Episode 330 · 25 August 2026 · 55:53
(VERY) Unfiltered HR Confessions. Summer Sessions #5, with Emma Djemil
Featuring Emma Djemil
(VERY) Unfiltered HR Confessions. Summer Sessions #5, with Emma Djemil
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Introducing Emma Djemil and her viral HR parody videos
The Parking Lot Incident: employee uses car window as restroom
LinkedIn vs TikTok: why unexpected content flies on professional platforms
other#linkedin#tiktok#content-strategy#professional-platforms
The business impact: comedy sets, podcast invites, coaching enquiries, and webinar sign-ups
HR Confessions round begins — anonymous stories from Reddit and online forums
other#hr-confessions#anonymous-stories#reddit#workplace-culture
The 7-Hour Bathroom Standoff: drug testing, bathroom floor meals, and complete benefit confusion
other#bathroom-standoff#drug-testing#employee-benefits#hr-chaos
Speed Round Shockers: masturbation in cubicles, golf course 'working from home,' and pants-changing protocol
other#workplace-shockers#inappropriate-behavior#remote-work#office-antics
Why we need more honesty (and humour) in HR
Closing thoughts: going all in, being yourself, and the joy of creating
Show notes
(VERY) Unfiltered HR Confessions. Summer Sessions #5, with Emma Djemil
Ever wondered what really goes on behind the closed doors of an HR office? In this Summer Session episode, Al and Leanne open up the anonymous HR filing cabinet—and it gets wildly unhinged.
We're joined by viral content creator, HR consultant, and founder of Be Unstoppable, Emma Djemil. We dive into the hilarious reality behind her viral HR house tracks and parody videos that have taken the HR community by storm.
Then, Emma joins Al and Leanne for a round of raw, anonymous HR Confessions sourced straight from the depths of Reddit and online forums. From employees peeing out of car windows and a 7-hour bathroom standoff, no topic is off-limits.
Expect cringing, laughing, and a lot of 'inappropriate behaviour'!
🔥 Episode Highlights & Confessions Covered
- Emma Djemil's Viral HR Tracks: How parody videos turned HR pain points into viral house tracks, and why comedy is the ultimate antidote for workplace stress.
- The Parking Lot Incident: The physics, the shock, and the tattoo identification behind an employee using her car window as a restroom.
- The 7-Hour Bathroom Standoff: A wild story of drug testing, bathroom floor meals, and complete benefit confusion.
- Speed Round Shockers: Masturbation in cubicles, golf course "working from home," and pants-changing protocol.
👤 Connect with Emma Djemil & Be Unstoppable
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/be-unstoppable/
- Website: https://thehrbigmeet.com
- Email: [email protected]
📬 Connect with Al & Leanne
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/truthlieswork
- Al Elliott: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thisisalelliott
- Leanne Elliott: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meetleanne
- Email: [email protected]
- Book a call: https://savvycal.com/meetleanne/chat
Mental health support
UK & ROI — Samaritans Call 116 123 or visit https://www.samaritans.org UK — Mind Call 0300 123 3393 or visit https://www.mind.org.uk US — Suicide & Crisis Lifeline Call or text 988 or visit https://988lifeline.org Australia — Lifeline Call 13 11 14 or visit https://www.lifeline.org.au
Global helplines: https://findahelpline.com
Truth, Lies and Work is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Full transcript
Expand full transcript
Al ElliottLittle warning, this episode contains coarse language and adult themes. Listener discretion is advised.
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to another of our Truth, Lies and Work summer sessions. For the next few weeks, we're taking a little break from the workplace news and the heavier topics to bring you something a little bit more fun. You know the thing, you wanna— you want something you can pop on when you're driving to the beach, when you're sat by the pool, when you've got a cocktail.
Al ElliottBecause let's be honest, nobody wants August listening to a typical work podcast. Today though, we are opening the HR filing cabinet and we're not entirely sure we're ready for what we've found. We've spent— well, I say we, Leanne has spent far too much time trawling Reddit and HR forums looking for the funniest, most shocking, and most relatable workplace confessions we could find, or she could find. Some are hilarious, some are unbelievable, and every single one is claimed to be true.
Leanne ElliottYes, it is. And after the break, we are joined by HR consultant and viral content legend, Emma Djemil. We'll chat about the parody videos she's been doing that just perfectly capture the chaos of working in HR. But before we do that, let's have a quick word from our sponsors just to make them happy, you know.
Al ElliottYeah, well, contractually as well. Thank you. The dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all. Every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Al ElliottNice. Check out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
Leanne ElliottHello, hello, and welcome back. This is Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture, brought to you, of course, by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Lianne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist.
Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner.
Leanne ElliottAnd normally we'd be here to help you simplify the science of work and build amazing workplace cultures, but not this week.
Al ElliottNope, nope. Today we're joined by HR consultant, speaker, and creator of those brilliantly funny HR parody videos, Emma Djemil. Yay! Emma!
Leanne ElliottWelcome, Emma! I'm so excited!
Emma DjemilI can't wait.
Al ElliottJust in case, on the off chance that someone hasn't heard of you or seen that video, can you just give us a little background of who you are?
Emma DjemilYes, so apparently I create songs these days.
Leanne ElliottRemember?
Emma DjemilOh yes, there you go. It is an earworm. I've always been a bit of an, an earworm giver, but yeah, my, my, my actual work, I suppose, is, um, I work with women in HR who are feeling overworked and undervalued and help them kind of get back on track with their careers and start finding meaning and purpose in their work again. But the way that I attract those people to me is by creating pop songs. I say pop songs, but I think that makes it sound grander than it is. But my marketing is quite unique in that I use music and humor and comedy to say some of the things out loud that probably I always wanted to in my career, and a lot of people in HR still want to.
Leanne ElliottI've loved your content for so, so long, and, and yeah, long-term eagle-eyed listeners will remember you have been on the podcast before. You did a hot take for us probably more than a year ago now. Um, but when I saw this, I fell off my chair because I was just like, one, this is a bop, I just want this on my Spotify playlist. 2, it's Brilliant. I feel seen and heard. And 3, it's just again that people using LinkedIn to actually connect with people instead of the humblebrag bollocks.
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottThat we see on there. Um, I will— I am going to get Al to insert a little clip. We have shared it on the show before as well. Regular listeners will know we shared it a couple of weeks ago on our news roundup. At point of recording, Emma, this video has 2,714 reactions, 635 comments, and 150 reposts.
Emma DjemilYeah, it's gone off.
Al ElliottIt really has.
Emma DjemilIt has gone off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what to say. It has. It's amazing. The reach has been quite phenomenal. And honestly, um, I've been posting on LinkedIn for like 5 years now, and I've been suffering the same kind of low reach that a lot of people have been getting on LinkedIn over the last year. It's been really tough going on the platform to get any kind of traction. So I've messaged a few of my friends afterwards and I was like, Apparently all you've got to do is write songs to get, to get any kind of traction on it. So yeah, it's pretty, pretty insane, but great.
Leanne ElliottIt is incredible. I have to, I have to ask you, what, did you have a moment where you were like, do you know what I'm gonna do? I'm, I'm gonna write a house track and I'm gonna put HR messages to it. That's what I'm gonna do today.
Emma DjemilI mean, kind of, yeah. That's pretty much how it works in my brain. My process, I've always done these Friday, Funny Friday videos. And in the past, they've been kind of me lip-syncing to an audio and then putting an HR spin on it. So, my process for all of them is actually to spend far too much time on TikTok looking at things that I find funny and that inspire me and that I think, oh, I could work with that. So, actually, I can't take credit for the idea because someone did this on TikTok. Someone did from a marketing perspective. And actually, it's a whole trend on TikTok to, like, be doing messages to music and all kinds of stuff. So, I'm not the originator, and I keep telling people that on LinkedIn because, like, don't give me that much credit. But what I do do is see it, and I think that makes me laugh. And so, there was a point where, yeah, I saw it, and I thought, this is really funny, I could do this from an HR perspective. So, I messaged my husband. And And said to him, like, how do I, how do I do this? And he's quite like into all that kind of stuff. He's into media and websites and all kinds of things. And he, and he told me an app. So it's an AI app. It's not even me writing the music. I'm not, I can't even take credit for that. It's my lyrics. I perform it, but it's AI and it's not me singing. A lot of people have given me credit for being a great singer as well. And I'm like, that's not even me either. No way. I can't believe that's AI.
Leanne ElliottThat's incredible.
Emma DjemilYeah.
Leanne ElliottI love about that is that Al and I have always said that, like, if you create content, we also think you need to be obsessed with consuming content.
Emma DjemilYeah, I do find myself probably consuming far too much content, actually. Um, and I have to, like, really check in with myself to be like, am I consuming this for, like, research purposes, or am I living my whole life through the platform? And, and pretty much it's the latter. Yeah.
Al ElliottBut it also gives you an idea of what is popular. Like you said, this was a trend on TikTok. This was something which you, and I think in, you may have come up with it in like, you know, if you'd spent a day thinking about it, but you could have given us like 2 weeks to think about new ideas, never would've come up with something like this. So I think it's so important to see what is kicking off and what's popping off on different platforms that give you that sort of like that grain of an idea, isn't it?
Emma DjemilYes. Do you know what's interesting though is my content doesn't fly on TikTok. I don't get good— people think that I'm like a TikTok star because of what they see on LinkedIn, and they know that I create this stuff on there, but TikTok doesn't like my stuff as much. I think the difference with LinkedIn is exactly what you were saying, Leanne, that people go to LinkedIn and it's a professional platform, and you're meant to behave a certain way. So then when someone is on there using comedy, humour, being really like human, doing something that's, it's interrupting people and it's going, wow, this is like, this is different content. I think that's why it flies on LinkedIn because it's not expected. Whereas TikTok, that kind of content is really 10 to a dozen. Probably if I was to do really serious boring stuff on there, maybe that'd fly, but that wouldn't work for me. It wouldn't work for me.
Al ElliottHave you seen anyone do any, copy you at all? I mean, not calling, naming names, but seen anyone use your idea and do their own video?
Emma DjemilI've had a few people reach out to say that they would like to use the idea and Yeah, would I mind if they did it? And I'm like, well, it's not technically my idea. So, and I really like that about creativity. I think if creativity is sparking creativity elsewhere, then I don't actually think we can have too much creativity. Like, I think that's a brilliant thing if lots of people go and then take that and use that in their corner of the world to bring joy to people. Like, that's brilliant. I've not known if people copy me per se. What I have seen more of on LinkedIn is people doing the voiceover stuff. That may have just happened anyway, but it's kind of like, oh, there's more in that kind of HR space now doing the voiceovers and the kind of funny audio stuff. Again, great. Ultimately, I'm speaking to humans. So, if there's a way to connect with people and to make them feel something, then let's do that because there's just too much fakery. There's too much of that kind of, oh, we're meant to be something else because we're on a professional platform. But at the end of the day, we're all humans. So let it be, let there be loads of it.
Al ElliottYeah, I totally agree. Leanne's on LinkedIn a lot more than I am because I sort of see the 2 camps generally of content is self-congratulatory hidden under, I am so honoured to announce.
Emma DjemilIt's like, cough, will you?
Al ElliottAnd then vacuous bullshit that just doesn't mean anything. That is just the same thing that someone said. Sorry, was that—
Leanne ElliottAl really doesn't like LinkedIn. I didn't get that.
Emma DjemilI thought that didn't come across at all.
Al ElliottBut I do have to ask you, I do have to ask you, um, what's come of this? Like, is there anything you can tell us about that, uh, that has come of this particular video?
Emma DjemilYes. Well, yes. Um, and I've done a couple since because I'm a bit of a dopamine seeker, so I will just like go where the energy is. And also I love doing this stuff, so Um, what's come of it since is, um, I've been booked to do a comedy set in September at an industry event, 2 comedy sets in fact, on both days. I've just been approached by, um, an industry publication to be a contributor. I've had people reach out like yourselves to like come and be on podcasts. People have approached me for coaching as well. And interestingly, my husband just prompted me because he's a marketer. Marketeer, marketer. Um, and he, he said, because I remember the last one I did, I linked to a webinar that I'm running in August. And he said, um, have you had any uptake on your, in your webinar since doing that? The, the most recent, recent post, which is valid. Of course it is. Um, and it was 7 people yesterday registered and 50 today.
Leanne ElliottWow.
Emma DjemilYes.
Leanne ElliottI'm also fuming I haven't seen the ballad. Have I missed it? I saw the trance one, which is also excellent. I'm gonna have to— honestly, LinkedIn algorithm is awful.
Emma DjemilThere are actual drone shots. We used the drone to record it. Like, we went all in. And I say we because it was a family affair. Like, I was— again, my husband's such like a facilitator or an enabler, I'm not even sure, but he, um, He was the one who came up with the drone idea. He was like, we could, we could record you in a field, like in a drone. I was like, yes, you're all in on this, let's go. We did on Sunday last week, went out and took the dog for a walk, and then there's just me like dancing in a field just because that's what we do.
Al ElliottAmazing.
Leanne ElliottI love that. That just, do you know what, it just gets the energy you need, isn't it? It reminds me of you, Al. Like, it's just like once you're in, it's like, I'm all in.
Emma DjemilYou've got to go all in.
Leanne ElliottLet's get a smoke machine, let's get some lights.
Emma DjemilYeah. Exactly. Do you know what though? This is, this is one of my biggest learnings since I've been putting out content on LinkedIn. Um, when you first start out, when I first started out, you think you have to be something in your messaging, and you think, oh, you know, you see people who you think are doing well and you think, oh, I should put a message out like that. I know without a doubt that the people who come to work with me or who invite me to work with them On whatever, that they're people that I'm going to get on with, that I'm going to like really enjoy working with. And they come on a call with me and they're like, you are just like you are online. And I'm like, yeah, I am. Because, and that is such a, God, that's a beautiful thing. That is a beautiful thing to go out into the world as yourself and be accepted. Like, I don't give all of myself on LinkedIn. I don't think that's, that anyone should, but yeah, for the bits of me that I allow people to see, to be accepted for that is so powerful. And I wish people had, I wish people had that and experienced that because it's just so, I know I shouldn't be seeking external validation, but there is something quite validating about it.
Al ElliottWell, yeah, exactly. And when you create content, You know, whatever the purpose is, the metric—
Leanne ElliottWe're all doing it for attention.
Al ElliottExactly. The metric is to get attention.
Emma DjemilYeah.
Leanne ElliottAh, so I think that leads us nicely into what today's summer session is about. And the best thing is, is we had this idea to do this as one of our episodes before, um, before we reconnected, Emma, over your video. Um, and when I saw it, I was like, oh my God, Emma's gonna be perfect for this. HR Confessions. Um, Emma hasn't seen any of these in advance.
Emma DjemilImportant to say. No.
Al ElliottAnd so I think, what's the— what are we gonna do? We're gonna read them out one by one, are we?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottYep. And we're gonna— we say share our reactions, it'll mainly be Leanne and Emma. Um, and mainly Emma. And also, Emma, do feel free to tell your own stories, tell a variation of it. Uh, and we are— now, Leanne, what's the judging? What's the— what's— how's it processed? We've got 3 phrases, haven't we? We've got to—
Leanne ElliottThat's the lightning round, the speed round at the end. Yeah.
Al ElliottOh, I see.
Leanne ElliottYeah, where I've literally got very, very short stories and we're gonna get to react to them quickly. I'll explain that when we get to it. Little teaser for you, you're gonna have to keep listening. But no, I think if we just read them and we'll just react. Some of them are funny, some of them are like, oh my God, and others are just filthy. So, I think we just— it's enough material to just talk about, you know?
Emma DjemilAmazing.
Al ElliottSo, Lee, do we wanna— which one should we— where do you wanna start?
Leanne ElliottShall I start with— I think this is probably the dumbest Possibly the darkest one?
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Emma DjemilOh God. No, I've got— what am I in for?
Al ElliottWell, I, I've, I've read this. I've read this and I'll be honest, when I was reading it, I didn't fully see what was going on till the end. So you're gonna have to just make sure you keep this humanity, this, Lee.
Emma DjemilOkay.
Leanne ElliottUm, so this was titled, The Police Needed to Speak to the Person in Charge. My boss, the owner, preps me for weeks when he's leaving for a very remote vacation. and will not be accessible. He gives me also his season tickets to a football game in town and says leave early, go to the game with my husband. I never leave early, so I say to myself, you never leave early, next week is going to be hell, go. I noticed a police outside and I asked the receptionist what's going on and she says, I don't know, the officer came in and asked to speak to one of our employees and they went out to the car. My boss tells me to go, that due to the nature of the employee that's involved, it can't be anything serious. This guy is always on time, Works very hard, well-dressed, educated, well-spoken, has a good life. I shrug it off, we go to the game. I'm scrolling through my phone and see my business on the news, that a dead body of a missing person has been found on the property. My phone starts blowing up because my Mr. Perfect guy—
Al ElliottJust to confirm, Mr. Perfect guy was the guy—
Leanne ElliottPerfect employee guy.
Al ElliottWho the police were talking to before she left. Got it. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottHas just been arrested for killing this person. The police need to speak to the person in charge, and now my boss is on a flight and cannot be reached. The next week was the worst week of my professional life. I had no guidance. Fast forward 3 years later, he was convicted of killing this person on his lunch hour and burying him, burying him in a shallow grave on the property.
Emma DjemilStop.
Leanne ElliottHe's still in jail.
Al ElliottI mean, that got dark quick, didn't it?
Leanne ElliottYes.
Emma DjemilYes.
Al ElliottI have to be honest, when I read this first time, I don't think I fully grasped just how dark this was.
Emma DjemilNo. No. And I'm thinking, where does he work that he has long enough on his lunch break to do all of that? So there's pros and cons to working at this company.
Leanne ElliottYeah, you were just impressed with his efficiency.
Emma DjemilWhy do they get really good time off?
Leanne ElliottLike, oh God.
Al ElliottSo, so what, what, what's our initial thoughts, Leanne?
Leanne ElliottI mean, I want to hear from you, Emma. I mean, this is quite an extreme example, but do you think in HR— have you— you must have seen all sorts of things. Have you ever heard of anything like this, whether it necessarily be murder but arrests or other questionable Behaviours?
Emma DjemilDo you know, as you were talking, I was like, okay, so is this a sex— sexual harassment one? Like, because it's almost like a tick list of, of like potential scenarios. So no, I've not ever, I've not ever dealt with a murder. Like, thankfully, goodness me. You have situations where people do stuff outside of work. See, in my head now I'm going like, well, was this on company time? And is the employer vicariously liable? Was this company business? Um, There's the HR in me, right? No. So, I've not ever, thankfully, ever dealt with a murder, like, especially not on the premises. Was the other person an employee too, or just some random that—
Leanne ElliottWe believe it was a random person, or not associated with the company.
Al ElliottI am thinking though, Emma, have you not got the opportunity to do a Sophie Ellis-Bextor cover of Murder on the Shop Floor? Is that too far? Is that too much?
Leanne ElliottI mean, it would be hilarious, but highly inappropriate.
Al ElliottOh, yeah.
Emma DjemilSo much.
Leanne ElliottFair, sorry.
Emma DjemilI love that creativity. Look, see, it's there. It's coming out.
Al ElliottI do wanna know, you said you had a tick list. I mean, were you joking there, or do you genuinely, you and your HR chums, do you genuinely have to deal with all this kind of weirdness in the police and stuff?
Emma DjemilOh, genuinely, yeah. Yeah, we do. And, and, um, and when I say tick list, it's like, so if the police are involved, you know it's going to be a really serious kind of allegation, right? Which is why I'm— and I was thinking of, um, people within my network who've, who have dealt with serious sexual harassment cases, like, and, um, of underage people, like, and have had to deal with that. situation because it was like their CEO or something, like, really. So, yeah, it's not uncommon for an HR professional to be dealing with the employment side of a situation like that. I think what's simplistic is how HR is perceived as an admin function and a transactional function, and we do the letters and we send out the offers, And in my opinion, this side of HR, this dealing with the very raw experiences of HR, is so woefully unsupported. Like, there is no recognition that I've found within our professional kind of standards of how we should be dealing with this. We've got all these standards around how, as HR professionals, we should be dealing with other people's wellbeing and how we should understand how work affects them. But there is nothing that says, as an HR professional, you are going to be dealing with all of this stuff, and therefore you are expected to resource yourself, support yourself, get some kind of space for you. And then you go into organisations and they're like, oh, you're just admin, so just do the admin, without acknowledging that you're actually taking the emotional burden of stuff that people, they're not even going to see a lot of the time because You're, you know, part of your thing is you're meant to be confidential.
Leanne ElliottAnd I think this is where humour is so important as well, isn't it? You know, I think there is an element when you work in industries like this, you do develop a slightly dark sense of humour.
Emma DjemilYeah.
Leanne ElliottLike, I think it's a part of the survival, isn't it? But also, you need that levity, that lightness to go with the heaviness. And I think that's why people love You know why your video did so well? Because it is that, that little shining light when people are calling you admin. How dare you, sir?
Emma DjemilYeah, exactly. How dare you, sir? That might be another lyric. No, it's so true. I think this is why it does well, is it's validation and it's someone saying, oh, I actually, like, I see you. I see what you're actually dealing with. And so many people don't. It's so misconstrued as a profession. And some HR people have got some of the best sense of humour, exactly because of what you said, because we have to, because otherwise, you know, what have you got?
Leanne ElliottYeah, definitely. I think my favourite thing already from this episode, and I hope you beat it, Emma, is how long are their lunch breaks now?
Al ElliottLove it.
Emma DjemilLove it.
Al ElliottWell, talking of breaks, we'll have a very, very quick break, and then we'll come back, and I've got a bit more of a lighthearted one.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number 1 marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking. You're not gonna say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff, and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that will be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back. I'll cut that out. Keep that in. Welcome back. Welcome back. Just in case you joined us halfway through, what are you doing, you absolute weirdo? You should start from the beginning. That's a very strange thing to do.
Leanne ElliottBut don't put that on. They can do whatever. There's no rules here.
Al ElliottWell, yeah, but then we have to— they're making me explain the whole format again. That's no good. Anyway, now welcome back. Welcome back.
Emma DjemilOkay, so we're putting to Emma, Well, my whole song that I've just put out is Don't Call Me HR. So like, just call me my name.
Al ElliottI wasn't actually just defining you by HR. So we've got Emma HR here.
Emma DjemilEmma HR.
Al ElliottYeah. Oh man, I got myself in a right pickle here. Okay, so let me read you this scenario and you tell me what you, whether you've heard of something like this, what your thoughts are on it. So, This person wrote, we had some woman trying to avoid doing work by sitting out in a car in the parking lot. Well, that's a problem in itself. While she was hiding out there, she needed to use the restrooms. When instead of going back inside, she decides to pee out the car window. Even though I'm also a woman, I was impressed and disgusted by the physics behind this feat. She'd stuck her bare ass outside the window and just went for it. So unbeknownst to her, Her male coworker had arrived at work late due to an appointment. He drove past to find a parking spot which was free with her ass in the parking spot. I'm guessing dribbling. So he then reported the incident to us, HR. One of our HR people had to investigate it, and sure enough, parking lot cameras could corroborate his story. But she said, uh, oh, that was it. Sorry, I've got lost the story. Here we are. One HR person confronted the woman. This is the peeing, this is, this is the peeing woman.
Leanne ElliottThe bare arse.
Al ElliottThe bare arse. Bare arse Brenda, we'll call her from now on. Well, how did he know it was me? It could have been anyone. And we thought, okay, fair enough. Fair enough. So, uh, we went back to the male peer and asked how he knew it was her. His response, oh, it's definitely her. The tattoos are pretty recognizable. I thought that was a bit of a, bit of a story, that. So essentially, and also, how do you know the tat— I mean, are we talking how far down the tattoos are we talking? There's, there's a lot here that's, uh, that's not in. Anyway, so this was, this was finished up by HR going, we definitely don't get paid enough for this. Is that, has that ever happened to you? I mean, Emma, I'm not saying, have you ever peed out of a, of a car window? 'Cause you may well have done, but that's not part of it. Has anything like this crazy happened to you?
Emma DjemilNot out of a window. Like, who, who, why would she do that? Why would she, why would she do that and not just open the door? Like, in what— this fascin— people fascinate me. Like, what is the thinking? That I'm hiding, I'm hiding in my car to escape from work. I need the toilet. I know the best thing to do rather than open the door and give me a bit of COVID is just to stick my ass out. Who does that?
Al ElliottThe other thing is like, what?
Leanne ElliottI really enjoyed how the HR person also recognised, what did they say? I was impressed and disgusted by the physics behind this feat.
Emma DjemilDo you know what my mind is immediately going to? Is that this, obviously they're investigating it, right? Just the investigation notes. I'm like having to, to type up the different words that people will use to like, like the guy driving past, that he would explain. Will he use the word arse? Will he just use bum? Like what, what? Those investigation notes are gonna be absolutely amazing.
Leanne ElliottOh, I love this. Is it one of those where you have to find really, like, professional ways of saying, like, like, the woman presented her, her backside to the car window?
Emma DjemilI can't, I can't go over how— why you stick it out the window.
Al ElliottThat's such a good point. Anyway, Lee. Do we want to keep talking about this or should we, uh, should we move on?
Leanne ElliottI mean, I think my question would be a serious question. Is this— how is this punishable? I understand the person was skiving off work, so were they punished for skiving off work? For public urination? For indecent exposure to a colleague? Like, what's the, what's the HR complaint?
Al ElliottThat's a good point.
Emma DjemilDo you know what's so sad is how my mind immediately goes to the answer. Like, I'm just like, well, technically you'd probably be bringing the company into disrepute. Yeah, it would probably be— well, yeah, obviously all the stuff around like missing work, but getting your ass out on company property when you don't know who's driving through, that would definitely be, um, bringing the company into disrepute.
Leanne ElliottWe were, we were talking to, um, Rebecca Taylor a couple of weeks ago, um, and she was actually— Rebecca was on the episode, Emma, that we shared your first video on, the, um, house song.
Emma DjemilYeah.
Leanne ElliottUm, and she was telling us how there was a— she was— because she's in HR, there was a time where she basically had a phantom shitter.
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottWho would just poo in the bathroom, but on like the bare tiles, and she'd have to like get it cleaned up and then try and deal with it. And like, and she was like, that wasn't even like the worst thing I dealt with probably that day.
Emma DjemilEveryone's got a shit story.
Leanne ElliottReally?
Emma DjemilEvery HR professional. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've all got one.
Leanne ElliottIs it like a rite of passage? Like, until you have a shit story, you're not a proper HR professional? I think so.
Emma DjemilI think, yes, absolutely. It's like, um, you're not an HR professional unless you've got cheapy experience. Like, we chase cheapy experience like it's the golden, like, ah. So, when you've got it, you're like, yeah, I've got cheapy. Um, it's the same thing. You have to have some kind of shit story, otherwise you're not really HR. Are you even HR unless you've got a shit story?
Leanne ElliottThat's the title of your next song. Yeah. Oh my God.
Emma DjemilYeah, there has to be. Thank you.
Leanne ElliottI see it as a country, maybe a country song.
Al ElliottOh yes.
Emma DjemilDon't spread your shit around here.
Leanne ElliottExactly, exactly. Some kind of like banjo.
Emma DjemilYeah. Or you could do a horn section. Don't be bringing your shit into the toilet. That's another soundbite and you know it.
Al ElliottThis is brilliant. We— the clips make themselves, they really do.
Emma DjemilOh no, I prefer, don't bring that shit around here.
Leanne ElliottI snorted.
Emma DjemilOh God, amazing.
Leanne ElliottI look forward to seeing that very soon.
Emma DjemilI'm like, You know it's gonna happen. I'm already forming it.
Leanne ElliottOh dear.
Emma DjemilOh goodness.
Leanne ElliottOh God.
Al ElliottLee, there's a couple more at the top that I thought were—
Leanne ElliottReally? Which one do you want me to do?
Al ElliottUm, well, well, I see I'm still trying to keep it kind of light. Um, and—
Leanne ElliottOh, the top one's a bit Yeah. Bit sad-making.
Al ElliottBit sad-making. The second one is, um, it's just a bit odd.
Leanne ElliottOh, I quite enjoyed, I quite enjoyed the 7 hours one. I thought this was quite funny. So this is, it went on for 7 hours. Mind out the gutter, please. We received an outside email with a photo attachment. The photograph was of a nurse we employed with what looked like a glass pipe in, of some sort in her lap. The email alleged that she was a drug addict. It prompted us to go seek out the nurse. When we arrived at her desk, she was on the phone with a patient, but visibly nodding off. We requested she come to the HR office, uh, with us to talk. Then we confronted her about the allegation. She denied everything and agreed to a drug test. Instead of sending her out to an outside lab, we had one of the technicians in our office building administer the test. That's when things went south. She began telling us she needed to go out to her car. We believe this was because she planned to use synthetic urine or someone else's. Mm-hmm.
Al ElliottMaybe Bear House Barbara should run out and fill up a jar from—
Emma DjemilBarbara! Oh, wicked.
Al ElliottMaybe that's what Bear House Barbara was doing. Selling fresh urine.
Emma DjemilDrive-by!
Al ElliottLeanne laughed so much that her headphones fell off there.
Leanne ElliottThat's what Barbara was doing. That's the only thing that would actually make sense.
Al ElliottAnyway, this is where you are.
Leanne ElliottThank you. Um, we flatly told her that leaving the bathroom would be noted as a refusal to take the test, which would mean an automatic termination. This woman proceeded to throw a tantrum on the floor of the bathroom for the next 7 hours. We had to shut down that entire bathroom. Other employees started a rumor we were holding a pregnant woman hostage, and at lunchtime she demanded a meal. So I went to the cafeteria, purchased her sandwich and drink, and she ate it on the bathroom floor. After hours of tears and yelling, 5 PM rolled around. She calmly stood up and said, it's the end of my shift, so I'll be leaving now. We repeated to her that leaving would still be considered a refusal and grounds for immediate termination. Eventually, she reluctantly agreed to take the test. The results we got back were positive, and she was terminated. I thought that was the end of it until several weeks later, she called to complain her insurance card was no longer valid and she couldn't pick up a prescription. This turned into an hour-long discussion about how losing employment also means losing benefits.
Al ElliottThat's a bit of a crazy story. It sounds a bit like she is— she's gone because when she got up at the end of her shift, 5 PM, she's gone, right, I'm going. So it sounded like she just needs to put off the time.
Leanne ElliottShe's just wasted a chill 7 hours.
Al Elliott7 hours, exactly. And also to go from nodding off because you've had a little bit of— can we say crack? I don't think we can, can we? We've had— you've had a bit of a glass pipe session, nodding off, to then just like Like having a tantrum and staying up for like a further 7 hours. That's kind of impressive. If I have a whiskey at night, then I'm asleep within 20 minutes.
Leanne ElliottWell, she's a nurse. I guess she's used to long shifts, maybe.
Al ElliottTrue.
Emma DjemilI think when people interact with HR, they think that you're a little bit like of a job's worth. That's the word I'm looking for. Job's worth. Because you go through like, well, you have to consider this, and then maybe we should consider this. That was going through my head that whole time you were talking about that situation of like, well, what would I do if an employee was tantruming? What do I do when my daughter is tantruming? I, sometimes I cope with it well, sometimes I don't. If it was an employee, I probably wouldn't, you know. I reckon I'd have called the police or something to say like, what are you doing? Get off the property. Like, grow up.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Emma DjemilI just, the amount of times I wanted to say, do you know that If you watch The Inbetweeners film where they're having the fight and then I grow up, grow up, and then it goes, grow up! I wanted to say that so many times in my employment to people of just like, come on, people. You get a very like, um, like a poker face in HR because what you really want to be doing is telling people to grow up. And I think I probably would have had to with her.
Al ElliottHaving the cheek to say to one of the HR people, Ah, this is shit. Can you go and get me a sandwich?
Emma DjemilGive me a sandwich.
Leanne ElliottGreat, thanks.
Emma DjemilExactly.
Al ElliottYou can't do it.
Emma DjemilYeah.
Al ElliottOh my God, that's just weird.
Emma DjemilEvery HR professional studied many years to be the ones who get lunch. They did. The amount of times we were asked to, uh, oh, can you get some sandwiches in for that board meeting or something? You're like, are you shitting me? Are you actually joking? Like, Get your own bloody sandwiches.
Leanne ElliottAgain, how dare you say that?
Emma DjemilHow dare you say that? Exactly. Yeah, these stories are insane.
Leanne ElliottThey are a bit, a little bit unhinged, aren't they? I, I don't remember having like either an employee or a colleague having a full-on like that level tantrum, but I think we've all seen colleagues have like Kind of low-key tantrums, like arms folded and won't talk and, you know, won't talk again in the meeting because of something that's been said, or—
Al ElliottI've got one. I daren't tell you because this is, this is, this, when I first started my first company, I had about 25 employees, no HR, had no idea how to manage, had no, I didn't even know what HR was. Anyway, so I, I, one, you're gonna, you're gonna so judge me in this. One of the, one of the drivers, I had to let them go. And I was like, because basically he went off to deliver. It was late night. We delivered beer to students, 3 o'clock in the morning. He went off and he had, he had 3 deliveries to make. Didn't make, he made them, but only after an hour and a half because he went to his mate's place to smoke a, to just have a little smoke, um, halfway between on the delivery. So he came back and I was like, dude, this isn't acceptable. I'm really sorry. You know, and he started kicking off with me, which I thought was weird. Someone who just smoked a load of dope because they're supposed to be a bit more calm, but he was kicking off with me and he, and he picked up, um, I think he picked up the papers, like, and he threw them at me. He picked his phone up that I'd given him, picked his phone up, a Nokia, and he went to throw it on the floor. He went, he thought better of it, or placed it in front of me, and then got in his car. And while we were in this yard with maybe about half a kilometre between us and the gate at the end, screaming down this yard, like in his car, you could hear wheels spinning, his hand out the window, giving me the Kenny G's, like, ah, all this kind of stuff. Anyway, an hour later, I went out to take another delivery. He'd forgotten the gate was locked. So for an hour he had to sit at the bottom of that yard and wait for someone to let him out.
Leanne ElliottHe just didn't have the key.
Al ElliottHe didn't have the key. He couldn't get out. And, uh, I know it was kind of like I went, oh, all right, Dave, how you doing? He's like, oh, let me out. Anyway, sorry.
Emma DjemilThat's brilliant.
Al ElliottWere we talking about tantrums?
Leanne ElliottNo, I think that's a brilliant, a brilliant example.
Emma DjemilYeah.
Leanne ElliottHave you got, Emma, Emma, kind of like those kind of things of—
Emma DjemilNot tantrums so much, but you see it quite a lot in, in leadership, to be honest. People take things that their team do really personally. So, there's so much— I think we talked about this on the last podcast, you know, around ego and how, yeah, in leadership, a lot of the work that I've done in HR is trying to wind people's neck in, basically, on their behalf. So, something really simple, like a flexible working request, people can take that really personally. It's a massive inconvenience. Someone wants to have a life outside of work. How dare you inconvenience us with your needs? Like, how do we, how do we, how could we possibly cover the work? How are we all staying in touch with each other? There's, so it's not like a full-on meltdown in a, in a toilet I've never seen, but there have, there have, when, when you are an HR professional, you get to see what people really think. Um, and you are the ones that kind of then go. Okay, I, I hear you, but maybe let's not like sack this person because they just put in a flexible working request. Like, it's, um, I, I— they're, they're tantrums that happen all the time, particularly founders, founder-led businesses. Oh my God.
Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.
Emma DjemilBecause it's their baby. Like, you understand, it's their company, but then that creates all kinds of emotional stuff that you're just like, what, what are you talking about? Like, you're their employer, it's not actually your family. Um, let's, let's wind it in a little bit and be a bit more reasonable.
Leanne ElliottYeah, we've, we've worked with a fair few owner-led businesses in our time, and it is— it— what, what makes me— I love it because they also seem to be very curious and, and very, like, interested in people because they care, they genuinely care. Um, so I love that, but like you say, they kind of just kind of latch onto something. I remember working with an organisation, I'll be very, very vague, that I showed them one particular kind of like employee data insight that I thought would kind of be like a, we need to, you know, keep an eye on this, but it's nothing kind of crazy. Literally like, no, we need to talk about this one thing for the next hour because that completely undermines my entire identity if my people think this. And it's like, yeah, they're not saying they do, they're just saying they might on occasion sometimes think that. And it's Yeah, and it turned into this whole thing to the point where even like 2 years later when we were kind of running things again, that was the only thing they were interested in. They were like, I want to see this data point first. And it's like, wow.
Emma DjemilTriggered something for them. The amount of times I've been asked if I can like recalculate or calculate engagement scores a different way because they haven't liked the outcome. So could we just use a different calculation?
Leanne ElliottNo, no, no. Wow.
Emma DjemilThat's not how it works, darling. Sorry.
Al ElliottWe did have one customer. No, it wasn't a customer. It was a lead, wasn't it, for us? Now, again, I'll be very, very vague, but this person was referred to us and they were, and they said, we want to run engagement survey.
Leanne ElliottNo, it was worse than that. They came and they were like talking to me about all these things. I was like, it sounds like you need to start with engagement.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottAnd then we never heard from them again. She, she ghosted us. No, please.
Al ElliottAnd then about 3 weeks later, we saw a picture on, on LinkedIn of this person fakely biting their fingernails, a picture of them where they'd professionally had it taken on the way to work in, in like a Photoshop professionally and go, and the caption was, I'm so nervous. I'm about to relaunch my engagement survey today. I hope they say nice things and posted it publicly on LinkedIn where their employees were. And we were like, we. We dodged a bullet with that one, didn't we?
Leanne ElliottYeah. Yeah. If that was our client, we'd be like, take it down. Take it down now.
Emma DjemilYes. I would just, again, it always baffles me how lacking in self-awareness leaders can be as well by doing stuff like that. We had a CEO one time who drove like really fast Fast, like expensive cars, talking to basically our groundspeople. So like, you know, lower paid people about his 6 fast cars and his like expensive watches. And you're like, like, read the room. Like, what makes you think that— what, what you do— what you're doing? Like, in this way, you've just told them that there's no money for, for more people or more pay rises or whatever, and you're boasting about your fast cars. Like, can you not? Can you not do that? Oh, dude, it's horrible. Oh, they—
Leanne Elliottyeah, it's just— yeah, well, I mean, I'm not surprised.
Emma DjemilIt's just—
Al Elliottno, sadly tends to be males, doesn't it?
Leanne ElliottYou said it.
Al ElliottYeah, no, no, because I know quite a few founders and, uh, and yeah, they say they, they make a million dollar— a million pound in revenue in the first 2 years and they're like, all right, I'm off to buy a Ferrari or I was like, yeah, that's probably not the best thing you can do with that money. But anyway, listen, I didn't go and buy a BMW I couldn't afford.
Leanne ElliottNo, we certainly didn't go bankrupt for it either.
Al ElliottOh no, they didn't get it taken away from the bankruptcy.
Emma DjemilYes.
Leanne ElliottNo, no, true story. Yeah, £103,000. Good times.
Al ElliottYeah, yeah, I did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got— yeah, £103 grand went pop for— and, uh, yeah, they took my BMW and I was like, don't take the BMW. They're like, dude, you haven't paid your— you haven't paid it for like 6 months.
Leanne ElliottI'm like, I know, He sounded like the gingerbread man then. Not the gumdrop bun, not the BMW. Poor Al.
Al ElliottYeah, well, that was back when I was a dick. I'm still a bit of a dick now, but I was more of a dick back then.
Emma DjemilYou're an aware dick.
Al ElliottI want to wear dick.
Leanne ElliottA self-aware dick.
Al ElliottI'm so sorry, I genuinely didn't hear what you said there. I thought you Anyway, I won't say what I thought you said. Lee, we've probably got— I'm gonna move it on. We've probably got time for like 1 or 2 of these fast rounds.
Leanne ElliottOh no, I think we've got— I think we've got time for more because they're all too good. So speed round, okay? Okay, Emma, I want you to rate it as seen it, as in I have personal experience with this either directly or, or through one of the, um, your professional people that you support. Believe it, in that Totally, totally probable. Yeah. Um, and stop it. Like, can't be true. Absolutely not. Don't be ridiculous.
Emma DjemilOkay. I don't think I'm gonna say stop it. Not ever.
Leanne ElliottOkay. So the first one, I had to explain to an employee that despite not having any paid time off available, she needed to go home and change her pants after shitting herself. It was severe enough that her chair needed to be replaced. Believe it.
Al ElliottAmazing.
Emma DjemilThat's what I'm saying, everyone's got a shit story.
Leanne ElliottAmazing.
Emma DjemilSo believe it.
Leanne ElliottSecond one, found out our top salesman had been working from home from a golf course 3 counties away for 6 months. Numbers were too good to question it.
Emma DjemilBelieve it.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think I'd want to be that person as well.
Al ElliottYeah, I see it. This is why I stay out of these conversations when Leanne brings them up, because I'm like, Fucking good. Good on you, son. Yes. I love it when people find little shortcuts and they're like, they've got a mouse jiggler going on or something and they're all there, or they're just in Bali. Not Bali, why? It's a bad place. But yeah, I can't—
Leanne ElliottI'm not in HR. It's fine. Don't worry about it. Caught an employee asleep under the desk at 2 PM. His excuse, he'd been up all night preparing for the meeting. The meeting was in 10 minutes and he had nothing prepared.
Emma DjemilSeen it.
Al ElliottNo!
Emma DjemilYeah.
Leanne ElliottActually asleep under the desk?
Emma DjemilYeah, of course. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottWhat?
Al ElliottYou say that like it's a thing. I don't know anyone who's fallen asleep under the desk, or even at work.
Emma DjemilYou've got to get yourself a job in HR, love.
Leanne ElliottAmazing. Amazing. Wow. Okay, um, next one. I spent 2 months sending increasingly desperate company-wide emails about underwear left in the toilets. Never caught the culprit.
Emma DjemilUnderwear left in the toilets. Believe it. Yeah.
Leanne ElliottI mean, if someone's gonna shit, they're gonna leave their pants in there as well, aren't they?
Al ElliottI know, but are you saying, are you saying like, I, I have so many questions about this. So if someone's leaving underwear in the toilets, are they leaving underwear that is beyond repair? Like we had in the first, in the first person, first one example. Are they leaving underwear just because they like leaving underwear? How much underwear do you think?
Leanne ElliottI think so. I think it's fetish, 'cause I think this person would, if it was like dirty underwear, they'd specify that.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottI have a feeling it's some kind of weird fetish, or maybe just a game, just like LOL. You know, Sandra's had to send out another email about the bra in the, uh—
Emma DjemilI don't know. I like this. I reckon the person who's doing it's got a proper vendetta against the person sending the emails, and at some point they were like, I'm gonna get there, I'm gonna get that person, and this is the way I'm gonna do it. I love that as a mechanism for a vendetta. It's excellent. 10 out of 10.
Al ElliottI love it.
Leanne ElliottLike, yeah, take that. Yeah. And there's another pair of pants. I'll give you my pants. Yeah, well, I mean, underwear is expensive these days as well. I know.
Al ElliottThat's what I'm thinking. But then I was thinking also, if you were going to do like something a bit worse, it's probably the cheaper of all of the shocking things you want to leave in toilets.
Emma DjemilYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd leave you with some self-respect, I think.
Emma DjemilYeah.
Leanne ElliottYou know, well, it's not freaking Brenda out the car window.
Al ElliottFair-ass Brenda though. Anyway.
Leanne ElliottOkay, next one. I think, I think we've all seen this. An employee fires off a furious email ranting about their useless teammates to their boss, except they hit reply all.
Emma DjemilYeah, of course.
Leanne ElliottSeen it.
Al ElliottWe've all done that.
Leanne ElliottSeen it.
Al ElliottThis is actually sort of on brand. My sister worked for I'll just say a British council, an English county council, and she got a job in comms, which she does. That's her profession. She's very good at it. It was day 2, and there was this event coming up called A Touch of Cloth, and it was all about, it was all about like, it was the Touch of Cloth was like a vicar or something, and it's like a play going on or whatever. Anyway, she got a bit confused and sent an email to every single person with the headline Touching Cloth. Which Just in case anyone from the UK doesn't know what that means, that means you're about to shit yourself.
Emma DjemilYeah. Which the previous person should have told someone about.
Al ElliottTouching cloth is where you actually say, I'm gonna go, right?
Emma DjemilI'm off.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottI saw it where, um, somebody applied for a job, um, but they did it, it was, it was back in the day and it was over email, which is a bit, a bit archaic looking back. Um, but reply to all with their application.
Emma DjemilOh.
Leanne ElliottSo yeah, everyone could read there, like, oh, was it good?
Al ElliottUh-oh.
Emma DjemilAwkward.
Leanne ElliottBut then, you know, just things, it was like the email's recalled, but it's not if you've already opened it.
Emma DjemilYeah.
Al ElliottWhat's this recall bullshit? I don't get it.
Emma DjemilYeah.
Al ElliottAnyway.
Emma DjemilI once emailed someone and called him anus instead of Angus. Would you be going to be called Angus? Yes, you've got to expect that in your life.
Al Elliott100%.
Leanne ElliottWas that your official verdict as an HR professional when it got reported?
Emma DjemilThat was the outcome of the investigation. Just expect it. Bye, anus, go away.
Leanne ElliottBlame your mum.
Al ElliottYeah. Just what I had to really quickly— when I had a web design agency, um, back about 20 years ago, um, I sent an email with a proof which needed approval, and I sent it to the and I forgot the R in proof.
Leanne ElliottAnd so I just—
Al Elliottand it was only a few weeks later, I was looking through the email, I realized my mistake, and they just didn't say a word. But they were a charity that were, you know, that quite rightly would've been quite annoyed about my use of that word. But thankfully, they saw it as like, that's obviously a typo, obviously. Anyway.
Leanne ElliottOh dear.
Al ElliottHave we got one more?
Leanne ElliottOne more. Just 'cause I wanna know if Emma's ever seen this. I found a guy masturbating to pool in his cubicle.
Al ElliottPorn or pool?
Leanne ElliottPorn.
Emma DjemilYeah.
Al ElliottYou said pool.
Emma DjemilBelieve it. I haven't seen someone in the act, but there's been like records on IT of like watching porn and stuff like that, you know, on their computer. I don't think I've ever actually caught anyone or know of anyone.
Al ElliottYeah, I think there's an entire Reddit I think it's— I think it's— I'm not sure whether I should say this.
Leanne ElliottNext week.
Al ElliottI think it's called Reddit. You know, they have the R in front of it, R, and it's called Danger Wank. And it's like all the dangerous places you try it. Go on. Sorry, Emma, you're nodding as if you've posted on that.
Emma DjemilI've been all the time. No, I can just believe it. I can just believe it. There's all kinds of kinks, aren't there? Like, They just, they just are. And there's the guy in Parliament looking at, looking at porn, you know, like, come on.
Leanne ElliottYeah, we never had— I never heard of anything like that. Although I was at a hen do once, and it was, you know, it's like a friend of a friend, um, so you don't really know them that much. But I kind of met her once before, and I was chatting to her, and she was like, how's work? She's like, oh, it's really stressful, and I've had to masturbate in the bathroom 3 times this week. And I was like, whoa, what? Yeah, genuinely true story. But she was so confident with it. You know, you start to think, am I the prude?
Emma DjemilI love that this— see, my mind's gone to, this is like the new wellbeing technique. Screw your fruit bowls. This is what it's like.
Al ElliottWell, I mean, literally you could screw your fruit bowl, but yeah.
Leanne ElliottYeah. Imagine.
Al ElliottYeah. Just be careful if you roll that out as a campaign, like screw your fruit bowls.
Emma DjemilYeah.
Leanne ElliottToday's wellbeing tip. Oh God.
Al ElliottThis is the masturbation corner.
Emma DjemilLike, in your induction, this is what they call a stress break when it's too stressful.
Al ElliottOh, could you imagine opening the door and there's like a queue of 2 people waiting to come in and you're like, morning, morning, and wait along. Oh good God. Right, we've covered everything today.
Leanne ElliottWell, if all that doesn't get us cancelled, I'm not sure what will.
Emma DjemilI know, this has gone all kinds of places. I am I'm not disappointed with this at all. This has been everything I expected and more.
Leanne ElliottAmazing.
Emma DjemilAmazing. I, I think—
Leanne ElliottI don't think I've stopped crying since, like, we basically started recording, in a good way. Um, I, I mean, it's, it's brilliant, isn't it? And honestly, if, if you— if that's the type of thing you like, just get on yourself onto Reddit because there are some that are just insane. Like, they were fairly tame. There were others on there that I was like, whoa. Um, so yeah, go and, go and have a look. Um, and just remember that You know, it doesn't matter how strange you think your workplace is, somebody somewhere has got an even weirder story than yours.
Al ElliottEmma, thank you so, so much for taking the time, um, to, to join us. It has been a genuine pleasure. I'd love— we'd love to do this much, much more often with you. You are funny, funny, and just brilliant. And if anyone— right, not if anyone— when someone wants to know more about you, they can go on LinkedIn. Do you have a website for your upcoming seminars, anything like that?
Emma DjemilYeah, I think probably LinkedIn is the best place actually. I'm all over the place with my websites at the moment, so So find me on LinkedIn, have a laugh at my stuff, and then stick around and find out more.
Al ElliottFabulous. Fabulous.
Leanne ElliottAnd we can't wait. I mean, I can't wait for the country shit video.
Emma DjemilYeah. That was my question.
Leanne ElliottI would like— I feel that me and Al should get like a writing credit on it.
Al ElliottYeah. Or be like Jimmy Carr on the Ed Sheeran song. He's a backing singer on the Ed Sheeran song.
Leanne ElliottWe could just be backing singers.
Emma DjemilI can't tell you how many requests I've had to be my backing singers. Like, there is a queue. Yeah, it's longer than the masturbation section.
Leanne ElliottAmazing.
Al ElliottWell, please, please do this again. Yes, let's do this again. Like, like masturbation, all good things come to an end.
Leanne ElliottSeamlessly.
Al ElliottWe're gonna be back on Thursday with something a little bit different. Let's hope so. Oh, we're right. So Thursday we are— we're actually handing over the microphone and appearing as guests on Megan French Dunbar's brilliant podcast Unbehaved. We chat about the unwritten rules of professional life, the ones we've broken.
Emma DjemilClearly.
Al ElliottThank you, clearly.
Leanne ElliottUm, one time I got cut masturbated And then next Tuesday, we are back for another summer session called Things We Were Wrong About, because we're ever wrong. We're revisiting 3 years of our New Year prediction episodes. So, every New Year, we try and predict what's going to happen in the next 12 months in the world of work. In the interest of transparency, we don't get it right very often, so we're just going to share all the ones we got really wrong.
Al ElliottIn fact, yeah, we probably just won't bother with the ones we got right.
Leanne ElliottI think there might be one in there.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd it was, it was like, AI will be big next year.
Emma DjemilGroundbreaking.
Leanne ElliottYou called it Al because you didn't know how to say it. Yeah.
Al ElliottEmma, thank you so much. We're looking forward to your next— well, to everything you've got in LinkedIn. And, um, yeah, thank you again. You're amazing. Thank you.
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