# Balancing fun and profit (without the gimmicks)

- **Episode:** [181](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/181.md) (2025-03-20)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** fun-at-work, profitability, management
- **Time:** 14:17–16:27 (start 857s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/181?t=857](https://truthliesandwork.com/181?t=857)

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[14:17] Al Elliott: thinking back to maybe somebody who, a manager in your insurance company, for example, the way you've just described the way that you work, where it is predominantly fun, variety, no predictability of anything, and that you can just give people projects and say, just give it a go. What's the worst that can happen? That would terrify most managers. So how are you reconciling this? Do you have a management layer?
[14:42] Steve Carse: Uh, we have and have not. I'd say right now it's pretty much It's fairly flat. It's like my brother and myself pretty much. And there's a layer, I guess, between like, we call them pop slingers on the slinging side and frosty freaks on the production side. So there's a layer between basically a total of 3 layers. You know, I think it is an interesting point and I think like it would not be wise of my manager at AIG to say, just give it a go at making the rate for You know, motorcycle insurance in Utah. Um, that would be like kind of reckless, but there are also things here that would be reckless if I said like, yeah, just update our food safety plan or, um, just close our books. So I think those, there's always gonna be kind of those extreme examples. I think in every industry there is something that can be taken on that the stakes are not, um, you know, going to bankrupt you or, or injure anybody. I'm acting as if my manager or any of these AIG people are never going to listen to this, but I think, I think they were probably doing some of this stuff, but I think I probably wasn't receptive. So going back to that point earlier of like, it's a, it's a two-way 100%. So it has to be, the company has to be 100% trying to make a place fun. And the employee has to be 100% willing for that to be fun
[16:03] Al Elliott: You just talked about maximizing profits. Now there is a, what sounds like a huge risk, which I sound like an insurance company here, but it sounds like a huge risk to your business in that you said that winter you kind of close. So you are having to reconcile this idea of making figuratively pops while the sun shines, knowing that you're gonna have some dark days, yet keeping it fun. That's gotta be a difficult line to walk