Listener Stories, But None From Influencers

Listener Story 1 - Benefit Burglar
So you want to be an HR Influencer 
Listener Story 2 - No Krispy Kreme For You

Transcript

Announcer 0:05

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 write up my employee for crying too much? Welcome to our little safe note. Welcome to HR.

Warren 1:03

I'm Warren. And this is Feathers.

Feathers 1:07

Happy New Year, Mr. Feathers. Yeah, something like that. You know, I I went to bed at midnight. I mean, I went to bed after midnight. I was quite shocked that I made it that long and woke up and yeah, nothing was different.

Warren 1:18

Yeah, same shit.

Feathers 1:22

I got less sleep, a little I was a little hunger, but not too bad. So yeah, that was a good.

Warren 1:29

Yeah, uh, I didn't do anything for New Year's. We stayed on the couch, didn't even drink anything, watched the ball drop, and oh, but Dawn, my wife, had a fabulous time on Facebook. Our neighborhood is notorious for fireworks on every any occasion, any occasion, every occasion, everything. And so fireworks are going off like crazy, and there's someone on Facebook can someone please stop shooting a fireworks. We're some people have to work in the morning, and I have a dog, and you know, come on. You know, uh get over it. It's the world is not all about you.

Feathers 2:04

But that could be a whole topic for a show. The world is not about you.

Warren 2:12

But the the reactions like people were trolling the shit out of her on the the neighborhood's Facebook page. I I'm not on that because I just can't stand it as it's all junior high stuff. But yeah, that was our fun. Yeah. That was our fun. Dawn's reading. Oh my god, this person said this and all that other fun stuff.

Feathers 2:29

And it was it was that was my entertainment for the I would so be the jackass out there, like, which house is it? I'm driving my car in front of your house. I mean, it could be worse. It could be worse. The town that I live in, friends that we, mutual friends that we have, the neighborhood, people go out and shoot their guns up in the air.

Warren 2:49

Yeah.

Feathers 2:50

I don't know how fireworks. I I'm cool with that. Because you know, with guns, that shit goes up, and there's a isn't there a law of physics or something like that? What comes up comes back down?

Warren 3:02

Have you seen the videos of and I I this was a long time ago. I saw it. It was a Middle Eastern wedding, and at the wedding they're shooting their AK-47s up in the air, and like three people died. I mean, it's not coming down at still supersonic speed, but it's uh it's a heavy projectile coming down with some force and it clunks you on the head. Yeah, I think three people died doing that one video I saw. I was like, you know, yeah, I what what were you thinking? Let's shoot into the air at a wedding. I mean, oh gosh, it was it was it was crazy. Is that just Darwinism at its finest? It is, it is. Well, let's see here. Got a couple things to just start with before we get really into the meat of the topic. First, you haven't been on. And it's been a complete month. Yep. We are still ranked. You know, every once in a while we get these bizarre Apple rankings. We are still ranked in the top 25 comedy podcasts in Swaziland. Now, normally we get these like countries, they pop up, I'll get a ranking. Hey, you're number one in Ethiopia or something like that, or you know, some some country that I would have to look up on the map to find out where it is. And uh so we got number one overall podcasts in Swaziland one week. Now we're still in the top 25 of all podcasts in Swaziland, but it normally, like these little one-off countries, they come, they pop up and they disappear and and things like that. Like a few months ago, we were ranked number 15 in the Philippines under comedy podcasts. But this tells me there we have somebody in Swaziland who is actually listening, or they're using a VPN and spoofing their IP address or whatever. But we have someone in Swaziland who is listening. So if listener in Swaziland, I want to talk to you. Get in touch with us. We want to have you on as a guest. I love you. Just the every time I go to the Apple podcast charts, and I see in the United States we're like number, you know, 700 and some and comedy podcasts, but I go to Swaziland and for a while we were number one of all podcasts, and then we're number one for comedy, and now we're still in the top 25 above some big name shows. So hey, I want to listen, I want to talk to you people in Swaziland. We'll do a I'll I'll I'll do I guess y'all are ahead of me in time, so I'll do it from work in the middle of the day or something like that, get you get you on board. But uh I had to Google that.

Feathers 5:17

I had no idea even what you were even talking about, and now I see it's it's a small independent country surrounded by South Africa. Yeah, it's right there near Johannesburg.

Warren 5:27

Yeah. All right. So yeah. So I I want you on my on the podcast as a guest, all of you come on board. Patrick was joking, it only takes two downloads out there to to be ranked, but we're we're ranked above some pretty big national podcasts. That's fantastic. Let's go for three. We're going for three. Well, speaking of stats, I did in our little thank you episode. We uh we're doing four times the number of downloads December 2022 that we did in 21. You're welcome. And yes, it it's all you. Let's again. See, it's all about me. It's not about you.

Feathers 6:06

It's all about me. It's all about me.

Warren 6:10

Well, we uh also not only did we do four times uh since year over year, as I'd like to say, but we did 30% better than November. So we're, you know, we got a lot of great listeners listening to us. And those great listeners, if you want to support us, you can write a story to us. And we have two stories we're going to show to share with you today. You can support us on Patreon like Hallie, our original HR Jaded Rockstar. Or please, everybody, leave a review. Even I want a review from Swaziland. I'm checking the Apple Podcasts regularly in Swaziland since we're ranking there. But also tell a friend, tell you spread the word, help us continue to grow. So, yeah, that's that's what I uh wanted to start off talking about a little bit. But like I said, I have two listener stories, and I don't know which one to start with. And they're both a little bit long. I was going to start editing them down, but I said, you know what? I'm the king of Blow the Eighting, so I'll I'll let them have their say as well. So it but actually two other things I wanted to discuss. John Hyman, we had him on a couple weeks ago talking about his worst employer's list. Well, a couple weeks ago he announced the winner or the loser, however you want to look at it, and it was the murder enabler, the the Walgreens pharmacy in Colorado, who let the uh you know, the 16-year-old employee complain to management about this person being creepy and bugging her and all that other stuff, and they just told the person to please act professional at work, and he ended up killing her in the break room very brutally. So Walgreens, congratulations. I I want to see you pick up your trophy from our friend John Hyman. If you need his email address or phone number, let me know. I'll be glad to give it to you so you can pick up that award. So, but I what I was surprised on that episode, Patrick and I both picked the employer who put the uh uh turbo laxative in the energy drinks. Patrick and I both said that that should be number two, but that got last place in in his list. I was like, I just liked that one because it was just pure funny. I I I thought that was I can only imagine the manager saying, you just drank, you know, super lax, you just drank super lax, or something like that. Because they were singing, he was singing and taunting the employees, he or she, I don't remember, was singing and taunting the employees after as they're getting stomach discomfort. Oh crap, you know, sort of like that scene of dumb and dumber. I gotta go right now, but like literally, oh crap.

Feathers 8:34

Yeah, I gotta go right now. I gotta go, but uh I gotta go. I gotta go. It's like the little kid, it's like the little kid in a Jeremy R. I gotta go to bed, I gotta go to bed, I gotta go to bed.

Warren 8:45

The human head weighs eight pounds. Wow. Boy, but I I was surprised that that one came in last, but I guess people don't have my morbid sense of humor that that I do. So, anyways, that that that was a great episode. I look forward to reading John's future contestants for 2023, and I have no doubt there'll be a ton of candidates for 2023. I think the year we're three days in now, and the year's starting out really strong. So let's go with listener story number one here. Oh, and I then I'll you know what? I'll put the main segment in between the two listener stories. That's what I'm gonna do. So this is from Listener Marsha. And I'm gonna do my best to read. We know my reading skills can be questionable at best sometimes, so here we go. Had a long-term problem child employee, the type that had a problem with absolutely everything and er anything and everything that happened was unfair, illegal, or just plain wrong. I've got two stories about this guy for you. Believe it or not, he's actually in a management position, and in all sincerity, overall, he's a very nice guy, but anything HR he HR related, he loses it. Number one, he covered his family with multiple children on his insurance. He had a child that was aging out, and I sent him a notice over a month ahead of time to let him know the child would be edgy, aging out. Minutes later, he comes into HR and in my office, fired up stating that his child recently re-enrolled in college and was a full-time student, and we had to cover the child, and that was the law. I explained once the child turned 26, unless there's a disability situation, the child would no longer be covered, and that's being a full-time student didn't matter. He didn't want to hear me, he just wanted to argue and bring up it was the law. I offered to call both the carrier and the broker with him in the room, but maybe they could help explain it better to him. He didn't want to because they work for HR and they weren't going to disagree with me. He left angry, threatening to call his lawyer. Heard that any million of times. Uh he came back the next week, even more fired up, holding up the notification from the carrier that his child would lose coverage at the end of the month, yelling me at me that I did this. I told the insurance company uh hold on, can't read. Yelling at me, I did it. He told the insurance comp that I told the insurance company to cancel his kid's insurance. I tried to tell him the email I originally sent was a courtesy email explaining the situation and that he should expect that same notice from the carrier. That I didn't tell I I told him that I didn't tell the insurance company to do this. They do it on their own. He replied, some courtesy, leave my kid with no insurance because you want to save the money, uh the company some money and be a hero. Once again, it's wrong. I'm illegal. It's illegal. I do promise I know how to read. I tried to explain again and offer to help him find coverage outside the company for his childhood, but he's too busy yelling at me and just not listening at all. As I'm explaining, he just leaves and says we'd be hearing from his attorney. The next week he's back. This time he's not arguing about his kid coming off the insurance. He's claiming claiming that uh he uh is calm. Okay. Start this paragraph again. Next week he's back. This time he's not arguing about his kid coming off the insurance. He's calm and actually talking, but noticeably agitated. He's back asking how much less is going to be withheld from his check since his child is not going to be covered under the plan. I started telling him we only have three levels of coverage, employee only, employee plus one, and family. And because he still has other children on the plan, there wouldn't be any reduction in the premiums. The words weren't even out of my mouth when he started raising his voice again. He said something like, So you're going to charge me the exact same cost for less people. That's robbery. We'd better reduce his withholdings at least 20% because he has one less person. I tried to explain that's not how it worked, but he stormed out saying if we took a deduction from him, he would call the police for robbery and also call the DOL. I didn't hear about I didn't hear back from him, at least not about that. Story number two from this one's much shorter, about the same person. I joined the company a few months early as HR manager and had no prior experience with this guy. Payroll not HR sent out an email stating they were changing payroll companies, and it outlined what would happen when and how they went through the conversion. He comes into my office, no knocking, no pleasantry, no introductions, just starts complaining who's going to download all his old pay stubs, time cards, and W-2s. I say this is certainly uh a payroll issue, but the email states you'll still have access to your W-2s, pay stubs, but I'm not sure about your time cards. We'll have to ask if they will be available for you with that. Then I got, well, warrant you, HR, aren't you supposed to help me? Now, now when HR makes any sort of announcement, we kid each other about what this employee is going to have to say. P.S. after all the threats, I've never heard from his lawyer. So that is story number one. But I I can actually picture that happening. You you owe me 20% off my insurance because I took a kid off. Yeah, okay. People, people, people. And you can carry the kid till 26. Yeah. End of the month of which they turn 26. But he re-enrolled in college. He can you know that that makes a difference. No, no, nothing. It's always my favorite.

Feathers 14:18

It's always my favorite when I have an employee leave and I'm doing their eggs interview. And I'm like, oh, you're 25, and I just noticed, oh, you're not even on our benefit plan. Like, are you are you a are you a big kid yet?

Warren 14:34

No, he's they're still in the the mommy's basement.

Feathers 14:38

As as my parents would as my parents would put it nicely, I'm still in their payroll.

Warren 14:45

You work for the the family, in quotes.

Feathers 14:48

You work for the family. You work for the family. Gotta use the hand signals.

Warren 14:52

Um Yeah, yeah. Hand signals work really well on podcasts.

Feathers 14:59

But wow. No, it's just amazing to me the um What's the nicest way I want to say this? The stupidity of people that when there's three plans, again, clearly defined, it's either you, you spouse, you family, or however however your organization does it. Right. Care if you've got 15 kids. Well, it's family. It's family. And if you have multiple, that's that's it.

Warren 15:28

That would have been a great response. Go knock up your wife again, and it won't charge you anyway. It won't cost you any more on insurance premiums when the baby's born. Go get that one for free. Oh, that that would be I don't know. Anyhow. Your homework assignment is go make a baby.

Feathers 15:48

Well, actually, you want to reduce costs. You'd keep costs the same. Yeah, but you get extra tax deduction. There you go. Yeah, there we go. That's the signs we need in our off in our HR offices. Like, hey. Your premiums say the same, but hey, you get a tax break.

Warren 16:07

Well, speaking of signs, this isn't uh wasn't on my list for today. So I posted a a picture of a hygiene kit that somebody had posted. It was it was actually intended for a homeless shelter or something like that. Hygiene kit's available here. And I just posted a picture of that hygiene kit and I put, you do not need this in your HR office. And somebody replied, I I have these items in my office, and you know, you don't know what people are going through. And I I resisted the urge so bad to be a keyboard warrior and and fire things back. But it's true. You don't know everything she said is true, but you haven't noticed where a comedy podcast jaded is in the title. We're we're prone to being smart asses here, and while I can't argue with one thing you said, you know, factually, I'm like, just lighten up the Francis. I mean butcher lighten up.

Feathers 16:58

You definitely dated us with a stripes reference. I think it came out like in 1982. I just remember that's the fact.

Warren 17:09

Oh yeah, lighten up stripes. Lighten up Francis. You know, that that's what that's why I wanted to reply, but yeah, uh gosh, I couldn't remember Francis. Stripes, great movie, awesome. You have to watch it if you're easily offended. Still watch it and you can cry all the day long if you if you want. But anyways. So that that was that's story number one. Now, the main content for today's episode. Actually, I had a whole nother episode notes written and everything, but I woke up this morning. I had some time to kill, so I I clicked through the socials, and one of the things I saw were our wonderful wonderful friends at Baked HR had posted a uh story or something about HR influencers. About you know, wanting to go to HR show and our conference and actually learn something rather than be surrounded by HR influencers. And I don't know what it is, but hearing the term HR influencers is like a trigger item for me because if if some I I replied, here's what I I wish I had my phone available quickly to read the actual comment, their comment, and my reply. But if someone A calls themselves an influencer, refers to themselves as an influencer, they oh, if someone refers to themselves as an influencer, they either A, are a complete douchebag, or B, they don't even know half of what they think they know. And it just it set me off. And I I'll I will send you a link. I'll try and dig this up. There is a a podcast, but they do a video version as well, and I'm not going to name it as I actually like it, but they had a quote unquote HR influencer on, and it is this influencer was stereotypical, what I think of when I uh think of any sort of influencer. She was a 20s, very cute girl, bubbly, with a very California talking dialect, so she all her verbs went very long. And I'm I'm being very mean right now. You're definitely being a meaningful. You're definitely being a mean girl. I'm a mean girl. Well, like not Francis, but yeah, exactly. But anyways, she was talking and they asked her a question. I don't remember what the exact question is. I'm gonna find it and I'll send it to you. And I'm not going to share it publicly because I did feel bad for this girl, but she's in uh introducing herself as an HR influencer, an HR consultant, and all this other stuff. And they asked her like a very simple Facebook group type question, and she did not know, and she was stumbling all over the place. I was like, oh gosh, this is I would not err that if I were the podcast, if I had someone that came up that bad. But I really felt bad for the girl, but she just did not know. And that that sort of sets a tone. When you call yourself an influencer, what why does HR need an influencer? Now you have all these people on all the social media, whether it's Instagram or TikTok or whatever, who are influencing you, and they're then what they're trying to do is influence you to buy some shit you don't need, do things like that. That's what an influencer, a social media influencer is. I just can't see anybody being an HR influencer. And I I wish I had more time today before I just started ranting off, but that doesn't ever stop me. But if I recall correctly, a year or two ago, Sherm did Sherm HR influencers. You could be tagged as a HR influencer through Sherm. And I was like, oh, you know, it just reminded me all these things. And like I said, I don't think Sherm is the most awful organization in the world, but they're they're definitely not the best. They're they're laughable at times, and the HR influencer is right up there with their HR Diva type of thing. So yeah, I I just I couldn't help myself when I saw that.

Feathers 21:00

I just did a quick Google search while we were chatting here, and I just put in HR influencers, and it popped up HR influencers on Instagram and already posted in 0.51 seconds a list of the top 12 HR influencers you must follow in 2023. It's one of them mate, it's one of them, mate, mate. Sally Warren, neither one of them are you or I. And I am me personally, I'm totally fine with it.

Warren 21:29

But no feathers, you are an influencer.

Feathers 21:31

You've been again by yourself, so let's a third party. Let's dig into this for a second because you got me laughing about that when you mentioned influence earlier. So I'll tell the story very, very quickly. However, my own personal social media, I don't like to sit still, so I'm usually out and about doing crazy things at any weird place in weird times, and I can work wherever I want, kind of thing. And one of our mutual friends labeled me as an Influencer because all the things that I do when I do it. And I had to go into my naivete, and I said that purposely like that. What the fuck are you talking about? I don't even know what that means, let alone I'm what? He still refers to me as an influencer.

Warren 22:22

Okay. And you are very influential. You didn't refer to yourself. You did not call yourself an influencer. You were called an influencer.

Feathers 22:32

I don't know what the hell he was talking about. I'm like, I had heard I had heard the term, but like, I mean, I'm not that I'm not that under a living under a rock. However, I'm also like, wait, what? What the hell are you talking about? How many sponsors do you have?

Warren 22:44

How much money are you making as an influencer?

Feathers 22:46

I mean, if that shit's real, then I I mean I know it is because I know these there's morons out there on so many different sites, and they make 19 times the amount of money that I make doing stupid shit. Like, maybe I should be an HR influencer.

Warren 23:02

That's our goal for 2023. We're gonna be JR is gonna become an HR influencer. We're gonna teach you all the bad shit.

Feathers 23:10

The problem is my legal team would take up all my money. I want to tell you how the fuck it really goes. And yeah, I'm dropping a lot of F-bombs, so I apologize. But geez, it's like, can I just really tell you what I think?

Warren 23:27

Your policy is stupid. Was this written by a two-year-old? This is how you manage? No wonder you've turned over ratio. Okay, I'm I am curious. Can you would if you still have that page of top influencers you have to follow, read down the list of usernames of who you have to follow according to whatever.

Feathers 23:48

There's 12 here, so I'll go through like quick, quickly. I'm sure I'm going to slaughter some of the names, but in order from one through twelve are David Green, Steve Bosey, Megan.

Warren 24:04

Okay, Steve, I I can okay. I will buy Steve. Okay, Meg. He's got a podcast. Megan Burrow.

Feathers 24:11

Guadam Gosh. Gosh. William Tincup, great name. Okay, no William Tincup. Steve Brown.

Warren 24:20

Steve Brown, I know.

Feathers 24:21

Greg Savage.

Warren 24:23

Okay. Lori Rudeman. Okay. No version.

Feathers 24:28

Tim Sackett.

Warren 24:30

No penetrates. Both have podcasts. Trish McFarlane. I listened to. With Steve Bossy. She have another podcast. Okay.

Feathers 24:38

Josh. Josh Bershin. And Jeannie Meister. And this is from again, just the first site that I pop. I'm not going to name the site. The very first site when I just did, I type in HR influencers and a pre-filled on Instagram for me. And here we go. Oh, there's actually a there's a separate function here of the top eight influencers on TikTok I should follow. Francis.

Warren 25:06

Gotta love those Tiki Talks. Well, I'm pleasantly surprised at that list. A lot of them I wouldn't call them influencers, but they do pass a lot of knowledge. I listen to a lot of their podcasts. I know of them. I don't know any of them personally, but I I know of them. I listen to their podcasts. They have good, good podcasts, the ones they mention. The one I listen to regularly is Tim Sackett on HR Famous. I I listen to that one regularly. But yeah, I I'm not I'm not disappointed with the list based on the people I've that were on there that I know of, but I I still wouldn't call them influencers. Wow, there's even categories, there's even categories of influencers.

Feathers 25:46

There's a micro influencer, but it's like 10 to 100,000 followers, macro, 100 to a million, or a mega, a mega, a million plus. I mean, we know Jaded HR is a mega, so I mean that that's just fine. We're a mega celebrity influencer with our million followers. And what was that country again? Swaziland. Swaziland.

Warren 26:08

We're we're ranked, we're still in the top 25. It's been four weeks we've been ranked in Swaziland. Yeah. No, I like I said, you know, we we're struggling. We cannot break the 1500 mark of new follower on followers on Instagram. We get so close and it goes back down. We get so close. You know, someone was telling me, I think it was um Jan Janerson, uh not sure mapproved, was saying that there's some sort of algorithm that they actually hold you back from they stop presenting you to new people to get until you get it. I don't even remember what she was saying, but yeah, there's something in there. So it's it's rigged against us. So there's a conspiracy theory.

Feathers 26:52

Sorry, let me phrase it, keeping the person down.

Warren 26:57

Yes. Let me uh let me move on to our second story. Move on. Second employee, this horror story, employee story from listener Mary Ann. Mary Ann wrote, let's see, this is oh, it's not as long as I thought. It's about a little bit less than the last one. Mary Ann writes, ever had a good intention turn into a few hours of HR hell? First, Mary Ann, that is how you start a letter because that caught my attention and said, I'm reading this. You know, I I I'd read every letter, all I don't know, dozen we've gotten from listeners, but when I read that opening line, I was hooked. So ever had a good intention turn into a few hours of HR Hell? Our office has about 160 people on site. However, it's the week between Christmas and New Year's, and most people are using up their vacation, so we only have about 25 people in working this week. On Wednesday, one of the managers on their own accord brought in Chick-fil-A breakfast and Krispy Kreme for everyone. He brought in a nice mix of chicken minis, chicken biscuits, sausage biscuits, and a variety of donuts. Baller. More than enough for the few baller. What'd you say? Baller.

Feathers 28:10

Yeah. Like hero. I'm doing a hard thing. Like those chicken. You had me crispy cream. Krispy Kreme and Chicken Minis? Come on now. Like that's like life doesn't get cracking the bomb all at the same time. Like. Okay, so I'm not sure. Exactly. Oh, no problem. You had me chicken minis and Krispy Kreme, so let's see.

Warren 28:31

He had bought a variety of donuts more than enough for the few people we had in at the time. When uh he got here, we walked around the office telling everyone there's breakfast in for the kitchen for everyone. He had a really nice card on the table thanking the people who were here. So where's the problem? One of the people who were actually here has dietary restrictions. Not just a few dietary restrictions, but a crazy amount of dietary restrictions. She goes in the kitchen and there's nothing she can eat and marches her way pouting to my office. Now I'm spending the next hour listening to how this is not fair and inconsiderate and how she feels left out because no one took her into consideration. She was actually crying. Not that I'm not empathetic, but I've seen this a few many times from her and you're distracting me from reading. I've seen this a few too many times from her for any number of reasons. I'm doing my best to explain it wasn't a company-sponsored event, and I or anybody else had no idea he was going to do it. And even if we did, we wouldn't share someone's dietary restrictions with anybody else. When I get an employee complaint of any type, normally my question is always, how do you want to see this issue resolved? Normally, if their suggestion is realistic, I'll act in on their suggestion and call it resolved. I knew it wouldn't be that easy for her. She replied, he needs to be written up and severely disciplined for not taking everyone into consideration. I gave her the look in quotes and said, I'm not going to do that, and I can't punish someone for not my meeting your dietary needs who has no idea about those needs. She did not like that answer and complained and started going down the road how HR doesn't support her. I ended up asking her how she let me back up. I ended up asking her how about I send you a $15 Uber Eats card and you can order something for yourself, which she said yes to, but still complained. The worst part is by the time I got finished dealing with her, all the food was cold and my favorite donuts were gone. Who do I get to complain to? But I think you'll find this interesting as well. Here's the backstory. The beginning of every month, we did a little lunch for the birthdays in the office. Typically we order a variety of Jersey Mike subs, pizzas, or something similar, never had any complaints. After she started, we had our first monthly party. She came to my office upset at that time. I asked her what we can do to fix the issue. She said nothing. She brought her lunch anyway, but she wanted to let us know for the future. I told her that we would do better next month and asked her if she would send me her dietary restrictions. I got those restrictions. Between here and my experience elsewhere, I've never seen any number of diet I've seen any number of dietary restrictions from food allergies, vegetarian, vegan kosher, gluten-free, she lists on. Just your standard stuff. But for one person, I've never seen a list over a page long of dietary restrictions. When we had our next party, I had my assistant send her to the menu ahead of time and told her to let us know what we could do for her. Of course, there was nothing she could eat at the where we placed our order, and so we had to place the second order somewhere else that met her needs. Since then, we've done the very the same every month. I think there's only been one time when she could order from the place we placed the order from. We actually put some effort in to find things which would work for her and everyone else, but that just doesn't seem possible. So no good deed goes unpunished.

Feathers 31:52

Uh first of all, I applaud the company for bringing in Jersey mics because I think you hit on like all of my favorite, like I don't like chain restaurants. I always try to shop local, buy local, wherever I am, even if I'm home, I try to do that as well. But you you you basically hit all the places that I am I will frequent.

Warren 32:12

Yes, I I it makes me hungry just saying between Krispy Kreme, that's just that's crap for me. Chick-fil-A also and and Jersey mics, I love pizza. It's hard to do pizza bad, but believe it or not, there are a few places that can do bad pizza. I I don't understand that. That takes at real effort to do pizza badly. But no, I I can understand. Okay, you have dietary restrictions, but if this manager just on his way to work, I guess one day says, hey, you know what, it'll be cool if I buy some uh Chick-fil-A and some Krispy Kreme for everybody and bring it in. I would it would be amazing if they did call. Is there anybody who has dietary restrictions I should know about as I place this order? And even if they did for this person, we're not gonna go over three pa two pages or however many pages of dietary restrictions this person has. I mean, wow. At some point, if if it's you who has that many uh dietary restrictions, uh and I I once again I'm trying my hardest not to be an asshole, but that's who I am. At some point you just gotta say, you know, we can't do this. There's a realm of possibility, and if you can eat one, you know, leaf of kale, and that's the only thing that's good you can eat, or something like that, then I'm and it had to be prepared in, I don't know, special way. Humanely, humanely processed kale, I guess, or something like that. I I don't know. I just why why once again it has to be about you know, we started the uh the episode with it has to be about you, all about somebody. Can I shoot fireworks off with their place?

Feathers 33:59

I mean, at this point in time, like I mean, I get it, I understand their perspective, but the same token that's like the company didn't do this. Like, then it's like, no, I'm not there's not a chance in anything I'm writing that person up. Um no, I'm not supporting that. I thought that was a that's a joke, yeah. An absolute joke if they asked me to do that. No, I'm not doing that. Second of all, it is not, in my opinion, responsibility to make that person whole because it was a shock. Like the fact that you've been offered an ibreetz or whatever is super nice.

Warren 34:35

Yeah.

Feathers 34:36

Yeah. I I it's so frustrating. It's frustrating. It's frustrating because it's like you're gonna ruin something nice because you didn't get your way. I mean, there's plenty of things that happen, either companies that I've worked for, in the present, the past, like that doesn't go the way I want it, or the meal that I wanted to pick, like, ooh, wow, it's Taco Tuesday, let's go get tacos. No, we decided to go somewhere else. Like, am I gonna pout and like no? It's just that that's it. That's how life works.

Warren 35:11

Um, it's it's it's the entitled, and what's gonna I can see happening in this company uh is where I was going, I thought you were gonna go is it's gonna ruin it for everybody else. You know, HR is gonna say, you know what? This is bullshit. I can't I can't do it anymore. We're we're getting rid of it. I I can't put that much time and effort into, you know, you got one person, uh apparently only one person with uh these super dietary rich restrictions. And next you get another, and if those things don't coincide, you know, then what are we ordering five different lunches for 150 people or whatever she said, Marianne said in there? I I don't know. I just I I can't I can't do it. And if it if it starts to become a hassle, it's gone. You're ruining it for everyone. And if if your restrictions are that humongous, I don't know what the word is, if you have that many dietary restrictions, you need to be you need to be accommodating to know that the rest of the world is not gonna be able to accommodate you all the time. I I just I could I couldn't I couldn't see, you know, hanging out how many times after a football game, hey, let's go to cubbies. Sure, everybody goes to the cubbies, or let's go to here or there, wherever. And we go. And uh imagine being with this person, oh, I can't go there. You know, it takes all the impulsivity that's fun and and you want to respect.

Feathers 36:33

I mean, I I want to respect people when they have like legitimate things like that, but don't don't go pouting when somebody's trying to do the a nice thing.

Warren 36:43

Yeah, you know, I I think no one no good deed goes unpunished, and I think it was ridiculous to to suggest that this manager get written up for it. Yes, Mr. Feathers, I want to talk to you today. You know, last week when you brought in all that delicious food on your own dime without being asked. Yeah, we can't have that. We're writing you up. Any further, any further instances can result in all uh additional disciplinary action up to and including termination. Yeah. You know, it it reminds me a little bit of the episode we did, and I think it was one John Hyman's list. The the birthday cake person who didn't want a birthday thrown for him because they have such severe anxiety that they threw the birthday. It's well, I guess it doesn't. Maybe it has food related, I don't know. And now I'm hungry after thinking about crispy cream. Chicken minis too, though. I I do have a Chick-fil-A within reasonable distance to my 50 miles. Not quite that far, but crispy cream, I gotta if I want crispy cream, I gotta travel. So if at least I want it from a the crispy cream side. I was gonna say, yeah, you can just travel to the food line.

Feathers 37:51

Food dog, food dog will have it.

Warren 37:52

Yeah, you gotta food dog will have it. Go to the microwave. It's good that no, you gotta have it fresh where you put it in your mouth, it just melts to nothing in your in your mouth. It just melts into pure sugar. Yes. And and where I am, let me tell you, I'm near, I'm not that I'm at the reasonable driving distance of the original duck donuts, which is now blown up all over the country. I've seen them in Pennsylvania. I've seen, gosh, I see duck donuts everywhere to franchise the whole thing out and seen it up in your neck of the woods in Richmond. I've seen it everywhere, but the original's horribly far from from me. But anyways, I know we've already gone sort of long and ranting and raving and things like that, but best practice. I I don't know. Just stop complaining, people. Stop, stop it. Just just stop. You're making everybody's life miserable. Just just don't. That's it. Just don't.

Feathers 38:47

Such a wonderful best practice. I mean, we should go back to our best practice should always be just don't be an asshole. That's it. Just that's it. Don't be an asshole.

Warren 38:55

Like your New Year's resolution for 2023. Don't be an asshole. I've already broken it.

Feathers 39:04

I mean, like I said, when nothing changed between 2022 and 23. Nope. Yep. Still an asshole.

Warren 39:11

Yep. Yep. Still old, overweight, and what everything else.

Feathers 39:17

So we're almost matching now with our bald head and beards. Like we're like we're the middle-aged hipsters. Oh gosh. Hipsters. Some get some PBR and some high life. We're good to go. Actually, no, we wouldn't need IPAs. We need IPAs if we're gonna do the true true hipster. I got my reading of the past couple of things. That kind of gets me to that hipster look.

Warren 39:44

Y'all you and some of our mutual friends have actually gotten me to be able to drink PBR over the past couple years. I would never touch it. And now it's what I grab when I'm there. It won a blue ribbon.

Feathers 39:56

I mean, it won an award. I mean, how can you go wrong? It might have been like in 1896, but it won a frickin' ribbon. Exactly. But it's still making it like 150 years later.

Warren 40:09

Oh, well, I want to thank everybody for joining us today. Welcome to 2023. This is going to be an awesome year. If you want to support the show, leave a review, support us on Patreon. Buy us a beer. Send us a story. Buy us a beer. Yep, we still have that available in our Linktree, actually. And our website. Oh, I didn't mention of all the well, I I've done a lot of work. Our website's been completely updated and jadedhr.com. It had been neglected for about two years. And I went in, I spent a couple of nights, and I just tweaked it up. So go visit us at jadedhr.com and yeah, um we'll go from there. But yeah, we're looking forward. We'll have a shorty episode for you next week and then a full two weeks after that. So thank you for everything. We really appreciate it and have an awesome 2023. As always, I'm Warren's feathers. And we're helping you survive HR1. What the fuck moment at a time.