Be Polite to Alexa

Episode Chapters:
1:07 - Sick leave jumped by an astounding 55% from 2019 to 2023
6:01 - Do you speak politely to Siri – or Alexa?
9:29 - 90”2 pop culture brands that were almost named something different
18:07 - Water Cooler Quiz
23:27 - Random Question: If you could work remotely from anywhere, where would that be?
27:13 - Quote of the podcast

Summary:
In this conversation, Jason and Mindy discuss the increase in sick leave among American workers, the importance of taking mental health days, and the changing attitudes towards digital assistants. They also share interesting facts about 1990s pop culture. In this conversation, Mindy and Jason discuss various topics including Star Wars, the use of auto-tune in music, men's dislike of holding purses, and working remotely. They also apologize for not getting the answer to the water cooler quiz and end with a quote about honesty.

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SICK STATS:
Human resources platform Dayforce found that among American workers, sick leave jumped by an astounding 55% from 2019 to 2023. Plus, data from smaller businesses shows that 30% of white-collar workers took sick days last year, a 42% increase from 2019. And it’s Gen Z that seems to be leading the charge – to not tough-it-out. Sick leave among workers under age 35 rose more than other age brackets. Experts attribute this post-pandemic rise in calling out to several factors, including Gen Z’s willingness (and need) to take mental health days.

According to a new survey, 48% of us believe that Siri – or Alexa deserve to be spoken to politely. In the poll, it was found that younger generations are more likely to extend common courtesies to their digital assistants: Over half of Gen Z (56%) said that politeness is their default style when interacting with AI. And 29% of those who describe themselves as “polite” when speaking with AI went even further, feeling that “everyone deserves to be treated with manners, whether human or not.” And 39% of respondents said that they feel our past behavior when speaking with our robotic helpers might affect how they respond to us in the future.

1990S POP CULTURE FACTS YOU NEVER KNEW YOU NEEDED TO KNOW:
☞ ‘Tickle Me Elmo’ was almost named ‘Tickle Me Taz’ — as in the ‘Tasmanian Devil’ from Looney Tunes.
☞ The Spice Girls didn’t come up with their nicknames. A magazine editor and staff thought of the names as part of a feature they were running on the group.
☞ Sony originally developed PlayStation as a CD-ROM add-on to Super Nintendo. It was actually called “Play Station” (2 words) and had a port for SNES cartridge games and a CD-ROM drive for Sony games.
☞ Tom Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis paid for 2 Forrest Gump scenes out of their own pockets, one of which is the one where ‘Forrest’ runs across the US. Paramount refused to increase the film’s budget, so the pair agreed to pay for the scenes in return for a larger percentage of the film’s box office.
☞ The original Polly Pockets were tiny because Chris Wiggs, who created the toy for his daughter, used a makeup powder compact to create a portable dollhouse.
☞ ‘Timon’ and ‘Pumbaa’ were originally the ones who were supposed to sing ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight’ in “The Lion King”. But when Elton John found out about it, he killed the idea, saying, “I don’t want a big, stinky warthog singing my love song!”
☞ George Lucas returned to directing for “The Phantom Menace”, his first time in that role since the original “Star Wars” film. But he was hesitant to do so, and only agreed after first asking Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, and Ron Howard to direct. They all said “no”.
☞ Thanks to its pioneering use of auto-tune, Cher’s hit ‘Believe’ changed music forever. But at the time, she wasn’t interested in recording it. Her record company president eventually persuaded her that since her last album (full of ballads) had been a disappointment, she should focus on her gay audience and do a dance album.