Encore Episode: Putting the S&M in Social Media

• They did what social media edition #hirednothired
• Virtual meetings
• Hawaii left the United States???
• HR Burnout
• Applicant did what??
• Reaching candidates voicemail
• Hiring Batman
• Blaming HR
• Pets at work 
• Outing an employee with COVID-19
•  Idiots will ultimately self-identify
• Speaking Elvish until the end

- This weeks best HR practice...

Transcript

Warren 0:02

Hello, all you jaded HR fans. Just one more week of an encore episode, and we hope to be back with you live next week with a new episode. So thank you for your patience. Enjoy this Encore episode from season one.

Patrick 0:40

I'm Patrick and Phillips. I'm worried. And I forget what we say here.

Warren 0:47

We're just two co-workers. People used to work together, sharing our trials and tribulations in the HR world and bringing our misery to you so you can get a laugh. And uh we want to hear your stories too. So send us your stories, funny uh situations, dumb questions, all of the above to us so we can uh share them with the world too, so we can commiserate together. So we can survive. Survive. This is all about survival. Absolutely. So I I've uh I've taken a play out of your book a little bit, Patrick, and I came up with some uh they did what's I like it.

Patrick 1:21

Unless you know what? Let's jump right in with that. Those are fun.

Warren 1:25

Yeah. So uh mine are social media related, and we know social media is probably even eclipsing holiday parties for making employees do absolutely stupid things uh and losing their jobs over. So first one I found online was uh this person, I think it was on Twitter, put out Cisco just offered me a job. Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work. And a Cisco employee replied, Who's the hiring manager? I'm sure they'd love to know that you'd hate the work. We here at Cisco are well versed in the web. Hashtag hired, not hired. So Yeah. Why would you even put that on the on the internet uh at all? Especially something like Twitter. I I'm not as familiar with Twitter as I am with other uh but I don't believe you can have a private Twitter account. I think once you put it out there, it's out there.

Patrick 2:21

Yeah, probably. And you would think if you're working for a a highly technological company like that, you'd be a little more uh vigilant on what you post, but and maybe removing things that, oh man, I was a pretty dopey person that day.

Warren 2:36

Maybe I should remove that. I mean, I keep most of my social media private, uh just uh friends, but you've got to expect today employers are checking your social media accounts. They're looking at, you know, want to see how stupid you are. Basically, that's the main reason to check someone's social media accounts and what what sort of damage they can potentially bring to the employer. Yeah.

Patrick 2:59

I mean the good news is a lot of these people tend to s self-regulate just like this guy. So that's the only positive thing about social media is employees tend to use it just to go ahead and manage themselves right on out.

Warren 3:12

Absolutely. No, I've never uh up actually up until the end of our time working together, I wasn't friends on social media with any anybody I'd worked with. Uh and actually I was trying to think when I did friend people on social media, and it was uh uh that year the some of us did the tough mutter race. Uh and that's that's what uh got me to actually follow friends on social media so I could uh you know keep up with the race information and all the photos and all that other fun stuff. But up until that point, that I had never followed any co-workers or employees on uh social media.

Patrick 3:51

And well, my joke's always been if when when someone in the HR department was leaving, it's like, hey, sucks to see you go, but at least we can be Facebook friends now.

Warren 4:00

Absolutely, yeah. So yeah, that uh you know that's that was a first of story. And I found so many of these uh these social media they did what's uh you know, it's it's gonna be it's gonna give us a lot of uh ammunition for future episodes.

Patrick 4:16

Yeah, I don't think it ever stops either. People are going to continue to be idiots, especially right now. Everyone has a lot of free time and you're working from home, and some of these working from home stories during the pandemic are gonna be fantastic, I think.

Warren 4:29

You know, we've all seen the videos of the the kids uh interrupting the meetings or the husband walking by in the their underwear uh during the wife's meeting, or who knows what.

Patrick 4:40

Well, I like with with Zoom being so popular now and and everyone having group meetings. I know my department's been doing it, but you have the lady that took their phone with them to the bathroom and showed you know all of their uh their coworkers. Oh, I don't know if you've you haven't seen that one yet. No, I haven't. Oh yeah, this lady takes a phone with her somehow into the bathroom and sets it up so that she you can watch her, you know, take a squat. And the the best part is it's a department of mostly women with one guy, which I think you and I can both relate to, and the guy just goes, I didn't see anything. Oh perfect response from him.

Warren 5:16

I I did see something along those lines of uh somebody took the the they were in a meeting, they took their computer into the bathroom with them, yeah, and did not have their phone, their their computer phone, whatever on mute, and uh dropped a deuce very loudly for everybody to enjoy. Oh yeah.

Patrick 5:35

Yeah, that uh there's gonna be there's gonna be lots of those going on. It's it's only a matter of time before more and more start coming out that we can all enjoy and you and I can mock y mock and use some good resources.

Warren 5:49

Absolutely. Well, the the second uh social media edition of They Did What I Have is uh uh this is a it's sort of a sad story, but it it ends up HR related. So the day after a 12-year-old Harlem girl lost her life on a school beach trip, uh this person posted to Facebook after today. I think a beach trip sounds wonderful idea for my fifth graders. I hate their guts in all capital letters. They are all the devil spawn. And uh that person lost their job.

Patrick 6:20

Yeah, yeah. I feel like you had a a personal social media that had something to do with there was a couple drownings in the local area.

Warren 6:28

Yeah, I I I do want to save that for that's a long story, but it's it's really good and the the employee just didn't get it, so oh gosh. I yeah, I'll have to prepare that one for another day.

Patrick 6:41

Yeah, that's one of my one of my favorites from from yours that I'll always remember.

Warren 6:46

So you do you have some uh they did what's as well?

Patrick 6:49

Yeah, I might save some of my they did what's. I do have a funny dumb HR moment. Oh so this is uh it's not really like an HR ba gone bad, but it's just a stupid HR rep. So this comes from Reddit, Reddit user hysterical realist. And she says, one of my company's own HR reps had to be redirected into a different job, and then finally requested to resign after the following incident. A co-worker of mine is originally from Hawaii, and her son still lives there. After the ACA was passed in Congress, she went to HR to put her son under her insurance. He was still under 26 at the time, so he was newly qualified under the law. This particular HR rep told my co-worker that she actually couldn't put her son on insurance since he didn't live in the United States. Geography fail. So as as much as we like to be I I won't say high and mighty, but there's definitely the uh the few HR people who don't necessarily share the jaded view and maybe could be better off on the other side of the coin, I think.

Warren 7:55

Yeah, yeah, that's that's rough. Hawaii it's it's been a little while since they've been admitted to the United States, unfortunately. I don't think there's anybody in the workforce today who's pre well, maybe there is pre-Hawaii. That's crazy.

Patrick 8:10

And I'll jump if you want right away to one of the things besides just in the news and things I was looking at, I always try to come up with either some kind of business practice or some kind of overarching theme, or not even an overarching theme, just something that I can look at. And one of the things I was researching today was just HR burnout. Okay. There's a lot of stress going on right now in the HR world. Everyone's having to deal with layoffs and furloughs and terminating and job loss, unemployment is crazy, you know, all this stuff. So I was just curious about just burnout and particularly burnout in the HR department, because we're the ones that are having to do this and do all these transactions and talk to people and let them know that you know they don't have a job anymore and so on and so on. So I was just kind of looking at burnout, but I can't I came up with some maybe we can come up with some funny ways, like how do you deal with with burnout in the HR world. And I actually think one of the best ways is what exactly what we're doing here is I think being jaded is my best resolution to preventing burnout in the HR industry.

Warren 9:18

Absolutely. I could I could not agree more. Being jaded and also having a sounding board, somebody to vent to, having people that have been there, done that, and understand what you're coming from. It is it is a stressful time for some people. Uh and HR is bearing a lot of brunt. You know, unfortunately, we're seeing things of mass pre-recorded Zoom terminations to employees. I was on uh the internet the other day. Some very bad practices, but you know, also some very good ones. Uh you know, it's it's a tough time for a lot of people in in you know, restaurant industries. I mean, movie theaters are completely closed. Uh there's just so many places that are not opening uh and having no choice but to let people go. I mean, there's some uh new laws coming into effect. Uh you know, employers are getting incentives to retain their employees to a certain degree. Uh so you know, hopefully there'll be some things to to help, but also hopefully the the this will we'll get through this quicker than what people are expecting and get things back to normal, get people working.

Patrick 10:23

Oh yeah. Some of the I saw some there were some funny um I guess ways to prevent burnout or just uh so I and I think you you nailed it, having a sounding board and having a way to vent is probably one of the better ones, but here's a few other ones that Reddit wanted to uh to let us enjoy. Uh screaming in your car, complaining to coworkers, venting to a dog, uh let's see, uh cider and crying to animated movies. Okay. And I think basically what we're doing right now, being being jaded and having an HR network outside of your current HR job, so having other HR people to talk to about you know your current work, it's not always great to vent to your your co-workers and stuff because you know it's not super professional, and as much as we like to be unprofessional and be jaded, sometimes you just want to vent maybe about them.

Warren 11:15

And not all environments are suited for being jaded. You know, where we came from it definitely was, but Yeah, definitely. You you gotta you know, if you have an environment where that just would not be appreciated, then you lose that that vent, uh that release valve when when things get pressure. Uh you know, I after or immediately before we started working together, I worked for a very brief time somewhere. Uh I'll just say it was a hospital, it lost its medical license within a month of me arriving. And uh hospital without a medical license doesn't have a lot of need for employees. My my entire tenure there was basically laying people off, letting people go. And uh it it sucks being an HR in that situation. And I knew it was my turn finally because I was not invited to the weekly meeting to decide who does not make the cut. So uh that was sort of the the writing on the wall that okay, this it's my turn on the on the list this time. Uh I was ready to go when when they finally told me, I was like, yeah, you know, you didn't have to say after not inviting me to that meeting.

Patrick 12:21

And that was funny, I've read a couple different stories today, just looking for stuff to to put on our notes. And there was a story about a guy that was part of a really bad company, and he kind of knew that leading up to it, but he ended up getting a he was part of termination, so we kind of knew what the process was, and he ended up getting a just a random Outlook email invite to what ended up being his own termination, but because of the way the process was, he knew exactly what it was, but he hadn't been written up, he hadn't had any verbal warnings, he hadn't had anything. He just knew based on this particular meeting invite that they used for their termination process that he was going into his own termination meeting and no one would answer anyone's questions or anything like that. It's just there are definitely some bad uh some bad HR uh or maybe just company processes out there that that don't necessarily communicate.

Warren 13:08

Or people who are inexperienced in handling it, you know. Uh uh unfortunately I've had I think more than my share of uh doing terminations, uh uh whether for cause or for you know necessity type reasons, and it it's tough to do. And you know, you feel like crap when you go home after knowing, hey, I just had to lay off this single mom with two children. Uh it wasn't because anything that she did, it's because you know the company's failing or what have you, the economy's failing, something along those lines. And you you just even as jaded as I am, you gotta take that you know to heart a little bit and be like, geez, you know. Uh jaded does not mean heartless. No, it doesn't mean heartless either. We talked about it doesn't mean negative, it doesn't mean heartless either. No, yeah, it's just uh outlook on life. Yeah, uh you know what, like I said, I've been on both sides of it and I can feel for people, and uh it's it's a rough time out there, but we'll get through this. Oh yeah. So uh I got uh another story uh for you along the lines of a uh they did what? It's uh something an applicant did, or I don't know if did or didn't do. When I was recruiting, I was really heavy duty in recruiting. I would like load numbers into my cell phone so I could call them uh on my way home as and be recruiting. And one night I was driving home and loaded somebody's cell phone number, and I got this. Well, first let me tell you the resume was awesome. It was for a professional level, an experienced professional level position. Uh, but I call and the outgoing voicemail message, I wish I could quote it to you, but it was all gangster with all sorts of f-bombs going on and all sorts of other co-cussing and using some slang at the time for uh going to be smoking pot and uh making sure his hoes are bringing him the dollas and all this other stuff. So I hung up I I hung up and I uh when I got home I got I logged on to the uh system make sure I didn't you know get the wrong number, but I had the the correct number, so I dialed it again, got the same thing, and you know I actually just uh ended up leaving a message. Well, I was calling to discuss a job interview, but I see you're gainfully employed watching those hoes, so uh I think we will uh just leave each other from this point or whatever I said. Uh but I was like, really, if you're looking for a job, why would you have something that stupid as your outgoing voicemail message?

Patrick 15:37

So you never got a response?

Warren 15:39

I never got a response. I never left a money. When I when I did leave the message, I didn't leave my name or number where I'm calling from. I would uh usually block my number because I was calling from my personal cell phone. But uh yeah, really I can't see this person working here.

Patrick 15:55

Yeah, that's uh I wish I could recall some of my the more favorite voicemail messages, but I just can't off the top of my head I can't think of anything. During doing recruiting, especially doing recruiting for high turnover seasonal positions, you all you got all sorts of folks, so it was always really interesting. But no, nothing. No good stories right now to try to noodle that for later.

Warren 16:18

High turnover seasonal positions working at the water park. I I faced a different p uh problem. Uh people would apply for jobs, I'd call them and nobody answers their phone. I go to voicemail, you know, teenagers they they don't use the phone, they text and and things like that. And then you try you couldn't leave a voicemail as their voice message was full or wasn't set up. So I ended up uh creating a Google voice number to text people, but I was getting such little feedback from that uh from that. I'm like, it was a completely different thing. I just wasn't able to reach uh people as quickly and the other way I wanted, and oh, I don't listen. I they would sit there and tell me, oh, I don't listen to my voicemail or uh just text me. You know, you know, our uh uh applicant tracking system didn't have texting ability like many of them do. But uh like I said, I was able to set up a Google voice number for that purpose. But then again, uh if you if you leave too many, Google does block you uh from sending if you you know they have some sort of algorithm or whatever that stops you once you've left too many messages in a in a row. So that's not a good choice for recruiters.

Patrick 17:24

And I know a lot of times in some of those situations you would get a hold of somebody and they'll be like, Oh, which which job was this again that that you're calling for? Because I guess they've just sent out a million resumes or applications, and it's like, oh, I feel so special. I finally got a hold of you, and you just really don't care.

Warren 17:42

What else do you do you have anything else for us today? Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Patrick 17:46

So let's um let's do another they did what. Okay. This is a this is an onboarding they did what. So this is from Reddit user the outer world, and as an office manager, I hired an employee, and on the first day he was told to fill out his new hire paperwork. I put him in an office and come back in a little while later to ask for the papers. He hands them over and I scan them off to our HR department. About twenty minutes later I get a call from my HR rep who thought it was pretty funny that he filled out their name as Batman on all his paperwork. So I had the guy redo the paperwork, and he wrote his name as Batman. By the end of the day, I had to get this new hire on a call with HR to have them explain to him that if we didn't fill out his paperwork correctly, he'd be out of the job. I had him in my office about once a week for one ridiculous thing after another. But one day he comes in and announces that he's changed his name officially to Batman. So we get him W4 forms and all the new paperwork he's filled out. He's Batman now. But HR comes back and says they need proof of the name change. After weeks and weeks and weeks of this person saying he keeps forgetting, he keeps forgetting, he gets lost. Turns out he never actually did change his name. So they could never officially get his paperwork set in, so they had to, I believe, let him go. Gosh, Batman. All for wanting to just be Batman. Yeah, that was Sounds like he's more the Joker, huh? Oh gosh. Oh no.

Warren 19:12

Or Two Face doesn't know who he is. The penguin. The penguin. Riddler. I don't know DC that. Iceman. Yeah, I don't know DC that well. I don't either. I don't think he'd be Bane uh by that description. That's the only other one I can think of. Oh man. So well I I had uh, you know, I gave you an employee complaint I had last week. Yes. Uh I I can't top that, but it's gonna be it'd be really hard to top that.

Patrick 19:43

Yeah, that's but I'm looking forward to that day.

Warren 19:45

Oh, if I can top that one, it that might be just a drop the mic moment. It's really not that funny. It's just something we HR people have to do uh deal with. We had our open enrollment uh in February for effective March 1, and the employee comes in uh earlier this week and says, Hey, their their benefits are wrong, and this is wrong, and this is wrong, and I screwed it up. And I'm like, I didn't touch your benefits, I don't do anything. And he just wanted to continue to argue and argue, and I even show now I mentioned we don't have a HRS, but we do have a system for benefits enrollment, which does have a very nice feature of uh uh a log, an edit log. So I can see exactly who who did what by their login name uh and their IP address at what time and date that it was all done. It was all done, everything was done at the same time, but no, you had to do this, I didn't do this. I'm like, okay, we can fix it, but why do you have to say that I'm the one who did it? It's you know, we can we can work through this, just you know, chill out a little bit on the blame game. I was getting frustrated with him as he really wanted to make sure that he let me know that it was my fault. I'm like, no, not I don't touch your benefits. I at the end of open enrollment, I hit close enrollment and send, and that's what I do.

Patrick 21:07

I mean, so often it's not even these employees just want a battle. They just want to go to war with you for a little bit of time, just I guess to make their lives a little more interesting. There's there's nothing really that exciting going on, no one has any real issues, so we just gotta I I guess keep HR employed because we wouldn't be here without those people, but yeah, some people just like to keep life interesting because they don't really have enough going on. Well you had something here about pets at work, so I'm curious what uh that's all about.

Warren 21:37

I I did want to talk about pets at work because uh you know it's a there's good and there's bad to it. Uh you know, I'd never even thought about pets and work until I uh you know got uh out of college. I worked in restaurants, so obviously pets are not allowed uh in restaurants there. But I I started working for a company and one of our clients, they made Made sure that when uh we're doing third party recruiting that when we hired someone they were comfortable with dogs because the owner brought in his two golden retrievers to work every day, period. And he had let them have free roam of the building. Uh so they would just sort of walk around and uh love up on people and uh things like that. I mean that sounds delightful. It is. I I thought it was I really that's the first time I'd ever heard of it. I thought it was awesome. And you know, golden retrievers are such good dogs for you know to love up on people and things like that. Uh and I I really like that. Uh then I didn't really have any experiences with pets at work. Uh, and then I went to where we worked. And I think this was before your time because I occupied the office you ended up occupying at the time. But uh an employee who was on leave comes in and brings his dog that's in a little bag, and while he's working on his paperwork, he lets his dog out, which pisses everywhere. Not just once, not just twice, but it was several times on the floor and didn't even bother to even try and clean up. Like, why why would you bring you know, I love my dogs. I have I have two dogs, I know you're a dog lover as well. Uh I'm not gonna bring them to work. Even on their best behavior ever imaginable, I'm not bringing my dogs to work. I'm not bringing them to Home Depot, I'm not bringing them to all these places you see dogs, even when they're allowed at like the uh Pet Smart or Tractor Supply allows pets and things. I'm still not bringing my my dogs in there. I just don't see the need to do that, but definitely not into a professional environment like that. So, but then again, going back to the positive side, uh the owner of my current company, she has uh a lab that she brings to work, and uh you would almost never know it was there. It just curls up in the corner and uh rests most of the day, and uh great little uh lab and you know very nice. But you know, I I I would really like to I'd like to be in an environment where there's dogs. If you know, if I was to work at that company, the guy had his two golden retrievers walking around the uh the the place. Uh that would be really cool and something interesting. Now I I can only imagine that nowadays there'd be people that are hyper-allergic and couldn't uh deal with that. But dogs at work, you have to know yourself, know your dogs to whether you're going to do it. And then, you know, both the good examples I had were owners bringing their dogs in. I just can't see run-in-the-mill employees bringing their not I shouldn't say run-the-mill, the average employee bringing their uh their animals into work.

Patrick 24:33

It's just I know it happens. Um it's funny you brought that up, and I w doing a show prep for one of our episodes, I was looking at a it was either an Ask HR or one of the human resources threads on Reddit, and there's a whole thread about this company where almost everyone brings in a dog, but it got to the point where the HR department was like, How do we start enforcing some because it got to the point where there was like dog fights and some people bringing in dogs that weren't as well behaved, and you know, they didn't have problems with the older dogs, kind of like you said, that maybe you you wouldn't even know they were there, or they'd just they just crash under a desk the whole day, you know, the owner just has maybe has an older dog that just wants to come and hang out. Um but it sounded like this workplace just had upwards of a dozen dogs at a time in the place, and it was just uh and this isn't a doggy daycare, this is like an office. It's an office. So yeah, that's that's where I thought you maybe were going with it, because that there apparently are workplaces out there that are very dog friendly, almost overly dog friendly, to the point of how do you enforce some of these rules? Do you have a schedule where you can bring your dog in on Monday and this person can bring them all, you know, three dogs max or something like that.

Warren 25:41

Right. I you know, uh like I said, I I love my dogs, but one of them uh is just too stupid to bring anywhere. He sees another dog and it's instantly his best friend, and they're gonna play and play and play. Uh, and he he can't control himself when he sees another dog, and uh, but he's also a lover. He he wants to be you know at the center of attention and be petted by everybody. And then the other one is a beagle, and he's gonna find something to smell somewhere and get completely lost and get into who knows what. Uh, and he will not stop. So I I just you know, I'd love to be in an environment where I had my dogs, but but then again, you know, dogs are having it awesome right now during the city.

Patrick 26:24

Yeah, that's I was just gonna say, we're all I would say a lot of us are in an environment right now where we are working with our dogs.

Warren 26:30

Dogs and our cats. Yeah, my my dogs are loving that my wife is home every day to you know to pay attention to them, and she says they she always comes and said they've been up my ass all day long. So now I I just want to I I'm hoping to hear some other stories from uh other folks, what sort of experiences they have with people bringing dogs into work.

Patrick 26:51

Yeah, we'll be curious, and plus we need some good shit HR stories, which you know, that dogs count too. Dogs count.

Warren 26:58

Absolutely. So uh the last thing I really have on my agenda, and I know you have uh you might have a couple others on uh yours, is you know, we're s you know, don't want to have a whole COVID uh episode again, but it's hard not to talk about it right now. It's hard not to talk about it. It's dominating our life. It it really is. Well, uh my county just recorded its first case of uh COVID 19. And Facebook and social media, well, basically Facebook, I belong to a couple of groups, is just blowing up people losing their shit over who has it, who has it? I I demand to know who it is because what if I've had contact with them, da da da. And you know, it it just really went out of control.

Patrick 27:43

And now uh this isn't really an HR issue, this is just a this is a life. I'm what people are done with HR, though. Okay.

Warren 27:49

I do want to tie it into HR, but uh it's it's really crazy how people were reacting. Uh and then the person, and I I should preface this. I live in a very rural area, my entire county doesn't have as much population uh as you have uh within two miles of your home. So it it's uh you know, my town alone has a whopping four stoplights right now. We're we're up to four now. And yeah, uh uh so it it's a it's a little bit different, you know. And then my town alone, you know, your your subdivision probably has as many people as my entire town, but uh it's it's uh you know, just uh the way people went crazy after the news that we had our first uh COVID-19 report, and actually what ended up happening happening, I I debate whether it's a good idea or a bad idea. The person who it was uh uh did get online and say, no, it's me. So I I bring this all up because I did want to bring it back into HR. That was sort of a shaming or outing somebody and trying to out someone. Oh, I should also say these Facebook names were these Facebook uh posts were getting very detailed, naming people. I bet it was thus and so because they just went to New York or they went to DC or they went to Seattle or something like that. And it was putting people's names out there. But I'm wondering, you know, in the employment place, when your office has its uh has somebody, what you know, obviously we're not gonna say, oh, Warren Workman got COVID-19, so make sure you stay away from him uh or let us know. But you know, people are going to be just like that, I sort of see. They're gonna want to demand to know who it is and want them outed or uh shaming them or whatever the the situation is. Is people are really overreacting in that way, and I uh that's sort of the next thing that I I potentially see happening in relation to HR and COVID.

Patrick 29:43

Yeah, I think we were already getting a lot of that with uh people already discriminating it's people of certain like Asian races with this, or people pretending to cough and sneeze on each other and not taking it seriously. Like you were seeing a lot of that on um on Reddit the first couple weeks, and I imagine you're probably still seeing that, although hopefully not as much now. I think people are taking it a little bit more seriously, but still not serious enough.

Warren 30:07

I made a joke in our COVID uh about the sign about you know it it it affects I forget what that sign somebody said was, you know, don't joke about it because you know it's xenophobic and all this. And yeah, we are seeing, you know, uh people of uh Asian descent being you know harassed and bullied. But you know what? Halfway I say it's a good thing. It identifies these people who are complete douchebags, and okay, I now know you know who you are and you know and how you treat people, and that's gonna go a long way to how long you're gonna be around. Oh yeah. You know, you m uh you'll be on the list of oh, I'm waiting for you to do something more if it if what they did alone, that that bigoted uh outburst that made us take attention to them, if that's a not quite enough to let them go, we'll they'll be on the list of let's watch them and see well how we you know see what you do next.

Patrick 31:02

Idiots will always self-identify eventually. Yes. And speaking of uh fun employees, this might be one of my favorite they did what stories. Okay. Uh as soon as I saw it, I just got really excited. So this is from Reddit user Oops, I mommed again. Two employees were speaking Elvish on the manufacturing line and pretending not to understand English. This went on all the way to their termination. They formally requested all documents for their termination be translated into Elvish. Sent me handscripted letters, PTA requests, etc., in what I assume is Elvish. Nice. I just I don't know, I read that, and for me, I it's not even a stupid employee it's I love the commitment. You're just you're gonna pick a big button and you're gonna stick with it.

Warren 31:55

Wow. And I I'll have to plead ignorance as much as I like Sci-Fine fantasy. You know, I know of Klingon and I knew Darthraki is real language and uh a real made up language. I didn't know Elvin was a uh a real made up language.

Patrick 32:11

Yeah, I think Tolkien had had Elvish pretty much written out, and people have taken upon themselves to go full on ahead with it. Oh wow. Which I to me, yeah, that's I I applaud their efforts, and I especially applaud them for just going down swinging the ship or going down with the elephant, whatever it is, elves. Right.

Warren 32:32

Yeah, d depending on your j uh story, it could be absolutely anything. Anything.

Patrick 32:38

So, Warren, do you have anything for the people to do?

Warren 32:41

Well, you know, actually this is a really exciting episode for us, and maybe I'll I'll back this cut for us, but uh maybe we should back this up to the beginning. Hey, if you've if they've made it this far, they this is when they can They can celebrate with us because this is our first recording since we went live. Uh we're currently only on Spotify, but it takes a little while for those feeds to get out. So continue to look for us on your favorite podcast player. Uh and when you find us, subscribe, uh, like us, leave reviews and comments on the uh podcast players that allow it. We will respond to each and every one of them. Uh but also check us out on our website, uh jadedhr.com, and we want your stories, we want your questions, we want uh your experiences, the dumb questions you've been asked. Uh if you need expert advice, we've got that for you too. So shoot us an email at uh feedback at jadedhr.com. Uh but and we will definitely get back with you on those.

Patrick 33:42

Yeah, and I'll just reiterate it for a new podcast like us, it's so important to um subscribe and to leave reviews, and that that way it just allows us to continuously get a little more um eyes on our podcasts and more downloads and get more people out there, and then you know, word of mouth is gonna be huge too. So if you're in human resources and you listen to us throughout the day, maybe we can help you keep that jaded attitude and help that help that day go by a little bit easier is really our goal. And um hopefully we're hopefully we're doing that, bringing a little bit more jaded energy to your life.

Warren 34:15

Giving you that outlet you don't mean you may not otherwise have.

Patrick 34:18

Yeah, we want to we want to say the things that you're thinking right this very minute.

Warren 34:22

Keep uh and also if I didn't say earlier, check us out on all your social media channels. We have a Facebook group, uh, Instagram page, and Twitter. Uh go ahead and check this out and uh uh share with your friends. We're gonna be I'm gonna try and be more active in uh social media and uh get some things out there.

Patrick 34:41

Uh we always try to end our episode with a best practice for you to utilize. And Warren, do you have one of those for us today?

Warren 34:50

I do, and I I was motivated by uh your best practice uh incorporating gaming into your best practice. So I want you to develop bingo cards for your HR staff. And so you can get the boxes, you know, uh crying unnecessarily, uh ceaseeing managers or higher ups unnecessarily, uh if they threaten to sue, uh or use the words unfair, illegal, lawyer, you get to check off a box each time. So, and then uh the winner, uh the rest of the team has to buy that winner lunch, first person to get bingo.

Patrick 35:26

So this sounds like an actual best practice, Warren.

Warren 35:28

That's that's actually a brilliant idea. Well, I'm at HR Department of One right now, so I can't I can't do it. I'll buy myself lunch every day. But uh no, make those bingo cards, people.

Patrick 35:40

Fantastic. Well, I'd just like to say thank you to the underscore orchestra who we use as our intro and outro music, their song, The Devil with the Devil. And I am Patrick Concillus.

Warren 35:51

And I'm Warren Workman. Thank you for listening to Day to Day Char, where we're helping you survive even we do one like Moment Editorial.