, right?
Thank God, there was a break inthe middle of that, of that
cartoon with the farm one in themiddle. Oh, I forgot about that,
man. I wish I didn't know that.
Eric Readinger (03:02):
Oh, man, oh, I forgot about they used to divide
up stuff, and you'd be like, Oh,I gotta sit through this
commercial
Law Smith (03:07):
breaks. You get three, three slots there, kind
of like Animaniacs used to do itwith three different stories.
Eric Readinger (03:14):
Yeah, have you last time you watched some
little commercials in it otherthan sports? Ooh,
Law Smith (03:20):
other than sports, and I've purposely put it on,
yeah, I have no idea, okay,because I really think I have
YouTube premium for, oh, yeah,use me. $18 a month. I'm pretty
highfalutin over here,commercial, and you have to sit
(03:41):
through their ads and you'relike,
Eric Readinger (03:43):
oh, yeah, commercials are not bad. Now,
looking back as I you know,because I'm logged in on a Hulu
account, it's not premium.Borrow mine yours, I was logged
into and something happened thatI don't know if we want to talk
about it publicly,
Law Smith (04:01):
yeah, we're actually going to get to it. To get to it
because it's related to therant. Oh,
Eric Readinger (04:05):
good. That's that was all on purpose. I'm
just saying a commercial breakthese days, I kind of, I don't
mind it. I like to get stuffdone. Well, I see 20 seconds. I
can get a lot done in twominutes. See enough
Law Smith (04:17):
ads sports, so I get my fill. I know they're a little
tailored toward that thoseaudiences, right? But I do like,
I like seeing what advertisersthink about Americans. Like what
we are, yes. You know, 15 yearsago, we're told dove told us
that fat girls are hot, right?And ADT commercials 10 years ago
(04:40):
were telling us only white guysare burglars.
Eric Readinger (04:42):
Yeah, right. I mean, that's kind of fun, you
know.
Law Smith (04:46):
Or like, every, every commercial now is, like, really
pushing a square peg in around.Oh,
Eric Readinger (04:54):
yeah, look how much taller she is than he is.
Yeah, it's just like, because.Card is checked. I've never seen
any of these combos in reallife, right, right? Where are
you guys getting this from?
Law Smith (05:06):
And I get it. I get it. If you're the creative
director, or you're the actualdirector of the commercial,
you're trying to check all theboxes. Well, yeah, you're trying
to make sure it doesn't get anycontroversy in the in a bad way.
So it's here we are safer
Eric Readinger (05:21):
to do that now I have controversy with it. Well,
Law Smith (05:23):
it's like movies now. JCVD used to beat up bad guys.
They weren't all Russian, no,but now they're all rush. You
would
Eric Readinger (05:32):
beat up, yeah, you'd beat up a whole
Law Smith (05:34):
race of people, black or Asian, back, oh,
Eric Readinger (05:38):
you can't have to be whiter than either of
Law Smith (05:41):
us. It's got to be an under it's got to be like a
European country. We
Eric Readinger (05:45):
don't know European country, you know,
could be made up and, you know,we'll buy in. Yeah.
Law Smith (05:54):
What were you going to say about more commercials?
Eric Readinger (05:58):
No, I'm not saying all more. I'm just
saying, like, in this day andage, it's nice to have, like, a
an impetus, like a timer, to doso it's like, okay, I got two
minutes, good. Because, like,otherwise, you can kind of just
keep on going no matter what.And you kind of have to do that
the initiation of activity onyour own, it's a
Law Smith (06:22):
force break, right? Yeah, but we're trained for
that. Now, you know, like wegrew up trained for that. Yes,
you and I, right? I know theSimpsons, there's gonna be three
breaks in there, yeah? And ifmaybe they do something wild,
and they they do four, right? Orthey have a big episode or
something, but it's gonna, it'sall gonna fit in that 30 minute
(06:43):
block.
Eric Readinger (06:44):
Yeah? I mean, it's all formulaic, yeah, it's
Law Smith (06:47):
just funny how, it's funny how we used to as kids.
You got used to that of like,all right, I'm gonna hold my pee
because I know there's acommercial break. Yeah, it's
gotta be any second now. And wedon't, we don't have, we're not
taping this. We don't have DVR.
Eric Readinger (07:03):
Oh, yeah. The whole, yeah, that was a whole
blue era, yeah. It was like,Wait a second,
Law Smith (07:08):
how many people have told you they invented TiVo?
When you're like, did you make amachine zero? They're like, No,
I've had so many people tell youjust like, the idea, okay, I
always find that fun thing
Eric Readinger (07:19):
you can record without all the extra stuff. If
you
Law Smith (07:22):
do that, would anybody, if you were those
people like you gotta have aprototype at some point to
really say that you may have hadan idea about it before.
Everybody
Eric Readinger (07:31):
show me some receipts if
Law Smith (07:33):
it's especially if it's a tangible thing, a
product. Yes, even though itisn't really, I failed to
mention at the top of this I'min. I'm headlining Clearwater
comedy club this weekend. If youhear this as we record Wednesday
night, I'm there Friday,Saturday, Clearwater Beach near
Hogan's cool restaurant.
Eric Readinger (07:54):
What do you mean? Near Hogan's? Hogan's
Law Smith (07:57):
beach bar is down there. Now it's it moved down to
Clearwater Beach. Now, on
Eric Readinger (08:03):
purpose, it wasn't a hurricane move, was it?
Law Smith (08:05):
I know, I think it was well before that they had
that big spot on the bridge onthe way to Clearwater. If you
remember, they got a birthdaythere one. It's like when I was
32 or something, because I waslike, what's the trashiest place
I can play volleyball? That'swhere
Eric Readinger (08:20):
a friend of the program, John Paul Labadie, who
just got married, did we talk? I
Law Smith (08:24):
met Jimmy hard mouth of the south at the old Hogan's.
Anyways,
Eric Readinger (08:28):
that's where JP told my dad that my mom had
given him weed brownies, and itwas like, three months later,
and he just seen him do thatmath, where he was like, Oh my
god. Was he freaking he thoughthe was gonna die when he took
him, that is a bad panic attack,because you're like, especially
if you're not, nobody told youthat's that. That's the messed
up part 4k. Bone.
Law Smith (08:50):
Good laugh over
Eric Readinger (08:52):
it. I was like, you just let him think that all
night. Yeah, he's fine. How are,how are the folks doing? Great.
Yeah, just great. Okay, yes,I'll leave
Law Smith (09:01):
it at that. I'm a man. I'm 40. You know what?
I've, I've squandered theopportunity to say that this
year, and I'm gonna, I'm gonnamake sure I use it until I turn
41
Eric Readinger (09:13):
Oh, dang, you're still 40. Yeah,
Law Smith (09:17):
what I got under a month, June 25 I got, we got to
get that special edited and putout. Because if it has to be
done
Eric Readinger (09:28):
making
Law Smith (09:29):
the audience and fixing it sounds like we can
just bullshit. I know. I found aweird, roundabout way. I found a
one of my kids, flag footballcoach, is a video production guy
who had a mutual friend as acomic that I knew, and him and I
(09:50):
got talking, he might, he saidhe pretty confidently, was like,
I can take a crack at it, and Igo, as long as I don't know.
It's sweetened. I don't need toknow. You know, as long as I.
Plausible deniability. That'sall I care about, even if I'm
telling you, don't tell the faceright now. Well, just like I've
told a friend, if you want totake all my thigh smut off my
(10:11):
social media and put an onlyfans together and be the manager
of that and get that gayfollowing, yeah, put, put that
50% for you 50% into a kid'strust for college. I get
plausible deniability.
Eric Readinger (10:26):
You're so giving. I know that's just, but
Law Smith (10:29):
I want to have an income stream that I I
technically, if I had to talk toanybody my family about I don't
know about it,
Eric Readinger (10:36):
yeah, well, don't, yeah, definitely. It's
just a funny idea. I'm acomedian. Hmm, okay, I'll do it.
Law Smith (10:44):
So who so you got anything else on the docket?
Eric Readinger (10:51):
Nope. I mean, I could talk about all kinds of
things. Well, school's almostover. I got two days of school
left.
Law Smith (10:57):
You're at night school,
Eric Readinger (11:00):
teaching, teaching children. Yeah, there's
that coming down to the wire.One more exam tomorrow.
Law Smith (11:11):
You excited? The exams are intense. PE exam, what
do you have to do? Climb therope. It's
Eric Readinger (11:17):
a written exam. Is there's no ropes, absolutely
not. No way I'd give those kidsropes. I mean, any kind just to
go, just
Law Smith (11:27):
to climb up, not to make into a circle at the end.
Oh,
Eric Readinger (11:31):
yeah, you can just tell them not to do that.
Law Smith (11:34):
I don't know how it goes. No,
Eric Readinger (11:36):
there would be it. Would I assume it's just at
all times? No, it'd be terrible.It is very close to anarchy. I
Law Smith (11:43):
assume it's probably a little bit more of like,
minimum security prison kind oflifestyle in there. Like, it's
like they're gonna walk into thenext class, but it's like you're
not gonna be able to wranglethem, right? Yeah,
Eric Readinger (11:58):
you know? I mean, they usually straighten
up. There's very few that arejust completely defiant. So
Law Smith (12:07):
yeah, at least it's not
Eric Readinger (12:09):
kind of sad. I'm sad. You're sad. I'm sad I'm not
going back to the same school.At the very least. Are
Law Smith (12:15):
you trying to go to another school? I thought you
were looking elsewhere.
Eric Readinger (12:18):
Well, I have to
Law Smith (12:21):
again, right? Mr. Media buyer, yeah,
Eric Readinger (12:24):
that's what. I don't know what I'm going to do
yet, but at
Law Smith (12:28):
least you're on top of it, right? What
Eric Readinger (12:31):
are you going to do with your lab? Coach, Rhett,
you do have, I don't know,child,
Law Smith (12:36):
so just to be clear, because I always forget this,
you do as a teacher, get youwork 910, months or whatever,
and get two months off, threemonths off, yes, and get
Eric Readinger (12:48):
paid annually, right? Well, they you can choose
how you get paid.
Law Smith (12:51):
Like, it's still an annual salary, whether you break
it down, either way, yes, yeah,yeah. So when it's
Eric Readinger (13:00):
not like, I don't get I'll get a paycheck or
through the end of the summer.Now, you know,
Law Smith (13:04):
look, I want teachers to get paid more, don't get me
wrong. But when I look at that,I'm always like, should I should
I put this on a nine month?Like, should I make this higher?
Like, I don't know. I'm tryingto annualize it to make sense.
Like, what? So when you see,like, the teacher salary,
average rates and stuff aroundthe country, and it's like,
(13:24):
here's how much each state makesa teacher, and you're like,
damn, I want them to make more,but it's only on nine months,
Eric Readinger (13:31):
right? But what you don't understand is, I need
two months away. I need twomonths just No, now you sound
like you haven't had your coffeeyet. Kathy, like just, I don't I
need it. Just stop talking to mefor two months and then it
that's what it's for. It's torecharge the teachers. If a
school is all year, bro,totally, it would be insanity.
(13:53):
Look,
Law Smith (13:54):
I get it. I'm not saying it's an easy job by any
means, and I'm for teachersgetting paid more or schools
getting allocated fundscorrectly. It seems like Union
and misallocation of funds seemto be a big problem. That's hard
to track. Sure, yeah, but mypage, just like taxes, tax
revenue, where's the taxreceipt? You can't do it cool,
(14:16):
right? Just give me, like, aone, just a long receipt, like,
CVS, no,
Eric Readinger (14:21):
it's what we call black budget. Yeah, it's,
it's called, you can just tellyou anything it's called, you're
never gonna know, yeah, what areyou gonna do about it? I don't
even
Law Smith (14:31):
care if it's broken down. Like, hey, 25% defense,
yeah, you know, Sure, I'll dothe math from there. Don't worry
about that. Well, I mean,
Eric Readinger (14:41):
you break that part down, defense in
particular, because I know whereit all goes to
Law Smith (14:44):
die. I'm just trying to, I'm trying to meet in the
middle, give me a littlesomething. No, for sure. Um,
they can't. They can't. Theydon't want to, because you get
you, you don't want to beaccountable.
Eric Readinger (14:55):
Yeah, and they would all be in prison. Well,
yeah, people would be like, hmm.
Law Smith (15:00):
So I'm spending this much per person, you know, times
300 million, or whatever amountof people pay taxes. Yeah, it's
not 300 million, but no 330
Eric Readinger (15:11):
but they bailed out 21 trillion in something and
mortgages and shit. And therewas only, like 7 trillion of
all, if you got it up all themortgages together, it was only
like,
Law Smith (15:23):
seven Well, I mean, we want Blackrock to own single
family homes. It was like,
Eric Readinger (15:27):
Wait a second, you could have just paid all
that shit off. We could have alljust what? Well, and it is all
the other part just wentmissing, yeah. That is, if you
really look into it, is such akick in the polls, and we
Law Smith (15:41):
might be heading in another subprime, subprime
mortgage crisis. Sure? Why not?I don't know. I tried not to
throw that out there andspeculate, because I don't
follow it
Eric Readinger (15:49):
that everybody does listen to you when it comes
to real estate. Well, I dofollow unusual
Law Smith (15:54):
whales, and that guy posts like, hey, Nancy Pelosi
and her husband made a lot ofputs on this on this stock right
before this news broke and madea lot of money, right? And
you're like, oh, there that tagteam. That's a power couple that
makes the best moves of alltime. They're both 80.
Eric Readinger (16:11):
There's there's an AI. They have a job. They'll
do the exact Nancy Pelositrades. I know, but I've heard
Law Smith (16:18):
that's kind of compromised, too. I like the,
have you seen the I think Ibrought it up on the show once
the CEOs that lift weights, likeindex it's like Bezos. It's like
all these guys that were nerdsthat started working out there,
and he this, but this guy madean index fund that's basically
(16:39):
all that. And if they stoplifting weights, he doesn't put
money in them. He doesn't putthem in the fund. Money
Eric Readinger (16:44):
is so stupid. It perform. It outperforms, like,
everything, right? Why is that athing? Like, why is so lifting
weights rules? Yeah, but I mean,just the fact that you, I'm
gonna make a thing that if thishappens, then it's worth more
money. Like, what? Like, theyjust manipulate the shit so bad.
It's like,
Law Smith (17:03):
oh yeah. I mean finance, the reason I couldn't
get into it was because I waslike, this is all fucking shell
game. This is all like, I wouldwork for fucking I worked for a
good company, like one of thebetter ones, like, as far as,
like, not doing snake oilbullshit. They really, they
really had mathematicalprinciples to what they're
doing. My, one of my bosses, wonthe Nobel Prize for Economics.
(17:24):
Later, you've mentioned, I know,but I'm just for anybody
listening. That's new. Hey,dude, that's That's amazing.
Like passive income theory, it'sso boring. Passive investing
theory, it's so boring. And I'll
Eric Readinger (17:37):
get me started on that sham Nobel Prize stuff.
Shout out, Eugene fauma, KenFrench,
Law Smith (17:41):
what's up? What? But they came up with the passive
investing. Don't work. Don'twork. Try to beat the market.
Work with the market, but yougot to do it over the long run,
and you got to do it with mutualfunds that are small value.
What? What? Okay, anyway,Vanguard, if, if you want to go
for a cheaper fund, well, yougotta have 100 thou to get
(18:05):
dimensional. Yeah, that's right.The only two people bought
directly, Brendan Fraser, ArnoldSchwarzenegger,
Eric Readinger (18:14):
that's so weird because you said something about
the whales. And I was like, Oh,the Brendan phrase. I was
thinking the Brendan Fraser, notthat funny, but unusual
Law Smith (18:22):
whales, yeah, now I think of him jerking off the
beginning. I've put that movieon so many times. I can't, I
can't do this right now.
Eric Readinger (18:32):
Sad, fat, oh, okay, yeah, I don't need to do
that. Then I'm like, It's
Law Smith (18:36):
Darren Aronofsky, right? Oh, guy did Requiem,
yeah,
Eric Readinger (18:41):
he's good. I don't think I can handle that,
yeah, but probably pretty darkand sad.
Law Smith (18:45):
I mean, I've put it on four or five times in that
scene, I forget that's gonnahappen, and I go, Oh man, yeah,
um, let's talk about time. Okay,I love Nolan movies because they
all, I think they all surroundtime. I think that's the through
line. Christopher Nolan is myfavorite director, and I think
(19:08):
there always is a very bigemphasis on time. Yeah,
Eric Readinger (19:14):
what do you what made you think I'm kind I'm
getting to, oh, it's a build upa thing. Oh, yeah,
Law Smith (19:19):
this is like, we're not
Eric Readinger (19:21):
going to talk about the theories of time.
Law Smith (19:23):
We can Time is money. Time's a flat circle.
Eric Readinger (19:28):
You sure about that? Lost her to a flat circle
than money,
Law Smith (19:32):
as Ben Franklin, or maybe our first venture
capitalist said, lost time isnever found again.
Eric Readinger (19:40):
Yeah. Did you write these down? Yeah, wrote
out a rant. Oh, okay, and thenhad it organized. Please don't
let me interrupt. Well,
Law Smith (19:47):
your, your shitty eyes can't read it anyway. Nope.
I just kind of wanted to havesome bullet points. I wanted to
have a little bit of structuregetting into this because my
rant, my rant, game isn't on.Point as it was, 2016 2017 Oh,
Eric Readinger (20:03):
those are good rant years.
Law Smith (20:06):
Yes, go back old episodes. Those were rants.
Yeah, well, those were like, youand I in the office and, like,
fucking fired up. Yes, turn iton. I guess that's to say. I've
got to talk about branding.Yeah,
Eric Readinger (20:22):
brain, ding, not Brandi, the singer. No, we did
talk about
Law Smith (20:26):
Monica guy for the record. Okay,
Eric Readinger (20:30):
that was always the the argument. I
Law Smith (20:32):
thought Monica was so much hotter. It's not even
close.
Eric Readinger (20:35):
Maybe I don't remember, um,
Law Smith (20:38):
time. Time is that thing you don't get back if we
if we know anything about timeon this podcast, everybody's
consensus answer, what advicewould you give your 13 year old
self is really about time?There's they're saying, don't
waste time listening to otherpeople's bullshit. Go follow
what you want to do. Use yourtime correctly. Yes, time makes
(20:58):
a better game, and football is abetter game than baseball
because it has a clock thatwinds down. I mean, baseball the
only one that
Eric Readinger (21:06):
does that shit in tennis, I'm making an example
a lot of the ones that you havea tool to
Law Smith (21:11):
hit the ball Two Minute Warnings. You know,
that's some of the best often towatch right? Every second
matters. There's urgency,there's rhythm. Sometimes it's
not in the playbook, sometimesit's instinct, but you work all
the way up to that point to getto that two minute offense. Uh,
Project management's worthlesswithout time, deadline,
(21:32):
schedule, duration tracking,it's not enough to get things
done. You have to ask, how welldo we use our time on a and this
is more of an operations kind ofthing do? Can we do better?
Continuous improvement? Cousin?Do you want to waste more time,
or do you want to do it the sameway? Because you don't spend any
time looking backwards? I'mgetting somewhere. Okay? Unless
(21:54):
you have something funny,
Eric Readinger (21:55):
no, no, I'll wait for my thoughts.
Law Smith (21:59):
If your team's not your team can burn hours. That's
opportunity cost. If we're allcapitalists in America,
Eric Readinger (22:08):
don't give me that. Don't just do your aunt,
Law Smith (22:10):
I'm looking over at my kids. Your kids have gotten
so much older in the last coupleyears. Coming over here, my kids
are eight and seven. That corny,saying that the days are long,
the years are short, it's true.You blink and they're older and
they're much older, and it'slike, like, King of the Hill.
(22:31):
When the one friend, it waslike, Johnny peppercorns. Kid
gets older one season, he's
Eric Readinger (22:36):
like, what's going on? That's a deep Bull. I
didn't get it. That's
Law Smith (22:39):
a deep pull. That's for my king of the hill fans.
It's coming back. Okay. How youspend your time is how you spend
your life. Everybody thateverybody you talk to that's
older, is like, use it wisely. Iget I was mad because I was late
getting here, because that makesyou delayed, that makes you have
to sit for seven extra minutes.I hate that's bullshit that
(23:00):
sucks, but that it all comesaround to ROI. Now my negative
ROI is with Verizon. Here's theI'm going to try to condense
this story really. I mean, it'sgot a lot of detail. I spent
about 22 hours total trying tofix this one thing. Holy shit.
(23:21):
Between when I traded an iPhone14 in in November for iPhone 16,
right? And they didn't give me areturn label, then I called them
twice, they still didn't send meone. So I went to the store with
my kids. Hey, just
Eric Readinger (23:36):
real quick before you go on the whole thing
about time that you're talkingabout. I hated that. I know that
I just I was terror. I wanted tokill myself and that whole
thing. Well, you
Law Smith (23:46):
wanted to go on. You want time to speed up? Yes,
yeah, you want, you wish youcould do tenant reverse. Wanted
Eric Readinger (23:52):
speed. I wanted to not be in this space while
you're talking about time. Like,just awkward. I don't like it.
That's not how we do. We don'tdo like they wouldn't read from
computer screens. Well, I wroteit still you're reading because
I prepped it, yeah,
Law Smith (24:10):
well, I was worried, uh, that would, I wouldn't even
make full sentences if I justkept going about that. Oh, my
bad. Um, anyway, Interstellar,favorite movie, Yep, great. Time
dilation, gravity, all thatstuff. Time works differently on
different planets. All that backto this, I wasted a bunch of
time, but it was,
Eric Readinger (24:31):
I am. I've got a
Law Smith (24:34):
Dion neon Dion dude, yeah, I've got a I've got a
weird bug up my ass when you dothe things you're supposed to do
for like this trade in for thisphone, I get dinged for their
error, right? Yes, I wasted, Iwasted time in November, like
(24:54):
going to the store, all they didwas put me with the worst, the
newest kid who eventually. Gotme to the manager 50 minutes in,
and then they just called thecustomer service line. I have
the number four and put me onspeaker. I just walked out. I
just, are you guys fuckingserious? My kids were be like,
Wow. I said a lot worse thanthat, pretty bad. I go, What is
this shit show? Are you fuckingserious? I go, let's go. We're
(25:17):
walking walked out. Good foryou. Finally called again,
finally got someone fucking thatunderstood what's going on,
emailed me, return label, sentthe phone, traded in, no
problem.
Eric Readinger (25:28):
What sucks about you walking out is they were
really happy. Oh, that's
Law Smith (25:31):
that's gonna be part of this. That's part of this.
All they want to do is get youoff the phone, yeah, or off the
chat. We're out of the store.It's because you're one of
millions. We're in the age ofillusion of choice. So you have
four, you got four airlines tochoose from. Really, you got
four cell phone carriers tochoose from. Really, you might
(25:52):
have two internet providerswhere you live, if you're lucky,
you got one electric company,probably most metals, gag. You
go get solar. They go, you gottabe on our grid. If you do that,
and that's gonna cost you prettypenny. You're like, I thought
we're trying to do more with theEarth, right? Yeah, I'm trying
to be a good person. No, man,no, you got to be on our grid or
(26:12):
you get dinged with a huge fine.So we need you to store a bunch
of power there too. Yeah,
Eric Readinger (26:18):
you're gonna need to give us some of that
Law Smith (26:21):
seems to give me incentivize me on doing that. So
it's one of those things wherethey don't give a fuck, they go,
what are you gonna do? Where areyou gonna go? Right? You're just
gonna go to the same people, andyour
Eric Readinger (26:33):
SIM card doesn't work anywhere else. Dude,
Law Smith (26:35):
I went without, I went without cell service for
like, 10 days because I was,wow, yeah, and, man, I didn't
realize how, like, how much Iuse that on the on the daily,
hourly, for work, for, like,just logistics, yeah, I time
traveled back to, like, 2000like, Okay, I'll see you in 20
minutes, right? I don't got noWi Fi, yeah? Unless I go to a
(26:59):
Starbucks and post up,
Eric Readinger (27:00):
hopefully I remember how to get there. All
these directing gone. I did itbefore times
Law Smith (27:08):
because I had it on I had it on ways, and then it
blanked out and it didn't keepit on there, like cached on
there. So I was like, anyway, sogot all that handled their up.
That was probably four hours.This was, I'm getting charged
like 330 a month for me and twokids that don't have real
(27:33):
phones. What? Yeah, they got twotablets, two watches. I got a
watch and I got two
Eric Readinger (27:39):
phones. But, I mean, they don't all have cell
service, individual, like,lines. Oh,
Law Smith (27:44):
well, you gotta buy for your watches. You gotta buy
phone number because, well, ifyou go, Well, can I use that
phone number for, for like, asecond line? No, nah. How about,
how about, why didn't you justbuy
Eric Readinger (27:56):
the regular watch? What do you mean, like
the one without the line?
Law Smith (28:01):
Santa, well, technically, Santa got Anna. I
had to deal with the bill. Wedidn't really work that out.
It's kind of a 1 million Mr.Kringle. So I noticed I've never
got, I've never gotten the tradein credits for this. Oh, good.
Really nice. And so I'm like Italked. I call earlier this
(28:22):
month. I called 20 days ago, 25days ago, something like that.
Early. May I go, Hey, I noticedthis hasn't been credited on my
bill. Can you put it on my bill?Took a while to get to them.
They go, Sure. No problem. We'llput it on the current bill, not
the next one, like we usuallydo. I got authorization from my
manager. Blah, blah, blah, blah,great. Come to like, May 16. May
(28:45):
17 doesn't happen. And I'm like,What the fuck? And I don't have
I now, I now I'm a psycho. Andrecord every conversation I have
with any customer service,because when they do the quality
shirt assurance announcement, Igo, I'm doing that too. How do I
attach a file to this. I'm doingthat too. Yeah, I'm doing it for
my quality assurance, and maybeI'll tease this video out for
Eric Readinger (29:06):
next steps. What a tease. People will be so
excited.
Law Smith (29:09):
Well, I made my daughter cry with her listening
to me yell at the people on thephone, because I got into
really, and you hear her crying.Um, no, she was like, under a
pillow. She thought it was. Shewas like, you sounded like, Jon
Eric Readinger (29:22):
Taffer. And I was like, thank you. That's
what. That's not what I wasgoing
Law Smith (29:25):
or rescues her favorite show, she's seven,
okay? Makes sense. She wants toyell at people. I get it. She
does it to me. But I looked overand you see your daughter crying
like a Native American, andthat, that littering commercial,
right? Like just strolling downlike you were scaring me. I was
like, but I was talking to them.You
Eric Readinger (29:46):
heard me, right? They're not real. People done,
darling. I need
Law Smith (29:49):
to show you how many. I need to show you the scroll. I
think I put it in Slack, but youprobably didn't look at it,
because I wouldn't if I wereyou, you were right. 16 to.
Different live chat reps. Italked to 17, excuse
Eric Readinger (30:03):
me. Oh, okay, I was gonna check that.
Law Smith (30:05):
Here's the fuckery of Verizon, absolutely. And I said
factory to them, so theycouldn't ding me. I you know,
you can't cuss in those things.It would be like, we don't have
to deal with that now. And I'mlike, Oh, well. I said factory.
So fuck you. I was gettingdelirious and just making myself
laugh. That's a while, okay, Iwas like, are you i? At one
(30:27):
point, I was just asking them,Are you a human? How do I know?
I don't know. That's good.You're an AI bot, because I
asked to talk via email and itwent to text in my phone. So I'm
just texting and see only, onlyperson I could text for, for
those days I don't have cellphone. Magically, here's the
other magic, doctor, strangemagic. Whoo. In in here, I get
(30:50):
three of those 17 live chatreps, maybe AI bots, maybe real
people. I don't know. They justsay they're live assistants, so
you'll never know. They
Eric Readinger (31:00):
don't say alive, right?
Law Smith (31:03):
Good point, I get three of them actually feel like
people that are like, This isfucked up. I'm gonna help you
get this. I was like,
Eric Readinger (31:13):
all I want. Did you have to provide your
information again to everysingle one? Every one
Law Smith (31:17):
of them had to grant them access. Love that. And I
was like, at some points, I waslike, I don't have self service,
so I can't get on your websiteto do it, yeah? And they're
like, Oh, right. I was like, sobecause they cut my shit off, I
go. I was told I don't have topay this bill until this is
credited. All I want, all I wantis to get to zero. I want to get
(31:39):
back to normal, yeah. And I wantyou all to fulfill what was
promised. Is that that crazy?And by the time I got like, four
of these chats in, I was like,well, now this is gonna be a bit
now, this is gonna be somethingto talk about. This is the thing
now. So the three of the 17 Italked to over a four day span,
five day span, it would getreally close. Like, Friday
(32:03):
night, I was at my kids flagfootball game, and it's like,
Okay, I'm ready to go wheneveryou're ready to pay. And I was
like, I'll do it when I'm on WiFi at home. I don't have my I
actually don't have my walletwith me right now.
Eric Readinger (32:13):
Oh, yeah, you have to be in the perfect
scenario to actually finish thesituation. I couldn't,
Law Smith (32:18):
yeah, I had to be on Wi Fi, and I had to have my
wallet. I was one of two. And soI got back home, and I go, Okay,
I'm ready to send me the link.Ready to do it right now,
because it's like had to gothrough a bunch of channels to
make it happen, apparently. Andthen fucking chat starts over.
This happened three times. Oh, Iwould get so close to them
(32:41):
fixing their fuck up. And theygo, Hi, I'm with Verizon. I'm
the live assistant. Let me getyou to an agent that can help
you. What do you need, orsomething like that. I might
scroll up. Oh, no, that'sanother one. So then I go, I
want you to read all the chatssince Wednesday morning, 10:20am
Eric Readinger (33:01):
EST, sorry we don't have access to that.
Law Smith (33:03):
No, no, they do. I want you to read all the chats,
and then when you're done, getback to me. It's long, I'll
wait. She goes, okay. I caughtthree of them that said they
read it and they lied. Theyjust, they just read the
representatives notes that werelike nothing.
Eric Readinger (33:23):
What'd you do? Quiz them? Yeah,
Law Smith (33:25):
go. Did you, oh, did you read the entirety because
you're asking me questions thatI've already answered in
triplicate. No, Verizon, do youhave a disdain for your
customers? Is it only becausethere's millions of us? What the
fuck am I gonna do?
Eric Readinger (33:42):
We can send this to them. Oh, that could be fun,
buddy.
Law Smith (33:46):
I want to put some bad buddy behind this. Don't get
it wrong. Don't get it twisted.I will spend more of my own
money to make sure it gets outthere. Maybe, okay, this will be
fun. Maybe I'll have to do abetter version of the next
episode. But I want to show you
Eric Readinger (34:00):
again. You can talk about time again.
Law Smith (34:02):
Oh, again. Oh, you know, I might give another,
another whack. Oh, good. Youknow, I'm gonna do it now just
to piss you off. Well, I hopeyou bring it better.
Eric Readinger (34:13):
Oh, what do you Well, you better have make me
not hate it. You better have medo that to you. Don't make me
hate you. You better have whatcomes out of your mouth. You
better
Law Smith (34:21):
have the score to any given Sunday halftime speech.
Better have that ready to go.Okay,
Eric Readinger (34:28):
is that accessible?
Law Smith (34:30):
Probably, I tried to play it once,
Eric Readinger (34:33):
and you wouldn't let me, yeah, no, I've got it.
Oh, I was probably in a mood.It's the six inches in front of
your face. Oh, that's why.
Law Smith (34:44):
All right, I gotta go do a set and bomb. Oh, all
right, bitch about checkers forfive minutes. Okay,
Eric Readinger (34:50):
love that Richard Nixon's dog. Oh.
Go both ways. All right,
Eric Readinger (00:03):
we're going there. We're going with the the
same one. Okay, no complaints.
Law Smith (00:12):
Mike Shinoda, I did a
Eric Readinger (00:15):
longer fade out. Should be a lot smoother
transitions.
Law Smith (00:19):
White, white. Wrap up, wrap up.
We need to get, like, no limit,studio style, yeah,
Eric Readinger (00:37):
you think that'll work on the prop.
Probably, I can make that it'sgonna do that a bunch. Or we can
get,
Law Smith (00:45):
if we can get, or did you have doggy style
Eric Readinger (00:49):
album growing up? Yes,
Law Smith (00:53):
for those that are really younger than 30, rap, rap
album, it's
Eric Readinger (00:59):
supposed to be trim out. You're not a producer
trying to hurt my feelingstoday. What are you doing, bro,
Law Smith (01:09):
some people call me cool. Eric, the the
Eric Readinger (01:14):
I have to look into this immediately.
Law Smith (01:16):
Why it's not fading out. Why me look because fade
Eric Readinger (01:21):
out on pause. That's on the pie. It's like if
I hit the button again, end oftrack. Fade Out, direction,
duration, 120 seconds. So itshouldn't just cut out. Hard,
What?
Law Smith (01:32):
What? Okay, you're gonna go with a slow fade out, a
two minute fade out. No, it
Eric Readinger (01:37):
would just start fading out at that point, and
it'll go away quicker.
Law Smith (01:41):
I want to get you to log like its own buttons for
turntables, no like DJ kitty therays, unofficial mascot. Got to
show my kids that if anybody'slistening hasn't seen that,
that's just a good time. Just acat that looks like he's DJing.
It's fun. Oh yeah. I mean, it'sgreat on all levels, you know,
(02:03):
yeah, all levels, yeah.Everybody should find that
funny. You
Eric Readinger (02:08):
sure about that, at least about the cats
Law Smith (02:11):
or the dogs? First off, cats don't mini feelings.
Dogs have feelings, yeah, bigtime, yeah. They have empathy.
Cats not so much. They're morefearful for themselves, yes,
yeah. And Garfield
Eric Readinger (02:26):
lasagna loves it.
Law Smith (02:28):
Why does he hate Mondays? He doesn't work, right?
Eric Readinger (02:32):
Lasagna is this guy, did your cat? That dude,
Jim, John, John. John's freeoccupant, John or Jim doesn't
matter. Don't feed your catlasagna. You're terrible cat
owner.
Law Smith (02:44):
It kicked Odie off the table. Yeah,
Eric Readinger (02:47):
man, Odie is the real protagonist in that show.
Law Smith (02:50):
I mean, odie's just there for a good time, right?
Thank God, there was a break inthe middle of that, of that
cartoon with the farm one in themiddle. Oh, I forgot about that,
man. I wish I didn't know that.
Eric Readinger (03:02):
Oh, man, oh, I forgot about they used to divide
up stuff, and you'd be like, Oh,I gotta sit through this
commercial
Law Smith (03:07):
breaks. You get three, three slots there, kind
of like Animaniacs used to do itwith three different stories.
Eric Readinger (03:14):
Yeah, have you last time you watched some
little commercials in it otherthan sports? Ooh,
Law Smith (03:20):
other than sports, and I've purposely put it on,
yeah, I have no idea, okay,because I really think I have
YouTube premium for, oh, yeah,use me. $18 a month. I'm pretty
highfalutin over here,commercial, and you have to sit
(03:41):
through their ads and you'relike,
Eric Readinger (03:43):
oh, yeah, commercials are not bad. Now,
looking back as I you know,because I'm logged in on a Hulu
account, it's not premium.Borrow mine yours, I was logged
into and something happened thatI don't know if we want to talk
about it publicly,
Law Smith (04:01):
yeah, we're actually going to get to it. To get to it
because it's related to therant. Oh,
Eric Readinger (04:05):
good. That's that was all on purpose. I'm
just saying a commercial breakthese days, I kind of, I don't
mind it. I like to get stuffdone. Well, I see 20 seconds. I
can get a lot done in twominutes. See enough
Law Smith (04:17):
ads sports, so I get my fill. I know they're a little
tailored toward that thoseaudiences, right? But I do like,
I like seeing what advertisersthink about Americans. Like what
we are, yes. You know, 15 yearsago, we're told dove told us
that fat girls are hot, right?And ADT commercials 10 years ago
(04:40):
were telling us only white guysare burglars.
Eric Readinger (04:42):
Yeah, right. I mean, that's kind of fun, you
know.
Law Smith (04:46):
Or like, every, every commercial now is, like, really
pushing a square peg in around.Oh,
Eric Readinger (04:54):
yeah, look how much taller she is than he is.
Yeah, it's just like, because.Card is checked. I've never seen
any of these combos in reallife, right, right? Where are
you guys getting this from?
Law Smith (05:06):
And I get it. I get it. If you're the creative
director, or you're the actualdirector of the commercial,
you're trying to check all theboxes. Well, yeah, you're trying
to make sure it doesn't get anycontroversy in the in a bad way.
So it's here we are safer
Eric Readinger (05:21):
to do that now I have controversy with it. Well,
Law Smith (05:23):
it's like movies now. JCVD used to beat up bad guys.
They weren't all Russian, no,but now they're all rush. You
would
Eric Readinger (05:32):
beat up, yeah, you'd beat up a whole
Law Smith (05:34):
race of people, black or Asian, back, oh,
Eric Readinger (05:38):
you can't have to be whiter than either of
Law Smith (05:41):
us. It's got to be an under it's got to be like a
European country. We
Eric Readinger (05:45):
don't know European country, you know,
could be made up and, you know,we'll buy in. Yeah.
Law Smith (05:54):
What were you going to say about more commercials?
Eric Readinger (05:58):
No, I'm not saying all more. I'm just
saying, like, in this day andage, it's nice to have, like, a
an impetus, like a timer, to doso it's like, okay, I got two
minutes, good. Because, like,otherwise, you can kind of just
keep on going no matter what.And you kind of have to do that
the initiation of activity onyour own, it's a
Law Smith (06:22):
force break, right? Yeah, but we're trained for
that. Now, you know, like wegrew up trained for that. Yes,
you and I, right? I know theSimpsons, there's gonna be three
breaks in there, yeah? And ifmaybe they do something wild,
and they they do four, right? Orthey have a big episode or
something, but it's gonna, it'sall gonna fit in that 30 minute
(06:43):
block.
Eric Readinger (06:44):
Yeah? I mean, it's all formulaic, yeah, it's
Law Smith (06:47):
just funny how, it's funny how we used to as kids.
You got used to that of like,all right, I'm gonna hold my pee
because I know there's acommercial break. Yeah, it's
gotta be any second now. And wedon't, we don't have, we're not
taping this. We don't have DVR.
Eric Readinger (07:03):
Oh, yeah. The whole, yeah, that was a whole
blue era, yeah. It was like,Wait a second,
Law Smith (07:08):
how many people have told you they invented TiVo?
When you're like, did you make amachine zero? They're like, No,
I've had so many people tell youjust like, the idea, okay, I
always find that fun thing
Eric Readinger (07:19):
you can record without all the extra stuff. If
you
Law Smith (07:22):
do that, would anybody, if you were those
people like you gotta have aprototype at some point to
really say that you may have hadan idea about it before.
Everybody
Eric Readinger (07:31):
show me some receipts if
Law Smith (07:33):
it's especially if it's a tangible thing, a
product. Yes, even though itisn't really, I failed to
mention at the top of this I'min. I'm headlining Clearwater
comedy club this weekend. If youhear this as we record Wednesday
night, I'm there Friday,Saturday, Clearwater Beach near
Hogan's cool restaurant.
Eric Readinger (07:54):
What do you mean? Near Hogan's? Hogan's
Law Smith (07:57):
beach bar is down there. Now it's it moved down to
Clearwater Beach. Now, on
Eric Readinger (08:03):
purpose, it wasn't a hurricane move, was it?
Law Smith (08:05):
I know, I think it was well before that they had
that big spot on the bridge onthe way to Clearwater. If you
remember, they got a birthdaythere one. It's like when I was
32 or something, because I waslike, what's the trashiest place
I can play volleyball? That'swhere
Eric Readinger (08:20):
a friend of the program, John Paul Labadie, who
just got married, did we talk? I
Law Smith (08:24):
met Jimmy hard mouth of the south at the old Hogan's.
Anyways,
Eric Readinger (08:28):
that's where JP told my dad that my mom had
given him weed brownies, and itwas like, three months later,
and he just seen him do thatmath, where he was like, Oh my
god. Was he freaking he thoughthe was gonna die when he took
him, that is a bad panic attack,because you're like, especially
if you're not, nobody told youthat's that. That's the messed
up part 4k. Bone.
Law Smith (08:50):
Good laugh over
Eric Readinger (08:52):
it. I was like, you just let him think that all
night. Yeah, he's fine. How are,how are the folks doing? Great.
Yeah, just great. Okay, yes,I'll leave
Law Smith (09:01):
it at that. I'm a man. I'm 40. You know what?
I've, I've squandered theopportunity to say that this
year, and I'm gonna, I'm gonnamake sure I use it until I turn
41
Eric Readinger (09:13):
Oh, dang, you're still 40. Yeah,
Law Smith (09:17):
what I got under a month, June 25 I got, we got to
get that special edited and putout. Because if it has to be
done
Eric Readinger (09:28):
making
Law Smith (09:29):
the audience and fixing it sounds like we can
just bullshit. I know. I found aweird, roundabout way. I found a
one of my kids, flag footballcoach, is a video production guy
who had a mutual friend as acomic that I knew, and him and I
(09:50):
got talking, he might, he saidhe pretty confidently, was like,
I can take a crack at it, and Igo, as long as I don't know.
It's sweetened. I don't need toknow. You know, as long as I.
Plausible deniability. That'sall I care about, even if I'm
telling you, don't tell the faceright now. Well, just like I've
told a friend, if you want totake all my thigh smut off my
(10:11):
social media and put an onlyfans together and be the manager
of that and get that gayfollowing, yeah, put, put that
50% for you 50% into a kid'strust for college. I get
plausible deniability.
Eric Readinger (10:26):
You're so giving. I know that's just, but
Law Smith (10:29):
I want to have an income stream that I I
technically, if I had to talk toanybody my family about I don't
know about it,
Eric Readinger (10:36):
yeah, well, don't, yeah, definitely. It's
just a funny idea. I'm acomedian. Hmm, okay, I'll do it.
Law Smith (10:44):
So who so you got anything else on the docket?
Eric Readinger (10:51):
Nope. I mean, I could talk about all kinds of
things. Well, school's almostover. I got two days of school
left.
Law Smith (10:57):
You're at night school,
Eric Readinger (11:00):
teaching, teaching children. Yeah, there's
that coming down to the wire.One more exam tomorrow.
Law Smith (11:11):
You excited? The exams are intense. PE exam, what
do you have to do? Climb therope. It's
Eric Readinger (11:17):
a written exam. Is there's no ropes, absolutely
not. No way I'd give those kidsropes. I mean, any kind just to
go, just
Law Smith (11:27):
to climb up, not to make into a circle at the end.
Oh,
Eric Readinger (11:31):
yeah, you can just tell them not to do that.
Law Smith (11:34):
I don't know how it goes. No,
Eric Readinger (11:36):
there would be it. Would I assume it's just at
all times? No, it'd be terrible.It is very close to anarchy. I
Law Smith (11:43):
assume it's probably a little bit more of like,
minimum security prison kind oflifestyle in there. Like, it's
like they're gonna walk into thenext class, but it's like you're
not gonna be able to wranglethem, right? Yeah,
Eric Readinger (11:58):
you know? I mean, they usually straighten
up. There's very few that arejust completely defiant. So
Law Smith (12:07):
yeah, at least it's not
Eric Readinger (12:09):
kind of sad. I'm sad. You're sad. I'm sad I'm not
going back to the same school.At the very least. Are
Law Smith (12:15):
you trying to go to another school? I thought you
were looking elsewhere.
Eric Readinger (12:18):
Well, I have to
Law Smith (12:21):
again, right? Mr. Media buyer, yeah,
Eric Readinger (12:24):
that's what. I don't know what I'm going to do
yet, but at
Law Smith (12:28):
least you're on top of it, right? What
Eric Readinger (12:31):
are you going to do with your lab? Coach, Rhett,
you do have, I don't know,child,
Law Smith (12:36):
so just to be clear, because I always forget this,
you do as a teacher, get youwork 910, months or whatever,
and get two months off, threemonths off, yes, and get
Eric Readinger (12:48):
paid annually, right? Well, they you can choose
how you get paid.
Law Smith (12:51):
Like, it's still an annual salary, whether you break
it down, either way, yes, yeah,yeah. So when it's
Eric Readinger (13:00):
not like, I don't get I'll get a paycheck or
through the end of the summer.Now, you know,
Law Smith (13:04):
look, I want teachers to get paid more, don't get me
wrong. But when I look at that,I'm always like, should I should
I put this on a nine month?Like, should I make this higher?
Like, I don't know. I'm tryingto annualize it to make sense.
Like, what? So when you see,like, the teacher salary,
average rates and stuff aroundthe country, and it's like,
(13:24):
here's how much each state makesa teacher, and you're like,
damn, I want them to make more,but it's only on nine months,
Eric Readinger (13:31):
right? But what you don't understand is, I need
two months away. I need twomonths just No, now you sound
like you haven't had your coffeeyet. Kathy, like just, I don't I
need it. Just stop talking to mefor two months and then it
that's what it's for. It's torecharge the teachers. If a
school is all year, bro,totally, it would be insanity.
(13:53):
Look,
Law Smith (13:54):
I get it. I'm not saying it's an easy job by any
means, and I'm for teachersgetting paid more or schools
getting allocated fundscorrectly. It seems like Union
and misallocation of funds seemto be a big problem. That's hard
to track. Sure, yeah, but mypage, just like taxes, tax
revenue, where's the taxreceipt? You can't do it cool,
(14:16):
right? Just give me, like, aone, just a long receipt, like,
CVS, no,
Eric Readinger (14:21):
it's what we call black budget. Yeah, it's,
it's called, you can just tellyou anything it's called, you're
never gonna know, yeah, what areyou gonna do about it? I don't
even
Law Smith (14:31):
care if it's broken down. Like, hey, 25% defense,
yeah, you know, Sure, I'll dothe math from there. Don't worry
about that. Well, I mean,
Eric Readinger (14:41):
you break that part down, defense in
particular, because I know whereit all goes to
Law Smith (14:44):
die. I'm just trying to, I'm trying to meet in the
middle, give me a littlesomething. No, for sure. Um,
they can't. They can't. Theydon't want to, because you get
you, you don't want to beaccountable.
Eric Readinger (14:55):
Yeah, and they would all be in prison. Well,
yeah, people would be like, hmm.
Law Smith (15:00):
So I'm spending this much per person, you know, times
300 million, or whatever amountof people pay taxes. Yeah, it's
not 300 million, but no 330
Eric Readinger (15:11):
but they bailed out 21 trillion in something and
mortgages and shit. And therewas only, like 7 trillion of
all, if you got it up all themortgages together, it was only
like,
Law Smith (15:23):
seven Well, I mean, we want Blackrock to own single
family homes. It was like,
Eric Readinger (15:27):
Wait a second, you could have just paid all
that shit off. We could have alljust what? Well, and it is all
the other part just wentmissing, yeah. That is, if you
really look into it, is such akick in the polls, and we
Law Smith (15:41):
might be heading in another subprime, subprime
mortgage crisis. Sure? Why not?I don't know. I tried not to
throw that out there andspeculate, because I don't
follow it
Eric Readinger (15:49):
that everybody does listen to you when it comes
to real estate. Well, I dofollow unusual
Law Smith (15:54):
whales, and that guy posts like, hey, Nancy Pelosi
and her husband made a lot ofputs on this on this stock right
before this news broke and madea lot of money, right? And
you're like, oh, there that tagteam. That's a power couple that
makes the best moves of alltime. They're both 80.
Eric Readinger (16:11):
There's there's an AI. They have a job. They'll
do the exact Nancy Pelositrades. I know, but I've heard
Law Smith (16:18):
that's kind of compromised, too. I like the,
have you seen the I think Ibrought it up on the show once
the CEOs that lift weights, likeindex it's like Bezos. It's like
all these guys that were nerdsthat started working out there,
and he this, but this guy madean index fund that's basically
(16:39):
all that. And if they stoplifting weights, he doesn't put
money in them. He doesn't putthem in the fund. Money
Eric Readinger (16:44):
is so stupid. It perform. It outperforms, like,
everything, right? Why is that athing? Like, why is so lifting
weights rules? Yeah, but I mean,just the fact that you, I'm
gonna make a thing that if thishappens, then it's worth more
money. Like, what? Like, theyjust manipulate the shit so bad.
It's like,
Law Smith (17:03):
oh yeah. I mean finance, the reason I couldn't
get into it was because I waslike, this is all fucking shell
game. This is all like, I wouldwork for fucking I worked for a
good company, like one of thebetter ones, like, as far as,
like, not doing snake oilbullshit. They really, they
really had mathematicalprinciples to what they're
doing. My, one of my bosses, wonthe Nobel Prize for Economics.
(17:24):
Later, you've mentioned, I know,but I'm just for anybody
listening. That's new. Hey,dude, that's That's amazing.
Like passive income theory, it'sso boring. Passive investing
theory, it's so boring. And I'll
Eric Readinger (17:37):
get me started on that sham Nobel Prize stuff.
Shout out, Eugene fauma, KenFrench,
Law Smith (17:41):
what's up? What? But they came up with the passive
investing. Don't work. Don'twork. Try to beat the market.
Work with the market, but yougot to do it over the long run,
and you got to do it with mutualfunds that are small value.
What? What? Okay, anyway,Vanguard, if, if you want to go
for a cheaper fund, well, yougotta have 100 thou to get
(18:05):
dimensional. Yeah, that's right.The only two people bought
directly, Brendan Fraser, ArnoldSchwarzenegger,
Eric Readinger (18:14):
that's so weird because you said something about
the whales. And I was like, Oh,the Brendan phrase. I was
thinking the Brendan Fraser, notthat funny, but unusual
Law Smith (18:22):
whales, yeah, now I think of him jerking off the
beginning. I've put that movieon so many times. I can't, I
can't do this right now.
Eric Readinger (18:32):
Sad, fat, oh, okay, yeah, I don't need to do
that. Then I'm like, It's
Law Smith (18:36):
Darren Aronofsky, right? Oh, guy did Requiem,
yeah,
Eric Readinger (18:41):
he's good. I don't think I can handle that,
yeah, but probably pretty darkand sad.
Law Smith (18:45):
I mean, I've put it on four or five times in that
scene, I forget that's gonnahappen, and I go, Oh man, yeah,
um, let's talk about time. Okay,I love Nolan movies because they
all, I think they all surroundtime. I think that's the through
line. Christopher Nolan is myfavorite director, and I think
(19:08):
there always is a very bigemphasis on time. Yeah,
Eric Readinger (19:14):
what do you what made you think I'm kind I'm
getting to, oh, it's a build upa thing. Oh, yeah,
Law Smith (19:19):
this is like, we're not
Eric Readinger (19:21):
going to talk about the theories of time.
Law Smith (19:23):
We can Time is money. Time's a flat circle.
Eric Readinger (19:28):
You sure about that? Lost her to a flat circle
than money,
Law Smith (19:32):
as Ben Franklin, or maybe our first venture
capitalist said, lost time isnever found again.
Eric Readinger (19:40):
Yeah. Did you write these down? Yeah, wrote
out a rant. Oh, okay, and thenhad it organized. Please don't
let me interrupt. Well,
Law Smith (19:47):
your, your shitty eyes can't read it anyway. Nope.
I just kind of wanted to havesome bullet points. I wanted to
have a little bit of structuregetting into this because my
rant, my rant, game isn't on.Point as it was, 2016 2017 Oh,
Eric Readinger (20:03):
those are good rant years.
Law Smith (20:06):
Yes, go back old episodes. Those were rants.
Yeah, well, those were like, youand I in the office and, like,
fucking fired up. Yes, turn iton. I guess that's to say. I've
got to talk about branding.Yeah,
Eric Readinger (20:22):
brain, ding, not Brandi, the singer. No, we did
talk about
Law Smith (20:26):
Monica guy for the record. Okay,
Eric Readinger (20:30):
that was always the the argument. I
Law Smith (20:32):
thought Monica was so much hotter. It's not even
close.
Eric Readinger (20:35):
Maybe I don't remember, um,
Law Smith (20:38):
time. Time is that thing you don't get back if we
if we know anything about timeon this podcast, everybody's
consensus answer, what advicewould you give your 13 year old
self is really about time?There's they're saying, don't
waste time listening to otherpeople's bullshit. Go follow
what you want to do. Use yourtime correctly. Yes, time makes
(20:58):
a better game, and football is abetter game than baseball
because it has a clock thatwinds down. I mean, baseball the
only one that
Eric Readinger (21:06):
does that shit in tennis, I'm making an example
a lot of the ones that you havea tool to
Law Smith (21:11):
hit the ball Two Minute Warnings. You know,
that's some of the best often towatch right? Every second
matters. There's urgency,there's rhythm. Sometimes it's
not in the playbook, sometimesit's instinct, but you work all
the way up to that point to getto that two minute offense. Uh,
Project management's worthlesswithout time, deadline,
(21:32):
schedule, duration tracking,it's not enough to get things
done. You have to ask, how welldo we use our time on a and this
is more of an operations kind ofthing do? Can we do better?
Continuous improvement? Cousin?Do you want to waste more time,
or do you want to do it the sameway? Because you don't spend any
time looking backwards? I'mgetting somewhere. Okay? Unless
(21:54):
you have something funny,
Eric Readinger (21:55):
no, no, I'll wait for my thoughts.
Law Smith (21:59):
If your team's not your team can burn hours. That's
opportunity cost. If we're allcapitalists in America,
Eric Readinger (22:08):
don't give me that. Don't just do your aunt,
Law Smith (22:10):
I'm looking over at my kids. Your kids have gotten
so much older in the last coupleyears. Coming over here, my kids
are eight and seven. That corny,saying that the days are long,
the years are short, it's true.You blink and they're older and
they're much older, and it'slike, like, King of the Hill.
(22:31):
When the one friend, it waslike, Johnny peppercorns. Kid
gets older one season, he's
Eric Readinger (22:36):
like, what's going on? That's a deep Bull. I
didn't get it. That's
Law Smith (22:39):
a deep pull. That's for my king of the hill fans.
It's coming back. Okay. How youspend your time is how you spend
your life. Everybody thateverybody you talk to that's
older, is like, use it wisely. Iget I was mad because I was late
getting here, because that makesyou delayed, that makes you have
to sit for seven extra minutes.I hate that's bullshit that
(23:00):
sucks, but that it all comesaround to ROI. Now my negative
ROI is with Verizon. Here's theI'm going to try to condense
this story really. I mean, it'sgot a lot of detail. I spent
about 22 hours total trying tofix this one thing. Holy shit.
(23:21):
Between when I traded an iPhone14 in in November for iPhone 16,
right? And they didn't give me areturn label, then I called them
twice, they still didn't send meone. So I went to the store with
my kids. Hey, just
Eric Readinger (23:36):
real quick before you go on the whole thing
about time that you're talkingabout. I hated that. I know that
I just I was terror. I wanted tokill myself and that whole
thing. Well, you
Law Smith (23:46):
wanted to go on. You want time to speed up? Yes,
yeah, you want, you wish youcould do tenant reverse. Wanted
Eric Readinger (23:52):
speed. I wanted to not be in this space while
you're talking about time. Like,just awkward. I don't like it.
That's not how we do. We don'tdo like they wouldn't read from
computer screens. Well, I wroteit still you're reading because
I prepped it, yeah,
Law Smith (24:10):
well, I was worried, uh, that would, I wouldn't even
make full sentences if I justkept going about that. Oh, my
bad. Um, anyway, Interstellar,favorite movie, Yep, great. Time
dilation, gravity, all thatstuff. Time works differently on
different planets. All that backto this, I wasted a bunch of
time, but it was,
Eric Readinger (24:31):
I am. I've got a
Law Smith (24:34):
Dion neon Dion dude, yeah, I've got a I've got a
weird bug up my ass when you dothe things you're supposed to do
for like this trade in for thisphone, I get dinged for their
error, right? Yes, I wasted, Iwasted time in November, like
(24:54):
going to the store, all they didwas put me with the worst, the
newest kid who eventually. Gotme to the manager 50 minutes in,
and then they just called thecustomer service line. I have
the number four and put me onspeaker. I just walked out. I
just, are you guys fuckingserious? My kids were be like,
Wow. I said a lot worse thanthat, pretty bad. I go, What is
this shit show? Are you fuckingserious? I go, let's go. We're
(25:17):
walking walked out. Good foryou. Finally called again,
finally got someone fucking thatunderstood what's going on,
emailed me, return label, sentthe phone, traded in, no
problem.
Eric Readinger (25:28):
What sucks about you walking out is they were
really happy. Oh, that's
Law Smith (25:31):
that's gonna be part of this. That's part of this.
All they want to do is get youoff the phone, yeah, or off the
chat. We're out of the store.It's because you're one of
millions. We're in the age ofillusion of choice. So you have
four, you got four airlines tochoose from. Really, you got
four cell phone carriers tochoose from. Really, you might
(25:52):
have two internet providerswhere you live, if you're lucky,
you got one electric company,probably most metals, gag. You
go get solar. They go, you gottabe on our grid. If you do that,
and that's gonna cost you prettypenny. You're like, I thought
we're trying to do more with theEarth, right? Yeah, I'm trying
to be a good person. No, man,no, you got to be on our grid or
(26:12):
you get dinged with a huge fine.So we need you to store a bunch
of power there too. Yeah,
Eric Readinger (26:18):
you're gonna need to give us some of that
Law Smith (26:21):
seems to give me incentivize me on doing that. So
it's one of those things wherethey don't give a fuck, they go,
what are you gonna do? Where areyou gonna go? Right? You're just
gonna go to the same people, andyour
Eric Readinger (26:33):
SIM card doesn't work anywhere else. Dude,
Law Smith (26:35):
I went without, I went without cell service for
like, 10 days because I was,wow, yeah, and, man, I didn't
realize how, like, how much Iuse that on the on the daily,
hourly, for work, for, like,just logistics, yeah, I time
traveled back to, like, 2000like, Okay, I'll see you in 20
minutes, right? I don't got noWi Fi, yeah? Unless I go to a
(26:59):
Starbucks and post up,
Eric Readinger (27:00):
hopefully I remember how to get there. All
these directing gone. I did itbefore times
Law Smith (27:08):
because I had it on I had it on ways, and then it
blanked out and it didn't keepit on there, like cached on
there. So I was like, anyway, sogot all that handled their up.
That was probably four hours.This was, I'm getting charged
like 330 a month for me and twokids that don't have real
(27:33):
phones. What? Yeah, they got twotablets, two watches. I got a
watch and I got two
Eric Readinger (27:39):
phones. But, I mean, they don't all have cell
service, individual, like,lines. Oh,
Law Smith (27:44):
well, you gotta buy for your watches. You gotta buy
phone number because, well, ifyou go, Well, can I use that
phone number for, for like, asecond line? No, nah. How about,
how about, why didn't you justbuy
Eric Readinger (27:56):
the regular watch? What do you mean, like
the one without the line?
Law Smith (28:01):
Santa, well, technically, Santa got Anna. I
had to deal with the bill. Wedidn't really work that out.
It's kind of a 1 million Mr.Kringle. So I noticed I've never
got, I've never gotten the tradein credits for this. Oh, good.
Really nice. And so I'm like Italked. I call earlier this
(28:22):
month. I called 20 days ago, 25days ago, something like that.
Early. May I go, Hey, I noticedthis hasn't been credited on my
bill. Can you put it on my bill?Took a while to get to them.
They go, Sure. No problem. We'llput it on the current bill, not
the next one, like we usuallydo. I got authorization from my
manager. Blah, blah, blah, blah,great. Come to like, May 16. May
(28:45):
17 doesn't happen. And I'm like,What the fuck? And I don't have
I now, I now I'm a psycho. Andrecord every conversation I have
with any customer service,because when they do the quality
shirt assurance announcement, Igo, I'm doing that too. How do I
attach a file to this. I'm doingthat too. Yeah, I'm doing it for
my quality assurance, and maybeI'll tease this video out for
Eric Readinger (29:06):
next steps. What a tease. People will be so
excited.
Law Smith (29:09):
Well, I made my daughter cry with her listening
to me yell at the people on thephone, because I got into
really, and you hear her crying.Um, no, she was like, under a
pillow. She thought it was. Shewas like, you sounded like, Jon
Eric Readinger (29:22):
Taffer. And I was like, thank you. That's
what. That's not what I wasgoing
Law Smith (29:25):
or rescues her favorite show, she's seven,
okay? Makes sense. She wants toyell at people. I get it. She
does it to me. But I looked overand you see your daughter crying
like a Native American, andthat, that littering commercial,
right? Like just strolling downlike you were scaring me. I was
like, but I was talking to them.You
Eric Readinger (29:46):
heard me, right? They're not real. People done,
darling. I need
Law Smith (29:49):
to show you how many. I need to show you the scroll. I
think I put it in Slack, but youprobably didn't look at it,
because I wouldn't if I wereyou, you were right. 16 to.
Different live chat reps. Italked to 17, excuse
Eric Readinger (30:03):
me. Oh, okay, I was gonna check that.
Law Smith (30:05):
Here's the fuckery of Verizon, absolutely. And I said
factory to them, so theycouldn't ding me. I you know,
you can't cuss in those things.It would be like, we don't have
to deal with that now. And I'mlike, Oh, well. I said factory.
So fuck you. I was gettingdelirious and just making myself
laugh. That's a while, okay, Iwas like, are you i? At one
(30:27):
point, I was just asking them,Are you a human? How do I know?
I don't know. That's good.You're an AI bot, because I
asked to talk via email and itwent to text in my phone. So I'm
just texting and see only, onlyperson I could text for, for
those days I don't have cellphone. Magically, here's the
other magic, doctor, strangemagic. Whoo. In in here, I get
(30:50):
three of those 17 live chatreps, maybe AI bots, maybe real
people. I don't know. They justsay they're live assistants, so
you'll never know. They
Eric Readinger (31:00):
don't say alive, right?
Law Smith (31:03):
Good point, I get three of them actually feel like
people that are like, This isfucked up. I'm gonna help you
get this. I was like,
Eric Readinger (31:13):
all I want. Did you have to provide your
information again to everysingle one? Every one
Law Smith (31:17):
of them had to grant them access. Love that. And I
was like, at some points, I waslike, I don't have self service,
so I can't get on your websiteto do it, yeah? And they're
like, Oh, right. I was like, sobecause they cut my shit off, I
go. I was told I don't have topay this bill until this is
credited. All I want, all I wantis to get to zero. I want to get
(31:39):
back to normal, yeah. And I wantyou all to fulfill what was
promised. Is that that crazy?And by the time I got like, four
of these chats in, I was like,well, now this is gonna be a bit
now, this is gonna be somethingto talk about. This is the thing
now. So the three of the 17 Italked to over a four day span,
five day span, it would getreally close. Like, Friday
(32:03):
night, I was at my kids flagfootball game, and it's like,
Okay, I'm ready to go wheneveryou're ready to pay. And I was
like, I'll do it when I'm on WiFi at home. I don't have my I
actually don't have my walletwith me right now.
Eric Readinger (32:13):
Oh, yeah, you have to be in the perfect
scenario to actually finish thesituation. I couldn't,
Law Smith (32:18):
yeah, I had to be on Wi Fi, and I had to have my
wallet. I was one of two. And soI got back home, and I go, Okay,
I'm ready to send me the link.Ready to do it right now,
because it's like had to gothrough a bunch of channels to
make it happen, apparently. Andthen fucking chat starts over.
This happened three times. Oh, Iwould get so close to them
(32:41):
fixing their fuck up. And theygo, Hi, I'm with Verizon. I'm
the live assistant. Let me getyou to an agent that can help
you. What do you need, orsomething like that. I might
scroll up. Oh, no, that'sanother one. So then I go, I
want you to read all the chatssince Wednesday morning, 10:20am
Eric Readinger (33:01):
EST, sorry we don't have access to that.
Law Smith (33:03):
No, no, they do. I want you to read all the chats,
and then when you're done, getback to me. It's long, I'll
wait. She goes, okay. I caughtthree of them that said they
read it and they lied. Theyjust, they just read the
representatives notes that werelike nothing.
Eric Readinger (33:23):
What'd you do? Quiz them? Yeah,
Law Smith (33:25):
go. Did you, oh, did you read the entirety because
you're asking me questions thatI've already answered in
triplicate. No, Verizon, do youhave a disdain for your
customers? Is it only becausethere's millions of us? What the
fuck am I gonna do?
Eric Readinger (33:42):
We can send this to them. Oh, that could be fun,
buddy.
Law Smith (33:46):
I want to put some bad buddy behind this. Don't get
it wrong. Don't get it twisted.I will spend more of my own
money to make sure it gets outthere. Maybe, okay, this will be
fun. Maybe I'll have to do abetter version of the next
episode. But I want to show you
Eric Readinger (34:00):
again. You can talk about time again.
Law Smith (34:02):
Oh, again. Oh, you know, I might give another,
another whack. Oh, good. Youknow, I'm gonna do it now just
to piss you off. Well, I hopeyou bring it better.
Eric Readinger (34:13):
Oh, what do you Well, you better have make me
not hate it. You better have medo that to you. Don't make me
hate you. You better have whatcomes out of your mouth. You
better
Law Smith (34:21):
have the score to any given Sunday halftime speech.
Better have that ready to go.Okay,
Eric Readinger (34:28):
is that accessible?
Law Smith (34:30):
Probably, I tried to play it once,
Eric Readinger (34:33):
and you wouldn't let me, yeah, no, I've got it.
Oh, I was probably in a mood.It's the six inches in front of
your face. Oh, that's why.
Law Smith (34:44):
All right, I gotta go do a set and bomb. Oh, all
right, bitch about checkers forfive minutes. Okay,
Eric Readinger (34:50):
love that Richard Nixon's dog. Oh.
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