September 11, 2025 • 51 mins
Every HR professional knows there's a stark difference between what appears in the employee handbook and the wild, messy reality of managing workplace behavior. In this jaw-dropping episode, we dive into what might be the most bizarre workplace investigation we've ever covered—one that begins with rumors of cocaine use and strange "sounds of pleasure" coming from the women's restroom.
Our special guest Bill shares his firsthand account of unraveling this workplace mystery, which takes a sharp turn when a clueless manager decides to directly question female employees about masturbating in the bathroom. The investigation ultimately reveals one employee responsible for both the drug use and inappropriate behavior, culminating in a confrontation that perfectly demonstrates why HR professionals need nerves of steel and impeccable judgment.
But the workplace madness doesn't stop there. We explore the dangerous trend of employees documenting confidential work procedures on social media, including a store manager who essentially created a security breach tutorial by filming herself accessing safes, handling cash, and showing security credentials—all before being caught napping on her own recording.
We also tackle the frustrating phenomenon of "job tourists"—candidates who collect positions like souvenirs without developing real expertise, leaving hiring managers struggling to find qualified talent amid inflated resumes. This leads to a spirited debate about resume gaps and whether employers have the right to question candidates about periods of unemployment.
Throughout it all, we embrace our "four walls rule"—creating a safe space where HR professionals can vent about the absurdity of workplace situations without judgment. Because sometimes, you just need to laugh at the unbelievable scenarios that land on your desk when you work in human resources.
Have your own wild HR story to share? We'd love to hear from you and possibly feature your experience on an upcoming episode. After all, in the world of HR, truth is always stranger than fiction.
We want to hear from you.
Text us or leave a voicemail (252) 564-9899
email: feedback@jadedhr.com
Want to:
* Share a dumb employee question
* Share a crazy story
* Ask us a question
* Share a best practice
* Give us feedback
Our Link Tree below has links to our social media sites, Patreon, Apple podcasts, Spotify & more.
Please leave a review on your favorite podcast player and interact with us online!
Linktree - https://linktr.ee/jadedhr
Follow Cee Cee on IG - BoozyHR @ https://www.instagram.com/boozy_hr/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Had you actually read the email, you would know that
the podcast you are about tolisten to could contain explicit
language and offensive content.
These HR experts' views are notrepresentative of their past,
present or future employers.
If you have ever heard mymanager is unfair to me.
I need you to reset my HRportal password, or Can I write
(00:25):
up my employee for crying toomuch?
Welcome to our little safe zone.
Welcome to Jaded HR.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Welcome to Jaded HR, the podcast by three HR
professionals who want to helpyou get through the workday by
saying everything you'rethinking, but say it out loud.
I'm Warren.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I'm Cece, I'm Bill, all righty.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
We have a special guest.
It's Bill.
You hear us talk about everyepisode as our Patreon supporter
, and a couple of weeks ago,bill shot me a message about a
really cool story and I had toreach out to him to invite him
to be on board, and he was ableto join us.
(01:19):
So thank you very much forjoining us, bill, and I'll go
ahead and use this time, too, togive a shout out to our other
Patreon supporters Hallie, theoriginal Jaded HR, rockstar and
Mike.
So yeah, so first for everybody,we love feedback from listeners
.
We don't get a boatload of it,we don't get much at all, but it
(01:42):
seems like it comes in waves.
If you will, and hopefully thiswill start a new wave of
feedback from listeners.
Boatload of it, we don't getmuch at all, but it seems like
it comes in waves.
If you will, and hopefully thiswill start a new wave of
feedback from listeners, if youhave a crazy story, an antic or
something like that that youwant to tell, let us know.
Some people wanted to be on theshow.
Other people have not wanted tobe on the show when I reach out
to them to tell their story.
But yeah, let us know, we willhave you on board.
(02:02):
So, bill, thank you very muchfor joining us.
I mean this is great andpersonally, thank you for
supporting the show for thistime on Patreon, because it
helps.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Well, it's been a great listen.
You know you guys.
When I found you guys, I waslooking for somebody to give me
some advice on how to be an HRmanager.
I've only been doing it for acouple of years, but you guys
hit a different need.
I needed to hear about peoplewho had the same problems that I
did.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Exactly and I don't think anything we really say is
too unique to any of us.
Like we said, the poop rite ofpassage If you haven't dealt
with poop, you're not in HR yet.
Be poop, there will be poop.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
There will be, there always is.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
And it thinks like that.
It's just.
There's a billion other showsout there.
If you want to learn, actuallylearn something, there's a.
There's a hundred.
I've listened to many of them,or not many of them, quite a few
of them.
Of the ones that give actualadvice, my favorite, I'll go
ahead and say, is Good MorningHR with Mike Coffey, who was on
with us in December.
That's my favorite one toactually learn from.
(03:08):
But you have Kyle Road andRebel HR and other great ones
that you can actually learnsomething on HR Besties.
You can learn from them as well.
Yeah, you can learn from them,so they're a little more akin to
us, but yeah, so, bill, tell uswhy you're here.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
So, so a couple of weeks ago you guys were going I
don't even remember what thetopics was, it was like two or
three sessions ago but and I waslike you know what I just got
to share this story because it'sstill fresh in my mind.
It's a, it's a this year storyand of course, there's been some
updates to this story since Ishared it with you.
But I'll go ahead and start atthe beginning.
(03:48):
We have a division of thecompany.
It's about 300 and somethingpeople spread across four
different locations, but themajority of them are here in the
area where I'm located with theheadquarters, and there's about
180 people in this building.
It's a new building, so there'sthere's problems with the
building.
(04:08):
We've moved in recently and oneof my favorite people in the
building comes to me and goeshey, I need to talk to you about
some stuff, and she just startstelling me about all these
rumors that are going around thebuilding.
And the first rumor was youknow, we got somebody in the
(04:29):
women's restroom doing lines ofCoke and I was like, how do you
know it's Coke.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
I mean great question .
Speaker 3 (04:39):
I've got stories about that too from my past.
But how do you know it's Cokeand so.
And then they're telling me, me, well, they're finding powdery
residue and all that kind ofstuff.
So I I was like, well, maybeit's, maybe it's a
misunderstanding of what's goingon, and we put you know, the
red, the red sharps boxes inthere, thinking it was somebody
who had a problem dropping theirneedles in the in the trash or
something like that.
Right, so we did that.
(04:59):
And then she was like there'sanother rumor.
I was like, oh no, she goes.
There is sounds of pleasurecoming from the women's restroom
several times a week.
And I'm like, oh my god, what,what?
What?
I was like this is justsomebody, like maybe someone's
(05:20):
having a rough day in therestroom, whatever right.
And I was like she goes well,are you gonna do anything?
I was like she goes well, areyou going to do anything?
I was like, absolutely not.
I'm not going to touch that one, right, there's no way in or
out of that situation that willkeep you out of jail.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Okay, especially as an HR dude having to deal with
that in a women's restroom,you're going to be the creepster
automatically, yeah, so now?
Why are you so concerned?
Speaker 4 (05:44):
women's restroom you're going to be the creepster
automatically, just yeah.
So now, why are you so?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
concerned.
Well, now there's the setupright.
So it's now Monday evening.
It's about six or seven o'clockon a Monday evening in June and
I get a call from the seniorprogram manager.
Hey, we'll call you tomorrow.
We'll give you some moredetails, but we had one of our
our junior program managers pullin four women that work for him
(06:13):
and ask them individually ifthey were masturbating in the
women's restroom shit yesexactly.
I may have used a few morecolorful phrases at that moment
but yes.
So, of course, come in the nextday, I've got to go brief my
boss and who I work for, the CFO.
(06:35):
I go brief the CEO and tellthem and they're like, oh well,
what do we do?
I was like, well, we're goingto fire him.
That's, that's the first thingwe're going to do.
We do need to do some sort ofinvestigation to make it all
clean, but he's going to getfired if even one of those women
cooperates.
That story, yeah, oh my gosh.
(06:55):
And so I went over to thebuilding and I asked all four of
the ladies that got dimed outtheir program manager and got
the whole story.
And what it turns out is thisguy decided he was going to take
it upon himself Monday morningto ask the four women.
Now he has eight people whowork for them.
Seven of them are women and heonly asked four of them and they
(07:20):
were the four better looking ofthe women who worked for him.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Oh my God, it just keeps giving Ugly.
Women can't do that.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Nope Ugly women can't do this.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
So I talked to each of the women, I talked to the
supervisor.
It turns out that he did thatand then an hour later went into
his supervisor's office and waslike, hey, I think we should do
this.
And she told him under nocircumstances, no.
So he just clammed up anddidn't say nothing.
And it was about four or fiveo'clock in the afternoon when
one of the women finally went toher to the boss and was like
(07:55):
hey, this happened today andthat's when it all went downhill
.
So Tuesday, I roll in, I get theinvestigation going.
The four women all rogered up.
Yep, this is exactly whathappened.
They wrote statements.
I went back to my boss and Isaid immediately, make him go
away, there's no way to salvagethis.
So in the middle of it, this isthe week of sexual harassment
(08:17):
complaints.
By the way, 15 sexualharassment complaints in four
days, hey, different complaintsand they're not in the same
complaints, right.
And most of them were just likepetty, like oh, look, hr is in
the building taking care of thisproblem.
Maybe they'll listen to thisone and make this other guy go
away, right?
And that's where a lot of themended up.
So the next one was I was inthe building and one of the
(08:38):
program managers pulls me inside.
Hey, one of our admins justcame to me and said that her
program manager that she worksfor was asking her
recommendations about lingerie.
I'm like no, no, no, no.
So, I went and talked to her.
(08:59):
She gave me her statement andit was he.
They had formed a friendshipand he thought it was a
different kind of friendship andthat he could ask some advice
about lingerie that he neededfor his wife.
And I told him yeah, thatyou're dumb.
Guy's been doing being aprogram manager for like 20 plus
years.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
You're dumb oh my gosh oh.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So then of course, the girl who made the complaint
didn't like how we handled thatsituation, because we fired the
one guy, but we didn't fire thisguy, and then she rage quit.
She sent an email out toeverybody in the building
Basically saying how she wasunhappy, and I mean, everybody
in the building got this email.
It was printed on email.
It was probably three pageslong about how bad the
(09:44):
management was.
That's unfortunate.
A week after that, of course,the story just keeps building on
itself, right?
Because we still have to figureout the whole masturbation and
coke lines in the bathroomproblem, right?
Speaker 4 (09:57):
We didn't even figure that out.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
We haven't yet, but that's coming.
Oh wait, there's more.
I have a lady check out thatworks in that building and she's
like telling me.
I was like and the lastquestion I ask anytime I'm doing
an exit interview is thereanything you would like to tell
me that you didn't feelcomfortable telling anybody else
?
Your name won't get used if Ihave to take action because
you're no longer here, so it'snot a big deal.
(10:19):
And she did.
She dad had dumped on me and oneof the things that she gave me
the name of the person doingcoke lines on the in the
bathroom and how she had beencaught like, walked in on doing
the coke lines and I was like,oh okay, so I go down there.
And I was told went to thedirector.
I was like, hey, this is whatI'm going to do.
(10:39):
I'm going to pull her in with awitness, another a female
witness, preferably her boss,who, strangely enough, is the
boss in the whole story.
And I'm going to pull her inwith a witness, another female
witness, preferably her boss,who, strangely enough, is the
boss in the whole story.
And I'm going to ask her ifshe's ever done coke lines on
the bathroom floor or a bathroomcounter.
And if she says yes, we'll haveher go do a drug screening, see
.
If it's positive, we'll use ourEAP, get her into a drug
(11:01):
treatment program and, dependingon if she passes the drug
treatment program, we'll allowher to come in to work for us
without any adverse action andthey're like okay, if she says
no, I'm still going to send herto do a drug screening, but at
that point she's suspended untilI get the results back.
And this is on a friday, so I'dget the results back on monday
(11:21):
and if she's positive, weterminate her immediately.
If she's positive, we terminateher immediately.
If she's not positive, we go onlike nothing happened.
And she can be mad at me Not abig deal, right?
I'm the guy they pay to get madat.
So I had her, she said, ofcourse.
She said, no, I don't do drugs.
I don't do drugs in thebathroom, not at all.
No, I do them in my office andso I'm like okay, well, in
(11:45):
accordance with our drug policy,I am authorized to send you for
a command or a company directedyour analysis and you will go.
And you will go to thislocation.
Your supervisor is going toescort you, right, because I
learned that lesson 30 years agoand we'll get the results on
monday and you're just going togo home after you do the drug
screening and I'll call you inon monday or tuesday when we get
the results on Monday, andyou're just going to go home
after you do the drug screeningand I'll call you in on Monday
(12:06):
or Tuesday when we get theresults back.
She's like okay, and she goeswell.
Can I ask some questions now?
I was like sure, no problem,right?
I want to make sure it's allclear and transparent.
She goes well.
Who told you they saw me doingdrugs in the bathroom?
I was like what she goes, yeah.
Who told you that?
I was like I'm not going totell you that and in the back of
my head I'm like thatautomatically means that you
(12:27):
know you did it.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Yeah, I was just going to say we didn't say that
anyone locked in on you, and sonow I'm thinking she did it.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
I got my law degree from Law Order.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
I know how this works .
Speaker 3 (12:40):
So I'm expecting now her drug screening to come back
positive for something.
Her supervisor and her get overthere.
I get a call.
I'm in the middle of shovingMission BBQ in my face because
it's lunchtime and I answer thephone and the supervisor's like
she doesn't want to do the drugscreening.
I was like, okay, well, here'sher choice.
She can do the drug screeningand run the risk that she's
(13:05):
going to get terminated with apositive, or she can be
terminated now for refusal to dothe drug screening in
accordance with our policy.
And so the lady quit.
That day turns out she was bothour coke line user on the
bathroom counter and our women'srestroom masturbator.
Oh, she was both.
She was both.
She was both.
What a twist.
(13:25):
So she was going in therestroom getting high, getting
high and then rubbing one outyeah.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Oh my.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
God.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
And cocaine.
It's almost like it's a passedrug now.
You know, in the 90s and 80s, Iwas like is it the?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
80s again.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, robin Williams' line cocaine is God's message
to you that you have too muchmoney.
But if it weren't, for cocaine,saturday Night Live would never
have been a thing, that's true.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Right, some of my favorite comics would have never
been comics.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
That's so funny.
That is insane.
I didn't expect the twist atthe end.
So she, that is insane, Ididn't expect the twist at the
end.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah, one fell swoop, we got two rumors killed.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So, and I have to ask was she one of the four good
looking women or one of thethree non?
Speaker 3 (14:16):
good looking women, um.
Of the four women, she wasprobably the better of the four.
However, you could tell like Ihave some background.
I did 25 years in the UnitedStates Navy.
One of the things that I didwas deal with people and their
criminal mishaps while activeduty and you can tell when
(14:38):
someone's using drugs, like Ididn't have to ask her the
questions to know she was goingto lie to me.
There were the signs, right.
Yeah, the sunken, sallow face.
She'd lost weight.
She was like stupid stickskinny because you know Coke
does that to you.
Yeah, oh gosh.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Oh my gosh, it was Wow.
See, I think you get some sortof award because you had like a
mix of like 10 things all in onescenario.
You know, bathroom, you don'thave to go as far as poop but
(15:16):
bathroom stuff, masturbation,drugs, lingerie harassment.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
I mean, wow, that would be like one really great
episode of an HR sitcom.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, it would.
It would be like you couldn't,you could.
How do you do episode two?
What do we do next?
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Yeah, you can't run that as the pilot episode,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah, that's oh wow.
And see, I honestly fullybelieve and I think every
listener will fully believeevery word of what you're saying
, because we've been there,we've done that Maybe not
exactly, but we could see thathappening Whereas someone who
doesn't do HR is like what areyou talking about?
(15:56):
You're full of shit, you know,or something like that.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Well, it's like my COO hates to see me Monday
morning.
I try not to go to his officefirst thing Monday morning,
because when I walk in therefirst thing Monday morning it's
stuff like this as we leave, hegoes.
You just can't make this up,can you?
Speaker 2 (16:13):
No, you can't, you really really can't.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Oh, man you do deserve an award that was
awesome.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Hopefully since then, your work is getting, you know,
less exciting for a littlewhile.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
For about 30 days and then it came back with a
vengeance.
Oh boy, yeah, some of thoseplayers.
The lady that rage quit in themiddle of all that.
She wrote an EOC complaint.
So we've got that going for us.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
That's unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Fun stuff.
Well, you know, that is verylightning of a story, but let's
see if we can keep things goingfrom there.
So, cece, we didn't get to allof our stories last episode and
we recorded I was saying off theair, we recorded for an hour
and 40 minutes.
(17:08):
I think we got the episode down.
I got it down to like an hourand 15 minutes or something like
that, hour 10, hour 15.
So we missed one of the stories.
So what employee behaving badlydo you have?
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Okay, so this was like a few weeks ago.
Do you have, oh my gosh.
Okay, so this was like a fewweeks ago.
There was a individual who,just you know, loves to have a
social media presence and lovesto do a day in my life video
blogs as she's working.
So this was an individual whois a store manager inside of a
(17:43):
Mac cosmetics that was inside ofthe LAX airport and she did a
lot of these a day in my lifevlogs through her entire career
as a Mac cosmeticsrepresentative, and I guess she
got called in at a no in themiddle of her.
(18:03):
By the way, it was in the middleof her day in my life, which I
thought was so what a great dayit was such a great day because
she did get fired like in themiddle of her day in my life,
and all of her mac mascara waslike running down her face as
she was carrying her box out,like it was very dramatic.
But apparently what she wasdoing was she was videotaping
(18:24):
everything like, everything Like.
She was videotaping andrecording and capturing her
pulling up to the employeeparking lot.
She dangled her badge in frontof the camera before she scanned
it.
In giving everyone a clear viewof, like what that security was
.
That security was, she showedherself going in to like their
(18:51):
back office, getting the moneyout of the safe, putting the
money in the canister, showingpeople what that canister looked
like.
So if you were walking to theLAX like airport and you saw
like this very particularbriefcase, you knew there was
cash in there.
But she was timestampingeverything so people could
follow her.
Basically, and the best part wasand this is my favorite she
(19:12):
actually recorded herself likelogging into the POS, which, if
you could slow it down, you cansee her employee code.
You could see everything.
So, anyway, oh, and she alsorecorded herself taking a nap in
the back, which was but I justwanted to, you know, just kind
of throw that out there andbeing and saying like you don't
need to record everything, likewe should know less of each
(19:35):
other, I don't need to know likeyou going to work in the
morning, let's just all take astep back and put the phones
down.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Yeah I don't know about you guys, but there's
things in my 20s that I'm gladthere's no photographic evidence
of honestly exactly yes,exactly there is definitely.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Oh, I was talking about this with someone,
actually there was that.
It's so funny you brought it up.
It was one of those likegenerational things, like gen c
doesn't know what it's like, buthonestly, like we I think they
said millennials are the lastgeneration to know life before
social media and like we had thefreedom to act like fools and
(20:16):
not have everyone record us.
Like we had like that luxury.
So anyway, put your phones awaywhen you're at work.
Just put them away.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, like put them away Apparently at my work
there's someone whose desk isnot far from mine, who I've
never known, is doing socialmedia videos and everything.
And another employee said oh, Isaw you walking behind this
person's desk while they weredoing a social media thing.
I'm like what are you?
I'm like, really, they'rerecording social media stuff,
(20:50):
did I mean?
Speaker 3 (20:52):
anyways, that's I would say I would say about
every six months I have thatconversation with my team like
hey, you guys understand thatback here is not a place to
record, or you want to haveprivate phone calls go outside.
But but this is HR, lots ofthings happen in here and it
doesn't need to leave HR.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
One person I've worked with very briefly for two
times, but she had this rulethat I've carried with me ever
since the four walls rule, andwithin these four HR walls we
can say and do all sorts ofabhorrent shit that vent
ourselves the HR safe space.
Yes, If we want to say thatWarren is the dumbest ass
(21:34):
employee, what the fuck didWarren do today?
Oh my gosh, we can say that asloud and with as much tone and
attitude with each other as weneed just to get it off and be
you know, get that out of yoursystem so you don't say it to
the employee themselves.
And I love that rule and it ledto a lot of great conversations
(21:54):
the four walls rule.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Laughing.
One of my really good friends,her husband, just started with
an Australian based company andhe says like their work culture
at this specific company is verydifferent, like people are
throwing the c word around andlike all it's very lax.
And he was in a meeting one dayand someone said they, they
called someone lasagna okay as anickname and they're like yeah,
(22:21):
he doesn't know, that's hisnickname and they're like why is
it?
lasagna and someone said becauseI'm not gonna do an australian
accent because I'll kill it buthe said his, his head's so
fucking baked he can't get shitdone oh man I don't know why.
The four walls just reminded meof that and I thought that was
(22:42):
was hilarious.
His head's so fucking baked hecan't get shit done.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Let's see here.
So the news.
I'm going to keep the themegoing of people behaving badly
and we have two really goodexamples since our last
recording of people behavingbadly, and I'm not going to I
don't I don't even know if theguy's name was released.
He was the polish ceo who wasat the us open and the polish
(23:10):
tennis player and I don't followtennis at all people, so I'm
not going to go with the names,but he was giving out, signing
autographs and giving thingsaway and he hands this cap to
this kid.
Looks like he's 10, 12 yearsold, but this Polish CEO
snatches it from the tennisplayer's hand and then gives it
to his girlfriend.
(23:30):
He's like oh, he's the cat thatate the canary happy, and he's
all this and that.
And the kid's like giving himjust, you know, you monster type
, look type thing.
You monster type, look typething.
And that CEO later released astatement and saying you know he
didn't realize that the hat wasintended for the kid.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Oh no, he knew, he knew, just watching every minute
of that he knew every second ofwhat he was doing.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
So you know that's just total bullshit with that
and that irritated me.
But at least he had thegumption to acknowledge the fact
, acknowledge what happened,even though he might have been
lying.
Oh, I didn't realize it wasintended for the kid.
Yes, it absolutely was.
The whole rest of the worldrealized that.
Why couldn't you?
But the more famous one now isyour, philadelphia Karen, and I
(24:25):
just realized I saw anothervideo about this.
This was in my the.
The home game was in miami, sothey were philly fans down in
miami or florida marlins.
Now I guess you'd say that youknow the, the homeroom ball.
Nobody catches.
It's bouncing around florida.
Dad bends over in front of thislady, picks it up and gives it
(24:47):
to his son and everybody's allhappy except for that lady who
swore it was hers and she's.
He stole it out of her hand andhe's yelling and she's yelling
and screaming at him andultimately the dad just says get
the fuck out of here and givesthe ball back to the lady.
It's not worth it.
But now social media says thatshe was been identified and been
(25:08):
fired from her job.
If social media is right, she'sa?
Uh works on a school boardsomewhere up in New Jersey or
something like that that's.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
That's what I saw, but then I saw another post the
day after that said that itwasn't her.
Yeah, oh, so yeah, who the day?
Speaker 2 (25:24):
after that said that it wasn't her.
Yeah, oh, so yeah, who knows?
But wherever she works,hopefully she doesn't work there
anymore, because that type ofvolatility you know the CEO, he
was just being a jerk andgrabbed a hat there was no
volatility, anger, rage,whatever in that.
This lady lost her shitaltogether and first it's sort
of par, for course, for aPhillies fan in any sport, yeah
(25:47):
worst fans ever.
Yeah, and actually I know wehave listeners in Philadelphia.
You know they're going to hateme.
Philadelphia is one of thephysically dirtiest cities I
think I've ever been in.
Maybe St Louis has got ittopped.
St Louis might have it topped.
Sorry, listeners in St Louis,but a few years ago I went with
(26:12):
my son and we're going aroundall the touristy areas in
Philadelphia and there is filth.
We're in like near the LibertyBell area.
There is filth everywhere,needles in public places and
like unhinged crazies.
Out there there was oneunhinged person who was just
going nuts and me and my sonwalked into the.
There was a bank nearby.
Hey, let's go into this bank.
We have no business being here,but I don't think a crazy is
(26:33):
going to come in here and wejust sort of watched him walk by
and we left just because it wasjust.
Philadelphia is and I have many, actual many friends who live
around Philadelphia.
It's just a filthy, dirty,disgusting little city, not
little city, but it's.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
I was just going to say you guys need to get your
sports fans in order Because, Idon't know, I heard they also
have a jail in their stadiumsbecause they just get so rowdy.
Just get your people in order,yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Sorry.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Sorry, that woman, just being a Phillies fan, was
the icing on the cake it was.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
You know, though, the team came through, though, and
really they resolved the issue,and I think, probably one of the
best ways it turns out, it wasthe kid's birthday.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
Oh my gosh, that day I didn't love it.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
And so they brought him like a swag bag, yeah, that
day.
And so they brought him like aswag bag, yeah, and then the the
team that that was the stadiumbrought him a swag bag with a
whole bunch of stuff in it.
And then the team the philliesactually brought him down after
the game and got got him to geta signed bat from the guy that
hit the home run.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, so and you know , kudos to both the marlins and
the phillies organizations fordoing that.
Yeah, because, and the thing is, it's not one of those things
that we're finding out thoseplayers knew what was happening
right then and there, and one ofthe screenshots I showed,
they're doing pitch one and it'sa home run and they show all
(27:57):
the commotion.
They do pitch two and they'regoing back to the commotion
after the thing and they'regoing back and forth and I'm
like geez, lady, you arecompletely unhinged.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
It's just the audacity.
It's the audacity, like that'smy ball.
You gotta be fast.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
And.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
I will say this.
So, mr CEC, uh, like we go to afew concerts and we've been to
a concert before where, like hecaught the pick of a guitarist
who like threw it, and my andand mr cc loves to play guitars,
so but he caught the guitar andthere was a kid behind him who
wanted the guitar pick and hejust sucked it up and gave it to
(28:35):
the kid and like it's not thatbig of a deal, like I get I'm so
sorry, if you are a sports fan,it could be that big of a deal.
I get it, people you know, butI don't know.
So now we have a thing wherewhenever we go to see a show, he
brings some fake pics with them.
So if he catches, the real piche will
Speaker 2 (28:54):
give the fake pic to the child oh, that's what you
need to start doing.
You start to you start bringingfake balls you know now I've
attended.
you know I was a baseball umpirefor 15 years but I've attended
a number.
To start doing you startbringing fake balls.
You know, now I've attended.
You know I was a baseballumpire for 15 years but I've
attended a number of games.
I've never been even near afoul ball or a home run ball in
the stands, never, not close toit Once.
(29:17):
So I was like, and yeah so.
And then these people who seemto always be in the right place
at the right time.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
Always yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
So, okay, I've got a couple of stories here.
One of them I was speaking tomy best friend from junior high
and for those of you who areyounger than me, that's middle
school.
Anyways, he is for the past fewyears he's been a director at a
state agency and he gotnotification for the first time
(29:50):
since he's been director thatthey get to not only hire but
it's adding a headcount.
It's one person, a whopping oneperson they're adding to the
headcount and you know he's beensearching and searching and
he's just getting so pissed offthrough these interviews.
And you know he's his currentteam.
(30:10):
He has got a lot of people witha one to three years of
experience.
He's got like two people inthat five to 10 years of
experience and then everybodyelse is like him who've been
doing it for 25 plus years, andso he wants someone with like
five to 10 years of experience,that middle ground, to sort of
even out his team a little bit.
(30:32):
But he's doing all theseinterviews and he's finding
these people.
He's being sent these resumeswith people with five to 10
years of experience, but theyhave one year here, two years
there and he asked themquestions that if someone's been
working in their field for fiveto 10 years should know, and
they don't have a clue.
He says they've got one year ofexperience, five times and
(30:53):
things like that.
And then the term he used,which I thought was just
brilliant, I'm going to steal itfrom him.
He says they're job tourists.
They come in and they you know,oh, portland, oregon, so cool
place to go.
I'm going to go there and get ajob and do this for a little
while.
And then, oh, let's go to SantaFe, new Mexico, and that's a
cool place to go.
And you know, they just theyjump around not focusing on
(31:17):
they're getting jobs, they'reemployed, but they're not
focusing on their career.
And the thing is he can hireeither one of two positions and
he's running the problem withboth.
He hasn't decided which wayhe's going to go, so he's
advertising both One.
The main thing he really wantsis someone to work out in the
field and do field work, andthat's his first priority.
(31:38):
But if he can't find that, he'swilling to settle Not settle.
But he's also looking at a datascientist to do the work.
Their field people come in anddo their own data work and he
says I could have more peopleout in the field more often.
If I have a data scientistdoing the backend stuff but he
can't find either that they haveknow they they're have real
(32:02):
experience.
He's almost at the point wherehe's going to go to a college
and just hire an entry leveleither way and develop them
himself and he says it sucksthat he's.
Half his team is one to threeyears of experience and he
wanted you know some more peoplebecause he wants to be out in
the field and he says with allthese one to three year people
he's training and doing thingslike that in the field but he's
(32:23):
not doing the work himself.
So it's just really interesting.
But I love the term job touristwith that.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
I guess you can afford to do that if you don't
have to worry about finances.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah, bingo.
I think that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
There's a good story.
You guys of course know AdamSandler.
That's the thing.
There's a good story.
You guys of course know AdamSandler.
There in the 90s, apparently,he chose his jobs, the movies
that he was going to do, basedon where they were being filmed,
so that he could take hisfamily on vacations.
That's funny.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Hey, if you could do it.
That's why he's doing 50 FirstStates in Hawaii and things like
that.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
What was the one that they went to Africa blended?
Was that the one where it waslike Drew Barrymore and they
were like a blended family andthey like both go like that
would have been a really coolfamily vacation, yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Adam Sandler, drew Barrymore, in that that 51st
States and those that year, theydid a bunch of Never Been
Kissed.
Was that, yeah, never BeenKissed?
And a bunch of other cool ones.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
Honestly, this is not HR related, but I watched Happy
Gilmore 2.
Oh yes, a couple weeks ago Iwas delightfully surprised at
how much I enjoyed it.
I was a big Happy Gilmore fanthe original but I just thought
the sequel was just so well doneit was, and all of his
daughters and his wife were init and I was like he's such a
(33:45):
good family.
I mean I like I saw him do standup like he did like a stand up
show, a live show here and he'slike half singing, half stand up
.
He just seems like such a goodguy.
Yeah, like I really hope he, Ireally hope he's not like the
next Dave Grohl who just let usall down.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Oh, oh, really hope he's not like the next dave
grohl who just let us all down.
Oh, oh, don't, don't break myheart about dave grohl.
I have not heard any negativethings about him.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Oh, you didn't hear.
Like a year ago he came outthat he had like a kid outside
of wedlock, like outside of hismarriage, and like there's a
woman in some country that likehas like a one-year-old or a
two-year-old okay wow I.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
I was thinking he was going to be that's bad, but I
was thinking it was going to bea lot worse.
He was going to be a racist, oryeah, yeah, or something like
that.
Dave Grohl he's one of myall-time favorite musicians,
artists, whatever.
He let us down.
Well, I have three more littlequickie things today, and this
(34:41):
one will go with what I justspoke about.
This comes to us from LinkedIn.
The writer is Liz Ryan and herbyline is coach.
You know my feeling on coaches.
Creator, ceo and founder, humanworkspace author.
Blah blah, blah, blah, blahblah.
So she does everything, but theattention gettinggetting meme
(35:04):
is you don't need to askcandidates about resume gaps.
They're irrelevant and none ofyour business.
And that just triggered meright off the word gap, and I'll
read it's like I don't know aparagraph she wrote there's no
reason or justification forasking a candidate why they have
a resume gap.
That's their personal life.
(35:25):
Would you ask a consultant whatthey've been doing since their
last consulting engagement?
If they gave me a chronologicallist and I saw a big gap, yes,
I would ask.
But that's another thing.
Continuing what she wrote, whydoes anyone have to justify
stepping off the conveyor belt,or even for a few months?
Do you see how toxic andcontrolling the question what
were you doing during this gapis?
(35:45):
If you can see that you aresomeone who can lead through
trust rather than fear, if youcan't see why this question is
wildly inappropriate, pay closeattention next time you ask and
see if a candidate fights backtears remembering a family
member's illness or death.
What someone was doing during abreak is simply none of your
business and I am going to callgiant bullshit on that one.
(36:07):
Yes, I've said it on thepodcast before In 2011, I was
laid off twice in that same yearand in 2002, I was terminated
for cause and that I had athree-month gap.
And when people ask oh yeah, Ilost my job because I sucked at
my job at that time and I reallysaid something you know, not
(36:28):
that directly, but yeah, Ididn't.
You know, I tried something new.
It didn't work out for me.
I ended up losing my job.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
But answer the question even if it is okay, no,
I was just to say like there'ssome times where you know,
especially like I got abackground screens, I see all
those and you can see whensomeone spent time in jail or
something like that, and and itmatches up where that gap is and
sometimes you just want to seeif they'll they'll say anything,
you know, and like recently Ihad a guy who's sitting in my
(36:57):
office we're getting, we'reonboarding him right, we're
hiring him.
He's not going to get kickedout the door, because I already
looked at his backgroundscreening.
But I asked him.
I was like, hey, look, I seethis gap in here.
What's going on?
And he goes oh yeah, I spentsome time in jail for a stupid
decision that I made when I wasa little younger.
I was like well, as long as youlearn from it, move on.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Yeah, exactly, have a tragedy in your life or your
family that you know, I don'tknow a spouse died and you
needed some time off, or maybeyou wanted to be a stay-at-home
mom.
Those are legitimate answersand you don't have to go into
too much detail.
And I tell you what when I askthat question if you start going
into too much detail in a longstory, more than a single
paragraph or so means you'rebullshitting me.
(37:44):
You know, if you're going totell me this long, drawn-out
story, okay, I'm not believingthat.
But oh, yeah, I took some timeoff to spend time with my kids,
my family, or I had an illness,or you know, you know, or I had
something personal going on inmy life.
That's all you have to say.
But I, I don't want to.
I I kind of want to hear what,because if you're starting to
bullshit me, then things aregoing sideways.
So, ms Liz, Ryan.
(38:07):
I really could not disagree withyou more, and I think most of
the HR community is going to beon there with us.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Well, unless she's in her 80s, there's no reason to
be a coach.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Yeah, you know coaches and consultants.
They're just people who losttheir job.
Otherwise, most of the time, itseems so.
They were terminated for cause,probably from their employment,
or maybe got laid off anddecided to go out on their own.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Oh, I'm laughing because it's true.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
I have to admit I've met several HR professionals in
my region that are no longerwith active companies.
They've decided to start theirown business as HR consultants
and I'm like, yeah, you gotfired.
I know you got fired because Iknow the company you're working
at.
They all told me why you gotfired.
Because they wanted me to comework for them.
Speaker 4 (38:54):
It's really funny.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
It's crazy.
It's a consultant coach typething.
Keynote speaker.
Add that to the list.
That's the next thing they'llbe doing too.
Speaker 4 (39:07):
That's interesting, honestly, like I don't know.
I don't know how I feel aboutthat, because there is a bit of
me.
I could see both sides.
I could honestly see both sidesto that argument.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
You know, if you had plenty of experience to back up
your coaching or consulting,then that would be different.
But some of these folks do itright out the gate.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Yeah, they really do.
I'm just laughing because I didwork with someone who was fired
.
That person started their ownconsulting business.
Yeah, it's just funny to me.
And they just released a book.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
How to Get get fired in 10 ways and next are they on
the speakers, apparentlymasturbating on a toilet while
doing coke is the answer.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
Oh geez, yeah, no, it's.
It's funny, though, and I, I Ikind of want to read it because
I'm interested in it, mainlybecause when we had worked
together, I was the one thatusually authored things.
And this individual had aweakness in that area that he
admitted to.
But I'm just laughing becauseI'm just like I'm interested in
(40:17):
the book now.
Morbid curiosity, like I said.
But you know what, though?
Here's the thing Everyone's outthere getting their money,
they're getting paid.
Good on him for figuring it out, because he's probably very
happy doing what he's doing andI'm very happy doing what I'm
doing, so go off, king.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Like I said, once I get my master's degree I'll have
those three extra letters toput behind my name with all my
other little letters I could putbehind it, and I want to just
start having AI write books andsign them and just do
self-published AI books.
You know I've written 35 booksin three days.
You know something like that.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
See, isn't that kind of sad, like I feel like now AI
has made it so easy for peopleto create like AI slop in
self-published book form, andnow it's like writing a book.
Quote-unquote is just like Ihave a podcast.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Like, everyone has a podcast.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
Everyone has a book, everyone has something.
It's just like you have twopodcasts.
Yes, that's right, I have twopodcasts.
Oh my God, it's just funny, aiis taking over.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
But you know, it's a great tool if you use it right,
it is.
Speaker 4 (41:36):
Oh, a thousand percent A thousand percent.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
One of my other courses.
Well, I'm going segueing rightin.
I'm taking one of my othercourses.
Well, I'm going to segue rightin.
I'm taking a class now onoperations management.
We're talking about a lot aboutAI and I'm really digging that
class so far.
But the other class I'm takingthis semester is organizational
behavior and I love the practiceof it and I won't be terribly
(42:03):
jaded.
It's a couple of weeks in.
It's not that I'm learningsomething.
I'm getting more or less cuedin on things I've already known.
It's like oh, there we go, andthings like that.
But I had quiz number one lastweek and it's talking about the
functions of organizationalbehavior.
Are we going to get quiz now?
Speaker 4 (42:23):
Oh well, I can ask you these two questions.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
I took screenshots of oh, okay, it's been 10 years
since I did my master's degree,so go easy on me.
Why do employees behave the waythey do?
Speaker 4 (42:39):
Jackassery Coke People be peepling Coke Coke
People be people-ing.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
Coke, cocaine.
I mean, why do?
There's some great theoriesbehind it and things like that,
but it's because, yeah,jackassery just being an asshole
douchebag, whatever you want tocall him.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Yes, correct answer, I am going to take a less jaded
approach to this question, if weshall, and I don't even know if
this is a correct answer.
This is just through my lens.
In my crazy mind, I thinkpeople behave the way they do in
organizations because 99 of thepeople are not psychopaths and
they come to work and they wantto do a good job and their
(43:22):
definition of a good job variesfrom person to person and
sometimes those things createconflict oh you are, I think,
one of the right answers.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
I wish I had did you?
Speaker 3 (43:33):
did you read that out of the book?
Speaker 4 (43:35):
no, I am just that brilliant oh, I forget the term.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
I just took the quiz.
Hold up, I'm going to find it.
I'll edit this out.
Speaker 4 (43:42):
Oh, this is so fun If people on my master's cohort
can see me now.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
I remember when I was doing my master's years, I
answered a quiz probably in thesame class, and the guy actually
failed the quiz on me and toldme to rethink the answers.
Not as a military member, oh.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
A whole new, a military member.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Oh, a whole new concept for me Interesting.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
How was that for you?
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Well, I was 20 years institutionalized, so it was a
little harder.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
I can't find the actual answer to or what the
yeah the topic that that fallsunder, but it does have
something to do with what yousaid it's about.
You know people do things basedon the situation.
Essentially I can't find theexact term in my notes it ties
into your psych class.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
If you've taken that already, you know people are
nurture versus nature and thenyou get put into a social
situation and someone else'snurture nature is different and
they're not always congruent.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Yeah, exactly so I just I wanted to put my jaded
answer.
I put the correct one in forthat answer.
I love it.
And then you led to anotheranswer.
The next question on this quizI screenshotted was why is one
individual more productive thananother?
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Intrinsic motivation.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
Because they're not a jackass.
Speaker 4 (45:13):
Because they're not.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yeah, once again, it's almost the same answer that
their situational values andvalues behaviors per the
situation are.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
Well, and I also find that age and longevity in the
job also drives some of thatproductivity issues.
Someone who's been in the jobforever I have one that kind of
slacks off a little bit and hasto be kind of redirected,
whereas the employee- that'sonly been here for.
Yeah, there's an employee thatworks here for like two years
and she's like on top of it allthe time.
(45:47):
So, there's kind of adifference in mentality there
too.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
Exactly, exactly.
So I've been finding that fun.
I'm enjoying the class.
Like I said, I'm not quoteunquote, learning new things,
but I'm just picking up onthings.
We're a whole weekend so I'mnot.
It's not like I've gotten a lotof it, but it's it's going
pretty well so far.
So, yeah, what is thereanything else anybody has on the
(46:14):
cover today?
Anything else on?
Speaker 4 (46:16):
anybody's mind.
Well, first of all, I thinkthat we should.
We should have a weekly segmentor like an episode segment,
where we go over what Warrenlearned in grad school that week
and we can do quizzes.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Well, this organizational behavior class
might give me some good ammo forthat, I know.
Speaker 4 (46:37):
But talking about people misbehaving, just really
quick, this was on Reddit, sotake it with a grain of salt if
it's on Reddit, but it made mecrack up.
So, people, it's maliciouscompliance, which I love some
good malicious compliance,especially when the rules are
nonsense and don't make sense.
So this individual said thatthey at their company, a new
(47:03):
they had like kind of like adress casual situation.
However, some new leader camein and really wanted people to
stick to the dress code that wasin the handbook, which, like,
why, like we've had thisconversation so many times.
People are professionals, letthem be professional but their
handbook wasn't revised sincelike the 90s or something Like.
(47:24):
It was just a very outdateddress code.
So some examples were that menhad to wear suit, tie, jacket,
women had to wear blouses,knee-length skirts, nylons,
nylons.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Going back to the 50s .
Speaker 4 (47:40):
Yeah.
A little leg action, yeah goback to the 50s, yeah, and so,
anyway, a few employees decidedto follow the dress code to a t.
So we had individuals who wereshowing up to work in suspenders
in full-on, like wedding, likewedding suits, tuxedos.
There was people who showed upin shoulder pads and the nylons
(48:03):
and closed-toed pumps.
So they said it was a smallteam that started it.
By the middle of the weekalmost the entire office looked
like it was out of a corporatemuseum and very quickly did that
new leader.
Partner with HR to revise thedress code.
Partner with HR to revise thedress code.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
That's one of those tricky areas too, especially now
.
Speaker 4 (48:30):
Mm-hmm.
A thousand percent.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
I've told this story, I'm sure on the podcast, before
, but my brother he was in theArmy, did 20-some-odd years
retired as a full-bird colonel.
But when he was a major he gothired for a job he didn't even
apply to, to be a militaryscience instructor at the United
States Military Academy, westPoint.
And so he's there and he'sdoing his thing and everything's
(48:55):
going well.
And one of his head people cometo him and say well, you know,
one of the reasons we broughtyou on is you're so highly
decorated and all that and wewould like to see you wear more
and more of your ribbons andthings like that.
He goes no, these are the onesthat are important to me, these
are the ones I like.
He goes I don't need to wearthem all, I'm not going to wear
them all.
(49:15):
And they sort of got him to thepoint where they're telling wear
.
And he says I don't thinkthere's anywhere in the UCMJ
that I have to wear all myribbons.
And he goes well, we'd reallyreally like you.
We want to impress on you howmuch we'd really like you to,
because it'll impress the kids,the students and things like
that.
So for two weeks my brotherwore his dinner tuxedo with not
(49:38):
only the ribbon of everythinghe's had but the full metal of
everything he's had.
And for two weeks he walkedaround.
He said I looked like a thirdworld country dictator walking
around the hallways at WestPoint in my dinner tuxedo with
all these things, he said.
After two weeks he went back towearing the he said six or
eight ribbons.
(49:58):
That actually meant somethingto him and nobody said a word to
him about it ever since.
Speaker 4 (50:04):
Did anyone not tell him that it was a requirement to
have 15 pieces of flair?
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 4 (50:13):
My brother wouldn't get that reference, it is very
like Jim, all of the office,when Dwight sends out the dress
code memo and he shows up in histux.
I do, I do.
I just Malicious.
Compliance is fantastic.
I love it.
Yeah, it's delicious.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Yeah, exactly.
Well, with that, I think we'llcall this episode to an end.
Bring it to an end.
Our voice artist at thebeginning is Andrew Kolpa, and
the music is the UnderscoreOrchestra song the Devil, the
Devil.
So, as always, I'm Warren.
I'm Cece and I'm Bill and we'rehere helping you survive.
(50:57):
Hr1.
What the Fuck moment at a time.
Yay, yay, thank you.
Had you actually read the email, you would know that
the podcast you are about tolisten to could contain explicit
language and offensive content.
These HR experts' views are notrepresentative of their past,
present or future employers.
If you have ever heard mymanager is unfair to me.
I need you to reset my HRportal password, or Can I write
(00:25):
up my employee for crying toomuch?
Welcome to our little safe zone.
Welcome to Jaded HR.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Welcome to Jaded HR, the podcast by three HR
professionals who want to helpyou get through the workday by
saying everything you'rethinking, but say it out loud.
I'm Warren.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
I'm Cece, I'm Bill, all righty.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
We have a special guest.
It's Bill.
You hear us talk about everyepisode as our Patreon supporter
, and a couple of weeks ago,bill shot me a message about a
really cool story and I had toreach out to him to invite him
to be on board, and he was ableto join us.
(01:19):
So thank you very much forjoining us, bill, and I'll go
ahead and use this time, too, togive a shout out to our other
Patreon supporters Hallie, theoriginal Jaded HR, rockstar and
Mike.
So yeah, so first for everybody,we love feedback from listeners
.
We don't get a boatload of it,we don't get much at all, but it
(01:42):
seems like it comes in waves.
If you will, and hopefully thiswill start a new wave of
feedback from listeners.
Boatload of it, we don't getmuch at all, but it seems like
it comes in waves.
If you will, and hopefully thiswill start a new wave of
feedback from listeners, if youhave a crazy story, an antic or
something like that that youwant to tell, let us know.
Some people wanted to be on theshow.
Other people have not wanted tobe on the show when I reach out
to them to tell their story.
But yeah, let us know, we willhave you on board.
(02:02):
So, bill, thank you very muchfor joining us.
I mean this is great andpersonally, thank you for
supporting the show for thistime on Patreon, because it
helps.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Well, it's been a great listen.
You know you guys.
When I found you guys, I waslooking for somebody to give me
some advice on how to be an HRmanager.
I've only been doing it for acouple of years, but you guys
hit a different need.
I needed to hear about peoplewho had the same problems that I
did.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Exactly and I don't think anything we really say is
too unique to any of us.
Like we said, the poop rite ofpassage If you haven't dealt
with poop, you're not in HR yet.
Be poop, there will be poop.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
There will be, there always is.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
And it thinks like that.
It's just.
There's a billion other showsout there.
If you want to learn, actuallylearn something, there's a.
There's a hundred.
I've listened to many of them,or not many of them, quite a few
of them.
Of the ones that give actualadvice, my favorite, I'll go
ahead and say, is Good MorningHR with Mike Coffey, who was on
with us in December.
That's my favorite one toactually learn from.
(03:08):
But you have Kyle Road andRebel HR and other great ones
that you can actually learnsomething on HR Besties.
You can learn from them as well.
Yeah, you can learn from them,so they're a little more akin to
us, but yeah, so, bill, tell uswhy you're here.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
So, so a couple of weeks ago you guys were going I
don't even remember what thetopics was, it was like two or
three sessions ago but and I waslike you know what I just got
to share this story because it'sstill fresh in my mind.
It's a, it's a this year storyand of course, there's been some
updates to this story since Ishared it with you.
But I'll go ahead and start atthe beginning.
(03:48):
We have a division of thecompany.
It's about 300 and somethingpeople spread across four
different locations, but themajority of them are here in the
area where I'm located with theheadquarters, and there's about
180 people in this building.
It's a new building, so there'sthere's problems with the
building.
(04:08):
We've moved in recently and oneof my favorite people in the
building comes to me and goeshey, I need to talk to you about
some stuff, and she just startstelling me about all these
rumors that are going around thebuilding.
And the first rumor was youknow, we got somebody in the
(04:29):
women's restroom doing lines ofCoke and I was like, how do you
know it's Coke.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
I mean great question .
Speaker 3 (04:39):
I've got stories about that too from my past.
But how do you know it's Cokeand so.
And then they're telling me, me, well, they're finding powdery
residue and all that kind ofstuff.
So I I was like, well, maybeit's, maybe it's a
misunderstanding of what's goingon, and we put you know, the
red, the red sharps boxes inthere, thinking it was somebody
who had a problem dropping theirneedles in the in the trash or
something like that.
Right, so we did that.
(04:59):
And then she was like there'sanother rumor.
I was like, oh no, she goes.
There is sounds of pleasurecoming from the women's restroom
several times a week.
And I'm like, oh my god, what,what?
What?
I was like this is justsomebody, like maybe someone's
(05:20):
having a rough day in therestroom, whatever right.
And I was like she goes well,are you gonna do anything?
I was like she goes well, areyou going to do anything?
I was like, absolutely not.
I'm not going to touch that one, right, there's no way in or
out of that situation that willkeep you out of jail.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Okay, especially as an HR dude having to deal with
that in a women's restroom,you're going to be the creepster
automatically, yeah, so now?
Why are you so concerned?
Speaker 4 (05:44):
women's restroom you're going to be the creepster
automatically, just yeah.
So now, why are you so?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
concerned.
Well, now there's the setupright.
So it's now Monday evening.
It's about six or seven o'clockon a Monday evening in June and
I get a call from the seniorprogram manager.
Hey, we'll call you tomorrow.
We'll give you some moredetails, but we had one of our
our junior program managers pullin four women that work for him
(06:13):
and ask them individually ifthey were masturbating in the
women's restroom shit yesexactly.
I may have used a few morecolorful phrases at that moment
but yes.
So, of course, come in the nextday, I've got to go brief my
boss and who I work for, the CFO.
(06:35):
I go brief the CEO and tellthem and they're like, oh well,
what do we do?
I was like, well, we're goingto fire him.
That's, that's the first thingwe're going to do.
We do need to do some sort ofinvestigation to make it all
clean, but he's going to getfired if even one of those women
cooperates.
That story, yeah, oh my gosh.
(06:55):
And so I went over to thebuilding and I asked all four of
the ladies that got dimed outtheir program manager and got
the whole story.
And what it turns out is thisguy decided he was going to take
it upon himself Monday morningto ask the four women.
Now he has eight people whowork for them.
Seven of them are women and heonly asked four of them and they
(07:20):
were the four better looking ofthe women who worked for him.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Oh my God, it just keeps giving Ugly.
Women can't do that.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Nope Ugly women can't do this.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
So I talked to each of the women, I talked to the
supervisor.
It turns out that he did thatand then an hour later went into
his supervisor's office and waslike, hey, I think we should do
this.
And she told him under nocircumstances, no.
So he just clammed up anddidn't say nothing.
And it was about four or fiveo'clock in the afternoon when
one of the women finally went toher to the boss and was like
(07:55):
hey, this happened today andthat's when it all went downhill
.
So Tuesday, I roll in, I get theinvestigation going.
The four women all rogered up.
Yep, this is exactly whathappened.
They wrote statements.
I went back to my boss and Isaid immediately, make him go
away, there's no way to salvagethis.
So in the middle of it, this isthe week of sexual harassment
(08:17):
complaints.
By the way, 15 sexualharassment complaints in four
days, hey, different complaintsand they're not in the same
complaints, right.
And most of them were just likepetty, like oh, look, hr is in
the building taking care of thisproblem.
Maybe they'll listen to thisone and make this other guy go
away, right?
And that's where a lot of themended up.
So the next one was I was inthe building and one of the
(08:38):
program managers pulls me inside.
Hey, one of our admins justcame to me and said that her
program manager that she worksfor was asking her
recommendations about lingerie.
I'm like no, no, no, no.
So, I went and talked to her.
(08:59):
She gave me her statement andit was he.
They had formed a friendshipand he thought it was a
different kind of friendship andthat he could ask some advice
about lingerie that he neededfor his wife.
And I told him yeah, thatyou're dumb.
Guy's been doing being aprogram manager for like 20 plus
years.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
You're dumb oh my gosh oh.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
So then of course, the girl who made the complaint
didn't like how we handled thatsituation, because we fired the
one guy, but we didn't fire thisguy, and then she rage quit.
She sent an email out toeverybody in the building
Basically saying how she wasunhappy, and I mean, everybody
in the building got this email.
It was printed on email.
It was probably three pageslong about how bad the
(09:44):
management was.
That's unfortunate.
A week after that, of course,the story just keeps building on
itself, right?
Because we still have to figureout the whole masturbation and
coke lines in the bathroomproblem, right?
Speaker 4 (09:57):
We didn't even figure that out.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
We haven't yet, but that's coming.
Oh wait, there's more.
I have a lady check out thatworks in that building and she's
like telling me.
I was like and the lastquestion I ask anytime I'm doing
an exit interview is thereanything you would like to tell
me that you didn't feelcomfortable telling anybody else
?
Your name won't get used if Ihave to take action because
you're no longer here, so it'snot a big deal.
(10:19):
And she did.
She dad had dumped on me and oneof the things that she gave me
the name of the person doingcoke lines on the in the
bathroom and how she had beencaught like, walked in on doing
the coke lines and I was like,oh okay, so I go down there.
And I was told went to thedirector.
I was like, hey, this is whatI'm going to do.
(10:39):
I'm going to pull her in with awitness, another a female
witness, preferably her boss,who, strangely enough, is the
boss in the whole story.
And I'm going to pull her inwith a witness, another female
witness, preferably her boss,who, strangely enough, is the
boss in the whole story.
And I'm going to ask her ifshe's ever done coke lines on
the bathroom floor or a bathroomcounter.
And if she says yes, we'll haveher go do a drug screening, see
.
If it's positive, we'll use ourEAP, get her into a drug
(11:01):
treatment program and, dependingon if she passes the drug
treatment program, we'll allowher to come in to work for us
without any adverse action andthey're like okay, if she says
no, I'm still going to send herto do a drug screening, but at
that point she's suspended untilI get the results back.
And this is on a friday, so I'dget the results back on monday
(11:21):
and if she's positive, weterminate her immediately.
If she's positive, we terminateher immediately.
If she's not positive, we go onlike nothing happened.
And she can be mad at me Not abig deal, right?
I'm the guy they pay to get madat.
So I had her, she said, ofcourse.
She said, no, I don't do drugs.
I don't do drugs in thebathroom, not at all.
No, I do them in my office andso I'm like okay, well, in
(11:45):
accordance with our drug policy,I am authorized to send you for
a command or a company directedyour analysis and you will go.
And you will go to thislocation.
Your supervisor is going toescort you, right, because I
learned that lesson 30 years agoand we'll get the results on
monday and you're just going togo home after you do the drug
screening and I'll call you inon monday or tuesday when we get
the results on Monday, andyou're just going to go home
after you do the drug screeningand I'll call you in on Monday
(12:06):
or Tuesday when we get theresults back.
She's like okay, and she goeswell.
Can I ask some questions now?
I was like sure, no problem,right?
I want to make sure it's allclear and transparent.
She goes well.
Who told you they saw me doingdrugs in the bathroom?
I was like what she goes, yeah.
Who told you that?
I was like I'm not going totell you that and in the back of
my head I'm like thatautomatically means that you
(12:27):
know you did it.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Yeah, I was just going to say we didn't say that
anyone locked in on you, and sonow I'm thinking she did it.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
I got my law degree from Law Order.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
I know how this works .
Speaker 3 (12:40):
So I'm expecting now her drug screening to come back
positive for something.
Her supervisor and her get overthere.
I get a call.
I'm in the middle of shovingMission BBQ in my face because
it's lunchtime and I answer thephone and the supervisor's like
she doesn't want to do the drugscreening.
I was like, okay, well, here'sher choice.
She can do the drug screeningand run the risk that she's
(13:05):
going to get terminated with apositive, or she can be
terminated now for refusal to dothe drug screening in
accordance with our policy.
And so the lady quit.
That day turns out she was bothour coke line user on the
bathroom counter and our women'srestroom masturbator.
Oh, she was both.
She was both.
She was both.
What a twist.
(13:25):
So she was going in therestroom getting high, getting
high and then rubbing one outyeah.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Oh my.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
God.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
And cocaine.
It's almost like it's a passedrug now.
You know, in the 90s and 80s, Iwas like is it the?
Speaker 3 (13:41):
80s again.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yeah, robin Williams' line cocaine is God's message
to you that you have too muchmoney.
But if it weren't, for cocaine,saturday Night Live would never
have been a thing, that's true.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Right, some of my favorite comics would have never
been comics.
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
That's so funny.
That is insane.
I didn't expect the twist atthe end.
So she, that is insane, Ididn't expect the twist at the
end.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah, one fell swoop, we got two rumors killed.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So, and I have to ask was she one of the four good
looking women or one of thethree non?
Speaker 3 (14:16):
good looking women, um.
Of the four women, she wasprobably the better of the four.
However, you could tell like Ihave some background.
I did 25 years in the UnitedStates Navy.
One of the things that I didwas deal with people and their
criminal mishaps while activeduty and you can tell when
(14:38):
someone's using drugs, like Ididn't have to ask her the
questions to know she was goingto lie to me.
There were the signs, right.
Yeah, the sunken, sallow face.
She'd lost weight.
She was like stupid stickskinny because you know Coke
does that to you.
Yeah, oh gosh.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Oh my gosh, it was Wow.
See, I think you get some sortof award because you had like a
mix of like 10 things all in onescenario.
You know, bathroom, you don'thave to go as far as poop but
(15:16):
bathroom stuff, masturbation,drugs, lingerie harassment.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
I mean, wow, that would be like one really great
episode of an HR sitcom.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, it would.
It would be like you couldn't,you could.
How do you do episode two?
What do we do next?
Speaker 3 (15:31):
Yeah, you can't run that as the pilot episode,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah, that's oh wow.
And see, I honestly fullybelieve and I think every
listener will fully believeevery word of what you're saying
, because we've been there,we've done that Maybe not
exactly, but we could see thathappening Whereas someone who
doesn't do HR is like what areyou talking about?
(15:56):
You're full of shit, you know,or something like that.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Well, it's like my COO hates to see me Monday
morning.
I try not to go to his officefirst thing Monday morning,
because when I walk in therefirst thing Monday morning it's
stuff like this as we leave, hegoes.
You just can't make this up,can you?
Speaker 2 (16:13):
No, you can't, you really really can't.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Oh, man you do deserve an award that was
awesome.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Hopefully since then, your work is getting, you know,
less exciting for a littlewhile.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
For about 30 days and then it came back with a
vengeance.
Oh boy, yeah, some of thoseplayers.
The lady that rage quit in themiddle of all that.
She wrote an EOC complaint.
So we've got that going for us.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
That's unfortunate.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Fun stuff.
Well, you know, that is verylightning of a story, but let's
see if we can keep things goingfrom there.
So, cece, we didn't get to allof our stories last episode and
we recorded I was saying off theair, we recorded for an hour
and 40 minutes.
(17:08):
I think we got the episode down.
I got it down to like an hourand 15 minutes or something like
that, hour 10, hour 15.
So we missed one of the stories.
So what employee behaving badlydo you have?
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Okay, so this was like a few weeks ago.
Do you have, oh my gosh.
Okay, so this was like a fewweeks ago.
There was a individual who,just you know, loves to have a
social media presence and lovesto do a day in my life video
blogs as she's working.
So this was an individual whois a store manager inside of a
(17:43):
Mac cosmetics that was inside ofthe LAX airport and she did a
lot of these a day in my lifevlogs through her entire career
as a Mac cosmeticsrepresentative, and I guess she
got called in at a no in themiddle of her.
(18:03):
By the way, it was in the middleof her day in my life, which I
thought was so what a great dayit was such a great day because
she did get fired like in themiddle of her day in my life,
and all of her mac mascara waslike running down her face as
she was carrying her box out,like it was very dramatic.
But apparently what she wasdoing was she was videotaping
(18:24):
everything like, everything Like.
She was videotaping andrecording and capturing her
pulling up to the employeeparking lot.
She dangled her badge in frontof the camera before she scanned
it.
In giving everyone a clear viewof, like what that security was
.
That security was, she showedherself going in to like their
(18:51):
back office, getting the moneyout of the safe, putting the
money in the canister, showingpeople what that canister looked
like.
So if you were walking to theLAX like airport and you saw
like this very particularbriefcase, you knew there was
cash in there.
But she was timestampingeverything so people could
follow her.
Basically, and the best part wasand this is my favorite she
(19:12):
actually recorded herself likelogging into the POS, which, if
you could slow it down, you cansee her employee code.
You could see everything.
So, anyway, oh, and she alsorecorded herself taking a nap in
the back, which was but I justwanted to, you know, just kind
of throw that out there andbeing and saying like you don't
need to record everything, likewe should know less of each
(19:35):
other, I don't need to know likeyou going to work in the
morning, let's just all take astep back and put the phones
down.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
Yeah I don't know about you guys, but there's
things in my 20s that I'm gladthere's no photographic evidence
of honestly exactly yes,exactly there is definitely.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Oh, I was talking about this with someone,
actually there was that.
It's so funny you brought it up.
It was one of those likegenerational things, like gen c
doesn't know what it's like, buthonestly, like we I think they
said millennials are the lastgeneration to know life before
social media and like we had thefreedom to act like fools and
(20:16):
not have everyone record us.
Like we had like that luxury.
So anyway, put your phones awaywhen you're at work.
Just put them away.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Yeah, like put them away Apparently at my work
there's someone whose desk isnot far from mine, who I've
never known, is doing socialmedia videos and everything.
And another employee said oh, Isaw you walking behind this
person's desk while they weredoing a social media thing.
I'm like what are you?
I'm like, really, they'rerecording social media stuff,
(20:50):
did I mean?
Speaker 3 (20:52):
anyways, that's I would say I would say about
every six months I have thatconversation with my team like
hey, you guys understand thatback here is not a place to
record, or you want to haveprivate phone calls go outside.
But but this is HR, lots ofthings happen in here and it
doesn't need to leave HR.
Speaker 4 (21:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
One person I've worked with very briefly for two
times, but she had this rulethat I've carried with me ever
since the four walls rule, andwithin these four HR walls we
can say and do all sorts ofabhorrent shit that vent
ourselves the HR safe space.
Yes, If we want to say thatWarren is the dumbest ass
(21:34):
employee, what the fuck didWarren do today?
Oh my gosh, we can say that asloud and with as much tone and
attitude with each other as weneed just to get it off and be
you know, get that out of yoursystem so you don't say it to
the employee themselves.
And I love that rule and it ledto a lot of great conversations
(21:54):
the four walls rule.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Laughing.
One of my really good friends,her husband, just started with
an Australian based company andhe says like their work culture
at this specific company is verydifferent, like people are
throwing the c word around andlike all it's very lax.
And he was in a meeting one dayand someone said they, they
called someone lasagna okay as anickname and they're like yeah,
(22:21):
he doesn't know, that's hisnickname and they're like why is
it?
lasagna and someone said becauseI'm not gonna do an australian
accent because I'll kill it buthe said his, his head's so
fucking baked he can't get shitdone oh man I don't know why.
The four walls just reminded meof that and I thought that was
(22:42):
was hilarious.
His head's so fucking baked hecan't get shit done.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Let's see here.
So the news.
I'm going to keep the themegoing of people behaving badly
and we have two really goodexamples since our last
recording of people behavingbadly, and I'm not going to I
don't I don't even know if theguy's name was released.
He was the polish ceo who wasat the us open and the polish
(23:10):
tennis player and I don't followtennis at all people, so I'm
not going to go with the names,but he was giving out, signing
autographs and giving thingsaway and he hands this cap to
this kid.
Looks like he's 10, 12 yearsold, but this Polish CEO
snatches it from the tennisplayer's hand and then gives it
to his girlfriend.
(23:30):
He's like oh, he's the cat thatate the canary happy, and he's
all this and that.
And the kid's like giving himjust, you know, you monster type
, look type thing.
You monster type, look typething.
And that CEO later released astatement and saying you know he
didn't realize that the hat wasintended for the kid.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Oh no, he knew, he knew, just watching every minute
of that he knew every second ofwhat he was doing.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
So you know that's just total bullshit with that
and that irritated me.
But at least he had thegumption to acknowledge the fact
, acknowledge what happened,even though he might have been
lying.
Oh, I didn't realize it wasintended for the kid.
Yes, it absolutely was.
The whole rest of the worldrealized that.
Why couldn't you?
But the more famous one now isyour, philadelphia Karen, and I
(24:25):
just realized I saw anothervideo about this.
This was in my the.
The home game was in miami, sothey were philly fans down in
miami or florida marlins.
Now I guess you'd say that youknow the, the homeroom ball.
Nobody catches.
It's bouncing around florida.
Dad bends over in front of thislady, picks it up and gives it
(24:47):
to his son and everybody's allhappy except for that lady who
swore it was hers and she's.
He stole it out of her hand andhe's yelling and she's yelling
and screaming at him andultimately the dad just says get
the fuck out of here and givesthe ball back to the lady.
It's not worth it.
But now social media says thatshe was been identified and been
(25:08):
fired from her job.
If social media is right, she'sa?
Uh works on a school boardsomewhere up in New Jersey or
something like that that's.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
That's what I saw, but then I saw another post the
day after that said that itwasn't her.
Yeah, oh, so yeah, who the day?
Speaker 2 (25:24):
after that said that it wasn't her.
Yeah, oh, so yeah, who knows?
But wherever she works,hopefully she doesn't work there
anymore, because that type ofvolatility you know the CEO, he
was just being a jerk andgrabbed a hat there was no
volatility, anger, rage,whatever in that.
This lady lost her shitaltogether and first it's sort
of par, for course, for aPhillies fan in any sport, yeah
(25:47):
worst fans ever.
Yeah, and actually I know wehave listeners in Philadelphia.
You know they're going to hateme.
Philadelphia is one of thephysically dirtiest cities I
think I've ever been in.
Maybe St Louis has got ittopped.
St Louis might have it topped.
Sorry, listeners in St Louis,but a few years ago I went with
(26:12):
my son and we're going aroundall the touristy areas in
Philadelphia and there is filth.
We're in like near the LibertyBell area.
There is filth everywhere,needles in public places and
like unhinged crazies.
Out there there was oneunhinged person who was just
going nuts and me and my sonwalked into the.
There was a bank nearby.
Hey, let's go into this bank.
We have no business being here,but I don't think a crazy is
(26:33):
going to come in here and wejust sort of watched him walk by
and we left just because it wasjust.
Philadelphia is and I have many, actual many friends who live
around Philadelphia.
It's just a filthy, dirty,disgusting little city, not
little city, but it's.
Speaker 4 (26:51):
I was just going to say you guys need to get your
sports fans in order Because, Idon't know, I heard they also
have a jail in their stadiumsbecause they just get so rowdy.
Just get your people in order,yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Sorry.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
Sorry, that woman, just being a Phillies fan, was
the icing on the cake it was.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
You know, though, the team came through, though, and
really they resolved the issue,and I think, probably one of the
best ways it turns out, it wasthe kid's birthday.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
Oh my gosh, that day I didn't love it.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
And so they brought him like a swag bag, yeah, that
day.
And so they brought him like aswag bag, yeah, and then the the
team that that was the stadiumbrought him a swag bag with a
whole bunch of stuff in it.
And then the team the philliesactually brought him down after
the game and got got him to geta signed bat from the guy that
hit the home run.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, so and you know , kudos to both the marlins and
the phillies organizations fordoing that.
Yeah, because, and the thing is, it's not one of those things
that we're finding out thoseplayers knew what was happening
right then and there, and one ofthe screenshots I showed,
they're doing pitch one and it'sa home run and they show all
(27:57):
the commotion.
They do pitch two and they'regoing back to the commotion
after the thing and they'regoing back and forth and I'm
like geez, lady, you arecompletely unhinged.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
It's just the audacity.
It's the audacity, like that'smy ball.
You gotta be fast.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
And.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
I will say this.
So, mr CEC, uh, like we go to afew concerts and we've been to
a concert before where, like hecaught the pick of a guitarist
who like threw it, and my andand mr cc loves to play guitars,
so but he caught the guitar andthere was a kid behind him who
wanted the guitar pick and hejust sucked it up and gave it to
(28:35):
the kid and like it's not thatbig of a deal, like I get I'm so
sorry, if you are a sports fan,it could be that big of a deal.
I get it, people you know, butI don't know.
So now we have a thing wherewhenever we go to see a show, he
brings some fake pics with them.
So if he catches, the real piche will
Speaker 2 (28:54):
give the fake pic to the child oh, that's what you
need to start doing.
You start to you start bringingfake balls you know now I've
attended.
you know I was a baseball umpirefor 15 years but I've attended
a number.
To start doing you startbringing fake balls.
You know, now I've attended.
You know I was a baseballumpire for 15 years but I've
attended a number of games.
I've never been even near afoul ball or a home run ball in
the stands, never, not close toit Once.
(29:17):
So I was like, and yeah so.
And then these people who seemto always be in the right place
at the right time.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
Always yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
So, okay, I've got a couple of stories here.
One of them I was speaking tomy best friend from junior high
and for those of you who areyounger than me, that's middle
school.
Anyways, he is for the past fewyears he's been a director at a
state agency and he gotnotification for the first time
(29:50):
since he's been director thatthey get to not only hire but
it's adding a headcount.
It's one person, a whopping oneperson they're adding to the
headcount and you know he's beensearching and searching and
he's just getting so pissed offthrough these interviews.
And you know he's his currentteam.
(30:10):
He has got a lot of people witha one to three years of
experience.
He's got like two people inthat five to 10 years of
experience and then everybodyelse is like him who've been
doing it for 25 plus years, andso he wants someone with like
five to 10 years of experience,that middle ground, to sort of
even out his team a little bit.
(30:32):
But he's doing all theseinterviews and he's finding
these people.
He's being sent these resumeswith people with five to 10
years of experience, but theyhave one year here, two years
there and he asked themquestions that if someone's been
working in their field for fiveto 10 years should know, and
they don't have a clue.
He says they've got one year ofexperience, five times and
(30:53):
things like that.
And then the term he used,which I thought was just
brilliant, I'm going to steal itfrom him.
He says they're job tourists.
They come in and they you know,oh, portland, oregon, so cool
place to go.
I'm going to go there and get ajob and do this for a little
while.
And then, oh, let's go to SantaFe, new Mexico, and that's a
cool place to go.
And you know, they just theyjump around not focusing on
(31:17):
they're getting jobs, they'reemployed, but they're not
focusing on their career.
And the thing is he can hireeither one of two positions and
he's running the problem withboth.
He hasn't decided which wayhe's going to go, so he's
advertising both One.
The main thing he really wantsis someone to work out in the
field and do field work, andthat's his first priority.
(31:38):
But if he can't find that, he'swilling to settle Not settle.
But he's also looking at a datascientist to do the work.
Their field people come in anddo their own data work and he
says I could have more peopleout in the field more often.
If I have a data scientistdoing the backend stuff but he
can't find either that they haveknow they they're have real
(32:02):
experience.
He's almost at the point wherehe's going to go to a college
and just hire an entry leveleither way and develop them
himself and he says it sucksthat he's.
Half his team is one to threeyears of experience and he
wanted you know some more peoplebecause he wants to be out in
the field and he says with allthese one to three year people
he's training and doing thingslike that in the field but he's
(32:23):
not doing the work himself.
So it's just really interesting.
But I love the term job touristwith that.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
I guess you can afford to do that if you don't
have to worry about finances.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yeah, bingo.
I think that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
There's a good story.
You guys of course know AdamSandler.
That's the thing.
There's a good story.
You guys of course know AdamSandler.
There in the 90s, apparently,he chose his jobs, the movies
that he was going to do, basedon where they were being filmed,
so that he could take hisfamily on vacations.
That's funny.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Hey, if you could do it.
That's why he's doing 50 FirstStates in Hawaii and things like
that.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
What was the one that they went to Africa blended?
Was that the one where it waslike Drew Barrymore and they
were like a blended family andthey like both go like that
would have been a really coolfamily vacation, yeah.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Adam Sandler, drew Barrymore, in that that 51st
States and those that year, theydid a bunch of Never Been
Kissed.
Was that, yeah, never BeenKissed?
And a bunch of other cool ones.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
Honestly, this is not HR related, but I watched Happy
Gilmore 2.
Oh yes, a couple weeks ago Iwas delightfully surprised at
how much I enjoyed it.
I was a big Happy Gilmore fanthe original but I just thought
the sequel was just so well doneit was, and all of his
daughters and his wife were init and I was like he's such a
(33:45):
good family.
I mean I like I saw him do standup like he did like a stand up
show, a live show here and he'slike half singing, half stand up
.
He just seems like such a goodguy.
Yeah, like I really hope he, Ireally hope he's not like the
next Dave Grohl who just let usall down.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Oh, oh, really hope he's not like the next dave
grohl who just let us all down.
Oh, oh, don't, don't break myheart about dave grohl.
I have not heard any negativethings about him.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
Oh, you didn't hear.
Like a year ago he came outthat he had like a kid outside
of wedlock, like outside of hismarriage, and like there's a
woman in some country that likehas like a one-year-old or a
two-year-old okay wow I.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
I was thinking he was going to be that's bad, but I
was thinking it was going to bea lot worse.
He was going to be a racist, oryeah, yeah, or something like
that.
Dave Grohl he's one of myall-time favorite musicians,
artists, whatever.
He let us down.
Well, I have three more littlequickie things today, and this
(34:41):
one will go with what I justspoke about.
This comes to us from LinkedIn.
The writer is Liz Ryan and herbyline is coach.
You know my feeling on coaches.
Creator, ceo and founder, humanworkspace author.
Blah blah, blah, blah, blahblah.
So she does everything, but theattention gettinggetting meme
(35:04):
is you don't need to askcandidates about resume gaps.
They're irrelevant and none ofyour business.
And that just triggered meright off the word gap, and I'll
read it's like I don't know aparagraph she wrote there's no
reason or justification forasking a candidate why they have
a resume gap.
That's their personal life.
(35:25):
Would you ask a consultant whatthey've been doing since their
last consulting engagement?
If they gave me a chronologicallist and I saw a big gap, yes,
I would ask.
But that's another thing.
Continuing what she wrote, whydoes anyone have to justify
stepping off the conveyor belt,or even for a few months?
Do you see how toxic andcontrolling the question what
were you doing during this gapis?
(35:45):
If you can see that you aresomeone who can lead through
trust rather than fear, if youcan't see why this question is
wildly inappropriate, pay closeattention next time you ask and
see if a candidate fights backtears remembering a family
member's illness or death.
What someone was doing during abreak is simply none of your
business and I am going to callgiant bullshit on that one.
(36:07):
Yes, I've said it on thepodcast before In 2011, I was
laid off twice in that same yearand in 2002, I was terminated
for cause and that I had athree-month gap.
And when people ask oh yeah, Ilost my job because I sucked at
my job at that time and I reallysaid something you know, not
(36:28):
that directly, but yeah, Ididn't.
You know, I tried something new.
It didn't work out for me.
I ended up losing my job.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
But answer the question even if it is okay, no,
I was just to say like there'ssome times where you know,
especially like I got abackground screens, I see all
those and you can see whensomeone spent time in jail or
something like that, and and itmatches up where that gap is and
sometimes you just want to seeif they'll they'll say anything,
you know, and like recently Ihad a guy who's sitting in my
(36:57):
office we're getting, we'reonboarding him right, we're
hiring him.
He's not going to get kickedout the door, because I already
looked at his backgroundscreening.
But I asked him.
I was like, hey, look, I seethis gap in here.
What's going on?
And he goes oh yeah, I spentsome time in jail for a stupid
decision that I made when I wasa little younger.
I was like well, as long as youlearn from it, move on.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Yeah, exactly, have a tragedy in your life or your
family that you know, I don'tknow a spouse died and you
needed some time off, or maybeyou wanted to be a stay-at-home
mom.
Those are legitimate answersand you don't have to go into
too much detail.
And I tell you what when I askthat question if you start going
into too much detail in a longstory, more than a single
paragraph or so means you'rebullshitting me.
(37:44):
You know, if you're going totell me this long, drawn-out
story, okay, I'm not believingthat.
But oh, yeah, I took some timeoff to spend time with my kids,
my family, or I had an illness,or you know, you know, or I had
something personal going on inmy life.
That's all you have to say.
But I, I don't want to.
I I kind of want to hear what,because if you're starting to
bullshit me, then things aregoing sideways.
So, ms Liz, Ryan.
(38:07):
I really could not disagree withyou more, and I think most of
the HR community is going to beon there with us.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Well, unless she's in her 80s, there's no reason to
be a coach.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Yeah, you know coaches and consultants.
They're just people who losttheir job.
Otherwise, most of the time, itseems so.
They were terminated for cause,probably from their employment,
or maybe got laid off anddecided to go out on their own.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Oh, I'm laughing because it's true.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
I have to admit I've met several HR professionals in
my region that are no longerwith active companies.
They've decided to start theirown business as HR consultants
and I'm like, yeah, you gotfired.
I know you got fired because Iknow the company you're working
at.
They all told me why you gotfired.
Because they wanted me to comework for them.
Speaker 4 (38:54):
It's really funny.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
It's crazy.
It's a consultant coach typething.
Keynote speaker.
Add that to the list.
That's the next thing they'llbe doing too.
Speaker 4 (39:07):
That's interesting, honestly, like I don't know.
I don't know how I feel aboutthat, because there is a bit of
me.
I could see both sides.
I could honestly see both sidesto that argument.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
You know, if you had plenty of experience to back up
your coaching or consulting,then that would be different.
But some of these folks do itright out the gate.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Yeah, they really do.
I'm just laughing because I didwork with someone who was fired
.
That person started their ownconsulting business.
Yeah, it's just funny to me.
And they just released a book.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
How to Get get fired in 10 ways and next are they on
the speakers, apparentlymasturbating on a toilet while
doing coke is the answer.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
Oh geez, yeah, no, it's.
It's funny, though, and I, I Ikind of want to read it because
I'm interested in it, mainlybecause when we had worked
together, I was the one thatusually authored things.
And this individual had aweakness in that area that he
admitted to.
But I'm just laughing becauseI'm just like I'm interested in
(40:17):
the book now.
Morbid curiosity, like I said.
But you know what, though?
Here's the thing Everyone's outthere getting their money,
they're getting paid.
Good on him for figuring it out, because he's probably very
happy doing what he's doing andI'm very happy doing what I'm
doing, so go off, king.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
Like I said, once I get my master's degree I'll have
those three extra letters toput behind my name with all my
other little letters I could putbehind it, and I want to just
start having AI write books andsign them and just do
self-published AI books.
You know I've written 35 booksin three days.
You know something like that.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
See, isn't that kind of sad, like I feel like now AI
has made it so easy for peopleto create like AI slop in
self-published book form, andnow it's like writing a book.
Quote-unquote is just like Ihave a podcast.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
Like, everyone has a podcast.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
Everyone has a book, everyone has something.
It's just like you have twopodcasts.
Yes, that's right, I have twopodcasts.
Oh my God, it's just funny, aiis taking over.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
But you know, it's a great tool if you use it right,
it is.
Speaker 4 (41:36):
Oh, a thousand percent A thousand percent.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
One of my other courses.
Well, I'm going segueing rightin.
I'm taking one of my othercourses.
Well, I'm going to segue rightin.
I'm taking a class now onoperations management.
We're talking about a lot aboutAI and I'm really digging that
class so far.
But the other class I'm takingthis semester is organizational
behavior and I love the practiceof it and I won't be terribly
(42:03):
jaded.
It's a couple of weeks in.
It's not that I'm learningsomething.
I'm getting more or less cuedin on things I've already known.
It's like oh, there we go, andthings like that.
But I had quiz number one lastweek and it's talking about the
functions of organizationalbehavior.
Are we going to get quiz now?
Speaker 4 (42:23):
Oh well, I can ask you these two questions.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
I took screenshots of oh, okay, it's been 10 years
since I did my master's degree,so go easy on me.
Why do employees behave the waythey do?
Speaker 4 (42:39):
Jackassery Coke People be peepling Coke Coke
People be people-ing.
Speaker 2 (42:45):
Coke, cocaine.
I mean, why do?
There's some great theoriesbehind it and things like that,
but it's because, yeah,jackassery just being an asshole
douchebag, whatever you want tocall him.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Yes, correct answer, I am going to take a less jaded
approach to this question, if weshall, and I don't even know if
this is a correct answer.
This is just through my lens.
In my crazy mind, I thinkpeople behave the way they do in
organizations because 99 of thepeople are not psychopaths and
they come to work and they wantto do a good job and their
(43:22):
definition of a good job variesfrom person to person and
sometimes those things createconflict oh you are, I think,
one of the right answers.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
I wish I had did you?
Speaker 3 (43:33):
did you read that out of the book?
Speaker 4 (43:35):
no, I am just that brilliant oh, I forget the term.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
I just took the quiz.
Hold up, I'm going to find it.
I'll edit this out.
Speaker 4 (43:42):
Oh, this is so fun If people on my master's cohort
can see me now.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
I remember when I was doing my master's years, I
answered a quiz probably in thesame class, and the guy actually
failed the quiz on me and toldme to rethink the answers.
Not as a military member, oh.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
A whole new, a military member.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Oh, a whole new concept for me Interesting.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
How was that for you?
Speaker 3 (44:08):
Well, I was 20 years institutionalized, so it was a
little harder.
Speaker 4 (44:13):
That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
I can't find the actual answer to or what the
yeah the topic that that fallsunder, but it does have
something to do with what yousaid it's about.
You know people do things basedon the situation.
Essentially I can't find theexact term in my notes it ties
into your psych class.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
If you've taken that already, you know people are
nurture versus nature and thenyou get put into a social
situation and someone else'snurture nature is different and
they're not always congruent.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Yeah, exactly so I just I wanted to put my jaded
answer.
I put the correct one in forthat answer.
I love it.
And then you led to anotheranswer.
The next question on this quizI screenshotted was why is one
individual more productive thananother?
Speaker 4 (45:09):
Intrinsic motivation.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
Because they're not a jackass.
Speaker 4 (45:13):
Because they're not.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
Yeah, once again, it's almost the same answer that
their situational values andvalues behaviors per the
situation are.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
Well, and I also find that age and longevity in the
job also drives some of thatproductivity issues.
Someone who's been in the jobforever I have one that kind of
slacks off a little bit and hasto be kind of redirected,
whereas the employee- that'sonly been here for.
Yeah, there's an employee thatworks here for like two years
and she's like on top of it allthe time.
(45:47):
So, there's kind of adifference in mentality there
too.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
Exactly, exactly.
So I've been finding that fun.
I'm enjoying the class.
Like I said, I'm not quoteunquote, learning new things,
but I'm just picking up onthings.
We're a whole weekend so I'mnot.
It's not like I've gotten a lotof it, but it's it's going
pretty well so far.
So, yeah, what is thereanything else anybody has on the
(46:14):
cover today?
Anything else on?
Speaker 4 (46:16):
anybody's mind.
Well, first of all, I thinkthat we should.
We should have a weekly segmentor like an episode segment,
where we go over what Warrenlearned in grad school that week
and we can do quizzes.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
Well, this organizational behavior class
might give me some good ammo forthat, I know.
Speaker 4 (46:37):
But talking about people misbehaving, just really
quick, this was on Reddit, sotake it with a grain of salt if
it's on Reddit, but it made mecrack up.
So, people, it's maliciouscompliance, which I love some
good malicious compliance,especially when the rules are
nonsense and don't make sense.
So this individual said thatthey at their company, a new
(47:03):
they had like kind of like adress casual situation.
However, some new leader camein and really wanted people to
stick to the dress code that wasin the handbook, which, like,
why, like we've had thisconversation so many times.
People are professionals, letthem be professional but their
handbook wasn't revised sincelike the 90s or something Like.
(47:24):
It was just a very outdateddress code.
So some examples were that menhad to wear suit, tie, jacket,
women had to wear blouses,knee-length skirts, nylons,
nylons.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Going back to the 50s .
Speaker 4 (47:40):
Yeah.
A little leg action, yeah goback to the 50s, yeah, and so,
anyway, a few employees decidedto follow the dress code to a t.
So we had individuals who wereshowing up to work in suspenders
in full-on, like wedding, likewedding suits, tuxedos.
There was people who showed upin shoulder pads and the nylons
(48:03):
and closed-toed pumps.
So they said it was a smallteam that started it.
By the middle of the weekalmost the entire office looked
like it was out of a corporatemuseum and very quickly did that
new leader.
Partner with HR to revise thedress code.
Partner with HR to revise thedress code.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
That's one of those tricky areas too, especially now
.
Speaker 4 (48:30):
Mm-hmm.
A thousand percent.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
I've told this story, I'm sure on the podcast, before
, but my brother he was in theArmy, did 20-some-odd years
retired as a full-bird colonel.
But when he was a major he gothired for a job he didn't even
apply to, to be a militaryscience instructor at the United
States Military Academy, westPoint.
And so he's there and he'sdoing his thing and everything's
(48:55):
going well.
And one of his head people cometo him and say well, you know,
one of the reasons we broughtyou on is you're so highly
decorated and all that and wewould like to see you wear more
and more of your ribbons andthings like that.
He goes no, these are the onesthat are important to me, these
are the ones I like.
He goes I don't need to wearthem all, I'm not going to wear
them all.
(49:15):
And they sort of got him to thepoint where they're telling wear
.
And he says I don't thinkthere's anywhere in the UCMJ
that I have to wear all myribbons.
And he goes well, we'd reallyreally like you.
We want to impress on you howmuch we'd really like you to,
because it'll impress the kids,the students and things like
that.
So for two weeks my brotherwore his dinner tuxedo with not
(49:38):
only the ribbon of everythinghe's had but the full metal of
everything he's had.
And for two weeks he walkedaround.
He said I looked like a thirdworld country dictator walking
around the hallways at WestPoint in my dinner tuxedo with
all these things, he said.
After two weeks he went back towearing the he said six or
eight ribbons.
(49:58):
That actually meant somethingto him and nobody said a word to
him about it ever since.
Speaker 4 (50:04):
Did anyone not tell him that it was a requirement to
have 15 pieces of flair?
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 4 (50:13):
My brother wouldn't get that reference, it is very
like Jim, all of the office,when Dwight sends out the dress
code memo and he shows up in histux.
I do, I do.
I just Malicious.
Compliance is fantastic.
I love it.
Yeah, it's delicious.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Yeah, exactly.
Well, with that, I think we'llcall this episode to an end.
Bring it to an end.
Our voice artist at thebeginning is Andrew Kolpa, and
the music is the UnderscoreOrchestra song the Devil, the
Devil.
So, as always, I'm Warren.
I'm Cece and I'm Bill and we'rehere helping you survive.
(50:57):
Hr1.
What the Fuck moment at a time.
Yay, yay, thank you.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.