Scimar's Chief Development Officer John West has lots to say about the cards he's dealt in this week's quiz!

BWB is powered by Oury Clark

businesswithoutbullshit.me

Hello, and welcome to this week's Business or Bullshit quiz, with Symar's Chief Development Officer, Mr.

John West, in the hot seat.

John, okay, so this is our favorite bit of the show.

It's our game, which is called Business or Bullshit.

DQ the music.

What we do is we'll reel off a list of terms, and you need to tell us whether you think they're business or bullshit.

Very simple.

Okay.

One or the other.

Did you get the rules?

One or the other.

Universal basic income.

This one is business or bullshit business.

Yeah Well one universal income was actually tested in a few locations back in the 70s One of those locations was Dauphin Manitoba where our

head office is and our CEO lives but I think that as we as we progress and become a more productive society We need to have some support.

So I don't think, you know, it's not a lavish lifestyle for universal income, but certainly as you give more consumers more money, that's going to allow them, you know, to participate in the economy.

So there's definitely a business side to universal basic income.

Uh, wheelhouses.

It's bullshit.

If it's the term wheelhouse, then I think it's bullshit.

Obviously people have specializations, but, uh, the term is bullshit.

In office fitness classes.

In office is bullshit.

Fitness class is absolutely business.

And a company that supports, we pay for anyone who wants to, you know, we pay for everyone's fitness activities, personal trainers or yoga or whatever it is.

But I, I, uh, I shudder to think about looking at, you know, my past bosses in a...

In lycra.

Yeah.

Uh, speaking of which, work clothes.

Bullshit.

I mean, you know, especially, you know, you have to be presentable, but on the west coast, it's jeans and a, you know, and a collared shirt is fine, but

coming in a three piece suit and being all in our fancy clothes and across the table from you in your fancy clothes, it just seems like bullshit to me.

Don't disagree.

Ballpark figures.

Bullshit.

I mean, you know the number or you don't know the number and pretending to know the number by just saying that I have a figure that has, is accurate with absolute zero precision seems to be bullshit.

You know, some things you just can't, you just can't estimate.

You have to figure out how much it costs after you're done doing it.

And we just need to be more mature about that.

Factor reality.

Flexible working.

Business.

Business.

Absolutely.

Office nap pods.

That's my personal favorite.

Bullshit.

Bullshit.

That's so funny.

I've seen that.

I mean, you know you've gone too far.

You're way too far west coast if you've got napping pods.

Sleep is very important.

Sleep is important.

But do it at your own house.

Business plans.

Bullshit, I guess.

You know, the number of business plans I've written for this company over and over and over, change it, change it, change it back, change it to this or whatever.

Boy, that's a hard one.

I wish I could say this shit on that one.

Right?

I mean, if it's a bullshit plan, it's bullshit.

Right?

If it's a business plan that actually is actually is rooted in something and is going to be useful to you, not just useful To somebody else that, you know, is going to put money into your company, but

it's something you can actually follow yourself and you, and you've lost your way or you, you can't remember what we're doing, let's go back and reorient ourselves on our North Star in our business plan.

I think it's bullshit.

I think the amount of time we spend on it is bullshit.

A good business plan is obviously business, but the amount of time you spend on it and the importance we give to it is probably bullshit.

Okay, a final one from each of us.

Um, Mandatory office birthday cakes.

What do you actually do in Canada?

We're collecting what people do in different countries.

Cause over here, if it's your birthday, you have to buy the a cake.

Yeah.

Yeah?

What happens in Canada?

That sucks.

That's bullshit.

Um, no, in Canada, they, the, the, the company buys the cake.

Oh, nice.

That's lovely.

It's kind of like a surprise.

Oh, surprise!

But like, it's not really

a surprise.

uh, what's up?

Well, okay, so then the other thing that happens is, the size of your office, then what you end up doing is just having one birthday cake every month.

Right.

And like, these are all the people who have a birthday in January, right?

So that's better, because otherwise you're just having cake every three days.

Or if you have 300 people in your office, you're having cake every single day, and that's just, that's just crazy.

But, the mandatory part, where it's like, mandatory fun is never fun, you know?

Like, I just, so, you know, if you want to come down and sing happy birthday, and have a cupcake or whatever, then fine, but you don't have to come down if you don't want to.

So, that would be...

Much less bullshit.

I might bring in birthday tequila this year instead of cakes.

Yeah, that sounds good to me.

Yeah, there you go.

You'd be much more popular.

I always think we should end on a cake note, but I've got the final one, which is MBAs.

Bullshit.

Especially in consulting.

We had MBAs hanging from the rafters, and they were more focused on trying to convince you of how smart they were than they were on trying to solve the problem or provide value to the customer.

So, unfortunately, I think it's bullshit.

I think we all agree on that one.

Fantastic.

That's the end of our business or bullshit game.

And you scored 426 points.

Well done.

Excellent.

It was a lot of fun.

A

big, big thanks to John for joining us this week.

And we'll be back next Tuesday with a brand new episode.

In the meantime, have a great weekend.