Workplace Movie Hall of Fame – Up in the Air

Workplace Movie Hall of Fame – Up in the Air

Hosts: Steve Boese & Trish Steed

Today, Steve and Trish bring the next episode of the Workplace Movie Hall of Fame series. This week, they explore the workplace issues and themes within the movie, Up in the Air.

– Achieving work/life balance

– Corporate layoffs and the impact on employees and HR professionals

– Work travel policies

– Workplace culture and training

– Conference culture, partying, and health consciousness

Thank you for your continued support of the show and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!This episode is sponsored by Paychex.Whether you’re looking to enhance employee career growth, improve your onboarding process, or understand the importance of flexibility in today’s workplace, this guide has got you covered. Grab your free copy at  paychex.com/awia to unlock the secret to building your dream team today

Transcript follows:

Steve 0:03
Welcome to the At Work, in America podcast. My name is Steve Boese. I’m with Trish Steed. Trish, how are you?

Trish 0:09
I’m fantastic. How are you today?

Steve 0:11
Yeah, I’m really well, it’s another fine, fine day in my undisclosed location where I’m recording and podcasting from but the sun is out for, hopefully for the rest of today. And I think Trish after this conversation, boom, I’m out of here today.

Trish 0:27
How about you out here taking the rest of the day off?

Steve 0:31
Why not?

Trish 0:32
You know, I’m not going to do that. But I will say what I’m getting to do tonight. One of my most favorite things to do here is a rodeo. So I’m in my home office, here in Nebraska. And right next door is a big event center. There’s like woods in between us. So it’s not like glaring right there. But they have rodeos from time to time. So there’s a rodeo tonight. So I’m gonna watch barrel racing. And no bull riding.

Steve 0:54
This isn’t your first rodeo. I’m guessing not.

Trish 0:59
This is not my first rodeo. No, wait, literally.

Steve 1:03
Well, that does sound like fun. It is summertime as we record this, and I do have noticed for sure. Work slowing down a little bit. Some of the work we’re doing with our clients and partners and even some of the recordings we’re doing it’s it’s a different cadence right now, sort of in late July here as we record this, but that’s okay. Folks definitely don’t take enough time off certainly here in America. We know this.

Trish 1:26
They don’t. And it’s funny, because I was watching the news just yesterday, and they were talking about that people are doing you know, these vacations, where it’s like a hush vacation. Have you heard of that?

Steve 1:36
Yeah, the quiet vacation thing, right?

Trish 1:39
Yeah, another channel is called hush but same thing. Okay. So you’re just working somewhere else, you know, which is kind of what you’re doing.

Steve 1:47
You’re signed in what I’m doing.

Trish 1:49
You’re not really on vacation. But I’m not talked about and you would think that being our own business that you could just take off, right? You can just take off but we don’t. So not totally.

Steve 2:04
And maybe that’s a problem for another day. But we have a great show. Today we are circling back on workplace movie hall of fame, our long running series. This might be the ninth or 10th one of these. I’m not sure anymore. Have any we’ve done a lot. We’ve done a fair number of them. We’re going to be talking about the movie up in the air, which lots of people probably have seen, certainly. Maybe back when it came out in 2009, or certainly on you know, streaming and rentals and things like that it’s become a very popular workplace movie. Because it has such major workplace themes running throughout the movie, it’s largely is a movie about work and lots of workplace topics, interspersed with a few other things in there as well. So we’re going to break down that movie today and talk about it, which is I’m excited for it because I rewatched it a couple of nights ago and yeah, I forgot a lot of it. So it was good to kind of revisit it.

Trish 3:03
I mean, 2009 That was a long time ago. Right? So I was shocked how long it’s been out. And I had watched it in 2009. So yeah, it was fun to rewatch it kind of disheartening when you talk about that later.

Steve 3:17
Yeah, not another happy movie really, but into Up in the Air. Let’s thank our friends at Paychex of course. 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. If you’re a business leader, or an HR leader, navigating the complex world of hiring and retention, you need Paychex essential guide to finding and keeping your dream team. This guide will help you discover how to attract high quality employees, keep them engaged and motivated, it’s got plenty of strategies and ways you can leverage things like benefits and better technology and just ways to set your company apart in a really still tight talent market, especially for small and midsize businesses. So you can get your report from paychex.com/awia to help you unlock the secrets of building your dream team today. So thank you to our friends at Paychex.

Trish 4:20
Yeah and can I just say it’s such a value that they’re giving this for free? Because it’s basically free consulting. Right? There’s so many of us when I worked in HR, I couldn’t afford to hire a consultant to come in and help me do that laundry list of things you just listed. And to really like looking at it with that lens. It’s wonderful. So if you’re someone who either can’t afford a consultant, or maybe you just want to double check that they’re doing all that they can. It’s good for that as well.

Steve 4:52
Kudos to our friends at Paychex. Let’s, let’s talk about this movie Up in the Air. Let me set it up with a couple of statistics It’s about the movie before we get started the the blurb or the summary of the movie, the character of Ryan’s pledge by a by George Clooney. Ryan is a corporate downsizing expert. He travels around the country firing people. When his boss hires Natalie, who proposes firing people via videoconference. Yeah, even back in 2009, he tries to convince her that this method is a mistake. So if this movie came out in 2009, kind of feels like the first recession movie that came out, right, because if you remember 2008 and 2009, we had the great recession and the financial crisis. Lots and lots of people lost their jobs in that time period. And I kind of thought before really researching the movie that it was written in reaction to the recession. It actually wasn’t.

Steve 5:52
It’s based on a novel that came out in 2001 by an author called Walter Kern. The novel is also called Up in the Air and it was adapted for the screen for the 2009 movie. Fish The movie was, which this is another fact I didn’t know until this morning. This movie had six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. George Clooney nominated for Best Actor The tune main actress is in the movie both nominated for Best Supporting Actress Bureau for meat Farmiga. And Anna Kendrick was also nominated for best director Jason Reitman and Best Adapted Screenplay. Also, Jason Reitman Trish, nominated for six major Oscars in 2010. And one action total of zero Oscars. But it was six nominations, which was remarkable and made $166 million worldwide against only a $25 million dollar budget. So a successful movie by those by both accolades as well as financial. So that’s some setup on up in the air Trish. You said you hadn’t seen the movie since 2009? Maybe let’s let me get your initial reactions from the rewatch. And then we’ll dig into some of the themes of the movie.

Trish 7:05
So I remember when it was being filmed, actually, it was filmed in St. Louis. I’m a St. Louis girl. So the fact that George Clooney and you know, Anna Kendrick, she was a little more unknown at that point. But we’re, um, I was working at PwC at the time. And it was in the Bank of America building, which is this big black glass high rise in St. Louis. And much of that movie is filmed in that building. Because if you look out the windows, like when he’s doing things or whatever, talking to people, it was the same views that I was getting from my office. So it was really cool to think he was like, in there filming while I was working there. But I did see him out in in public one time. It was at a bar, he was very intoxicated, and definitely did not look like what I thought a movie star would look like. So that said, No, when I watched it in 2009, I was still an HR director. And so I was definitely someone who part of my job, a big part of my job had been for many years to either put people on performance improvement plans, or lay them off truly lay off where they could be recalled or just terminate them, right in downsizings. And so it hit me in a whole different way. When I was in the midst of doing those things, I could relate to it from his perspective, and how he wanted to make it very human. I completely forgot from the movie that it was her coming in to propose to do these things on Zoom, which at the time was horrific, horrible.

Steve 8:44
It was such a novel concept in 2009. So it wasn’t even called Zoom. It wasn’t even saying it was was essentially video calls, which were not very common in workplaces in 2009, quite frankly.

Trish 8:59
Right. So it seemed very callous and uncaring even more than and truly the fact of like, I’ve never worked anywhere where we had someone come in externally to help us do our layoffs or terms. I’ve always been personally involved I’ve done probably unfortunately, probably at least 1000 If not more in my career. And I think the thing is you want to be very caring and very personal about it. Right and, and done right? I mean, you’re helping them you really are so a lot of I resonated now looking back on it. What George Clooney is character says in the movie, too many of these people like you know, he has a quote where he’s talking about that. Anybody who ever built an empire or changed the world sat where you are right now. And it’s because they sat there that they were able to do it and that’s the truth. That is the truth because I’ve been laid off since watching it. I’ve been laid off. Better things usually come like like 95% of the time, I would say people wind up doing something better or more rewarding. So yeah, I don’t know, different lens for sure to look back on it now.

Steve 10:10
For sure. And I think that the thing that hits you, right away with this movie we’re talking about right from Workplace themes. And perspective, obviously, is the main rest of the plot whose job which is a consultant who works for a corporate downsizing company. So you indicated Trish, the organization’s you worked at, you never employed third party organizations to come and help you with any downsizing or separations or things like that, maybe outplacement, though maybe you engage some outplacement after the fact or something. But that’s a little bit more common. But the having those conversations, right, it was, it’s a little jarring, right when you’re bringing in a third party consultant or consulting firm to have those difficult conversations. And I sort of get why organizations might go down that route. But on the other hand, it’s certainly very impersonal. You don’t hear about it too much. And again, this was a novel was turned into a movie, which was not based on anything specific, as far as I know. But it reminded me a little bit, you know, a completely different movie, right? It’s the satire Office Space, which has a very similar kind of thing happening in that movie, where the two consultants come in and have a series of meetings essentially, to figure out some restructuring and some some process improvements. But they’re really there to just lay people off. And yeah, so you’re taking the worst day of your life, right in a corporate setting. And then the company and these companies that hire George Clooney, sperm were kind of distancing themselves from that, which is kind of sad, and a little bit cowardly, too. And, again, I’m not sure how much it really happens today. But it, it certainly must have happened some right for for this to be the main point of this movie.

Trish 11:53
Well, there are some pros, I think, to doing it that way. Because being if you are an HR professional, and you are embedded in your organization, and close to these people, it is extremely hard on you as well. And because, yes, they are losing their job. And again, I’ve been in that seat where I had to make a decision, it was like either either move to a bigger market, or take the package, right. So I know it from experience, how bad it feels, even you could be a good performer and be let go, right? It’s a numbers game. So it’s hard to be the person delivering that message. And what I learned over the course of time, terminating so many people was that if you talk with your HR team, and they do know you personally, sometimes that alleviates your need to be let go because sometimes your performance slips, right, there could be a reason to it. And if it’s the HR person and say your boss who are in there in that meeting with you, they will at least know some background. Obviously not naming names, but I worked at a job where when I was on maternity leave, they actually held off on a termination until I got back the very first day back because it was gonna be a difficult one. And I had to do it. And I knew the person really well. And we did not care for each other to begin with. very senior person. And it turned out that it was one of the best conversations I ever had with him because he was going through a horrible divorce but he had told no one in the office. And so I said man, if you would have talked to HR we could have are your boss, we could have given you a little slack, right? For a while anyway. So I think if you’re hiring, like a George Clooney, right, if you’re hiring someone external to come and do it, they don’t none of the background. They don’t know these people. But it is it’s hard to it’s hard to take away someone’s livelihood, even if even if it’s earned by their poor performance. Sometimes it’s still difficult and it’s dangerous.

Steve 13:50
And some of the dramatic tension in this movie comes from this difference in approach right that George Clooney tries to take in his job right? The George Clooney character of showing empathy trying to not so much raise the spirits of the people who are being terminated, but at least let them try to even consider right, a future that might be a little bit better for them than the one that they’re leaving, even though he even sort of admits the character does that there’s only so much you can do and it’s going to be an awful experience and witching to virtual termination process right with centralized operators, if you will, dialing remotely into these organizations around the country to do terminations was never really going to work given the emotional nature of a termination process and some of the reactions that you see, just one of the really cool things in this movie to folks haven’t seen it or haven’t seen them in a while is there are a number of scenes it’s really like a montage right of a lots of people reacting to the news that they’re being terminated from their employment and you know, it’s person after person after person. Let’s be a dozen if not more, right. And it turns out that the filmmakers when they created this movie, they actually put out ads in St. Louis and in Detroit, and housing as a documentarian, rather than making a fictional movie, and asking people to show up who’ve been downsized during the recession at that time. And they were instructed to the people who showed up and that they they hired right to do the film The scenes, they were just told to look at the camera and react the way you did, when you were terminated, and maybe even respond in the way you wish you would have reacted. Because even still, when someone’s terminated, even if it’s not for any kind of a good reason, we’re really trained to not go ballistic and burn bridges and get really emotional, even though that’s probably what many people want to do. So the fact that in the movie, they showed these really real reactions are as close to real as you can really get from real people and not actors. Oh, that was pretty powerful, I thought, an effective part of this movie.

Trish 16:02
It’s extremely effective. And in thinking back over the years, I’ve had every type of reaction that you see in the movie from people. And often it’s like, the people that you would anticipate would take it really badly and very hard, don’t. They’re the more stoic ones in my experience. And the opposite. If you are someone you think, Oh, this one might be fairly easy conversation. I know this person, whatever. I mean, I’ve had people I’ve had to have police involved in terminations for and these are with professional people. This isn’t like, you know, I’ve done manufacturing terms all the way up to the highest level executives, and it’s the people who come across the table at you, they’re threatening you, they’re trying to choke you like it gets really, really scary. So in that regard, I do understand why you need to think about maybe not doing it over video. And I know now that’s maybe necessary sometimes with remote work and things like that. But it’s always to me about making sure that the recipient of the news number one, the thing the movie does great is keep it short. Yeah, you know, here’s your package, read it over, let’s talk tomorrow. Because if someone tells you you’re losing your job, whether you deserved it or not. And like I said, sometimes it’s a company that’s not doing well, right. So you didn’t really deserve it necessarily, personally, but you’re part of it. You heard those words, the second you tell someone, that’s it, discussions over really because they’re mentally checked out. So I did like point B, kind of like, he shows that that is it’s a really good training tactic. If you’re in HR, or you’re someone who has to do terminations, watch the movie, if for nothing else, you’re going to learn something about how to deliver that message, keeping it short to the point. Here’s the paperwork. And we’ll talk about this later.

Steve 17:53
You try to offer some encouragement, but don’t like paint this rosy picture, this wonderful future that the person may or may not have, and do your job, do it with respect, but do it. Don’t do it in a way that is inauthentic. I guess I’d say it’s probably a good piece of advice to Yeah, I did think that I was going to ask you that as a former HR leader, and someone who spent a lot of terminations if you actually thought the way some of these terminations were actually handled in this fictional story where were effective. So you’re saying yeah, they kind of were, they really were.

Trish 18:28
I think, you know, even though he was outsourced to do it, it was with compassion was empathy. He never directly says that he has been in a layoff or terminated for any reason, but you kind of get the sense that he has, because he knows, he sort of knows, and maybe it’s from doing a lot of them. But you know, I often would fly places, just like he did, right. And I think that, again, you’re coming into a situation where you don’t work in this office, you aren’t really familiar, it might be part of your company, but you’re not familiar, they are familiar, right? So yeah, there’s all these nuances of of terminating someone effectively. And again, I think it’s what they didn’t really go into and when you’re in that role is that there is a lot of conversation, typically after a termination, whether it’s for cause or whether it’s for business, poor performance. But I mean, I can think back there are people I’ve talked to for more than 10 hours after over the course of the next few weeks. So and again, those are the ones where you’re really then trying to help them and maybe it’s outplacement comes into play then but a lot of companies don’t have that luxury. So if nothing else, it’s an interesting training manual of what to do and what not to do. And especially now, seeing how impersonal it can seem if you’re on video, and maybe some things to think about which the younger person who’s suggesting it learns when she has to go out on the road with him. I mean, I would love to hear your perspective is maybe you’ve have you get Have you ever done too eliminations at all in your career. I know you’ve worked a lot of different HR, haven’t you?

Steve 20:04
I’ve managed people. But not I’ve never had to terminate anyone myself, I don’t think.

Trish 20:12
Just from the travel perspective, that’s the other kind of element in this work maybe is, even if you’re not someone that terminates people, just the grueling travel schedule he keeps, and I know, like, you had to have some familiarity with that right? Living on the road. Like, what resonated with you?

Steve 20:31
Besides the termination stuff, which we talked about now for a little bit. The other kind of workplace thing that stood out for me was that kind of life on the road warrior, you know, approach to living and, and working which she was was excessive the way it’s portrayed in the movie as someone who has fallen a lot for work and still flies a good bit. The the amount of miles she was logging, you know, one of the undercurrents in the book is his quest to reach 10 million frequent flyer miles on his preferred airline, which is featured by the way his airline and his hotel brand, must have had something to do some support they gave to this movie for help prominently, they’re both featured throughout the movie, but 10 million air miles church is ridiculous number of air miles, you know, so I’ve flown a lot my entire, you know, last 15 years or so at least. And mostly on one airline, I’ve, I don’t even have 1 million on a single airline. So to have, you know, 10 million Air Miles is insane. But but being on the road that much, right? It’s interesting, because our companies that have people on the road all the time, week after week after week, I did that live for a long time myself that four and five days a week at a client site, typically right?

Steve 21:48
Going to the same place week after week after week, usually not not flying all over the country necessarily like George Clooney was, but it’s grinding and that I think the burnout rate on those kinds of jobs is really high. And one thing I always thought in my career is they’re really suited. They’re suited more for men than women, typically, for lots of reasons we could talk about, but they’re also suited. Or the people who gravitate towards those jobs fall into two buckets, right? They fall into younger men were 2527 up to maybe in the early 30s. And then like the plus 50 group, right, you know, and, yeah, and because in the middle, right often is when people are settling down, perhaps getting married, perhaps having kids things like that, right. So a lot of people get sort of cycled out of those, those constant road jobs, right. And so I’d go on these projects all the time, or show up at client sites, and that’s who would be working them like, you know, when I worked in, I worked in Saudi, you know, the story of Saudi that I told 1000 times, but I worked in Saudi Arabia for a couple of years. Right? And it was there were two groups on this project. There were guys like me who were between 25 and say, 30. And then there was a whole bunch of plus 50 Guys, and nobody in the middle. And that’s who does those jobs. Right. And I always thought that was really interesting. But the burnout on those jobs Trish, and I didn’t, you didn’t either, but we traveled a lot, not nearly as much as the George Clooney kick, Looney character travels, man, I am, like burned out on it like myself and doing a quarter of what that character was doing, that can wear you down. In fact, I don’t know if companies do enough to support kind of people in those jobs either just kind of with stress reduction, mental health, physical health, because it’s an unhealthy lifestyle, usually too.

Trish 23:41
All good points. I don’t think companies do that. You’re right. I think too, there’s a little bit of whether you’re talking to someone in the company, before you’re getting onto a job like this. There’s this glamorous side of travel business travel. I mean, I remember going on my first couple business trips when I was in my early 20s. I thought it was fantastic. And I’m staying with these really nice hotels and really fabulous meals and those things are all still true. We travel a good bit still in spring and fall particularly but in our clients treat as well, right? We’re we’re winding nine, all the things, but you’re talking about also, even if you’re not terminating people, it’s like days that start at 7am or earlier sometimes if you have other things you’re working on, right? And then you’re not back to your room till almost midnight usually. And that’s not even talking about drinking, like I don’t drink, you don’t drink and it’s still these are long, grueling days of mental and physical exhaustion. And it’s not as glamorous I can even say like, if you’re on social media, and you have friends that don’t travel, and they’re like, oh my gosh, you’re in this country or that country. And I’m like it’s harder than it looks right. But I know from you because you’re a Delta man, right?

Steve 24:59
There was a really long time.

Trish 25:02
I’d love to hear your perspective on kind of like, George Clooney is really going after the status. It’s not even the number of miles but he wants that status. And um, we have other friends like this to where, once you get status, I’m that way, I’m United girl and like, once you get a certain level, you do not want to go backwards. How did that play out? Like when you were starting your career to now? And does that right?

Steve 25:26
And I think that portrayal of the George Clooney character really striving to reach this kind of mythical 10 million status, you know, enjoying all the perks, right? There’s a quite a few scenes in the movie of him going on the short line and the fast check in and being served, you know, as a frequent guest, right in a certain way. And that’s all really true. Like once you start traveling more than occasionally the the indignities of travel and the hassles of travel begin to sort of add up, right? And so one of the ways to reduce those and make travel a little bit more pleasant and a little more tolerable, especially for frequent travelers, right? It is, it’s the upgrades, right? It’s the access to the lounge in the airport, it’s the nicer room at the hotel, it’s the, you know, the expedited check in, right, if you get to a hotel that’s got a long line, all those little things, right. I once Trish actually happened to me twice on Delta, where I had a really tight connection that happened to me once in Atlanta. And once in Detroit, we had a really tight connection I had to make to get to where I was going, and I was gonna have to run through the airport.

Steve 26:33
Absolutely gonna have to run and got off the airplane fully ready to charge down the jetway to try to run for it and hopefully make my flight. And there was a Delta employee with a little tablet with my name on it. And I love it whisked me down the stairs of the jetway into a waiting SUV, Porsche no less, both both times to drive me across the tarmac directly to my connecting flight at the next terminal over right and get out of that. Get out of the Porsche climb up the stairs and get right on the plane. Right? It happened to me twice. And it was, you know, again, that’s because I was a top level status person. And they know right in their systems where all those top level people are and what their connection like what’s happening with them as they’re moving through the system on any given day. And yeah, so when you think about those things, and if you’re going to be out there on the road, and if you’re a company sending your people out on the road regularly, what can you do to make that experience a little more pleasant for him, spend a little money buy them the airport lounge access, if you need to.

Steve 27:42
Companies get so crazy about their silly travel rules and policies, right? You have to buy the cheapest flight all the time, right or the cheapest hotel, let them pick whatever airline they want. But let them pick whatever hotel they want. Let them accrue those points, eventually they add up and they can maybe take some time away and take their family somewhere they things like that always baffled me like why I had to fight with company. And I had to do this a couple of times where I was, like you said, I flew on Delta, right, everybody usually sort of picks one airline, they fly in all the time. So I had a lot of status on Delta, I’d get upgraded all the time, all the things they tried treating me really well. I wanted to fly on Delta because I knew my experience was going to be much nicer and more pleasant. And I had a fight with the company I was working for bend 40 more dollars to fly on Delta cross country versus say fly on united and sit in row 37 in center See, versus, you know, and see to weigh on Delta and being treated nicely, right. So little things like that makes sense. Even though companies don’t like to do that, because it’s an exception, right? It’s it’s easier to have a policy and enforce it, versus to treat people individually and treat people like humans and try to make their life experience in their work experience a little bit better.

Trish 28:59
I’m glad you brought that up. I hadn’t really considered that. And that’s something now you talked at the top of the hour where we were talking about that, you know, it’s still a war for talent. And it’s going to continue, right. We’ve talked in other shows about the demographics and birth rates and so forth are all low. And so maybe that’s one way yes, you have a general travel policy, right for most travel. But yes, if you have people that are going to be in travel, like high travel roles, have a different policy even for them to have some of those perks because you’re right, you’re on Delta, because you were in cities where that was the most convenient hub of that airline, right. And so it doesn’t make sense to even fly on other ones because you might be adding in layovers and other things, and again, when it comes to saving $40 or having an employee that’s cared for, right, and that wants to stay with you because they are cared for. I mean, I would I would probably quit a job if I if travel were difficult. I would be If it were overly difficult, I wouldn’t stay.

Steve 30:03
I do think companies run the risk of having a policy that might save a few dollars here and there. But then makes an employee fly to different hours that they don’t want to fly on or sit waiting in an airport for many hours on a connection. That’s less convenient. But it’s a little bit cheaper, right? We all know, it’s more expensive to fly at 8am than it is to fly right at 8pm. And connect in Atlanta between 9:30 and midnight waiting for that last flight home. Right? It’s cheaper, but it’s, it’s worse for the employee. It’s more stressful, and it’s a terrible experience. So I think the road warrior elements that they get into in this room, maybe a little too deep, because honestly, just most people don’t live that way. They don’t travel that much for work, right? So the scene where George Clooney is with his love interest in the movie, he was also a road warrior herself in there. They’re talking about rental car policies, and how do you get a better upgrade. And the sad thing is like, I’ve had conversations like that in my life with people and looking back on them. And watching these two characters have their conversation, I realized how stupid they are. But it is sort of the life of people who travel all the time. And it is a weird little subculture. And I was part of it for a while I’m lesson to it now. Right? Because we don’t travel quite as much. And I’m not as dogmatic about I’m have to fly Delta, you know, because where I live now.

Trish 31:30
Travel Policy we had the luxury of not doing Yeah, and where I live now

Steve 31:33
Delta is not as convenient, right as it once was for me. So yeah.

Trish 31:39
I was glad it was in the movie, I had forgotten that aspect of it, that it shows that grueling side of of travel. And it was interesting to see again, you know, George Clooney is the older gentleman in the movie, the other girl is much younger, she’s not done that she’s unprepared, she’s got the wrong kind of suitcase. She’s struggling, right to do it that way. So I did like that it was showing different generations in the workforce, both learning from each other. Neither one was 100% correct in their approach. And so I think that, by the end, you get to somewhere that’s a little more human, for both of them a little more appreciative of maybe the business life, they’re leading because George Clooney was kind of running away from everything, it felt like for much of the movie. And by the end, you kind of see that turnaround, too.

Steve 32:30
I don’t want to give it away. But he’s changed some that I don’t know really, right. If you get to the very end of the movie, you’ll you’ll be questioning that. But the last thing Trish I think we should touch on though, in terms of the workplace or the the world, the world of work was actually a note you made that you wanted to talk about, which is there’s a scene in the movie where the three main characters, George Clooney, his love interest, whose name is escaping me right now the character and the, the new employee, right? Works with George Clooney, they crash essentially a tech conference, which is happening at this big hotel and resort they’re staying in, and they just crashed the conference, they still swipe a badge when they walk in, and they’re in this conference. And this conference is like typical conference, maybe, but also kind of a good reminder to folks about hey, like, there’s a lot of weird stuff that happens sometimes at these business conferences with the partying and the carrying on and the late nights and all that and it actually I thought was pretty accurate portrayal of the kinds of things that can happen.

Trish 33:36
It was an again, I was trying to put myself back in that 2009 lens when I was looking at it, and because that’s when I was more going to those conferences on a regular basis. And, and as a, as an HR leader, right. And HR is like you’re so buttoned down all the time. But they it’s like going to charm, you know, you got to share manual and people will be I remember we went to one in in, I think it was New Orleans. Oh, these people had their badges on and they are wasted just wasted. making out with each other dance on each like it was craziness. And I just wanted to go around each of them go give me your badge. Just give me your badge like, you know, and now it’s even worse with social media. If someone it’s like you’d almost want to take pictures of them if they were, you know, doing craziness. Because anyway, I think that it’s a good lesson to say if you go to an event, these things do happen. Be mindful of who you’re around and what you’re wearing. And you’re not meant to go on a conference to completely lose control because then you can lose your job really. And yeah, I definitely conference much differently now at this age than I did then.

Steve 34:50
I never sort of carried on like the way the things were portrayed in the movie. It was a little bit over the top a little bit, but fairly accurate right in terms of the parties in the dancing, the celebrity guests, the open bars, really late nights. And I can recall a number of times in my career will have the HR tech conference, right, which I’ve been a part of for a long time where it would be 6:30 or so in the morning, and I’d be hitting the lobby, right in my suit to head to the conference, because I had to get there so early. And on my my walk from the elevator bank to where the conference was I pass other people who are just coming back, right from their evening, wherever, right that I knew, right? You know, industry people I knew. They’d kind of look away, maybe you’d wave but you know, and talk to me, but like, you know, because let’s say nobody was shamed. But everybody’s an adult, you can do what you want. But it can get a little crazy. And certainly, we see that at events like SHRM and other events where, like, we’re over it, right, because we’ve gone to 100 conferences over the last 10 years, right. But a lot of people go to one conference here, or one conference every two or three years. Right. And it’s their, their big opportunity to cut loose a little bit. So just yeah, be mindful fall conference seasons coming up. And the smart out there, I guess, is all I’d say.

Trish 36:11
If nothing else, watch the movie just before you go to a fall conference. So you kind of see what it looks like, when we’re doing it. I don’t know, I do think that one of the things, you know, we have changed a lot, as we talked about with technology, and we’re using videocall, even for what we’re doing now, you know, in 2009, we weren’t doing that. But I think that the other thing that’s changing and conferences are just people are more health conscious. You know, there are more, you kind of mentioned that, you know, it’s not the healthiest lifestyle, when you’re on the road all the time, we were at conferences all the time, there are more healthful options in food. Like for example, you and I don’t drink. So there are definitely mocktail options or other options. So I do feel like it’s getting a little more friendly to people who aren’t going to party, right, you’re going to do work the way when I you know, I want to see friends, I want to see some people and meet people, but it’s my job to, right. So I want to I don’t want to be hungover the next day and having to get on stage and try and function. Right. So I do think that that’s something a company can do as well, if you’re if your people are going to be on the road, like that, have some training, have some, you know, etiquette training, and some just business training on how to lead a healthy lifestyle on the road. Because if you’ve got, you know, Gen Z or even younger millennials joining your organization, they might have never been told that how to do that.

Steve 37:37
I would think for sure, much like the the Anna Kendrick character in the movie was newer to the workforce and was less experienced both at work, but she was also less experienced right outside of work too. And so, you know, they the the George Clooney character tries to look out for in those circumstances. And you’re right, it could they could, new workers could certainly benefit from some of that kind of training and education. In an onboarding scenario, if you’re going to, you’re going to hire somebody and put them on the road for business, you should definitely have an hour or two, where you sit them down with some experienced folks who are on that lifestyle at your company. Take them through some things. Yeah, they did that for us. I mentioned Saudi I mentioned it again, before we went to Saudi, I had like a three hour session with some folks who had been there and work there for a while. And they, you know, took us through a lot of different elements of what it was going to be like to go there and work so and it was super helpful.

Trish 38:32
I would say the organizations I’ve worked with, especially the large ones, where you had people in either Asia Pacific or the Middle East, we did training for them as well, like anyone that was relocating or just working longer term on an assignment like that, because there are certain customs to you need to adhere to, and things for your own personal safety as well when you’re traveling. So I was very lucky that I worked in organizations when I was younger in my career, where those classes and again, back to etiquette, things like that, how to how to handle yourself, you know, those were taught. And it was just as important as more of your technical skills, really, those are the soft skills that you need to understand and how to, you know, and not just, I guess the one thing was like, you know, they were kind of showing her like, Oh, we’re gonna go to this party, we’re gonna crash it, we’re gonna get drunk, whatever. They knew how to handle themselves. And she didn’t. Right. So they’re kind of showing her but also it kind of backfired a little bit.

Steve 39:29
So yeah, yeah.

Trish 39:31
We could probably get involved in that and make sure like, yes, here’s some of the horror stories from the road which we could do a whole separate show with people we know who’ve had horror stories.

Steve 39:43
And that’s certainly like a whole nother kind of yeah subculture of work. And I don’t feel like I’m in that as much as I used to be because there was a definitely, I mean, I did the I did the weekly consulting thing for a number of years before all of this stuff before the podcast and all that I would get on a plane every Monday morning and fly somewhere and be there all week long and fly back on Friday. I did that for five years probably earlier in my career. And yeah, that’s a grind it but it’s a different kind of grind. It almost becomes commuting today. They call it super commuting, right. Like that’s a fashionable term for it. But back then we didn’t look at it that way. But it does after a while feel like commuting right in versus traveling for work. But that’s another story. But it’s a great movie, though. I mean, I say seven out of 10 If I was ranking it, you know, we I had liked it a lot. I didn’t love it. The only other movie I can think of Trish that kind of had that great recession, financial crisis vibes, which is a movie we have talked about on the show, which is The Big Short, which came out a few years later than this movie, but was really directly related to the financial crisis in that same era, right of what was going on in the economy in the US, which honestly was a much better movie I think then then up in the air, different movie, of course, but a good one as well. If you’re if you want to your business, financial crisis era vibes on so I’d recommend that too. So but yeah, good stuff. I’m glad it was quite fun to watch this movie guy.

Trish 41:16
I’m glad we did it, you came up with the suggestion. And it was funny because I shared some of the ones you mentioned, we’ve done a lot of the workplace movie hall of fame movies, it’s one we get asked to do the most First off, but I put it on LinkedIn. And here were you know, links to some of the ones we did. And they actually asked for people to make some recommendations. So we’ll have to go through there we got lots and lots of good work this movie or you know, workplace adjacent, right, where you get some sort of, so yeah, we’ve got a lot more we can do in the coming you know, 12 to 18 months.

Steve 41:48
And we’re gonna I think we’re gonna branch out into TV quote, unquote, right? Our I heard a rumor that the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader documentary is on the docket for our our next workplace movie hall of fame show even though it’s not exactly a movie.

Trish 42:04
It is, and I’m gonna tell you what I you know, they’re beautiful women. I always have thought that, you know, since I was a little girl and everything, everybody loves the the cheerleaders. It’s fascinating. It’s not something I intended to watch, but like there was nothing else available, really. So I thought I’ll watch an episode, so many workplace issues.

Steve 42:23
The people that run that team are the worst that I’m gonna tell you that right now. I’ve not watched all the episodes yet. But the people who are in charge of that cheerleading team and the owner, the Cowboys representatives, they’re the worst people in the world. And I’m going to work. I’m coming down very hard on them soon.

Trish 42:41
I want to as well. So people, please go watch at least a couple episodes. And if you want, like weigh in beforehand, message us, you can find us anywhere on social tell us where you’re thinking like.

Steve 42:53
Yeah, we’re gonna I’m looking forward to that. Well, I’m looking forward to that one. So all right. Let’s cut it off here. Up in the Air 2009. You can find it on Max, I believe if you want to watch it right now. That’s where I found it. stream it there. If you want to catch it. I recommend and thanks to our friends of course, that paychecks for supporting this nonsense for so long, but we appreciate them. And thanks, Trish. It was really fun and good to see you.

Trish 43:19
Good to see you too. Thanks to Paychex.

Steve 43:22
Thank you and thanks for listening everybody. Check all the archives at HRHappyHour.net And we will see you next time and bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai