This week’s flagship piece of content is a podcast episode by Jason Feifer on the history of work (and the history of complaining against younger generation of workers)!

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📄 Article/s of the week

​a. The Mystery of Flight MH370 by William Langewiesche (The Atlantic)​

This is an old article that I recently came across on Twitter. It is a gripping account of the search for the ill fated Malaysia Airlines jet which disappeared into the night on March 14th, 2014, never to be found again.

The article reads like a thriller. You are part of the highs and lows of the investigation. You feel for the selfless folks who devoted several years of their life to find answers. You cringe at how the political leaders and other government authorities did a major disservice to the loved ones of the unfortunate passengers and crew.

And most of all, you feel terrible for those innocent passengers, crew and their families for what happened to them…

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🎧 Podcast episode/s of the week

​a. ‘Why “Nobody Wants to Work Anymore” is BS’ by Build for Tomorrow (Jason Feifer)​
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Jason Feifer is one of my favourite audio storytellers. He’s got a strong ability to take a widely believed opinion and then refute it by carefully stitching together a narrative that is infused with relevant data, expert opinions and engaging stories.

His episodes are great case studies in crafting a compelling story.

In this episode he takes on the widely held belief that: In the olden days, people were more hardworking, but today’s youth are lazy, entitled and don’t have the same work ethic.

Perhaps you think the same about people younger than you.

Well, guess what… someone older than you most probably thought the same – of you!

Jason’s main point – people in the past were ok working long hours at crappy jobs not because they loved it, but because they had no choice. But they have now.

Jason Feifer: … I was recently talking to a guy named Matt Plapp, who is the CEO of a company called America’s Best Restaurants. It’s a marketing company that helps independent restaurants tell their stories and grow their sales.

Matt Plapp: We work with hundreds of restaurants nationwide.

Jason Feifer: And Matt and I were talking about the labor shortage, which is a big thing impacting his clients right now. It’s really hard for them to hire and retain good people, which means that they can’t operate their restaurants at full capacity. And because Matt is in the business of helping restaurants, you would think that he would say, “Yeah, this is terrible. Nobody wants to work anymore, these lazy people.” But that is not what he’s saying to his clients. Instead, he’s saying this.

Matt Plapp: At the end of the day, a lot of restaurants offer a crappy job.
Jason Feifer: And he’s telling it to their faces too.
Matt Plapp: And I had this exact conversation about four months ago with a guy that’s a customer and a friend, and he was having labor shortage problems. I said, “Can I be blunt with you?” He goes, “Yeah.” I go, “You wouldn’t have as big a labor short problems,” because everybody had them… “You wouldn’t have as big a problem right now if, number one, you had created an inviting atmosphere that people were attracted to.”

Here’s how Jason concludes the episode with his take for why people seemingly don’t want to work anymore:

At the beginning of this episode, I said that the phrase nobody wants to work anymore contained a partial truth but that it was missing a part. And when we could finally speak that part out loud and take it seriously, we’d be able to start solving some real problems. So what is it? What is that part? You probably know the answer by now, but I’ll just state it plainly to be sure. It is not true to say that nobody wants to work anymore. So what we need to do is add the phrase the way they once felt they had to. So let’s put it all together. Nobody wants to work the way they once felt they had to anymore. And that is a perfectly reasonable thing to say. It is a problem worth, solving and the closer we get to solving it, the more we can all accomplish together. So let’s get to hard work.

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​b. ‘It’s time to Quit India’ on the ‘1947: Road to Indian Independence’ podcast (featuring Srinath Raghavan)
Over the last week, I binge-heard the fascinating 1947 series by Prashant Jha of the Hindustan Times. There were almost no dull moments in any of the episodes – fabulous work by Prashant and team.

Of all the episodes in the series, this was one of my favourites. Srinath Raghavan is a rare scholar who is also a compelling speaker. In the episode he shares what was the real victory of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s INA – putting enough doubt in the British leaders’ minds about whether they can rely on the British Indian Army to continue to stay loyal… Lots of #TIL moments
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🐦 Tweet/s of the week

Lenny Rachitsky is the OG when it comes to Product Management. His content is consistently high quality and engaging.

In this thread he talks about how you can learn about influence from… Frodo in LOTR! A bit cheesy, but the points are powerful.

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There’s no point regretting what you could not do; instead focus on what you can do going forward. Evocative visualisation by Tim Urban.

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Hilarious!

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💬 Quote of the week

“The more things change, the more they remain the same.”

– Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

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🍿 Movie of the week

​a. King Richard on Amazon Prime​

Sure there was the whole Oscar Slapgate controversy – but let that not stop you from watching this stunning tale of the Williams sisters and their irrepressible father.

His relentless drive, unwavering faith in the future and unshakeable confidence in his daughters’ ability is remarkable – especially considering the extremely difficult circumstances he came from.

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​That’s it folks: my recommended reads, listens and views for the week.

​Take care and stay safe.

Photo by Elisa Ventur on Unsplash