August 14, 2025 • 59 mins
Ever wonder what it's truly like to grow up in two languages, seeing the world through dual cultural lenses? Olivier's journey from bilingual childhood to linguistics advisor offers a fascinating window into how our earliest experiences shape our life's purpose.
Raised in a deliberately bilingual household—his father speaking exclusively French, his mother English—Olivier developed not just language fluidity but a unique perspective that would eventually guide his career path. His childhood memories of believing Disney movies were French productions until confronted by American kindergarteners highlight the beautiful confusion and richness of straddling two linguistic worlds. This foundation gave him special insight into the nature of language itself, eventually drawing him toward linguistics despite an initial detour into computer science.
The conversation takes us through Olivier's educational journey at UCSD, where he discovered that following his natural talents in linguistics provided greater fulfillment than pursuing more lucrative paths. Now advising linguistics students and helping them navigate their academic journeys, he's found profound meaning in guiding others. His powerful observation that "to spend half your life doing something that doesn't sit well with you is not a life well spent" encapsulates a philosophy that prioritizes purpose over profit.
But Olivier's story doesn't end with linguistics. His spiritual journey from Protestant upbringing through atheism to Catholicism reveals how powerful experiences in France—particularly in ancient churches with diverse congregations—transformed his worldview. This spiritual awakening parallels his recent passion for labor organizing and workers' rights, culminating in plans to attend law school for labor law. Throughout these evolutions, his bilingual foundation provides unique perspectives on cultural differences in work-life balance, dining customs, and approaches to leisure between America and France.
Tune in to discover how embracing your natural abilities—whether linguistic talents or other innate gifts—can lead to a life of meaning and impact that transcends conventional measures of success.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to Real People, Real Life.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Bonjour mon ami Olivier, bonjour Monsieur Charot
.
Ça va Oui, ça va bien, et vous.
And that's about as far as myFrench goes, everybody.
So this is Olivier.
I've known you.
Yeah, well, I met you.
Let's talk about it that way.
I met you probably when youwere in eighth grade.
Yeah, somewhere around there,that sounds right.
(00:35):
Middle school-ish.
You didn't go to elementaryschool Noah did you.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
No.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I didn't.
We met in middle school.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Yeah, I met you in middle school.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Yeah, I met you in middle school, san Marcos Middle
School right.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Yeah, san Alejo, middle San Alejo, that's right.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah, I mean, it is in San Marcos, that's correct.
But yeah, san Alejo, my son wasall excited because I had
studied, for whatever reason.
Well, we went to private schooland in first grade we had a
French teacher and they put usin French class.
Nice, nice.
And so from first grade throughfifth grade I took French.
And then in high school, I said, well, this will be easy.
(01:09):
Yeah.
I'm just going to take French.
Well, I couldn't get betterthan a C, oh man.
Yeah, it's a tough language.
It's a very difficult language,but you were, from a very young
age, brought up speaking Englishand French, that's right.
How did that work out in yourfamily.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Yeah, so my parents very intentionally made sure
that my dad would speak to me inFrench, my mom would speak to
me in English.
So usually that means that youget more English exposure than
French exposure, because youknow dad's off working doing
whatever.
But they also veryintentionally made it so that we
consumed French media.
All my disney movies growing upwere dubbed in french.
So I didn't know, for example,that peter pan was a american
(01:53):
production.
So I showed up to kindergarten,right, oh, I know this
wonderful uh movie called peterpan.
I think it's a french thing,you wouldn't know it.
And the kids are like no, Iknow, a peter pan is what you're
talking about with thecrocodile, right you know.
So, yeah, no, I got exposure toboth french and english growing
up and I like to think aboutequal quantities, at least until
I hit school and and noah noah,my son.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
There's a podcast on him.
You guys can check it out ifeverybody remembers.
But, um, he would tell me andcorrect me if I'm wrong or I
misunderstood, but so certaindays were French days only and
certain days were English daysonly.
Did your mom speak French?
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Yeah, so my mom actually spent at least a year
taking private lessons after shemet my dad, just so she could
communicate with his familybetter.
So you know, as part of that itwas kind of lifelong journey
for her of like learning how tospeak French and be
communicative in it, and so aspart of that she would designate
one day a week I think it wasFridays to be French only in the
(02:51):
house.
Just as much for her benefit.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I was going to say probably a lot for her benefit
too.
You don't use it.
I mean I couldn't.
We went to France a year ago.
Yeah and last.
June and it takes.
I do all right reading seeingthe words, but I can't speak it
very well If I have a glass ofwine or something then I'm a
(03:15):
little bit better.
It loosens you up yeah, I'msure I sound terrible to them,
but I do understand a greatstory.
We went and played a pokertournament and we're in this
poker room, my wife being theonly woman playing poker in in
this mostly men's poker room inFrance, absolutely, and about
(03:36):
two hours into it.
I mean, they're just talkingcrap about me.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
I'm the American and this, and this.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
But I, the funny thing is I understood enough,
yeah, and then I won this bigpot.
And then I just respond inFrench.
Yeah, yeah.
And they're like parlez-vousfrançais?
And I say je parle un peu.
Je ne comprends pas, mais je necomprends pas, mais je parle un
(04:03):
peu Well, yeah, Basically realrough right and they're like ooh
, enough to let them know, theyshould shape up.
Then it turns out, they allspoke English.
And so now they're all excitedto talk to me in English and it
was pretty.
One guy spoke pretty good, butit was pretty broken.
It's probably better than myFrench, but Maybe, I don't know,
it's not that good.
(04:28):
Um, but I do when I'm there wego, for if we go for a week, I
do, you're immersed.
Yeah, you know, friend, theneat thing about france, and
that I know, especially in thetouristy areas is that they will
speak french.
They understand english, yeah,yeah, they said.
They're very proud people oftheir language and their culture
.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Yeah, I mean using my degree in linguistics for a
second.
France isn't just one languageeither.
Right, there are otherlanguages in France that are
very much minority languages,you know, spoken by less than a
million people.
But the French language wasbasically you know it spread
throughout the country, was kindof a project by the French
state to kind of like absolutelyintegrate kind of those further
(05:05):
flung territories right intothe kind of national thing.
So part of being French in away, is speaking French.
It is inherently tied to beingfrom the country.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
So that that explains a lot.
And I did not realize what arethe minority languages that the
government?
So when did this movement to beFrench?
Is this hundreds of years?
Speaker 4 (05:25):
ago.
Yeah, no, so this is about atthe time of the french
revolution.
So this is a time right whenthere's this big idea of, like,
a national identity, right.
So at the time that therevolution broke out, only about
10 of french speak.
French people, like people inthe french territory currently
spoke the current frenchlanguage 10, whoa, yeah, yeah,
(05:46):
about 10 of them spoke french.
As we know it, the the rest ofthe 90, you know, spoke like
closely related dialects so theycan understand well enough to
conduct like business and simplethings.
But again, it's a wholecontinuum of different types of
dialects going on throughout thecountry.
So all based on.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
So so that I can understand a little bit yeah, so
let's, let's talk england,since england speaks english,
right well, you have so manydialects, some of, them.
We just went to um scotland, ohyeah, and it's extremely
difficult.
They're speaking quote-unquoteEnglish, but the dialect and the
words that they use and the waythey pronounce certain words
(06:29):
it's like what?
Yeah, yeah, my wife is Mexican.
She has to watch subtitles whenshe watches any English,
england or Irish movies.
Very difficult for her tounderstand, it is.
So.
Are these dialects in france arudimentary french language or
(06:55):
is it a?
Is it the latin influence?
Speaker 4 (06:59):
yeah.
So they are all fully formedlanguages, in and of themselves
just as valid, as, like myparisian dialect of french,
which happened to become thedominant strain, like the
queen's english yeah yeah, youcan think of it that way, right.
I mean, you know, paris is thepower center of france.
It outnumbers the rest of thecities in population maybe by
three or four times, right.
(07:20):
So it just kind of naturallybecame the uh, the sort of
dominant dialect as the statecentralizes, right.
All of these are equally validways of speaking, but you have
two general groups.
You have like a kind ofnorthern dialect group that
Parisian French belongs to, anda southern dialect group.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Where does the country stand today?
So it was 10 percent.
At the French Revolution, yeah,did the country mostly adopt
Parisian French?
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Yeah, like 99% basically.
I mean I'd say 100% can speakand understand it at this point.
But there is like maybe 1%that's bilingual in some kind of
other dialect and like fullybilingual.
It's hard to measurebilingualism.
It's one of the hardestproblems in linguistics is
adequately measuringbilingualism.
But yeah, it is basicallyuniversity why is that?
(08:08):
So difficult um measure.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Is there a way to explain that?
Speaker 4 (08:11):
yeah, I mean just because, um, different people
have different levels ofcapacity, right.
So I consider myself abilingual in french because I
grew up with it, um, I spoke itat home and so on.
But there's some domains whereI struggle a lot, stuff like
economics, politics, philosophy,you know things you don't talk
about around the dinner table.
I struggle, right.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
So is that the um, oh boy, uh, my my mind just went
blank.
Yeah, um, it's.
Is it the, the actual words todescribe something?
The colloquialisms, uh, aredifferent to describe the same
thing and it?
And is that where it getsconfusing as far as between the
dialects of french?
Speaker 4 (08:49):
yeah, um, yeah, I mean it is mostly like
vocabulary differences betweenthe dialects, um, but you know,
there it's a gradient right,like naturally, these sorts of
dialects form a continuum right.
So the ones that areneighboring to each other are
very similar, but the furthergeographically apart you get,
the more different they become.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
So one of the things we talk about and one of my
passions with the podcast isachieving success in life.
Now, we don't define thatspecifically financially, what
we define that as a quality oflife.
We talk about following yourpassion, and I have a desire to
someday really understand anddefine what passion really is,
(09:31):
because it's such an overusedword.
What is it?
It's almost, in my opinion,it's hard to describe because
it's a part of you.
It's an innate part of you thatexpresses outwardly in your
actions, in your day-to-day lifeand things like this.
But it doesn't always meanyou're having a good day, even
though you're chasing yourpassion.
(09:52):
As I grew up teaching French orteaching, yeah right, good luck
with that one, ryan, learningFrench, it was just hey, you're
a kid, take these classes.
I sucked at it, I was no good.
It was just hey, you're a kid,take these classes.
I sucked at it, I was no good.
I can't even, I mean, spellcorrect has ruined my English
ability to spell a word.
Good luck with French when halfthe letters are not even
(10:13):
pronounced.
That's an exaggeration,obviously, but you took this
natural course of life beingFrench and made a career of it.
Yeah, you could say that.
Where would you describe?
Because this is what you do,you are a well, describe what
(10:36):
you do.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Yeah.
So I work in advising at UCSD.
So I advise linguistic studentsthat want to become linguists
with their career in somecapacity, that want to become
linguists with their career insome capacity, be that in
academia, be that as like speechpathologists or any sort of
other career that has to do withlanguage.
I try to help them make theirpassion a reality, if that makes
sense.
So I mean, the way I got intoit partially is through French,
(10:58):
you are absolutely right, like Igrew up with it and in a way I
wanted to understand why I amthe way.
I am right.
What is bilingualism?
How do people learn languagesright, especially when you're
learning two languages alongsideyou?
How does that work right?
So I really became passionateabout that and I decided to make
it my major after a somewhatunsuccessful year in computer
science trying to hack it as anengineer.
(11:21):
I can't, it's not my skill set,it's not my vocation, you know.
So, yeah, it's kind of what Idecided to, you know, do with my
life.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
And you're loving it.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
I can see it in your face.
Oh yeah, I know, work is great.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
The concept of bilingualism, yeah, okay.
So here's where I struggle whenI was learning French Is I'm
constantly translating in mybrain.
In other words, I am notactually speaking French.
At the very limited that I cando it and the limited Spanish
(11:56):
that I've learned, I'm actuallygoing okay, what's the word for
this, what's the word for this?
And then, when it comes out, itdoesn't mean much to me as
english, as my primary language,what it but what it does is I
may be able to get a pointacross growing up in it, and
(12:17):
I've asked my wife this, and shehas a difficult time explaining
it too.
And it's kind of interesting tosay bilingualism is a difficult
concept to explain yeah is itone language to you in your
brain?
is french and english the samething, just two different ways
to say the same thing?
Or does your brain actuallyseparate the two, almost like
(12:39):
two different personalities?
Speaker 4 (12:41):
that's a really, really good question.
I mean some I'll do some thingsonly in french, like I
generally only swear in french,because I just find it a little
bit more expressive of alanguage to do that well, we can
do that I don't want to get youdemonetized here, no, but like,
um in my mind, um, you knowfrench words, right, just, and
as with any two languages, theywill have different.
(13:02):
You know implications, connot,implications, connotations and
so on, right, so to me they area bit separate, absolutely, and
I do employ them when I need to,but my brain is able to make
the switch, so I don't have to,like, pass it through English
and my English concepts, unlessI run into one of those damn
domains I was telling you about,like economics, philosophy,
politics, or I start getting toa point where, point where, like
(13:29):
, I just don't have the conceptsfor this in this language.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Then I have to pass it through the english.
So conception, yeah, a majorfamous podcast.
We won't mention his name, buteveryone knows him.
So he's on spotify and spotifyis working on an ai program to
take the voice of this any couldbe me.
Let's say I was a majorpodcaster, yeah, and they're
like man, you are worldwide.
Ryan, we're gonna go ahead andrun it through ai and all your
(13:55):
podcasts.
It'll be in french and you'lljust be sitting there speaking
french in your own voice,overdubbed.
Yeah, my lips won't be doing it.
Yeah, their biggest problem isthe concepts.
Yes, like how do we, you know?
You know how do we take anamerican colloquialism and I'm
terrible with that word and thentranslate to that exactly the
(14:19):
way french would understand, oritalians would understand, or
Italians would understand it, orSpanish would understand it,
because they don't have the sameslang.
Yeah, and that's their biggestdifficulty.
So trying to get the same exactconcepts across.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Yeah, I mean anything that's like concepts or like
sayings right.
Expressions that are reallyunique to a language.
Those are incredibly difficultto translate.
An AI is not going to spit youout something ungrammatical.
If it's translating for you, itmight spit out something a
little clinical, though.
Right, and that's.
That is where having you knownative speakers as translators
(14:54):
can be extremely, extremelyuseful, because they get those
nuances that a large languagemodel just will not get,
naturally, and yeah, and I think, as it grows, and there's all.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Everyone has these arguments, pros and cons, ai and
all this stuff, but let's justspeak positively about it, as,
for instance, the work you'redoing in linguistics, that'll
eventually get uploaded, as longif you're online and you're
providing papers and you'reproviding curriculum and
documentation, that'lleventually get into this massive
(15:27):
AI world and hopefully be ableto help out there, hopefully not
put you out of a job.
One of the things aboutlanguage, though, olivier, is so
much of it is unspoken.
Oh yeah, yeah, there is Icompletely agree.
And so I think that's where AIis going to fail.
We're going to have a difficulttime.
I mean, who knows?
But you know, but sitting herewith people, I've done these
(15:49):
podcasts remotely, yeah, whereI'm on a computer like a zoom,
let's just say yeah, it's sodifficult, yeah, to just sit
here and watch a person's bodylanguage, yeah and um, and react
.
You know social media has thosedownfalls with that kind of
thing where you can easily justsend something out into the
universe and not worry aboutquote, unquote the consequences.
(16:11):
Let's go back, yeah, so one ofthe things I really so I love
Gen Zers.
They they are showing, showingso much promise in all aspects
of life.
I've met some really solid,good thinkers.
There's been a big problem withthe Gen Xers like myself, who
(16:38):
were promised college degreesthat paid nothing.
You get a college degree andyou're set for life.
I didn't go to college, I see,yeah, and I was pulled into the
counseling office and said, well, you're gonna fail, you're just
gonna flip burgers your life.
They took the trades out ofschool and we have a generation
(16:59):
of millennials that can't fixanything.
Now I taught my son how to fixthings.
I got him into trades.
We're starting to see a Gen Z,almost a.
I mean the word golden age iskind of being thrown around
right now in politics, but I'mseeing that with the Gen Zers,
we're seeing these guys reallytaking advantage of real
(17:19):
industry.
They're getting back to whatthe Gen Xers did, where we can
actually sit in a room with twopeople that completely disagree
and have a great time anddiscuss it and challenge each
(17:40):
other.
We're starting to see some ofthat which I think is great.
Good discourse is importantSpeaking of linguistics.
Right Language is critical.
Yeah, what makes you unique,though?
At a very, very young age, youare at the privilege of seeing
other cultures.
That's true.
How's that affected you, as anAmerican, primarily, and when
(18:03):
you and juxtapose the Americanlifestyle, which we're taught is
perfect, and then you know,let's just say, french and other
areas that you've gone as ayoung age, you've seen realities
on both sides.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Yeah, gosh.
So to compare and contrast theFrench and American way of life,
I do think there is kind of acommon philosophical route, kind
of like enlightenment thinking,right, that is absolutely
common to the two cultures.
Do we have different conceptsof what democracy and acting on,
you know, acting on that andprotesting looks like?
Absolutely?
But so far as everyday lifegoes, I feel like, you know, the
(18:39):
American way of life is veryfast, right, it moves, it moves
rapidly.
You know, french way of life,even in the cities, is slower,
absolutely.
You take your time.
You take your three or fourweeks vacation in July or August
, right, and you're justunreachable for those three or
four weeks that you're off whenyou're right, and you're just
(19:00):
unreachable for those three orfour weeks that you're off when
you're resting, you're resting.
When you're working, you'reworking, but with a one hour
lunch break in there, of course,right.
So it is a slower pace of lifein france, absolutely, and
that's something I've grown toappreciate a lot, um, and try to
integrate into my own life inkind of small ways.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
so a balance is is critical.
Yeah, okay, play hard, workhard, everything in moderation,
kind of thing.
Yeah, uh, when we go to europeone of the things I love about
europe I'm a big fan of italy,my I'm italian descent, yeah, um
, but even in italy there is athere is a palpable sense of a
(19:33):
slower pace.
The hardest thing that my wifeand I have when we go to Europe
is having a meal, because it isall about, in America, turning
tables.
You know we'll, we'll come in,we'll get a reservation, we'll
sit down.
We were on the Champs Elyseesas a restaurant we love, and
(19:54):
there's not too many good oneson the Champs ELizet because
it's the Champy-Lizet.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Yeah, yeah, they cater to all the tourists that
are there, but there's one we goto and it's nice.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
But it's interesting because you make your
reservation, yeah, and they sityou, and if the first time you
do it, you think they're beingrude.
You're like, well, they haven'tbeen to my table, they gave us
water and we haven't seen themfor like 15 minutes, yeah, and
the expectation which we'velearned is hey, you got the
(20:24):
table.
Yeah.
Nobody else is getting thattable.
Yeah, Italy is very much likethis too.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
Yeah, yeah, I mean the weight cultures are
completely different, completely, no, yeah, yeah, I mean the
weight cultures are completelydifferent, completely.
No, yeah, completely.
Because in france it's allabout discrete service.
Right in america, like a goodwaiter is going to make
conversation with you, he'llmake commentary on what you're
having, whatever in france,that's just unthinkable.
Right to them, they are thereto provide you what you need, um
, and to serve you and refillyou discreetly, completely leave
(20:53):
you alone and let you have theconversation with the person
that you're with exactly theevening, rather than you go to a
restaurant here and everyone'son their phones yeah, went out
to dinner last night and we weme and my wife take make a
conscious effort to put themaway.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Try to have a conversation.
Yeah, and that's difficult ifthings are popping, you know,
and all this nonsense.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Uh, I mean I make an.
I intentionally turn off myphone when I attended.
When I'm one-on-one withsomeone, I don't want that
dinging happening, like that'sjust kind of how I am well,
you're linguistics.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yeah, uh, am I saying that linguistics?
Speaker 4 (21:29):
so I I don't necessarily classify myself as a
linguist because I don't havelike a phd in it or anything.
I do a little bit of researchstuff on the side for fun, but I
don't I work in linguistics, iswhat I like to say.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
So well, you know more about it than I do.
I'll tell you that.
Um, you decided, going throughcollege, you said I'm going to
go ahead and get into computerengineering.
Computer software engineering,I mean obviously smart, smart
decision.
When you're thinking aboutmoney and a solid career, yeah,
(22:02):
how far were you into this towhere you're like uh-uh, this
isn't for me.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
So the way it works at UCSD is that in your computer
science major you have acertain amount like lower
division classes which areconsidered like weeder classes.
If you're not meant for it,it'll take you out of the major.
I was able to get through mostof those with like decent grades
you know be average or so butthere's absolutely no passion,
no joy in any of it and I waslike, and also I just didn't
(22:29):
like, like, I just personallydidn't like the environment.
I didn't get along well withthe students either and I'm just
like this is not an environmentfor me.
So at the beginning of my secondyear, basically, I
intentionally decided to moveaway from that and into
linguistics, which is where mypassion actually lay, and I had
been taking some on the side forGEs, right, I was, you know,
(22:50):
using a couple linguisticsclasses here and there, right To
kind of, but you, you know,just on the side, right, it's
like computer science is themain thing and this is just a
fun side hobby and it slowlybecame more and more of what I
was doing and you turned it intoa career anyway, when I first
met you.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yeah, you know obviously.
Hey, my friend olivia, hespeaks french, so of course I
want to throw some french at youthat I had yeah haven't studied
for 25 years probably, probablywhen I met you, but when you
talked to me you light up it'spart of you and I always thought
I'm like this kid's.
You know, you were a kid at thetime.
(23:25):
You're now a man but this kid'sgoing to go into some sort of
international studies.
He's going to you know whatever, not even business, internet.
But I just said, you know, havethis gift.
Now you've, you know, and youended up doing it.
Yeah, I think the biggest thingthat people do in life, the
saddest thing I see, is peoplepursuing careers strictly for
(23:46):
the money.
They're miserable, they hateMondays, they can't wait till
Friday.
That's in the people.
So that's a third of your life?
No, it's not.
It's more than a third of yourlife, because when you got to go
to work, you know you got thathour or two to get there, the
hour or two you know to unwind,come home and then you can't
(24:06):
really do much because, you gotto do it again the next day,
especially in America.
You got to go, go, go, go, asyou mentioned before.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Yeah, I mean as a as a recent Catholic, I have to say
, like they're in in ourphilosophy there's this concept
of aura et labora, right, prayand work.
So work is essentially half ofyour life, right?
So to do, to basically spendhalf of your life doing
something that doesn't sit wellwith you, it's not really a life
well spent.
I don't think you know you know.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
You know, I'm glad you brought that up.
I have a great friend wholistens to the podcast.
I've known him forever and I'mnot sure how long, but probably
about eight to 10 years ago hereally embraced the Catholicism.
Catholic he's, and he is anintellect.
His name is Rob.
Again, another shout out, rob.
I love talking to him aboutthings intellectually.
(24:55):
He's a great debater,understands a lot of things in
politics and Catholicism.
What steered you that way?
Yeah?
Were you raised religious.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
I was raised like a non-denominational Protestant.
You know, happy copy, Jesusloves you, kind of vibe.
It's also a beautiful traditionof its own.
I don't want to like demean it.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
No, that's how I was raised as well.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Yeah.
Then when I was about 15, 16 orso, I turned away from that.
I became like kind of atheist,agnostic.
Something in that kind of myidea was like, oh, there's just
not enough evidence, right.
I was all about hard scientificreality of things, right.
And you know, the tradition Iwas raised in was kind of like,
you know, was telling me thatevolution isn't real and that
(25:41):
the Big Bang isn't real and soon, like all of these you know,
very well grounded scientifictheories are not true.
And then when I startedlearning more of the details of
it, rather than just, you know,like like counterpoints to
object, it was actually learnedwhat I was arguing against.
I'm like whoa, like there wassomething to this like evolution
, big bang, totally real, andjust the house of cards just
(26:01):
kind of got taken out from underme.
So you know, I pretty quicklysalvaged together some kind of
weird like French existentialistphilosophy thing to keep me
going through life and that gotme through college altogether.
But I had some pretty powerfulspiritual experiences, which is
something that I had likediscounted as a possibility
whatsoever and just it happenedin my life and I was like whoa,
(26:25):
would you mind going into that?
Yeah, no, gladly.
So.
I mean, even in my childhood,like when my dad brought me to
France, there were some seedsplanted about the Catholicolic
faith right, um, for example,like this beautiful cathedral in
versailles, um, and it's verywell known for its organ right,
and so this made me my.
This is the first mass Iremember going to.
I was maybe eight years old orso.
(26:46):
I remember the first note ofthe organ hits, it's like it
punched me in the chest orsomething right, just that's how
powerful the thing was and Ifelt I was like, well, this is
the fear of God, right, I hadnot felt that before.
So it kind of put a big respectin me for the faith.
And you know, I had otherexperiences early in, you know,
in my childhood, that kind ofgave me respect for the faith,
(27:07):
like just so much beautiful artand architecture and music that
I was able to experience while Iwas in France.
But fast forwarding to, you know, after this period of atheism,
agnosticism, whatever, I was ina pretty tough period of my life
at the end of college, right.
Just a lot of the things in mylife that were solid were kind
of going away, right, and I wasin France with my grandma and
(27:32):
she just invites me to Mass oneday.
She's like, yeah, let's go toMass.
Right, there's a small church,not grandiose at all, right,
this little stone church fromthe 13th century.
Um, that's in her town.
And so we go there and it ispacked with people, people of
all different, like, uh, ethnicbackgrounds and probably
original languages too, buteveryone just kind of
(27:53):
celebrating God together, right,and that like kind of was like,
whoa, there's real power here,like this has been going on for
800 years here and like, even ifthe people are, you know, have
changed, right altogether, thereligion is the same, the God is
the same, right, and there'sjust so much power there.
That kind of prepped me.
(28:13):
And then, are you familiar withthe Eucharist?
I am not at all familiar.
Yeah, okay, so basically weCatholics believe that you know
the communion bread.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, you know what I was thinking of catechism.
I know what the Eucharist is.
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Yeah, so we believe that the communion bread, right
when it's consecrated, becomesthe true body, blood, soul and
divinity of Jesus Christ right,and that happens in the second
part of the Mass and everyoneyou know partakes of that.
And when it came to be my turnto go up and receive you know I
go up for a blessing instead,because I wasn't a Catholic at
the time and I just felt so muchhealing power coming from that
(28:55):
Eucharist, even if I couldn'treceive it.
I just felt like peace for thefirst time in like what was
basically months really.
Yeah, I've struggled withanxiety in my life altogether
and it was just wiped away in aninstant you took that, you took
the eucharist not then.
Yeah, I just took a simpleblessing, just you know,
eucharistic minister, and itjust goes like that to me.
But there was, I still felt itand I'm like I need to
(29:17):
investigate this.
There is something going onhere and then, after a year
basically, of initiation andclasses and all that, here I am
you know, my friend rob grew upin a few different
christian-based religions Ibelieve at a young age they were
in a baptist church.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Uh, eventually, lutheran, yeah um, bounced
around.
He reminds me of you in that heneeds to understand things.
He, he's, he's not a easter andchristian.
We call them C&E Christiansright, yeah, yeah.
They've never read the book.
They know some of the stories.
(30:00):
He's gonna question you.
He's gonna wanna know.
He's not gonna just take it forwhat the guy at the pulpit
tells you it is.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
And I've seen the same transformation in him when
he dove into the Catholic Church.
Yeah, there's something there,whether it's tradition?
Speaker 4 (30:23):
Well, we believe it was founded by Jesus Christ, so
it's nearly 2,000 years old now.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
I see the passion in him.
I see the passion in you.
Yeah, A life-changinglife-changing passion, a peace
in his life, a peace that youfound.
Yeah, what percentage of Franceis Catholic?
It's funny because my wife isMexican.
(30:52):
Yeah.
Italian Huge Catholic,obviously on both sides there,
yeah absolutely, you knowVatican's kind of somewhere near
.
Italy.
I don't know.
Maybe Might be able to find iton a map somewhere.
Yeah, what percentage of Franceis Catholic?
Speaker 4 (31:10):
So that's a really good question.
If you look at it statistically, I think it's something like
35%, but if you look at it likeactually like who is going to
mass, who is like involved inthe church, I'd say that number
is probably close to five or ten.
Yeah, in reality, the FrenchRevolution brought many great
(31:32):
things, but it also brought asecularism to the people.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
France is kind of known for that right.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
Yeah, I mean, even if I remember the priests in
France are still paid by thestate, they're not paid by the
Vatican, because that was partof the secularizing reform.
The idea is like we can't have,you know, authority figures in
our state that are paid by aforeign government, right?
So yeah, france is a very, verysecular place.
I'd say it's much more so thanthe United States.
Yeah, like you go to thesemassive cathedrals, you show up
(31:58):
for Sunday Mass and it's like100 people there, right, it's
really kind of sad to see, right, all of this beauty, all of
these now millennia actually,that France has been over a
millennium, france has beenCatholic and people just aren't
showing up for it.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
What is the secularism in another word, I'm
having a hard time saying effecton religion?
Obviously I get the concept,you know, separation of church
and state and all that kind ofstuff, yeah, but you know the
concept of France from anAmerican's point of view is
secular of France, from anAmerican's point of view, is
(32:39):
secular.
Is this a profound?
Does this create a profoundimpact and religion there as far
as the individual?
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Yeah, I mean, I think that people have a tendency in
France to kind of separate theirreligious and regular lives in
a way.
Right, and I do think you'dhave to get that in america too,
sure, but I do think that kindof bifurcation, the very strict,
codified bifurcation ofeverything, many things,
difficult and it's not for youknow, I say secularization.
(33:05):
Um, it was.
I do understand why it happened.
The church did legitimize avery bad monarchy and a regime,
right, I understand why peoplein europe have, you know, turned
away from the church.
It makes complete sense to me.
Um so well, you guys have a newpope.
We do, we do any thoughts, anythoughts.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Love him, love him.
No, I am.
He's a first, the firstamerican pope, yeah, which is uh
historic well, first usaamerican.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
You say francis is the first american pope if you
consider south america.
Walk me through that one.
Well, because Pope Francis wasfrom Latin America, so he's
technically an American pope.
Got it US, yep, I got you.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Yeah, oh, you must be in linguistics.
Yeah, every word is veryimportant to you.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
No, so my specialty in linguistics was semantics.
Got it Perfect semantics.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Got it Perfect?
No, it makes sense, so freshUSA.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Yeah, the first, like a USA American president.
Yeah, so it was funny.
So you know how.
You know there was a wholething with the conclave.
The smoke goes up, whatever,you know, there's gosh.
I'm a bad Catholic.
Right now I'm trying toremember what color smoke.
The black is no new Pope.
So white is new Pope.
So you know, the first day ofconclave happened I didn't watch
the live stream, I was at work,whatever.
(34:15):
The next day was a work fromhome day, right.
So you know I settled down onthe couch.
You know I turn on the livestream, ready to work on my
laptop and have that in thebackground.
I kid you, not A minute afterthe live stream starts.
White smoke, wasn't it one ofthe fastest decisions on a pope?
(34:37):
It was faster, for sure.
I mean, like historically, thelongest conclave was years long,
yeah, but there was a lot ofcomplicating factors there.
But I will say the recent papalelections have been pretty fast
, like within a week or two atmost, but this was two days
right, yeah two days.
It seems like they arrived at aconsensus pretty quickly.
I like him a lot.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
What are some of the things?
So I haven't done a deep diveon him at all.
Yeah, what are some of thethings that you particularly
that stand out in this shortreign that he's had?
Reign might be the wrong wordPontificate is generally what we
call it, Okay so thispontificate, what are some of
the things that are coming outthat you say?
Speaker 4 (35:20):
okay, that's a good idea.
Yeah, so one of the biggest,most striking things that hit me
immediately was the name hechose Leo XIV.
Okay, so Leo XIII wrote a very,very influential teaching,
basically and cyclical is afancy word, but a teaching all
about how the economy andpolitics should function in a
Catholic way.
Right, it's called RerumNovarum.
Right, and that was about acentury ago.
(35:41):
Right, so it was reacting tothe Industrial Revolution.
Right, it talked about, youknow, the rights of workers to
earn a fair wage.
Right, it also decried thingslike laissez-faire capitalism
and socialism in the sameteaching.
And so that's Leo XIII.
So the 14th is following updirectly from that and he's made
(36:01):
some, some remarks saying like,hey, this whole ai thing, this
might be a huge change in our,like, way of life and production
and, the way I see it, he'sgoing to try to, you know,
clarify church teaching on whata properly ordered society for
the 21st century looks like.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
One of the things that Noah, my son and a good
friend of yours, says is thathey talk to Olivia about unions.
Oh boy, yes, and he's got astrong understanding of unions
and their place in the workforce.
You just brought up the conceptof fair wages, fair capitalism,
(36:43):
absolutely.
You brought it in socialism,mm-hmm, I want to.
I'm curious how you see thosethree things working together,
because a lot of people say,well, socialism, capitalism, no.
It's diametrically opposed.
Yeah, um, there was definitelya time when unions I mean
especially in the industrialrevelations where people are
(37:05):
getting killed they're justbeing overworked.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
Hundreds were dying, Maybe more Well sorry hundreds
in the direct fights.
That like, uh Sorry, hundredsin the direct fights.
If you've heard of the coalwars of East Tennessee, I have
not, Okay.
So basically you had asituation where actually this is
very close to where my parentslive, when do your parents live.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
They live in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Okay, we have a place an houroutside of Knoxville.
Oh yeah, no one was telling meabout that.
I love East Tennessee.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
It's a neat little spot but you go kind of north of
there and you get in a coalcountry, right.
So what had happened is you hadthese coal mine workers who
were unionized and basicallytheir employer brought in prison
labor to replace their nowexpensive unionized labor At
least the employer thought itwas expensive, right, sure.
And basically what happened isthose workers went to the prison
(37:50):
where the prison labor laborerswere being held and they blew
it up.
They let all, they let all ofthe prisoners go and they killed
a bunch of the guards becausethe prison was in a valley,
right.
So there's pretty easy ambushaltogether.
So you know, to win things likethe 40 hour like a cold war man
?
Speaker 3 (38:08):
no, no, pretty cold war.
Yeah, okay, I think it's a coldwar.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
No, no, no, no no, it was a very hot war for sure,
and, and like that's not theonly one, there's plenty of like
violent labor struggles inAmerica's history altogether
that want us things.
You know.
I'm not saying violence isnecessarily how you have to make
change, but if we have toacknowledge it happened in our
history.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
No, historically definitely.
You see, how do you align withthe new pope's vision of this
religion and work, labor, allthat together, business
economies, all of that kind ofstuff?
And how the unions today are.
(38:50):
I don't want to say relevant,but how well.
How are they relevant and whereare they important to be?
Speaker 4 (38:57):
Yeah.
So the way I see it, you know,pope Leo XIV, as I said, took
the name Leo XIII and as part ofthat teaching I mentioned, he
also said that workers have theright to unionize.
Right, and so just simplyhaving the right to unionize,
the right to act together todemand better working conditions
, and the right to you knowsaying to act together to demand
better working conditions, andthe right to you know saying
(39:17):
that, hey, we can do better.
You know, the boss is drawingso much profit from this and we
work so hard and have difficultconditions.
Right, we deserve to live aproper life.
I see that as very, verycompatible with Catholic social
teaching altogether.
Right, Everyone has a right toearn a fair wage and to live
sustainably and comfortably thesocialism part of it because it
(39:41):
how?
Speaker 3 (39:41):
how do you define that in a capitalistic, slash
union, fair wage environment?
So we still have to providereward for the risk takers.
They take all the risk.
Well, as far as financiallySure, I'm not saying physically,
I mean the workers take a riskdepending on the industry.
(40:03):
Yeah, but there has to be abalance.
How do we make, how do weensure a balance?
And then we don't want so muchgovernment overreach.
It'd be great if the unions andthe employers can work together
.
Yeah, but they tend not, theytend to be adversaries, sure.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
Yeah, so this is a very good question.
I mean, they're just inherentlythe you know the workers and
the unionized working, you know,force and the boss are going to
be have a certain level ofantagonism, right, and once you
have a contract, that kind oflike settles that tension there,
right?
I think that it's important toapproach, uh, these sorts of
negotiations with you know,openness and being willing to
negotiate and to each movetowards each other's point of
(40:46):
view, right, um, I mean, ifyou're talking like definitions
of socialism and capitalism, uh,that's that's very different,
right, because that's a wholenother podcast that's a whole
other podcast, uh, you know alltogether, but that's kind of how
I see it working I like how youdo specifically define, uh on
the union side, that fair wagefor fair work, yeah right in
(41:09):
other
Speaker 3 (41:10):
words, put the work in and let's define what that
fair wage is.
Yes, based on overall.
It's all based on the markettoo.
So the market is ultimately theboss, yeah.
In other words, what's themarket for?
What the workers are producing,and then the boss is subject,
(41:31):
in most cases in private, towhat the market's willing to pay
.
So finding that contract, thatnegotiation, requires, uh, wise
people on both sides.
It sure does.
Yeah, any deal.
I always say when I negotiate adeal in my business, I don't
(41:53):
want either one of us walkingaway with a big smile on our
face.
If I walk away with a big smileon our face, I'm actually
potentially taking advantage ofthe person that I am negotiating
to deal with.
If they're walking away with ahuge smile on their face, then I
feel like I gave way to dealwith, yeah.
If they're walking away with ahuge smile on their face, then I
feel like, oh, I gave way toomuch away, yeah, so there, you
know that's.
I don't like to use antagonizedrelationship, but it's more of
(42:18):
a business.
It's like, okay, I can't givethe house away, but I want to
make sure you're making the mostthat you're worth making.
My problem with unions and thisis so general.
So we'll keep it a generalpossible, because I'm sure this
is not the case everywhere.
But you know they have thesescales, the you know, and so the
(42:39):
guy you know that's ajourneyman in his industry is
going to make the same guy ismake the same guys to make the
same guy at that scale.
Yeah.
Which industry is going to makethe same guy?
Is make the same guys to makethe same guy at that scale, yeah
.
Which does not, in my opinion,doesn't promote, you know,
overachievement or like well,why should I work harder than
(43:00):
the guy who's the laziest guy onthe team?
He's I mean, people'spersonalities right, there's
guys that are just overachievers.
There's guys that just do thebare minimum.
Yeah, why should I work anyharder than the guy doing the
bare minimum?
Do you feel that that bringsthe whole quality down, or no, I
don't necessarily think so.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
I think in an ideal society you would get what I was
talking about earlier right,where everyone is doing things
that they find to be meaningfulfor themselves as people.
So they don't even need agreater economic incentive to
perform or to refine their craft.
They just will naturally wantto do that as human beings.
But I do think you know, atleast my experience.
(43:37):
You know public sector unionorganizing, because I helped to
make a union at my workplaceright at UCSD, right Like
they're.
You know we're in contractnegotiations right now.
But there's many otherpositions at UCSD right Like
they're.
You know we're in contractnegotiations right now.
But there's many otherpositions at UCSD that are
unionized, that have a sort of,you know, pay grade increase
like a guaranteed raise based onseniority right.
(43:58):
So people that are retainedright do get rewarded for it.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
So, so, proving a, proving a valued person of the
union team, staying there longerand get rewarded for it.
I mean, yeah, the work, workteam, the workforce, yeah, sure,
what was your motivation tothis?
That's cool, man, you.
So you, you're involved in asector.
Yeah, that was not union.
Were you the motivate, were youthe leader in unionizing this,
(44:25):
or is this somebody say we needto unionize and you got involved
?
Speaker 4 (44:28):
yeah, so we're pretty non-hierarchical, I guess in
the in the local organizingright, um, but you know it had
started way before I gotinvolved.
Uh, probably, for when did westart card campaign?
January of 2024, I believe, um,and then I signed on.
Basically I said yes, I want toform a union in April and, as
(44:51):
we know, there were certainthings that happened on UC
campuses in the month of May.
I don't want to get youdemonetized, we're not going to
get into that right now.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
Yeah sure, that's another whole podcast.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
Yeah, well, let's just say that the university
environment became very tense.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Across the country.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Across the country, the country, yeah, and across
the world actually.
Uh, the university environmentbecame very, very, very tough,
very tense, and students, youknow, and everyone was kind of
like where, where am I like,what, what are we doing?
So, you know, that's part,that's a lot of the reason why I
started pushing to to.
You know, that's really when Igot involved.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
It was really, this was recent 2025, may or 2024?
.
Or 2024 May.
Okay, so it's been over a yearnow.
Speaker 4 (45:30):
Yeah, it's been about a year that I've been
organizing now.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
And you're in contract negotiations now.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
Yep.
So we gained our super majorityof signatures of people saying
yep, I support farming union.
Got that, I think, in like latelast year.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
What are the benefits for the workers and what are
the benefits for the workers andwhat are the benefits for, as
you say, the boss or theemployer?
Okay, so, in order to form agood contract, walk me through
what the benefits for?
Speaker 4 (46:02):
both?
Speaker 3 (46:02):
sides are going to be yeah, since you're involved in
the contract or you're aware ofthe contract negotiations yeah,
I'm not on the bargaining teamor anything like that, or you're
aware of the contractnegotiations.
Speaker 4 (46:06):
Yeah, I'm not on the bargaining team or anything like
that.
There's other wonderfulorganizers who are involved with
that, who are all amazing.
They're great.
But basically for workers,studies show that you ultimately
do get significantly betterwages.
You get workplace protections,and the mere fact of having a
union is actually protection inand of itself, because you have
(46:26):
certain rights being part of aunion you wouldn't otherwise.
So, for example, there's Ibelieve it's called the wine
garden rights right.
So, for example, if hr callsyou in and you have a reasonable
belief that you're going to bedisciplined, you can request to
have a union representativepresent so that your rights are
respected during that meeting.
Um, so those are like enormousbenefits you have advocacy
(46:47):
benefits advocacy.
In a way, like you know, thepower is through solidarity, not
the law, right?
You say that if you know theemployer does something to me
that, like grievously, makes mylife more difficult.
I have thousands of peoplestanding behind me and that is
enormously powerful and actuallyfor the bosses, surprisingly,
studies have shown that, likeworkforce, relations between
(47:08):
management and workers are moreharmonious when you have a labor
union involved in the workplace.
That's because there's anunderstood contract, there are
understood procedures.
Right, there is like a laborrelations part, there's a system
in place.
Speaker 3 (47:22):
So in my business we're not a union, we're a small
little company.
Yeah not a union we're a smalllittle company, but we I work
very hard on what we callmanagement systems, where
everyone has defined roles andresponsibilities.
I don't believe people shouldhave to guess how they need to
behave, how they need to work,how they need to produce what
(47:44):
they need to keep their job it.
It should be extremelytransparent.
Now, on a small scale, like mylittle company, that's doable
because you can manageindividually and they're very
clear on what the expectationsare.
However, that process ofmanagement systems is always
(48:08):
evolving, absolutely.
This is where I think companiesget into trouble.
Small companies is they set instone management systems that
worked 20 years ago.
Mm-hmm.
And they become anachronistic.
They become archaic.
Sure, they no longer work basedon the market trends.
However, they're so stuck on it.
(48:29):
Then they start managing in awhat we call two different types
of leadership positionalleadership and servant
leadership.
We don't allow positionalleadership in my company.
I'm the CEO and that's whyyou're doing what you're doing.
No, you're going to understandhow you're contributing to the
(48:50):
company I get you.
So we do servant leadership.
We say what can we do each dayto help you achieve your roles
and responsibilities that youagree to when you signed on?
And then we reevaluate annuallyand sometimes more, based on
market trends.
Speaker 4 (49:05):
Yeah, no, I get you, it's an ever-evolving thing and
for you, you know, not allemployers take that kind of
approach to things right.
So we have we have a joke kindof at our unions five percent
other duties as assigned, right,because when, when we're
employed, we basically, you know, have a job card that says this
is what you're going to bedoing in this role, right and
pretty.
Usually there's like fivepercent.
That's like something else,right.
(49:25):
And you know, inevitablycertain things arise that you
have to do and you're assignedto do them right, and so
sometimes that five percent ismuch more than five percent for
people.
So I've I've seen some prettylike not on my own personal
department, like my.
I've I've think my managementis great, but I've seen other
parts of the university whereI'm like this overwork is wild.
(49:46):
What on paper is supposed to bea 40-hour-a-week job is
actually more like 50 or 60 forthis person, right.
So it's that sort of injusticeand you might say a failure in
the management system.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
I actually would say that we always look internally
before we look externally.
This is really important.
If a person is struggling tomeet their roles and
responsibilities, we lookinternally.
first, have we provided clearmanagement systems for that
person to understand their rolesand responsibilities?
(50:18):
Are we exceeding their rolesand responsibilities and are
they unaware of it, or are theynot being compensated for it?
Have they agreed to it it orare they not being compensated
for it?
Yeah, have they agreed to it?
Um, and then finally, and thenwhen we do go to the person, we
first ask is everything all?
Right outside of work becauseyou have to.
What I understand from being inbusiness for so long is that,
(50:41):
from a business point of view,too many managers see that as
life sure, and that that person,all they are, is an employee to
provide a service thathopefully adds to the bottom
line.
Now, that is a portion of thefunction of that employee, yeah,
however, that isn't the entireperson.
(51:02):
So we try to identify is look,all of a sudden your behavior
changed yeah, okay, this issomething we look all of a
sudden, your behavior changed.
Yeah, okay, this is something wedid.
Have we all of a sudden losttrack and then we've loaded you
up and we haven't provided you,excuse me, are we?
Growing too fast and we're nowhaving you do all the extra work
instead of hiring somebody else.
Yeah, that's one thing.
(51:23):
Yeah, or are you having troubleat home?
One thing, yeah, or are youhaving trouble at home, or you
know we don't get, we're notgoing to ask specifically, say
is there anything?
You know that.
You know that you're strugglingwith that we can help you with,
yeah, and let them volunteer.
But we get to that point afterwe look internally.
So, but again, we're small.
Yeah, you know we aren't athousands of member company
(51:48):
where we can't individually do.
You can't have an HR departmentassessing every single
individual person on a team of10,000 people or more in some
unions, right?
Sure, you know hundreds ofthousands, millions or whatever.
You know.
Whatever it is, I get it and Iknow arguments on both sides of
(52:08):
it.
But I see the passion and I dounderstand some of the benefits.
I mean, we work in the trades,We'll do government work, we do
what's called prevailing wage.
So, on, prevailing wage isbasically the same as union
wages.
So we have to pay our peoplefor the government contracts and
it's not too far off.
(52:29):
But because we pay benefits andall of the, the, the part, all
the things that go along withthe prevailing wage One of the
things that I do love.
I started off actually as aunion carpenter for six months
and realized I hated it.
Okay, but the watching thesecarpenters build.
(52:52):
You know, you watch thesepeople.
They're so specialized theelectricians.
Yeah, I've worked with a ton ofunion people and they know that
craft.
You know the boss isn't havingto worry about is it getting
done right?
Because the unions areproviding tremendous training
(53:12):
and you can see it in the trades.
Speaker 4 (53:14):
Yeah, no, I mean the unions kind of started there
Within like workshops andfactories, you know, like with
those very manual trades.
Only now, like people, kind ofwhite-collar workers like me,
are kind of doing this too.
Yeah this is a new trend, yeahwhite collar workers like me are
kind of doing this too.
Speaker 3 (53:30):
Yeah, this is a new phenomenon.
Yeah, it's a more recentphenomenon, like global
historically.
You're starting to see thatlike yeah, you know starbucks
talking about unionizing.
I'd still call that blue collar, but I mean, I guess you'd
categorize it as a trade,because there is something that
they've learned to create yeah,they work with their hands.
It's manual, physical work attimes you know, on your feet for
eight hours a day is not easyat all.
It's not easy at all.
(53:50):
And dealing with so many people.
But no, I get it.
I go back and forth on it.
To be honest with you, I thinkit's very industry specific and
it's very situational, dependingon the need to unionize.
Well, I think that's cool and Ilove how excited you are.
Speaker 4 (54:14):
Yeah, I know I'm passionate about it.
I'm actually applying to lawschool in the fall to do labor
law.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
Yeah, oh, fantastic I know it's wild.
Speaker 4 (54:22):
This thing's kind of set me on fire a little bit.
Speaker 3 (54:24):
So you got your degree, degree at ucs, which is
a fantastic school.
My practice wife went there,got her my noah's mom cindy, you
know I know um, yeah, she gother molecular biology degree
there and she's done fantastic I.
What I always loved about ucsdwas the, the hardcore focus in
(54:44):
the uc system for just academics.
Yes, you know the researchuniversity they don't have a,
you know, a NCAA football teamtype thing, but now they do, I
think, do they?
Speaker 1 (54:57):
Well, I mean it's division one like for a lot of
our sports.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (55:00):
So UCSD basketball actually went to March Madness
this year.
Speaker 3 (55:05):
I did not know that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
When Cindy was going there andI would come visit the campus,
it cracked me up because myroommate at the time went to San
Jose state.
Oh, okay, okay, yeah.
And the Greek program there was.
I mean there's houses there.
I mean you go into the studentcenters, they got whole wings
(55:26):
for all of the fraternities andsororities, and we went into the
student center at the campusthere just 30 years ago and they
had literally a closet.
I mean it was probably thiscorner here of the Greek life.
And then she would tell me shegoes.
Yeah, the best place to studyon a Friday night is UCSD.
(55:49):
Yeah, there's no parties here,everyone is just studying.
I'm sure the culture's changedin 30 some years.
Speaker 4 (55:56):
As a student, you know students know where to go,
sure, if that makes sense.
But, like you know, for themost part it is definitely a,
you know, a type of universitywhere people like are there very
much so for academics and theuniversity's mission is very
research focused and that issomething that really draws
students like and you know weintegrate that in our department
too.
You know, even in linguisticswe do a lot of research that we
(56:18):
try to involve students in.
Speaker 3 (56:20):
Yeah, I've always been impressed with UCSD and I'm
glad you went there.
That's that's a great school.
Speaker 4 (56:25):
I mean I love it, it's a great place.
So, olivia, that's a greatschool.
I mean I love it.
Speaker 3 (56:28):
It's a great place.
So, olivier, from meeting youas a little kid to a successful
young man contributing tosociety, which I think is
critical.
I think the best jobs are whenyou know you're impacting
people's lives, not your own.
It actually is kind of selfish,because it makes you feel good
(56:52):
In a way.
Yeah, no, it actually it'sinteresting, but you know, you,
you, when you actually putyourself out there and make
other people's lives better, itgives you a feeling of purpose
rather than punching the clock.
Speaker 4 (56:59):
Yeah Well, no, that is that is in my job.
Like the greatest satisfactionI get is from meeting one-on-one
with students and helping themthrough their path, because, you
know, the university cansometimes be a pretty Byzantine
structure and it's hard tofigure out where to find any one
resource and sometimes there'sduplication of effort too right.
So helping students to navigatetheir way through things,
(57:19):
that's the best part, it's themost rewarding thing, absolutely
.
There's nothing better thanhearing a student say thank you
so much.
I'm so much less confused thanI was when I walked in.
That's my, that's my favoritething to hear.
Speaker 3 (57:30):
And we, you know we'll end it with that, because
that is so positive and that'swhat we try to do is be as
positive and educate people.
Um, let us know about lawschool.
Have you been accepted?
Speaker 4 (57:40):
No, no.
So I just took my LSAT in April, um, and then I'm going to be
applying in the fall.
Speaker 3 (57:45):
Have you had any results?
Speaker 4 (57:46):
yet.
I did yeah.
Good, Bad.
It was pretty good.
I'd say you know it's in thelow 160s.
Speaker 3 (57:53):
What's the range?
Speaker 4 (57:53):
Yeah, so gosh, I don't remember what the minimum
score is, but it's out of 180.
Okay, so Low 160s gets me many,many good universities Not top
14 or anything, but not that Iwas looking to do that anyways.
I'd prefer like a, like a moreregional university, that's like
very much like providingexactly what I want to get out
(58:15):
of it, correct?
Speaker 3 (58:16):
Yeah Well, fantastic, we'll do another one, yeah Once
you get into law school Soundsgood.
Speaker 4 (58:21):
If I have the time.
Speaker 3 (58:22):
Well, we'll let you once you get the time.
We'll definitely want to.
I want to definitely follow upa couple of years see where
you're at.
Speaker 4 (58:28):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (58:29):
And see how you're continuing to improve people's
lives and advocate for othersSounds great.
Thank you so much Thanks.
Speaker 4 (58:36):
Olivia.
Au revoir, a bientôt.
Au revoir, a bientôt.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
You've been listening to Real People, real Life.
Our passion is to have realconversations with real people
who've made it.
Real people who've made it whodid it on their own terms.
We'll be back soon, but in themeantime, catch us on Twitter or
X at RPRL podcast and onYouTube at Real People Real Life
(59:05):
podcast.
Welcome to Real People, Real Life.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Bonjour mon ami Olivier, bonjour Monsieur Charot
.
Ça va Oui, ça va bien, et vous.
And that's about as far as myFrench goes, everybody.
So this is Olivier.
I've known you.
Yeah, well, I met you.
Let's talk about it that way.
I met you probably when youwere in eighth grade.
Yeah, somewhere around there,that sounds right.
(00:35):
Middle school-ish.
You didn't go to elementaryschool Noah did you.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
No.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
I didn't.
We met in middle school.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Yeah, I met you in middle school.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Yeah, I met you in middle school, san Marcos Middle
School right.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Yeah, san Alejo, middle San Alejo, that's right.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah, I mean, it is in San Marcos, that's correct.
But yeah, san Alejo, my son wasall excited because I had
studied, for whatever reason.
Well, we went to private schooland in first grade we had a
French teacher and they put usin French class.
Nice, nice.
And so from first grade throughfifth grade I took French.
And then in high school, I said, well, this will be easy.
(01:09):
Yeah.
I'm just going to take French.
Well, I couldn't get betterthan a C, oh man.
Yeah, it's a tough language.
It's a very difficult language,but you were, from a very young
age, brought up speaking Englishand French, that's right.
How did that work out in yourfamily.
Speaker 4 (01:30):
Yeah, so my parents very intentionally made sure
that my dad would speak to me inFrench, my mom would speak to
me in English.
So usually that means that youget more English exposure than
French exposure, because youknow dad's off working doing
whatever.
But they also veryintentionally made it so that we
consumed French media.
All my disney movies growing upwere dubbed in french.
So I didn't know, for example,that peter pan was a american
(01:53):
production.
So I showed up to kindergarten,right, oh, I know this
wonderful uh movie called peterpan.
I think it's a french thing,you wouldn't know it.
And the kids are like no, Iknow, a peter pan is what you're
talking about with thecrocodile, right you know.
So, yeah, no, I got exposure toboth french and english growing
up and I like to think aboutequal quantities, at least until
I hit school and and noah noah,my son.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
There's a podcast on him.
You guys can check it out ifeverybody remembers.
But, um, he would tell me andcorrect me if I'm wrong or I
misunderstood, but so certaindays were French days only and
certain days were English daysonly.
Did your mom speak French?
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Yeah, so my mom actually spent at least a year
taking private lessons after shemet my dad, just so she could
communicate with his familybetter.
So you know, as part of that itwas kind of lifelong journey
for her of like learning how tospeak French and be
communicative in it, and so aspart of that she would designate
one day a week I think it wasFridays to be French only in the
(02:51):
house.
Just as much for her benefit.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
I was going to say probably a lot for her benefit
too.
You don't use it.
I mean I couldn't.
We went to France a year ago.
Yeah and last.
June and it takes.
I do all right reading seeingthe words, but I can't speak it
very well If I have a glass ofwine or something then I'm a
(03:15):
little bit better.
It loosens you up yeah, I'msure I sound terrible to them,
but I do understand a greatstory.
We went and played a pokertournament and we're in this
poker room, my wife being theonly woman playing poker in in
this mostly men's poker room inFrance, absolutely, and about
(03:36):
two hours into it.
I mean, they're just talkingcrap about me.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
I'm the American and this, and this.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
But I, the funny thing is I understood enough,
yeah, and then I won this bigpot.
And then I just respond inFrench.
Yeah, yeah.
And they're like parlez-vousfrançais?
And I say je parle un peu.
Je ne comprends pas, mais je necomprends pas, mais je parle un
(04:03):
peu Well, yeah, Basically realrough right and they're like ooh
, enough to let them know, theyshould shape up.
Then it turns out, they allspoke English.
And so now they're all excitedto talk to me in English and it
was pretty.
One guy spoke pretty good, butit was pretty broken.
It's probably better than myFrench, but Maybe, I don't know,
it's not that good.
(04:28):
Um, but I do when I'm there wego, for if we go for a week, I
do, you're immersed.
Yeah, you know, friend, theneat thing about france, and
that I know, especially in thetouristy areas is that they will
speak french.
They understand english, yeah,yeah, they said.
They're very proud people oftheir language and their culture
.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Yeah, I mean using my degree in linguistics for a
second.
France isn't just one languageeither.
Right, there are otherlanguages in France that are
very much minority languages,you know, spoken by less than a
million people.
But the French language wasbasically you know it spread
throughout the country, was kindof a project by the French
state to kind of like absolutelyintegrate kind of those further
(05:05):
flung territories right intothe kind of national thing.
So part of being French in away, is speaking French.
It is inherently tied to beingfrom the country.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
So that that explains a lot.
And I did not realize what arethe minority languages that the
government?
So when did this movement to beFrench?
Is this hundreds of years?
Speaker 4 (05:25):
ago.
Yeah, no, so this is about atthe time of the french
revolution.
So this is a time right whenthere's this big idea of, like,
a national identity, right.
So at the time that therevolution broke out, only about
10 of french speak.
French people, like people inthe french territory currently
spoke the current frenchlanguage 10, whoa, yeah, yeah,
(05:46):
about 10 of them spoke french.
As we know it, the the rest ofthe 90, you know, spoke like
closely related dialects so theycan understand well enough to
conduct like business and simplethings.
But again, it's a wholecontinuum of different types of
dialects going on throughout thecountry.
So all based on.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
So so that I can understand a little bit yeah, so
let's, let's talk england,since england speaks english,
right well, you have so manydialects, some of, them.
We just went to um scotland, ohyeah, and it's extremely
difficult.
They're speaking quote-unquoteEnglish, but the dialect and the
words that they use and the waythey pronounce certain words
(06:29):
it's like what?
Yeah, yeah, my wife is Mexican.
She has to watch subtitles whenshe watches any English,
england or Irish movies.
Very difficult for her tounderstand, it is.
So.
Are these dialects in france arudimentary french language or
(06:55):
is it a?
Is it the latin influence?
Speaker 4 (06:59):
yeah.
So they are all fully formedlanguages, in and of themselves
just as valid, as, like myparisian dialect of french,
which happened to become thedominant strain, like the
queen's english yeah yeah, youcan think of it that way, right.
I mean, you know, paris is thepower center of france.
It outnumbers the rest of thecities in population maybe by
three or four times, right.
(07:20):
So it just kind of naturallybecame the uh, the sort of
dominant dialect as the statecentralizes, right.
All of these are equally validways of speaking, but you have
two general groups.
You have like a kind ofnorthern dialect group that
Parisian French belongs to, anda southern dialect group.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Where does the country stand today?
So it was 10 percent.
At the French Revolution, yeah,did the country mostly adopt
Parisian French?
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Yeah, like 99% basically.
I mean I'd say 100% can speakand understand it at this point.
But there is like maybe 1%that's bilingual in some kind of
other dialect and like fullybilingual.
It's hard to measurebilingualism.
It's one of the hardestproblems in linguistics is
adequately measuringbilingualism.
But yeah, it is basicallyuniversity why is that?
(08:08):
So difficult um measure.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Is there a way to explain that?
Speaker 4 (08:11):
yeah, I mean just because, um, different people
have different levels ofcapacity, right.
So I consider myself abilingual in french because I
grew up with it, um, I spoke itat home and so on.
But there's some domains whereI struggle a lot, stuff like
economics, politics, philosophy,you know things you don't talk
about around the dinner table.
I struggle, right.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
So is that the um, oh boy, uh, my my mind just went
blank.
Yeah, um, it's.
Is it the, the actual words todescribe something?
The colloquialisms, uh, aredifferent to describe the same
thing and it?
And is that where it getsconfusing as far as between the
dialects of french?
Speaker 4 (08:49):
yeah, um, yeah, I mean it is mostly like
vocabulary differences betweenthe dialects, um, but you know,
there it's a gradient right,like naturally, these sorts of
dialects form a continuum right.
So the ones that areneighboring to each other are
very similar, but the furthergeographically apart you get,
the more different they become.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
So one of the things we talk about and one of my
passions with the podcast isachieving success in life.
Now, we don't define thatspecifically financially, what
we define that as a quality oflife.
We talk about following yourpassion, and I have a desire to
someday really understand anddefine what passion really is,
(09:31):
because it's such an overusedword.
What is it?
It's almost, in my opinion,it's hard to describe because
it's a part of you.
It's an innate part of you thatexpresses outwardly in your
actions, in your day-to-day lifeand things like this.
But it doesn't always meanyou're having a good day, even
though you're chasing yourpassion.
(09:52):
As I grew up teaching French orteaching, yeah right, good luck
with that one, ryan, learningFrench, it was just hey, you're
a kid, take these classes.
I sucked at it, I was no good.
It was just hey, you're a kid,take these classes.
I sucked at it, I was no good.
I can't even, I mean, spellcorrect has ruined my English
ability to spell a word.
Good luck with French when halfthe letters are not even
(10:13):
pronounced.
That's an exaggeration,obviously, but you took this
natural course of life beingFrench and made a career of it.
Yeah, you could say that.
Where would you describe?
Because this is what you do,you are a well, describe what
(10:36):
you do.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Yeah.
So I work in advising at UCSD.
So I advise linguistic studentsthat want to become linguists
with their career in somecapacity, that want to become
linguists with their career insome capacity, be that in
academia, be that as like speechpathologists or any sort of
other career that has to do withlanguage.
I try to help them make theirpassion a reality, if that makes
sense.
So I mean, the way I got intoit partially is through French,
(10:58):
you are absolutely right, like Igrew up with it and in a way I
wanted to understand why I amthe way.
I am right.
What is bilingualism?
How do people learn languagesright, especially when you're
learning two languages alongsideyou?
How does that work right?
So I really became passionateabout that and I decided to make
it my major after a somewhatunsuccessful year in computer
science trying to hack it as anengineer.
(11:21):
I can't, it's not my skill set,it's not my vocation, you know.
So, yeah, it's kind of what Idecided to, you know, do with my
life.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
And you're loving it.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
I can see it in your face.
Oh yeah, I know, work is great.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
The concept of bilingualism, yeah, okay.
So here's where I struggle whenI was learning French Is I'm
constantly translating in mybrain.
In other words, I am notactually speaking French.
At the very limited that I cando it and the limited Spanish
(11:56):
that I've learned, I'm actuallygoing okay, what's the word for
this, what's the word for this?
And then, when it comes out, itdoesn't mean much to me as
english, as my primary language,what it but what it does is I
may be able to get a pointacross growing up in it, and
(12:17):
I've asked my wife this, and shehas a difficult time explaining
it too.
And it's kind of interesting tosay bilingualism is a difficult
concept to explain yeah is itone language to you in your
brain?
is french and english the samething, just two different ways
to say the same thing?
Or does your brain actuallyseparate the two, almost like
(12:39):
two different personalities?
Speaker 4 (12:41):
that's a really, really good question.
I mean some I'll do some thingsonly in french, like I
generally only swear in french,because I just find it a little
bit more expressive of alanguage to do that well, we can
do that I don't want to get youdemonetized here, no, but like,
um in my mind, um, you knowfrench words, right, just, and
as with any two languages, theywill have different.
(13:02):
You know implications, connot,implications, connotations and
so on, right, so to me they area bit separate, absolutely, and
I do employ them when I need to,but my brain is able to make
the switch, so I don't have to,like, pass it through English
and my English concepts, unlessI run into one of those damn
domains I was telling you about,like economics, philosophy,
politics, or I start getting toa point where, point where, like
(13:29):
, I just don't have the conceptsfor this in this language.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Then I have to pass it through the english.
So conception, yeah, a majorfamous podcast.
We won't mention his name, buteveryone knows him.
So he's on spotify and spotifyis working on an ai program to
take the voice of this any couldbe me.
Let's say I was a majorpodcaster, yeah, and they're
like man, you are worldwide.
Ryan, we're gonna go ahead andrun it through ai and all your
(13:55):
podcasts.
It'll be in french and you'lljust be sitting there speaking
french in your own voice,overdubbed.
Yeah, my lips won't be doing it.
Yeah, their biggest problem isthe concepts.
Yes, like how do we, you know?
You know how do we take anamerican colloquialism and I'm
terrible with that word and thentranslate to that exactly the
(14:19):
way french would understand, oritalians would understand, or
Italians would understand it, orSpanish would understand it,
because they don't have the sameslang.
Yeah, and that's their biggestdifficulty.
So trying to get the same exactconcepts across.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Yeah, I mean anything that's like concepts or like
sayings right.
Expressions that are reallyunique to a language.
Those are incredibly difficultto translate.
An AI is not going to spit youout something ungrammatical.
If it's translating for you, itmight spit out something a
little clinical, though.
Right, and that's.
That is where having you knownative speakers as translators
(14:54):
can be extremely, extremelyuseful, because they get those
nuances that a large languagemodel just will not get,
naturally, and yeah, and I think, as it grows, and there's all.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Everyone has these arguments, pros and cons, ai and
all this stuff, but let's justspeak positively about it, as,
for instance, the work you'redoing in linguistics, that'll
eventually get uploaded, as longif you're online and you're
providing papers and you'reproviding curriculum and
documentation, that'lleventually get into this massive
(15:27):
AI world and hopefully be ableto help out there, hopefully not
put you out of a job.
One of the things aboutlanguage, though, olivier, is so
much of it is unspoken.
Oh yeah, yeah, there is Icompletely agree.
And so I think that's where AIis going to fail.
We're going to have a difficulttime.
I mean, who knows?
But you know, but sitting herewith people, I've done these
(15:49):
podcasts remotely, yeah, whereI'm on a computer like a zoom,
let's just say yeah, it's sodifficult, yeah, to just sit
here and watch a person's bodylanguage, yeah and um, and react
.
You know social media has thosedownfalls with that kind of
thing where you can easily justsend something out into the
universe and not worry aboutquote, unquote the consequences.
(16:11):
Let's go back, yeah, so one ofthe things I really so I love
Gen Zers.
They they are showing, showingso much promise in all aspects
of life.
I've met some really solid,good thinkers.
There's been a big problem withthe Gen Xers like myself, who
(16:38):
were promised college degreesthat paid nothing.
You get a college degree andyou're set for life.
I didn't go to college, I see,yeah, and I was pulled into the
counseling office and said, well, you're gonna fail, you're just
gonna flip burgers your life.
They took the trades out ofschool and we have a generation
(16:59):
of millennials that can't fixanything.
Now I taught my son how to fixthings.
I got him into trades.
We're starting to see a Gen Z,almost a.
I mean the word golden age iskind of being thrown around
right now in politics, but I'mseeing that with the Gen Zers,
we're seeing these guys reallytaking advantage of real
(17:19):
industry.
They're getting back to whatthe Gen Xers did, where we can
actually sit in a room with twopeople that completely disagree
and have a great time anddiscuss it and challenge each
(17:40):
other.
We're starting to see some ofthat which I think is great.
Good discourse is importantSpeaking of linguistics.
Right Language is critical.
Yeah, what makes you unique,though?
At a very, very young age, youare at the privilege of seeing
other cultures.
That's true.
How's that affected you, as anAmerican, primarily, and when
(18:03):
you and juxtapose the Americanlifestyle, which we're taught is
perfect, and then you know,let's just say, french and other
areas that you've gone as ayoung age, you've seen realities
on both sides.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Yeah, gosh.
So to compare and contrast theFrench and American way of life,
I do think there is kind of acommon philosophical route, kind
of like enlightenment thinking,right, that is absolutely
common to the two cultures.
Do we have different conceptsof what democracy and acting on,
you know, acting on that andprotesting looks like?
Absolutely?
But so far as everyday lifegoes, I feel like, you know, the
(18:39):
American way of life is veryfast, right, it moves, it moves
rapidly.
You know, french way of life,even in the cities, is slower,
absolutely.
You take your time.
You take your three or fourweeks vacation in July or August
, right, and you're justunreachable for those three or
four weeks that you're off whenyou're right, and you're just
(19:00):
unreachable for those three orfour weeks that you're off when
you're resting, you're resting.
When you're working, you'reworking, but with a one hour
lunch break in there, of course,right.
So it is a slower pace of lifein france, absolutely, and
that's something I've grown toappreciate a lot, um, and try to
integrate into my own life inkind of small ways.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
so a balance is is critical.
Yeah, okay, play hard, workhard, everything in moderation,
kind of thing.
Yeah, uh, when we go to europeone of the things I love about
europe I'm a big fan of italy,my I'm italian descent, yeah, um
, but even in italy there is athere is a palpable sense of a
(19:33):
slower pace.
The hardest thing that my wifeand I have when we go to Europe
is having a meal, because it isall about, in America, turning
tables.
You know we'll, we'll come in,we'll get a reservation, we'll
sit down.
We were on the Champs Elyseesas a restaurant we love, and
(19:54):
there's not too many good oneson the Champs ELizet because
it's the Champy-Lizet.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
Yeah, yeah, they cater to all the tourists that
are there, but there's one we goto and it's nice.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
But it's interesting because you make your
reservation, yeah, and they sityou, and if the first time you
do it, you think they're beingrude.
You're like, well, they haven'tbeen to my table, they gave us
water and we haven't seen themfor like 15 minutes, yeah, and
the expectation which we'velearned is hey, you got the
(20:24):
table.
Yeah.
Nobody else is getting thattable.
Yeah, Italy is very much likethis too.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
Yeah, yeah, I mean the weight cultures are
completely different, completely, no, yeah, yeah, I mean the
weight cultures are completelydifferent, completely.
No, yeah, completely.
Because in france it's allabout discrete service.
Right in america, like a goodwaiter is going to make
conversation with you, he'llmake commentary on what you're
having, whatever in france,that's just unthinkable.
Right to them, they are thereto provide you what you need, um
, and to serve you and refillyou discreetly, completely leave
(20:53):
you alone and let you have theconversation with the person
that you're with exactly theevening, rather than you go to a
restaurant here and everyone'son their phones yeah, went out
to dinner last night and we weme and my wife take make a
conscious effort to put themaway.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Try to have a conversation.
Yeah, and that's difficult ifthings are popping, you know,
and all this nonsense.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Uh, I mean I make an.
I intentionally turn off myphone when I attended.
When I'm one-on-one withsomeone, I don't want that
dinging happening, like that'sjust kind of how I am well,
you're linguistics.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Yeah, uh, am I saying that linguistics?
Speaker 4 (21:29):
so I I don't necessarily classify myself as a
linguist because I don't havelike a phd in it or anything.
I do a little bit of researchstuff on the side for fun, but I
don't I work in linguistics, iswhat I like to say.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
So well, you know more about it than I do.
I'll tell you that.
Um, you decided, going throughcollege, you said I'm going to
go ahead and get into computerengineering.
Computer software engineering,I mean obviously smart, smart
decision.
When you're thinking aboutmoney and a solid career, yeah,
(22:02):
how far were you into this towhere you're like uh-uh, this
isn't for me.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
So the way it works at UCSD is that in your computer
science major you have acertain amount like lower
division classes which areconsidered like weeder classes.
If you're not meant for it,it'll take you out of the major.
I was able to get through mostof those with like decent grades
you know be average or so butthere's absolutely no passion,
no joy in any of it and I waslike, and also I just didn't
(22:29):
like, like, I just personallydidn't like the environment.
I didn't get along well withthe students either and I'm just
like this is not an environmentfor me.
So at the beginning of my secondyear, basically, I
intentionally decided to moveaway from that and into
linguistics, which is where mypassion actually lay, and I had
been taking some on the side forGEs, right, I was, you know,
(22:50):
using a couple linguisticsclasses here and there, right To
kind of, but you, you know,just on the side, right, it's
like computer science is themain thing and this is just a
fun side hobby and it slowlybecame more and more of what I
was doing and you turned it intoa career anyway, when I first
met you.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Yeah, you know obviously.
Hey, my friend olivia, hespeaks french, so of course I
want to throw some french at youthat I had yeah haven't studied
for 25 years probably, probablywhen I met you, but when you
talked to me you light up it'spart of you and I always thought
I'm like this kid's.
You know, you were a kid at thetime.
(23:25):
You're now a man but this kid'sgoing to go into some sort of
international studies.
He's going to you know whatever, not even business, internet.
But I just said, you know, havethis gift.
Now you've, you know, and youended up doing it.
Yeah, I think the biggest thingthat people do in life, the
saddest thing I see, is peoplepursuing careers strictly for
(23:46):
the money.
They're miserable, they hateMondays, they can't wait till
Friday.
That's in the people.
So that's a third of your life?
No, it's not.
It's more than a third of yourlife, because when you got to go
to work, you know you got thathour or two to get there, the
hour or two you know to unwind,come home and then you can't
(24:06):
really do much because, you gotto do it again the next day,
especially in America.
You got to go, go, go, go, asyou mentioned before.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Yeah, I mean as a as a recent Catholic, I have to say
, like they're in in ourphilosophy there's this concept
of aura et labora, right, prayand work.
So work is essentially half ofyour life, right?
So to do, to basically spendhalf of your life doing
something that doesn't sit wellwith you, it's not really a life
well spent.
I don't think you know you know.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
You know, I'm glad you brought that up.
I have a great friend wholistens to the podcast.
I've known him forever and I'mnot sure how long, but probably
about eight to 10 years ago hereally embraced the Catholicism.
Catholic he's, and he is anintellect.
His name is Rob.
Again, another shout out, rob.
I love talking to him aboutthings intellectually.
(24:55):
He's a great debater,understands a lot of things in
politics and Catholicism.
What steered you that way?
Yeah?
Were you raised religious.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
I was raised like a non-denominational Protestant.
You know, happy copy, Jesusloves you, kind of vibe.
It's also a beautiful traditionof its own.
I don't want to like demean it.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
No, that's how I was raised as well.
Speaker 4 (25:18):
Yeah.
Then when I was about 15, 16 orso, I turned away from that.
I became like kind of atheist,agnostic.
Something in that kind of myidea was like, oh, there's just
not enough evidence, right.
I was all about hard scientificreality of things, right.
And you know, the tradition Iwas raised in was kind of like,
you know, was telling me thatevolution isn't real and that
(25:41):
the Big Bang isn't real and soon, like all of these you know,
very well grounded scientifictheories are not true.
And then when I startedlearning more of the details of
it, rather than just, you know,like like counterpoints to
object, it was actually learnedwhat I was arguing against.
I'm like whoa, like there wassomething to this like evolution
, big bang, totally real, andjust the house of cards just
(26:01):
kind of got taken out from underme.
So you know, I pretty quicklysalvaged together some kind of
weird like French existentialistphilosophy thing to keep me
going through life and that gotme through college altogether.
But I had some pretty powerfulspiritual experiences, which is
something that I had likediscounted as a possibility
whatsoever and just it happenedin my life and I was like whoa,
(26:25):
would you mind going into that?
Yeah, no, gladly.
So.
I mean, even in my childhood,like when my dad brought me to
France, there were some seedsplanted about the Catholicolic
faith right, um, for example,like this beautiful cathedral in
versailles, um, and it's verywell known for its organ right,
and so this made me my.
This is the first mass Iremember going to.
I was maybe eight years old orso.
(26:46):
I remember the first note ofthe organ hits, it's like it
punched me in the chest orsomething right, just that's how
powerful the thing was and Ifelt I was like, well, this is
the fear of God, right, I hadnot felt that before.
So it kind of put a big respectin me for the faith.
And you know, I had otherexperiences early in, you know,
in my childhood, that kind ofgave me respect for the faith,
(27:07):
like just so much beautiful artand architecture and music that
I was able to experience while Iwas in France.
But fast forwarding to, you know, after this period of atheism,
agnosticism, whatever, I was ina pretty tough period of my life
at the end of college, right.
Just a lot of the things in mylife that were solid were kind
of going away, right, and I wasin France with my grandma and
(27:32):
she just invites me to Mass oneday.
She's like, yeah, let's go toMass.
Right, there's a small church,not grandiose at all, right,
this little stone church fromthe 13th century.
Um, that's in her town.
And so we go there and it ispacked with people, people of
all different, like, uh, ethnicbackgrounds and probably
original languages too, buteveryone just kind of
(27:53):
celebrating God together, right,and that like kind of was like,
whoa, there's real power here,like this has been going on for
800 years here and like, even ifthe people are, you know, have
changed, right altogether, thereligion is the same, the God is
the same, right, and there'sjust so much power there.
That kind of prepped me.
(28:13):
And then, are you familiar withthe Eucharist?
I am not at all familiar.
Yeah, okay, so basically weCatholics believe that you know
the communion bread.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, you know what I was thinking of catechism.
I know what the Eucharist is.
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Yeah, so we believe that the communion bread, right
when it's consecrated, becomesthe true body, blood, soul and
divinity of Jesus Christ right,and that happens in the second
part of the Mass and everyoneyou know partakes of that.
And when it came to be my turnto go up and receive you know I
go up for a blessing instead,because I wasn't a Catholic at
the time and I just felt so muchhealing power coming from that
(28:55):
Eucharist, even if I couldn'treceive it.
I just felt like peace for thefirst time in like what was
basically months really.
Yeah, I've struggled withanxiety in my life altogether
and it was just wiped away in aninstant you took that, you took
the eucharist not then.
Yeah, I just took a simpleblessing, just you know,
eucharistic minister, and itjust goes like that to me.
But there was, I still felt itand I'm like I need to
(29:17):
investigate this.
There is something going onhere and then, after a year
basically, of initiation andclasses and all that, here I am
you know, my friend rob grew upin a few different
christian-based religions Ibelieve at a young age they were
in a baptist church.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
Uh, eventually, lutheran, yeah um, bounced
around.
He reminds me of you in that heneeds to understand things.
He, he's, he's not a easter andchristian.
We call them C&E Christiansright, yeah, yeah.
They've never read the book.
They know some of the stories.
(30:00):
He's gonna question you.
He's gonna wanna know.
He's not gonna just take it forwhat the guy at the pulpit
tells you it is.
Speaker 4 (30:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
And I've seen the same transformation in him when
he dove into the Catholic Church.
Yeah, there's something there,whether it's tradition?
Speaker 4 (30:23):
Well, we believe it was founded by Jesus Christ, so
it's nearly 2,000 years old now.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
I see the passion in him.
I see the passion in you.
Yeah, A life-changinglife-changing passion, a peace
in his life, a peace that youfound.
Yeah, what percentage of Franceis Catholic?
It's funny because my wife isMexican.
(30:52):
Yeah.
Italian Huge Catholic,obviously on both sides there,
yeah absolutely, you knowVatican's kind of somewhere near
.
Italy.
I don't know.
Maybe Might be able to find iton a map somewhere.
Yeah, what percentage of Franceis Catholic?
Speaker 4 (31:10):
So that's a really good question.
If you look at it statistically, I think it's something like
35%, but if you look at it likeactually like who is going to
mass, who is like involved inthe church, I'd say that number
is probably close to five or ten.
Yeah, in reality, the FrenchRevolution brought many great
(31:32):
things, but it also brought asecularism to the people.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
France is kind of known for that right.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
Yeah, I mean, even if I remember the priests in
France are still paid by thestate, they're not paid by the
Vatican, because that was partof the secularizing reform.
The idea is like we can't have,you know, authority figures in
our state that are paid by aforeign government, right?
So yeah, france is a very, verysecular place.
I'd say it's much more so thanthe United States.
Yeah, like you go to thesemassive cathedrals, you show up
(31:58):
for Sunday Mass and it's like100 people there, right, it's
really kind of sad to see, right, all of this beauty, all of
these now millennia actually,that France has been over a
millennium, france has beenCatholic and people just aren't
showing up for it.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
What is the secularism in another word, I'm
having a hard time saying effecton religion?
Obviously I get the concept,you know, separation of church
and state and all that kind ofstuff, yeah, but you know the
concept of France from anAmerican's point of view is
secular of France, from anAmerican's point of view, is
(32:39):
secular.
Is this a profound?
Does this create a profoundimpact and religion there as far
as the individual?
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Yeah, I mean, I think that people have a tendency in
France to kind of separate theirreligious and regular lives in
a way.
Right, and I do think you'dhave to get that in america too,
sure, but I do think that kindof bifurcation, the very strict,
codified bifurcation ofeverything, many things,
difficult and it's not for youknow, I say secularization.
(33:05):
Um, it was.
I do understand why it happened.
The church did legitimize avery bad monarchy and a regime,
right, I understand why peoplein europe have, you know, turned
away from the church.
It makes complete sense to me.
Um so well, you guys have a newpope.
We do, we do any thoughts, anythoughts.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
Love him, love him.
No, I am.
He's a first, the firstamerican pope, yeah, which is uh
historic well, first usaamerican.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
You say francis is the first american pope if you
consider south america.
Walk me through that one.
Well, because Pope Francis wasfrom Latin America, so he's
technically an American pope.
Got it US, yep, I got you.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Yeah, oh, you must be in linguistics.
Yeah, every word is veryimportant to you.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
No, so my specialty in linguistics was semantics.
Got it Perfect semantics.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Got it Perfect?
No, it makes sense, so freshUSA.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Yeah, the first, like a USA American president.
Yeah, so it was funny.
So you know how.
You know there was a wholething with the conclave.
The smoke goes up, whatever,you know, there's gosh.
I'm a bad Catholic.
Right now I'm trying toremember what color smoke.
The black is no new Pope.
So white is new Pope.
So you know, the first day ofconclave happened I didn't watch
the live stream, I was at work,whatever.
(34:15):
The next day was a work fromhome day, right.
So you know I settled down onthe couch.
You know I turn on the livestream, ready to work on my
laptop and have that in thebackground.
I kid you, not A minute afterthe live stream starts.
White smoke, wasn't it one ofthe fastest decisions on a pope?
(34:37):
It was faster, for sure.
I mean, like historically, thelongest conclave was years long,
yeah, but there was a lot ofcomplicating factors there.
But I will say the recent papalelections have been pretty fast
, like within a week or two atmost, but this was two days
right, yeah two days.
It seems like they arrived at aconsensus pretty quickly.
I like him a lot.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
What are some of the things?
So I haven't done a deep diveon him at all.
Yeah, what are some of thethings that you particularly
that stand out in this shortreign that he's had?
Reign might be the wrong wordPontificate is generally what we
call it, Okay so thispontificate, what are some of
the things that are coming outthat you say?
Speaker 4 (35:20):
okay, that's a good idea.
Yeah, so one of the biggest,most striking things that hit me
immediately was the name hechose Leo XIV.
Okay, so Leo XIII wrote a very,very influential teaching,
basically and cyclical is afancy word, but a teaching all
about how the economy andpolitics should function in a
Catholic way.
Right, it's called RerumNovarum.
Right, and that was about acentury ago.
(35:41):
Right, so it was reacting tothe Industrial Revolution.
Right, it talked about, youknow, the rights of workers to
earn a fair wage.
Right, it also decried thingslike laissez-faire capitalism
and socialism in the sameteaching.
And so that's Leo XIII.
So the 14th is following updirectly from that and he's made
(36:01):
some, some remarks saying like,hey, this whole ai thing, this
might be a huge change in our,like, way of life and production
and, the way I see it, he'sgoing to try to, you know,
clarify church teaching on whata properly ordered society for
the 21st century looks like.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
One of the things that Noah, my son and a good
friend of yours, says is thathey talk to Olivia about unions.
Oh boy, yes, and he's got astrong understanding of unions
and their place in the workforce.
You just brought up the conceptof fair wages, fair capitalism,
(36:43):
absolutely.
You brought it in socialism,mm-hmm, I want to.
I'm curious how you see thosethree things working together,
because a lot of people say,well, socialism, capitalism, no.
It's diametrically opposed.
Yeah, um, there was definitelya time when unions I mean
especially in the industrialrevelations where people are
(37:05):
getting killed they're justbeing overworked.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
Hundreds were dying, Maybe more Well sorry hundreds
in the direct fights.
That like, uh Sorry, hundredsin the direct fights.
If you've heard of the coalwars of East Tennessee, I have
not, Okay.
So basically you had asituation where actually this is
very close to where my parentslive, when do your parents live.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
They live in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Okay, we have a place an houroutside of Knoxville.
Oh yeah, no one was telling meabout that.
I love East Tennessee.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
It's a neat little spot but you go kind of north of
there and you get in a coalcountry, right.
So what had happened is you hadthese coal mine workers who
were unionized and basicallytheir employer brought in prison
labor to replace their nowexpensive unionized labor At
least the employer thought itwas expensive, right, sure.
And basically what happened isthose workers went to the prison
(37:50):
where the prison labor laborerswere being held and they blew
it up.
They let all, they let all ofthe prisoners go and they killed
a bunch of the guards becausethe prison was in a valley,
right.
So there's pretty easy ambushaltogether.
So you know, to win things likethe 40 hour like a cold war man
?
Speaker 3 (38:08):
no, no, pretty cold war.
Yeah, okay, I think it's a coldwar.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
No, no, no, no no, it was a very hot war for sure,
and, and like that's not theonly one, there's plenty of like
violent labor struggles inAmerica's history altogether
that want us things.
You know.
I'm not saying violence isnecessarily how you have to make
change, but if we have toacknowledge it happened in our
history.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
No, historically definitely.
You see, how do you align withthe new pope's vision of this
religion and work, labor, allthat together, business
economies, all of that kind ofstuff?
And how the unions today are.
(38:50):
I don't want to say relevant,but how well.
How are they relevant and whereare they important to be?
Speaker 4 (38:57):
Yeah.
So the way I see it, you know,pope Leo XIV, as I said, took
the name Leo XIII and as part ofthat teaching I mentioned, he
also said that workers have theright to unionize.
Right, and so just simplyhaving the right to unionize,
the right to act together todemand better working conditions
, and the right to you knowsaying to act together to demand
better working conditions, andthe right to you know saying
(39:17):
that, hey, we can do better.
You know, the boss is drawingso much profit from this and we
work so hard and have difficultconditions.
Right, we deserve to live aproper life.
I see that as very, verycompatible with Catholic social
teaching altogether.
Right, Everyone has a right toearn a fair wage and to live
sustainably and comfortably thesocialism part of it because it
(39:41):
how?
Speaker 3 (39:41):
how do you define that in a capitalistic, slash
union, fair wage environment?
So we still have to providereward for the risk takers.
They take all the risk.
Well, as far as financiallySure, I'm not saying physically,
I mean the workers take a riskdepending on the industry.
(40:03):
Yeah, but there has to be abalance.
How do we make, how do weensure a balance?
And then we don't want so muchgovernment overreach.
It'd be great if the unions andthe employers can work together
.
Yeah, but they tend not, theytend to be adversaries, sure.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
Yeah, so this is a very good question.
I mean, they're just inherentlythe you know the workers and
the unionized working, you know,force and the boss are going to
be have a certain level ofantagonism, right, and once you
have a contract, that kind oflike settles that tension there,
right?
I think that it's important toapproach, uh, these sorts of
negotiations with you know,openness and being willing to
negotiate and to each movetowards each other's point of
(40:46):
view, right, um, I mean, ifyou're talking like definitions
of socialism and capitalism, uh,that's that's very different,
right, because that's a wholenother podcast that's a whole
other podcast, uh, you know alltogether, but that's kind of how
I see it working I like how youdo specifically define, uh on
the union side, that fair wagefor fair work, yeah right in
(41:09):
other
Speaker 3 (41:10):
words, put the work in and let's define what that
fair wage is.
Yes, based on overall.
It's all based on the markettoo.
So the market is ultimately theboss, yeah.
In other words, what's themarket for?
What the workers are producing,and then the boss is subject,
(41:31):
in most cases in private, towhat the market's willing to pay
.
So finding that contract, thatnegotiation, requires, uh, wise
people on both sides.
It sure does.
Yeah, any deal.
I always say when I negotiate adeal in my business, I don't
(41:53):
want either one of us walkingaway with a big smile on our
face.
If I walk away with a big smileon our face, I'm actually
potentially taking advantage ofthe person that I am negotiating
to deal with.
If they're walking away with ahuge smile on their face, then I
feel like I gave way to dealwith, yeah.
If they're walking away with ahuge smile on their face, then I
feel like, oh, I gave way toomuch away, yeah, so there, you
know that's.
I don't like to use antagonizedrelationship, but it's more of
(42:18):
a business.
It's like, okay, I can't givethe house away, but I want to
make sure you're making the mostthat you're worth making.
My problem with unions and thisis so general.
So we'll keep it a generalpossible, because I'm sure this
is not the case everywhere.
But you know they have thesescales, the you know, and so the
(42:39):
guy you know that's ajourneyman in his industry is
going to make the same guy ismake the same guys to make the
same guy at that scale.
Yeah.
Which industry is going to makethe same guy?
Is make the same guys to makethe same guy at that scale, yeah
.
Which does not, in my opinion,doesn't promote, you know,
overachievement or like well,why should I work harder than
(43:00):
the guy who's the laziest guy onthe team?
He's I mean, people'spersonalities right, there's
guys that are just overachievers.
There's guys that just do thebare minimum.
Yeah, why should I work anyharder than the guy doing the
bare minimum?
Do you feel that that bringsthe whole quality down, or no, I
don't necessarily think so.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
I think in an ideal society you would get what I was
talking about earlier right,where everyone is doing things
that they find to be meaningfulfor themselves as people.
So they don't even need agreater economic incentive to
perform or to refine their craft.
They just will naturally wantto do that as human beings.
But I do think you know, atleast my experience.
(43:37):
You know public sector unionorganizing, because I helped to
make a union at my workplaceright at UCSD, right Like
they're.
You know we're in contractnegotiations right now.
But there's many otherpositions at UCSD right Like
they're.
You know we're in contractnegotiations right now.
But there's many otherpositions at UCSD that are
unionized, that have a sort of,you know, pay grade increase
like a guaranteed raise based onseniority right.
(43:58):
So people that are retainedright do get rewarded for it.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
So, so, proving a, proving a valued person of the
union team, staying there longerand get rewarded for it.
I mean, yeah, the work, workteam, the workforce, yeah, sure,
what was your motivation tothis?
That's cool, man, you.
So you, you're involved in asector.
Yeah, that was not union.
Were you the motivate, were youthe leader in unionizing this,
(44:25):
or is this somebody say we needto unionize and you got involved
?
Speaker 4 (44:28):
yeah, so we're pretty non-hierarchical, I guess in
the in the local organizingright, um, but you know it had
started way before I gotinvolved.
Uh, probably, for when did westart card campaign?
January of 2024, I believe, um,and then I signed on.
Basically I said yes, I want toform a union in April and, as
(44:51):
we know, there were certainthings that happened on UC
campuses in the month of May.
I don't want to get youdemonetized, we're not going to
get into that right now.
Speaker 3 (44:59):
Yeah sure, that's another whole podcast.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
Yeah, well, let's just say that the university
environment became very tense.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
Across the country.
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Across the country, the country, yeah, and across
the world actually.
Uh, the university environmentbecame very, very, very tough,
very tense, and students, youknow, and everyone was kind of
like where, where am I like,what, what are we doing?
So, you know, that's part,that's a lot of the reason why I
started pushing to to.
You know, that's really when Igot involved.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
It was really, this was recent 2025, may or 2024?
.
Or 2024 May.
Okay, so it's been over a yearnow.
Speaker 4 (45:30):
Yeah, it's been about a year that I've been
organizing now.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
And you're in contract negotiations now.
Speaker 4 (45:35):
Yep.
So we gained our super majorityof signatures of people saying
yep, I support farming union.
Got that, I think, in like latelast year.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
What are the benefits for the workers and what are
the benefits for the workers andwhat are the benefits for, as
you say, the boss or theemployer?
Okay, so, in order to form agood contract, walk me through
what the benefits for?
Speaker 4 (46:02):
both?
Speaker 3 (46:02):
sides are going to be yeah, since you're involved in
the contract or you're aware ofthe contract negotiations yeah,
I'm not on the bargaining teamor anything like that, or you're
aware of the contractnegotiations.
Speaker 4 (46:06):
Yeah, I'm not on the bargaining team or anything like
that.
There's other wonderfulorganizers who are involved with
that, who are all amazing.
They're great.
But basically for workers,studies show that you ultimately
do get significantly betterwages.
You get workplace protections,and the mere fact of having a
union is actually protection inand of itself, because you have
(46:26):
certain rights being part of aunion you wouldn't otherwise.
So, for example, there's Ibelieve it's called the wine
garden rights right.
So, for example, if hr callsyou in and you have a reasonable
belief that you're going to bedisciplined, you can request to
have a union representativepresent so that your rights are
respected during that meeting.
Um, so those are like enormousbenefits you have advocacy
(46:47):
benefits advocacy.
In a way, like you know, thepower is through solidarity, not
the law, right?
You say that if you know theemployer does something to me
that, like grievously, makes mylife more difficult.
I have thousands of peoplestanding behind me and that is
enormously powerful and actuallyfor the bosses, surprisingly,
studies have shown that, likeworkforce, relations between
(47:08):
management and workers are moreharmonious when you have a labor
union involved in the workplace.
That's because there's anunderstood contract, there are
understood procedures.
Right, there is like a laborrelations part, there's a system
in place.
Speaker 3 (47:22):
So in my business we're not a union, we're a small
little company.
Yeah not a union we're a smalllittle company, but we I work
very hard on what we callmanagement systems, where
everyone has defined roles andresponsibilities.
I don't believe people shouldhave to guess how they need to
behave, how they need to work,how they need to produce what
(47:44):
they need to keep their job it.
It should be extremelytransparent.
Now, on a small scale, like mylittle company, that's doable
because you can manageindividually and they're very
clear on what the expectationsare.
However, that process ofmanagement systems is always
(48:08):
evolving, absolutely.
This is where I think companiesget into trouble.
Small companies is they set instone management systems that
worked 20 years ago.
Mm-hmm.
And they become anachronistic.
They become archaic.
Sure, they no longer work basedon the market trends.
However, they're so stuck on it.
(48:29):
Then they start managing in awhat we call two different types
of leadership positionalleadership and servant
leadership.
We don't allow positionalleadership in my company.
I'm the CEO and that's whyyou're doing what you're doing.
No, you're going to understandhow you're contributing to the
(48:50):
company I get you.
So we do servant leadership.
We say what can we do each dayto help you achieve your roles
and responsibilities that youagree to when you signed on?
And then we reevaluate annuallyand sometimes more, based on
market trends.
Speaker 4 (49:05):
Yeah, no, I get you, it's an ever-evolving thing and
for you, you know, not allemployers take that kind of
approach to things right.
So we have we have a joke kindof at our unions five percent
other duties as assigned, right,because when, when we're
employed, we basically, you know, have a job card that says this
is what you're going to bedoing in this role, right and
pretty.
Usually there's like fivepercent.
That's like something else,right.
(49:25):
And you know, inevitablycertain things arise that you
have to do and you're assignedto do them right, and so
sometimes that five percent ismuch more than five percent for
people.
So I've I've seen some prettylike not on my own personal
department, like my.
I've I've think my managementis great, but I've seen other
parts of the university whereI'm like this overwork is wild.
(49:46):
What on paper is supposed to bea 40-hour-a-week job is
actually more like 50 or 60 forthis person, right.
So it's that sort of injusticeand you might say a failure in
the management system.
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
I actually would say that we always look internally
before we look externally.
This is really important.
If a person is struggling tomeet their roles and
responsibilities, we lookinternally.
first, have we provided clearmanagement systems for that
person to understand their rolesand responsibilities?
(50:18):
Are we exceeding their rolesand responsibilities and are
they unaware of it, or are theynot being compensated for it?
Have they agreed to it it orare they not being compensated
for it?
Yeah, have they agreed to it?
Um, and then finally, and thenwhen we do go to the person, we
first ask is everything all?
Right outside of work becauseyou have to.
What I understand from being inbusiness for so long is that,
(50:41):
from a business point of view,too many managers see that as
life sure, and that that person,all they are, is an employee to
provide a service thathopefully adds to the bottom
line.
Now, that is a portion of thefunction of that employee, yeah,
however, that isn't the entireperson.
(51:02):
So we try to identify is look,all of a sudden your behavior
changed yeah, okay, this issomething we look all of a
sudden, your behavior changed.
Yeah, okay, this is something wedid.
Have we all of a sudden losttrack and then we've loaded you
up and we haven't provided you,excuse me, are we?
Growing too fast and we're nowhaving you do all the extra work
instead of hiring somebody else.
Yeah, that's one thing.
(51:23):
Yeah, or are you having troubleat home?
One thing, yeah, or are youhaving trouble at home, or you
know we don't get, we're notgoing to ask specifically, say
is there anything?
You know that.
You know that you're strugglingwith that we can help you with,
yeah, and let them volunteer.
But we get to that point afterwe look internally.
So, but again, we're small.
Yeah, you know we aren't athousands of member company
(51:48):
where we can't individually do.
You can't have an HR departmentassessing every single
individual person on a team of10,000 people or more in some
unions, right?
Sure, you know hundreds ofthousands, millions or whatever.
You know.
Whatever it is, I get it and Iknow arguments on both sides of
(52:08):
it.
But I see the passion and I dounderstand some of the benefits.
I mean, we work in the trades,We'll do government work, we do
what's called prevailing wage.
So, on, prevailing wage isbasically the same as union
wages.
So we have to pay our peoplefor the government contracts and
it's not too far off.
(52:29):
But because we pay benefits andall of the, the, the part, all
the things that go along withthe prevailing wage One of the
things that I do love.
I started off actually as aunion carpenter for six months
and realized I hated it.
Okay, but the watching thesecarpenters build.
(52:52):
You know, you watch thesepeople.
They're so specialized theelectricians.
Yeah, I've worked with a ton ofunion people and they know that
craft.
You know the boss isn't havingto worry about is it getting
done right?
Because the unions areproviding tremendous training
(53:12):
and you can see it in the trades.
Speaker 4 (53:14):
Yeah, no, I mean the unions kind of started there
Within like workshops andfactories, you know, like with
those very manual trades.
Only now, like people, kind ofwhite-collar workers like me,
are kind of doing this too.
Yeah this is a new trend, yeahwhite collar workers like me are
kind of doing this too.
Speaker 3 (53:30):
Yeah, this is a new phenomenon.
Yeah, it's a more recentphenomenon, like global
historically.
You're starting to see thatlike yeah, you know starbucks
talking about unionizing.
I'd still call that blue collar, but I mean, I guess you'd
categorize it as a trade,because there is something that
they've learned to create yeah,they work with their hands.
It's manual, physical work attimes you know, on your feet for
eight hours a day is not easyat all.
It's not easy at all.
(53:50):
And dealing with so many people.
But no, I get it.
I go back and forth on it.
To be honest with you, I thinkit's very industry specific and
it's very situational, dependingon the need to unionize.
Well, I think that's cool and Ilove how excited you are.
Speaker 4 (54:14):
Yeah, I know I'm passionate about it.
I'm actually applying to lawschool in the fall to do labor
law.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
Yeah, oh, fantastic I know it's wild.
Speaker 4 (54:22):
This thing's kind of set me on fire a little bit.
Speaker 3 (54:24):
So you got your degree, degree at ucs, which is
a fantastic school.
My practice wife went there,got her my noah's mom cindy, you
know I know um, yeah, she gother molecular biology degree
there and she's done fantastic I.
What I always loved about ucsdwas the, the hardcore focus in
(54:44):
the uc system for just academics.
Yes, you know the researchuniversity they don't have a,
you know, a NCAA football teamtype thing, but now they do, I
think, do they?
Speaker 1 (54:57):
Well, I mean it's division one like for a lot of
our sports.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (55:00):
So UCSD basketball actually went to March Madness
this year.
Speaker 3 (55:05):
I did not know that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
When Cindy was going there andI would come visit the campus,
it cracked me up because myroommate at the time went to San
Jose state.
Oh, okay, okay, yeah.
And the Greek program there was.
I mean there's houses there.
I mean you go into the studentcenters, they got whole wings
(55:26):
for all of the fraternities andsororities, and we went into the
student center at the campusthere just 30 years ago and they
had literally a closet.
I mean it was probably thiscorner here of the Greek life.
And then she would tell me shegoes.
Yeah, the best place to studyon a Friday night is UCSD.
(55:49):
Yeah, there's no parties here,everyone is just studying.
I'm sure the culture's changedin 30 some years.
Speaker 4 (55:56):
As a student, you know students know where to go,
sure, if that makes sense.
But, like you know, for themost part it is definitely a,
you know, a type of universitywhere people like are there very
much so for academics and theuniversity's mission is very
research focused and that issomething that really draws
students like and you know weintegrate that in our department
too.
You know, even in linguisticswe do a lot of research that we
(56:18):
try to involve students in.
Speaker 3 (56:20):
Yeah, I've always been impressed with UCSD and I'm
glad you went there.
That's that's a great school.
Speaker 4 (56:25):
I mean I love it, it's a great place.
So, olivia, that's a greatschool.
I mean I love it.
Speaker 3 (56:28):
It's a great place.
So, olivier, from meeting youas a little kid to a successful
young man contributing tosociety, which I think is
critical.
I think the best jobs are whenyou know you're impacting
people's lives, not your own.
It actually is kind of selfish,because it makes you feel good
(56:52):
In a way.
Yeah, no, it actually it'sinteresting, but you know, you,
you, when you actually putyourself out there and make
other people's lives better, itgives you a feeling of purpose
rather than punching the clock.
Speaker 4 (56:59):
Yeah Well, no, that is that is in my job.
Like the greatest satisfactionI get is from meeting one-on-one
with students and helping themthrough their path, because, you
know, the university cansometimes be a pretty Byzantine
structure and it's hard tofigure out where to find any one
resource and sometimes there'sduplication of effort too right.
So helping students to navigatetheir way through things,
(57:19):
that's the best part, it's themost rewarding thing, absolutely
.
There's nothing better thanhearing a student say thank you
so much.
I'm so much less confused thanI was when I walked in.
That's my, that's my favoritething to hear.
Speaker 3 (57:30):
And we, you know we'll end it with that, because
that is so positive and that'swhat we try to do is be as
positive and educate people.
Um, let us know about lawschool.
Have you been accepted?
Speaker 4 (57:40):
No, no.
So I just took my LSAT in April, um, and then I'm going to be
applying in the fall.
Speaker 3 (57:45):
Have you had any results?
Speaker 4 (57:46):
yet.
I did yeah.
Good, Bad.
It was pretty good.
I'd say you know it's in thelow 160s.
Speaker 3 (57:53):
What's the range?
Speaker 4 (57:53):
Yeah, so gosh, I don't remember what the minimum
score is, but it's out of 180.
Okay, so Low 160s gets me many,many good universities Not top
14 or anything, but not that Iwas looking to do that anyways.
I'd prefer like a, like a moreregional university, that's like
very much like providingexactly what I want to get out
(58:15):
of it, correct?
Speaker 3 (58:16):
Yeah Well, fantastic, we'll do another one, yeah Once
you get into law school Soundsgood.
Speaker 4 (58:21):
If I have the time.
Speaker 3 (58:22):
Well, we'll let you once you get the time.
We'll definitely want to.
I want to definitely follow upa couple of years see where
you're at.
Speaker 4 (58:28):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (58:29):
And see how you're continuing to improve people's
lives and advocate for othersSounds great.
Thank you so much Thanks.
Speaker 4 (58:36):
Olivia.
Au revoir, a bientôt.
Au revoir, a bientôt.
Speaker 2 (58:41):
You've been listening to Real People, real Life.
Our passion is to have realconversations with real people
who've made it.
Real people who've made it whodid it on their own terms.
We'll be back soon, but in themeantime, catch us on Twitter or
X at RPRL podcast and onYouTube at Real People Real Life
(59:05):
podcast.
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