Calvin Tilokee 0:02
Hello and welcome to the midlife crisis podcast. I’m your host Calvin, also known as Revparblems on Instagram. I’m excited to do this talk show with my best friends from high school and college. Steven Mikko, what can you expect on this podcast? Well, I like to call it a talk show for Men of a Certain Age. We’re not quite old. But we’re the kind of guys that have to make sure we don’t miss our alcohol on a night out, you know, we’ll chat about current events, trending topics, and things that we just need to get on our soapbox about knowing else. We’ll be laughing the whole time. And ladies, don’t worry. If you ever wanted to know what your husband or boyfriend talks about in the man cave. Stick around. And now keep in mind, we’re old enough to remember when Parental Advisory stickers went on CDs. We don’t know what CDs are. You’re too young for this podcast. Speaking of which, make sure you have your headphones in. It’s NSFW as these kids say. We’ll be bringing that flavor to your weekly on your way to work while you’re shaving, or just sitting around wondering why you’re backwards. But let’s get this show on the road. Hello, and welcome to midlife crisis podcast. I’m your host Calvin here as always, with my boy Mikko bringing that flavor to your ear on a weekly basis. On today’s episode, we’ll be talking about human resources with Jan genossen admin of not sure I’m approved on Instagram. Of course we got all your favorite segments, the Chris Rock quote of the week. I don’t know that shit. I don’t like that jerk. And as always get off my lawn. But first, how was the week? Man?
Mikko Miller 1:31
Lakers all injured. been a rough week to be honest with you. lebrons out 80s out. We’re losing left and right. It’s cold in California. It’s been a rough week. It’s been a rough rough, man.
Calvin Tilokee 1:46
I didn’t hear about adea so LeBron got hurt. That’s a high ankle sprain is a tough injury, bro.
Mikko Miller 1:51
Yeah, high ankle sprain as he’s been hurt. Okay, he had that. That knee injury. I think it’s in the bend backwards he hyper extended his knee. So yeah, man, we’re struggling now and everyone’s we’re like, people panic all the time. You lose your star player for a couple of weeks. And people think oh, no playoff, no championships. But you know, it’s slip Braun man and he he’ll find a way to play. He better?
Calvin Tilokee 2:16
I think so. Yeah. I mean, hopefully I’ll still make playoffs. I haven’t paid attention. So I know the records are anything but if y’all make playoffs, he’d be back for that.
Mikko Miller 2:25
Exactly. Yeah, but not not. That’s it. It’s just been a quiet week. been paying attention just like a lot of support all the stuff all the moves that all my favorite teams are making, you know, but other than that, it’s been a quiet week about you.
Calvin Tilokee 2:38
For the most part, it’s been pretty chill. pretty quiet week and nothing. Nothing too major. The avid followers and listeners will know that we went live on Instagram on Friday. Dave hit him with a
we had some technical difficulties. Those of you who were you know, part of it would know, we intended to go live at 6pm Eastern got on there about 715 Eastern because Instagram is like trying to get into Fort Knox.
Mikko Miller 3:09
That’s right.
Calvin Tilokee 3:10
Mikko tried to log in. They slightly were like, yo, we’re having it. They emailed me a code or so they say. And, you know, I still haven’t received that code.
Mikko Miller 3:21
Word. So
Calvin Tilokee 3:23
yeah, still waiting on it, bro. Wait, this is Monday night. For those of you who don’t know. So this was from Friday 6pm to Monday night recording at almost 8pm Eastern time. I’m still waiting on the code. I’ve been put through all kinds of shit to get back into this Instagram account. And as much as I appreciate, yeah, I appreciate the safety. It’s like it was just an Instagram account. Alright, like, I’ve given you the email address, I got a support ticket now. They sent me an email with a code and then like we’re the only way we’ll help you is if you take a picture holding up this code. We got to see your hands we got to see your face. your full name and Instagram account needs to be honest. I’m like What the fuck? So I do that. Get a get a response to like the safe the email address, and they’re like, oh, we’re only respond if you respond from the original email address. I do that twice. They come back to me. Oh, well, we still ain’t got it. Then finally they said okay, we see it. Then they give me a link. I click this link to reset the password reset the password to guess what? For them to send me a fucking code. You can’t make this shit up, man.
Mikko Miller 4:37
You remember that Dave Chappelle stand up when they’re like he was at the bodega. They told him like Hey, who are you like Hey it’s me Dave you know can I get something like oh we don’t we don’t know he then he pulls his pants down and bends over. Black s black is
Calvin Tilokee 4:53
why you didn’t Munoz earlier a
Mikko Miller 4:58
did that man
Calvin Tilokee 5:00
Yeah bad you should second them I bet your day.
Mikko Miller 5:06
They’re like new number who this
Calvin Tilokee 5:14
shit is wild man, but that’s crazy anyway. Yeah. Anyway, we got a special guest come to the man cave tonight. Just so you all know if you have not followed not sh RM approved on Instagram. You need to do that right now because this is behind the scenes of what every human resources person really thinks about your dumb ask questions. Okay. And because because of the nature of the content, our esteemed guests is completely anonymous. We don’t even know who she is. All we know is her name is Jan jennison. And this page has over 21,000 followers on Instagram. So if you’ve been following yet, you’re definitely missing out. Please welcome to the man cave. Jen genossen. Thank
Jan Janerson 6:03
you so much privilege to be here with you gentlemen, in the incredible man cave. I can’t believe I’m here. That’s true.
Calvin Tilokee 6:12
All right. Well, we are happy to have you.
Mikko Miller 6:14
Yeah, happy. That’s what she said.
Welcome, welcome.
Calvin Tilokee 6:26
Welcome, welcome. So we’re just going to get right into I think the obvious question for most people listening is what the hell is sh RM.
Jan Janerson 6:37
SHRM stands for society for human resources management or Society of Human Resources Management. And it’s one of if not the largest global organization for human resources and employment verte employment vertical professionals. So they’ve got hundreds of 1000s of members across the globe. They’ve got 1000s of chapters across 170 different countries. And we I started the community not Sherm approved for that exact reason, right? Everyone thinks, you know, like, what’s the running gag, like, Oh, shit, HR walked in the room. Right? Talking about absolute bullshit. And if he walks in the room, like oh, my God, everyone flees, maybe if we don’t move, they won’t see us. Maybe their their sight is like dinosaurs, they won’t see.
I started not sure I’m approved. to kind of be the the counterbalance to that right to Originally, it started as a means of stress relief, while I was going through my last maternity leave. And I think quite a few of your listeners are going to resonate with this. But it wasn’t really a leave. I was working from home about a week after I got out of the hospital, to keep the organization supported. And I don’t have to go into why that’s ridiculously stressful. And so I found a creative outlet to post memes about human resources and the ridiculous things that humans request, say do in the workplace. And I found that it resonated. And we’ve built a community of HR and employment professionals that support each other with solidarity in that unique way that only we can, as practitioners. So we have since expanded the community to clubhouse to help dispel the many, although in some cases extremely well earned. stereotype of Human Resources.
Calvin Tilokee 9:03
Right. Very cool. Very cool. So how long have you been in human resources?
Jan Janerson 9:08
I have been an HR for 18 years.
Calvin Tilokee 9:11
Oh, wow. Yeah. So you don’t seen some shit?
Jan Janerson 9:15
I has. One of our most popular features in the community is war story Wednesday, and dedicated to telling stories. Sometimes we make them theme. Sometimes we don’t but it is dedicated to telling all of those stories that have HR fellow HR professionals kind of nodding their head going yeah, yeah. Yeah. And other people going no fucking way that’s totally made up. And it’s not. I can most assure you it is not.
Calvin Tilokee 9:55
That’s interesting. That’s cool. I mean, that’s really cool that you have you have that kind of commute. Maybe I mean, that’s how well How long have you been on Instagram?
Jan Janerson 10:04
So I’ve only been on Instagram for about two and a half, three years. And I mean, like I said, it started out as a joke, right? It was just me posting memes. Most of them were fucking terrible. And I got better as I went. But about a year and a half ago, we really hit a point where we started to kind of take the following that we had, and moved it less out of means I mean, all the content is still there, but we started making it a resource point. So like the antithesis of Sherm where they’re, you know, this huge global professional organization, and, you know, they take themselves extremely seriously. And I’m probably gonna get my ass suit off for talking about them. We told that same idea of community and resources and being there for each other and passing on information, free flowing ideas. And we just again, we just wrapped the humor around all of it so that we’re not so that we’re, you know, we’re not taking ourselves too seriously. And we’re just letting it go and in in a safe space, where we know we can and that’s one of the reasons I stay anonymous is to protect the anonymity of the folks who do share stories and memes and snapshots of emails and screenshots and other stuff.
Mikko Miller 11:37
Yeah, you
Calvin Tilokee 11:38
got you got the receipts on a lot of people. You got a lot of good blackmail man, a buddy and mess with you. You can take down a lot of people.
Jan Janerson 11:49
Yeah, we know where all the bodies are buried.
Mikko Miller 11:53
I love it. You ain’t trying to get shanked? That’s
Jan Janerson 12:02
like, Don’t make me tell people why you took medical assosiate is, that’s nice.I love that.
Calvin Tilokee 12:15
Yeah, yeah. Y’all all work for me. You just don’t know it.
Oh, man. All right. Cool. So I wanted to get into this post that I saw. And I shared it with you guys, obviously, before the show. And those of you who are my hospitality audience out there, I’m sure it’s part of this group hospitality family on Facebook, which I have mixed feelings about I’ll be really upfront about that is I like the fact that it will started. I think this started pretty early in quarantine. And this thing is blowing up the last I checked there were over 44,000 people in this Facebook group. And it you know, it’s it was a place for similar to what you were saying Jan about people just kind of coming together commiserating a sense of community. But I’ve seen it devolve into people just bitching about their jobs. And I started to pay less and less attention to it. Because I’m not really interested in hearing you complain about work. I think it’s different when you do it in the way you do. Jan, or even myself where we we wrap some humor around, something we will complain about, you make a joke about it. But when people just go in there whining. I’m not here for that. And I happened to see this one a few weeks ago. So I certainly want to get some HR opinion on it and you to Mikko since you’re in a different industry. I’m going to read it word for word. This is the post from hospitality family. Yesterday, I was on the phone with a girlfriend during her lunch break. We’re on speakerphone, a co worker of hers came in and asked her to complete a task. Her response was I’m on my lunch break. So that’s a negative. The coworker says so you can’t just do it really quick. Her response to that was I’m also on a phone call while on my lunch break. So that’s a big negative co worker gets quiet and then says, Okay, I’ll see you in about a half an hour. My friend says absolutely you will. And I’ll be happy to help. Hashtag setting healthy boundaries. Hashtag taking care of herself. Hashtag take note. I’d like to add a hashtag to that. Shut the fuck up
by jumping on.
Mikko Miller 14:32
Oh, you want us to go? Yeah, let’s let Jan go first.
Jan Janerson 14:37
Oh, thank you, gentlemen. Lee, have you Um,
Mikko Miller 14:40
hi tries.
Jan Janerson 14:41
I love this person. I love this person. And here’s why. My favorite employees are informed employees. Not passive employees not you know people who don’t cause trouble or give me my favorite employees are informed employees. And that means folks that know the rules, know what they’re entitled to what they’re responsible for, and set healthy, healthy boundaries between. You know why? Because I despise guessing games. And these are the folks that I’m going to get the helpful feedback from actionable issues, not Calvin, as you said before whining and bitching, actual things I can work on. And I can take action on and potentially even sharing with me, desired outcome. So now I have parameters for the solutions that they’re going to find acceptable and helpful. And those are the folks that I will look to, to help me design and change benefit plans, reward structures, compensation goals. Those are the folks who won’t get burnt out. And they’ll be reliable. When the hard time strike. You notice she said, Yep, I’ll see in half an hour and I’m happy to help. Right? She wasn’t like, Fuck off. You know, I’ll get to you when I get to you. Right? She was important, but she had that healthy boundary, like, Listen, you best let me eat. Or you’re not going to like what I become. Right? I was telling that person over and over if I could.
Calvin Tilokee 16:28
Yeah, so like a good Snickers. Commercial.
Mikko Miller 16:36
I agree with Jan, I think that last sentence was key when she said, Absolutely, you will, and I’ll be happy to help. That was key for me. I completely 100% agree with Jen. If she was like Jen said said, You know what? Fuck off. Let me go eat my shit. You know, I’ll deal with you later. It was like that kind of attitude, then maybe it’s a different story. But it just seemed like she wanted her lunch break. She’s entitled to it. Obviously. I’m assuming she’s not management or salary. Because then the lines are a little grade and skewed when it comes to that, I guess when your management but if she’s an hourly employee, it’s her lunch break, she’s entitled to that 30 minutes, 45 minutes an hour uninterrupted, no work related issues. I think she’s 100%. Right.
Calvin Tilokee 17:21
I disagree with both of you. But tell us why I see where you’re coming from. Here’s my issue with it. Because again, this is hospitality, right? We’re in the people business. We work in this is either hotels or restaurant, something like that, right? My issue with it? Is the response. Oh, that’s a negative. You don’t speak to people like that. Not in this business. And if if this person is speaking to a co worker like that, how quickly you fly off the handle with a guest or get snippy. That’s not appropriate, if to me, along the lines of what you guys are saying if this person said at the beginning, hey, listen, you know what I get off in about a half an hour, I’d be happy to help. I’m on the phone right now. I’m finishing my lunch. That would have been fine for me. But to respond to this person say, Oh, that’s a negative. That’s sarcastic. And then you follow it up again, when the presenter Hey, so can you just do this really quickly? No, that’s a big negative. I’m also on a phone call. You’re being sarcastic, you’re kind of being an asshole. This ways to speak to people and set those same boundaries and have the respect for yourself, your time and all of that and have and help people see those boundaries without being a jerk about it. That’s what I didn’t like.
Mikko Miller 18:32
So you’re judging her based on the first half, and we were judging her based on the second half.
Calvin Tilokee 18:38
Right? Right.
Jan Janerson 18:39
Okay, here’s why I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Because that coworker saw her on the phone, saw her with food in her mouth, or in her hand or in front of her period. And didn’t think you know what? I’m going to come back, or Hey, I can see you’re eating, what time are you done? Or what time will you be available? I have a thing, because if it’s a real emergency, right, she said, You can’t do this real quick. You know, and this is where communication is so important. Right? So Kevin, I hear exactly what you’re saying. Yeah, the tone definitely should have been better. But with what I’ve seen go on in employment in the last 18 months with this pandemic. I don’t know sometimes that little bit of sarcasm is about as nice as someone can get when you have that blatant of a violation of a simple thing, like a human boundary, right? I use I have food in my mouth. I have to stop what I’m doing right. Is it really that important? And I don’t think people ask that of themselves if it had been a guest if it been an emerge see something of that nature? Then she you know, by all means, you know, let her know that but otherwise? I don’t know sometimes that’s all people will listen to. Right. And the other thing we don’t know is how often that colleague has interrupted that woman’s lunch.
Calvin Tilokee 20:18
Yeah, I was thinking that too, as you were just speaking. That’s that’s also true. We don’t have any of that back store. We don’t have any of that tax. Yeah. Yeah. That’s totally fair point. I think just for me taking it a step past this situation, right. Like, if I’m that manager, I’m assuming this person is her supervisor or manager, or something like that. I can only speak for myself, I’ve been always very conscious of people’s personal time. One thing, you know, always like you don’t mess with people’s time or their money. Okay, make sure you people get paid. And if they’re taking a vacation, given the vacation period, they earned it. Right. So I’ve always been conscious of that. But there are these instances where it’s like, Hey, you know what, if you just give this to me real quick, I can get back to what I’m doing. And you’re good to go. Right. And I had a situation like this in a hotel I worked at previously, where a bunch of us were having lunch at the same time, I got this say maybe 1015 minutes earlier, this other group came in, on my way out, I was just asking if she finished something because I needed her to finish what she was doing. So I knew when I’m done with my lunch, I can go get started. It would have been a simple yes or no. I’m asking one individual the question her friend from across the table goes, ah, we had lunch. And I’m like, Okay, I’m like, I wasn’t even talking to you. I didn’t say that. But I’m just looking at her like, yo, ain’t talking to you. But she decided she wanted to be the, you know, gatekeeper of everybody’s time. And she was setting the boundaries. And then at the end, I’m like, you know what, this convert this back and forth, took five minutes, she could have answered it in 10 seconds, and we could, but we could all been done. You know, sometimes it’s really not that serious. And what I would know, as somebody who’s manager, when it’s time to talk next steps, and it’s time to talk promotion, I’m going to remember that I’m going to remember the snippy attitude, I’m going to remember that you can give up 30 seconds to a minute, two minutes of your lunch break, to help push things forward, I’m going to remember that attitude. And that’s not something I want to vibe with. Everybody may not agree with that. But if I’m looking to promote somebody out of my department, that’s probably not going to be the person.
Jan Janerson 22:33
That’s fair. I, you know, again, I think this is a perfect example. And especially for HR folks out there to remember that every single situation is individual. And it’s the mitigating factors within that particular situation, that make the difference. So in your case, when you had, you know, someone from the peanut gallery, throw in their two cents in that they didn’t need to fuckin open their mouth. And you got your actual person that you were addressing, that, you know, didn’t even get to answer for themselves. Right? So in that particular case, yeah, you have every right to be annoyed, right. And again, we don’t know all of the context in this particular person’s story. But you know, that’s, you know, kind of why I looked at the back end of it, like Mikko did, and I see someone who is willing to help, but no one on this earth is going to protect your boundaries. If you don’t, now, there’s a right way and a wrong way, especially when you’re in a professional setting, there is no doubt about that. But it is such a slippery slope, to start violating boundaries, which take a very, very long time to build in the first place. Yeah,
Calvin Tilokee 24:01
I agree with that. I agree with that. And I’ve, I’ve been there, you know, and I’ve seen it happen to people that I’ve worked with, where it’s like, if you’re, if you’re the Yes, person all the time, then you know, they’re constantly coming to you. I’ve been that guy because I’m the kind of person where it’s like, if you ain’t gonna get it done, I’ma just get it done. So I end up doing things that aren’t necessarily part of my job. But because it needs to get done. And then people look at you as like, well, Calvin’s, the guy who gets shit done, so just go to him, you know? And then you end up having to be like, Okay, look, I don’t do that all the time. I did that that time because it needs to be done. Don’t come to me with this go to the guy responsible. Yeah, so I totally I totally get it. Again. I
Mikko Miller 24:44
think we’ve all at some point, been that person where you were to go to and it’s like, okay, yeah, I did it twice, three times a handful of times, but you really got to stop going to me now when really give it out off to the person who needs to go to Yeah, I can get it done. Yeah, I can get it done quick. I can get it done good. But if it’s not really part of my job description, I just did it that one time. You know, that’s cool. But now you’re kind of like pushing it just a little too far by asking me every single time that situation needs to be handled.
Calvin Tilokee 25:13
Right, right. Yeah. Cool. I like this good roundtable debate. That was like read Table Talk right there.
Alright, so we’re gonna get into a couple a couple of fun ones. What is the stupidest interview question or response you ever got?
Jan Janerson 25:39
This stupidest interview question I ever got was a one. I want to say it had to be when I you know, I spoke for a long time. This guy was giving me 123 word answers. So I asked just to kind of wrap it up as quickly as possible because it was going nowhere. I just said, Well, do you have any questions for me? And his first question was, yeah, how soon after I’m hired. Do I get my first raise?
Mikko Miller 26:17
One of those. Yeah,
Jan Janerson 26:19
I was like, wow. Considering this didn’t go really well. I wouldn’t count on being hired in the first.
Mikko Miller 26:27
Yeah, she said that’s.
Calvin Tilokee 26:30
God bless you. I love it.
Mikko Miller 26:34
There’s the door. Thanks.
Jan Janerson 26:39
I think that was the stupidest interview question I ever got.
Calvin Tilokee 26:42
Definitely. That had to be a bro. That sounds like a bro. Yeah. Yeah.
Mikko Miller 26:47
Like a bros thing to make? That’s a broad question to ask.
Jan Janerson 26:50
I mean, he might have been in bro in the 60s. But he was definitely not a bro. By the time he got to me. He was Oh, he was more like a grand.
Calvin Tilokee 27:11
Jeez, that’s, that’s crazy. That’s crazy. Anyway, alright, so this one is kind of related. This one also came what is the silliest question that you get on a regular basis? things that people come to HR for to chill. Like, really?
Jan Janerson 27:25
That? I would say there’s a top three. Right. So one of the things I get more than I ever should is do I have to tell you if I want to take a day off? If you don’t want me to believe you’ve abandoned your job. Yeah, that’d be helpful. Go ahead and request that day. Let’s see. Second. Although this this is a bigger pet peeve and actually very much connected to the little roundtable we had. Some will see me shoveling food into my face, and they’ll go, Oh, are you eating?
is gonna stop you from asking whatever the fuck you’re about to ask me and I am actually eating. Third, top three most dumb questions is asking how they enroll in benefits, weeks or even months after open enrollment closed. And there’s been 22 communications on four different company wide platforms. See that? Hey, how do I get more benefits? You’ll wait seven months. That’s how
Calvin Tilokee 28:49
you know people expect expecting to just be spoon fed to them. Yeah, if you go back to our intro episode, I went into this heavy because we’re talking about a guy who was he’s also in the hotel space. He was on some other podcasts. And he was complaining that companies don’t do enough to let you know about open jobs. And he’s like, you know, if I hadn’t known about these sales jobs and his corporate jobs, you know, maybe I would be interested but nobody ever told me. It’s like, you dumb bitch. Like that information is everywhere. And you got if you want to build your career, it’s your job, not anybody else’s. Right. You know, it’s like, do you want to insure your kids this year? Then pay attention?
Jan Janerson 29:29
Yeah, I if I could, and I truly believe that if we want to change the talent coming in the door, that as professionals, we should be involved in the classes that are being taught in colleges, in schools, in technical schools and culinary school. We should actually be creating courses and working with our community and our local colleges and our universities to get involved In the education of those individuals, if I could create a course, it would have absolutely nothing to do with HR, it would be called shit. I wasn’t taught in school.
Calvin Tilokee 30:13
Yeah.
Jan Janerson 30:14
And it would be Thank you, thank you, and it would be legit, and how to negotiate a salary and how to dress for a professional career and how to navigate health insurance and how to apply for life insurance and how to look at a mortgage. And I mean, just how to do your taxes, right? All these basic things that if you didn’t have somebody in your life, or you didn’t go figure it out, like there’s some major consequences to not getting some of this stuff, right. And yet, we’re learning Pythagorean Theorem like I needed. Yeah. I remember.
Mikko Miller 31:05
Exactly, exactly. Yeah.
Calvin Tilokee 31:08
That is spot on. Right there. I think we’re gonna have to have
all right, you got any Mikko? Before we go into the audience questions?
Mikko Miller 31:23
I think he asked it. That is one of those ones, like the favorite meme one. I know I have mine from her page or the page. But I wanted to know what the favorite mean was of Miss Jan, you know,
Jan Janerson 31:38
that was so hard. So I don’t have a favorite mean. But I will tell you, I still don’t know. Going almost three years into this runaway experiment. What is going to slap and what is it? I pour blood, sweat and tears in something I think will resonate and it falls flatter than my ass. And then tell us about like a throwaway like state to the wolf like here, you jackals just to keep cranking content out because it’s so hard to keep up with demand. And it goes to the moon. Like I’m literally sitting where everybody else sits when they look at their cell phone. This is funny. Like it’s really good. It’s okay, I put it out there. 2000 likes it’s so I really have a favorite. I don’t have a favorite meme. Oh, you know, my favorite memes are my favorite memes are the ones that that fell flat. The ones that are like, yeah, this is really funny.
Mikko Miller 32:55
You know, peruse to the page, and the one where the guy in orange just and you had labeled it my entire day. And then just other guy holding a shank or a nice thing, a scheduled phone call that cracks me up every single time. Because it’s so fucking true. Right? Like you having a good day, a scheduled phone call comes around and then your days just shit right afterwards. So I truly resonate with this one. Okay, good. Looking at it right now.
Calvin Tilokee 33:28
Alright, so we got I got a couple more serious ones. Before we get into the audience questions. I think nowadays, you know, everybody is looking to get back into the workforce, right? And there’s clearly a lot of competition. And I think some people have been turned away because they’re overqualified for positions and things like that. How can somebody who is potentially overqualified for a position be seriously considered for jobs?
Jan Janerson 33:54
So this is a really interesting question, because I feel like other than bias or applicant tracking systems, which are filtering with very specific words, an overqualified person if you’re not getting offers, because you’ve been told you’re overqualified, right? Because that’s the only way you think you’re overqualified for something as if someone tells you Yeah, thank you, but you’re overqualified. If they’re telling you that then you might want to take a somewhat deeper look at how you’re presenting yourself. And I’ll explain what I mean. So you are experiencing your qualifications, that equals your talent, right? Those are your talents, your your resume is speaking for your talents, but that’s only one piece of the whole. So, you want to demonstrate enthusiasm for the position and I mean, like real enthusiasm. You will not get hired, or seriously considered, if during the first call or an interview with a hiring manager, they feel like you’re just kind of a stepping stone till you find something better. And whether you think you’re hiding that energy or not, if that’s the case, then Believe me, it’s it’s coming through, right? So which means don’t throw shit at the wall and see what sticks really apply to the jobs you really want that will help bring out that natural excitement and enthusiasm, right? So don’t be someone who’s got 30 years of experience and go for an entry level job. Right? Not without a really, really good story. And you know, I would say put it in your cover letter. No one needs cover letters. Everyone’s bubble right now no one, no one fucking reads the cover letter. So kind of figured. Yeah, unless you’re in pharma. But believe me, you got to be it. And that’s, that’s a whole other show. The other thing you want to try to demonstrate whether that’s through examples, or depending on the position you’re applying for, you know, throw in your, you know, your portfolio or something else. It’s hard, and frankly, unlikely for companies to pass on candidates who are talented, right, they got the resume, who are showing enthusiasm, and they’re great team players. And then I think the other thing you want to consider as a quote unquote overqualified person is stop going to indeed, to find your job, highly experienced, high level people or high level people should use their networks as a primary resource for job opportunities. ATMs, filters, applicant tracking system filters are are extremely unforgiving. And they will be tailored to not only each company, but each hiring manager the key terms and the number of years and the the initials after your name that they’re looking for. Right? It’s it’s absolutely not worth your time to try to find that perfect job on a on a job board with 1000s or millions of other people. You need to use your networks network network network.
Calvin Tilokee 37:38
I’m here to hit the audience. Like, don’t be a menace. message. That’s right.
message. Oh, hope y’all jotting down these nuggets. This these nuggets, these. Uh, Jim? Yeah. Coming out of the mouth.
Mikko Miller 37:51
Oh, right. Yeah, she’s so spot on. Because when I was laid off at Kaiser after like, 10 years, and I try to apply at fucking Nordstrom or Saks Fifth Avenue as a men’s jeans department Rep. They just fucking turned my ass around and said you’re overqualified, and gave it to like some 80 year old lady who’s worked in retail for like her entire life. It’s just like, it’s so true. Like, why do you Why did I even apply for that job? And yeah, serves me right. So Jan, you’re correct. 100%.
Jan Janerson 38:25
Thank you. I mean, it’s, you get scared, right? And you start thinking, oh, I’ve been out of the job market too long. But in today’s like, Guys, it’s not the time. Right? It’s what are you applying for? Can I see you here I had someone with 27 years of experience, apply for an ad, where I literally the first line of the ad said this is an entry level job. Right. Right. And there was just I mean, there’s a bunch of reasons, you know, why we didn’t, you know, move forward with that particular resume. But, I mean, you had to, you had to wonder like, why? Like it, you wouldn’t be happy, right? And that’s one of the biggest fears for hiring managers is, you know, you’ve got 20 set, are you? Is this your last stop? Is our or are you just using this as a stepping stone? Well, I’ll take this and then I’ll find something better. They don’t want to be where they’re at six months from now. They want someone who’s gonna who’s gonna stick around at least least a little bit?
Calvin Tilokee 39:35
Yeah, no, I mean, hiring is a process, right? I mean, it’s work on your side, too. So, you know, you don’t want to be looking for somebody else in six months. That’s right. Yeah, you know, Mikko I kind of had a slightly is similar, but it’s a little bit opposite to your story. So after I had worked at Gordon Ramsay, right, so I was working at, you know, fucking Michelin star restaurant. I had the reservation. Team and then the hostess I was there for a year and a half. And then I realized, look, you know, this restaurant shit just ain’t for me. So I was out for a little bit and I ended up applying at Nordstrom to be a manager for like the little cafe where people will, you know, grab some stuff while they go shopping. And it is I’m in a suit. I go to my interview in a full on suit. I mean, I had been a manager twice at this point in my career. So I’m like, yo, you know, take my shit serious. This girl comes out in sweats and a T shirt. And as soon as she’s walking over to me looking sloppy, so I was sitting there like, Nah, man. Nah. So it’s hard to take any questions from this person that she’s like grilling me. And she keeps going. She’s like, Oh, well, you know, we do a million dollars of revenue every year. Can you handle that? I’m like, Did you look at my resume or not?
I think I can handle your rinky dink coffee shop. God damn.
I should have went full Gordon Ramsay. Oh, no, but did the two slices of bread. You’re an idiot sandwich.
Jan Janerson 41:13
dollars. Well, that’s very nice for you, sweetheart. Good for you. I
Calvin Tilokee 41:17
worked at a hotel that did 19 million. How’s that? I mean,
Jan Janerson 41:21
I answer your question, Jessica.
Calvin Tilokee 41:24
Yeah, got good. I think I could sling some lattes.
Oh, man. All right. So we got we got two from the audience here before we get into the segments. This one is a good one. What’s the pettiest reason you didn’t hire somebody?
Jan Janerson 41:46
Oh, my God. Okay, don’t hate me. So the candidate took off her shoes.
Mikko Miller 41:54
Oh,
Jan Janerson 41:56
my whole office. Damn. And so I am grateful for the mask thing that society has so lovingly embraced. Because it hides my resting bitchface really, really
goes through my tiny little brain shows up on my face, every thought every so if I’m thinking of something I saw on Tick tock, I will start laughing and you will look at me like I am fucking nuts. But every single in my head goes across my face. So in my head, I’m trying to listen to her answer these questions. And I’m just thinking, can she not smell? Can she? My audience and my followers are gonna say like, you shouldn’t do that she could have had a thing and she probably did she take her shoes off. In the interview. It was it almost gagged. I’m not gonna lie, I almost gagged. And I just couldn’t bring myself to bring that person into an environment where I knew it would not be safe for her in the long run. There would there would be tremendous. In that particular environment, there would have been tremendous peer pressure and things said and people fired and it just wouldn’t have been a good scene. So it just I I think that was the pettiest reason I never hired somebody.
Calvin Tilokee 43:45
I mean, it’s petty but I don’t think anybody disagrees with
Jan Janerson 43:51
that. Like, the only thing that I’ve ever smelled worse was New Orleans in late June.
Mikko Miller 44:01
Oh, oh.
Jan Janerson 44:04
I mean, that’s 100 years of human everything baking in the Louisiana sun and this this smell was second to only that.
Mikko Miller 44:19
So huh? Wow, this sounds like a bad one nightstand.
Calvin Tilokee 44:29
Oh, my God. Oh, man. All right. And last one before we hit the segments is what are telltale signs that you would or would not hire someone
Jan Janerson 44:41
held tale signs off at telltale signs I would hire somebody authenticity. being who they are genuinely means that they will be able to build whether they realize it or not immediate trust with They’re managers and their colleagues. And that is just something you can’t ever teach somebody is to be themselves, right. So authenticity would be a reason, I would definitely be able to hire somebody. I think being able to give me complete answers to the question because I don’t ask like the canned questions, right? I try to make my interviews, I try to coach my team to make their interviews, we employ a group interview, DEP in many of our departments in my company, and that is to just have a good conversation. So we take into account that the candidate could be nervous or concerned or maybe jumping back in after a while, if they can roll with the conversation, and give answers that sound, or clearly demonstrate, I should say, their critical thinking skills that again, you can’t teach someone to critically think they either do or they don’t look for all of the things I can’t teach. Once I get you know, once I’ve I’ve looked and made sure that you know, they they would know what they’re talking about, right? I’m not for example, I’m not going to hire someone to work on leaves of absence or employment situations that don’t know the difference between say furlough layoff and permanent separation, right? Those I want to see on the resume, but then in the conversation, I want to hear about a particular furlough or lay off, or separation that they did, and how they made that situation. As dignified as possible for their fellow employees. Right. I want to see an us not an us and them or me and them kind of thing. Does that make sense?
Calvin Tilokee 47:06
Yeah. Okay, good. Now, again, hope you listen and take them take some notes, pull over the car, write this down. Follow the information. Get off the treadmill, whatever you’re doing, write this down, make some notes
Mikko Miller 47:23
record. Put that I haven’t I love it.
Calvin Tilokee 47:31
Well, that was fantastic. Jen, thank you so much for those wonderful answers. Some really good insight there and I think we brought a lot of value to the audience in there. So Alrighty, so we’re just gonna get right into it. Now it’s time for I don’t like that.
Mikko Miller 47:50
Alright, so for for the people that have been following me on Instagram and saw my recent story for today. My jerk of the week is Kentucky Fried Chicken or KFC as they’re now known as I go to the drive thru on my lunch break order something simple Nashville Hot chicken tenders three pieces with French fries. Nothing crazy. I didn’t ask for like a special sauce or cooked a certain way just combo number three on the Nashville Hot chicken tenders. I pay it’s not that difficult of an order. I should have checked my bags, which is my bad but I didn’t you know I’m on my lunch break. I’m taking a 30 minute lunch today. Roll up the bag get my drink. I go park my car opened my bag. And there’s two pieces of fried chicken in there a drumstick and thigh it’s like you fuck up
a simple order there was no one in line. No one’s dining inside. You know? So the girl that got me my food that place it in the bag didn’t it didn’t register to her like hey, this isn’t this guy’s food let me go fix it. She takes whatever bag I guess you could find hands it over to me and she even quote as I quote. She even said, Oh, you got the Nashville Hot three piece. Yes. Give me the bat. So I ordered the Nashville Hot. She confirmed it. I paid for it. She reconfirmed it when she handed me the bag so I thought we were Gucci. I come home I was so disappointed. I had my mind set on eating that Nashville Hot chicken wings. And I get home or I get I get back to working it’s a fucking drumstick and a thigh. original recipe.
Jan Janerson 49:35
I saw that picture Mikko It wasn’t just like disappointed. pieces of chicken or chicken yesterday I was horrible. I’m sorry.
Mikko Miller 49:57
I kid you not I hate the drumstick. I like lost my appetite. I was just teed off. I ate the drumstick and I left the thigh from my wife. Okay. But yeah, so fuck that chick.
Calvin Tilokee 50:13
Seriously how you fuck up this kind of shit man? Maybe it was Mario Lopez from your favorite
the colonel is Mario Lopez. Lopez Ah geez all right well Jan I’ll go now so we’ll let you do the honors. In wrap up the segment miser quick one mine is clearly I’m selling my home because I’m moving to LA in a month. And last weekend, we had a showing showing was set for 130 so you know, we got to get out of the house and you know, get up we go pick up my mother in law for lunch with dress, you know, everyday we going out to lunch? Otherwise we weren’t we weren’t going anywhere. We’re like, well, should we mind as we gotta leave the house. So we might as well go do something we leave at around one o’clock. I get a call at 110 from my realtor saying oh, I just wanted to make sure that you saw that the people cancelled and they want to come tomorrow. I was like 20 minutes before the appointment after I’d done got up clean the house. You got to move stuff because you don’t want to nobody grabbing something small you know, they want to take your iPad, you will know they don’t know what it’s just missing for weeks. You know, so we got to get up we got to clean we got to make the whole house look speaking span for you to cancel 20 minutes out. I don’t like that. That’s fucked up.
Mikko Miller 51:44
I agreed. Yeah, that’s like people that call in late 10 minutes after your shift starts. Yeah. She would call me 30 minutes ago, bro.
Calvin Tilokee 51:57
Like, why are you texting right? Right. Like you ain’t no he was gonna be late until just now. Right?
Crazy. Oh, boy. All right, Jen, get in there.
Jan Janerson 52:15
See? I’m the bitch it’s going to make this political man so soft that jerk is because dislike is way too weak a description for the feelings I have for this person. Got thing thing? I don’t even know what is. Cherokee County Sheriff Captain J. Baker, who claimed the murder of those people in Atlanta was just having a bad day.
Mikko Miller 52:44
Yeah, yeah. Heard about
Jan Janerson 52:50
what really infuriates me is that he is the head of their communications and PR division. Basically, they’re their PR I don’t think that’s exactly what they call it. He was the one who was supposed to get it right he was their best air quotes best. Which tells you so many things about how bad that culture really is. And even the apology even the spicy apology they offered for what he said wasn’t a real apology. It was piss poor glad handing saying oh, well we regret if his words cause harm. Fuck you. You know what he said? cost? Right. Hey, you’re sorry, applicant. Goddamnit. Don’t apologize. And then get to work. So,
Calvin Tilokee 53:42
huh? That jerk I love it.
Mikko Miller 53:49
Bad Day. Fuck. Yeah. When I saw that, I was like, you know, I don’t I don’t shoot eight people’s had a bad day. You know, I might slam my phone down once or you know, go hide in the restroom for 15 minutes. Right. Right.
Jan Janerson 54:06
To get some national hot tenders. You know?
Mikko Miller 54:12
That’s right. Eat my way out of my misery. Exactly,
Calvin Tilokee 54:16
exactly as most of us do. Alright, well, now it’s time for the trivia segment.
Jan Janerson 54:22
Oh, no, not yet.
Calvin Tilokee 54:30
Oh, boy. And as always, when we have guests. Guest climatically in the hot seat. Okay. Jen, hop up on that Nashville Hot Seat. All right. First, I had to prepared for you. So first I’m going to ask Are you a fan of the office. Have you ever watched the office?
Jan Janerson 54:51
I have I haven’t watched I should be very clear the office US version. I have not gotten to the UK version.
Calvin Tilokee 55:00
Okay, okay, well, American version is a lot better in my opinion. And I think most people, most people agree with that. But okay. Okay, so Toby, from the office was the Human Resources representative. Yeah. In season four he moves to a new country. What country did he move to?
Jan Janerson 55:27
Brazil?
Calvin Tilokee 55:29
I’ll give you a hint a lot of white people for some reason.
Jan Janerson 55:36
Or the Nazis because I’m still sticking with Brazil.
Sweden, I don’t know.
Some people move there was gonna say Florida, but you know, obviously not.
Calvin Tilokee 55:55
Not another country. It’s a Costa Rica.
Jan Janerson 56:00
Costa Rica.
Mikko Miller 56:03
That’s true. expats move a lot over there.
Calvin Tilokee 56:06
Yeah.
Jan Janerson 56:11
Most of the HR people that I know are not like Toby, they are a blend of Oscar and Meredith. So
Calvin Tilokee 56:24
that is perfect. All right. So now it’s time to wrap it up with the favorite segment of the audience.
Mikko Miller 56:38
All right, let’s go. Mine is staff or employees who don’t say good morning back when I say good morning to them because they woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Or they didn’t get their hit of drugs last night. That’s just fucking rude. All right. We’ll see if you keep up that energy when you need a day off in the middle of the week. Alright. rude. I say good morning. They just look at me with a stank face. All right. Okay. I’ll remember that. Like Calvin said, I remember that when you need something from me later on. You stand guess.
Calvin Tilokee 57:19
Exactly next time to ask you a question. But I’m on my break. Yeah, that’s,
Mikko Miller 57:24
that’s the negative. That’s a big negative right there. That’s a big, negative,
Jan Janerson 57:30
negative.
Calvin Tilokee 57:32
All right, we’ll do that. We’ll do the ladies last again. So we give her the spotlight. I’m going back to the workplace. For mine, get off my lawn with the quote unquote, all hands on deck needed for the holiday party. Okay. I don’t I don’t care about your holiday party. Because most of the time, this shit ain’t even scheduled and send like 10 days out. I remember that happened at a hotel I was at where we came back. I mean, it’s the holidays, right? People make plans. You got people coming over on the weekend family and all of this. 10 days before the event. They send out the flyer, you know, that that kid’s party on the weekend. They always got to come in on a Saturday to you know, for everybody to come in and bring their kids they want you to dress up like Santa. Fuck you. Okay? All hands on deck my ass. Alright, y’all gonna play weekly? You didn’t know Christmas was coming. It’s the same day every year. All right, we’re gonna need more than 10 days to know. You have plenty of time. You had a whole year to plan that. 10 days out. You’re gonna tell me Oh, well. You need to be here on Saturday. Fuck out. off my lawn.
Mikko Miller 58:36
It’s funny.
Jan Janerson 58:40
My turn?
Calvin Tilokee 58:42
Yes. Yes, ma’am. All right.
Jan Janerson 58:44
So get off my lawn with believing that HR is your cruise director department. I’m so tired of people in my inbox going. Today is National milkshake day. What is the company doing for us? I don’t know. Go Go get yourself a milkshake. Take a selfie. I’ll see if marketing wants to put it on Instagram page about that. Like, what’s free donut day? Are we getting donuts today? Yeah, pandemic. Right. Getting near each other. Like, go back and do your job, please. National milkshake was Taco Tuesday or we have a cab we are not a cafeteria. I don’t have a special day planned for every single day of your life. This isn’t fucking kindergarten. Hmm. So yeah. Along with all your fucking holidays.
Mikko Miller 59:55
Preach
Calvin Tilokee 1:00:00
All these fucking social media holidays like today was World Water Day. Did they ask you for water? Or, you know,
Jan Janerson 1:00:06
I wouldn’t ask me for the world, I’m sure.
Calvin Tilokee 1:00:10
Yeah. Water we got
right. All right. So now it’s time for the Chris Rock quote of the week. Yeah. Now we’ll do ladies First Ladies first. Okay, final segment.
Jan Janerson 1:00:29
So my Chris Rock quote, I tend to gravitate towards the Chris Rock quotes that are hilarious, but also like, secretly high key real deep. And my favorite quote of his is, I think it’s better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier.
Mikko Miller 1:00:54
I like that. Deep, deep, like, Okay.
Calvin Tilokee 1:01:01
Okay. That’s probably that’s got to be the deepest quote so far now. Yeah, I went with the, with the smart Chris.
Mikko Miller 1:01:08
Yeah, that was poignant.
Well, I’m bringing mine back to the oj simpson situation.
Calvin Tilokee 1:01:19
Yes.
Mikko Miller 1:01:21
My movie daddy. So So you got to look at oj situation. He’s paying $25,000 a month in alimony. He’s got another man driving around in his car fucking his wife in a house. He’s still paying mortgage on now. I’m not saying you should have killed her. But I understand.
Calvin Tilokee 1:01:48
That shit never never gets old.
Mikko Miller 1:01:52
I laugh every time I read it every time. Okay.
Calvin Tilokee 1:01:58
Let me get this out. buy you a cup. You’re gonna let them love the man drive around in my car. I’ll be your fucking mind. Okay, if he was driving my Pinto, like the Godfather. Yep.
Love it. Love it. Alright, so mine Mine has stayed on the on the workplace HR tip. Some people have jobs. Some people have careers. Some people in audience have careers. Now the people in the audience with careers need to learn to shut the fuck up when you’re on people with jobs. Don’t let your happiness make somebody sad.
Mikko Miller 1:02:48
It’s so fucking true.
Calvin Tilokee 1:02:55
All right, great show. Jan, thank you for joining us here in the man cave. That was Thank you very entertaining and educational. I am sure the audience will get a lot out of that. So thank you for joining us and parting your human resources wisdom.
Jan Janerson 1:03:10
Thank you for having me. It was incredibly fun.
Calvin Tilokee 1:03:15
Love it. Love it. All right, this is Calvin. As always, you can find me on Instagram at Revparblems my own new travel page scotch in a suitcase. Our HR related page called the G spot g for growth. Or just head over to Revparblems COMM
Mikko Miller 1:03:35
And this is Mikko to Filipino. You can catch me on Instagram at Mikko underscore eats and go check out the KFC picture on my G story.
Jan Janerson 1:03:46
Please join me in our Instagram community at not Sherm sh RM approved You can also join us in our clubhouse club not Sherm approved. And you can follow me there and I’m also on Twitter. Also not sure reproved not terribly original. But join us. Give me a little shout out and ask me a question resource whatever you need. I’m here for you guys.
Calvin Tilokee 1:04:16
Love it. Thank you for joining us on another episode of midlife crisis podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please leave us a review on iTunes and you may get a shout out on air. And speaking of being on air, now you can become a part of the show by supporting us on Patreon. You got your high life members, you got your mid life members and you got your low life members. Nobody wants to be a low life member. For as little as $5 a month you can get early access to episodes extended cuts of episodes featuring behind the scenes content and the ability to send in your own audio for get off my lawn. Hit the link in our show notes to get a life. Keep up with us in between episodes on Instagram at midlife crisis podcast when they allow me to live Back in. I’ll post more content. Show Notes for this and all episodes are available on midlife crisis podcast.com where you can sign up for our mailing list and get a discount off the merch. We got hats we got t-shirts. We got we got some fire ship Mikko we got start designing.
Mikko Miller 1:05:18
Yes sir. Yes sir.
Calvin Tilokee 1:05:21
Right and thank you all for tuning in and we will catch you on the next one.
Calvin Tilokee 0:02
Hello and welcome to the midlife crisis podcast. I’m your host Calvin, also known as Revparblems on Instagram. I’m excited to do this talk show with my best friends from high school and college. Steven Mikko, what can you expect on this podcast? Well, I like to call it a talk show for Men of a Certain Age. We’re not quite old. But we’re the kind of guys that have to make sure we don’t miss our alcohol on a night out, you know, we’ll chat about current events, trending topics, and things that we just need to get on our soapbox about knowing us. We’ll be laughing the whole time. And ladies, don’t worry. If you ever wanted to know what your husband or boyfriend talks about in the man cave. Stick around. And now keep in mind, we’re old enough to remember when Parental Advisory stickers went on CDs. We don’t know what CDs are. You’re too young for this podcast. Speaking of which, make sure you have your headphones in. It’s NSFW as these kids say. We’ll be bringing that flavor to your weekly on your way to work while you’re shaving, or just sitting around wondering why you’re backwards. But let’s get this show on the road. Hello, and welcome to the midlife crisis podcast. I’m your host Calvin. Here as always with my boy Steven Mikko, bringing that flavor to you here on a weekly basis. We have a special treat for you this week. As we’ve uncovered and remastered our first ever podcast episode, you’ll hear us discuss our upbringing, how we propose to our wives, and the first ever get off my lawn. This show begins mid conversation with me talking about getting my ass whipped by my mom. Please enjoy. Oh, man. Yeah, that’s crazy. Yeah, I remember once getting hit with a pain stir. Because I had told you before we moved from Brooklyn to to Westchester. So needless to say life was life is a little different in those two situations, right. So Brooklyn, we had the shower is like the shower doors that are on tracks. Yeah. So you get in the shower, or you close the door so you don’t have to think about it. We moved to Westchester, there’s curtains, the shower curtains. Were sometimes a curtain outside of the tub. Yeah, I’m like, Whoa, you know, I don’t know what to do with this. So I jump in the shower. But that plastic curtain was outside the tub. Hmm.
Steve 2:08
So what are on the floor?
Calvin Tilokee 2:10
Exactly? Yeah. I didn’t know why no. exit plan again.
I’m 12 I’m not exactly responsible for these type of things happening. Like now if that were to happen, like I have those shower curtains in my apartment now. But I know if I forget to do that. I’m had to clean it up afterwards.
Mikko Miller 2:27
Right. Right. Right, right.
Calvin Tilokee 2:29
So you start to remember these things. Also, the asked weapon I got for having the floral wet is probably what makes me Never forget to do that again, at this stage of life. But yeah, that was the paints 30 we got a lot of belts. You got a belt. I remember one time getting hit with a belt or trying to get hit. And it was like, I was jumping on my bed to try to get away. So my daddy was like that. Yeah. And I’m jumping it away. It was like, oh, Western. Jump. Right. Get out of the way. But a smack. So. Yeah, yeah, you know, but listen, we all turned out fine, I think. Yeah. Yes, we did. Yes, we did. So, you know, shout out to all our parents. For the tough love. Tough Love. It was all love.
Steve 3:15
It was love you my parents were never my friends.
Mikko Miller 3:19
I mean, we’re friends.
Steve 3:21
Until I was grown up. Exactly. Thank God. There were parents, not the kind of parents that want to be your friend. Yeah, they’ll be friends with a kid. Yeah.
Calvin Tilokee 3:33
Michael Jackson. That’s about it. Exactly.
Go have to edit a lot of shit.
Mikko Miller 3:45
If you if your daughter calls you, Mama, Mama, Mama. Pam. She goes. Why are you at the club? It’s Wednesday. Is it your birthday? Is it your birthday? Go home and take care of them. Kids. 20 robbed me in 10 years.
Calvin Tilokee 4:09
Oh, good. So, Steve, you mentioned that you live overseas for a while Mikko knows at some part of your upbringing. You grew up overseas as well.
Mikko Miller 4:18
Yeah, I’m born in the Philippines. Stayed so I was five. My dad joined the military at a later age in his life, stationed in Germany, lived there for seven years. Went back to the Philippines for a year. Went back to Germany for another three and then the rest of my life. I lived in Maryland where I went for high school and college. So that’s army brat. army brat been all over traveled all over Europe. He took advantage of it. And yeah, Maryland is kind of like my, my formative years was in Germany, but a lot of things that I remember was from Maryland, obviously middle school, high school, college. That’s what really like you know, grew went up in the military environment, you’re sheltered on if you guys know we’re in the army base, like, months and days at a time, we don’t venture out as much into the community. So we live with a lot of army brat and a lot of people in the military. But once we came to Maryland, it was like free for all you know, it’s like public school letting go to private school went to public school and it’s like, awesome. This is what it’s like, you know, not everyone’s so well behaved in in the military, your kids misbehave, the parents get punished, the soldier gets punished. Oh, good. So you don’t behave you know, if you’re out past curfew, you don’t get punished. Your dad gets punished and you know, your IDs could be revoked. Lose rank, there’s a lot of things that can happen to you don’t do that shit. You know, so when in Maryland, it was like, Oh, it’s like a free for all. Like, that’s my newfound freedom. And that’s kind of like what I do. I did a lot of growing up in Maryland.
Calvin Tilokee 5:51
Wow. That’s cool. That’s interesting. Interesting. And that’s one of the things I’d say about college and like those years, you know, that’s where you do least for me, that’s where I did my growing up. Really? It’s where you want to become an adult. Yeah, you got to take care of yourself. Clean a bank account?
Mikko Miller 6:13
Yep. Spending you got to spend budget, you know, 2999 for a week, nothing in the last few months, but you might ramen and you know, dollar hams and juices and you know, you don’t buy a mountain dew you buy a What’s that? A lion? mountain lion? What?
Calvin Tilokee 6:31
Cuz Yeah, the local supermarket was called food line. So they’re, they’re at home brand or whatever you want to call it. Their their white label brand was called mountain lion. Yeah. Yeah, it was a tiger and again.
Oh, man, those are good ties. Yeah, good time. So where did you live in Germany?
Mikko Miller 7:02
I lived in a place called schweinfurth. For the first tour duty. I mean, actually, no. freeburg was the first tour of duty. And then the second one was schweinfurth feet, but it was about two hours away from Frankfurt. schweinfurth was about an hour away from Frankfurt. It’s, it’s close to like the worst Berg I don’t know if you guys know that. But if you know Dirk Novitsky I think he’s coming to worse Burg area. So it’s close to where he grew up.
Calvin Tilokee 7:26
Okay. Yeah, I’ve been to Germany one time, went to Boston, Boston. Yes, as I showed where I got engaged. And then we went to Frankfurt for a few days, I think I was there for a week until it I think three or four days in Boston, Boston, then a couple in Frankfurt. And then back home.
Mikko Miller 7:45
Did you guys do those public baths in Boston, Boston, that’s what they’re known for. Right?
Calvin Tilokee 7:50
Well, the hotel we stayed at, had some of that water at the hotel. So the hotel pool and the hot tub had this water. So Boston, Boston is known for these natural thermal bats that just come out of the earth. Similar to I think we have some similar things in Yellowstone here in this country, and Canada has places like that. So that whole town is known for that. And it’s Historically, the kaisers are the kings of Germany would go to this area for vacation to relax and this was their, you know, vacations button or the better way to say it, but like a spa destination, basically. And they have these big public houses where you go in and all the water in the pools and everything is this natural thermal mineral water that’s supposed to be really good for you, you can drink it and it’s supposed to have a lot of health benefits. But mostly you swim in it and just it’s good for your skin and to seep into your pores and all that stuff. So that’s what Mikko is talking about. But this hotel we stayed at which is now a Radisson It was called the what’s called a bottle shut off. That’s that was so sick doesn’t take man
Mikko Miller 9:01
that silly me? Yeah.
Calvin Tilokee 9:06
Yeah, this hotel had that running right into the into the property. So they had one of these pools where you could swim from inside outside user of the park. They had a nice little park behind it. So obviously you don’t forget that because that’s that’s where I got engaged that that was a good memories there.
Mikko Miller 9:24
How’d you do it?
Calvin Tilokee 9:27
Oh, that’s it. I have that question on the list. So we Yeah, we will go through that. That was as most things with my relationship as you probably would expect. If anybody he already knows me, it didn’t go according to plan. You know, this. There’s we Anna and I joke that we, you know, we don’t do anything romantic like this traditional romance. It’s just when we try to do things like that things. It just doesn’t work out. It’s and it started from the beginning, I would say so. I went and my wife Parents are Russian. So I needed I went I was very traditional. I wrote a letter to her sister who was bilingual. So she translated the letter for me to give to her parents and get permission, and which I did. So then I went to propose, but that night, we all we all went out to dinner. And my father in law ruin the surprise, because he starts grilling me at dinner, about like, why do you want to marry her and listen, and he doesn’t speak English. So he’s really me through her younger sister, who was maybe about 17 at the time.
Mikko Miller 10:35
Oh, damn.
Calvin Tilokee 10:37
So he starts asking me, so obviously, my wife couldn’t understand that the translation and everything and he sounds good to me like, Well, why do you love her and listen, and why do you want to get married to her? I’m like, how do you answer that question? Like, seriously? How do you answer why do you love this person? Oh, I love her because she’s five foot seven. And I love it cuz I love her. Like who she is. Right? Like, how do you explain something like that? And, anyway, the worst mistake, as if that wasn’t bad enough. I must have been nervous. not thinking straight. Whatever. My dumb ass decides to order curry.
Unknown Speaker 11:12
In German.
Calvin Tilokee 11:15
Oh, not not London. Yeah. Not India. Not even New York City. I’m in Germany. I’m in Barton, Barton, Germany, and I was like, the curry shrimp. Sounds good. So I get this curry shrimp. We go back to the hotel. And I’m like,
Unknown Speaker 11:36
running right through you.
Calvin Tilokee 11:37
Yes. Like, this is gonna be a long night. But I decide. That’s the night like the mood is right? to propose to my girl. That one that night. I figured, yeah, this is the time to do it. All the stars are aligning.
Mikko Miller 11:56
I just couldn’t wait. Oh, my God is talking to me. But
Calvin Tilokee 11:59
like, baby, something my gut was just talking to me just spoke to me that night and said, now’s the time to do it. But in all seriousness, I just couldn’t wait any more. Like I was excited to do it. So my vision was to slip it on her finger while we were sleeping. And then She’d wake up in the morning. And it’d be like the movies where she’s like, oh, teary eyed and I get down on one knee and belay Baby, you know, you want this for the rest of your life. You know, and all that stuff. I like how you put your shoulders into that one. Oh, yeah, you got to you got. You got to romance it
Mikko Miller 12:39
yet.
Calvin Tilokee 12:40
So I got the ring in the in the box under the bed. I grab it. And I’m trying to move like real quiet and slow. So I grab it, got it in my hand. She’s not moving. And I finally like slip it on her finger and then like, turn around. And I wait. And wait. Maybe 30 seconds goes by. And then all of a sudden she says you want to say something. And this is when I discovered my wife is a light sleeper. Because I kept getting up and out of bed. And then she felt me put it on her finger. She’s like, you’re gonna say something. So nice. I’m sure I stutter. I’m like, I wasn’t expecting this, right? Oh, yeah, baby, you want to? I love you and you want to like, marry me? I honestly can’t remember what I said. I can’t remember it for the life of me What? What came out after that? But she said yes. And we’re still married after 13 years. So that’s most important.
Mikko Miller 13:44
The rest is history. The rest is history.
Calvin Tilokee 13:45
That’s it. But that pretty much set the tone for our relationship. Anytime we try to do some romantic. That’s pretty much how it goes. So that’s me, I’ll get used to see.
Steve 13:59
That’s a fantastic story. Oh my god, I can just hear her saying that. So. So when. So when I asked Maria to marry me. I did the same thing. I was very traditional asked Marie’s Dad, you know, talk to her mom. I didn’t talk to her sister. And then Marie was taken me to Niagara Falls for my birthday. And so like a day before we leave, she comes down with mana. She’s like, you know, I still want to do it. I still want to take you you’ll drive most of the way. But I’ll, I’ll take it. So um, so we’re going up there and I didn’t want to propose to her on my birthday. So I waited until like, 11 o’clock. We’re both kind of up still. She’s getting kind of tired. I go, hey, what if we went for a walk? And I’m dragging this poor woman around until it’s like after just after midnight. So I don’t propose on my birthday.
Mikko Miller 15:00
Yeah,
Steve 15:02
exactly. And walking around the falls and we’re heading over towards the falls. And as we’re walking, I’m like, I’m holding her tight. And I noticed that there’s a couple ahead of us and they’re full on banging it out on the park that I’m passing them to what I have proposed to my wife, but this romantic, romantic moment. And so
Calvin Tilokee 15:28
romantic butts on the planet.
Steve 15:29
These guys, they they were full on boning. There’s, I mean, in to this day, she’ll say,
Mikko Miller 15:36
I never noticed I never noticed. I don’t either.
Steve 15:40
I don’t either. And so, you know, right when we got there, I looked at my watch was about five past or so. And I dropped to one knee. I asked her I held my hand up and I remember the face she made still to this day. And she her ass was up after that. It was she was calling everybody probably went probably went to bed at like two or three in the morning that night. Yeah, yeah. Had to i, whoever those two people are there forever etched in my memory as you know, as whatever, whatever was going on. It was very passionate. And there was a mon, so pretty clear. What was shaken.
Calvin Tilokee 16:20
You know, you know, we all go to Niagara Falls for for different reasons. So how long have you guys been married now?
Steve 16:28
16 years. 16 years this past July? 13.
Calvin Tilokee 16:32
Nice. Yeah. Wow. I have a feeling those three people to light there.
Mikko Miller 16:38
Yeah. This is good.
Calvin Tilokee 16:43
Yeah, yeah, we’ll make sure that edited. Because as long as you got the gift on the third. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I did that for the first few years of my marriage. Sure. Like I forgot exactly what date you got married. You think it’s a seven but I used to say the sixth? All the time. And then she she’d be looking because people would ask and she’d look at me. I’m like, What? At least I remember. We got anniversary. I mean, I’m doing remember they married.
Mikko Miller 17:13
Exactly. Anyway. Exactly.
Calvin Tilokee 17:16
So but you Mikko you gotta you gotta top those stories.
Mikko Miller 17:20
Unfortunately, I can’t. Mine’s just boring compared to you guys. I don’t have any interesting stories like you guys. We first off, I got laid off at work as I saved up for a ring. And as I saved up for the trip, you know, we live in California. We planned on a three week trip back east. She’s never been so I was gonna take it to like DC, Baltimore, and then up to New York health care pros in New York Times Square. But then I got laid off, but we still went on with a trip. You know, I took my money. We went onto the trip. You go to Times Square. Where you go eat lunch with my mom. My mom brought her sisters along because they all knew cat didn’t know. And just in the middle of Times Square, you know, I try to time it where the camera was right on us, you know, in that big O screen and dropped to one knee? I timed it perfectly. I dropped to one knee. Everyone’s looking and she said yes. I had my aunt, you know with a camera to record a moment. And she was so caught up by the moment. The proposal wasn’t even what I remembered. My aunt was supposed to be recording. And she got so caught up in the moment you put the camera down and got people’s feet. Oh, I love you. If you hear this, sorry.
Calvin Tilokee 18:34
Oh, man, you know what was so And how long have you been married now?
Mikko Miller 18:39
Only five years guys. So I started started kind of late.
Calvin Tilokee 18:43
Dude, that’s that’s that’s still a long time for most people. And I think what would I tell people once you get past the five years, you said like the warranty is expired? Yeah, neither one of you could return it at this point. So you Good.
Mikko Miller 18:57
Good. And as far as anniversaries go, I keep it to the month. It’s June. So that’s the you guys
Calvin Tilokee 19:06
that I see. Yeah, that’s a Yeah, I got set up the same way. Because our our anniversary is April 7, seven. Yeah. My wife’s birthday is the 27th Okay, okay, so April is just shot for me Gosh, like for life like so. It’s the same April I could just get a gift to gifts in the mid week of April and probably be good. There you go. Probably not. I’m probably gonna have to edit that out. But I don’t think that I don’t think it’s gonna work. So she Oh, she got me to early birthday guess but misty and crispy.
Mikko Miller 19:43
Lovely Anna.
Calvin Tilokee 19:45
It was funny. It was funny is that none of us has a normal proposal story.
Mikko Miller 19:50
No,
Calvin Tilokee 19:51
you know, nothing goes the way you expected in the movies.
Mikko Miller 19:56
I wish it did. You know like I said like I had planned out the timing, you know? thing, but it just, it just didn’t work out that way. Like I think more people will either focused on the big screen or on us to actually be recording. So now when I’m like wanting to view how I did it, whatever is like I have to go off a memory like with everyone else. Yeah.
Calvin Tilokee 20:16
That’s probably for the best. Probably maybe. I mean, we were just talking about this recently, because the hotel where we met, just closed for good. Because of Yeah, because of COVID. You know, I guess they’ve been they’ve been closed for some time and financially realized that it just wasn’t going to make sense. So they’ve closed for good. And that hotel, which is the the Hilton writedown, or the Hilton Westchester is it later became known was Yeah, it’s completely, completely closed. They just closed it last week.
Mikko Miller 20:49
And
Calvin Tilokee 20:50
on top of that, where we got married, we got married in Hawaii, on Molokai, which is the smallest Hawaiian island. They won’t keep going, right? Yeah, it was called the Molokai ranch that that hotel closed down about a year after we got married. So we were joking the other days, like, you know, if we ever want to go back to our monumental places, like they just don’t exist. I’m not sure if that’s what that’s supposed to mean. But we can’t go back to where we got married. And we can’t go back to where we got met. Neither one of these places exist anymore. It’s not money, right?
Mikko Miller 21:28
That’s small, apocalyptic. Sheer. Yeah.
Steve 21:31
I got to monetize that somehow.
Mikko Miller 21:34
You got it. Right. Exactly.
Calvin Tilokee 21:37
Exactly. So speaking of COVID, since that’s kind of come up in you know, the impact on that particular hotel? How is how has that been for you guys? and I, we didn’t even touch on what we all do for a living at this point. Not that it necessarily matters. But if you want people to know, but how has it impacted? your work life? Have you developed any new habits during this time? What’s up?
Mikko Miller 22:02
I’ll tackle it on let’s see, well, I work for a large HMO health care provider. So we never shut down. My department that I have have 51 people that I’m in charge of, we never shut down. So as the whole country went into lockdown, we stayed open, obviously, we handle like medical records and things like that. So we were considered essential employees. Yeah, so we stayed open, and we’re still open. Now, as certain departments and certain facilities have are shut down and go through like, you know, intermittent shutdowns and intermittent closings, we remained open. We try to stay diligent with, you know, social distancing, and wearing masks and gloves and try to, you know, space each other out as much as we can. But it’s rough because you don’t know what these people do. Even me, they don’t know what I do outside of work at work, we try to be safe, you know, but outside of work, people can take off mask and go wherever the heck they want to do but at work to have this. You know, like a policy where you keep your mask on you stay away, you don’t sneeze in front of other people. But it doesn’t mean you’re not bringing it in. So, but as far as habits that I’ve developed, doing COVID my wife and I, I think you’ve developed the habit of enjoying Uber Eats. food delivery is like, awesome. It’s like, I don’t know why it wasn’t invented before. But that’s kind of like a habit. Not necessarily a good habit that we develop. But you know, we love Postmates Uber Eats us want to sponsor us. Let’s definitely use your services like every day, almost every day. Yeah.
Calvin Tilokee 23:45
Hey, nothing wrong with that, man.
Mikko Miller 23:46
Got he
Calvin Tilokee 23:47
got restaurants gotta make money.
Mikko Miller 23:50
That’s true. That’s true. Everything’s takeout nowadays, so.
Calvin Tilokee 23:53
Yeah. Yeah.
Steve 23:56
So, I, so I worked for a software company, and I work with, you know, pretty large. I consultants, so that software to pretty large companies, and I’ve always worked out in my house. So you know, when COVID hit, it wasn’t, it wasn’t a big deal for me. workwise um, you know, from my day to day, I mean, it disrupted a lot of my customers and I’ve had to work through that but the only thing that the only thing that’s changed for me from a work life balances. Now I have my daughter and my wife with me all the time. And prior to us moving in to this house where we are now we were doing this out of you know, small to small two bedroom and it was got hairy a couple times but you know, all in all, now that we’re in this house, it’s it’s a lot easier that we can just kind of spread out. Yeah. But from a you know, how it’s you know, a funny way in which it’s in which it’s impacting us is that we are, you’re more, you’re a lot more careful about who you go with, who you see, you know, you’re very upfront about asking them what they do, you know, what they, you know, what do you do? What do you not what you do, but what you what I meant to say was? Um, have you come in contact with or are you wearing a mask? You know, we’re much more diligent about that stuff. And we’ve, you know, a few times we’ve invited some people over then they’ve been they’ve had to back out because they, you know, came in contact with someone, nom and, and we’ve even said, hey, look, I I saw my, you know, I saw so and so yesterday, I’m not, you know, I don’t know what their situation is. Enough. So I’m going to kind of keep to myself for the next two weeks. And I will say I Well, we don’t do a micos food delivery. We do. I have. I have come to really enjoy wine from Costco. And I have zero shaman in in in saying that I really enjoy it.
Calvin Tilokee 26:13
Nice.
Steve 26:13
So, you know, you know, shoot every, you know, every other night. It’s what kind of wine from Costco Do you want to pop? And that’s, that’s what’s changed with us right now. What
Calvin Tilokee 26:25
kind of wine Do you get at Costco?
Steve 26:27
So, if I, if I point the camera off to my right, you’ll see that there is a name of a vo ha no walbeck and Alexander Valley cab, and I’ll tell you what. It’s so damn good. I mean, it’s just, it’s crazy. Nice. And, and I’ve actually I mean, I like wine I’ve had. I’ve had very, very good wine. I just I know what I like and I know what I’m willing to pay for it. And for the price it’s can’t be
Calvin Tilokee 27:05
Yeah, yeah. I know. A big thing out here is people go to Trader Joe’s for wine. Apparently they have they have cheap wine. It’s supposed to be pretty good. That’s that’s a spot for the for the young kids. Yeah, I don’t do wine anymore. I’ve discovered that me and wine do not agree. How come? I think is the sulfites. Okay, I believe that’s what it is. That messes me up. And Funny enough, I discovered this. When we went to Napa Valley went to wine country last year. And you going around and doing different tastings all day. And I just realized by the end of the day, like I just felt really rundown and weird every single day. And then so I thought I’d have more water, like do a little tasting have more water and I read Okay, maybe with wine, I just need to hydrate more than I do when I drink other types of alcohol. But it’s still, I just wouldn’t feel right. So I think it was our anniversary last year. So we went with the Napa Valley in March. And again, April is our anniversary. So then for our anniversary, we went out and we went to john George, which is like fancy, you know, fine dining. And it was my wife and I think we split two bottles of wine. So I didn’t feel drunk. I just felt very full, like a balloon just like completely, like I was about to pop. And I get home and I’m like, Oh man, I just got to take a shower. I’ll go straight to bed. And I lay there for a while and then realize you know, something got happening. Something is this is not going to work out well. And the best way I could describe it is if you took a full stuff that burrito like from Chipotle, I like to ask and fill it as packet as tight as possible. And then just squeeze it in the middle. It was coming out. That’s Yeah, yeah. And so we’re gonna call episode one. cow’s gastrointestinal issues.
I thought maybe it was something I ate. Yeah, so Oh, man. You know, I had fog rot at night. And I was like, maybe the food was just too rich because I just feel really, really heavy. until October of last year, we went to Barcelona and I had a couple of glasses of Kava, it really wasn’t a lot. And the exact same thing happened. And I said it’s wine. It has to be wine like it just doesn’t agree with me. Now I could drink whiskey all night and be fun. I can drink a lot of different types of alcohol but wine for some reason. It just doesn’t. Doesn’t vibe anymore. So there’s that okay. It’s nothing to do with Coke. By just as far as me with COVID, as you guys know, I’ve worked in hospitality and have for almost 20 years, spent most of that time doing revenue management for hotels. And my the hotel I was at around mid March started to feel the impact of COVID. And you could see people starting to really cancel. And eventually, at first, it was just, Hey, you guys can start working from home because, you know, it’s safer. So we started working from home from about the middle of March, and then late April, my hotel closed. And then it hasn’t reopened to my knowledge. And this is since April. And I don’t know what the impact of that’s going to be market wise and everything. But as far as us haven’t been home since mid March, and just in an apartment for you know, four plus months, we’ve learned to appreciate getting outside. I think that’s been the most important thing. Yeah, what we would do is just kind of end our day with with a walk around the neighborhood. And eventually, it’s all in all is about three miles, but we’d make sure five 530 end of the day, hey, let’s pack up, go for a walk, come back, if we have to work we have to work when we come back, because it was really crazy in the beginning for both of us. But yeah, we really got into walking and we’ve started hiking on the weekends. Now, I had to pay a fresh Tim’s that I never wore, because I go to work like Well, you can’t wait Tim’s to work, right. So now they’re hiking boots, I wear those to go hiking, you know, we’ve done quite a few trails around and discovered things that we didn’t even know, existed around here. So that’s been really good. And I think it really started to appreciate getting out in nature and how much better you feel when you do that. Yeah, just just being out around the trees and fresh air and just walking around for an hour or so every day really, really helps. And that’s been I think the main thing that made them for us is exercise. And I’ve finally got consistent with exercising my gym has been doing virtual classes throughout the whole time. So I’ve been my working out, throw a little yoga mat down in my bedroom and knock out some high intensity workout for you know, 45 minutes. And it’s it’s been the mental effects of that that have had been more most important. You know, I’ve not really changing or losing weight or anything like that. But mentally I realized very early on, if I didn’t work out or go for a walk, I was in a foul mood. I just didn’t feel good. So I’ve realized now the importance people talk about the endorphins and working out makes you feel good and gives you energy now I know what they’re actually talking about, because it really is helped change their mindset. So I’d say that’s the biggest thing for me.
Steve 32:50
That’s fantastic. You know, one of the upsides for me being here is, you know, our daughter’s not going to daycare. And so I get to snipe, you know, a ton of time with her. And and it’s it’s one of the bright spots of the whole thing for me at least.
Calvin Tilokee 33:06
Yeah, well, that’s good. I mean, you get to spend a lot of time with her. Yeah, time you may not otherwise have been able to get.
Steve 33:13
And it’s time that she spends with a stranger who, you know, really spends more time, you know, with her than I do. You know, when when she would go to daycare, right? I hear walking around upstairs, I think she’s going to be a surprise.
Calvin Tilokee 33:30
Surprise, surprise.
Steve 33:33
Yeah. Whenever she surprises me at work, I always just refer refer to her as my intern.
Mikko Miller 33:39
So,
Steve 33:40
I have found that, you know, people have been a lot more accommodating, not accommodating, but just
Mikko Miller 33:47
were something maybe what’s that receptive, now
Steve 33:51
receptive and understanding their overall just more understanding that you know, you’re working from home. So if the dogs barking in the background or some kid, you know, if your interns got to have sliced bananas, you know, you just got to do with
Calvin Tilokee 34:08
the peanut butter.
Mikko Miller 34:09
Yeah, and that’s what I tried some a wife, my wife works from home. She’s a nurse. She used to work in floors, but now she’s working from home. And so it’s a big adjustment for her. So for the first I think four months of COVID I think she went out once and you know, I still go out to work. I still you know, outside so like I don’t feel the effects the same way she does, but she did say the same thing. It’s like going out exactly what Calvin said. Being able to just go out and walk around catch them. sunrays, actually like elevates her mood and the fact that you know, just to be able to just catch fresh air I guess I take advantage of I didn’t realize how much of a disadvantage It was hard to work from home because I mean, you got it easy. You wake up, you know, go straight to work. But just the simple fact of being able to go outside and catch some fresh air and you know see other people and talk to other people intermingle with other people. Like, I just failed to realize that early on that, you know, she probably misses that stuff because you know, she was a bedside nurse for like damn near 20 years. And then now she’s working in it’s like, they do like a telehealth. So it’s all, you know, telephonic. So she does that from home. 24 seven, pretty much.
Steve 35:22
Seven.
Mikko Miller 35:23
I’m not really but you know, her shifts are long, but you know, he gets up early to prepare and then afterwards he does like the notes and stuff. So she’s just home all day. Then I come home and it’s like, dinner. big piece of chicken, you know. Give me a lot of Chris Rock references. Oh, yeah. Great. Yeah.
Steve 35:45
It’s fair to reference that.
Calvin Tilokee 35:46
That one that was a good one. Yeah, that’s it. They didn’t kiss me who’s Chris Rock? Is he like, Kevin Hart? Doesn’t? You know what?
Mikko Miller 35:54
Let’s not start that discussion, man.
Calvin Tilokee 35:55
What do I know? We got a couple minutes left.
Steve 36:00
If you don’t know who Chris Rock is crawl out from under your rock and go see anything by Chris Rock.
Mikko Miller 36:08
Bigger, blacker bringing the pain what’s the new one? What’s the newest? tambourine? tambourine there’s one more before that though. The one that you saw one. Did you watch one carbon?
Calvin Tilokee 36:23
Chris I saw him live he would think he was filming tambourine.
Mikko Miller 36:27
What was the tambourine? Yeah,
Calvin Tilokee 36:28
yeah, that’s what he was doing that with he was funny still funny as hell man. He’s he’s not bring the pain funny, like back in those days. I mean, that is to me is the ultimate like Chris Rock is my favorite. He’s my favorite comedian. I don’t think he’s the best right now. I think Chappelle is by far the best comedian
Chappelle is the best to his his jokes and the way he brings socio economic things together and does it in a way where it’s not really offensive unless you’re just one of those people who gets offended by things. But level he does it Yeah, he does it in such a smooth way that he’s he’s a next level genius. But Chris Rock is just my favorite. This is somebody his delivery and his type of jokes that had always jive with me like he’s always been hilarious.
Mikko Miller 37:17
Yeah, it’s his face. It’s his hands is ready can tell his jokes. Sorry, Chris.
Calvin Tilokee 37:25
I seem you should have killed it. But
Steve 37:31
I like jelly.
Mikko Miller 37:34
Prefer syrup.
Steve 37:35
I don’t think I need to go much more into that one.
Calvin Tilokee 37:42
That was a good segue into our final segment. For tonight. We’re going to start off with something called Get off my lawn. When you young whippersnappers think you got everything figured out. And y’all just need to get off my lawn with that stuff. Oh, so I want to start I’ll start this one. Because I just get tired of people today. Especially these kids that think they invented everything. They think that what they like, has to be the best, like nothing existed before. They started paying attention to stuff. You know, like Drake is the greatest rapper of all time. Don’t get me started. Don’t get me started because we’re going to lose all day for another day.
Mikko Miller 38:23
Because no, yeah. No,
Calvin Tilokee 38:26
you know, LeBron James, best basketball player to ever have existed. Really?
Mikko Miller 38:31
Oh, touchy subject right there. touchy? Oh, no.
Calvin Tilokee 38:36
I mean, we got we got somebody from Ohio on eso. Oh, man, you may have something to say. But
Steve 38:43
you can’t compare their different players they had. It’s just different. It’s like saying Tiger Woods. And jack Nicklaus. You know, from a golf standpoint, you know, there’s just more technology available now that that makes them better athletes, but I think putting the two of them up against each other in their prime.
Mikko Miller 39:01
I don’t know.
Steve 39:04
I’d say Jordan would take him in his prime in his like, UNC days. I think he would he would take LeBron.
Calvin Tilokee 39:11
Let’s see the thing with that is I don’t think it’s not. It’s not a one on one type of thing. Because I know, I know. It’s, well, yeah, I mean, it’s their greatness as to what they’ve accomplished in the game. But, I mean, LeBron is what six nine, like 280, or whatever. I mean, he’s a linebacker, I mean, physically, yes, he’s way more gifted than Jordan. If this was any other player you were talking about who was Jordan sighs you’d say LeBron to take them. But just because of Jordans mentality. I think that’s what separates him from everyone else who’s ever played that sport, and probably most other sports, if you’ve watched the last dance, and you still think LeBron is better. And it’s not even a discussion to you that we can have a conversation like we I mean, as committed As Jordan was to being the best basketball player ever, that’s all he was focused on. Yeah, you know, he did. I just didn’t think about anything else. By comparison, LeBron is involved in a lot of different things, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I’m not saying it’s bad. But Jordan never focus on anything else. But basketball, which is what made him so damn good. And he elevated teams to levels that have never been been seen before. You know, LeBron talks about, you know, people talk about LeBron playing with, you know, boobie Gibson and those guys and bring it up to the finals, which is a ridiculous accomplishment. Yeah, when you think about it, but he never created a Pippin. like nobody thinks Scottie Pippen was going to be top 50 player of all time without Jordan, right? Like, that would have never happened. You know, LeBron hasn’t done that. For anybody, the guys he’s won with have already been stars. Good point, you know, true, true, true. But that’s me, I’m out. I’m gonna go back into house and I let these kids do what they got doing wrong, because my other one
Mikko Miller 41:06
I’m just gonna chime in on that real quick, just real quick chime in on that. I think the closest and this is, I think me and not just because I live in LA, the closest that someone has ever come to that type of killer mentality, in my opinion has always been Kobe Bryant. He may not have been as gifted, he may not have elevated his teams to the level that Michael did, but that mentality of I’m just gonna kill you every single night. I think Kobe had that Kobe had that in them. And, you know, LeBron, Kobe, Mike, I wish I would have a shirt where they’re all three of them were like on like holding each other. I wish it would have wore that shirt. But mentality wise, I think Michael Colby were like, a&b, in my opinion, that’s just, you know,
Calvin Tilokee 41:50
I agree. And I’ll just jump on that point real quick. There’s a book I listened to a couple years ago called relentless by Tim Grover, who was the trainer for he also trained Coby and Wade, and if you listen to that book, he talks about the mentalities of all of these different guys, and how there’s, there’s different levels to it. And he he specifically says that lebrons not quite there. He’s not quite on that level. This is not an insult. Right. I think that’s what people get, get. get it twisted resale. He’s not the greatest of all time, then they get offended. Like you’re somehow insulting LeBron James, to say that he’s not the greatest human being to ever be good in that profession is not an insult. He’s in the conversation. Right? But isn’t we’re not saying Brian is garbage by any means. But to Mikko point about the mentality like that thing, where Jordan was just not going to lose six and o in the finals. He just was not having it. He just was not having any any slack in front from from his teammates, and take take with LeBron and that famous meme now when jr Smith, right with J. Smith wasn’t paying attention to the clock or whatever, that would have never been allowed to do that. That’s not going to happen. You know, you get into a fistfight, like you did with Steve Kerr. But listen to that book, if I would suggest anybody, it’s there’s a great book period for, for your mentality and just how to go about being great at anything. But this is somebody who’s trained some of the greatest basketball players we’ve known. And I think you should take his word for it. Yet, I’ll leave it at that. But yeah, back back to back to you.
Mikko Miller 43:37
on mine, as far as this generation goes, and, you know, I’ve grown accustomed to a lot of millennials living in California and having that type of mindset and that sense of entitlement. I think it kind of piggybacks off of your point, a lot of the millennials that I come across have this sense of entitlement where they just, they felt like everything is deserving. For them, they deserve everything. And, you know, we’ve gone through, I’m pretty sure all three of us, you know, hard work being beat our parent, not beat but you know, being disciplined by our parents, and having to work for what we’ve got and not been given everything that we’ve had. And these people just expect, you know, the whole world of people that come across in the workplace that feel like, Oh, my sick time is my time. You know, it’s for me whenever I want to use it, you know, I’m going to call out and not come to work and give you a call five minutes before my shift and think it’s okay. Because it’s, you know, it’s my right, it’s my time off and it’s like, how do you grew up with that mentality of just thinking everything was meant for you and you’re supposed to take advantage of everything because it’s there. In I think that’s just one of the things that I just can’t stand from millennials and people consider us moving because we’re like, kinda like in between that town that border. Yeah. Yeah, but do you Young uns that come across and just feel like everything is should be there and it belongs to them. And all these rights are for them, and they have to take advantage of it just like, if you can see me just just to see that it’s not work, work for it, show me some respect work for and respect you, but don’t expect things to be given to you.
Calvin Tilokee 45:19
Right? I hear that man.
Steve 45:23
So, you know, in what I prepared for this was was, you know, something similar to what Mikko saying, you know, I work with a lot of younger people who are coming into my profession. And you, it’s easy to say, Oh, he’s, you know, he does, he does this for a living, it’s, it’s, it looks super easy. And then, you know, he, he gets a lot of accolades, or, you know, someone gets accolades, not saying I get accolades, but someone gets accolades. And then oh, I want to go do that. That That just seems, seems easy.
Mikko Miller 46:02
And,
Steve 46:04
you know, I’ve had, I’ve had a couple of people contact me about jobs, and they’re asking me all these questions about these jobs. And I’m like, dude, you are not qualified whatsoever to do this job. Why are you trying to skip steps? A, B, C, D, E, F, go right down the alphabet. You know, to everyone’s point here, you need to put in work. And yeah, that’s so I’m, I’m, I’m really over that. It’s something I would like to see. Just more. Yeah, just more hard work, work put in and then you can always tell when someone’s coming at you. Who has some bike by by, you know, luck or whatever. They’re in a, somewhat of a position similar to you. And they’re like, you didn’t put in any work? Man, you just you just got here. Rather you bump you up in fire you. I’m going to get off my soapbox. I can go on a pretty long tangent of that one. But I see that enough. And it’s a Yeah.
Calvin Tilokee 47:06
Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, we definitely sound like, you know, middle aged men. So yeah, I think I think we’ve, we’ve hit home, the theme of the podcast and Episode One was definitely, yeah, I’m sure we’ll we’ll touch on that topic as we move forward, because that’s something I’ve seen quite a bit of. And I’ve also seen it from people older than us. And that’s the thing. So we’re not here to bash millennials. You know, I think that I think that they get a bad rap. I think and I’ll say this story really quick, as we’re wrapping up, but I went to a conference a few years ago, and they talk about how the millennials are really broken up into two different categories. And the older ones like us, like we’re kind of on the very tail end, depending on what study you look at. But like the the 30, fives and up, Millennials have more of older school mentality of you still need to work for it. It’s the younger half. And of course, this is generalizations, that doesn’t mean anybody under 35 doesn’t work for stuff, but they’re the ones that more had this mentality of Hey, just show up and do it. But I remember a hotel I was working at was taken over a change management companies. And this woman who was 40 at the time, and this is seven years ago, woman’s gonna be close to 50. Now what and she had two kids at the time, was complaining because the new management company made a mistake, and she lost half an hour of PTO time. Half an hour. She went on a rant about this. I was like, are you? Are you serious right now? Oh, and the new companies are giving us Presidents Day Off. We used to have presidents they really would have fuck celebrates Presidents Day,
Mikko Miller 48:48
what do you do? Buy a mattress? What are you so excited by Presidents Day for?
Calvin Tilokee 48:53
Give me a break?
Mikko Miller 48:55
Yeah.
Calvin Tilokee 48:56
So you do see that? Kind of across the board with, you know, the age brackets, but I’m sure we’ll talk about that a lot, because I think we have that in common. And that’s going to be something that we discuss. So I think that’s a great place to wrap up for episode one. Thank you for taking that trip down memory lane with us. We can’t believe it’s been over six months since we recorded that episode. And as you can tell, we were pretty amazing right out of the gate. Since then, we’ve seen over 2000 downloads and that’s thanks to all of you guys. So thank you for your support. And there’s lots more where that came from. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please leave us a review on iTunes and you make it a shout out live on air. Speaking of being on air, you can become part of the show by supporting us on Patreon. You’re gotcha highlights members, you got your mid-life members and you got your low-life members. For as little as $5 a month you can get early access to episodes, extended cuts featuring behind-the-scenes content, and the ability to send in your own audio for get off my lawn. Hit the link in our show notes to get a life keep up with us in between shows on Instagram at midlife crisis podcast, show notes for this, and all episodes are available on midlife crisis podcast comm where you can sign up for our mailing list and get a discount off the merchandise. Thanks for tuning in, and we’ll catch you on the next one.
Mikko Miller 50:16
Let’s go
