HR BESTIES - Don't Kill The Messengers / Us

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

The Besties are talking about how HR is often scapegoated for decisions made by other departments or higher-ups, and they want to remind everyone that HR is usually just the messenger, not the decision-maker, Empathy in HR is so important and it's a huge asset in dealing with difficult situations. At the end of the day ... HR has challenges and rewards, and the Besties encourage those interested in HR to pursue it, despite the difficulties. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You know what people forget to do when they pack for vacation? Tell me. They forgot to go through their work email. Because you know, when you take PTO and your boss is already begrudging that you've taken this time off and taken time away, they will jump on your email and go through the search function, right? How many times have you had someone that's like, oh, I stumbled upon this email. I was covering their email and I came across this email from 2015 where they were talking shit about me. Just come clean. We all know how that search function works. You go out, you got to make sure that your email is tidied up. You got to search your manager's name. You

got to search all those people's name because when they are covering for your email, they are coming for themselves, right? Also, highly suggest just doing it off a company property. Yeah. Like text message. Mm-hmm. Yeah, keep it clean. Or video chat. That's not recorded.

So you're saying that you have people in your email? People, yeah. Because if sometimes you may go out and someone will cover your email. I never in my whole life. Never. No. Never. Yeah.

No. We've had shared mailboxes. No. I've had people out and bosses will cover. But I've had it with a colleague. Oh, my God. And it was incredibly helpful because we would go back and forth. And so we could see how we responded to things.

Oh, my God. You mean I could have had someone doing my work for me? Literally. While I was on PTO this entire time? Yes. Yes. 100%. What the hell is wrong with me? Even just generally. You mean I could have had someone doing my work for me while I was on PTO this entire time? Yes, 100%. What the hell is wrong with me? Even just generally. It's been nearly 20 years of me just working.

What am I looking for? Oh, they responded to this already. This is how you can use this. But at times, if someone is ever jumping in and covering your mouth, and then people get defensive. They're like, that's my personal email. Yeah. It can be damning. It's not.

But when the boss jumps in, I guarantee they're going to be searching for their name and see what you have, what you have to say about them. And that is a humbling experience for people. Yes. But yes. But people claim they stumbled upon it. They did not. Oh, yeah. You don't stumble upon that from 10 years ago. We all know, when you're at your

busiest, what are you going to do? You're going to find something to procrastinate on, right? Yeah. So if you have something and you're trying to cover their workload, people will dive deep on, what are they saying about me in here? For sure. So for the record, best practice not to talk shit about your boss. That is, that's an overall, or anyone, anyone. Take it on the text. But I think all of us will see, it is amazing the things that people have

about other people and their work email. Oh yeah. Right? I mean, I, I sure Lee and I probably have stories for days, but I can't believe. That's why I don't put anything in writing like that. You know what I mean? Like, I can't believe the dumb shit that people put in chat. Or I'm like, you realize that's company property, don't you?

Or when all of a sudden you get like an afforded email, don't you go back and you read the entire history? Oh, 100%. I do. Right. There's been like 50 emails. Let me start. Let me start at the beginning. And then you go back and you read the entire history? I do. Right. There's been like 50 emails. Let me start. Let me start at the beginning. And then you see all the drums, you know, all the teeth. Totally. They're the best. And they're throwing everyone under the

bus and then they send it to you. And it's like, you threw me under the bus like eight times, like for the past six weeks on this email. Why would I help you now? Oh God. A hundred percent. But yeah, yeah. It is amazing. It's a thing. It's a thing, but you got to make sure you always got to keep it tidy. So Jenner don't do it in the first place, but when you're going out, someone may cover your email. Make sure. That's a good rule of thumb. It's a good rule of thumb. But no matter what, whether you're going out or not, your employer always has access to that. A hundred percent. You know what I mean? So they can go in there and they can, nothing's truly private, right? Nope. Like

I'm putting a hair appointment as private on my calendar. Well, technically they can still see that someone can see that, you know what I mean? Not your colleague, but you know, IT can see that. HR is going to see that in investigation. What people, you know, if you've ever seen like the deposition episode of the office with, with Michael Scott and everyone's sitting around reading it, what, what people don't realize if there's ever a lawsuit, what often can happen now is you may have a room of 30 contract attorneys that are going through and people are going to be like, hey, check out what I got and reading out 100%. This is what this person put. They're having a fight with their wife. So just know it is not a diary. Your work email is never

a diary. And I think the common misconception too is that we sit around and read the chats. I don't have fucking time for that. I do not care. The only time if it has to come up and there's an investigation and someone said, you said this over chat. But otherwise, I don't have time to read that. I mean, I would love to. I will say, though, in a company I worked for, the COO would love to go on and read it. She was the only person in the whole entire company.

Yeah. She used to call it her Twitter. I'm not kidding. I'm going to go read my Twitter. It was so fucking sick. But then those people have the biggest jobs and get paid so much. Of course. I'm like, you get paid how much?

And you're sitting here reading. Company Twitter. And she would, she specifically would do it? And you're sitting here reading. Company Twitter. And she would she specifically would do it like. Company X now. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. She would she would do it specifically like after she got on to someone like if she.

Of course. And like she just wanted to see what they'd say about her. So like I'm a shitty person. Setting people up. And so I would I would start like not planning the bug that she had for Twitter, but I'd be like, you should probably limit what you say. Because I'm like, this is ridiculous. She's just fishing for shit and people to hate. People do that.

And that place was so toxic. And those people are the first ones that come after like the junior employees are busting their ass and are like, time theft. Don't take any breaks. Time theft. Of course. You are thieving the time, ma'am. That is your theft. God. All right. So for the sake of time, let's go ahead and jump in. I know again,

we have a hard stop. Jamie, can you please run us through the agenda for today's meeting? Yeah, absolutely. So first we will have Ashley bring us our cringy corporate speak. And then we will have our hot topic of who makes the decisions at work and why HR is the scapegoat often. And then we'll round it out with some Qs and Cs. Awesome. Some questions and comments. Always love that. Okay, guys.

My cringe is going to be a phrase, which is the phrase, well, that's what you signed up for. Oh my God, you signed up for this. Put that in my job description. Thanks. Yes. And the way that that sometimes is brought is if something's going through something challenging at work and people will say, well, you knew what you signed up for. That's it. That's your job. So good luck. You're screwed. Yeah, good luck.

OK, thanks. And that is the equivalent of kicking someone on the ground emotionally when they are trying to reach out to you to get some sort of empathy. Thoughts? It's gross. I literally have heard this on my own videos on TikTok, like me joking about being in HR for the last 20 years. You signed up for it. Well, no shit, Sherlock. But that's not that's not going to solve the problem. Yeah. Dealing with people like you. If you're a leader and you're hearing this, please don't ever say that phrase. Never. No.

You come across as so unapproachable. You know what I mean? Which means eventually, if it's not already happening, that everyone's going to sanitize messages toable. You know what I mean? Which means eventually, if it's not already happening, that everyone's going to sanitize messages to you. You're not, you don't know what's going on, right? If you're saying things like this, people aren't bringing anything to you because if you can't help them when they're down, they're definitely not going to bring you things to celebrate. They're not going to bring you data. They're not going to, you're missing out on a lot of things if you're that type of leader. Well, you signed up for this. Right. Oh my God. I think the way to response, people say that is sometimes empathizing and whether you can do it

if your relationship is joking or whether it's just saying like, oh, my God, 100 percent, we will get through this. Or at times like, you know what, let's just let's deal with this on Monday. This is not a fry. We do not need to end our weeks like this. And sometimes it is having that level of empathy. But 100 percent, because you shut down someone on their worst day, then they are not going to be having their best days with you in the very near future. They're going to be having their best day with other leaders and other organizations. So I do not give them. It's very similar to your paycheck is the thanks, which is also very, very similar and related, which is like, just show up and do your job and check out and, and thank you and get that done. Zero appreciation. More bees with honey,

people. It's exactly right. You know? Great. So Ashley, kick us off with how HR is the scapegoat. Well, and I think we, we all get this in different ways when we do videos. And often when you do videos, the comments, at least on my comments, many of them have nothing to do with that video altogether. Oh, my God. Yes. It's like a topic. And then people are like, OK, and tell, you know, do a video on this. OK, say please.

I'll try. But oftentimes it is this thing of, you know, HR, HR cut my pay and HR made these decisions. And oftentimes it's also not anyone's name from HR. It's HR as the collective, the collective HR. But, but frequently that may be HR translating the message, or that may be a situation of, you know, HR literally communicating that. But thoughts? Yeah, no, I think that, you know, especially leaders that are not comfortable having hard conversations, right? Leaders that make mistakes, which happens, right? We're leaders here, we make mistakes. You know, they are constantly tossing over the fence. Oh, well, well, HR wouldn't let me give you a promotion. Really? All I ask is who do you want to promote? Right. I sent you a spreadsheet

of names of your team. You know what I mean? You, you made that decision. Yeah. You tell me, right? I have to ask you to write the job description and you refuse. Exactly. You know what I mean? Oh my gosh. It's, it's, it's this constant thing that's happening in the workplace. And I know that the HR pros that are listening to this are like shaking their heads. Yes, yes, yes. But for those of you that aren't in HR, you know, I ask you to reflect back on times with your leader or manager and current job or past where they, you know, scapegoated HR to say, well, HR wouldn't allow this. HR didn't want to hire you for this position. HR didn't want me to promote you. HR said I had to tell you that you suck, right? And reflect because

does that even make sense? Like half the time when you really think about it, does that make sense? Is HR oftentimes the messenger? Absolutely. But we are many times the scapegoat where your leader just does not want to be honest with you because I'll tell you what, I do not have the time to watch what you all are doing, nor do I give a shit. No, literally, I'm not Googling you. I've never Googled a candidate. I've never Googled an employee. I mean, I literally do not care. What happens is, FYI, is your manager is documenting things and they bring a pile to my desk and they literally point their finger at me like, fire this guy. I can't take him anymore. Right. And I then have to turn and I have to advocate for you behind the scenes,

which you don't see to say, to say, why? This is the first time you've mentioned this person. So to me, they're the perfect employee, like prove it, like basically, right? And again, it's a confidential conversation that's happening behind the scenes that you're not seeing, but it is happening almost on the daily. But was that me as the HR pro, like collecting all the documentation and data? Well, maybe after the fact, right? Yeah, right. You know, I'm probably going to investigate something, but I'm not over here setting anybody up. I'm not over here out to get anybody in the workplace, you know? My money's on you probably are the one who's delivering that message too.

Exactly. Unfortunately. Exactly. So that's where, you know, it's like actually your leader showed me what a shitty employee over the course of the last six months. And that's why we're now here. It also comes up a lot in like raises and budgets and like performance time. And I don't think people actually realize that, for instance, a lot of times there's a board and they might be the ones approving. Like, hey, this is our budget. And so everyone's going to get 2% across the board. Trust me, I didn't choose 2%. I'm an employee, too.

I'll take a 10% any day. I'm like, we had literally nothing to do with that other than like making sure all those changes got put into the HR system. I know. We also got the 2% bullshit increase. And a lot, I don't think a lot of times, because I've worked in small and very large companies, that HR a lot of times is not even involved in the, sure, budgeting for our department, but not budgeting for the entire company's salaries. That really has to do with, you know, C-suite, but finance and accounting and bonus. Like that, sure, we might say all manager levels get 15% bonus, but we're not saying so-and-so gets 20. That manager is getting 20. Like we're not picking and choosing.

Your leaders are. Yeah, exactly. Right. And it's funny. It's always the people in my comments about money. And it's like we literally have nothing to do with it. But they're going to shoot the messenger. I wish that I had more control, to be honest. And don't get me wrong. I'm, I've been lucky that, um, in previous jobs

that I've had great relationships with the finance team or, or you can influence the decisions and help influence those decisions. But it doesn't mean that I win by any means. Um, and, and, you know, a lot of times when people, for instance, let's say you ask your boss for an increase or a raise. And so then they come to HR and once again, HR is like, well, here's what I can tell you. But once again, we can't even necessarily sign off on raises. We need we have to make like a plea for it, essentially. Yeah. We have to make a case. Yeah. Yeah. And we have to make like a plea for it essentially. Yeah. We have to make a case. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

And we got to run it up the chain and make sure that it's signed off, but ultimately it's not our decision. And that's one thing I think is very funny. And I know we've all received comments is people think in our angry comments that we have so much more power than what we really do. I love them. Yeah. It's like, thank you for thinking so highly of me. than what we really do. I love that. Yeah. It's like,

I'm like, I'm like, I promise I'm not that powerful. And, and also we're governed by the exact same policies that we, yeah, that not only you are, but I have written,

unfortunately, um, or, or inherited, right. And modified, enhanced. We are also an employee.

And I think, you know, you hear HR is not your friend a lot. And I'm like, who the fuck is your friend? Like, I'm sorry, is finance when they decide to pay you 40,000? You know, is the CEO your friend? And I just, it's funny because they had one bad experience, you know, and I'm not saying every HR person is a good person either. No, no, no. There's bad.

There's definitely. Yeah, there's bad. Bad doctors, bad teachers, you name it. A lot of HR professionals did not like HR ostensibly. And we'll we'll have other times we have a deeper conversations, agenda specific meetings where we talk about HR's role. to deeper conversations, agenda specific meetings where we talk about HR's role. But but frequently the person that's in HR started out by luck of the draw. They may have been a billing coordinator.

Oh, you're good with numbers. We'll put you on your payroll has to do with with a with HR. Oh, you can do benefit. All of a sudden you are in charge of being responsible for human issues and have had absolutely no training generally, because HR isn't, it's not like when I became a lawyer and had to pass the bar. It's not like CPA where you have this, you know, objective qualification. There is no standard qualification for HR. And many people in HR, phenomenal people, did not have any sort of HR degree. I don't think that ever should be a bellwether whether someone's in HR or not.

But having that empathetic lens. And so sometimes those bad people in HR literally don't know what they're doing. And they haven't been invested in to give that. And at times there's organizations that don't care. I mean, in the comments frequently I'll get, what do you do if HR is part of, you know. Yeah, part of the issue. Is part of the issue is part of the, part of the issue that had that a hundred percent can happen. Um, but I think run literally because

that's the type of culture you have. It ain't going to get better. Okay. But HR, but sometimes HR will get by the individual employees or when you have things like open enrollment with benefits, like, Oh, HR picked this package. And like, yeah, no, actually, we had nothing to do with it. That truly is at the finance and CEO level about what financially and sometimes, especially in the American system, at times, literally, it's the luck of the draw. An insurance company says it'll be 25 percent increases. And, you know, you're trying to negotiate, but it's certainly nobody choosing to have that. That increased profit is not going into the company's pocket generally. But on the flip side of the scapegoat at times is with managers where they'll say, well, HR won't let me get rid of this employee. And sometimes that's because the conversation is HR flipping that lens and saying, you know, James, you're talking about this employee.

This is the first I've heard of this. That's our best employee as far as I'm concerned. Have you set them up for success? I can't tell you how many times I've asked that question. Every employee is a walking billboard for every applicant, every employee, and every former employee is a walking billboard for your organization. And so if the first time an employee is hearing of performance issues, even if you say, I have a million emails, they should know we don't have time to deal with this. Then HR at times will say, you know, this, and sometimes they'll say, we'll put them on a plan. Also, I do not think a plan, like the first time they should hear about the performance should not be a plan. Should not be a plan.

But saying, have this conversation and managers will get frustrated. And in part, it's like anybody's job. You have a job, you're trying to meet these goals and you may think to yourself, you know what, I should have, I should have had this conversation, but I didn't. And now I have this. And that's my, that's my job on the line. But in an organization, you have to remember that, that when you have humans, HR sometimes is going to have that mirror back and say, is this a fair? And going back to, to the question I think is important is how would you want to be treated in a situation? And if your boss hasn't had a clear conversation with you before and tried to dig into it and done all of these steps before going to more formal measures, then it feels incredibly unfair. And as I frequently say, it is weird.

Yeah. So it's really HR won't let me fire someone illegally. Yeah. Or unfairly. Unfairly. Unjustly. Inequitably. Right. I mean, they never finish that sentence, you know, but what I always find fascinating. So if you're a leader out there and you're, you know, you're hearing basically, you know, HR professionals rant about you here at the moment about, you know, you scapegoating us all the time. I can tell you probably 99% of the time, if not a hundred percent, bless us, the masochists we are, we fall on that sword for you. I do not throw you under the bus back to your employee. You know, I do not.

I signed up for this. Exactly. It's what I signed up for. You know what I mean? And so I am not going to do that because I want your success as a leader so much. I want you to maintain your credibility. I'm not going to lie to the employee, you know, but what I'm going to I'm going to smooth it out a little bit. Well, here's actually what the process is for this year. Right. Here's how we've determined to do promotions. Hey, have you had an honest conversation with your leader of your expectation? Right. I put it, you know what I'm saying? I'm I'm massaging the situation when people come in. Literally, I've had people You know what I'm saying?

I'm massaging the situation. When people come in, literally, I've had people screaming very violent with me. Why blah, blah, blah. I mean, literally very vulgar, you know, coming in. It's like, whoa, OK, first off, you're not going to talk to me that way. You're welcome to sit down and we can have a conversation as adults. But what did your leader tell you? OK, very interesting. And then I'm thinking, I can't wait to talk to that person here in about 30 minutes and

just rip them a new one, you know, but I'm not going to do it with your employee. Right. That would not be professional. Now, to Ashley's previous point, there's this evolution in the field of HR. It's not a job that requires a certification, a medical degree, whatever. Right. It's something else. Like I may have gone to business school, have multiple grad degrees all this, blah, blah, blah. I may be right next to an HR person. Do you really? I do. I may be right next to a person that was an admin and is now in charge of a full department of HR that literally, bless their hearts, they do not know what they're doing. Right. And again, to the evolution of HR from personnel, something more administrative task, task basis, something very highly strategic. Right. Literally, I consider myself a business person first, right. Who specializes in people, right. Making actual business decisions, multimillion dollar ones for the company on the daily. Right. It's like, you know, you had that full gamut where you don't know what you are going to get. And even the larger corporations. Right. Yeah.

And funny thing is, is in college, I actually my degree is actually human resources management. So I did sign up for this. She knows her shit. Yeah, I did, too. I signed up for this. But like. What was your undergrad degree? A psychology and business.

Yeah. OK. Yeah. Was I highly trained for this? Absolutely. I was. Am I still every day in the last 20 years challenged with a new thing? Absolutely.

Yeah. Every day. But I also. Which is the best part of HR. Yes. We wear many hats. Yes. Oh, that's another.

Fast paced. Fast paced. We're like challenging environments. Yes. Oh, that's another. Fast-paced. Fast-paced. Fast-paced environment. We're like challenging environment. Yeah, we love that. But I don't even remember my point here. But really what I think I was trying to circle back on was that we might have signed up for this. We might be highly trained. We might not be highly trained.

But we're all in the trenches. be highly trained, but we're all in the trenches. And I would dare to say in the three years I've been in social media, human resources is I want to say at least 90 percent of us are really out here trying to do good by the employees. Ninety five. We are. I mean, it's up there. No one wants to suck. No one wants to suck. We do not want to hate you. And I know that, you know, your cousin, Billy Bob, got fired by that CNX Tuesday. And she was terrible. But that ain't me. Right.

Right. One person's a bad experience again. And it's really, it really can be hard when you go through something or you go through family and then that person is the, is the messenger. And that feels incredibly personal. Or you have someone that just was a bad professional. But the hard part is then to have any, any sort, you know, you know, we'll see these guys, you know, HR, HR is, whether it's the comments about like the corporate, corporate evil and things. And you have people that go out that try to influence what they can. And it certainly is not easy. But I think, I mean, sometimes you'll have people that'll say,

like, oh, how do you get into HR? And I'm like, people watch our videos and you want to. I know. I can't believe. You really are a man. You should. Because if you watch this shit and you really want to get into it, you should. But some of the skill set at times, because people say, how can you get into HR? And sometimes it's if your process, it's okay, working, being a project manager, moving into that or benefits coordination or some of that more, and then learning those skills. But the best, I mean, I'm thinking back, the best HR professional that I've worked with who was on my team, I think I'm trying to think through people, one of the best, maybe I'll give some caveats in case there's other people listening,

but one of the best, she was a social worker in children's hospitals. And so she had worked and had those empathetic conversations and again, 100% hard and is really hard to do for an entire career, incredibly important role. But she took that skill set and translated that into HR and did that without having any sort of formal certification, but learning the ropes was trained by someone who did terrifically. I worked with her in the way she would have conversations. And so sometimes if you do have that skill set, in the same way, if you're in HR and you're feeling like I'm a scapegoat, I can't have these. I do think there's a lot of transferable skills. But if you watch our videos, if you listen to this podcast,

and you're still interested in HR, then come on, because that means you are 100% already able to take it. Because you will. And boy, I love this show. I do, because there are also good days. Like I remember, I mean, I saw someone recently in person and they were like, I'll never forget how you helped me with my 401k. And in my mind, I was like, didn't I just help you with a login?

And I think it was like some sort of like sharing base. But the problem with HR or the hard part for employees, no matter what your level, including top leaders, it's incredibly important stuff. It has to do with your family. It's personal. It's incredibly important stuff. It has to do with your family. It's personal, very personal. And so also in that way, you can have conversations and be that sounding board or influence things. And so there can be rewards as well. It's not just the scapegoat situation, but I encourage managers and employees also to think about how you can think about that role

of HR and how they can help you. I mean, oftentimes it's, how do I have this conversation? And it's not having that conversation for me. Sometimes it's giving ideas of how to be, be more productive and not every HR professional can help you with that. But some of the, some of the, some of the good ones, good ones really can. I mean, I did not, I did not have an HR degree. I've never had certification. I did go to, I did go to law school, but if anything, that probably, you know, generally make people less empathetic. Right. But for me, but that's why I mean, I when I was all get a bad rap, too. So you're in our club. Yeah, we do. We do. We do. And it's no fun.

It's no fun. Go to two all the time. Well, legal said every HR professional. Well, legal told me. And that's true. And that's absolutely true. And legal has again, like legal when you're legal, you have you have certain, you know, they legal told me. And that's true. And that's absolutely true. And legal has, again, like legal, when you're legal, you have, you have certain, you know, ethical or unethical obligations, whatever people might call that. But, but I got into HR because I was so, I was so tired of the legal aspect in like the, the winner loss or like the litigate, like you win something and it never feels like a, like a, like a win. And I am, I am a person that deeply cares about people at work and people feeling that they're respected. And so for me, it was

moving into HR and having those, those conversations and being able to actually, you know, impact people's work in life and have, and build recognition programs for people. And there's a lot of things you can do. And so all throughout the podcast, we will be giving some of these ideas as well. But I just think it's really important for people in HR to learn how to use your voice. Absolutely. Now, for the sake of time, I'd love to close us out on this hot topic by saying, you know, we are just so blown away that you, some of you out there think that HR is the primary decision maker in an organization, right? Thank you for that. Yeah. Thank you so much that you think that we are the core decision makers at work. But like every other person in the organization, it's absolutely a team sport.

So, you know, we're going to tell you here right now that who makes the decisions at work? Many, many, many people, final decisions. It's really going to be those top leaders. We try our damnedest as HR professionals to influence as much as we possibly can. And the great HR professionals are doing it from an employee advocacy perspective. Right. That's what I've seen. Right. And so you definitely have in the HR besties that sort of mindset. Now, questions and comments, right? I want to make sure before we close this meeting that we have time for those. Any questions or comments?

I have a comment. Please. I think I have picked up on a theme and I want to call that theme out as, once again, radical empathy. I mean, we just keep hearing it. And I think if you have that already built into your brain and you're just like a good human, it's going to translate into being in a kick-ass HR professional. I love it. I love that. I love that. Ashley, any question or comment from

you? So as we talk about scapegoats, it reminded me of this time when I was in college in Danville, Kentucky. And I don't know if you've ever had experience with a real goat. Where is this going? I have not. I haven't had the pleasure. Well, I'll tell you, it's not a pleasure. I will be honest with you. Because some people I knew, these guys at my college, uh, center college in Danville, Kentucky go colonels. These guys had a goat as a pet for about a week and a half. I think that's how long, that's how long it lasted. It was, it was,

it was there, but some on my field hockey team, some of the players thought it'd be funny. I think after, after a night out to bring this goat into this freshman rose on our team, to bring it to her dorm room. And you know, what's really hard is, is like people say that about like a horse or a whatever, getting that goat in this goat, this goat was running all over the place, all of it. And it climbed stairs and it would not, it would not come down. And so, but I'll tell you what is really hard, not only getting the goat out, but goat droppings. I don't know what the formal name is, but I don't know. When we talked about scapegoat, it is.

So if you ever have an inclination as a prank or otherwise. And they like shit everywhere, constantly. It's like, yeah, it was a real, it was a real thing. And so I'll never, I'll never, it was a long time ago. I'll never forget it. But so if you're ever thinking of a prank, first of all, don't do that to the goat. Please do not do that to the goat. But it's not, it's not going to work out like you think it might when you're initially cracking up this plan.

So with that, Lee, that relevant thought, I'll pass it back to you. Well, I know that is incredibly applicable to this conversation. It's totally applicable. I don't know much about goats. Right. So not a question, but a comment. And I totally lost it because I went on a goat. I started thinking about goats. Oh, my gosh. Now, Lee is a goat. Yeah. And so, you know, what I'd say is, is that if you are a leader out there, if you're a manager and you throw me under the bus. Right. And so this is all for the future leaders that I may work with and coach one day. Right. This is a threat. This is a threat. It's a veiled threat. Oh, my God. It's an HR threat. Maybe it's not a threat. It's a promise. No, no. But what I'd like to say is that if you throw me under the bus and you scapegoat me as your HR partner, it's going to break my heart in a way because I really do focus on the relationship with my leaders, right? But what I would like to do is just take one minute to share what I wish I could share with you but won't, right?

So if I was being honest, after you scapegoated me, I would love to go into your office and say WTF is wrong with you, you chicken shit. That is what I would love to say. Did you have to get a certificate to be a dick or does it just come naturally to you? That is absolutely what I would love to say, but will not say because I would like to stay employed. Right. And so wonderful questions and comments. I think that closes out this staff meeting. I can't wait to reconvene for future meetings. Thank you so much for joining us on HR Besties where we talk business and BS.