December 15, 2022 • 19 mins
The clothing industry is the last trillion-dollar sector that hasn’t been fully automated. Many apparel makers have also been hesitant to talk about automation because of the ramifications and possible loss of jobs. Still, there is a quiet effort underway to develop machines that can automate some parts of jeans factories and hopefully bring more manufacturing back from overseas. Tim Aeppel, reporter at Reuters, joins us for how robots are coming for your blue jeans.
Next, as more of Gen Z enters the workplace and communications increasingly happen online and in text formats, something is getting lost in translation. Older colleges are having a hard time keeping up with Gen Z’s use of emojis, slang, and even punctuation. Danielle Abril, “Tech at Work” writer at for the Washington Post, joins us for how workplace language is changing with younger employees.
Finally, when is a bumblebee a fish? When a unanimous ruling by a California state appeals court deems it so. Public-interest groups had asked the state to include four types of bumblebees on its list of endangered species, but the 50-year-old law only applied to birds, mammals, fish, amphibians, or reptiles. Because the legal definition of a fish was vague and had been used to include other animals in separate instances, the bee was added to the list. Matt Grossman, reporter at the WSJ, joins us for the legal wrangling it took to get there.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Thursday, December. I'm oscar Ramiors in Los Angeles, and
this is the daily dive. The clothing industry is the
last trillion dollar sector that hasn't been fully automated. Many
apparel makers have also been hesitant to talk about automation
because of the ramifications and possible loss of jobs. Still,
(00:23):
there's a quiet effort underway to develop machines that can
automate some parts of Genes factories and hopefully bring more
manufacturing back from overseas. Tim Appel, reporter at Reuter's joins
us for how robots are coming for your blue jeans next.
As more of gen Z enters the workplace and communications
increasingly happen online and in text formats, something is getting
(00:44):
lost in translation. Older colleagues are having a hard time
keeping up with gen Z's use of emojis, slang, and
even punctuation. Danielle, a brill tech at work writer for
The Washington Post, join us for how workplace language is
changing with younger employees. Finally, when is a bumble bee
a fish? When a unanimous ruling by a California State
(01:05):
appeals court deems itself public interest groups have asked the
state to include four types of bumblebees on its list
of endangered species, but the fifth year old law only
applies towards birds, mammals, fish, amphibians, or reptiles. Matt Grossman,
report at the Wall Street Journal joined us for the
legal wrangling it took to get there. It's news without
the noise. Let's dive in a blue water Defense, which
(01:30):
is a maker of military uniforms which need to be
made in the United States in order to be purchased
by the military. So this is an effort to begin
to look at ways to automate the jobs that have
resisted it, which is really the ones that involved picking
up an handling fabric. Joining us now is Tim Appel,
reporter at Reuter's. Thanks for joining us, Tim, sure also
(01:51):
are glad to be here. Oh well, let's talk about
some more automation going on across the country, or hoping
to provide some more automation going on in the country.
Clothing is one of the last industries that hasn't been
fully automated. We've had machines in the clothing industry for
a long time. We outsource a lot of clothing making
to other countries because the labor is cheaper there, But
(02:13):
right now there's a couple of companies exploring the idea
of really being able to automate a lot of that
stuff hopefully bring some of that back to the United States.
So Tim tell us a little bit more about what
we're seeing with this. It is an industry that has
resisted automationed for the reasons you side. It's um, it's
much cheaper and easier just to have people hand fabric
because fabric is sloppy and comes in all different textures
(02:36):
and robots just aren't good at handling that. So there's
this effort one that that I wrote about is hasn't
involved Levi's, for instance, in smaller companies like a Blue
Water Defense, which is a maker of military uniforms which
need to be made in the United States in order
to be purchased by the military. So this is an
effort to begin to look at ways to automate the
(02:57):
jobs that have resisted it, which is really the ones
that involved picking up and handling fabric. You know, as
you said, there's automation in sewing factories, but it still
requires people to lift up and move and handle fabric
which is in the wheel, which is a real barrier
and husband for automation. There's a floppy cloth problem, as
you mentioned it in the article. And you know, everybody
(03:18):
knows anybody that's handled any piece of fabric right, and
it's soft, it's malleable, it moves really easily, and when
you need to fold over things very precisely and then
run it through like a sewing machine, I mean the
machine does that, but the folding over carefully right that
this is the hard part for a lot of machines
to do because they're just not as dexterous as the
human hand. And so in this part of it, there
(03:39):
are some companies that are looking to solve that problem.
And one of the things that some of these companies
have thought of is, well maybe we can you know,
we're looking at manufacturing in the genes and the denim
category right now. And one of the things they said,
maybe let's put a solution on it that's gonna stiffen
the material and then we can kind of run it
through the machines and later on we'll wash it out.
(04:01):
There's a company in the San Francisco startup that is
developed as it's called Sabo, which is meant to sort
of solve that problem because it makes a piece of
fabric more like handling a piece of plastic or or
a car bumper or a robot. It becomes much more
predictable and you don't get strange things. And even when
you move a piece of fabric it might snag, you know,
(04:21):
it might, it might catch Human hands and dexterity, as
you said, are the key to running those things and
moving those things out of machinery. So if you've come
up with a way to stiff in the fabric temporarily
while it's being assettled into a pair of chains, for instance,
that solves not all of the challenges of automation in
a clothing factory, but certainly in a genes factory it
(04:43):
would go a long way towards dealing with a lot
of the hand favor that still goes on. And the
thing about them change is that at the end of
the manufacturing process are almost always washed anyway, and so
that's a virtue of this. It's not adding something dramatically
differ print to the factory beyond what's already being done.
(05:03):
If you don't what we're talking about is an industry, right,
a global apparel market. They say is one point five
trillion dollars, and if you increase a couple of costs there,
but then you can bring that manufacturing closer to home.
We don't have to outsource all the all of these things.
Maybe it's in that kind of give and take that
it is worth it to start making more apparel here
(05:25):
in the United States. One of the companies I spoke
to is actually right there in Los Angeles has a
small factory coach side text that makes bit denom jeans.
That factory was originally built with the idea that especially
during COVID it was actually still free years ago, with
the idea that people wouldn't be traveling to Asia. So
it was more of a factory that was supposed to
make small runs and samples and that sort of thing.
(05:46):
But the company is looking at this technology for stiffening
and said one of the goals here that he sees
if you can reduce enough of the costs in the
US operation, you can average out the cost and you know,
if you have certain things that you need to make
quickly and ship immediately, you could do that in the US.
You might then still be getting evergreen products that are
(06:09):
coming in large quantities from from Asian factories at least
during a transition time. So we're starting off with genes.
You mentioned that Levi's is one of the companies that's
looking at kind of investigating is bluewater defense. Also, how
far are along in the process are we with this?
This is still very preliminary. The factory there in Los
Angeles is actually just going to be working this next
(06:30):
couple of months to bring in the first robots to
work with this diffening process too, and it will still
be largely experimental. Levi's doesn't comment on this. One of
the things that came up in the reporting is that
for the large apparel companies, it's very controversial to talk
about eliminating selling jobs because that can raise the spectra
(06:52):
of loss of jobs, especially for poor people and developing countries.
And so I think that the parel companies for somewhat
to talk too much about what they're doing in this regard.
Tim Appel, reporter at Reuter's, thank you very much for
joining us. Thanks. Their communication wasn't through letters, it was
(07:21):
through text messaging. They didn't pass notes, They texted each other,
and that changes a lot of their habits and how
they read into things. How they perceive punctuation, how they
use visual cues like emojis, and how they apply different
needs to things. Joining us now is Danielle, a brill
tech at work writer for the Washington Post. Thanks for
(07:41):
joining us, Danielle, Thanks for having me. Well, let's talk
about gen Z workers at the workplace and how there's
a little bit of miscommunication happening as we're increasingly shifting
a lot of our communications onto email, onto other forms
of online communication like Slack, there's a little bit of
the way we talk to each other is kind of
(08:03):
being thrown into the mix. So obviously gen Z people
like to use a lot of emojis, a lot of
slang term and some of the older workers that are
in the same group chats might not be catching on
as quickly. It's actually a very fun story you wrote
up talking about how we get along now as more
gen Z workers are coming into the workplace. So, Danielle,
tell us a little bit more about it. We have
(08:25):
regularly had various generations enter the workplace, and as each
generation comes in, they do bring their own style of communicating,
their own slang, their own quirks, or whatever it may be.
That the workplace then have to kind of figure out
what it means the older workers that are already there.
The unique thing about gen Z is they have spent
(08:45):
the most time with digital devices. So many of them
grew up, you know, using iPads, texting their friends. Their
communication wasn't through letters, it was through text messaging. They
didn't pass notes, they texted each other. And that changes
a lot of their habits and how they read into things,
how they perceive punctuation, how they use visual cues like emojis,
(09:07):
and how they apply different means to things. So um
in a lot of ways, a lot of the way
that they speak in the workplace has been sort of
molded by their experience growing up, which was heavily digital.
A lot of it comes from the different starting points
with what we have. So older generations adapted a lot
of their email writing their text communications from letter writing,
(09:31):
and the younger generation never did that letter writing, that
old school letter writing. They to your point, right, they've
been on these digital platforms since birth. Really, so when
it comes to that miscommunication with punctuation, I think that
figures a lot there. And then obviously emoji is a
much newer thing. There's a lot of miscommunication that happens
on that front too. A lot of the older generations
(09:52):
just see punctuation as a necessary element to any kind
of text, whether it's written or an email ill or
even sometimes text messaging, depending on the age of the person.
The younger generation, you know, they separate their thoughts through
separate messages, so the need for a period goes away.
So if you're actively including a period in your text
(10:14):
message or in your text communication over slack or whatever
it may be, it may seem a little harsh, like
I mean this period uh sort of an emphasis. And
when it comes to emojis, a lot of older workers,
we found out, both through the folks we've talked to
in gen Z and through our experts, tend to read
emojis in a very literal sense. When you want to
(10:36):
express happiness, you use a smiley face. Sadness you use
a sad face, whereas gen Z uses it very ironically
and with a lot more nuance. They've had a lot
more time using these things. So instead of for laughing you,
instead of putting the laughing emoji that we would all expect,
maybe the older generations that expects gen Z might use
a skull, and that's like dead of laughter. It's it's
(10:57):
sort of maybe a little bit of a a more
snarky way to say, I'm laughing at you, this is
so funny. I died of laughter. So they're a little
less literal, a little more nuanced. But in that sense,
some of these miscommunications can happen if older generations are
getting a skull all of a sudden as a reaction
from something they wrote, and they're saying, I have no
(11:18):
idea what this generations, the colleague is telling me. One
of the interesting ones that I use to your point
of how a gen Z person might just you know,
put a short message, send it, send another message to
kind of separate the thoughts. I do use the ellipses
a lot, you know, and but but for them it's
almost a moment of dread. It feels like, right, it's
(11:38):
like I don't know what's coming next, or this dramatic
pause doesn't need to happen, but I'm just using it
to separate those thoughts. Yeah, a lot of older generations
use it for pacing that they might be thinking as
they're writing. They're using an olypsus, and the younger generation
does see it as a very like dreadful, anxiety inducing?
Are you done? What does that mean? Is this whole horrible?
(12:00):
Am I doing something awful that I upset somebody? So yeah,
even just the elypses can be interpreted differently depending on
how old you are. As new workers come into the workplace,
younger generations, the language, the way we speak to each
other always changes and to that, and there's even some
companies that are dedicating new chat boxes, new new ways
(12:22):
to kind of decipher some of that language so that
everybody can kind of catch up, or the younger workers
are switching it off when they're talking to older colleagues. Yeah,
we saw actually with a couple of our sources. In
one case, there was a company that actually created a
slack channel dedicated to these kind of questions so that
if something came up, they didn't have to ask the
(12:42):
person directly. They could go to the slack channel and say, hey,
I saw a younger worker you this I don't know
what it means? They said, this phrase, can somebody informed
me and everybody can just chime in it. Oh, yeah,
this means that. So there's that many questions that this
company felt like we need to actually create a space
for people to feel comfortable asking those questions and answering
them without any kind of embarrassment. And then in another case,
(13:06):
we heard actually from several younger workers who said they
do something what they call is code switching, where if
they're talking to an older worker, they may pull back
on the slang on the emoji youth because they don't
want any misinterpretation and what they view is appropriate maybe
view differently. So I had actually one source say that
she will literally mimic the amount of sentences that she writes,
(13:29):
and you know, she'll take out her exclamation marks if
the other person doesn't use exclamation marks, even though she's
more likely to use than naturally. So a lot of
people adjusting to this generational divide. Danielle, a brill tech
at work writer for The Washington Post, thank you very
much for joining us. Absolutely, thank you so much. Of course,
(13:58):
shrimp and clams, lobsters are all invertebrates, but by extension,
the corpse said, actually, any invertebrates can be fish, even
if they're not underwater. So that's how you got this
really strange result that bumblebees are joining us now. Is
Matt Grossman, reporter at the Wall Street journal. Thanks for
joining us. Matt, thanks for having me. Your article caught
my eye with its headline. It starts off kind of
(14:21):
like a bad joke, when is a bumblebee a fish?
But it's an interesting story that has to do with
legal definitions. And obviously this happened in California, so take
that for what it is. But there was a challenge
put to the courts basically, um some conservationists wanted to
classify four types of bumblebees on the endangered species list,
(14:44):
and there was all sorts of pushback to it. But
the way they came up with being able to do
it was to classify them as a fish. The law
that governs all this is uh is very old, and
they had to do some legal wrangling to get it
to this point. So Matt, help us walk through what
we're seeing with this story. California law lets the state
government protect certain kinds of animals as endangered. You know,
(15:08):
the populations are low. That just allows the state to
keep people away from habitats and makes animals have some
space to throw. California wrote the law that defines this
back in nine and the law listed certain kinds of
animals that were eligible. It said you could protect fish
or mammals or amphibians reptiles, and it pretty much left
(15:29):
things there. Now, over the years, of course, more and
more animals were moving into that inde, and so the
state government started to add things that sort of seemed
like fish at first glance, things like shrimp and crayfish
and things like that were added to the definition. And
basically courts had looked at the way the law was
(15:52):
written and said, okay, well, when they wrote this law,
when they said fish, it seems like they probably meant
also some other things that live in the water and
that are invertebrates and don't have a spine and so on.
And that's how these laws evolve over the years, right,
The definition kind of evolves through precedent and through an
examination of what the legislatures thought that they were trying
(16:16):
to do when they wrote the law. And so over
the years court said, fine, shrimp count as fish in
this case, or crayfish count as fish. Eventually it evolved
to the point where it started to look like just
about any invertebrate to count as fish. And of course
shrimp and clams and lobsters are all invertebrates, but by extension.
The Corps said, actually, any invertebrates can be fish, even
(16:39):
if they're not underwater. So that's how you've got this
really strange result that bumblebees are fish. And some of
the biggest pushback in all of the schools coming from
California almond farmers that you know, they need bees to
pollinate all the acres of trees so that they can
get the almonds and everything. But you know, if you
start classifying these bumblebees as a dangered species and it
(16:59):
makes them more difficult for them to work around them.
So Almand farmers and other groups of farmers as well,
we're really concerned, and I think you can sort of
understand their concerns like this. You know, if there's a
certain type of squirrel or a certain type of lizard
that is endangered, you might have a good idea of
the kinds of habitats that you want to avoid, and
(17:20):
you know, let those animals have their space, and you know,
we're going to farm over here on our land with
something like a bee. Um. I think the farmers are
really concerned with these protections in place, it's just going
to make life really difficult because you know, as anybody knows. Bees,
you know, be anywhere. You can find them in cities,
you can find them in in rural areas, and it's
kind of very hard to keep track of where they're
(17:41):
coming from. And and they're they're so small that you know,
unless you're an expert, it's it's pretty hard to see
it be and to know whether it's the type that
you're supposed to be protecting or or that is not
one of the endangered species. So I think farmers were
just really concerned about some of the implications. So this
is a unanimous ruling by the state appeals court. Is
this done? Is are are we classifying them as the
(18:04):
fish so that they can be on the endangered species list?
Or is there any legal recourse that's left in this case? Yeah,
so for now these are fish. That's the official outcome.
The Almond Board, which was one of the leading antiffs
in the case, they told me that they're going to
consult with the other parties in the case decide if
they want to appeal it. So they could appeal up
to the state Supreme Court in California, and then that
(18:27):
court could either choose to reconsider the case or it
could just go back to the lower court's ruling and
said this and say this is final, and in that case,
these would be fish until the legislature changed the law.
At least a very interesting story, and I appreciate the
little tidbits that you put at the end of your
article talking about these legal codes having a hard time
(18:48):
classifying with certain words, like in California, hot dogs technically
classify as a sandwich. There's always has to be some
of this, uh wrangling with with the words. When you
talk casually someone in everyday life, it's very easy to
just kind of use context and then come and sends
to know what the other person is talking about. But
I guess in a court, when you're making laws in
(19:09):
their potential crimes or statutes involved, it's very important to
be really precise. And so you know, that's that's where
all the lawyers get involved. Matt Grossman reported the Wall
Street Journal. Thank you very much for joining us, Thanks
for happingly that's it for today. Join us on social
(19:33):
media at Daily Dive Pod on both Twitter and Instagram.
Leave us a comment, give us a rating, and tell
us the stories that you're interested in. Follow us on
iHeart Radio, or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. This
episode of The Daily Dive is produced by vicer Wright
and engineered by Tony Sarrentina. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this
(19:53):
was your Daily Dive.
It's Thursday, December. I'm oscar Ramiors in Los Angeles, and
this is the daily dive. The clothing industry is the
last trillion dollar sector that hasn't been fully automated. Many
apparel makers have also been hesitant to talk about automation
because of the ramifications and possible loss of jobs. Still,
(00:23):
there's a quiet effort underway to develop machines that can
automate some parts of Genes factories and hopefully bring more
manufacturing back from overseas. Tim Appel, reporter at Reuter's joins
us for how robots are coming for your blue jeans next.
As more of gen Z enters the workplace and communications
increasingly happen online and in text formats, something is getting
(00:44):
lost in translation. Older colleagues are having a hard time
keeping up with gen Z's use of emojis, slang, and
even punctuation. Danielle, a brill tech at work writer for
The Washington Post, join us for how workplace language is
changing with younger employees. Finally, when is a bumble bee
a fish? When a unanimous ruling by a California State
(01:05):
appeals court deems itself public interest groups have asked the
state to include four types of bumblebees on its list
of endangered species, but the fifth year old law only
applies towards birds, mammals, fish, amphibians, or reptiles. Matt Grossman,
report at the Wall Street Journal joined us for the
legal wrangling it took to get there. It's news without
the noise. Let's dive in a blue water Defense, which
(01:30):
is a maker of military uniforms which need to be
made in the United States in order to be purchased
by the military. So this is an effort to begin
to look at ways to automate the jobs that have
resisted it, which is really the ones that involved picking
up an handling fabric. Joining us now is Tim Appel,
reporter at Reuter's. Thanks for joining us, Tim, sure also
(01:51):
are glad to be here. Oh well, let's talk about
some more automation going on across the country, or hoping
to provide some more automation going on in the country.
Clothing is one of the last industries that hasn't been
fully automated. We've had machines in the clothing industry for
a long time. We outsource a lot of clothing making
to other countries because the labor is cheaper there, But
(02:13):
right now there's a couple of companies exploring the idea
of really being able to automate a lot of that
stuff hopefully bring some of that back to the United States.
So Tim tell us a little bit more about what
we're seeing with this. It is an industry that has
resisted automationed for the reasons you side. It's um, it's
much cheaper and easier just to have people hand fabric
because fabric is sloppy and comes in all different textures
(02:36):
and robots just aren't good at handling that. So there's
this effort one that that I wrote about is hasn't
involved Levi's, for instance, in smaller companies like a Blue
Water Defense, which is a maker of military uniforms which
need to be made in the United States in order
to be purchased by the military. So this is an
effort to begin to look at ways to automate the
(02:57):
jobs that have resisted it, which is really the ones
that involved picking up and handling fabric. You know, as
you said, there's automation in sewing factories, but it still
requires people to lift up and move and handle fabric
which is in the wheel, which is a real barrier
and husband for automation. There's a floppy cloth problem, as
you mentioned it in the article. And you know, everybody
(03:18):
knows anybody that's handled any piece of fabric right, and
it's soft, it's malleable, it moves really easily, and when
you need to fold over things very precisely and then
run it through like a sewing machine, I mean the
machine does that, but the folding over carefully right that
this is the hard part for a lot of machines
to do because they're just not as dexterous as the
human hand. And so in this part of it, there
(03:39):
are some companies that are looking to solve that problem.
And one of the things that some of these companies
have thought of is, well maybe we can you know,
we're looking at manufacturing in the genes and the denim
category right now. And one of the things they said,
maybe let's put a solution on it that's gonna stiffen
the material and then we can kind of run it
through the machines and later on we'll wash it out.
(04:01):
There's a company in the San Francisco startup that is
developed as it's called Sabo, which is meant to sort
of solve that problem because it makes a piece of
fabric more like handling a piece of plastic or or
a car bumper or a robot. It becomes much more
predictable and you don't get strange things. And even when
you move a piece of fabric it might snag, you know,
(04:21):
it might, it might catch Human hands and dexterity, as
you said, are the key to running those things and
moving those things out of machinery. So if you've come
up with a way to stiff in the fabric temporarily
while it's being assettled into a pair of chains, for instance,
that solves not all of the challenges of automation in
a clothing factory, but certainly in a genes factory it
(04:43):
would go a long way towards dealing with a lot
of the hand favor that still goes on. And the
thing about them change is that at the end of
the manufacturing process are almost always washed anyway, and so
that's a virtue of this. It's not adding something dramatically
differ print to the factory beyond what's already being done.
(05:03):
If you don't what we're talking about is an industry, right,
a global apparel market. They say is one point five
trillion dollars, and if you increase a couple of costs there,
but then you can bring that manufacturing closer to home.
We don't have to outsource all the all of these things.
Maybe it's in that kind of give and take that
it is worth it to start making more apparel here
(05:25):
in the United States. One of the companies I spoke
to is actually right there in Los Angeles has a
small factory coach side text that makes bit denom jeans.
That factory was originally built with the idea that especially
during COVID it was actually still free years ago, with
the idea that people wouldn't be traveling to Asia. So
it was more of a factory that was supposed to
make small runs and samples and that sort of thing.
(05:46):
But the company is looking at this technology for stiffening
and said one of the goals here that he sees
if you can reduce enough of the costs in the
US operation, you can average out the cost and you know,
if you have certain things that you need to make
quickly and ship immediately, you could do that in the US.
You might then still be getting evergreen products that are
(06:09):
coming in large quantities from from Asian factories at least
during a transition time. So we're starting off with genes.
You mentioned that Levi's is one of the companies that's
looking at kind of investigating is bluewater defense. Also, how
far are along in the process are we with this?
This is still very preliminary. The factory there in Los
Angeles is actually just going to be working this next
(06:30):
couple of months to bring in the first robots to
work with this diffening process too, and it will still
be largely experimental. Levi's doesn't comment on this. One of
the things that came up in the reporting is that
for the large apparel companies, it's very controversial to talk
about eliminating selling jobs because that can raise the spectra
(06:52):
of loss of jobs, especially for poor people and developing countries.
And so I think that the parel companies for somewhat
to talk too much about what they're doing in this regard.
Tim Appel, reporter at Reuter's, thank you very much for
joining us. Thanks. Their communication wasn't through letters, it was
(07:21):
through text messaging. They didn't pass notes, They texted each other,
and that changes a lot of their habits and how
they read into things. How they perceive punctuation, how they
use visual cues like emojis, and how they apply different
needs to things. Joining us now is Danielle, a brill
tech at work writer for the Washington Post. Thanks for
(07:41):
joining us, Danielle, Thanks for having me. Well, let's talk
about gen Z workers at the workplace and how there's
a little bit of miscommunication happening as we're increasingly shifting
a lot of our communications onto email, onto other forms
of online communication like Slack, there's a little bit of
the way we talk to each other is kind of
(08:03):
being thrown into the mix. So obviously gen Z people
like to use a lot of emojis, a lot of
slang term and some of the older workers that are
in the same group chats might not be catching on
as quickly. It's actually a very fun story you wrote
up talking about how we get along now as more
gen Z workers are coming into the workplace. So, Danielle,
tell us a little bit more about it. We have
(08:25):
regularly had various generations enter the workplace, and as each
generation comes in, they do bring their own style of communicating,
their own slang, their own quirks, or whatever it may be.
That the workplace then have to kind of figure out
what it means the older workers that are already there.
The unique thing about gen Z is they have spent
(08:45):
the most time with digital devices. So many of them
grew up, you know, using iPads, texting their friends. Their
communication wasn't through letters, it was through text messaging. They
didn't pass notes, they texted each other. And that changes
a lot of their habits and how they read into things,
how they perceive punctuation, how they use visual cues like emojis,
(09:07):
and how they apply different means to things. So um
in a lot of ways, a lot of the way
that they speak in the workplace has been sort of
molded by their experience growing up, which was heavily digital.
A lot of it comes from the different starting points
with what we have. So older generations adapted a lot
of their email writing their text communications from letter writing,
(09:31):
and the younger generation never did that letter writing, that
old school letter writing. They to your point, right, they've
been on these digital platforms since birth. Really, so when
it comes to that miscommunication with punctuation, I think that
figures a lot there. And then obviously emoji is a
much newer thing. There's a lot of miscommunication that happens
on that front too. A lot of the older generations
(09:52):
just see punctuation as a necessary element to any kind
of text, whether it's written or an email ill or
even sometimes text messaging, depending on the age of the person.
The younger generation, you know, they separate their thoughts through
separate messages, so the need for a period goes away.
So if you're actively including a period in your text
(10:14):
message or in your text communication over slack or whatever
it may be, it may seem a little harsh, like
I mean this period uh sort of an emphasis. And
when it comes to emojis, a lot of older workers,
we found out, both through the folks we've talked to
in gen Z and through our experts, tend to read
emojis in a very literal sense. When you want to
(10:36):
express happiness, you use a smiley face. Sadness you use
a sad face, whereas gen Z uses it very ironically
and with a lot more nuance. They've had a lot
more time using these things. So instead of for laughing you,
instead of putting the laughing emoji that we would all expect,
maybe the older generations that expects gen Z might use
a skull, and that's like dead of laughter. It's it's
(10:57):
sort of maybe a little bit of a a more
snarky way to say, I'm laughing at you, this is
so funny. I died of laughter. So they're a little
less literal, a little more nuanced. But in that sense,
some of these miscommunications can happen if older generations are
getting a skull all of a sudden as a reaction
from something they wrote, and they're saying, I have no
(11:18):
idea what this generations, the colleague is telling me. One
of the interesting ones that I use to your point
of how a gen Z person might just you know,
put a short message, send it, send another message to
kind of separate the thoughts. I do use the ellipses
a lot, you know, and but but for them it's
almost a moment of dread. It feels like, right, it's
(11:38):
like I don't know what's coming next, or this dramatic
pause doesn't need to happen, but I'm just using it
to separate those thoughts. Yeah, a lot of older generations
use it for pacing that they might be thinking as
they're writing. They're using an olypsus, and the younger generation
does see it as a very like dreadful, anxiety inducing?
Are you done? What does that mean? Is this whole horrible?
(12:00):
Am I doing something awful that I upset somebody? So yeah,
even just the elypses can be interpreted differently depending on
how old you are. As new workers come into the workplace,
younger generations, the language, the way we speak to each
other always changes and to that, and there's even some
companies that are dedicating new chat boxes, new new ways
(12:22):
to kind of decipher some of that language so that
everybody can kind of catch up, or the younger workers
are switching it off when they're talking to older colleagues. Yeah,
we saw actually with a couple of our sources. In
one case, there was a company that actually created a
slack channel dedicated to these kind of questions so that
if something came up, they didn't have to ask the
(12:42):
person directly. They could go to the slack channel and say, hey,
I saw a younger worker you this I don't know
what it means? They said, this phrase, can somebody informed
me and everybody can just chime in it. Oh, yeah,
this means that. So there's that many questions that this
company felt like we need to actually create a space
for people to feel comfortable asking those questions and answering
them without any kind of embarrassment. And then in another case,
(13:06):
we heard actually from several younger workers who said they
do something what they call is code switching, where if
they're talking to an older worker, they may pull back
on the slang on the emoji youth because they don't
want any misinterpretation and what they view is appropriate maybe
view differently. So I had actually one source say that
she will literally mimic the amount of sentences that she writes,
(13:29):
and you know, she'll take out her exclamation marks if
the other person doesn't use exclamation marks, even though she's
more likely to use than naturally. So a lot of
people adjusting to this generational divide. Danielle, a brill tech
at work writer for The Washington Post, thank you very
much for joining us. Absolutely, thank you so much. Of course,
(13:58):
shrimp and clams, lobsters are all invertebrates, but by extension,
the corpse said, actually, any invertebrates can be fish, even
if they're not underwater. So that's how you got this
really strange result that bumblebees are joining us now. Is
Matt Grossman, reporter at the Wall Street journal. Thanks for
joining us. Matt, thanks for having me. Your article caught
my eye with its headline. It starts off kind of
(14:21):
like a bad joke, when is a bumblebee a fish?
But it's an interesting story that has to do with
legal definitions. And obviously this happened in California, so take
that for what it is. But there was a challenge
put to the courts basically, um some conservationists wanted to
classify four types of bumblebees on the endangered species list,
(14:44):
and there was all sorts of pushback to it. But
the way they came up with being able to do
it was to classify them as a fish. The law
that governs all this is uh is very old, and
they had to do some legal wrangling to get it
to this point. So Matt, help us walk through what
we're seeing with this story. California law lets the state
government protect certain kinds of animals as endangered. You know,
(15:08):
the populations are low. That just allows the state to
keep people away from habitats and makes animals have some
space to throw. California wrote the law that defines this
back in nine and the law listed certain kinds of
animals that were eligible. It said you could protect fish
or mammals or amphibians reptiles, and it pretty much left
(15:29):
things there. Now, over the years, of course, more and
more animals were moving into that inde, and so the
state government started to add things that sort of seemed
like fish at first glance, things like shrimp and crayfish
and things like that were added to the definition. And
basically courts had looked at the way the law was
(15:52):
written and said, okay, well, when they wrote this law,
when they said fish, it seems like they probably meant
also some other things that live in the water and
that are invertebrates and don't have a spine and so on.
And that's how these laws evolve over the years, right,
The definition kind of evolves through precedent and through an
examination of what the legislatures thought that they were trying
(16:16):
to do when they wrote the law. And so over
the years court said, fine, shrimp count as fish in
this case, or crayfish count as fish. Eventually it evolved
to the point where it started to look like just
about any invertebrate to count as fish. And of course
shrimp and clams and lobsters are all invertebrates, but by extension.
The Corps said, actually, any invertebrates can be fish, even
(16:39):
if they're not underwater. So that's how you've got this
really strange result that bumblebees are fish. And some of
the biggest pushback in all of the schools coming from
California almond farmers that you know, they need bees to
pollinate all the acres of trees so that they can
get the almonds and everything. But you know, if you
start classifying these bumblebees as a dangered species and it
(16:59):
makes them more difficult for them to work around them.
So Almand farmers and other groups of farmers as well,
we're really concerned, and I think you can sort of
understand their concerns like this. You know, if there's a
certain type of squirrel or a certain type of lizard
that is endangered, you might have a good idea of
the kinds of habitats that you want to avoid, and
(17:20):
you know, let those animals have their space, and you know,
we're going to farm over here on our land with
something like a bee. Um. I think the farmers are
really concerned with these protections in place, it's just going
to make life really difficult because you know, as anybody knows. Bees,
you know, be anywhere. You can find them in cities,
you can find them in in rural areas, and it's
kind of very hard to keep track of where they're
(17:41):
coming from. And and they're they're so small that you know,
unless you're an expert, it's it's pretty hard to see
it be and to know whether it's the type that
you're supposed to be protecting or or that is not
one of the endangered species. So I think farmers were
just really concerned about some of the implications. So this
is a unanimous ruling by the state appeals court. Is
this done? Is are are we classifying them as the
(18:04):
fish so that they can be on the endangered species list?
Or is there any legal recourse that's left in this case? Yeah,
so for now these are fish. That's the official outcome.
The Almond Board, which was one of the leading antiffs
in the case, they told me that they're going to
consult with the other parties in the case decide if
they want to appeal it. So they could appeal up
to the state Supreme Court in California, and then that
(18:27):
court could either choose to reconsider the case or it
could just go back to the lower court's ruling and
said this and say this is final, and in that case,
these would be fish until the legislature changed the law.
At least a very interesting story, and I appreciate the
little tidbits that you put at the end of your
article talking about these legal codes having a hard time
(18:48):
classifying with certain words, like in California, hot dogs technically
classify as a sandwich. There's always has to be some
of this, uh wrangling with with the words. When you
talk casually someone in everyday life, it's very easy to
just kind of use context and then come and sends
to know what the other person is talking about. But
I guess in a court, when you're making laws in
(19:09):
their potential crimes or statutes involved, it's very important to
be really precise. And so you know, that's that's where
all the lawyers get involved. Matt Grossman reported the Wall
Street Journal. Thank you very much for joining us, Thanks
for happingly that's it for today. Join us on social
(19:33):
media at Daily Dive Pod on both Twitter and Instagram.
Leave us a comment, give us a rating, and tell
us the stories that you're interested in. Follow us on
iHeart Radio, or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. This
episode of The Daily Dive is produced by vicer Wright
and engineered by Tony Sarrentina. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this
(19:53):
was your Daily Dive.
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