Workplace Movie Hall of Fame: The Intern

At Work in America – Workplace Movie Hall of Fame: The Intern

Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane

This episode of At Work in America is sponsored by Paychex, one of the leading providers of HR, payroll, retirement, and insurance solutions for businesses of all sizes. Nearly one-third of U.S. employees say their work schedule still remains unpredictable as a result of the pandemic, a factor they report as having a significant effect on their overall well-being – from causing financial stress, to feeling disconnected from family friends. And, this appears to be affecting younger generations the most.To learn more about these findings, and how you can optimize work scheduling to help better support your employees, visit payx.me/schedules today.

This week, we brought back the workplace movie hall of fame to discuss The Intern and all the workplace issues and the themes within it.

– Internship, and how it can help your organization

– What we can learn while working with co-workers from diferent generations

– Interpersonal relationships at work

– The lifespan of an organization. What comes after the startup phase?

Thank you, for joining the show today!  Remember to subscribe to At Work in America wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript follows:

Announcer 0:28
Welcome to At Work in America sponsored by Paychex. We welcome a wide and exceptionally impressive array of guests, business leaders, HR leaders, academics, practitioners, consultants and authors to talk about the most timely, relevant and challenging issues that are influencing the workplace today. At Work in America digs in behind the headlines and trends to the stories of real people making a difference in the world of work. And now here are your hosts, Steve Boese, and Trish McFarlane Steed.

Steve 1:02
All right, welcome to the show. Trish, we have a great show today it is the return of workplace movie hall of fame. It is my favorite show we’ve done on the podcast over the years. I’m super excited for today’s show.

Trish 1:14
Me too. I love when we get a chance to look at movies and how it fits into the workplace. So a very fun break.

Steve 1:21
Today’s movie is “The Intern”. Trish, before we get to The Intern and talk about all the workplace issues and the themes and lots of folks probably remember this movie it is a workplace centric movie. Before we get to the show Trish, I want to thank our friends at Paychex, of course, one of the leading providers of HR, payroll, retirement and insurance solutions for businesses of all sizes. nearly 1/3 of us employees say their work schedule still remains unpredictable. As a result of the pandemic factor they report it’s having a significant effect on their overall well being from causing financial stress to feeling disconnected from family and friends. And this appears to be affecting younger generations the most. To learn more about these findings and how you can optimize work scheduling to help better support your employees. Please visit payx.me/schedules today, and thanks to our friends at Paychex. Alright Trish, The Intern. Want some facts and figures on this movie before we dive in?

Trish 2:14
I think you should give them because as I was looking at sort of our show notes, there were some surprising facts and figures. So yeah, feel free.

Steve 2:21
So many things on this movie. The Intern came out in 2015, directed by Nancy Meyers, and stars Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway and Rene Russo. It was the 38th highest grossing movie of 2015 at $75.6 million. So kind of a moderate hit, probably didn’t have a huge budget, right? There’s not a lot of CGI or special effects in The Intern. But the plot synopsis for folks that may be not familiar and need a little refresher. 70 year old widower Ben Whittaker has discovered that retirement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be seizing an opportunity to get back in the game, he becomes a senior intern at an online fashion site founded and run by Jules Austin. So Trish, this was all about work and the workplace and intergenerational conflict, so much to unpack here, like what are your kind of opening sort of thoughts on these maybe the premise of it first, and we’ll get into some of the details.

Trish 3:19
I have to tell you, I think when I first watched it, it was one of those movies I hadn’t heard much about. So I guess that’s why it’s 38 in, you know what it grows that particular year, which is unfortunate, because it shouldn’t be 38. I mean, it’s, I wouldn’t say it’s number one of that year, possibly, but I think it was really good. It’s worth your time. It’s a cute movie, good messages. But what stood out to me, I remember both when I saw it, you know, back then. And then when I’m watching it rewatching it now was I had never considered before that time hiring, you know, senior or retired people to come back into the workforce that just hadn’t really been a big thing in my work history. So it was a very novel concept. And I remember calling my dad who was, I think, probably about 75 at the time, and I’m like, Hey, Dad, do you want to come to work for me? And he’s like, No, I do not want to be your intern. So yeah, that was that was what stood out to me. It was like immediately I thought I want an elderly person, a retired person to come and intern with me. I think that would be amazingly fun. I don’t know. What did you think when you saw it?

Steve 4:26
I thought some of the same things. I do think the issue the premise of retired person kind of struggling with retirement, maybe someone who’d had a pretty successful career long career the character in the movie had been a pretty successful career as Vice President of Sales for a company that made phone books in it and obviously phone books are no longer a thing but had had climbed the ladder been successful really had a strong work ethic. really cared a lot was smart. He really had been missed work, right. He missed that being part of work and part a part of being on a team I think a little bit and kind of felt like a little gap in his life. So I think that’s pretty relatable, right? And it’s probably something that a lot of folks who find themselves retired with lots of time on their hands, maybe maybe feel like okay, now what do I do kind of thing?

Trish 5:13
Yeah. And I think probably when it came out again, you know, we’re talking about almost seven years ago, there was, I guess less acceptance of someone may be coming back into the workforce after retirement. And now I see that happens more and more often. I mean, I mentioned my dad, he’s been retired for many years now. He’s 82. He’s actually when all of our kids go off to college, he’s like, I think I’m gonna go get another job. I’m like, Dad, like, he retired from a job that he had been out for, like, you know, 35 years or something. His retirement, I’m doing air quotes. Now, retirement job was one he had for like another 15. And then now here he is in his 80s, thinking like, Well, I’m just bored, I want to go do something. So I think that was where, you know, the movie started, I’d actually made the note, he says that Ben Whittaker says, I just know there’s a hole in my life, and I need to fill it soon. So I think that there’s some truth to that, right, you want to be needed, and you, you do have these skills, those don’t go away if you’re in, you know, any kind of job, really. And so he was both lonely and feeling like he wasn’t very useful anymore. So it made perfect sense to apply for this type of role.

Steve 6:23
So in the movie early on, we see that the online fashion company, which is kind of you haven’t seen the movie or haven’t rewatched it like we did, it’s kind of like a maybe a Stitch Fix or Rent the Runway kind of premise. It’s a company like that, right? It’s, it’s successful, small to start up a company, a couple of 100 employees, but growing really fast paced, and they decide they actually decide they would like to bring in some quote unquote, senior interns, meaning, you know, older folks, more experienced folks to be interns. It’s never really clear to me in the movie, why they want to do this right? Or why they thought it was a good idea, maybe because someone wrote the movie, and they had to do it that way.

Trish 7:00
No, it was very subtle. So Anne Hathaway’s character, who is the CEO, and she’s trying to figure this all out. She is actually so busy. She has meetings like every five minutes, that kind of tees up how how quick, fast paced, her life is there, she rides her bicycle around the office even. And she constantly is throwing out these little ideas. And there’s one point where one of one of her many assistants says, Oh, well, this was your idea. You said something about bringing seniors into work, and we ran with it. Now here they are.

Steve 7:36
I guess I remember that now. Right. She was like, quick on a whim and someone picked it up. So and I actually wrote down in my notes like, that actually is a really good idea. Like, you know, it seems kind of goofy in the movies, at least on its on its surface level, it’s going to be kind of a goof, oh, the seventy year old retiree is now coming in to be the intern for a 20 something year old on, you know, internet CEO, but it’s actually a really good idea. And we see as the movie develops, right? This particular intern, the Robert Janiero character has so much wisdom and experience. And the other thing you can say was quite level headed, right? The environment was very fast paced, chaotic at times, there are a number of kind of workplace dramas that unfold for things are not working right, et cetera, et cetera. And like, he’s the guy who sort of helps that team who’s largely younger people stay kind of centered, stay kind of level, not too high, not too low, and kind of kind of show people. There’s another way to approach work. It doesn’t always have to be chaotic and frenzied all the time.

Trish 8:39
Right. And I think that whether you’re talking about someone who is maybe retired and coming back to the workforce, and sort of that calm, they bring in the new ideas, it’s no different than hiring someone maybe right out of college, right? So if you’re kind of in the middle of your career, you might be reluctant to take advice from someone far younger, or far older. But really, those are the very people who do see things differently. Right. They have a whole different lens, a whole different life experience. And yes, there were, you know, I guess the little jokes of the movie were the things that you know, Robert De Niro’s character Ben didn’t, didn’t know or maybe he wasn’t up on social media or, you know, some of the other what music you know, music people I know, one of the one of the facts I want to give a shout out to Karen who works with us, she found out that there’s a scene where Ben who was Robert De Niro’s character is really confused as to who Jay-Z is like, there’s a whole little like joke. That was actually an inside joke, because Robert De Niro at the time, like had some major beef going on with Jay-Z in real life. So anyway, but it’s true. I think, if you think about talking to someone who’s in their 70s Yeah, they’re not going to necessarily understand or even be interested in many of the things that we do it 50 or 40 or 30 or whatnot, right. So yeah, there’s a lot of value.

Steve 10:00
And so yeah, the movie does kind of play on some of the obvious challenges or conflicts, if that’s even the right word that might arise from sort of these intergenerational exchanges or intergenerational kind of dynamics in the workplace. Right. So a seventy year old, seasoned professional with a very long successful career, basically working with a bunch of 20 something year olds, right in a fast paced environment of a startup, you know, so he shows up to work every day in a full suit and tie right, to the point where he’s even told like, Hey, you can go casual, that’s how we do it here. That’s how we roll and, and he was like, no, no, I’m, I’m comfortable this way. Right. And we even see scenes back in his own house where he’s got this immaculate closet, like, I was jealous of his closet, right? suits and shirts and ties, like, it’s pretty awesome. And, you know, so like, you know, and so that on the surface level is like, oh, there’s, I guess deeper than that, you say, well, that doesn’t really matter, right? Like, to me, that was one of the things I took from this, like, don’t, you shouldn’t let those kinds of things matter whether it’s an older person who might want to dress in a certain more formal way. Or vice versa, a younger person, or just a person who might want to dress differently and kind of do their own thing. Like that stuff really shouldn’t matter all that much. And I think traditionally, in workplaces, we’ve let those things matter a little bit. And maybe cloud our judgment of people one way or the other, based on something like clothing choices or hair choices or, you know, things like that we really shouldn’t. Right?

Trish 11:29
Yeah, I think when you when you’re describing all the differences there. It’s interesting how when the when the movie came out, I’m sure diversity and inclusion wasn’t probably a thought in their heads when they’re going through this. But it really is a movie about diversity inclusion, right? It is about someone who was different and in some unexpected ways. But I think what’s, what was funny was they tried to really play that up, right? They show him kind of unloading his briefcase, which of course, no one else has a briefcase, I had things like, you know, all this technology.

Steve 11:58
I had one like that at the very beginning of my career.

Trish 12:01
Like, that was the thing. And anyways, got his old calculator and his flip phone and everyone’s kind of, you know, just laughing behind his back a little bit. But I think what’s fascinating to me is the way that if you are inclusive to people who are different, not only does he then start showing some of the younger workers, hey, here’s why I carry a handkerchief, for example, that one was one that you always you always have a pocket square, you do you do when you present on stage or something. And he was saying is because it’s it’s chivalrous, right? If a lady needs a hankie, there you go, you’ve got it. Right. So maybe that’s not why you do it. But if you needed it, it’s right there. But no, some of the younger, younger workers really start trying to adopt some of the, you know, the ways that he presents himself, which is good. And then he in turn, though, really starts being more open to them to so whether it’s how to do things on the computer, how to communicate with his boss, who happens to be the CEO, she’s very kind of close to the idea of having him as an intern. Oddly, I don’t did this strike it? Like, there’s one point she says he’s too observant? Would we really not want someone being too observant of our lives? And maybe, I don’t know, I feel like I need to, I need an observant intern, you know, to help me out. But overall, I think that he he really does a nice job of or the character kind of bridges those gaps, both directions, you know?

Steve 13:35
Yeah, I think there’s some really good lessons there about being a part of a team, right, which it seemed like he, you could see a lot in sort of startup world or in other corporate environments you’ve been in not everybody sort of bought in, like, like we’re sort of in this together. And we’re a team and there’s a couple of instances in the movie where he really goes out of his way to kind of lift up the other folks around him in the team, whether it’s the the assistant and other assistant to the CEO, who we see quite a few scenes in the movie, she’s just struggling, quite honestly seems like struggling under just too much work. And maybe a little bit of disorganization, you know, problem and a little bit of time management problems. So she’s really, she’s just in the weeds constantly, and he definitely lifts her up. And then later in the movie, he makes sure that she gets credit for some work that maybe she helped him with, or maybe she didn’t even really help them. It’s hard to even say, but he makes sure that he points out to the CEO that hey, your assistant is really working hard. She’s doing a great job. She really she really couldn’t use a pat on the back from you the CEO, right, but that was the message really, the you know, he was sending there. And even to the point where he gets some, a lot of positive feedback to the CEO herself, when she’s got some self doubts right around her ability to lead the company but also kind of manage some other aspects of her life too. And he’s, he’s extremely supportive, but but not In a coy, weird, sappy way, but in a like a thoughtful way, which I thought was kind of really good example to set for folks who are thinking about it, how do I give feedback and support to people at work? And there were some good lessons there. I thought, too.

Trish 15:14
Yeah, I think you’re onto something there. Because when he gives that feedback, especially to the CEO, he never disrespects her and her abilities in her role, right, she’s earned that position, even though she is younger, quite a bit younger than him. And he still always puts her at, you know, this level of respect where you feel like he’s not trying to, I don’t know, make her feel bad about maybe some of her inadequacies. It’s interesting. I didn’t write down any notes so much about the assistant, but it was like everything you’re saying about the assistant, I wrote about the CEO as well, which I hadn’t picked up on. So the CEO, you know, was not the best at time management, or self management, she was not taking care of her own well being with her family with her husband. It struck me that you have a person like that, that’s expected to then turn around and lead the company, on a lot of these areas where we as you know, HR professionals or HR technology professionals, we’re constantly telling people like, you know, you have to do a better job of leading your people. Well, sometimes you’re, you’re in a mess, too, right? Probably more often than not. And so, yeah, but I didn’t really pick up on how I believe the assistant had the exact same problems. Yeah, that’s interesting.

Steve 16:39
We’ve talked for a long time how the sort of people look to the leaders look to the CEOs, on for a lot of things in the workplace and model, the behavior that CEOs model often is reflected throughout the organization good or bad? Right, right. We’ve, we’ve seen this a lot. Yeah, so the other thing I wanted to mention where I had a few notes about and to me is kind of the whole second half of the movie, that the main kind of workplace or work kind of issue that’s kind of the movie pivots on in the second half of the movie is. So this company is growing, right? It’s an internet company, maybe less than a year old. It’s growing rapidly. It’s chaotic, as we’ve mentioned, right? Like, the CEO is running from meeting to meeting a meeting and falling asleep in the back of cars, because she never takes time to eat, etcetera, etcetera. There are some issues that arise, right, we see like the website stops working at one point, and there’s some, some issues in the warehouse with some bedbugs or something. So there’s just a lot of chaos going on. And so we we come to learn that some of the investors in the company think that she the CEO should hire a quote unquote, professional CEO, to come in and run the company, right that she needs help, essentially running her own company that she founded, and she created from zero. And now it’s developed into a pretty successful all be a chaotic company. And the whole second half of the movie pivots on whether or not a she’s going to do that and be whether she should do that. And so, and that’s a huge kind of issue, especially in startup land, right, whether or not we see this all the time, right, with founders, especially in tech companies, when is the time for the founder to relinquish some of those duties? You know, and turn it into more professional management? So that’s the whole second part of the movie.

Trish 18:21
Yeah, it’s interesting, because I think a lot of us face that with anything you create. You know, I think it made me think of when we, you know, more than a decade ago, started HRevolution, for example. And obviously not a business to that scale. But you know, if you come to a time where you’re either going to give it, sell it to someone else, right, or you’re going to keep doing it or just end it, and so we sort of chose to end it. But I think that’s tough. I think, you know, like she knew no matter who she brought in, they were going to change what she had built, what she created her vision that was going to end. And then she was also being pressured a little bit to end it because she was neglecting her relationship with her husband, who was then having an affair.

Steve 19:05
The husband doesn’t come off, I guess, a superstar, quite frankly, in this movie, the character.

Trish 19:11
That’s a whole nother discussion, I’m sure but, but I do like toward the end where he kind of comes back and says, like, Whatever decision you make, please don’t base it on me. Right? Don’t give up your company running your company that you love. Because I’ve screwed up, right, which was nice. I did like that. He came back and said that, I think is a very common thing, though. I think when you build anything or get really heavily invested, whether you’re the CEO or not, you sort of work your way up maybe in a company and you have such buy in to the vision, which is phenomenal, but it can give you sort of paralysis on maybe what would be better for the longevity of the company. And they don’t the movie sort of ends before you get to that like what’s what really happened. You don’t know. But yeah, I think we’ve seen that happen like we’ve seen that happen a lot in the tech space, but the One thing I think that stood out to me in that whole kind of last half of the movie was that we see a lot of times, maybe it’s happened to you, I know it’s happened to me, you get into a role at a very high executive level. And it needs to have an end date, if you will. Some of these roles, you’re, you’re not really meant to be there for the rest of your life, which is weird, because, you know, our parents generation was you sort of got a job, and you stuck with it for 30 or 40 years.

Trish 20:30
And so I guess I would just say, if you’re, you know, if you’re going to watch this, or you’re just someone, you know, in the work world, I think we’re all kind of getting more acceptance of, you don’t have to have the job you have forever and ever, just for the sake of having it on your resume. Right? I think there are different amounts of time that you need to be in certain roles. And we see this happen a lot in the tech tech space, quite honestly, right? You see someone at a very senior level, who’s there for two years to come in, and maybe shake it up, maybe make a big change, maybe drive some change, help with transformation, and then they’re on to the next thing, or maybe it’s three years or five years, but it’s there shorter periods of time, you’re not seeing a lot of CEOs or that upper echelon, you know, SVP level staying for long periods of time. So, I don’t know, I thought that was interesting. I would have loved to have seen like, Okay, some sort of follow up later, you know, the intern to like what happened?

Steve 21:31
It’s a really difficult kind of situation, right? Because even toward towards the very end of the movie, right when the CEO, the young CEO, who has built this company from scratch, and is basically thrown her whole self into it. And it’s basically our whole life for the most part. I mean, she has a family too, but, but like, it’s really her life. It’s her baby, she created it. And he does a couple of different times in the movie, the intern, the Ben Whittaker character, make sure she understands that, make sure she understands that, hey, this is an amazing thing you’ve done, you’ve done so don’t apologize to anybody for what you’ve done, you’ve done an incredible thing that most people could not do. So make sure you understand that no matter what happens. But at the very end, he kind of surprisingly in a way, right, because he’s kind of the intern, the seven year old kind of wizard and business person, leader, even keeled thoughtful, etcetera, etcetera, you’d think he’d come down on the side of you know what, I’ve watched you now for two months, and your life’s in ruins. It’s chaotic, this company’s crap gonna crash and burn, you need to bring in, quote, unquote, some professional help to manage this company. And he goes the other way, like, and I’m surprised by that. And he goes the other way, and his advice to her. And it’s basically about just, there’s no one else who will care as much about this thing that you created, then you no matter who it is, no matter how much you pay them, no matter how competent or qualified that they are. It’s just not possible. Just like in your in your personal life, right. No other person can love your children as much as you do, no matter who they are. Right cousin, friend, you know, Godfather doesn’t matter, right? They just can’t right. And I thought that was interesting, too. I was a little bit surprising. Remember this movie? I’m not sure if I have watched it back in 2015. I actually was surprised how pivoted a little bit to just SPOILER ALERT it away at the end. Oh, I should have said spoiler alert.

Trish 23:19
No, I like you’ve told me before, you can’t give a spoiler alert on this movie. But I’ll tell you what, I watched the movie back then. And I didn’t remember how it ended. So I was pleasantly surprised. But you’re right. He pivots completely. And that’s kind of fun, too. I think that it’s also maybe I was looking at it just as a woman who’s been working my entire life as well. And I thought there are lots of sacrifices you make. When you do that. You do miss time with your children as she was missing some time with the children, you miss time with your spouse, which she was missing time with our spouse. And there are consequences of all of those things. But in the end, I felt like it looked like it was going the direction of she was going to do kind of what society would expect a woman to do back then. Maybe even now, which is you give it up like you said you’d get that CEO to come in you. She refocused on her marriage or whatever. Well, I don’t know. Obviously, they don’t like I said they don’t finish out with like what happens but you sort of get the feeling like she is going to keep her company. And maybe the husband goes by the wayside. You know, he wasn’t there for her when she needed him most. And for a minute, though, you think like she’s going to take him back like that’s like she’s gonna forgive all of the sins of the sky. And again, you don’t know but it doesn’t seem like she is it seems like the the intern winds up not only just being a good business advisor, which is probably something we probably all need if not an intern an intern a maybe previously retired mentor. That would be great.

Steve 24:57
There is some retired executive organization out there that you can tap into. In your business, I can’t remember the name of it. There used to be one anyway, I have to look that up. But to me, the single biggest thing, though, was a note I wrote like, early on in the movie, like very early on in the movie, as he’s going through this process of interviewing. And he gets hired as the intern, I literally wrote, hey, this sounds like a really good idea for a company to do. That’s like that was like, that’s my one big takeaway. Maybe not, not all your interns. You wouldn’t like do your whole internship program that way, but no targeted or selected or finding the right kind of fit someone like like that intern to help you, some of your leaders or even some of your younger workers kind of navigate, you know, the world of work and the world of business? I suppose it like, I think it’s a really, I wonder if like, companies actually did those kinds of programs after this movie came out? I wonder if that happened?

Trish 25:53
I don’t know. So if you’re listening, and you did call us, let us know. I would love that. And I don’t think it’s really actually what he was doing is he wasn’t an intern. Right? There’s, I don’t know what you would call it. But kind of going back to my dad, right? Like, I can see my dad, who spent an entire career being a leader, he was in manufacturing was a manufacturing leader forever and ever. He was also on the school board. He was the president of the school board for many years has all of that kind of leadership experience. If you take someone like that his perspective on business is so advanced still to what I know. Right? Just from his lifetime of experience doing it? And yeah, is he outdated? And a little bit of the technology? Possibly, you know, he could pick it up if need be, but I think he would he or people like that would be just exceedingly great advisors. Right? Maybe that’s your senior advisor, right to your leadership,

Steve 26:47
And I’m looking at it this way. It’s easy, relatively speaking, it’s easy to find people to help you with the technology. Right? Right. That’s easy to do. And if you could find those people, there are lots of those out there. It’s harder to find those people who have who have some wisdom or have some perspective, who can be rational, who can stay kind of level, like I mentioned earlier, like, it’s harder to find people who can do those things and have some experience to draw off of that. So you know, I’ve kind of seen things like this. I’ve been through things.

Trish 27:17
Crisis Management, right? I mean, you have people who have gone through major work crises, and come out the other side. And then like, that knowledge goes nowhere. It just ends when they leave that company. That’s it. Yeah. And maybe now because we do have more connectivity through things like social media, or, you know, in this case, like podcasting, or whatever we’re doing, go back 1520 years, they didn’t really have an opportunity to share that knowledge. There wasn’t a way to keep it going. And maybe now people that are retiring have other ways and other means to connect to people and do that. But yeah, I’d be. I’d be interested to hear if there are companies out there listening that have done anything like this, you know, or would you consider it? Because it’s fun to follow along. Right.

Steve 28:03
You know, I one other note, I’m just looking through my notes. I think we hit on just about everything I had thought of one more thing and I’m gonna ask you this Trish, because you’ve been a professional, senior executive, High Achiever for a long time, even after you had kids, there’s a good bit of like, quote, unquote mom shaming in this movie, because Oh, Marcy, has a has a daughter, the daughter looks to be bad. I know four or five ish, I can’t quite whatever young daughter, you know, preschool age, or maybe kindergarten or age daughter. And so like the mom, since she’s high powered, higher charging, working all the time. She’s not always at the events, or the parties or the playground and cetera, et cetera. There’s a couple of scenes where a couple of the would seem to be stay at home moms, we don’t really know these characters all that well. But that’s the that’s the vibe, the movies putting out these are stay at home moms who are kind of mom shaming her, you know, for not being around as much. I wonder, Is that thing that he does that still happens? movie came out? 2015 It’s not that long ago, I was a little surprised that that’s actually a thing. Is that still a thing?

Trish 29:05
It is still a thing? I would say that it depends on who you surround yourself with. I was surrounded with other working women. A lot. We’re in healthcare, a lot of pharmacists, a lot of other working women, but you do miss out, right? You miss out on some of those school parties, right? You can’t be the room Mother, you can’t be available every minute. So what I have found in my experience is two things I would say. You know, in my experience, my kids are now out of school. I can say that. A lot more dads, a lot more dads were involved, right? You saw a lot of room dads, right? Field trips, things like that. You also saw a lot more involvement among grandparents, which, you know, when you think back to like my dad, for example, who worked when I was growing up, he wasn’t there for my class things or, you know, field trips and whatnot or class parties. Well, that’s given the grandparent generation ability to really get involved in the kids. lives now. And then I’d say in terms of mom shaming, I’ve seen kind of the opposite actually, it’s more like, you might have to get two or three moms to partner together to do something. And most recently, I became a baseball mom for the baseball team, my son’s you know, he’s a senior and did that. But it took two other moms to split the work with me. So what one mom would have been able, maybe if I was not a working parent, I could have just done the job by myself. So I think moms have adapted and dads have adapted and even grandparents have adapted to you know, what, it takes a village right to raise a child properly.

Steve 30:38
I could use the job of 1/3 of a normal parent to see a third. All right, I don’t know. I think it’s great movie. I actually liked it a lot. I liked the workplace parts of this movie much more than the non workplace part. You know, there’s some definitely the personal stuff is in there. It’s a movie I get it. But even just for you know, just for the fact of like getting opening up my mind perspective of bringing in like a senior intern or senior advisor like that, or a mentor and how valuable it really could be I’m not even kidding. Like, that’s what I took away from this. So if nothing else, yeah, if you got some time on your hands, you’re thinking about like, how can we get some new perspectives in our organization? I want to get some different ideas. How can my dad how can we learn something check out this movie? I will mention one more complaint Trish and this is not this movies fall 2015 movie marginally successful movie 399 rental on amazon prime the trash I have 19 streaming subscriptions. I still had to pay more for this movie. That’s what we do for you listeners, though. It is to pay to give you this, right?

Trish 31:43
We both had to pay. No, you know what, that you bring up a good point because it wasn’t just that movie. I was trying to find other movies over the last you know, this last three or four days and just to watch anything I wanted to watch is like to rent and I’m like, I have Hulu I have Netflix I have prime. I have HBO Max Disney everything was I wanted to see was to rent. And anyway, can I tell you what we rented that? I do? I’m going to give a quick do not recommend dog with Channing Tatum. I’m sorry, I don’t even know that one. Channing two. It’s brand new out like you know, within last couple of months, and I’m thinking okay, a movie about Channing Tatum. Because he’s amazingly gorgeous. And a dog which is so super cute. What could go wrong? It is this is for when? Oh, right. No, no, it’s a fine story about Tiwa it’s a very slow movie and I paid $6 to watch that.

Steve 32:39
So while The Intern was a better deal than go for The Intern, yes.

Trish 32:43
Go for The Intern over Dog. Dog was horrible.

Steve 32:47
I think we’ll leave it there. This was a really good movie, good workplace movie. A lot of good ideas, good lessons, good themes. I enjoyed it. So I love doing the workplace movie hall of fame show.

Trish 32:56
It’s so nice. And can we give I want to give a shout out to Tracy at Paychex, because Tracy’s always like up on what we should be doing. And I know she didn’t suggest this movie. So I’m actually going to put a challenge out there. Tracy, we need some movie suggestions. What should we do for our next workplace movie hall of fame? Let us know.

Steve 33:16
All right, well, thank you Trish, thank you to our friends at Paychex of course, for all their support and we love them and thank you everybody for listening to the show and reminder, you can get all the show archives at HR Happy Hour.net All right, for Trish McFarlane, my name is Steve Boese. Thank you for listening to the show. We will see you next time. And bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai