💻 Traditional 9-5 is no more

In what shouldn’t be a complete surprise to most, the traditional work day isn’t what it once was - especially in an era after shifting to remote work, hybrid roles, and distributed workforces across timezones.

Microsoft broke down what it calls the “infinite work day.”

What’s happening?

• 40% of people who wake at 6am are checking emails for the day’s tasks.

• The average worker receives 117 emails a day, most of which are skimmed in 60 seconds (guilty…).

• Mass emails with 20+ recipients are up 7% this year, whereas one-on-one emails are down 5%.

• The average time between interruptions is just 2 minutes. This can include a message, email or meeting during the core work hours (and doesn’t include your co-worker who talks nonstop about fantasy sports and HBO shows).

• Impromptu meetings (those without a calendar invite) make up 56% of meetings. (Who doesn’t love spilling coffee all over themselves to get to a meeting that could have been an email?)

• Meetings after 8pm are up 16% YOY, the average employee sends or receives more than 50 messages outside of core working hours and by 10pm, nearly a 3rd of employees are back in their inboxes.

What can you do?

• Three recommendations: Microsoft outlines three things employees can do that are in this situation.

  • The 80/20 rule: focus on the 20% of the work that drives 80% of the outcomes and automate the rest.

  • The work chart model: with AI, rigid teams are not needed anymore. Instead, adopt agile, lean teams that can move fast.

  • Be an “agent boss”: Don’t work harder, work smarter. Deploy AI to handle repetitive, manual tasks so you can focus on what matters most.

What does it mean?

• Work days and personal time have become blurred since the pandemic and a major shift to remote work and distributed workforces in many different parts of the world.

• Microsoft’s study shows the use of AI will be more beneficial to get important tasks at work done through all the distractions.

Personally, I think a fourth recommendation can include boundaries. Work to live, not live to work. That’s just me, though. Anyone else?

🇨🇦 Canadian Headlines

• 30 days for a deal, or new counter tariffs, says PM Carney. PM Carney said “adjusted tariffs” would coincide with the progress made on a new trade deal as of July 21st, which would hit the 30 day deadline.

  • In addition to adjusted tariffs, PM Carney says there will be new limits on federal procurement procedures that favour Canadian suppliers and suppliers from “reliable trade partners.”

  • The import rate on steel will increase by 100% of 2024 rates on non-free trade agreement countries, with more tariff measures to be announced in the coming weeks as a response to unfair trade in steel and aluminum sectors amidst current trade wars.

• G7 allies agreed to a Critical Minerals Action Plan that will see G7 nations diversify critical mineral sourcing in an aim to reduce reliance on China (although, not outright naming China). Amidst supply chain vulnerabilities and China’s export restrictions affecting various sectors, the aim is to bolster investment in responsible mining programs.

• Canada’s Port of Montreal has seen a surge in trade with China amid the U.S. trade war. While overall trade is down due to tariffs from the U.S., shipments to China increased 22% year-over-year in the first half of 2025.

• Angus Reid: 64% of Canadians agree it’s best Canada Post remains publicly owned. 72% support reducing mail delivery to 3x a week and 52% support utilizing non-union gig workers to deliver parcels.

• $280 a year. The amount an average Canadian family can expect to save with the recent tax cut by the Liberal government.

• American wine exports to Canada dropped 93% in April as President Trump continued on with a trade war.

• The retail industry in Canada is in trouble. Insolvencies and bankruptcies in the sector have risen over the last four years after a 25-year decline, with an April report showing 56 insolvencies and 46 bankruptcies. 

  • The trend has been apparent the last four years due to factors that include a slow rebound coming out of the COVID pandemic, lowered customer demand and global trade wars.

  • Hudson’s Bay and Frank and Oak were the latest casualties. In 2023, Nordstrom departed the Canadian market entirely.

  • Ricki’s, Cleo and eyewear chain Hakim Optical began filing for creditor protections and began restructurings.

  • Canada could potentially have the highest share of “zombie companies;” businesses that survive off taking out debt because they don’t generate enough revenue to operate the business.

🤑 Wealthsimple vs. Big Banks

Last week, Wealthsimple unveiled new line of products as they take further steps to challenge Canada’s big banks, including a new credit card, chequing accounts and line of credit.

• Credit card: 2% unlimited cash back, no FX fees and fees waived with $4,000 a month in direct deposits.

• Chequing account: free ATM withdrawals, no fees, mobile cheque depositing, and interest rates ranging from 1.75%-2.75%.

• Line of credit: instantly available in app, 4.45% interest (current prime: 4.95%).

Other features include wire transfers, bank drafts and cheque delivery.

More Stories

🤖 AI in the corporate world?

• Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy warned employees that Amazon will shrink its corporate workforce as more AI tools are deployed - although, promised the creation of AI-created job roles.

• Microsoft plans to slash thousands of jobs - mostly in sales - and invest heavily in AI. What human wouldn’t want to be sold to by an AI agent, after all?

• With leaders eager to cut costs by hiring humans and using AI agents to complete tasks in the corporate world (despite only 24% completion of said tasks), a recent Gartner survey reveals that 50% or organizations that planned to reduce their customer service workforce will abandon those plans. Leaders have found out that the human touch is irreplaceable after all.

Bottom line: many companies have proclaimed very ambitious targets with the integration of AI in their operations, but when it comes to customer service and client facing roles, it is still way too fresh to believe an AI bot can fully support or sell to the human on the other end.

💭 ICYMI

• What’s happening to summer jobs in Canada? Unemployment rates in youth aged 15-24 were over 14% in May according to Stats Canada, which is double the national unemployment rate.

• President Trump is “raging” about his birthday parade (I thought it was supposed to be a military parade?).

• It’s been a long time coming, but new code in Spotify’s app could reveal that a “lossless” tier is finally on the way.

• A public spat between Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz reveals a splintering amongst Trump supporters regarding U.S. involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict.

• Parents in Maine reintroduced landlines. Now, a mini movement of 15-20 parents have brought landline phones back home to delay the addiction to smartphones in their children.

• Who doesn’t want their dog to live longer? Anti-aging advances can extend your dog’s lifespan and provide more clues to human longevity.

🕵️‍♂️ The SaaS Espionage Case

SaaS really isn’t the most exciting thing, but sometimes there’s a needle in the haystack. To many, you probably haven’t heard of this story or either of these companies (unless you’re on the sales side of LinkedIn and see all the posts from people at one of these companies…).

Competing HR software companies, Rippling and Deel, are locked in a battle over corporate espionage. Rippling alleges Deel employed one of their own employees to be a mole from within, conducting thousands of searches in Rippling’s systems and sharing secrets and documents that a regular payroll compliance manager shouldn’t have access to (think sales playbooks, pricing, customer targets, etc.).

In June, Deel amended their own lawsuit against Rippling, alleging they were doing spying of their own by having an employee impersonate a Deel customer in order to gain insights and steal data about Deel and their offerings. Rippling denies this, and claim that Deel’s internal spy also conducted searches on 9 other competitors in the space making it clear this wasn’t a one-on-one rivalry, but rather, Deel’s CEO attempting to on the entire field.

Facts about the case include:

• Deel’s CEO selling the idea of being an internal spy by name dropping “James Bond.”

• Payment was €5,000 in cryptocurrency ($5,700) a month in exchange for frequent updates about Rippling.

• Deel’s CEO messaged the spy multiple times a day on encrypted messaging app, Telegram.

• If information provided was helpful, Deel’s CEO would say “this channel is beast” or “these are badass.” If the information was a dud, he’d call it a “headache.”

• The messages were set to disappear automatically after 24 hours.

• Crypto payments were routed through the CEO’s father, who is also a member of the board at Deel and their Chief Financial Officer.

• In the suit, Rippling claims the spy viewed sales channels in Slack that included sales leads, customer names and contact information and full call transcripts that led to Deel keeping and acquiring new customers.

How was the spy caught?

Every search for “deel” in Rippling’s Slack was raising alarms. Numerous searches in a single day, everyday, for a competitor?

Rippling created a digital honeypot in its own Slack in order to see what was going on after suspicions were raised. The promise of intriguing information that ended up being fake was too good for the spy to pass up.

On March 3rd, Rippling’s lawyers contacted Deel’s to let them know of a Slack channel that was set up by former Deel employees that had joined Rippling and were sharing embarrassing information about Deel. A screenshot of the Slack channel, named “#d-defectors” was included.

The reality was this was the trap. It worked. Shortly after, Deel’s CEO told the spy to check into the channel. A few minutes later, he realized it may have been a trap and asked the spy to hold off but it was too late. The spy was acting in “Deel speed” as expected by Deel employees, but in doing so, gave Rippling all they needed to confirm their suspicions: Deel was spying on Rippling.

Nothing happened for over a week following that. The spy showed up for work a week and a half later, and was met by a lawyer who demanded the spy’s phone. The spy claimed he didn’t have it on him, then ran to the bathroom, flushing the toilet repeatedly while factory resetting his phone. The lawyer had informed him to not tamper with the phone as there was a court order for his cooperation, to which the spy said, “I’m willing to take that risk,” before running out of the building.

The lawsuit is still ongoing, and in a letter to shareholders, Rippling said they reported Deel to federal authorities and understands that an active criminal investigation is ongoing. Deel, meanwhile, claims to have no knowledge of an active investigation and says Rippling has a long history of making false allegations.

😊 Not everything needs to be serious…

Not everything needs to be serious and dreary. We can smile at the news too, and one of my goals is to end every edition with a story that you wouldn’t ordinarily see in the news, but that will hopefully make you smile.

Maybe as you get older you start falling out with the slang that younger generations use - we’ve all been there. I know I brought slang home from school over a decade ago that no one over the age of 30 would be expected to understand.

What happens when boomers and GenX figure out the slang and use it in their daily life? What would their favourites be?

You might be a bit surprised at some of the responses.