She Came to Tutor Kids… Drunk [The Bad Hire Ep. 17]

00:00:00 Hey, everyone. Welcome back to The Bad Hire. Welcome. Hi. This is the show where the best stories happen about the worst employees or maybe the employees having the worst day ever. So, you know. Yep. I'm back with Nathan and Emma. How are you guys doing? Welcome. I'm good. I was just saying. I'm fine. You good? Yeah. I'm fine. It's been a long day, you know. Yeah, we have recorded a lot of content. She's repping state today. Yep. Go pack. Oh, there you go. Okay. Your brother's there, right? Yep. Yep. Cool. Right now. My daughter was there. Oh, yeah? My sister. She would have freaked out if she ever said that. It's a whole family thing. Dad went there. Uncle went there.

00:00:40 I went there. My brother's there. Really? Oh. Yeah. Did you have a choice, honestly? Yeah. Did you want to go anyplace else? Well, yes. Yes, but at the time, not for what I wanted to do at the time. Yeah. Because I wanted to be a vet. And so. I wanted to be a vet once. That was my big thing. So you went to state initially to be a vet. Yes. She's so afraid to say that in front of me. She's afraid of the rabbit hole that'll go down. Well, that's how I was with Virginia Tech. Yeah. Just a little bit. Don't talk about animals. No animals talk.

00:01:22 Yeah. I went to Virginia Tech. Just like. I grew up watching Animal Planet. And I was like. How hard can that be? And then like. I went to study it. And I was like. Oh, that's pretty hard. I would tell you. I'll do communications instead. I'll just play Frisbee. And do a bunch of marketing classes. I would tell you why I wanted to be a vet. But I'm not going to get into all that. Because then Ken will start making fun of me. I don't make fun of you. And then I just don't want to get into it. That's totally not what I do. But I wanted to be a vet up until my junior year of high school. And then. You know I love your background. I worked in an animal hospital. Oh. And. You've come a long way. That was really eye opening. And that made me realize that I just didn't. I didn't want to do that. Yeah. That's good. That's good. I like it.

00:02:03 You know. You should. When you're young. You should get in there. When you have a dream. You should get in there. Experience it. I think that was like. Right before I started touring colleges too. Mm-hmm. So even. Even then I. At the time when I toured State. I didn't like it as much as the other campuses that I toured. But. I ended up really really liking it. Yeah. State's beautiful. I think it was because it was so big. Yeah. That I was like kind of overwhelmed. Because I'm not used to that kind of area. And everything like that. But. We're talking about NC State by the way. Yes. That's that state. NC State. Yeah. That's cool. Every. See. Every state. And everybody that was listening to every state. They were talking about it was like state. Everybody's got a state. Oh yeah. Florida State. State. Because I went to Virginia Tech. And in Virginia everybody knows that.

00:02:43 But then I moved to California. And nobody's even like heard of Virginia Tech. Right. You know what I mean. Right. So we know that's. So we know that's kind of region. So we know that's a state out there. It needs something different in every. Yeah. To every. Yeah. To every state. Yeah. Yeah. I graduated. Oh my goodness. Almost two years ago. So. Growing up. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. I'm old and whatever. It's their first job right? Yep. It is. And she's crushing it. It is. It's been fun. Right. Handles our social media. Mm-hmm. Handles some other things. She's doing a lot of the podcast work. Doing a good job. A bunch of design stuff. That was a good hire. Oh yeah. Yeah. I think we should throw. Every once in a while. Throw in like a good hire show. We should change their branding to green. Well just like.

00:03:23 This is a bad hire. But like every once in a while. Just to like a cross out. We'll write in good. We'll tell a good hire story. This is a bad hire. But sometimes you get people like Emma. And then. Yeah. You know. Who's. She's a bad hire gone good. Yeah. She really turned her life around. Back from her. From her. From her. In two state days. Emma's the redemption story. We'll tell you about her story. She came here. I wasn't even in. I wasn't even in marketing when I came here either. No you weren't. No. You brought in in the tech. Yeah but I mean. She was brought in in the tech department. But you're not the only one. I feel like. As a developer. I feel like a lot of people. As a developer. Moved around. You know. People would. I always forget that because even in college I changed my major like five times. Yeah. No me too. The fact that I'm not even in my major right now doesn't surprise me.

00:04:06 I think that's a common marketing thing where. Well do you love. Do you like what you're doing? Yeah. I like marketing. Yeah. Do you love it or you just like it? I just like it. It's a lot of work. Yeah. Oh my God. She just said. It's not what I. She just said I just like it. She's talking to the. Here's the owner of the company. Would you rather me. Do you love your job? Yeah. I just like it. You know. Would you rather me lie? No. I don't ever want you to lie. That'd be. That'd be bad. No. That hire behavior. And you know. You're a good hire. So. It's just not what I expected. It's like. Every day. Every day is like a learning experience. Which is good. But you know. Well you're. You're crafty and thoughtful. And a great writer. And also. Gifted in design.

00:04:47 Just kind of by accident. Not by accident. But. Well yeah. Because I grew up doing design stuff. And I did want to do that for a little bit too. I just. Didn't go. Just. It just didn't go that way. Well I'm hopeful that you will find your path here in a way that makes you very happy. I'm doing. Yeah. I'm doing it in different ways. Doing great. Yeah. Yeah. So if you found our podcast through social media. It's because Emma's putting it out there. Yeah. We're getting seen on TikTok and YouTube and stuff like that. And so. If you see somebody being snappy or funny in the replies. It's me. Yeah. That's right. That's right. If you're. If you're saying something to you. In the comments. And we. And we snap back at you. That's all Emma. Yeah. It is me.

00:05:27 Who do you think you're talking to? Yeah. Oh my gosh. All right. Well don't forget. We were running that $10,000 contest. We always should mention that before we get started. We have a couple submissions today. That we're reading. Okay. Super cool. We're going to see a couple. So we got some submissions. We're going to read. And I think we've got a. One of the. Video segments. So if you want to get on the show. You want your. A story told. You have some story. That you'd like to tell. There's a couple ways to do it. You can submit it online. You can go to thebadhire.com and do it. You can. Producers. An email over to producers at thebadhire.com. But what you'll find is probably you'll get right into a process where one of our booking guy will give you a call. He'll reach out to you. Try to get a few minutes with you.

00:06:08 Talk to you on the phone. And then book a slot for you to have like an individual private segment where one of the producers of the show. So Nathan, Emma, Morgan will then potentially interview you and do the segment live. Recorded rather. And then we'll roll in the clips during the show and watch. And so we've been building those up and kind of putting those in the bank. And we're starting to. You know, I think this this show we're going to do one for the first time. So that's. I'm excited about that. Yeah. And I've recorded a handful of them so far. And I know they might be distributed around the team. You've met some interesting people, bro. It's been really fun. I mean, just like first, just the salt of the earth kind of recruiters that are just

00:06:49 getting the job done every day. And then you have that the one dude who's like a former band manager. Oh, yeah. Super cool. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think we're going to be putting out if we haven't already. But this one comes out like the full our full conversation with him. Oh, OK. It's super interesting. Super nice. Has lots of stories, but also has lots of cool experience. So it's been fun because I think our general premise of the show has rang true with people. We're like, hey, we just noticed if you're in recruiting, you got a story. Yeah. And everybody I tell that to, they're all like, oh, yeah, I've got a story. Yeah. Most of the time. Yeah. So it's been fun. Well, I'm hoping, you know, I hope there gets to be. I think it's a bit therapeutic for people. You know, I mean, to be able to just because the overwhelming majority of like who recruiters,

00:07:37 HR folks, owners, whatever hire. Probably the overwhelming majority is good hires. Right. And you just these bad hires happen. And, you know, you can make light of them a little bit. And because all the things we do, all the process you put in place are all to try to avoid those things. Right. And then so, you know, God bless the. HR folks, recruiters who, you know, their DNA is all over this. And they all got a story. So I hope they'll tell them. And we'll pick the best one this year and give them $10,000 because we think they're that good. We should make them one of those huge checks. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That'd be fun. It might cost $8,000 to print that. Right. But, you know, it'll be worth it.

00:08:19 Depending on where they're from, we'll either fly them here or we'll go there. Yeah. That'd be fun. You know, so. Hopefully they're in Hawaii. All right. I'll kick us off today. Okay. So this, this story is, uh, this is, was this submitted? Let me see yours. I don't think yours was. This was one that we found. All right. So the cranky candidate that there's one thing that truly is scary and that's an unhedged candidate bent on revenge. Once upon a time, I forgot to send a candidate a calendar invite for an interview. It was a simple mistake. I totally get that one that anyone could have made before I had the chance to reach out and apologize. She took it upon herself to call me and berate me for this, for my error.

00:09:04 That was quick. Okay. I'm trying to get a job with you, but let me berate you. Not only did she think it was clearly an, uh, an intentional mistake on my part. Okay. So she thought she was being slighted, but she felt the need to threaten to reach out to my supervisor and the CEO to get me fired. Wow. The angry candidate then did a research. She found the emails to all the company's upper management, including the CEO, founder, some practice managers. She sent a scathing review demanding I be fired immediately. Wow. Not only that, she chose, she chose to use some non PC names in terms of describing what's totally toxic. But fortunately my company's management forgave me for, for the invite, for the invite, I

00:09:50 guess. I don't know. Yeah. For that one mess up. Pat on the back for putting up with this and decided it was the candidate that was crazy scary. That's good. So we took, so we took her out of our database. Wow. Okay. So you're saying she like, she stalked him and like got all this dirt on him and then sent it to him. Well, she, she just like went down and found all the emails to all the people. So how did she do that? And then, LinkedIn? I don't know. Okay. So let's, let's actually like go through her plan. Let's say she does it successfully and gets that person out. She gets the job and then she's like, all right, we've got that interviewer out. But you just like literally, you know, in a super toxic way called her out and now you want to start your job out that way.

00:10:30 Like not really a great plan either way. You know what I mean? Oh, remember how you got here? Oh yeah. When I blackmailed the interviewer. How did you get here? Oh yeah. I just threatened to the person who forgot my calendar invite. Well, if you think about recruiting, you know, you, you, you cast a wide net, draw a lot of people in, review the resumes, call it down, have interviews, call it down, get down to a single person. Right. Yeah. That's the way a lot of it's done. Right. And you know, if you, if you, and regardless of the process, you get down to them, there was more than one. So the recruiter's life is hurting people's feelings more often than making people happy. I mean, sorry.

00:11:13 You know, let's say they get down to three, four, you know, that's three or four people that are going to be upset when the one wins the role. Yeah. That's tough. And so they live, they live the life of delivering disappointment on top of like, you know, the one person's super happy there, you know, and they're like, yeah, it's so awesome. And then they got to like, oh, I got to go tell five people. That's true. Like, I guess I didn't think about that, that for every job and somebody who's trying to fill that job, it's 90% bad news to all the people that are involved. And then it's that one little small percentage of the good news to one person gets the job. That's tough. Everybody goes home crying at but one. Yeah. Which I'm sure that's a really fulfilling moment when they get to deliver that good news

00:11:53 when it works out. But that's a lot of letdown along the way, I guess. That's hard. All right. So, but you said, I get a mulligan. All right. This is another story. Okay. A manager updated the company's employee manual. He sent copies out in the break room. So, oh, Lord. Oh, no. No, I'm not doing this story. No? This solution clearly has had a personality trigger. I've been thorough background investigating, but it revealed a pattern of this content. It's this story. I can't understand. I'm going to slow it down. What did you say? Because this is like a folklore story. It's like people do this. It's like they do this.

00:12:33 They do this where they go, oh, there was a change in the manual. And it said that you got a warning before you got in trouble. And so he goes and punches somebody in the face. Oh, yeah. I remember that story. Right? What is it? I think I read it. I mean, of course I did. I always read stories like that. Right. Yeah. If someone's going to get hurt, Emma reads it. Yeah, I guess that. So this is that story. It's like, wait. We didn't get fired. You know? What? Oh, is it the same thing? It's the same story, just repackaged. Oh, gotcha. Okay. A different way. A little bit of a. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha. So, but, you know. Well, violence is not the answer.

00:13:15 Yeah, I know. Dang it. I wanted to hear it. That's fine. So we're skipping that one? Yeah, yeah. We'll skip that. That's fine. But I think you're up, Nathan. Okay. That's fine. Okay, let me do my story first that was through one of these calls, these virtual calls with one of the virtual guests. Yeah. So this is Sheila, and she just retired, but she actually used to work for Zoom. She said she was hiring for Zoom during like the peak of COVID. Oh, when Zoom totally exploded. If you can imagine that many people that she had to hire. So she's super legit. So we'll definitely tag her when we post this out. But she, this is one of the stories that she told me in my interview with her.

00:13:56 So if we could play this. So our candidate, and I'm going to call her Candy, looked great on paper. So I went out to the lobby to bring Candy back to the interview area. She was seated in the lobby next to a younger man who looked kind of scruffy. He was in a torn t-shirt and baggy jeans. And she got up to come back after I called her name. And he also got up and gave her a kiss and said, good luck, honey. And I was like, oh, okay. This was not on my bingo card that we would come as a couple to our interview. So she came back and we started her interview. And she seemed kind of nervous. After an unusually long and rambly answer, kind of like noticed looking at each other across the table.

00:14:37 And the leader of our team said, hey, you know what? Thank you so much for coming in. We'll be in touch. So I grabbed her and escorted her out to the exit to the lobby. So I went back to the interview space and they were discussing the candidate and the guard and the maintenance man rushed into the interview room. And they were like, whatever you do, do not hire that woman for this job. And we're like, oh, my God, what's going on? So apparently, shortly after she left the lobby for her interview, her boyfriend wanted to use the restroom. He did not have a public restroom available. And the guard told him that and explained to him that if he wanted to go into the security area, he'd have to have an ID and an escort. Well, he did not have an ID. He started screaming at the guard.

00:15:18 And that caused the maintenance man to come out of his office to see what was going on. And he became more and more belligerent until the guard and the maintenance man had to ask him to leave the building. So he left the building, headed out for his car, and then he stopped at the edge of the parking lot, turned around to face the building, and unzipped and started urinating in the short, stopped in the hedges, and just did it. Zipped up and went to his car. So the guard and the maintenance man went out and told him specifically that he was trespassed off the property. He had to leave and that they would let, you know, his girlfriend know that he was parked on the public street right around the corner. So she was pretty shocked when he wasn't in the lobby and really distressed that she had to walk a half a block to get to the car.

00:16:05 And needless to say, we did not hire her. Well, now I feel kind of bad because like, what, they didn't hire her because of him? Well, she brought him. That's her choice. There's no way that was the first sign of his crazy behavior. That's kind of funny, though. It also reminds me of that story that we read, I don't know if it was last episode or a couple episodes ago, of the woman that urinated in the parking lot because she wanted to avoid work by just sitting in the car all day, and then she just wouldn't go inside to use the bathroom. Yeah, I never fully understood that story. Me neither. How someone could think that. It's a weird red flag theme for us to have just peeing in the parking lot with the candidates. Like, oh, that's the red flag to look out for, I guess.

00:16:47 I don't know if that's a super relatable story, but it's happened more than once, which is kind of crazy. I bet there are so many recruiters and hiring managers and stuff out there that have had like these dual interview things. I've read that some of Gen Z have brought their parents to an interview. I've heard that. You know, it's probably some helicopter parent who's so involved and is like, you know, I'll come to interview with you, honey, and help you get through this. They'll understand. Or maybe their ride, you know, to the interview. Well, I gave him the ride. A little bit of emotional support, too. I don't know.

00:17:28 Yeah, so I don't know. That's a great story. I bet that's not, you know. I still feel kind of bad for her, though. It is tough for her to get blamed. I love how, like, you know when the maintenance guy had to come in and be like, do not hire her. For her rushing in. Right. Because we don't ever want him near here. Yeah, the scruffy boyfriend. Right. Yeah. I thought that was funny. That is interesting that he came with her and sat in the lobby. Yeah. He was being supportive, I guess. Yeah. But then. I guess. But then kind of had a ride. I don't know. Did you go sit in the lobby during your wife's interviews when y'all were dating? No, I can't say that I did. Did you wait in the car? I let her. No. You didn't even drive. You didn't even go with her? I guess not.

00:18:09 Bro. So, I didn't know. You don't remember? I also didn't pee in the parking lot, either. So, we both have jobs today. So, okay. Let me get on to my second story. This one's a little quick. This was also submitted for the contest. So, more opportunities for people to win $10,000. Okay. At the time this happened, I was part of the executive leadership team at a growing organization, responsible for hiring and firing. I'd interviewed hundreds of candidates, and I genuinely believed that I had a good instinct for people. We were hiring for a front office role. This person would be the face and the filter of the organization. They would touch everything on a day-to-day basis, clients, staff, and operations on a daily basis.

00:18:54 On paper, our newest candidate looked solid. They had a stable resume, relevant experience. But in the interview, she seemed like the right fit, and she talked about being dependable, staying organized, supporting the team behind the scenes, no red flags. Another executive interviewed her with me, and we were completely aligned on this. References checked out. We all felt confident. Then, her first day came along. The person who walked in that door was not the same person that we interviewed. It's always the first day. Always the first day. So, it wasn't actually the same person. Okay, okay. I was confused when I first met her. We've had that. We've heard stories about people interviewing someone else. It was... Yeah, the evil twin walks in.

00:19:35 No, just a different energy. It was a clone. Okay. It says her energy was completely different. She was loud, dominating, oversharing. That one calm, steady presence that we had during the interview was not there anymore. So, I pulled the other executive aside, and I said, is this even the same person? And they said, technically, yes, but practically, no. Over the next few weeks, the problems continued to add up. Conversations derailed. As long as tasks were not completed as instructed, staff started to quietly come to leadership with their concerns. The front office went from being an anchor to a source of constant tension. So, we did what good leaders do. We clarified some expectations, documented feedback, all that good stuff, but instead of improving,

00:20:19 she got worse. So, eventually, after months of careful management, we decided that we had to let her go. So, we handled it deliberately, professionally, knowing that the personality we were dealing with was on the difficult side. So, looking back, what stuck with me most is this. The person we met in the interview only existed for about that one hour, and the person who showed up every day after that was completely somebody else entirely. And so, that's something we have to plan for in the future going forward. Yeah. I guess everybody, that's what you call really good interview training. I guess so. I was about to say, I was like, I understand it to an extent, but only, like, not in this one where you're completely acting out of character.

00:21:01 Like, I get when you go to an interview and you're nervous. Putting your best foot forward. Yeah, you kind of act super professional and everything, and then you get hired, and then you get into the company, and, like, you let your personality come out or whatever. It is a little quick on the first day, but it won't get different the first day. I understand that. But then, on the first day, if you're completely, like, bouncing off the wall, like, that's a little, you know. Yeah, it's hard, because, like, in any interview, you want to be the best version of yourself, trying to make a really good first impression. So, I understand that aspect of it. Yeah. But to, like, do that so much that that's not even a real person. Yeah. And then, when you start at somebody completely different. I feel like you're making a first impression for months. To where people are questioning, is this the same person? That's how you know.

00:21:42 If you're a professional and you're hiring people, right, all the time, you've got to believe that after years of doing it, you know, for a big majority of it, they have figured out how to get past some of that. Yeah. You know what I mean? So, to pull it off, to be, like, completely someone different. Mm-hmm. That's what the challenge was, because even the person said that. Yeah. I know they have a good feel for that. Really, really, you know, requires work. And to get past someone who does this for a living, you know, we know so many recruiters and folks who sat in hundreds, if not thousands, of interviews. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You know, and probably can smell that. From a mile away.

00:22:23 Junk from a mile away. Yeah. But, so. Sometimes it still slips through, I guess. So, that's tough. I thought that was an actual bad hire. Yeah. It's a realistic story, but, yep. Gunny. Me now. Yep. Okay. Hold on. Okay. I have two today. They're both submissions. So, these were submitted for our contest. There you go. Okay. Roger. Roger. Roger. Roger. This is super short. I'll just get into it. This one, we've read a couple of stories kind of like this one. I feel like. I'm the executive director of a nonprofit for literacy. We train volunteers to deliver literacy instruction to underserved, struggling readers. Our students are between six and ten years old.

00:23:05 So, like, really young children. Okay. I'm in love already. I love it. One volunteer was so smart and so eager to become a literacy tutor, and I thought she would be the best tutor. On her first meeting with the family and me, she came into the library carrying a container of what looked like tea. Okay. It was not tea. Not tea. Within just a few. Emma precursors it. It wasn't tea. Okay. Within just a few minutes, I realized she was very badly intoxicated. Oh, no. And that was the end of that. Oh, that was it? Yep. That was it. I told you. It was super short. What was it? It wasn't tea? I didn't say. She was intoxicated, bro. It's up for your interpretation. It was coffee. Oh, bourbon? Yes. Got it.

00:23:46 Yeah. It was coffee. I understand. Tea, bourbon. I don't know. Dang. Yeah. That's tough, especially young kids like that. Yeah. I'm sure you got fired on the spot. Oh, my gosh. Man. Of course, the first meeting, too. First day. A lot of firsts around here. Yeah. We should. I mean, you know, it's a bad hire. I guess a lot of times that behavior is easy. That first day fail is amazing how many times we hear stories about it happening. And obviously, I don't know anything about this person or their personal life. So I'm in no place to judge. Right. But, like, why would you come in on your first day like that if you excelled in the interview and, like, you're so eager to be a tutor and then you come in and just vomit, you know?

00:24:28 Well, clearly you were able to stop long enough to interview. Yeah. Yeah. Seem like you, you know. Yeah. You know, sometimes it's a disease. I don't know them. Yeah. I'm in no place to judge them. It's a disease. You know, they need help. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I hate to see it. I got one more. This one's a little bit longer. Yeah. Kind of long. All right. Cool. My startup was raising an early funding round and one of our key investors knew we needed a chief technology officer to quarterback our tech development. He had a friend with some technical experience that had just sold his company to a brand. Our investor actually made his investment contingent upon us hiring his friend as our CTO at an

00:25:11 annual salary of $360,000. Oh, nice. Yep. My co-founder and I... That's some premium dough for a startup. Yeah. Yeah. My co-founder and I were taken aback by the number as we were a pre-revenue startup and hadn't even taken salaries ourselves yet. Since the investment was critical to us and our key investor was vouching for this person, we agreed to the terms, signed documents, received the wire transfer from our investor, and hired the CTO. He was living in New York and we were based in Los Angeles, so we only met him two or three times and spent one afternoon going over his technical development plan on a whiteboard. That was the only deliverable we ever received from him.

00:25:53 As his first month with us was coming up, we called him for an update on his progress. He went on for about 30 minutes on how he planned to build out our tech stack and went over his ideas for our future set. Just before we were about to hang up, he said, Oh, I forgot to mention something. We thought it might be something regarding the tech plan. He continued, I thought I should tell you that I took a full-time managing director position at Goldman Sachs. He said it like he was telling us what he had for lunch. Yeah. Like, oh, by the way. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no big deal. My co-founder and I looked at each other thinking we must have misheard something. Did you just say you're now working full-time at Goldman Sachs? Yeah. Like, wait, how long have you been doing that? Yeah. Yeah, he's been there for a month.

00:26:34 Still not believing what we had just heard. And he replied, yes, and it'll actually be really good. Yes, and it'll actually be really good for you. Like, the CTO said that to them. Oh, he's spinning it for them. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, it'll be really good for you that I have this full-time position. Good connections for them, I'm sure. Now, we were incredulous. It'll be good for us. How is it good for us that you'll be spending 40-plus hours a week at Goldman when we just hired you to build our platform? For $360,000 a year. Yeah. And he said, well, I'll be able to do the work for you at night. I'll be able to focus on getting your build done even faster. Yeah, no big deal. He said nonchalantly. Even faster than if I did it during the day. Yeah. No distractions at night. Previously, all I was doing was looking for a job.

00:27:16 Yeah. Yeah. And they're like, hmm, we'll have to think about that. We'll call you tomorrow. Was about all we could say. Still in shock over our $360,000 moonlighting employee. We hung up that call and immediately called our investor. His reaction was, like, as expected. What the heck? Uh-huh. That's way out of line. I'm really sorry, guys. How much have you paid him? We told him we just made our first monthly payment to him of $30,000. Wow. Yeah. Okay, don't worry. I'll take care of it. You won't have to deal with him again, he told us. And as we hung up the call. We both looked at each other and did a double take. Is this what we could expect on the road to building a tech platform? Yes. It turns out it was.

00:27:56 Probably. That $30,000 lesson prepped us for dealing with some of the false promises, deceitful conduct, and self-serving egos involved in the software development space that we were to experience in the near future. Yeah. Wow. So not to spoil it, but that was Steve. That was Steve's story, the guy that I interviewed on Riverside. Oh, is it really? Oh, really? Yeah. So he told me that story. So if you want to hear that full story, like, in depth and all the kind of stuff that goes around it, like, I think we have the full episode on it. Okay, cool. Yeah. Because he was telling me that story. I didn't put the people's names on here. I just have the stories. Okay. As she was telling the story, I was like, I swear I've heard this before. It's because I watched that interview with him. Yeah. It was actually a pretty interesting interview. Super interesting. And, yeah, he tells a story about it.

00:28:40 And it's so true that can happen, you know, for startups and those that are dependent upon investors because investors end up, especially if they're significant, more significant, with a lot of power to put people to work for you, to say you've got to use this or you've got to use that. And, you know, great example of, you know, that not working out. Yeah. And I think he put it really well where it's like, I guess this is what I can expect when I'm building a tech company or however you kind of put it, because, yeah, that's what we were kind of saying about this whole show being relatable to people and hiring. So for anybody who's kind of been hiring in that space, yeah, building a tech startup or whatever that might be. Yeah.

00:29:20 There can be a lot of big swings like that. That can be unexpected. Yeah. A lot of unexpected. How do you still build? You were out in Silicon Valley, weren't you? I was right near there. Yeah. So I worked for a few startups that, you know, it's always kind of like, oh, we're going to make a billion dollars or actually, sorry, no, we're going on business tomorrow. Yeah. You know, and it's because of that kind of thing, because they have these big dreams and big promises. Okay. Yeah. $360,000 a year, whatever. And it just goes like that. Yeah. I remember you telling me when we were interviewing, you were like, yeah, I went to work for this one company. And I actually thought, okay, this will be good. He'll be resourceful. But you're like, and they told me, oh, you've got this big budget. You got this budget. And when you got there like 30 days later, you know, your senior person left and they were

00:30:01 like, uh, budget's now zero. Good luck. You know, good luck. You know, that was kind of normal. Yeah. My, uh, chief marketing officer was fired on my 21st day. So like my boss. Yeah. So then I was the only marketing person at the company pretty much. Right. Uh, and you went from budget to no budget. Yeah. It was like, I think they're spending a million dollars a year. I actually love the story. It's one of the reasons I hired you. You got to be resourceful. I guess. Because it made you resourceful. I was like, if this dude can do it on zero, I'll take him. Yeah. Well, I'll try to make our budget zero. I love it. Yeah. Why were you just asking me for a bunch of money? I don't understand. I don't know. It's just testing. I should answer every request for money with, you didn't have any before and you did 20 million views. What's the deal? I guess it's got a point. Yeah. But imagine if we went from zero to a million per year, you know, what could do?

00:30:44 Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, you got to stay flexible with all the big changes, I guess. Yeah. But anyways, that full interview with Steve is on, on our stream. Yeah. I hope people watch it because I think it is kind of, it is kind of. Yeah. In a way. He's an interesting dude. Yeah. In a way, it kind of reminded me of the guy that changed his salary to a million dollars. A little bit. In our last episode. Yeah. It kind of pulled the rug out. It kind of reminded me of that a little bit. Yeah. Still really funny. Yeah. It's funny. Well, cool. Well, that was fun. Well, thanks for joining us today. We appreciate it. Yeah. Lots of submissions. Thanks for listening to The Bad Hire. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we're like all new to this. So, and I think it's, it's getting more and more relaxed. I was telling you between shows, it just feels more relaxed, getting the more, you know,

00:31:29 I don't know, just more comfortable. You know, you just learn how to do it. And, you know, eventually you just get enough reps where you can do it without trying to be so structured. I think maybe that's one of the fun things to do. Yeah. We got this nice new. It was just kind of like hanging around like we are when the cameras are off. Yeah. We got this nice new podcast studio we're hanging out in. Yeah. So, it's been, it's been coming along. Yeah. We did. We put one in here. We put another studio in another room. Yeah. We've been, we've moved it all around. We've been shooting into my office for the last couple of months. Yeah. You know, so shot today in this bonus room or this other, what's that? The conference room. The what? The conference room. Yeah, the conference room. What do we call it? Kitty Hawk? Yeah. Yeah. The Kitty Hawk room. Yeah. Yeah. So, a lot of content going on. We've come a long way from that table when we first started those first couple episodes.

00:32:10 Oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. Where we rented the space. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like, hey, you just got to start. You just got to go. That's what I would tell everyone who wants to get into having some fun and doing some stuff online and whether it's podcasting or short form or long form or whatever, it's just start. Got to start it. Just start. That was like our mentality was like, it ain't perfect. We don't have everything we need. Yeah. As long as you're. Let's get a t-shirt and go. Yeah. Right? As long as you're getting a little bit better each time. Yeah. Hopefully. Then it'll come along. Right. So, I don't know. So, please subscribe, rate, review, and share. Please. We love telling stories from recruiters, from HR professionals.

00:32:52 We just, about that bad hire. We want to celebrate all the great hires that you have and all that you do that's super positive and how successful you are. But the bad hires do come and it's celebrating them. And being able to smile about it, tell a story. That's what we're all about. Yeah. And just kind of bonding together around that. Now, we're sponsored by B-Checks.io, which is our background screening company. And we love it. And they're, you know, they're about preventing the bad hire. So, if you're looking for a background screening company and you want to do that, we encourage

00:33:36 you to, you want to look into it. They're very good, very fast, super accurate, great reputation. You know, check them out. You know all about it. Yeah. Yeah. B-Checks.io. Submit your story. I hope you do. We love reading it. We've enjoyed. My favorite ones, I think, are getting to be, as they kind of take over, as all the submitted stories, as you get a little glimpse into more. So, submit it. You can go to thebadhire.com and do it. But, you get featured right here on the show, end up like the segment we had earlier. I think that's kind of fun. But, we appreciate everybody joining us. Thanks for listening. Thanks, everybody. Bye. Bye. Sweet.