S05.E06: Rayjus

[Thrifty]

Ick.  Total bait and switch.

Well, for the first third of the show actually about Rayjus, I liked it.  Ray and Justin at least seemed incompetent and lazy, rather than actively malicious.

[moonbunnychan]

I kept thinking they'd eventually go back....like they'd call and apologize or at least there'd be a check in on them.  Got to about 5 minutes from the end of the show and realized, guess not.  I don't mind an update show but it DID feel like a complete bait and switch.  Can't blame Marcus though, "radio character" or not, I wouldn't wanna work with somebody who said stuff like that.  And just from the working conditions, I'd be willing to wager money that he, if not both, of them didn't much value women.  I'd have "noped" out of there just as fast.

[Thrifty]

2 minutes ago, moonbunnychan said:

And just from the working conditions, I'd be willing to wager money that he, if not both, of them didn't much value women.  I'd have "noped" out of there just as fast.

I don't think it was "women" per se, but more that they don't value laborers.  I've seen this kind of thing before, where you have office staff and blue collar labor staff.  The office staff get a big head and think they're more important than the laborers.  It could just be a coincidence.  Or maybe not.  Could probably go either way.

 

The one guy (Ray I think?) said that his racist, sexist radio persona was just a character.  Which may be true (we don't really know him either personally or professionally).  But I never buy that as an excuse.  Because character or not, you're presenting that character as a real person,  putting that kind of negativity out into the world, and provoking people who are genuinely like that.  It's fine to play that sort of character in an obvious work of fiction, but not as an ostensibly real person.

[cooksdelight]

First time I’ve seen Marcus bail on the first visit. Why bother airing any of it at all, unless he hoped to get Ray fired from his DJ job. Anyone know if they are still in business?

[Thrifty]

5 minutes ago, cooksdelight said:

First time I’ve seen Marcus bail on the first visit. Why bother airing any of it at all, unless he hoped to get Ray fired from his DJ job. Anyone know if they are still in business?

Well, Ray Odom was fired from his radio job before the show aired.

 

Rayjus' web site is still live, and Google says they're still open for business.

[BusyOctober]

The other guy, Justin?? looked hella embarrassed as Ray was expounding on how his radio persona's "personality" is different from his "real" one, so good for him recognizing his biz partner is a Douche Bro.  Not sure how much longer that company will run if they can't pay the employees.  Not only is that a bad way to motivate your staff, IT'S ILLEGAL!

I hope "The Profit" isn't going to copy "Shark Tank", and start giving us "updates" on the same damn success stories every episode or two.  I like the pet store couple, but if I have to keep seeing them once a month, I will develop the same irrational dislike for them that I have for the "Scrub Daddy" guy, the lobster truck cousins and the ugly sweater nerds that keep showing up on Shark Tank. 

[cooksdelight]

I don’t know that I’d be advertising on TV that I owe the IRS a shitload of money, either.

[Thrifty]

It's pretty baffling that they are still in business.  They must have found some new lifeline or line of credit or something.

I once worked in a place where there was no climate control on the production floor, so it could get pretty hot in summer and cold in the winter.  In that case, it couldn't really be helped because it was at a helicopter assembly plant and they sort of had to keep these huge hangar doors open all the time.  The company did everything they could to help the people on the floor.  I remember they put out these bulletins on dealing with the conditions, installed some powerful fans, and provided copious amounts of Gatorade and fresh water to stave off dehydration.

Of course, the doors to the production floor at Rayjus closed just fine, so I don't know what their excuse was.

[ae2]

Wanted to find a recording of some of his radio program, but came up empty.

Rayjus "released a statement" yesterday.

[Thrifty]

Can you just fire a co-owner like that?

 

It's a little silly with this statement, and the statement by the radio station that fired him, that they act as if this is some big surprise.

Edited January 10, 2018 by Thrifty

[Amarsir]

6 hours ago, Thrifty said:

The one guy (Ray I think?) said that his racist, sexist radio persona was just a character.  Which may be true (we don't really know him either personally or professionally).  But I never buy that as an excuse.  Because character or not, you're presenting that character as a real person,  putting that kind of negativity out into the world, and provoking people who are genuinely like that.  It's fine to play that sort of character in an obvious work of fiction, but not as an ostensibly real person.

Well he stepped right into it when he said "I think every guy feels that way a bit". I can understand the idea that it might be cathartic to listen to an alter ego. Shock Jocks have been around for a long time, and while they may not be a great aspect of our culture I would argue they're less damaging than a softer-spoken true believer. Eric Cartman is racist, sexist, and all kinds of other horrible. But we can laugh when South Park features his rant at gingers because he's a ridiculous character. We just don't identify with him. Being a fictional character as you say is true, but also don't sell out your audience.

I don't think the RayJus guys were bad, but they were a perfect storm of bad publicity. Offensive on-air persona + bad working conditions + tax problems + absentee owners. Marcus was smart to get on the other side of that.

As for the bait-and-switch, I think they just don't build a lot of extra candidates into the schedule these days. The Bentley's stuff wasn't complete filler, as we did get to see new developments in the business. But we have seen them a lot and it seems like he used that because it was easy to film, not because it was something we needed to see.

Although to be honest I feel like I can guess what would have happened anyway. The owners need to sell their boats, the main business item is going to be a generic shirt which will be sold in all his sporting good stores, and the episode will end on air conditioning being pumped into the work room with a voiceover about how people are the most important thing.

[ae2]

2 hours ago, Thrifty said:

Can you just fire a co-owner like that?

 

It's a little silly with this statement, and the statement by the radio station that fired him, that they act as if this is some big surprise.

It's exceptionally silly. 

1) everything he did was on public display, so it's not like they didn't know about it

2) him being fired from the radio and the company happened simultaneously with the episode, so it isn't like they are doing this because of customer/advertiser/general backlash

The only thing I can figure is that Rayjus thought the segment would never make it to air, and the radio station didn't realize it was being aired until the promos started.

And honestly, after seeing the promo for the episode did anyone think Marcus was going to make a deal with them?

As for  how he was "fired"... if they were truly 50/50 partners it makes it more difficult. I'm no lawyer or expert, but it's possibly that Justin was written into their articles of organization as the operating officer, which could make it easier to tell him to stop coming to work, but it wouldn't dissolve his ownership. Most likely Ray still owns half the company. I was sort of hoping Marcus would buy Ray's half of the business for way under its value and boot him, but even that could have been spun the wrong way.

[Thrifty]

8 minutes ago, ae2 said:

It's exceptionally silly. 

1) everything he did was on public display, so it's not like they didn't know about it

Yes really.  He was hired specifically to be that kind of shock jock.  It's sort of like Vivid Entertainment firing one of their male actors for indecent exposure or groping or something.

[Ashlyc]

Does anyone know what kind of things he was saying. IDK again im surprised at how easily people say things like he did. He came right out and said those things. He didnt seem like he was really playing that much of a character either. i think he was hiding behind it. I get needing time off from work. but it seemed they really didnt have it in them to work a 5 day week. it couldve been dramatized, maybe they worked on sat and sun sometimes? i doubt it. the whole segment felt very rushed. did they not film much with those guys? did marcus know he wasnt going to do a deal before he even got there. i was hoping it wouldve gone somewhere other than just an update episode. im guessing once the comments were made they wanted to get out fast and not film. to bad it couldve been a fun episode. 

[cooksdelight]

1 hour ago, ae2 said:

him being fired from the radio and the company happened simultaneously with the episode, so it isn't like they are doing this because of customer/advertiser/general backlash

Oh, I think it is. Whatever radio station he worked for probably had the phones ringing off the hook today. From people who don’t listen, but think the station is filled with racist pigs and they are going to protest, or whatever. Would be interesting to know how many advertisers pulled their ads due to not wanting to be associated with a station that is now on the national media and being portrayed as pigs.

[Amarsir]

17 minutes ago, cooksdelight said:

Oh, I think it is. Whatever radio station he worked for probably had the phones ringing off the hook today. From people who don’t listen, but think the station is filled with racist pigs and they are going to protest, or whatever. Would be interesting to know how many advertisers pulled their ads due to not wanting to be associated with a station that is now on the national media and being portrayed as pigs.

I agree. It's one thing to make offensive jokes, but a complete other to label what you do as "saying sexist/racist remarks". There's no deniability in the latter.

It's also very true that people feel the need to weigh in with their reviews of stuff they only know from TV. Any time a restaurant or hotel shows up on a fixer-upper show like Restaurant Impossible, Yelp suddenly gets a bunch of new reviews. (None of which oddly enough are about how awful Robert Irvine is.)

Edited January 10, 2018 by Amarsir

[seacliffsal]

I can't believe that Marcus didn't know about Ray's DJ job before going to meet with them.  It seems like basic research-who are the owners, what else do they do?

I, too, was really surprised that Marcus didn't go back to the company.  I thought he would at least have checked in with the women who were doing the manufacturing.  I don't know, maybe he could give them jobs with Barkley's now that they're producing their own label natural dog food...

And, yeah, I really felt weird about the bait and switch.  I kept waiting for the Barkley's segment to end, and it didn't...... Interesting how it was a point of pride in the intro to the Barkley's segment that the owners followed Marcus' process until they didn't...

[JasminePhyllisia]

The cellphone video of a Friday afternoon was a little vague.  Was it summer? Many small offices would probably be empty on a Friday afternoon in summer. Was the point that this particular worker was forced to stay while everyone else was allowed to have the afternoon off?  If so, would anyone have noticed or cared if she had left? Need more context.  

And where was OSHA in regards to the insanely hot working conditions? 

Edited January 11, 2018 by JasminePhyllisia

[ae2]

6 hours ago, cooksdelight said:

Oh, I think it is. Whatever radio station he worked for probably had the phones ringing off the hook today. From people who don’t listen, but think the station is filled with racist pigs and they are going to protest, or whatever. Would be interesting to know how many advertisers pulled their ads due to not wanting to be associated with a station that is now on the national media and being portrayed as pigs.

He was fired from both jobs before the episode aired. Rayjus released the statement while the episode was airing live. So it almost certainly wasn't due to backlash from the episode.

[cooksdelight]

14 minutes ago, ae2 said:

He was fired from both jobs before the episode aired. Rayjus released the statement while the episode was airing live. So it almost certainly wasn't due to backlash from the episode.

Thank you for the clarification.

[Gregg247]

So after years of employing Ray as a shock-jock at their small radio station in Ohio, the station owners were suddenly horrified to find out that Ray said some "less-than-savory" things - on a daily basis - on their airwaves? I don't buy it for a minute.  Likewise, his business partner turned on him.  I also thought Marcus' clutching his pearls and basically shouting, "Heavens to Betsy, get me away from this vile man!" was overdone as well. 

Marcus can go into business - or not - with anyone he chooses to, but this episode seemed to be more of a hatchet-job on these guys in order to show how great and moral and above reproach Marcus is.  If there was no way in the world Marcus was going to do business with them, then why show this (fraction of an) episode at all?  What a waste of time.

[KHenry14]

18 hours ago, seacliffsal said:

I can't believe that Marcus didn't know about Ray's DJ job before going to meet with them.  It seems like basic research-who are the owners, what else do they do?

I agree, even basic vetting of these people would have turned up the DJ gig. So it stretches the imagination that Marcus would be ignorant of his persona. 

 

Marcus could have easily fixed this company had he gone forward. But fixing the lazy owners is something else.  And yes, we get Marcus could have put these RayJus products in Camping World and Ganders, which would have kept the company afloat. But one wonders if the business might grown very much

[sadtvjunkie]

The video was about none of the office workers being in on Fridays. They supposedly took off every Friday and left the manufacturing  people working in the hot conditions. If there was a problem with an order no one was arou d to address it.

[cooksdelight]

I am beginning to wonder if Marcus had some sort of beef with the company, a grudge or whatever. Because it seemed almost sadistic to show 20 minutes of bad PR. Then nothing, no followup at the end of the hour. I feel sorry for those women in the hot sweat shop, if anything I hope the bit of TV exposure got them an air conditioner.

[JasminePhyllisia]

2 hours ago, sadtvjunkie said:

The video was about none of the office workers being in on Fridays. They supposedly took off every Friday and left the manufacturing  people working in the hot conditions. If there was a problem with an order no one was arou d to address it.

Thanks for explaining.  Hopefully if the business folds, those hard workers can collect a decent amount of unemployment.

[Thrifty]

10 hours ago, JasminePhyllisia said:

Thanks for explaining.  Hopefully if when the business folds, those hard workers can collect a decent amount of unemployment.

Fixed that for you.

[moonbunnychan]

It was a bit of a red flag for me that all the actual laborers were women, and all the office people (at least that we saw) were men....and how much the conditions between the two differed.    If it had JUST been that I don't know that I would have felt as strongly, but that combined with his comments definitely painted a picture for me.   I could be wrong, who knows what happens in editing, but it certainly doesn't look good.
I feel mildly bad that his 15 minute appearance on a tv show has basically ruined his life, but it's a pretty valuable life lesson on how not to behave.

[cooksdelight]

TV didn’t ruin his life, his big mouth did. :)

[seacliffsal]

I would say his big mouth and ego-as he was bragging about his 'big' radio personality and career...

[Thrifty]

On 1/13/2018 at 5:10 AM, moonbunnychan said:

It was a bit of a red flag for me that all the actual laborers were women, and all the office people (at least that we saw) were men....and how much the conditions between the two differed.    If it had JUST been that I don't know that I would have felt as strongly, but that combined with his comments definitely painted a picture for me.   I could be wrong, who knows what happens in editing, but it certainly doesn't look good.
I feel mildly bad that his 15 minute appearance on a tv show has basically ruined his life, but it's a pretty valuable life lesson on how not to behave.

Well he says that his sexist, racist persona was just an act, but you know the saying... "If you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas."

[Lola16]

I didn't see that Odom was fired from Rayjus, that he is taking a leave of absence. Where do you see he was fired?

[TVbitch]

Just realized I missed this one. I have a hard time believing Marcus did not know about the shock jock before they started filming. Maybe that was just to show everyone what a principled man Marcus is. ... ... I thought he was going to at least buy the ladies a portable AC!

Yawn, another 30 minute long commercial for Barkley's.