Jaded HR: Your Relief From the Common Human Resources Podcasts
Jaded HR is a Human Resources podcast about the trials and tribulations of life in a human resources department….or just a way for Human Resources Professionals to finally say OUT LOUD all the things they think throughout their working day.
Jaded HR: Your Relief From the Common Human Resources Podcasts
In the News: Wells Fargo Employee Dead in Cubicle for Four Days and the Right to Disconnect
What happens when work and personal life collide in unexpected and challenging ways? Join us in this episode of Jaded HR as Cee Cee and Warren share their heartfelt personal stories. Cee Cee opens up about her postpartum health situation and the tough task of managing her cat's diabetes during an already hectic workweek. Warren sheds light on his dog's severe anxiety, revealing the surprising dosages of medication required to keep it under control. They also discuss the peculiar effects of ADD medication and its impact on focus and physical well-being, all while aiming to make your workday feel a bit more relatable.
We then touch on a poignant and tragic story that shakes up the notion of workplace awareness. A Wells Fargo employee passed away unnoticed at her desk for several days, prompting a much-needed conversation about the implications of remote work, workplace dynamics, and the necessity of a supportive network. This heartbreaking incident serves as a springboard for discussing the importance of community and vigilance, whether you're working from home or in the office.
In our final segment, we touch on Australia's new "Right to Disconnect" law. Kevin O'Leary from the TV show "Shark Tank" weighs in on his opinion. Balancing work and personal life gets even trickier when work communications spill over into personal time, a topic we explore through real-life anecdotes and controversial opinions. Join us for a candid, heartfelt, and sometimes humorous discussion designed to make your HR challenges a little more bearable.
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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 write up my employee for crying too much? Welcome to our little safe zone. Welcome to J episode of JJHR.
Speaker 2:The podcast by two HR professionals who want to help you get to work day by saying everything you're thinking, but say it out loud. I'm Warren.
Speaker 3:I'm Fifi All right.
Speaker 2:So y'all somehow survived our hour-plus-long episode two weeks ago. So thank you very much. And we were just looking before we came online. The consumption rate of it was actually very high. I can track on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify how far people go into the episodes and overall our listeners listen to 80 plus percent. So when we get to wrap up, of course I guess you just cut us off. But hey, you're getting to the very end, but still you digest most of that one. So thank you, that's very, that's very cool. So really appreciate that. What's been going on in your world the last couple of weeks?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh. So I had doctor's appointments for myself, yeah, so a really fun side effect of childbirth is hemorrhoids. So, and then that happened. And then my cat was like not doing well. I was afraid we were going to put him down, but it turns out he's the only way to give him insulin twice a day. Now we're going to like put him down, but it turns out he's the only way to give him insulin twice a day now, and it's happening during a busy week of work where, at the same time where my husband was, you know like, he was hosting his 2025 strategic planning session with his team. So I am exhausted, we're exhausted.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow. Now here's a dumb question Is kitty cat diabetes medicine as expensive as human diabetes medicine?
Speaker 3:So funny. You should ask that because I was afraid what it's not, it's not. So we went, we got the insulin. They, I think they quoted us like $130. And my mom was picking it up for us and she had the wherewithal to be like, wait, this is not for a human, this is for a catch. And they're like, oh, let's adjust that. And they adjusted it down to like $60. And I'm like, whoa, but it's the same. It's the same, it's not different. Wow, but it's like it's the same, like it's the same, it's not different. But I guess the pharmacists explain that they fold in liability insurance in the human one and not so much in the animal one, because if you're a human and you take it and something happens, you have an adverse reaction and you don't. People can sue, not much for cats or dogs. So that was a fun fact. I learned about navigating the US healthcare system this week.
Speaker 2:That's crazy.
Speaker 3:I'm like can everything just be for an animal? Can I just be like it's for an animal, and yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, here's the thing. My dog has severe, severe anxiety and we give the dog. It's a beagle, weighs less than 30 pounds, like if my wife and I are both leaving the house for a few hours. We'll give him some, because he just is a wreck if nobody's home with him. He takes a 27-pound beagle, takes 100 milligrams of trazodone. Now, trazodone is the same thing my doctor gives me as a sleep aid.
Speaker 2:I'm an insomniac. I will stay up 24-7, 365 so often, but my dosage as a 200 plus pound guy is 50 milligrams. So I weigh four I can't even do that math seven times more than the dog and I'm taking half as much as he does and things like that. And the price, I don't know. I can't remember. It's comparable, but I was like you know. I was like what if I took 100? I'm allowed to take up to 100 milligrams most of the time because my insomnia is not as bad as it's been. I take 50 just to turn my brain off.
Speaker 2:When you're ADD, your brain doesn't stop firing. It's always boom, boom, boom, boom. You're thinking about something. Okay, I got some wild, crazy thing up my butt to write a book and I've got this playing out in my mind how it's going to work and all this and I will think about it. You know you think of ADD people who are squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. But also another side function of ADD is you become hyper-focused, you think about something and you can't let that go and that's what has been just lingering in the back of my mind and making that worse.
Speaker 2:Like ADD medicine, I took it for like one month and that's all I took it because I couldn't stand it. The ADD medicine also made you hyper focus but you could not control what you're hyper focusing on. So I was taking it because I wanted to concentrate on work and be more productive and everything at work and my doctor gave it to me. But I would read a news article and then I'd go down the rabbit hole and I'd be so hyper-focused I'd read everything on whatever was in the news that red article not getting any work done.
Speaker 2:That was one problem with it. And the other thing it made me clench my jaw like there was no tomorrow. It gave me I don't get headaches almost ever. It gave me severe headaches, just clenching my jaw the whole time. So I, after my 30 day checkup the doctor wants to ever done, is that? Nope, I'm not taking this anymore and she's like okay, and she goes. Well, let me know if you change your mind. I was like I can't, I can't, I'm concentrating on the wrong things, but that did help me focus. But I could have focused on absolutely anything or everything, but probably not what I needed to be focusing on.
Speaker 3:So I love that you said that, because I too I'm diagnosed with ADHD. I actually do take medicine for it. I'm a late, so fun fact, women usually get diagnosed later in life because we don't show the same symptoms as boys do. So people just kind of think, oh, they're just being well behaved, well mannered girl, that we're thinking about a million things. So anyway, hyper fixation right now is. But also I want to make the world's most perfect planner.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I don't like anything that's out there, so right now I'm teaching myself how to design my own planner so I could get it printed, and I had to go down the rabbit hole of what kind of paper to use. I researched it, I did everything, so this is like my new crazy hyper fixation.
Speaker 2:So we should have this like, just like a, like a monthly corner of like what's your hyper fixation this month? Well, people who don't have it don't understand and how it is. And it is disabling because when you're going down that rabbit hole you may think, oh, I'm going to finish this, just two more things I want to look at and I'll be done. Nope, it's 2.30 in the morning and next thing you know, you're still looking at paper samples and things like that and figuring out how to best do something, and it's crazy. So, yeah, it's a blessing and a curse. It is, it is. It's a blessing and a curse.
Speaker 3:It is, and once in a while, like once in a while, you get lucky and your hyper fixation aligns with your life, like how I taught myself Excel macros and like a bunch of stuff. Like weeks ago and I was like literally hours in front of it. Here's how I'm going to figure it out, like, yeah, and that was good because that aligned with work. So once in a blue moon, all the stars align and everything is good.
Speaker 2:Yes, it it. That does happen too. So, yeah, I've been there. I can't think of a recent example where my hyper-focus goes to work, but right now it's on my, my book that I uh, because I'm listening to an audio book, it's one of my, my monthly download from audible and I don't like it. I'm sitting there. I can do this better, I can do that. Oh, I can do this better. And and you know that that that's been the start of so many things I've done.
Speaker 2:I was thinking I can do something better than someone else. I formed the. I started a website in gosh I don't even know what year anymore For baseball umpires. There was like two other okay ones there, but they were. I said I can do this better, I can do better. And even though I haven't been actively involved in my own website for years, it's still the number one umpiring website on the web, on the internet. So look up umpire empirecom. That's me and things like that. So, gosh, it might has been 20 years since I started that. Now it can't be 20 years, but uh, it's been. If it isn't, it's very close to to 20 years on that. But yeah, it's a blessing and a curse. So, yeah, we chit-chatted a lot about this. That's good, that's cool, but hopefully our fans can help understand where we are and how we come up with our ideas.
Speaker 2:And speaking of our fans, we have our three Patreon supporters. I want to make sure they they get their recognition hallie, the original jaded hr, rock star bill and michael. You can be like them if if I like this value for value. It was started by adam curry in one of his many podcasts. Hey, you get a kick out of you get a smile. Donate whatever you think it's worth through bias of beer. You can do one-time donation, you can do subscriptions through either patreon or buzzsprout or our host, and they can and you can follow the links in our social media. So, hey, let us know, you know, support us in that way so you don't have to hear stupid commercials, for you know whatever your least favorite thing that you're hearing bomba socks or me undies hello fresh, hello fresh you're hearing Bomba Socks or MeUndies or HelloFresh that you're hearing on podcasts all the time.
Speaker 2:Every time I hear one of those stupid commercials I'm like, oh give me, they've oversaturated it to the point like I don't like HelloFresh. I used to subscribe to them. My wife wants to go back to them, but I'm like I'm not doing it. It's like what do you call it Defiant disorder? Obsessional defiant'm like I'm not doing it. It's like what do you call it defiant disorder when you oppositional defiant disorder when you I'm not doing that because you're annoying me, type of thing. So yeah, so I've got two stories I came up with and we went a little dark. One episode and I actually edited that out. We talked about you know some things a few months ago. That was so dark. I was like, yeah, this doesn't fit the theme too well. This is depressing. We are going to deal with some death at work today.
Speaker 3:We're not going to be Trigger warning.
Speaker 2:Trigger warning. It's not about killing your coworkers, not, it is. But we're not going to make fun of the deceased. But here's the story. You might've seen it. My wife brought this to my attention.
Speaker 2:This is a news article from CNN dated Monday September 2nd, and it has to do. The title of the article is Wells Fargo employee found it dead at her desk days after she clocked into work. Authorities say so. This person who passed away, clocked in Friday morning and was, and I'm assuming, sometime Friday, passed away at work and she nobody noticed it until Tuesday afternoon. And I'm just, oh my God, I can't. And the article goes on to say that she scanned into the building 7 am on August 16th. No further scans, either in or out of the building. Cnn was told by the police.
Speaker 2:Now, on august 20th, a security on-site security reported finding an employee possibly dead in a cubicle. She was pronounced dead at 4 55 pm. So and and it goes on to say that she worked in an underpopulated portion of the building. Yeah, this person I'm not going to say her name was sitting in an underpopulated area of the building where she was found. And also, it goes on, employees were talking how can this happen? Because they have physical security. The ones who did find her? They were supposed to be there 24-7. Who did find her? They're supposed to be there 24-7. So how many times did somebody have to walk by or near her to say you know, you haven't moved at all in three days, I just don't. And the thing they all go on to say most of their people are working remotely now, and things like that. So it made my, my wandering mind go. Well, you know how many people have died working from home that maybe the employer doesn't know about, or anything like that. Yeah, but here's what.
Speaker 3:I thought, so yeah, so she's a, she normally worked. I read that she normally works from home and she was like in the office that day. I read that she normally works from home and she was like in the office that day. And I've seen offices like this, where the majority of the individuals work remote, so it's like hoteling space and it's like sporadic seating and, honestly, like we could bring this back to the whole return to work thing. Like I know a lot of people are trying to bring people back to work, but if the rest of the team isn't there, it's just a bunch of people who are like you're here too Cool, like there's no real reason for people to be together. So it's like I often wonder, like if this was classic the office was fall and she was with her co-workers and her team definitely someone would have noticed what was wrong. If it was, this is total speculation. But if this was like a cardiac arrest event or something like that, like there could have been people around to notice and intervene If she was working at home.
Speaker 3:I don't know what her home life is, but what a partner or a spouse have like found her or helped her or like something like that. But just being in the office with no one around to help, that's really sad and morbid. Like no one noticed and I don't know if you read this, but people, people were around the vicinity. I guess they just didn't see her because people were complaining about a smell.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:And they thought it was sewage, and they just you know, whatever the facilities.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 3:God, this place is gone. This is why we can't have nice things, and it's like literally someone in their queue, so I don't know the whole thing. It's heartbreaking.
Speaker 2:It is heartbreaking from every aspect of it. And then you have to think I'm assuming this person must have lived alone, because if my wife didn't come home from work, okay, I'm calling, I'm calling. I'm calling. Okay, no answers. Okay, I'm calling the police now I'm calling her boss her co-workers.
Speaker 2:Hey, was she there friday? Where you know anything like that, I would drive by her building and see is her car still there or what have you. So unfortunately I think she might've been alone, at least at that time, and it is sad I have had. Well, actually I shouldn't say this. I did not have to deal with it At the time. I was a recruiter at a company. I didn't deal with general HR, but we had someone pass away in the building. Natural causes, old age in that case, as far as I recall. But that was just a weird experience. Like I said, I was young in my career and I heard everybody talking a little bit about it. I wasn't involved, but yeah, that's crazy. And then, on another aspect of dying at work, gosh, I don't know how many five years ago now, feathers and I, one of our fraternity brothers I was actually very close with. He was a salesperson. He was doing a trade show in Las Vegas. He's from Raleigh, north Carolina. He had one of those widowmaker heart attacks on the sales floor at the convention and passed away in Las Vegas.
Speaker 2:Dying at work has got to suck, no matter what. To die all alone at work and not have it, I don't know, it's just, it's. It's crazy and having to deal with that and it did mention that Wells Fargo is going to bring in counselors and and things like that. I got to imagine not too many people are close enough to have been deeply impacted if they didn't realize that. What had happened? Unfortunately, that's just.
Speaker 2:It's just sad Every what you can't. You know there's no clean end to this stick. It's sad every which way and I don't think Wells Fargo is going to have any liability in it. But I think if you have security people who are supposed to be patrolling. It says the building has round-the-clock security. An anonymous employee told this CNN affiliate the body should have been discovered sooner because the building has round-the-clock security presence. So who wasn't doing their job there to discover it? As cold as, what's the difference if she's dead at 6 pm or if she's dead Saturday morning? I don't know. That's something I don't think at death, especially not a natural cause death is one thing, but a work-related injury death is completely another. But dealing with death at work, that's luckily nothing I have had to deal with and hopefully will not have to deal with in my career.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there was an incident years ago at a company I used to work for, back in the golden age, of people actually going and someone had like a medical event and they collapsed. But they okay spoiler alert the person's fine, so the levity that I'm telling where he is is appropriate. They're fine, they're fine. But this person like collapsed in like getting out of the elevator, so half of her body was in the elevator and half was out and the elevator doors were like closing on her and then they would, yes, like it would close on her a bounce back, close on her bounce back.
Speaker 3:And I think there was a few people around and people were just like panicking, like what do we do?
Speaker 3:What do we do? And it was actually my friend, who happened to work in HR, who was like what do you guys do Call mine? So like she just called in and it was fine, she just low blood sugar and she out, but yeah, like that was like a scary situation at the time. But my friend did say after the fact she's like listen, I'm really happy this woman's okay, I'm happy everything turned out. But that was like out of a movie, like just like.
Speaker 2:I have a friend who's a safety officer at her company, or at least when I last spoke to her that's what she was doing. She had a situation. Somebody was having a medical emergency. They're calling her as the safety officer. It's like, okay, has anybody called 911? No, like, get off the phone and call 911. You know why are you calling? Call me afterwards, paperwork can wait people. You know I can do the reports and call 911. Just people's mindset when an emergency happens, yeah, let me call the safety officer instead of 911. That's crazy.
Speaker 3:I think honestly, that's kind of. I think that's what happened with my friend, because she sat near like her desk was near that elevator when it happened and she was quote unquote hr. Uh, even though she wasn't, she wasn't talent like whatever, so they're like oh, it's hr. Like let's like ask them what to do and she like peeked over and she's like call 9-1-1. Like I can't help you like picked up the phone and dialed out, but but yeah, so when in doubt, call 9-1-1 and hr h.
Speaker 3:HR can help in a lot of ways, but resuscitating someone who passed out is not one of them. That's not our expertise.
Speaker 2:Well, you can. Our company just did our first aid AED CPR choking certification. So I got recertified for I'm good another two years. And let me tell you, we did ours through the Red Cross, which is actually probably one of the more expensive outfits to do it through For 24 people. It was like less than $2,000, people and get an AED machine. They are expensive, but, sam, just use it once and save someone's life and you know, hopefully you'll never use it and it's a $1,000 piece of artwork on your wall and that's it. But it's just do. Do things, just simple things like that and make it available to your employees. It's, it really is a thing.
Speaker 2:But okay, scroll moment here did my whoops, so many distractions, but anyways, doing the cpr training. We talked about people who, in training, ask stupid questions and make it about them, and I was in the class with a guy. I was specifically I even said I'm thinking of a specific person who will say well, you know me, I'm going to ask a million questions. He said that same thing to the red cross person for doing this. I'm like, just shut up and listen. I I just wanted to grab him around the neck and make him need to be resuscitated after that. He's a choking victim of warren. He's not choking on a piece of candy or a hot dog or chicken wing. Those are the three most, uh, common things people choke on. But he's choking on warren's hands. But it was, and there is no resuscitation for that, but it was just. Anyhow, we've beaten that one to death but at any point. So next topic uh, okay, I, I read this this morning on the news.
Speaker 2:So I'm I'm a fan of the tv show shark tank for many, many reasons. I, I think I. You know I have a ring doorbell or had one. I got a different brand now because I saw it on Shark Tank. My wife uses the scrub mommies and scrub daddies from Shark Tank. I forget, oh, what other. We have a squatty potty from Shark Tank. What other stupid thing. When we see something on Shark Tank, shark Tank, what other stupid thing. When we see something on Shark Tank, you know that interests us, we go looking for it. We found there's probably two or three dozen things in our house that we have thanks to Shark Tank. Well, like I said, I'm a fan of the show.
Speaker 2:I like almost all the hosts, but one of my favorites is, of course, mr Wonderful, and he made the news now. So the backstory is in Australia, they passed this new law called the Right to Disconnect Law, and other countries like France, spain and Belgium have already had this law. Basically, it allows employees to step away from work-related communications outside of their official working hours, ensuring that their personal time remains personal. And at the surface level, I like this. I mean, does it need to be a law? I don't think it necessarily needs to be a law, but at the surface level I like it. I think that most people don't need to be communicated with outside of working hours for their job, unless it's like a true emergency. But, mr Wonderful, he was being interviewed somewhere about this.
Speaker 2:Evan O'Leary is one of the outspoken critics of this legislation. This kind of stuff makes me crazy. It's so dumb. Who dreams this crap up? Is my question, and why would anybody propose such a stupid idea? Dreams this crap up? Is my question, and why would anybody propose such a stupid idea? So anyways, I he goes on. But talking about. That's how you do business. What happens if you have an event and the office is closed or you have an emergency need to get a hold of them because of the job they're working on. And he says you know there's there's legitimate business needs for for doing it. And if employee? He says if employees start ignoring their boss's calls, texts and emails outside of work hours and after hours, emergency might have to wait until the next business day, which O'Leary says he finds unacceptable. When asked whether he ever encounters employees who silence their phones outside of work, o'leary didn't hesitate with his response the next moment is I just fire them. He sounds wonderful.
Speaker 2:I can see it both ways in the fact that it depends on your level within the company. I don't think that Kevin O'Leary is contacting the general frontline worker on their cell phone after hours on their cell phone after hours, but his managers and directors yeah. I think if you're in a leadership role, that comes with the territory. I think that my boss and I have had this conversation before about being available outside of regular work hours and that's fine. When I was on vacation I got phone calls and G chats and things like that and I responded to them while I was on vacation. We're an HR department of two, actually three. Our recruiter, if you include her, we're an HR department of three and some of the things are just things that I have to do and I accept that and it's not a big deal, it's not constant, but it does seem to happen when I'm on vacation.
Speaker 2:When I moved my house, I spent like three days actually working and I actually took it off my PTO request. I undid the PTO and put labor hours in instead, but I did that, but under no circumstances. I can say under no circumstances, but I just don't see me contacting my assistant on a Saturday evening on purpose. Now, when I was also on vacation, I'm sitting there working. I was thinking it's Friday and I'm sending her a G check. Can you do this? Can you do that for me? You look up and say I didn't want to actually log into the beach, I was being too lazy. And then my wife asked me what are you doing? I said, oh, I'm asking Her name's Anne. I'm asking Anne if she can do this. She goes. You know it's Saturday, right? I'm like oops. And then I said never mind. Never mind, just do this on. We'll talk about this Monday and things like that. It was actually Saturday. I got the opposite of the Dwight Schrute brainwashing effect there and I said we'll talk about it later, don't do anything.
Speaker 3:So go ahead. So every time these laws come up I think we were talking about it last, we talked about last episode, the Crown Act and everything yeah, I always feel like these laws have to be made for the people of the situations the most. I feel it's kind of like the warning label on an iron where it's like don't iron clothes while it's on you. That's kind of what I feel like a lot of these laws are sometimes, because there are a lot of people who, if given the opportunity, they will take advantage of people and let's just throw that out there.
Speaker 3:But, I agree with you. I see it both ways, because I think when you do get to a certain level in your career especially those who are in leadership roles or VP level roles or something like that there is an element that you have to be available if shit hits the fan, like if the CEO, if you report to the CEO and the CEO is like, hey, shit's on, you're just not like that's not part of it. So I get both. I do get like both sides of it. I will say when I had direct reports, I would I sometimes, do you know, catch up on stuff at night night, but I'll specifically say like, hey, I'm just sending this to you as a reminder. Don't act on it until, like, working hours, like this is just so it's out of my head and it's like it reminds me. But yeah, like there's no way. It's frustrating that these laws have to be made, but I get why they have to be made.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, I agree, but once I'm going down a different path. Talking about the warning labels on things, Saturday was the first ECU home game and I saw so many of my friends I hadn't seen in forever, including Feathers, and hung out. But one of my friend's wife, wife singular, he does not have multiple wives.
Speaker 2:One of my friend's wife. She does interior decorating and she works on those really luxurious beach homes in the Outer Banks and this family bought a dream home and had her decorate it and all this fun stuff. They go there for the first time recently and what do they do? They see the couch has a tag on it says that has the California warning that products in this material may cause cancer. And now they want to get rid of all the furniture that has this. And she's trying to explain go anywhere, buy anything that has.
Speaker 2:You know, this magnet I'm sitting here twirling around in my hand to fidget with. You know it probably came with a California warning that you know the materials in this can cause cancer. But this person is like and they want a full refund for the furniture and stuff like that. I'm like where have you been that you haven't seen these warnings on the, the, on anything and everything right there? I mean I I don't know, we'll see. Does this have a california warning? Now it's all chinese or whatever it is. So I'm just like it's, it's it. There's things to get worried about and things to make laws about, and there's things not to do so much for.
Speaker 3:So anyhow, yeah, it's just. It's just unfortunate that we have individuals in the world that aren't like you know, you know I'm gonna toast my bread in the bathtub.
Speaker 2:You know, I think that sounds like a good idea, but somebody had to do it, so that that's how it. That's how it happens, but there might be a good argument for not putting warning labels on things as well. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I will say, like early in my career when I was doing on a recruiting team shout out to all the interview coordinators out there that list job. You are awesome. But I remember when I had high level executive interviews and it was, I had to schedule their flights, I had to get their hotel. I had to do this. It was nerve wracking when it was like the night before their interview and I knew they were traveling in and I was just like glued to my phone. So I'm like if they're, especially during the winter, like oh, if their flight gets canceled, if this happens, that happens. Like I kind of had to be like on all essentially to help if anything, if anything happened because they had to be the interview the next day.
Speaker 3:So, and these are again, these are like dpsvp individuals that like global means, like they need the white glove service. So it's just part of the job. Like it didn't happen all the time. It probably happened like once or twice a month, but you know it's part of the job. Just don't take advantage of your people. Like just don't be an asshole. Yes exactly.
Speaker 3:Set up expectations appropriately and don't take advantage of people in their personal time. That is all.
Speaker 2:And I think, if you do it appropriately, I think the average employee will realize hey, this is a crunch time. I need to pitch in here to say leave me alone 99% of the time. And if they're coming to me now, it's important. Now. If they're texting you on Saturday night about I don't know something trivial, that's a whole different thing. But when it when it's crunch time and you need all hands on deck or you need something, you know, as long as you're not going to the well too many times, I can you know. I think most employees would appreciate that and be able to, and maybe even some people would like it to a certain degree. I know some people have an ego defeat. Oh look, how important I am. They're contacting me saturday night because I'm the only one who can do this crap and whatever.
Speaker 3:So that is not me. A couple beverages in and you don't want to. You don't want to contact me for any work-related stuff. I'm not going to be helpful, oh that's, that's good.
Speaker 2:You know, I was really amazed Now because, also, at the football tailgate, we arrived at 11 for tailgating and the game started at 6 pm, so we got plenty. But it was just. You know, we probably bring so much beer, so much food, so much waste going on there, but you know, I only drank three beers over that whole entire time, and part of it is it was actually felt too hot to. You know, even though the beer was cold, it just water and Gatorade felt better. At that time I was like, yeah, so now I have a beer for two more in two more weeks when we meet again. Well, actually the next away game is closer to me than east carolina is, so a bunch of us are going to to that game. But anyway, a whole nother thing. But yeah, I just, I didn't, didn't partake as much as I normally do with that. So well, I just got one more little antidote anecdote type story for before we go.
Speaker 2:So I mentioned in the last episode when I was on my vacation had to make an emergency room visit. Well, thanks to that visit I've met both my deductible and out-of-pocket maximum for the year. And we're talking about the insurance system being broken. Here's a perfect example of how it is broken. So I don't go to the doctor needlessly. I don't go for trivial things or anything, but I've met my deductible.
Speaker 2:My wife and I were looking at our prescriptions. You know we don't take our. Both of us take Prilosec. Neither of us take it every single day. But hey, I can get a refill. I'm due for a refill here in September and three months later in December, I can get another 90-day refill. So I'll have a boatload of it for 2025.
Speaker 2:And we'll go through our prescriptions looking see what we can. I get my trazodone refilled and things like that where it's causing a zippy. We're on the free ride we're thinking about. Is there any procedures I want done? I have a little barnacle growing on my head. I'm going to go to the dermatologist and have her freeze it off again. I I'm just thinking of all these things I want to get done that I wouldn't want to pay for, and this is because of the broken system. I'm just. I'm playing by y'all's rules insurance companies and you know I made my deductible and out ofocket maximum, so now I get to play the game my way and of course the employers and the insurance companies are going to hate that, that we're going to have our claim rates going to go way up high One person out of how many.
Speaker 2:It can make a difference in a small company, but we're covered on a very, very, very large company, so it's one that my wife works at, so we're covered pretty well with that. So it's just. You know, it's crazy to think how adult you have to be to start thinking now I'm going to get this procedure, I'm going to get this mold taken off, I'm going to go get these things done. You know, I wish I could get new orthotics, but insurance doesn't cover orthotics anyway, so that's out of the question. I would just be paying for that out of pocket whenever I do do that. But anyways, if you didn't make a game, a system and it is a game at many levels that has winners and losers and people wouldn't be doing this winners and losers and people wouldn't be doing this. If you just made it a more fair system across the board. Yeah, it sucks getting to your deductible and your out-of-pocket max, but we're there and yeah. So, yeah, we're not doing. You know we're going to be getting some things done that we couldn't get done otherwise.
Speaker 3:So I thought that I was going to, similarly like you did when I had my baby, because I'm like, oh, like I'm going to be spending so much money like just having this baby that I'm in afterward my deductibles will be yay. So I had my baby in April and, like we were kind of the way our company has benefits, it starts in Juneune, so the new coverage started in june. So the clock reset like right after.
Speaker 2:I'm like that was just that was just ill planned on my part plan the next baby to be born in june or july, and so you get to get to go on a free ride.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and it is funny if you ever go to the. I don't know if you played this game yet from your hospital visit, but it's really fun to see what insurance picks it up. Cause, like I would just like room and board $9,000. I'm like room and board, what that's not even without medical care, Like there, just so you can be in this room $9,000 a night, Like thank you.
Speaker 2:Hopefully it was a private room.
Speaker 3:Resort. It was it was Okay.
Speaker 2:I know a lot of the maternity wards are private rooms. As long as they can, yeah, so that's good.
Speaker 3:That would be an adventure if I was my my labor adventure next to a stranger like we're in this together, girl, we got this well, I think.
Speaker 2:I think we're gonna lay in this plane for this episode. Um, we've got some great ideas coming up for future episodes. I I'll go ahead and say I don't think there's going to be a Christmas special episode this year. I just haven't been able to put my mind around. But the last episode it just came to me one day and I wrote the whole thing in a few hours once. It just sort of popped in my crazy brain. So not saying it won't happen, but right now I'm not planning on it happening. But we have some great things coming up. I think we have some guests coming up that y'all will enjoy and we have a new segment in the planning works of that I think everybody will enjoy as well. So stay tuned for more information on that. But our best practice for today check in on your employees, see if you're smelling a smell, maybe do some investigation. What is that smell? Don't just let someone brought in the corner.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's pretty standard practice for a good human, just check in on your workers.
Speaker 2:Be a good person, want to thank Andrew Culpa, the voice artist, for the intro and then the intro and outro music is Double the Double by the Underscore Orchestra. Check in with us again in two weeks. Once again, we haven't had a review in a very long time. Give us a review. I use Pocket Cast. They're now allowing you to rate and stars your episodes. Oh, another. So if you use Pocket Cast, I know it's like the fourth most used podcast player. People use to listen to our podcast, so give us a five stars on that.
Speaker 2:But also, apple just released. You can listen with with or without an apple account in the browser. It doesn't help. Jaded hr right now because they will not play episodes rated explicit as exactly on the browser. But they think that is a rumor is that once they later, once you sign into your Apple account, they know that you're over 18, they will let you play explicit material. And we already had our hands slapped, I think, twice now by Apple for not me, not accident, accidentally not checking the explicit box and having some naughty words in our episode. So I really don't want to get my hand slapped a third time by Apple or anything like that. So anyways, as always, I'm Warren.
Speaker 3:I'm Cece.
Speaker 2:And we're here helping you survive. Hr one, what the fuck moment at a time. Take that Apple, thank you.
