Accenture’s ‘Low Performer’ Cuts — Smart HR or Corporate Hunger Games?

What happens when a company decides the bottom 5% of employees just… shouldn’t be there anymore?

Well, if you’re Accenture, you call it a strategy.
Everyone else might call it something closer to corporate survival of the fittest.

In this episode, we break down Accenture’s approach to upskilling employees while simultaneously cutting the lowest performers — because nothing motivates people quite like the looming threat of being next on the list.

We dig into:

•  The logic behind performance-based workforce cuts
•  Whether “upskill or you’re out” is actually effective… or just stressful 
•  How these strategies impact employee morale, retention, and culture
•  And whether this is smart HR strategy or just a more polished version of layoffs 

If your company has ever talked about “raising the bar,” this episode might help you understand what that really means.

Spoiler: it’s probably not a team-building exercise.

Transcript

Cold Open And Warnings

Announcer 0:01

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've ever heard, my manager is unfair to me, I need you to reset my HR portal password, or can I ride up my employee for crying too much? Welcome to our little safe zone. Welcome to JR.

Hosts Return And Banter

Warren 0:53

Welcome to JDFHR, 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.

Cee Cee 1:03

I'm Cece.

Warren 1:04

All right, we are back after a couple crazy weeks. This is take two, by the way. Yeah. And not only is it take two, we are going to record, edit, produce, and publish this podcast all in the next three hours. Yes. Oh shit. It'll be fun. We don't get we don't have any more take twos left in us today, but it's gonna be fun. It's great.

Cee Cee 1:28

It's gonna be fun. It's it'll be fine. Everything's gonna be fine.

Warren 1:32

Exactly. I saw last recording, we were talking about all the snow you got. We got our 10-inch is crazy. It's melting very quickly. Now we've had days in the 50s and 60s, but I like getting snow, but I'm done with it. We've had more snow than my daughter in Utah has had. And like, yeah, that's there's something absolutely wrong with it.

Cee Cee 1:52

Yeah.

Warren 1:53

They keep coming up with these names. We've been hearing the term bomb cyclone for a couple of years, but now they're calling snow nados.

Cee Cee 2:00

Hell of a snow NATO.

Weather And Snow Naming Riffs

Warren 2:01

Yeah. Gotta have a snow NATO. We had winds in the 50s, 60s, not anything above 73 miles an hour for a hurricane, but it was really no a snowy key. They were calling a snow a key, not a snow nado. Oh, that's a good thing. There we go. Yeah, that's what they were calling. See, I can't even tell a good story anymore, but it was really good. Professionally, we're in the midst of open enrollment and meeting numero uno, which we had at seven in the morning. And remember, I live an hour and a half from my work, so I woke up at 4:30 so I could be there. We had zero people come in for the first meeting that was at 7 a.m. We have a number of people work at client sites, and we wanted to have them be able to come in beforehand and make it convenient for them to do it. We're trying to make it as convenient. But I was like, nope, we're not doing any more 7 a.m. meetings, period, end of story.

Cee Cee 2:54

I don't miss that. I used to work at a 24-7 plant, and yeah, I got voluntold because it would be good for my development to meet people in the organization. So my manager, when I started there, was like, you should really do this with this safety council. And there's one person from HR that goes there, and it was all about making sure everyone's staying safe on the floor, 6 a.m., so that both ships could attend. I did it once a month. And after a while, I was like, You did this on purpose. And he was like, Yeah, I didn't want to go anymore.

Open Enrollment And 7 A.M. Woes

Warren 3:25

My wife, when she worked at Target many, many moons ago, Target stores used to be a 24-7 type of thing. They're not anymore far and away. But when they would have HR things, they would do, they would, her and her other HR person would divide up. Okay, I've got first shift, you've got third, and divide things up pretty equally. So sometimes she would have to be there like O Dark 30. But nowadays, I think part of it is you can't hire people. And Dawn, we went to Target not that long ago. And she was like, now she's been gone for 18 years now. But she's like, if you had more than three people in your line, you were calling backup cashiers, and everybody was a cashier. Now they don't care. They're as bad as Walmart with the relying on the self-checkout and nobody working in an actual register or anything like that.

Cee Cee 4:14

So I heard somewhere that they're actually going to be backing off the self-checkouts because they're such a negative experience for most of the customers. And also they're like shoplifting with it between everything is just not worth it. Like they might as well just hire more people for the registers. I thought that was interesting. I think that was Walmart actually that said that.

Warren 4:37

The closest Walmart to me has 30, 40 self-checkout lanes. There's never more than six open at a time. You still have a line. So why bother? It that frustrates me when they don't have all the self-checkout lanes open. I actually prefer a lot of times the self-checkout. Same. But there's two particular stores, they're both actually grocery stores. I inevitably have to have the guy come and check at least once or twice. It thinks that I moved, I bagged something without doing it. And heaven forbid if you take your bag.

Cee Cee 5:08

Is it Kroger? It's because it does it with me too.

Warren 5:12

You take a bag off because you only got little four little racks for bags to put it in your cart. Now the thing's going off and the guy's got to come back because it thinks they're stealing something. I'm like, she says, all right.

Cee Cee 5:21

Oh, and I don't know about yours, but now it has the footage. So they have to watch the security footage to make sure. And if for some reason it's Kroger, I don't know what they're doing.

Warren 5:30

The worst is their sister company, Harris Teeter. I got frustrated. Everything I did, it would stop me, and I have to have a little kid come over. I felt bad for him as I did yell at the kid. I was buying six things and he had to come over three times because it would stop and say it wasn't registering on the scale. I felt bad. It's not the kid's fault, but I haven't been back to that Harris Teeter since, even though it's pretty convenient to uh on my way home from work with that.

Cee Cee 5:56

So I think I just bag too fast. And I'm pretty sure that all the self-checkout people think I'm just stealing shit and they respect it.

Retail Checkout Frustrations

Warren 6:06

Oh, yeah. The closest grocery store to me does not have a self-checkout, and I'd really prefer if they would have a self-checkout because I'd rather just get through without the conversation. Yeah. But one thing I do like I do like Sam's Club's scan and go, where you can scan it yourself. Yes. And what but I did learn I was trying to be efficient. I've got two things of chicken breasts, and I put them in the same little bag so the drippings don't get everywhere. I did get stopped because I put two of them in the same bag rather than them in their own individual bag. I got stopped there once. And the other time, it has to be in a cart. So my wife and I went in, we wanted three things in and out, scan and go. And I'm walking out and I'm carrying it, and she had to look at everything. It just now even if you're just getting one or two things, you should get a register for a cart if you're doing the scan and goes that's gonna stop you. But I have a much higher opinion of Sams Club now that they have scan and go than I did before that. And it's been had it for a year or two now.

Cee Cee 7:08

So we have a Kroger here who's like one of the locations is testing a scan and go with this special high-tech cart and everything. And uh it just look it looks complicated. It looks like they made it complicated. It's because you put it, you put, you don't get like the scanning done like I've seen it done. The cart itself is the scanner. Oh so like when you put something in the cart, the cart registers what it is. But the carts look a little like clunky and obnoxious, and you have to log in. And I'm like, it's too much. I'm just gonna do this self-checkout.

Warren 7:44

First world problems, I know. It really is.

Cee Cee 7:47

Interesting, I went down a YouTube rabbit hole on self-checkout and AI. I think it's what Target and Walmart are doing with shoplifters and how their asset protection teams they'll let people because you punch in with your membership codes and then also with facial recognition, they will allow people to steal little by little until it reaches a threshold and they can get them for a felony.

Warren 8:11

Oh, nice.

Cee Cee 8:13

And I'm like, don't steal, don't be that person. But at the same time, there's just a piece of me that's unsettling facial recognition for a sort of the amount of information these places are collecting on you is just insane. Yeah. And I think Kroger is also looking at facial recognition with a lot of their stuff to better serve the customer. There's just a bit of me that's like, I don't really, you don't need to scan my face when I'm buying deodorant to like log it somewhere. Like that.

Warren 8:42

Well, you like secret. We're gonna send you a three billion secret ads.

Cee Cee 8:45

Yes, everywhere. It's gonna be like someone at my front door is gonna show up with a sign at this point. It's weird.

Self‑Checkout, Scan‑And‑Go, And Surveillance

Warren 8:52

Exactly. Well, before we get too deep into our we actually got a topic for today, some show prep was done. So AI. Actually, I should have used some AI otherwise, could have done better. But I want to thank our supporters, Hallie, the original JD Day Trial Rock star, Bill and Mike, thank you for your support. And also In Ruculpa, the voice artists at the intro. And the songs are Devil the Devil by the underscore orchestra. So now let's move into some meat of a topic. I came up with the the topic, I started going in one complete ADD at its finest. I started going one direction. I had a quote from the guests on the most recent episode of Good Morning HR. He's a guy from Harvard, I forget his name. And I didn't cite my sources when I was copying and pasting my notes. So no sources will be sent. But, anyways, he had a line that I put down, and it may not be verbatim. You have to have someone who's going to be comfortable being told basically every two or three years, you're going to have to master a new system because the rate of technology change. And I started this not on that line, but he'd said some things earlier in the podcast, which I absolutely disagreed with. But when he got to this line, I actually went back and recorded it and listened again so I could get the line correct in there as close as I could while driving and scribbling. So, anyways, the whole point, the rabbit hole I ended up going down was a series of articles about Accenture, the consulting firm Accenture, and what they have done most recently. And this I none of the states to ended, it's all uh ends look like December 2025. So it's not that old, but not that new either. So their CEO, Julie Sweet, made a statement. She says, We're finding that there's an element of our staff, they're not interested in mastering AI. And so what that means, between August and November of last year, Accenture has reduced its workforce by approximately 11,000 employees, and they're specifically targeting people who would not adapt to AI-driven roles. And okay, I don't like people losing their jobs. No, and uh, you know, but uh you're at a point when you're with a leading consulting firm in the world, and if you're not keeping up on the technology, you shouldn't be expected to retain your job for terribly long. Uh but as I kept going down the rabbit hole, it kept getting better. Well, first I really seem to like this Julie Sweet person. Another line she had is that the company is exiting on a compressed timeline, people for whom reskilling is not considered a viable path. And I like that line too.

Cee Cee 11:42

Yeah, I yeah, I have thought. I don't know how I feel about that. I need to digest it a little bit. Okay.

Warren 11:49

Okay. I'll let you digest. I'll keep rambling on and you keep rambling. Okay, so we already said 11,000 people are going to lose their job, people who aren't keeping up with the times and keeping up with AI-driven roles and things like that.

Supporters Thanked And Topic Setup

Cee Cee 12:02

But that's just such a weird statement to make. We understand that we know how the sausage is made. So we understand as HR professionals, if we have employees that are not gonna keep up, not gonna upskill, not gonna learn, they could probably end up falling in that box one of the nine box, and then you want to X them out of the company. Totally get that, right? But to put a number out there and be like, we are getting rid of 11,000 roles. 11,000? Yeah, yeah, 11,000 roles, it turns into the hunger games of okay, you got to be better than the person next to you, or you could be one of those 11,000 people to lose a job. So, from that aspect, I kind of hate that because it's just such a weird. Now, on the other hand, I had a CEO who recently who said that uh the new expectation of our roles was to be proficient in AI as it relates to our work. And at that point, if there are performance issues and people who just don't want to learn things, then you can quietly exit them.

The AI Skills Imperative

Warren 13:08

But they're gonna be moved here. There's no quiet exit tier.

Cee Cee 13:13

Yeah, this is just hey, fight for it. It's like a really twisted reality show.

Warren 13:17

Well, see, I have a different take on it. Okay. If I were there at Accenture, first uh I like learning new things, I like doing new things, and I'm gonna keep I'm I think, especially given my age group and my peers, I think I'm ahead of the curve on other people, and I would welcome this. Let's get rid of this dead weight. You know, little Johnny over here has been quite quitting for the last two years and hasn't kept up on his CPEs or whatever else he's doing. I think people like you and I, because we've discussed a few times how you are a very goal-driven and very achievement-driven person. We're not gonna be affected by this if we're at Accenture. I would really welcome this, but this is where I like another thing she said of two things. Accenture is reinvesting over 1 billion with a B dollars in upskilling our reinventors, those people who are willing to learn. And they're gonna also not only upskill their current staff, they're gonna hire specialized AI talent. Accenture has doubled its data and AI specialized workforce from 40,000 people in 2023 to over 77,000 people last year, 2025. So they're not only giving the slackers the boot, they are like, okay, Warren, you want to learn AI. Here you go, here's some money. Learn this. And they're upskilling the workforce. These people are not per se losing their job to AI. They're losing their jobs to their own lack of skill sets. And if they're continuing to hire based on AI, I think this is just win-win-win. And then the company has said they've already allocated $615 million for severance packages around this restructuring. And that was only quarter four of 2025. They're scheduled to have an additional $250 million projected additional funding for severances. So they're not just kicking you to the street. It sounds like they're going to give you a little farewell package with it. So I I don't see anything I don't like too much about the page.

Accenture’s Cuts And Rationale

Cee Cee 15:23

No, I think it's all positive. I think there's going to be new expectations, new tools. You can use the example of email, right? You can't work somewhere today and not know how to use Outlook. Where, you know, 30 30 years ago, that might have been different. So I guess I am so for it. I'm just curious about the culture that that creates. I don't even know what the culture of Accenture is like because I feel like it's just a whole bunch of high performers who work hard, play hard types, who are very competitive. So I guess it fits for them. It's just maybe not a culture that I would enjoy.

Warren 15:59

I see, I don't think you're going to get hired. I'm vaguely familiar with Accenture. I've never worked directly with them. They were part of which Big Four CPA firm, and that's how I became somewhat familiar with them. I think they spun off onto their own. They just have a stellar reputation. If I'm one of their clients, I'm going to say, oh, look at what they're doing. I like this. This is also a marketing employee I can see. They're upscaling, they're going to be on the cutting edge of technology, and they're going to be able to better help me than, say, Arnston Young or Booz Allen or one of the other giant consulting firms like that. I really think there's a lot of positive here. Now, I did go, I made this, well, I don't know if it's a mistake because it's good fodder for the show. I went on to YouTube and put some of this information in. I found some haters. And and they were saying people's jobs are being replaced by AI. Nowhere in here is somebody's job being replaced by AI. They're hiring, they went from 40,000 to 77,000 AI specialists. They're hiring people. It just you don't have the right skill. You're stuck in Windows 3.1, and we're way past that now. And keep up with your skills. I don't know. But I saw a few people complaining about that.

Cee Cee 17:17

I all I will say is that quote I like where it says, you're not going to be replaced by AI. You're going to be replaced by someone who is proficient in AI. Yeah. It goes back to a skill set. And I know there's like negative sides to AI. And I know there's all these like crazy ramifications, even environmental. Yes, we could go down that rabbit hole. But at the same time, it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle.

Warren 17:40

Nope.

Cee Cee 17:40

Now that it's out, use it wisely. Like maybe not waste five gallons of water to find out, I don't know, how to make a cake. Use it wisely. That's you just have to learn it because you will be replaced by someone who is proficient in it.

Culture, Pressure, And Fairness

Warren 17:57

Yeah. And I think if you use it as a tool, it can make your jobs easier. Actually, shop easier. I'm shopping new ATSs right now. And I'm actually looking at ones that use AI, not to screen out people. I want mine recruiter doing that herself, but to help her be better organized and better structured in her work and be able to automate some tasks. Uh like I said, I've already uh I haven't talked to these salespersons. You know, my my opinion on doing that. I'm doing my homework on my own. And now using AI, by the way, I'm asking Jim and I at work, hey, my company has this many people. I have one recruiter and we hire for this many people a year. Recommend the top 10 ATSs you would recommend to me. And then it would give me something I'm AI, using AI is very important to me. Budget's important to me. And it would narrow down the list. And it's it's done pretty well. And I'll have a pretty narrowed list of companies I'm ready to talk to after I've done my homework on them. But I'm using AI for it and giving it, you know, yeah, we're going to hire 75 people, we think, this year. I mean, that's a lot for us, maybe not for bigger companies, but for us, that's gonna be a really big year. And so I'm I'm all on board. But let's say other things that the naysayers were talking about was it's going to disproportionately affect older workers. And they said those workers in their 50s and above. Here I am, I'm in my 50s. I feel very confident that I would not be affected by this. Like I said, this would make me a happy camper if I was at Accenture, because they're getting rid of dead weight. And I want to say dead weight, but if you haven't kept your skills up to be able to use AI, and that's that as your job as an employee, that's your ultimate job, regardless of what you do, is to add value to your company in some way, shape, or form. And if you're not using the modern technology, the amount of value you can add is significantly diminished.

Cee Cee 19:55

Yeah, I do wonder like that is such a gray area because it is going to disproportionately affect an older population. So it just takes one good lawsuit to get them for wrongful term.

Upskilling Investment And Hiring

Warren 20:09

I would hope not. I've used the story on the podcast before. My company's had some surges in work, but the surge isn't enough to warrant hiring someone, and we don't want to go through agencies. And I've just told our COO one day, I said, Hey, this guy retired from us two years ago. Look, why don't we just give him a call and see if he's interested, available, and things like that? And let me we called him. He was like, I'll be there tomorrow. And he once again, I'm in my 50s. He's older than my mother, but he is on top of technology. I love him. And he brings energy to work. He's not a grunky pin's old person or anything like that. He says, I love this part-time retired work. He says, If I want to work, I I can work. If I want to go see my grandkids, I go see my grandkids. I love that. He does what he wants. We just asked him, hey, can you give us 20, 30 hours this week? And he'll tell us yes or no. It was much better than going through an agency or hiring someone part-time. He's a known entity. And yeah, it's been really good. So I think I definitely feel it will affect older people more because there's so many people that don't keep up on technology as older. But I'll use another empirical evidence type situation. I have some 20-some odds at my work who can't use Microsoft Work. They can't put an email attachment. Now, if I were to ask them to give me a TikTok video, oh man, they knock my socks off. But if I ask them to do productive work, Microsoft Excel, I get frustrated. I have the unrealistic expectation that if you're younger than me, you should have better technical skills than me. And I should be on the edge of my seat because you're coming up behind me and gonna want to take over from me. I have no such fears.

Cee Cee 21:55

I gotta be honest, like technological knowledge having to do. With TikTok, social media, editing on your phone is nothing to do with the technology you need to utilize at work. Right. And I think there's just like this expectation that because they're younger, they should know more, but they're still learning their job. So like I think back to when I was like my first job, I accidentally, I didn't understand distribution lists and outlook. Like I didn't because I never had to do it before. I found the list to let them know that leftover food was in the break room. And I accidentally sent it to the entire company in multiple states. And it was just like something stupid like that, you know? And they probably rolled their eyes at me, being like, oh, look at this. Yeah. And it's fine. It's like a rite of passage.

Warren 22:47

It is. It absolutely is. But okay. Squirrel, the rabbit hole type situation, letting people know there's like so fruit in a breakthrough.

Announcer 22:55

Yeah.

Older Workers, Bias, And Evidence

Warren 22:56

I had a discussion with an employee today who was very upset because a vendor of ours brought in a ton of bagels the other day. And they had their own personal cream cheese in the refrigerator. And their cream cheese got used on these bagels that got brought in. And they were not a happy camper about it. And they wanted me to put a sign on the refrigerator that said, please do not only take use your own food from the refrigerator. What people they wanted to say, but something like, don't eat other people's food in the refrigerator. I said, No, I'm not gonna, this is a one-off situation. We have eight boxes of Panera bagels in our break room now, and then there is a block of cream cheese. I'm not gonna it's in the community refrigerator. Do that for two dollar block of cream cheese.

Cee Cee 23:48

I will buy you cream cheese if we can end this conversation.

Warren 23:53

I went by the break room, and guess what? Even after I said I'm not gonna put a sign up, there was a sign.

Cee Cee 23:59

Oh, look at her.

Warren 24:01

But anyways, I go by the break room and there's a sign on the refrigerator that says I'm low, I do, I take it off. Really, dude. Uh and it by the way, it was his cli his vendors who brought in these bagels, and it was his personal cream cheese that that got used. And I'm like, yeah. Anyways, that's all.

Cee Cee 24:24

The thing I love about my fridge is that's all my food. I don't miss any of this.

Warren 24:31

And of course it sucks if you have your own food in the refrigerator that someone else eats it. But if I'm putting my food in it's not now, if it was in your lunch bag that's a broth on it, my after Thanksgiving special sandwich and that got eaten, then yes, I would be upset. But if it's just a block of cream cheese and there's I kid you not, there were more boxes of uh bagels than I'd think I'd seen in a very, very long time. So I can uh only imagine, hey, what goes well with bagels have cream cheese and somebody just saw it in the fridge and grabbed like that. That's so silly. These are things HR has to deal with, and that's that's why people come to HR. So anywho. Let's see here. Those were the main that was the main story I had was this this eccentric story. I can't be too jaded about it. It sucks that people don't go lose their job, like I said, but I think I see nothing but positive. And I also think the budget over $1B billion dollars. On upskilling your team. I would be asking, if I was an employee I read that, I'd be asking, what can I do? What hey, where can I learn what how can I get my hands on some of this upskilling? I wouldn't do it. I would just uh an L and D budget of billion dollars. That that tells you where their focus is. And I just can't say anything negative about it.

Cee Cee 26:03

I do love a big L and D budget, more budget for LD.

Practical AI Use In HR Tools

Warren 26:07

Yeah. I thought those things would get your attention as well. But like the original quote that got me started on this, I think it's pretty accurate to say you're gonna have a lot of employees are gonna have to be comfortable every couple of years mastering new systems because the technology is going to change change. That rapidly. You know how old I am. When I went to college or the college I went to, we got free versions of WordPerfect and Lotus Notes. That's what we learned. Who uses WordPerfe? Well, law firms we've still used at least used past since WordPerfect when I last worked at a law firm as it did some things that Word wasn't doing at the time, but that's been many years now. Is WordPerfect even a thing now? And I know I haven't heard anything of Lotus Notes, but you didn't learn email. Why did we didn't have email? We're given his school emails or anything.

Cee Cee 27:01

We had an email in undergrad, but it wasn't something I checked every day. I would make a point to go to the computer lab and log in and see if my professors left any notes. It wasn't accessible as it is now.

Warren 27:15

Yeah. And I was one of in my paternity, I was one of only two people who had their own computer back in the 90s. Most people didn't have their own computers anymore. You go into the computer lab. And I only went to computer lab, I needed to print things on that wonderful paper that was dot matrix, and it had the little things you had to peel off and tear off of it was like one almost continuous sheet. Yeah, I went to to do that. Old school stuff. Yeah.

Cee Cee 27:40

I didn't even we didn't even have Wi-Fi in my freshman dorm. There was just no Wi-Fi. And if you wanted internet, you had to call the cable company or the internet company to come in and set it up. And then you had to get like a wireless router. Like now it's just Wi-Fi as like a whole campus is Wi-Fi. I was like, no, we didn't have that. You either that or you went to the library for the library and you worked in the library.

Warren 28:07

Yeah, library. I avoided the library like the plague in college.

Cee Cee 28:13

I love a library.

Skills vs Age And Workplace Expectations

Warren 28:15

In the 90s, and it's not this way today, the East Carolina Library was so jacked up. It was like three separate buildings that were somewhat you had to take a class called Library Science. It was a required class in your freshman year, and it told you how to use the East Carolina Library. I could be on floor number three, section A, but to get to floor number three, section B, I'd have to go down to the ground level because they only connected on the ground floor. And then, oh, it was such a mess. But guess what? Moron failed library sciences learning how to use in library. I got F in that class. I had the mentality back then of I don't like this. I'm not going to do it. Nice. That did not serve me the best.

Cee Cee 29:01

Nice.

Warren 29:02

I later grew up and learned how to play along to get along.

Cee Cee 29:06

I miss a library.

Warren 29:09

Okay, completely off type. When's the last time you've been to a public library to actually go in and get a book or do something?

Cee Cee 29:16

Warren, a month ago.

Warren 29:17

Oh, really? Yes.

Cee Cee 29:19

Because I finally got Bean's getting old enough where she can do those library story times. So my mom and I went to go check it out, and I ended up getting a library card. Oh wow. I am committed.

Warren 29:31

I keep saying I'm going to get the library card so I can get the app where you can download audiobooks for free.

Cee Cee 29:36

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Warren 29:37

Uh I uh I keep saying I'm gonna get a library card. I think the last time I went to the public library was probably when my kids were not Dean's age, but uh still very young and did some activity at the library I took them to. But yeah, that's about it. We uh my county has a whole whopping two libraries. Well, one is actually quite close to me, relatively speaking. But yeah, it's cool. Uh libraries, I I wonder how long those are out with the internet.

Cee Cee 30:06

Well, it's good to have non-digital media and books.

Warren 30:10

Are you a physical book reader? Are you an e-book reader? Are you a computer reader? How do you read your books?

Cee Cee 30:16

I am an audio book reader.

Office Fridge Drama

Warren 30:19

Yes. Okay. Complete. I know we're going longer today, but my maybe my last tangent for today. I am currently reading from Audible the book Endurance. It's the true story of the expedition to cross Antarctica by late and the early 1900s, like 1911 and things. And anything that can go wrong does go wrong to these people. But here's the HR nerved in me. Uh Captain Shackelford is the captain of the expedition. I'm like reading all this organizational behavior techniques that he's doing into the book. And I think this book could be a very good case study for organizational behavior. The expedition took place in like 1911 to 1915. But, anyways, he hired people. The first people he hired were the people he knew and were trusted and true. And then other people, he just met with him for five minutes, and it was strictly based on did he like you or not. And that's some foreshadowing because things go very wrong. And if you had a prick in your group, that's not going to work too well. And yeah, like his meteorologist had zero meteorology training, but he liked him and he sent him sort of to go get some meteorology training. I'm not even finished with the book yet. So spoiler, I already know how the book ends, but I'm sort of like the Titanic sunk. But I know how the story ended. But I'm I'm actually enjoying this book much more than I thought it's nice how I got this book, came up with this book. I listened every time I read a book or do an audio book, I put it into Gemini. I have a whole question series about my books. And I like this one, and I say why I like it, and I don't like this one. I say why I don't like it. And then I finally said, I want I want to try something different. Uh give me something that's different, that's not a normal comfort zone that you would recommend for me. And it one of the books it came up with was this. And I have to say, it hit the mark. Most of my books are science fiction, fantasy. I love that genre, and that's why I do it. But I was like, let me just change it up a little bit. I do like historical fiction, and this is a fiction, this is a true event. So it's it's cool. And I think AI did a good job each and every time after I'm finished with this book, I'll say, in this case, I liked it, and here's why I liked it, and keep using AI to recommend books to me.

Cee Cee 32:46

Oh, nice. I should try that actually with books I've liked. Huh. Especially think about that.

Learning Curves And Adapting Over Time

Warren 32:51

In the sci-fi fantasy genre, uh I like fantasy. I hate romanticy. I think so many of the fantasy books that are out there now are romantic. And the only ones that I will stick with, I've read all of them already. I'm waiting for the next in the series to come out. Oh, Rebecca Yoros, her book, uh I forget. It's been so there's a little romance in it, but not to the point where I'm just like, okay, I'm over it. You know, you're screwing anything that moves, and I'm over it type of thing. It's there's enough, there's some in there, it doesn't get inappropriate, and I'm not that I'm a prude or anything, but it's just that's not my cup of tea. Yeah. And I want a fantasy type of book. Her series is pretty good. Someone recommended some books, and I just I got through the first one. I was like, if I start a book, I'm gonna finish it, even if I despise it. I don't think I can't remember a book I've ever stopped. Once I start, I'm gonna go through the end of it, even if it's uh sucks. Actually, I should say one of those self-published books that we were sent by somebody. I couldn't even read uh I couldn't follow it. It was horrible.

Cee Cee 34:00

I know a few self-published books.

Warren 34:03

And you need an editor. So it was anyways, but anyways, uh that's another that's enough rabbit holes for us to go down today. So we'll be back in two weeks with more HR fun. And yeah, wow, it's it's so crazy. It's it's the middle of February. We're gonna be straight into March, and then for our next season of jaded HR we'll be launching where we got some ideas in plan. Hopefully, we can actually execute those ideas and go from there. So thank you for listening to all our little reimburses. And like I said, now I've got two hours and 15 minutes to uh edit, produce, and publish this podcast. Yeah, if I want to stay on schedule, I don't have anything else going on tonight. So it'll be fun. So with all that fun stuff said, as always, I'm Warren.

Cee Cee 34:52

I'm Cece.

Warren 34:54

And we're here helping you survive HR one. What the fuck moment at a time.