Latest / Rumor Busters / Episode 4 Office Scandals and Secrets

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Episode 4 Office Scandals and Secrets · Rumor Busters

• Rumor Busters Podcast: Welcome back to the Rumor Buster Podcast. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Rumor Busters Podcast. I'm Becca. I'm Ellie. And first of all, we should probably apologize. as most of you know, we had a little technical difficulties with our Wednesday episode, and hopefully one day we'll be able to release it. But for now, we're doing number two. God damn it. The dogs love it. They love this time of the week. Thanks trying to make out with me again. But we're here We're back and we've had a margarita. So we're gonna do an extra beautiful, long, funny ass podcast today. We didn't want to leave you guys hanging though, so that's why we're redoing this. So we've done a little digging through Reddit, and let me tell you, apparently some people go to work and do everything except their jobs. So, let's see here. This episode a little bit longer this time because we missed. sorry, I was sitting on your tail, baby. Sorry about that. Sorry, honey. Okay. Welcome the other hosts, Hank, Kevin, and Emma. Emma's over there. Diesel's wandering around. You'll see them throughout the video. Hankie will be trying to make out with us the whole time. We do not have our normal backdrop. That's okay though. Yeah, we get the living room today. Okay. So today we have five five outrageous workplace stories involving stolen lunches, workplace affairs, an FBI investigation, a fake pregnancy announcement, and a revenge prank that nearly drove an entire office insane. We haven't obviously reached out to these people individually to verify. these stories, but they have all been very publicly posted. They've been around for a while, so maybe some of you have already heard these stories. I'm a frequent Reddit browser and I haven't even seen these stories. So I think they're gonna be pretty good. we'll ask you, the the audience, what is the craziest thing you've ever experienced at work? Down in the comments, please. Please wherever you watch Apple Spotify, YouTube. You know how it goes. Podcast. He works in O'Reilly's. It's like, how's the podcast? my gosh. Crazy stories. Yeah, let's hear And he remembered the the pube story on the back of the toilet. good. That is so funny. my god. I love that. Okay, and have you ever worked somewhere where gossip was more entertaining than the actual job? Yeah. I would say yes. Definitely, yes. but tell us your stories and all right. We're gonna go ahead and get started with a story that proves you should never, ever, ever touch anybody else's lunch. Don't it. Can you read this one? Yep. Okay, so we have a fridge at work. Up to this point, nothing I had in it was stolen. I'm quite new and others have told me that this was a problem. My food was really, really spicy. I love it that way. Anyway, I was sitting at my desk when my coworker came running come came running out having a hard time breathing. He then ran into the bathroom and started being sick. Turns out he ate my clearly labeled lunch. It was also in a cooler lunch box to keep it cold from work to home, as it's a long drive. There was nothing about my lunch that nothing about my lunch that day. In fact, it was just leftovers from my dinner the night before. What do you think? He went to the bathroom for he was running out. He had to go to the bathroom because he had fiery hot dogs. Literally. Literally. He probably can't handle the spice. So, first of all, who steals lunches? Not me. Losers. and would you ever take food if you have no clue who it even belonged to? No, because you don't know who made it. You don't know what kitchen setting, or if their kitchen's even clean. Literally, They could be making it out of I don't even know, like a disgusting shack. Garbage. They pulled all the food out of the garbage. Okay, so anyways, fast forward a day, and my mo and my boss, my mom, my mom my boss came in asking if I had tried to poison this person. Of course I denied that I had done so. I even took out my current day's lunch and let my boss taste a bit. He was blown away by how spicy it was even though he only took a small bite. I then proceeded to eat several spoonfuls to prove I could eat it with no problem. He said not to worry, and then it was clear to him that I didn't mean any harm. My co worker shouldn't have been eating my food, etc etc. I thought the issue was over. A week later I got called up to HR for an investigation, claiming that I did in fact try to harm this person and And this investigation is still ongoing. What confuses me is there was nothing said about this guy trying to steal my lunch. When I brought it up, they said something along the lines of, We cannot prove he stole anything. my god. I'm confused at this point. my gosh. Okay, okay. Is HR there to protect the employees or the company? From employment lawyers on TikTok, I've always heard that HR's obviously there to protect the company. They are human resources, but at the end of the day, they work for the company. and have you ever heard about a ridiculous worse workplace disciplinary action? Like someone got in trouble for something stupid. Yeah. I don't remember what. Yeah. I have. There's just so many instances. It's like, you wore the wrong socks. I l I legit had that one time. You were not supposed to wear any other color besides white socks. my gosh. How was I supposed to know that? You didn't tell me that the first day. Gosh. The crocs were too tiny and they were My toenails, if I didn't cut bleed, they would just like b start bending. my god. Crocs were too small for my feet. I wear size eight, they were a size seven. And I could only wear special crocs that they provided. my god. And they didn't give you a bigger size. No, they were handy down. What is wrong with people? God. So would they why would HR say Yeah. Little a ASMR for you. Sorry. Why would HR say that you're the one getting in trouble? You're the one that stole your food. Because you tried to poison them on purpose. They shouldn't touch what's not their teach. That's their own problem. God, okay. And so the story continues. my boss is on my side, but HR seems to be trying to string me up. Their behavior is quite aggressive. Even if my boss backs me up, they just ignore everything he says, as in he would say that's clearly not the case, and the HR lady wouldn't even look in his direction and continue talking. And to top this, HR claims that it would be well within said co-worker's right to try and sue me. The way it was said seemed to suggest that they suggested this to him as a course of action. How can someone be caught stealing my lunch and then turn around and say I was wrong? I don't understand it at all. I don't know what to do. I'm afraid that I will lose my job over this. Is there any advice you can give me? Call an employment lawyer. That is crazy. God I do is make a big post on TikTok about that happening. And it would go full viral. All the employment lawyers would be commenting. what you should do. God. Do you think a possible relationship might explain HR's behavior? Maybe. Maybe she's in a relationship with the guy. Mm-hmm. Could be. Maybe she's the one that told him to go eat it. Maybe she gave it to him. Yeah. And she feels bad. Somebody else's to do the way. God. Okay. God. Would you ever trust a company if they fired you under those circumstances and they asked you to come back? Probably not. No. I mean why don't you put that here? Yeah, I will. no, I wouldn't. I mean double the pay? Well maybe I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if I'd want to work for a company that had an HR person like that. You know what though? Someone said to me, Tanner said to me, years ago, money doesn't always buy you happiness. That's right. And I'm like, this was my moment. This was my Aha, light bulb off in the brain moment. That's what changed everything. Very good. That's very true. speaking of possible workplace romances, influencing company decisions with workplace romances. I think dun dun dun. Story number two. I have worked for a small company in the Midwest for about seven years. I generally like my job and I'm good at it. About four years ago, we hired a salesperson named Jane. Her role was to travel to various clients and vendors around the country and about a dozen times a year, and usually with our president and founder, John. Jane and John. Jane was a good coworker and I considered her a friend. During her tenure Jane was promoted up the ranks eventually and everyone's saved and everyone save for the president reported up to her. Last year it came to light that Jane and John had been having an affair for the previous two years. Jane was forced to resign, John remained, and she has been out of our lives ever since. Or so we thought. Lordy Lordy. So did someone at the office suspect something? I bet. I bet they did. I mean how could you not? Literally. Suspicious. Would you assume the promotions were earned or would you question them after learning about someone sleeping their way to the top? Could you work under someone who was romantically involved with the company resident? No. I could. I wouldn't care. Well I mean, but if they were having like an affair. Yeah. I think it would yeah, that would definitely tell me if I should trust them or not. I think I'd be a little bit nervous because they're probably swaying opinions because they're, you know, holding a key over their head saying you better or else I'm gonna tell on you for having an affair. Blackmail basically. John is now going through a divorce and custody battle with his wife because he and Jane are back together. Jane repeatedly claims that even though she's no longer an employee, she has John's ear and is helping him make business and personnel staffing decisions. This information comes from two former employees that still are in contact with her. I should mention that John is an alcoholic and Jane enables him. Here's my concern. Jane continues to text me and other coworkers asking us to get drinks or go to dinner because she wants to catch up and hear all the work gossip. That's a lie. Sorry. That is a lie. That's just getting intel. We don't have an HR department, nor do we have proof that she is running the company from his bed. my god. It may be a lot of bravado. Hank does not like that. He's mad. To hang out and risk her potentially poisoning John against us, or do I bite the bullet and get drinks thereby potentially opening that door and knowing that whatever I say will get right back to John? In general, I don't encounter John for more than a few hours a month and I enjoy my job overall, so I don't want to quit. So would you ever ho go have Jane drinks with Jane? I wouldn't. But I guess if they were friends before, I just wouldn't talk about work. I just that's not something that I want to talk about. Like if we're actually here to be friends and t have drinks and like hang out. But she specifically said that she wants to catch up on all the workplace drama. So obviously she's just trying to get intel. Yeah. I wouldn't. And like is she genuine that, you know, leads to this. Is she generally interested in maintaining friendships? Or could she just be there to collect information? I definitely think she's just collecting information. That's not fair. Would you be comfortable knowing your former supervisor might still influence your job? Nope. No, no, no. I don't think so. Mm-mm. so here's the update. From eight months later, our company finally hired a part-time HR consultant after the first of the year, which has helped us deal with some of the Issues stemming from John and Jane. After the holidays, John started showing up to work clearly inebriated and missed several client meetings and nearly cost us our larger client partner. Our largest client partner. Subsequently, John was fired from the company in March and immediately went into a rehab facility out of state. It was really bad. Meanwhile, Jane got a new job at a competitor of ours and has been trying to poach employees to come work for her. What a bitch. my god. That shit. No. That's a she needs to go. Throw her in the trash. Boom. She was there just to destroy the whole thing. Yep. She wanted that place to sink. This was in violation of her severance agreement and has had a cease and assist Issued to her and her new company, which apparently has caused a rift at her new job. We know this because she texted several coworkers asking for references. god. Yeah, I feel like normally other companies don't usually like that either when they find out about it. I don't like that. Because not only does it give her a bad name, it also gives the company a bad name. You don't poach people, especially not publicly. Should both people involved in a workplace affair face the same consequences? Yes. One hundred percent. I mean they're both doing the same thing. Can someone genuinely maintain friendships with a former coworker after a scandal like this? Probably not. I don't think so. I had a friendship, where we both worked at the same place and then the other person stopped working there and went went somewhere else. But n every time we would hang out, all she wanted to do was talk about the drama at work because I still work there. I couldn't do it. I was like, that's all you is that why we're hanging out now? Is because you just want to talk about the drama? Like the drama of the past work? Or that you No, like that's experiencing now that she's gone. So she wants to know all the answers. Yeah. But that was it. That's annoying. Nothing else. Like we would never talk about something else. And then we would go on to talk about something else, and then it would always loop back into what's this person doing? What did this person say? Da da da da da. And it's like, okay. Like we're not here for that. Sometimes you just don't want to talk about work, you know? Especially when you're not at work. Let's move on. Enjoy your life. Yeah. It doesn't always revolve around work. Right. And who cares what the people are doing at the job you used to work at? Who cares? It's not like it's not like you should even get you got fired or you know, you're trying to figure something out. Yeah, a bad one. Yeah. I would just tell the truth. Yeah, but she lied. She was there. Yeah, go ahead. How long did they work? Like when you do reference checks, you can't really ask a whole lot of details. Right. Silly because I feel like you should. How well I mean, it's not like it's did they miss? It's not medical. It's not like it's a HIPAA violation, you know? So really you could probably say whatever you want. I'd be like, you didn't ask this question, but I'm gonna tell you. Okay. So we've got stolen lunches, workplace affairs, and now we're moving on to something a little more serious. Okay, okay. There we go. HR exposes everyone's s salaries. And the FBI shows up. my god. Here we go. We'll have all of these stories, these Reddit links down in the description as well. So y'all can go read all the comments, because the comments are pretty good on all of these. So a few days ago, our HR manager accidentally sent me confidential payroll information that I do not get paid enough to see. Tried to do damage control by sending an extremely illegal email to the whole company reminding us of the extremely illegal policy in the employee handbook about discussing salary. And then send a follow-up email that was meant to backtrack that illegal part, but ended up doubling down on it. I had been planning to discuss the initial email with my manager, but HR was able to recall it, so I no longer had hard proof. And the company wide email seemed good. A good place to end the story. Sidebar. I have a immensely enjoyed my coworkers sarcastically asking each other if there's a policy in the handbook. Insert innocent activity here. Now I'm wondering if it comes out that I didn't tell my manager that I got the first email. Am I going to get in trouble? I don't know what FWIW HR playing fast and loose with confidential info is a fairly regular occurrence. That's really bad. What does FWIW stand for? First. Me It's worth got it. For what it's worth, HR playing HR playing fast and loose with confidential info is fairly regular occurrence. Okay, so it's normal for this person. Reminds me of somebody else. how would you react if you accidentally received everyone's salary info? I don't know. I think I would just delete the email and be done with it. Pretend I never saw anything. What if what if it got to like a field worker? They wouldn't freaking delete that. They wouldn't, but they keep it and hold it against every cross my heart, hope to die, stick a thousand needles in my eye. I would I would just delete it and move on with my day. Would you even open the attachment? Yeah. Probably because I'm curious. Download it, keep it for later when I ask for a raise. Yes. my gosh. my gosh. What is the worst email mistake you've ever witnessed at work or you've ever done yourself? we were on a Zoom call and someone was writing an email about something that had happened and the screen share was on. What? I don't think I've ever sent an email that was I've sent like screenshots. You know, like you took take a screenshot of a conversation and accidentally sent it back to the person. Screenshot I've done that before. But I don't think I've ever done an email. No. I sent emails that I probably shouldn't have sent, like I don't know, like snappy ones kind of, but We're all human. I mean you can't really in Gmail you can't like Take it back. Mm-hmm. I don't think in any email you can take it back. No, I don't think so. Once it's sent, it's sent. Unless you're like super quick to it. Yeah. Click And you click undo. Yeah. But most of the time you can't undo. Yeah, there should be like a like a reverse send like there is with iPhone messages now. How you can undo send. Or unsend a message, yeah. That'd be nice. Do you remember when we used to just have like flip phones or like the slide phones or whatever and you were able to cancel sending a message? those were the days. Simmer down, these old jeans. He's just jealous because he's a big dog and he doesn't get on the couch. You're driving me nuts with your panting. Poor old man. And then there's Kevin. Just doing his normal. senior. Alrighty, so this update is from March of twenty twenty six. So the first portion of the discussion was in June of twenty five. So this updates almost a year later. I wrote last year wondering if I could get in trouble for not telling my boss that our HR manager sent me confidential salary information. It was not a letter that I thought would ever have an update, but this was too wild not to share. A few days ago, I got to work and there was an FBI agent standing in the lobby. Apparently, the HR manager. was also the business manager at her church and between unauthorized transactions and secret credit cards, she had stolen almost six thousand or six hundred and fifty thousand dollars from them over the course of several years. She was investigated for it a year or so ago, but as far as we knew, she had been cleared. We were able to verify that she didn't try any financial shenanigans here. Which is why she still worked for us. She stole six hundred and fifty thousand dollars from a church. What the frick did you do with all that goddamn money? How many mistakes can one HR manager make? An indefinite amount. Literally, apparently. my god. Have you ever watched a company make a small problem considerably worse? Yeah. All day, every day. In every job ever. I mean Literally. my gosh, that's so crazy. should employees be able to openly discuss their salaries? It's legal, but I hate it because it creates freaking drama. Drama. However, I feel like everybody should be paid fair. Yes. A fairer wage. But people shouldn't know what other people make. Because eventually they're just gonna make wanna make more and then they're gonna be mad that the other person makes more or less or whatever and they're gonna be like, That's not fair and they're gonna consistently want raises all the time and they're gonna think that they deserve that and then at that point they're not going to feel like they need to even work for something. Right. They're just like obligated to get it, that they're just they know that they can get that and they don't need to do anything different to get a raise. So they just think that they can Just like slide in and just get it every year. Right. Now, if you work the same exact position when you have the same credentials, that's different. Yeah. You should you you discuss, but if you have less credentials or not as much experience or you mess up more or less or whatever, and obviously you're gonna be making less or more than other people, keep it to yourself. Yeah. You know? But definitely if you're the same exact position with the same exact credentials, discuss it because obviously you both should be making the same amount of money. Yeah. And that would be really effed up if you weren't making the same amount of money. But definitely, you know, if there's a reason, a rhyme and a reason, there's always should be a rhyme and a reason for how much you're getting paid. Yeah. Some people forget that and it gets a little crazy. Some people forget the minimum wage in Washington State is eighteen bucks. Yeah. Be grateful. Yeah. That your whatever your starting wage is, twenty five. That's yeah seven dollars more and than minimum wage. I mean, even I know that sometimes people really hate Washington 'cause everything's really expensive, but at the same time, I feel like we're able to do a lot more than people in the states that still have, you know. 745 as their minimum wage. And like we get to live a little bit of a better life here in Washington compared to other states where they don't have as much as we do here. And we have a lot of businesses that start in Washington State. And we have a lot of tech companies and we have Boeing and you know, we have all these big things and there's a reason for it. And our roads comparatively to other states are not that bad and our transit is not that bad compared to other states with, you know, lower minimum wages, less taxes, whatever. And I think sometimes people forget that. Well, also if like say you're going to move to the Midwest and your minimum wage there is seven fifty an hour and you make twenty seven here in Washington, you're gonna take a twenty dollar pay cut. Literally. Yeah, it's cheaper there, but all of your credit card debt isn't gonna transfer with you to the Midwest. I'm sorry, that credit card debt's gonna stick with you. So all your minimum payments, they're still gonna be the same. Mm-hmm. Just because that house payment it or that house is only two hundred thousand dollars, that doesn't mean that you're gonna be paying less of a mortgage there because your house here was four hundred thousand. You're still gonna be paying essentially the same amount of mortgage and you're gonna get paid twenty dollars less an hour. That's right. Yep. And honestly, I don't think that I I mean I'm sure that like gas is cheaper and everything, which Ugh but comparatively to the wages, it's not. No. You know what I mean? Right. It all it all compares and it all evens out. But yeah, I think like I said, if you're same qual qualifications, same worth that work ethic, same job, talk about your pay. Yeah. Especially if you're a girl and you work with a boy, you definitely should because there's still a lot of jobs who pay girls less than boys, which is so weird to me. But yeah, if you have less credentials or get in trouble a lot more. Or even if you work less, like you only work two days a week and this person works five. Yeah. Or you never go above and beyond to pick up extra, or you make excuses as to why you can't do something. There's a reason that you're not gonna get a raise. Simple. There's lots of reasons. There's lots of factors put into wages. It's crazy, actually. Cheese Louise. Everything there's so much nuance in everything. Everyone just needs to relax take a relaxer. Everyone needs a Xanax, I think, sometimes. Okay, we got just a little bit more here left in the story. So her boss jokingly asked a couple of us if we thought he needed To update the handbook to specifically state that getting arrested by the FBI is grounds for immediate termination because, well, apparently it is. Now we have a sign a sign noting the number of days since law enforcement was here, and a common answer to how are you is pretty good. I didn't get arrested by the FBI. Just an inside joke for the rest of time. That's horrible. I keep seeing on Facebook there's this, I'll have to try and find it, but there's this humane society that has like a mean cat right now that likes to swipe people when they walk by and they have a sign that says how many days. I think is I think, I think, I think his name is Piper. It's something that starts with a P. And but every time I it comes up on my Facebook all the time and it's always like two days, zero days, one day since he swiped at somebody. my gosh. Well we should have that at work. We should have how many days since the last person talked to the nether employee about their wages? That would be so funny. my gosh, we're writing that on the board on Monday. How many days? my gosh. that is so funny. could you what would you do if you came to work and you saw the FBI in the lobby? I not just the police. The whole ass FBI. Are you here for me? I sure hope. my god. my god. That would be so funny. Okay, I'll tell everyone a a really funny story about a few years ago. There was a coffee place here in Squim that was selling puppies. And I thought that they were breeding these puppies because it wasn't the first batch of puppies that they had sold. And I remember commenting on one of the posts being like, what did I say? I said, That's really inappropriate. There's all of these pets that are in, you know, all these shelters that are being dumped, da da da like all over the place. You know this. You're a small business in this town. Why are you, you know, selling dogs? They and there was another person with my same name. That was also commenting about it and commenting about it a lot more than I was. And the at the end of the day, we get a call, and Ellie has to take this call. And the owner of the coffee stand decided to say that he was gonna send the police to talk to me if I didn't stop for defamation. and I just remember being so nervous that the cops were actually gonna show up. Work and I was gonna get arrested or sued or something, which is so stupid. Nothing would have ever happened because he was saying that I was calling them all day, like during work hours and all this stuff. Okay, first of all, like we've said in other episodes, Becca does not answer the phone unless it's not phone calls. I don't make phone calls. I don't answer the phone unless you call me two times in a row. Or leave me a voicemail or send me a text. Then I know it's important. I sent her a voicemail video one time and she did still didn't call me back. Nope. I don't. I don't do the phone. You can text me. And I was like, I'm sorry that I'm vouching for her because I sit right next to her all day and she was not leaving you voicemail. So one com can't really do anything about that. But I will, you know, I'll talk to her and just let her know that you're you called with a complaint. I should have just doubled down. But I don't think it's right either. Like we saw all these freaking puppies on the side of the road every single year. Right. Or every seven or eight months. And this was when all the all the humane societies were shut down. We didn't even have It was going crazy. All of you who live here will understand it, but our whole humane society got shut down for some kind of financial stuff going on and right now in our little tiny community we we don't even have like a backup humane society for or shelter that is run by our community. It's no funds for it. There's nothing. So it's like how do you expect, you know, people to take on more dogs. They're gonna take on as when they're c cute little tiny little puppies and then they're gonna start Biting up the furniture or anxiety. Yeah. And they're just gonna get rid of it three months later. Yeah. Like your kid has anxiety and you're just gonna sell it three months later. Yeah. You're just gonna be like, here, I'm gonna adopt you out because you have a little bit of anxiety or you pee your pants. I'm sorry. Bye. When it has to do with animals, I I'm on the animal side. Look at They're so cute. How could you ever humans don't deserve animals? Unconditional love. Certain humans don't because and they they're just here to be here. Yeah. They're just here to sleep. They're just here to eat and poop. Eat, sleep, poop. Eat sleep poop. Are the deer back, Emma? Or somebody home? No, they know barking for nothing. Stop barking. Enough. They always do this whenever they think somebody sleeps. There's not Bre brief intermission. No Come here. As I'm just saying, we don't deserve that. Okay, well after that story, you would think nothing could surprise us anymore, but wait until you hear this next story. And let me tell you it's a really, really long one. We have multiple updates though. And Ellie's gonna read it. It'll be worth it, I promise. Here we go. What story is this? Number four? Yep, the coworker who announces a fake pregnancy on the radio. Dogs quit barking. The company I work for is really small and we tune into the same local radio station every day. The station has a tiny listener base and our song requests have become so frequent that my co-workers have got a good rapport with one of the show hosts. I've never emailed in or interact interacted with the host in question. I come in today after a week off and hear myself being congratulated on the radio on my pregnancy, which was made up by my co-workers. Allison, what the hell? Everyone laughed and I wasn't sure what to do but laugh along too. The host apparently had been doing this for a full week while I was away. Saying both my name and the companies. Beyond that, he sounded really earnest and genuinely happy, which is making me feel even worse. There is the occasional prank at the office, but they've always been harmless. This feels like a line that has been crossed and I don't know what to do. We have monthly one-on-one meetings and I'll be speaking to our manager, but I'm not sure what to do in the meantime. After I heard it on the radio, everyone made comments about my pretend pregnancy. I don't want to hear how caffeine is bad for the baby or planning. I'm a woman in my mid-20s in 2019 and can't even believe I'm having to write this at all. My general response to not funny jokes is just to not laugh or look confused. But I can't take the thought of being publicly congratulated by a stranger. Tomorrow I'll be asking the next person who makes the joke to be the one to write in and reveal the truth. But I don't know this won't but I know this won't go down well. I'm the quietest person in the office and probably the most private. But it feels like such a bizarre thing to joke about that I don't even know what the funny part is meant to be. I don't want anyone to get formally disciplined for a one off misjudgment, but I'm also not sure how to articulate why it's a misjudgment without ruining my relationships with anyone. What the hell? I don't know what the joke is either, and this would be tremendously hurtful if you'd get if you'd been struggling with miscarriage or infertility or had just terminated a pregnancy, and that's before we even get into the people you know hearing the show recognize you as Jane at Stew Pot Enterprises and thinking you're pregnant. I think you're going to have to lay this one out. Have to lay this out for them very bluntly. I know you intend this as a joke, but it's not funny. Please think about how hurtful this would be to someone struggling with miscarriage or infertility. You've also put me in a position where people I know might think I'm pregnant. You need to fix this today and ensure the announcement doesn't keep getting made. You're worried about harmoning harming your relationships, but A, they're the ones who should be worried about that and B, unless they're truly horrible people, explaining this matter of factly and asking them to fix it shouldn't ruin your relationships with them. It should make them feel mortified. Which is a useful emotion in this context, and they should apologize. Please speak up before their next joke is announcing fake someone's fake death while they're on vacation. Very true. I would like to know who thought it was a good idea. That's not cool. That's like something you do as an April Fool's joke when you're sixteen years old to your parents. Or like your family. Yeah. Like ha ha. Your whole workplace though. On the but on the radio, yeah. Like she said, like your family members finding out that way. Like your cousins or something. Not like close family, but like your cousins or like an aunt or uncle or something, like Congratulations and like bring you a baby gift and stuff. That would suck. my god. Like people commenting on your Facebook photos and being like, Congratulations I heard on the radio. We actually did that one time. Tanner, he commented on one of our friends' posts and it was like of the The two of them, her and her boyfriend, like I don't know, posing or something, or they had like professional pictures done or whatever. And Tanner goes, Congratulations, you guys. I'm so excited for you. And then I just laugh. And then the dad comments, her dad, and was like, question mark, question mark, underneath Tanner's comment. my god. And then I replied, I'm so happy and excited for you. my gosh. See that's funny. That's funny. That's so funny. And nothing ever came of it, but it was just funny. Like, why are you guys congratulating on what happened? And I don't know. Right. my gosh, that's so funny. There was one Thanksgiving and I had gained some weight because I was on antidepressants and sleep meds and stuff. And I remember, I don't remember exactly what I said, but I said something like this. At dinner, at Thanksgiving dinner, and Ben's mom, my fiance, was like, my god, are you pregnant? Do you have something to tell us? And I just started busting up laughing. I was like, Absolutely not. That is not what I meant at all. Not even a little bit. But I always thought, 'cause my dad always likes to ask me, When are you and Ben gonna have a baby? And I'm like, never. Like my sister has babies. Why do I have to have babies? No babies for me. Being pregnant is way too scary. I don't want I don't want to be nauseous every day. And I definitely don't want to push nothing out my hoo ha. So if you wanna be nauseous every day, just get on a GLP one. Yeah. There you go. No, I'm good. I'll just you know not not be having any babies, that's for sure. but yeah. I don't I don't know. It can it definitely could be a funny joke, but that might be a little too far. Just bit. Having to tell everyone that you're not actually pregnant. How annoying. God. So this is the first update. Firstly, thank you so much for publishing my letter and for your thoughtful response. I was intensely frustrated when I wrote to you and worried I was overreacting, but your response along. With the insight and stories of your commentators proved exactly why pregnancy isn't something to joke about. Thankfully I have a positive response. A few commentators wondered if I was the only woman on the team. Staggeringly, the team is mostly women. We're all around the same age, but I'm the only person who isn't vocal about staying child free. I think this is why they didn't consider the prank to be a big deal, but every way I look at it just shows some terrible judgment. As we're a small company, the HR is split between our office manager, female, who was in on the prank, and our director, male, who wasn't. The director wasn't in the day after I heard the announcement, but I shut down any attempts to laugh about it with stop, I don't like this. The following day I pulled my director aside and told him that A, I wasn't pregnant, and B the whole thing was a prob was problematic and needed to stop immediately. He was shocked that I hadn't been in on the prank and was very supportive. Not long after he pulled the office manager aside for a chat. God, that makes me that makes office managers look so bad. You would not do that, don't worry. If I could help him with an errand that took us both out of the office for a while. When we came back, everyone was very sheepish and the radio was turned right down. No one has apologized, so I don't know if they thought of me as a spoil spoil sport. But I don't really care. A few people wander wondered if the radio presenter knew the pregnancy was fake, but I think he believed it was genuine. My coworkers had played the game of what's crazy what crazy thing can we get him to say before and I think I was just collateral damage and this time around. One of my coworkers emailed him and he stopped all mentions of the prank right away. But in a twist, the radio station is almost no more. A couple of weeks after all this went down, every live show stopped and it looks like it all like it'll fold any day now. That's so sad. He's just a regular guy who did an afternoon show for fun. None of his shows have ever featured shock values or pranks, which is why the whole thing felt cruel. On the other hand, my co workers do have a habit of taking things too far. Update two. I was reading AAM as I do every afternoon when one of the recommendations recommended posts capitulated me back into my past. I'm the reader who wrote to you about six years ago about my coworkers who wrote into a local radio station to pretend to pretending I was pregnant as a friend. I've been meaning to share an update for a while now and felt this felt like a sign. In the year since things got okay. yeah. And then much better. This la this second update is six years later, by the way. The first post, I spoke to my director to put a stop to the joking around. No one apologized, acknowledged that they'd crossed a line or even made contact with me for a while. But I was just grateful that the jokes were over. A few months later, my relationship unexpectedly fell apart. And a couple of weeks after that, I found a channel on our internal messaging system that had been set up to talk about me behind my back. It had been running for months. crediting the radio prank and was absolutely a nail in the coffin. We also now had an external HR provision by this point, so I made a formal complaint against everybody involved. A coworker had been in on the ropes for a while and they were let go not long after. I'm not sure how much the channel played a role in this, but it certainly didn't help. The other apologized to my the others apologized to my face, which I was grateful for at the time. As some background, when I first started, the company was owned by two directors, a husband and wife. A couple of years into my tenure, one served the others with divorce papers, and the business was squarely in the middle. But even before I started there were office norms that were only there to keep us in our lanes. We weren't really allowed to talk to one another other than on instant messenger. We were made to take staggered lunches alone. I'm sorry, I wish we had a cam a diesel camera right now 'cause the way he's eating up his blanket's so funny. He keeps getting it stuck in the blanket. he likes to bury the bowl. We were made to s we were were made to take staggered lunches alone. Had to sit with our screens facing outwards so the boss could monitor what was on them and so on. I found out later that my job only opened up because one director got drunk and threw a punch at a past employee on a work night out, prompting a few people to quit. This workplace is crazy. tried to open up communication, but things just ran too deep. I'm sure I contributed to this environment too, and I remember being deeply frustrated with nowhere to go, nowhere for it all to go. I also don't remember exactly what the messages in the channel said, but I was so angry that it snagged me out of my post breakup funk and made me realize that my workplace was crap and was not going to change. I searched for all the jobs I could find with a short list of prerequisites They must have an active HR department, visible salary scales, and be based in an interesting part of the country. I applied for the one that was closing first, which turned into the one of my one of the best things I have ever done. I said yes to an interview because I'd never been to the city and at least if I didn't get the job, I could spend a couple of hours in a museum I always wanted to visit. I interviewed in February twenty twenty, got the job and started my new role that April. Just after the first COVID nineteen lockdown hit in the UK, I moved to my new city about five years ago as restrictions were starting to lift. So as people were getting used to socializing again, there was me starting life again in my lifeline. I've since changed roles a few times, but have been in the same organization and I can honestly say things are a million times better. My job is infinit in infinitely more fulfilling. has scope to grow and I'm strengthening skills that are niche enough to be interesting and broad enough that I'm not stuck in a corner. I'm also actively involved in our work with this union, so there's a perfect outlet to tail any injustices in a positive way. I'm not in touch with anyone in my old job. I wish them the best and hope everyone is successful and fulfilled in their own ways. But it took me far too long to realize it was wasn't the place for being And the fact I didn't realize this after someone wrote to a radio station to prove I was pregnant is beyond what I'd ever put up with now. I'm still embarrassed by the whole ordeal, but grateful I can look back on it as a bizarre story rather than a situation I'm still stuck in. That's insane. That is really crazy. The things that we put ourselves through in our early twenties. She probably thought she couldn't leave. I mean that's so crazy. I can't even believe that. Why do you think the group of co coworkers decided to target the quietest person? To get him to speak up, maybe? Get a rise, yeah. Get a rise out of him. That's pretty crazy. That's messed up. It's like they're quiet. Don't antagonize them. Yeah. That's definitely like crossing the line of being funny and pulling a prank. Straight up just bullying somebody at that point. That is bullying. That is yeah, that's a little crazy. Especially when they kept going, even though she kept saying, like in the first part of the story, she kept saying it's not funny and not laughing. Yeah. And people just kept thinking it was funny. That I know someone like that who does that to get a rise out of people. Like if you are getting very upset about something, they'll keep pushing and pushing and pushing your buttons until you finally snap and do something that's then gonna piss them off because you get so angry and say something Yeah, and then you're the problem. You're the problem. I think they call that a narcissist. Or just an asshole, I guess. That's so crazy. Could you imagine? Could you imagine if you discovered a group chat about you? No. I'd be pissed. I'd be like, that's it. Bye. You wanna have to see me again. All you fuckers. Bye bye. Honestly, if I found a way to get into a group chat and I knew they were talking about me, I would keep it to myself and just keep taking screenshots. Just keep going. I would not be able to just keep going. Just keep going. I'm so freaking pissed. I'd walk into their wherever they were and I'd be like, What are you typing? What's on your screen? Open it back up. Yeah, let me see that. Let's see. wait, no, you don't have to. Or find a way to like chat in their group chat and be like, hey guys, what's up? How's it going? I Okay, like it kind of reminds me, like I remember thinking one time it would be really funny to make like a workplace burn book like on mean girls with all this just just random stuff that's not even true. And put it somewhere and have someone find it and then start reading the stuff and they then the rumors that would swirl. my god, it could be so funny. Shit would hit the fan. my gosh. Literally so crazy. let's see. Have you ever witnessed a workplace click that made people uncomfortable? Yes. I will say my last job at one point they called not my last job, my job before that. a few girls at our workplace called me and my friends the mean girls. Even though we were like the nicest people, always doing stuff for everybody. Spritzers and Gifts and giveaways and lunches and breakfasts and all this stuff, but somehow we were still the mean girls. Cause we hung out all the time. You guys were all friends. Yeah, I think so. Sometimes I think a lot of times people would just get upset because we would sometimes close the office door. I think that's what it was. So they were like, they're just ignoring all the work 'cause they're sitting in the office together. You know? pretty funny. Pretty funny. I didn't have an office store. If you did actually towards the end. Yeah. If you had if you had heard about this joke, would you have told her? Or would you have just kept your kept quiet? Told the girl the joke the pregnancy joke. Yeah. Yeah, I would have told her. I would have texted her. Yeah, I would have been like, Hey Are you actually pregnant? Are you yeah, are you pregnant? What's going on? Because I'm hearing rumors and the rumors are spreading on the radio. On the radio. Kinda makes me want to call into the radio and do something like that. Let's call Jesse. Jesse Jones, I I received news. my gosh. Who's the other guy? Cisco, the garden guy? The crazy garden guy? What were we gonna call Jesse about again? I can't even remember. That's what I was yeah, I was just thinking of that. Jara came up to us today. Jara came up to us today. Jara and said we should call Jesse. What was that for? I can't remember. That's how quick things disappear in our brains. Probably why boys don't read their emails all the way when we send them or who knows. All I can look at is God. His eyes are closed on the back there. He's so fat. It's so funny how like Hank is so obsessed with trying to make out with people and Kevin's just like, I won't even give you a kiss. He'll start falling asleep. He's like, it's bedtime. When are you guys gonna shut up? It's only eight. I know. Okay, well, we've had some pretty awful coworker behavior today. So we're gonna finish with something a little bit lighter. Yay! the next employee got pranked, but then pranked back pretty diabolically. So I think this one might remind you of another prank that was done at Airflow. So the office prank that nearly drove everyone insane. My co-workers revenge on me. Back when I started in my industry, a friend of mine from university landed a job at my company as well. The place was four levels with an atrium in the middle. I was on the third floor and he was on the first floor, but I could see him from my desk. He wouldn't know he didn't know this yet, and he didn't know where I was seated. Anyway, I so I let him Get settled in for the morning, then I anon anonymously messages messaged him. You could do this on our internal messaging system. Carl, which was a fake name. Meet me at the office immediately. And can I ask where your office is? Me. Now Carl. I don't have time for this. He started looking he started to look really panicked, then got up and walked into the atrium, turning around in circles, looking at the offices. I felt bad about it and waved him down saying, Now, Carl Being the good hearted guy he was, he laughed and mouthed cunt. And I went back to work giggling. A few days later, I started hearing very occasional and very high pitched. Like a beep in the office I shared with the other two. It was very subtle, almost out of the hearing spectrum to the point where you weren't sure if you were hearing it. But once I did accept I really was hearing it, it became more and more noticeable with each beep and more and more irritating. The time w the timing was unpredictable. Think ten minutes between beeps. Thirty minutes, two minutes, one hour, etc. So I let it go for quite a while before I started to accept I might be going mad and asked the others if they heard it. They both looked almost relieved and said that they had and it was driving them mad too. So we started to look around the office, pulling shelves apart, emptying drawers, pulling pictures down. I even sat outside the office for a few hours to make sure it wasn't coming from outside. It wasn't. We also timed the beeps all day and To see if we could find a pattern. No pattern. It seemed completely random. The following day, we got serious and started pulling apart our PCs one at a time. We were all looking a bit wild eyed by this point. Eventually, as I'm sure you've guessed, Carl arrived at the office laughing at us sitting on the floor with our PCs and pieces and told us he taped a small evil noise device under a shelf. He said he would have left it longer, but our boss thought it had gone on long enough to shake Carl. You see what I mean? That reminds me of something that happened at Airflow when somebody hid the the cat meowing. They were literally gonna start opening the A cat is in here. A cat is in the wall somewhere. It is between floors and the ceiling. It is in here. And then Tom pulls out his drawer and there's a little device underneath the top of his the top of his drawer. And it's a little noise device. Probably the same as that one or similar. So now no. Okay, one I need to find out where we find these devices because that is seriously the funniest thing ever and I have to do that to Ben. Right. I have to do that to Ben though. And so I'm going to go home tonight and I'm gonna go on Amazon and I'm gonna look for one and I'm gonna drive him crazy and I'm gonna make it only go off during the day when I'm not home. my god. He's gonna be like, Can you hear it? Every piece of furniture is gonna be hitched by the. my gosh. I'm gonna have to like hide it in one of my purses or something in the closet. my gosh. That would be so I don't think he listens to our podcast, so. perfect. Yep. Okay. Yeah, what a jerk. I can't believe he doesn't listen to our podcast. That's okay. I didn't expect Tanner to. Come on. He does like an And he likes all of our Instagram stuff though, which is I guess is nice. Who? Ben. Whatever. my gosh. Okay, so I'm saying we should just get them. I would hear this. Like and it was like very faint. And I'm like, what the frick is that goddamn noise? Is it somebody's phone going off? Is this at work? And it's freaking Kim's music playing. my gosh. And it kept repeating until all I heard was like the high pitched Was it like a game? I thought it was, and no, it wasn't. It was not a game. It was literally a song and it would play like at least three times a day. It would got it. But every time I go off, I'd be like, okay, where's the noise coming from? Do you? I realized there was the music. Do you remember in high school when kids would play that high-pitched sound that you can't hear after you hit a certain age? I think so. Like it was like really high pitched. And everyone in class would be like, God. And the teacher would be like, What? What? that shit used to piss me the fuck off. I would get so upset. That show was so crazy. I couldn't even believe it. There was a high pitched noise coming from a Duckless unit one time, and I showed Mark the video, and he's like, I don't hear nothing. What are you talking about? Yeah. Like the when the upstairs unit was making us a weird noise. So we had told Mark to I called Mark upstairs to come listen to it before I knew that he couldn't hear it. He has tinnitus, so you don't hear that. I was getting so You've gotta hear it. You're lying. I literally was like, You're just saying you don't hear anything 'cause you don't wanna fix it. no, we scared Hanky, he ran away. my gosh, that is so funny. I'll never yeah, I'll never forget that and Jared's like Mark can't hear that. He has tinnitus and I was like, shit. It was like a buzzing noise coming from the the indoor unit, the heat pump. It was It was a weird noise. I know. Well, I don't think we'll have to I don't I don't think I have to worry about tinnitus anyways. I never wore headphones too loud. I did. A l yeah. So you might get it one day. No, no, no, no. Yeah, but like headphones. I'm talking headphones. I mean earbuds, like all the way a hundred percent. You know the headset. The with the Walkman? Yeah. Walkman, the like the C D player, the portable CD player that we would have. The pink, really cute pink one. Do you remember those? Yeah. gosh. Ugh. iPods when those were still around before the iPods. Yep. I remember all those iPods. ITouch. Remember that? I have an iPod touch. look at that you just smile when I pull. That's so She is looking at me like please make her stop. Please, please help me. There's a really old scab. poor baby. It's not like them pulling the scab. thank you for the kisses. what a good boy. What a good host. Listen. As he tries to bite you. Gosh. So yeah. let's see. Honestly, after all these stories, I feel like randomly beeping office equipment is the least concerning thing a person can do. Okay, guys, we got some questions. Which story made you the most angry? You gotta answer down in the comments, please. which one was the funniest? The noise. Yeah, definitely the prank. That was a harmless prank compared to the the pregnancy prank, definitely. which employee would you refuse to work with? Jane. Yep. It's always Jane. which situation would have made you quit immediately? And which story would you most want an additional update on? I think we had some pretty good updates. And Yeah. I say the FBI. Yeah. I wonder if she's in jail. Speaking of though, like if the FBI were to show up at work, I'd be like I I'd be a little freaked out, be like, Okay, what's actually going on? Yeah. Like who's doing the drugs? Or yeah, who's selling drugs, money laundering or trafficking. Yeah. Yeah. Or who didn't renew their license. The FBI shows up. Instead of L and I or Osha or whatever. Fucking FBI shows up. You're being arrested for not renewing your license. my gosh. Okay, well I guess that in concludes our extra crazy episode or extra craytic clips of the last one that we filmed on Tuesday apps and if you know how to change in because what? We found out that on Riverside, which is the app we use as our distribution, doesn't really care for iPhone videos sometimes. They download as dot O V. If you know how to switch that from dot mov to dot mp4, let us know down in the comments or send us a message or email us or call us or do something. Call Airflow and ask for Ellie Rebecca. And please tell us how to switch it. Because every time we've we've gotten it to upload, it is the worst quality I've ever seen in my life. And it cuts out and it's choppy. And it chopped us in hell. And it chopped us in half into two separate videos, even though it's one. I don't know any of this stuff. my br I we do family dinner once a week. And my mom and my brother come to my house, or we go to my mom's house. And I told my brother that he should start editing our videos. So let me know how to do it so that I can send it to him and he'll know how to do it. What are you finding, Hanky? You gonna get on the table? Hi, honey. happy boy. Ready the French kids. anyways, so maybe one day he'll be editing our videos. I told him once we start making money off of this, we'll pay him. Yeah. But we're not paying him until we make money off of it. So he better edit it really good. he also keeps telling me how we should be posting our clips on TikTok and stuff, and I'm like, Okay, then you do it. I ain't got all that time. I work a full time job. Literally Barely even know what I'm doing. I like didn't even know like big news stories that have been on the I was trying to tell her about the I told her about the Cornell 7 tonight at dinner and she was like, Wait, what? What's that? Yeah, so now she's gonna have to look it up and learn all about it when I leave. But I ha started watching a little bit of YouTube again. Good. Yeah. It's like TikTok, but long form content. Yeah. There's lots of good podcasts to watch on there. and you just lost your ball. There it went. Perfect timing, perfect timing. So yeah. Anyways, I hope that this episode makes up for Wednesday. Hopefully we'll be able to I think we should at least be able to pull clips and post them on YouTube and and stuff. Obviously we won't be able to just post clips on Spotify and Apple, but That was so cute, Kevin. Thanks, like, god, here we go. You like your boyfriend? you love your boyfriend. Here we go. You got all riled up. It's a love hate relationship. man. And next next week's episode we'll have costumes. Yes. And we'll have a different backdrop. Yep. And we're getting the backdrop up here too if we wanted to. Yeah. Long as nobody else is home. Cause Tanner would probably He could go to the bedroom. Like try to fart in the camera or something. Or he'd tip it over. Yeah, tip it over, put his hand in front of it. Who knows? on the outside of the house. Okay, that would be funny. We need a viral moment, so maybe we should have him do that. Gosh. Okay, well Thank you so much for watching. Thank you for your patience as we had to re-record. Please like, subscribe, and follow. And remember, you have rumors, stories, blah blah blah blah blah. And we have microphones. And guess what? What? I forgot. No, I was gonna say. You can submit your stories. reply. Yes. Also put in your stories. Yes. Jason. Everyone. He's like, I got so many. I'm like, please. He's How do I do it? Literally, the link is in our in all of our bios. You can comment and we'll comment the link to you. We literally got verified. We paid for verification on Meta so that we can share more links. Cause apparently if you don't verify yourself, you can only share two links. So we're paying for that now too. So come on, guys. Share to your friends. Watch it with your families. Repost, comment, like, do all the things. And every Friday. And especially a three second video of the Yin Yang twins. And we do this like video where we say happy Friday. So not repost that. We're gonna do one every week. Every single Friday. So if you love us and you know us and you're our friends and family, you really should be sharing and liking this. And I haven't seen a lot of you liking and sharing it, so figure it out, or else you're not getting any you're not getting any holiday gifts or birthday gifts next year from me. So how about that? We will do giveaways if we become. Yeah, we'll do giveaways. We'll give away Prada. And Louis Vuitton. We just have to get some money first. I too have been personally victimized by the TikTok live actions. Tanner goes, Are you on an auction right now? Chat, come on, chat, come on, chat. 50, no, think you'll whip in my channel. You ripping me up in chat. Come on, chat. Bid, bid, bid, chat. And he's like, What are you watching? And I'm like, I just won that. And he's like, Congrats, Ellie. What was he said my name? my gosh. I got it for you. She had to get one for him because he heard it. You get? I got you some cologne. 50 bucks. my gosh. Somebody got a cease. Somebody on TikTok got a cease and desist for talking shit about one of the live auction people. Yeah. They were like, You better take down your video or we're gonna sue you. my god. And she totally fell for it. Like like In N Out did to our local burger company. There's a local burger company, Shadowline Burgers, and they had a double double and it's copyrighted in In N Out burgers only. Or don't know. Yeah, what you're right. Yeah, copyrighted. So they In and out literally wrote Shadow Line a letter. They got a letter in the mail. Cease and desist, yep. Their name of their menu item from double double to something else. So now it's called the Duck Cali Double. Yep, just double. So So dumb. It's how many company in the tiniest. It's not even it's not even a chain restaurant. It's never gonna be a chain restaurant. Just a delicious Smash Burger restaurant, literally one of the best restaurants in our little town. And they have it framed and hanging right when you walk in the building. It's awesome. That's like okay, you're famous. Literally. That's pretty good. Kinda. In and out. You can write us a letter. Yeah. We're the double double rumor busters. my gosh. Okay. Like, subtract subscribe, follow, comment, share, repost, message us. Yeah. Happy Friday. Or well, it will be Saturday when we post it, but it's Friday right now. It's Friday now. We had margaritas. Thank you, Sergio. I would say, do you want to go to the bar? But the only bar in town is closed. They don't serve alcohol. And they can't even serve alcohol. So never mind. That was our only bar. I know how depressing. Yeah, ew. There is another place opening up called Penelope's though. I don't know when they open up. I haven't even seen anything about them. Also, last thing. Did you forget again? yeah. Randy Johnson. Randy Johnson from the TikTok. We mailed you a letter. We mailed you a letter and a card from the local crab fest that we have every year in Port Angeles, Washington. It's this crab festival where everyone gets together and eats a bunch of crab and they go into this tiny little tent and thousands and thousands of people line up to get Way too expensive crab in a very tiny tent that has no seating once you get in there and finally purchase your food. And there's usually like seawater all over the ground. Yeah. One time Mark said that one year it was so bad and rainy that the water was literally like half a foot deep running through underneath the tables through the tents when everyone was eating their dinner. Anyways, we mailed you some info about the crap fest and a card and everything. So we hope you remember us and we hope you watch our podcast. And we love you. Yeah, we dedicate this whole podcast to you, Randy Johnson. You really inspired us to just live our dreams. And that's our video. Thanks for watching. That's really good.