Company’s Cringe Marketing Video May Accidentally Expose Their Real Culture

You know those polished corporate videos that are supposed to scream “we have a great culture!”?

Yeah… this is not one of those.

In this episode, we break down a marketing video that was clearly meant to attract talent, boost morale, and make leadership feel good about themselves… but instead managed to do the exact opposite. Think less “employer branding win” and more “unintentional documentary on workplace dysfunction.”

We get into:

•  How employer branding videos can backfire spectacularly
•  The gap between what companies say vs. what employees experience
•  Why “culture” can’t be faked (even with a decent camera crew) 
•  And how this video accidentally revealed more truth than any engagement survey ever could 

If you’ve ever watched a company try way too hard to look like a great place to work, this one’s going to feel painfully familiar.

And if you haven’t… congratulations, you probably don’t work in HR.

Transcript

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Announcer 1:12

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 rite up my employee for crying too much? Welcome to our little save zone. Welcome to JJHR.

Warren 2:00

Welcome to JHR, 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.

Cee Cee 2:09

I'm FC.

Warren 2:11

Alright. For some reason, it feels like it's been a very long time since we've recorded, but it hasn't. It's normal. And the last episode, I don't know if you picked up on this. We recorded a day early because I had other things going on. I totally forgot to edit and produce it. So like on Thursday night, the night we normally launched it, it's set to launch Thursday at morning and right at midnight Eastern. Thursday night, I'm like, oh my god, I never did it. So I launched it Friday at midnight instead and things like that. But I gave myself extra time and yeah, couldn't make that happen.

Cee Cee 2:47

That's funny.

Warren 2:48

When you get in a routine and a habit of doing things a certain way, and you just get something, it falls out, and you're like, oh yeah. Why does that feel weird?

Cee Cee 2:57

Ask me why I'm still I feel like I've missed out on hours of sleep, even though we've just lost an hour and it's not that big of a deal. But it affects me.

Warren 3:05

Oh. Okay. I've been dying for some sleep. I've been burning the candle at both ends, as I like to say. Friday night, I didn't take any sleep aids. I went to bed and I slept like a baby and I needed it. Same thing. Saturday night, went to bed, slept like a baby. Sunday night? I was uh I don't think I fell asleep until after 4 30 in the morning and my alarm goes off at 6. And I've just kept rolling over and looking at the clock and getting more pissed off. And so I think either I slept too well Friday night and Saturday night, so I just didn't need any more sleep, or I didn't have anything on my mind other than being pissed off or not asleep. It's affected me. I don't like waking up and it's still dark. I hate that. Uh but I do get home and the sun's still being up.

Cee Cee 3:50

Yeah. Actually, uh can we just get rid of it? I think we don't need it. Just get rid of it.

Warren 3:55

Daylight savings.

Cee Cee 3:56

Yeah.

Warren 3:57

Yeah. Like Arizona did. They got something going on right there in Arizona. So, anyhow. Let's see. Before we get too deep, want to do our thank yous. Our Patreon supporters, YouTube, can support us on Patreon. Look, there's links in the show notes. There's multiple ways to do it. You can support us through Patreon. You can buy us a beer for a one-time donation. And there's also ways to do it through our recording host, BuzzCast. So there's a couple ways to support us. So we would appreciate it if you did that. But so you can be like Hallie, the original Jaden HR rock star, Bill and Mike, who support us on Patreon.

Cee Cee 4:33

Thank you.

Warren 4:34

Yeah, a lot of fun stuff going on. Oh, and the the voice artist is Andrew Culpa, and the music is the underscore orchestra, Devil the Devil. And I'm only going to say this whole thing one more time because we got some changes for next season in a month from now.

Cee Cee 4:52

Yeah.

Warren 4:53

So anyhow.

Cee Cee 4:54

Well, you made it sound like you're leaving the podcast. You should probably clarify.

Warren 5:00

We've got all sorts of planned changes planned for season what will be seven? I think JR. Yeah.

Cee Cee 5:06

This is my last time reading it. We're going to have some changes.

Warren 5:10

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, speaking of changes. It had to do with termination recently. And the guy just he didn't take it well and understandable. And he wanted to come back and collect his personal belongings, and I said, okay, fine. Give me a call. And he has my cell phone number. And I told him I can be available even after 5.30 if you want to come in after hours just to do this. And he said, Yeah, I'll do that, I'll do that, and everything. So I don't hear anything from him. Next thing I know, his former boss goes, Do you know thus and so is in somebody else's office right now? I'm like, No, I didn't know that. And so I made my way down there and said, Hey, how's it going? You're supposed to have called me. So we need to he goes, Oh yeah. And then he wants to, oh, and I need to talk. This person says, No, it's a social not a social call. And then he wanted to go talk to his boss and said, No, we're not doing that either. And he wanted to go back in an area where he couldn't go anymore as a non-employee. And I'm like, no, let's just get your belongings. And he wanted to let everybody know his opinions on him being let go while he was there. And I don't think anybody thought it was a surprise, but it was it was just like, you know, I'm trying to be nice guy in the this all world situation and help you. I'll meet you before work, after work, but just let me know so we can make this happen and make it happen cleanly. And he wanted to talk to everybody. And I don't know how long he'd been there before I got told he was here. And unfortunately, somebody who thought he was still employed opened the door for him because he activated his accesses.

Cee Cee 6:48

I was just like piggybacking.

Warren 6:50

Yes.

Cee Cee 6:51

No tailgating.

Warren 6:53

Exactly. So that was an interesting, weird last experience for somebody.

Cee Cee 6:58

That's unfortunate.

Warren 6:59

They're always awkward, and just to make it worse than it needs to be.

Cee Cee 7:05

Yeah. I feel like if that were me and I were in that situation, I would just like to get my stuff and just leave quietly. I don't need to make a big production out of it.

Warren 7:15

Yeah, exactly. And 99% of the time, I think this in this job is the only time somebody's pulled an end around on me and got in without calling me ahead of time. And even if you'd said, hey, I'll be there at noon, the middle of the day, or whatever, I would have been fine. I'll be there. I'll meet you at the front door and we'll go get everything taken care of. Yeah, that just was that was an awkward situation all the way around. Had to talk to this person about opening doors. I said if they don't have a edge, you might want to talk to someone in HR security to verify why, but we don't just open the door for people. And that person who opened the door is on the list of we don't do company-wide announcements of terminations or anything like that. But the person who opened the door was on the list. Yeah, that was interesting. So yeah. Fun stuff. A lot of fun HR.

Cee Cee 8:05

Fun HR. I wanted to talk about the McDonald's CEO and his amazing burger campaign that backfired horribly.

Warren 8:20

You were talking about this. Like I said, I saw some just memes. I haven't seen any videos or anything on social media. I've never clicked on anything to read more, but like I was telling you, one meme is the McDonald's guy, and he's looking like a dweeby older guy that's trying to look younger than he is. And then uh I guess the other picture, the split frame, is the uh Burger King CEO who's got the whopper or whatever it is, like into his face, chowing down like he hadn't eaten in a week. I didn't know the rest of the story, so let's know what we've got going on here.

Cee Cee 8:53

McDonald's launches this big nerd like new burger called the Big Arch. And the CEO, his name is Chris Kemchinsky. I hope I'm saying that. He did a taste test video, and it was very much like an influencer on TikTok kind of vibe they were going for. And as you so astutely pointed out, it did come off as hello, fellow kids on the internet. It was very weird. And the way he was describing the burger as he was eating it in his office, by the way. And I think that was like an interesting choice because it was just like a camera propped in his office, and he was just eating the burger in corporate in corporate land. And he like described it as if he was describing it to the board members in a board meeting. It was very like he didn't even call it a burger, Warren. He called it the product, which it was very like cringy just for that. And I do remember there was one point where he was describing a very unique bun of sesame and poppy seed, and then he said, It's a sesame and poppy sort of bun. And I was like, sorta? What is happening right now? Because this man ever stepped into a McDonald's and he took the daintiest little bite, and it was almost like he had never eaten a McDonald's burger before, or he had never stepped into a fast food restaurant before. It was very devoid of any kind of positive emotion. It was the most bizarre thing. So, anyway, then I guess one CEO after another started to roast the poor guy, on top of the general public just doing memes on him as well. So the Burger King CEO, Tom Curtis, he's the one that you were mentioning. He was behind the counter at a store, and he like basically took a bite of that burger, like a big old human being bite, and he threw some shade and basically said, the only thing missing here is a napkin. This is how a real human eats a burger. So I was thinking like that was a really good, like, eight out of ten on the petty level.

Warren 11:09

I like petty.

Cee Cee 11:11

Yes. So then the Wendy's president, he not only is in a Wendy's location, but he builds a baconator like from scratch. So he's demonstrating that he knows their product inside and out, rolling up his sleeve. And his whole thing was like, we actually cook our food here. And for me, that was like a petty level nine out of ten.

Warren 11:33

See, I like Wendy's. I used to follow them when I was on Twitter because Wendy's throw shade at everybody else.

Cee Cee 11:42

So their marketing is like Chef's Kiss. And we're gonna go back to marketing in a second. So AW Canada, so I guess the AW Root beer brand, I guess Canada has like a chain of burger restaurants that's AW. They did a full-on parody. They had their spokesperson do the parody, like dressed the same way as the McDonald's CEO. Oh lord. And he used things like, oh, this is this lettuce is very green and it tastes pickly. Like he did such an excellent job on just straight up like roasting him. So I give him an 11 out of 10.

Warren 12:21

Oh, nice. I'm gonna have to go on YouTube when we get off the line and check these out. I like I said, only today, maybe I saw those memes and I was just out of the loop on it.

Cee Cee 12:34

Yeah, it's great. You need to, it's a good doom scroll.

Warren 12:38

Okay.

Cee Cee 12:39

So this is like where I started to perk up a little bit from my little talent nerd mind. Basically, when you think about it, that this is an advertising campaign for a new burger, and the whole point is to entice people to come and get the burger. And it's almost like I'm not in marketing, but I feel like you have to know the audience. And it felt like so corporate. This man has no charisma. He came off as very unrelatable. And like, he even said that we are excited to announce this innovative burger product.

Warren 13:21

Like he forgot the name.

Cee Cee 13:23

I know. But also, I don't want my food to be called an innovative burger product. I want to hear this thing slaps, or oh my god, it's so good. That's what I want to hear. So he oh, anyway, he also didn't feel any kind of authenticity at all. I was born in the 80s, raised in the 90s, and I think McDonald's had such a chokehold on that generation. I don't know if any of our listeners might be too young to know this, but we used to go to birthday parties at McDonald's on a regular basis. Like the playplace was happening back then. And I just feel between that and Ronald McDonald's, like a parent's perspective, like taking your children to a McDonald's and then being happy. This man, he's the CEO, but I don't know if he's ever been inside a McDonald's.

Warren 14:16

Talk about 80s memories. Okay, you were born in the 80s. I was in elementary school. When we learned to do Double Dutch, which was a disaster for someone as uncoordinated as me, we did it to the McDonald's song, two old beef patty special sauce, less cheese, pickled onions on a sesame seed bun.

Cee Cee 14:33

I love it.

Warren 14:34

Even though that was 1983, it's still drilled in my side. I know that Big Mac song, that was the rhythm and the beat we had to do to our double dutching in like third or fourth grade. And I just I can't do that math 43 years later, and I can still do the McDonald's song because damn double dutch.

Cee Cee 14:59

But that's my point. Even you have some kind of this positive feeling about McDonald's that would probably show through more on camera than this gentleman has shown through.

Warren 15:10

Oh, yeah.

Cee Cee 15:12

It was also funny because the internet interpreted that tiny itty bitty bite as hesitation or wariness of the product. It also like his lack of confidence in the product. Or people just said that he was afraid of the new sauce.

Warren 15:30

Oh lordy.

Cee Cee 15:31

Which people say tastes horrible. So there you go.

Warren 15:35

Those people who know me, and particularly Patrick, would just sometimes he'd really get on my I don't eat any condiments. I don't eat ketchup, I don't eat mustard, I don't eat mayonnaise, I don't like any condiments. So yeah. I'm a weirdo when it comes to food like hot dogs. I like chili on my hot dog, I like cheese and onions. Don't like ketchup mustard, don't like sauerkraut. Yeah, I'm a weirdo. Oh, yeah, no, thank you. Save my permitting for alcohol for liquids, yeah.

Cee Cee 16:08

So now thinking about this, like from that HR leadership perspective. So first of all, like authenticity, authenticity, especially when it comes to leaders of a certain level.

Warren 16:25

Yeah. And I just that book got published. Did anybody not say maybe not?

Cee Cee 16:32

Oh, take a two. Yes. So that's the other thing now. There's like almost a new expectation that CEOs could be potentially be content creators. And there's almost like a push. Let's make these people seem relatable and get them on their like public Instagram or whatever. And it's like people follow these CEOs. Any CEO at any company has some kind of social media platform they're on that they can be followed. And it's like employees are following these leaders, customers are following these leaders, competitors are definitely following these leaders. So should executive media training include like social media specifically, what tone it should be, what authentic presence is, or like even funnier, should they be aware of the memes that are going around?

Warren 17:27

Oh, I'm sure he is. I can't imagine. Like I said, I've seen them and I've really cut back my social media time, and I've seen them earlier today, and he's got to be aware, unless he's just not a social media person. He doesn't know how to do one of those videos or anything. And you hit a point that I didn't even think of. There are a few companies that I follow, and their CEOs do videos, and overall I like them. There's a company that does suspensions for trucks, and their CEO is always he's out there and talking about, oh, this upper control arm, and it has this style of ball joint, and it does this, and it he's like into it, and you can tell he's passionate about what he's doing. And I'm like, I enjoy watching these things, and that's just one example I saw recently, but there are a number of, I didn't even think about it, how many CEOs and company leaders are doing product videos. Now, these companies aren't by any means as large as McDonald's or anything, but still.

Cee Cee 18:27

Yeah, but like even then, see you're like as you were talking about it, I was just thinking about the stark contrast between that the McDonald's, the original McDonald's video of just this guy in his sweater vest in his corner executive office, just trying so hard. Oh, bless his heart, to be so relatable. And then you had the president of Wendy's who was on the line making that baconator, like putting it together, frying it up, layering it, eating it. And it's like, yes, I want to buy my burger. Like that guy, that guy has worked on the line, if not the Wendy's line, like a line at some point growing up. There is an authenticity to that.

Warren 19:13

Oh, absolutely. That's interesting. I can't wait to watch these videos now.

Cee Cee 19:18

I'm gonna be doing that very quickly after we get then I'm thinking, is social media training necessary for executives? And I think yes. I think if you're at a big enough company that has a big enough shadow, like a McDonald's or something like that, or even any company, if you have an executive who has some kind of a heavy presidence on the internet, I think some kind of social media training should be available to them.

Warren 19:45

Yeah. And no, hey Bob, you're our chief executive or whatever you are, but maybe we should have somebody else do this.

Cee Cee 19:53

Yeah, okay, and that was my other point. Like, who the fuck is the head of marketing? Who greenlit this? How many people were in that room and were like, ugh, and how many people saw the edited project and just kept saying, Yep, the emperor's got new clothes. This is great.

Warren 20:19

And the yes man, we can go on the culture and things like that. The yes mentality, do they feel pressured to say, yeah, boss, that's great? Yeah. Or I don't know. And what's his reputation? This screams that the something's broken so many places along the way. Multiple things are broken so many places along the way. Or let's do a different take, or let's try this, especially knowing the environment. And if you're going after if you're McDonald's, you're not going after the 60-year-old person, you're going for that 18 to 24-year-old person, or younger even, is your target market. You've got to be relatable. And those people that age, they see through bullshit better than I do many times. And it's crazy.

Cee Cee 21:11

Honestly, if they asked me, again, I don't have any marketing background, but just like my experience, how I use the internet, especially knowing who their demographic is for this, it's almost like I would have rather them partner with a well-known influencer to sit down with the CEO and lead the content and lead that creation and just have the lead the CEO kind of there. But that for me would have been like a little better because at least you have someone who knows the game who knows who has a following. I think Dunkin' Donuts does something like that. Like they have online, I don't know any of them, but it's like drinks named after or dedicated to or invented by. These different influencers or like celebrities, and it's like you could get Cardi B's drink at Dunkin' Donuts. Like, I feel like that would have been a better strategy than just putting this poor guy in front of the camera. Because I will say the man is most likely very smart. Like he is a CEO. He's not a stupid man, but I think he just doesn't have a camera presence, which is fine. Yeah. It's okay. But I think that it just hurt his credibility as McDonald's because he's representing McDonald's. So it hurts their credibility and their product and their quality.

Warren 22:37

Is he gonna be on the chopping block anytime soon?

Cee Cee 22:42

I hate to say it, but even though it's negative, it's still publicity. So I don't really know at the end of the day. Yes, this is probably a pretty big flop, but if the numbers are reflecting that this actually got people to go out and try a big arch or whatever it is, then I guess it's a win.

Warren 23:02

I don't like McDonald's. When it comes to burger places, if I'm going to get fast food burger, my number one choice if I can find it is Wendy's. I love Wendy's Fast Food Burger.

Cee Cee 23:12

Yes. Yes, and Five Guys.

Warren 23:15

Five Guys. Five Guys. Last time my son and I went just he and I went to Five Guys, and I want to say it was like 40 bucks for the two of us to go to Five Guys. I I it was like I was like a little bit sticker shocked, but I was like, oh whatever. I don't care that much. But we also got milkshakes too. Yeah.

Cee Cee 23:34

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, that's the burger guy. That's the viral CEO burger moment that you really need to just enjoy it with a burger.

Warren 23:47

Tonight I had fish and chips. Actually, I think tomorrow night's menu is burgers.

Cee Cee 23:52

I know. Now I'm just craving a burger.

Warren 23:56

Yeah. I was telling you last week, offline, obviously, about an interview that happened at my company, and I'm gonna edit this down a little bit. But we had a person come in for a finance related position. We were we were requiring very strong Microsoft Excel skills, and this person on the resume put excellent Microsoft Excel skills or whatever superlative, I can't even remember.

Cee Cee 24:24

Was it an expert?

Warren 24:25

Expert, expert level Microsoft experience, and I went to the hiring manager at the end of the day to ask how their interview went. They basically, without saying it, accused me of punking them and setting them up with this interview. I said, How was your interview today? She goes, I don't know. Tell me how my interview was today. She really seemed to think that I set this up and I did not at all. I'd love to do something like that, but I did not do it in this instance. The person comes in and first, during the interview, they are cussing and takes the director and the manager of the department as if we don't do these things of, oh, we're gonna come back and do five interviews. A recruiter does a pretty good phone screen. She's not technical, but she gets the gist of everything. And she sends that to the hiring manager, and we get everybody that needs to be there to make a decision. Bam, right there, one shot in there.

Cee Cee 25:21

That's how you do it.

Warren 25:22

And so the director and the manager are in there, and this guy is cussing and everything. And she's telling me it's not like we don't cuss, but it's just in an interview.

Cee Cee 25:31

You just a first impression on an interview.

Warren 25:34

Yeah. Is it like we cuss, but it just took me aback? Anyways, the manager asks the questions. You believe you have expert level Excel skills, and they've gone over the position and what it entails, and his resume seems to imply he has similar experience. After the fact, I don't think he has it, that type of experience, but she says, What sort of Excel knowledge and skills, whatever can you bring to train our team on to make our team learn and grow? The answer was Did you know you can click a whole bunch of boxes in Excel, then click the sideways M, and it'll add it up for you. That was his answer. Yeah, the sideways M. When she said sideways M, it I'm just my brain was not working. I was lost for a second. I was like, my my my brain was not working well at that exact moment in time. So I was like, really? He said that? He goes, oh yeah, he said that. And it was just she goes, well, either way, you can send him a thank you, but no thank you. And I'm like, okay. A sideways, yeah. That's expert level. I want to go back. I did look at the resume afterwards. I want to go back and see if I can figure out if he like took our job description, his resume, and had AI tailored. I don't look at every resume our recruiter submits to a hiring manager. I look at the vast majority, and I'll I give my recruiter feedback. Hey, this is a great one, or I'm a little concerned, or tell me why he sent this one, or something like that. I'll if I have any feedback on this, but I don't either I didn't read it the first time or it didn't catch my eyes. Okay, it's fine.

Cee Cee 27:20

But I'm gonna ask a philosophical question.

Warren 27:22

Okay.

Cee Cee 27:24

We live in a time where everything needs to get past an ATS to get to a human, and a lot of ATSs at this point utilize AI to help sort candidates and sort them based on priorities, like this matches the most, blah blah blah blah. So maybe that so for me that's the first barrier is getting past the ATS to humanize. That's 50% of the game is getting to talk to a human. And if you're utilizing the same tools that the company may be utilizing to beat the ATS, basically, doesn't that show some kind of ingenuity?

Warren 28:09

I would like to see that. I have asked my recruiter to forward me any resumes that she feels were created by ATIs. I want to see if she can pick up on any or what her thoughts are on it, but we don't have any A AI. We have on average 10, 12, maybe as many, at max like 20 positions open at a time, and not a lot of positions. So she actually reads reviews each and every resume herself. And now we we will be growing significantly in 2026, and that's one of the reasons I want to get a new ATS because to help I don't want to add head count, I want to add efficiency. Anyways, that's a whole that's a whole another story. But she does read each and every resume that comes in, and as long as they make it through to knockout questions. If you select a knockout question, that's you incorrectly select a knockout question, it just you hit that wrong button or answer a question wrong, your application ends, and you've got that thank you but no thank you email in your inbox. Like immediate. I got one time I got an email from a candidate. I hadn't even gotten out of your system yet, and I had a thank you but no thank you, or I had a rejection letter.

Cee Cee 29:21

I'm like, up on the knockouts.

Warren 29:22

Yeah, yeah.

Cee Cee 29:23

So anyway, that's why you can never trust a resume a hundred percent. Because even before AI, people were lying on their resumes, right? I feel like that's the job of the interviewers, like the people on the panel to really ask those questions to verify that they're putting stuff in. But yeah, I feel like it's part of the game, like beating the ATS or just getting through to a human just for a phone screen. If you make it there, you're like your chances of getting the job are exponentially better. So just play the game. But don't blatantly lie. God damn. I've been trying to Don't blatantly lie.

Warren 30:03

Up in school, and one of my classes does not like the use of AT AI. Most of my classes, it's an honor code violation and things like that. But I recently had a paper due, and I wrote the paper not using AI, and then what I did is I attached my paper into AI, and then I attached the requirements of the paper. I said, read this paper, make sure I hit all the requirements and give me any specific feedback of things that I'm missing where I need to change. And uh it gave me like a couple things of feedback which helped, but I didn't say, okay, now write it for me or anything like that. But use I uh yes, uh the school may call it an honor code violation for using AI. That I just I've probably said it before, but AI is a tool, and we need to train people how to use it effectively because these schools that are acting like it doesn't exist and it can't exist, they're setting their people up for failure. It's not the reality. AI is it's here, it's only getting more prevalent each and every day. And yeah, just embrace it. And that's who's gonna get the jobs. The people, like I said, we've said it a hundred times. The Accenture. Was it Accenture? Yeah, the Accenture. No, it's Accenture. They're rapidly exiting people who can't keep up with AI. In a meeting recently, I said we need to start rapidly exiting our both technologically and functionally illiterate people from the company. I I did uh find an article on HP or yeah, the oh gosh, I can't remember. The HP CEOs talk about that. I was like, yeah, that rapidly exit these people. But that in that case, I've been opening my mouth, I've been saying things I probably shouldn't say at work. And but people can expect I'm not cross, I don't think I'm crossing any lines.

Cee Cee 31:52

I have a pretty good poker face at work, but like once in a blue moon. If I make a face or something, I can't control it. Like, I'll get called out. Not at my new job, my old job. I used to have a coworker who knew me pretty well, and she would ping me on the side, be like, I saw your eye twitch, and I'm like, Oh no.

Warren 32:11

Oh, okay. Speaking of poker faces, I wasn't gonna bring this up on the I was I emailed you about this situation. We have a potential where we may be in a situation to rehire a former employee rehiring through just the way business works sometimes. I want to get in too much details, but the company that currently employs her is going to be wants to give them to us and in the meeting, and there's a few of the members of my company's management team and a couple of members of their management team, and this person that they wanted to send our way and have us employ, a former employer from three years ago, and she was super high maintenance, and she was just a pain. Every indication, as I went back and looked at her reviews, every indication she does her work and does it well, but everything was like drama times 10, and everything was more of a big deal than it needed to be. And when I saw that this company wanted to quote unquote give her to us, I was like, no. And then they're going down a list to talk about the employees and how the changes are gonna happen and things like that. And to get to her name, I said, under no circumstance at all are we going to re-employ this person. And the other company, a couple people on that video call did not keep up poker face. They knew exactly what I was talking about. I never cleared saying that with any of the other management people there. I said, You're gonna have to find another person to fill this position because there will be no circumstance that they will be employed by us again. And some of the mid leaders on their management team gave a little consent. They knew exactly what I was talking about. I was like, yep.

Cee Cee 33:51

I've worked with a few people like that, and they're always like fun in the beginning, especially if it's yeah, I just want to like vent for a five second. But then it gets draining. Like how that negative, that dramatic, that whatever at work. That must that's exhausting, man. I just want to come to work, do a good job, have some laughs with some people, and end it. Like, I don't need to be that angry or that bitter, resentful, or paranoid that someone's always coming after my job. It's just it's a lot, it's a lot.

Warren 34:25

And this person's drama, it was their personal life was a dumpster fire, and they let everybody know every aspect of that dumpster fire. And everything was at work was a drama. I'm like, life isn't that difficult. It doesn't need to be white. The common denominator among all this is you.

Cee Cee 34:46

Yeah, exactly.

Warren 34:47

And when she left us, we didn't terminate her, she burned burned some bridges, and I was like, okay. Her exit interview was like uh like just poison. She was and like it the exit interview was so poison and toxic. It's like someone that we we don't do exit interviews, obviously, for terminating for someone for cause. We did uh exit interview, and the person that does this called me and said, You need to read uh this one when you get a chance. I'm like, okay, so I've read a lot of it. I said it's par for course, wouldn't expect anything different from them.

Cee Cee 35:22

But yeah, it's like the boy who cried wolf. Like, even if you had a legitimate concern, you've already killed your own reputation by being that person that par for the course. You know what I'm saying? Just come to work, do a good job, share a laugh or two, and go home. I think and hydrate drink water drink water.

Warren 35:48

I I think Suzanne Lucas did an article, it's been years, but it said hire average people to do average work and things like that. Yes, your company, you want some superstars, you want some people like that, but you need a lot of average people doing good work, doing adequate work.

Cee Cee 36:04

You know that nine box. You know that nine box, you don't need to you don't need all the people in the elbow. You need core contributors. That's what you need. No, yes.

Warren 36:17

159s. Or not one, excuse me, five.

Cee Cee 36:21

No, three three. One, yeah. Three five. Three, five, seven.

Warren 36:25

Three five seven. I can't think of it. Don't have a 10-key near me, so I can't say my voice.

Cee Cee 36:30

I've been staring at it all week. So when I close my eyes at night, the grid is in my mind.

Warren 36:36

I'm sorry.

Cee Cee 36:37

That's okay. Actually, like I actually really like talent calibration work and I like nine box work. It's all good, but it is in my brain right now.

Warren 36:46

Yeah, but see, that's what goes back to what we're talking about. The McDonald's you're passionate about, you're into it. This gets you excited and gets you motivated in doing the work, and it's not your product. These calibrations are not your product.

Cee Cee 36:59

This is what I'm gonna do from now on. Every single PowerPoint presentation, I'm just gonna introduce it as I have a new product.

Warren 37:06

Let's try as you can. Anyways. As for our product, we're gonna wrap up our product of this podcast right about now. We'll be back in two weeks for the final episode of this season. April will launch the new season with some new ideas. But as always, I'm Warren.

Cee Cee 37:24

I'm CeC.

Warren 37:25

And we're here helping you survive HR 1. What the fuck moment at a time?