Tech Shaming Zoomers and Other Shenanigans on Our 100th Episode!

OUR 100th Episode!

Stomach Gurggling
Tech Shaming Zoomers
She was told what in her review
Corel WordPerfect suite VS MS Office
Fax Machines suck
Best Practice

Transcript

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Announcer 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'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 safe zone. Welcome to JadedHR.

Warren 0:49

Welcome to JDHR podcast by three HR professionals who want to help you get through your workday by saying all the things you're thinking, but say them out loud. I'm Warren, Mrs. Feathers, and I'm Patrick. Alrighty, we got the whole gang here today, and today is a really, really special occasion. So I wanted to try and have the whole crew here, and we'll be all back together in a couple of weeks. But today is our one hundredth episode.

Feathers 1:45

Marriage in the podcast. Like you're good. Two things. Yeah.

Warren 1:50

Yeah, those are the two things I've stuck with for a very long time. Everything else, I'm a I'm a grade A quitter.

Feathers 1:57

I mean, you're you're stuck with your kids, so that's that's not gonna change. Yeah.

Warren 2:01

Well, one of them's moving out next week, like I said, all the way across the country, and uh the other goes is out in a couple weeks or months, I should say. So yeah, it's it's gonna be a cool, cool new world for me. So but we're we're at our hundredth episode, and uh really we we could have made it without all of you listeners because it especially lasts all seven of you. Well, the last three months our our listenership has exploded. I was just looking at some of our our staff. Hey, we've killed it, damn it. 100% we're still went ranked in Swaziland. We are still in the top 25 in Swaziland.

Patrick 2:43

I know I was gonna look up tickets. I feel like that's the gonna be the first live show as we go to Swaziland and be the first live show.

Warren 2:51

Yeah, yeah. I'll so yeah uh once again, I want you, you Swaziland listeners plural to to hit us up and just say hi. I'd love to hear from you on Instant Messenger. Email us at feedback at jdhr.com. I'll I'll love to love to hear from you. But uh yeah, we we have great listeners. We've had a few listeners on, tell their stories. We have Halley, our original J Did HR rock star, who's our Patreon supporter. So stop making Halley feel lonely and and join us to support us in one of the many ways financially through Patreon or through our podcast host, tell a story, refer a friend, leave a review. Please leave a review. It's been a little while, but I haven't checked internationally in a long time. So maybe we get some more in Canada or something like that. So, anyways, that's that's our little opening today. So, can you all can you all believe it's been a hundred episodes? No. No, Warren, it's crazy. No. I I can't. I I really can't. It feels like we started this not that long ago.

Feathers 3:58

The good news is you're the only one that's that full all hundred.

Patrick 4:03

Yeah. Yeah. The bad news is I don't think Swaziland has an airport.

Warren 4:08

We can fly into Johannesburg.

Patrick 4:10

Yeah. Okay.

Warren 4:13

Is it the Musk family out there? The Emerald Mines. So yeah, get us out there. Play our bill, we'll get out there. So anyhow. Don't say that.

Patrick 4:28

You never know or write that check.

Warren 4:32

Yeah. So I've I've got a couple I got one story that happened to me today, not really work-related, but I found it funny and very relatable. And then I got two news articles I I came up with today. So today I went for my semi-annual dental cleaning and no cavities. Yay, I'm a good brusher and philosophy, all that other great stuff. Good for me. But uh so you know they they recline you in the chair, and practically your your head is in the the hygienist lap when they they lean you back. I mean, there's like three inches of chairs separating you from like being in the person's lap. And my hygienist had some stomach curgles going on today, and they were pretty fierce. And after like the second one, I with her like water pick thing in my mouth, I I had to laugh. I could not laugh anymore. And I could even tell with the the like the face shield and the mask on that she was embarrassed. I said, Oh, it's not a problem, it happens to everybody. I just think it's funny. But I I've been in a presentation before when my stomach in front of everybody just goes and audible to everybody. So I could I can relate uh heavily to that, but I just know wow, that yeah. It's funny, people did she acknowledge them? Yes. After I started laughing. Okay after I laughed, she acknowledged them. I I just you know, couldn't I couldn't hold out anymore. But this the one that I laughed at was like pretty intense. That's a good one. But uh yeah, that was that was funny. So, anyways, that was my funny story for today. But it has happened to me. I've been in a presentation in front of other people, and if there's also myself, which is like we're gonna talk with Warren today, and we're gonna make some awful noises that everybody in the world can. Story number one. Story number two. This comes to us from Anchorage Daily News up in wild, incredible Alaska by Lynn Curry. An employee writes a question into this. I'm not I didn't put everything down, but her question is I loved my job until seven months ago. That's when our former CEO retired and our board hired Tim, end quote. Tim decided it's his job to critique not only my results, which he even agrees are excellent, but my methods and my personal life. He married his childhood sweetheart and joined the Air Force. He's very proud that his first and only marriage of his first and only marriage, he regularly comments on politicians and others who are divorced. We left the Air Force, his father-in-law hired him. They sold their company just before the pandemic hit, and this may have been luck as no one knew the pandemic was coming. Tim considered it genius. Tim took his share and got the money and got an MBA, and now he thinks he knows everything about everything. And he tells her, this is at a performance evaluation time. You could be so much more than you are, he told me. While clients love me and I produce great results, I need to work more on a structured manner. Tim wants me to document everything at a micro level in Excel spreadsheets. He loves Excel. When I said I didn't need Excel spreadsheets for my projects and could provide him with detailed bulleted summaries, he said, your refusal to organize tightly and do what's asked of you are problems. When I said I wanted to use my organizing methods to better fit my projects and working style, he said, since you bring up style, you need to upgrade your personal style. Others don't take you seriously as if you were to dress professionally in blazers rather than sweaters and styled your hair. And again, your stubbornness and unwillingness to accept feedback might be why you're on your third marriage.

Patrick 8:32

Not expecting that. The ending was great. Yeah. Stuck the landing.

Warren 8:37

Wow. You stuck the landing. Yeah. Yeah. That's why you're on your third marriage. Oh gosh. It's Tim needs to go into like psychology. Yeah. Exactly. Just what what compels someone to do things along those lines? Or to say, you know, where's the the filter between think and say? I I have one sometimes. I have a small filter, and it works sometimes, but I know not to say things like that, especially at performance evaluation.

Patrick 9:17

Is it like one of those weird sponge ones you see in uh humidifiers? You have no idea how it actually works.

Warren 9:23

I have no idea how it works. It's there, and it may work sometimes, it may not work other times. I might have told the story on the podcast before the the high school my children go to, you have to apply and be accepted. It's a public high school, you still have to apply and be accepted. You have to go to these information sessions. And my daughter applied and was accepted at that high school. My son is going through it. So we have to be there as part of the requirements to get into it. And the principal is there and he's telling us toiling his giving his spiel. Very good. He's a very good speaker. He went to East Carolina, undergraduate master's, and PhD. But uh, anyways, he's sitting there giving answers, and then he starts answering at the end of a question and answer session. And people are asking questions, and 99% of the questions, if people listened when he was talking, they would have heard the answer to their question. But it gets like super quiet, or this dude asks a question, and this has like been answered 30 times already. And I'd lean over to Dawn thinking I'm whispering and go, what a stupid fucking question. And the the principal who knows who I am just sort of looked at me. I was like, whoops. It's like all the background noise went away when I had to say that. And Dawn was livid, she was A, embarrassed, and B completely livid with me. Why would you have to say that then? No, the room's volume was gonna go to zero the second I had to say that. Yeah, that that was a little funny on my my filter not working at that particular time. All right. I have one more story. This might end up being a shorty, who knows? A few weeks ago, Patrick and I, you and I talked about ginziers, zoomers, or whatever you want to call them. You know, how they don't necessarily have this the incredible technical skills that people think they they're gonna have. Well, this is from the New York Post, March 10th. The writer is Alex Mitchell. Uh opening line of this article, and I love it. New York Post is sort of famous for these headlines and great openers. But the opening line is they're control plus useless. I I I loved it. Control plus useless. Gen Zers and young millennials may have emerged from the womb knowing how to hack into their parents' smartphones, but put them in a traditional office environment, kind with printers, scanners, fax machines, and desktop computers, the most naturally tech-savvy humans alive are suddenly as long as lost as their grandparents were at the dawn of the digital age. And I was like, oh yes, this is great. Megan Whitaker, a 29-year-old social worker from Brooklyn, said, Whenever I can't get into the printer at my job at work, my older colleagues laugh at me and good fun. It makes me feel silly. Hewitt Packard did a study and found that one in five young office workers feel judged when experiencing tech issues. Because you are being judged. Youth. Youth are 10 times more likely to feel shame in these scenarios when compared to their more mature peers. And thus comes the phrase that we were talking about earlier when we started this thing, tech shaming. So Gen Z is feeling tech shamed. And you know what? They absolutely should. If you cannot get a printer, uh, you know, connect to your printer, do simple things. Now, fax machine, I will 110% agree with you on that because fax machines are from the 18th century, need to go away. I I ridicule like employment verification just last week. Oh, can you send me your fax number? I said, I could 20 years ago. And she said, I don't know if I can email it to you. I said, Well, I said, we're gonna have to figure out some way to me to fill this out, otherwise, and they were able to finally email it to me. But uh fax machines, anyways, I they're they are awful. But uh but just like going to the 1990s, and I don't Patrick, you don't know this, but if you were going for a job in an office in the 90s, most likely you probably had to take a an assessment test in Microsoft Office, like your basic Word, Excel, typing outlook type things. In like so many They had Office back then? Yeah, we did. We did have Office back then.

Patrick 13:54

Funstones, but yeah, they I was like the DOS era where you had to like install something, it was like 30 floppies.

Warren 14:00

Oh, I remember those days as well.

Feathers 14:02

I love the DOS, the green screens.

Warren 14:06

Uh the monochrome screens, yes. When we got to college, they had windows finally. Uh they had windows. But here's a funny off-topic thing. So East Carolina hitched their horse to Corel. So we learned um at East Carolina we were Lotus, Lotus Notes, and whatever else it was, because it was at that time in the early 90s, Lotus and Microsoft nobody knew who was going to win that race. And uh like the Blu-ray versus HD DVD race.

Patrick 14:36

Exactly. You know, HD no one remembers no one remembers HD DVD anymore, but like I had the Xbox, and that's what the that's what Microsoft picked. PlayStation took Blu-ray, Xbox had the HD DVD, and we all know how that ended.

Warren 14:48

Yeah, exactly. And it was WordPerfect. Corel had Word Perfect and Lotus Notes, and that's what we learned at East Carolina. And then, of course, uh, they they did not win the survival of the fittest game when that that came out. So, anyways, back to back to what I was saying, but the the people today, you know, I I've talked in that episode that I was embarrassed and wrong by making assumptions of what a quote unquote younger person could do uh and thinking, oh yeah, they can they can do these things, but I I I'm not gonna, you know, I I prove me wrong. I'm gonna feel stupid asking, tell me about your Excel skills, tell me about your office skills, things like that. Is that to think that that's a you know, that's like asking, can you send a fax? You know, that's that's how old I think that that question is. But now I'm gonna have to be I'm gonna be asking those questions no matter how silly I think it is, because I've I've been burned and I done it.

Patrick 15:47

Did they still do like typing classes in like high schools and stuff? I think that's one thing, like because like the Gen Z is so like tablet phone focused, like I grew up in the AOL instant messenger. So like my typing skills were insane, even though they weren't proper. I can hunt and peck a million miles an hour because I spent my life doing that on AIM. And but like that's the my generation, the next generation, everything was smartphone-based. I think that's why everyone's like, oh, these kids are so smart because they can use they can use a smartphone, but they don't know like necessarily the technology behind that. Right. And there's like a there's this gap of PCs and laptops being obsolete because you can do everything on your phone now for that generation. That's just what they're growing up on. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

Warren 16:36

Well, it just blows me away because how the hell are you getting out of high school or even college? I've seen the work my children have to do, and they have to do it in Microsoft Office, and I I've seen what they have to do. It should, they should have the basic skills to do what is needed in an office. It just, you know.

Patrick 16:56

I mean, I took four years of French in high school and I I got through it, but I couldn't speak French now. So, you know.

Warren 17:02

Yeah. I'll get my children to tell you how when I was in Puerto Rico, I started speaking German to the person accidentally. I did uh Duolingo for three months trying to teach myself Spanish, and I get in a situation and then all of a sudden I'm reverting to German. So yeah, my nice my kids had a blast with me with that one. Just like cerveza, cerveza.

Feathers 17:25

Yeah. So it was but no, that's a but that's a good question, Patrick. That's a great question. I'm like, I wonder if typing is still taught. Because now I'm thinking back to like my high school days and I took a typing class. And now, like looking at the keyboard, I couldn't tell you where anything actually is, but I just know it because I've done it for so long.

Warren 17:44

Yeah. I d I don't recall, you know, like I said, my daughter's graduated college now, my son's graduating high school. I don't think they've either taken a typing class, they've both taken computer classes, but I don't think it was sp anything specific to typing. I I remember taking typing class and how much a waste of time that is. Is I I still only use like six. I've got my thumb on index and middle finger of each thing I uh each hand I can use, and that's about the extent of my typing ability. The pinky and the ring finger are just you know useless appendages at that point. So just cut them off. Yeah, I'll I'll do that one. So, anyways, those are the the articles I had up, but one thing I did pull up that I I've been meaning to include in a podcast forever and ever, actually, at least a month right now. I posted on LinkedIn. Our podcasting host gave us some great stats on the podcast for you, and I posted a couple here and there. And I'm I'm not gonna use her full name, even though it's on LinkedIn, but Victoria commented on one of my posts on the 2022 wrap-up, said, My favorite shenanigans podcast. So, Victoria, thank you very much for that on LinkedIn. Some good feedback. Yeah. That's an awesome word. It's not used enough. That's a favorite word.

Feathers 19:11

Anytime I think about East Carolina, I think about shenanigans.

Warren 19:17

It it needs to be its own pat podcast category. We need a shenanigans podcast category. Shenanigans. I call it shenanigans.

Patrick 19:31

You mentioned LinkedIn, and you know, I love the LinkedIn Lunar Tation subreddit. And someone found under someone under their experience in LinkedIn listed Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, and Tesla. Their job was investor. Investor. So they bought stock in January of 2021 and they've held that stock for two years, three months. Yeah. So I don't know if that does that count? If you saw that on someone's resume, be like, oh yeah, savvy moves. This guy's got it going on.

Warren 20:11

Well, I was listening to another podcast. I've got I've actually got a new favorite HR podcast out there. I'll I'll go ahead and name the name. It's Surfing Corporate, and they talk a lot of really good, real it's not, it's not, they don't wouldn't call themselves an HR podcast, but everything they talk about has an HR twist to it in some way, shape, or form. They've got a great Instagram page as well, Surfing Corporate. But give that podcast a checkout. The the host, the ladies in it are hilarious. But they had a guest on. His name is David Smith, so good luck finding him. But he he he works for Amazon in real life. He's a uh software engineer, but his byline is supermodel, doctor, software engineer. And he he's just some of the random, insane posts that he puts, not insane, they're hilarious. He like uh a couple days ago, he wrote, I was gonna air an eye patch to work today to make myself seem more edgy, but I lost my depth perception and couldn't get in a car. You know, it just those things he writes are are this you know, it's a welcome relief to find on on LinkedIn because I'm I'm really getting over LinkedIn and the Facebook-esque of it. But I keep I found your arch nemesis on LinkedIn more.

Patrick 21:34

Who's that? I think this might might be a recruiter named Trent. Okay. And one of his posts was prospects opting out of my emails with no explanation is personal. I respond by calling by calling them every other day until they acknowledge me. For every action in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The more they resist, the harder. I I will push in order to break through.

Warren 22:02

Oh. You know, this is if he thinks he's uh irresistible force, I'm the immovable object. One thing I've been doing lately, I've been marking all these solicitors' emails as spam, and they're just so I'd never see him again. And anyways, we don't have directile numbers, so uh I'm you know, when the I'm very good at uh screening and giving him a lifetime subscription to voicemail and things like that. Actually, I was throwing y'all off air. There's one person who constantly calls my cell phone that we actually work with, and I saw I'd blocked him today. I'm just like, I'm done, no more on my cell phone. Uh can't can't do that. Not gonna do it.

Patrick 22:41

So anyhow. I like the the the top comment on Reddit. Fun fact, Trent was not the the the top new sales generator last quarter, but he does lead the company in restraining orders.

Warren 22:54

I like that. So good. Very good. So anyways, I I think that's a good place to to wrap it up for today. Best practice. Anybody got Patrick? You're you're you're good at pulling them out real quick. Why do you have my best practice?

Feathers 23:08

Alright, Patrick, break down the top 100. Here we go.

Patrick 23:12

My two kids would disagree with that. That's that's bad. Best practice.

Warren 23:22

Do your homework and do a best practice before. You can know the podcast.

Patrick 23:26

I was gonna say if you've done a hundred episodes of a podcast, maybe prepare yourself for doing said.

Warren 23:32

Always change the fax paper. Always change the fax paper. Oh, remember when it used to be the rolls. Instead of eight cartridges, the rolls of stuff. You could go through the roll and read old faxes if you were so implied.

Feathers 23:47

Yeah, to cut them. Like you had to cut them to get them to eight and a half eleven's already winning. Yeah, it was yeah. Who didn't change the rail in the fax machine last night?

Patrick 23:57

Was that was that the paper that had the two edges that you could pull off ahead of the room? No, no, no.

Warren 24:01

Fax paper was like thermal paper, and it just came in a long roll. Yeah. So yeah, not the dot matrix printer ones that uh had the edges on the side. And then the ink was also in a roll like that. And you it was, I don't know. Uh old.

Patrick 24:18

You had to take it out and shake it when it was well and get a couple stretch it out a little bit.

Warren 24:22

Well, these yeah. These the rolls ones that you could, it was like a mimeograph, which you probably don't know either, but it was a negative of the fax that came in. Uh they were crazy. Faxes suck. Do not send faxes. That is the second best practice for you. But anyways, the J and HR. We sound old as shit.

Feathers 24:42

We don't sound old as shit because we are old as shit. Well, at least Warren I are.

Warren 24:49

Get off my lawn. So, no, everybody, thank you so much for your support the last uh uh three years and a hundred episodes. We're actually going to start season four in just three weeks. Uh so we're gonna have uh uh uh the three of us back again in a few weeks for that one, and uh just a lot of fun going on. I hope to have a couple more guests coming on very shortly. Got a just a lot of a lot of fun things going on. So continue to support show, telefriend, etc. So as always, oh before I get to that, uh our theme music is the underscore orchestra with the devil the devil, and our voice artist is Andrew Culpa, who does our disclaimer. So now I can say, as always, I'm Warren. This is Feathers, Patrick, and we're helping you survive HR One What the Fuck Moment at a time.