Employee Survival Guide® - The Most Shocking Sexual Harassment Case Ever: Interview With Reporter Susan Antilla

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

In this episode of the Employee Survival Guide, Mark addresses one of the worst possible sexual harassment and sexual assault stories that has ever occurred in the workplace. Mark interviews veteran news reporter and author Susan Antilla, NYTimes and Insider, who broke the story.  It is just shocking what happened to Renee Zinsky and other women who worked for this employer.  The case is captioned as Renee Zinsky v. Michael Russin, Russin Financial, Russin Group, Simon Arias, III, Arias Agencies, S.A. Arias Holdings, LLC, American Income Life Insurance Compay, W.D. Pa. 2:22cv00547 (MJH) (filed 11/1/2022).The ramifications of the story are begining to impact this company and its reputation.The interview, article and the complaint just speak for themselves. It is just a remarkable and dramatic tale of insanity of a magnitude Mark has never seen before in his entire legal career, and he has seen a lot of crap go down with clients and their workplaces.Link to Blog article Mark wrote about this story and internal link to the Insider story written by Susan Antilla.  CLICK HERE. If you enjoyed this episode of the Employee Survival Guide please like us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We would really appreciate if you could leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player such as Apple Podcasts. Leaving a review will inform other listeners you found the content on this podcast is important in the area of employment law in the United States. For more information, please contact our employment attorneys at Carey & Associates, P.C. at 203-255-4150, www.capclaw.com.

Hey, it's Mark here, and welcome to the next edition of the Employee Survival Guide, where I tell you, as always, what your employer does definitely not want you to know about, and a lot more. Okay, welcome back, and it's Mark again, and today we have a guest with us. It's Susan Antillo, and she's an award-winning investigative journalist who has written about employment discrimination and investor protection issues for the New York Times, Bloomberg, The Nation, and other global news outlets. She's an author of the hashtag Me Too book about sexual harassment on Wall Street, Tales

from the Boom Boom Rim, the landmark legal battles that exposed Wall Street's shocking culture of sexual harassment. The Sunday Times of London called it an explosive new book that has scandalized Manhattan's financial district. Susan, welcome to the podcast. Hi, Mark. Thank you for having me. You recently wrote a story that captured my attention and still does. The story came out in the publication of Insider on February 28, 2023, and it was titled as The Inside Tawdry Drug-Fueled Violent World of America's Top Life Insurance Salesman Regarding Globe Life Insurance. life insurance salesman regarding Globe Life Insurance. And I wanted to talk to you a bit about your investigation, how the story arose and what you encountered as you went through the process. So maybe you can share with us how did the story come to you?

Sure. Well, you know, there was, I think it was last March that President Biden signed a bill, the ending, this is a long one, the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act. And this, this is basically a new law that allows even people who have signed mandatory arbitration agreements, if they're filing a lawsuit about sexual assault or sexual harassment in the workplace, they can remain in court even if they've signed an arbitration agreement. So because I write about this stuff on really a regular basis, at least every couple of days, I would just go on to PACER to look at federal court documents, and I would put in the search term of this law.

And lo and behold, in April of last year, I came across this Zinsky versus Russon and AIL case. Renee Zinsky is the woman who filed it. And I read the complaint, and I have to tell you, I've been writing about this stuff since the mid 1990s. And my jaw dropped. I had never heard anything like this. This was a woman who said that her boss would take her out in his car and, you know, force her to watch a masturbate and it gets worse from there. And I said, whoa, you know, what's going on here? So I called her lawyer and asked her to set up a time that I could speak to Renee Zinsky. And it sort of unfolded from there.

You know, Zinsky's story itself is harrowing. As I went along, I thought, well, let me gather names of male agents as I was doing the research. And when I do stories like this, right away, I put their names into a database so that I can see what their records look like. And I started, you know, these names started popping up with terroristic threats and felonious assaults and nice group of people. Yeah. And the agency founder was on a on a podcast where he was talking about the fact that he got caught with a bunch of drugs when he was a kid and they put him into juvenile detention. I read that. So, you know, I I'm looking at these people saying, how do you get a bunch of people

like this in a regulated industry? And so there were a lot of roads I went down as a result of that. But I discovered along the way that insurance regulation was kind of a joke. And it went on and on from there. You and I, when you first shared the story with me, we talked a bit about the fact that the folks in Simon Arias' office in Pennsylvania were all independent contractors. And you wrote in your article the fact that these individuals were above the law because they were independent contractors.

And I actually had to confront that and say that, in fact, there are cases that demonstrate that the independent contractors can be held liable. It's called an economic realities test where, in essence, is the employer really is controlling the duration of time and every aspect of the person's work. And they really can't work for any other party but them. And that's really kind of a side point. And I'm sure it's being hashed out in the arbitration or the federal court proceeding. But the fascinating part of the story was the level of just degradation of people's rights. just degradation of just people's rights. You just mentioned it, you know,

getting in the car for the one-on-ones that Renee had to get was, she just, her whole work environment was just, you know, Mr., I think it was the actor here is Mr. Rusin. That's how his name is pronounced. He just had just no filter. He just did and said what he wanted, and it was just at his pleasure, so to speak. It was just so alarming, the things that were coming out of his mouth, and obviously through your reporting of the article. just every single reference possible to a woman that could be negative, pejorative was used, you know,

sluts and bitches and whores and sexual comments that were made. It's just remarkable that the company never took any action to, to protect the employees there. Well, Mark, you, I know that, you know, in your work, that when you're a rainmaker, you can get away with a lot. Even putting aside the fact that they were 1099 contract workers, even when somebody is a full-time employee, I wrote so much about sexual harassment in the brokerage industry. And if a guy was a rainmaker like it was really hard to battle that person the company would put up as much legal defense as they needed to hire as many firms as they needed

to um threaten to ruin the woman's um reputation and to let other firms know that they shouldn't hire her so um and this guy russin was a rainmaker, you know, he was very successful. He wrote a lot of business and, you know, it really was not in Arius agency's interest, nor in the interest of American income life, which was supplying them with the products that they sold. You know, they loved this guy. He was making lots of money. they sold, you know, they loved this guy. Right. Right. He's making lots of money. Yeah. It I highlighted certain parts of your article. I apologize. But in reference to Mr. Arias, there was, I guess, a convention of the Globe folks in 2020. And CEO Larry Hutchinson was quoted as saying about Arias, you've been an inspiration to me and everybody in the home office.

I thought that was just, well, funny, but also just, wait a minute, that's just insane. Yeah. And Mark, look, they loved Simon Arias. He was the, AIL has a lot of agencies. Simon Arias' agency is one of them, but it is the second biggest producer for American Income Life. And the biggest producer is an agency that has, I think, almost all of California and part of Canada. So, you know, by comparison, you know, of course they would have more. But so Simon Arias is a very important contributor to the bottom line. And, you know, they have given him Globe Life, the parent company, several times.

They've given Simon Arias their Legacy Award, which is the highest honor that they give. Right. So, you know, and, you know, the question arises. So, okay, did these parent companies know what was going on? Of course they did. Yeah. I mean, how do you?

I highlighted, there was a, you pulled some commentary from the company. It was very, let's see here. It's a global executive vice president. AIL takes seriously any allegation brought to its attention concerning sexual harassment, inappropriate conduct or unethical business practices and makes clear that it does not tolerate such behavior. Agents or others are subject to contract termination if they engage in the conduct. I found that just, you know, I'm used to hearing those statements from my end. It's a level of denial that's common. But in the face of what was happening and the complaints that remain internally, they just propagated this behavior because of the money.

Right. They didn't care. And I mean, certainly, I mean, you could guess this, but I'll just say it that when I am doing a story like this, I send very detailed questions to the defendants. You know, I want to give them every opportunity to comment. If I have something wrong, I want them to say, are you crazy? That didn't happen.

And explain why. You know, I want to hear that, you know. And instead, I got the, you know, the statement, the boilerplate statement that you just read. plate statement that you just read. So, yeah, I mean, let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they knew nothing about it until I called it to their attention. But they didn't take the opportunity to say that any of it was wrong. So, you know, and by the way, after I wrote the story, and I spoke to many people, obviously, before the is, you know, this is like hard to hear, but basically this woman told me that her boss would take her out in his car and pull over and shove her, take the back of her head and shove it into his crotch.

And that's what Renee Zinsky said happened to her. In this case, the woman said, you know, that they were out on client calls. You know, they have to they spend a lot of time in their cars, these agents, because they have to go visit people at their homes. But they're still in the scope of their employment. They're still. Oh, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. They are. But that's the reason that a woman can end up in a car alone with some of these guys, because they are on business.

with some of these guys because they are on business. And this particular guy was just, he would just pull over in the middle of a trip and say, I'm not going to take you home unless you service me. It's Mark and we have a new product for you. It's called the Employee Survival Guide or employeesurvival.com. And it's a site that you

can obtain PDF products that I've created myself. I was spending too many hours, way too many, researching and writing about, for example, the performance improvement plan or beating them. And the second one about negotiating severance negotiation agreements, two of the most important topics that we see in terms of the web traffic and podcast traffic we have. So check out employeesurvival.com and see if this can try to help you and you don't need an attorney to use it. Thank you. Which is what we call quid pro quo sexual harassment in legal parlance. Similar to this, it's also reported in your story that there's a use of a device, the practice that I call it, called forced arbitration. They make all employees sign, including Renee. And it got Renee into a tangle in federal court and pushed part of her case out to arbitration and part of it was remaining. But the aspect of forced arbitration here, it was used as, and I want everybody to

understand this, that it's used as a cover to protect in the confidentiality of, in this case, extremely seriously bad acts of management and coworkers across the scale from sex to drugs to whatever else they were doing there. But the so forced arbitration is a device that management attorneys, defense attorneys claim helps facilitate in a very cheap and expensive way. The resolution of legal disputes, which is a bunch of malarkey because there's a federal statute called the American Arbitration Act, and it's been around for a long, long time. But as we now know, and recently President Biden just passed a law to, as you recorded earlier, is that he banned the forced arbitration and sexual harassment and assault cases. be a band, the forced arbitration and sexual harassment and assault cases. So part of this case, um, I'm, I'm, but I actually went to the docket like you did. And I actually went into,

um, the docket in Pittsburgh, um, and realized that, um, the attorney did exactly what I would normally do in these cases. I always find in arbitration provisions in these cases. And I tried to, um, push a federal lawsuit into lawsuit into court and basically get compelled out from there. But why do I do that? Because I want people to know what happened. That's exactly what Renee's attorney did. Yes, that's so smart. I mean, I don't know why more attorneys don't do that because you can't stop somebody.

Even if the lawyer says, oh, I made a mistake. I mean, you can't stop somebody from filing something. And yes, it's interesting. Because of that, when I look at arbitration results against stockbrokers, it's different in the brokerage industry. So the brokerage industry self-regulatory organization runs an arbitration program, and they actually do give you the results of those arbitrations, but they don't give you much detail. And very often, or often enough that it's interesting, I'll find that I get those results against stockbrokers with the limited explanation.

And then I go onto the federal website, pacer.gov. And lo and behold, I find out that they did try to sue and they got forced into arbitration. So yes, reporters do that for exactly the reason, you know, you're doing something very effective because it does get it in the public record. Yeah. And it's just a required aspect of what I do. And I'm glad you look and spread the word through your medium because that's how people learn. Otherwise, they're not going to know about this. Right. You know, back to the, you know, I just want to I don't want to gloss over what Renee and her coworkers experienced there.

I mean, one of the allegations that was raised was Russon was sending Snapchat messages to her. And one of them, it was a picture of him naked. And did you talk to Renee about that? And the other one that she received as well? I, I did. And I met Renee. I went down to Pittsburgh to meet her and to visit the areas agency and um talk to other people who had worked there um and now i've totally lost my train of thought i'm sorry mark where did we start here uh russian had sent uh snapchat but she wasn't working she

hadn't been working there that long and she was home one day on the weekend. And she saw that she got a Snapchat message from him. And she called it up on her phone. And it was a picture of him naked. We ran the picture with him covered up. And she was sort of in shock, as she described it to me. And it's kind of interesting what happened after that. She took a screenshot of it. And because it was apparently I'm not on Snapchat, so I don't know. But apparently these messages don't last very long. Right. That's my kid say. Yeah. So so she took a screenshot of it. And

apparently there is a way for the person who sends you something to know that you took a screenshot. And, and he called her and laced into her, why did you do that? And get rid of that. And the next day when she came into work, Renee told me that he took her phone and screamed at her and he went through to make sure that that didn't exist anymore. But she had, but she, she had made another copy of it somehow, I don't know how. So that's why she still had it. But, you know, he was, the reason I tell you this story is that he was, he was very aware of not leaving, you know, these footprints, you know, he, he was aware of not leaving evidence, although I'm saying that. And yet I know a lot of other ways that he did leave evidence. But he knew that that one would be

really bad for somebody else to see. And so he got really angry about it. Let me comment on that, because when I read the story, I did some investigation earlier that he had gone on a podcast and just lamented her and just led, he just basically laid it all out there. Like some attorney would have told him to shut up, but he just refused to do it. And he was just like an idiot. I mean, it's, it's really, I don't even, I don't even have an analysis of that. It's kind of so weird,

actually to when you've been sued as he has been for the things that he's been sued for. Right. The fact that he did that, that he would, I can't remember exactly what he said. He said that, oh, he did say something to the effect in one podcast of why would she go out in my car with me eight times? Because she had told me that he had done this to her at least eight times. Right. Remember that. And, you know, well, the answer is that her job depended on him liking her.

Right. And, you know, there certainly are a lot of women in the workplace who put up with an amazing number of crazy things and really hurtful and harmful things. And they do it because they don't want to lose their jobs. And she was making $20,000 before and is probably making a good deal of money now working for Globe. Right, right. Yeah, her last job, she was a delivery person for a pizza parlor. Right.

Yes, you're right. She made $20,000 a year. a delivery person for a pizza parlor. Right. Yes, you're right. She made 20,000 a year. And then at her job at Arias Agencies, she made 109, I think it was.

I can't remember exactly how much, but she was making substantially more money. She was a very good salesperson. Right. Did she, and I'm sure I read this, but I'm sure she complained about the behavior she was experiencing, the sexual harassment she was experiencing, and the company didn't do anything about it. Well, no, not.

She talked to people about it. She talked to some people who sat near her in the agency who could see something was going on. Right. But Renee, she didn't want to lose her job. And Russen made it very clear, apparently during meetings, Renee told me that he would regularly say, you know, go ahead and try to sue me. You know, you'll, you'll never have the money I have, you'll never, you know, don't even bother. Right. And you'll end up regretting it. So He was trying to instill intimidation and instill fear into her. And it was a little, she described it as cult-like at the place that, you know, you had to be totally loyal to Mike, that you never questioned anything

about what was going on. And if you did anything that even a little tiny slight, you never criticized anything. If you did anything that was critical or questionable, you were seen as disloyal. And she said that, you know, you'd have your leads taken. You need your leads as a salesperson, right? And they would get a certain number of leads. And she said one time she complained about something and she went back into the system and a whole bunch of leads. And she said one time she complained about something and she went back into the system and a whole bunch of leads that were in her queue were all gone. Yeah, I read that. I want to kind of talk about a very serious issue that came up as well. Zinsky said, I guess, through the federal complaint that you reported on, that the company had used a date rate drug on her.

Do you remember this incident? There were actually a couple. Yeah. In one case, there was, I guess, I guess Bresson had taken some of the people out. They did a lot of drinking at this place. Yeah. Drinking in the afternoon. That's an understatement. And so Russon took some of his reports to a local bar. And

as Renee tells the story, she basically blacked out and like, she doesn't even know what happened. She found a way to get herself back from the bar to the office. And one of her colleagues found her passed out on the bathroom floor. You know, she'd been there for hours and hours. you know, she'd been there for hours and hours. There was another instance where, and she, she told me in one of these cases, she got a text or a phone call or something from him saying, hey, you know, wasn't that fun? Or something like that. Like, in one case, he said, yeah, you know, I put some GHB into your drink, which is the date rape drug. In another instance, she was, they were having one

of these weekend team building things at a hotel in Cranberry, Pennsylvania. And again, they were at the bar and she went back up to somebody's room because somebody had borrowed her hairspray. So she went back to get it. And the next thing she knows, she's waking up on a bed with three people having sex next to her. Couldn't feel her legs. Didn't know what was going on. So yeah. And she said that these drugs were openly used. So I mean, I'm saying this to you. It's so funny. I wrote this story. And even as I'm saying this to you, I'm saying this to you. It's so funny. You know, I wrote this story. And even as I'm saying this to you, I'm saying this is just so incredible. It is incredible. That's why I wanted to make sure that we didn't pass by discussing the date rate drug aspect of this.

And then she still continued to work while this was taking place. I mean, that's a level of fear and intimidation I have never seen in any case. And it just was shocking. I'll note that when I looked at the docket and the way the case bifurcated out because of arbitration, the sexual assault claims remained in federal court. And that's what's pending. Those are serious. I mean, forget the issues of employment discrimination. It's a sexual assault aspect in federal court. I mean, these guys, I mean, it's a civil prosecution. It's alarming that the criminal prosecution hasn't taken place. Maybe they're waiting. I don't know. But it's just jaw dropping. I'm sorry. also try to end the podcast with you and I just discussing, you know, you have your experience reporting on Wall Street and writing a book about things you've seen. And I have my experience of this litigating cases for a long time. Maybe we can just, you know, share just, you know, it doesn't have to be, I mean, Renee didn't have to go through what she went through. There are laws and ways to protect individuals. You know, the easiest thing of self-help is to just basically quit. But that's not always a choice for people. But what are your thoughts of after just doing the story?

And, you know, right now in June of 2023, in the state of affairs for employees, how do you feel about, you know, how people should react to this story, advocate for themselves? I mean, what's your thoughts? Well, you know, you had said to me when we talked a few weeks ago, people have to know their rights and that's absolutely, they do need to understand their rights. And I do think more people do. In the case of this particular company, they recruit kids out of high school. They don't know anything, you know, and I don't mean that as a derogatory statement. They're just young. They've never worked before or they've worked in a pizza parlor, you know, so they just don't know. And they're being indoctrinated. So they think that this is a normal workplace, believe it or not.

You use the word cult before, too. Yes. I thought it was very cult-like. And when I interview people, it's one of the first things they say, I don't prompt them. It was very cult-like. And so, I mean, knowing your rights is a big deal. I'm amazed that a huge problem here is people don't read documents. And, you know, it's I just beg people when you are getting a job, read the stuff that they want you to sign. And because they almost we all know almost all companies have mandatory arbitration. But if you're going to be able to do something about the clauses in your contract, the only shot you've got is when they're hiring you, when you're still having a love affair, when they're dying to get you, right? If you can't negotiate that stuff at that moment, forget it because you're never going to get that chance again. Now, I'm not saying that

companies will necessarily cave in, but I think that if you get a really abrupt no to everything that tells you about the company too, right? So I just, you know, I just can't believe that people don't read that stuff. And I really like, you've got to read that stuff. Renee made that mistake twice, by the way, because she had a mandatory arbitration agreement when she got there. But then interestingly, when she finally in 2021, I think it was, went and complained to the agency owner about this guy. And she showed him the Snapchat messages, you know, and she showed him stuff. He said, okay, so I'll take you out from under him and you can report to me. And she said, okay. And he said, but meanwhile, here, you've got to sign

a new employment agreement. And lo and behold, the new employment agreement, of course, has a mandatory arbitration clause. That's what the company used to say that she couldn't use the new law because it was a post-employment clause. I remember reading that too. So, yeah. That was in the legal argument, I believe, in the court. Yeah. And two other things that I would say, employees need to understand that human resources is not on their side. Human resources works for management.

They don't work for you. They're protecting management. resources works for management. They don't work for you. They're protecting management. And if you're at the point where something really bad is happening and you're engaged with HR, you know, I mean, Mark, God bless you. I hope you make all the money in the world. But I tell people, you've got to have a lawyer. You just, you cannot stand up against these people. They have all the resources. If you go in there basically legally naked, I think that you're not going to have a good thing happen. The other little thing I'd like to just mention is when you're in any workplace, even without these problems,

when a supervisor says, okay, we're going to do X, Y, Z with regard to your career, like send an affirming email to that person saying, you know, Joe, it's great to talk to you. I'm so excited that you're going to offer me X, Y, and Z. And, you know, please let me know if there's anything else I should know about the job, because then you've, you know, if Joe doesn't get back to you and say, I didn't say that to you, then you've kind of affirmed that that conversation has gone on. I think those are important things for people to know at work. So you're saying the lawyer's trick of documenting everything via email, which I do regularly. I even do it to other lawyers as well. It works very effectively, especially

lawyers who behave in an uncivil manner. I had one recently apologize to me because I called them out on it. Let me remark about the aspect of people not reading documents. Oftentimes people, employees don't have a familiarity with these documents and also economic circumstances dictate that they have to sign whatever. And I label these contracts as what's called a contract of adhesion or a take it or leave it deal. And companies literally tell people, take it or leave it. Doesn't make it right. It doesn't make it legal and there are ways to challenge it. Yes,

you should negotiate it. Every contract you get and you really have to understand your leverage, but we're not there yet in terms of our development of the relationship between employees and employers yet. And I mean, because I'm optimistic, employers still hold a heavy hand against employees and dictate terms all the time, non-competes alike. We are starting to see changes in that in the form of the Federal Trade Commission proposing a rule against non-competes for everybody. That rule has not come into effect yet. We have this slice of the arbitration policy being limited in cases of sexual harassment, as you described. So we really

are at a really remarkable stage in American history of working. And I want people to understand that. Something's really afoot here. Something's happening. And I want people to understand that. Something's really afoot here. Something's happening. And I want people to understand. And I do talk about it extensively in the podcasts or the blog articles I'm writing because I'm seeing it. And I have this weird philosophy. I don't care what I do in courts. I care what I do publicly because I'm going to get that message out further through this messaging medium or otherwise. Court cases are slow. And people don't have to understand, federal court, one third of their docket is employment cases and judges don't like employment cases. One year I went to a judge's luncheon and the chief clerk said only five cases had gone to trial that year and

two won, three lost, something like that. Hundreds of cases. So there are different ways to deal with the employer. And I've gotten really creative in this. And I want to say that people, you don't, yes, I appreciate having people call an employment lawyer to help them. That's true. And use them as a resource to whatever fits your goal. But I've actually encountered a recent circumstance where a client, former client of mine, it for the next employment he had. And he was able to broker his own severance of 10x of what they offered him using the affidavit that I used. If you had gone into Zinsky's case at the EOC level, there's probably an EOC affidavit. At the court case level, it's the judge or the lawyer writing the fact pattern.

it's the judge or the lawyer writing the fact pattern. But I really can express that people should draft an affidavit with facts, not conclusions, but say exactly what happened. Like if you had to read Renee's story, you would read all the quotes, all the soundbites reported in your article in its chronological order. These things are powerful devices. I have used them, no joke, I'm not misrepresenting things, to deal with Fortune 100, 500 companies, billionaires. They all have the same impact when you use them, if your facts are there. And it's, yes, the truth will set you free to a severance situation if you have the guts to do it and use an attorney to some extent that suits your goals, but by no means ever litigate because I don't want people engaging in litigation if there's a different result that is similar results, but not using litigation.

So I really try to get that out there. I know it's fear-based in terms of employer, you know, ogre, and they have more money than I do. But in reality, I don't know if you have an opinion about this. I see the employers are actually fearful of employees. I mean, the whole DEI fiasco is just exactly a representation of that. They don't know what to do. And they just shoot it in the sky and hope it works. But now they're clawing it all back. I've had several cases of DEI executives who themselves are targeted because now the companies are, they're done with the movement. They're done with all this. And it's just a marketing scheme. So we're really at a, you know, when I see the train parking lot, not full, I know what's

happening in New York city. The people are not going. And it's just only one slice of America. But the current poll of, I think, Gallup or somebody keeps track of it. I mean, we're still not going back to work. People are standing their ground and saying, I don't like this. And I always think of the old commercial of Mr. Jones and the sexual harassment commercial when I was younger. Some executive would say to Ms. Jones, harassment commercial when I was younger, some executive would say to Ms. Jones, why don't you do this for me and that for me, like the fellow Mr. Russin. She would say, no, Mr. Jones, that's sexual harassment. I mean, we are really at the advent of something huge and people need to understand that they can say something and make change. So what are your feelings about that?

Do you think you're there yet? Well, I think that you're right, that a lot of positive things are happening. The whole Me Too movement, there just is more awareness of what's going on and that you don't have to put up with certain things. I totally think you're right. We also are living at a time though, where employers still can't get all the people that they want to hire. Employees still are holding the cards. And I think that ultimately a lot of these things end up being economic. Right now, for the first time, I can't remember how long, employees know, employees are holding the cards. But, you know, that's not going to be forever. Nothing's forever, right? And so to the extent that this is happening now, I think it's great to take it and run with it and to get as many

improvements in employee rights and improvements in employee knowledge as we can get. But I would say that I wouldn't, like, enjoy it while we've got it. But if the tables turn economically, I'm not sure how much of that will remain. I, you know, I, part of me agrees with you. And part of me wants to be a pessimist or I'm saying in case an awesome optimist about, I think what's really happening is that the employees are going to get a leg up on the process and employers are not going to be able to dictate in their so-called, one University of Michigan professor coined it as a private government. And I found that just, it's accurate because there are no rules to govern these employers over employees.

There are statutes, of course, but nothing internally. And they do whatever they want to. I think part of my intuition says that we're really shifting to a point that people are, let me put it this way, employers are more respectful to employees because, you know what, they need to create that trust level with them. Because right now there's such a level of distrust. That's what quiet quitting and loud quitting means. There's such, we read these stories about employee engagement. It's so low. It's just ridiculous.

Well, now I think the number crunchers and the MBA people are thinking, well, we need to really entice them. We can't do it with bonuses and money because they don't care. Especially the younger population doesn't care. They care about, you know, is it a purposeful job? And is it a meaningful life? And we're going to see change. It's like, it's beautiful to watch. Yes, you're definitely right about that.

I mean, I can't think of any time ever when anybody cared whether, you know, whether I was like comfortable and happy at my job. It's just work. We're going to pay you. You know, that was it. Right. I agree. So that's what leads me.

I mean, I read extensively every day. I'm sure you do as well. What you do, it's just, I want to stay on top and I want to see, but I am optimistic that things are changing and it really kind of motivates me to keep doing what we're doing today on the podcast episode and writing about just, you can't help if you're, of a, I love history, political science. And so I,

I just being in the moment of something, I mean, much as 9-11, we were all in that moment, we're in the moment of the pandemic, but we're in the moment of something and people need to realize what's happening. So that's what, you know, when I saw your story and I just, it just moved me in terms of just how egregious it was. And then I just wanted to, I wanted to put it out there in a way that here is the worst case scenario you could ever face. And that's what Renee went through and God bless her. I hope she wins a lot of money for them, for herself, I'm sorry, in her family, but just a remarkable story. Susan, I want to appreciate you coming on the show with and talking about your story, and hopefully we have more of these episodes with you.

It's been a pleasure, as always, to talk to you. Oh, my pleasure, too. It was great. It was great. Thanks, Mark. All right. All right. Thank you very much.

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