Would You Rather Fight 100 Duck Sized Horses or 1 Horse Sized Duck

Ever wonder what your arch-nemesis would say about you in a job interview? Or how you'd explain your choice between battling a hundred duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck? Buckle in for a wild ride as we explore these eccentric interview questions and share bemusing HR anecdotes. This episode offers a chance to laugh, learn, and ponder some of life’s most unusual queries. 

As we navigate the post-pandemic work landscape, Amazon's CEO, Andy Jassy's recent comments highlight the contentious decision of returning to the office or continuing remote work. Who truly owns your position? You or your company? We break down this provocative notion, deeply influenced by Suzanne Lucas's compelling piece for Ink Magazine. The stakes are high, and the choice is yours - adapt or move on. 

Lastly, we unravel the twisted tale of a travel rewards dispute that sheds light on complex workplace dynamics. Picture this - an employee accusing a travel assistant of stealing his reward points. Sounds simple, right? Think again. Dive into the murky waters of this controversy, and let's explore together the role of the company in such situations. As a palate cleanser, we've also got an amusing story about a candy bar reward system that led to a surprising career move. Get ready to join in our fun debate - would you rather have 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck? Trust us; this is an episode you wouldn't want to miss!

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 ride up my employee for crying too much? Welcome to our little safe zone. Welcome to JDHR.

Speaker 2: 0:45

Welcome to JDHR, to podcast by two HR professionals who want to help you get through work day by saying all the things you are thinking, but say them out loud. I'm Warren and this is Fathers Right, so I know. At some time in last week's episode I just listened to it on my way home in my car today. I mentioned it last week was going to be a shorty, but we sort of stretched out and it wasn't a shorty. Today will be a shorty. Don't have a lot of topics to cover. Haven't been doing my homework lately, so shame on me. But we did get yet another review. So that's two weeks in a row. We've got new reviews and another five star review. This is from Ishsemi. Ishsemi, I don't know. I'm sorry, ishsemi, but they wrote Joy for my jaded soul. Oh, warren, hearing you give a piece of your mind to a salesperson for a certain duck representative Supplemental Insurance Company who dropped by and announced, brought me to such joy. Thanks for the laughs always. So thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:47

We are glad to get these reviews. Leave us a review. We did it on the air, so get those reviews on Apple Podcasts or anywhere you leave. I haven't checked other sites. We still do not. Last I looked at least. We don't have enough reviews on Spotify. You have to have like some magic minimum number, like 10 or something. We don't have that many on Spotify. It won't even tell us how many we have until we hit that magic number. So if you're on Spotify and about a third of you do listen on Spotify, go ahead and hit us up with a review and we'll read that one too. So, anyways, yeah, yeah, just very glad to have a review and if you can also want to sponsor the show, how you can sponsor us through Buys a Beer or Patreon. Links are in our show notes and on our website, like set up and work in our website getting that up to date. But I really only have. Well, I have two things for today. I'll start with this one.

Speaker 3: 2:38

Well, let's let's, let's start there. Let's, let's honor the man, the myth, the legend. Rest in peace, Mr Buffett, Jimmy Buffett.

Speaker 2: 2:46

Yes. I have some friends who just happened to be in Key West at the time and made a pilgrimage to Margaritaville, key West. It looked like to to memorize, memorialize him or, however we would say, to honor him.

Speaker 3: 2:59

He taught us the way to make millions of dollars and goof off at the same time.

Speaker 2: 3:04

Yes, we used it away again in Margaritaville. But, yeah, the good memories, a lot, of, a lot of those songs bring back. Boy, this is your two weeks in a row that we've talked about a celebrity time. Uh, let's, let's drop this. Let's not have something to talk about next week with that. So, yeah, that that's. That is sad, uh-huh, but, boy, it could bring us down and uh, back up from that.

Speaker 2: 3:34

So return to work. It's sort of the the controversial thing right now in Amazon's CEO, andy Jassy. There are these headlines. The clickbait headline says he sends a brutal message to remote workers refusing to come back to the office. It's probably not going to work out for you. I mean, yeah, I don't think that's a brutal message. If these companies want their people back in, it's for the employee to decide okay, I still want to work at Amazon or I do not want to work at Amazon it. You know, it may not be a best practice for Amazon or any of these other companies that are pulling the return to work. I mean, you're reading headlines of it all the time. Whatever company is going to have, you know 75% of their people back in the office by December 31st and you see all these headlines. Oh, excuse me, I see these headlines all the time, but you know, if you don't like it, get another job.

Speaker 3: 4:35

Stop being logical, Warren.

Speaker 2: 4:36

Stop being logical and this is my thing, and I had this very blunt conversation with an employee once upon a time. It's not your job, it's the company's position that you're filling and the company owns the position. It's my job, you can't do this. No, it's not your job. In that situation and I wanted to argue and I had to sort of put on the mean person phase and say no, no, it's the company's position, you're just the occupant, or I forget exactly what I said, as I was a while ago.

Speaker 3: 5:09

I like occupant better, like you're just occupant, you're the occupant.

Speaker 2: 5:14

I think I use the occupant term.

Speaker 3: 5:16

It's like in a renting situation.

Speaker 2: 5:19

You're just the occupant. I mean I can get it.

Speaker 3: 5:22

I pass out.

Speaker 2: 5:24

Unlike renters, you don't have to give them 30 days notice for eviction or anything. Renters have more rights than employees Squatters have even more rights.

Speaker 2: 5:38

Yeah, squatters there's been some things I haven't read about. I've seen some headlines about squatters here there, interesting stuff, so anyways, that was something that just the click baby headline. It's probably not going to work out for you, it's, you know well. Well, it may not work out for Amazon, who knows, but you got to feel a little workout for them. So also, I'm on.

Speaker 2: 6:05

A week or so ago, suzanne Lucas wrote an article for Ink Magazine and she was somebody on X slash Twitter. His name is at. Adam Karpiak asked the question what's the stupidest interview question you've ever been asked? And some of these weren't so stupid. But so this person was interviewing for a vice president of sales for a software as a service organization. And Suzanne Lucas says well, the question was sell me this pen. Was asked to a candidate for VP of sales, not entry level sales person. The VP of sales it wasn't even for a tangible product, that software as a service. Anyway, suzanne Lucas wrote should ask him for their track record of performance, especially for VP position, asking for documents and references and things like that. And you know, sell me this pen wouldn't be a bad question for an entry level or someone who's physically selling something. Maybe not for a software as a service. But either way it's a sales position. I don't think that that's an awful question to ask. You had me curious.

Speaker 3: 7:17

I just googled like the worst questions to ask and they were some of the ones that like were typically asked in previous worlds. They were asked like my favorite where do you see yourself in five years?

Speaker 2: 7:28

Where do you see yourself in five years in your job, motherfucker?

Speaker 3: 7:32

Exactly, this one's pretty good. How did your childhood shape your professional life?

Speaker 2: 7:40

I could say so many things that I wouldn't get me canceled.

Speaker 3: 7:44

They're my toys, so you don't fucking touch them, especially like show my age when Ewoks came out. Oh, hell, yeah, no, I had Ewoks, uh-uh.

Speaker 1: 7:54

I was playing like you walk.

Speaker 3: 7:56

He like that just sounds bad in contacts, but like no.

Speaker 2: 7:59

Don't touch feathers that you walk.

Speaker 3: 8:01

I like this one what would your arch nemesis say about you?

Speaker 2: 8:05

Ooh, now I do like that one. What would my arch nemesis? I don't think I have an arch nemesis.

Speaker 3: 8:13

I don't think I do either, but I would hope they would call me an asshole.

Speaker 2: 8:18

He foils me around every corner, trenton.

Speaker 3: 8:22

Right, what would your former manager say about you? Probably say he's an asshole. Oh, this is always a good one. What three items would you bring to a deserted island? That one always makes me a little the satellite telephone yes, the solution. Yeah, or the superhero question what superhero would you be? Oh, here's your salesperson question. Imagine you've been pulled over for speeding. How do you try to get out of the ticket?

Speaker 2: 8:54

Start flirting with the officer Right.

Speaker 3: 8:56

That's what I was thinking too Slowly ends up in my jacket. Ok, batman or Robin, which one are you?

Speaker 2: 9:08

I just don't think I could pull out the Robin outfit no.

Speaker 3: 9:13

Well, first of all, I don't think you could pull off either one. To be honest with you. Just be honest. I've known you for a long time, my friend, but no, still, you see me on Saturday, baby. I can't pull off either one of them. Or if I want to pull off the Robin one, yeah, no, yeah, these are just funny. So I cut you off, or are you going to?

Speaker 2: 9:32

Oh, no no, those are more fun than these. These are a lot more fun than these. You took the wind out of my cells. Zeroes are so much better. A manager asked a female applicant what level of coverage do you require? She replied you're not allowed to ask about partners and children. He said well, I'm just asking from a financial standpoint. And so she replied so you're going to base you, whether you're going to offer me a job or not on how much benefits I'm going to take. So it was. It was Yours was much better. I should have done a feed spot search or something like that. Or if you were a tree, what type of tree would you be?

Speaker 3: 10:15

Here we go. Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck? What? I'm not even going to read this out again. Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck? I mean Law's, the numbers would say I wouldn't want to fight 100 versus one, but dear God one horse-sized duck. That motherfucker would tear my ass. So I'm black Basically. They're so calm and reserved up top and those damn legs are just whipped my ass across the field.

Speaker 2: 10:58

That must be a question for the dispensary.

Speaker 3: 11:00

I couldn't even keep a straight face if I had a no.

Speaker 2: 11:06

You know that might be a good icebreaker question. Just the F with a candidate. Yes, would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck Just to get the look on someone's face?

Speaker 3: 11:26

I would have to have my camera off, zoom or something like that, because I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face. Here's a good one, red or yellow.

Speaker 2: 11:36

Red or yellow? Hmm, going for red. What's that mean?

Speaker 3: 11:42

Um, that's rage Ready. Hey, that's perfect for me. So at least I think yellow is like calm, but it's like calm, like baby blues calm or turquoise. I feel like red is a good warning sign.

Speaker 2: 12:00

Danger will rob it.

Speaker 3: 12:01

Yeah right. If you were a brand, what would your motto be? Do your fucking job, don't be an asshole, don't be an asshole.

Speaker 2: 12:13

I've changed my LinkedIn profile from don't contact me for solicitations to don't be an asshole. What's good, it applies for everything.

Speaker 3: 12:22

Oh, this is good, this is good. I'm afraid to go into Reddit and see what those questions are, because I can only imagine the path it would take in Reddit because you just there's the filter. I know that people use Reddit. The filter is gone.

Speaker 2: 12:34

Yeah, and I think half the answers on Reddit are just pure BS anyway. And it's, you know, lesser step child, step cousin, whatever you want to call it is Quora, and it's even worse there. It's quite funny.

Speaker 3: 12:50

So this would be a good one. Do you believe in Bigfoot?

Speaker 2: 12:54

I believe, no, but I believe in the Sasquatch.

Speaker 3: 12:57

I believe in the Yeti Yeti's a loose.

Speaker 2: 13:01

Oh gosh, it's a loose. You know, have you ever spent any time watching on? I don't know what channel is, but finding Bigfoot, Just a bunch of You're forgetting your ass.

Speaker 3: 13:19

the person doesn't watch TV.

Speaker 2: 13:20

Yeah, you don't watch TV. You got to, just for pure entertainment purposes, watch. I watch one episode with my son of finding Bigfoot. It's just these old dudes running around in the woods. I heard something. I heard something over there, but they make a whole series of finding something that doesn't exist.

Speaker 3: 13:39

So again, I ask the question often what decisions we make wrong in our life. For two HR professionals who just make a podcast about bitching about it, yes, yes for underpaid or overworked, and we're making fun of it. Welcome to HR. Please keep this as a profession. Actually, it gives me job security. I can finally get a bigger title.

Speaker 2: 14:10

Yes, yes.

Speaker 3: 14:13

Here's another one. Have you ever been on a boat?

Speaker 2: 14:17

I've been on a boat.

Speaker 3: 14:19

Why would that be an interview?

Speaker 2: 14:21

question Are you in the middle of the Sahara desert? You've been on a boat. You've never. I mean, ok, there's so many people who own boats and oh, I know.

Speaker 3: 14:36

I just yeah, I. What's the color of, what's the color of money? Green.

Speaker 2: 14:45

I don't know. Is that? I don't know? I don't know.

Speaker 3: 14:48

I don't know what they're looking for as an answer. Yeah, my favorite is always when I'm interviewing and you have a hiring manager who clearly asks a legal question and just a look I'm giving them. Like you, mother of like, I cannot believe you just ask that question. I had one time where I walked back in on an interview and I literally threw my pen, my pencil, my notebook at him. What, what better is what I do when I'm like, starting with the questions you asked, oh yeah, that was bad, wasn't it? Yes, that one was really bad. I.

Speaker 2: 15:21

Had now in the interview. You know, start with the tell me a little bit about yourself question and she says, oh well, I have three kids out and she's going just telling about herself. Oh, tell me, are they boys, girls? Tell me about your kids. And he's like they had, like I'm like Stop and I'm like trying to interject myself, stop, let's get back on track here. Right, and she was. They were both having a good old conversation. I mean, there was no malice involved. He's just, he's a Just a silly old man. I guess he'd say who he would genuinely wanted to know. He genuinely cared about this, this person's children and things like that. But you know she ended up getting a job still.

Speaker 3: 16:03

But it was just like yeah. Here you go. Why is it tennis ball fuzzy? I do not know. I mean, my hair is a little fuzzy because I haven't cut it in a couple days. But yeah, I'm overdoing myself.

Speaker 2: 16:22

Why is it tennis ball fuzzy? Now, nothing beats the duck and horses. That's my favorite.

Speaker 3: 16:30

I'm copying and pasting that one sent it to some colleagues in the morning.

Speaker 2: 16:34

Oh, that's the title of this episode. Would you rather fight? That's gonna be the title of the episode a hundred duck size horses or one horse size. It's not a canadian geese is a canadian geese or those are assholes. Those are assholes, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know what this is.

Speaker 2: 17:02

Well, I have, I have one story for today and we're probably this may not even be a shorter yet. After all, it was just because we just randomly went off on a on a tangent, but it was a great tangent, perfect tangent Story I wanted to talk about today is just how stupid can employees be? And every time you think you get to the point where, nope, we've reached rock bottom, there's nowhere else to go, they keep digging, they keep digging and they keep digging. So we had a situation. So, part of our company's onboarding processes, we have all employees complete what we call travel profile and in that we collect all their airline mile reward numbers, their hotel reward numbers and all those places, because when you travel for us, they get to keep their stuff and our travel team will actually put it in under your reward number. So you get points rewards. Yeah, it's great and it is a little extra work for our travel team, but it overall works out Well.

Speaker 2: 18:02

This employee started just about a year ago, never completed his travel profile and we have at least two times documented that we asked him to complete a travel profile. So last week this dude sends an email to the travel team assistant, who is also my assistant. I share my assistant with travel security HR. A few other places she spread sort of thin, but anyways, it's also my assistant and he is just ranting about her stealing his reward points for herself and da, da, da, da, da and going on. So now this this is where it gets interesting. Somehow he got Expedia to give him her travel rewards. How much travel rewards money she has and she has, and she's a travel assistant. She books these all the time. She has 230 dot whopping dollars of travel rewards in her account and what we do, she says what she does with the money that she uses. Sometimes we need to spend a little those travel rewards points to get the cost under per diem so it'll fit under contract, and that's when she uses those travel rewards points and she has her own personal and she has her company one.

Speaker 2: 19:14

When it goes on and on, and he sent screenshots of these and he says these are all mine, these belong to me and just if you don't know and it's now another company they change their names. I looked at my Expedia profile. I spent just spent three nights out in the mountains of Tennessee and I think I earned less, or I know it was less than five dollars of how much I earned for three nights in a hotel out there. You're not earning a ton of money. So to get $230 was is pretty fair, I guess, and over some time. But he thinks those now belong to him and he goes on to demand that he's trying to finally now take his family vacation. He finds out he doesn't have any rewards points or anything. So he wants the company to pay for his hotel room for a two week vacation in Miami. We just tell him no and there's a whole bunch of exchanges in this and he's absolutely not professional.

Speaker 2: 20:10

He's very insulting, very rude, just being an ass overall. But in one of those emails she attaches her email saying hey, I need you to complete your travel profile, I need you to complete your. She attached twice and he yet he didn't. So this email goes back and forth for a while and then he replies well, I'm going to let HR and upper management know. Her reply was gold star answer. Let me help you with that. And she replied to the whole thing to me, the CEO, the VP of his division and his immediate manager. She sent the whole message. Let me help you with that. And she did. And I got.

Speaker 2: 20:47

Now that I'm involved, I just say, hey, you back out of this conversation will handle it. He's just being an ass. So, anyways, I get in a verbal conversation with our CEO and I said to my CEO, if this is the hill he wants to die on, I'll put us all out of his misery. Just give me the word. It doesn't matter. But if he chooses to die on this hill, this is the dumbest hill to die on, that you can make your stand on to die on. And I'm just like, of all the things that's going to trigger you a few hotel reward points and things like that.

Speaker 2: 21:20

And this is also funny the VP of his division, who is a Michigan alum and we he's been he gave me a hard time today and I always cried at work because he was giving me a hard time about Michigan beating East Carolina and my feelings were hurt, but he was. He told the person's manager goes Warren's pissed off, we need to fix this before he does. That's a VP saying that. So anyways, but of all the things, there's plenty of times where you need to stand your ground, and I'm but reward points when you didn't thought of travel profile, when given to it once and reminded twice Hell, no, You're. You're an idiot and you want the company to pay for a whole two week vacation for you and your family. Yeah, fuck you. Anyways, that is. That's just the idiocy that I had to deal with recently. Give me a flip and break people.

Speaker 3: 22:12

Sometimes I wish we could go back to like gold stars. I wish I just had a packet of gold stars because I would just send one to your assistant and be like that's a gold star. Response, like like you've heard a gold star today, like I know who I know, would dramatically help my ego sometimes when I'm getting my ass kicked over budget things or something else and I'm like it's not my fault, I'm just middleman, like a manager, but like there's a cold star You're doing good feathers hanging their buddy, like I can.

Speaker 2: 22:41

I worked for a very brief time with this HR director and she went, she went to like Costco, sam's Club, whatever, bought these giant bulk packs of 100 grain bars, candy bars, and she'd go around like that, giving people even for nothing, giving them, oh, here's 100 grand, here's 100 grand. You know it was being silly and crazy and she was. She was like the kindergarten teacher fuzzy HR sweater, the wearing lady, it was a people person and things like that and I was like I'm going to be very early in my career, but I was crazy.

Speaker 3: 23:16

I mean, but I like those candy bars, so she wants to send me some, all center my dress.

Speaker 2: 23:22

Yeah, she, we didn't work too long together. She left for greener pastures, I guess. Amazon, amazon, I don't even know where she is. I see her on my LinkedIn pop up on my LinkedIn suggestions every once in a blue moon, but anyways, so anyways. That's all I've got for today. You know what? This is longer than our last episode, so this won't be a shorty either. Damn those ducks. Damn those ducks. But a best practice for a day. Think hard about whether you want 100 duck size horses or one horse size duck. Think hard that you have to fight.

Speaker 3: 24:03

That you have to fight to the death For a job at Amazon. No, I'm just kidding. Sorry, amazon, I sold her from you, my apologies, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:13

So that's your best practice for today, as our intro is Andrew Culpa and the music is double to double by the underscore. So now I'll say as always I'm Warren and this is feathers, and we're helping you survive HR. One the fuck moment at a time.