Shorty #16: Firing Tourons

Ever seen a viral video and thought, "What on earth were they thinking?" Well, this episode is for you! We're hitting the play button on the madness of social media blunders that have grabbed global attention. From the audacity of the British bloke who defaced the Roman Coliseum to workers caught doing the unthinkable on camera, there's only one good repercussion of these mind-boggling actions: termination. Warren even shares his personal experience at Yellowstone National Park, revealing the shocking disregard some visitors display for nature's majesty. 

Brace yourself as we dive into the perils of disregarding safety and responsibility in our beloved national parks. We've got tales that will make your jaw drop - an Oregon man taking an acid hot spring dip, a woman's risky selfie adventure with a buffalo, and more. Amid the laughs, we hammer home the need for respect and common sense while enjoying nature's best. We also delve into the consequences for employees starring in viral videos for all the wrong reasons.  Get ready for a rollercoaster ride filled with laughter, shock, and mocking the bizarre antics of others.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 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. Welcome to JTDHR, to Podcast by two HR professionals who want to help you get through to work day by saying all the things you're thinking, but say them out loud. Warren, and this is Feathers. All right, shorty time, so a lot of news are this? This really isn't the news articles I'm getting this from really don't have anything to do with HR, but I'm just seeing so many more of them every day and I've said before I live in a heavily tourist dependent community, which I think you're going to be down being a tourist down here in my neck of the woods very shortly. Good, but the word around here they use the one I'm going to use, they use several are torons, mixing, of course, tourists with morons, so you get torons. They also have another one that I'll just steer clear of on this episode, but anyways, there's been just a rash of social media idiots out there doing the stupidest thing, so let's talk. The big one that made worldwide news, not local, national or anything worldwide news the British guy who carved his and his girlfriend's initials in the remote Roman Coliseum and when he was confronted about they've got him, he said he didn't know that it was ancient. So at that point, great Britain, I love Great Britain. I've been accused of being an Anglophile. I watch all the British TV shows. I don't have a Brit box but I watch Broadchurch and Dr who and Sherlock and everything British entertainment so much. But next time Germany comes for your ass, I think maybe they need to. We need to say have fun with that. If your education system is so bad, this kid can't even just look at the Coliseum and say this is, this is an agent, this was built yesterday, but apparently they are. The Italian police authorities are really going after him to the maximum. I don't know. I haven't seen any updates on this recently. But yeah, but that's just one. But my whole point in this little rant is okay and he was videotaped, so there's no denying he did it.

Speaker 1: 2:38

You are the subject of a viral video of one of these torons doing something incredibly stupid and you see this video. It gets brought your attention and it's your employee. Can and do you fire them? And I have. I bet everybody can guess what my opinion is minus two fire their ass, absolutely. I don't know what it is. Oh, I was on time off this. This doesn't affect work. No, it just shows you are have zero decision making abilities, you have zero common sense and I don't want to be known as the employer of that absolute moron had to filter myself there who carved my initials in the Coliseum, called their initials in the Coliseum, and really that is too much. In your own video, you can't tonight. I didn't do that. No, you're on video. And his only excuses I didn't know his agent. So you're just. You're winning on all levels today, dude.

Speaker 1: 3:43

But other other examples there's been so many lately. I post one Mentioned. I've only posted like once in the last month before the one I did last week to promote surfing corporate being on our show. There was one I posted asked would you fire this person? Of course, I don't know how to use Instagram that well, so I opened it up to comments and I saw some comments come in. I don't know where to hell to retrieve those comments from, but anyways, my comment was would you fire this person?

Speaker 1: 4:10

And it was the lady at Nash Yellowstone National Park who goes off the wooden boardwalk trail to stick her feet in the hot springs, where you can see, even though summer, steam is rising up from these hot springs, so that might be a clue. It's a little bit hot there, but she sticks her feet in the hot springs and runs away young. Oh my god, it's hot and and things like that. And I tell you I've mentioned a few times before, my grandmother lives about an hour away from Yellowstone National Park. I love Yellowstone National Park, except I'm not. I don't. I will go there maybe one more time in my life and that will be in the winter. I I Cannot stand Yellowstone any longer, as much as I love it. I think it's so beautiful and awesome. The, the, the quantity of people there, the Complete and unadulterated stupidity of the people there just blows my mind and I. Last time I went, I Took my kids and they learned some new words. That day it was at the Grand Parasimatic Springs Springs. We were there and I just lost it on a bunch of tourists that were just pissing me off the whole time. And yeah, well, it wasn't my best moment, but I just, I just had enough of your supposed to be enjoying yourself, but anyways. But going back to the wonderful woman who sticks her feet in the hot springs.

Speaker 1: 5:40

The last year I went to Yellowstone a month or two later after we went there a 23rd, and I took this from the news. This was like I don't even write my word here. Might have been like 2017, something around there, but a 23 year old Oregon man essentially dissolved into a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park. When he accidentally fell into it, he was in an unauthorized area of the park and he was hot. I guess they would call it hot tubbing. But this spring just happened to be a sulfuric acid spring turning with acidic waters, and when they went to retrieve his body and they couldn't do it immediately because there were storms in the area when they made it out there the next day, there were no remains to be found. The acidic waters had essentially completely dissolved him. So, yeah, I mean not that I want to make fun of someone losing their life, but you go into unauthorized areas, you do unauthorized things and sometimes bad shit happens and things like that.

Speaker 1: 6:43

But how many things this year 20, 23 have we seen Tourists getting either trampled or gored by bison? And I just remembered this one video of this lady. She's trying to get up really close to one, the buffalo and she's trying to take a selfie by it and it it could have killed her. I mean, a buffalo could kill a human as easy as they wanted to, but it more or less knocked her down and it didn't trample her, luckily. But everybody else was videotaping this.

Speaker 1: 7:13

But you know, once again, many national parks bend a Yellowstone any number of times. They tell you, stay 50 yards away from the wildlife If it's. They even tell you for bears and mountain lions and things stay 100 yards away there if you just pay attention and use your common sense. But I want to say that this is going back to my whole point. So the lady comes back, she comes into my work If they were to come into my work and I need short term disability because I got trampled by a buffalo. I'm like, oh, that'd be good if you were employed. Still, as of the moment you got trampled, you're no longer employed because we don't hire idiots, we don't retain idiots like that. I'm just I've mentioned, hire a lot of idiots. We just shouldn't retain them. Retain them, yeah, once you prove you're on that idiot list, you're done. But I probably should have began a lot of times myself. There's no evidence from the 90s, thank God, or at least I know where it is. Yeah, and we know who would let it out if it came. But right, the cell phone.

Speaker 1: 8:25

In the internet age, everybody wanted to be the next viral sensation, the next superstar on whatever it is, threads even, or a big talk. It's just so stupid. I mean, I like said I love national parks, I love all that, I love going out in nature. I go quite frequently, actually have a national park pass I get every year so I can go to all the parks I want, any time I want, and it's a great tool. But people just respect respect nature. Respect Respect yourself, I think, is the number one thing. These people that are doing this stupid shit aren't respecting themselves.

Speaker 1: 9:01

But anyways, oh, I don't know if I talked about the dude hitting the balls off the edge of the Grand Canyon into the Colorado River, I mean, and he's on video and he's like you're on for whatever he's doing, and oh, I didn't know, we weren't allowed, you're not like there's a special kind of stupid in the world there is. Oh, you're also not allowed to jump off the cliff. Give that one a try. Nobody told you not to jump off the cliff there. So I don't know, but I went to Yellowstone or, excuse me, the Grand Canyon two years ago and there are signs everywhere Do not throw things, do not kick rocks off the edge, do not throw things. It's everywhere. So if you didn't know it, you're doing it.

Speaker 1: 9:49

And then another thing well, I'm just, I'm off my show notes anyways, he's gone rogue, I'm gone rogue, but the a lot of times when you have these human animal interactions, even if it's completely benign, national Park Service finds that animal and puts it down. There was a story of a man it was either in a teetown or Yellowstone, I can't remember he thought he was trying to help a baby buffalo and he tried to carry it or something like that, and the National Park Service had to put that baby buffalo down because they didn't want it to become imprinted, or I think that humans are people to be cool around. We want them to keep their distance. So, anyway, that's another thing, and I was telling you all fair, in my local area we've had a tourist a few months ago be injured by one of the wild horses on the beach because they got too close. I think the law is you have to stay 50 yards away from wild horses at all times, but obviously this person didn't. Or just last week, on the same beach, an endangered turtle species, which I don't remember what species it was, but got run over by somebody driving on the four wheel drive beach area. And if you're driving the speed limit, you should be able to avoid something as large as a sea turtle. It's not like it's a little tiny thing that you're you're, you're going to miss it. It's a sea turtle. But the good news out of that is at least was the. It was a mother and she'd laid her eggs and they were protecting the eggs, but the mother did not make it.

Speaker 1: 11:22

So, anyways, that's my little rant about Torons today, and I do encourage all you HR mantras if one of your employees gets caught on one of these cool viral videos doing something this stupid, find a way to get rid of their asses. I sure as hell am, and that's your best practice for today. Yeah, fire, idiots, find a way, fire, find a way, find a way. There's got to be a loop hole somewhere. Yeah, I don't care what, even if you're at a union environment, you show that the unit. Look, this is your moron here. And oh, okay, please let it go. This is your extra kind of moron, this is your extra moron. But anyways, I just wanted to rant about that and I just I hope to God I never see one of my employees on one of these stupid videos.

Speaker 1: 12:14

And especially when it comes to social media, I don't post much. My mom and I follow so many national park stuff and I so so much nature and things, and that's how I find out this. These things, even even the National Park Service themselves repost some of them, and I think it's the National Park Service has got some great tweets, by the way, if you haven't followed them, cool stuff out there. But anyways, that's all I've got for this shorty episode. Hope you enjoyed me just blathering on like a fool for however many minutes it's been. I'm just your sidekick, yeah, but thank you for listening. As always, I'm Warren and this is feathers and we're helping you survive HR one. What the fuck? Moment at a time, stop, no-transcript.