Speaker 1: Had you actually read the email, you would know that
the podcast you are about to listen to could contain explicit
language and offensive content.
These HR experts' views are not representative of their past,
present or future employers.
If you have ever heard my manager is unfair to me.
I need you to reset my HR portal password, or Can I write
up my employee for crying too much?
Welcome to our little safe zone .
Welcome to Jaded HR.
Speaker 2: Welcome to JDHR, the podcast by two HR professionals
who want to help you get through the workday by saying
everything you're thinking, but say it out loud.
I'm Warren, I'm Cece.
We are back on a normal schedule, as we're saying.
This week we have this one.
Next week we have Office Rewatch.
The week after that, july 10th, we'll be dropping another new
episode, but July 24th I'm going to be out of town and unless we
record two, maybe we'll do it.
Maybe we'll record two and do a second Office one and then drop
that.
That's require a little bit less work on my end.
Speaker 3: That'd be awesome.
Give the people what they want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and y'all seem to be enjoying the office
episode, so next week we'll have one of those as well.
So, ah, wow, well, we were talking off air about and we've
we've mentioned on there before as well you as a listener,
really really like when we shit on SHRM.
Our last episode yet again while we're talking about SHRM
had well above average download numbers, in the first two weeks
at least.
And, yeah, you all, really, everything that we start talking
about SHRM has higher downloads .
So I'm going to start off by talking about SHRM.
Give the people what they want.
The algorithm we're doing it for the algo.
So anyways and I got this, I will say, from Jamie Jackson on
one of her Instagram accounts SHRM has added yet another
keynote speaker to the SHRM 2025 .
And that is Joe Biden.
And you know this is going to be a hard episode not to go
political in.
I've mentioned it any number of times.
I consider myself fiercely independent and nobody on the
right likes my opinions.
Nobody on the left likes my opinions.
I usually keep them to myself.
But Jamie and a few other people since I saw Jamie's first
with it have come up with the theory that this is a F you sort
of to Donald Trump in terms of JCT not getting the Secretary of
Labor position that it looked.
Everybody was saying it was his .
Speaker 3: Look at that headcanon.
Let's keep that story.
Speaker 2: Let's keep that story going, okay.
So yeah, I don't know if there's any truth to it.
I did, I think, online.
I watched George W Bush, his interview with Johnny C Taylor
and, honestly, the politics side , it was a good interview.
It was good, it was funny, it was basically what you want.
Was that two or three years ago ?
I don't remember, I forget.
It was good.
I think Joe Biden, because he from day one has been such a
staunch pro-labor, is going to be very interesting.
And I've said before I think Sherm has really gone pro-labor
over the past five, 10 years or more.
So I think that's going to be an interesting conversation.
So yeah, I can see Joe Biden being a little bit more than
just a political hack.
The speaker, you know a giant, not just big name, giant name,
but I'm just wondering how much of my dues are paying for this.
And honestly, because of his pro-labor background, it might
have a little more substance than maybe, say, and I just
remember thinking that the Bush talk with JCT wasn't bad and it
was pretty good, but I can't remember the first thing they
discussed at all.
So I don't know what is going to be said or how it would
compare, but he does have a little bit of chops to talk
about labor and HR issues.
To that extent I would say so yeah, well, we will see where
that one goes.
Speaker 3: I'd be down.
I'd be down to see him talk.
I mean, I saw Martha Stewart talk, so I think Joe Biden's
better than Martha Stewart, in my opinion, in my taste, I would
say, but I don't know.
That would be interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's just always so weird.
I always wonder what the thought process is for selecting
these speakers.
So who's available.
Speaker 2: Who can we afford Exactly?
Speaker 3: However, I am going to say I like the theory that
this was an SEO, because you know like I mean.
Speaker 2: You want it to be true.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I think I sometimes think Trump would be
butthurt over that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he'll be butthurt over anything, anything
Of all weeks, you know, of all weeks us to meander into
political realms like we're going through today, the week
we're having.
If you haven't been anywhere in the world for the past, I don't
know since Saturday.
It's been a pretty interesting couple of days here, but keep
out of that as well.
I need a nap, I need a nap, I need a nap, yeah, so let's
switch gears.
I'm going to tell I've got a couple of stories that have
happened to me the past few days and I just wanted to share
nothing.
I don't know we're.
If we discuss, we discuss.
If not, we'll just move on to the next.
So one of my things the president of my company is
pretty strong about me actually running the new hire
orientations, and then not only me running it, but each of the
directors.
If you're talking about project controls, the director of
project controls is coming the high level for the new hires to
get to know everybody.
But I'm sort of in there all day coordinating and I'm
g-chatting the next person saying, okay, you're up in five
minutes, if I remember I'm very bad about uh, I'm very bad about
remembering the oh, yeah, yeah, ping the next person and and
things like that.
So we, that's what we do.
Well, one of the the speakers I'm going to let this person
rename, nameless or by title or name or anything like that.
Like I said, a couple of people from the work listen and they
will know, but one person.
They start off the very first thing they say after the intros
and all that and who they are and what they do.
They say I can't stand reading verbatim from PowerPoint slides.
Yet for the next half hour we get letter for letter.
And not only are they reading letter for letter off the
PowerPoint slides, they are butchering it the same thing
they've been saying for years and they are talking very
robotic, like they are actually reading this.
And it's so painful for me.
I'm just sitting there at this point.
A lot of times I'm checking my email and trying to, because
orientation lasts half a day.
I'm trying not to fall behind on the rest of my duties while
other people are speaking.
But it's just like and I'm so tempted to pull like Christine
Applegate did to Ron Burgundy in Anchorman just change the
teleprompter and make it say something completely ridiculous
and she would read that shit straight on through without even
realizing what she's saying.
Part of me just wants to do that.
So bad, just because I'm an asshole sometimes.
That's the worst.
It would make it fun for me at least.
But anyways, part of me just wants to do that so bad just
because I'm an asshole.
Speaker 1: sometimes that's the worst, it would make it fun for
me at least.
Speaker 2: But anyways, let's see here and the second thing I
put, it's just a one-liner here Example of no good deed goes
unpunished A situation where someone on my team went the
extra mile for one employee and somebody else got jealous and
got butt hurt that nobody's gone the extra mile for them and I'm
like I've never known you need any assistance.
But anyways, I'm just like that sucks yeah.
And I don't want my person to think they should not do that.
I'm very proud of what they did , right.
Speaker 3: No good deed goes unpunished.
Yeah, so one of my security blanket or comfort blanket shows
is the show Superstore.
Speaker 2: Yes, you've talked about that.
Speaker 3: I love that show but if you've never heard of it,
it's very much like the Office and it's very much like Parks
and Recreation Of that nature.
But it's a show that happens in , like this fictional version of
Walmart, and it's everyone who works there and they're mostly
all like floor workers and there's like one episode episode
it was like one of the first episodes and one of the main
characters tells another main character you don't help people
here.
Helping people is like quicksand, it'll suck you down
and the whole episode is like just people, like no good deed
goes unpunished and at the end they all have to take a sexual
harassment course so it's a great show, again if you've
never watched it give it a watch .
Speaker 2: I keep meaning to watch that.
As you've spoken about it a couple times, I've heard other
people speak about it, I keep meaning to.
I'm I'm back on my food network addiction, watching old shows
and crap like that.
And then, of course, we lost ann burrell.
We lost ann Burrell.
We lost Anne Burrell last week, I heard.
I've been you know she was on Iron Chef like 25 plus years ago
and I've just seen her on Food Network and those shows forever.
I've been a Food Network junkie for that long and if, like my
wife, her TV noise, if you will, is investigation, discovery and
all that true crime stuff.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: My TV noise is Food Network and so if I'm just
sitting there scrolling through Facebook or doing something else
completely mindless, you can pretty much guarantee Food
Network is on in the background and I just love it.
But anyways, yeah.
So here is a question I was asked just earlier this week and
it's just too perfect of a question to not talk about.
Speaker 3: I'm here for it and I wrote it down word for word.
Speaker 2: They caught me in the hallway.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: I have a question about the handbook, so I'm going
to stop there.
I hear that and I'm going to stop there.
I hear that and I'm thinking, yes, somebody's read it and
wants to know.
Actually, I'm currently working on handbook updates and things
and I was like, oh, maybe this is something I can add to
clarify if they have a question, maybe something wasn't crystal
clear.
But they go on and then it goes from here how many days
bereavement do I get for my sister-in-law passing away?
So in their question they acknowledge they know the answer
is going to be in the handbook, correct.
Speaker 3: But they don't go to the freaking handbook to get
that answer.
We just used you like a personification of Ask Jeeves.
Yes, we just used you like a personification of Ask Jeeves
yes, Ask Jeeves Can you please regurgitate something from the
handbook, because I am too lazy to look it up.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
But I honestly had my little Toby moment I got excited about.
You know, toby gets to break out his book and he gets to do
some real HR work, like later way down the road, and he's all
excited and into it.
And I'm like, oh, somebody read the handbook and I'm thinking,
like I said, I'm doing handbook updates and there's a couple of
things I think could be clarified.
I'm like, ooh, like this will be opportunity for me to find
out.
Maybe something else isn't cleared I can update.
But no, you asked me a question acknowledging that the answer
is in the handbook and I still answered acknowledging that the
answer is in the handbook and I still answered I'm a.
I'm a.
You know, I'm jaded on the podcast.
I'm jaded at home.
I'm not.
I I shouldn't say I'm not.
I try my hardest not to be jaded at work, but yeah, I'm
really not jaded this podcast.
Speaker 3: It really just it's not jaded.
Okay, I'm gonna really I'm gonna try to look this up really
quick.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Because you said something about the handbook and
that reminded me of a post I saw last night on Human
Resources Reddit that made me crack up.
Let's see, okay, here we go.
We're going off script today.
Okay, so this was on the human resources subreddit and it says
we have an employee that is oftentimes not wearing a bra to
work.
Some days it is not extremely noticeable because she wears
blazers and sweaters, but other days and this is the quote from
the reddit post from the manager they are just out there okay so
we are a government entity and often deal with members of the
public.
Any advice on approaching this?
Speaker 2: we require business dress and would like her to wear
a bra oh gosh, I don't want to touch this one with a 10-foot I
don't want to so I think there's actually been case law, and
it's in the back of my mind that that can be discriminatory,
requiring certain undergarments for women that aren't required
for men, and and things like that so, oh yeah.
Speaker 3: So anyway, someone did say like I don't see this
going well for you.
You can have that conversation, but then go right to your legal
department because you're going to need them yes go to your
legal department first, then have a conversation and then
there are some people who are like you.
You might have to talk to her about what professional conduct
means in the handbook and everyone's like I don't want to
touch this, like nobody.
Speaker 2: No one wanted this, so anyway nobody wants to touch
it, but, as hr, it's one of those things you're going to get
reeled into and it depends on how visible everything is and
things like that.
Are they hanging low?
Are they hanging out?
Is it very cold in there?
I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think the issue is that it's very cold.
Speaker 1: So I think everyone's just like.
Speaker 2: Everybody knows.
Speaker 3: The other piece of it is like really man, like.
Why is the man really Like?
I don't know, it's just, it's a dumb conversation to have.
But something came up in the handbook about it being like,
like how you put dress code in the handbook.
I thought it was an interesting rabbit hole to go down.
The consensus in that group was don't even fucking think about
it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Unless you're going to, unless you're going to,
mandate all the men to like cover their nipples then, you.
You have no nothing to stand on .
Speaker 2: Exactly, and and then being a man, hr, which we're
going to discuss a little bit later, there's like so I'm
coming out of that conversation as a creep, no matter how much
time I spend wordsmithing it and trying to be politically
correct, I'm going to be the creepster, I'm going to be the I
don't know what the word is, but I'm going to be the shunned
person for that, yeah, and let's see here.
So, okay, this is today.
Just this morning this occurred , and so this is the.
Am I the asshole, is Warren the asshole?
And generally, speaking the answer is yes.
But where I work, new employees have to do eight hours of DOD
training.
It's done on external websites through the DCSA or what I don't
even know the acronyms or anything like that, but it's
done externally.
And then, as you're doing the training, the first page of this
, when you get to the external trainings, you do your internal
training too on this.
But in the RLMS, the first page it goes to, it says you must
download the course completion certificate and turn it into
receive credit.
That's on the overview page.
Then you get to the individual module and it says the exact
same thing you must download the course completion certificate
and turn it into HR to receive credit.
Then you go to the external site and in bold letters now
there's a lot of verbiage here so this one can be lost but the
external site at the DCSA says you must print or save a local
copy of the certificate as proof of course completion.
Cdse does not maintain course records of completion and so
anyways.
So, and then the website, the external website right before,
shows you your certificate.
It tells you again so that's four times.
You're being told download the certificate, download the
certificate.
New employee not very technical , friendly person goes through,
does all his training and did only well.
He downloaded two of the certificates.
Speaker 3: Two of four Halfway there.
Speaker 2: Well, there's like six of them, so he downloaded
two of the certificates, two of four Halfway there.
Well, there's like six of them, so he did two of six that he had
to do, but it tells you four times that it's in there,
anyways.
So I'm telling him well, unfortunately, you're going to
have to go back and redo these, and these are not trainings that
you can just click next, next, next, next and get through one,
like a lot of training you can.
You know, you have to wait for the play bar to get all the way
to the other end of the screen before you can hit next, or the
next screen doesn't even apply up here until you get to that
point.
So I tell him well, unfortunately, you're going to
have to do this all again.
So the employee is upset with me.
So the manager comes to me and the manager says well, you only
allow eight hours for training, how are we supposed to pay him
for this?
And I this is why I said this is a quote, not my problem I
said we've already paid him for my training budget to do this,
this training, so it's not coming from the training budget.
You can talk to your VP about using overhead, using something
else, but it's not coming from the training budget.
And he did not like that.
So what say ye in the L&D world of where we have to bill for
training, allocate our hours and things like that.
It's not coming out of my budget like that.
Where I'm not, it's not coming out of my budget.
Speaker 3: I would say that this person has failed on their
first day and they are to immediately be sent home.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: And the thing is they are a.
They're not going to work with computers.
They're not going to.
They're going to work with computers once a year.
They're annual training, which is good Looks like next year is
going to be really fun for us.
And then open enrollment.
They'll have to do annual training, but, yeah, they're not
going to be.
Well, they have to do their time cards online, but I think
we've got that covered pretty well.
But, yeah, you've got two of them done.
I don't know, it's just you have to do it now, like I said, the
one page where it says on the front page of the external page,
where it says that the, where it says you must download and
they don't record taking it, or whatever it says it does not
maintain records of course, completions.
That's buried in just a ton of verbiage.
So you know, you know, unless you know, it's there Anyways.
So that was my this morning type thing.
So let's get to the meat and potatoes.
You found this great article, just like we start recording at
830.
I think you sent it to me after 8 pm, yeah, to look at and I
was like you know, I've got a whole page of stuff to cover.
I'm like Nope, this, this is it .
This is going to be the the show today.
Speaker 3: I just want to say that this is, this is real time
power of HR.
This is I'm gonna let my secret go my weekly prompt, or my pre
podcast prompt of give me a rundown of things that are
relevant in HR in the news this week, and then it just tells me
Okay, using AI, exactly.
Oh, my gosh.
Oh, by the way, my AI.
I have personified it.
It is my assistant.
His name is so pierre did.
Speaker 2: Helps me with my research now, okay, I, I use I
have gemini, which is all going to be replaced by I can't say it
because the google assistant I'm looking to watch my monitor
here behind me to save it listens in.
But I made it a british female voice and my wife hates that.
I was like it's.
I've made it a British female voice and my wife hates that.
I was like I made it personal and things like that.
Speaker 3: But with that, Kevin does the same thing.
It's a British woman.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
I think it's the best sounding voice overall Anglophile, I
guess, but anyways.
Yeah, but right now Jim and I still have the same voice.
But I have gotten Jim and I to remember certain things, to say,
okay, I'm getting ready to go to Costa Rica.
I've programmed it to say teach me 10 phrases in Spanish a day,
but when I ask you to do that, make sure it is pertinent to
Costa Rica, because they give me Barcelona, or you would say
Barthelona, as they would say.
Different things mean you know different contexts of Spanish
all over the world and anyways.
So I've been trying to do that, as I've embarrassed myself too
many times trying to remember my junior high Spanish and failing
I've probably told the story on the podcast before.
We were in Puerto Rico visiting my sister as a house there and
we were in a parking garage trying to get out.
I'm actually doing really well speaking Spanish.
Mid-sentence I switched straight over to German and my
kids are in the backseat laughing.
I used to speak German very fluently, got a German
scholarship and things like that .
And I didn't realize it until we left and my daughter and son
were just like in tears.
My wife doesn't have a clue what I'm saying in any language,
even English, but they said you weren't speaking Spanish, dad'm
like what?
And?
And I was like what I didn't say anyway.
So yeah, but I love the way you can personalize it and give it
commands and give it like I ask it for things about podcasts and
I I've set it up to find information for about jaded hr,
if it's ever mentioned.
It hasn't been mentioned, but once yet.
But but see if we get any mentions and things like that.
So anyhow, back to the story.
This stupid story, All right Well okay, it's both got me
thinking get me fired up.
As I said, it did get me fired up when you sent it to me, but
there's some points to it.
In HR, when you give a review, some managers like to give you
some good news, then the bad news and then the good news
again, and I call it the shit sandwich, because nobody hears.
The employee only hears the good stuff at the ends and
doesn't hear what they need to hear in the middle.
Well, this will be an open face shit sandwich.
I'm going to start by saying some good things about this
article, but then the rest of it shit.
Speaker 3: I am Well as we talk about this.
I was very heated about this at first.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: And then, as I was like piecing things together, I
was like that meme with the woman in the math.
I was like, oh, I see what this is, so we'll get to that in a
second.
Okay, oh, okay I'll let you.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, give us your theory.
Speaker 3: What you're thinking is, I had a theory, a similar
theory no, because I feel like once we go through this, I feel
like our audience will be catching on pretty soon too.
So yeah, so there's an article in the the New York Post and it
was by a woman named Jennifer Say S-E-Y.
So she's a former Levi's brand manager or brand president, and
she started a startup company and she decided to write this
like op-ed.
So the company is called XX x x y athletics and it is the
company is to protect women's sports, so you know I'm gonna
stop you there's.
Speaker 2: That's where I was going to give it two giant
thumbs up.
Okay, because you know I'm not going to try.
I'm going to try my hardest and I get a bit political.
But where I really feel strongly about is men competing
as women in women's sports.
We saw in the Olympics the boxing debacle, the Canadian
lady who would not box, the Russian man, and things like
that.
I, you know if someone wants to be trans or it doesn't affect
me in any way, shape or form.
But when I see, especially in a sport like boxing or some of
these other sports, where these men are, it's just abuse of of
women at that point so I'm against.
You can be trans, you can be.
If you're going to compete, you have to compete at the right
level.
I mean, go, I'll try and go.
Go back to the seventies when Billie Jean King used to play
Arthur Ashe, the two best tennis players at the time in the
world.
Billie Jean King couldn't keep up with Arthur Ashe.
In golf there's been the best female golfers playing some of
the best men and it doesn't end up well In sports.
You see what's made all the headlines a couple of years ago
and I can't remember the girl's name or the man's name, the
female swimmer I think she's from Georgia and the man swimmer
who competed for multiple years as a man I can't remember
either names, but he was like ranked like 200 in men as a man.
Then he became a woman and was the top ranked woman, etc.
So it's yeah, I don't believe.
Even if it's not physical competition like contact
competition, I don't believe that.
That's my own opinion.
I'll just sort of live and die on that.
But I do applaud that.
That's what her company basis is for, because I would not want
my daughter I don't know playing racquetball.
Speaker 3: The cards are stacked against you physiologically,
and yeah, I wasn't even going like whoa, no, no, like I was
just saying that this, so, as we're going to dig into this,
it's not even whether or not you're totally you know, we are
not a political podcast, I'm just like you're totally
entitled to your opinion.
But I'm saying I think what I was going to say was I think
this is a strategic move and this is nothing but rage bait to
promote her company, which, bing, bing, bing, bing or not,
yes, and that's what I was going to say.
I don't think this has anything to do with.
Like her, she just wants to say something provocative so that
we all kind of and she knows, I mean honestly like I think
there's, she's clearly very as we go through it, she clearly
has political beliefs and she is using those political beliefs
as we go through her thoughts on hr and dei, and I think that's
what this is.
This is just a rage-baity article that is going to be like
I'm the next company that's going to eliminate HR and it's
like no, you're not, you're going to have fucking problems
is what you're going to fucking have because you don't have HR.
Speaker 2: You've said absolutely everything.
I've seen as I read the article .
That was the good piece of the shit.
You've said absolutely everything.
I've seen as I read the article .
That was the good piece of the shit sandwich.
The rest of it is not going.
I'm not going to agree with this person on a lot, but I do
think it is an op-ed.
Anybody can write an op-ed.
It's well-written.
I can't say anything bad about that.
But I, so bad, just want to go line by line reading this
article and stating what it is, because, honestly, I don't know
any other way to do it, because I can't just pick a line here
and a line there.
It's like 80% of this article is provocative to the point that
we've got to say something about it.
Speaker 3: She argues that HR today is more about ideological
policing than supporting people or profits, and this is a quote
from her.
So HR once protected companies from lawsuits.
Now it's a woke mob enforcing DEI ideology and yeah, which I
love that garbage.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, I'm like just lockstep with everything
you've said on this, but one thing that stood out in terms of
making this be a self-promotion article versus a true op-ed
article let's say something inflammatory.
They'll get picked up a lot of places and if you're going to
get picked up somewhere, the New York Post is not a bad place to
do it.
But she talks about her Instagram post that said the
exact same thing when she announced I want to be the first
company without HR, and the audience went wild and the line
went viral in an Instagram post with over 5 million views.
That tells me everything.
That paragraph tells me.
Yeah, this is self-promotion with some clickbait in it to get
the HR people reading it, and things like that.
So, yeah, I think.
Speaker 3: I think my favorite quote is when she said I'm gonna
misquote it but she basically said I'm running a business and
I don't need the women of the view walking around the office
policing what people can and cannot say.
And I was like, well, that's just fucking misogynistic, first
of all.
Second of all, okay, so we got a glimpse of Warren's point of
view.
Now we're getting a glimpse of Christina's point of view,
Because I'm like, honestly, I'm a little bit of like a staunch
feminist.
So when I hear people turning HR into like it's like the
women's club and it's the women's like and it's the mean
girls of corporate and I think she actually said like the mean
girls or the whatever sending out their corporate memos, I'm
like fuck you.
I'm so sorry, Like get, I didn't pray, you just me Coming
from a feminist point of view.
Speaker 2: Think of it from a dude point of view.
I don't know what it is, because she does harp on women.
She does, and I know when I I've said it on the podcast
probably before.
You know all the HR, you know kindergarten teachers wearing
their fuzzy sweaters and you know singing kumbaya and holding
hands and things like that.
I don't think that gets terribly misogynistic.
It probably is, but not as bad as this lady gets.
Because here we go, hr departments today are packed
with Tracy Flicks.
The way-too-eager high schooler played by Reese Witherspoon in
the movie Election Flick is the archetypal head girl, a term
derived from the British school system that is tight hierarchy
of internal discipline and ambitious and officious with
little actual skill or intellect .
Hand razors like these are not selected to lead for their
intelligence or ability, but conscientious and willingness to
follow and uphold the rules.
That's fine when HR had no power, and okay, that's fine
when HR had no power, and okay this whole thing.
And she was with Levi's and she was with these other companies
you mentioned.
It sounds like she's never been involved with a real
professional HR team or real HR professionals.
I'll say it any number of times HR.
The reason we are the laughingstock of professions is
oh, you were a good fill in the blank, you'll be great in HR.
And we get the wrong people who want to have a pizza party, who
want to put up a really pretty bulletin board and have an
employee of the month type thing all the fun, cool kumbaya type
stuff, but it doesn't cut it when the shit hits the fan, it
really doesn't.
So, yeah, I think she's been exposed to the wrong HR.
Let's see here what I had and you mentioned about the wanting
to police the words you say In 30, almost 30 years of working
in HR, yes, I have told people they can't say words, but
they're usually some really big, important words that we're not
going to be.
I'm not going to say on the podcast, say on the podcast, and
those are the type of words I've had to have the wonderful
conversations.
We don't say these at work or this is why you're being fired
because you have said these at work, type things.
I've never told somebody they can't say a certain word now,
but she goes on.
I want to scroll down to the oh anyways.
And now in the 2020s, hr asserts its newly found clout with
tyrannical zeal Tyrannical zeal, Tyrannical zeal yeah but let me
scroll to the end here, where she said something oh okay, my
company is a walking talking HR violation.
She says we misgender all day long.
In fact, speaking the truth, as I call it, is required to work
here.
We're not in school anymore.
We don't need a persnickety mismanners adequate enforcer
telling us to be nice.
Speaker 3: How dare we treat someone the way they want to be
treated?
Speaker 2: So, yeah, by saying and promoting that what're doing
, what she's doing, she's going to find and knock on wood, I
have not found this employee yet .
But there are those employees out there.
They're just looking to get hired so they can sue your ass.
And so they're going to hire someone that they don't know is
trans or I don't even know all the correct terminology not cis,
male or whatever the right thing is to say.
I'm too old to follow all that stuff.
But anyways, and that person is going to sue them and they're
going to refer to this article where she says oh yeah, in June
of 2025, she says we intentionally do it and it is
required at our job.
And this is why you need an HR person, asshole, I tell you,
because you are going to get yourself sued.
And, yes, that's part of what HR does is we do help enforce,
trying to keep your ass out of a sling as much as we can.
But anyways, I'll continue to go on, go it alone without HR.
So I'll assume the so-called risk so I can lead in my own
voice and all the things she says throughout here that HR
does.
Hr is not the one making those decisions.
It's either A, a law, b coming from the C-level suite, that
this is what we're going to do here.
And even if HR said, hey, demi, that's not the best idea, nope,
ceo says it's doing that, okay, we're doing that type of thing.
She's never had good HR.
Oh, there were some other good things, oh.
So she interviewed in 2023 for CEO at an $8 billion retailer
and she went through all this interview things and then her
interview.
My last interview was with the HR representative on the board.
Her first question was will you apologize for what you've done
and what I've done?
I was an advocate for opening schools during COVID.
Blah, blah, blah.
That didn't matter to the HR lady.
I violated her tightly enforced script.
I didn't apologize and I didn't get the job.
And then, over the last two decades this is great HR has
gone from operational support to operation head.
Girl hall monitor.
Oh oh my gosh, they force feed trainings about acceptable
language Once again.
Never in my career have I done anything, done a training on an
enforceable language.
We're not going to have a training that says, okay, these
are the words you don't use.
Speaker 3: George Carlton's skit .
You have to say the same thing.
Speaker 2: These are the seven magic words.
Well, there's more than seven nowadays words.
Well, there's more than seven nowadays.
But anyways, you don't say these things.
Speaker 3: They make merit out to be racist.
That's just common sense in society.
Speaker 2: They make merit out to be racist.
I mean, they set out a criteria based on risk avoidance rather
than excellence.
Now, risk avoidance can go hand in hand with excellence If you
have a well-treated, well-maintained workforce.
That doesn't.
She is going to be on like John Hyman's worst list of employers
at some point.
She's going to do something so ridiculously stupid that she's
going to get the award for this, but anyways, yeah, oh, and she
addresses us, calling her misogynistic.
Am I being sexist and calling them head girls?
In 2023, 76% of all HR managers in the US were female.
The shoe fits and, yes, men can be head girl type too.
These head girls make everyone add pronouns that are email
signatures.
It's just these time suckers should focus away from the
business.
Speaker 3: You know what she is.
She's a corporate pick me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Like she's literally just like the executive version
of a pick me.
She just she's not like the other girls, she's a she's.
She runs her business like a big woman.
Like OK, I get it.
Like she's not like us, she's like the man Get out of here, go
away.
I'm tired of you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly my critics of my viral comment push
back me.
You need HR to avoid unnecessary risk.
That's the fear HR leverages to maintain its unearned influence
.
It just everything she says and does is just really
stomach-churning in this.
Karma's going to come back around to her, but anyways she
goes in and talks about how she's going to do it her own way
.
She's just asking for trouble, asking for it, and this whole
thing is a self-promotional piece wrapped in an op-ed.
So, yeah, I just.
And her business is only a little bit over a year old, so
she probably isn't at the point yet where she really needs.
I mean, I can't imagine how many employees she has.
You know, under 100.
You could probably get away without a true hr person.
Speaker 3: You might want someone to bounce stuff off of,
but yeah, they she has a lawyer who knows a little employment
law and can at least tell her to shut the fuck up yeah, hey you
are wrong don't say stupid shit at work and don't publish pieces
like this yeah, just the the vitriol for hr.
Speaker 2: and like I do read the anti-HR subreddits
occasionally, I do read those things and it's the same.
You know not coming from someone of her level and
everything, but it's the same stuff every single time.
Hr made me do this or I lost my job because HR Nobody in the
history of the world is.
I won't say this.
It doesn't happen very frequently that someone loses
their job because of HR, you do it to yourself.
If HR and what it is is, they got shitty managers that say,
well, hr says I have to fire you because you know that's where
all this bad HR comes from.
Speaker 3: Real talk.
We had to like tell managers we would do performance reviews
and we would have calibration, and then some people's scores
would change from like a, from a three to a two or something,
and it was a three point scale.
It's fine.
But the manager would be like well, I really wanted to give
you a three, but and it was like come on, like okay, first of
all, why can't you just be a leader, like yeah, have a
decision and stick with it?
And also like we can tell when you're over inflating ratings
for people, like not everyone on your team is an, a player, like
sorry, it's just very seldom that that happens.
So it's just like, why are you pulling it on HR?
But that's like another example of oh, my HR made me do it.
No, hr, no, grow some huevos, just do your job.
I'm on fire tonight.
I'm so sorry this woman has me so riled up.
Speaker 2: No, I agree.
Like I said, I read this.
You said it just before 8, right around eight o'clock.
I read it.
I was like just whoa whoa.
Like I said, I could go line for line down this whole article
and just say that some of the stupid things, oh, front of
house employees, builders, makers and service providers
must spend a significant amount of time thinking about the words
they use rather than their actual jobs.
Speaker 3: Really, when does that really happen?
I don't know.
Do you read emails?
Speaker 2: No one's thinking about the words they're putting
in there Exactly.
Well, are your employees just so uncouth that they can't have
any common dignity and respect for other human beings?
There's a lot of people I don't like in this world.
I'm not going to sit there at work and do anything that you
know.
Even I can't even think of somebody the worst boss I've
ever had let's say they were my subordinate oh gosh, this is
just this, this fill-in-the-blank protected
class or whatever is such a whatever People don't do.
I won't say people don't do that, because John Hyman has a
list and it's pretty long every year, but most, the vast, vast
majority of people don't have, don't do this type of stuff.
They understand.
Hey, let's just be good human beings and treat each other
nicely.
And if you treat each other nicely, they're going to like
where they work and they're going to do better for you and
they're going to feel more engaged.
And I would go as far to say that maybe some of her employees
have additional stress because they maybe don't agree with her
political beliefs and her and I was asking you what the question
before we started recording.
What's the opposite of woke?
I don't know what the opposite of this person is no brain
activity.
But you're going to have someone in there that their son
or daughter might be, might be transitioning or not in her
world of, you know, being misgendered or something like
that.
That's, that's a whole nother thing and saying, bragging, that
they misgender people.
I mean I feel bad just calling someone by the wrong name and I
am awful with names you know it's funny, like really quick,
like before we go too too long, so thanks.
Speaker 3: Speaking of policing words, oh, a friend of mine, her
, her husband, is working for an australian-based company and he
was talking about, like their work culture is so beyond insane
that, like they, they drop the c word every five seconds at
work and that is the british thing.
Speaker 2: It's a australian thing.
Speaker 3: They oh yeah, and it's just like so funny to hear
him talk and it's just so funny, like just to be like, oh, just,
he don't worry about him, he's such a c word and then like what
, like so it was just funny for my friend's husband.
He's like an executive level individual, like he's VP level,
and he was just like.
I feel like I am the most polished and prude person in
that room because, and he is not a polished or prude person.
Speaker 2: Oh, it is so funny.
Well, I thought you were going to go down another route because
Ashley, also from HR Besties and one of their older like
maybe first year podcast episodes Ashley was talking
about she worked for a multinational company and they
wanted them to use more of the British pronunciation of things
like process and things Americans to use those terms.
I'm like and she's like, why?
Why are you doing that?
If I were to be told to use the word or pronounce, I should say
process or whatever.
You know all the.
You know the little fun, intricate differences between
our.
Speaker 3: Oh, I could take the lift.
Speaker 2: You know the lift.
Yeah, oh, hold the lift, you know, or whatever, I don't know,
it's just those things.
I'm not really.
If they say lift, I say elevator.
We know what each other are saying, you know, and and things
like that.
I don't see the need to ask your employees to, to adapt to,
even if it's the same language, the nuances and quirks of that's
just a stupid American saying the American word.
So, anyways, I just think that was funny.
I sort of thought that's where the direction you're going to go
with these international companies.
So, yeah, well, I think we've had enough fun for today at the
expense of our friend at XXXY Athletics.
Yeah, good luck with that.
Speaker 3: Good luck in your first lawsuit.
Yeah, have the day you deserve.
Speaker 2: Have the day you deserve and remember if you are
going to sue her.
You can find this article on Google her name or search New
York Post.
You can find it right there.
Speaker 3: Because the internet is forever.
Speaker 2: And we're going to be talking about something very
close to that very soon.
Speaker 3: Speaking of yes, yes.
Some foreshadowing.
Speaker 2: This episode we're talking about is going to take
some real research and dive and it's going to be.
I've got production ideas of how we're going to do it already
.
That's why we're not running with it already.
That might be our July episode.
That isn't an office episode.
So, wow, this was fun.
This really was a lot of fun.
We've almost gone an hour and I didn't didn't think we'd get
anywhere near that long.
Speaker 3: I had some rage, we released some rage.
It was good, good time.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Let's see here.
I want to thank our Patreon supporters.
If we have any more after this Hallie, the original Jaded HR
rock star, bill and Mike.
Thank you for supporting us.
You can support us too.
I haven't looked for reviews in since the last time I talked
about it, oh, oh, but you got it something on.
You got some feedback on your Instagram from listener feedback
.
Speaker 3: I got listener feedback, Okay so we got
something wrong people.
We got something wrong.
And let me just say when I'm wrong, thing wrong.
And let me just say when I'm wrong, I will say I'm wrong.
So apparently in our february episode or march, when we were
talking about an individual at work, their team was doing a
myers briggs that was like themed for star wars.
Oh, it was in may, that's what it was.
Yeah, um made the fourth.
It's my most treasured holiday.
We were like kind of ragging on this woman, being like, oh you
know, this is why we can't have nice things, karen.
So it turns out that she wasn't upset that she got the Darth
Vader rating.
It was that people took the test for her and did the answers
as if they were for her.
So in this case it does change the perspective a little bit
that maybe her team was bullying her a little bit, so she did
not take the test.
It was just her team that was just effing with her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but there's something like that.
If someone took the test, I, you know, we, we took the test,
we misrepresented it, we were wrong, whatever you want to say.
But if someone took the test that made me out to be Darth
Vader or Jar Jar Binks or anything like that, I'd roll
with it.
I'd have some fun Jar Jar.
Speaker 3: Screw that If people made me Jar Jar Binks, I would
be quitting my job.
I am no group Jar Jar Binks.
Speaker 2: But yeah, the only person hated more than Darth
Vader.
People love Darth Vader.
Actually.
That's a great thing about Star Wars.
You love the bad guys too Darth Maul, darth Vader, the Emperor
you love the bad guys as much as you like the good guys Even
more sometimes.
Speaker 3: Even more.
You know what the villains are often more times more complex
and more interesting.
Speaker 2: Kylo Ren.
See, Exactly so.
Anyways, we did get some feedback.
If you have any feedback for us , if we get something wrong, let
us know.
We'll eat our crow with that.
Anyways, thank you for the feedback and let's see here.
The only other thing I need to do is thank the voice artist,
Andrew Culpa, who does the announcement at the beginning,
the disclaimer and then the underscore.
Orchestra for use of the theme song devil with the devil, so
with all that fun stuff.
Said as always, I'm Warren, I'm Cece and we're here helping you
survive HR one.
What the fuck moment at a time.
Speaker 1: Yay, thank you.