HR Through Pop Culture The Office: The Diversity Day Disaster

Remember that cringeworthy moment when Michael Scott signed his diversity training completion form as "Daffy Duck"? Or when Kelly slapped him after his offensive impersonation? These unforgettable scenes from The Office's "Diversity Day" episode reveal something fascinating about workplace culture both then and now.

Twenty years after this controversial episode first aired, we're taking a deep dive into what made it simultaneously problematic yet ahead of its time. The episode brilliantly showcases what happens when an untrained manager attempts to handle sensitive topics without proper expertise – resulting in multiple terminable offenses that would likely get someone fired on the spot today.

What's particularly striking about watching "Diversity Day" in 2024 is noticing how Mr. Brown's professional approach to diversity training was surprisingly progressive for 2005. When he corrects Michael's "I don't see color" statement by explaining that's "fighting ignorance with ignorance" and instead emphasizes celebrating diversity, he articulates principles that have become fundamental to modern DEI work.

The episode serves as both a time capsule and a cautionary tale, highlighting an essential lesson for organizations: some training topics require specialized expertise. As HR professionals, we see this episode as a perfect example of why sensitive issues like diversity and inclusion often benefit from bringing in qualified external trainers rather than handling them in-house without proper training.

Whether you're an Office superfan or an HR professional looking for entertaining examples of workplace don'ts, join us as we analyze all the cringe, examine what's changed in twenty years, and extract valuable lessons that remain relevant today. And stick around for our next episode where we'll tackle "Healthcare" – another HR nightmare courtesy of Dunder Mifflin's most problematic manager.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Diversity Day Episode
• 4:05 Why Michael Needed Diversity Training
• 8:07 Mr. Brown's Professional Approach
• 15:25 Michael Creates His Own Diversity Day
• 23:10 Kelly's Slap and Terminable Offenses
• 28:12 The Importance of Professional Training
• 33:47 Future Episodes and Show Wrap-up

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

Speaker 2: 0:50

Welcome to Jaded HR, the podcast by two HR professionals who want to help you get through the workday by saying everything you're thinking, but say it out loud. I'm Warren.

Speaker 3: 0:59

I'm Cece.

Speaker 2: 1:00

Okay, at long last, here comes your Diversity Day episode. In the last episode we said it's been about two months that we've been saying this one's coming, and I just got to the point where I can't edit it. I don't have the time. It'll be quicker and easier just to rerecord. So that's what we're doing and you will have this You're listening to this hopefully towards the end of April. So yay, us, yay Showing how the sausage is made.

Speaker 3: 1:26

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 1:27

I think that going forward, though, we'll have these much more regularly. The third episode of every month, like we said, we're going to as well. So, yeah, so Diversity Day, it's season one, episode two. It really sets the tone once again for how far the office can go and how far they can't go. They couldn't go today as well, so do you want to set the episode up a little further or just go whatever comes up to our mind?

Speaker 3: 2:02

Yeah, so I'll set it up. Comes up to our mind yeah, so I'll set it up. So Michael, the fearless leader of Dunder Mifflin, has made some inappropriate jokes in the office and we find out later that it's a rendition of a Chris Rock joke and apparently this has made people feel uncomfortable. So they have hired an external trainer to come in and do and talk about diversity. So two things off the top of my mind. I am a huge fan of the Office. I have seen this episode a thousand times, yet I have never actually done the digging to see the Chris Rock skit that he's talking about. So I did, okay, and I'm like oh, you cannot do this in an office, michael. No, no, no, so, yeah. So it's a very inappropriate thing to try to reenact in an office.

Speaker 2: 2:55

Especially as maybe a middle-aged white guy.

Speaker 3: 2:58

Especially, yeah, middle-aged white guy. No, it's just in bad taste. Don't do it, mainly because, I don't know. I think they kind of get to it because they bleep him. But he does drop the n-word in the joke and it seems like michael was doing it verbatim. Yeah, so, and it's a lot. So, please, that is incredibly inappropriate, michael. So, yeah, so then they bring in this expert in diversity His name is Mr Brown to come in and do this diversity training.

Speaker 2: 3:30

And I will say I love the casting of Mr Brown, whoever he is. I've seen him in something else before. I keep meaning to go to IMDB and search what I've seen him in, but I swear I've seen him in something, but he's perfect for the role. He. He sells me on the fact that he's a diversity consultant and he handles Michael beautifully so good. And this is thing Michael isn't used to being handled at all, but much less like this. I love when he says well, actually, would you give me permission to take lead on this? So Michael still has control, but he really can't say no in front of everybody with that. I love that. And then he said oh, this would work better too if you would sit down as well. I just the way he handled.

Speaker 2: 4:21

Michael was just, you know, perfect and he sold me on that he's a diversity consultant the tone and the way he was talking and things like that. But I keep going back to A. You couldn't do this episode today and you know you're watching Peacock and since we two months ago, when we did our last rewatch episode, it says 20th anniversary all over the office on Peacock. Now I'm like- that's incredible 20 years ago.

Speaker 2: 4:53

Yeah, it is incredible and it's still relevant for the most part. I can't see a major studio like NBC doing some of the stuff that they're. It would be something that would be straight to Peacock or, you know, back in the day it would be straight to DVD. But now it'd be something that goes straight to the streaming. Versus what they put on the actual shows, it's a little. It's a little racy and they play it so safe nowadays. So it's, it's really.

Speaker 3: 5:19

I will say cause this it's a good point you brought up.

Speaker 3: 5:21

This was brought up in 2000 and or this was released in 2005 and one of the main things that he had said, mr Brown had said and and yes, you're right, I, that is an actor who I completely believe is a training belongs in the training industry. He does the job so well, but there was, you know, at the at the beginning of the training, when he's kind of handling michael, michael's kind of defensive, but not really, and he's just like this is a color-free zone, we don't see color, and he stops him and he goes no, no, saying that is fighting ignorance with ignorance and we want to celebrate diversity and for me that was 2005. And that was kind of ahead of its time because that's how we understand diversity, equity and inclusion now. So like, and that's not how I don't think that's how that was handled back then. I want to be really transparent. I was in my, a college student, but I'm going to assume it was not dealt in the same way. So I think that this was a little ahead of its time.

Speaker 2: 6:37

It really was because I was working in 2005. I was working in HR in 2005 when this came out and, yeah, diversity, I don't think we had done, I'd ever done, an actual diversity training. By that point, yeah, I don't think it was a thing back then. So, who knows, who knows with it? So, oh man, I'm actually trying to pull up the actor's name. I'm on the imdb right now trying to see, but it I don't think he's listed. Anyways, I'll keep on going, I'll edit this stuff out, but anyways I I think it is ahead of his time. The training they did, but the whole we okay, you've already said the reason why they're trained. So he passes out these cards to everybody in the group there and says there was an incident. Why don't you tell me about an incident that made you uncomfortable recently? And just as predicted, because a good consultant who does something like that, just like an attorney, you don't ask a question you don't know the answer to. This guy knew the answer he was going to get. It looks like. Oh, a question you don't know the answer to. This guy knew the answer he was going to get. It looks like we all gave the same answer on a recent, which is exactly why I'm here, michael and things like that. So it was perfect. It really was well done across the board.

Speaker 2: 7:59

Okay, his name is Larry Wilmore. Mr Brown is Larry Wilmore. Let me see what else. He was in the Facts of Life in 1979. I love that show. Lisa Welch was one of my very first crushes as a little kid on the Facts of Life. He was on Sledgehammer. I loved that show as well. I'm trying to see what else. Grown-ish, black-ish yeah, he's been around. He was on the Fresh Prince of Bella Also. Oh, no, that was 1995, not 2005. He was on Living Color, so 62 episodes. Oh, he was a major character in Living Color. So anyways, I knew I recognized him, I just couldn't put it together or where. From Bernie Mac Show 104 episodes.

Speaker 3: 8:40

So yeah, oh, he had his own show on Comedy Central, the Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. Oh, okay.

Speaker 2: 8:46

Yep, I see there too. Yeah, okay, but he killed that role. He did he did so good.

Speaker 3: 8:54

He also did so good handling Dwight oh Dwight.

Speaker 2: 9:05

When Dwight would say what was it? When? He was like okay, can we talk about races, talk about gays, homosexuality or yeah, or the gays. Whatever he said, yeah, I don't know what he says. That's not a race that's not a race.

Speaker 3: 9:14

He turns around and mr brown is just like well, we only have an hour yeah, I'm sure he's like.

Speaker 2: 9:23

I can make billable hours forever in this office, the cash coming in and and mike michael, you know, when he's trying to take over and lead the thing, he goes. Why don't we start by everybody going around the room and saying the the races were sexually attracted to? Oh my god and of course they go straight to dwight, who's sitting right beside mindy kelly. What's her? Name kelly kelly sitting right beside kelly. It says I'm attracted to whites and indians, and she like side eyes.

Speaker 3: 9:56

Him like this is uncomfortable.

Speaker 2: 9:58

It's creepy on so many different levels. It's creepy and it's a and it's a Dwight, it's a complete Dwight Schrute type of thing to say, and oh.

Speaker 3: 10:11

But the funny thing is I've been in situations where I'm doing a training and someone says something so off the wall, and you're like in your mind that made sense, but you didn't really consider the audience you're sitting in front of, and then you have to kind of pivot. And he did such a good job pivoting so I was like, oh, like again, great, great trainer.

Speaker 2: 10:34

But yeah, the training and it comes out. You know, everybody has to sign a form. They participated in the training. And Michael says, oh, I'm not going to sign this. This says I actually learned something. I didn't learn anything. You can put that taught something.

Speaker 2: 10:48

Michael's trying to wrangle attention and make this about him as per usual. The kids would say and once again, mr Brown, michael, can we talk about this? And he'd go into Michael's office behind closed doors and the whole reason I'm here is just for you. Yeah, and I didn't want to single you out or anything, I tried to do this, but I need your signature. And of course, what? After reading it, michael signs it as Daffy duck, so many terminal offenses. I mean, do your investigation and say, okay, michael, you, you did this Chris Rock routine. Okay, yeah, it's time for you to oh, oh, even going back even further, when it first started, the episode started yeah, I've been wanting to have a diversity training in our office. For some I've been leading in charge. Well, I haven't actually spoken to anybody. And yeah, he's trying to take credit for something he absolutely had nothing to do with, so you know, it's trying to take credit for something he absolutely had nothing to do with.

Speaker 3: 11:45

So you know his ego won't let him learn anything. His ego won't let him listen, and that's the that's the issue with Michael Scott.

Speaker 2: 11:53

Yeah, so now I can say that the first round of diversity training is over and now we go into. Michael isn't satisfied, satisfied, so he's got to create his own diversity day part two, and he created a little video which I think.

Speaker 3: 12:13

there's a couple other episodes where michael scott creates some videos and it's like 30 seconds long and I will say there was a point where he, after the after mr brown leaves, then he signed the paper, daffy Duck, he walks out of his office and he's being very cheeky about I vow to be honest and empathetic and then he rips it up, yeah, and he's like, oh wait, no, I actually do want to be those things, but. But I have been in situations, especially in training situations, where the leader does not believe in what we're doing, believes what we're doing is a waste of time and then will undermine everything you just did. When you leave the room and that was the one thing when Michael was doing that it got under my skin so bad. I was like just move on, man, let people work. Just move on, man, let people work.

Speaker 2: 13:04

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 13:05

Just move on.

Speaker 2: 13:07

Oh, if you haven't watched the episode, that's the whole gist of the show. Michael, doesn't let anybody work.

Speaker 3: 13:12

He doesn't.

Speaker 2: 13:14

How the heck. And they're apparently one of the best offices in all. Dunder Mifflin through everything.

Speaker 3: 13:20

So anyways, but Michael does his own and you covered the video last time you I'll let you take the video what michael says oh yeah, he said diversity today or no, we are diversity tomorrow because today is almost over, which I love, like actually that's pretty good marketing he quotes abraham that's right. I forget what he said. Oh my gosh, Like if you're a racist.

Speaker 2: 13:58

I'll send the army, the Northern Army, to attack and kill you, or something like that.

Speaker 3: 14:03

That's right. Yes, according to Abraham Lincoln, if you're a racist. And okay, going back to the last episode and the the conferences and things.

Speaker 2: 14:24

I I hate interactivity in conference things because in my opinion, it means you didn't have enough content to fill, so you were trying to waste time and have people do the stupid little things together and waste time, etc. So, anyways, oh, lauren, you're trying to waste time and have people do stupid little things together and waste time, etc.

Speaker 3: 14:39

So, anyways, oh Warren, you're so jaded. That's what experiential learning is.

Speaker 2: 14:46

There's a difference between experiential learning and doing teamwork and group exercise. I don't think I've ever done one that I thought, oh, this was useful for something. No, it wasn't, but anyways thought, oh, this was useful for something. Now, it wasn't, but it was I will. I'll go back to the episode and talk about. So michael is talking about his heritage and the first thing he goes to is straight to oscar and asks you know, he wants him to tell us about your, you know, michael's, I'm. I'm english, scottish, german, whatever he is, and all. And so he goes straight to Oscar and says tell us about yourself.

Speaker 3: 15:20

And Oscar clocks it. He's like, okay, like he's so smart, he knows what Michael's doing. He's like okay, well, my parents are from Mexico and they moved here before I was born, so I was raised here.

Speaker 2: 15:35

And I loved it because, well, what do you want to? To be called, or I forget how he gets on the topic what do you want mexican? And he goes. Well, isn't that an offensive term?

Speaker 3: 15:46

no, yes, doesn't it? Doesn't that have connotations? And he's like what connotations are you talking?

Speaker 2: 15:58

and yeah, so I think the going around the room sort of stopped abruptly there. So good job, and then and then really quick.

Speaker 3: 16:06

Kelly had to leave because she had a client meeting and then as she was leaving and kelly's indian. And as she was leaving, michael was like oh, and he goes, but if you leave, they'll only be two left, and he's obviously referring to Oscar, who's Mexican, and Stanley, who's black. So that was a really funny moment and she was like what? And he's like nevermind.

Speaker 2: 16:30

Yeah and yeah, but those are the things I don't think you could say and do on network TV today. I think that they would have some sort of conniption on redoing the office like that and having those today. With all the crap going on in offices today and romances and all this other stuff, you know, wow, Not that romances didn't happen before, but with the digital world of everything, I think an HR office would be an excellent TV show idea where you get the HR team and their talk. You don't even have to see the perpetrators of all these offenses that we have to, you just have to. Oh my God, I got to deal with Tommy again. You know what is he. You know it was another.

Speaker 3: 17:19

I would love a workplace comedy that was just the HR team and the different functions of HR and outside of that little ecosystem of all the stuff they have to deal with regularly and all of their regular offenders and all that kind of stuff. I think there's something there. I don't have time to write it, but if someone wants to write it, go ahead.

Speaker 2: 17:38

Give us credit and some money, yeah just give me my royalty.

Speaker 3: 17:41

We'll timestamp this. This is how it went out, so you know it's fine, Sign contracts later.

Speaker 2: 17:49

I started going down this part of the episode earlier, but we do finally get introduced to Toby, the office HR person, and you know you talk about your ratios, depending on your industry. I think they say it's supposed to be between one and 100, one hr person every 100 to 200 people, depending on the industry and what they got yeah include, you add the warehouse people, you've got 20 people there, dunder, miffin and he's got.

Speaker 2: 18:16

hopefully he handles more than that, but he's walking in for Michael's diversity day and get out. Well, first Toby tries to make a snide comment Are you going to have a sit Indian style on the floor, michael? And you know trying to try to. Michael just says get out, get out. And you instantly get the relationship between Michael and Toby, who represents HR in the show. So that was really telling. So you only see Toby for what? 30 seconds or so before he just turns on 30 seconds. I'm out.

Speaker 3: 18:58

And, by the way, surprise that Toby, the HR person, is the one that used the term Indian style, isn't it crisscross applesauce yeah, isn't that what we're doing now?

Speaker 2: 19:03

that's what it is now, and I tell you what I did. My daughter comes home from kindergarten or something like that, and talking about crisscross applesauce, I'm like what? And I was like, oh, okay, I get it. We can't say it's Indian style any longer, or what have you.

Speaker 3: 19:21

Crisscross applesauce which to me sounds cuter. For kids it is cuter.

Speaker 2: 19:27

Yeah, it's a cuter thing. It's marketed better.

Speaker 3: 19:31

Yeah, it is marketed better.

Speaker 2: 19:33

So the exercise the group exercise Michael comes up with is he has all these cards on a tray and he probably played a party game or something where there's something on it. You put something in your head and you're trying to get someone to say whatever word is on your head, or something like that.

Speaker 3: 19:51

I've done a couple of things like that yeah, you got to get the person with the card on their head to guess what's on their card?

Speaker 2: 19:57

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 19:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:59

Well, michael has all these quote unquote races of people, oh my gosh. And so everybody's walking around with these things on their head and most of them aren't races. There's one of them, jewish, one is Italian. Michael's wearing Martin Luther King. That's not a race.

Speaker 3: 20:16

I know, because he's my hero.

Speaker 2: 20:18

He's my hero and anyway. So that's the thing. And, of course, stanley. What did Stanley get? Stanley got black and his exercise is go, just walk around the room and talk to people like you would, according to whatever race is on their forehead, and Stanley and pam are saying hi, how are you doing? Oh, I'm doing good, how are you?

Speaker 3: 20:41

they're having a typical conversation and michael hates that and yeah, he wants people to dig into the horrible stereotypes.

Speaker 2: 20:50

Yeah, he's come on, we have the holocaust here versus slavery here and he's getting all into it. And that's when mike or, excuse me, staley discovers that he's got black boys and he's not too happy about it. And then pam and dwight get talking and I dwight is wearing, I think it says, chinese on his head asian, asian, it just says asian, okay, which is probably pretty advanced for that time 20 years ago.

Speaker 2: 21:19

But and Pam starts off like I really like your food and things like that and Michael's once again prompted no, you've really got to. And she's like okay if I have to give a completely untrue stereotypical because you can't drive and he goes, I'm a woman.

Speaker 3: 21:42

I'm a woman, 'm a woman, and it was just. I do love, though, in the same interaction he walks up to pam and he's just like shalom. I would like to apply for a loan and I was like, oh my gosh, like dwight, it's such a bad exercise on so many levels, but dwight is in it to win it when you have a dwight you.

Speaker 3: 21:58

You have to know your audience, like whoa he got frustrated because someone, I guess, hinted about rice and he's like a lot of cultures eat rice and he left that conversation and he just like wants to win. So bad, and it's just so funny oh.

Speaker 2: 22:13

And then eric baumgartner's, kevin. Then you have Kevin talking to Angela Kinsley I can't remember her name. Angela, oh, angela, yeah. So Kevin is talking to Angela and he goes. You want to go to the beach, and she's like no. You want to get high man, and she's like no.

Speaker 3: 22:37

I think you do man, I think you do Mon, I think you do man, it was just, it was the you know. Just watching it made me viscerally uncomfortable. I'm like there's so much in this room that's happening that is so wrong, and why is Michael still employed?

Speaker 2: 22:57

So many terminable offenses. And then you mentioned Kelly had to leave for an important call. She comes back in the room and this is probably coming very close to equaling the Chris Rock incident. Yes, maybe she comes back to the room and he does if you watch Old Simpsons, as they took him off Abu character.

Speaker 3: 23:20

Oh, Abu yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:22

It does like the Abu character. You want some cookie and a horrible Indian accent like welcome to my convenience store. Whatever he's saying, and it was so bad. And Kelly's just like what, what? And she ends up hauling off and slapping him and she gets it Kelly Well them.

Speaker 3: 23:39

and she gets it kelly well, kelly doesn't know what's going on. She just walks into the room she's not there, privy to the cards, she's not privy to anything and he just starts being insulting and stereotypical at her and she just slaps him across the face, which?

Speaker 2: 23:53

rightfully so. Oh, absolutely. And like I said then he, you got to give credit to Michael.

Speaker 3: 24:01

He thought quickly she gets it and he's she gets it, and then he says you now know what it is to feel racism or something. And it's, it was just. Oh, it was so cringy.

Speaker 2: 24:15

It was like I said, it's a really good episode. I really enjoyed watching that one again. What a you know other side stories that aren't directly as HR cringeworthy that we see. Well, ryan the Temp. He was apparently sitting on the couch the whole episode. He wasn't invited to either meeting, so you just see him chilling on the couch back there and I like to think that ryan was invited to both meetings, but he just declined slacked out of it, doing the bare minimum, which is brian ryan's key.

Speaker 2: 24:50

You know he's ahead of his time. Doing the the bare minimum, bare sort of like jim, I guess you could say. But you know, dwight steals jim's biggest commission of the year and just kills him. And then we see the budding romance, office romance between pam and jim. We see that. So yeah, it's, like I said, good episode. If you haven't watched it, go back and watch it. And you we've talked about before some of these episodes you can't even find online anymore or they're edited, like when you watch it on Comedy Central or what have you. They've edited entire lines and scenes out. Which sort of leaves when you know it's supposed to be there. It sort of leaves the.

Speaker 2: 25:36

You know it's one of those.

Speaker 3: 25:37

Han shot first things If you're a certain age, you know who shot first. Han shot first.

Speaker 2: 25:42

Han shot first.

Speaker 3: 25:44

I will say I was watching Comedy Central and they were doing a replay of the Office and they went. They jumped from the pilot straight to episode three. They didn't even do Diversity Day when they were broadcasting the marathon. I was like that was an interesting move. So, yeah, because I mean I watch it and I watch it from and they were broadcasting the marathon. I was like that was an interesting move. So, yeah, because I mean I watch it and I watch it from the perspective of like Michael is acting inappropriately. Everything he is doing is inappropriate and that is the joke.

Speaker 1: 26:09

Yes.

Speaker 3: 26:09

Like. The joke is that he is being inappropriate.

Speaker 2: 26:13

But he doesn't get that. He is, by any stretch of the imagination, he's oblivious.

Speaker 3: 26:17

Correct, and that's why I'm always like huh, like I always just kind of cock my head a little and be like, well, that's weird that they like just skipped that episode completely. But I also, I get it, I guess. Well, it's also.

Speaker 2: 26:28

Comedy Central who puts out South Park and some other. A lot more challenging things, I guess I don't know what the right word would be. A lot more racy things than even this. But yeah, to see this episode not in that list.

Speaker 3: 26:48

I did want to say really quick. All the points in this episode were Michael, I love Michael, I do. I think we always talk about Michael being the epitome of a really great individual contributor who just is promoted into a management position because of their performance and not because of their leadership abilities. And there are so many points in this episode where he should have been termed at the first iteration of his rendition of the Chris Rock joke. He should have been then termed when he signed the form. He didn't take it seriously and he signed the form Daffy Duck. He should have been termed when he threw this atrociously abhorrent training that he decided to do on his own. There are so many steps in this episode where I was like what are you doing, toby? Like what are you doing back there?

Speaker 2: 27:43

He's thinking about Kelly and Pam a little too much back there.

Speaker 3: 27:47

Oh, that's right, he does have the hots for Pam.

Speaker 2: 27:50

Yeah. So yeah, I don't think we find that out for like years to come, though yeah, he's kind of a creeper about it for like years to come, though. Yeah, he's kind of a creeper about it. Yeah, those will be some good episodes too that we do to cover some of those things. Yeah, so what's on the agenda next for? Do you have any episodes online? Oh, really quick. One more thing. Oh, go ahead.

Speaker 3: 28:13

One more thing I wanted to add before we moved on. One of the things I wanted to say was, when we're talking about training and development, when you're talking about these kinds of situations like race, like diversity and inclusion, and there are certain things that, unless you have a dedicated learning professional in-house, there are certain things that you should not touch with a 10-foot pole and you should probably outsource to an expert and I think about that when I watch this episode that the company did the right thing by outsourcing this to diversity today. But again, michael, thinking he knows better, just railroads the situation and makes it really inappropriate and, in my opinion, kind of fireable. So, oh yeah, lesson to be learned. There are certain things that you probably should get an external person involved if your company is not equipped with an lnd team and I don't think dunder mifflin is.

Speaker 2: 29:12

I really don't think they are either. And another thing thing where you can take managers they're doing their own wild wild west of training and development that you don't. You know, maybe they're doing something very functional for their team. Bring HR in the loop. Just, you know, I was explaining to somebody the other day. My job is not to get in the way. I want to support what you're doing, but give me all the info I need so I can support it. If you want to make a personnel move, you want to let someone go my goal, I want to support you, but you have to give me what I need to support you, because this person thought that I was going to be a roadblock for them removing somebody who needed to be removed, and I'm like no, no, just I want to support you, I want to support the company, but you have to give me what I want first.

Speaker 2: 30:09

And it scares me to death to think that there are line managers out there doing their own training, even if it's functional training, line managers out there doing their own training, even if it's functional training. Hey, you're a machine operator, you do? You know to do this? A, b, c, d, e, f, g. Let us know, give us a heads up, you know, just so we know. And if we have more questions, or maybe there's something they didn't think about, maybe, hey, osha, let's talk a little bit about OSHA. This might be a good time to bring something up along those lines Get HR involved. We're not the bad guy.

Speaker 3: 30:40

It's funny that you mentioned that, because a friend of mine who is a she's a DE&I professional with a company. I guess her company's benefit department sent out this thing for autism awareness.

Speaker 3: 30:56

Because we're in autism awareness and I guess they do a monthly newsletter in the benefits department and whoever the benefits person was just earnestly copy and pasted something that a benefits provider sent to them and one of their vendors sent and it went out and apparently it had a lot of things in there that was well, people with autism they don't deal well in public situations and they don't do well counting money and they don't like all of these really archaic things that she just pulled from anywhere without thinking about it.

Speaker 3: 31:36

And luckily it was a live document, because as soon as my friend got wind of it she called up and she's like no, no, no, no, no, no, we need to change it. And basically had her own copy in place because like way better, and it was all about neurodivergency and stuff like that, and yeah, it was like it could have been a really bad situation, but they caught it. So not a lot of people saw it, but yeah, it was like it could have been a really bad situation, but they caught it. So not a lot of people saw it. But again, people in the organization do things that are very well intended and including the DEI person is not a roadblock, but it's like a partnership so that you can say things that aren't either outdated or insulting or whatever, like all this stuff. So that's, yeah, that could have been a really bad situation.

Speaker 2: 32:27

And you know neurodiversity and autism are some of my hot button topics. Hot button topics and I'm particularly because when someone goes down that road I have knowledge and experience with dealing with it. And I will say originally I was finding so much stuff about just autism and about it was just blatantly false or it was stereotypical type stuff and it's not true. And now I think over the years people have sort of gotten in line with it a little bit better. But yeah, that's a hot button topic we can definitely cross in a regular episode.

Speaker 3: 33:14

Hey, I'm on, I'm on that neurodiversity train, choo-choo.

Speaker 2: 33:22

So I think we should just go straight into episode three, the healthcare episode.

Speaker 2: 33:26

Oh, the healthcare episode yeah, it's straight up HR alley. I think there's some that won't be quite as HR-ish, but you can take any episode at all and turn it into HR with this. I'm looking at episode six. Hot Girl oh, you can definitely Hot Girl, that's right. I mean, I'm just looking Down the list here. There's nothing I could say, oh, we could skip this one. The Dundee Awards oh, that might have to be a two-episode special for us. And then oh, then the dundies. Yeah, oh, that's season two, episode one. And then sexual harassment and I'm looking at the list, if I, if I can find it, I swear, somewhere online. Conan o'brien, in one of his podcasts or conan o'brien needs a friend says that they actually play excerpts from the sexual harassment all of his sexual harassment at NBC for preventing sexual harassment. I was like that is so, so good, whatever. So anyways, yeah, we'll definitely. I don't see it episode to skip in season one though, as we're looking down at. But healthcare should definitely be the. We'll be doing that one in May, so stay tuned for that. Y'all Awesome.

Speaker 2: 34:44

Well, I think these are a lot of fun. I hope we can get back to doing them regularly, once a month, and if you have any ideas for shows, and this isn't just going to be limited to the Office. I think Office Space has some. We ought to do a rewatch on Office Space. There's so many shows that we could bring in. I mentioned Big Bang Theory. They have their. Wolowitz always seems to be in HR's office. Regina King, who is? You know, she's a great person for the. I don't know her name in the show, I just know she's the HR person. And yeah, there's some other great shows that have some HR implications with that.

Speaker 3: 35:25

So, yeah, yeah, I'm a big fan. I don't know if any of the listeners heard of the show Superstore. I think Superstore is great, especially if you work, either if your industry is the retail industry, and especially if you work on the corporate end of retail. That is a fantastic show to watch Because there's a lot of them versus us as far as corporate versus floor workers, and I think there's a lot of really funny but good takeaways from that. And it's the same thing If you like the Office and you like Parks and Recreation, it's the same creators. I also think parks and recreation like that whole government piece of, like the government working for local government or something like that. They have a lot of great episodes too.

Speaker 2: 36:06

So I, I love me some, ron Swanson. I feel like I'm Ron Swanson half the time. Put those tears back in your eyes where they belong, and things like that.

Speaker 3: 36:15

Put those tears back in your eyes where they belong.

Speaker 2: 36:18

I can quote Ron Swanson as much as I can pretty much any other shows. But anyways, listeners, if you have any ideas, let us know. We want to definitely make this, you know, expand this a little bit. Maybe it'll be more than once a month we do an office rewatch or a TV show. If it's not the office, a rewatch of some sort.

Speaker 3: 36:36

So anyways, thanks for it's pop culture through the lens of HR.

Speaker 2: 36:40

Absolutely yeah, so thank you for listening y'all. We'll be back in another month, with the end of May, with a healthcare episode. So, as always, I'm Warren.

Speaker 3: 36:51

I'm Cece.

Speaker 2: 36:52

And we're here helping you survive HR one. What the fuck moment at a time.