One Email Ruined This Guy's Career [The Bad Hire Ep. 12]

00:00:00 This is The Bad Hire, the show with the best stories about the worst employees. We fired him, of course. People are crazy. It's like an HR nightmare. Right? One bad hire stole all of it. Crazy stuff. She got what she deserved. Oh. I'm your host, Ken Monroe, and every week we dive into real-life stories from the wild world of work and what can happen when the wrong person gets the job. These stories aren't just crazy, they're cautionary tales about lessons learned the hard way. Let's get started. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to The Bad Hire. Thank you. Emma, Morgan. You finally said it right.

00:00:40 We've been asking him to say it how he used to for a while now. All right. So, welcome back. You glad to be here? I'm sure you are. Yeah. We got to crush it. Always. All right. Always. So, I want to remind everyone about our 10,000-hour contest. Don't forget to submit your stories. Best story of the season wins $10,000. So, how do you submit? You go to thebadhire.com. Go to the submit section. Fill out the form. Post your story. Make it a good one. Can be happy. Can be sad. Can be tragic. Whatever it is. But take the time. Write a great story. Send it in to us. We'll read it. And if it's great, we'll read it. If it's really good or you may be asked to come on the show and read it or just be a guest and react, whatever it might be.

00:01:25 Yeah. So, it could be fun. We can do that by flying you in or we can do it, I think, via broadcast or via like a call in. So, either way, we're happy to do it. So, that should be fun. We should take phone calls one episode where we ask people to call in and ask the stories in life. Like, I got a call from Hawaii. It's like we're on a radio show or something. Yeah. Oh, okay. That would be fun. That would be fun. I like that idea. If y'all like this idea, please drop it. I'm just kidding. Like, subscribe. Like, subscribe. Drop a comment saying, I would like to call in. Thank you. So, I'm just going to do one today. Okay. And this one just hit me kind of hard in terms of just what this person's potentially battling.

00:02:12 Yeah. And so, I'll share it and then, you know, we can react to it and talk about it. Okay. So, I had a young woman once who, at the start, looked like an absolute win. She showed up on time, professional, polite, had a great office etiquette. And I remember thinking, finally, this is the jackpot hire. For a while, everything seemed fine. Then one day, she went out for a smoke break and just never came back. Oh. The next morning, I asked what happened and she looked at me completely dazed and swore she had come back. I pulled up the time clock and even the security cameras, nothing.

00:02:54 She just shrugged and said she had no idea what I was talking about. From there, it went downhill fast. She started missing shifts. On a busy Friday, she was a no-show and I couldn't reach her. Another employee who went out for lunch spotted her lying in the street, outside the office, intoxicated. Oh. I went out to talk to her and she insisted she didn't even work that day. She literally ran away from me. She missed her Saturday shift too. Then emailed me on Sunday claiming she had been in the hospital with a liver infection and promised she'd be back Monday. Hmm. With the doctor's note. Monday came.

00:03:35 No note. Tuesday came. Still no note. I finally told her I needed to see it immediately. I don't know why this note was such a big deal. She said she had run home to grab it and never came back. The whole thing was such a bizarre spiral. From perfect hire to completely vanishing. And to this day, I still don't know what really happened. Sounds like she had a mental breakdown. That's really sad. Or psychotic. Yeah. Or just, you know, alcohol. Yeah. Something really sad. Yeah, that's really sad. She's in the street. Yeah. Drunk. And what got me here at the end is like, hey, I need to see that note. You know, like. Yeah. She was intoxicated in the street. Yeah.

00:04:15 You saw her. You had an indication that she was, you know, you could see this kind of undoing. Yeah. It probably wasn't the time to demand a note for the mental breakdown. Probably, yeah. You know, you had to kind of read through someone who's suffering from alcohol or any other addiction would certainly want to try to cover that up. And, you know. Yeah. It would have been a great time for that manager to try to get. Get that person some help. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, for sure. And so, you know, in my career, I've seen two or three people just wreck their, you know, wreck their, I won't say wreck their career, but certainly wreck their position. Yeah. You know, I have to do a do-over because of alcohol, you know.

00:05:00 So, if you see someone as a leader. Yeah. You see someone and you recognize it, you know. Yeah. You know, try first. And you know they have a potential to be a good employee because they've shown you they have the skills and it just sounds like she's going through a rough time in her life. Right. So, yeah. She was able to piece it together and hold it together for a while. And which would indicate she had, you know, she just relapsed with it. So, I don't know. I don't think it's, when I read the end of that, she was like, hey, this is really bizarre. I'm like, it's really not. It's probably kind of common. Yeah. I have people have these addictions that, and that is, you know, as leaders, we can help

00:05:41 people. So, and help, certainly help the team. Yeah. So, that's all. That's the only one I had today I wanted to chat about. I think just because I thought it was, I thought it was meaningful and I thought maybe the lesson here would be, you know, look for opportunities to intervene. Yeah. You know, I'm, as an HR pro, you know, we deal with all the time. Yeah. You know, when something bad happens and they almost always ask, well, did they pass their background check? Did they look at their background? They always want to go back and look and see if there was anything. Mm-hmm. And so, you hear about the stories all the time. So, you want to, you know, I've just developed this kind of sense of a desire in our culture

00:06:24 and to share with others, you know, these are the opportunities given to you as leaders to help someone. Right? Right. And more times than not, it's still disappointing. Yeah. It leads to disappointment, outbreak for you as a leader trying to help. But you can also show your organization that you care about your employees and I feel like that brings more of like, like a spirit in your office of like, that you are a good company and that you want to help others. And I think it will encourage others to also be that kind of leader who grows out and helps others. So, at the end of the day, I think it's a good teaching no matter what, even if it doesn't turn out the way you want it to. Yeah. So, it might touch somebody else who needs to hear that or be able to help somebody else.

00:07:05 Yeah. So. All right. So, good hire turn bad. Yeah. My stories are like complete 360 that these are crazy, funny stories. It's not. Like, this is a deep like. I started. I started with the. I started with the. Yeah. This is a deep, meaningful one that's very important. Y'all should take notes on this one. Mine. Not so much. Yeah. Mine's a little stupid. All right. Um, just jumping straight in. Mine is titled The Curse of Live Television. Oh. So, sometimes when you're a bad hire, like you just kind of see it behind the scenes, like television like is there forever. You know what I mean? Like there's no going back from that. So, anyways. It's April 20th, 2013. And in Bismarck, North Dakota, a young man named AJ Clemente.

00:07:49 Sorry, guys. Is about to make his big break. Fresh out of West Virginia University, Clemente has landed his first real TV news job at KFYR TV. The local NBC affiliate. It's his debut night. His very first live broadcast. And he's sitting at the anchor desk next to his co-host. The cameras are about to roll. This is the kind of moment you dream about when you're chasing a career in journalism. But live television is unforgiving. As the show begins, Clemente fumbles and his script, nervous, overwhelmed, and thinking his mic is still muted. He mutters under his breath, F-ing S. Unfortunately, his mic wasn't muted.

00:08:29 The words go out loud and clear across the state of North Dakota. His co-anchor doesn't even flinch. She just keeps rolling. Good for her. Welcoming viewers. Good on her. She's just like, let's march on. Yeah. Saying like that didn't happen. While AJ says they're frozen in the realization of just what happened. The control room panics. Your brain would go. Oh my God. And you can tell, because I'm about to play the clip here in a little bit. You can tell he's like internally like, oh my gosh, what did I just do? Oh my. So the control room panics. Viewers are stunned. And within hours, so is the internet. Clips of the broadcast hit YouTube the same night, racking up hundreds of thousands of views. By the next day, AJ Clemente isn't just a rookie anchor anymore. He's trending worldwide.

00:09:11 Social media mocks, memes explode, and national outlets are calling it one of the worst debuts in television history. Back at the station, there's no saving face. The news director suspends him immediately, reminding staff of the golden rule of broadcasting. Always assume the mic is live. Within two days, Clemente is fired. His career in North Dakota ends before it really even begins. He tries to apologize, tweeting to his viewers that it was a rookie mistake and thanking everyone for the opportunity. He even explains later that he was practicing a line with a difficult name and let his frustration slip. But the damage is done. And that's the curse of live television. One slip of the tongue, one nervous moment can follow you forever. Clemente's debut was only a few seconds long, but thanks to the internet, those seconds are

00:09:56 immortal. So I'm gonna play the clip for you guys to hear it. Obviously, we're gonna like bleep it out on the podcast. But here's just a little bit of what happened to him that night. So let's roll the tapes. Dreams in Motion organization has a fun time for the disabled. A deadly avalanche kills five in Colorado. You're watching the evening Sunday on NBC North Dakota News, your news leader in high definition. Good evening. I'm Van Chu. You may have seen our new... Yep. So she just keeps going. She goes, you've just seen our newest AJ on. And that was his debut.

00:10:37 So... Oh my God. That's so funny. That is horrific. I feel bad for him because I don't... I was thinking it would be... It was like some muffled underneath. Yeah. It's just... It's not. It's not at all. It's just... It's clear as day. It's kind of sad. Not sad, but like I wouldn't call him the bad hire. He's like, he was nervous. Yeah. And it just sucks. It's a bad mistake. It sucks that... Yeah. And I feel like... I mean, sometimes you cuss at work. Like that just happens. But it's just sad because his is like on TV. So his work... Imagine if a camera was on you. Like all day long just catching... You know. Oh, I'd be canceled. I'd be on this store.

00:11:20 Right? It would just... I'm a good at... So I feel really bad for him, right? No. Yeah. You know, every... That's what young people do when they come to work. They make mistakes. Yeah. For sure. That's a high stakes deal. Yeah. And kind of feel like they scapegoated him. It would not have been a big deal to be like... You know, because he actually... I thought he... You talked about how he handled it. He came back. He said, here's what happened. Sorry. Yeah. I apologize. I think he said rookie mistake. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You know, calls himself, hey, it's a rookie mistake. He is a rookie. You know, that happens. I mean, he wasn't a seasoned person. Right? This is his first night on live television. So, yeah. I do feel bad for him, I think.

00:12:00 Yeah. And it's... I think about the number of people we see cuss on TV. Oh, yeah. All of them. You watch sports, there's guys just F-bombing it left and right. You could absolutely read their lips as coaches and players. And they're like... Oh, yeah. Yeah. And this guy makes a mistake. You're like... Oh, no. Yeah. Well, this was what? 2013? Is that what you said? Yeah, 2013. This was a pretty long time ago. Yeah. Maybe it was... Maybe it was different back then. I don't really remember. I don't know either. I was kind of young. Yeah. Ken's laughing like, okay. It wasn't acceptable then, but now... Yeah. No. And just... Cuss away. Yeah. I feel like even sometimes sportscasters say bad words now, too.

00:12:41 So, I don't know. But anyways, my next story is called Flying Low. That's the title of it. All right. So, picture this JFK International Airport. Thousands of people moving through the terminals every hour. Behind the scenes, a man named Gerard Robson, a security supervisor, is trying to build respect in a job where authority and professionalism matter. We're going to assume Gerard is a fake name. I think... I might go look and see if that's his real name. Oh, good. Because I feel like saying the full name is... That's... Makes it real. Pretty interesting name to make up. Yeah. One Friday afternoon, he's asked to file a simple report. Nothing dramatic, just a minor fender bender in the parking lot. He grabs his work-issued Blackberry, takes a few pictures of the dented cars, and starts

00:13:24 typing up his summary. He attaches the photos, hits send, and off the email goes to everyone. Not just two people who needed it. More than two dozen co-workers, supervisors, and even high-level executives at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. You can almost see what's about to happen. Tucked in among the photos of the fender bender was something else. Yep. Something not meant for work. An image of Robson himself, waist down, fully exposed. Oh, no. The email blast became instant legend. Phones buzzed, inbox pinged, and within minutes, staff at JFK were staring at disbelief. Was this real?

00:14:05 Was it a joke? It wasn't a joke. Realizing what had happened, Robson panicked, and he tried to recall the email to delete the photo remotely, but it was too late. The damage was done. It was forever. Yep. And soon after, a second email landed in everyone's inbox. An apology. His attempt to explain away the unexplainable. The Port Authority didn't find it funny. Neither did FJC security, his employer. Within days, Robson was fired, stripped of his security credentials, and banned from JFK entirely. So he can't even fly out of there anymore. A zero-tolerance policy, they said. But the story didn't end there. The tabloids grabbed it.

00:14:46 Headlines compared him to Anthony Weiner. Oh, that's not right. Sites like Gothamist, Metro, Jezebel, and NBC ran pieces with a mix of disbelief and dark humor. On forums and social media, people were ruthless. Jokes flew, memes were made, and the accidental junk shot at JFK became one of those shredded workplace scandals that lives forever online. For Robson, it was the end of a career at the airport. For everyone else, it was a lesson. Double check your attachments. Keep your personal and professional lives separate. And remember, once you hit send, there's no going back. Yeah. Thanks, Gerard. Yeah. That's. Also, it makes me laugh because he took those on his work BlackBerry.

00:15:31 Oh, was it a work BlackBerry? It was. Yeah. Oh, that makes it worse. Yeah. So like personal phone, you accidentally, whatever, but your work issued BlackBerry. Yeah. That's. Why were you doing it? Like, who were you sending them to before? Yeah. That's got to be sacred. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's. Yeah. It's rough. I mean. So. I mean. Yeah. The pictures themselves. Yeah. You know. Okay. Yeah. Whatever. You know. Yeah. People make mistakes. But. Because if you're learning personal device, that's not tied to work at all. Yeah. This is obviously something that he had his work issued BlackBerry with. Yeah. I can guarantee you that the humiliation of that. Was worse than the fire. Way worse than the fire.

00:16:12 Yeah. He's like, I can find another job. Yeah. Oh, my God. These are my friends. I know these people. Yeah. Because especially as it wasn't just at JFK where it was shown. It was all over the internet. Yeah. I guess the tablets go. I've never heard of Jezebel and all these different sites to him. Like, is this the dark web that his stuff was leaking to later on? Yeah. Like, what? Like, I don't. Wow. If y'all know of Jezebel, the site, please let me know in the comments. Yeah. Don't. No. Don't. Don't. Don't. No. Don't. Maybe don't. Don't promote that website. Maybe don't ask. No. Don't. Never. I told you that. Let's just cut that off. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. All right, Emma. Morgan up here. Look. Sorry, guys. No. Oh, my gosh.

00:16:53 Oh, my gosh. Because, I mean, they said NBC in the same sentence as that. So, I'm assuming it's true. True. Maybe this is a different thing. I don't know. Anyways, we'll have to look up if that's his real name, too. Before we dive back into the chaos on the bad hire, this episode is brought to you by B-Checks. Hiring shouldn't feel like rolling the dice. Background checks should come with great tech, seamless integration, and customer service that delivers. That's B-Checks. Lightning-fast results, unmatched accuracy, built-in fraud prevention. We help you hire the right people. Now, B-Checks plugs into over 100 HRIS and ATS systems. So, your background checks run smooth, fast, and backed by top-level service.

00:17:37 Protect your team. Protect your reputation. Protect your sanity. Go to B-Checks.io. That's B-C-H-E-X.io. All right, Emma. What do we got? All right. Here we go. This one's a little long. So, bear with me. Okay. I work in HR for an organization that had not previously had an HR position, but had grown to the size that it was necessary. When I realized that not a single person in upper management cared nor wanted an HR department because it interfered with how they always done things. I ran as fast as I could. Here are some of the horror stories I encountered while employed there.

00:18:19 It is a hard shift. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, HR professionals will bring some process rules, regulations, all stuff you need. For sure. But you ain't never had that. Yeah. That's just how we do things. Yeah. Big resistance. Okay. The organization hired a woman for the business department. Candidates were limited as it was a smaller town. On paper, her resume looked pretty reasonable and experience looked as if it would fit well for the vacant position. Her interview was mediocre, if not subpar. When asked about her knowledge of Microsoft Office, she wasn't aware of what that was. Oh.

00:19:00 Had to explain it and was a suite of programs used frequently in business settings such as Word, Excel, Access, etc. She then explained she was familiar with said programs. Okay. Oh, yeah. I know those things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Just didn't know all of it together was Microsoft. Well, I did know. So, yeah. Honest mistake. She then... Oh, wait. I just read that. Sorry. Hiring managers still thought she would be a good fit, went against my advice, and hired her. How old was a hiring manager is what I wanted to say. Desperate. Desperate hiring. Doesn't say. After a month of training, she still couldn't figure out how to handle email attachments, Excel, or basic computer functions.

00:19:44 Had to be let go due to inability to perform even the most basic job functions. Same organization also routinely placed people in management positions without inadequate training, without adequate training or experience, and let said people hire people completely on their own without obtaining proper hiring paperwork. Oh, Lord. Had a manager once ask an employee under their supervision for specific medical information regarding a workman's comp case. I had to intervene and explain that what she was asking was not legal, nor information she needed to accommodate the injured employee. And that is all it says.

00:20:25 Oh, that sounds like a, the bad hire was the company. Right? Yeah. She had to work for. Yes. A bad. Pretty. Well, it's not really bad. I mean. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, you should, should have seen at least the red flag in the interview that you don't know what Microsoft Office is applying for a bitch. A special kind of HR professional that can go in someplace and take it from zero HR to. Yeah. All the way. Good HR. Right? I mean, to build the processes, because it's going to be, you're going to have people doing things like the comp issue and just, just like breaking the law and where they do things and, you know, putting the company at risk.

00:21:10 But, you know, tough to get, tough to get them through that process. So. Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. But they didn't do background checks either before she showed up. Maybe not. Yeah. Evidently not. Um, if that's, I'm sure that's not how they had always done things. Yeah. Yeah. Background checks? Yeah. What's that? We know these people. We're a small town. Yeah. Of course. We hear that. All the time. Here's my next one. I'm in HR now, but at the time, was in a different job. So this story is set when they were in a different job. Okay. So they hired his contractor to do some IT work on the website. Guy seems nice, super eager to please.

00:21:52 Then the weirdest, weirdness started. Guy claimed he could not be arrested for any crime in any state in the USA due to his CIA credentials. Then he said he flies to the Playboy Mansion every weekend to party and spends $3,000 on his wife every week. Wait. On his wife? Playboy and a wife in the same. That's what it says. That's okay. Hey, I deal with the Playboy Mansion during the week. I'm just reading. With the wife the other time. I was just reading what he wrote. Okay. Then he claims he not only works for us, but Microsoft, Bing, and a bunch of other huge companies. Oh. Giants. Okay. He would set his phone. He had multiple phones.

00:22:33 Oh. To ring, and he would take important fake calls. Just on and on, the guy could not help himself with the lies. So another compulsive liar story. Finally, he went around telling everyone he was a hiring manager for the contract company he worked for and tried signing up full-timers to work for this company because he would get $500 for each person he recommended. He also promised everyone huge raises if they did. Well, he was not a hiring manager, and when his boss found out, he was fired immediately. Ugh. When are y'all going to learn to stop lying? Yeah. Also, talking about the Playboy Mansion with your employer is not something I would bring up.

00:23:17 Yeah, definitely not. Maybe spoiling your wife, sure. He spent a ton in it to tell people he was spending three helly hours a week. For real. I'm like, I'm paying you too much. You need to. Yeah. Oh, it's just that he's got five jobs. Yeah. He's working for four or five companies. For Bing, Microsoft. That's a thing now. Oh, yeah. You know, people are working, you know, I've had it happen to me. I've, you know, where people, I believe it's happened to me. I know it's happened to me. Yeah. Where people have done that, and it's crazy. Yeah. Offshoring your work is now a thing. Yeah. Like, you get somebody, you get paid, then you hire someone somewhere else. And then they do your work. They go to your email. Yeah. Yeah. You know, they sign in as you, they stay active.

00:23:59 I just feel like you're robbing yourself of, like, the responsibilities that you have. The moral character. Yeah. To do that. Yeah. It's not cool. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know how to build culture. You can't build great culture with a bunch of people like that. And, I mean, everyone calls me crazy and says, I'm, you know, it's just because I'm old or not in the generation of, like, not support. I've never heard anyone call him old or crazy. But not the remote, you know, not really loving remote work. Yeah. Even though we have a chunk of our staff that work remote, there are some, you know, it's been more disaster and more positive.

00:24:40 And I hear people all the time throw stuff around going, oh, it's so much more productive. Yeah. We've got real tools that measure real productivity. Yeah. And it is not an absolute. Yeah. In my experience, I feel more connected to the company and the mission when I'm here every day. Like, when I see everybody around me and I can connect with them face to face, I just feel more present in my work. And I feel more passionate about all the work I do for my company. When I'm home, I'm disconnected. I don't care nearly as much as when I'm in here. I think there are people who are good at it, right? And so I'm not like a, you know, hey, this is bad. Yeah. What I have learned doing this through a lot of people is that there are certain jobs that are good for it.

00:25:26 Yeah, I agree. And then there are certain people that are good for it. And you have to have both for it to be successful. For sure. If any one of those is missing, then you probably, it's probably going to lead to, you know, outcomes that you don't want. But I don't know. For sure. I don't know what a story reminded me of. Yeah. Probably because he was. Working for multiple jobs. Yeah, working for multiple jobs. Because you don't, you can't. Yeah. It's tough to do that. It's tough to do that while you're here. Yeah. It sounded like he was actually there. Yeah. Like setting up the. You can't give your. This is my Microsoft phone. This is my, this is my ping phone. Yeah. That's crazy. If he was even working for those people. Yeah. No, that was total. Yeah. Nice. All right. I've got one more.

00:26:06 I had an employee who had a workplace accident that we don't believe happened at work. She offered modified work. We, we offered modified work and she took this to mean she could take as many breaks as she wanted. She did little work during her shift. When she was called out by it, by a supervisor, she replied that she was injured and could do what she wanted. We started progressive discipline to address the behavior. She brought in a letter from medical practitioner that states she needed to take micro breaks to rest her injured body part. It doesn't say if it's her leg or her arm. It just. Body part. Body part. Over a period of a few months, she was suspended for leaving work without permission because she didn't like a conversation she had with HR.

00:26:52 She was still abusing the micro breaks to hide in the bathroom. Okay. Her manager and I met with her to talk about how she was seen with her feet up on the desk instead of working. This person lost it. The manager called the meeting to an end after two minutes and told her to leave the workplace. Now, I had an idea this meeting wouldn't go well, so I had our biggest, most intimidating supervisor outside the meeting. Like 80. After being. Forward thinking HR manager right there. After being told to leave the building, the employee continued to lose it, yelling in red face. She came at me twice while my supervisor got between us and tried to get her to leave the premises.

00:27:35 The employee only left with threat of calling the police. The workplace was put on lockdown for 14 days while we dealt with some logistical issues. 14 days. She doesn't work for us anymore and there's a bunch of legal stuff going on, so can't elaborate. I was convinced she would have attacked me without my supervisor present. So what do they do for the 14 days? Would it just not work? Not sure. And what's logistical? Does that mean security? Like for? Yeah. It doesn't say. Goodness. Okay. I don't know. That's a funny one. HR pros are just warriors. Yeah. You know, the stuff they have to deal with. Yeah. Right? And that person, it's like how often people just try to take advantage.

00:28:18 Yeah. Right? And your line of defense is those HR pros who are, you know, she used the term progressive discipline. I was like, oh, that's so HR pro. Uh-huh. Yeah. It's progressive discipline here. Gentle parenting. Yeah. It's just, you know. Yeah. Gentle parenting. You know. Sounded like the manager then just went straight to the end of the process. Yeah. They're like, all right, we're done. It's progressive. Boom. Yeah. Fire. Get out. Yeah. Yeah. I don't blame him either. I would do the same thing. Like, that's a lot to get up in somebody's face. And I love how he had the supervisor waiting outside the door. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I will. I hate to call the first story, the story I still have a bad heart, but, you know, the

00:28:59 reality is it didn't work out. So, but, and these stories are just a reminder that there's a couple of them. We hear all, you know, you hear these in all these stories is like. Yeah. Yeah. Started out great. Yeah. It's like, start here. And then sometimes it's like a cliff. Yeah. You know, and then, you know, ends bad. And, you know, started out as perfect, ended up disappearing. Mm-hmm. You know, turned out to be a bad hire. Yeah. You know, I don't know. The jury's out on employees for a while. And what's interesting is some of these stories, some happen right away. Like day one is like, day one is like a big deal. There's like a lot of day one stories. Right. Yeah. And then there's others where it's like way down the line.

00:29:42 Yeah. You know, it's like two years, three years down the line. There's, you know, some, some incidents and somebody finally, you know, I don't know. Yeah. For me, it speaks to culture and how hard it is to hang on to great people and the type of environments you have to build where people don't get worn down into a place to have some type of. I agree. Yeah. Breakdown like that. Yeah. Sure. Well, thanks. Y'all, y'all rocked it. You like my stories too? Yeah. Yeah. A lot of funny stories. I knew he would. I knew he would. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the poor dude on TV, man. I know. Oh my gosh. I feel bad. And flying low. I liked flying low. Yeah. Yeah.

00:30:23 Yeah. Trudging. All right. Well, don't forget our contest, the $10,000. You submit a story. If it's the best of this season, we'll send you $10,000. So go to thebadhire.com. Check it out. Uh, find the submit section, figure out how to submit your story, write a great story, tell a great story. Um, the way it should be told, uh, um, you know, on a pad on a podcast, the way you'd like to hear it told, it can be happy. It can be sad. It can be tragic, whatever it might be. Um, doesn't, doesn't, doesn't have to be one genre or another, but send it in and, uh, we'd love to tell it. If it's a great story, we might invite you to come on the show, have you tell your own story or just be a, just be a guest and, and hang out with us for a day for a couple of shows, um, that would be fun.

00:31:05 Uh, or you could, you know, video conference into the show, um, to tell your story. So, uh, either way that might be, that wouldn't be cool, but you can stay anonymous. You do have to tell us who you are, but you can keep everything anonymous if you want, uh, to protect those, uh, that need, uh, the protection, but we appreciate it. Great show. We'll see you guys again soon. Bye guys. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.