December 10, 2024 • 37 mins
We kicked off the program with four news stories and different guests on the stories we think you need to know about!
Steve McClatchy - author of "Leading Relationships: Build Meaningful Connections, Eliminate Conflict, and Radically Improve Engagement" talked about the “Great Detachment”! Gallup report released found employees actively looking to switch jobs at the highest rate since 2015, but aren't having much luck in a cooling job market, so are feeling stuck instead.
Chris Menta, partner at Crocetti’s outlet discussed the Butcher’s Employees Gather Hundreds of Toys Ahead of Their Toy Drive with Fire Department.
Dr. Fahmi Farah – Cardiologist warns of Trouble in Toyland: Watch out for this year's most dangerous toys!
Jack Wallace – FAFSA expert said FAFSA is officially open to students! Why students should fill out the FAFSA as soon as they can as well as helpful hints to make the process easy.
Ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio and listen to NightSide with Dan Rea Weeknights From 8PM-12AM!
Steve McClatchy - author of "Leading Relationships: Build Meaningful Connections, Eliminate Conflict, and Radically Improve Engagement" talked about the “Great Detachment”! Gallup report released found employees actively looking to switch jobs at the highest rate since 2015, but aren't having much luck in a cooling job market, so are feeling stuck instead.
Chris Menta, partner at Crocetti’s outlet discussed the Butcher’s Employees Gather Hundreds of Toys Ahead of Their Toy Drive with Fire Department.
Dr. Fahmi Farah – Cardiologist warns of Trouble in Toyland: Watch out for this year's most dangerous toys!
Jack Wallace – FAFSA expert said FAFSA is officially open to students! Why students should fill out the FAFSA as soon as they can as well as helpful hints to make the process easy.
Ask Alexa to play WBZ NewsRadio on #iHeartRadio and listen to NightSide with Dan Rea Weeknights From 8PM-12AM!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's Nightside with Dan Ray on WBS, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Pretty cool. Welcome back mister last night for sure, though
Emma was doing a great job in your stead. So
we've got everyone covered here in the news during Nightside,
for sure, we got the best and the brightest right
here checking on everything, all the different news stories, says
they break. My name is Dan Ray. I'm just doing
a talk show. I got the easy part. It's the
(00:27):
news people who are working the hardest back in the
in the newsroom of course, as well as Rob Brooks,
the producer of this program. As I mentioned, I'm Dan Ray.
I'm the host of the aptly named Nightside with Dan Ray,
and we have four guests this hour. We are going
to start off with the guests, but let me just
remind you that coming up beginning tonight at nine o'clock,
(00:48):
we will get to some other topics. We're going to
talk about the shortage of physicians here in Massachusetts. Yeah,
you know, the medical capital of the world. We don't
have enough doctors. How about that. And we'll also talk
about a Boston City council who now should do the
right thing and during her federal trial, she's been indicted.
I think it's time for her to resign. We'll talk
(01:09):
about that. We also might get into the outburst today
of the New York City shooter who is in custody
in Altoona, Pennsylvania. If we've got a lot to talk about,
and I hope you'll participate and join with us. And
before we get the phone calls at nine, we're going
to start off with the first of our four guests.
(01:29):
His name is Steve McClatchy. He has written about what's
called the Great Detachment. There's a Gallup report has been
released and found employees actively looking to switch jobs. You know,
current employees looking at switch jobs at the highest rate
since twenty fifteen, since before COVID times. But they're not
(01:52):
having much luck because it's a cooling job market. So
Steve McClatchy, I think has some ideas and suggestions maybe
for business leaders and for managers, how they can make
employees maybe a little bit more happy, if that's possible.
Steve McClatchy, how are you They used to be a
(02:12):
guy who pitched for the Oakland A's who had a
name very similar towards yours to yours, towards towards yours.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
No, similarly, not related man, not related, but I have
a lot of cousins in a big, big family. I'm
from the Philadelphia area.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, I think his name was McClatchy.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I don't know if there's any sort of difference in spelling.
Pretty good right handed pitcher for Oakland back. I guess
now in the in the eighties or nineties, now last century, we're.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
All athletes, but none of us hit it to the
professional level.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
All right, Well, you are a professional at the professional level,
helping people build meaningful connections, eliminate conflict, and radically improve engagement.
You've been advised to Fortune five hundred companies. So who's
the fault here? Is it that the the employees just
have itchy feed and want to keep moving, or a
(03:05):
management companies around this country, both large and small, not
doing a good job inducing their employee employees to settle
in and be part of a program for a long
period of time. Where's the fault? If? If it lies anywhere,
what does it lie?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Yeah, there's so many different contributing factors to why this
is going on. You had, you know, during COVID it
put off a lot of people that were going to
change jobs. As soon as that kind of that time passed,
everybody started switching. The job market was hot. And now
you know, with inflation and tightening budgets, you know, people
aren't hiring. So now people want to switch and there's
(03:44):
not any place to go, and you want to be
tied to the organization's mission and its purpose. Now you
have different ways of working that is contributing to it
as well. You have remote workers. You go to communicate
with somebody, they're not there, when are they available? Now
you have employees that want to work remote leads sometimes
during the office. So as far as team and bonding
(04:06):
and creating great relationships, that's kind of a different way
of going about doing that. You know, at the foundation
of business dan is agreements, right, very simply, I give
you ten dollars, you give me a sandwich. You know,
we did business together. And when you get used to
the kind of agreements where you're really good at them,
and then that game gets changed and now you have
(04:27):
remote workers. So now what are the agreements? You know,
when are you working, when are you not working? When
are you expected to be online? How do you communicate
with your team when you need to be in the office.
If you work late at night, can you take off
a little bit more time during the day. Like, these
are all new agreements, and there's a lot of confusion,
and until that gets settled and those expectations are set
(04:49):
and then we can start to acknowledge people, Hey, great job,
you're doing awesome, fantastic. We don't have the agreements. We
don't know what's above and beyond the agreements. We don't
know when people are going the extra mile and really contributing.
And if you're not getting appreciated and getting valued, that's
certainly going to contribute to a feeling of detachment.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
But hasn't that always even before COVID, as we like
to say before COVID times, hasn't that always been the
way that there were good employers who who gave people
some flexibility with their jobs as long as they had
the common sense and the maturity to handle that flexibility.
(05:27):
Has much, Yeah, but.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
It was slower. Damn.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
COVID threw us into just a mess all at one
time where all of those things had to be established
right away. It was hey, oh, I want to take
you Mondays off. It was like, all right, we'll try
it with these employees and it's working, and I know
how to manage them remotely, and I'm getting all of
a sudden, your entire workforce was remote. It really threw
a curveball at a manager's ability. I mean to take
(05:52):
advantage of all the communication systems and to leverage. And
there's people still not comfortable jumping on Zoom and Microsoft
Teams and doing a face to face working remotely, and
you know, how do you collaborate and how do you communicate?
Those things are still they're not as smooth. I had
a Zoom call this week where now I can't hear you.
I got to relog in and then they logged in.
(06:13):
I couldn't understand them. The audio is all just like,
there's technical difficulties and you're trying to get work done.
Your customer is demanding quality and speed from you. And
not only do they want the quality and speed, their
expectations are even higher. Why inflation, everything got more expensive,
so the customer figures, hey, this is more expensive, don't
I deserve more? No, you're getting the same thing that
(06:35):
you used to get for a higher price. And that
doesn't sit well with the customer. If I'm paying more.
I should get more, but inflation made just everything more
expensive without getting more for it, We're getting the same thing.
So those expectations make customers really upset and that's difficult
to deal with on a day to day basis.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Well, you have described a perfect economic conundrum. You described
this very well. By the way, I don't know how
we how problem.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, So what we need to do is get our expectations,
our agreements right, start being able to acknowledge people, because
that's going to be one of the biggest things that
engages people. Now that there's a word, Dan that is overused, right,
the word engagement, let me share with you exactly how
it's measured. It's measured in discretionary effort. So, if you
do your job, Dan, you do it well, you're considered disengaged.
(07:28):
Engagement is you do more than your paid to do.
You come into work early, you stay late, you work
on the weekend, you help somebody else with their job,
and that's not your job to do that. When you're
going above and beyond, you're considered engaged. This is why
it's such a valuable metric and everybody wants to figure
out how to grow it. Because if you employees doing
more than their paid they're your most valuable employees. So
(07:49):
if you wanted the silver bullet with engagement, if you
on a scale of one to five, give your boss
a five that you strongly agree that your boss gives
you pop. How does it a feedback and emphasizes your strengths,
what you're good at. You have a sixty seven percent
chance that employees engage. The national average stand is under
twenty percent, So you can jump over forty points just
(08:13):
by doing one thing really well. Appreciating, valuing, acknowledging, recognize.
It doesn't always have to be public. It has to
be sincere. It has to be specific. The employee needs
to know that their contribution means something that is number
one contributing factor to engagement.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
So I don't think I don't think most bosses understand
this simple rubric that most employees will strive to do
better if they get an occasional pat on the backing
for doing extra. They're not necessarily yeah, they're like a raise.
But if you walk out of there on a Friday
(08:51):
and your boss says, hey, great job this week, that
can get you through the weekend and make you look
forward to Monday. Morning, and too many bosses in America
don't understand it.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
And the data proves that. Man, the data reinforces exactly
what you're saying that when employees feel valued and appreciated,
they're more engaged. As a matter of fact, the higher
the engagement, it takes an employee an increase of twenty
to thirty percent pay raise forget to get them to
even think about leaving the job they're in. When you
(09:22):
like your boss, you feel valued by your contributions with
your boss. Well, again, let's go back to what are
the agreements? What are you being paid to do? How
do we know if someone's going above and beyond? So
we got to get that right and if we do it,
really is the solution to what this problem is. This
problem is causing. The other thing is, you know, you
want to know your work has an impact. What does
(09:43):
your organization do? What's the impact of it? When you
can revisit that with your employees and say, hey, we're
making a difference. We're not just all making money and
making widgets. We are making an impact. We have a mission,
we have values and we are we have a purpose
and we are making an impac act on that mission.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Well, I love your philosophy and I love the passion
with which you express it. Steve, and as I understand
that you have a consulting and training and consulting company,
and also you're well sought after speaker. How can folks
get in touch with you and tell us about the book?
The book is leading Relationships, build meaningful connections, eliminate conflict,
(10:21):
and radically improve engagement. I'm assuming that is available Amazon
and all bookstores and you can find that.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Yes, you can pre order it. It doesn't come out there
until February fifth. I couldn't even we're excited about this book.
This book is twenty three years in the making. There
hasn't been anything new in the area of relationships in
over thirty years. This is a framework that really helps
you to diagnose the biggest problems you have in your
relationships and how to solve them. And it comes out
February fifth. You can pre order it on Amazon, Barnes
(10:49):
and Noble Books a million. The best way to get
in touch with me if you have a retreat, if
you want employee development. Leadership development is a leer dot com.
It's a L L E E our dot com. That's
the basically to reach me Steve at a lear dot com.
It's my email address.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Sounds great. Again, I think you got the right message.
I wish more people who are in charge of others
were to understand that. Again, a patent the back goes
a hell of a lot long, but does a lot
more than a kick in the butt and maybe even
then a bit of a pay raise. Steve, appreciate it,
(11:24):
Steve McClatchy.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Dan, great talking to you. Thanks for having me tonight.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Great to talk to you as well. We'll talk again
we come up. We're going to talk about a little
bit of a downer subject, troubling Toyland. Gonna watch out
for this year's most dangerous toys. This is always a problem.
You want to get your kid, particularly the young children,
your grandchild, your your your son, your daughter, maybe a
niece or nephew, good toy, but you want to make
(11:47):
sure it's doesn't have some hidden dangers. When we talk
with doctor Fami Farah about the ten most dangerous toys,
and I hope none of these toys are on your list.
Back on Night Side right after this.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Nice Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
All right, we've had a little bit of a change
in online up here, and I want to Malcolm welcome
Chris Menta. He's a part of at Kroquetti's outlet, part
of the butcher shop that is opening up soon. Okay,
So I'm a little confused by that. Are you guys
open working now at this point, Chris, or are you
(12:29):
in the process of getting this butcher shop up and running.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
No, the butcher shop has been We've actually been around
for one hundred and seventeen years we started.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
You're gonna last at one hundred and that's that's pretty impressive. Okay.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
I don't know why we're and we've been in Bridgewater
E's Bridgewater now since nineteen seventy seven. So it's it's
a butcher shop in the front. And my partner, who's
a four generation owner, Carlo, had a building behind him
that he had a small distribution company. He sold it
(13:03):
off and he contacted me and said, hey, listen, you
want to throw your hat back in the ring again.
I had kind of retired from the food business, and
he said, let's open up a deep discount food store
so we can help out families in the area. You know,
we both had been talking about it for years, how
the cost of food is really hammering families, and we
(13:29):
had a shot to open up this facility. So we
remodeled it and it's called the Outlet at Corsettes. It's
going to be behind the butcher shop. We're not open yet.
We're probably going to open up in January, but it's
an opportunity for families to really save and as you know,
food is just at an all time high.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Okay, So what you're doing though in the meantime is
I understand that, And I think the reason why we're
having you on tonight is that your employees are gathering
hundreds of to always ahead of your you do an
annual toy drive with the which which Fight Apartment? The
Fight Apartment in East Bridgewater.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
This is the East Bridgewater. So part of opening the outlet,
we wanted to have a community component to it where
we would you know, be able to help out in
the community. So, like I said, the outlet's not even
open yet. We started with Thanksgiving. We handed out four
hundred and twelve turkeys to very deserving veterans and it
(14:32):
became so overwhelming for us that we said, hey, you
know what, let's do a toy drive. It'll be our
first annual. We're not open yet, but let's do this.
And every Monday we have a morning huddle with our
team in the butcher shop and we said, hey, listen,
this is something that's really near and dear to our hearts.
We'd like everybody to get involved. Whatever way you can
help would be awesome. About five days later, I walked
(14:55):
in and I literally was looking at over three hundred
toys and I have less than forty employees, so you
do the mass.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And it was a couple close to ten toys per
per employee. So when will the toys be distributed or
are they being distributed as we go along?
Speaker 5 (15:12):
So actually we haven't even started to drive yet. It's
this Saturday, nine to two at behind the butcher shopping
Corsetti's Oakdale Packing at the outlet. People could bring down
a new unwrapped toy. We're going to actually give them
a five pound bag of chicken nuggets because the theme
of this year is a nug Life Christmas Toy Drive.
(15:34):
We sell a tremendous amount of chicken nuggets and we
wanted to have fun with it. About a year ago
and we came up with this whole nug life and
we're having a blast with it. So we said, you
know what we're going to hand people. You bring us
a toy, We're going to hand your five pound bag
of chicken nuggets.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Sounds it sounds like everybody wins here.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
This is it's a total win at the end of.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
So they will there will be a day people, you know,
start this weekend, Saddy bringing toys in and then when
do you distribute the toys? When when does city?
Speaker 5 (16:07):
Well, we're going to actually turn them over toys. We're
actually going to turn them over to the East Bridgewater
Fire Department, who we partnered with along with Toys for Tots,
So they're going to distribute it within the community, which
were really.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
They're gonna work. They're gonna work hand in hand with
Santa Claus. I'm sure in doing this absolutely absolutely, absolutely well, Chris,
that sounds like a great way to work within the community.
You folks have been in the each East Bridgewater community
for how many years?
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Since since nineteen seventy seven?
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Okay, well that's coming up on fifty years when you
when you think about it, so they must love you
down there in East Bridgewater, and they're gonna love you
even more with some chicken nuggets and some toys being distributed.
Sounds absolutely You guys should become the You should be
the East Bridgewater Citizens of the Year. Thanks for sharing
now again. Give us the location where people can come
(17:03):
this Saturday and drop off some new unwrapped toys and
in exchange, pick up some chicken.
Speaker 5 (17:12):
Give us the Corsettis Oakdale Packing in East Bridgewater, Massachusett's
three seventy eight Pleasant Street. It'll be on the rear
of the parking lot where it says the outlet at Corsettis.
You can't miss it. It's a huge billboard. And just
come through the front door. You'll see the fire Fire
Department's gonna have some fire trucks there so we can
help fill them with toys. There's gonna be a lot
(17:34):
going on. We have a food truck, but bring an
unwrapped toy down. We can't wait to pass you a
five pounds bag of chicken nuggets. And it's gonna be
a great time. We're gonna have some food, some fun.
It's gonna be a win for everybody.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
That's great. Chris Menta Thank you very much for what
you do your fixedure in Eastbridge Water. Thanks for joining
us tonight on nights that we'll talk.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Thank you so much. And Merry Christmas, and Merry Christmas
to you.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Is that is my holiday. Merry Christmas to you, Chris,
thanks very much. All Right, when we get back, I'm
not sure we're going to go. We have two more
guests scheduled and hopefully they'll both both be here. I've
got to check with Rob. He's running the showback at
Broadcast Central. In the meantime, stick around here. We got
the news at the bottom of the hour for you,
and then we'll be back on a Tuesday night edition
(18:18):
of Nightside with Dan Ray right here in WBZ Boston's
News Radio ten thirty on your amw WALKSA can download
if you like. Pretty easy. You can download the iHeart app.
It's free. Just go to your your app store and
you can then hear listen to ihat three hundred and
sixty five days a year, twenty four to seven, wherever
you are in the world. Coming back on Nightside after this, You're.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
On night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBZ Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Well, Christmas is right around the corner. It's not what
you think about it. It's fifteen days away and a
lot of toys that Santa Claus is going to bring
to children around the country. And with us is doctor
Fammi Farah. She's a cardiologist, a board certified invasive cardiologist.
(19:12):
But she's going to tell us about this list, a
toy toy list of basically toys that can cause harm.
I mean, I would have thought at this point, doctor Fara,
that they would have washed all those harmful toys out
of the out of the product line. What's going on.
Speaker 6 (19:37):
I think one of the issues could be that toys
they're coming from, you know, different parts of the world.
With online shopping, I think it's just very easy for
people to get toys from anywhere, and maybe there aren't
as much regulation as there used to be at one point.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yeah, I think I think you're right at that. As
a matter of fact, this report actually is from a
group here in Boston called World Against Toys Causing Harm.
You're familiar with the list, I assume, I hope I.
Speaker 7 (20:08):
Have seen the list, yes, okay, and they've been doing
this for fifty two years, and the toys and toys
that They're not what you call classic toys, not toys
that any of us would have heard well that I've
not heard of.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
But some of them the Pinvoke toy, cold forty five pistol,
the Bristol hedgehog, a kinetic sand scent ice cream treats.
What is I hate to ask this of you, but
since I have the list here, have you had a
chance to look at any of these toys? Or or
(20:49):
am I asking you questions that that are a little
unfair At this point.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
I have looked up a few, but not all, I
must admit, But yes, some of the are very interesting,
like you know, the ice wroom treats for example, the
sands and ice wroom treats. My assumption would be there
are small particles that small children can, you know, easily
(21:15):
put into their mouths and try to ingest. That wouldn't
be so good?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yeah, a lot of Yeah. A lot of these injuries
are injuries to eyes, potential for suffocation. Again, the names
don't mean much to me, but one of them is Transformers,
Earth Sparks, Cybersley. What what should parents do when they're
consulting with Santa Claus about a toy, particularly for young kids,
(21:42):
kids under the age of five or six years of age.
What's there must be some general rules that parents can use,
even though they might see the toy or say it
to my children the toy and they might think, oh, gee,
isn't that great. It's it's it's a nice, pretty toy
in a son or our daughter would like it. But
how can they figure out because a lot of the
toys will say uh for children one to three. And
(22:05):
implicit in that is that there's some sort of government
regulatory agency. Because the government regulates everything that has that
has put its impromter of okay for kids one to three.
Speaker 6 (22:16):
That doesn't necessarily mean it's safe, right, exactly, not necessarily.
And you know, some of the common uh, the most
common injuries that we are concerned about here are those
very small children that can put things into their mouths
and try to ingest or actually they can end up choking,
and so those things, Like, parents do need to be
(22:37):
careful about what's out there. Just because it's out there
doesn't mean that they should approve it for their children.
They should really use their judgment.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Yeah, my wife was cautioning me the other day about
but I did not realize this that that even a
toy as simple as a balloon can cause choking. If
a child is you know, past the balloon, you know,
somehow in their mouth or whatever, or near their mouth,
and the balloon breaks, it can then you know, basically
(23:11):
cause them to choke. Something that I would not have
thought of. We were at a little street fear where
they were giving away balloons for our four year old
two and a half year old grandson, and of course
he wanted balloons, but my wife said, no, you know,
you contrast balloons, something even as simple as a balloon
(23:32):
does present harm. So I think it's something that people
should should really keep in mind. And again this list
is from the World. It's called the World Against Toys
Causing Harm Watch it's a good acronym. It's fifty second
annual nominees for the ten Worst Toys for twenty twenty four.
(23:54):
And some of them sound pretty pretty pretty nice. Zoo
Zam Doggie, xylophone. Well, what could be the problem with
the xylophone? But it says potential for ingestion and choking injury,
So please be careful. If you're getting something and you're
counseling with Santa Claus, make sure that nothing that can
(24:15):
that is sharp edged, that can hurt someone's eyes, poke
in their ears, poke up their nostrils, or some with
small items that they can they can choke on. I
guess parents have to be diligent and Santa Claus better
be diligent too, Doctor, I would think.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
Yes, exactly. So it's not just parents, it's all those
gifts that children are going to be getting from, you know, relatives, friends.
But at the end of the day, though, regardless of
who gives it as the parents to be cautious about
whether they give the children access to those or not.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yeah, I do think that there are some traditional toys
that have stood the test of time, and those are
the ones that I think maybe you want to think
of and maybe stay away from some of the more
exotic toys, that's for sure, Doctor Farrar, thanks very much,
sorry about the confusion earlier. We missed you at A
(25:14):
twenty or so. It sounds to me like you got
some activity in the background there that you have to
take care of as well. So thank you so much
for joining us tonight talking about Trouble and Toyland, the
World's most Dangerous Toys. This year's most Dangerous toys.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
Thank you so much, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Good night. Okay, we did last night on night Side
two hours, which we call our eighteenth annual Nightside College
and Missions Panel, and one of the topics that we
mentioned last night, we didn't have a chance to talk
about it for a long period of time. We had
(25:55):
with US Bill Fitzsimmons, who's the Dean of Admissions at
Harvard for his eighteenth year. And we had also with
US Grant Goslin, who's the Dean of undergraduate Admissions at
Boston College or the Dean of undergraduate Admission singularly at
Boston College. All of these titles are just they're they're
very similar, but there's little nuance in them that I
(26:17):
want to respect. So we're going to talk with an expert,
Jack Wallace, about FAFSA. Now there's an acronym for everything,
but this FAFSA stands for the Free Application for Federal
Student I got it for student aid. Yeah, I can't
(26:39):
even read my own writing. And it's a great program,
and a lot of people, I guess are being intimidated
by it and they're not filling out the forms. And
this is one that could lead to some loans or
some support for your son or daughter going after college.
So please stay with us. And by the way, if
you missed last night's eight o'clock or nine o'clock hour,
(27:03):
all of our hours are posted on Nightside on demand
dot com and those or two. If you are a
parent or a grandparent of a student who's approaching the
college application time of their life meaning freshman, sophomore, junior
in high school, this is a very important hour. We
had some students call in last night, which is always
a lot of fun, and Bill Fitzimmons and Grant Goslin
(27:26):
has always did a great job. So please feel free
to go to Nightside on Demand dot Com not during
the show, but you can do that later on tonight
or tomorrow on your way into work. Nightside on Demand
dot Com each hour is reduced to about forty two
minutes of content, so easy to find, easy to play,
and when you're sitting there on the Southeast Expressway at
(27:47):
seven thirty tomorrow morning, it'll keep you from just screaming
out of frustration. We'll be back on Nights Out a
little bit more about thefts coming up.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World.
Nightside Studios on w b Z News Radio.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
All Right, welcome back. Let's get to our fourth and
final guest this hour, Jack Wallace. He's an expert on FAFSA,
which an acronym that stands for Free Application for Federal
Student Aid. Last night, Jack, I was telling the audience
before we went to break, we had two college admissions
directors on, Bill Fitzsimmons of Harvard and Grant Goslin of
(28:27):
Boston College. It was the eighteenth show we've done on
a college admissions panel, and we didn't mention. We did
talk about FAFSA last night briefly, but I'm so glad
that you're on to talk about it in more depth tonight.
It will compliment what we didn't get to cover as
thoroughly as we wanted to. So tell us about FAFSA.
How long has it been around? It is one of
(28:48):
those programs that the government runs that everybody should take
advantage of.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Well, Dan, it's nice to be with you and your
listeners again. It's hard to believe that thirty years ago
you viewed me on other timely topics, and the one
that you have tonight is extremely timely for those that
are thinking about.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
What was the timely topic that we talked about in
the nineteen nineties, thirty years ago.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
There was one in nineteen ninety when the Commonwealth was
having a little bit of financial difficulty and I was
an investment banker at Bank of Boston to help negotiate
a well, today you'd call a bailout, but in those
days we just called it alone. And then in nineteen
ninety two we had some political discussion during the presidential
(29:38):
race because I was involved with the Bush Quail campaign. There.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Yeah, so a life has treated you well. It sounds
to me like, are you still working? Are you retired?
Speaker 4 (29:51):
I am, I am consulting. And the only smart thing
I did was I moved out of Boston because I'm
in Arizona now and I'm enjoying seventy five degree weather
instead of snow and rain and all that other cold stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
You guys got go jacket just to make you feel
a little better. Tomorrow, we're supposed to have like two
inches of rain and it's supposed to be windswept rain.
We went through a couple of months with Arizona type
temperatures at September and octobera you.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
Guys, it was one day Dan it was warmer in
Boston by ten degrees than it was here in Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Well, let me tell you a few years ago. We
were in Arizona in January, and in January it's generally
what they call the January thaw here in New England,
and in January it was like fifty degrees or whatever
in Boston and in Arizona. Although the sun was out
in January, it was like thirty eight degrees.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
It was take I remember that, Yeah, you're all it
was spot on at thirty eight degrees.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, I think it was two. I think it was
twenty seventeen if I'm not mistaken, But it was like
it was one of those weird you guys had a
cold spell for like about five days and then it
was back to your normal eighties and Sunday every day.
So tell us about Faster because I think a lot
of people still want to know about it and what
they when they can.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
It was very, very important. The new Fast Reform for
the high school class at twenty twenty five and those
that are going to be going to school in the
next academic year that begins July first, twenty twenty five,
just came out about two weeks ago, and as some
(31:33):
of your listeners may know, we had a horrific rollout.
They redid the fastest.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
This is like a New Year September or October, correct,
if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Well, normally it comes out of October. Last year, the
FASTA came out on New Year's Eve, so it was
Happy New Year from the US Department of Education. And
then the system crashed. And you know, it was supposed
to be a simpler application process because they reduced the
number of questions and they made it easier to get
(32:05):
your financial data.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
It was real simple, because it didn't work. I mean,
you can't make it any more any simpler than that.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
It was very simple, but extremely stressful, not only for
the students and the parents, but for the financial aid
officers and for the admissions officers because normally it's a
process that goes from October to about May one. When
the high school seniors had got to commit, you know,
the schools weren't getting their data until mid March or
(32:35):
April one, which delayed the admission stuff, which also impacted
enrollment last year, and we saw a number about five
to ten percent across the country decrease in college enrollment.
And that's even with the pool of high school applicants.
We've got a big graduation class this year, about three
point nine million, but it is going to go down
(32:58):
precipitously after that. But anyway, the good news is that
the new form is out. It's open live to everybody
who's going to be going in school as a freshman
or returning to school as an upper classman or a
graduate student. And we historically in Massachusetts we're above the
national average, but you know, which is about fifty five
(33:20):
percent of the people completed the fast nationally for the
class of twenty twenty four high school students in Massachusetts
we were like fifty six percent, but that was down
about eight and a half percent from the high school
class of twenty twenty three because of all that pain
and suffering.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
So the bottom line is the bottom line is if
you have a family member, a child heading off to
college or in college, you got to look because if
you don't doesn't cost you anything. And if you don't
look at it, you might be leaving some loan or
some loan forgiveness on the table.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
You're absolutely unequivalently correct. We'll leave out the long forgiveness
for it. But you're right, right right, you're right.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
I misspoke when I said that. As soon as I said,
I said, no, that's.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
Not right, right, right, right, right right. That was eighty
five percent of the people that fill out fast book
get some sort of financial aid. And the other thing
is that is it not only for federal grants and
scholarships and student loans, but states like Massachutts, the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts, or colleges or universities like the schools you
(34:26):
had on last night, they also used the fast for
data to do grants and scholarships and work study and
either federal student loans or private loans. So it's extremely important.
It doesn't cost anything, and this year it takes about
half as much time as it took historically to complete
the form.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
So what's the website? Is it just FASSA.
Speaker 5 (34:50):
What you want to do?
Speaker 4 (34:51):
If it depends upon www dot studentaid Aid, dot gog
for those that are applying as for the first time.
And remember it's not just the student, it's the student
or the guardian, whoever the contributor is. If you have
a dependent student, they need to fill out a form
(35:11):
in their own account as well. So they need to
go to that website, set up an FSA account for
the student to do it themselves and for the parents
of the guardian to do theirs. And then once they
get confirmation on that form that account has been accepted,
then they go to the fact again to fill out
(35:34):
the actual fast reform. And for that, Dan, you're going
to need your name as it appears on your Social
Security card, your Social Security number, an email address, phone number,
residential address. We're going to be using tax information for
tax year twenty twenty three, so that's the year we're
(35:55):
going to be using with a new form that was
created the parents, which a lot of times in the past,
a lot of the parents didn't want to share their
information on the form with the kids. But they started
this well last year, but this year as well. You
can check a box and have your financial data sent
from the I R S to the US Department of
(36:16):
Education so that they can do the calculations and make
the determination. So we should see an increase in applications
this year.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
So let's let's do That's hit the web. Let's let's
hit the website one more time, Jack, So they just
go to.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Student www dot Studentaid AI, d dot gov, dot dot com,
dot go right by the.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Way that www dot stuff. Don't need it anymore. Studentaid
dot gov will get you there. That's all you got
to put it in in the browser. Student aid AI,
student AI, d aid dot gov. Jack Wallace, great to
hear your voice. I'm jealous. Enjoy Arizona. I mean, the
only thing is you don't get the Bruins out there
anymore because your hockey team has moved to Utah.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Yeah, exactly, so we have to wait for the Patriots
and the bus and Red Sox to show up.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yeah, well the Red Sox won't be there. Well, they
won't be there for spring training, but maybe they'll be
there against your.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Well, we get them out here every couple of years.
But Dan, good luck to all your listeners, and we'll
be back in a couple of months to talk about
how to finance their education if they didn't get all
those scholarships and grants for those high price goodles they
got there back in the way.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
It was good to meet Jack. Thanks so much for
reminding me of prior conversations. I remember them well. Thank you,
my friend. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Always a pleasure. Thanks An back at you good night.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Merry Christmas by the way out there, even though it
probably doesn't feel like Christmas with no snow, we'll have
snow here. I suspect we'll be back on Night Side
on the other side, and we're going to talk about
the Physician Pathway Act. Do you want to get more
doctors in Massachusetts? You got to listen. Coming back on Nightside,
It's Nightside with Dan Ray on WBS, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Pretty cool. Welcome back mister last night for sure, though
Emma was doing a great job in your stead. So
we've got everyone covered here in the news during Nightside,
for sure, we got the best and the brightest right
here checking on everything, all the different news stories, says
they break. My name is Dan Ray. I'm just doing
a talk show. I got the easy part. It's the
(00:27):
news people who are working the hardest back in the
in the newsroom of course, as well as Rob Brooks,
the producer of this program. As I mentioned, I'm Dan Ray.
I'm the host of the aptly named Nightside with Dan Ray,
and we have four guests this hour. We are going
to start off with the guests, but let me just
remind you that coming up beginning tonight at nine o'clock,
(00:48):
we will get to some other topics. We're going to
talk about the shortage of physicians here in Massachusetts. Yeah,
you know, the medical capital of the world. We don't
have enough doctors. How about that. And we'll also talk
about a Boston City council who now should do the
right thing and during her federal trial, she's been indicted.
I think it's time for her to resign. We'll talk
(01:09):
about that. We also might get into the outburst today
of the New York City shooter who is in custody
in Altoona, Pennsylvania. If we've got a lot to talk about,
and I hope you'll participate and join with us. And
before we get the phone calls at nine, we're going
to start off with the first of our four guests.
(01:29):
His name is Steve McClatchy. He has written about what's
called the Great Detachment. There's a Gallup report has been
released and found employees actively looking to switch jobs. You know,
current employees looking at switch jobs at the highest rate
since twenty fifteen, since before COVID times. But they're not
(01:52):
having much luck because it's a cooling job market. So
Steve McClatchy, I think has some ideas and suggestions maybe
for business leaders and for managers, how they can make
employees maybe a little bit more happy, if that's possible.
Steve McClatchy, how are you They used to be a
(02:12):
guy who pitched for the Oakland A's who had a
name very similar towards yours to yours, towards towards yours.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
No, similarly, not related man, not related, but I have
a lot of cousins in a big, big family. I'm
from the Philadelphia area.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, I think his name was McClatchy.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
I don't know if there's any sort of difference in spelling.
Pretty good right handed pitcher for Oakland back. I guess
now in the in the eighties or nineties, now last century, we're.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
All athletes, but none of us hit it to the
professional level.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
All right, Well, you are a professional at the professional level,
helping people build meaningful connections, eliminate conflict, and radically improve engagement.
You've been advised to Fortune five hundred companies. So who's
the fault here? Is it that the the employees just
have itchy feed and want to keep moving, or a
(03:05):
management companies around this country, both large and small, not
doing a good job inducing their employee employees to settle
in and be part of a program for a long
period of time. Where's the fault? If? If it lies anywhere,
what does it lie?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Yeah, there's so many different contributing factors to why this
is going on. You had, you know, during COVID it
put off a lot of people that were going to
change jobs. As soon as that kind of that time passed,
everybody started switching. The job market was hot. And now
you know, with inflation and tightening budgets, you know, people
aren't hiring. So now people want to switch and there's
(03:44):
not any place to go, and you want to be
tied to the organization's mission and its purpose. Now you
have different ways of working that is contributing to it
as well. You have remote workers. You go to communicate
with somebody, they're not there, when are they available? Now
you have employees that want to work remote leads sometimes
during the office. So as far as team and bonding
(04:06):
and creating great relationships, that's kind of a different way
of going about doing that. You know, at the foundation
of business dan is agreements, right, very simply, I give
you ten dollars, you give me a sandwich. You know,
we did business together. And when you get used to
the kind of agreements where you're really good at them,
and then that game gets changed and now you have
(04:27):
remote workers. So now what are the agreements? You know,
when are you working, when are you not working? When
are you expected to be online? How do you communicate
with your team when you need to be in the office.
If you work late at night, can you take off
a little bit more time during the day. Like, these
are all new agreements, and there's a lot of confusion,
and until that gets settled and those expectations are set
(04:49):
and then we can start to acknowledge people, Hey, great job,
you're doing awesome, fantastic. We don't have the agreements. We
don't know what's above and beyond the agreements. We don't
know when people are going the extra mile and really contributing.
And if you're not getting appreciated and getting valued, that's
certainly going to contribute to a feeling of detachment.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
But hasn't that always even before COVID, as we like
to say before COVID times, hasn't that always been the
way that there were good employers who who gave people
some flexibility with their jobs as long as they had
the common sense and the maturity to handle that flexibility.
(05:27):
Has much, Yeah, but.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
It was slower. Damn.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
COVID threw us into just a mess all at one
time where all of those things had to be established
right away. It was hey, oh, I want to take
you Mondays off. It was like, all right, we'll try
it with these employees and it's working, and I know
how to manage them remotely, and I'm getting all of
a sudden, your entire workforce was remote. It really threw
a curveball at a manager's ability. I mean to take
(05:52):
advantage of all the communication systems and to leverage. And
there's people still not comfortable jumping on Zoom and Microsoft
Teams and doing a face to face working remotely, and
you know, how do you collaborate and how do you communicate?
Those things are still they're not as smooth. I had
a Zoom call this week where now I can't hear you.
I got to relog in and then they logged in.
(06:13):
I couldn't understand them. The audio is all just like,
there's technical difficulties and you're trying to get work done.
Your customer is demanding quality and speed from you. And
not only do they want the quality and speed, their
expectations are even higher. Why inflation, everything got more expensive,
so the customer figures, hey, this is more expensive, don't
I deserve more? No, you're getting the same thing that
(06:35):
you used to get for a higher price. And that
doesn't sit well with the customer. If I'm paying more.
I should get more, but inflation made just everything more
expensive without getting more for it, We're getting the same thing.
So those expectations make customers really upset and that's difficult
to deal with on a day to day basis.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Well, you have described a perfect economic conundrum. You described
this very well. By the way, I don't know how
we how problem.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, So what we need to do is get our expectations,
our agreements right, start being able to acknowledge people, because
that's going to be one of the biggest things that
engages people. Now that there's a word, Dan that is overused, right,
the word engagement, let me share with you exactly how
it's measured. It's measured in discretionary effort. So, if you
do your job, Dan, you do it well, you're considered disengaged.
(07:28):
Engagement is you do more than your paid to do.
You come into work early, you stay late, you work
on the weekend, you help somebody else with their job,
and that's not your job to do that. When you're
going above and beyond, you're considered engaged. This is why
it's such a valuable metric and everybody wants to figure
out how to grow it. Because if you employees doing
more than their paid they're your most valuable employees. So
(07:49):
if you wanted the silver bullet with engagement, if you
on a scale of one to five, give your boss
a five that you strongly agree that your boss gives
you pop. How does it a feedback and emphasizes your strengths,
what you're good at. You have a sixty seven percent
chance that employees engage. The national average stand is under
twenty percent, So you can jump over forty points just
(08:13):
by doing one thing really well. Appreciating, valuing, acknowledging, recognize.
It doesn't always have to be public. It has to
be sincere. It has to be specific. The employee needs
to know that their contribution means something that is number
one contributing factor to engagement.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
So I don't think I don't think most bosses understand
this simple rubric that most employees will strive to do
better if they get an occasional pat on the backing
for doing extra. They're not necessarily yeah, they're like a raise.
But if you walk out of there on a Friday
(08:51):
and your boss says, hey, great job this week, that
can get you through the weekend and make you look
forward to Monday. Morning, and too many bosses in America
don't understand it.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
And the data proves that. Man, the data reinforces exactly
what you're saying that when employees feel valued and appreciated,
they're more engaged. As a matter of fact, the higher
the engagement, it takes an employee an increase of twenty
to thirty percent pay raise forget to get them to
even think about leaving the job they're in. When you
(09:22):
like your boss, you feel valued by your contributions with
your boss. Well, again, let's go back to what are
the agreements? What are you being paid to do? How
do we know if someone's going above and beyond? So
we got to get that right and if we do it,
really is the solution to what this problem is. This
problem is causing. The other thing is, you know, you
want to know your work has an impact. What does
(09:43):
your organization do? What's the impact of it? When you
can revisit that with your employees and say, hey, we're
making a difference. We're not just all making money and
making widgets. We are making an impact. We have a mission,
we have values and we are we have a purpose
and we are making an impac act on that mission.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Well, I love your philosophy and I love the passion
with which you express it. Steve, and as I understand
that you have a consulting and training and consulting company,
and also you're well sought after speaker. How can folks
get in touch with you and tell us about the book?
The book is leading Relationships, build meaningful connections, eliminate conflict,
(10:21):
and radically improve engagement. I'm assuming that is available Amazon
and all bookstores and you can find that.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Yes, you can pre order it. It doesn't come out there
until February fifth. I couldn't even we're excited about this book.
This book is twenty three years in the making. There
hasn't been anything new in the area of relationships in
over thirty years. This is a framework that really helps
you to diagnose the biggest problems you have in your
relationships and how to solve them. And it comes out
February fifth. You can pre order it on Amazon, Barnes
(10:49):
and Noble Books a million. The best way to get
in touch with me if you have a retreat, if
you want employee development. Leadership development is a leer dot com.
It's a L L E E our dot com. That's
the basically to reach me Steve at a lear dot com.
It's my email address.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Sounds great. Again, I think you got the right message.
I wish more people who are in charge of others
were to understand that. Again, a patent the back goes
a hell of a lot long, but does a lot
more than a kick in the butt and maybe even
then a bit of a pay raise. Steve, appreciate it,
(11:24):
Steve McClatchy.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Dan, great talking to you. Thanks for having me tonight.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Great to talk to you as well. We'll talk again
we come up. We're going to talk about a little
bit of a downer subject, troubling Toyland. Gonna watch out
for this year's most dangerous toys. This is always a problem.
You want to get your kid, particularly the young children,
your grandchild, your your your son, your daughter, maybe a
niece or nephew, good toy, but you want to make
(11:47):
sure it's doesn't have some hidden dangers. When we talk
with doctor Fami Farah about the ten most dangerous toys,
and I hope none of these toys are on your list.
Back on Night Side right after this.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Nice Side Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
All right, we've had a little bit of a change
in online up here, and I want to Malcolm welcome
Chris Menta. He's a part of at Kroquetti's outlet, part
of the butcher shop that is opening up soon. Okay,
So I'm a little confused by that. Are you guys
open working now at this point, Chris, or are you
(12:29):
in the process of getting this butcher shop up and running.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
No, the butcher shop has been We've actually been around
for one hundred and seventeen years we started.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
You're gonna last at one hundred and that's that's pretty impressive. Okay.
Speaker 5 (12:43):
I don't know why we're and we've been in Bridgewater
E's Bridgewater now since nineteen seventy seven. So it's it's
a butcher shop in the front. And my partner, who's
a four generation owner, Carlo, had a building behind him
that he had a small distribution company. He sold it
(13:03):
off and he contacted me and said, hey, listen, you
want to throw your hat back in the ring again.
I had kind of retired from the food business, and
he said, let's open up a deep discount food store
so we can help out families in the area. You know,
we both had been talking about it for years, how
the cost of food is really hammering families, and we
(13:29):
had a shot to open up this facility. So we
remodeled it and it's called the Outlet at Corsettes. It's
going to be behind the butcher shop. We're not open yet.
We're probably going to open up in January, but it's
an opportunity for families to really save and as you know,
food is just at an all time high.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Okay, So what you're doing though in the meantime is
I understand that, And I think the reason why we're
having you on tonight is that your employees are gathering
hundreds of to always ahead of your you do an
annual toy drive with the which which Fight Apartment? The
Fight Apartment in East Bridgewater.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
This is the East Bridgewater. So part of opening the outlet,
we wanted to have a community component to it where
we would you know, be able to help out in
the community. So, like I said, the outlet's not even
open yet. We started with Thanksgiving. We handed out four
hundred and twelve turkeys to very deserving veterans and it
(14:32):
became so overwhelming for us that we said, hey, you
know what, let's do a toy drive. It'll be our
first annual. We're not open yet, but let's do this.
And every Monday we have a morning huddle with our
team in the butcher shop and we said, hey, listen,
this is something that's really near and dear to our hearts.
We'd like everybody to get involved. Whatever way you can
help would be awesome. About five days later, I walked
(14:55):
in and I literally was looking at over three hundred
toys and I have less than forty employees, so you
do the mass.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And it was a couple close to ten toys per
per employee. So when will the toys be distributed or
are they being distributed as we go along?
Speaker 5 (15:12):
So actually we haven't even started to drive yet. It's
this Saturday, nine to two at behind the butcher shopping
Corsetti's Oakdale Packing at the outlet. People could bring down
a new unwrapped toy. We're going to actually give them
a five pound bag of chicken nuggets because the theme
of this year is a nug Life Christmas Toy Drive.
(15:34):
We sell a tremendous amount of chicken nuggets and we
wanted to have fun with it. About a year ago
and we came up with this whole nug life and
we're having a blast with it. So we said, you
know what we're going to hand people. You bring us
a toy, We're going to hand your five pound bag
of chicken nuggets.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Sounds it sounds like everybody wins here.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
This is it's a total win at the end of.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
So they will there will be a day people, you know,
start this weekend, Saddy bringing toys in and then when
do you distribute the toys? When when does city?
Speaker 5 (16:07):
Well, we're going to actually turn them over toys. We're
actually going to turn them over to the East Bridgewater
Fire Department, who we partnered with along with Toys for Tots,
So they're going to distribute it within the community, which
were really.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
They're gonna work. They're gonna work hand in hand with
Santa Claus. I'm sure in doing this absolutely absolutely, absolutely well, Chris,
that sounds like a great way to work within the community.
You folks have been in the each East Bridgewater community
for how many years?
Speaker 5 (16:38):
Since since nineteen seventy seven?
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Okay, well that's coming up on fifty years when you
when you think about it, so they must love you
down there in East Bridgewater, and they're gonna love you
even more with some chicken nuggets and some toys being distributed.
Sounds absolutely You guys should become the You should be
the East Bridgewater Citizens of the Year. Thanks for sharing
now again. Give us the location where people can come
(17:03):
this Saturday and drop off some new unwrapped toys and
in exchange, pick up some chicken.
Speaker 5 (17:12):
Give us the Corsettis Oakdale Packing in East Bridgewater, Massachusett's
three seventy eight Pleasant Street. It'll be on the rear
of the parking lot where it says the outlet at Corsettis.
You can't miss it. It's a huge billboard. And just
come through the front door. You'll see the fire Fire
Department's gonna have some fire trucks there so we can
help fill them with toys. There's gonna be a lot
(17:34):
going on. We have a food truck, but bring an
unwrapped toy down. We can't wait to pass you a
five pounds bag of chicken nuggets. And it's gonna be
a great time. We're gonna have some food, some fun.
It's gonna be a win for everybody.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
That's great. Chris Menta Thank you very much for what
you do your fixedure in Eastbridge Water. Thanks for joining
us tonight on nights that we'll talk.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Thank you so much. And Merry Christmas, and Merry Christmas
to you.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Is that is my holiday. Merry Christmas to you, Chris,
thanks very much. All Right, when we get back, I'm
not sure we're going to go. We have two more
guests scheduled and hopefully they'll both both be here. I've
got to check with Rob. He's running the showback at
Broadcast Central. In the meantime, stick around here. We got
the news at the bottom of the hour for you,
and then we'll be back on a Tuesday night edition
(18:18):
of Nightside with Dan Ray right here in WBZ Boston's
News Radio ten thirty on your amw WALKSA can download
if you like. Pretty easy. You can download the iHeart app.
It's free. Just go to your your app store and
you can then hear listen to ihat three hundred and
sixty five days a year, twenty four to seven, wherever
you are in the world. Coming back on Nightside after this, You're.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
On night Side with Dan Ray. I'm WBZ Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Well, Christmas is right around the corner. It's not what
you think about it. It's fifteen days away and a
lot of toys that Santa Claus is going to bring
to children around the country. And with us is doctor
Fammi Farah. She's a cardiologist, a board certified invasive cardiologist.
(19:12):
But she's going to tell us about this list, a
toy toy list of basically toys that can cause harm.
I mean, I would have thought at this point, doctor Fara,
that they would have washed all those harmful toys out
of the out of the product line. What's going on.
Speaker 6 (19:37):
I think one of the issues could be that toys
they're coming from, you know, different parts of the world.
With online shopping, I think it's just very easy for
people to get toys from anywhere, and maybe there aren't
as much regulation as there used to be at one point.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yeah, I think I think you're right at that. As
a matter of fact, this report actually is from a
group here in Boston called World Against Toys Causing Harm.
You're familiar with the list, I assume, I hope I.
Speaker 7 (20:08):
Have seen the list, yes, okay, and they've been doing
this for fifty two years, and the toys and toys
that They're not what you call classic toys, not toys
that any of us would have heard well that I've
not heard of.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
But some of them the Pinvoke toy, cold forty five pistol,
the Bristol hedgehog, a kinetic sand scent ice cream treats.
What is I hate to ask this of you, but
since I have the list here, have you had a
chance to look at any of these toys? Or or
(20:49):
am I asking you questions that that are a little
unfair At this point.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
I have looked up a few, but not all, I
must admit, But yes, some of the are very interesting,
like you know, the ice wroom treats for example, the
sands and ice wroom treats. My assumption would be there
are small particles that small children can, you know, easily
(21:15):
put into their mouths and try to ingest. That wouldn't
be so good?
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Yeah, a lot of Yeah. A lot of these injuries
are injuries to eyes, potential for suffocation. Again, the names
don't mean much to me, but one of them is Transformers,
Earth Sparks, Cybersley. What what should parents do when they're
consulting with Santa Claus about a toy, particularly for young kids,
(21:42):
kids under the age of five or six years of age.
What's there must be some general rules that parents can use,
even though they might see the toy or say it
to my children the toy and they might think, oh, gee,
isn't that great. It's it's it's a nice, pretty toy
in a son or our daughter would like it. But
how can they figure out because a lot of the
toys will say uh for children one to three. And
(22:05):
implicit in that is that there's some sort of government
regulatory agency. Because the government regulates everything that has that
has put its impromter of okay for kids one to three.
Speaker 6 (22:16):
That doesn't necessarily mean it's safe, right, exactly, not necessarily.
And you know, some of the common uh, the most
common injuries that we are concerned about here are those
very small children that can put things into their mouths
and try to ingest or actually they can end up choking,
and so those things, Like, parents do need to be
(22:37):
careful about what's out there. Just because it's out there
doesn't mean that they should approve it for their children.
They should really use their judgment.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
Yeah, my wife was cautioning me the other day about
but I did not realize this that that even a
toy as simple as a balloon can cause choking. If
a child is you know, past the balloon, you know,
somehow in their mouth or whatever, or near their mouth,
and the balloon breaks, it can then you know, basically
(23:11):
cause them to choke. Something that I would not have
thought of. We were at a little street fear where
they were giving away balloons for our four year old
two and a half year old grandson, and of course
he wanted balloons, but my wife said, no, you know,
you contrast balloons, something even as simple as a balloon
(23:32):
does present harm. So I think it's something that people
should should really keep in mind. And again this list
is from the World. It's called the World Against Toys
Causing Harm Watch it's a good acronym. It's fifty second
annual nominees for the ten Worst Toys for twenty twenty four.
(23:54):
And some of them sound pretty pretty pretty nice. Zoo
Zam Doggie, xylophone. Well, what could be the problem with
the xylophone? But it says potential for ingestion and choking injury,
So please be careful. If you're getting something and you're
counseling with Santa Claus, make sure that nothing that can
(24:15):
that is sharp edged, that can hurt someone's eyes, poke
in their ears, poke up their nostrils, or some with
small items that they can they can choke on. I
guess parents have to be diligent and Santa Claus better
be diligent too, Doctor, I would think.
Speaker 6 (24:35):
Yes, exactly. So it's not just parents, it's all those
gifts that children are going to be getting from, you know, relatives, friends.
But at the end of the day, though, regardless of
who gives it as the parents to be cautious about
whether they give the children access to those or not.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yeah, I do think that there are some traditional toys
that have stood the test of time, and those are
the ones that I think maybe you want to think
of and maybe stay away from some of the more
exotic toys, that's for sure, Doctor Farrar, thanks very much,
sorry about the confusion earlier. We missed you at A
(25:14):
twenty or so. It sounds to me like you got
some activity in the background there that you have to
take care of as well. So thank you so much
for joining us tonight talking about Trouble and Toyland, the
World's most Dangerous Toys. This year's most Dangerous toys.
Speaker 6 (25:29):
Thank you so much, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Good night. Okay, we did last night on night Side
two hours, which we call our eighteenth annual Nightside College
and Missions Panel, and one of the topics that we
mentioned last night, we didn't have a chance to talk
about it for a long period of time. We had
(25:55):
with US Bill Fitzsimmons, who's the Dean of Admissions at
Harvard for his eighteenth year. And we had also with
US Grant Goslin, who's the Dean of undergraduate Admissions at
Boston College or the Dean of undergraduate Admission singularly at
Boston College. All of these titles are just they're they're
very similar, but there's little nuance in them that I
(26:17):
want to respect. So we're going to talk with an expert,
Jack Wallace, about FAFSA. Now there's an acronym for everything,
but this FAFSA stands for the Free Application for Federal
Student I got it for student aid. Yeah, I can't
(26:39):
even read my own writing. And it's a great program,
and a lot of people, I guess are being intimidated
by it and they're not filling out the forms. And
this is one that could lead to some loans or
some support for your son or daughter going after college.
So please stay with us. And by the way, if
you missed last night's eight o'clock or nine o'clock hour,
(27:03):
all of our hours are posted on Nightside on demand
dot com and those or two. If you are a
parent or a grandparent of a student who's approaching the
college application time of their life meaning freshman, sophomore, junior
in high school, this is a very important hour. We
had some students call in last night, which is always
a lot of fun, and Bill Fitzimmons and Grant Goslin
(27:26):
has always did a great job. So please feel free
to go to Nightside on Demand dot Com not during
the show, but you can do that later on tonight
or tomorrow on your way into work. Nightside on Demand
dot Com each hour is reduced to about forty two
minutes of content, so easy to find, easy to play,
and when you're sitting there on the Southeast Expressway at
(27:47):
seven thirty tomorrow morning, it'll keep you from just screaming
out of frustration. We'll be back on Nights Out a
little bit more about thefts coming up.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Now back to Dan ray Line from the Window World.
Nightside Studios on w b Z News Radio.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
All Right, welcome back. Let's get to our fourth and
final guest this hour, Jack Wallace. He's an expert on FAFSA,
which an acronym that stands for Free Application for Federal
Student Aid. Last night, Jack, I was telling the audience
before we went to break, we had two college admissions
directors on, Bill Fitzsimmons of Harvard and Grant Goslin of
(28:27):
Boston College. It was the eighteenth show we've done on
a college admissions panel, and we didn't mention. We did
talk about FAFSA last night briefly, but I'm so glad
that you're on to talk about it in more depth tonight.
It will compliment what we didn't get to cover as
thoroughly as we wanted to. So tell us about FAFSA.
How long has it been around? It is one of
(28:48):
those programs that the government runs that everybody should take
advantage of.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Well, Dan, it's nice to be with you and your
listeners again. It's hard to believe that thirty years ago
you viewed me on other timely topics, and the one
that you have tonight is extremely timely for those that
are thinking about.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
What was the timely topic that we talked about in
the nineteen nineties, thirty years ago.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
There was one in nineteen ninety when the Commonwealth was
having a little bit of financial difficulty and I was
an investment banker at Bank of Boston to help negotiate
a well, today you'd call a bailout, but in those
days we just called it alone. And then in nineteen
ninety two we had some political discussion during the presidential
(29:38):
race because I was involved with the Bush Quail campaign. There.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
Yeah, so a life has treated you well. It sounds
to me like, are you still working? Are you retired?
Speaker 4 (29:51):
I am, I am consulting. And the only smart thing
I did was I moved out of Boston because I'm
in Arizona now and I'm enjoying seventy five degree weather
instead of snow and rain and all that other cold stuff.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
You guys got go jacket just to make you feel
a little better. Tomorrow, we're supposed to have like two
inches of rain and it's supposed to be windswept rain.
We went through a couple of months with Arizona type
temperatures at September and octobera you.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
Guys, it was one day Dan it was warmer in
Boston by ten degrees than it was here in Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Well, let me tell you a few years ago. We
were in Arizona in January, and in January it's generally
what they call the January thaw here in New England,
and in January it was like fifty degrees or whatever
in Boston and in Arizona. Although the sun was out
in January, it was like thirty eight degrees.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
It was take I remember that, Yeah, you're all it
was spot on at thirty eight degrees.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, I think it was two. I think it was
twenty seventeen if I'm not mistaken, But it was like
it was one of those weird you guys had a
cold spell for like about five days and then it
was back to your normal eighties and Sunday every day.
So tell us about Faster because I think a lot
of people still want to know about it and what
they when they can.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
It was very, very important. The new Fast Reform for
the high school class at twenty twenty five and those
that are going to be going to school in the
next academic year that begins July first, twenty twenty five,
just came out about two weeks ago, and as some
(31:33):
of your listeners may know, we had a horrific rollout.
They redid the fastest.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
This is like a New Year September or October, correct,
if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 4 (31:44):
Well, normally it comes out of October. Last year, the
FASTA came out on New Year's Eve, so it was
Happy New Year from the US Department of Education. And
then the system crashed. And you know, it was supposed
to be a simpler application process because they reduced the
number of questions and they made it easier to get
(32:05):
your financial data.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
It was real simple, because it didn't work. I mean,
you can't make it any more any simpler than that.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
It was very simple, but extremely stressful, not only for
the students and the parents, but for the financial aid
officers and for the admissions officers because normally it's a
process that goes from October to about May one. When
the high school seniors had got to commit, you know,
the schools weren't getting their data until mid March or
(32:35):
April one, which delayed the admission stuff, which also impacted
enrollment last year, and we saw a number about five
to ten percent across the country decrease in college enrollment.
And that's even with the pool of high school applicants.
We've got a big graduation class this year, about three
point nine million, but it is going to go down
(32:58):
precipitously after that. But anyway, the good news is that
the new form is out. It's open live to everybody
who's going to be going in school as a freshman
or returning to school as an upper classman or a
graduate student. And we historically in Massachusetts we're above the
national average, but you know, which is about fifty five
(33:20):
percent of the people completed the fast nationally for the
class of twenty twenty four high school students in Massachusetts
we were like fifty six percent, but that was down
about eight and a half percent from the high school
class of twenty twenty three because of all that pain
and suffering.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
So the bottom line is the bottom line is if
you have a family member, a child heading off to
college or in college, you got to look because if
you don't doesn't cost you anything. And if you don't
look at it, you might be leaving some loan or
some loan forgiveness on the table.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
You're absolutely unequivalently correct. We'll leave out the long forgiveness
for it. But you're right, right right, you're right.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
I misspoke when I said that. As soon as I said,
I said, no, that's.
Speaker 4 (34:04):
Not right, right, right, right, right right. That was eighty
five percent of the people that fill out fast book
get some sort of financial aid. And the other thing
is that is it not only for federal grants and
scholarships and student loans, but states like Massachutts, the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts, or colleges or universities like the schools you
(34:26):
had on last night, they also used the fast for
data to do grants and scholarships and work study and
either federal student loans or private loans. So it's extremely important.
It doesn't cost anything, and this year it takes about
half as much time as it took historically to complete
the form.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
So what's the website? Is it just FASSA.
Speaker 5 (34:50):
What you want to do?
Speaker 4 (34:51):
If it depends upon www dot studentaid Aid, dot gog
for those that are applying as for the first time.
And remember it's not just the student, it's the student
or the guardian, whoever the contributor is. If you have
a dependent student, they need to fill out a form
(35:11):
in their own account as well. So they need to
go to that website, set up an FSA account for
the student to do it themselves and for the parents
of the guardian to do theirs. And then once they
get confirmation on that form that account has been accepted,
then they go to the fact again to fill out
(35:34):
the actual fast reform. And for that, Dan, you're going
to need your name as it appears on your Social
Security card, your Social Security number, an email address, phone number,
residential address. We're going to be using tax information for
tax year twenty twenty three, so that's the year we're
(35:55):
going to be using with a new form that was
created the parents, which a lot of times in the past,
a lot of the parents didn't want to share their
information on the form with the kids. But they started
this well last year, but this year as well. You
can check a box and have your financial data sent
from the I R S to the US Department of
(36:16):
Education so that they can do the calculations and make
the determination. So we should see an increase in applications
this year.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
So let's let's do That's hit the web. Let's let's
hit the website one more time, Jack, So they just
go to.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Student www dot Studentaid AI, d dot gov, dot dot com,
dot go right by the.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Way that www dot stuff. Don't need it anymore. Studentaid
dot gov will get you there. That's all you got
to put it in in the browser. Student aid AI,
student AI, d aid dot gov. Jack Wallace, great to
hear your voice. I'm jealous. Enjoy Arizona. I mean, the
only thing is you don't get the Bruins out there
anymore because your hockey team has moved to Utah.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
Yeah, exactly, so we have to wait for the Patriots
and the bus and Red Sox to show up.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Yeah, well the Red Sox won't be there. Well, they
won't be there for spring training, but maybe they'll be
there against your.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Well, we get them out here every couple of years.
But Dan, good luck to all your listeners, and we'll
be back in a couple of months to talk about
how to finance their education if they didn't get all
those scholarships and grants for those high price goodles they
got there back in the way.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
It was good to meet Jack. Thanks so much for
reminding me of prior conversations. I remember them well. Thank you,
my friend. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Always a pleasure. Thanks An back at you good night.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Merry Christmas by the way out there, even though it
probably doesn't feel like Christmas with no snow, we'll have
snow here. I suspect we'll be back on Night Side
on the other side, and we're going to talk about
the Physician Pathway Act. Do you want to get more
doctors in Massachusetts? You got to listen. Coming back on Nightside,
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