Transcript
Voice Over: You’re about to listen to another episode of What The Hell Just Happened?! Join Paul Edwards and his guests as they discuss and sometimes even solve some interesting HR problems.
Amanda: I have something really funny to talk to you about. Well… I shouldn’t say funny. [laughing]
Paul: We’ll be the judge of whether it’s funny or not.
Amanda: It’s probably…I mean, it’s sad, but it’s funny.
Paul: Oh good.
Amanda: [laughing]
Paul: Humor at the expense of others.
Amanda: Hooray!
Paul: Welcome to HR.
Amanda: [laughing] That’s pretty much…yeah. Anyway, so tell me, both of you, what do you think about the Kardashians?
Paul: Oh…
Jennie: I don’t think anything of them, and I don’t give them any thoughts in my brain. Ever.
Paul: You know what? I’m just going to put a little two squared by that, which I think makes our lack of caring exponentially more.
Jennie: Yup!
Amanda: Oh, my God, that was so punny.
Paul: Ugh. [heavy sigh] See.
Amanda and Jennie: [laughing]
Amanda: Well, so you’re telling me that you both don’t like religiously watch each week Keeping Up With The Kardashians?
Paul: Oh, I didn’t say that.
Amanda: [laughing]
Jennie: Is that…Is that still on?
Amanda: I think so, yeah.
Jennie: I’ve never watched that.
Amanda: I’m pretty sure it’s still going on and they all have –
Jennie: Apparently Paul does but…
Paul: Well, there was the whole. Yeah…do you want to go down the litany of things that annoys me about them?
Amanda: Absolutely. Please do.
Paul: Well, I think that…
Voice Over: You’re about to listen to another episode of What The Hell Just Happened?! Join Paul Edwards and his guests as they discuss and sometimes even solve some interesting HR problems.
Paul: And… I’m gonna go off the rails sometimes and talk about whatever I want.
Paul: You know, they’re just… they’re not that interesting. Like the worst side of my family that I can recall from 20 years ago and all the terrible drama that was going on? Way better television show.
Amanda and Jennie: [laughing]
Paul: They’re not wealthy. They’re struggling. There was alcoholism.
Amanda and Jennie: [laughing]
Paul: I mean, I can add a lot of stuff into this. I mean, the zar incident and we don’t need to get into that, was an episode all unto itself. So I think mostly what I don’t like about them is that they are not interesting.
Amanda: Okay, not interesting because like their drama doesn’t, it just doesn’t do it for you?
Paul: It isn’t real. It’s all manufactured.
Amanda: I mean, true.
Paul: Yeah.
Amanda: A lot of it’s –
Jennie: I don’t understand why I’m supposed to care about their drama.
Paul: Yeah.
Amanda: You know, that’s a good point. I wonder what… Well, anyway.
Paul: And then their life lessons? Like when they reflect on something?
Amanda: [laughing]
Paul: And I’m just like, wow.
Jennie: Oh, I didn’t know they did that.
Paul: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jennie: Well…okay.
Amanda: So you don’t constantly think to yourself, like, when you have a problem in your life, “what would the Kardashians do?”
Paul: No.
Amanda: WWKJ?
Paul: No…yeah, no.
Amanda: [laughing] That’s shocking.
Paul: Okay so why are we talking about the Kardashians?
Amanda: We’re talking about the Kardashians because Khloe Kardashian, she’s one of the original three, I think it is? I don’t know.
Paul: Uh huh.
Amanda: She recently fired her personal assistant.
Paul: Uh huh.
Amanda: And he’s suing her because he got a knee injury and needed to go on a leave of absence.
Paul: Uh huh.
Amanda: And she fired him at the end of it rather than giving him his job back.
Paul: Oh!
Amanda: So he’s claiming –
Paul: He took a leave of absence.
Amanda: He did.
Paul: What…do we know if it was an approved leave of absence?
Amanda: Yeah, they gave him the leave of absence. Yeah. But I guess it went on longer than they originally thought it was going to go on for.
Jennie: Uh huh.
Paul: Oh it needed to be extended?
Jennie: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah. And therefore, they were like –
Paul: Oh now we’re getting into some HR. I like it.
Amanda: Yeah. They were like, “Sorry, you’re fired, so…”
Jennie: But it was just he hurt his knee. It wasn’t some sort of chronic?
Amanda: From what’s online, it just seemed that he hurt his knee, yeah. However, he also claimed, you know, he’s saying that she violated 12 California state labor laws.
Paul: [laughing]
Amanda: I don’t have them all listed, but, you know, and you know, this is from a super reliable news source.
Paul: Which one?
Amanda: TMZ.
Paul: Oh!
Amanda: So…[laughing]
Jennie: Wait, I have some questions. First, who is Khloe Kardashian? And second, why does she have employees?
Amanda: So Khloe Kardashian is… I think –
Jennie: I don’t actually care who she is.
Paul: No, never.
Jennie: [laughing]
Amanda: Okay, she has employees because she’s a Kardashian. [laughing]
Paul: That was just Jennie being snarky.
[laughing]
Amanda: Well, people may not know. I mean, you know, but. Yeah, so she had a personal assistant, as they all do I’m sure. Several.
Jennie: Oh, so this wasn’t…okay. You did say that. It’s just her personal –
Amanda: Her personal assistant.
Jennie: Household staff, which –
Amanda: I mean, I –
Jennie: Makes a difference, too.
Amanda: I don’t know if it’s household staff per se. I think it’s kind of like, would I be considered household staff for Paul?
Jennie: No because you’re an Executive Assistant.
Amanda: [scoffs]
Jennie: You work for Paul as part of his company.
Amanda: That’s true. This person’s just their personal assistant, so you’re right. I don’t know how much –
Paul: I would actually…We don’t, we probably don’t know, but I would actually think that some of these folks in this family have more than one employee in their own entities because some of them have fashion lines. And honestly, all of them make ungodly amounts of money for like endorsing something. So if they go on their Instagram or their YozTube channel and say, “I use this product, you should check this out”, they get paid a lot. And I think all that has to get managed. You know, there’s contracts.
Amanda: Right. Very true.
Paul: And lawyers and so –
Jennie: Maybe this person is called a personal assistant, but maybe they work for –
Paul: For her, for her entity.
Jennie: Her entity as opposed to her personally.
Paul: And then Jennie and I would want to know, well, how many employees are in that entity?
Jennie: Well, that’s the thing.
Paul: Yeah.
Jennie: Well, and also, if it’s like a personal assist… Okay, so like Paul, you have Amanda. Amanda’s your Executive Assistant here at work.
Paul: Yep.
Amanda: She’s one of our employees. The laws that apply to CEDR –
Paul: Yeah.
Jennie: Apply to the employzent relationship with Amanda. If you hire a personal assistant or a housekeeper or something for you personally at home, it has nothing to do with CEDR.
Paul: It has nothing to do with CEDR.
Jennie: So she doesn’t come under that –
Paul: Different rules.
Jennie: Different rules.
Paul: There’s going to be some different rules just because –
Jennie: Because number of employees, but also there can be some different rules around like domestic staff…
Paul: Uh huh.
Jennie: We don’t really get into that with the work we do, so….
Paul: We do every now and then, though.
Jennie: Once in a while, we have a doctor who wants to hire a personal assistant.
Paul: And we’ve got a little conversation for that for the CEDR Solution Center to share.
Amanda: Well…
Jennie: Okay, so apparently there’s someone named Khloe and –
Amanda: You guys are just like going into –
Jennie: And she has employees?
Amanda: You’re such like legal people my God, let me at least tell you the basics. [laughing]
Paul: Okay.
Amanda: [laughing]
Jennie: Okay. Go back to telling us about Khloe.
Paul: Khloe.
Amanda: [laughing] Okay, so yeah, she had this assistant. He’s been working with her –
Paul: Wait a minute, wait a minute.
Jennie: [laughing]
Amanda: Okay. What now? [laughing]
Paul: Before, you know, before you get into this, does she have any plastic surgery or fake boobs or anything injected?
[laughing]
Amanda: I can almost say, with confidence, 1000% yes.
Paul: Is she puffy?
Amanda: I…I think she looks less puffy than the other sisters.
Paul: Okay. Alright. Carry on. I just needed to know.
Amanda: But you know, she has her injections.
Jennie: It’s relevant to the HR here…
Paul: It is.
Amanda: Oh, clearly, that’s the first thing we ask people. Do you have Botox?
Paul: Yeah.
[laughing]
Jennie: Right?
Amanda: [laughing]
Jennie: And can you share it?
Paul: And where did you get it?
Amanda: And who is your doctor? Okay, so she fired her assistant. He’s been working with her since, I believe it was 2018? So it’s…oh, no, I’m sorry. 2019. January 2019 to November 2022 and he is saying that she also denied him legally required breaks, wouldn’t compensate him for overtime even though he worked 12 hour days and what’s funny about this…
Paul: [laughing]
Amanda: He’s now adding on –
Paul: I love him. I love him.
Amanda: [laughing]
Jennie: Oh I’m just assuming, are there –
Paul: Does he have an Instagram I can follow?
Jennie: [laughing]
Amanda: I’m confident. His name is all over this. It’s not hidden at all.
Jennie: I’m assuming this is happening in California?
Amanda: Yes, it is California. Yeah, for sure. What is funny is he’s adding to his lawsuit emotional damage now as well, because he has –
Paul: It’s upsetting me. I understand how he feels.
[laughing]
Jennie: It’s so upsetting that he had to work for a Kardashian.
Amanda: Yeah, right. And it’s interesting because the Kardashians seem to get hit with this quite often because, you know, and I’m sure you guys are completely up to date on your Kardashian news, but back in spring of 2021, Kim Kardashian also got sued for violating California labor laws because seven of her workers claim that she wasn’t giving them breaks and wasn’t paying them for overtime as well. Same exact thing that, Matthew is his name –
Jennie: I think Kim is supposed to be an attorney now or something?
Amanda: What?!
Paul: Yeah.
Jennie: Right? Isn’t she the one?
Amanda: Is Kim? Let me Google this. You mean she’s –
Jennie: I think she’s the one who was –
Paul: Went to law school.
Jennie: Cuz in California – No, she didn’t go to law school. California is one of the states where it actually doesn’t require you to go to law school –
Paul: You can test in?
Jennie: Just to take the bar. I think there’s some other requirements. So she was trying to test in.
Amanda: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. She passed what’s called the baby bar in late 2021.
Jennie: And I don’t know this because of Kardashian knowledge. I know this just because it was a discussion amongst, you know, lawyer groups.
Paul: Well, I mean, this highlights the lawyer doesn’t know everything. So I mean, and she certainly isn’t ever gonna practice. [laughing]
Amanda: Yeah, can you imagine like you’re in the courtroom and your lawyer is literally Kim Kardashian. She comes out and she’s ready to argue your points.
Paul: She’s like “Oh my god, this is just stupid”.
[laughing]
Paul: Oh, forget that.
Amanda: I mean, like you said, good for her, Paul. Good for her. I’m not trying to talk crap about the Kardashians.
Jennie: Well, in this type of thing, regardless of state or her, the employer, is happens all of the time when it’s I’m just going to go back to it being a personal assistant or –
Amanda: Yeah.
Jennie: Household staff because people don’t realize that’s an employment relationship and there are laws that apply to that. Now, I know in looking at new laws that come out, I can think of like a couple of sick leave laws where there is some extra explanation about things do or don’t apply to certain types of household staff. I don’t know what those are. So I’m assuming the break rules probably apply to this person but couldn’t tell you, you know, for sure. But people do tend to not pay attention to that when they hire these staff because they don’t think of themselves as being an employer.
Paul: It’s an easy mistake to make. So, I mean, we’re picking on the Kardashians, but this is a mistake –
Amanda: It’s common.
Paul: And I think a lot of employers, particularly in California – So for everybody listening, California has a set of rules around breaks and we’re not going to go down the rabbit hole. But you got to kind of, if a person works all day long, you’ve got to give them an unpaid lunch break and you got to give them two breaks, one in the morning, one in the afternoon if they work a full day, that’s just a general explanation of it. If you fail to do so, there are statutory penalties built in. There’s like ‘if you don’t do this for every time you don’t do this’, then the state says you owe this employee a certain amount of money, a certain amount of pay. And again, we’re not going to go into it. But I just wanted to differentiate that because our one listener is in North Carolina –
Jennie: Uh huh.
Amanda: Kenny. How are you doing?
Jennie: Hi Kenny!
[laughing]
Paul: Kenny does not have these rules that he would have to face. So North Carolina just doesn’t have these rules and they’re not there at the federal level to the degree that they are for California.
Jennie: Yeah.
Paul: So…
Jennie: You know what would make this interesting? I don’t think it’s the case. But again, we’re being legal nerds here. So this person got let go after they couldn’t come back after an extended leave for a knee injury, would have been interesting if you got that injury on the job.
Paul: I wonder…
Amanda: I was wondering that! I tried to, like look into that to see where the knee injury came from. Supposedly the actual case is online somewhere, but I wasn’t able to find it. I’m sure that’s just TMZ trying to make themselves sound like they have the actual data.
Paul: Yeah.
Amanda: But yeah, I don’t know if it happened on the job, but, you know, throwing something else out there as well – Kim Kardashian in her lawsuits also is accused of having a 16 year old working on her crew, passing 48 hour weekly working limit for 16 year olds.
Paul: Yeah. So back to where we were before I went down the rabbit hole on compliance. Yeah. A lot of employers start off not knowing these rules and kind of breaking them. And you kind of get away with it. And when I say get away with it, just nothing happens. So you’re not aware. You’re just doing what is natural, which you did, which is: I went to work. Nobody told me to take breaks. I did the work. I worked as much as I needed to work to get the work done. And that’s kind of how most small businesses start, right?
Jennie: Uh huh.
Paul: There’s no testing. There’s no…You just, you just start the business and go.
Jennie: Start doing it. Yeah.
Paul: So I don’t, I don’t… fault? I’m not surprised? I’m not surprised that she probably didn’t understand that when someone goes on a leave of absence for a medical issue, that there’s a lot at play there. When they asked for an extension, there’s something at play there. There’s things that you need to do. I’m sure she didn’t do any of the things that she was supposed to do to protect herself. And then, you know, ultimately she, it looks like, made a bad decision. Now, again, we’re reporting on a story from a company who’s reporting on a story –
Jennie: Right.
Paul: That is a thing. So we’re worse than TMZ?
[laughing]
Jennie: We are. But also, I mean, my take away because they don’t give us any real details here –
Paul: Uh huh.
Jennie: And I need to know the number of employees so I know what leave of absence laws apply to them.
Paul: Yeah. Or don’t.
Jennie: But if this was a knee injury, something that just needed, you know, treatment, it’s not very unlikely to be considered a disability.
Paul: Right.
Jennie: Which means their obligation to hold a job, once leave of absence rights run out, is way less.
Paul: It’s way less.
Jennie: So this might not actually be a problem?
Amanda: I’m trying to like –
Jennie: It depends on a lot of details TMZ isn’t going to give us.
Paul: No. And again, he’s added, so they’ve picked up –
Jennie: Right. There’s other stuff. Yeah.
Paul: The no breaks and stuff. So this is how that’s going to play out. [laughing] There’s not going to be a time clock.
Jennie: No.
Paul: There’s not going to be no record of those breaks.
Jennie: Nope.
Paul: There’s going to be no records of anything that was going to be his word against hers. And I’ll bet they were paying, and again, this…I don’t know this, but if they were paying him on an exempt salary basis…
Jennie: Uh huh.
Paul: He wouldn’t qualify for that status, so they should have been tracking his hours, paying overtime. All the breaks should have been, everything should have been in there. And I, and I’m…the worst thing that could happen to them or to anybody who’s listening is you just don’t have the records to defend yourself. So the other side gets to just kind of say, “I missed on average five breaks, maybe eight breaks a week. I never got lunch. When I did get lunch that would be once a month.” And they’re just, that’s where they’re going to calculate the damages from. Right, Jennie?
Jennie: Yeah. Yeah.
Paul: That’s kind of what goes on there. So that’s why your timekeeping system, especially if you’re in California, super, you know, it’s a key thing. You know, if you have the right system in place, it can help.
Amanda: Well…
Paul: I just went down the HR road.
Amanda: You did.
Paul: Bring me back.
Amanda: It was a lot. So…
[laughing]
Amanda: Some more details I’m finding on this case: It looks like Maynard? I don’t know if I’m saying his last name right. I’m sure I’m not. But he dislocated and fractured his kneecap on May 22nd, 2022 –
Paul: Uh huh.
Amanda: Which required surgery and hospitalization. He told Khloe that he would need to take a leave of absence. His leave of absence ended up being six months long. When he returned, he discovered that his job had been replaced.
Paul: Yeah, so that’s a really long time for a leave of absence and if it didn’t happen on the job, that changes things. If it happened on the job, that different set of maybe points we would make Jennie?
Jennie: Uh huh.
Paul: But I think here the problem is that there’s no employee handbook in place.
Jennie: Yup.
Paul: There’s no knowledge in place, there’s no limits put in place.
Jennie: There’s probably no communication because they may have legitimately been able to say six months is too long –
Paul: Yup.
Jennie: We need someone to do this work. We need to hire someone else. We can’t hold anymore. This isn’t covered by the ADA and CFRA may or may not apply. That’s kind of the California’s version of FMLA…But, to do this –
Paul: How come you’re not giving her a hard time for going down the rabbit hole?
Jennie: She knows better.
Paul: She’s not even paying attention.
Jennie: She knows better.
Amanda: No. No, I’m paying attention, but I’m not going to say anything to Jennie.
Paul: [laughing]
Amanda: Are you kidding? [laughing]
Jennie: Yeah! See?
Paul: Fine.
[laughing]
Jennie: But the way to do this the right way would have been to communicate to him, “We’re putting out, we’ve approved your leave of absence for X amount of time.”
Paul: Yeah.
Jennie: “And we need, if you’re unable to return to work, you need to let us know by this date and we’ll, if you have a doctor’s note, we’ll consider an extension.” It sounds like you probably kept getting, you know, more time off and at some point they needed to communicate to or should have communicated to them really, that we’re not able to approve more extensions and so if you’re not able to return by X date in any capacity, you know, we’re going to have to, you know, set/part ways because we can’t hold a job forever.
Paul: Indefinitely.
Amanda: Yeah they definitely didn’t communicate to the person.
Jennie: And even if he was disabled, you know, even if this was a really, you know, if he was out for cancer treatment, there are ADA protections, all kinds of stuff. But the laws don’t require an employer to hold a job forever.
Paul: Depending on –
Amanda: Which makes sense.
Paul: Depending on if it happened away from work or in work –
Jennie: And even if –
Paul: Even then –
Jennie: It’s work related, there’s some added protections because you don’t want to look like “I’m letting you go in retaliation for filing a worker’s comp claim.” But same thing. I mean, you can’t just make them hold a job for five years because you’re getting treatment.
Paul: Right.
Jennie: You know? But there’s other compensation parts that go along with that.
Paul: Okay, so I know we’re getting towards the end of this. Do you want me to do a quick wrap up? Because I can?
Amanda: Not yet.
Paul: Okay.
Jennie: Yeah, I bet Amanda never even asked us the question she wanted, and we were just like, “Let’s talk about…”
Amanda: No, I just kind of wanted to talk about the Kardashians. But, you know, what you were saying about the injury kind of made me think of a really funny story. When I was a manager for one of my old employers, we had this crazy employee that was with us, and she, we, I was opening with her one morning, and we had to throw out, like, quite a large piece of furniture.
Nothing super… I would say it would weigh maybe 20 pounds? Like it wasn’t insane. But she was older and she didn’t feel comfortable doing it. I was like, “That’s fine, I’ll just do it.” Like, whatever. But she still went outside to the dumpster with me because we have to go out like in groups or whatever. And I lifted up and pushed it over. She ended up coming in towards the end and like pushing it in with me, which was fine. But later, the next day came in with something on her arm like a wrap and said that I gave her carpal tunnel by making her do that and she was trying to sue us because I gave her carpal tunnel.
Jennie: That’s not how carpal tunnel works.
Amanda: Exactly. It was very funny, and the funniest part about the story is she ended up using that little arm brace she was wearing to steal money from the cash registers.
[laughing]
Paul: Oh, she was typing –
Jennie: Oh!
Amanda: We caught her on camera pocketing money with this carpal tunnel arm wrap she had on. [laughing]
Jennie: Amazing!
Paul: I remember, Jennie, this is maybe even before you started working, we had an incident where an employee got, they said, they were in trouble. They could see they were going to get fired and they said they went out into the alleyway to throw the trash away, which is part of the thing they had to do in the city, and that they slipped on the ice in the alleyway.
Amanda: Oh my God.
Paul: She had abrasions on her shoulder and so in the course of the investigation, workman’s comp got involved. Anyway, they got a hold of a piece of a camera that was sitting on a Chinese restaurant’s back door.
Amanda: Oh! Oh no! [laughing]
Paul: And she went out there and threw herself against the wall.
Amanda: Oh my God!
[laughing]
Paul: And they got that on tape.
Amanda: Oh no!
Paul: So, I mean, people aren’t generally that way.
Amanda: No, of course not.
Paul: This guy probably, he hurt his knee.
Amanda: Yeah. Legit.
Paul: Somehow.
Amanda: Sure.
Paul: Some, you know, some they had to do. But I mean, people do things.
Amanda: So it seems like I guess overall, leave of absences can’t go on forever and it’s not expected that they go on forever.
Paul: No, but having a cogent leave of absence policy where you can put some bumpers around it and say, “This is what you, you know, this is what we can give you and if you need it extended, this is what you have to do to get it extended.” In some instances, the law doesn’t require you to do this. You have a policy so that you can administer it and put some limits on it.
Amanda: Yeah. Don’t be like the Kardashians. Get a policy.
Paul: Well…Yeah. I mean, you know, the… I don’t know. You know, I don’t, it’s a… people think “The rules don’t apply to me because I’m too small” or they think “I don’t have to worry about them because I’m so small that no one cares, and so they don’t come after people like me.” Now, the Kardashians should not think that because they know they’re high profile and a lawyer sees them as somebody who will settle and who has the money to sell.
Amanda: Sure.
Paul: So it makes them a prime target. So, you know, they… over the years, they’ve made a few of these errors. You would hope that they would be learning from it, but maybe they’re not talking about stuff like this. Maybe…
Amanda: Well, but also the point –
Paul: By the way, wait a minute. The Kardashian episode…
Amanda: Oh my God.
Paul: Where the Kardashians discuss their issue, their HR issues with one another and try to help each other? I’m on that one.
Jennie: That sounds good.
Paul: I would like to be a guest.
Amanda: [laughing] I’ll reach out.
Jennie: Except we would be sitting there and like telling them, screaming at the screen like “That’s wrong!”
Paul: Yeah, exactly.
Jennie: Yeah.
Paul: Yeah.
Amanda: I’ll reach out to them. Like, right away. I will write to…
Paul: Like my grandfather watching wrestling, yelling at the television.
Amanda: Who is their momager? What’s her name?
Paul: I don’t know.
Amanda: I don’t know. But I’ll write to their mom and ask for you to be a guest on the show. [laughing]
Paul: Oh, that would be terrible.
Amanda: [laughing] Well, one more point I want to make that you bring up all the time is that employees can’t sign away their rights, right?
Paul: Yeah.
Amanda: So even if you have an employee that’s like not, “I won’t take any of my breaks or a lunch break. I’ll just keep working.” That doesn’t matter.
Paul: They can’t give that up.
Amanda: They can’t… especially well, especially in California. But, you know, I think that’s important here because, I mean, Khloe was probably like, “Oh, yeah. I mean, I have sz much for you to do and like, I’ll get you a Fenty bag after, you know,” and they’ll be like, “Oh, yeah, I don’t need to take breaks. You’re so great to me.”
Paul: Well, that’s exactly how it goes.
Amanda: Yeah, exactly.
Paul: Until it doesn’t go that way.
Amanda: Yup.
Paul: So I mean, it’s just really important that you understand what the rules are wherever you are.
Amanda: Yeah.
Paul: All of this was avoidable.
Amanda: Oh for sure!
Paul: Like the break thing? All of it. All of it. And very easily avoidable.
Amanda: Yeah!
Paul: And would not have really caused them any pain.
Amanda: Yeah, well, I think he was just surprised he came back and didn’t have a job. Like Jennie said, if they just communicated, you know what I mean?
Paul: Well, six months away.
Amanda: Yeah.
Paul: You come back, expect your job still be there, but we also aren’t looking – he may, they may have been communicating, giving him assurances.
Jennie: Uh huh.
Amanda: Sure. Yeah, definitely.
Paul: Or, you know, whatever. So…
Jennie: Yeah, we don’t know. We don’t know what happened there. And also just they, you know, depending on what his job was, it’s possible and again, how many employees there are and all of that and how this actually worked, if he was, could have been truly classified as exempt then those break and overtime rules wouldn’t apply. But again, I doubt they actually looked into it or documented it or told him he’s exempt.
Amanda: Or did anything like that.
Jennie: Or did anything like that.
Amanda: Yeah. I can’t imagine.
Jennie: And so you know, if this goes forward and there’s any type of legal back and forth, either, even if there’s settlement negotiations, it’s going to rest on, “Oh, no, he was exempt. He’s not entitled to breaks.” Or if he was not exempt, well his job allowed him to take breaks whenever he wanted, you know?
Paul: Yeah. There’s a lot of nuance that goes around these sort of things, but… Well, this was just… the only reason it was interesting is because it was about HR.
Amanda: [laughing]
Jennie: Yeah! Seriously.
Amanda: [laughing] Just to follow up with what you said before…
Jennie: Let’s talk about a more relevant family next time.
Paul: Can we pick somebody else?
Amanda: [laughing] Who would you suggest? Who are more relevant families?
Paul: I don’t know.
Jennie: Yeah. I mean…
Paul: Yeah.
Amanda: Yeah, none.
Paul: None.
Amanda: No. Kenny’s are one listener.
Jennie: Kenny in North Carolina. I would like to know what’s going on.
Paul: Kenny’s awesome.
Amanda: What’s going on in your family?
Amanda and Jennie: [laughing]
Paul: Kenny’s family’s awesome.
Amanda: Kenny’s the best.
Paul: Kenny is the best and in their environment, it’s two parents and two kids and so they’re…
Amanda: Yeah.
Paul: They’re in charge.
Amanda: Oh, for sure.
Paul: Yeah, yeah.
Amanda: Yeah. We love Kenny.
Paul: There’s no employment law going on there.
Amanda: Cool. Thanks for letting me bore you two with the Kardashians.
Paul: Oh, it was terrible.
Jennie: Yeah.
Paul: This has been terrible.
Amanda: [laughing]
Paul: I’m sorry people have to listen to this.
Jennie: What was this person’s name again?
Paul: [laughing] Which one? Koi?
Amanda: [laughing] Khloe.
Paul: Khloe.
Amanda: Khloe Kardashian.
Jennie: She’s…she’s…
Paul: Hang in there Khloe.
Jennie: Important…for some reason.
Paul: Hang in there Khloe.
Amanda: Hang in there.
Jennie: Good luck.
Voice Over: Thanks for joining us for this week’s episode of What The Hell Just Happened? do Paul a favor; share this with your network. If you have an HR issue or a question, and you’d like us to discuss it on this show, send it to podcast@WTHjusthappened.com. For more HR advice and insights from Paul and his team of experts, you can also join the private Facebook group, HR Base Camp, or visit HRbasecamp.com. Make sure you tune in next week. And remember: better workplaces make better lives.
