March 22, 2025 • 45 mins
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Spoiler alert! He failed the drug test… AGAIN!
When do you finally cut someone loose? When is enough, finally enough?
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
I'm Keaton Turner, and this is the Per DiemPodcast.
Let's go.
We're back.
Back again.
Nothing like starting your day off with aPurdue and podcast.
I believe it.
Nothing like it.
(00:28):
I, was driving through the neighborhood thismorning, ran into the legendary the legendary
Kurt Signeti, coach of the IU men's footballteam.
And, man, seeing that guy in the morning, ifthat doesn't get you jacked up for your day
(00:49):
with with the energy and the pass of course,he's decked out in IU gear.
He's proud.
You know, he's one of these coaches that I'm sopumped to have him, not only because he wins.
I love his attitude.
Obviously, he's unapologetic.
He is always dripped out in cream and crimson.
He is proud.
You know, he he really is.
(01:12):
I love it.
I love it to death.
So many times we get these coaches, you know,you pay him $3.04, $5.06, $7,000,000 a year
stupid money, and you never see them aroundtown.
You never see them at restaurants.
You never see them you know, you never younever see them around town.
And and so many times I wonder, I'm like, arethey they don't wanna be seen?
(01:38):
They, you know, are shy?
They're too good?
Like, you don't get any of that with thelegendary Kurt Signeti.
Love absolutely love the guy to death, and itgets me probably first time since Antoine
Randoll, it gets me jacked up for IU football,and it's only March.
(02:03):
I should be jacked up about IU basketball inMarch, but I'm jacked up about IU football.
So huge shout out to Kurt Signetti, a just amassive fan, and and his wife is also Manette,
huge shout out to Manette.
She's she's probably as much, maybe even moreof a legend.
More may she might be more legit than Kirk, tobe honest with you.
(02:28):
Behind every successful man, there is a realwoman holding him down, that is no true words
ever spoken.
I have a little bit of an interesting topic.
I got in my truck this morning.
It's a it's a beautiful morning.
Sun's shining.
It's 43 degrees.
We're in March.
We've got basketball on all day.
(02:49):
We I I fared pretty well in yesterday's, firstround games for March Madness.
My bracket's alive.
I'm right I'm hovering right around the top ofour office bracket pool, so I'm I'm not doing
too bad.
I think today is where the the men areseparated from the boys, and I think today's
picks, my hope is that I do really well, andI'm at the top today.
(03:12):
But I got in my truck this morning and I and Iyou guys are gonna think this is the dumbest
thing in the world.
You're gonna think I'm super vain.
I listen to some of my own per diem podcasts,And and the reason I listen, I try to pick up
things that you know, I try to improve.
I'm always trying to improve in everything Ido, whether it's cooking, giving, you know,
(03:35):
giving massages.
You guys probably heard that on the podcast.
I try improving leadership and business.
I try improving coaching, my son.
I'm trying to improve on this Purdue andpodcast thing.
Almost a hundred episodes in.
I think this is episode 88 probably, somethinglike that.
(03:57):
So I'll listen back, kind of like my version ofreviewing the tape, watching film.
I'll listen back and you know, try to figureout ways I can do better.
We are at 75,000 downloads to date.
I actually almost 76,000.
I looked it up this morning.
Try to keep tabs on that.
(04:18):
So in the last couple we we were at 50,000 acouple weeks ago.
We've got another 25,000.
So we're picking up steam.
New listeners, it seems like every day to have75,000 downloads in the first eighty seven days
is pretty cool.
So thank you guys for that.
We're we're more than a thousand listeners aday at this point.
(04:39):
Here's what came to mind as I was, you know, asI was reading or as as I reading.
As I was listening to some of my own podcastsback this morning, I listened to it in the
shower a little bit, my wife every once in awhile, my wife will walk in and catch me
listening to my own podcast.
She's like, yeah, you're you're just thatlegit, aren't you?
You gotta listen to your own podcast.
I'm like, no.
I'm trying to pick up I'm trying to pick up,things that I do, okay and things I need to do
(05:08):
better.
And I always tell her, I'm like, babe, I soundlike the biggest redneck ever.
You don't you don't think about how you'regonna sound when you're recording a podcast,
but I sound like a massive redneck.
But that's just how it goes.
That's just how it is.
I'm too late in life to change my twang.
But I got in my truck this morning, and Ithought to myself, there is something you know,
(05:31):
a lot of you guys get get a kick out of thestories I tell.
You guys, you know, scroll back far enough.
You can hear the story about skinhead sinkingan excavator.
You can hear the story of my uncle screaming atme and Ryan Bailey, you know, fire them mother
effers.
And, you know, there's some really interestingfunny stories.
(05:52):
Today, I was thinking of a story this morningactually, and I'll tell a little bit of it.
But the but the question I have, and I don'thave an answer straight up.
I'm just gonna be honest.
I'm asking a question, and I don't have ananswer.
But the question today is when do you give upon someone?
I'm not gonna go deep.
(06:13):
I don't wanna get into, like, marriage and,like, when do you give up on the marriage?
I I'm I'm talking about, like, when do you giveup on someone in life?
Really, I'm asking this for the context of mybusiness, and I'll get into why I'm doing that.
But when do you give up on someone in life?
I had this conversation with my mom a whileback.
(06:34):
It's been several years ago, because my son's10 now and he was very young at the time, but I
remember the conversation.
My mom's like, oh, babe, you're, you, you'll,you'll never give up on your kids.
Like, they could be in jail and they could havedone something horrible.
You'll never go.
And I'm like, mom, if my son doesn't live thelife that I'm thinking he needs to live and
(06:55):
he's a respectful young man, like, he I he I'mdone with him.
And she's like, no.
No.
No, sweetie.
It's not how it works.
You'll never be done with your kids.
And I I now, you know, ten years later, totallyagree with her.
I think there's just this parental instinctthat you can never, be completely done with
your kids no matter what they go through inlife.
(07:15):
But again, not to go deep, I wanna keep this Iwanna keep this positive and fun.
I have had some really, really wild run inswith people, some of my own employees, who have
done some really wild things, some unthinkablethings.
(07:36):
And I and I blow the minds of some of myclosest guys who are like, dude, fire the guy.
Get rid of him.
Get like, we gotta get this cancer.
And I'm like, no.
Give him another chance.
He's a good guy.
He means, well, he just screwed up.
And there's this running joke around theoffice.
Jake is kind of the one that throws it in myface the most, but Jake and Patton, you know,
(08:00):
when those two team up to try to knock me downa notch or two, which they never have.
They try.
They've never been successful in knocking medown a notch or two.
But when those two team up, they always love topoke fun at Keaton Turner.
And, you know, they'll be they'll be talking.
They'll be telling stories in the office aboutsome old employee that did something stupid,
(08:20):
and they'll be like, oh, yo, yo, yo, yeah, buthe was he was a good guy.
He meant well.
He meant well.
And that's kind of the joke around the officeis every time, you know, we'd have somebody do
something unthinkable, I'd get on the phonewith them.
I'd talk to them.
And I'd get off the phone, Patton or somebodywould walk in, whoever the ops guy was at the
(08:43):
time.
They'd be like, so what'd you what'd you findout?
And I'm like, well, here's the deal.
He's he's going through some stuff in life.
He's and they you hear him, oh, they you hearhim roll their eyes.
Oh, here we go.
I'm like, he's a good guy.
He had a bad day.
It's not gonna happen again.
This is hard for a lot of my people to dealwith, by the way.
(09:05):
And again, this is why I told you upfront, Idon't have an answer to this question when when
you should give up on somebody.
This is probably one of my toxic traits inbusiness.
I'll never forget, we you guys have heard metalk about we hired a CFO, Jeff Turner.
He's awesome.
Love the guy to death.
(09:25):
Jeff and some boys from the office are going upto Chicago today to spend all day running amok,
as he calls it and watching basketball withsome of our banking partners, watching
basketball all day and probably eating anddrinking and doing all the things to to to the
(09:46):
nines.
But Jeff, I'll never forget one day.
Jeff was probably two weeks in.
Right?
He had started.
And, you know, for the first, I don't know, sixor eight months, anytime we bring someone in on
staff, especially in a leadership role, we'rejust trying to get them context into our
business.
We're trying to give them very little actualresponsibility.
(10:09):
We're trying to just really get them contextinto how we operate, how things work, kind of
let them gather a ton of information.
And then, you know, once they're ready, it'slike, okay, now I can now I can start making my
changes.
Right?
Well, I'm I'm leery of people jumping into ourbusiness and making changes too fast.
And so one day, story time, one day Jeff callsme and says, hey.
(10:36):
We're we're ramping up a project in Texas.
He says, hey.
We we had this guy that started work.
Today was his first day.
We kind of fumbled the process.
We didn't do the process right.
One of our guys was a little eager and put somepeople to work before they got their drug tests
done.
(10:58):
So Jeff learns of it.
Obviously, HR reports up through Jeff, our CFO.
And so Jeff learns that we've got somebodyworking that didn't have a drug test done.
And so Jeff's like, hey.
Look.
We got a drug test done on this guy and it cameback inconclusive.
(11:23):
And usually when a drug test come and I'm nodrug test expert, so, you know, bear with me.
Usually when a drug test comes backinconclusive, when it's a urine test, a couple
things have happened.
One, the person collecting the sample botchedto the process.
Right?
They didn't seal the cap.
(11:44):
They, you know, they diluted the the sample onaccident.
They they mislabeled it.
They put it in the wrong spot, whatever.
They didn't follow the right steps of theprocess.
Sometimes inconclusive test means the guy drankliterally three gallons of water before he
tested so that diluted the sample, diluted hisurine, and makes it really hard to collect they
(12:11):
can tell some of the stuff in tests.
And so it makes it really hard to collect aclean sample when the guys drink three gallons
of water.
So they need to retest.
Every once in a while, it just comes backinconclusive.
It's like, ah, I don't I don't know.
Maybe faulty test.
Maybe the guy drank too much water.
Maybe the person collecting the sample justscrewed up the process.
(12:34):
So we don't know.
Right?
It doesn't we don't get all that from thecollection site.
Like, we just hear we have a guy that juststarted work that got a drug test that was
inconclusive.
And we have a process.
I'm not gonna bore you guys with our process.
But long story short, we make them get aretest.
(12:54):
Well, the retest comes back positive.
And this guy, this employee is distraught,totally distraught.
And Jeff calls me.
He's like, look.
What do you wanna do?
This guy, he's working.
He just moved his family.
This is what Jeff is hearing.
(13:15):
Right?
He he moved his family to Texas for a long termthing.
He has never done a drug in his life, so hesays he's ex military, ex police, ex this, ex
that.
The guy's, like, been a preacher.
He gives us the whole thing.
Right?
Gives us the whole story.
He's like, the first test was inconclusive.
The testing site says it was probably clean,but they had to they had to submit it as
(13:38):
inconclusive due to x y z.
The second test was dirty, and it was dirtyfor, like, something serious.
It was like cocaine, I think.
The second test was dirty for cocaine.
So Jeff calls me.
He's like, dude, what do you wanna do?
It's a Friday it's a Friday evening.
I'll never forget it.
Jeff's, like, two weeks into the job.
HR, you know, HR is gonna file their processand terminate the guy.
(14:01):
But Jeff calls me and says, hey, know, thisguy's given me this this sob story.
I just wanted to you know, Jeff's kinda stillfeeling this out.
I just wanted to let you know this is what'sgoing on.
We're probably gonna have to fire this guy.
And the guy was actually turns out he wasreally good on-site, knew what he was doing,
good operator.
Everybody was kind of pumped to have him,excited.
So I said, Jeff, send me his phone number.
(14:23):
Let me call the guy.
I've been doing this long enough.
Again, this is my ego getting getting wound up.
I'm like, dude, I've been doing this longenough.
Let me talk to the guy.
I'll be able to sniff out what's going on here.
If this guy's a phony, I can probably tell onthe phone.
If this guy's legit, you know, let me just talkto him.
So I call him.
(14:44):
We talk for half an hour, and again, that'sFriday night.
I'm I'm outside playing with the kids.
I'll never forget this.
This is this is still fresh enough.
This was probably almost a year ago now, butit's still fresh enough.
I remember it pretty vividly.
I'm on the phone with this guy for half anhour, and he is this guy's, like, crying.
He's like, dude, look.
I'm ex military.
I've been a police officer.
(15:05):
Like, I'm involved in my church.
I, like, I got three kids.
I got a wife.
Like, I I I've never done a drug in my life.
It gives me the speech of a lifetime.
I'm like, dude, I get it.
Sometimes they mix up samples.
He goes, dude, the lady that collected mysample both times was clueless.
She, like, worked at McDonald's.
(15:25):
And so I'm like, dude, I know how these testingfacilities work.
I believe you.
Right?
Chill out.
So he convince he sells me the the like, I needI actually need to hire this guy and have him
come do sales for us because he is putting onthe sale of a lifetime.
I I hang up the phone.
As soon as I hang up the phone, the guy istexting me pictures of his family.
(15:48):
Cute little family, cute kids, cute wife.
Like, I'm like, dude.
So I I pick up the phone.
I call Jeff.
I'm like, dude, Jeff, this guy's legit.
Somebody at the testing facility screwed himover.
We're probably it's probably some backwoodstesting facility where the the lady came from
Wendy's and started yesterday and doesn't knowhow to handle samples.
(16:10):
She might've got his sample mixed up with somefelon.
Like, let's go to a different testing facility.
Let's run a test.
Let's run a let's run a urine full panel urineand an and a hair test, a hair follicle.
Jeff's like, cool.
That's outside of our process.
This is gonna really upset a lot of people thatare trying to do their job well.
(16:34):
Jeff slapped my hand, which I love, by the way.
Jeff was against us doing this.
Jeff Jeff by the way, to give him credit, Jeffwas like, look, Keaton, just so you know, if
you're gonna give this guy a third drug test,this is against our handbook.
This is against our policy.
And what you're doing is telling everyone elseout there that ever fails a drug test, if they
(16:56):
call Keaton Turner on his cell phone, they geta third try.
And I'm like, oh, yeah.
Good point.
I didn't think about that.
Don't worry about it.
Go ahead and send the guy for a drug test.
So Jeff was kinda like Jeff was probably reallyupset deep down, but he was too new to really
tell me to, you know, where to go and what todo.
And, and I kinda cut the legs out of out of ourHR team.
(17:21):
So I so Jeff calls you know, I I tell Jeff, I'mlike, hey.
Let me think about it.
He's telling me all the reasons we shouldn'tgive him a third test.
I go, let me think about it.
I'll call you back in twenty minutes.
I think about it.
I said, okay.
I want to send him for a test.
I want to send him for a full panel urine and Iwant to send him for a hair follicle.
And I'm betting you this is how stupid I am,guys.
(17:45):
I said, I'm betting you He passes with flyingcolors.
I bet you he's never done a drug in his life.
Jeff's like, okay.
Ashton and Heather aren't gonna love this.
They've got their process.
They've done their job.
Here you come from the top rope.
I said, you know what?
Tell Ashton, Heather, if he fails a drug test,I'll pay him each $500.
(18:13):
Jeff's like, okay.
Okay.
Whatever.
I'll tell him.
So they send him for a drug test.
They call him back.
They said, look, you're saved by the bell.
The boss said you can go for a third try eventhough we've got a clean or, even though we've
got a a dirty test, we'll send you for a thirdtry.
We're gonna send you to a different testingfacility.
(18:35):
We're gonna make you get a full panel urine,and we're gonna give a hair follicle.
And the guy the guy kinda freezes up a littlebit.
And he goes, hair follicle.
What do mean?
I thought you guys did urine.
And and the HR gals are like, nope.
The boss said, if you wanna go get another one,you can go, but we're gonna we're gonna do it
(18:58):
the full way.
We're gonna get the the hair follicle.
You said you've never done a drug in your life.
That's what you told him.
You shouldn't have any issue with a hairfollicle.
He hangs up the phone.
He calls me.
He calls me back again, guys.
This is how this is how dumb I can besometimes.
Again, I remember the question is, when do yougive up on someone?
(19:19):
The guy calls me.
I don't answer it.
I'm like, dude, I'm not there's no way I'manswering it.
I've already talked talked to this guy forthirty minutes on a Friday night.
I gave him what he wanted.
He gets a third test.
I'm not talking to him.
And I knew when he called me, this is becauseagain, I've done this enough to have thousands
of drug tests with employees over the years.
I'm like, that's not a good sign when they callyou after they learned they're taking a hair
(19:45):
follicle.
So he texts me.
I didn't answer.
He texts me and says, hey.
Heard I gotta do a hair follicle.
That wasn't part of the plan this night.
I didn't respond.
So they send him to get his full panel urine.
They get a hair follicle.
We have to wait two days or three days, Ithink, to get the hair follicle back.
(20:06):
So he's late.
He's he's off work.
He's suspended, if you will, for three days.
Because, again, he's got a dirty test.
He's already failed for cocaine.
He claims it's not his test.
And, and the three days goes by.
And and I'm, you know, kind of on pins andneedles.
Think Ashton, Heather, and Jeff, everyone'slike everyone's like waiting to find out.
(20:27):
Right?
The urine comes back right away.
And they call me Friday night.
Jeff calls me and says, hey.
I got good news and I got bad news.
I said, okay.
Give it to me.
He said, well, the good news is we do not havehis results of his hair follicle test because
(20:50):
it takes a couple days.
We'll have those on Monday.
I said, okay.
What's the bad news?
He said, well, the bad news is he's failed forcocaine again for the second time.
I'm like, you've gotta be freaking kidding me.
After all that I just sat through, after thestory this freaking guy gave me, and Jeff's
(21:11):
like, Well, well, well, just let's just waitand see what happens with the hair follicle.
That's really the the source of truth.
Right?
Hair follicle goes back a long time.
For those of you guys who've never had a drugtest, the hair follicle is impossible to beat.
You can beat urine tests, and urine tests,there's there can be things that go wrong.
But so Monday rolls around, the freakingresults come back, and the hair follicle
(21:37):
results show he fails for cocaine.
And I was two seconds away from picking up thephone and calling this guy.
And calling this guy, I was I was so upset.
I was gonna call this guy's wife.
Because this dude, this guy's family picturelooks like the the cutest little all American
(22:03):
family you've ever seen.
I'm like, dude, I wonder if your wife freakingknows you're doing cocaine.
Because his wife was upset.
She had to move.
They, like, they they picked up their familyand moved to Texas for us.
And I'm like, I wonder if he's gonna tell herthe truth or if he's gonna tell her the same
sales story he told me that I bought into.
(22:27):
I was so mad.
Jeff didn't let me call him.
Jeff didn't let me call his wife.
I was so close to picking up the phone andcalling this guy's wife because, a, I now look
like an idiot.
Right?
I look like an idiot to Jeff.
Jeff's like, wow.
Our freaking owner is talking to people aboutdrug tests and taking multiple tests, and he he
(22:50):
got he got, like, the wool pulled over hiseyes.
So I look like an idiot to Jeff, my new CFO.
I now owe Ashton and Heather five hundredbucks, which Jeff reminded me yesterday we have
to pay them.
And more importantly, my ego takes a massivehit that I that I bought some sob story from
some guy who's who's doing drugs.
(23:14):
Like, how dumb can I be?
And so I have this toxic trait of when I don'tknow when to give up on somebody.
I was dealing with an employee issue thismorning.
Again, another one of these employees.
They've got direct contact to the guy, to me,and this employee didn't like didn't like the
(23:38):
situation.
I'm not gonna go into the details.
They're still an employee.
They're figuring it out.
We're working on it.
But didn't like the situation, so they theycall me.
And I walk back in.
I'm like, yeah.
He's a good guy.
You know?
He's trying.
He's got these these things going on.
Like, guys, I swear to you.
(23:59):
Hold on.
I swear to you, I cannot make this up.
I'm taking a video.
There is a Ford Edge in front of me with a ifthat that's gotta be a 20 foot long two by
four.
I swear to you, it's a one one solid piece oftwo by four on top of this Ford Edge, not even
(24:27):
fastened down.
There's no strap or anything.
How's he gonna make it through the how's hegonna make it through the light?
Hold on.
Oh, he's gonna hold it.
Oh, my word.
Wild.
Oh, my word, guys.
I just videoed this.
I'll drop it on the Instagram, the Purdy andPodcast Instagram channel, and you can watch
(24:50):
it.
It's it's a guy holding a a two by foursticking off the back of the Ford Edge and off
the front, and he's just holding it with onehand driving down the road.
What a way to live.
But anyway, back to the podcast.
This is this is one of the challenges I have isis when do you give up on somebody?
(25:12):
When do you say enough's enough?
I my my very my very first employee, thesepeople are pointing like like, this guy is at a
stoplight.
There's people pointing at him.
Dude, talk about an eye for safety.
Unbelievable.
My very first employee, Albert Engel, got a tonof love and respect for Albert.
(25:35):
Albert's Albert's the man.
Doesn't work for us anymore.
Life life happened and things change, and soAlbert's no longer here.
But number you know, first employee I everhired.
And I'll never forget, man.
We were we would go through phases where Iwould stick Albert with a crew, and he'd have
(25:56):
the whole crew fired in a week.
He'd fire the whole crew.
It'd be like, you know, five or six, sevenguys.
It's not a 40 person crew, but he'd have like,you know, five, six, seven, eight guys send
them down there.
They'd be working in Texas and and he'd call meand say, send me more.
I'm like, what do you mean send you more?
I just sent you.
Nope.
Fire them all.
(26:16):
They're they're freaking worthless.
I'm like, Albert, I now gotta go find you morepeople.
We just train them.
We just, you know, task training.
Like, I got money tied up in those.
Nope.
They're worthless.
Can't can't work with them.
Can't do any work.
And so I would we'd go through this time aftertime, and I'd be like, Albert, we've gotta, you
(26:37):
know, we've gotta work with these guys.
Like, we can't just keep chewing throughpeople.
And and then every once in a while, you know,some something would hit home.
We we you know, one of you know, he had asister, and his sister had come work for us
and, she was legit.
I loved I loved her to death.
(26:57):
She's a great truck driver.
You know, she would show up and work for Al sheworked for Albert for years on Albert's crew.
And, one day she gets into some trouble andAlbert calls me, says, I fired her this
morning.
I was like, Albert, you fired your sister?
(27:18):
He goes, Yeah.
Teach her a lesson.
I'm like, well, you know, can we can we workwith her?
Like, can we can we forgive her?
Is there a second chance?
Is there and he's like, nope.
She's done.
I told her pack her stuff.
She's out of here.
And so I've I've lived through phases ofpeople, and I you know, other ops guys, you
(27:42):
know, past them where somebody would dosomething, and I'd call, and I you know,
usually, people figured out you know, a coupleyears in business, people figured out if they
could pull up my heartstrings hard enough,they'd get a second chance or a third chance or
a fourth chance.
And so what would happen is people would callor I'd tell I'd tell Albert, I'd tell whoever,
(28:07):
Ryan Bailey, I'd tell Patton.
I'd say, hey.
Let me talk to him.
And that was all they always knew.
Right?
If Keaton's gonna talk to him, you know, he'sgonna get a he's gonna get another chance.
And not all the not all the time, but a lot ofthe time, I would talk to him.
I would hear their story about how they camefrom nothing, how they're trying to build
(28:28):
something, build a life, trying to get out oftheir hometown.
They, you know, they don't have any parents.
They don't have this.
They don't have that.
And I was like, you know what?
We owe it to them to bring them out of theirbad situation.
We owe it to them to give them another shot.
Like, let's hold them accountable.
We'll sap them on the hand.
Let's teach them.
(28:49):
Let's love them through it, and and let's givethem another shot.
And so many times what would happen you know,there are success stories.
We did give people second and third shots.
I mean, shoot.
I've given Jake Hubbell fourteen thousandshots.
I've given Pat and Dicer twenty one thousandtries.
(29:10):
And and by the way, they've given me equal asequally as many shots.
So I gotta be humble in that moment and say Iprobably screwed up more than all of our
employees.
But what what happens is that not only do youbuild a culture of forgiveness, forgive and
forget, you get another try, you also start tobuild a culture of no accountability.
(29:35):
And you start to hear people say, oh, that'sall right.
Turn the truck over.
You'll get rehired tomorrow.
Or, oh, yeah, don't show up.
You'll get call, you know, call Keaton.
He'll he'll get you back on the list.
We do have a no hire list, a no rehire list.
I don't know who all's names are on it.
There are definitely a lot of names that are onit.
(29:56):
People that we won't take phone calls fromanymore or people that we won't consider for
rehire.
But this question, honestly, my life, guys,really truly exists.
When do you give up on someone?
I've got a guy right now in mind.
I love the dude to death.
I've been texting with him a little bit backand forth over the last, I don't know, probably
five or six months.
(30:16):
Used to work for us.
I love him.
I'm making Patton.
I'm making some of my people nervous justsaying this.
I I think he'd be awesome to have back on theteam.
I really do.
I think he'd be I think he could do really goodthings.
I think he's you know, I think he I think hecould help, put it to you that way.
(30:40):
Every other single person in our organizationwould squirm to death and be like, you know,
why in the world is he back?
What are we doing?
What is going on?
What drugs is Keaton taking?
This is a serious question I don't have ananswer.
When do you give up on someone?
(31:01):
What you know, what at what stage in theirjourney?
Is it try number?
Is it is it they've tried once and failed?
Give them another shot.
Is it they try three times and you give themanother shot?
I don't know.
I don't have an answer.
You know, there's we have policies, right, liketwo strikes policy.
(31:25):
We're implementing a bunch of new things in ourhandbook right now that that make this kind of
a more formal process so that it's not and andby the way, guys, I guess I should I should
just say, I don't oh, man.
(31:45):
I'm gonna say this.
I don't rehire people on my own anymore outsideof our process.
I really try not to save people anymore.
I've I've done this so many times and it'sblown up in my face.
Every time I shout somebody out, I'll laterlearn they just did something stupid and
(32:05):
they're suspended or they not every time Ishout somebody out, but a lot of times, you
know, I'm I'm the kind of the last person toknow who's in good graces and who's not.
And so and and and I also only get bits andpieces of the full story.
And so when I hear a sob story from one of ourprevious employees who's trying to get rehired
(32:30):
and I walked down to HR and I'm like, hey, thisguy's, you know we we just had we hired a
hundred people in Texas at the beginning of theyear.
I had one guy that spent three years with ourcompany, worked all over the country for us.
Really good kid.
Good guy.
Really like him.
Good head on his shoulders, although he did afew things that were pretty stupid at the time.
I think he left on good terms or I think he gotasked to leave on on fairly good terms,
(32:54):
whatever it was.
He he reached out to me directly and said he'dlove to be considered for a role in Texas, And,
and I said, yeah.
You know, absolutely, dude.
We'll consider you.
I'll get your name and phone number to ourpeople.
And I almost think at this stage and and Idon't I don't say this to throw any of our
(33:18):
people I don't say this to throw shade or throwmany of them under the bus.
I think it's easier for them to bring peopleinto the organization who don't know Keaton and
don't have a direct line because those peopletend to follow the process a little better.
It's the people that I know and have donebusiness with over the last x number of years
(33:41):
that tend to try to sidestep the process.
And it makes it challenging when we're agrowing organization when people don't follow
the process and I'm as guilty as any of them,you know?
I'll walk in and say, Oh Tucker, hey, youshould consider this guy.
This guy, you know, I used to used to work withthis guy.
And Tucker's like, okay.
Cool.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Appreciate it.
Take his phone number, talk to him, whatever.
(34:02):
And and I learned a month later, we hiredsomebody that's four, five, six times more
legit than the person I recommended.
Like, way more capable.
Way more, you know, like so I'm learning that Ineed to stay out of the people process for the
(34:27):
most part.
I'm also learning that I don't really know whena good time is to let somebody go.
And I don't mean don't mean fire them, but likelet somebody go and not, not like when is when
is the right time to let go?
When is the right time to let go of arelationship?
(34:49):
Almost every single time I've fired someone,it's been six months too late.
Almost every single time.
Some some of them maybe a year too late.
I think I've had a few guys that were a yeartoo late.
And so I'm I'm learning this.
This is one of these lessons that I think Ineed to learn in this next chapter of life here
(35:12):
for my leadership journey.
You can't have a bigger heart than a brain.
Sometimes I have probably a little bit biggerheart than my brain's not massive, so don't
think my heart's giant either.
You have to have a bigger brain than a heartmost of the times in business.
(35:34):
And the people I think the one I'm learningprobably more than anything is if you're one of
these guys like me who doesn't know when to letgo or doesn't know when to say no to a
relationship that's just not working, what youneed is people around you that can help
safeguard those things.
I could walk in the office I'm I'm gettingready to walk in the office now.
(35:57):
I could walk into the office and tell threepeople, hey, wanna go hire this guy.
First of all, would laugh.
They'd shake their head.
They'd walk out of the office and they'd comeback in ten minutes later and be like, okay, if
you're serious, let me remind you of why weshouldn't.
I've done this with Patton a few times whereI'm like, hey, we should, you know, we should
(36:18):
consider this guy.
And Patton's like, oh, yeah.
He actually was pretty good.
I remember him.
He was actually not bad.
Like, we should actually consider him.
And then Patton will go, like, you know, dosome research and and be like, I don't know
that he'd fit in our current culture.
You know, it worked back then.
It worked for what we were doing then, but Idon't know.
(36:40):
And and and what I think Patton's probablygetting to is like, those guys worked for
Keaton Turner directly.
Those guys didn't didn't work with three orfour layers of management between them and
Keaton Turner.
And there's a real there's a real challenge, Iespecially as you scale a business.
There's a real challenge for people that gofrom working directly with the owner, with the
(37:05):
guy, to working for a boss who has a boss whohas a boss who is the owner.
The more layers of management you add, theharder it is for some of those old people to
come back in and work in that you work in thatnew system, work in that new culture.
And so I don't know.
I I'd love some feedback from some of you guysthat have lived through this.
(37:29):
I know there's some I know there's some olderdogs that that are running businesses that
listen to this that might have some bettercontext for me or some better answers.
When it when do you when do you let go?
When do you give up on a relationship?
When do you say enough is enough?
Some of you guys might relate this to marriage.
Some of you guys might relate this tofriendships.
(37:51):
I've gotten round and round with my friendsmany a times.
I'm still hanging out with those Delberts.
A lot of days, I don't know why, but when isenough enough?
And you say, you know what?
I've hired this employee three times.
Am I really gonna hire him a fourth time andexpect something's different?
Really?
Am I gonna do that?
(38:13):
Know, am I gonna listen to the sob story of theguy that says he's never done a drug and he's
he's he's now had three drug drug tests?
Like and the beauty you know, here's the wildthing I've learned.
The people who talk the best, the people whoplay this game the best and who can convince
(38:34):
you and sell you the con artists out there whoget multiple tries and convince you life's
changed and they're different and they'vethey're the ones that give all the other people
a bad rap who actually have changed their life.
I've hired some people before who it didn'twork out.
We reconnect a year later, we hire them back,I'm like, dude, this is a totally different
(38:56):
guy.
Totally different person.
His life's changed.
He stopped drinking.
He didn't hang out with those people anymore.
He got rid of the woman that was the problem inhis life, whatever.
He's a totally different person than what wehad before.
The problem is for every one of those successstories, there's 10 or 20 x the con artists who
(39:18):
say they've changed and haven't really changed.
They say life's different.
They say they're clean.
They say they're sober.
They say they've moved on and they haven't.
I got a guy, I'm going to name his name.
I still see him on social media every once in awhile.
He was awesome for us.
He was in Texas back in this was back in 2018,'20 '19.
(39:42):
He was awesome.
Big time athlete, like had set some nationalrecords in a sport, track and field and stuff,
big time.
Guy was legit, good culture guy, knew how towrench, was a great employee.
And then all of a sudden, one day somethinghappened.
(40:04):
I don't know if it was drugs.
I know alcohol was involved.
Alcohol's usually involved when people's livesstart to go sideways, but I don't know if there
were some other drugs going on.
There were some relationship things I thinkgoing on in his life with a woman.
Dude went AWOL, went absolutely psycho andended up jumping around, jumped to another
(40:26):
company.
The owner of the com the owner of one of thesewell respected companies reaches out to me one
day.
This gal is a CEO.
It's a big time company.
You guys would know the company name.
She she reaches out to me one day.
Says, hey.
Can she sent me a DM on Instagram from theircompany page.
Says, hey.
This is blah blah blah.
I'm the owner and CEO.
(40:48):
Can are you available for a phone call?
And I thought, okay.
Cool.
Little company collaboration here.
What's this about?
We're kind of competitors, but kinda not.
We work in a little bit different markets.
So I get on the phone with this lady.
This lady's legit.
She's sharp.
I mean, they fly helicopters around.
So they're legit.
They've made it real business.
And she says, hey, this guy says he worksworked for you.
(41:13):
I'm like, okay.
He did.
What are you about to ask me?
She said, should I be concerned about him?
Is he dangerous?
And I'm like, well, ma'am, he doesn't currentlywork for us.
If that tells you anything, what like, what'sthe issue?
What's going on?
And she's like, well, he went AWOL.
He she said he's been the best employee for ayear, has been unbelievable, has worked circles
(41:35):
around everybody else, and all of a sudden wentAWOL.
And like said, he's coming back to the sitetomorrow to kill everyone.
Like, we're not sure how like, we're not sureto get the police involved.
And I'm like, well, listen.
I don't think he's violent, but I do think hehas real problems.
I do think he is one of the most talentedpeople I've ever seen, not only, like, gifted
(41:59):
athletically.
Yeah.
I think he's really super smart.
I think he's talented with his hands, but and awrench, but he has issues in life.
And she's like, okay.
Well, I didn't know how, like, if he had ahistory and why, you know, you know, she wanted
to just get my opinion on the guy because itwas so odd that someone was so good for so long
(42:20):
that just totally transforms.
So they yeah, obviously, they let him go.
He never came back.
You know, like, never nothing violent everhappened.
This guy pops back up into my life.
I don't know.
This is a year or two after this lady calls meand they fire him.
He goes to a different company, goes to adifferent state.
(42:40):
He goes to Hawaii for a while, comes back popsback up into my life.
It's like, hey, man.
Just wanna let you know.
Found Jesus.
I'm clean.
I'm this.
My life's changed.
Thank you so much.
Very respectful guy.
Thank you so much for everything, you know, forour Passover cross.
Would love to talk.
And I'm like I'm thinking to myself.
I'm like, dude, this is the third or fourthtime you've done this.
(43:04):
And I get we all stumble.
Right?
I've I've lost and found Jesus a few differenttimes in my life.
But when do you give up on these people?
Do when do you keep giving another try?
When do you like, this is the challenge ofsomeone that I think wants to believe the good
in everybody but sees so much of the bad outthere, and I always believe, especially if the
(43:32):
spirit's involved and God's like, I alwaysbelieve God can change somebody's life and so
maybe he's, maybe he's telling me the truth.
Maybe he's a new man.
Maybe life's good for him and he's, you know,ready to put all of his talents to use.
But but maybe you hire him, he worked for sixmonths, and then goes AWOL, and then the
customer's calling you like, dude, what isgoing on with this person?
(43:55):
So I don't know.
I'm gonna leave this podcast.
A lot of a lot of the times, guys, I pretend tohave the answers.
This one, I'm not gonna pretend.
I don't know.
When do you say enough's enough?
When is it over?
When do you give someone a second chance, thirdchance, fourth chance?
Or when do you just cut ties and say, you knowwhat?
Fool me once, shame on me.
(44:19):
What what is it?
Fool me fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Fool me three times, can't be fooled again orsomething like that.
I don't know.
I I I struggle with this because I've beenfooled four or five, six times, so it must just
mean I struggle with this a lot more thaneverybody else.
Give me your feedback.
(44:39):
Let me know what you think.
I really am looking for some answers on thisone.
If you've got an answer, if you've got a ruleof thumb, if you have a process, a procedure,
if you know, if you're like me and wanna thinkthe best of people, but you've been burned a
million different times, how are you jaded now?
Do you still give people a shot?
(45:00):
How do you guys think about that?
Because that's that's something that I have notquite figured out on my leadership journey yet.
So thanks guys for listening.
Pray that you're kill killing it.
Pray that you're getting your per diem, and wewill see you again tomorrow.
I'm Keaton Turner, and this is the Per DiemPodcast.
Let's go.
We're back.
Back again.
Nothing like starting your day off with aPurdue and podcast.
I believe it.
Nothing like it.
(00:28):
I, was driving through the neighborhood thismorning, ran into the legendary the legendary
Kurt Signeti, coach of the IU men's footballteam.
And, man, seeing that guy in the morning, ifthat doesn't get you jacked up for your day
(00:49):
with with the energy and the pass of course,he's decked out in IU gear.
He's proud.
You know, he's one of these coaches that I'm sopumped to have him, not only because he wins.
I love his attitude.
Obviously, he's unapologetic.
He is always dripped out in cream and crimson.
He is proud.
You know, he he really is.
(01:12):
I love it.
I love it to death.
So many times we get these coaches, you know,you pay him $3.04, $5.06, $7,000,000 a year
stupid money, and you never see them aroundtown.
You never see them at restaurants.
You never see them you know, you never younever see them around town.
And and so many times I wonder, I'm like, arethey they don't wanna be seen?
(01:38):
They, you know, are shy?
They're too good?
Like, you don't get any of that with thelegendary Kurt Signeti.
Love absolutely love the guy to death, and itgets me probably first time since Antoine
Randoll, it gets me jacked up for IU football,and it's only March.
(02:03):
I should be jacked up about IU basketball inMarch, but I'm jacked up about IU football.
So huge shout out to Kurt Signetti, a just amassive fan, and and his wife is also Manette,
huge shout out to Manette.
She's she's probably as much, maybe even moreof a legend.
More may she might be more legit than Kirk, tobe honest with you.
(02:28):
Behind every successful man, there is a realwoman holding him down, that is no true words
ever spoken.
I have a little bit of an interesting topic.
I got in my truck this morning.
It's a it's a beautiful morning.
Sun's shining.
It's 43 degrees.
We're in March.
We've got basketball on all day.
(02:49):
We I I fared pretty well in yesterday's, firstround games for March Madness.
My bracket's alive.
I'm right I'm hovering right around the top ofour office bracket pool, so I'm I'm not doing
too bad.
I think today is where the the men areseparated from the boys, and I think today's
picks, my hope is that I do really well, andI'm at the top today.
(03:12):
But I got in my truck this morning and I and Iyou guys are gonna think this is the dumbest
thing in the world.
You're gonna think I'm super vain.
I listen to some of my own per diem podcasts,And and the reason I listen, I try to pick up
things that you know, I try to improve.
I'm always trying to improve in everything Ido, whether it's cooking, giving, you know,
(03:35):
giving massages.
You guys probably heard that on the podcast.
I try improving leadership and business.
I try improving coaching, my son.
I'm trying to improve on this Purdue andpodcast thing.
Almost a hundred episodes in.
I think this is episode 88 probably, somethinglike that.
(03:57):
So I'll listen back, kind of like my version ofreviewing the tape, watching film.
I'll listen back and you know, try to figureout ways I can do better.
We are at 75,000 downloads to date.
I actually almost 76,000.
I looked it up this morning.
Try to keep tabs on that.
(04:18):
So in the last couple we we were at 50,000 acouple weeks ago.
We've got another 25,000.
So we're picking up steam.
New listeners, it seems like every day to have75,000 downloads in the first eighty seven days
is pretty cool.
So thank you guys for that.
We're we're more than a thousand listeners aday at this point.
(04:39):
Here's what came to mind as I was, you know, asI was reading or as as I reading.
As I was listening to some of my own podcastsback this morning, I listened to it in the
shower a little bit, my wife every once in awhile, my wife will walk in and catch me
listening to my own podcast.
She's like, yeah, you're you're just thatlegit, aren't you?
You gotta listen to your own podcast.
I'm like, no.
I'm trying to pick up I'm trying to pick up,things that I do, okay and things I need to do
(05:08):
better.
And I always tell her, I'm like, babe, I soundlike the biggest redneck ever.
You don't you don't think about how you'regonna sound when you're recording a podcast,
but I sound like a massive redneck.
But that's just how it goes.
That's just how it is.
I'm too late in life to change my twang.
But I got in my truck this morning, and Ithought to myself, there is something you know,
(05:31):
a lot of you guys get get a kick out of thestories I tell.
You guys, you know, scroll back far enough.
You can hear the story about skinhead sinkingan excavator.
You can hear the story of my uncle screaming atme and Ryan Bailey, you know, fire them mother
effers.
And, you know, there's some really interestingfunny stories.
(05:52):
Today, I was thinking of a story this morningactually, and I'll tell a little bit of it.
But the but the question I have, and I don'thave an answer straight up.
I'm just gonna be honest.
I'm asking a question, and I don't have ananswer.
But the question today is when do you give upon someone?
I'm not gonna go deep.
(06:13):
I don't wanna get into, like, marriage and,like, when do you give up on the marriage?
I I'm I'm talking about, like, when do you giveup on someone in life?
Really, I'm asking this for the context of mybusiness, and I'll get into why I'm doing that.
But when do you give up on someone in life?
I had this conversation with my mom a whileback.
(06:34):
It's been several years ago, because my son's10 now and he was very young at the time, but I
remember the conversation.
My mom's like, oh, babe, you're, you, you'll,you'll never give up on your kids.
Like, they could be in jail and they could havedone something horrible.
You'll never go.
And I'm like, mom, if my son doesn't live thelife that I'm thinking he needs to live and
(06:55):
he's a respectful young man, like, he I he I'mdone with him.
And she's like, no.
No.
No, sweetie.
It's not how it works.
You'll never be done with your kids.
And I I now, you know, ten years later, totallyagree with her.
I think there's just this parental instinctthat you can never, be completely done with
your kids no matter what they go through inlife.
(07:15):
But again, not to go deep, I wanna keep this Iwanna keep this positive and fun.
I have had some really, really wild run inswith people, some of my own employees, who have
done some really wild things, some unthinkablethings.
(07:36):
And I and I blow the minds of some of myclosest guys who are like, dude, fire the guy.
Get rid of him.
Get like, we gotta get this cancer.
And I'm like, no.
Give him another chance.
He's a good guy.
He means, well, he just screwed up.
And there's this running joke around theoffice.
Jake is kind of the one that throws it in myface the most, but Jake and Patton, you know,
(08:00):
when those two team up to try to knock me downa notch or two, which they never have.
They try.
They've never been successful in knocking medown a notch or two.
But when those two team up, they always love topoke fun at Keaton Turner.
And, you know, they'll be they'll be talking.
They'll be telling stories in the office aboutsome old employee that did something stupid,
(08:20):
and they'll be like, oh, yo, yo, yo, yeah, buthe was he was a good guy.
He meant well.
He meant well.
And that's kind of the joke around the officeis every time, you know, we'd have somebody do
something unthinkable, I'd get on the phonewith them.
I'd talk to them.
And I'd get off the phone, Patton or somebodywould walk in, whoever the ops guy was at the
(08:43):
time.
They'd be like, so what'd you what'd you findout?
And I'm like, well, here's the deal.
He's he's going through some stuff in life.
He's and they you hear him, oh, they you hearhim roll their eyes.
Oh, here we go.
I'm like, he's a good guy.
He had a bad day.
It's not gonna happen again.
This is hard for a lot of my people to dealwith, by the way.
(09:05):
And again, this is why I told you upfront, Idon't have an answer to this question when when
you should give up on somebody.
This is probably one of my toxic traits inbusiness.
I'll never forget, we you guys have heard metalk about we hired a CFO, Jeff Turner.
He's awesome.
Love the guy to death.
(09:25):
Jeff and some boys from the office are going upto Chicago today to spend all day running amok,
as he calls it and watching basketball withsome of our banking partners, watching
basketball all day and probably eating anddrinking and doing all the things to to to the
(09:46):
nines.
But Jeff, I'll never forget one day.
Jeff was probably two weeks in.
Right?
He had started.
And, you know, for the first, I don't know, sixor eight months, anytime we bring someone in on
staff, especially in a leadership role, we'rejust trying to get them context into our
business.
We're trying to give them very little actualresponsibility.
(10:09):
We're trying to just really get them contextinto how we operate, how things work, kind of
let them gather a ton of information.
And then, you know, once they're ready, it'slike, okay, now I can now I can start making my
changes.
Right?
Well, I'm I'm leery of people jumping into ourbusiness and making changes too fast.
And so one day, story time, one day Jeff callsme and says, hey.
(10:36):
We're we're ramping up a project in Texas.
He says, hey.
We we had this guy that started work.
Today was his first day.
We kind of fumbled the process.
We didn't do the process right.
One of our guys was a little eager and put somepeople to work before they got their drug tests
done.
(10:58):
So Jeff learns of it.
Obviously, HR reports up through Jeff, our CFO.
And so Jeff learns that we've got somebodyworking that didn't have a drug test done.
And so Jeff's like, hey.
Look.
We got a drug test done on this guy and it cameback inconclusive.
(11:23):
And usually when a drug test come and I'm nodrug test expert, so, you know, bear with me.
Usually when a drug test comes backinconclusive, when it's a urine test, a couple
things have happened.
One, the person collecting the sample botchedto the process.
Right?
They didn't seal the cap.
(11:44):
They, you know, they diluted the the sample onaccident.
They they mislabeled it.
They put it in the wrong spot, whatever.
They didn't follow the right steps of theprocess.
Sometimes inconclusive test means the guy drankliterally three gallons of water before he
tested so that diluted the sample, diluted hisurine, and makes it really hard to collect they
(12:11):
can tell some of the stuff in tests.
And so it makes it really hard to collect aclean sample when the guys drink three gallons
of water.
So they need to retest.
Every once in a while, it just comes backinconclusive.
It's like, ah, I don't I don't know.
Maybe faulty test.
Maybe the guy drank too much water.
Maybe the person collecting the sample justscrewed up the process.
(12:34):
So we don't know.
Right?
It doesn't we don't get all that from thecollection site.
Like, we just hear we have a guy that juststarted work that got a drug test that was
inconclusive.
And we have a process.
I'm not gonna bore you guys with our process.
But long story short, we make them get aretest.
(12:54):
Well, the retest comes back positive.
And this guy, this employee is distraught,totally distraught.
And Jeff calls me.
He's like, look.
What do you wanna do?
This guy, he's working.
He just moved his family.
This is what Jeff is hearing.
(13:15):
Right?
He he moved his family to Texas for a long termthing.
He has never done a drug in his life, so hesays he's ex military, ex police, ex this, ex
that.
The guy's, like, been a preacher.
He gives us the whole thing.
Right?
Gives us the whole story.
He's like, the first test was inconclusive.
The testing site says it was probably clean,but they had to they had to submit it as
(13:38):
inconclusive due to x y z.
The second test was dirty, and it was dirtyfor, like, something serious.
It was like cocaine, I think.
The second test was dirty for cocaine.
So Jeff calls me.
He's like, dude, what do you wanna do?
It's a Friday it's a Friday evening.
I'll never forget it.
Jeff's, like, two weeks into the job.
HR, you know, HR is gonna file their processand terminate the guy.
(14:01):
But Jeff calls me and says, hey, know, thisguy's given me this this sob story.
I just wanted to you know, Jeff's kinda stillfeeling this out.
I just wanted to let you know this is what'sgoing on.
We're probably gonna have to fire this guy.
And the guy was actually turns out he wasreally good on-site, knew what he was doing,
good operator.
Everybody was kind of pumped to have him,excited.
So I said, Jeff, send me his phone number.
(14:23):
Let me call the guy.
I've been doing this long enough.
Again, this is my ego getting getting wound up.
I'm like, dude, I've been doing this longenough.
Let me talk to the guy.
I'll be able to sniff out what's going on here.
If this guy's a phony, I can probably tell onthe phone.
If this guy's legit, you know, let me just talkto him.
So I call him.
(14:44):
We talk for half an hour, and again, that'sFriday night.
I'm I'm outside playing with the kids.
I'll never forget this.
This is this is still fresh enough.
This was probably almost a year ago now, butit's still fresh enough.
I remember it pretty vividly.
I'm on the phone with this guy for half anhour, and he is this guy's, like, crying.
He's like, dude, look.
I'm ex military.
I've been a police officer.
(15:05):
Like, I'm involved in my church.
I, like, I got three kids.
I got a wife.
Like, I I I've never done a drug in my life.
It gives me the speech of a lifetime.
I'm like, dude, I get it.
Sometimes they mix up samples.
He goes, dude, the lady that collected mysample both times was clueless.
She, like, worked at McDonald's.
(15:25):
And so I'm like, dude, I know how these testingfacilities work.
I believe you.
Right?
Chill out.
So he convince he sells me the the like, I needI actually need to hire this guy and have him
come do sales for us because he is putting onthe sale of a lifetime.
I I hang up the phone.
As soon as I hang up the phone, the guy istexting me pictures of his family.
(15:48):
Cute little family, cute kids, cute wife.
Like, I'm like, dude.
So I I pick up the phone.
I call Jeff.
I'm like, dude, Jeff, this guy's legit.
Somebody at the testing facility screwed himover.
We're probably it's probably some backwoodstesting facility where the the lady came from
Wendy's and started yesterday and doesn't knowhow to handle samples.
(16:10):
She might've got his sample mixed up with somefelon.
Like, let's go to a different testing facility.
Let's run a test.
Let's run a let's run a urine full panel urineand an and a hair test, a hair follicle.
Jeff's like, cool.
That's outside of our process.
This is gonna really upset a lot of people thatare trying to do their job well.
(16:34):
Jeff slapped my hand, which I love, by the way.
Jeff was against us doing this.
Jeff Jeff by the way, to give him credit, Jeffwas like, look, Keaton, just so you know, if
you're gonna give this guy a third drug test,this is against our handbook.
This is against our policy.
And what you're doing is telling everyone elseout there that ever fails a drug test, if they
(16:56):
call Keaton Turner on his cell phone, they geta third try.
And I'm like, oh, yeah.
Good point.
I didn't think about that.
Don't worry about it.
Go ahead and send the guy for a drug test.
So Jeff was kinda like Jeff was probably reallyupset deep down, but he was too new to really
tell me to, you know, where to go and what todo.
And, and I kinda cut the legs out of out of ourHR team.
(17:21):
So I so Jeff calls you know, I I tell Jeff, I'mlike, hey.
Let me think about it.
He's telling me all the reasons we shouldn'tgive him a third test.
I go, let me think about it.
I'll call you back in twenty minutes.
I think about it.
I said, okay.
I want to send him for a test.
I want to send him for a full panel urine and Iwant to send him for a hair follicle.
And I'm betting you this is how stupid I am,guys.
(17:45):
I said, I'm betting you He passes with flyingcolors.
I bet you he's never done a drug in his life.
Jeff's like, okay.
Ashton and Heather aren't gonna love this.
They've got their process.
They've done their job.
Here you come from the top rope.
I said, you know what?
Tell Ashton, Heather, if he fails a drug test,I'll pay him each $500.
(18:13):
Jeff's like, okay.
Okay.
Whatever.
I'll tell him.
So they send him for a drug test.
They call him back.
They said, look, you're saved by the bell.
The boss said you can go for a third try eventhough we've got a clean or, even though we've
got a a dirty test, we'll send you for a thirdtry.
We're gonna send you to a different testingfacility.
(18:35):
We're gonna make you get a full panel urine,and we're gonna give a hair follicle.
And the guy the guy kinda freezes up a littlebit.
And he goes, hair follicle.
What do mean?
I thought you guys did urine.
And and the HR gals are like, nope.
The boss said, if you wanna go get another one,you can go, but we're gonna we're gonna do it
(18:58):
the full way.
We're gonna get the the hair follicle.
You said you've never done a drug in your life.
That's what you told him.
You shouldn't have any issue with a hairfollicle.
He hangs up the phone.
He calls me.
He calls me back again, guys.
This is how this is how dumb I can besometimes.
Again, I remember the question is, when do yougive up on someone?
(19:19):
The guy calls me.
I don't answer it.
I'm like, dude, I'm not there's no way I'manswering it.
I've already talked talked to this guy forthirty minutes on a Friday night.
I gave him what he wanted.
He gets a third test.
I'm not talking to him.
And I knew when he called me, this is becauseagain, I've done this enough to have thousands
of drug tests with employees over the years.
I'm like, that's not a good sign when they callyou after they learned they're taking a hair
(19:45):
follicle.
So he texts me.
I didn't answer.
He texts me and says, hey.
Heard I gotta do a hair follicle.
That wasn't part of the plan this night.
I didn't respond.
So they send him to get his full panel urine.
They get a hair follicle.
We have to wait two days or three days, Ithink, to get the hair follicle back.
(20:06):
So he's late.
He's he's off work.
He's suspended, if you will, for three days.
Because, again, he's got a dirty test.
He's already failed for cocaine.
He claims it's not his test.
And, and the three days goes by.
And and I'm, you know, kind of on pins andneedles.
Think Ashton, Heather, and Jeff, everyone'slike everyone's like waiting to find out.
(20:27):
Right?
The urine comes back right away.
And they call me Friday night.
Jeff calls me and says, hey.
I got good news and I got bad news.
I said, okay.
Give it to me.
He said, well, the good news is we do not havehis results of his hair follicle test because
(20:50):
it takes a couple days.
We'll have those on Monday.
I said, okay.
What's the bad news?
He said, well, the bad news is he's failed forcocaine again for the second time.
I'm like, you've gotta be freaking kidding me.
After all that I just sat through, after thestory this freaking guy gave me, and Jeff's
(21:11):
like, Well, well, well, just let's just waitand see what happens with the hair follicle.
That's really the the source of truth.
Right?
Hair follicle goes back a long time.
For those of you guys who've never had a drugtest, the hair follicle is impossible to beat.
You can beat urine tests, and urine tests,there's there can be things that go wrong.
But so Monday rolls around, the freakingresults come back, and the hair follicle
(21:37):
results show he fails for cocaine.
And I was two seconds away from picking up thephone and calling this guy.
And calling this guy, I was I was so upset.
I was gonna call this guy's wife.
Because this dude, this guy's family picturelooks like the the cutest little all American
(22:03):
family you've ever seen.
I'm like, dude, I wonder if your wife freakingknows you're doing cocaine.
Because his wife was upset.
She had to move.
They, like, they they picked up their familyand moved to Texas for us.
And I'm like, I wonder if he's gonna tell herthe truth or if he's gonna tell her the same
sales story he told me that I bought into.
(22:27):
I was so mad.
Jeff didn't let me call him.
Jeff didn't let me call his wife.
I was so close to picking up the phone andcalling this guy's wife because, a, I now look
like an idiot.
Right?
I look like an idiot to Jeff.
Jeff's like, wow.
Our freaking owner is talking to people aboutdrug tests and taking multiple tests, and he he
(22:50):
got he got, like, the wool pulled over hiseyes.
So I look like an idiot to Jeff, my new CFO.
I now owe Ashton and Heather five hundredbucks, which Jeff reminded me yesterday we have
to pay them.
And more importantly, my ego takes a massivehit that I that I bought some sob story from
some guy who's who's doing drugs.
(23:14):
Like, how dumb can I be?
And so I have this toxic trait of when I don'tknow when to give up on somebody.
I was dealing with an employee issue thismorning.
Again, another one of these employees.
They've got direct contact to the guy, to me,and this employee didn't like didn't like the
(23:38):
situation.
I'm not gonna go into the details.
They're still an employee.
They're figuring it out.
We're working on it.
But didn't like the situation, so they theycall me.
And I walk back in.
I'm like, yeah.
He's a good guy.
You know?
He's trying.
He's got these these things going on.
Like, guys, I swear to you.
(23:59):
Hold on.
I swear to you, I cannot make this up.
I'm taking a video.
There is a Ford Edge in front of me with a ifthat that's gotta be a 20 foot long two by
four.
I swear to you, it's a one one solid piece oftwo by four on top of this Ford Edge, not even
(24:27):
fastened down.
There's no strap or anything.
How's he gonna make it through the how's hegonna make it through the light?
Hold on.
Oh, he's gonna hold it.
Oh, my word.
Wild.
Oh, my word, guys.
I just videoed this.
I'll drop it on the Instagram, the Purdy andPodcast Instagram channel, and you can watch
(24:50):
it.
It's it's a guy holding a a two by foursticking off the back of the Ford Edge and off
the front, and he's just holding it with onehand driving down the road.
What a way to live.
But anyway, back to the podcast.
This is this is one of the challenges I have isis when do you give up on somebody?
(25:12):
When do you say enough's enough?
I my my very my very first employee, thesepeople are pointing like like, this guy is at a
stoplight.
There's people pointing at him.
Dude, talk about an eye for safety.
Unbelievable.
My very first employee, Albert Engel, got a tonof love and respect for Albert.
(25:35):
Albert's Albert's the man.
Doesn't work for us anymore.
Life life happened and things change, and soAlbert's no longer here.
But number you know, first employee I everhired.
And I'll never forget, man.
We were we would go through phases where Iwould stick Albert with a crew, and he'd have
(25:56):
the whole crew fired in a week.
He'd fire the whole crew.
It'd be like, you know, five or six, sevenguys.
It's not a 40 person crew, but he'd have like,you know, five, six, seven, eight guys send
them down there.
They'd be working in Texas and and he'd call meand say, send me more.
I'm like, what do you mean send you more?
I just sent you.
Nope.
Fire them all.
(26:16):
They're they're freaking worthless.
I'm like, Albert, I now gotta go find you morepeople.
We just train them.
We just, you know, task training.
Like, I got money tied up in those.
Nope.
They're worthless.
Can't can't work with them.
Can't do any work.
And so I would we'd go through this time aftertime, and I'd be like, Albert, we've gotta, you
(26:37):
know, we've gotta work with these guys.
Like, we can't just keep chewing throughpeople.
And and then every once in a while, you know,some something would hit home.
We we you know, one of you know, he had asister, and his sister had come work for us
and, she was legit.
I loved I loved her to death.
(26:57):
She's a great truck driver.
You know, she would show up and work for Al sheworked for Albert for years on Albert's crew.
And, one day she gets into some trouble andAlbert calls me, says, I fired her this
morning.
I was like, Albert, you fired your sister?
(27:18):
He goes, Yeah.
Teach her a lesson.
I'm like, well, you know, can we can we workwith her?
Like, can we can we forgive her?
Is there a second chance?
Is there and he's like, nope.
She's done.
I told her pack her stuff.
She's out of here.
And so I've I've lived through phases ofpeople, and I you know, other ops guys, you
(27:42):
know, past them where somebody would dosomething, and I'd call, and I you know,
usually, people figured out you know, a coupleyears in business, people figured out if they
could pull up my heartstrings hard enough,they'd get a second chance or a third chance or
a fourth chance.
And so what would happen is people would callor I'd tell I'd tell Albert, I'd tell whoever,
(28:07):
Ryan Bailey, I'd tell Patton.
I'd say, hey.
Let me talk to him.
And that was all they always knew.
Right?
If Keaton's gonna talk to him, you know, he'sgonna get a he's gonna get another chance.
And not all the not all the time, but a lot ofthe time, I would talk to him.
I would hear their story about how they camefrom nothing, how they're trying to build
(28:28):
something, build a life, trying to get out oftheir hometown.
They, you know, they don't have any parents.
They don't have this.
They don't have that.
And I was like, you know what?
We owe it to them to bring them out of theirbad situation.
We owe it to them to give them another shot.
Like, let's hold them accountable.
We'll sap them on the hand.
Let's teach them.
(28:49):
Let's love them through it, and and let's givethem another shot.
And so many times what would happen you know,there are success stories.
We did give people second and third shots.
I mean, shoot.
I've given Jake Hubbell fourteen thousandshots.
I've given Pat and Dicer twenty one thousandtries.
(29:10):
And and by the way, they've given me equal asequally as many shots.
So I gotta be humble in that moment and say Iprobably screwed up more than all of our
employees.
But what what happens is that not only do youbuild a culture of forgiveness, forgive and
forget, you get another try, you also start tobuild a culture of no accountability.
(29:35):
And you start to hear people say, oh, that'sall right.
Turn the truck over.
You'll get rehired tomorrow.
Or, oh, yeah, don't show up.
You'll get call, you know, call Keaton.
He'll he'll get you back on the list.
We do have a no hire list, a no rehire list.
I don't know who all's names are on it.
There are definitely a lot of names that are onit.
(29:56):
People that we won't take phone calls fromanymore or people that we won't consider for
rehire.
But this question, honestly, my life, guys,really truly exists.
When do you give up on someone?
I've got a guy right now in mind.
I love the dude to death.
I've been texting with him a little bit backand forth over the last, I don't know, probably
five or six months.
(30:16):
Used to work for us.
I love him.
I'm making Patton.
I'm making some of my people nervous justsaying this.
I I think he'd be awesome to have back on theteam.
I really do.
I think he'd be I think he could do really goodthings.
I think he's you know, I think he I think hecould help, put it to you that way.
(30:40):
Every other single person in our organizationwould squirm to death and be like, you know,
why in the world is he back?
What are we doing?
What is going on?
What drugs is Keaton taking?
This is a serious question I don't have ananswer.
When do you give up on someone?
(31:01):
What you know, what at what stage in theirjourney?
Is it try number?
Is it is it they've tried once and failed?
Give them another shot.
Is it they try three times and you give themanother shot?
I don't know.
I don't have an answer.
You know, there's we have policies, right, liketwo strikes policy.
(31:25):
We're implementing a bunch of new things in ourhandbook right now that that make this kind of
a more formal process so that it's not and andby the way, guys, I guess I should I should
just say, I don't oh, man.
(31:45):
I'm gonna say this.
I don't rehire people on my own anymore outsideof our process.
I really try not to save people anymore.
I've I've done this so many times and it'sblown up in my face.
Every time I shout somebody out, I'll laterlearn they just did something stupid and
(32:05):
they're suspended or they not every time Ishout somebody out, but a lot of times, you
know, I'm I'm the kind of the last person toknow who's in good graces and who's not.
And so and and and I also only get bits andpieces of the full story.
And so when I hear a sob story from one of ourprevious employees who's trying to get rehired
(32:30):
and I walked down to HR and I'm like, hey, thisguy's, you know we we just had we hired a
hundred people in Texas at the beginning of theyear.
I had one guy that spent three years with ourcompany, worked all over the country for us.
Really good kid.
Good guy.
Really like him.
Good head on his shoulders, although he did afew things that were pretty stupid at the time.
I think he left on good terms or I think he gotasked to leave on on fairly good terms,
(32:54):
whatever it was.
He he reached out to me directly and said he'dlove to be considered for a role in Texas, And,
and I said, yeah.
You know, absolutely, dude.
We'll consider you.
I'll get your name and phone number to ourpeople.
And I almost think at this stage and and Idon't I don't say this to throw any of our
(33:18):
people I don't say this to throw shade or throwmany of them under the bus.
I think it's easier for them to bring peopleinto the organization who don't know Keaton and
don't have a direct line because those peopletend to follow the process a little better.
It's the people that I know and have donebusiness with over the last x number of years
(33:41):
that tend to try to sidestep the process.
And it makes it challenging when we're agrowing organization when people don't follow
the process and I'm as guilty as any of them,you know?
I'll walk in and say, Oh Tucker, hey, youshould consider this guy.
This guy, you know, I used to used to work withthis guy.
And Tucker's like, okay.
Cool.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Appreciate it.
Take his phone number, talk to him, whatever.
(34:02):
And and I learned a month later, we hiredsomebody that's four, five, six times more
legit than the person I recommended.
Like, way more capable.
Way more, you know, like so I'm learning that Ineed to stay out of the people process for the
(34:27):
most part.
I'm also learning that I don't really know whena good time is to let somebody go.
And I don't mean don't mean fire them, but likelet somebody go and not, not like when is when
is the right time to let go?
When is the right time to let go of arelationship?
(34:49):
Almost every single time I've fired someone,it's been six months too late.
Almost every single time.
Some some of them maybe a year too late.
I think I've had a few guys that were a yeartoo late.
And so I'm I'm learning this.
This is one of these lessons that I think Ineed to learn in this next chapter of life here
(35:12):
for my leadership journey.
You can't have a bigger heart than a brain.
Sometimes I have probably a little bit biggerheart than my brain's not massive, so don't
think my heart's giant either.
You have to have a bigger brain than a heartmost of the times in business.
(35:34):
And the people I think the one I'm learningprobably more than anything is if you're one of
these guys like me who doesn't know when to letgo or doesn't know when to say no to a
relationship that's just not working, what youneed is people around you that can help
safeguard those things.
I could walk in the office I'm I'm gettingready to walk in the office now.
(35:57):
I could walk into the office and tell threepeople, hey, wanna go hire this guy.
First of all, would laugh.
They'd shake their head.
They'd walk out of the office and they'd comeback in ten minutes later and be like, okay, if
you're serious, let me remind you of why weshouldn't.
I've done this with Patton a few times whereI'm like, hey, we should, you know, we should
(36:18):
consider this guy.
And Patton's like, oh, yeah.
He actually was pretty good.
I remember him.
He was actually not bad.
Like, we should actually consider him.
And then Patton will go, like, you know, dosome research and and be like, I don't know
that he'd fit in our current culture.
You know, it worked back then.
It worked for what we were doing then, but Idon't know.
(36:40):
And and and what I think Patton's probablygetting to is like, those guys worked for
Keaton Turner directly.
Those guys didn't didn't work with three orfour layers of management between them and
Keaton Turner.
And there's a real there's a real challenge, Iespecially as you scale a business.
There's a real challenge for people that gofrom working directly with the owner, with the
(37:05):
guy, to working for a boss who has a boss whohas a boss who is the owner.
The more layers of management you add, theharder it is for some of those old people to
come back in and work in that you work in thatnew system, work in that new culture.
And so I don't know.
I I'd love some feedback from some of you guysthat have lived through this.
(37:29):
I know there's some I know there's some olderdogs that that are running businesses that
listen to this that might have some bettercontext for me or some better answers.
When it when do you when do you let go?
When do you give up on a relationship?
When do you say enough is enough?
Some of you guys might relate this to marriage.
Some of you guys might relate this tofriendships.
(37:51):
I've gotten round and round with my friendsmany a times.
I'm still hanging out with those Delberts.
A lot of days, I don't know why, but when isenough enough?
And you say, you know what?
I've hired this employee three times.
Am I really gonna hire him a fourth time andexpect something's different?
Really?
Am I gonna do that?
(38:13):
Know, am I gonna listen to the sob story of theguy that says he's never done a drug and he's
he's he's now had three drug drug tests?
Like and the beauty you know, here's the wildthing I've learned.
The people who talk the best, the people whoplay this game the best and who can convince
(38:34):
you and sell you the con artists out there whoget multiple tries and convince you life's
changed and they're different and they'vethey're the ones that give all the other people
a bad rap who actually have changed their life.
I've hired some people before who it didn'twork out.
We reconnect a year later, we hire them back,I'm like, dude, this is a totally different
(38:56):
guy.
Totally different person.
His life's changed.
He stopped drinking.
He didn't hang out with those people anymore.
He got rid of the woman that was the problem inhis life, whatever.
He's a totally different person than what wehad before.
The problem is for every one of those successstories, there's 10 or 20 x the con artists who
(39:18):
say they've changed and haven't really changed.
They say life's different.
They say they're clean.
They say they're sober.
They say they've moved on and they haven't.
I got a guy, I'm going to name his name.
I still see him on social media every once in awhile.
He was awesome for us.
He was in Texas back in this was back in 2018,'20 '19.
(39:42):
He was awesome.
Big time athlete, like had set some nationalrecords in a sport, track and field and stuff,
big time.
Guy was legit, good culture guy, knew how towrench, was a great employee.
And then all of a sudden, one day somethinghappened.
(40:04):
I don't know if it was drugs.
I know alcohol was involved.
Alcohol's usually involved when people's livesstart to go sideways, but I don't know if there
were some other drugs going on.
There were some relationship things I thinkgoing on in his life with a woman.
Dude went AWOL, went absolutely psycho andended up jumping around, jumped to another
(40:26):
company.
The owner of the com the owner of one of thesewell respected companies reaches out to me one
day.
This gal is a CEO.
It's a big time company.
You guys would know the company name.
She she reaches out to me one day.
Says, hey.
Can she sent me a DM on Instagram from theircompany page.
Says, hey.
This is blah blah blah.
I'm the owner and CEO.
(40:48):
Can are you available for a phone call?
And I thought, okay.
Cool.
Little company collaboration here.
What's this about?
We're kind of competitors, but kinda not.
We work in a little bit different markets.
So I get on the phone with this lady.
This lady's legit.
She's sharp.
I mean, they fly helicopters around.
So they're legit.
They've made it real business.
And she says, hey, this guy says he worksworked for you.
(41:13):
I'm like, okay.
He did.
What are you about to ask me?
She said, should I be concerned about him?
Is he dangerous?
And I'm like, well, ma'am, he doesn't currentlywork for us.
If that tells you anything, what like, what'sthe issue?
What's going on?
And she's like, well, he went AWOL.
He she said he's been the best employee for ayear, has been unbelievable, has worked circles
(41:35):
around everybody else, and all of a sudden wentAWOL.
And like said, he's coming back to the sitetomorrow to kill everyone.
Like, we're not sure how like, we're not sureto get the police involved.
And I'm like, well, listen.
I don't think he's violent, but I do think hehas real problems.
I do think he is one of the most talentedpeople I've ever seen, not only, like, gifted
(41:59):
athletically.
Yeah.
I think he's really super smart.
I think he's talented with his hands, but and awrench, but he has issues in life.
And she's like, okay.
Well, I didn't know how, like, if he had ahistory and why, you know, you know, she wanted
to just get my opinion on the guy because itwas so odd that someone was so good for so long
(42:20):
that just totally transforms.
So they yeah, obviously, they let him go.
He never came back.
You know, like, never nothing violent everhappened.
This guy pops back up into my life.
I don't know.
This is a year or two after this lady calls meand they fire him.
He goes to a different company, goes to adifferent state.
(42:40):
He goes to Hawaii for a while, comes back popsback up into my life.
It's like, hey, man.
Just wanna let you know.
Found Jesus.
I'm clean.
I'm this.
My life's changed.
Thank you so much.
Very respectful guy.
Thank you so much for everything, you know, forour Passover cross.
Would love to talk.
And I'm like I'm thinking to myself.
I'm like, dude, this is the third or fourthtime you've done this.
(43:04):
And I get we all stumble.
Right?
I've I've lost and found Jesus a few differenttimes in my life.
But when do you give up on these people?
Do when do you keep giving another try?
When do you like, this is the challenge ofsomeone that I think wants to believe the good
in everybody but sees so much of the bad outthere, and I always believe, especially if the
(43:32):
spirit's involved and God's like, I alwaysbelieve God can change somebody's life and so
maybe he's, maybe he's telling me the truth.
Maybe he's a new man.
Maybe life's good for him and he's, you know,ready to put all of his talents to use.
But but maybe you hire him, he worked for sixmonths, and then goes AWOL, and then the
customer's calling you like, dude, what isgoing on with this person?
(43:55):
So I don't know.
I'm gonna leave this podcast.
A lot of a lot of the times, guys, I pretend tohave the answers.
This one, I'm not gonna pretend.
I don't know.
When do you say enough's enough?
When is it over?
When do you give someone a second chance, thirdchance, fourth chance?
Or when do you just cut ties and say, you knowwhat?
Fool me once, shame on me.
(44:19):
What what is it?
Fool me fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Fool me three times, can't be fooled again orsomething like that.
I don't know.
I I I struggle with this because I've beenfooled four or five, six times, so it must just
mean I struggle with this a lot more thaneverybody else.
Give me your feedback.
(44:39):
Let me know what you think.
I really am looking for some answers on thisone.
If you've got an answer, if you've got a ruleof thumb, if you have a process, a procedure,
if you know, if you're like me and wanna thinkthe best of people, but you've been burned a
million different times, how are you jaded now?
Do you still give people a shot?
(45:00):
How do you guys think about that?
Because that's that's something that I have notquite figured out on my leadership journey yet.
So thanks guys for listening.
Pray that you're kill killing it.
Pray that you're getting your per diem, and wewill see you again tomorrow.
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