Tariffs Make Work Suck… Or Do They?
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Tariffs are supposed to protect jobs.
So why are people losing them?
In this episode:
✅ A dream job offer killed by tariffs
✅ Why companies blame tariffs—but the truth runs deeper
✅ How tariffs + automation = fewer jobs, not more
This isn’t just about trade policy.
It’s about your career, your healthcare, and your future.
Drop a comment if tariffs have hit your industry.
Subscribe for weekly episodes.
📌 Timestamps:
0:00 – Intro
0:34 – What We’re Covering Today (Tariffs Breakdown)
1:16 – Why You Should Listen to Us
2:24 – “Tariffs Cost Me My Job!” — Real Reddit Story
12:16 – The Truth About Tariffs & Globalization
15:18 – Tariffs Won’t Bring Back $30/hr Jobs (Only Robots)
17:32 – Tariffs = Economic Darwinism
23:21 – Tariffs & the Rise of Outsourcing
40:18 – If Your Culture Tanks from Tariffs, Blame Leadership
41:41 – Action Guide: What to Do if Tariffs Hit Your Career
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Transcript
Welcome to the Make Work Not Suck podcast.
[:Alright, Ryan. You land your dream job, gotten all the interviews, got an offer, and then suddenly the company hits pause because tariffs made your job vanish overnight. Are tariffs really an economic savior, or are they silently killing your career?
[:Oh. Today, we're gonna deep dive into tariffs. The good, the bad, and the chaotic. Will tariffs ever bring manufacturing jobs back, or they just another way to make your work suck?
[:Where do we wanna go first?
[:Alright. So I think there's some bullet points here. Let's talk about how tariffs can directly impact hiring and layoffs. And we should also talk about whether tariffs help or hurt American workers given the fact that, you know, that's what this whole thing is preaching about is make America great. Right?
[:Right.
[:The hidden consequences in health care, tech, and manufacturing, how businesses use tariffs as convenient excuses, like that one. Uh-huh. And real world stories and insights straight from the people experiencing it right now. We have some good stories. Yeah.
We'll cut through the politics and deliver the straight facts with some fiery takes along the way. Let's talk tariffs.
[:By way of introductions, my name is Daniel Steere. I have worked with companies through the 2000.comcrash, the two thousand eight financial crisis, the twenty twenty COVID crisis. So I've been working with companies for a long time, helping them navigate the economic turbulence, the up and downs of the economy, layoffs, hiring freezes. So I'm excited to bring that experience to, the current crisis that we're facing with tariffs.
[:And I'm Ryan Hodges, and I've led many teams through, uncertainty in these crisis. I've even started companies in the downed economy. So there's always a path forward. There's always opportunity. And, even even companies going through this uncertainty, we've been there, done that.
So we've got a lot we can bring to the table to help make work not suck.
[:Yeah. Ryan and I both seen firsthand how the decisions made by the people at the top work their way down an organization. So we are here to give you the unfiltered truth about what's really going on with tariffs.
[:Alright. Here we go. So scouring Reddit the other day. Right? Mhmm.
And I'm gonna read this, post to kick off today's topic. Alright. This offered rescinded due to tariffs headline. Yeah. It said, you read the title right, folks.
I went through two interviews and was told I got the job. But once the tariffs were put in place, they held off on my onboarding contract and a week later told me I can't be hired. Here's what they said. Unfortunately, I'm writing to share that upon I'm sorry. I'm writing to update regarding your hiring process.
/:I think they got a typo in their post. It's tripping me up. Anyways, this dude went through two rounds of interviews, told he got the job, and then all of a sudden told hiring freeze, no. Mhmm. A real user had a real offer pulled last minute because tariffs made hiring too risky, is it genuinely caused by the tariffs, or is this just an easy corporate compound?
[:So I'll give you a spicy cake. I think that blaming tariffs for hiring freezes might sound like smart business, but I think it's really just companies using tariffs to hide bad management decisions and bad strategic insights.
[:A %. Think? You think so? I I agree with you. I wanna I wanna throw this out there.
dent. We went through this in:Look. Again, there's a lot of uncertainty, especially with the war with China and, you know, literally, it's just changing by the minute. But I think, again, I think large organizations or companies that had gone through this whole China trade warfare, you know, what, four plus years ago, I think they already know what to expect, and I think they're using it as an excuse.
[:02/2016 was nine years ago, bro. But yeah. Well,
[:nine years ago.
[:Alright. So a lot of people think that tariffs are gonna revive American manufacturing, bring back all of those manufacturing jobs that have been. Offshored over the last few decades. I don't think that those jobs are coming back. I think today's global economy is far more complex than what manufacturing looked like thirty, forty, even fifty years ago.
Everything is so connected. So I have questions about whether or not this tariff strategy is really going to bring back the manufacturing jobs that people profess it will?
[:I don't think so. I mean, I think this is it's all a bargaining chip. Right? Like, you look at what China and The US are doing, and I forget the stupid rate that it is up to right now. But they're finally at the table talking.
Now what's crazy is we're talking about China. Mhmm. But since this whole thing going back and forth, it isn't about China. It was tariffs put on every country. Well, since then, a lot of this has been negotiated down and they're more reasonable rates.
And, again, I need to get the the facts, in order for what is actually happening today. But it's not like, we're looking at one country and assuming the the response to the rest of the world. Other key thing to make, a lot of our textiles are actually made in Vietnam, like, a lot of a lot of clothing and shirts and and stuff like that is actually made in Vietnam. And most of our computer chips are actually made in Taiwan. Not all.
There's a lot of manufacturing in China. Don't get me wrong. But a lot of it comes out of Taiwan. And so I think we kind of associate a lot of things that come out of the East as China. When when you look under the hood, there's still a lot that comes from other parts of the world.
So, again, I think there's there's a lot of there's there's a lot of truth in it, but I also think there's a lot of of political fighting, and we're we just don't know what direction to go left or right on at the moment.
[:Yeah. I I I certainly don't think that tariffs are a near term strategy. At best, they are a bargaining chip, a negotiation tool to get other companies to change their policies. Because if we import, if we put a tax on them like they have on us, then suddenly it's kind of a wash. And then why are we doing this?
And so what if we both agree to just drop everything? I can see that being potentially beneficial in the short term if it works out that way. But in the long run, I think this is, you know, the idea that manufacturing jobs are coming back. I think that just assumes that the economy as it existed fifty years ago is the same economy today. And I just don't think that's true.
Manufacturing has gone through a lot of automation and a lot of those jobs that were. You know, good, stable, high paying jobs. Like those jobs don't exist anymore. Robots are doing that now. So even if the manufacturing comes back state side because of tariffs, they're not gonna hire a bunch of people to, you know, run the factories.
They're gonna be building robots and hiring one nerd to manage the robots.
[:I mean, absolutely. I mean, I think I think that to a degree is just a a cover. And you you hear the things like, oh, with tariffs, we can remove the federal income tax. Like, trust me, I would love to remove this the federal income tax, but tariffs aren't gonna make up enough for it, and you're just gonna end up paying it through consumer goods. Like, you're just gonna move the money from one to the other.
Right. But I think where the real hit is gonna come, and this is a post from a comment on Reddit. It said tariffs aren't about cars. Start thinking about meds. 80% of generic drugs come from India with Chinese ingredients.
If China stops exports, we're in big trouble. Your generic drugs, where where are you gonna come from?
[:That's gonna hurt a lot of people. Although, I would say even a % increase on generic drugs is still gonna be significantly cheaper than a lot of the, branded drugs. So it's gonna hurt, but it's still probably cheaper than your best alternative.
[:Agree. Now I think if you again, this depends on situation. If if the generic drug goes from 4 to $5, per prescription refill to, you know, let's say, three times that. So it goes from $4 to $12. That that still could be enough of a hit on a frequent person, especially Absolutely.
Elder person on a Social Security income or a younger person still getting started in their career or someone in a in a lower, income area. Like, that's still a huge hit to the pocketbook. Right. I mean, think about it this way. Tariffs aren't protection.
They're economic Russian roulette. And your health care is not one bad tariff decision away from collapse. So, you know, what's what's interesting is what we're already starting to see is you're already starting to see companies that are shipping product from, you know, China to some other country, and then they're shipping that into The United States to get the the other tariff. I think all you're gonna do is create this logistical nightmare. You you'll save the tariffs, but you you you still end up putting more logistics cost on the consumer.
Now granted, are we trying to get rid of TEMU because we don't want people directly importing from China? That's only a small percentage of of what this impacts.
[:Yeah. If if I was a business that was doing a lot of import, I would find a factory, not even a factory. I would find a warehouse in whatever country had the lowest tariffs with The United States, and I would import everything into there and then go from there to The US. So if it's Canada, if it's Mexico, if it's, you know, whatever country it is, I would, I don't shoot, I'd buy an island and call it, make it its own country and just put one big warehouse on it and move all my goods through there so I can avoid the tariffs. Like, this is what people are going to do over the long run if these tariffs are actually enacted and enforced.
[:Well, you know, the big big companies are already doing that. Sure. They did it they did it the last round. They're already looking at ways to do it now. And the real question is, like, how much is that gonna hurt the small business sector?
Here's another thing is keep in mind when the tariffs went through in I forget it with I know it was in the twenty sixteen presidency with with Trump. I forget the exact year it was. But you you gotta remember, there were a lot of companies, a lot of ecomm companies that spun up during COVID where that whole first round tariff battle was already kind of settled, if you will. Like, there was already you already knew the game. You already went through the turbulence.
Companies that were older than that and had been more established already went through this. But all those companies that got their big boom during the COVID era, that was after that last trade war I mean, now you've got a lot more small businesses trying to figure out how to navigate this turbulent time. And when the largest workforce in America is the small business, employer. Most of America is employed by small business and makes up, what, two thirds of the work of the workforce.
[:Yeah. I think so. So let's talk tariffs and automation because I think this is I'm curious as to your perspective on this, because as I understand it, automation was kind of already reshaping the manufacturing industry and other industries as well before tariffs kicked in. Example, you know, Amazon has been investing millions in automation and AI. There's this, I read this article about something called Flippy, which is like an AI burger flipper.
I know. I work with a lot of people in, quick service restaurants, and they are already investigating and researching and building prototypes for, robotic and AI driven cooking technology. Right. So they don't have to hire people to work in the kitchen. I think tariffs accelerate that push.
I think that most of those business owners, those quick service restaurants, they can't wait for the day that a robot is cheaper than a 23 year old who may or may not show up today, may or may not wear their uniform and will always bring their baby mama drama with them to the office. So the, the moment that those things start becoming too expensive, they are absolutely gonna switch to some sort of an automation AI solution. And I think tariffs might be giving employers another excuse just to replace human jobs faster.
[:I I think to a certain degree, yes. But I I I mean, yes, we're already moving that direction. I think there's a couple components of it is, you know, that robot's gonna cost $2,030,000, hundred thousand dollars to install, maintain, etcetera. It's still gotta be manufactured somewhere. Right.
And so if you manufacture that here in The States and its cost is, you know, 2, you know, 1.5, 2 x, maybe even three x depending on what it is, you know, can that small business owner afford to put that machinery in? Now this is where you're gonna have an ups an upside down competition. Large chains, those with big, you know, access to to capital, etcetera. Of course, they're gonna be going through, and they'll be leaner and meaner. It's gonna be a big capital expenditure.
But you can write that off over time. You can write it off. You can do all those things with it.
[:Yeah. But but you're still on the hook for it for the next seven years.
[:Right. But then what you're doing is you're you're making it much harder for the small business to compete. And so I think that's really where it can hit. Now maybe maybe there's a balance in here where you've got, you know, the the bigger groups are going more automated, and that gives more good talent to the small business owner. And, you know, people there's a cost to hiring people.
Right. But that that doesn't they don't cost $30,000 before they start working. Right. Yeah. Unless you're paying the recruiter, but that's a different story.
Yeah.
[:If you think tariffs are gonna bring back $30 an hour manufacturing jobs, you need to wake up. The only thing that tariffs are gonna bring is more robots.
[:I I agree with that. It is an acceleration of technology. It is pushing things forward. I think the biggest thing that tariffs is is it's just gonna create just going to create a level of uncertainty. It is going to advance push technology to the next level, and it is if we bring manufacturing back, it's gonna be manufacturing with new technology.
It's going to it's if anything, I think it's gonna help or hurt our disposable income. It's gonna hurt our, pleasure teas, if you will, like our the the things we do in our free time. You're just making, toys more expensive. You're making,
[:you know,
[:experiences more expensive. You're making food more expensive. You're just making everything more expensive where people can't do anything but work, and then you're replacing the jobs with AI and technology. I I saw an article the other day. I know this is going to AI a bit.
Shopify laid off. They're gonna lay up 2,000 people, and all jobs are automatically rejected unless you can prove that it can't be done by AI.
[:I read something similar for a different organization that froze. They didn't lay off anybody, but they froze all, open racks and said, you've gotta prove that this job can't be done by an AI.
[:That was it. That was IBM.
[:That was IBM? Is that who it was? I forgot who it was.
[:I believe that was IBM. So, again, I don't think I don't think the tariffs are causing this. I think that's part of the AI boom. Yeah. But I think the tariffs are definitely doing it on the consumer goods or the good side of the equation.
[:I think the tariffs are a they're a dangerous strategy at any time, but especially at this time with how technology is advancing and AI and robotics is advancing. Like, it's a very it's a very risky time to implement this kind of tariff strategy.
[:Yeah. Here, I got a I got another Reddit comment for you. According to this Reddit user, small businesses are being discriminated. Another overlooked consequence. Small businesses suffer disproportionately.
Major corporations might weather tariff storms, but small business face massive uncertainty, canceled contracts, hiring freezes. Small businesses are being discriminated is what they said. I said spicy takes tariffs aren't economic protection. They're economic Darwinism. Small businesses get eaten.
Big businesses get bigger. Here's a question for you. Okay. Usually, when you start having market consolidation, when you start having the small business go out and you start, see the big businesses growing, there's usually a wave of opportunity behind it where the next wave of small business
[:is creating.
[:Are we really in a going back to, like, the boomer generational wealth transfer?
[:Mhmm.
[:Are we really accelerating the boomer wealth transfer? Because what you're creating is the the the boomers getting out of business and selling and exiting and shutting down and whatnot. And it's the next generation of knowledge worker that's creating these micro AI companies, more technology drive. I mean, you see the gig economy Right. Massive.
Software is getting easier to write. People are needing more. I mean, look look with the companies that are getting funded. Your your your burger flipping robot. Right.
That's what's getting funded, not a US factory to
[:Yeah. I do think that the more progressive boomers are looking at what's coming, and they're trying to get out because I think there is going to be a lot of disruption in most industries over the next couple of years. I've been talking to a couple of business owners looking at potentially buying a business over the last few weeks, and there are some businesses out there that have been really good businesses. Right? Their service service businesses, some of them have recurring revenue, and and there's a lot about them that is attractive.
But then you look at the fact that there's there's been nothing really invested in these businesses in terms of AI, automation, robotics, like, you know, next gen technology hasn't been introduced yet. Sometimes into the company, sometimes into the entire industry and you look at that industry and you say, okay, someone's going to figure out how to use drones to do lawn care. Right? It may or may not be me, but someone's gonna figure that out. And the person who does is just going to destroy every other lawn care company.
So you're either gonna be that guy or you're gonna get killed. I think that's true in a lot of industries where people are are looking at what's coming and saying we've either got a win or get out.
[:Yeah. And here's the the sucky part about it is the workers at those organizations are the ones dealing with it. They don't know if they're gonna have a job. Right. They the hiring freezes.
Yep. I mean, the well, I'll give you from some real world examples. I mean, just this week, one of the companies I work with had a massive hit in churn. The clients were claiming tariffs. You know, one of them I think is legit because they import all their product from China and the uncertainty, and they've gotta just scale way down.
And, basically, that's creating uncertainty in in the company I work with because you you just had a I mean, this is there's been several clients over the past two weeks that have just put in their notice for termination. Right. Right. Now you've got our team going, what's gonna happen on our side? You got some sales and marketing that stalled or sales activities that are stalled because people are waiting for answers, and you're creating a sucky workplace out of out of a ripple effect.
[:Sure.
[:What how do you how do you lead a company through that?
[:I think you've gotta go back to why your company exists. And and maybe you start maybe you start this kind of thinking about tariffs. Right? Tariffs claim to make a stronger America. And there are some ways in which they may.
But does it really align with the current economic reality? I I I questioned that, right? Like, you're not gonna get paid $30 an hour to work in a manufacturing plant when a robot can do that job for $5 an hour and they pay a % tariff and it costs them $10 an hour to land it here in The U S they're still less than half of what it was gonna pay them of what it was gonna cost them to pay a human to do it. That job's never coming back here. And so I I question whether or not tariffs are really aligned with the with the current economic reality.
[:I agree with you. I think it's it it nobody has the crystal ball. Nobody knows the nobody knows what the the the president is is doing or what the ultimate plan is. We can speculate all day long. What we can say is they are not in alignment with the current economic reality.
The question is is what's the long term plan? What's the goal? Right. Is it going to is this going through surgery? Are we going through surgery to get to the other side?
But I think there's too much uncertainty to know what the other side is, which is why we're seeing so much chaos. I think that bringing
[:manufacturing back to The US is a strategically good move. I think we have outsourced as a country, so again, personal opinion. I think we've outsourced too much, and we are too dependent on other countries for many things. And having some level of self sufficiency is probably a good strategic balance to have. However, bringing that back doesn't necessarily mean that entry level blue collar manual labor jobs are coming with them.
You can bring manufacturing back and just employ robots, And that employs a very different kind of person. And the individuals that are going to be most negatively impacted by that are the people who. Are looking for those more, you know, blue collar working class jobs. And and that's the part that really concerns me is I don't know where those jobs are going to appear.
[:I I think I think we we may be getting too much on, like, goods manufacturing.
[:Okay.
[:Whereas the other component of this is we outsource a lot to The Philippines for call centers. You know, Latin America and Eastern Europe for, you know, tech jobs.
[:Yeah. You're right. I've worked with several companies that have call centers in Philippines, call centers in Costa Rica, dev shops in Europe. Like, I think there's there's a lot of kind of global connectivity that may come back to The US with this kind of a tariff, but it takes a long time to move those things.
[:Well, I haven't I need to need to look into this. I saw something across the other day that the tariffs could apply to outsource labor. Oh, that's
[:that's a new thought
[:for me. So there's there's several I mean, this is where the uncertainty goes. Like, if you've got a call center in The Philippines, you know, that job's not coming back either. With that job is gonna go and even the, unfortunately, for the people in The Philippines, that's gonna go to AI. Yeah.
So I think, again, I think there's the the tariffs there's there's manufacturing back in The United States, and then there's tariffs for alleviating tax pressure and generating revenue to reduce the debt and all these things. I think I think at the end of the day, it's just an excuse or a means to progress society. And I'm all for progressing society forward, but you gotta do it in a healthy balance. Because if you knock everybody out in the process, what did you do it for? Right.
[:Yeah. I think there's a lot of workers that are facing pretty uncertain career paths, you know, last minute job changes, last minute job losses, you know, being forced to transition careers into another field. I think these tariffs are creating a lot of chaos in the short term. I don't know if in the long term it's going to be worth it.
[:I mean, only again, we notice have the crystal ball, so only time can tell. But it goes down to I think I think what we're really seeing right now is we're seeing the toxic workplace culture being created because of the certainty that these tariffs are creating. Perfect example with the organization I talked about in a minute ago. It has nothing to do with the employees of the company. It's the respond.
Now there's there's the I got a I got a spicy take here to go with it. Okay. Customers are churning or giving notice because of the tariffs and saying cost have gone up and we can't afford the service. What's interesting is in in in out of all of the notices I've seen, we love working the team. The team has done the team has done phenomenal work, great to work with, done great services over the years.
Great. Great. Great. Great. Great.
Change in business direction. Can't afford it anymore. So what does that what does that what does that say to the people at the comp you know, the the company I work with that service that? They hear they get this great note. They get this great call out from the client saying everything's great, but we're canceling our contract.
Right. And then then you've got, you know, several of those hit in a short amount of time, and the culture has gone down. Here's the spicy thing. If your workplace culture tanks because of tariffs, it's time to stop blaming the tariffs and stop start blaming leadership. The reason I say that is in that moment, yes, there's a lot of uncertainty and it creates a lot of fear, and do I have a job?
It's gonna take strong leadership from every leader from top to bottom of the organization to ensure that there is a plan, that there is a path forward, and that we are trying to overcome this adversity, you know, given the the slap in the face that we just received.
[:Yeah.
[:Versus if the organization blames the tariffs, oh, we lost these five accounts because these, because of tariffs, and therefore, we're gonna fire everybody because of tariffs. And it is what it is and, you know, whatever.
[:No. I don't know how I feel about that spicy cake. I think I'm gonna I'm gonna agree and disagree. We are absolutely in a in an inflection point, and we have been for for years. I think the tariffs are just accelerating it.
So if I think about your client as an example, they've got a lot of clients who are canceling contracts, service contracts, because they're citing the tariffs as, you know, kind of the strategic change in direction. Could the leadership team have foreseen this? Maybe. Didn't have a whole lot of heads up, but, you know, they they could have seen it coming because Trump was talking about this, you know, six months ago on his campaign trail. Right?
So there's probably some level of scenario planning that the leadership team should have done that says, okay. Scenario a, Trump wins the election. Scenario a dot b, Trump follows through on everything that he's saying, and we see a hundred plus percent tariffs on Chinese goods. What does that do to our business? Right?
So leadership could and should have done that.
[:So But what you're what you're assuming is they listened to the episode we dropped in November to say exactly that. Because remember, we did an episode that said, what do you do in the uncertainty of the president, and we called that out exactly. So you're basically saying, fast forward, what is that, six months later, If you did listen to the advice, then what do you do now?
[:What would you recommend to senior leaders who feel this sense of uncertainty of, like, gosh, life's either gonna take a hard left or a hard right. I'm not sure which it's gonna be. How do I lead my people over the next eight to ten weeks given this massive decision that's coming that I don't control and I can't predict.
[:Alright. You know, let's just let's just go simple here. Right? Okay. Think.
And let's use it. We'll use the simplify wheel in this equation. At the end of the day, you know you've got a vision you're trying to head on. Right? But the problem is Or or
[:hopefully, you do. No. No. I I think at the end of
[:the day, you've got a vision you're going on. You just don't know what journey to take because of the uncertainty.
[:Right? Yeah. That's good. Okay.
[:It's we need the capital expenditure. We're gonna sell the business. We're gonna invest. We're going to do something. We just don't build the path to get there.
So I think as a senior leader, if you're in this situation where you're you're paused because you're trying to get through, you know, November, I I think you need to outline the vision of what you wanted what the company wants to do. And then I think you think through just enough of the journey to say, look. If if we if this happens, this is the path we think we're gonna take. If this happens, we think this is gonna be a path we have to take. And not you don't have to get it all the way down, you know, from a hundred thousand feet to two feet.
You just have a have to have enough of it to explain this direction is what it could look like. This direction is what it could look like. And then the culture kinda component of that is is to make sure you get everybody to understand of these are the reasons why we're waiting till after November to know which path because each one has these variations in it that we're gonna have to navigate. And then the end result of that is when when we know the outcome of the election, it'll tell us, are we looking a or b? And after that, we will proceed accordingly.
I think I think not communicating that degree, I think there's a level of fear of of politics. Like, we don't Right. Go, well, if the left wins, we're gonna do this, or if the right wins, we're gonna
[:do
[:this, or this side loses, or that side. So I think you gotta take the the the the political, you know, stance side out of it and just point facts. Right. If the tax bracket goes up, we're gonna have to look this way. If the tax bracket goes down, this is what it unlocks for us.
It's just a little harder. This is a little easier. We will have a better understanding which way it's gonna go in November. I I don't like, there's there's a level of there's just fact in what's going to happen. The tax, laws are going to expire, and new tax laws are going to come in.
What are they? We don't know. But we can say that if they're favorable, here's how we'll spend more. If they're less you know, if they're unsaved, this is how we'll stay the course. And if they're less favorable, here's how we'll have to trim some some components out.
And I think if you can communicate that as a leader to the entire organization, it'll go a long way with with, what I would say grace in the organization because you're providing clarity. You're providing, oh, there's a reason why they're delaying things. There's a reason why we're we're pausing. There's a reason for this. People are reasonable, but they have to understand why.
Right.
[:It's not it's not that my boss is just a jerk.
[:Yeah.
[:I mean, I Yeah. I'm
[:you don't you don't need to go in there like, hey. You know, the tax rate is gonna potentially go from, you know, 20 to 40%, and that means I'm gonna have to eat, you know, $2,000,000 in cash every year in my pocket. Like, okay. You don't need to share that. Right.
Right. But it people people can do deductive reasoning. Hey. The tax rate could go from from 20 to 30%. That's gonna have an impact on our bottom line.
Sure.
[:Yeah. I, I would absolutely agree with you. I would say for a lot of Americans, I even think about myself early in my career. Like I would hear politics and I would hear stuff on the radio or on TV. And then I would think about my job, but I, I didn't really know how to connect those dots.
And so I think one thing that senior leaders can do is kind of help their people connect those dots and say, look, if this happens, then here's what that consequence or what the impact is going to be to our business. Not saying I'm voting for or against that person. Just saying, this is what is likely going to happen. If, if the country heads in that direction. And if we go in this direction, there's pros and cons with that, but here's, here's what those would look like.
Cause I don't know if the average American understands what the connection is between what happens in November and what happens in their work. Ladies and gentlemen, this is why you should listen every week to the make work, not suck podcast. Just drop a knowledge, bring your own bucket. But even if they had done all that, there's still gonna be an impact. Right?
Like you can't ramp up your domestic sales and marketing efforts fast enough to account for the drop in revenue. So I will I will agree with you that leadership is on the hook to see kind of around the corner and to have various plans that they can enact depending on what they see in the market.
[:Here's where I'm gonna But here's here's where I'm gonna challenge you. Here's where I'm gonna challenge you. So the the spicy take is if we're if if your workplace culture tanks because of tariffs, it's time to stop blaming the tariffs and start blaming leadership. Oh, I I yeah. Culture.
If the culture tanks because of tariffs Right. Because you didn't plan ahead because you didn't do everything you just said. You didn't plan ahead. You didn't rally the troops. You weren't transparent.
I mean, go listen to, like, our past, you know, five podcasts where we talked about, you know, transparency in the organization and how to Right. Not with fear and be the domineering boss episode. Again, another reason why you should listen every week. We're talking about domineering boss episode. If you're a domineering boss, you ignored the signs.
You didn't take the advice to do, you know, what we talked about in November. And now these tariffs are here and the uncertainty is catching up. The red line of your leadership is catching up. It is time to blame leadership.
[:How to deal with a difficult and domineering boss. Brian, where
[:would you start? Alright. Step number one. Stay professional, not emotional. I've got some, deep insights on this one from the last twenty four hours, but it's keep your emotion in check.
I know that sounds easier said than done. Your boss's intensity does not define your capability. Stay calm, stay collected. Now that's easier said than done, especially when you're triggered. Why is this so important?
Oh, I would say lots
[:of reasons. I think one of them is that most of us do not make good decisions when we're emotional. There's a lot of psychology behind that and how your, cerebral cortex shuts down when you're in fight or flight mode. It's your animal brain or your lizard brain as some people say that that it's driving the bus and you do not make strategic decisions when you're in that kind of a mode. You, are very reactive and volatile, and good things usually do not happen.
So I would say that's probably the first and most obvious reason to keep your emotions in check.
[:So Stephen Covey says the point between, stimulus and response lies your freedom. That is your freedom as a human being because you are in control of your own response. And the problem is is when you allow somebody else to control that, when you when that stimulus happens and you respond with that emotional attack, that is someone you're giving your freedom to somebody else because you're responding to it. So that gap between stimulus and response is your freedom. And so in a professional environment, if your boss does something that triggers you emotionally and you respond back I mean, I'm sure there's tons of people that listen to this and say, yep.
I went off on my boss. I was fired the next day. I knew it as I was walking out the door. Take a step back. Take a break.
Don't let it trigger you. You know, walk out of the room, grab a you know, walk into the the stairwell or if you're home and, you know, make sure you're off Zoom and outside and scream. Sure. Let the emotion out. I think one thing that also falls apart in this one is when people take this to, like, their coworkers or their parallel bosses
[:Mhmm.
[:And they unload the emotional response, and it creates drama. It creates, that emotional baggage. It creates talk toxic culture. So I wanna actually hang on that one for a second because I think there's a difference between venting proactively and venting destructively. Okay.
Say more. In the instance when a boss triggers you, and I and I say this I open with this with the last twenty four hours. Literally, I've been triggered by an organization I've worked with. There's a difference between allowing that emotion to trigger you and just instantly respond back. Because my inclination, you know, I want to, you know, send a nasty email.
I wanna fire them. I wanna or do all those things, but I know that's not the right thing and that doesn't create a win win environment. Instead, I had the opportunity to meet with another individual in the organization and said, look. This is my problem. I'm gonna tell you my frustration, but I want you to help me come up with a solution because I'm not articulating something correctly.
And so, I mean, obviously, keeping myself in check, I let some of my frustrations out, but I never was, you know, belittling or, you know, negative or just flat out bitching. And the whole context behind it was, can you help me find some gaps in my frustration that'll help me turn this into a more positive interaction and help me convey what's really frustrating with with me? So I think I think that that advice might be further down, point number four when we get to it. But I think it's the difference between when that trigger happens and how you respond to it is what'll make or break when you get down to point number four.
[:Yeah. Yeah.
[:In in the example I'm giving, the company that I'm talking about, there is a there is a a problem with the culture because but it stems from poor leadership decisions that were made a year ago that were not acknowledged, and even worse business decisions that were made in q one this year that finally got the the the owners to see the problem. And now we're paying the sins of the past today. You're
[:paying for it.
[:And we're trying to fix it in an uncertain economic situation. Like, you just fucked yourself over five times sideways. It's time to blame leadership.
[:Right. Yeah. I I I like that call out because if your revenue tanks because of tariffs, I don't wanna blame the leadership. Right? But if your culture tanks because of tariffs, and I think that that was your spicy take that I think I missed the detail of.
If your revenue tanks because of tariffs, that happens. Leadership team needs to be prepared for that, have a plan for that, and begin and execute that plan as quickly as possible. But if your culture tanks because they're caught off guard, they don't understand the shift in strategy, they they feel surprised. Yeah. That's a leadership problem.
[:That is. That I mean, yes. And I think I think what you're gonna see here is I think the I I think they're amazing organizations. I see them, you know, we're we're talking about all the negative side of it, and we should probably get some positive side. There are some organizations that are being phenomenal at leading through this with their people, and they're rallying, they're working with their people, they're working with their customers, they're being proactive.
I mean, I even even saw a a a company where they would actually refund the customer or drop their fee to help them get through. And if they didn't see a lift on the other side, then the customer didn't have to pay. Like, they're putting their money where their mouth is to service their customers, to bring that level of certainty to their company, retention of the customer, and the customer itself. So I think I think there are if you're feeling in a toxic work environment or you can feel it getting worse or your job is sucking more than it was before we went into this this situation, I I think we gotta start giving some practical advice for those individuals that can take this advice and do something with with, take control of their own destiny Yeah. And then move forward.
So here here we go. Let's, here's the top top four things rattled off real quick, and then we get some more context. So number one, diversify skills and career portfolio. Number two, be proactive about industry shifts. Stay informed.
Number three, connect deeply with your network. Now is the time to build safety nets. Number four, speak out. Tell your elected officials your experience with tariffs. Talk to it with your boss.
Like, don't be quiet about this.
[:Yeah. I I love all of those. Wayne Gretzky was famous for saying, you know, scoring goals not is not hard. You just gotta skate to where the puck's gonna be. I think this is a really good time to think about where's the puck going in your industry.
What is the job market gonna look like for your skill set in the next five to ten years with AI and automation and globalization and all these other things that are happening? Like spend some time thinking about what does your job look like five to ten years from now? Read, ask people who studied this kind of stuff. You need to understand that, and then you need to start building the skills that are going to be important for your job or the job you want to have five to ten years from now. Cause a lot of these jobs are going to get disrupted.
They're going to be redefined. And they're going to require skills that you may not have today. So today is the day that you should start building those skills.
[:Agree. Let's, let's okay. So that's defining diversifying skills in in career portfolio. Right? Mhmm.
What about being proactive in industry shifts? What should people do to to be proactive and stay informed? What's a good good,
[:I mean, there's there's lots of market research information available on the web that talks about what's gonna happen over the next five to ten years in any industry. So, you know, that's pretty easy. What's going to happen in healthcare over the next ten. Put it into Google, read a couple of articles. Are they perfectly correct?
And a % accurate. No, of course not. But they're going to tell you directionally what the smartest people in that industry think is gonna happen. And if your industry is projected to, grow, great. Find out why.
If it's projected to shrink, find out why. Maybe then go spend some time researching what are the industries that are going to grow over the next five to ten years and what kind of people are they looking to hire? What kind of skills are they going to need? More and more people are going to expect you to be fluent in working with AI, right? Like that's going to become a bare bones table stake expectation of a role.
So I would say start playing around with chat GPT. Start playing around with Gemini or whatever it is that you've got access to. That's a skill thing, but any industry you go into is going to expect you to know that, I think it was Mark Cuban said that in the coming years, running a business without AI is going to be like running a business without electricity. Right? You need to understand how to plug things in.
AI is the same way. Build a basic understanding of what AI means for your business.
[:Alright. So staying back on the, the being proactive, stay informed.
[:Mhmm.
[:I hope this goes without saying, but, obviously, don't believe absolutely everything you read. Make sure you got trustworthy sources. Make sure if you've Yep. Chat like, great for doing research with chat GPT, but I think this is gonna this is gonna compound into the next bullet here. But don't just take everything you read with a grain of salt because at the end of the day, a lot of articles are designed to get clicks and advertising revenue, etcetera, etcetera.
Yep. Good point. So, you know, just again, it's great to stay informed. Just make sure you're you're, getting trustworthy sources. And I think this pairs into number three, which is deeply connect with your network.
It it's time to make sure you've got those one on one connections with people that you can, you can leverage each other, that can mentor you, that can, help open doors for and if you remember the episode we had a few weeks back, you know, we talked about authentically, connect with your network. Not just, hey, I wanna connect for my own personal growth, but again, mutual and authentically, connect out. But I think if you can connect with people in your industry, you know, get those those connections and those learnings, one, you'll stay informed and you can get insights. That's a great way to connect with people. It's like, hey.
I'm trying to understand more about, you know, if you're in the mortgage industry. Find other mortgage brokers or find owners of mortgage, agencies or Mhmm. You know, other industry resources. Connect with them because right now, the mortgage industry is kind of a shit show. You know, I mean, not to direct here, but, you know, imported goods are expensive and mortgage rates are expensive and not many people are buying houses like they used to be.
So that is a that is an industry that is needed and shrinking. Sure.
[:And the real estate yeah. Like, real estate brokers and real estate agents. They're under a lot of pricing pressure right now because of some recent legislation. So that, that whole industry, you know, from home building to real estate agents to mortgage brokers. That whole thing is going through a lot of disruption over the
[:next couple of years. Hey. Real estate agents are great networkers. Most of them are. Yep.
[:Great
[:networkers. If you're if you can if you're a real estate agent, I would start building your network with people that are in adjacent industries that you can leverage. If you are in the mortgage industry and you know, some real estate agents, which you probably do, they probably got some good contacts. Again, this is a good time to to deepen your network connections and network.
[:Wealth managers and accountants are two other people that are gonna know what industries are booming and what industries are dying. Yep. Other good people to ask, hey. Who's who's killing it right now and needs help? Because if your industry is not on the up and up over the next ten years, you might wanna jump to another industry that is.
Alright. Lastly, number four.
[:Number four. Speaking out. Speaking out. I I think it's just talk about it. I mean, I think there's one, if you're frustrated, you you know, kinda personally as an American citizen and you wanna speak to your elected officials, you should do that.
I think there's also a level of, you know, not speaking out as in, like, you know, revolting. But even your your management team, your leadership teams, like, people should be talking about this and be open about it and figuring out how, in your situation you can navigate it. I mean, whether it's with your family, whether it's with your coworkers, whether it's with your managers or leaders or your elected official, staying quiet about it doesn't get you moving forward. Talk about it. Yeah.
[:I think these are very strategic, important conversations that need to be had at the office and at home. Alright. Let's wrap it up. We would love to hear your stories. How have you been impacted by tariffs?
How have your job been impacted by tariffs? Comment, subscribe, share your experiences. We would love to hear. We'd love to interact with you and see, what's what you're seeing.
[:Thank you for listening to another episode of Make Work Not Suck. And, you know, we we harp about how work sucks. We harp about the things that are going on. And at the end of the day, we really hope that you just keep fighting to make work not suck, and we'll see you on the next episode.
[:Thanks for listening.
[:Make work not suck. Our podcast that talks about exactly that, our process, vision, journey, culture, and results. We present real world business solutions that make the difference. Our goal is to make work not suck, hosted by Ryan Hodges, cohost Daniel Steere. Join us each episode and make work not suck.
