From AWS Outage To HR Snark: A Catch‑Up On Tech Glitches, Office Culture, And Salary Negotiations

A Florida beach meltdown, a nationwide cloud outage, and a truly awful Halloween costume walk into a workplace. What sounds like a joke turns into a sharp look at how culture, tech, and judgment collide where people get paid and policies get real. We return from a short break with fresh stories and hard lessons: how a single AWS failure rippled into payroll panic, why “it’s just a costume” can become a harassment case, and what classic scenes from The Office still teach us about influence, uncertainty, and keeping teams steady when the headlines aren’t.

We share candid travel moments that morph into a discussion about public decency and liability, then pivot to an organizational behavior assignment featuring Michael Scott’s surprising competence and Jim’s cooler strategy. The contrast sets up a bigger point about leadership: sometimes you stabilize by dialing in the work; other times you intentionally break the tension. Knowing which move to make is culture management in action.

From there, we unpack real HR mechanics. Outages expose how reliant we are on a handful of cloud rails and how unglamorous continuity planning saves actual paychecks. We talk tokenized mobile payments, vendor dependencies, communication trees, and the simple power of a backup plan. On the talent side, we challenge a common salary myth: it’s not that people never negotiate, it’s that strong recruiters pre‑close early. We walk through pay ranges, must‑have trade‑offs, and how clearer expectations prevent messy last‑minute asks that sour the relationship before day one.

Finally, we lean into the Halloween talk: blackface is never okay, “terrorist” costumes are unacceptable, and sexualized gags at the office invite risk. If you want festive without fallout, set guardrails that are simple, inclusive, and enforced. We keep it snarky, but the aim is practical—help you avoid the next viral moment and build a team that can laugh without crossing lines.

If this mix of real talk and useful tactics helps you navigate your own WTF moments, follow the show, share it with a colleague who needs it, and leave a quick review so others can find us. Which topic should we dig into next?

Chapters

• 0:00 Cold Open, Disclaimers, Return
• 0:48 Life Updates And Missed Halloween Theme
• 2:37 Fort Lauderdale Trip And Florida Man
• 5:38 School Assignments And The Office Clips
• 8:19 AWS Outage And Everyday Dependence
• 10:23 Digital Payments, Security, And Cash
• 10:51 Inappropriate Workplace Costumes
• 15:04 Personal Halloween Fails And Tailgate Costumes
• 17:11 Family Trick‑Or‑Treating And Candy Tax
• 19:26 SHRM Blueprint DEI Debate Hype
• 22:39 Social Media Fatigue And LinkedIn Gripes
• 26:10 Guest Tease And The “Jaded” Tone
• 28:18 Organizational Behavior And Salary Negotiation
• 32:05 Homecoming Plans And Sign‑Off

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 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 of 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 rite up my employee for crying too much?

SPEAKER_01: 0:27

Welcome to our little Facebook. Welcome to JR.

SPEAKER_00: 0:48

Welcome to JadedHR, 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_03: 0:56

I'm SCP.

SPEAKER_00: 0:59

And we've been gone for a little while. Yeah. We were trying to do maybe a Halloween-themed episode last time, but the AWS server went down, which made me have an exam that was rescheduled to the next to the day we normally record. So life and every universe and everything got in the way. So no Halloween episode. I hope everybody enjoyed that one from season one. And it's funny listening to think episodes from season one because you we improved or over over the years. That one is one. It was a fine episode. Vintage. It's vintage, yeah. So it and it we talk about COVID, you know, and things like that. And you know, it's not it's not, you know, 2020 when everything started, so the podcasting COVID and everything. So we hope you all survived Halloween and don't have any traumatic experiences to worry about after after uh dealing with that. We have a couple stories about some people who might have had some traumatic extor uh experiences over Halloween. So how how how was your your month off from J Did HR?

SPEAKER_03: 2:11

It was it was good. I was like, I feel like I've been so busy, but also like at the same time, it's just mundane stuff that it's nothing exciting. It's not like excited busy, it's just boring busy. But I'm exhausted. I'm just like what is it? We were just doing we were talking offline about me doing performance evaluations now. So it's not performance evaluations, it's talent calibrations, but just kind of working on that right now at work, and then also just you know, life stuff. I'm I'm tired. I need a nap.

SPEAKER_00: 2:50

Oh we're in we're still.

SPEAKER_03: 2:52

Although, wait, I like completely forgot. This is way more interesting.

SPEAKER_00: 2:57

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03: 2:59

Scratch everything I just said. I don't deserve some time off because I actually went to Fort Lauderdale on a girl's trip.

SPEAKER_00: 3:07

Oh. Well, that sounds fun.

SPEAKER_03: 3:11

So, yeah, so I went to Fort Lauderdale with a few girlfriends of mine, and it was fantastic. We just hung out by the pool. Although we were starting to get the bands of the hurricane Melissa.

SPEAKER_04: 3:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 3:24

So it was just like really windy, but the weather was gorgeous otherwise. And yeah, it was great and in true Florida fashion, we did see a Florida man sighting. Oh, okay. So I have to share this because this is like the best thing. It it made the trip. I'm at me and one of my friends is at the bar at the hotel across the street from the beach, and then our other two friends were sitting on the beach, and one of them texts us and says, Hey, like apparently there's a guy who is making snow angels in the sand. And now I guess the lifeguards came over just to check on him to see how he was doing. He then proceeded to throw the sand, and then at some point, this is when me and my friend immediately got up. He decided to take his trunks off, and that is and then proceed to make snow angels with his trunks off. And like immediately a minute after we just saw like it was overkill, it was like six police officers just come into the beach to grab this person. But yeah, we immediately like went to go just kind of see what was going on. And I gotta be honest, we were at the wrong place at the wrong time because we just saw straight up the runway. Like, like as we were on the sidewalk, we we just turned to walk toward there, and they were putting the guy in the police car, and uh, we just we saw everything whether we wanted to or not.

SPEAKER_00: 4:59

Florida man, love it. I haven't had a uh a Florida man story in quite a while.

SPEAKER_03: 5:04

Wow, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:06

But well, I'm glad the rest of the trip was fun, and that probably made the you'll have a story forever.

SPEAKER_03: 5:12

So good. I'm from South Florida originally, and as soon as that happened, and I was so happy because I was there with my friends who, you know, they're from the Midwest, and I was like, You I'm so happy you got to have your first Florida man experience with me.

SPEAKER_00: 5:29

Oh man, that that's nude. Yeah, that's this is not a nude beach in Port Lauderdale, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_04: 5:38

It is not.

SPEAKER_00: 5:40

So well, you know, I've been run going through the ringer with school, but my next assignment that is due next week, I haven't started yet. I have to watch two off episodes of the office and talk about some organizational behavior implications of it. I don't even know which episodes it is. I just read the description. I haven't even looked at it. It's it's interactions between apparently because I have to answer questions about what Michael Scott does and his approach to something, and then how Jim reacts and his approach to something.

SPEAKER_03: 6:11

Oh, I guarantee you I knew which I know exactly what episode it is.

SPEAKER_00: 6:15

Okay, I'll I I I just read the instructions.

SPEAKER_03: 6:18

I guarantee you it's the co-manager episode where they're both managers.

SPEAKER_00: 6:22

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03: 6:23

Oh, no, no, no, no. I take that back. It's not that. It's gonna be the one where they are co-managers, but the stock market or the news is reporting that Dunder Mifflin is like going under and blah, blah, blah. And like Jim is all about like keep your heads down and keep working. And then Michael does the dinner part, the murder mystery to keep people's minds off of it.

SPEAKER_00: 6:43

Okay, you've got me to the point now. I'm gonna log in and see what is Oh, this is exciting. Is the reveal. Hold on. Two-factor authentication for freaking everything.

SPEAKER_03: 6:56

Everything. That's funny. I want to see if I'm right.

SPEAKER_00: 6:59

So clip one, here we go. I don't know if you're gonna be able to hear this or not. The Chili's meeting.

SPEAKER_03: 7:05

Oh, that's such a good one.

SPEAKER_00: 7:08

So I don't know. Uh it's three minutes, so I'm not gonna go into the Can you hear it?

SPEAKER_03: 7:14

No, but I I know I've seen this so many times in my head. I I love that one because it's when you finally see Michael being a competent salesperson, because he he just turned it on and he like.

SPEAKER_00: 7:28

He knew how to try turn it on. Okay, let's see.

SPEAKER_03: 7:33

Oh, the David Wallace negotiation.

SPEAKER_00: 7:36

Yeah. Very nice.

SPEAKER_03: 7:38

Again, Michael knows how to turn it on.

SPEAKER_00: 7:42

Well, this one, this clip I think is regarding Jim, if I remember the questions. I I didn't I just breezed by the assignment when I logged into it. But yeah, it it's gonna be interesting. So I I'm looking forward to an assignment that I can actually enjoy. So that'll be that'll be something fun with it.

SPEAKER_03: 7:59

You know, you mentioned that AWS outage a little bit ago that affected you and your school's LMS and everything. I didn't realize how much AWS was intertwined with everything. Because I felt like I mean, this is just a silly example, but I just went to go order Starbucks from the Starbucks app and that was down. And I'm like, what? Like, I didn't realize that AWS has their hands in so much.

SPEAKER_00: 8:27

Yeah, I I think it's like like 25% of the entire internet traffic is goes through AWS at some point. And now it was only their East Coast stuff that was down, so I don't know if the folks in California were affected like we were, but my wife was having conniptions because it was a payroll Monday, and ADP uses AWS. And uh so Tuesday she was working till like midnight to get everybody paid and stuff like that, and she was like, she's like, I I can't, she had to, you know, everybody's there, they're sort of doing what they can, but there's not much you can do without ADP and and they're at that point, and uh yeah, it was very, very interesting, uh hectic time. So it was yeah, it it it makes you wonder what it that's only one service. If all the internet went down or something like that, it would just how we we'd be back to sticks and stones.

SPEAKER_03: 9:23

Um, so not HI-related, but there was a very short-lived show called Revolution that talked about just that like the power grid and everything just went out in the US. And it's kind of how the US had to like reform a government and like it just never came back. And unfortunately, I think the show got canceled before we ever got real answers. Great show, but yeah, like I I like you saying that, I'm like, oh, we would we would be we would be done.

SPEAKER_00: 9:53

Yeah. And I think especially the younger generations, the the zoomers and the alphas, they they would be just well, god uh what what's life without internet or anything like that?

SPEAKER_03: 10:06

You know, uh it it's just it's just like who even carries cash anymore?

SPEAKER_00: 10:10

Like if everything goes down, like I never have cash, and it's it's actually been a problem a few times because uh I n I'm really getting a great habit of paying with my phone, just tap, go. You know, if whether you use Apple Pay or Google Pay or Samsung Pay tapping with your phone, it I've been told it's the most secure way because only a token, a one used one-time used token gets transmitted, and so your account information is safe even from skimmers and and things like that. So that's what I've been told. I'm not an IT person, but I've I bought in, so I I use it almost all the all the time for everything. So yeah, that's that's interesting. So but let's let's circle back to Halloween a little. We had a listener who's also a former co-host by the name of Feather sent me an article from David Micklas about some inappropriate Halloween costumes. And I think these must have been from last year, as they were, you know, uh, but they're they're still funny. Well, of course, you have your stereotypical David Miklas made a total of three posts last week about inappropriate Halloween costumes. The first one he posted was your stereotypical blackface. I'm like, really, people?

SPEAKER_03: 11:26

Why?

SPEAKER_00: 11:27

You deserve whatever comes your way after Can I tell you a funny story?

SPEAKER_03: 11:32

Okay. Years ago, like years ago, we were invited by someone to go to like another person's Halloween party, and I was like, we didn't really know the other people, but it was like a big Halloween party, and we get there and there's like a shit ton of people, and the hostess and her husband come out, and the husband is dressed in blackface because he was Kevin Hart, and I was just like, like, it was just like if blinks could talk, like I was just like blink, blink, blink. And anyway, I then I like everyone was taking pictures at the party, and I was like, even to Kevin, I'm like, Kevin, do not get next to him, he's in blackface, the internet is forever.

SPEAKER_00: 12:14

Yeah, the internet is forever. I I I would hope to remove myself from that situation.

SPEAKER_03: 12:19

But that's crazy. That's that's an insane choice. That is an insane choice to make.

SPEAKER_00: 12:25

And then there's pose smiling, and you know it's going on Instagram or Facebook, whatever your favorite social media channel is, it's going there. Well, person number two, the caption reads Dude shows up at a company Halloween party dressed as a terrorist. And oh I'm gonna share this with you again because I didn't you didn't read the whole message here, as we talked about.

SPEAKER_03: 12:50

I was gonna say, I saw the the photo wasn't great. Like so it's not great. Uh it's not a good look, bro.

SPEAKER_00: 12:56

The employee was quoted as saying, I thought people I worked with were fun and cool, but I guess they're far from it. Looks like I learned my lesson.

SPEAKER_03: 13:04

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00: 13:05

Now dressed as a terrorist. Yeah, like with a suicide vest.

SPEAKER_03: 13:12

The suicide vest. But he like the the kickers, it's again, is this a company part? I I'm so confused about the company situation because he's it's the wiring is like Jaeger bottles and red bullshit.

SPEAKER_00: 13:26

Red bulls, yes. I love that that part I love.

unknown: 13:30

That part.

SPEAKER_03: 13:31

Like the creativity is there, but I'm like, at the at at the company party, although I will say, like, I have not had a a Jaeger Red Bull in in years, and I feel like if I were to do so now, that would take me out.

SPEAKER_00: 13:46

So oh I I love me some Jaegermeister, and people around me know it. If you want to get worn stupid real quick, give them some Jaegermeisters. So inappropriate costume number number three. This this young woman is dressed as a spice rack, and she has taped spices across her rack. Classy. And she's the picture, unlike other uh the other two pictures, they look like they're taken from this, looks like it was taken in the office, maybe. I see some wheelie chairs and things like that. Oh, yeah, those are cubicles. Those are cubicles and wheelie chairs, and I'm like, okay. Like poor judgment at at the very minimum, and just asking to be harassed and touch, oh I need some, you know, all spice today and reach. Whoops, what did I grab and so it's just so uncomfortable?

SPEAKER_03: 14:44

Like you're you're coming to work just being like, look at my breasts and look at my rack. It's just weird.

SPEAKER_00: 14:52

Exactly. The only intention behind that is look at my rack. Exactly. So I I thought I thought that was that was kind of funny. Well, actually, let me go before I go.

SPEAKER_03: 15:04

What's wrong with a with an adult size onesie of a fun cartoon character or a teddy bear?

SPEAKER_00: 15:13

Well, I dressed up for Halloween and didn't get the reaction I was looking for. A lot of people didn't recognize who I am. So I'm gonna uh I'm am I sharing my screen? No. I'm gonna share with you in one second this picture and tell me how long it takes you to figure out who I am.

SPEAKER_03: 15:44

I don't know. Breaking bad Heisenberg.

SPEAKER_00: 15:50

Heisenberg from Breaking Bad.

SPEAKER_03: 15:53

No.

SPEAKER_00: 15:55

I thought I had like the killer. I thought I had the killer costume. People on Facebook knew how I was, and but yeah, I I failed there. So I thought I and we're talking my wife hates how many costumes I have, so this one's probably not gonna come out too much more, but part of my our former tailgating crew, we we dressed up for most tailgates. We had a theme, a lot of them were cultural misappropriation, like Octuba Fest. We'd all would dress in later hosen and stuff. We would have Taco Tailgate where we like I have a giant sombrero and a serapha. It's purple and gold. And what else we've done? Oh, we didn't pirate. So I've got I've got more costumes than most people probably ever have. So I I even, if you could see, I dyed my or put some, I put okay, my wife's gonna get mad at this, but she doesn't listen. I put some of her root the stuff she uses to touch up her roots, I put in my beard to get it from white to uh let's see, I to get it from white to brown again. That's funny. Uh yeah, anyways. But yeah, that was that was Halloween. I had fun. We had a good time. There were some, you know, our at my work nobody dressed inappropriately. But I do remember once upon a time I worked somewhere and we had somebody who was wearing like I don't know if they were a fairy or pixie or something like that, but it was like a tutu. That was tutu too too short, and their whole ass was hanging out. Now they were wearing tights, but uh you know, not work appropriate. Like, yeah, you didn't think this one through too much, did you? But yeah, peep people are crazy out there.

SPEAKER_03: 17:42

Yeah. We just I mean, I you know, I work from home, so it's just me, so I did not dress up, but we did take the baby out, and she we dressed as Jurassic Park, and we took her around. She was our dinosaur, and we were what is it, the two main characters. But yeah, so we did that, and we had like the stroller. That was her encade like her enclosure. We put some like signs on it that was like beware of dino, stuff like that. So it was good.

SPEAKER_00: 18:10

It was good. Those were cute pics out there. So yeah, that's the one thing I kind of miss about the kids because when they would go trick-or-treating, they had to pay the candy tax, and so I would get to go through and take my fair share first. And most of the time I would take the thing, like I love, I mentioned I like Jaegermeister, I like black licorice. I'm the only one in my family, so if they got dots or something like that, here dad, take it. I like a lot of things the kids didn't like. Crows, crows and dots. Crows were the black licorice one and dots were the multi-flavored gummies.

SPEAKER_03: 18:42

Like the multi-flavored ones, the dots. Those are those are underrated. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:46

They'll pull a filling out in no time flat.

SPEAKER_03: 18:49

So, like our neighborhood, I don't know what it is. It was, I feel like the last few years we've been here, it's rained every Halloween, and this feels like the first Halloween in years where we've had beautiful weather. So we went up to our friend's house in the neighborhood, and they their street was jamming. Like, I feel like I felt very nostalgic because I felt like it was just pure and utter chaos. It was like 1980s, 1990s chaos on Sugar High, and it was so much fun. Like people were it was like s'more stations and like all that kind of like people got into it, and she loved it. Like a bean was just running up and down the sidewalk. So she didn't know what was going on at all, but she just saw so many people and she was just like running up and down the sidewalk. She oh, it was so much fun.

SPEAKER_00: 19:39

Did anything scare her? Did any costumes scare her, or is she not at that age where things quite scare her yet?

SPEAKER_03: 19:45

No, but to be honest, there weren't like scary costumes. Okay. Like, yeah, there weren't any. We did have a neighbor who built a haunted house down the street, so we went down there. We didn't go in the house, but there was a loud sound and it like freaked her out.

SPEAKER_00: 20:01

So yeah, we got uh I was telling you, we got one whopping uh trick-or-treater, but I I live in a house a neighborhood with 13 houses, and you know, I'm in my 50s, I'm the second youngest uh of our family's the second youngest here, and everybody else is retirees, pretty much. But uh the only couple that's younger, they have like a three-year-old, and he came by and we just dumped our we bought a bag of candy. We just you're the only one we dumped a whole bag. He grabbed, I I hold out the bucket and uh he just takes one. I said, Oh, you can take more, and he took one more, and I just took the whole thing. I dumped it in his bag, like happy Halloween. Because we bought a bigger bag there, a haribo mix bag of gummy bears and all sorts of stuff we we bought, and my wife and I ate way too many of it. We're like, you know, of course, you know, you buy more and we knew we were gonna need it. I was like, I can just stop at 7-Eleven and get a couple candy bars and and be done with it. But we got the whole Haribo big bag of things, and he so he got his very full. And he he was like, When you took the first one, oh, gummies! I was like, Oh, here, take get another, take more. No, take them all, I meant. So well, one other thing has happened since we last recorded. We we did even did an eps episode on the potential shit show, the dumpster fire, I called it, of the Sherm's Blueprint Conference. And I will have to say, I now I have not watched it, as there's a two-hour video you were mentioning. We we were talking about about the the DEI debate between the the person everybody hated, Robbie Starbuck, and the other person whose name I don't remember, unfortunately. He's less controversial, so you don't remember.

SPEAKER_03: 21:44

That's true. Vaughn, right? Vaughn something.

SPEAKER_00: 21:46

Vaughn, something from CNN.

SPEAKER_03: 21:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 21:49

But I am assuming that everything went really well with it.

SPEAKER_03: 21:55

For two reasons.

SPEAKER_00: 21:57

Yeah. First, I didn't if it ended up being a shit show, LinkedIn and the world would have lost its shit and been berating everybody. And and second thing, Sherm actually posted the video of that debate. And I kept intending to watch it. I've even seen some people made it into clips on LinkedIn of uh, you know, like 10-minute, 15-minute clips. I still haven't watched any of those, but there was no real explosion or outrage, so I guess it must have gone pretty overall pretty well. So I I I do intend to watch it at some point.

SPEAKER_03: 22:38

I do intend to see what it's all about, but I'm also gonna say, like, no news is good news, but also like it's there you you do want people to be talking about it, and I have heard nothing about like I heard nothing about it, good or bad. So I feel like the whole thing was just a big nothing burger, and it was just like not even in a like it was just mediocre. That's what I'm gonna guess. Like they just built it up and and really leaned into the whole controversy of it all, and it was probably just a mediocre conversation.

SPEAKER_00: 23:15

So yeah, yeah, and I I'm also betting that's part of the thing. Firm is really good at one thing, they may not be good at their own human resources. If you listen to HR Besties, they're covering that whole lawsuit out in Colorado that's going on right now. And Ashley's doing a great job. I love listening to her talk about it, but they're they do a great job at marketing. I mean, can you go 24 hours without getting some sort of email from Sherm about something or another? They're good at marketing, and I think they this was uh as much a marketing scheme as anything else. Look at all the attention we're getting. You can you you know, you can be part of this and sponsor us and you know, everything along those lines. Maybe that's what it was. I don't know. I yeah, I am going to watch the video at some point, but I don't have two hours to to spare that I'm I'm not that inter I'm not two hours interested.

SPEAKER_03: 24:08

I'm not two hours interested.

SPEAKER_00: 24:11

Send me all the little things.

SPEAKER_03: 24:13

You know what it is? If you have any like administrative stuff you have to do, just you know put that on in the background.

SPEAKER_00: 24:18

Yeah, yeah. I yeah, I hope I wish. Yeah, it's been it's been really interesting in the world lately. So that yeah, I didn't I haven't watched that, but I I do intend. And if I see a clip that's like five minutes or less, maybe I'll watch it. Uh there's well, I I'll also tell you Chat GPT is failing me. I've set up this great reminder. Now that it knows that I'm from J Did HRs, we talked about it. I was trying to get some podcast ideas out of it, but so I set it up to give me ideas for a show. Send me a reminder every week of the top HR stories that have a little humorous twist, something zany and things like that, and it's it's not it's not doing anything. I've been I've been severely let down by it. And a lot of it's not from the United States, and I've read a couple, I'm like, I don't even understand what this problem is. So, yeah, so I'm gonna try and I guess I need to redo my prompt to see what it comes out. But I do like that it can send me a reminder every Monday afternoon. I get a reminder, hey, here's the top ten stories I found on Zany Crazy HR stories I found. And I do like that. I just wish it was better executed. I'm I'm not on LinkedIn as as much as I used to be. I'm not on Reddit very much. It's uh my my social media consumption is going way downhill, and I'm not sad about it. Yeah, I I was I was telling you off air, once my son gets a job, I'm probably going to delete my LinkedIn account because I'm just uh it LinkedIn is almost all garbage right now, and I can't I can't I get I I go on these social media things, whether it's LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram for pleasure and enjoyment, and I like seeing my friends' children at Halloween. I like seeing people's vacations. I don't want even on LinkedIn, the politics of it, the uh oh LinkedIn has gotten politics, religion, everything like that, and people just they don't know how to behave online. Well is what it comes down to.

SPEAKER_03: 26:23

And the and the thing is is uh you keep it like water coolery on LinkedIn, you keep it professional, you don't like but people just mouth off on there, and I'm like, wow, that's insane that you want to leave that footprint. That's cool.

SPEAKER_00: 26:38

Exactly. And you you can take that post down, but somebody screenshotted it, and if it's something really stupid and goes for that oh, actually, speaking of LinkedIn, you know, if you ever see my my title on LinkedIn under my name, it says do not contact me for solicitations. Do not contact Well, I get I still get dozens of oh, I got this email from this company. I saw your profile on LinkedIn, and I'm very impressed by the work you're doing at your company, and uh it named my company, and I'm like, I've made maybe five LinkedIn posts in the last five years, if even. So no, I you know, anyways, the name of her company was manager method, like Ashley's from The Besties. And it was spelled they it was one of those trying to be cutesy intentionally misspelling the domain. So I just cut and pasted, I sent it to Ashley. I said, I don't know, I know you love buying some domain names, but I don't know if you have any intellectual property on uh your manager method. As I said, I got this piece of spam cra uh crap today. And she replied and thanked me and things, so that was really, really cool. But I was like, Yeah, you if you're gonna I I I know you're not with manager method, the the real company, but anyways. Yeah, I I that's funny. The solicitors are out in mass right now, and yeah, it's it's crazy. I like I said, if I wish I could make my profile private or whatever on LinkedIn, I don't know how maybe you can, but yeah, that's gonna change. As you can tell, it didn't come in to with too much on the agenda today. It's been a little bit crazy, but I am lining up a guest. Friend of mine is uh starting an HR podcast, and I I think they've launched their first episode. I'll have to I'll have to double check. Probably by the time this episode gets launched, he'll have launched his first episode, and I will we're gonna bring him on board. He's not as he's got some jaded quips, but not he's not jaded. He's actually trying to help you. So we've done a few non-jaded episodes, but I want to get a bit of a few.

SPEAKER_03: 28:43

Well, we've discussed this. We're we're more non-jaded than we are jaded.

SPEAKER_00: 28:47

Yeah, yeah. Things are going to be.

SPEAKER_03: 28:50

I feel like jaded is misleading.

SPEAKER_00: 28:53

Well, the snorkiness.

SPEAKER_03: 28:56

Yeah, we're just snarky.

SPEAKER_00: 28:57

Snarky, yeah. Yeah. Judgy, snorky, what have you. But anyways, that's I really don't have anything else to add of value today.

SPEAKER_03: 29:11

Should we give everyone the gift of time? No, I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_00: 29:15

You can have, you know, we had so many episodes that were going to an hour or more, and like one of them we recorded for an hour and a half. I forget which one. I trimmed it down to like an hour and five minutes that one time. I was like, yeah, but no, that we're not this one. We'll probably trim down to about half or a little over half hour. Now probably trim down to an under half hour.

SPEAKER_03: 29:35

So you know, next recording I will come prepared.

SPEAKER_00: 29:39

Yeah, I'll try. No promises.

SPEAKER_03: 29:42

I'll try. And the next recording we're gonna figure out what your assignment was, like clearly between Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 29:49

I'll I'll I have to do that assignment. It's when is it due? I have that screen Saturday. Due Saturday at 11 59. So I've got to get on the ball with this. So uh yeah, I'm going. To uh knock that out, watch those videos, get that thing taken care of, and yeah, a lot of uh a lot of fun. That I do enjoy organizational behavior class. Oh, here's a something that came up. Organizational behavior class. This book spins it talks about organizational behavior, and then it sort of implies what I don't know if I wow, I think of it's uh it talks to the students as a student now, you're gonna be getting your first job, and here's how to interview, and it it gives like interview tips and things like that, and it's talking about salary negotiations and how to salary negotiate salaries, and it's overall it's pretty good, but one of the facts they use was a fact from Robert Half that 80% of people don't negotiate their salaries, and it goes on and on. And I I agree you don't have a lot of salary negotiation, but I don't think it's due to the employees. I if we start having too much salary negotiation, I'm gonna hold my recruiter accountable for that. I mean, of course, people are gonna still negotiate salary, but you know, what when I recruited, I was taught pre-close, pre-close, pre-close, find out everything they need.

SPEAKER_04: 31:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 31:13

To just knock my microphone down, find out everything they need to that so you they're making moves. So when you go to make that offer, well, you said you want the salary, and we're offering you the salary. You wanted this PTO, you you build it up and you make it an exciting and thing form, but I instruct or encourage or whatever word you want to use, my recruiter to ask, what are you ideally seeking in terms of salary? And it can be a range, that's fine. I don't mind if it's a range, as long as and if we come in of that range and you want to negotiate above that range, then I'm like, why would you do that? You know, we're giving you a range any and things like that now with but and sometimes people don't want to give you a number, a salary range, and you know, we I have some I've taught her some tactics to get around that. But if they don't say, hey, they wouldn't talk sorry with me, and honestly, that becomes a a drawback because we know what our budget is, and uh and she will even say our range uh where I we're ideally looking for if they're out of the range or don't talk well, we're ideally looking to keep it somewhere in the neighborhood of X. And that helps the conversation flow. And sometimes they bite and give us a salary, a point that they're looking for, and but it you're wasting everybody's time if one of the biggest things on the table is not going to be agreed upon early on. So that I but it was talking about negotiation and how people need to negotiate more. I'm like, I think recruiters are better right now and and do that. Now, if you're dealing without a recruiter or directly with a hiring manager, that's where I can see shot salary, more salary negotiations coming in than if you're dealing with a professional recruiter because they've already done their homework on you and on the position, and it's just trying to make it fit. And yeah, maybe you're coming in five, ten thousand dollars more than ideal. But if you're coming in twenty thousand and aren't have something just beautiful to offer, no, that's that's not gonna be fit for either of us, one way or the other. So, anyways, that was something I took a little bit of, you know, I was like, eh, you know, uh yeah, please negotiate your salary, but also be up front and at the the time and get all the expectation get everybody on the same page at the very beginning, and then oh you're looking for 150. We're only gonna be paying 60 for this position, so uh nice nice speaking to you. You know, do don't waste anybody's time. So that was just a little something. But uh overall, it it's a it's a good I'm glad I have that class because my other class is kicking my ass ten ways till Sunday, and uh yeah, it I I need need that. So, anyways, that's my school update for you.

SPEAKER_03: 34:02

And I will Ohren's Warren's learning corner.

SPEAKER_00: 34:07

Well, Kevin, he went to UNCC, right? Charlotte?

SPEAKER_03: 34:11

Charlotte, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:12

We play them Saturday. Unfortunately, UNCC out of 136 Division I football teams, I think they're ranked like number 130 right now for homecoming.

SPEAKER_04: 34:22

Oh gosh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:23

We play them for our homecoming uh on Saturday. So that'll be some much really needed relaxation if I can get things caught up to a point where I can leave the house for a day. But yeah, homecoming. Looking forward to seeing a bunch of people I haven't seen in forever. So it'll be it will be fun. So, anyhow, so I think we'll land this plane after a bunch of rambling, and uh we will talk to you in two weeks. And also Andrew Copa, who does the intro and the music is the underscore orchestra double the double. So we will say, as always, I'm Warren.

SPEAKER_03: 35:01

I'm 15.

SPEAKER_00: 35:03

And we're here helping you survive what HR1 What the Fuck Moment at the time.