The Shakeup: R.I.P 'come to Brazil', quiet vacationing and dating leave

This is a Triple J podcast.

Hack.

Welcome to the end of the week.

It's the Shake Up on Hack.

I'm Dave Marchese.

Thank you so much for hanging out.

It's that time where we get into some of the stories

and other headlines that have been kicking around

over the past few days.

Here is a little bit of a taste

of what we've got coming up.

Hack.

So Elon Musk's platform X, formerly Twitter,

has just been fully banned in Brazil.

Instead of taking paid time off,

quiet vacationers are keeping their employers in the dark

about their work from home plans.

Ladies, here's why you're tired of dating.

Because finding that Prince Charming,

finding the one,

finding a needle in a haystack is exhausting.

On Triple J.

Yeah, you've heard of quiet quitting.

What about quiet vacationing?

People telling the boss they're working remotely.

It's all good.

Actually going on holiday, though.

Be honest.

Have you done this?

Or do you know someone who has?

Maybe you suspect one of your colleagues

is quiet vacationing.

They're not where they say they are.

Message in.

0-4-3-9-7-5-7-triple-5.

We're getting to that later.

But first, we've got to meet the Shake Up crew.

Let's do it right now.

Beginning with the one, the only, performer, et cetera, et cetera.

Hello.

Hi, Dave.

How are you?

I'm well.

How are you?

What have you been up to?

You've just had some glamorous shoot.

Yeah, glamorous shoot.

Prior to that was a corporate bingo in North Sydney.

So I'm really living the high life.

But I'm upset because spring is usually a drag queen safe space.

And unfortunately, since it's 30 degrees,

in the first week of spring,

I am forced to report it's wet and wild up here underneath my wig.

And yeah, not a safe space.

So I will be mourning the loss of winter over the next few weeks.

Looking good right now.

We're going to check in in about 28 minutes

to see if that look is really sustaining

in these hot and terrible conditions.

Hey, do you have a big weekend coming up?

Yeah, huge weekend.

I'm going to look like the Titanic underneath the ocean

by the end of the weekend.

Just a lot of moss, mold, and mildew.

Oh, sounds good.

Sounds hot.

Right?

Also, on the back of a glamorous shoot, as always,

journalist Marty Smiley.

What's funny?

It's also wet and wild up here.

Yep, okay.

Doesn't work the same, does it?

It kind of doesn't.

No, but you're a glamorous person.

What have you been up to today?

Any big photo shoots?

Absolutely nothing.

No.

No?

Work, mainly.

Bit of quiet vacationing, maybe.

And really just looking forward to spending time with you, Dave.

Stop.

Stop, Marty.

Well, we've got a lot of topics.

I think that you're going to have big opinions on coming up.

First, though, weekend's looking good.

Are we relaxing?

Big plans?

What's coming up?

Trying to.

Trying to just chill out this weekend.

Maybe quiet vacation myself.

Okay, nice.

Well, fingers crossed.

But first, we've got a lot to get through.

So, let's get started.

But are you going to come to Brazil?

Come to Brazil.

On Triple J.

First, it was Twitter.

Then it was X, of course.

The big change happened.

There have been a few changes over the years for X.

But you know what has always been there throughout that?

The Brazilians.

Brazil loves social media.

And in particular, X.

The country's responsible for some of the most popular celebrity stan accounts in the world.

But that appears to all be over because Brazil has banned X.

And celebrity fandom worldwide is in chaos.

Pack.

Elon Musk's social media platform, X, has been suspended.

In Brazil, the company has been resisting orders to block dozens of accounts accused of spreading disinformation and misinformation.

Two years ago, Elon Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter.

But just how much is that investment worth today if his firm continues to run into disputes with the governments of its biggest markets?

The ban is reigniting a debate about the role social media plays in politics, freedom of speech, and the spread of misinformation.

And I don't think Brazil is the only country where this could happen.

On Triple J.

Yeah, do you follow any of these Brazilian fan accounts?

And are you sad they're all folding?

That's it.

Message in.

0-4-3-9-7-5-7-triple-5.

It's the shake-up on hack.

I'm Dave Marchese.

I'm getting into some of the headlines with entertainer, et cetera, et cetera, journalist Marty Smiley, et cetera.

Surely you've got a big Brazilian fan base.

Is that true?

Well, not anymore.

Whereas you're like, it was until a few days ago.

Yeah, thousands.

Thousands of 13-year-old Brazilian girls are now no longer interacting with my inane content.

But, hey, I get it.

They're trying to stop misinformation.

My Twitter is one of the biggest sources of misinformation on the internet.

I always pretend I'm happy.

And I say nice things like, hope everyone's having a good day.

I'm just spreading lies, to be honest.

Probably good they got rid of me.

Do you actually have fan accounts, like, around the world, though?

Is that something that you've seen pop up, especially in your sphere?

Yeah, I do.

When I was on Drag Race, I had a lot of accounts that they, you know, become stan accounts of you,

and they change their profile picture to photos of you.

And I had a lot of my less technically adept friends and relatives saying,

you're tweeting really inappropriate stuff.

And I had to tell them it was someone who was a fan of me, and they found that less believable.

They're like, we actually believe the other way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So ever tempted to go to Brazil and meet some of the fans?

Well, they're always telling me, come to Brazil.

Come to Brazil.

They're some of the hottest people I've ever seen in my entire life, some of them.

I'm like, it's crazy.

I think we're losing hot people off Twitter as well, or X or whatever it's called.

Because, yeah, it's a really dark day for everyone, I think.

R.I.P.

Hot people, Marty.

Twitter did used to be a lot more hot.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

It's not.

I don't know if you guys have been on there lately.

It's not that fun.

It's not got a vibe.

Will, do you reckon this is going to change it a whole lot more?

Because people are joking.

People are talking around about the celebrity stuff.

And, oh, the Stan accounts are going.

These accounts, some of them have hundreds of thousands of followers.

They're massive.

But in real terms, realistically, people are also saying, no, I think it will change the

energy of X.

It won't be the same.

It'll get even more political, or whether it's right wing or whatever it is.

Yes.

I think it is actually going to be a bit of a signpost for other countries to watch what's

going on and go, well, if they can do that, why don't we do that?

Why don't we do that?

For instance, there's definitely been not friends with Elon Musk of late, and I think

they would probably be considering, can we do that?

And we might well see other countries follow suit.

Right.

So you think there might be some follow on from other nations around the world?

That's interesting, because Australia has kind of tried to do battle with Elon Musk

before.

Maybe like Albanese, he's actually on Twitter, and he's going, this space not as hot as

anymore as well.

He's not catching the vibe.

Do you reckon Albo's got a few of those big...

Brazilian fan accounts popping off on X for him?

Maybe.

Probably.

Could be.

I mean, some of the celebrities are already speaking out, like Cardi B has already tweeted

or messaged and said, not happy.

Turns out a lot of my fan accounts are based in Brazil.

Apparently at one point, a fifth of Brazil's population was on X, which is tens of millions

of people, like far bigger than Australia's population.

And now that we've seen this ban come in, which means that people who even try and get

around the ban and use...

Use VPNs and stuff, face fines of thousands of dollars.

So it's really risky to do that.

But there's been this big growth in popularity in some of the other social media platforms

already, like Blue Sky has seen this massive, registered half a million new users in just

a few hours.

So people...

So you can't go across to...

I tried going across to Threads when...

Oh.

It's, you know, also not quite the vibe.

Et cetera.

Are you big into X?

Yes, but for the wrong reasons.

Oh, what?

I'm really not.

I'm not on there for any kind of, you know, discourse.

I'm anti-discourse.

I go on about once every three months.

I tweet or whatever they call it now.

I X 40 things in 10 minutes and then I log off.

And then I go on again in three months to find 400 million people telling me that I'm

the worst person in the world.

It is...

I really don't use it well.

But, you know, as my close personal friend Cardi B said, I've experienced a lot of loss

in my engagement over the last week.

There are fans that I definitely did notice that would interact with all of my content

who don't at the moment.

And I think that, you know, I do feel sad about that, especially for, you know, young LGBT

people in Brazil who may not be able to engage with their favorite creators now.

Hopefully they can find me on other platforms.

Please find me and please buy my merch.

Please.

So is that it, do you reckon, for the come to Brazil meme?

It's all over?

Yeah, I think so.

In a way, I think that was always an idea.

And it was always...

Like, what are they...

A dream that we all believe in.

It was more of a philosophy.

And I hope that that can stay alive without Twitter or X or whatever to be there to sustain it.

Maybe it can.

Who knows what's going to happen?

But, hey, things are changing fast.

We've got some messages on the text line.

Someone says, yeah, everyone's moved to blue sky.

And another person says X is just full of angry and terminally online people.

So...

It's a lot more extreme these days, yeah.

People have really strong opinions about X.

I find.

Like, either all for it or all against it.

I think it's like being at a party and your friends leave the party

and suddenly there's a whole bunch of people you don't know.

And the conversation descends quickly.

Do you get on there much?

Like, for work and stuff?

Like, you're a journalist.

Do you use it a lot for work?

It can be a still okay research tool, especially when there's something happening.

But I still find that even when something's happening,

I don't even want to see something in real time when...

Because there's no moderation.

It used to be...

It used to be a little bit better.

It used to be much better moderated.

Yeah.

And a much better place to get that kind of news or, yeah.

Well, who knows?

Maybe we'll see some big changes with X after Brazil's huge move.

I don't know.

The world is watching.

We'll see what happens.

Hack.

We're all working on click-clacky computers.

If the work is getting done, why does it matter where I am?

On Triple J.

Yeah, if there weren't enough toxic work habits and trends to get across,

we have found another one.

You've heard of quiet...

Quitting.

So that's workers doing the bare minimum,

getting out of the work is life mentality, not living for the grind.

Now there's quiet vacationing.

Basically, people taking off on a holiday in work time, though.

Logging in remotely, not telling the boss they're on holiday.

So how common is this, actually?

And have you done it?

Hack.

Shh.

We're quiet vacationing.

The new movement that doesn't reflect well on employees or employers.

Going.

Going on vacation quietly, but still logging on and doing their work.

Saying it's not worth asking for time off because their boss puts them under pressure,

they make you feel guilty.

Can we just normalise taking vacation?

With workplace surveillance on the rise, unions are rallying to stamp out employers

who snoop on their staff's socials.

We say the way that you judge a worker is what happens during work hours.

On Triple J.

Yeah, I want to know if you've done this.

Quiet vacationing.

Secretly taking a trip.

Not told the boss.

Logged in remotely.

Still getting through your work.

Meeting the deadlines.

Getting stuff done.

Or do you suspect that someone at work is doing this?

You've had this idea that maybe everything's not as it appears.

Message in 0439757555.

You can call in too.

1300 055536.

It's The Shake-Up on Hack.

I'm Dave Marchese.

Getting into some of the headlines of the week with entertainer, performer, etc, etc,

and journalist, podcaster Marty Smiley.

We're getting some messages through already.

Someone says,

My friend visited me in Brisbane while working from home.

She lives in Tokyo normally.

Okay, someone else.

Coworker took a week and a half of sick leave and then went to Egypt.

Not quite quiet vacationing, though.

Yeah, still feels maybe a tiny bit dodgy.

I don't know.

Marty, surely you've done this.

Look, I'll be honest.

When I first saw this headline, I was thinking, like,

is a quiet vacationing just a trip to India to do a silent yoga retreat?

But it's definitely not that.

No, it's a different concept.

Very different ballgame.

I think this is a great trend.

You know, I'm...

Why would I have anything against this?

I don't know.

As an employee.

So have you ever noticed a colleague or something take a bit of time,

work remotely and then thought...

Maybe they've decided to quit.

Maybe they've disguised it really well.

Okay.

I do wonder whether that's taking the piss.

Because I had a friend who had this happen,

whose boss kind of just started working remotely for a couple of weeks or whatever,

and everything seemed normal.

But then a few weeks in, they found out that the boss was, like, in Hawaii.

And it was because they'd forgotten to change their background one day or something

and not a palm tree popped up or something.

I don't know.

It's a bit hard these days because normally people do have their,

their background is a palm tree.

You don't know.

You're like, are they on vacation?

It's like, are they in front of the Eiffel Tower actually?

Or is that the fake backdrop?

I don't know.

Et cetera.

What does working remotely look like in the, in the drag world?

Well, I've always fantasized of having an identical twin that I could put into drag

and send to gigs for me because that's the only way I could possibly not be at the gig

and also be at the gig.

It's impossible for me to quiet vacation.

It's impossible for me to be quiet.

So.

But I, I feel like people need to be careful.

If, if you can quiet vacation in like Goulburn or Dubbo probably,

because that's close enough that you could get back quickly and nothing's going to alert people.

Okay.

You can't quiet vacation in Las Vegas.

So you're.

It's impossible.

You're saying it's okay, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

An international is kind of drawing the line.

Be realistic.

You know, it's like I, I couldn't go on a date.

And tell people that I was biologically born a woman looking like I do now my wig is 16 feet

tall, but I could tell them that I like to wear a dress on the side, you know, and that's,

you've got to be realistic.

You've got to be realistic.

Okay.

Some people definitely can't quiet vacation depending on their industry.

You can't quiet vacation when you're mining.

Of course.

You've got to keep digging.

You can't quiet vacation if you're a teacher, if you're a nurse, they must be all listening

to this.

If you are a teacher and nurse, please message in now.

Tell us what you think of this concept and all the people rorting the system.

That's right.

There's no teaching a class on Zoom.

No, no.

It's, it's pretty interesting.

We've got a lot of messages coming through on this.

Someone says, one of my former colleagues was a remote worker and started appearing

from different places overseas.

They were asked to explain, denied it and then got fired.

So that was resolved pretty quickly.

Another person, Mo says, as long as staff are still logged in and working within their

work hours while on vacation.

So what?

Okay.

I guess that does raise a point.

Does it matter?

Does it matter, Marty, if you get the work done?

Definitely.

I'm all on board for that.

If it's within your job description and you're getting that work done each day, mate, go

off.

But you don't think it ruins the holiday as well?

Like, I feel like if I was quiet vacationing and trying to get all the work done, even

though I was in the most beautiful place in the world, most relaxing place, it'd kind

of take away from the detox from what, I don't know, I'd have this negative connotation of

the holiday.

What do you reckon, et cetera?

Yeah.

I suppose the drag queen equivalent is when you haven't left for the gig yet and you say,

I'm in terrible traffic right now.

I'll be there in five minutes, you know, and you're still gluing on eyelashes.

It's like that gig is going to be stressful no matter what.

If people are trying to circumvent the joy that they experienced by logging off while

still logging in, my advice is just get a different job.

Yeah.

You know, maybe the workplace is too toxic and you just need to step away.

A lot of work is so specific for this topic.

My line of work is always specific for whatever topic and I think that's why they have me

here.

I know.

It is one of the best things about having et cetera on this show, being like, now how

does this relate to the drag world?

And usually it's really enlightening like it is today.

I mean, it's either me or a circus clown, so I'm glad it's me today.

No, we've got so many messages pouring through, so many.

Someone says, imagine being a tradie.

Another person, Alex from Melbourne says, sounds super fun and I'd love to take a quick

vacation.

But this could have real repercussions regarding.

Work, health and safety.

What if you get injured on your holiday when you're supposed to be working?

Who is liable?

Well, it's also if you're trying to have a quiet vacation and you're somewhere like

London or anywhere where the time zone is completely different, you're just working

in the hours that you're going to be asleep.

Yeah.

So it's a little bit insane.

You're kind of running yourself into the ground.

Also, big risk if it's a long haul flight that's, you know, 20 hours that you're offline

hoping the boss isn't messaging you.

You're like, I'm going to go on Teams or whatever.

More messages coming through.

Someone says, I live in a caravan and changing my career to become a psychologist specifically

so I can work and travel from anywhere.

That's interesting.

Someone else says, I rang a sales colleague and he answered from a boat with Starlink

two hours off Airlie Beach.

Whoa.

He's based in Sydney.

Whoa.

So this is happening.

I was thinking, is this just a made up concept that someone's grabbed onto and they're pumping

up and promoting?

But it turns out a lot of people are doing this.

Another person, holidaying while working is bad.

That's no work life balance.

Better to just do one or the other.

And another person says, I work as a nurse and listening to this grinds my gears.

We are here saving lives and have to give two months notice for holidays.

Yeah.

I mean, you can imagine how upsetting this whole idea is.

I've talked to a nurse, the idea of a digital nomad.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Also, probably.

Yeah.

Just the idea of a vacation.

Just the idea of a holiday is probably really nice at this point.

We're also discussing another story related to work this week in the same vein, it involves

social media.

I don't know if you saw this one, but unions in Victoria are trying to outlaw bosses monitoring

staff on social media.

So business groups, as you can imagine, are pretty furious with this.

They say, well, sometimes you need to be monitoring staff after hours.

Like you need to be seeing if they're bragging about being at the beach while they've just

taken a sickie.

Or maybe they're doing something that would bring the company into disrepute.

But the unions are saying, no, once you're off the clock, your life online shouldn't

matter.

Interested to hear what you think, et cetera.

Do you think this is a good idea?

I honestly think that I re or both of these topics.

I think that work life balance is something that's incredibly important.

And I genuinely believe that if you have a job where you can clock off, that is your

own time.

And do we live in some kind of Orwellian 1980s?

No.

I don't think there's any Orwellian 1984 fantasy where bosses can check if you're tweeting

about, I don't know, having a drink before you go in for your work as a bus driver.

This isn't happening.

No one's on Twitter saying things that are flagrantly illegal before they go into work.

And if they do, that's a matter for them to be investigating in proper proceedings.

If a boss is just snooping around on your Twitter and causing personal judgments on

who you are, I think that's deeply problematic.

Well, I think there have been a few cases in Victoria.

I think there have been a few cases in Victoria.

I think there have been a few cases in Victoria where people have said stuff that bosses

have deemed inappropriate, made comments about specific people, groups, and that's led to

them facing repercussions at work, and that's the excuse that they're using for why they

need to be monitoring social media.

Marty, is it something you think about?

Do you think about bosses watching what you're up to on social media?

If you're posting something, do you care, like on the weekend?

It's a hard one, isn't it?

Like, yeah.

Like, not really.

Maybe it does.

Maybe I haven't even noticed it.

Look, we created the sort of work-life balance in Australia.

We came up with the eight hours work, eight hours play, eight hours rest.

And I think the more we can keep work out of our life after hours, the better.

Do you battle with that?

For sure.

I'm a journalist.

It doesn't, I think- But do you find a lot of your mates do as

well who aren't in journalism?

Yeah.

Lawyers and doctors and like, I think it doesn't matter what industry you're in, especially

right now, because it's basically bleeding into all parts and aspects of our lives because

we're living in this sort of, you know, grind hustle culture, where we're in a cost of living

crisis, always trying to work out how can we earn more money outside of our actual jobs,

getting our side hustles going.

So it's not even just about the workplace where we may be mainly employed, then we leave

that.

We're trying to work out how to make an extra buck on the weekends.

So the more we can try to limit the different workplaces coming into our personal lives

and our social media, the better.

We've got some messages coming through on this.

Someone says, I put a photo of me out to dinner with a beer before my boss responded saying

on a work night.

So it was just out to dinner, having a beer, put it on social media and the boss said,

oh, you're drinking on the work night.

That's what I mean.

I think that's such an invasion of privacy.

Oh, that's a bit intense.

Social media monitoring is fair game.

They're all for it.

They think it's okay.

I think legally it is because it's public.

So I think if you are posting something publicly, it is perhaps silly to expect that, you know,

someone's not going to be watching that even if it is your workplace.

But I think what's wrong is when workplaces think that that's a smart, clever idea to

monitor their employees because it's not going to be a workplace that someone may want to

choose to be at.

Yeah.

We're still catching up.

Technology has moved so fast and the workplace rules are still catching up.

We've got more messages coming through.

Someone says, while I agree in some aspects that bosses shouldn't snoop on employees and

what they do in their spare time, sometimes it needs to be brought to the boss's attention

that one of their employees is making racist or sexist comments online is that one's is

Courtney's opinion there.

We've got someone else on the text line saying, if you're working at a different location,

then actually working, this is talking about the quiet vacationing.

I'm not sure how this is any different than working from home.

You just have to have a nicer background.

Yeah, true.

There's so much going on.

We've got to move on though.

Most of us are busy.

If you want to fit somebody into your life, then that's a concerted effort that you need

to make.

On Triple J.

We are sticking with work for a minute because I saw this headline, which really surprised

me.

One company doing things a little differently overseas.

Yeah.

It's workers dating leave to improve wellbeing.

Workers were pretty tired of not having time to date, too exhausted after they clocked

off.

So this agency said, we'll give you some extra time off today.

You can have dating leave and they're going to pay for premium subscriptions as well to

a dating app.

Now the sceptic in me might think that this is just a paid partnership between this marketing

agency.

And this dating app, but it does raise an interesting point that I want to explore.

And I'm not going to mention the dating app's name because perhaps it is just advertising.

Marty Smiley, et cetera, et cetera.

What do you think of this one?

Genius or bizarre, et cetera.

Do you think we need some time, more time off the clock for dating?

I mean, this is crazy to me.

But maybe it's because maybe my experience of dating within the gay scene is very different.

I don't know.

It's very different to what, you know, trying to settle down and have a family with kids.

So if my workplace gave me time off the clock for dating, I would be like, I'm not sure

you should be doing this.

I can't guarantee it's going to be used for the...

I'm not going to mention another app's name, but you know, that's a gay dating app.

And if my boss said, yeah, we're going to use some time off to, you know, I would be

like, well, I guess we're living in a utopia then.

Yeah.

Let's go for it.

I think I'm a bit cynical about this as well

and I think that we can have leave for more important things first

and I think if people at that workplace are finding it difficult to date,

then surely the work-life balance is wrong in other areas

and that should not be the priority.

Okay, so all coming back to this balance.

I mean, Marty, I guess the idea of this could be good

because it could open up different possibilities

like going on dates during the day

or times when you can't usually, when you're not so tired at night.

I don't know.

That's true because a lot of people are doing

different types of dating these days.

It's not just the simple sit down.

They might go to the park, I've heard, and have an ice cream.

Apparently.

Okay, yeah, nice.

I've done that.

I'm hearing about run clubs that are actually just dating clubs.

So if there's a bit more time to do those type of things,

then sure.

It is pretty hard.

Like from my own time in the dating scene,

one of the things that is annoying is you go out

and drinking is involved in the date most often.

And so the next day you are a little bit hungover

because you've been trying to just, you know,

basically grease the wheels a bit and try to be a bit more social

and get past the sort of social awkwardness of it.

But then the next day you've got a heavy head.

So I can understand it from that.

From that perspective that, yeah, a bit more time off might be better.

Like just give us till lunch the next day.

I'll come in after that.

They haven't said how much time they would give off.

They haven't said it's this amount of days or whatever,

but they did say that you have to book it in, I think,

a couple of weeks beforehand and make it clear

that you're taking the dating leave.

Well, there are different standards.

If you're like polyamorous, do you get more time off

than if you're a monogamist?

Mormons get a lot of time off.

Yeah, I was going to say that.

That seems a bit unfair.

And everyone's being like, oh, no, I have three partners now.

That's so interesting.

Someone on the text line says,

nurses used to get allocated nights off for courting,

which sounds really, I did not know that.

I don't know if that's true.

I love that word.

Name.

It sounds more legit.

Yeah, it does.

Me lady.

Me lord.

We've got a lot of messages coming through.

Someone says, working so much and being so exhausted,

it takes you away from,

your relationship and dates.

Someone else says,

I think it's actually just the equivalent of parental leave,

but for people who don't want kids.

Oh, yeah, right.

Okay.

That's an interesting way of putting it.

I mean, you might end up with a kid on your dating leave,

so be careful.

Even more time off.

You could, you could.

I don't know.

Do you think we need to be more flexible with leave

across the board, Marty?

Like, if you think about it from, say, Japan's perspective,

where they have a real kind of loneliness,

epidemic, where a lot of people are single,

mate, that would solve a lot of issues, I reckon,

where they have an even bigger sort of work-life conflict.

Yeah.

So, yeah, more time off.

That would be great.

I think we're really advocating for less work, more play.

It's been an interesting show, hasn't it, this one?

We've really lent into the industrial relations side of hack.

It's been a lot of...

If we could end this early and leave,

that would be really amazing at this point.

I actually would like some leave at the end of this episode.

Because I have a drink to go finish at a pub down the road.

You're about to have your leave request granted.

Don't you worry.

It's happening right now.

Hack.

Huge thanks again to Etc, Etc and Marty Smiley

and to you for tuning in over the past week.

Massive week on Hack.

We're going to be back after the weekend.

I'll catch you then.

See ya.