Supernatural 4th Anniversary Special: Navigating HR's Eerie & Unusual with Laughs and Insight

Celebrate our fourth trip around the sun with us, as CeeCee and Patrick step into the guest spotlight to mark this podcast milestone. They're not just here to share the cake; they're diving headfirst into your AMA questions, while I tackle the conundrum of platform migration in the wake of Google Podcasts' exit. We've found new homes for our episodes on Pocket Casts and Overcast, and in the spirit of our anniversary, we're reminiscing about the journey so far. From sharing HR horror stories to the ethical tightropes we've walked, this special episode is a mixtape of laughter, learning, and the occasional office poltergeist.

Have you ever considered what HR would do if faced with the supernatural or the downright bizarre? We’ve got that covered, along with tackling the delicate matter of company cultures that blur the line between personal beliefs and professional conduct. It's a spirited debate that's both eerie and enlightening, with a side of cult psychology. And because it wouldn't be a true HR party without a few cringe-worthy anecdotes, we'll serve you the quirkiest, like the eternal confusion over flags and the peculiar challenges that can arise from the most unsuspecting of places–the office bathroom.

As we peer into HR's crystal ball, we imagine the tech advancements that will shape our field, playfully wishing for an HR system with the power to compel employees to actually read their emails. But it’s not just tech on the horizon; it’s the human moments that make our work worthwhile. Whether it's knowing when to pack up your cubicle for greener pastures or navigating the quirky trials that come with the HR territory, we're here to share those stories. So grab your headphones, and let's jump into another season brimming with insight, humor, and a commitment to keeping you entertained through every HR conundrum.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

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: 0:57

Welcome to JDHR the Podcast by three HR professionals who want to help you get through your workday by saying everything you're thinking, but say them out loud I'm Warren, I'm Cece and I'm Patrick. He's back and I'm Patrick, he's back. Yes, we've been teasing. Our AMA would have a special host.

Speaker 2: 1:15

Actually, cece and I are going to be the guests and Patrick's got all the AMA questions you can handle Too hot, got all the AMA questions you can handle, and the first one is going to be from Bill, our Patreon supporter, and you can be like Bill or Hallie, the original Jaded HR rock star, and support us. I've been seeing this thing online a lot, started by Adam Curry who, for some sakes, created the first podcast. But the value for value. If you think you get a laugh out of this, throw us a buck Each episode that you think is fine. You can buy us a beer. That's a one-time donation or you can just give us a monthly recurring payment on Patreon.

Speaker 2: 1:49

All the links are in our show notes. But if you don't want to support us financially, you can support us by rating us, reviewing us everywhere you can and telling a friend or submitting us a story or something really cool that you have going on that we can talk about. So those are some great ways to support us, but let's go ahead and get this party started, our fourth anniversary special. It's hard to believe that I've been doing this for four years. I don't stick with anything.

Speaker 4: 2:18

Yeah, if you look at my resume, most of those don't even last four years. It's impressive. Now, you've been here there 10 years, almost 10. It'll be 10 in may. I know I can't even use that joke anymore, I know, but I've been gone five and we've worked together about five.

Speaker 2: 2:34

So yeah, wow so lame.

Speaker 4: 2:38

All right, bill, get us started. So bill says. I've been listening to your podcast on Google Podcasts and just noticed today that they are ceasing to exist on the 2nd of April. Do you have any recommendation on platforms?

Speaker 2: 2:53

And you know I am a nerd. When I went into this podcast stuff I went sort of all nerd in and I too originally was listening on Google Podcasts and I got the notification that they were ending. So I tried a bunch of different ones. I did not try Spotify. Spotify, if you don't know, will put their own ads on my podcast and the first year it was election and election year we got some one piece of email that someone was really upset that we were supporting whatever candidate Like nobody's paid me a dime to put any ads on this and it was Spotify choosing to do that on their own. So I didn't try Spotify.

Speaker 2: 3:32

But I did land on Pocket Casts and I really like it. It's a lot of, it's easy to use. It's got a good user interface. There is a way you can export. It might be too late, if you're getting this, to export your history and your lists and your subscriptions from Google Podcasts to another podcast, but I didn't bother when I did that. I just picked all my podcasts and things like that. So Pocket Cast would be my first choice.

Speaker 3: 4:01

as an Android user, I do whatever Apple tells me. So I just do Apple Podcasts. So I just do Apple podcast.

Speaker 2: 4:06

Well, the new Apple interface is supposed to be awesome. The newest release.

Speaker 4: 4:11

It used to be so bad. I overcast is what I use and it's very, very good.

Speaker 2: 4:16

That's really good for Apple, I've heard. I don't. I'm an Android guy myself. Okay, yeah, well, if you're on iOS like, okay, yeah, well, if you're on iOS, like the real elite people, you can use Overcast. Something like 65% of our listeners are on Apple Podcasts. I'm not in that elite group, all righty.

Speaker 4: 4:36

I went through. Well, I did go through Reddit and I just got my questions back. Okay, reddit and I just got my questions back. Okay, and some like trying to find some fun HR questions from the Reddit users. I say in quotes Did we want to just sprinkle someone in as we go yeah, go ahead, do a little emerald spice it up in there.

Speaker 3: 5:00

Bam All right.

Speaker 4: 5:02

So this one's going to be from Reddit user NotYourTherapistHR, and it says is there a specific protocol for dealing with an office poltergeist, or should we just wing it?

Speaker 2: 5:20

Office poltergeist. Well, the building we worked in once upon a time could have been haunted.

Speaker 4: 5:26

We still talk about the HR ghost and it's taken many forms in our office, but I have yet to figure out the best way to deal with it.

Speaker 2: 5:34

I guess if everybody takes turn bringing in their sage. But I guess you probably could burn it on the inside.

Speaker 4: 5:43

You could, but then you just. You know, sprinkler, you have to have a talk with the HR boss, I guess. And then that's probably the last thing you get to do in that office.

Speaker 2: 5:52

But if you are HR, you know HR doesn't have to follow any of the rules. Everybody will say that.

Speaker 1: 5:57

Tell yourself you are HR. That's true.

Speaker 2: 5:59

You can go in and burn some sage and have an exorcism in the office. That would be cool doing an exorcism right there in the office.

Speaker 4: 6:09

I think, yeah, you know it'd be fun. You have, like you turn all the lights out and there's like a circle of candles and everyone's just sitting in the middle, and then this poor IT guy walks in and then just kind of turns around and leaves, Doesn't say anything.

Speaker 3: 6:22

It's like you guy.

Speaker 4: 6:24

There's a reason that no one talks to HR.

Speaker 3: 6:26

Is there a Ouija board involved, because I'd be down. What's the deal? I want to understand. Let me seek to understand before we fully exercise them.

Speaker 4: 6:39

There is a Ouija board but it's entirely made out of charcuterie, because I actually saw one of those today on Reddit. It was someone made out of charcuterie, because I actually saw one of those today on reddit. It was someone made a full charcuterie board of a ouija board and it was amazing that for those of you who aren't watching this, which is everybody.

Speaker 2: 6:55

Cc just did an awesome spit take while talking about that.

Speaker 4: 7:02

That's why they brought me back for the spit I need that immediately in my life I'll send you the recipe okay, what do we have next?

Speaker 4: 7:11

do we want to do from instagram? Sure, thinking back to your question about have you ever had an employee that were in a cult or cult-like, I just moved across the country to be the first hr person at a company. I get there and the owner's religious beliefs are deeply integrated with the company policies and practices and it has a bit of a cult vibe. So how would you handle working here? That's a hard one.

Speaker 2: 7:37

You're not going to know until you're there, unless the guy's like culting you up in the interview. I don't know. I mean it sounds like they already have the job yeah, they got the job they print out after they get there.

Speaker 3: 7:53

That uh and it is the owner and it is the owner.

Speaker 2: 7:58

So yeah, it's that's crazy.

Speaker 4: 8:02

I mean you gotta join the cult, right. You gotta see, maybe it's, maybe it's a good cult well, what?

Speaker 2: 8:09

what's the one that cc? You were mentioning that you would have joined because it was all business development and professional development oh my god, I would have joined that nexium cult in the second nexio executive, executive leadership skills like I would.

Speaker 3: 8:23

Yeah, you would have had me.

Speaker 2: 8:24

That's very bad it started with executive leadership skills and then it got weird as they all, they all do.

Speaker 4: 8:38

Why does that always happen?

Speaker 2: 8:39

that's like the end thing but, yeah, do you, do you play along? Or, and how long do you play along? Do you, you know, got to pay bills? You got paid your mortgage, rent, whatever student loans? How are you gonna play along with? And it depends, is it how deep of a cult is it? Is it a mild cult? You know, a friend of mine, swears, who is huge into CrossFit. He calls it a cult and it has a lot of cult-like things and he is devout to CrossFit. But it depends on what it is. I don't know.

Speaker 3: 9:17

It's hard. I used to work for a company where the owners of the company were part owners of a megachurch in the area but, that being said, it was never like in the company. It was just like, oh, they also do this, and there was no pressure or anything like that. And that was fine, I guess, as long as they're not like discriminating or doing anything illegal based on these integrated religious beliefs, I think you just play along yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4: 9:50

Cult of personality is that a thing?

Speaker 2: 9:53

in living color or no? That was in living color. What's the name of that band? I don't remember. Remember living color. I think you're right. I was thinking the tv show in living color.

Speaker 3: 10:02

That's what I was thinking.

Speaker 2: 10:05

Keep on, keeping on.

Speaker 4: 10:07

All right, so how would you handle working there? Did we answer their question? Just do it.

Speaker 2: 10:14

Is that my advice? Just do it until it turns to a sex cult.

Speaker 4: 10:16

I mean to be fair and then maybe start your own cult. Competing cult, A competing cult. Maybe start your own cult. Competing cults, A competing cult.

Speaker 2: 10:26

It has to be someplace like Oregon or something like that that has a ton of cults.

Speaker 4: 10:32

Yeah, the West Coast, I think, is just like.

Speaker 3: 10:34

Mecca, some for the nature.

Speaker 4: 10:35

I don't know. I'm going to get that t-shirt. Let's see. Just go wherever you feel. Let's just go with it. I'm going to go with where I feel. In that case, can my employer at my job fire me and not notify me that I have been terminated? I went to check my schedule and it told me that I can no longer access the schedule, and I tried texting my manager about it but he didn't respond. Is that even legal?

Speaker 3: 11:07

It's legal or not, but that's.

Speaker 4: 11:09

I think that's just called ghosting nowadays.

Speaker 2: 11:13

Yeah but can you ghost someone who's your current employee? You hear about these applicant ghosts and who's your current employee? You hear about these applicant ghosts and is their current employee? Is it like just walking out on your spouse or I don't know what it would be. First, one of my things is this legal? This question we stole from Cora, which is the redhead stepchild of Reddit.

Speaker 2: 11:38

The questions are so much dumber and they, they, they really do sometimes inspire full episodes, with me reading some of the dumb questions here and, and even worse, the responses, and they're oh yeah, this happened to me. It's like that old uncle oh yeah, this happened to me back in vietnam. Da, da, da, da da. And you know, yeah, they, they fired me and without even telling me, putting on the schedule, I don't know, but he's got some whacked out story from 30 years ago, 50 years ago. So well, you, patrick, is an hrs pro. You know there's some times. You know systems go awry and it may not be the company's fault, but your HRS, if it's, I'm not going to name any names, but if it's, they go down, and they sometimes go down at the worst of times, like open enrollment.

Speaker 4: 12:27

Not if you have a good manager, Warren Huh. Not if you have a good person administrating your HRS system your hris system.

Speaker 2: 12:40

You're still at the, the whims of the, the provider, to a certain degree, unless you have full on-site redundancy and all that other fun stuff. But I've seen it happen where people you know you can't log in or things like that. So there could be an innocuous answer. Or you know, dude, you're an idiot, let's just get they. You already you were fired and you didn't remember. I don't know.

Speaker 4: 12:59

I don't know. It's probably. It probably is legal Like I don't know. Is there any precedent for letting someone know they're terminated?

Speaker 2: 13:06

I think if they're, if you just you know, I'm sure if you're in a union environment or in a particular West Coast state that has a lot of cults in it, you might be able to, you might be protected. They may have to. Actually, I do think in california you have to provide documentation from people leave.

Speaker 3: 13:22

But yeah, most of the, otherwise probably about california, but you beat me to it like I'm sure it's legal everywhere but california but california and you also have to pay 180 days worth of sick pay after you terminate them, or something crazy.

Speaker 4: 13:39

Let's do some more AMA style questions from our good friend the cloud, and this let's just be for both of you what's the most unusual job title you've ever had to recruit for? That's actually a really good question. I like that.

Speaker 3: 13:56

I had to recruit for a pilot. I actually a really good question. I like that.

Speaker 4: 13:58

I had to recruit for a pilot, oh.

Speaker 3: 13:59

I did not know so the same company that had that were the church owners. They had a subsidiary company that was basically a holding company for their private jet.

Speaker 4: 14:12

So Okay so.

Speaker 3: 14:14

I was tasked to find them a new pilot, which I know nothing about aviation, so that was a fun challenge and that was also the only time in my life that I have been on a private jet.

Speaker 2: 14:29

Oh, there you go. This has its perks.

Speaker 3: 14:32

I did not get to go anywhere, I just walked in it. I looked around. That's not as fun. I took a picture to go anywhere.

Speaker 4: 14:36

I just walked in it.

Speaker 3: 14:37

I looked around.

Speaker 4: 14:38

That's not as funny I took a picture for the gram. There you go.

Speaker 2: 14:44

I don't think I've recruited for any crazy titles I can't think of, but I've told the story before. A partner at a company I've worked for wanted to hire this dude as an intern or hire this person, and he just said we're hiring John Doe, you need to make this happen now. And I was a recruiter. I'm like, okay, what's his title? And he said, call him a utility infielder. And I put him in to the HRS system as utility infielder. He was just going to do all the mop-up work and things like that that nobody else wanted to do for his internship. So I don't have a cool story for that one, unfortunately.

Speaker 4: 15:21

Yeah, I don't have any. I did have a. This is off topic, but it just made me think of it. I probably had one of the funnier requests from an employee happen a couple weeks ago and we had someone ask us if their PTO hours transferred over from their previous job.

Speaker 3: 15:39

Like out of the company.

Speaker 4: 15:39

Yeah, so, like the PTO hours they had at their previous job, came over to their new job with us Nice. So kind of like a 401k it's expected that it would come over. So, yeah, just roll over your PTO hours.

Speaker 2: 15:56

That would be so flawed so I hadn't heard that before no, I hadn't heard. That too. That's, that's a good one, and could you keep a straight face you know the poker face and say no?

Speaker 4: 16:07

just no, luckily it's via via email, so you have time to laugh and mock and scorn them before and and mock and scorn and all that good stuff. Alright, let's take one from Reddit user CoffeeCupCounselor. Okay.

Speaker 3: 16:23

I like it.

Speaker 4: 16:26

If I accidentally summoned a demon during a coffee break? Who is responsible for its HR onboarding? And there seems to be a theme with these ones.

Speaker 3: 16:37

That is your demon. You have to onboard them.

Speaker 4: 16:41

What if the person summoning it is I don't know an?

Speaker 1: 16:44

admin assistant or something, or, network engineer.

Speaker 2: 16:50

HR is easy. Anybody can do it Right. That is true.

Speaker 4: 16:55

Even a poltergeist. That's what it is. You make the poltergeist do it. Right, that is true. Even a poltergeist that's what it is. You make the poltergeist do it.

Speaker 2: 17:00

And then if they can stick around through onboarding, you've got a good employee. If they bolt, then hey, didn't need them anyway.

Speaker 3: 17:09

Is that considered a stretch assignment for the poltergeist?

Speaker 2: 17:13

Stretch assignment for his review process.

Speaker 4: 17:18

Let's try one more from the exit reddit user, the exit interviewer. Okay, um, in the case of a zombie apocalypse, does the company have an emergency plan or is every person for themselves?

Speaker 4: 17:31

I like you, but it's everyone for themselves agree, I remember writing like some zombie apocalypse fan fiction while I was doing like one of my I worked at as like an hr assistant and I was just really bored and that was like when the zombie stuff was like really taking off and I remember writing like an office zombie attack, like fan fiction thing. I wish I could find that. It was pretty deep. It was like how things go quiet in the office and then trying to escape the office, was it?

Speaker 2: 18:02

published on any of those fan fiction sites? Did you publish?

Speaker 4: 18:05

it. No, it's probably on an old iPod or something somewhere. It was a long time ago.

Speaker 3: 18:10

Well, you have the survival guide.

Speaker 2: 18:12

I challenged your listeners to find Patrick's fan fiction.

Speaker 4: 18:17

There you go. If you could find it I'd be terrified because I know I did not publish that, Probably typed in like the word, like Creed from the office style inner office intranet Backslash, backslash Creed thoughts. Let's do another one. From getting to know your HR professional. What's the oddest complaint you've ever had to address?

Speaker 2: 18:46

Bathrooms, everything having to do with bathrooms, people, someone complaining about they couldn't hold their phone conversations in the bathrooms because other people were being too loud. Bathrooms just are too much. Can you hold that shit in a little longer? I'm trying to have a phone interview here.

Speaker 3: 19:10

I don't know, just for the record, I don't want to talk to anyone while they're taking a shit Like can we just say that Just a blanket, just a blanket moratorium on that.

Speaker 4: 19:22

It should be just a quiet zone, like as soon as you enter that someone casts silence and no sound can be made in that area. Exactly Like that is a rule. There are people that I literally, if I see them in the hallway, I turn around and go back, no matter how bad it needs to happen, because I know they're going to talk to me in there and I just it won't happen. Yeah, I don't like. I don't like conversation.

Speaker 4: 19:44

Should be the zone of silence. But why would they complain to HR? Well, I don't know why. I would ask that. Of course they would complain to HR about that.

Speaker 3: 19:53

I've never. My friend a friend of mine is an HR business partner and she had to deal with a complaint once that the person thought someone was hanging a Confederate flag in their desk. So they complained to HR and wanted an investigation and my friend did a couple of drive-bys and didn't see it. And she's like what are you talking about? And like it's there.

Speaker 3: 20:14

And so she did another one and she noticed that the person actually had the british jack paying up oh yep, and it was equally funny because my friend happens to be from england, so she was just like I don't think that's what you think it is. That's actually the, the flag of my country, and the person was a little embarrassed but at the same time was like well, I thought. I saw what I saw yeah.

Speaker 2: 20:41

That's going to. Everybody is looking for a reason to be offended. You see a white field with a big red X England Anybody?

Speaker 3: 20:53

Fun with flags, as Sheldon Cooper would.

Speaker 4: 20:56

Sheldon Confederate flag was just a white flag, yeah. So, anywho, let's do. Can you share an instance where an office prank went too far but ended well?

Speaker 3: 21:12

Oh, my God, I love those. I have so many.

Speaker 4: 21:16

I used to do office, my very first job in hr. I worked for a pretty popular logistics shipping company and me and the other guy I worked the morning shift and this other guy worked in the afternoon shift and we would it started by this like random thing that would you could set a timer and it would just beep really loud. I don't even know what it was and we would just hide that in each. I don't even know what it was and we would just hide that in each other's desk and it would go off at like the worst times. But then it just went from there. But, cece, you go ahead and share.

Speaker 3: 21:44

So I was working in talent acquisition at a company and the recruiting team was fairly large and had a really good sense of humor about everything. And my coworker had this mouse pad on her desk and it was like a 50s pinup girl and it said, oh, I forgot what it said. It said something like I'm I'm too pretty, or I'm too pretty for this, or something like that. And my boss, he had stolen it from her desk and he just like kept it for himself for a while so, and he like refused to give it back. He's like I love it, it's fine. So, uh, her, myself and the instructional designer got his picture like imposed on the same exact style, oh nice. And then we had mouse pads for the entire team and then when just oh, that's cool.

Speaker 3: 22:35

Everyone just had the mouse pads on their desk. It was fantastic and it was for. The best part was it was the picture was for brand, like internal brand marketing or something for recruitment. And it was like him and these sunglasses, like with the double guns, like hey and yeah, it was great. I mean he hated it, but we actually like handed them out in a huge team meeting with like 50 of us there and he was just mortified and she was like, if you can't give back my mouse pad, I had to buy a new one.

Speaker 2: 23:09

That that's a good one. That's classic. I love it.

Speaker 4: 23:13

You know, I would have to say Patrick's probably the victim of most of my office pranks Because our team there you could do things like that when you go on vacation or go have a baby or get married or anything like that we destroyed his office each and every time and none of them went too too far, I don't think I mean when you're gone for two weeks and you got to spend your first three hours having a scavenger hunt to find your mouse and your phone and taking the 300 toothpicks out of your keyboard and the sticky notes off your monitor, and then realizing your monitors were also switched, so when you move your mouse to the left it then goes to your right. Uh, what else? My phone was in the mini fridge.

Speaker 2: 24:05

Yeah, that took a long time while we're doing this, uh, a co-worker of ours is hanging a doll above in the ceiling above patrick's desk, and the vp of hr walked in and we're playing, okay, the stupidest song in the ceiling above Patrick's desk. And the VP of HR walks in and we're playing, okay, the stupidest song in the world, the Baby Monkey song. We're playing that full blast. The VP of HR walks in and she doesn't bat an eye. She just okay, turns around and leaves. She just okay. We're standing on chairs hanging things into the ceiling, stuff like that. But yeah, patrick, every time he left for vacation he was the only one who got it, because he'd be the best sport about things like that. Pretty good sport. We had some fun with that.

Speaker 3: 24:51

Serves you right for taking time off.

Speaker 4: 24:53

I know right, I did with the same guy. I did an office prank. I learned about setting macros in outlook so if you typed in one thing, it switch it to another automatically. So I switched whenever you typed in ups to fedex. And this guy sent an entire email, without realizing it, to our regional HR head with just the word FedEx all over it. And it ended well because he came back and was like what are you doing? What is this? But yeah, anytime we typed UPS, it would just switch it to FedEx. That would be harmless, but pretty funny because you don't, you're just typing. You don't realize it, I guess, if you don't reread what you wrote. But yeah, that was a pretty funny one.

Speaker 2: 25:42

Got time for a couple more.

Speaker 4: 25:44

Let's see how. About what is the most creative excuse you've heard for someone calling out sick?

Speaker 2: 25:53

Their favorite football team, which has changed names, recently lost and they were too depressed. What is? Up with that to come to work or no. We had another one. I the person was too radioactive to come to work. We had that too.

Speaker 4: 26:13

That was a good one. Yeah, the radioactive.

Speaker 3: 26:15

Oh, that's crazy. I can imagine how. What did you know?

Speaker 2: 26:21

Apparently they were having some chemo treatments and thought that they were radioactive to the rest of the world. Don't think that's how it works. I'm no doctor, but I don't think that's how it works don't think that's how it works.

Speaker 3: 26:34

I'm no doctor, but I don't think that's how it works. So I have to kind of laugh. Because a friend of mine had to get her thyroid removed and she had to do it through a radioactive pill and apparently they delivered it to the house and they were in legit hazmat suits to deliver this pill to her and she had to quarantine herself from the rest of the house because she was really radioactive to the point where she would go outside and like sit on her porch and like flies would come near her and then they would just like drop dead.

Speaker 4: 27:04

oh, wow, there's just birds in her yard, just just falling from the sky.

Speaker 3: 27:13

You know I'm laughing because she's fine, like it's all good, and she laughs about it too. But I'm just like I thought when she said that because she's a school teacher, so I'm like you could not go to school, being radioactive, and it was during the summer, so school was out of session. But yeah, I actually could believe that if someone was like no, I'm too radioactive, it can't come to work so we can't use that anymore, because now it's legit.

Speaker 2: 27:37

Yeah, you turned it something we had so much fun mocking and scoring into something legit now.

Speaker 4: 27:43

Now we might actually feel bad for our actions 10 years ago now I need to hire someone like that to come around whenever we have fruit flies just to like take them out, so I can never get rid of those things I don't have any one more, if you got it you want to do one of these future prediction ones? This could be fun okay, let's say imagine hr technology 50 years from now. What's one futuristic tool you wish would exist?

Speaker 3: 28:10

an hr system that can do what I want it to do but what is that?

Speaker 3: 28:15

uh, you know, like I just I just want something that works, that meets all of my needs. For I don't know like doing check-ins properly and we use a, we use a system. I'm not gonna, but they have a check-in like oh, oh, have a performance check-in, and it's literally like it's the most basic thing. That doesn't help at all, but it's there so they can talk about it. So we have to like do a whole workaround to make some kind of system work for us. But I don't know, just do things properly.

Speaker 2: 28:56

I would like an applicant tracking system that can get into a person's mind deeply and know that we're not getting some sort of dramatic person and just a plain asshole. It reads who you really are, or I would not be employable any longer. But you're talking about HR technology. 50 years from now, we just had to set up our 401k with the 2070 retirement fund and we send out all the little fund notices and everything to the employees and my assistant, who's much younger than me, says'll be whatever 70 years old, and then I I said I'll be worm food in 27 but yeah, yeah, 50 years is like for me in 50 years I hope the technology is there where people just like don't have to work.

Speaker 4: 29:46

It'll just be like star trek utopia where it can just do all these. I mean, let's be fair at this point the way way HR is going and AI is going, they're not going to need us anymore anyway. This is a dying industry, hr, I think.

Speaker 2: 30:00

No, we'll always have our lunatics that we have to deal with.

Speaker 4: 30:04

I can deal with it at this point. Hey, I can probably deal with half the stuff now. Oh, I mean, but 50 years, wait, come on, yeah, oh, but 50 years.

Speaker 3: 30:13

Come on, are you thinking like WALL-E, like we're just all like floating around in recliners?

Speaker 2: 30:18

Is it litter everywhere?

Speaker 4: 30:20

Well, unfortunately, it probably will be closer to WALL-E Than.

Speaker 2: 30:23

Star.

Speaker 4: 30:24

Trek yeah, that's kind of sad Than Star Trek. Yeah, that makes me sad, but it's a little too real.

Speaker 3: 30:33

I honestly think that's the direction we're going in just floating on recliners with tablets in our faces yep, I cannot disagree do we want to do?

Speaker 4: 30:46

if you could give all employees one superpower to improve productivity, what would it be? The power to read?

Speaker 2: 30:57

Yes, I cannot disagree with that. Had you actually read the email, half of our problems would be solved.

Speaker 4: 31:07

If only I taught that. I think that would solve a lot of our problems.

Speaker 3: 31:10

That would be nice.

Speaker 2: 31:11

I cannot disagree with that, that I think that would solve a lot of our problems. That would be nice. I cannot disagree with that. It looks like a question sent to us through DMs, the final one on the page here. When do you know it's the real?

Speaker 4: 31:22

Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 31:25

Alright.

Speaker 4: 31:25

I'll ask Don't take Warren. I have one job to do tonight. Don't take this from me, Okay? When do you know it's time to leave a company?

Speaker 3: 31:35

I like that one.

Speaker 2: 31:37

It's just a gut feeling, I think.

Speaker 4: 31:41

When AI tells you to.

Speaker 3: 31:43

When the robots take over, that is the time to leave.

Speaker 2: 31:47

You get a gut feeling. My time here is done. Feeling my time here is done.

Speaker 3: 31:54

I think, when you no longer get something out of the role. I think it's time to go. I feel like when you're the smartest person in the room, that tends to be the issue. It's time to go.

Speaker 4: 32:11

Yeah, when they start summoning demons in the break room.

Speaker 2: 32:14

That's a no for me. Demons in the break room, poltergeists. So yeah, that's going to be a new company policy no summoning demons or poltergeists in the office area.

Speaker 4: 32:26

You don't summon a poltergeist, they just show up, they just show up, they're rude. The demons you ask for the poltergeists are? They were already there. You're at, you're in their area.

Speaker 3: 32:37

Okay, okay, I got it at least that sounds like a good like company bonding thing.

Speaker 4: 32:42

I mean bring that charcuterie board in on the ouija board, that's true I mean, that's just really good cultural bonding see, maybe the best way to know when you need to leave a company. You just ask the poltergeist. He sees all. He's been there a while he or she. You know they will let you know. Those cook their heads there all the time.

Speaker 2: 33:03

In the Harry Potter Hogwarts Legacy game there's one of the ghosts that you have to summon through smelly food, and so if you let your charcuterie rot, it might do a better job in doing that. So not to give away any of the quests on the Harry Potter Legacy game, but it's been out for over a year now, so you should probably have gotten there by now.

Speaker 4: 33:27

The theory is, I think, if the food is rotten, that the ghost can taste it.

Speaker 2: 33:31

Yeah, I don't, because it's so far gone.

Speaker 3: 33:33

Just another reason to microwave fish in the break room.

Speaker 4: 33:37

Oh, because the poltergeist will be in there. Yeah, that's a calling card for them.

Speaker 2: 33:45

I think we'll call it a day with that one. So thanks for joining us again. This has been a lot of fun. We'll figure out what we're going to do for year number five, anniversary number five, but it's hard to believe. It's been four crazy years, I think. Also, I want to take a second to thank cc and wish her well. She's probably not gonna be here next couple episodes, but we'll have her back as soon as she's feeling up to it. So, and I think she may have lined up one of our guest hosts we're going to have guest hosts for however long it feels that she wants to be gone. So can I announce, potentially, who the guest host is?

Speaker 3: 34:25

Yeah, you can. Yeah, I think.

Speaker 2: 34:26

Mr CC.

Speaker 3: 34:28

Mr CC. Mr CC will come on.

Speaker 2: 34:30

Who is an actual HR pro as well. So we will. That'll be one of our guest hosts. I've got a couple other people interested and lined up, so the episodes will keep on coming as we enter season number five. So this is season five, episode one, and we're recording this on April 1st, the day that Patrick and I released the first five episodes. There were six and that one might be gone too Crazy Ever forever.

Speaker 4: 34:58

It's in the cloud somewhere, AI will find it. Eventually. Someone will just summon it in their office somehow. They'll be like what is this from beyond?

Speaker 2: 35:09

the voices. I'd have to look at the notes to even see what the topic was of the one that we didn't publish, that we thought was just not good enough to to publish. So there's been three total episodes like that that we have chosen not to publish. One was technical related, another was, I just thought, feathers. This ain't happening, we're let's it a night.

Speaker 4: 35:32

Not feeling it tonight guys.

Speaker 2: 35:34

We're like both not had energy level of zero and we're over it. So, anyways, let's say thanks, patrick, for joining us again. We want to have you come back as often as you would like and hope to see you all next two weeks with another fun episode, and we will go for from there. So our best practices keep sticking with us for season number five. And then, as always, I'm warren I'm cc and I'm patrick, and we're here helping you survive hr one. What the fuck moment at a time.