Bad Bullies...Whatcha Gonna Do? (Episode 34)

[00:00:00] You're right, especially if the payroll system is down, does your accounting department have an internal stack of checks? They, oh my gosh, I don't even think about that. Do you even have a live check to write someone a check?

[00:00:16] Again, my point is we have a lot more to say on the It's About Payroll Show to the professionals but to the employees, put the power in your own hands and don't depend on everybody else around you to have to figure this out.

[00:00:31] Welcome back folks, it's another episode of It's About Your Paycheck Episode 34. Bad Bullies, whatcha gonna do? I don't know what Walt has in store for us today, we'll figure it out but before that, what's good Walt, how you doing sir?

[00:00:46] I'm good, happy Sunday to you man, just happy bro, happy and happy to be here, grateful to be here with my boy on the other side of the world, on the other side of the country. We're on the same side. I forgot, I forgot moved, yup.

[00:01:05] We're closer now. We're close now. Southeast. Yeah, southeast man, I'm good bro, how about you? Same bro, same, like we were saying just getting over, oh my gosh, we lost two weeks of the summer just with COVID basically.

[00:01:20] Just the airlines man, I got a coworker that just traveled and also like it's, I think it's the airport still, I think we still gotta be mindful going through airports and stuff like that.

[00:01:29] Right, I see people all the time wearing their masks and I'm just like, oh, me too, you're over doing it, nope, not, no they ain't, they're being cautious enough. I always bring hand sanitizer with me.

[00:01:40] That I do, I am, but I was like that before, I'm a bit of a German folk, so always with the hand sanitizer, yeah. What did get me though is on the current event tip, that post I sent you about, we did some, the time shift reset.

[00:01:57] Now I'm trying to think, did Richard Simmons die before? Did the Matrix glitch? Did the Matrix, yes. Who knows man. It got me thinking and I don't remember that good, so I was just like oh my goodness, that's what? Just fishy.

[00:02:15] For instance, I don't understand daylight savings time, right? How do we go back or go for one hour and there's such a big drastic change in the length of sunlight in the day. Right, all we did is change. That's interesting, yeah, see, see what I'm saying?

[00:02:33] It's flat earth. Self-control, everything. Well yeah, beyond that man, look, what's up? No, go ahead. The biggest story, right? That global Microsoft thing. They saying it's due to a crowd strike update, but I feel like it's an attack that they don't

[00:02:55] want to admit to because it would be, think about it, right? Go ahead. The one thing that makes me think that it's more so an attack is because of all everything that we've seen happening like that and it's been attacks. Exactly.

[00:03:11] They've always been attacked and I think they don't want to lose business or lose business to a competitor because they've been hacked. You know what I'm saying? Yep, they can admit that. I think that would be a big admit of weakness. Yeah, think about it.

[00:03:27] A lot of people might use the Microsoft suite and I think one of the biggest competitors is Google suite, G suite. Oh, probably, yeah, probably. Or going to Apple. Apple, yeah. Apple for something like with their, yep, yeah, exactly right.

[00:03:41] But so it got me thinking because being our business is payroll and HR. It got me thinking of selling my boss. I was like, yeah, I'm going to think of alternatives and he's what live checks and

[00:03:53] I'm like, no, not even I'm thinking ACH but then he's, whoa, no, the banks were down too or some banks rather, right? I did get a message for one of my vendors that said, oh, just in case your employees didn't get paid today, it's because of this.

[00:04:08] And I'm like, what? So it puts us in perspective, right? Yes, this show is about your paycheck. So think about that folks. It's twofold for us as HR payroll professionals. One side on our side on the professional side giving you the service, we need to figure

[00:04:28] out alternatives to get you paid. But what do you do in a world where we can literally not move any cash? Yep. Think about everything that impacted. That's such a good point, bro. What do we do in a world?

[00:04:44] That means we need to have some like physical cash on hand, right? Now that only works for, yes, because you're right. I'm thinking about it. That only works for a localized business where all your employees are in one building.

[00:04:53] So in theory, yes, you could go to the bank if the bank can actually function and give money out, right? Then yes, you can go get a bag and go pay your people. Sure.

[00:05:05] But what do you do when you're a multi-unit business where your headquarters is in one state and all of your units are across the country, if not across the globe? What's the world? How are you moving cash if banking's not working? Even live checks.

[00:05:23] Even if you can't get into your system to cut a live check, will you write in thousands of checks out? No, you're not doing it. They may have to use one of those payment services that they're still up, right? That's what I'm saying.

[00:05:36] Everything you think of is going to become, if it's working, then this. If it's working, then that. So that's something we could talk about a little bit more in depth on. It's about payroll. But for this audience, I urge employees, right? Everybody out there to get to check.

[00:05:55] Now it flips to that whole, do you have at least one paycheck saved in whether it be, again, provided banks can dish out cash that you have some savings? If you didn't get paid on a Friday, can you go get some cash?

[00:06:14] Do you have credit cards that you can access because it's remain as be? Some type of emergency fund. Right, exactly. Some type of emergency fund. Again, I urge you as employees for us to really remember that stat, Walt shared with us months ago on this show.

[00:06:34] What was it? Only like 40% of Americans actually have at least $1,000 saved. You know what I mean? Yeah. Something like that, yeah. But it's funny you say that because now all this line of thinking got me thinking

[00:06:49] because I just heard another article or a news report that part of the Secure 2.0 Act that we covered, right? Or maybe it wasn't. But something that the government did or whatnot, they're allowing folks 401K, they're

[00:07:03] allowing folks to withdraw up to $1,000 from your 401K penalty free in the event of an emergency. Yeah, that's it. But it's only every three years that you can do it. So that's something to think, to at least know it, that if you have a 401K you

[00:07:24] can do that. And then isn't there something, look, I don't know all the details about it, but I heard that there's something that people can do even with life insurance. Yeah. But I think there's a certain amount of money in order to do that.

[00:07:38] I believe it's a certain type of life insurance because they have life insurances that are term life and believe folks we are not experts on this stuff. But we know enough that you can go Google some words, right? Term life versus whole life.

[00:07:53] And I think those are the different ones. And then you know how it went on TikTok when who was it? Wiz Khalifa, who was the rapper that was kind of like really... Waka. Waka Flaka. I know something with a W. He really promoted this whole self banking thing.

[00:08:11] And he's right, but that is the one that you need a certain amount of money. You need if you're going to be your own bank, yeah, you need to have a million dollars, have a hundred thousand dollars to be able to pull from and invest from.

[00:08:24] You could do really good things with that. That's another route as well. But that's the one that you need a lot of money for. But again, I just urge us as employees to really try to have that backup fund.

[00:08:39] Like you said, credit card, whether it be a credit card, whether it be cash under your mattress, money in the bank, but just because folks, if we digitize our life, which I think is the right thing to do to be efficient.

[00:08:51] So just to the ease of doing business, you got to have some failsafe because these systems can crash on us and a live check. Some people, I remember early years ago, gosh, probably 15 years ago, I was at a job and I was friendly with one of the employees

[00:09:10] because it was an environment that I used to literally hand out checks, the live checks anyway. And I was cool with one of these folks and that person used to come through to my office and just come get the check from me, right?

[00:09:27] And I kind of I was like, oh, I'm going to do like a survey on this person because I was comfortable with the person. So I was like, why do you get live checks as opposed to direct deposit? And they got a little annoyed, right?

[00:09:43] I could tell that the person was a little annoyed at me because of asking almost ask something too personal. And she was the person was like, or because I want my cash in my hand. I like to go and cash.

[00:09:53] And now mind you, not only did this person get a live check, they went and cashed it at a check cashing place, which actually charge. I don't care what it's not free. Put it that way. I don't care how much and how little your check cashing

[00:10:08] place charges you. It's not free. So think about this. You're paying someone. We could we should actually do a segment on that. Like you're paying someone to hand you back your money. You're paying them to cash your check when if you had your finances

[00:10:25] set up properly, you could deposit the check and it could clear in a few days. What's up? Yes. So that's a good point, right? To your point about that, it says the check cashing services typically charge from a range of 1% up to 12% of that check amount. 12%

[00:10:44] that's $12 for every 100 that you get paid. That's nuts. Yeah, because I was going to say, I know some place of 1%. But so any who. Even in that scenario, there's a computer transaction in this in that logistical line, you get a live check.

[00:11:04] But again, if I can't access my payroll system because it's in the cloud and it's down because of this global shortage outage, I might not be able to even cut you a live check. And if I can cut you a live check, it's off of last pay periods

[00:11:21] dollar amount that we know as payroll professionals. Was yes, you're right. If especially if the payroll system is down, does your accounting department have an internal stack of checks? They oh my God, I even think about that.

[00:11:37] Do you even have a live check to write someone a check? Again, my point is we have a lot more to say on the it's about payroll show to the professionals but to the employees. Put the power in your own hands and don't depend on everybody else

[00:11:54] around you to have to figure this out. Have some savings. Have some urgency for yes, thank you. Thank you for articulating that. Create your own safety net so that you don't have to rely on. Oh, they couldn't. Can you believe them? They didn't write.

[00:12:09] They didn't have checks on hand. Can you believe them? They didn't get my check. Can you believe now I'm done and unfortunately, what is 80% of America lives paycheck to paycheck? If nothing else in the world, we just want to move the needle on that statistic. Yes, bro.

[00:12:25] That's an American's right. And here's another stat that Forbes had in our article, right? Talking about the average American and their savings and then we'll get on to our main. I don't know, but this is important. Yep, but it says that one in four Americans are 28%

[00:12:41] have savings below $1,000. So and then they break it down by generation. They break it down by generation so that 32% of Gen Z years have below that 31% of millennials have below that. Gen X is at 27% and baby boomers are at 20%. So it seems like baby boomers, more baby,

[00:13:05] more baby boomers have money or money saved. Yes. Then yes. The car younger generations because think about baby boomers are the children of the depression folks. If I'm not mistaken, or they didn't live through the profession, depression, but they're way closer to the depression than any other generation.

[00:13:28] Right? So they have a different view on money. Yeah. And they came from a really good place where you could buy homes and right easy. Am I right? They're the children of depression. They're called the silent generation. Right before that.

[00:13:45] Yeah, before that was the people born between 1901 and 1924. There you go. There you go. So so the baby boomers parents lived through the depression. Sorry. No, their grandparents. Grandparents. There you go. But still there's a connection there that your family is close to.

[00:14:03] Like you're like, oh, and again, a baby boomers are financially just if you look at the stats and do they they have really benefited from a lot more than we other generations have been able to. And look, there's way more marketing in today.

[00:14:17] There's way more companies have accessibility to way more people. A company in Florida. Yes, a company in Florida can get somebody in California or even across the globe. Yes, yes. The TikTok shops of the world. Right. The Amazon of it all.

[00:14:35] I was just talking to my mom and she was like, oh, I see these things online and I want to buy. But I forget who told I don't know. Like my I think my niece or someone's a younger person was like, grandma,

[00:14:45] don't don't do that because you can't trust those sites. And I said, my you know what? That's exactly why Amazon is very big huge because it's a trusted site. It's a trusted outlet to buy stuff.

[00:14:56] And then they make it so frictionless that I got we joke around all the time. It's like what Amazon is like, oh, I order some from Amazon and it's not going to be supposed to be here today, but it's not going to be there till tomorrow.

[00:15:08] The horror of it all. Are you kidding me? You know, but any who folks say create when you say create your own safety net. Yep, create your own safety net. You know, nobody's going to save us, man. No, no, you have to save yourselves.

[00:15:25] If 80 percent of America is the paycheck to paycheck, that is something that we have to change. If you want a better financial outlook on things that you have to change that one data point, that's it. Have some type of savings for emergency, whatever it is.

[00:15:41] If good credit, great, no problem. If that's but I urge you to if you have good credit, also create a cash reserve as well. Because what happens again? What if your credit card don't work? What if the systems are down?

[00:15:57] Believe me, public is going to take some cash. They're going to figure out how to take some cash for bread as opposed to saying, hey, my credit. No, we don't have any scanners that don't work or whatever. But if you have past Bitcoin now, except.

[00:16:11] Look, makes a good art. So we're going to get caught up on this. But folks, yeah, create that safety net. So you're at that safety net. Yeah. So what you got? You actually you have something else to share with us before we get into the topic.

[00:16:25] Yeah, really quick. We'll just go through these some of these stats. If you want me to take the first five, you take the last five. Or you just that work and then we can just talk about it.

[00:16:33] So there was an article out there by M broker dot com. And it talked about employees death and in the workplace. So here's some in the title of the article. Is your company a bit a den of thieves? You know what I'm saying? So here's the introduction.

[00:16:50] It says that employee theft is prevalent with seventy five percent admitting to stealing from their employer at least once it includes various actions from minor infractions like personal interests to our personal internet use to serious offenses such as fraud and data breaches. So think about that.

[00:17:10] So this article define doesn't just define it as something that's monetary. Exactly. So it could be time stuff. It could be. Go ahead. Remember, we reported a few weeks ago how those three employees got fired because one employee gave other employees access. It was simple access.

[00:17:29] They didn't feel tangible anything. It was looking at information is considered, just like I said, as a data breach. So folks are not thinking about that. And I and I. Folks don't realize, right? If you take a paper clip, that's technically stealing.

[00:17:48] Yes. I mean, albeit very minor, I get it. Like, you know, take a roll of toilet paper, you take a roll of paper towels from your job. You do not. That's escalating though. Right. Yes. But the same like, oh, I mean, I don't have this.

[00:18:01] If you take some food to the company has a snack room or in a snack drawer area in the break room and you just take a bunch of snacks home. Hey, they don't mind or whatever. It's not you take it from your co-workers at that.

[00:18:13] But yeah, it's technically stealing. Right. Because if you're not just eating your kind of expected allotment during the day, they expect you to eat a certain amount during the day. But if you go ahead and take the whole box and put it in your bag and

[00:18:25] all come on, it's a very interesting topic. Yeah. So my bad. All right. That's like number two. There's some stats out there that reveal those significant impacts on it. Right. So one is the cost. So up to 50 billion dollars annually is the cost for employee theft. Oh, God.

[00:18:44] But across the US, that's just in the US. Oh, yeah. So it was one business. I'm like, wait a minute. Yes. U.M. US. OK. Wow. So more than 30 percent of business bank romances are due to employee theft. Oh my God.

[00:19:01] Yeah. So look, it says most significant theft or losses. 90 percent of losses generate or originated from employees. Isn't that crazy? Number three is there's an insight into who commits the theft, right? So it says 34 percent of millennials justify stealing from their job. Gender, right?

[00:19:25] Seventy two percent of occupational fraud is committed by men. Of course. And the average perpetrator age, which I thought was enter interesting is 48 years old. That is very interesting. Why do you think that is? I don't know. Because they're getting closer to retirement and they realize, oh,

[00:19:43] I don't have a say. Yep. I'm not getting my gold barred. I didn't save a thing. And I'm just going to do this. Yeah, it could be. It could. That's wow. It's crazy, bro. I thought it was going to be younger people, but no. Going to this articles.

[00:19:58] So then it talks about the top industries that employee theft occurs in. So it's finance, insurance, health care. Those are the top sectors for insider attacks and fraud. And the motivation is like 84 percent of health care incidents are financially motivated. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:21] So maybe they overcharge a patient on the insurance and say, oh, maybe because we've seen Big Farmer, there's some people out there. There was a big case out there where a drug company developed a drug and they were selling it for way overpriced.

[00:20:35] Yeah, Big Farmer's not happening during the pandemic to with the vaccine and stuff like that. Oh, man. And then my last one, I think we talked about it already. But before I pass the Brian, we mentioned the 50 billion dollars annually for US businesses, but increasing.

[00:20:52] Yeah, right. The increasing rate per year is at 15 percent. Damn. No wonder why some companies are like will make you are very crazy about whatever it is, thought for loss prevention, things like that. Like why are you bugging out? Oh my goodness. What? You take the last six.

[00:21:14] Yeah, I got a holy cow. There's no show, bro. Yeah. Yeah. So number six is employee fraud statistics. Types of characteristics of the fraud companies lose five percent of revenue annually to fraud.

[00:21:30] So I guess this is different from the theft part of it is like a fraud specific and then typical fraud case last 14 months before discovery. So this is interesting because it's called finance, right? Yeah. Yes. That's right. Yeah. And yeah, before discovery.

[00:21:47] Yeah. So there's probably the same stat, you know, a little. And then again, remember, I know two folks. I can't disclose companies and names because it because of the sensitive nature of their work, but they're inside. They do this for their company, right?

[00:22:03] They do fraud detection and things like that. And it's this can be how can I say unintentional? Just like that, those employees, they thought she thought I don't know if it was here or she, I'm sorry, but the person three people got fired.

[00:22:18] They think in, oh, I just need a little help with this project. I'm going to get my team to help, not understanding that. No, you as the manager are the only one privy to this information. You cannot get your team to help because they're not privy and boom,

[00:22:32] that's how you give. So some of it is unintentional. It's not malicious. You know what I mean? But yeah, OK. Number seven, embezzlement statistics. So they're saying the perpetrators are often managers or C level executives.

[00:22:49] But that makes sense because those are the ones who have access to it. And that kind of coincides with all those true crimes that we done. Yes, sir. That's exactly what I just thought about because it's at the top.

[00:23:01] Right? If you're the leader, if you're the owner of the business, if you're the one that has the access to it, the temptation is much greater. Look at that second look at that second sentence. So the average tenure of eight years before. Oh my gosh.

[00:23:17] Crazy rap because it's to your point. It's to what you just said, Brian. They have access and control over different things. Managers and C level people can change and fudge data, bro. They can go in and change banking information.

[00:23:30] They can go in and do all these different things. I'm sorry, I didn't even finish the sentence. It's basically what we're saying is it goes eight years before folks are discovered eight years before detection of the managers and the C level executives that are embezzling. Holy moly guacamole.

[00:23:49] Oh my goodness. Wonder. See, and they don't talk about these stats as how businesses fail. You know what I mean? Because when you get into business and people are half of the business or three business, you're bound to fail.

[00:24:02] Yeah, you're bound to fail if everybody's stealing from you. You're definitely bound to fail. You know what I mean? Yeah. Number eight is employee time theft. And this is the one that was on my mind. I'm like, oh, they got to cover that here.

[00:24:14] This says employers lose about 4.5 hours per week per employee. Yes, bro. Oh, 4.5 hours out of a four. If you have a yeah, if you have a thousand employees, a lot of this four, four thousand hours, right? Yeah, four, five hundred.

[00:24:38] And then the common types of this hour loss is buddy punching, which probably is a little harder these days because of if you have the good system, you can geofence the punch in and out. Yeah, that's true.

[00:24:52] But if you have one of those systems that are biometric, that's good too. Because yes, this fingerprints. And then if you just require a code or a badge or a code, then you're going to get buddy punched extended breaks and unauthorized overtime.

[00:25:08] But here's the thing and great shout out to Time Track Go, right? Because if you have a system like Time Track Go, these things are easily avoided. Right? Crap, what was I going to say? But yeah, but oh, that we did a we did an article too about

[00:25:26] I think it was UKG in Alabama, East Alabama Health System. They did an analysis for them and it was like a million dollars that they were losing a year in this extended breaks and unauthorized overtime. They called it like Time Creep or something like that.

[00:25:47] But again, folks, this is easily avoided with a system like Time Track Go. So, you know, if you're a manager, if you're somebody where we're the employees, right? So we may not be like, where it is what it is until they fix their systems.

[00:25:59] I'm going to I'm going to do what I do, right? Because folks depend on that. But that's another thing that I always tell folks, don't don't live on overtime. Don't live on your overtime. Don't live on your bonuses that you may or may not get.

[00:26:12] You got to live on your hours, your base pay. And because that's what it is. Over time can easily be cut. They could it's not required. You know what I mean? Over time is not like a mandate unless it is with your job.

[00:26:25] But what I'm saying is not guaranteed. That's the better word. It's not guaranteed. They could companies need to cut costs. They're right away. They're going to have not I've never been in a payroll position where my leaders have not been worrying about overtime.

[00:26:38] I usually have to deliver an overtime report to the managers, to leaders, to somebody, everybody's watching overtime and trying to make sure that is is controlled and maintained. And so, yeah, number nine, cyber and data theft. Statistics. Basically, the average insider attack is, oh, my gosh, cost 17 million.

[00:27:03] Oh, my goodness. This is an impact on trends and cyber related theft. It costs the average inside. So insider attack means you work for the company and you are being malicious. Yes, average attack costs 17 million. The insiders involved in 50 percent. Oh, wow.

[00:27:20] Insiders are involved in 57 percent of data breaches that are out there. Wow. Well, that's like what they say with banks when when banks get robbed, right? A lot of times it's you got this inside, man. That's because all boys messing with shorty and what's what's the one

[00:27:38] with Latifa and was that set it off? Watch, set it off if you don't know what we're talking about. And the last one is mitigation strategies. So recommendations for businesses is have a commercial crime and cyber related cyber liability policies and strengthen internal controls and monitoring systems.

[00:27:56] Yeah, for for employees out there for us, right? Be careful on what you do. I'm a big advocate of remote work. And I think that time theft thing is what people are really worried about when it comes to remote work for me.

[00:28:10] It's look, do your job and deliver B. I'm the opposite of most of that stuff. I got promoted. I thrived while I was at home after the pandemic. I was home for four years straight and I thrived because I was able to build a different.

[00:28:26] Now, granted, I'm a salaried employee, but you can still steal time. Salary employees are expected to work a certain amount of time. But I made sure and I always make sure that I'm above and beyond. And I keep because I like my work from home situation.

[00:28:41] You know what I mean? Why jeopardize that? No, absolutely. Man, that's a great article there. It is some very interesting statistics. And if you're a manager and you listen into this might prompt you to do some research or look into it or whatever.

[00:28:54] If you even if you're an employee and you're aware of these things and you're privy to some of these data or whatever. They as Brian always says, trust but verify, right? Make sure that nobody in your company is doing anything shady. Yeah.

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[00:30:06] That's W. W. W. T. I. M. E. T. R. A. K. Go dot com. I will always do that. Or you could call 888-321-9922 happy vacationing folks. Let's go. Let's go. All right. So that segues us to our main topic, which for Paulie go through.

[00:30:33] Yeah, yeah, well, because we don't it was like we did two shows already. Yeah, you get in the two for today. Yeah, really shoot. Three for. Yeah. So look, there's an article out there by dot com and they talk about workplace bullies.

[00:30:49] So some of you might be experiencing this as an employee and you might be getting that bully might be having some if not, you are the bully and stop workplace bullying is a serious issue that affects individuals and organizations success. Right.

[00:31:05] It can be in many forms of mistreatment that will eventually create a hostile environment. We need to understand what place built bullying, right? So it's workplace bullying is defined as repeated mistreatment that harms an individual's health or and our well-being and they

[00:31:26] can include verbal abuse threats, emulation or sabotage. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, like that. And this article has different it classifies different types of workplace bullies. I like you have the screamer who uses aggression and intimidation. You have the schemer who engages in covert tactics like manipulation,

[00:31:51] the gatekeeper who controls resources and opportunities. You have the micromanager who excessively scrutinizes and controls the work that people do. And then lastly, you have the excluder who isolates and excludes others excludes others socially. And then yeah, then we have to recognize what some of those

[00:32:15] signs of bullying are again that verbal abuse, the isolation, the criticism, that micromanaging being in the rumor mill and people that look, you may not think this happens, but this happens a lot in the world. Oh yeah. Every day. It sounds a lot.

[00:32:30] And so the impact is those mental health issues, reduced self-esteem, the crease job satisfaction, physical health impacts like stress kills as they say. Yep. And it's definitely going to decrease that productivity of employees and create higher turnover. Have you worked for in a toxic environment with toxic leaders,

[00:32:50] toxic, toxic workers? You're just going to be churning and burning people. Yeah. Through the door. Through the door. Right. Number six, legal protections. While it's not always illegal, protections may exist under harassment or discrimination laws. So that's a good thing for you to know.

[00:33:11] Bullying may not be illegal or whatever. There still might be some things you can do to protect yourself. Yeah. Hold if I can jump in here because on an HR front, there are protected classes in work place, right? And it may more heavily apply to being terminated.

[00:33:29] But just so you know, women are in a protected class. Veterans are in a protected class. Disabled are in a protected class over the age of 40. You're in a protected class. Okay. Minorities in a protected class. Anything that you could say, oh, you discriminate against me.

[00:33:48] You fire me because we have rights, man. And that's another main thing with this show is to really teach employees and to really make folks know we have rights as employees in the US. I don't know what it is globally, right?

[00:34:04] If you do come on and show and share. Right. But in the US, there are protected classes. You cannot just abuse and discriminate. You can not, you can stand up for you have rights. You can take it and go on record to HR.

[00:34:21] Hey, this person said X, Y, Walt had a really egregious situation. You said it many times on the show. So what was it? He said, oh, he's black, he's stupid. Yep. That something that that that manager should have been fired on the spot immediately. But here's the thing.

[00:34:41] Somebody has to hear that. Right. Because if it was just between that manager and Walt, that's like, where what is it called here? Probably the intimate some type of intimidation of the screamer. I don't know where it falls under there, the schemer maybe.

[00:34:54] Yeah, the schemer because if it's just you and that person, then it's tough because HR is going to say, hey, that's he said she said because because the person could copy please like you say, right? Yeah. Oh, that's not how I meant it. I didn't say that.

[00:35:07] I didn't say that. I think they could just say I didn't say that. Yeah. And just lie because it's only between you and them. They could do right. And then nobody heard it. And then you like, oh my goodness, what?

[00:35:19] Might the manager that did it to me put in an email though. That's great. You can't even get any better than that because now done, there's no way to deny it, but but there's some place again, Walt's going to protect the class he can do it too.

[00:35:34] He's a veteran and a minority. And look, if you're in a position where you've experienced that, you escalated it to the proper channels and nothing was done. You can go to the DOL Department of Labor. You can go to different people and report that escalated even above them.

[00:35:51] And you can also leave if you're able to start looking for a new job. Yeah, if you're not getting the look, if you have the means or time to pursue it, I would get legal representation. Yep. Because there could be a settlement involved, right?

[00:36:06] It could be some compensation and look, you've disrupted my life. So I need some cash so that I can now go find a new job after you've ruined my life, basically, I would say escalated if your job is not giving you

[00:36:20] the satisfaction and the solve that you need, get legal advice. If you can't afford to then start looking for a new job, you shouldn't be at a place like that. There's no place. I don't think there's a place worth working for like that.

[00:36:34] You're putting yourself in danger, basically. Absolutely, bro. Continuing on with those legal protections, there may be some workers comp and whistleblower protections that may apply. There you go. Dealing with workplace bullies as an individual. You want to document those things? You want to seek support?

[00:36:50] You want to confront those things calmly? Yep. You want to report it to management or HR and seek professional help if needed. If you have a workplace bully, who is the manager? Are your company or somebody you want to establish clear policies? You want to provide training?

[00:37:07] You want to encourage employees to report and escalate that? You want to investigate promptly and implement consequences? You want to build a culture of respect and inclusion? So foster open communication, promote diversity and inclusion. Lead by example, provide resources, support and access or assess and improve those initiatives.

[00:37:32] And then there are some resources out there. If you're a victim of workplace bullying, there is actually a workplace bullying Institute. There's an employee assistant. There are employee assistance programs, EAPs. There's an equal employment opportunity commission. The OSHA, you can go out to them, the Occupational Safety

[00:37:53] and Health Administration, the APA, which is the American Psychological Association, and there are employee employment law attorneys. You want to address workplace bullying through understanding proactive measures and fostering a respectful and supportive work environment. So the key takeaways here are identifying it,

[00:38:15] recognizing the various types and signs of workplace bullying early. You want to intervene. So that means you want to document it. You want to act promptly, develop those support systems and report it. Right? I'm going to prevent that from going on anymore.

[00:38:30] So establish clear policies and procedures, provide training to the necessary people and foster a culture of respect. Inclusivity. Inclusivity. Inclusivity. We said that word today. But support, you want to utilize available resources for both victims and organizations to address and prevent workplace bullying effectively.

[00:38:57] Look, we want to implement those things and strategies and understand the nuances of workplace bullying. So you can get that out of there, right? You don't want to have a toxic work environment. How do you expect to keep talent or good talent?

[00:39:09] Because look, you can be talented and still be a bully. Right? You can be talented and still. Oh, yeah. You know what I'm saying? Some of the biggest bullies are some of the biggest producers. Yeah. Right. The biggest performers because they think they are.

[00:39:23] I can now, man, now there's a way. There's a way to to to deal with people, hold them accountable and push, you know, do all the and be human about it. You know, like you ain't got to be like that. Create. All right.

[00:39:39] So that kind of segues to today's safe talk question. Is it ever OK to get physical with someone at work that may be bullying you or others? No, unless it's self-defense. Like I tell my son all the time, the physical piece of it is

[00:40:00] it's only in a self-defense situation in any environment. No matter where you are, if you're being if, you know, if somebody's rushing you and you're physically going to be threatened, you got to protect yourself.

[00:40:12] So look, when I think of physical, I just don't mean like throwing hands, right? I don't just mean that in your space and they need to back up and do you push them from your face or do you guide them back?

[00:40:25] At all? Or do you just let them stay in your face? So I think you verbally warn. OK, because they're not they haven't touched you yet because you're going to be in the wrong. If you're at work, you're on work grounds, somebody's in your face

[00:40:38] and you push them up, you immediately become the aggressor. Yeah, because people saw you put hands on them. Exactly. You got a warrant and then like you said, people saw hopefully you have witnesses to the things. Do your best. So do your best, right?

[00:40:53] I agree with you, right? Unless it's really self-defense. If a person is coming at you like to swing at you, defend yourself, of course. But if they're just yelling and disrespecting, like you can walk away. You can go into another part that you have some maybe

[00:41:11] some co-workers and some other people. And if it's just you two. So how would you react? What would you suggest for people to do if it's just them? If they're in a closed space and it's just the two of them, just leave that space, right?

[00:41:24] If you put it where the person is blocking the door. Call somebody. Call somebody on the phone. Yeah. Scream help. I mean look, yeah, yep. Good call outs. Yeah. Good call outs. Do your best to restrain yourself.

[00:41:40] So it's funny you say all this and we'll wrap this up real quick. But I was watching a new, there's a good show on Apple, I think it's called Presumed Innocent. That's with Jake Gyllenhaal. I want to see it, bro. Amazing, bro.

[00:41:52] And they ask him in the show, spoiler alert, he's on trial, right? And they're like, are you a violent person? And he's no. Or he says I'm not a violent person. But then the prosecution immediately goes right into, oh, you're not a violent person.

[00:42:06] But on January, blah, blah, blah, on this day, you grabbed your co-worker because you were angry. You physically grabbed him because you were mad at him. Boom. Just now all of a sudden and you're in front of a jury. Now you're a violent person.

[00:42:21] Why would you put hands on somebody? And mind you, it's just the argument. You're just mad about something. He wasn't threatening him. He was just mad about something that he did or his opinion on something. And he's like, what'd you say? You can't do that.

[00:42:34] That's that you're violent. If you put your hands on somebody unprovoked, you're a violent person, period. Try to avoid that at all costs, I think is the best thing. Yes, sir. Good stuff, man. Good show, folks. I hope you really enjoyed today's show. You got like a threefer.

[00:42:53] We talk about three good subjects today. Create that savings for yourself, right? Don't steal at work. And don't be a bully. If you're getting bullied, yeah, escalate. Like there are people, they escalate. Yep, make sure you have rights. You have rights, folks. We have rights.

[00:43:14] Let's keep being mindful about that. Yeah, man. Next time, we love you folks. Peace. Before we sign off, here are a couple quick things. Don't forget to follow. It's about payroll on LinkedIn and it's about your paycheck on Facebook and TikTok.

[00:43:37] Thank you for being part of our payroll community and thank you for being a part of this journey with us. Until the next time, keep learning, keep growing and most importantly, keep going.