Welcome back folks.

Well, welcome to a new show folks, right? You checking this out, you behind the scenes now you behind you, a subscriber welcome. Thank you. And we giving you this leveled up show and look it's, called uncensored, right? Well, you know what I mean? How are you feeling about it? Oh, I'm loving

it.

We can just let let our hair down a little bit and just speak freely like within reason and about things that are Right. Concerning payroll, professional, even the HR professional, this could probably go for anybody in the corporate

world out there. Yes, we are going to keep it payroll related, but we're going to take some liberties and talk about some things that we want to talk about as.

Just like you said, professionals, you know what I mean? Humans at the workplace we are payroll though. So it's it's, going to stay about payrolls. Payroll is an industry check out the gear, check out the merch store while you're here.

I, do want to explain a little bit about Uncensored. I don't know what order this show will come in, but and, like Wal said we're gonna, within reason, this is not about being inappropriate at all or vulgar or anything like that or crazy. No, it's just having a comfortable, a safe place, right?

Safe talk. That may, maybe we, it could even call that safe talk, right? That's another good one. And that's really all it is about is, talking about subjects that are a little bit more difficult to talk about in the masses. And again, folks want safe places to talk and to hear things, to feedback, to have a dialogue, go ahead, have a dialogue with us, you know what I mean?

Or with ourselves. The episode

that we did, actually, we did it earlier today with Ian Giles he mentioned there's that fear. Yes. That goes into having those conversations, you said, you got to get over that fear, raise your voice, speak up so this may be an avenue for you to speak up and you don't have to name your company.

You don't have to name the situation. You can just feel free to talk about it here and say, hey. I experienced this as a payroll professional. I went through this I'm venting whatever it is, if it's about your pay, we're going to talk about your, pay as a payroll professional. You have everything that you can imagine as a payroll professional and a person when it comes to.

Professionalism and the job

we're going to cover here. Yes, exactly.

I like what you said, maybe you've got to revisit the name, but safe

talk sounds good. Safe talk does sound good. Yeah. It does sound good. Let's think about that. So by the time you guys get it, this might be renamed. We're, recording in advance for folks.

We want to have things ready when we go live with the new site. , we're gonna load up some of these shows. You'll be ready to go with a few episodes of things. This first one today, we're going to talk about friends at work. You know what I mean? Good, bad, ugly best practice.

We got some stats. We found some stuff to talk about, to give us some things and just sharing our own personal experiences. Look, we can flow right into it. Cause If we didn't have friends at work, me and Walt wouldn't have met, and then, shoot, we could talk a lot about our dynamic too because it was tight and you don't mind unless we can get right to it.

When we met, it was really, I hired Walt to be a payroll manager at our first gig, together, right? But something, I don't know, something right away, we got along and, we've had rocky times, we went through moments where we didn't speak anymore and and we reconnect, yo, what's up, man, how you doing and this kindred spirits just find each other again and reconnect and rebuild and I think, and that's something that I've always shared with Walt.

Is you're not a, you don't know relationships until you go through the bad times. It's it's easy to, we got money, we got happiness, we got food, we got this, we got, we never cry, we never, It's easy, fair weather friends, relationships are built in the trenches, bro. There you go, I like, yeah, you always say that, I like that better.

Yep. You are,

you're gonna find out who's for you when you're at your worst. They'll check you be like, and they may even be mad at you, but they'll come back and be like, bro, let's sort this out. And we, and that takes emotional intelligence and we'll cover a little bit of that here

but like you said, with our dynamic it's not always like that. Sometimes people are playing the game.

Yes, and we'll talk about it. You know what I'm saying? So what do you mean by that? Say we in it. Talk about what? Talk about it. What's playing the game? It's

a part of like, that saying , either you play or you get played.

So a lot of times you, it's an old moniker that used to be used and maybe a little toxic dog eat dog world. So getting where you fit in survival of the fittest that has been too, long. That has been the culture. In corporate America and jobs, different jobs, not just corporate America, different organizations, this is happening, where people pit against each other.

Everything's competitive, right? There's always all these competition shows where you compete against 1 another to see who's the best. And sometimes people. Well, intentionally, befriend you because it's to their advantage to do that.

I've, had people that I've opened up to in my personal life, in my earlier in my career, opened up to and looked out for and been burnt. Because they were looking out for them when it came down to it. Hey, it's me or you I'm choosing me. And that's what they went with instead of being honorable, instead of doing the things that I thought I was really naive

Just was that before or after the military?

That

was that was after the military.

Did you experience this in the military too? Or in the military, was there like a brotherhood of camaraderie that

We all banded together because you had to, because you were sometimes out in the sea for like months and you got to look at this person in the face like, all right, you hash it out, you know what I'm saying, like you hash it out because you have nowhere to go, you can't

go home.

You can't, yeah, ignore the person anymore, yep.

Yeah you gotta hash it out, so yeah, there is that brotherhood, and just like siblings. Siblings have no clashes you have, you bump heads with your friends, your loved ones you, go to war sometimes. And then hopefully you come back hash those things out and actually get some constructive work done and move forward.

So yeah, like it was more like a brotherhood. It was more like a

brotherhood. So I'm thinking like did you write, did you expect more of that in the civilian world? That's why you're like, Oh my gosh, this is a shocker. No,

I I, had the naive thinking that everyone, I chose to see the good in everybody, no matter what I still like

that.

A little bit. Yeah. A little bit. You better now, but

from experience has taught me to be cautious you can be courageous, but you can be cautious as well. You know what I'm saying? And be smart. So basically be smart with who you open yourself up to be smart with who you give your time your friendship to and who you pour into it's never wrong to teach somebody how to do a job.

It's never wrong how to teach somebody to do that. Brian and I still stand by that motto. Hey, we want to train somebody to take our job. That's right. We want to ramp them up and get them used to doing things that we do. So in case, hey. It splits it over us. You can step right in or somebody else can come right in and do the job.

So we still believe have that belief. Absolutely. When it comes to the office stuff, you got to use wisdom. So let's get into it, man. So we have a perfect segment. We have a couple of different reasons. We have four reasons why you should have phrasal work. Good. That's why. You

shouldn't. Yeah. I got some more stuff.

I got some more stuff there too, but why not? You got

the thumb. Oh, where is it? Where is it? You break that out for this. Ding.

Ding. Oh, wow. The AI is even, oh no. I thought it, was. Recognizing that. Sorry. All right. Boom.

So for, the four reasons why you should have friends at work, number one, increased job satisfaction, having friends that work and enhance your overall job satisfaction and having someone you can trust and confide in within the

workplace can make the environment more enjoyable and fulfilling. It can also provide emotional support during challenging times and reduce stress levels. Real that's like having a friend, Perry. You can go to yo, my boss is irking me right now. Oh, my co worker is irking me.

And you have this person, whether they're in your same department or not, you can go and just confide in them ,

basically, but here's a good call out, right? Cause we were talking about this the other day the work friend, that you only see at work.

You keep it real superficial. They don't really know you that you don't get in deep. You might drop a little thing here and there personal, but you really don't get deep with this person and I've, always had those right where, and that's. I think most at the end of the day, it's all balance.

It's all balanced and it's all best practice. There's a way to approach all this. But there's a difference, right? There's levels to it. There's levels to it, exactly. Not everybody becomes friends. And the percentages, when I share the percentages it's, in there. It's like only 2 in 10 Americans actually make good friends at work.

Yeah, so

think about it, because you can be friendly without being friends. That's it. So yeah, you can... Come to work and chop it up with somebody. Oh, and have a good old conversation with them, laugh and stuff like that and go about your business and not even worry about what they're doing over the weekend.

Never. And you don't even talk. You don't talk again till Monday morning. Yeah, when you're back at work and same thing in school happens, it's a pattern, right? You have school friends even mess around with kids when they're young. Oh, that's your girlfriend? But do you see her at home on the week?

Then that's your school girlfriend, you know what I mean? What's it? And that's another one thing that they say too, right? Cause we could talk about it here, right? See, this is a little bit more comfortable space, a safe space, work wives and work husbands, very people make that joke a lot.

Some people don't like that. And we, won't

delve too deep into it because why not?

It can be a little murky. We on safe place. Okay. Safe talk. Right?

Safe talk. You have to. You have to. You have to be wise with that, right? Yeah. Especially in today's climate you have to be wise just, because back in the day, I remember people would just walk, oh, this is my work husband.

People would say, I'm my work husband. Yeah. Uhuh like all I would say, oh yeah, that's my work wife or whatever. So you have to be careful with that now because, People may not like that. So you don't want to

be so comfortable. I would definitely feel away. I would definitely feel away.

Like you

don't want to be so comfortable that you just walk up to somebody because you think that you had a couple of nice conversations

and you're like, Oh, what's up boo? Yeah. Oh no.

You might work wifey.

No, yeah no, that's and yeah it's, uncomfortable. It's like you said, it's very, it can be uncomfortable.

It's not something that you want to throw on. Oh, you're my work wife, or cause then they might be like, Oh, whoa. So I you want to probably stay away from that term altogether at work.

Yeah, and I think we're getting into some of the reasons

why you shouldn't because okay, but okay.

No, we're still on the good reason. So the next one is go. Yeah. So

that was the 1 we were initially mentioned was increased job satisfaction. Yes. Yeah. People that you're comfortable with.

We're still talking about the good ones. Got it. Go ahead,

improve collaboration and teamwork. So basically, if you have good colleagues, good friendship with colleagues and Hey, I work well with this person.

So the next 1 would be networking opportunities. You never know you meet somebody and you build a rapport with somebody at work. And they may know somebody that knows somebody that says it's not what it's who yeah, then the better work life balance. Sometimes you can have a hectic life

and sometimes for some people going to work is an escape. From their normal everyday so it's a different. It's a different outlook, right? So you're like, Oh, this is a much needed break from that. My everyday life, personal life chaos. This is more structured. I know. I come here to do this.

It's a break

from some people are different at work.

Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Some people are absolutely different at work. And so it gives you a different feeling. And, you may have someone that yeah. That resonates with you at work that you have a rapport with at work that you may not have a home.

You may not have an outlet at home that you might be getting at work. You know what I'm saying?

Sure. Oh, yeah. You never know. Yeah. Now on to the reasons why you shouldn't have certain friendships or relationships at work. Boundaries and distractions is number one. Sometimes people get too freaking comfortable. You think you're cool with somebody, like we were saying earlier, you're cool with somebody like, like I had somebody slap me in the side of my head because she thought it was cool.

We ain't cool

like that. For

real There's I, agree. Cause being bald, you it, like invites it for some people,

the only person that does that to me, that I will allow is my nephew. That's it. And he's, really the only one that's ever even had the cojones to do it.

Well not, getting too much into our stuff like, but you and I had a situation where I was comfortable with an action that I was doing. Well, tell them you, so I was like, for me, it

wasn't that bad.

Well no, not at all. I wouldn't say that. So it was a very, what was like this? If we're talking he was just like, on my arm or something like that. And I had to tell him, I was like, whoa, my gosh, I'm so sorry. I didn't come out this well, guys, we got, we had a moment, right? But it was, like you said, relationships are built in the trenches, right?

And I had to, I said, it came out badly. But I don't even, my mom's touching me too much is uncomfortable for me. You know what I mean? I'm only okay with touch from very few people, you know what I mean? And even my kids, sometimes I'm like, yo, all right, yo, get off of me, you know what I'm saying?

It completely came out wrong.

Brian was like, you broke Omar lips looking mug, stop touching me.

Yeah, it was bad but, that's, we had

to go through that because I was comfortable. And sometimes this is how relationships work, right? Sometimes we allow people to do stuff, even though it bothers us. We just like, Oh and then they, say something to give us that leeway to let them know, sometimes you can be holding onto it and just it comes out like a rocket you know what I'm saying?

You shake up a soda and then open it up, you know what I'm saying? So that's what happens sometimes. And then so you got to establish those boundaries at work. In any relationship, you got to establish boundaries. And that's the thing that can

come, that can happen. You said it in any relationship,

in any relationship, right?

And it creates distractions. So if you're super friendly and Hey, you, when you get with this person, the conversations are great. You laugh, you're supposed to be working on this project, but you're in their office, like laughing Akiki and this stuff, you know what I'm saying? And the time goes by, you're like, Oh snap.

It can mess with your time management for a payroll processor. Oh,

management is everything like we covered with Lindsay few weeks ago. , the first one I remember is like working from home, right?

We've been home for, years now, every now and then I go back to the office. What I noticed is when I go to the office, there's and, fine, we don't get to talk so much, but it's, still the, I still remember all the side chatter, right? I can, I clock that's as soon as I get into a unrelated work conversation, the clock goes off in my head and I'm like, ding oh my God, how long am I going to be here talking about non work stuff?

I got to get back to work. This is crazy. You used to me, you used to do it to me, you

used to look at your watch. Especially when we first, met, you were like, all right, well, it's been 10, 15 minutes, bro.

So I used that until another job. I didn't remember that. Another job, they actually told dude, yo, you talking to people too much. We see you. And he would OD, yo, he would, we. Put it this way and I hate to please don't put yourself on blast folks. Okay, we're going to it's a much smaller audience here and more But if y'all if you anybody that happened to be in this environment, don't call anybody out It was an open environment, right?

There was no offices for folks. We were all in one big room Okay You can see all the departments because a big, it was a big room. You could see all of the apartments, right? Dude would bounce around and just boom, five minutes there, five minutes there, 10 minutes there, while he went back and forth to the bathroom and to the lunchroom and stuff, and they had to tell him like, yo.

You talking too much, bro. Go do your work. This is not the social hour, you know what I mean? So it's you gotta be mindful. It's okay to chat, it's okay to chop it up, but you gotta kinda keep it for lunch hour. You know what I mean? I had a great spot once that we had a little group for lunch.

And there was a room that nobody used and we would dip in the room, put the TV on, lunch hour, everybody had their food going, we'd kiki it up and boom, back to work. It was great. It was great. But, what was I gonna say?

Yeah, it's true, man. Like I had, I know a situation where it was borderline harassment what the dude was doing, but he was comfortable.

He was a nice guy attractive guy. So all the ladies were like like fawning over him and everything like that. And So he, in his mind, took it as oh

I'm the man I'm

I'm, the man they're comfortable with me. So you would go around, why are you doing massage? Oh, no.

Like the shoulders and stuff. Because, he felt comfortable enough. It's toxic on his end or whatever. But he felt comfortable enough to go and do that. And he probably had done that in other places and it was deemed okay. How many people have, like I said earlier, how many people have not established boundaries with someone and they let them do it because they're just like, okay especially if it's a boss so if you're cool with your boss and you notice your boss is taking advantage.

Of you because sometimes bosses will do that and they'll take advantage of you because they know you're you're that.

Yes. You're that. Yes, man. Yeah. Yes. Yes. You're right. Sorry. Yes. Person. Excuse me, folks. You're

that you're that person. That's always going to say yes. No matter what even if you should say no and establish a boundary, they're like, no I'm not cool with that.

You should always establish a boundary, no matter what level the person is at your job, whether they report to you or you report to them or whatever.

Yeah, establish that you're a female or you know what? I guess it doesn't matter. You're right. Either way. See, and I think some of this stuff is like we come from a different era where toxic masculinity was okay back in the day or accepted and tolerated.

And it's not okay anymore. No, no kind of

people turn. Yeah. Yeah. All the

way. Yeah. And women felt like, Oh my God, I have to do this or take this to move up and have a job. I got to survive. Like it's horrible, man. I have, I'm a father of girls and a boy, but I got girls too. So I have to think about that as well.

Yo and, for my boy in this world that we live in yo, don't let people take advantage of you. Everybody's fair game. Everybody's exactly. So next

one, office politics and favoritism. So if you have a bad relationship with somebody at work. They may lean on you to help prove their case, even if they're wrong.

Oh, yeah. You know what I'm saying? They may lean on you to the point where I've seen situations where our boss had a favorite and they would let this person get away with everything. Yeah. But if someone else on the team did the same exact thing, they would get reprimanded. They say, Oh they get that little pop on the hand or whatever Oh, I'm going to write you up and you keep doing this, or you keep coming, in late you keep calling off, I'm going to write you up.

But that one person on the team was allowed to do whatever the hell they wanted, you know what I'm saying? So like that, that, so what you do when you show favoritism to people, especially if you're in a position of authority. You can decrease your morale in your company or your department, but by doing that people, aren't going to want to work for a leader who's especially of your leadership.

They're not gonna want to work for a leader who lets one person do something and doesn't, treat

everybody fairly. You promoting mediocrity. Yeah.

No. Yeah. And then another thing is office politics. This is going back to what we said with that first one, when people play the game. Yes. So people will get in nice with you and stuff like that and Oh, joke with you.

And then in the meeting,

you're like, gotcha. Yeah. Oh, Ooh. Oh. Cause they'll be like, Oh, brian. Like you said, this one's not doing their job. Okay. Oh, shoot. Whoa. I thought I told you that in confidence whoa, what's your blog? You blowing my team up over here. What,

Yeah.

No, come on, man.

That ain't right. Shorty.

Yes, and the next thing, and I've seen this happen, it probably causes potential for conflicts, especially if you're, if you don't have those boundaries and you don't have those things set in place, it can cause conflicts, especially because I've seen it. I've seen it, Brian, where.

You know something about somebody's personal life and you use it against

them. Yeah. Yes. That was going to be my sum up for summary. Yeah. My advice to this. Yep. You use

it. It's used against you. Like, really again, like you said, I told you that in confidence and you're going to, you're going to throw that card out here.

You're going to, you're going to tell other people my business and then like, how does that impact? Like if, you're going, at it at work all the time, it don't make other people

feel uncomfortable too. Yeah, I'm uncomfortable. That's not gonna last long in this day and age. Not at all.

And then the last one here, what is limited diversity in perspectives?

So this is, I think this is saying like, When you only have people that think like you click up, you have clicks, and we see this all the time where they're together and birds of a feather flock together. Like they say, and everybody is cool with each other and they look out for each other and they protect each other.

And stuff like that, and this, is where in order to get progress, you have to hear you have to get everybody's opinion. 1, 1, 1 of my bosses that I had, said that how she sometimes, orchestrated over a resolution to a disagreement was saying imagine you're wrong and imagine you're wrong.

How you make. Both of them work something like that to that effect. I'm not saying the verbatim that no, I like it. Yep I'm saying like how would you get both of your ideas to become one? Say you're wrong to say you're wrong and it makes the person think oh because in conversation Sometimes you want to prove your point, right?

Oh, yeah. Hey, my way is right. I'm right. You are technically, right? And the other person could also technically be right But then you put the ideas together and you find yourself that you'll make some progress So I think that's what it's saying, like you'll have limited diversity in thought

and perspective.

Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I had to read through it because I was like, what is he talking about? But it's agreed if you click up and you're not seeing other perspectives, you're not and what it made me think about right away was like, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.

And that is absolutely true at work, right? Everybody has their lane, meaning Hey, if you that person that is a steady Eddie just keeps their head down, doesn't want. Managerial responsibilities. And they're not trying to grow. They just, they're in their lane. They like their lane.

They're trying to stay there. That's cool. I think you have to be aware of all these best practices as well. But if you're trying to grow, you're trying to, you have ambition and these things, you want to be in, you want to be around people that are going to teach you more at work, not. You don't want to sit with your same folks that, or some other folks that ain't interested.

You don't want to, no offense, but you don't want to sit with the steady Eddie guy, your girl. You know what I mean? You might want somebody to challenge

your thought process.

You might want to pick the, somebody in the in another department. Let mama have lunch with them because they're going to have they're going to teach me something.

You know what I mean? So in summary,

I think it was, like you said, the key word here. And any relationship, especially at work balance, a healthy amount of boundaries, a healthy amount of interaction, a healthy amount of socializing and everything like that. So I see you have some additional notes down here.

Some of his overlap. I'm thinking I'm going to share the, percentage first, but before that, I want to leave them with like my overall we're not saying anything is yay. Or nay or yay nay we're not saying, oh, this is good. This is bad. We're just, it's conversation. Think, about this stuff.

There's a best practice, the best practice, like any relationship take your time, right? There's no rush. Mama used to say, you know what I mean? So there's nothing, there's no reason to rush into any, just literally like any relationship, there's no reason to rush into it. More so at work, take your time and it's cool to get friendly.

That's awesome. You know what I mean? That's awesome. But you don't have to tell everybody your life story in the first five minutes that you meet them. That is unnecessary. Less oversharing, oversharing is not good. Less is more. There's another saying that I live by three things. You never share love money and your next move.

And. That's it. If you live by that at work, oof, that's it. Three things don't share. Your love, your money, and your next move. Because your next move could be out of that job, right? Your next move could be starting a side hustle. And then somebody at work, your boy at work is like, What? Oh, this boy's getting money?

Okay, you don't need this job. Okay, I'm gonna take your job. He don't even get

this job. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be on that run. Tell that. I'm gonna tell that, exactly. I'm gonna go spread this rumor like, oh, boy. Yeah, Walt might be,

they're out of here. You know what I mean? You have to be careful.

You have to be careful with things. And you just have to approach it. Like that with balance take less is more take your time. Do not rush into things like that Then I'm gonna yeah, we covered most of this stuff So what I found was go ahead while I look pull up this one of the

things in the military that day it was different right because they had a policy against fraternization fraternizing, so

Fraternizing meaning intimacy romance No, just friends, certain

friendships.

Like so you couldn't fraternize. If you're enlisted, oh, yeah,

and

ranking so if you're enlisted, you have to hang with the enlisted folks. Wow. And then if you're a certain rank and above, like between chief and officer then, you could like interact with them on a more cordial or friendly basis because it was improper for if somebody that was enlisted was messing with somebody that was.

And officer or whatever, we could get in trouble for that. I don't know that was how it was. I

was back in the day. Good point though, because we were talking about that. How rule, how companies dad gum it. That's what I meant to, that's what I meant to research a little bit too, was like how many companies still have.

Policies against it, because I don't think they can I don't think they can really, okay, cool. So now I found this other little survey that was done in 2021, just numbers. There's nothing surveys are relative And it said how does having a work best friend impact your job?

57% of the people said it makes my work more enjoyable. 22% say I'm as, or more productive. 21% says they have supported me through any work. Place or personal issues? Wow. 21% say I feel more creative. 21% say I don't have a friend at work. 20%. Oh, I'm sorry. 15% say I don't have one but, would like one.

Ideally . Wow. 12. 12% say I'm less likely to leave the company. Eh, I dunno about that a lot. Yeah. 6% say they're less productive. They're being honest. I think it's probably bigger. And then 5%. I have started a new company, new role in the last year and have found it hard to make friends that you may not be a good fit.

You know what I mean? Word up because I feel like and I talk about this in like I was telling you, I'm writing pillar number one out, right? Well, I'm writing the five pillars out and pillar number one talent. I was, I came I, basically threw in there the the Jim Collins, good to great book when he, mentions this concept of having the right people on the right bus.

So no matter what, skill set or where you're going, if you got the right people on the bus, it doesn't matter. You're going to, you're going to be successful wherever you go and whatever you do, right? You have the right people. And that's, I do feel that. Where we are currently is it has done a great job and getting the right people on the bus.

And it's so that, that might be just the kind of testament to not being in the right place, being a right fit for that you're you might want to rethink that environment there, but go ahead. What'd you find?

Yeah, there's a lot of well, it's not I'm looking for an actual percentage and I can't find it, but there are.

There are templates out there saying Hey, a non fraternization policy. There's even one article that says that why, businesses should have a fraternization policy. Oh, wow. That limits that creates limitation between coworkers, professional and personal life. I worked for, a place.

I think I told you this. I worked for a place that actually had a policy in the in the

civilian world.

Okay. Not just the military. Like I I work for a company that, that, hey, you had to go to HR and if you were interested in somebody, you literally had to sign something like, Hey, this is not gonna impact my work.

We're not gonna do this.

Literally. So weird. That's so weird. Yeah. I wonder where the legalities are on that. 'cause

it's, but because, it's up to the, from what I'm reading, it says it's up to the company because. It could, because they're saying it could potentially impact productivity, which was, which will impact the company.

If, the relationship goes sour and something, somebody, whether that's a friendship or romantic, like it could cause trouble at work.

So real quick, I found an article. It says, can my company tell me on one hand that I should not go out to dinner with my coworker or blah, blah, blah. Can I,

sorry folks. Yeah. I guess there's no clear cut on it.

So can my company prohibit me from socializing with coworkers? If the employer can point to a specific duty, the employees neglecting such as failing to attend evening network event or entertaining clients, and the employer may be able to prohibit this socialization I, think it's, I think it's your employer can fire you for whatever reason they want.

As long as it is employment related, not discriminatory. Therefore he can't use hanging out with coworkers outside of work. Without him being present as a reason to fire. Yeah, I was just going to say that they have to tie it back to work somehow.

Yes. So there's, an example here. Okay. It says non fraternization policy considerations.

It says like some companies may have something in writing. We're saying, Oh, you're an officer of the company. You can't engage in a romantic relationship with. Low, lower level

employee, that's, oh, and I get that. But that's, see that, but that's very specific and different, and that has work, direct work implications.

Like I get those, so I get, but if it, if we're like two equals right.

It says that too. This article says that. It says, if you're, what it says if, you're a lower level person and you're starting to date another because it's gonna happen, right? And, yeah. You're another lower level person.

It said you may not have language in there and you can't, you cannot necessarily fire that person Exactly. Because of that. But if the, if it's the vice president of something, department. And they're messing with receptionists

over here. Yeah, that I get. Yeah. That's inappropriate.

There's abuse of power there. But just straight out yeah, they can frown upon it. But it can be frowned upon. Yeah it comes back to us, right? We need to monitor our behavior and just and, just that's, why I like working at home a lot. Cause I can just focus, I can lock in, I can choose when I'm going to socialize and fraternize I can choose when I have my distracting conversations or whatever and BS and whatnot.

And you don't get forced into something and then be, it'd be, have to be rude. Hey, I need to get back to work right now. You know what I mean? And I ended in the open environment. It's tough because people just I used to, be at the edge on the corner and people used to just stop.

Hey, what's up, man? Yeah they asked, they stop and ask a legitimate question and they're like, oh, okay, cool. Oh, and And I just be like, all yeah, man. All right. Cool, man. Or person like it's, it was so tough to, how do you go away, please? I'm right in the middle of this that was the tough part, and then I found myself going into rooms, like when I needed to do focused work. I would have to go into a room and close the door and just go at it or close your office door. Yeah, well, no, I don't have an office in this open environment. We did have rooms that we can duck into people, you still had conference calls.

We were in HR and payroll, so we had to have private calls, confidential calls, you know what I mean? There was a concern about our screens being out. And I would, I was really good at that. Like folks would come up and I would click boom, click. Like I would be very conscious about who's behind me boom.

Let me switch my screens. I'm not on cause if I had somebody's fricking salary up on their employee profile my screen, I had two big ass screens. Like this is visible, like a block away getting into other stuff, but still it's, a workplace thing. And maybe we got to figure out where that falls in this conversations.

But yeah, man what else in that same survey, they said, do you have a work best friend? So now these are, this is where the numbers are often these surveys, right? Because it's 40% says they do not have one, but then, oh, okay. 15% of them said they would like one though. Ah

So 40%

said they do not have a work friend.

15% would like a work friend. It'd be nice. Yeah right now my work friend is Charlie. We ain't working right now, he left my ass, but it's so interesting. How this plays out. And that's why we thought we'd start off on this kind of a, more lighter on the tougher, safe talk conversations, safe space.

Some of the other ones we want to talk about is like the CPP to get it or not to get it is it for you? Is it not for you? Should you get it? Should you not get it?

Yeah I think not necessarily should you not or not get it, I think it should be more can you be successful?

There you go. Sure. We should frame it right. Yeah, we got to frame it right.

Because, getting it, it's gonna do nothing to help you at the day. So yes, you should, if you can. So it's better can you be successful without it? I

mean, to the point, but we're getting, we're going down that route.

We got to save this for the show. But like, somebody told us they've met CPPs that can't do certain things. So You know, so anyway, we'll get to that, but that we're going to do that show. See how we, we already look, see, he wants to talk about it more. It's not this show while we're talking about the friends now.

I didn't bring it up, bro. Oh yeah, I know. I know. But as you can see, very like top topics that we got so much to say, talk about what was another one? The, I don't know if everybody's familiar with code switching, but that's something we want to talk about. I think it leads very much into authenticity.

Can you be authentic at work? And it, cause that's what it is, right? That's

a good point. That's a good point because some people can't take certain personalities. So sometimes you have to rein yourself in as an individual again, we can get into that later.

Yeah, we'll get into that.

Yeah. This is all fun stuff. This is all fun stuff. Yes. Let's write it down.

Cause so folks, more to come, if you haven't subscribed yet, subscribe now

that's it, man. All right. Thank you, everybody. Peace.