Cancelling Stupid People

Patrick Returns Yet again to a roaring applause
JK Rowling gets a game developer cancelled
Patrick Gets a LinkedIn solicitors to become a LinkedIn influencer
Cancelling stupid people
Simeone's horrible grammar makes Warren's blood boil
But Warren can't speak
Today's best Patrick

Transcript

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Announcer 0:03

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 right up my employee for crying too much? Welcome to our little stable. Welcome to JR.

Warren 0:45

Welcome to JR the podcast by two HR professionals who want to help you get through the birthday. By saying all the things you're thinking, let's say them out loud. I'm Warren and Patrick. And as you can hear, Patrick is back with us. I'm playing with some toys here. Whoops. Playing with some toys today.

Patrick 1:14

I was not expecting that. And now I wish I had some kind of control over that too, because a little random sound here and there would really spice things up a bit.

Warren 1:24

Yeah, yeah. And who knows, it might not make the final cut after I'm editing it. But it's it's a new toy offered, so I'm I'm gonna play with my new toy. Nice. So it's nice to have you back. Thank you for pinch hitting yet again with us, but also want to thank our rock star, which we're we're I'm gonna keep saying it regardless of how boom rush it makes me sound. Halley, our original jaded HR rock star, you can support us in any number of ways financially through Patreon or directly through our host, Buzz Sprout. Those links are in our show notes. You can leave a review. We do not have any reviews in a long, long time. Actually, I'm gonna look internationally to see if we have any. I know, I know. Tell a friend, contribute a story, and here's another thing. And speaking of contributing a story, we have a listener coming on for the episode after this who is going to be sharing uh a few stories they shared with me, and I had to twist their arm, beg, cry, plead to get them on the episode because they didn't want to be. But hey, if I can do it, literally anyone can do it. So I'm all on it. But tell us your story or come on, come on and say, hey, Warren, I gotta shoot us a DM on Instagram or something. Say, hey, I've got an awesome story I can I want to share with you. So uh we can do that as well. And right now, this episode is brought to you by Sonic as I'm getting Sonic delivered to me. What the hell? Uh as we right as we speak.

Patrick 2:53

That'll be auditory uh thing. AMSR Yeah.

Warren 2:59

Chump, chump, chump. No, yeah. Not an AMSR episode.

Patrick 3:03

I think it's uh Is it A ASMR.

Warren 3:07

I don't even ASMR. Yeah, I'm I'm awful with that stuff. So anywho. So I didn't really have a lot of real agendas to speak about today.

Patrick 3:19

The theme of every episode I've been on the last couple weeks. Well, sometimes. Hey Patrick, come on over. I got this uh we're gonna do a podcast. Okay, cool, what are you doing? I don't know. We'll just wing it.

Warren 3:30

Yeah, winging it. Some weeks I've just got more stuff than I can uh I have to narrow myself down and edit myself down to fit into a close to half hour episode, and other weeks it's been really busy and I I haven't been as much been able to dedicate as much time to it. But the uh last full episode you were on, we talked a little bit about video games, and I wanted to this is really uh it's cancel culture. We talked a little bit about uh it once something along these lines once before, but now people are going after people for liking the new Harry Potter video game. And yes, J.K. Rowling said some really you know, not so really bad stuff, yeah, apparently. I haven't seen any direct quotes of what she has said, but apparently it's not opinion.

Patrick 4:25

She's very anti-trans, is a lot of the issue. And my issue with J.K. Rowling is she could have sat in her mansion or whatever on the hills, and every now and then just tweeted it's Snape's birthday or something like that. That's all she had to do. But she like just she can't she can't stop, and that's kind of my issue is like what's the point of all that? But she does she is she tweets some stuff and she's part of um some kind of like anti-trans hate groups and stuff, and or at least has some affiliation, so I've I've always been a big Harry Potter fan, as you can go back to one of our episodes where we got on a Harry Potter handit. And it does kind of make me like think about my support for her every now and then. Like it's it it does, it's it's sad, but like it does when you when you have this person that really could just be like, she's done it and she wrote this great story, all she had to do was sit back and like let people enjoy it. You know?

Warren 5:32

Yeah, it it exactly. I I I haven't seen any direct quotes, but I've seen a lot of the anti-trans headlines and and things like that.

Patrick 5:40

I did have thoughts about this one too, though, so I'll let you finish. I keep interrupting, sorry.

Warren 5:44

Okay, oh no, that that's what we do. So this person is actually a was, past tense, an employee from Limited Run Games, and this comes to us from David Mikklus on LinkedIn. Cara Lynn was targeted by this online activist, Purple Tinker, who accused Lynn of being a transphobe because she quote uh quote follows a veritable who's who of right-wing transphobic creeps, is what the Purple Tinker person tweeted out there. And then they contacted her employer, uh Limited Run Games, and this employee was fired just a few hours after this activist accused the employee of being transphobic and following conservative accounts that this person characterized as a veritable who's who of right-wing transphobic creeps. The the person threatened to not to stop and then would threaten to stop being a customer of this gaming company. And I don't know Limited Gruns Games, I can't think of any of their releases off the top of my head. But then the company did end up firing the employee and it released a statement claiming to respect all personal opinions. However, we remain committed to supporting an inclusive culture. Now, this is because this employee liked and followed some people. Now, once upon a time when I was much more on Facebook and things, I followed all sorts of stupid people. Just because I knew they were going to stir the pot and something stupid was going to come out of it. I I don't want to be I don't follow as much anymore. I'm I'm trying my hardest to if it weren't for Jada Daytar, I'd be off social media, I think. But I'm trying hard to not do social media as much. But I would like to see some of these weirdo uh people and what they had to say. I think it's better to follow them and see. And it doesn't say that this person agreed or disagreed with them. It's just because you you followed J.K. Rowling in this case, they're going to come after you. She did apparently this person didn't make any statements of their own that were I don't know what you call it, that were bad statements, anything that she should be canceled for, but just the thought of liking J.K. Rowling on and following them. I think that that's starting to get too much. And I think this company needs to have a little bit of backbone and and say, you know, okay, she can follow that. She didn't make a a statement condemning anybody of any category. Why why are you coming after her? Because she works at this limited run game. So I don't know. I I would have, if I was the company, and I think this was out of the United Kingdom as well. I don't have that in my notes. But I think the company should have supported their employee more and maybe even talked to the employee, hey, let's talk to us about this. And I think they'd find, okay.

Patrick 8:47

Yeah, that's a little out there. Um be different if she was like sharing all these things going along with it, but if it was literally just, hey, I noticed you liked this thing, um that's a bit much.

Warren 9:01

That that and and then on the HR side, and I think we might have touched on this once or twice before. If somebody contacts you and Patrick, your employee Warren follows whomever you don't like on social media, you need to get rid of them immediately, or I'm not gonna be a customer and I'm gonna bash your name in and all this other stuff. What is going to be the price? And what's the advantage of getting rid of that one person from this this company? I guess somebody has a uh a flag they can wave now. Hey, I got whoever fired from whatever company is. I'm so I don't know what the word is. I'm so out there and I I'm so powerful. I I don't know.

Patrick 9:45

The word is trolling. And there might be more to story. The word is it's a troll. The word is trolling. And that's kind of the whole thing with it with the game in general. Like I saw a, I don't know if it was a TikTok or one of those videos where like it's one person that kind of like interviewed themselves. Um, not interview, but it's like, hey, I heard you like that uh legacy game, and he's like, Oh yeah, man, I love Harry Potter. It's like, didn't you hear that it's like um transphobic or something, you know, something along those lines. And at first you're like, okay, I'm gonna kinda agree with the guy that's like blaming this game for being bad, but then the other guy's like, well, if you really don't like JK Rowling, there's a lot of things that you should be boycotting. The problem is something like a video game is very easy to I can go online and type in a bad review about this video game, or I can go on and to a Twitch streamer and troll their chat. That's a really easy thing to do. It's really hard to like boycott Universal Studios, which JK Rowling gets a cut of all those tickets. It's really hard to boycott all her books and all these other things because you you're not gonna go out there and do it. Whereas this poor video game, you know, I feel bad for like the developers because the developers aren't anti-trans necessarily. They're not against all this stuff. They're just they're building a video game. Yeah, based on this really establis you know, established world and all these cool things. And so it's like uh it is people like to take the easy way out to troll these things or to, you know, jump on these troll bandwagons, I guess.

Warren 11:17

I did see something on Instagram related to this, and it said, you know, you you can support the art without supporting the artists. Yeah. I think that's a a good quote. And uh yeah, that I liked it. You know, you can support the art without supporting the artists. And you know, Harry Potter's fun, it's a nice relief. I I I I've probably audiobooked that probably second only to the Lord of the Rings series. So it's it's great, it's entertaining, it's fun. The movies are fun. I don't know. I I just can't see wanting to cancel people like that. But you know who I do want to cancel? Um stupid people.

Patrick 11:57

Oh, I was gonna say uh I can't think of the the people that bother you the most. Solicitors.

Warren 12:04

No, I I I I haven't had any drama lately with that.

Patrick 12:09

I got uh stupid people. Yeah, we'll we'll go back into so I had a solicitor on uh link, I thought was kind of interesting.

Warren 12:16

Oh shoot, we'll start with yours.

Patrick 12:18

It was just uh you can get me fired up easy. I'm getting a lot of these like you know, people see, oh HRS guy, you you should come and do this HRS job, or like you should apply for this this job, and I get a lot of those all the time. And they make me feel good. It's like oh, I'm wanted. And I got this one, and I thought it was the same thing, but this person actually helps you build your LinkedIn presence. That's what they do. They weren't like trying to get me to hire a job, they were trying to like help me, I don't know, establish my LinkedIn influencer presence or whatever it is, because that is becoming a thing now, as shown by LinkedIn Lunatics.

Warren 12:58

Um But yeah, that was the first my I want to be a LinkedIn lunatic uh not lunatic.

Patrick 13:02

And you are, because your thing says I'm a link No solicitors right on your LinkedIn.

Warren 13:08

Uh no, what are the oh, I want to be a LinkedIn influencer, that's why I want to be an influencer. I've seen some things like that as well. Build your LinkedIn, and of course they want money for you. They're not gonna have to, you know, do 20 posts a week and do this, that, the other thing. I'm like, yeah, I I've got real work to do. Yeah, I got show prep to do. Yeah, the important stuff. The important stuff. I you know I I only joined uh LinkedIn when we worked together. Our VP asked me to because uh a software we used uh there was something it we had to connect it to our LinkedIn or something like I don't remember, but uh that's when I joined LinkedIn for the first time. And you know, I'm uh I still use it, but it's it's not what it's all uh cracked out to be. So stupid people. Can you fire someone just for the fact that they are stupid?

Patrick 14:07

If they do something stupid that negatively impacts your organization that they maybe they've been warned about before.

Warren 14:17

Maybe well I I I tell you, I've texted you uh and feathers uh earlier this or no last week, my days are all blurred, about a situation I had. Then this wasn't this isn't part what I was going to think of, but I'm on a uh a video conference call and it've got like six, seven people on it, and a hiring manager says, um, and I should clarify before I go too much further, I work for a DOD contractor. 99.9% of our jobs require security clearances. So, but either way, this hiring manager says, Oh, I found this candidate, I've screened them, I want to hire them, etc., and puts the resume on the screen. I said, We can't hire this person as president of whatever country, and it says you permanent resident on on their resume. You know, a lot of international people will do that. I've seen that any number of times. And I said, Well, we we can't hire that person. And then why not? Why not? I said, Well, they're they're not a U.S. citizen. It says they're a permanent resident and citizen of whatever country. Well, isn't that country part of the United States? And I had to so quickly turn off my microphone and my video camera because I did not want the everybody seeing my reaction. I tried to keep a poker face for that two seconds it took me to click everything and get out of that screen and mute and uh and turn off my video. Because no, they they are not part of the United States. What I like the picture is is you muted, but then you were just like because this is audio medium, it's a temper tantrum, a very animated temper tantrum going on. That's what I was doing, but I just didn't want to. I kept my poker face for the two seconds it took me to and then the the person wanted to double down after I said, Oh, no, that's not part of the United States, double down and say yes, it was. And I was like, okay.

Patrick 16:16

Luckily, someone else stepped in and backed me up, but like, yeah, that that that's you mentioned Zoom, and we had a person uh on leave recently, and on her last day she sent like some pictures and screenshots that she just had come across, and a lot of them were like from 2020 when we all were doing all of our HR meetings at home. So, and man, like you have to be so careful because almost all the screenshots, I just had these like dead eyes staring off in the distance, like not paying attention, and you don't realize all the time like what you're you know, necessarily that poker face, what you're doing with your face, but these I think of some of these screenshots, and I was like, oh man, that's uh that was a bad look. Just this glazed over expression.

Warren 17:07

That's true as well. Uh if you I don't agree with necessarily making people have their video feed on, but sometimes it's useful. But if if it's gonna help you by not making you look at inattentive, then maybe I don't know. But I've I've seen things like that, or people try and get we saw early on, you know, people not want to go on video or not dress up here here we are, just both of us wearing white t-shirts and uh sitting in the body. Okay. You gotta improve your lighting. But uh people do things like that and judge you and and whatever. Anyways, went off on a completely like I said, we didn't have much of a topic today, but I'll just rant and ramble into whatever comes my way. But I want to go back to my stupid employees. Uh uh another stu the original stupid employee I meant to talk about that I actually had things written down on here. So this person likes to include other people in drama, and they're very dramatic themselves. They they cannot stay in their lane. And while this person is a native English speaker, their grammar skills are horrendous. And first, I can tell you I never knew the English language had so many verbs that could be misconjugated. I thought that, you know, taking Spanish and German and things like that in high school, yeah. Uh uh pronouns, you know, all the controversy around pronouns, forget about it. Is this this person has no idea about uh subjective, objective, reflexive pronouns, and they're all over the place, and I I can't do it. And they're this person will never, ever, ever use a singular negative. They always use double and triple negatives, and it's err.

Patrick 19:01

Wait, is this person stupid, or like it's just English isn't their first language, and this and it's really hard.

Warren 19:05

They are a native, they are a native US-born person. This and we're not talking, there's no colloquialisms involved here. There's no thing along those lines that that you may uh try and forgive. This person is just has the worst English skills I've ever used. They they don't care, and they oh, and this is another thing that gets to me. They use words not knowing what they mean, and then when they realize what they mean, oh I didn't know that. Then why'd you use a word that you didn't mean? I mean, oh, I just I I can't stand hearing this person speak for more than two minutes. Luckily I don't have to very frequently, but when it comes in, oh, here's something. So they had a there was a speaking of Zoom, they were conducting a Zoom meeting and had a couple of dozen people on it, including some high rollers, and we the idea was we were gonna record it and use it for training to distribute to other people who couldn't attend and other people who needed the information. Um and all of a sudden, she in the middle of it, oh uh somebody said something, and then she talks and she goes, I didn't know sooner was a real word, as in sooner than later, or you know, not like a not like a Oklahoma sooner.

Patrick 20:23

I couldn't tell you what an Oklahoma Sooner is.

Warren 20:25

But I don't know the whole backstory to that, but sooner as in sooner or later, we weren't using it in a any weird way. And she goes, I didn't know sooner was a real world. And I was like, Oh gosh. Anyways, long story short, we couldn't use the video I to share with others, and uh I'm thinking, what how can you help this employee? Literally, you would have to send them to like second grade, back to second grade, and I don't know how this person got out of high school, much less college. I I don't know. It's use it or lose it. You think just reading a book every now and again, or auto, you know, I haven't really read read a book in years, but audiobook one, and you can you can learn just by listening and doing.

Patrick 21:15

Like this podcast, people learn a lot.

Warren 21:18

You know what? I think people can, not maybe not this episode, but on some of our episodes, you can actually we could sneak in a little learning in there.

Patrick 21:26

Maybe the ones where you have guests who actually know what they're talking about.

Warren 21:29

Yeah, when we have guests, when it's not just I'm I'm working on some guests, a little busy with work right now, but I I've I've got a couple things going on with some fun guests. I think I think we're gonna get those uh booked up soon. So, anyways, I had both not that long ago a manager and a senior manager come into my office, and the senior manager comes to me and says, our our timekeeping policy doesn't have any teeth behind it. And I'm like, What do you mean it doesn't have any teeth behind it? And he's like, Well, it doesn't say whether Happens if you don't clock in on a regular basis. And I said, Well, it doesn't, we don't have to say for each policy what happens. It's it's you know, you know, holding is not a five-yard penalty. Uh each action has a uh penalty associated with it. I said, No, we you can just begin the regular uh disciplinary practice. And we had uh a little debate about it. I'm like, you're the manager, you know, there's a policy, you must clock in, record your time accurately, and if they're not doing it, you can you know go through the progressive discipline stages with them. And he just, well, why doesn't it say that in a policy? I said, it doesn't our our handbook would be twice the width that is the thickness it was right now.

Patrick 22:39

You missed a really golden opportunity here, Warren. Because what you should have said was Okay, damn it, you're right. I need you to stop what you're doing and get on this. For every we need an action, a consequence for every action or inaction needs to go in this book. I need and I need you to get this to me. You know, set a good dead in mind. So like if it's one minute late, what happens? Two minutes, you I get to go out there and smack them. You know, whatever the is, I need you to write this down. Like you missed an opportunity to get them to really like oh do some crazy shit.

Warren 23:11

But see, with this manager, I might not want to done that because especially not just you can smack them at two minutes. He'd be on board. HR told me I could do this. But uh but yeah, just though and then um he's like, well, he goes, Well, let's I want to get this, I want to let start enforcing this more and da-da-da-da. I said, Well, you know, you should talk to everybody. And I said, talk individually to your prime offenders, but talk to everybody saying, Hey, we're gonna be, you know, enforcing this a little stronger. There's been some issues, yada, yada, yada. And he says, Well, well, can't you just send uh an email from HR to everyone on my team? And I said, They're they're not my employees to manage. I said, This is you needing to be a manager, um, and things like that. I said, This is oh, this is funny. I said, Nobody reads emails from HR. I said, and the two of you are prime examples. I've sent no less than six emails about open enrollment, and y'all were among the last people to get it done. And uh, so I said, nobody reads these emails. And uh so uh I got to use that.

Patrick 24:18

The irony of them even suggesting that as a like actual communication practice from HR is is stunning.

Warren 24:26

Oh, I I I got a kick out of it to a certain degree, but it was it was frustrating and funny at the same time. And I guess because they're they're good people, they're not like horrible managers or anything, but and they're trying to do the right thing, I guess. But uh uh but yeah, uh it's not my job to manage our people. And that's that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Patrick 24:50

I still want to see what some of the some of these fun little things would be like for these minor infractions. Like, what do they expect to be listed on there? I I I that yeah, dude, I can't. That would be a fun activity, would be instead of like your you know, your HR team is gonna put together and you know, legal team put together the the faculty handbook, have your managers put together what they think should be an employee handbook. That would just be like a really fun activity for HR just to like sit around and just laugh for a couple hours.

Warren 25:23

What needs what what does a manager think needs to be an employee handle?

Patrick 25:28

I think that's a you know what that might be my best my best practice for everyone today is we're not quite there yet, but have your managers write what they think should be the employee manual. Oh that could be a fun time.

Warren 25:40

It would be interesting. Yeah. And we keep the employment law attorneys well occupied.

Patrick 25:47

They gotta earn their keep.

Warren 25:49

Hey. And and many of them, many of them do, especially in in these days and ages. Well, another speaking of employee law, something it when it first came out, the new non-disparaging, you can't put non-disparaging clauses in separation agreements anymore. And overall, I'm I'm against it, but when actually you get to the nitty-gritty of it, this non-disparaging law only applies to your line employees. It doesn't apply to management. You can prevent your management team from saying disparaging things, but you can't uh a regular employee. And so when I first heard it, I'm like, well, why the hell would you do a separation agreement? I mean, that's half the one of the major separation agreements I ever worked on in my life happened because employee A thought that they knew better than everybody, and through their employment, they continued to tell everybody, and including like on social media, now they know better than their company, etc. And uh they ended up end ended up not necessarily costing their their job, but it was a mutually agreed upon separation, and they they signed a separation agreement which included okay, we're gonna pay you X amount of money, and there will be no more social media posts regarding the company, yada yada yada, and uh you know, and there was consequences for that. That and we had lawyers drafted up, but that's what we wanted out of them. We wanted them to shut up.

Patrick 27:19

Yeah. And if you you take that away, wow, that's so how do you enforce something like that as someone who isn't really involved in that part of the game?

Warren 27:29

Well, they they would be uh you could take them to court for breach of contract at that point. And and sometimes not that I th sometimes these non these separation agreements have consequences list out. It will cost you X amount of dollars or what have you, pay X amount in damages to to do that. But yeah, but but it is still a big thing, but it's not as big as when the news first broke it. It was like, oh my god, you can't do this. Well, now you can't do it for management employees because it violates their their ability to collectively bargain under the uh National Labor Relations Board. So and address terms and conditions of employment. See, somebody learned something today. We you are going to learn, and it wasn't from a guest. So, anyways, I thought I found that that was very interesting. A lot of partial overreacting, it does have some some issues to it. We'll see how long it lasts because I I just I can't see needing to ever do for a non-management employee. Non-management employee leaves us, bye. You know, we can't tell you to stop saying these true, untrue. And honestly, going back to my situation, these things the employee was saying were completely untrue or so far out of context that they may as well have been not true. They're misleading to the point they they weren't true. But anyways, just a little personal experience. Only time I've really had a meaty situation to deal with on that. So, anyways, I think that gives us a a good spot to call it a day on. BS in the news. We do have uh another episode next week with a a guest, a listener, who like I said, I had to drag in kicking screaming, but they they have committed, and I'm not gonna let them out of their their commitment. So he he is a listener, so hopefully he will not dodge me on this, and uh we will go from there. Ghost the interview is a ghost us. No show the well it hint, he's uh he's new to recruiting, and he's already got some horror stories that he he shared with me one-on-one, and um I said, nope, you gotta come on and share this with the the entire world.

Patrick 29:39

I hope he's not like me when I was new to recruiting, and just thinking back at like some of the questions I used to ask. Like I No, it Yeah, I just I remember asking a Sikh if he would be willing to shave his beard because of our policy, not not realizing that there were like religious exemptions for things. And I was just like, I'm so oh man, I hate recruiting. You're so lucky.

Warren 30:06

Yeah. You you could be on on the on the news for this for some bad you know, I think early in our well uh in our cr throughout our crews, there's times where we get pretty lucky that oh my god, I did that and I shouldn't have done that, and I didn't get caught, or anything along those lines.

Patrick 30:25

So I mean I would blame my manager for putting someone that has literally no HR experience right in the hiring role.

Warren 30:32

So hey, but uh it just takes one time and now you've got uh uh a huge issue, and and that's something that maybe um managers don't always realize or companies don't always realize. It just takes one thing and it blows up, and now you're all over social media and internet news with with this stuff. So anyways. Well, we're gonna wrap it up there. Patrick already gave our pet best pat boy Patrick already gave our best pat practi I can't do it twice. Patrick already gave our best pat practice don't cut any of this. Patrick already Patrick already gave our best practice. Please support the show anyway, any of the ways you can. Check our show notes out for more information. Our intro and outro is the underscore orchestra, double and devil, devil with the devil is the song, and our voice artist is Andrew Kolpa, who does our introduction. So thank you very much for being with us. We we hope you've enjoyed the show. As always, I'm Warren. I'm Patrick. And we're helping you survive HR1 what the fuck moment at a time.

Patrick 31:56

Wait, you need to put this in there. I'm gonna say it. I'm practicing.