Burn Out, Burnt Out

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Comedy Central now hiring the Nation of Japan.
It's offering families eight thousand dollars to move out of
the city of Tokyo. There's eight thousand comes on top

(00:22):
of a previous seven thousand that was already on the table,
for a total of about fifteen thousand dollars to get
your asked to funk out this over populated part of
the country. Makes sense. Over population in Tokyo is taken over,
so they were already offering people eight thousand get the
funk out. But if you got a kid, you know
what with throw another seven on top of that dollar.

(00:43):
Based on where you all live. Now, how much money
would you need to be paid? I don't think eight
thousand dollars is enough to move just out of town,
Like how far? That's the question. You gotta be out
of town? I mean I take that deal, okay, but
that out of town could be East Tokyo, like across
the river some ship, like you know, exactly eight thousand

(01:05):
dollars And to throw some bullshot, I'll take a free
eight gs to switch your apartments. Now, if I ran Japan,
If I ran Japan, I would say y'all. Nigg has
got to go to Korea. Damn Korea, God, damn leave
whichever how much you want, I'll pay you. I'll double

(01:26):
up if you go to North Got'll be glad that
you're talking about Beijing goes China would just get to
push your ads out in the city and take eight
g's from you. They do so much funked up ship
over there, and we just don't say nothing. My name

(02:07):
is Roy, this is my foreign conspiracy democracy fair Chap
in his absence, happy to you. It is a new year.
It is a new time where you look back on
everything that you've done, everything that you've did, and realize

(02:29):
what a complete failure you are. You reset the clock
and reinspire yourself. You went out here forget this point
in the new year. You're halfway through that box of
nutritional cereal that you promise you're gonna get two bowls
of every day, but you ain't that ship and switched
back over to them sucking cereal bars special Okay with

(02:50):
the strawberror, isn't it everybody everybody has picked up about Yeah,
I'm gonna do i'mnna eat this, replace two meals with
these never happens, get him and get a punch bowl
full of lucky jarbs. Mon. We're little all over the
place today. Uh that will be by design. Got a

(03:10):
number of guests from a couple of different quadrants of employment,
and UM, I think we're gonna do an impromptu relationship fan. First,
we're gonna speak with the HR executive to talk about
the mistakes that you make during job interviews that could
keep you from getting a job and the fact that
you know what he's done to fire people. J G.

(03:30):
You'll be happy to know that the brother Patrick, who
we're gonna talk to in a second, Uh, Patrick wants
fired a hundred people in eight hours total. Job. That's
not that that. Remember the Two Time Club is gonna

(03:54):
be back on the show today, brother Roster Root, and
we're gonna talk with him about the process of what
it's like to produce a rap album posthumously. Is that
the word that I nail them? Post humous? When your
partner has already passed away and we're talking about you know,
wonderful fife dollar from a trip called Quests. Roster was
showed it with the responsibility of figuring out which tracks

(04:17):
to put together for that album Fife Doll Forever. So
we're gonna talk to him and we're gonna even listen
to some of the tracks. Shout out to the legal team,
Shout out who helped us through this process to make
sure that we could give you as much of a
listening experience as possible. UM. And then we're also going
to talk a little bit today about burnout, which is

(04:37):
where I want to start right now. We're gonna have
a brother on a little later today and he's gonna
talk to us about recognizing the signs of burnout and
what you should do before you quit your job. If
you burnt out and you sick at a ship, don't
just quit right away. Is one more thing you should do.
And when we talk about burnout in ways to avoid it,
ain't no software to say it. This will be the

(04:59):
last up, So the Royce job fair for a little
while while I figure out what the funk to do
in the world of late night. And this is not
It was not an easy decision to come to. UM.
You know, the team, I've spoken with you all about it,
but the listeners, you know, I kind of went back
and forth. You know, I don't know, do you pull

(05:20):
a Trevor know and say what you're gonna do beforehand
or do you just do it on the last episode?
And I figured we'd do it on the last episode. Um,
I don't want to be in a situation where I
find myself burnt out, you know, and seeing burnt out
co workers a little bit more close. As much as
I love this podcast and j gu with all people

(05:40):
know what a labor love this has been from the
beginning to in the morning talking to people on Twitter, Ralph,
where you still twitter with this ship? I just know,
just fuck it? Whoever come up in the zoom boxing next,
that's what we're talking to. Remember I was a follower

(06:02):
back then, Chaos. I remember Chaos. My future at the
Daily Show is not promised in terms of hosting. If
we just be in one hunted right, Do I want
to be in consideration for hosting? Absolutely? Am I in
the Hopera is one of the many guests hosts that
will be coming up in the next couple of months. Absolutely,

(06:23):
But in the interim, not knowing how that's going to go.
I gotta put a couple other pots on the stove, man,
and I gotta make sure that one of them bets
pays off taking over for James Cord. But there was
a report that they're gonna cut the budget for Late
Night from sixty million to thirty five million for cording.

(06:45):
So you know, it's television is changing, Like if we're
talking about the bigger scope of the industry in which
I really pay my bills, it is changing. Paramount cut
their unscripted in reality show was last year. That's how
much people are trying to save money. Damn. Because those
things are basically free. You make them holes for three

(07:07):
dollars an episode. Also, cutting the budget of a late
night show I have does sound like they're about to
give it to a black person. So also, and I
don't know if y'all care about this ship, this will
be a good episode to have at some point. Um,

(07:27):
there is a potential writer strike looming this summer, and
when that writer strike hits, as it is believed to
hit that it will hit, television production is gonna stop
for an unknown amount of time. So uh, if I'm
a smart squirrel now in January, then I need to

(07:48):
start getting my acorns together. But that being said, Philadelphia,
I'll be coming your way to the French Line Comedy close.
I wanna. I want to center very sincere thank it
to everybody that's invested their time in this podcast and
listening to it and being, you know, people who spread
the gospel. This was by intention, the people's podcast. I

(08:12):
wanted it to be about talking to regular people. I
did not want to talk to celebrities. And I just
hope that on the other side of everything that is
figuring out the next phase of my life, then I'm
able to come back and get this podcast back cracking again.
You know. Uh Rod, I say thank you to you
because I knew the streets would appreciate it. I knew

(08:32):
people would funk with you. Ralph. I'm happy we met
that night, um in New Brunswick, New Jersey at the
Comedy Club, and UM, I appreciate your and dying late
night sacrifices editing this program. Jacqueline, UM, I'll see your
ass in a week. Well wait a minute, you really

(08:55):
think I'm gonna let you say all that and not
say that I am so proud of you for taking
time for yourself and that I am so proud of
you for saying no, and I'm so proud of you
for saying yes. You have spared so many people a
well deserved throat punch by choosing choosing grace and no

(09:20):
matter the project, your beautiful heart is always on display.
Roy Wood Jr. It is my honor, I know, but
I have much more to say, And you really think
I'm gonna stop, but I'm not. I'm not gonna let
you drag this out because you wanting to make the
saint the funeral for the show. I'm taking a break
so and lose my fucking mind while I try to

(09:40):
figure out what late night TV show I can create
or take over. Well, I'm still going to tell you more.
So it's my honor. Dad. I still have to go
out and work on your stand up because I want
to get back on the road. You know, we're doing tribulations.
Tribulations is coming back in marsh is the time of
the therapy show. And somewhere in the middle of all
of that, ship still have to be a father. Yes,

(10:01):
it's still a six year old that I don't know.
He wants to hang out a lot, so I guess
I've got to do that too. They don't really go away,
they don't really go away. And you also have to
let me finish saying these nice things about you that
you don't want to hear, you can finish. Thank you show. Okay,

(10:23):
So I was saying that your beautiful heart is always
those emotional if you're making me laughing, okay, okay, So
you know that it's my honor to pray for you daily,
to walk alongside of you on the days that go

(10:43):
well and the days you tell me not to cry.
Trust is our currency. Thank you for taking my name
into rooms I never imagined. Thank you for always encouraging
me to follow the paths that make me different. And
now as you go forth and a comp wish even
more than you can imagine, know the best is yet

(11:04):
to come. And then I have one small sidebar. Yes
I'm going to ring your phone at sixty minutes to
every call time and thirty minutes before every other call time, respectively.
And yes I'm always going to ugly cry at every milestone.
And yes I'm gonna blow my nose on your handkerchief.
I am who I am, and I thank you Roy

(11:25):
with JR. Well, thank you JJ very much. We also
have to send a shout out to, of course a
yacht who is dutifully helped me with bookings and save
me god damn migrains Um as well as Tierra Tierra.
We don't talk too often on the show. She checks
in now and then, but she hannels a lot of
the back producing of the show to get it ready

(11:47):
for a satellite radio and ultimately what I want for
terrestrial radio as well, which I still want to do.
And of course old Rhonda you don't know those out
the blue. She was just like, hey, I like, I'll
need some help with anything. She is a true engineer

(12:07):
with a side hustle. Bro That's really what it is.
She is. She's an amazing person, man, amazing. So you know,
I'm very I'm very appreciative. So with that, with that,
with that being said, happy birthday, Ralph, dear, thanks sorry

(12:31):
that this is happy on your birthday. It's MCD. It's
McDonald's all over version, best version, version, best friend fires you,
and that it's like happy birthday, your late night help.

(12:53):
Let y'all know that this thing is available, This is
remain steadfast, that this is a hiatus. It is not
an ending conclusion. But I need bandwidth to figure out
this other ship first. That's just the blunt truth of
the matter. If I'm going to figure out where I
fit in the world of late night, be it as

(13:14):
a host or a correspondent or whatever. While they're cutting budgets,
then I need to be thinking of the funniest, cheapest,
goddamn joke I can come up with. Relationship Specialist coming
shot on the iPhone six listen, Bounce TV has been

(13:35):
waiting on you to hit rock two thousand dollars special
sound pretty good? So yeah, that's that's the deal. That's
what's happening. That's why this episode is going to be

(13:58):
ridiculously long because I don't want this to end. It's
time now for Cody's most Outstanding Employee of the Week.
Bill Cosby is back on tour. Called it, called it.
I mean waiting for you to say this ship we
called it, called it a year ago, almost to the
f and day we called it. We called it. And

(14:18):
then the question now is who's he riding with, Who's
gonna be the opener, who's gonna be that feature or
just Bill Cosby for three hours? Get it? Chris Delia Jack,
do you think years old people will still pay money

(14:40):
because a bunch of hurdles with this, and also Cosby
is not my CMO. But I just thought I thought
it would. It's hilarious. Can't be the CMO that can't
know j G. My question to you was this being said,
do you think people will buy tickets to be Bill Cosby?

(15:01):
So are you saying recidivism doesn't work? I mean Cosby.
I'm just asking this is like, this is like America.
You see what I'm going speaking blindness, I don't. Yeah,
you can see where I'm going. I'm just asking number one,

(15:22):
I think people will buy tickets to see Bill Cosby.
I don't know what venue in good faith will book
Bill Cosby full stop. That's the only place I highly
disagree with you. And please know that I am not
saying that Bill Cosby should be someone who's out there
on the road making money, but this is the only

(15:42):
way that he actually has to possibly live if he
didn't save his money and do well. So I still
stand upon maybe, yes, there's someone who's going to book him,
there's a venue that's going to book him. But then
I also think about the fact when you serve your time,
are you clear now or can you go back out there?
It's a question. Husban's got to hang it up. Man.

(16:04):
Don't nobody want to see that ship. He's too old.
That's the that's the that's the thing that's weird about
it to me. First of all, Bill Cosmy is not
an edgy comedian, so he can't go on stage to
this comeback. He's not he's not having any jokes about
what happened, and he's in his eighties, as is his audience.
They're not coming at the house. The only people that

(16:25):
will be willing to buy a ticket to see this
ship it's the young dummies who are all with the
He was trying to buy NBC and that's why he
got in trouble. But they don't like Bill Cosby's comment
in so they're just gonna come give him a standard ovasion.
Then as soon as he started talking this nineteen forties boyshit,
they're gonna be ready to leave. You hit the nigger lottery, Okay,

(16:47):
you got found gift of a crime, and then they
let you out on some technicality. Set your ass in
the house and waiting to die. I don't go out
there and ship up. The same day he announced he
was going back on tour, two of his victims sued
his ass hed better sit the funk down somewhere. I

(17:09):
just have one question. I'm curious about which prison game
was he in, because to be in prison, you need
to be in a game to be protected. So I
just want to know which one he was in. Not
not when you're not, when you're an old man, he
does old g I always thought it was funny that
like that was gonna be like old niggas, Like niggas
in prison would be called the bill guys, old head,

(17:29):
ain't got a thug life tattoo, Think Cosby pledge, gangster disciple.
And then right when that became a crip to back
up to talk to you about your commissary, keep it
to man, all right, did we for gardens cigarettes? He

(18:00):
puts the shave in the thing and he comes back.
And the reason why I use Bill Cosby as a
segue into this week CMO is what I do know
for sure is that he's going to get heckled. They're

(18:21):
going to be protesters who will buy that eighty to
nine dollar ticket just to disrupt the funk out of
that show. Ralph, would you go to a comedy show
if you knew there were people there who only wanted
to disrupt this performance? Would I go? Yes? Would you
pay if you were a fan of whatever. I'm not

(18:42):
even putting Cosby on your conscious. That's whoever you love
as an entertainer live if you knew for effect, when
you go there, someone's just gonna start screaming out right
back's right back, yeah, and disrupt the show? Would you
pay money for that live experience? What I pay for
it knowingly going ahead of time? Probably not because I'm

(19:03):
too old to get caught in that ship. But the
bigger question is what do you do if you pay
for that and it happens while you're there? And I
kind of think that people or another kind of I'm
not I don't know. I don't know if he's lost
a fastball, is what I'm saying, and people tend to
forget that. The boy did play a couple of times
on film. What if Kasby goes to prison, he comes
out and he's good? Does that? Don't what happens at

(19:27):
that point? I don't doubt his stand up skill set.
I just don't know if people are going to allow
him to perform. Which brings me to Windell Pierce. Whin
the Pierce we all know it's Detective Bunk Moreland Um
from the wire wonderful television show. We also know him
currently from Jack Ryan When the Pierce is also an

(19:50):
esteemed Broadway actor, and in a recent performance on Broadway
of Death of a Salesman, which he has been waiting
his entire life to do, theater is live, theater is
the pinnacle to shut the funk up, and a heckler
disrupted the show to the point that he had to
break character in the middle of the show, and he

(20:12):
told the heckler quote, I've been waiting my whole life
for this, begging the man, begging the man to stop
disrupting the show so that people could enjoy the performance.
They had to raise the outslights and escort the person
out of the fucking venue, and it literally took everybody

(20:32):
out of the show. He offered him his money back
as well. He said, I will give you your money back.
I will do it. I will do it. And as
a Thesbian and someone with a degree in theater, I
was appalled so for not coming off that stage and
not beating the ship out of this motherfucker. For that.

(20:56):
The wonderful wind of Pierce, who can go it a
barbecue brill the professional. I had some of his ribs
one time in Atlanta. That's a story for another day.
For that when appears you are Cody's most outstanding employee
of the weekend. Yes, so last ride for a little
while with the job fair. So let's get into this.
First guest, let's experience the world of hr j G.

(21:19):
Who do we have on the learn It's Patrick Colvin
and Patrick has two roles. First, he's the cheap, Diversity,
Equity and Inclusion Officer for the company that he works for. Second,
he's the head of Talent for this French based financial company.
And in those roles, he is tasked with building and

(21:43):
fostering a diverse and inclusive culture across the company, along
with overseeing initiatives that attract, develop, and retain diverse staff.
And so today Patrick will be sharing with you Roy
a few stories from his more than fifteen year career

(22:04):
in h R. Hello Patrick, Hello, thank you for having me.
Noll I hear for your worship. First, urge us to
fire a lot of motherfucker's you mean appropriating companies. Do
the right there. Tell the people you sit home, Patrick
the truth right now. That is certainly a part of it,

(22:27):
right That was a certainly part of my job for
a long time. Um, you know, letting people, letting people go.
But I think for the most part, I guess that's
that's probably a myth of HR two. Most people that
get into human resources they want to be a partner.
They want to create a positive environment that's productive and
all those other good things. Right. But what people don't

(22:49):
understand is HR a lot of time is the messenger.
A lot of times HR personnel, they don't have any authority.
We make recommendations off of things, and based off of that,
the managers, the the leadership, the executive team, they can
either heat that recommendation or not. You know, I've had
situations where I'm letting people go and I've done mass layoffs,
mass reductions force. Uh you know one stuff like that

(23:13):
defined mass that hundred people in eight hours. Yes, and
it was across time zones. Jacqueline, did you just say
yes in a celebratory tone? Absolutely? You are so confusing.
So were you doing so? Then let's just stay right
in that pocket mass firings. What are we doing this?

(23:34):
So we're doing this over zoom face to face? Is
it an email? What's to move? Phone call? How do
you handle this? You're trying to do as many face
to face as possible, because you want to have outplacement
on site. You want to be able to give people,
you know, all the information necessary. You want to help
set them up for success in terms of what's going
to happen next for them. And a lot of times

(23:54):
these were industries in which people didn't have transferable skills
to go do something else. Right, So, if you did
one thing your whole life for thirty years, and now
I'm telling you you can't do that, how are you
gonna right? Right? I got two kids in college. You
know That's what they would tell me. I got two
kids in college. How am I supposed to do this? Right?
So I always tell people, if you get to a

(24:15):
point in which laying off people becomes very transactional for
you and you don't feel anything from it, that you
need to get out of HR And look, people have
called me on my name, people have thrown things at me.
I've had people cry, I've had people begged me on
their knees for a job. I've had all types of
stuff happened. Right, who's easier to fire black employees and

(24:37):
white employees? Oh? Man, that's a great question. I mean,
I've i've, i've, I'll give you two stories. So I
was I was letting, I was letting go of this uh,
this black woman and uh, you know, she was calling
me all out my name and everything else, and it

(25:00):
was real fiery, and then it got real emotional, and
then she wanted to pray with me. Right, and so
that was a weird, unique type of thing. Right. It was,
it'll give you everything. And then I had a situation
where I let go of of a white male and
he wasn't trying to hear anything that I was trying
to say. The company was offering him severance and all
these other things, and I was trying to explain those

(25:21):
things to him. And he must have called me a
bit about fifteen times. And I let it go every
single time because I know you just lost your job.
You highly emotional. I'm not the guy that's taking your
opportunity away. I'm just a messenger. So I let it
go and I had to walk this young man off
the premises. I had to walk into the elevator and

(25:42):
I remember in the elevator, the elevator door opening. He
stepped into the elevator with security and as the elevator
doors were closing. He said, if you weren't in this office,
I kick your ass. So immediately. That was the one
day in my career in which I saw red. So
the doors closed and I instantly was pressing that button

(26:05):
to open those doors. I went downstairs to find him
on eighth half in front of the subway, and he
wasn't about that action, and he ran down and caught
that train. What that's a beer from me? I don't care.
So that was the one day in which I did
not think about my career. I did not think about

(26:25):
my family. It was just you just disrespected me. Yes,
don't let this sweater fool you. I'm coming down stairs.
What are some mistakes that people make during job interviews
that helped them late? We damn people show up late.
People show up unprepared. People don't do their homework on

(26:47):
the organization. People can articulate, you know, what their experiences is,
what they've done, how that transfers to the role that
they're looking to, you know, acquire from the new organization.
And last, but not least, people do not negotiate. People
do not talk about money. People and when I say people,
I mean specifically black and brown communities. We have been

(27:08):
taught to put our head down, just do the work,
and somebody's gonna tap us on the shoulder and tell
us we did a great job and promote us. And
that is not how it goes right. You gotta advocate
for yourself, and in the very beginning, you gotta negotiate.
You gotta understand when you start that job, you have
the most leverage that you will ever have at that organization.
At that time, they have basically said we want you.

(27:28):
You are number one choice. Everybody knows that there's a
drop off between your number one and your number two.
So a company is not gonna lose you for five
thousand dollars more, ten thousand dollars more because it's costing
them money every single day to keep that position vacant,
and they gotta worry about their staff that's doing all
the extra work until they feel that position. So I
tell people, you gotta ask for it. You gotta know

(27:50):
your value, you gotta know all those things, and you
gotta be open for that. And on the flip side,
as an organization, as an HR, we're expecting you to negotiate.
We know that there's room in our range. You think
we're just gonna offer you the top of the range
just because right, don't work that way, Right, I wanted
I want you to come back to the table and
tell me that you deserve more money, because that's confirmation

(28:12):
that you're the right person for the job, because you
believe that you can come delivered from me, even if
it's not monetary. You need to be asking for more.
You think that a company really is going to care
if they their policy is two weeks vacation and you
say I would like three weeks of vacation, You just
think gonna lose you for that. No, they're not. Or
the fact that you know there's commutation, there's there's you know,

(28:33):
Jim stipends, there's clothing allowances. There's so many different things
that you can ask for and you can negotiate. You
can negotiate when you get your first performance evaluation, right,
because if you're coming into the organization at the end
of the year they're doing their performance evaluation, you don't
get evaluated. So now you gotta wait a whole year,
maybe sometimes eighteen months before somebody evaluates you and you

(28:54):
get an opportunity to get a raise. Right. So there's
so many things that people can ask for um to
to make sure that they're setting themselves up for success.
So I got a company car and lived around the corner.
Who cared, do you be scamming sign on bonus? HR
is for the company. I'd like a car, Please make

(29:16):
sure And they said, yet they all your value And
they said, if if if it takes a car to
get hurt, then that's what we're gonna do. Okay, I'm curious.
You've been in the HR game for fifteen years. Can
you share your thoughts about or how it's done. When
HR has to interview people, let's just say who are

(29:39):
qualified per se, even though they already know who they
really want to hire. That's the nice about the NFL. No, No,
I'm saying when corporations come knocking on my door because
they're trying to feel a senior VP role and candidacy

(30:00):
has to include people of color, people that are qualified. However,
we already know they're going to hire the cousins, nephews, uncle,
or however that's gonna go. Can you shed a little
light on that or don't touch it if you don't
want to, But we know it's real. It's very real.
I mean, I think. You have organizations that are very performative,

(30:21):
you know what I mean. They will advertise a job,
they will say that we need a diverse slate of
women and minority candidates to be interviewed and consider for
this role, and you'll have situations in which that role
doesn't even exist. Right. They're just using that to kind
of pipeline or keep their talent warm, or to have
fresh resumes, things of that nature. Right, But really what

(30:42):
they're doing is they are killing their name in the
street and you're giving a horrible candidate experience. You're either
intentional about it and you're serious about it or you're not.
Because a lot of organizations will say that our numbers
are this, we are moving towards that we've made x
amount of progress and x amount of time. But what
they won't tell you is how they did it, you

(31:02):
know what I mean. And you can fudge numbers, you
can manipulate data any way that you wanted to. I
can tell you that we've done this and it might
be accurate if I look at it from a six
month you know projection, But if I pull that out
for twelve months is going to be completely different. I
was just gonna share that I had a head hunter
major company. The first time I sat down with this person,

(31:26):
we had an amazing conversation. Of course, it was over food,
so that meant I was getting even closer. So I
just went ahead and asked him. I said, why are
we playing this game? The company that you're representing, they
already know who they want to hire. I even know
who they want to hire. This man on the spot
offered me eight hundred dollars an interview if I would

(31:48):
just keep doing these things the sturdy pool. Whoa sturdy pool?
And I've since stop taking those head hunter calls. But yeah,
well it sounds like you leave money on the table.

(32:09):
There's someone out there who really wants that job, and
I'm not gonna play their game. Patrick, I need you
to hang around now. We're gonna talk to Rod. We're
gonna talk to Roster Root about five dollars album, But
then we gotta come back to you to talk about
the world of diversity, equity and inclusion and how companies
be scamming it a little bit. And I mean j
G got a story about some scam she'd be running it.

(32:29):
J G, you be scamming It's the job Fair. We'll
be right back, job Fair. We got Patrick standing by
for scam of a week. We're gonna talk about diversity,
equity and inclusion and uh gonna get to Rod. But
first I got a two time about to step up

(32:51):
in the end um talk about what it's like, because
I've always wondered that third like, what is that journey like? Creatively?
When a musician passes and they have unreleased music, what
is the process of putting that music out? What is
your process of developing that music and getting all that together?
And we all know fife Dog from a tribe called

(33:13):
quest j G. Who do we have on a lot?
It's Dion Roster Roots Liverpool back for a second time
on the job there to discuss the process he went
through in creating and crafting the album Fife Forever. He
also allowed us to use some of the music from
the album to illustrate the final results. Yes, yes, this

(33:36):
is a job there. First, You'll never understand the battles
we go through to play music on this Most music
you hear is produced and owned by Viacom. I got
an email once a week, Hey, what's the name of
the theme song? I should would like to download it
and upstairs and they don't want it in the streets. Yeah,

(34:00):
but if you eat me still, I still send that
ship out though. What I'm saying, you know what, man,
this this I'm excited man, because we get to use
music like we get to use actual y'all don't understand
how hard it is to get music on a podcast,
but we got this. We have actual tracks from Fife
Dogs album Fife Dog Forever that was produced by wonderful

(34:25):
wonderful guests. This is this is what's this from Ralph Forever?
But Dion first and foremost, Um, we know you make
these shells as well, So talk to us a little
bit about smoking shells. Yes, definitely. So I have a
company called Smoking Shuttle. I developed these a few years ago.

(34:49):
Now okay, well this is what I know. I know
he developed is a while ago, and it makes them
very unique as he can personalize them to eat DJ
to have your own name, your own DJ name, I
know Jazz Jeff or a couple of hats have the
shells right, and and also he also did a good
job on the sound quality of the shows too. On
some nerdy audio ship Roy third, I was listening to
this album before we got on can we can we

(35:09):
play freak Kiss? Just? I know they ain't got another
scratches in it, but I'm sorry. Good music just that's
just that. Just you know, it's weird. Third, like, you

(35:33):
don't know when you're listening to a bad sound, do
you hear a good sound like audios like like because
you can hear a song and sometimes the song sounds
underwater or it doesn't have quite the right mix to it,
but you want to hear all the highs sometimes, like
you want to hear like James tells us all the

(35:53):
time when men can't hear very high things. But when
a song is mixed badly, you don't hear the high
had so of the drum kit, you don't hear the symbols.
You don't hear all this stuff to round out the
sounds or the song sounds complete. Which is why I
like about the needles. They are very clear about that.
I want you to talk about making that album with
somebody who wasn't here. Man, it's so crazy, like I'll

(36:18):
show you right now, like this is this is the
hard drive right here that has he wrote that himself,
sin his fife. It's probably backwards on there, but this
hard drive contains all the music or pieces or acapella's
beats ideas was all on here, and luckily, you know,
somehow another I ended up with it in us working
back and forth. So I always like to say he

(36:39):
left us with the blueprint of what he wanted because
we started working it together when we were recording the
Tribe album in fifteen. He and I were like heavy
working on his own stuff while he was at Tip's
house at night recording. We come on in the afternoon
to do things for his album, so he was well
on his way. It just was completely probably complete. So
we had to take those says and everything we had

(37:01):
and it's like a big puzzle on the table and
had to put the pieces together with a red gym
say them to sell it for the crack and sons
of men who want to find a lot of Grammys
and flax with the higher rest of the back the
misspanish life, but still managed to miss strike damn on,
How did you? How did you take those concepts? Because

(37:23):
there's some of the songs on there. For example, there's
a song called Dear Della where it's it's Q Tip
talking with Fife talking to Jay Diller, who's past, but
in the hook is Q Tip talking to both of them.
In Heaven Goes By, I Keep my Head into the Sky.

(37:49):
I get that cover move out of Space Left and
it's like a heavy song. Like it's just like the
concepts on some of those songs. Man, we're just brilliant.
Can you talk about how it's funny you say that
because Dear Dilla. I did the original Dear Dial in

(38:09):
fourteen with Fife, but I sampled like everything, I'm like
twelve different samples, so we got the sample quote back.
It was like thirty seven thousand dollars to clear that
the samples on that song. So we were kind of
in the mode of saying, you know what, let's just
scrap this song. But I said, well, why don't we
just reproducing it, make a different version of it. And
then I started working on what you heard on the
album and then that feature with um It's so weird.

(38:34):
I Fife did the song for j Dilla saying I'll
see you one day, and then fast forward two years
in there you know, in the same kind of space
and place, you know. So I we talked to cut
to for two years of of getting him as a feature,
but we didn't know which song he happened to pick,
the one that I produced, which would have been their
last time on record together. You know, symbolically, what you

(38:56):
hear at the beginning of this song is actually him
saying me a voice note, yo, what course you want
me to do? You a course? At this point, it
literally sounds like he was talking to fill that crazy man.
I can tell you that, and I can just finish
after this. Actually, I enjoy listening to people's music, like

(39:18):
I'm still a huge music head, hip hop, house, you
name it. I couldn't listen to that album from Talking
to Bottom without shedding, like the most serious man tears
because it's like Fife is talking to you like this, dude.
It was like, and so I remember trying to call
you and tell you like, yeah, I had tears in
my eyes when I was talking to you, like dog,

(39:38):
this ship has got me stuck, like I couldn't move.
It was like he was talking to you from beyond
the grade. You know what I really appreciate about this,
It's just how surreal this feels, because it's almost a
different listening experience when you know the weight behind the artists,
right like the surreal, the surreality the Sia sur realness

(40:00):
to surreal that's not a word, the surreality of Sheryl's
big son, for example, the track just kind of floats
behind you sometimes, and I felt like that kind of
had to be a little surreal even for you to
listen to it once it was done, because you were

(40:21):
very close to it. Yeah, for sure, it's my best friend. Um.
You know, when you go through working on a posture album,
nobody gives you the blueprint of how to do it.
So we were just going with what we felt was best,
what we wanted to present as his legacy, and where
we know he would want. You know. So, as I'm
working on the album and getting towards the end of
it and me meaning us as a collective, UM, I

(40:44):
didn't have an expectation or worry about where people are
gonna accept it, or were people gonna like it or
hate it. I didn't think like that, which normally releasing
something into the world you think about that. For some
odd reason, this album didn't give me that anxiety. I
was happy that it was complete. I knew that complete.
The album was a part of my morning, a part
of my grieving process. And that like getting it out

(41:04):
in the world. It would also free me from you know,
listen to his voice every day for six years. You
can't get from that, you know what I mean, a
person with that profile, they're always talking about Tribe and Fife,
so you can't you can't escape it, you know. Um.
Your your reaction to the album is is what everybody
has said. They said the album was an emotional experience

(41:26):
for them, you know. Um, And I didn't think about
that either, but people we're listening to it having these
moments of doubt, did I make the right decision that
I more in my father's death, should I make up
with my friend who? You know? If I've said it
all in an album, And like the sorry man on
the album, it's like being a screen that come fine.

(41:52):
I literally got halfway through the song and had to
pause it, like I couldn't, like literally tears just roll.
That's crazy. Man. That's happy to hear that. Man Like
that means people you know, people you know, yeah, man,
you did you did it, You did it, You did
you did them? Proud you, man. I really really appreciate that. Seriously,
for the last time for a long time, he comes

(42:13):
to us from Middle Tennessee. We call the segment breaking
the ice. It is an opportunity for you to not
read the papers and not visiting the website, to come
up with topics that you could share with co workers
that you can't stand and hopefully break the monotony of

(42:35):
a shitty ass job. To help us do that, he
is our resident white people, Black people ologists. He loves
the peanut butter whiskey. Ladies, if you go outside and
uh put a little bit of that on the back
of your knees, you will feel a tingling feeling moving
up your thighs because he will have appeared his mom

(42:57):
and named Murado. We call him Rod for short ride
as quick as you can. How is your holiday? I
know you're normally a purveyor of juggling multiple women, so
you don't really get a couple of variances of gifts.
Uh what did the women that the women get you
anything this year that you not want to be? You know,
on the hook for Valentine? No, I gotta, I gotta,
I got hooked up man clothes and shoes and cash

(43:21):
and video games. You know, everything you need, everything you want.
You know, it's real. While he getting all these gifts.
He getting all these gifts, he's celibate. That's right. That
your light shines from within. You don't need to use
your genitals. It's such a just radiated. It's about word.

(43:48):
I'm just such a great person. Okay, all right, let's
just stop right there. We bring round this program to
get some stories. What you got for us this week? Right,
let's start the new year off. Right. Let's start the
new year off with a story from a recent episode
we did. The good folks at Frontier Airlines have announced

(44:13):
that they are giving away free flight vouchers for people
who adopt kittens from a local shelter in Las Vegas.
There's three kittens, one name Frontier, one name Delta, one
named Spirit. Frontier Airlines would give two vouchers to two
people who adopt Spirit and Delta, and give four flight

(44:36):
vouchers to who have adopts Frontier. Now the Spirit, the
Spirit kitten is dead. But knowing what animal at this
it's like a having a kid named Greyhound, that kid

(44:58):
two legs. Don't you know about trailways before the Greyhound merger?
We're old um Rod, speaking of speaking of airlines, Rod,
what say you to the Southwest Airlines fiasco. I don't
know if you saw where Southwest Airlines pilot detailed twenty

(45:21):
years of mouthfeasance and the focus on the corporate level
on getting passengers on board instead of updating their system.
So essentially the systems crashed so bad that they didn't
know where their crew was, they didn't know where the
planes were, and they had to basically control all delete
and get the reboot cd ROM and fired that bitch

(45:46):
up from scratch again. A lot of people were stranded.
There was a woman that was supposed to get married
in the Belize. She lost her deposit mr wedding because
of the Southwest fiasco. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's that's
that's why you make sure you don't skimp on the

(46:07):
plane ticket when you got to fly to their wedding
and believes you you make sure you get the topic
in line ticket. Okay, Southwest, it's cheap, no disrespect. I
love Southwest, but your money on the day of destination wedding.
That didn't have to take a canoe to that motherfucker

(46:28):
she was doing Southwest to the to the airport that
had the direct flight to Bulli. Since not like Southwest,
go all the way to even you know, it was
basically she was gonna fly there, wait a day, then
go back to the airport, and then gone on the
next plan. Well, she had a whole day, that's enough
trying to drive somewhere Houston to fucking believes. No, she

(46:53):
could have got to the other to the other airport
where the next flight was. Yeah, I guess, but at
that point you got so much money on the day.
Think it's weird that everybody was upset that south West
wouldn't fly when it wasn't safe for them to fly, Like,
what the fund are you upset about that they won't
fly because they don't think they can right now? It
was upset about that, like they couldn't fly, they had

(47:19):
issues issues, you know what I feel like though, I
feel like every year one airline should just go fuck it.
Then let's go since y'all talking ship and eventually one
of those will fuck it ben flights, it's going to
crash horrible and then nobody will be misbehaving at the gate. Again.

(47:41):
That's way it takes. You need one good tragedy to
truly change American behavior. When you see a crash, then
y'all ship and make the flight free. How about this?
All right? What is wrong with you? No, listen, this
is literally what happened. The pilots were like, we don't
have flight plans and the fucking computer. I don't even

(48:02):
know how to putting the computer where to go? Which
you mean you just got to go old school fucking
Chuck Yeager a million era. Yeah, you can't get a
complice and sucking three degree longitude latitude that ship. If
y'll cool with me doing that, well fuck it, dad,
getting the fucking point. We might land, we might not.

(48:25):
We don't know. It's a free flight, right, it's a
free fight. Like just that's whatever it takes to get
people to chill out and their boys. Hey, listen, listen.
I know it's Christmas and you can stand. You know
what I'm saying. Just just get on the fucking plane
with me. And you have to learn how to fly

(48:46):
by instrument anyway to get your pilot's licenses. So I know,
three degree left, three degree, But once you get to Philly,
I don't know. If I'm in front of it, we
might collide, we might hit another bit in the air,
we might land in the corn field. Slight, little, slight,
little I don't know how much fuel is on the

(49:07):
plane because I don't know how much fuel was on
the previous plane, because that information is in the fucking computer.
I don't even know if your bags are on the plane,
but if you want to making it, but we're gonna go.
What's up. A matter of fact, let's we fit more
niggas under the plane. There's no bags, so come on
under this. You need to snickers fire. We gotta played,

(49:31):
we gotta do. We got dudes playing dominoes right outside
the time. Make sure you can get on the last seat.
So if you got you get hit the five or fifteen,
you might make it. But other than that, I said,
you go all away. I mayn't compete for it because
phase game, whatever you need to do to compete. I
support this. I'm glad to see y'all changing your tune
from the last time we talked about airplanes and airports
and airlines and y'all was all up their answers. Oh no,

(49:53):
there's still you come around and be like, yeah, let's
crash the plane to get people in order. There's still
terrible people. There's still terrible people that exploit passengers for profit,
and they sacrifice safety. I was in support of Southwest
not flying for the last two weeks due to the
storm and then all the rest of the ship that

(50:14):
came along with it. I get it. If McDonald's was
like all I meet smoiled, I wouldn't stand outside for playing.
I'd be like, thank you for not sucking feeding fair.
I was screaming about how how why you go give
some meat and I won't you just go to burg

(50:36):
game to shut the funk up. Everybody can't jump from Southwest.
Oh it's a delta. They don't have that kind of money,
and they were price, Yeah, they're gonna give you a refund,
spin Christmas at the house and just they won't give
as much out. They will not give as much of
a refund as you imagine because you actually have to

(50:56):
do paperwork. A lot of people who have to do
that will be doing it. All that is better than die.
The podcast is Uncle Rod Story CORNERAD. As always, we
thank you. I can't wait for us to be able
to do this again. Um, let's get back to it

(51:16):
and I'll scam it a week time. Let's get back
into this d E and I conversation here. Now, you
know how do you how do you how do you
keep black folks at your job? You know what I'm saying,
Like when a D E and I employee decides to
leave your company, Listen, Jaquelin, I'm trying to check all

(51:38):
these boxes, too many boxes to mention I was impress
reach stuff, please continue to indigenous south have not been
able and it's also but still a very good person
and body positive when that employee decides to leave the company.

(52:00):
Are when employees who decide to leave your company, who
check any of those various boxes decide to leave? Patrick,
what is the process and attempting to retain them or
do you just let them go? Well, I think once
you get to a point where someone is actually actively
looking to leave your organization, it's pretty much over at
that point, right, So I think you have to have

(52:20):
mechanisms in place to be able to identify talent very early. Right,
whether it's a black and brown employee, uh, someone from
a marginalions population or a white employee as well, Right,
you need to be in place to be able to
recognize that talent. And then most of all, you've got
to cultivate that talent. You've got to be developing that talent.

(52:41):
You need to be having career conversations with that talent.
You need to be showing that person where they can go,
what their potential is, things of that nature. If you're
not doing that, then what's going to happen is you're
going to have holes in your bucket because you're gonna
be trying to attract and bring in diverse talent into
your organization. But that diverse when they get into your organization,

(53:01):
they don't see anybody who looks like them at higher
levels in their organization. And over the course of you know,
whatever months or years that they're at the organization, if
they don't see an investment in them, then they're going
to look elsewhere for that. So once that happens, there's
nothing you can do about it. So you have to
be from the very beginning you got in. This ain't

(53:21):
something that's gonna happen overnight. It's gonna take time for
you to do this right. A lot of these organizations
are large organizations historically, um you know, great organizations, things
of that nature. You can't just turn a titanic like
a speedboat, right if most of these organizations, if you
want to shift in a different direction, you gotta do

(53:41):
it now to be able to feel the effect ten
years from now. And I think you also have to
make sure that you're your your employee population understands the
benefit of diversity, right, because a lot of times people
think it's a zero sum game. Well, for this person
to win or that group to win, I have to lose.
And it's not that way. Now. There are strategies in

(54:02):
place that when you start diversity work and you start
to have some success in it, there's gonna be some
marginalized populations and some target populations that see some immediate
results and some media changes. That's a that's a fact.
But overall, diversity is great for the organization, right. Diversity
increases not only your productivity, your innovation, your ideation, your
stakeholder returns. You know, your shareholder returns things of that nature. Right.

(54:25):
So that's just how it is, you know what I mean.
So it's not a situation in which I'm giving something
to someone else and for me to give that to
somebody else, I have to take away from from you.
It's not that way. What are the retention strategies when
it comes to retaining uh to maintaining to basically creating
and maintaining a diverse workforce. Well, I think there's so

(54:49):
much conversation about diversity, right, and not to say that
diversity is not important. You need diversity, right. You need
diversity of ethnic background, gender, disability status, diversity of thought, experience, hans,
education background, all that other stuff. You need that, But
most importantly, diversity is really nothing without inclusion. So you've
got to get to a point where you're creating environment
in which it's conducive to setting everybody up for success. Right,

(55:13):
And to your earlier point, it's about thinking beyond just
equality and getting to a point of equity right, understanding
that there's going to be different groups, different marginalized populations
in your bank, and every single one of those groups
is going to need something different. The starting line is
not the same for everybody. Right. From a racial and
ethnic perspective, we know that there are systemic things that

(55:34):
are in place that have kept marginalized groups from achieving
certain things, especially within corporate America, and then when you
drill down to financial services and investment banking, it's it's
even more narrow right. Um, So it's really about creating
that environment that's conducive you have to constantly cultivate your culture.
You have to be mindful of the people in your organization.

(55:57):
You've gotta have a pulse to it, and you've got
to get to a point where you're creating a sense
of belonging. Right, Because to your point, Roy, I've worked
in organizations where I was the only black person at
that organization, but I didn't feel like the only black
person at that organization because of the culture there and
how inclusive it was and vice verse. I've worked in
places where there was a lot of minorities, there are

(56:19):
a lot of people that look like me, and it
still felt like we were being singled out and things
of that nature. Right, So it's not just a diversity
piece of it. That's one component of it, it's an
important component of it. But it's that culture. It's that
sense of belonging. It's having people understand that you know,
there is education, there's awareness, there's a level and a

(56:40):
foundation of respect here for everything. Right, we gotta be
able to celebrate each other's differences. We are all unique
in a number of different ways and we need to
celebrate those things. But I think when you start to
build a culture that celebrates people's differences. What happens is
people start coming together. How can people get into this
field of d E and I and HR like, you know,

(57:03):
look a lot of people fall into HR right. For me,
it was very intentional. You know, I knew what I
wanted to do, and I went about it in a
in a very methodical way to kind of get into
the field. But you know, I think it's about transferable skills.
You know, HR is very people focused, right, So you know,
you have to find a way to highlight the fact
that you are a team player, that you're willing to collapse,

(57:24):
that you have, you know, various soft skills, You've got
leadership skills, things of that nature. If you can do that,
then you can find your way into HR right. And
I tell people, you know, some of those entry level positions,
whether it's an HR assistant, whether it's a recruiter, it's
very easy to get into HR as a recruiter learned
the organization, learned, the profession itself, various centers of excellence

(57:44):
in which you can go down whether it's benefits or
camp or immigration or total rewards, whatever the case may be,
and be able to figure out, you know, where you
want to go what interests you and things of that nature. Right,
So it's not hard to get into HR. I think,
you know, when you're talking about getting into diversity work,
I think it all starts with you know, aligning your

(58:04):
passion and getting involved with certain organisms, uh, certain employee organizations, right,
So that can be employee resource groups in your organization,
that can be business resource groups, that can be UM,
getting involved outside of your organization in grassroots or social
justice or things of that nature. Right. Continuously to educate
yourself and continue learning about you know, how diversity works,

(58:25):
the various components to it, UM, how you can turn
that into strategy, things of that nature. So you can
get into diversity a number of different ways, the same
way as HR. It's really about what's going to be
your plan? How are you going to be intentional? How
are you going to move this organization forward? And if
you can articulate that to anybody you get an opportunity

(58:47):
to do so. Patrick, you've made HR sound like a
heavenly place. I never want people to walk away from
here thinking that that is the case HR for the company.
When people tell you things, you have to report. If
there's something in particular that's going to impact that company

(59:10):
and that company's bottom line. So if you could just
say a little bit about that, because I don't want
anyone with me. They can come crying to HR about whatever,
and that's gonna stay in HR's office becausein no you
sitting up the typing it right up, boom, it's going
right out the door. I think you you know, you
gotta you gotta feel the person out right, You gotta

(59:30):
be willing to to you know, have a relationship or
or see what that's about. Right. You can't go run
into everybody because to your point, you know, your first
priority is to the organization. But I think I'm different
in that the people who brought me up and kind
of poured into me, they were different in that right,
they had a humanistic element to it. And look, there

(59:51):
are some things and I tell people, look, I'm gonna
have to you know, report this. I'm gonna have to
let somebody know, right if it's a danger to the organization,
or you find out somebody is about to be a
dang you to themselves. Okay, I gotta save you from yourself.
And I need to get the right people involved to
make sure that no harm comes to you, right, But
there's been plenty of times throughout my career I stuck
my neck out for people. It could have been me

(01:00:12):
on the chopping board and I was telling people, Look,
your attitude is this, or your behavior is this? Or
do you know they're about to put you on you know,
written warning and things of this nature. Right, Like, you
need to get yourself together, especially when it's it's young
black and brown people. You know, you pull them to
the side, you give them some game. Right. If there's
no playbook or no no no book for how to

(01:00:32):
operate in corporate spaces and dominantly white spaces, right, they
don't teach you that in college or nothing. Talk about
that ship, right. You gotta help people navigate their way
through that, and you gotta be be willing to give
them some game. And if you want to continue doing
that behavior, then you get what comes to you. But
I have a responsibility to give you some game. I
need you to settle hr debate form. Patrick said, we're

(01:00:56):
gonna take it home. Let's say you and a friend
and show up to a company party, a company you
don't work at, but y'all just at the party, and
then one of the employees of that company at that
party where the company where you don't work, one of
the employees grabs Jacqueline on mass. Can I snitch to

(01:01:17):
HR of that company that their employee be grabbing asses
at their parties? Or is that just a free ass grab?
Because Jacqueline won't snitch on who did it because it
wasn't that big of a deal and she doesn't want
to make a big deal of it. But I'm gonna
find this motherfucker that Jacqueline is your girl, So yeah,

(01:01:39):
you gotta write and a responsibility to make sure that
the person that did that, you know what I mean,
that they're hell responsible. Even though Jacqueline doesn't work at
that company and I don't work at that company, this
is still technically an HR issue because it happened at
a company function, right, that is an agent of that company,
and even if they're in a public space, they are
representing that organization. Can we invite him to meet us

(01:02:01):
down from the corner of Eighth Avenue by the train station.
You know what I'm saying? Like Roy and Jacqueline like
to be real corporate about things, My corporate bug is burned.
I can speak it. I just don't like it so much,
so I will be the one to be like, look
y'all are doing the right thing, just telling him to
come down to the to the escalator right in front

(01:02:22):
of the metro car machine. I want his fucking name.
I want his fucking Patrick. Thank you so much for
coming on the job back. We got some family business
tint you man. We appreciate you. Man. I want to
say one more thing to Patrick for the bounces. Good
For all those brothers that you gave advice and that
didn't make it, I'm gonna say thank you on their

(01:02:43):
behalf because one thing that I do know is that
when I work back then, I had somebody wonderful that
looked out for me in HR and gave me some
solid as advice. Um, and a lot of times young
brothers don't have anybody that talks to them about like
doing stupid ship like Daton, or party with the folks
that you you know, we're quit and all that kind
of stuff because other people treated like, you know, it's
an easy thing. So one by half of them brother

(01:03:04):
that didn't make it, thank you, Patrick. I appreciate that
everybody loves you, except for that white dude. They tried
to fight you at the subway. You didn't want you
didn't want to be smoke. Thank you for having me pick.
Thank you Patrick. After the break, we're gonna bring it home.
We're gonna do another double up here my treat. We're

(01:03:25):
gonna do an impromptu relationship fair with a reverend and
then talk about Burnett. Why are you laughing, Jackelin is
a reverend. A reverend. Reverends can't have sex. To know
the only reverend on the show, you can do whatever.

(01:03:46):
I didn't say that would lay hands on him for him.
Job fair. We'll be right, job fair. Rounding third and

(01:04:10):
hit it for home. Before we start talking about burnout
and recognizing the signs of burnout. We got a really
long email from a motherfucker that apparently got done dirty
by a woman. And wait a minute, well maybe he
kind of did a dirty and John have a difference

(01:04:31):
of issues on this brother Um. Rather than reported this email,
I figured because he is a loyal Day one episode
one listener would have him on and said, thank you,
this is the people's podcast, j G. Who is this
sad motherfucker? Let run? It's pastor Ian Harris who made

(01:04:53):
time for us. But not the person that he loves.
So that's what it is. What I'm saying. I love
it past. Welcome on the show. A little impromptu relationship
fair here as we um wrap up this episode. Now,
you sent us a ridiculously long email that read rather sad,

(01:05:16):
and I'm gonna let you lay out everything it's best
you can with this woman. You know, you live in
New York and she lived was she and Austin get
where was she in Houston? Okay, New York to Houston.
That's a far our flight. That's a long long distance relationship,
right there. Take it. Take it from around Christmas, however

(01:05:39):
you want to tell the story, but just lay it off.
Oh yeah, this is fresh. This is brother Ian. Brother
Ian was one of you can talk about Southwest. This
was one of the brothers sleeping in the airport. He
probably still ain't got his bags. Take it away. Let
you give me your bridge version. Met a woman at
work years ago. We got together, Ye got together during

(01:06:04):
the pandemic. Things worked out. Um she was from Houston,
I'm from New York. Were both working in Atlanta. Um,
Atlanta started tripping, things started loosening up. I had an
opportunity to go back home. I got back home, realized
ain't no reason for me to go back to Atlanta.
So now we had a distant relationship. She realized Atlanta's
trash or she moved to Houston. So we're doing the

(01:06:25):
New York to Houston thing for about two years. Um, yeah,
it's crazy. Finally convinced his woman to move from Houston
to New York without a ring. You got a woman
to move without. But the ring was coming before she
actually moved. So the weekend she comes, the weekend I'm
going to propose. Um, we get into an argument. I'm

(01:06:48):
proposing that Saturday, and we get into an argument that Thursday.
I wake up, go to work, get a text message
saying it's over. I go speeding home. Speeding home in
New York City is being stuck in traffic for ninety minutes?
How long had she been in town? She got there
to night before she got that Wednesday, y'all argue Thursday

(01:07:11):
she broke up with you Friday morning? No, Thursday morning? Wow,
was really that argument? So I'm speeding home. I walked
to the crib, my keys on the on the counter,
and I'm blocked on every things social media, phone blah,
blah blah blah. I reached out to a mutual friends

(01:07:32):
like where she's at? He was your friends like, Y'a'm
sorry to tell you she's at the airport. What kind
of argument that, y'all? It was nothing you could It
was was together two years, she was in town for
twenty four hours and she left. It was it was
a culmination of months of that's being a jerk. That's

(01:07:52):
that volcano. Then bubbla, that's why I don't even ask. Yeah,
it was a coro to the month that that's being
a jerky. So y'all were arguing when you came into
you saw the first time. Y'alls arguing too, You lie
about your apartment being more than five square feet or
some ship. So she leaves town, you come home, she's gone,
she leaves town. How do you get this woman back?

(01:08:12):
All right? So what happens is, I mean, I'm going
to phone. I'm I'm borrowing my homies phone, trying to
because I'm blocking on everything. So she finally, you know,
talks to me um and she's like, it was a
dub Mon story short, I'm not coming back. So yeah,
it's rough. It's crazy. I heard Rory story about the breakup.
I was like, yo, I felt it. I'm like, I can't.
I just ready to take that He was ready to
take that ring back to sails and get your seven

(01:08:34):
hundred dollars back, Terry. Um, Kenny can't sleep, blah blah
blah blah. You know, my mind's everywhere. I'm I'm in
church thinking about it, I'm out work thinking about it.
It's just crazy. Um. So eventually I'm like, I know
Christmas is coming. Because we did the distance joint, we
never got to spend Christmas together. Um the year before

(01:08:55):
me like everybody else in New York City Court COVID,
I was supposed to go down there. It's so in
my mind, I know I'm going to spend Christmas. I'm
gonna go down there. I'm going to stange the gifts
be like this big gesture. So Worth had to ticket
the six dollars. Oh all right, let me go in.
So I finally get to Houston and I hit her

(01:09:16):
up and I'm like, yeo, I really just wanted exchange gifts.
Like I know, if it's too much for you, um,
we can be here in a public place. I really
just wanted exchange gifts. We meet. Um. We meet someday night.
She brings me a plate. We exchange gifts. We have
like the long for our conversation, all the stuff I
didn't say during the relationship. Oh my god, I say,
And she was like, well, why don't you say this before?

(01:09:39):
All right? So she leaves like I don't want to
give me a hug like that. She's like thinking, it's ruminating.
So the next day we meet. She said, the guest
with her you I did. It was good food for sure,
all right. So so fast forward. So on Monday, everything

(01:10:01):
everything that's cool, We held much blah blah blah blah.
I'm prepared to go. Then the Southwest de size to
cancel everybody Mama's tickets. So I'm suck in Houston. Southwest
has not booking until like next Monday. Now this is Monday,
so not booking for and now this is before they
capped the prices for the other fights, like Delta wanted

(01:10:22):
eighteen hundred all this, I get an American. I get
an American fight that Friday for fourteen hundred dollars. Mind you,
I'm extending my hotel's day for another five days. It
works out that five days is great for us. Okay,
so that was a good thing. But after everything is
said and done between the hotels, the flights be waiting

(01:10:44):
in the airport. Blah blah blah, I'm down about full
grand Um. Southwest is like sending all the receipts at
the similar to j G's points. I sent all the
receipts for the hotel, the airline, and the upgrades. I
kept the food receipts. I send in the receipt from
Del Frisco's and they probably not going to recept that,
but it is what it is. Good brood. At what

(01:11:05):
point did she hit you back? I did she get
back at you at all? It's a long story short.
Instead of flying back to the Bardia, I fly back
at three m the Newark and she texted me, well,
I'm glad you got home safely. I really enjoyed my
week with you. So not fast forward. I'm over here
and it receives her Southwest calculating everything, and she's like, well,
when do you want to fly after Houston? I don't

(01:11:25):
want to see a plane anytime soon, so you don't
want to see her. That's what I'm going to I'm
going to she told her. He didn't want to see
her when you said I don't want to see a plane. Okay,
so you and this woman are back in correspondence. Is
that what I'm understanding in we are all right? Question

(01:11:47):
one and then I'll hand it over the rock. Why
the funk didn't you propose when you took your ass
down there? So the first damn question? So not question
when we go to Del Friscos. She asked me to like,
you're not proposing, are you? What did you think? I said, no, no, no, no,

(01:12:11):
I just wanted you should have You should have said
in the receipt for the ring to the sounds like
you have to read you you didn't want to marry
this moment. I absolutely do what you want, have asked regardless.

(01:12:37):
Not after she was like, you're not proposing, are you?
Because that ship I'm thinking to know, I'm thinking I'm
a boarding mission on that one. Regrouping Yeah, yeah, reading room,
good call call. She didn't want it? That really damn clear,
like he told me. She literally said, you're not proposing?

(01:12:58):
Are that would be assigned to me as a single man?
Maybe not now? Maybe not here. You're a lot of
women had a proposal already scripted out in the head
and if you're in the wrong location, they'd gone signal
because this is a how it's supposed to be done. Now,
should Ian still continue to talk to this woman? And

(01:13:20):
if not, how should he break it off? This all
came she She left you pretty high and dry. She
got off the plane with attitude twitter flo hours later
she was broke up with you and went back across
the country. Now, I wouldn't have I wouldn't have said

(01:13:41):
a word. I wouldn't have left work. I'll have just
text the league on the count. I wouldn't even girl.
I would have been like, I know that you don't
block me on that sounds like some little school ship.
I would have been done with her right off the room.
Y'all need that. Y'all need to get the away from
each other. Hang up now, Jacqueline on some romance fight

(01:14:05):
for your love type ship. Is it really simping to
break sixteen? Hunter? Is it really simping to go full
g's in the hole for a woman that you really
want to be with and you've realized after the fact
that you're fucked up? I think every man, there's a
lot of men who meet they sold me and don't
realize it till after they had already sucked it up
up Roy to think about old girl who boys worked

(01:14:29):
at foot. This is not about your crams in Fairfield.
I can't even partially hold the argument of the well
she gave me cram, but I want to marry her
anyway that that ain't gonna work. Yeah, I think that's
some major simping, mostly just because it didn't end in

(01:14:51):
Like everything that happened in Houston could have happened over
the phone. If you love this woman and she really
is the one, and it really was you fucking up
and not her. It wasn't you were it was me.
So you didn't so you didn't deserve a fifteenth chance,

(01:15:12):
but she decided to give you one, and then you
went through all that trouble and she's still like a
y'all back together, like y'all engaged. Now we're good, No,
not engaged, but we're good. I haven't asked, because remember
we went to before the day came out? Are you
talking about a different New York city of Brooklyn and
the one I'm thinking of? There's women there, right, I mean,

(01:15:38):
why are you putting up with all this ship from
somebody on the outside of the country. It's literally me
as the chicks right outside your door. When you feel
like you have the one, you go after the one.
I feel like you should propose, but I feel like
you should do it right. I feel like you should
do it right. I do not propose. She doesn't want

(01:15:59):
you to propose. She wants you to Okay, it sounds
like where you at now is probation their period if
you're serious about everything you apologize for, and then maybe
in a couple of months maybe it'll be time to
get a game. It's but it's still it's easier for
her to just deal with a cat that makes her

(01:16:21):
feel good. It makes her feel good about herself, even
if she doesn't truly want to be with him. That's
good enough for right now, which is wasting my dogs
in time. So you fucking put all the chips in.
You go all in, like Willie B said, Hooker left
in the Popeye's and build out quick. If it's going down,
let's get this ship over with. So whether the funk
will you, let's figure it out right now. Yeah, I

(01:16:44):
mean that's real. I mean, y'all, y'all been y'all did
a lot of back and forth. There's been a lot
of money spent, a lot of time two years. Yeah,
you need to just set her down on the on
the phone, please over the phone and hang on. Definitely,
don't propose over the phone. I want to marry you.
Do you want to marry me? If you don't want

(01:17:05):
to marry me, then let's just cut it off right now.
Ain't no, Ain't I ever gonna be the right gime
if she don't want you to propose, So you need
to just listen. I'm all in. If you're not all in,
then we need to stop talking. There's no point in
continuing his days. It's been thousands upon thousand dollars, thousands
upon thousands of miles two years during the pandemic. Yeah,

(01:17:29):
let's just let's just get a clean slate popping. Do
not propose to her, and let me tell you why.
Because the two of you do not know how to communicate.
All you're doing is getting ready to be divorced. So
unless you all go sit down and learn how to communicate,
two years of something that you're just powling on top
of each other, that's a recipe for disaster. That's why

(01:17:52):
you're in a situation right now, y'all have really been
in a relationship. There's been long business for two years
and the minute y'all move being together twenty years later,
she runs back home. And when you show up on
some night and shoting armerships, she's like, you're not proposing
all you? It don't sound like she's down. It's right

(01:18:13):
about that, man, y'all you need to have that conversation
with are we doing this? Are we're not doing this?
We gotta get married now, but like, are we trying
to be together? Because they're not. Man, let's just say
fuck it. Well, brother, Ian, we thank you so much
for coming on the show. Brother, we appreciate you. Thank
you for being a listener. Good luck, good luck home.
I'm pulling for you, brother. I think burnout it's something

(01:18:37):
that we don't talk about enough because we live in
a society where in American society. I'm not talking global,
but in America, if you don't do all this work,
then you ain't a team player and you quit on me.
Get damn it. We've been working, hey, Jack, and I
know you can't feel your toes, but I need you

(01:18:57):
to stay two most shifts down his numbers, and it's
done to meet the numbers. God damnit if we need
your hair, no, unless I'm getting the bonus, I'm not staying.
We ain't giving your ship, but you get the reward
of no one that you've cared about the team and
get reveal in the sacrifice. I don't care about the team. No. Um,

(01:19:21):
you an't got the nicest bosses because my bosses would
never say like sacrifice. They just say, you know you
need this job right and then like you stuck. You
can't go nowhere when you see my daddy and my
mama taught me and never be in that situation. Have
multiple strains of income in case somebody tells you they
don't need you anymore. I'm like, okay, I like your daddy.

(01:19:43):
Your daddy kept like three four hustles on the side
that had had us cleaning buildings at night. But that's
a whole another store. Look kind of tild labor chimp
were you raised in at all? But today they're talking
about beating burnout. You know what burnout is, and then

(01:20:05):
you didn't after that you am I burnout? You know?
Am I burn You know? Like I think that's I
think that's a fair way to try to split this
up a little bit. But j G, who do we
have on the line. It's Jason and he lives in
the Midwest as a program manager for state government and
he recently wrote into the job there about his personal

(01:20:26):
experience with burnout, and today he'll be talking with the
roy about what burnout looked like for him, steps he
took to address it on the job and what he
does now to stay healthy. Hi, Jason doing. I I
don't know if you know a little bit about me, Jason,
but I work at a television show where the host

(01:20:48):
just I was just like, yeah, I think this is
gonna be the end for me in a little bile.
Thanks for having me as the hot which came as
a shock to a lot of people. And so there
are a lot of conversations, you know, around you know,
a lot of the different causations, you know, and you know,
one thing that Trevor Knowla talked about was the desire

(01:21:11):
to do other things and to be able to sit,
steal and be honest with himself about what he wanted.
And the more he thought about the things that he wanted,
The Daily Show did not fit into that equation anymore.
And he was bold enough to walk away from that. Now,
talk to us a little bit about just how you
started coming to grips or the just the general realization

(01:21:33):
of you know what, I don't think I like where
I'm at right now. Sure, so I'm I'm the I'm
the typical overachiever. I mean, I wanna I want to
do all the things. I want to do them. Well.
I don't settle for anything less than perfect and excellent,
which is I mean, honestly, that's a that's a set
up for failure. As I'm realizing, Um, I have that

(01:21:55):
bar sets so high. So um as i'm as I'm
working and taking on more, I just wouldn't turn down
a task. I wouldn't turn down an assignment. Um, we
need somebody do this. I'm your man, I'm gonna do that.
Can can we get a volunteer to I'll do that,
Um and volunteer. Yeah, when no cash associate, I figure

(01:22:18):
I'm working, I might as well just might as well
working but for a game. But how many you know,
how many irons can you have in the fire at
one time? And uh yeah, and it just it just
started to catch up with me. Um, you know, and
thinking about I guess if you want, I can go
into the kind of talk about how that how I

(01:22:40):
started to realize I was in burnout mode. UM. And
a lot of it came from just being with my
family and realizing that I'm not as available as I
should be as I once was. I'm focused. I've always
got work in the back of my mind. Even when
I'm trying to relax and just enjoy life, I've still

(01:23:00):
got projects running through my head and assignments and looking
at the next day. Not not looking forward to the
next day, but looking at what I'm gonna have to do. UM.
I tried to not look at my phone or not
look at email, but it's all still in my head
and I'll just keep dwelling on that. UM. And that

(01:23:20):
was that was really the start of the burnout cycle
and the uh, just that trajectory down were you. Were
you lucky enough to mentally realize that you were going
through burnout or did something physical manifest itself to say that,
holy sh it, I need to call it? Is both
really um so so I I have both things. UM.

(01:23:44):
You know, having been ah in therapy for so many years,
like we realized that that's good for us. So we
get into therapy. We have somebody to talk to and
that's important. Um. And it was all of that really
started to pay off when I can recognize that, um,
I'm not doing psychologically emotionally, I'm hurting. Um. So so Jason,

(01:24:05):
when you are dealing with these different feelings that are
manifesting themselves physically and emotionally, walk us through the day
you quit the job. How did you quit the job?
Like when you finally say you know what, I'm not right.
I don't know how to fix it yet, but I
do know continuing to show up here in exchange for

(01:24:26):
money will kill me. Fuck y'all, I'm hitting the door.
Walk us through that day of you quitting the job? Right, So, So,
I actually I had a step before quitting, which is
I think I think it's important for people to realize that, Um,
if you're in a if you're in if your employment
where you're able to access your fml A and get

(01:24:47):
time off, um, that's a health condition that you can
you can receive time off for. So I Uh, my
initial gut reaction was to take some vacation time. But
the more I thought about that, I realized, well, should
I'm not gonna do anything fun. I'm gonna sit here
and be miserable and try and get better. That's not
a vacation. So let me look at the sick time

(01:25:09):
I have. UM. So you know, I contacted my psychiatrists
and we talked a little bit, and he said, you know,
you can access fml A, you can go. You can
have up to twelve weeks off if you need it.
Should I don't. I mean, I don't need hopefully don't
need twelve weeks. But I got I got sick time,
So I'm gonna still get paid. I'm gonna still have
my job. Um, but I gotta get the funk out

(01:25:29):
of here before I lose it. I had spent a
whole year two, you know, talking to my team about
taking care of themselves and mental health and physical health
and well being, and saying, you need time off, go
take it. If you're not doing well, go take it.
So every time my team would come to me and
ask request time off, it was always granted, Yes, take
care of yourself, take care of your family, do whatever
you need to do. We'll figure it out. Um. And

(01:25:51):
then I was starting to realize that I was actually
burned out. So when it was time for me to
say I need time now. Um, they were more understanding
of that because I have been preaching that for this
whole year now. I don't know if if not my
supervisor at the time, I don't know if she was
this understanding. But they also when you say that you're

(01:26:12):
gonna be off and you're gonna use F M l A,
you know there's you can't get fired for that. Um,
they can be unhappy about it, but that's where you
turn the phone off and stop checking emails. And that's
what I did for the better part of two and
a half three months straight up i've been here. I noticed, like,

(01:26:33):
let's look real quick at some of the job burnout symptoms. Um,
have you become cynical or critical at work? You drag
yourself to work and have trouble getting started? Have you
become irritable or impatient with coworkers, customers, and clients. Do
you find it hard to concentrate? You feel disillusioned about
your job? Are you using food, drugs or alcohol to

(01:26:54):
feel better or to simply not feel or have your
sleep habits changed or have you are you troubled by
unexplained headache, stomach all problems for other physical complaints. UM,
let's talk a little bit about how you felt. Walk
us through the quitting um real quick here. So I

(01:27:16):
couldn't quit until I had another position in place. I don't.
I'm not lucky enough to have multiple streams of income
like j G has spoken about it, like I can.
Maybe I can't do that, So I gotta have something
else lined up. And I was lucky enough to be
able to find something within state government. So it was
just it was a transfer within state government, UM, which

(01:27:36):
was a good thing. Uh. And I was I was
so excited I had. I didn't care for my boss,
my supervisor. So I I put in my two weeks.
And I had seen a floating around on the interwebs,
a card that's, you know, so sorry for your loss,
and you open it up and you said it's me,
I'm I'm gone, I'm leaving or whatever in two weeks.

(01:27:58):
So I got got one of those cars and had
a little audio recorder in it, and uh, there's a
there's an audio clip that has been just going through
my head for the last ship I don't know, fifteen
years or so. It's Uh, I adnitted the mood setter
who quit live on the radioIO quit this bitch, like

(01:28:23):
that's how she ended it. So she's got this whole
long spiel that she gives and then I quit this
bitch and she shuts it off. I recorded that and
I put that in that card, so I had to
get my formal notice. So I give my formal notice,
so it's all there. But I also made a card
and I gave that card and it was sorry for

(01:28:45):
your loss, and opened it up and I repeat, going
through that whole thing. I quit this bitch, and you
couldn't turn it off. You couldn't do anything unless you
ripped it hard. Bro. That was the most wonderful thing
I could think to do. Ja Sen, what was your
wife saying during this time of burnout? Did she ever
pull you to the side and say look at you,

(01:29:07):
jay bear? She she did, yees yeah, And we've and
we've we've walked that. We've been through, you know, mental
health struggles before. So I was receptive to that. Um.
I was in a position where I could be receptive,
and she was like, you know, you you got to
get out of there. Your physical health. Um. It affected
my memory, which was something that I I didn't know

(01:29:27):
that could affect that burnout could affect memory. I thought
I was having like early onset dementia Alzheimers. I'm like you, brother,
I'm a hard charger. I like to go, but as
I've gotten older now I've learned, like you know, as
much as I like to go, I gotta put myself
on like a stop mode, like you know what I'm
saying it. So I I really really even I know

(01:29:47):
it's not really recording right now, You're okay, but I
really I wanted you to know that I really appreciate
what you're saying and what you're going through. I've been there.
I know what it's like. Proud of you also for
taking care of you, taking care of your family, your wife,
our kids, and the two dogs that you're rescued. Thank
you very much for sharing your journey into choosing yourself
and hopefully those words will be ones that everybody can heed,

(01:30:11):
including me. That's the show. Royce Job Affair is a
product of South Park and Preston Productions, Comedy Central, Hi
Hard Media, and Sour Parc. Of you, the listeners. UH
trying to make these shows as evergreen as we can,
so keep listening, go back and check out the back library.

(01:30:32):
I guess we'll ask it now, Jacklin, we'll ask it now.
Will your rate and review us? Please? Even even even
when we're getting ready to take a break, I still
didn't beg you every other podcast that you have every
fucking episode, the review review, some subscribet to notifications. Make
sure you're telling friend I'm taking none of that ship.

(01:30:52):
I don't care if you tell a friend. I care
if you like it. You like it, can can rate
and review the ship. And I read every last one
of them. Yes, Lor she does. She read them and
didn't bring them to me. I'm like Jaqueline, I don't
be reading autumn reviews. I just that's why I read them.
That's what the Comedy Central tell us to tell people,

(01:31:13):
because the metrics the metrics. So I do wish you
all the best. I do wish you all nothing but
healthy three and mine. I will see you all against soon. Third.
It's been a pleasure, Jacqueline, it's been a pleasure, um ride,
it's been a pleasure riding as well. Uncle Rod's Story

(01:31:35):
Corner is the podcast and Rod, I'm a swing bold
there every time to time. You want to know where
I'm gonna be find me on Uncle Rod's story corner. Well,
tell many stories. Where's what's another SIMP story I can
come on with. Don't want your podcast right? Oh, I'll
tell the story about the time the girl left me

(01:31:55):
at the movies when I want to go see die
Hard for Oh my God, she drove. Oh she left
in the middle of the movie so she'd be right back.
And then just like a deadly dad, my fucker was gone.
Just left you in the theater with the popcorner. What
you're doing that wasn't funny? This is pretty Where I
had to actually call a cab. I had to physically

(01:32:16):
get a yellow page find the number two. She hear
something you gotta listen to me on on on rods
podcast later this spring. End of the show. We don't
have time. That's it, and that's a little thank you

(01:32:37):
to everybody who's rolled with us since day one. Theme
song and it's in tagging up all. I've type that

(01:33:05):
out y tricks. I'll type that out show very sall.
I type that out to bring the tricks W. I
type that long days say so long so shine, Just

(01:33:34):
see star train down to see so long so long Shine,
te train train you find chick choking down and see

(01:34:04):
checks in the plain fucking way, Patty only the fun
don't make you do all. I'm tied down, Brandy tex All,
I'm tied down, show all, I'm tied down, brings all.

(01:34:30):
I'm tied down, and my place and some and on
out and it's I'm done down. I said so. I
said so because side shout side. Just sit at the

(01:34:57):
slid now training track tr to track, un track to track,

(01:35:40):
and there's sun and business, simple song and this has

(01:36:04):
been a Comedy Central podcast. Now

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