05 HR is not your Friend

HR IS NOT YOUR FRIEND SHOW NOTES

We’re on some HR level #@%$!

In this unfiltered episode, I’m joined by HR’s Agent of Chaos, Francis “Tank” Rhodes and the hot mess that is Human Resources is catching some strays.

From SHRM scandals and toxic leadership to performative DEI and overworked HR teams, we’re naming names (disrespectfully), spilling tea, and calling out the systems that keep workplaces unsafe and inequitable for Black folks.

BASICALLY, BABES, we’re talking about everything wrong with HR.

This episode is for anyone who’s ever been side-eyed by HR, wants in on finding solutions to HR’s biggest issues, or just needs to understand what the helly is actually going on behind the scenes.

Topics we cover:

• Why HR is not your friend”… and what you actually need
• The real reason DEI was set up to fail
• SHRM, HR elitism, and our villain origin stories
• How HR professionals can reclaim integrity and lead with empathy
• Why your work bestie might be your biggest opp (we said what we said!)

Tank is a real one, and this convo was hilarious and raw. So, go ahead, boo… hit the play button.

ACCESS TRANSCRIPTS: https://www.mercedesswan.com/blog/hr-is-not-your-friend

🤎 Work with Tank as your HR Consultant

Tank is an HR Manager & consultant with seven years of experience in HR Ops, including Talent Acquisition, Performance Management, Employee Relations, Leadership, Benefits Administration, LOA, Compliance, & Inclusion.

Work with Tank: https://beacons.ai/hrsagentofchaos

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hrsagentofchaos/about

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hrsagentofchaos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhodes19/

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TRANSCRIPTS

*AI Generated*

Mercedes Swan (00:00)
Anytime we're talking about HR, all I hear is, HR's not your friend, HR is here to protect the company, And I'm not even gonna gaslight y'all, y'all are right, okay? It's rough out here in these streets.

But I also want to take a moment because there are a lot of HR professionals like myself and I think Tank is one as well who is really just trying to create a space, right, where we can ask HR to do better and we can really call out what's going wrong, particularly from an equity lens, from marginalized community lens,

I get a lot of people reaching out to me about joining HR and a couple of the things that they say is like, I don't have the degree. And they're like, well, I really love managing people. And I say to them, and I'm like, I'm serious, like that's some of the best skills, like that's the best skill set that you could go into HR with. Like really actually passionate about people because I think some of the...

Tank (00:35)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Mercedes Swan (00:46)
HR's not your friend, HR's there to protect the company, or people that actually don't have a lot of empathy for other

people.

Tank (00:51)
Tell me a time you saw a bullet point that said, you gotta be cool with the people you work with. HR is not your friend neither. Sales, marketing, C-suite, engineering, customer service, product, like none of them. I don't have to actually like you. I'm gonna keep it 100. I don't actually have to like you. I have to deal with you. I have to engage with you. I have to respect you, right? We don't need to be friends. And I'm gonna put this out there too. A lot of y'all work besties is your biggest opp.

Mercedes Swan (01:05)
That's true.

Mmm.

period.

period.

Tank (01:20)
Yeah,

I also understand the sentiment behind HR is not your friend. I'm not here to be that. That's not what I applied for. That's not what you applied for. So let's, as just individuals, let's work on that. Cause I get it. You're not wrong. I get it. At the same time, I think it's our biggest issue.

Mercedes Swan (01:24)
Mm-hmm.

Hello loves it is Mercedes Swan the career love coach and host of the career love podcast This podcast is my love letter to the 9.8 million black women in the workplace and a safe space For black women who want to change the world to build a career business and lifestyle they love so today We are talking about everything wrong with HR. Okay, and if I look like I'm crying I was from laughter because

take is hilarious. Okay

Tank (02:04)
You

Mercedes Swan (02:06)
So we'll see, this episode's probably gonna be like 90 % laugh track for me, that's fine. But I'm super excited about this because honestly, anytime I go live, anytime I'm having a conversation, podcast, whatever I'm doing that's collaborative, anytime we're talking about HR, all I hear is, HR's not your friend, HR is here to protect the company, HR, HR, HR, HR. And I'm not even gonna gaslight y'all, y'all are right, okay? It's rough out here in these streets. And so I do get the experience,

Tank (02:12)
You

you

Mercedes Swan (02:36)
But I also want to take a moment because there are a lot of HR professionals like myself and I think Tank is one as well who is really just trying to create a space, right, where we can ask HR to do better and we can really call out what's going wrong, particularly from an equity lens, from marginalized community lens, what is going on. And so I think today we can talk about the HR landscape.

⁓ And Tank's gonna help me do that. We're gonna have a lot of fun. So today we're gonna talk about what HR gets wrong. We're gonna talk about poor leadership in the HR field. A SHRM rant is coming. Okay, I asked Tank to hold it together, but I don't think we're gonna be successful, that's fine. And then we're gonna talk about really how HR professionals can really support marginalized groups and their needs. So with that being said, I'm super excited to introduce Tank. I'm gonna let him introduce himself, but. ⁓

Tank (03:12)
Hahaha!

Mercedes Swan (03:25)
Tank is HR's agent of chaos, okay? He is chaos personified. And I think that is so funny. When I saw his username before I even had started chatting with him or followed, I was like, this is what we need, okay? And so Tank is Boston born and raised and he shares his raw and uncut experiences on being not only a black person in corporate America, because we're child of the ghetto, but also being a black, cis het men in human resources, man in human resources.

Tank (03:38)
Yeah.

Mercedes Swan (03:54)
And when he's not online, because, oh, it's fun watching him online, by the way. You can find him in the kitchen, on a dance floor, a skate park, a snowy mountain, eclectic, okay, behind a drum kit or locked into video games. I feel like we gotta hear from Tank a little bit about Tank's villain origin story, because I feel like that's what I'm gonna call it, your villain origin story, okay?

Tank (04:13)
Hahaha!

Mercedes Swan (04:17)
And then, you know, we can go into my hot take questions. So go for it, Tank

Tank (04:20)
I'm

with that. I'm very excited. I'm so happy to be a part of this. The villain origin story is kind of two halves of a whole. The name in and of itself actually came from a hilarious conversation a friend and I were having. And she was like, you are the most chaotic person I know

And I proceeded to say that's on purpose because I personally believe you need to let people know right away that you a little bit crazy so they don't play with you.

Mercedes Swan (04:54)
Exactly. Honestly, if we left this podcast with no advice and we just said you got to let people know you're a little bit crazy, chaotic.

Tank (04:56)
Because I'm not here for it.

Yeah, I seen a video

a couple of weeks ago and this dude said, ⁓ I'm a lunatic, not stupid. And I just needed tatted somewhere on me. needed tatted somewhere on me for real. but yeah, so that kind of, we were talking about TikTok and this was four years ago. So we were talking about TikTok and whether I should even do it or not. A number of friends were like, you should.

just get on there and say what you need to say because a lot of people need to hear it. I was completely opposed to being a content creator. I was like, I don't need to do all that. And they're like, what are you doing on all the other stuff? And I'm like, all right, fine. And then four years in, I don't know, 47,000 followers later, I guess I'm still allowed to be a little bit, you know? But I think the turning point, and there's been a lot of them early on. So I've been in HR for the last seven years.

and I've done a lot of bit of everything since I've been here.

I realized HR was ghetto after I got in it, but thinking back to the barriers I had to break through to get into it. ⁓ I do not possess a college degree. ⁓ I put myself through the certification process. ⁓ But in my retail life, I did 15 years of retail before this, in my retail life and having the chance to kind of grow and become better as a people manager.

and then learning like, okay, there's like corporate roles that, you know, a lot of these people have evolved into. I want to be one of those. I got enough experience. I understand people personally, I think better than most because the feedback I got a lot in my management life was like, hey, you get a little bit too close to your employees. And I'm like, well, why are y'all in charge of people you don't fucking know? That sounds stupid. That sounds really stupid to me. So.

That aside, kind of took all of those and I was like, okay, well, what is the department in a company that's responsible for people? And I didn't know anything about HR at the time. I didn't realize like, this was the team at least that the world looked at as responsible for people. So it's like, cool, I want to try and do HR stuff. Quit retail before I even had another job. Got into HR about two years in, started learning the business element of things. And that's when I realized, okay.

HR clearly is its own problem and we gonna get to that. But everything else that contributes to HR being a problem is the bigger issue. That's when I realized, okay, this is the projects of hell and we need to have a conversation about it. We need have a conversation about it now.

Mercedes Swan (07:53)
I'm over here die because

I'm trying so hard because like everything you say I want to react to it I was like I need to let you talk but I'm over here just dying which I'm like muting because

Tank (08:01)
Hahaha!

I'm ⁓ like, like Mercedes said in the beginning, we are not here to play today. Everything. I'm cat Williams is the whole interview. I'm a cat. We use this whole thing. ⁓ I'm cat Williams, this whole thing. No more games. No, none whatsoever. But yeah, it's been, it's just been a number of things as I've been walking through this journey that I've kind of revealed to me.

Mercedes Swan (08:08)
Thank you.

Period. The Cavaliers of HR. We're gonna tell it like it is.

Tank (08:34)
as I've put myself out there more as not just a Black person who didn't take the traditional path, we all know what that actually means, into a corporate space and then...

getting to the point that I have at such a speed that most would be like, well, did you really do all of these things? And you know, we can have a whole conversation about black excellence as well. Just because we ain't got papers all over the wall don't mean I don't know nothing. A lot of y'all lack this. A lot y'all.

Mercedes Swan (09:08)
And some of us do

have papers on the wall, okay? I don't know if y'all can see that. Period. Yes, we can. We're not getting to any questions. It's just for laughs and giggles.

Tank (09:10)
and still can't get a break because we can cover that too, especially black women. could do that all day, all day. There's definitely going be a part two to this because I'm about to crash.

I'm just gonna crash. ⁓

right. So yeah, it's been there's been no specific moment other than looking back in and just reflecting on all the people I've encountered the now clear to me lack of representation in HR. And just like the the my experience in the last couple of years of just being a job seeker amongst the many HR people who

have been job seekers for the last two years or in the same boat that I've been, regardless of their identity, background, whatever it is, people who trying to switch over into HR from a different field or whatever it is ⁓ in your organization, in your career, in your life in general. There's a lot going on that there's a ton of advice, there's a ton of platforms and there's a ton of people ⁓ who are or are not saying the things that they should be saying.

Mercedes Swan (10:27)
I'm gonna let you speak. But Tank has the best HR story of all time. That being said, I think it's interesting because, I shouldn't have gone there. But I think it's interesting because being in HR, just having a platform like you said, I also love that because I was like, you need this platform. People in HR, but just people who don't.

Tank (10:37)
You

Mercedes Swan (10:50)
necessarily know what HR is, know how to navigate it, our marginalized voices need to see that representation. I'm so glad you got your TikTok to where it is. I'm so glad that you're still doing the thing and like going for it, even if it's uncomfortable. So I just always over here supporting you

Tank (11:01)
Thank you.

Mercedes Swan (11:05)
I get a lot of people reaching out to me about joining HR and a couple of the things that they say is like, I don't have the degree. And they're like, well, I really love managing people. I know the problems that I've seen like as a manager. And I say to them, and I'm like, I'm serious, like that's some of the best skills, like that's the best skill set that you could go into HR with. Like really actually passionate about people because I think some of the...

Tank (11:17)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Mercedes Swan (11:29)
HR's not your friend, HR's there to protect the company, or people that actually don't have a lot of empathy for other people. And I always say like, no, if I'm fighting for an employee to get what I think that they deserve, what I feel like is fair, what is equitable, then I am protecting the company. But also, it's because I care about them. And they might not always think that because of all of the process and whatever else, the problems with HR that we'll probably talk about.

Tank (11:48)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Swan (11:54)
of making

that thing happen, but because I'm passionate about a person and making sure that a person is whole, one of my favorite ⁓ HR leaders that I've ever worked with, I like, I just wanna make sure people are whole. Even if we have to make a hard decision because of life, whatever, COVID, layoffs, whatever, I wanna try and make people as whole as I possibly can. And I feel like coming at HR with that energy would resolve a lot of the issues that we have. So that being said, passion for people, genuine empathy.

and leading people is one of the best skill sets that you can have. And there are people out there, and I say this and people don't believe me, there are people out there, I'm not saying it's easy, I'm not gonna say it's gonna change overnight, particularly in this job market, but don't give up on that dream because it's people like you that we do need in HR, and it's also harder for you to get into HR because if you are the change, you are the disruptor, you are the villain, right? Then it's disrupting their space.

Tank (12:27)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Swan (12:48)
A lot of people don't want that, right? And so what I would go into, you know, I always lead with the strategic. People just think I'm very nice. I am very nice and I am very sweet. But I'm not gonna let you do something that I don't think is right. You know, so if you wanna deal with that, yeah. Well, for me it'll be like, did she just bite me? Is that just what happened? I was like, yeah, I did. You didn't know it. But I'm coming for the employees, right?

Tank (13:01)
I'll bite you for real.

Yup, 100%. Yeah.

Mercedes Swan (13:12)
And so I think we need more of that energy, right, of saying like, let's really shift and change systems that are gonna help employees. And so it's you, like if you're listening to this, because you have a different perspective on what's wrong and because you're passionate, you're gonna make the change that of course I think Tank is making in this space. So yeah, what's your thought? What's, hearts. But yeah, any thoughts, Tank? did it just do a heart reaction?

Tank (13:36)
I, yeah, no,

I guess so. I'm with it. So everything, I co-signed everything you said and I wanna make something, I wanna make a few things clear. And a lot of this is just my perspective again from my experience. I want everybody to take what you need to take with a grain of salt and if it don't apply, let it fly.

Mercedes Swan (13:40)
I guess so! I did not do that.

Tank (14:04)
Because if you apply it and it needs you and you start to mean, we're having a different conversation. ⁓

The minute I realized I was being labeled as a disruptor, it immediately made me feel uncomfortable because words matter.

And I get it in the grand scheme of things. We were, you know, especially 2020, we saw what we saw on the internet with George Floyd. And we're like, cool, we're going to speed up this process of making sure everybody feel like they are home. Right. The problem is, is we immediately turn a lot of this into a strictly business issue versus it being a

Okay, before we try and bring this into the workplace, what am I doing at home on the train or bus into my car, commuting to or from work? What is something that I need to sit with and unpack, doing whatever recreational activity you do, to be like, how am I contributing to making this worse? What have I done to make this worse? I remember, here's a piece of that HR Village and Villain Origin story.

Um, I remember in a zoom call once, um, was a bunch of, a bunch of C-suite leaders in myself. I don't know why I got invited to this, but I was in the room. Um, everyone's talking about DEI and all the things that come with that, right. And what they thought came with it at the time. We did breakout room at some point and a particular question had come up about, um, uncomfortable conversations. And I also take issue with that phrase.

because this is only uncomfortable for those of you who have not had this be a consistent experience of yours. My first conversation about watching how I walk, talk, move in different spaces, I was six. That's not as, especially as a larger black man who at the time was growing up in ⁓ what appeared to be a visibly whiter space and whiter city.

Having told people that I had that conversation at five, six years old with my grandmother in the middle of a Macy's is not on anyone's bingo card. But cross it off, because it is now. You're hearing it from the person who got the talk. My sister's got that talk all before the age of 10. And when we were in the Zoom room, I had asked before we tried to come up with an answer for this question.

if we could take a second and be like, hey, let's talk through what uncomfortable actually is here. It immediately got shut down. And I was like, got it. This whole DEI movement is not going to work. I called that four years ago. And things have transpired since, some very recently, and then people started complying in advance. And here we are.

Mercedes Swan (17:19)
Here we are, and they really did F around and find out, truly, in front of us all. Yeah, I think it's interesting, and it's like, you know, some of us are just always uncomfortable, right? Uncomfortable, quote unquote. But it's also like, by centering this, we're gonna have uncomfortable conversations, let's not center your whiteness. Like, let's actually center the marginalized people, which is like, what about an oppressed being?

Tank (17:22)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Right. Right.

Mercedes Swan (17:48)
Like, what does that look like? You're oppressed for the duration of this conversation and now we're talking about it's uncomfortable. Okay, that's great. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I still gotta go. Yeah.

Tank (17:48)
Right.

Who am I?

Right. You get to peel off all them layers once you clock out and you don't got to be a part of it and you not getting paid for it no more. I still got to

leave this building, go off the Zoom call, go outside and subconsciously think about the things that could happen to it. I just want to go to the store, come back to the crib. That's it. I don't want to do nothing else. Like that shit, that's genuinely dangerous. That should not be dangerous.

Mercedes Swan (18:10)
And be alive, hopefully, really.

period. That's dangerous. Really.

Tank (18:23)
It's really stupid. We need to start calling things what they are. That's stupid that that's dangerous. This whole lack of inclusion thing is stupid. Having policies that actively work against your staff is stupid. Why? It's stupid.

Mercedes Swan (18:26)
It is.

for sure.

It doesn't help anybody. It doesn't help the organization.

It helps nobody but somebody's ego and somebody's, you know, their white fragility. Period. Period.

Tank (18:42)
right. If it's not ego

in the pockets, because those two things are hand in hand, you're not trying you that's stupid. ⁓

Mercedes Swan (18:50)
Well, that's the thing

that really gets me though, because it's not even the pockets. Like if we think about it, right? It's not even the pockets.

Tank (18:55)
Right, because all the y'all now winning like that,

some of y'all pockets are still thin as hell and you out here moving like you're gonna get that bread put in your bank account in person directly.

Mercedes Swan (19:07)
Well, one of the things that I thought was funny in this whole thing, it's not funny, but like that I thought was really interesting, let's say interesting, is you know who really wasn't coming back with all the DEI stuff? The banks.

Tank (19:08)
laughter

Mercedes Swan (19:25)
clocked that so fast. was like, all, JP Morgan, it's Capital One, it's still Ann, what's the other one? Goldman Sachs? They said and is still doing.

Tank (19:29)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Goldman Sachs.

Right, because we got all y'all money, so try something.

Mercedes Swan (19:39)
Exactly, and I was like, so when you talk about the money thing, right? And you say, the DI is about the pockets and things like, it's not even about that. It's about the ego. It's a privilege. It's a big asterisk, okay? Because the money is where the DI, where the true DI follows, right? That people who really having actual uncomfortable conversations of like, I am unpacking how racism shows up and how I interact with everybody each day.

Tank (19:46)
We're putting put it. Yeah, put a couple asterisks next to that one. Right, right. ⁓

Mercedes Swan (20:07)
I'll kudo that uncomfortable conversation for you. Like that's actually uncomfortable. Like, oh yeah, let me actually look at it and say, oh.

Tank (20:11)
Mm-hmm.

make it your skin

crawl a little bit, get some goosebumps, make you think different.

Mercedes Swan (20:17)
Yeah, I was like, okay, okay. Now

that's where the DEI money is going. Like let's really talk about it. So anyway, I was like, ⁓ that list is interesting. I'm seeing some trends. Cause I was like, let me see it. Cause honestly, I don't even play with you. Like there were some things I was like, well, I guess I gotta go through everybody that has my money or is getting my money. And I was like, my banks are okay. All the banks are okay.

Tank (20:21)
Right. Right. ⁓ huh. ⁓ huh. ⁓

yeah, I went through that list. I went through

that list in January and I've been going through it ever since because what you're not going to do is play with somebody's money who's unemployed and then you turn around and do and you're saying the things that you've been doing the same. Nah, you can take that somewhere else. Don't play with me. Right. Play with somebody else. It's not safe here.

Mercedes Swan (20:50)
Period.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, your actions are actually impacting me, for real. yeah. Yeah, it's a lot.

All right, I wanted to go to hot takes, so I don't know if Tank's gonna survive this. I don't know if the audience is gonna survive this. I'm sure that when we're gonna listen to this, the poor audio is gonna be cutting out, because I'm laughing so much. Anyway, that's fine. I apologize to the listeners. I'm just loud, okay?

I tried to match my guest ⁓ energy, and so I just knew this was gonna be a hot mess. All right, so we have three hot takes. I'm encouraging Tank to give his hot take in one sentence. I don't know if we're gonna survive. We're probably not. It's fine. This is gonna be the whole episode. Probably the whole episode's gonna be the three hot takes. But if you haven't heard, ⁓ so if I had a choice, okay, so my SHRM certification's over there in the corner. If you can't see it, my SHRM certification's over there. Okay, if HRCI came out,

Tank (21:25)
You

Mercedes Swan (21:50)
and say you can transfer whatever you wanna say, your SHRM certification over to us, you just gotta pay a fee. I be what you want? What do you want? I'm not sitting down for the test, I'm not doing it, but if you want some money, HRCI, you can have it, okay? Because I'm done with SHRM, but I'm also not letting my certification lapse, I'm just not doing it, right? So it's fine, I am a certified HR professional, so is Tank.

Tank (21:59)
What you want? What you need?

Right.

Right.

Mercedes Swan (22:15)
But SHRM has been in some hot mess waters. And I honestly, I'm gonna be real with you, I did not know this until like about a year ago, because I was so, I was in higher education. Until higher education has a different kind of governing body for human resources, it's CUPA HR that I had been connected and working with. And they also had like a DEI maturity matrix, like all of my focus until I had switched back into nonprofit was on CUPA HR.

Tank (22:25)
Mm-mm. ⁓

Mercedes Swan (22:42)
And so I didn't see all the mess. And it wasn't until all of this other stuff with the SHRM CEO removing equity that I was like, was like, it was almost like I was like, know, pulling up the mess, know, pulling up all the whatever, covers and rugs and whatever. I was like, oh my gosh. Anyway, and so I think Tank made a video about it too. Anyway, all of that being said, because they are with the mess, if you saw Mr. SHRM CEO.

Johnny C. Taylor himself outside, Tank. What do you got to say?

Tank (23:17)
I would look him in his face and be like, dang, they almost let you in the house, didn't they? Yeah, yeah, we're going there, absolutely. They almost let you in the house. Then they said, nah, you gotta stay outside.

Mercedes Swan (23:29)
you cooked. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Let that sit for a minute. That's good, you did good. I'm proud of you, yeah.

Tank (23:31)
Yeah, yeah, they almost let you in the house. Mm hmm. Yeah, because we we we we we

I have a few videos about Mr. Taylor. ⁓ SHRM General, SHRM General. I have once I was aware of HR certifications and the things that went into that. ⁓ I'd always been nervous about doing those in the beginning because I'm like

Do these actually mean anything, especially for someone who like is freshly transitioned. Like I got my certification like two years after I joined the people field in general. So I'm like, cool, maybe this will give me a little bit of something. ⁓ I was very fortunate at the time that I was at a company that gave a shit about humans. So I remember telling my chief people officer at the time.

that I was doing this thing and I never brought it up to her that I was doing this thing. So we had just gone through the COVID layoff like anybody else. ⁓ I was only recruiting. I was solely in charge of talent acquisition. most of it was everybody from my team except me and her who got let go. So I was like, cool. There's a version of this where like, this is obviously very bittersweet, but like there's a version of this where I can prove myself right now. So was like, cool. Let's go learn a bunch of shit that I don't know yet.

went to HRCI, liked their structure, liked how they were doing things. I didn't know too much about their ethics outside of whatever they produce for content and stuff like that. But I was like, this just feels better. I don't know why yet, but it does. So spent the summer 2020 studying for the APHR, took the test the day before my birthday. ⁓ Fun fact, a little bit of a little bit, don't do that, because it's stressful.

Right? I could have ruined my whole birthday and my birthday was on a Saturday that year. I could have ruined that whole thing. Don't do that. But I took it. I was expecting to wait like however long it took to hear back for the results. I got the results not even five minutes later and I ran into the fucking living room and like broke down in tears because I don't do well in structured learning settings. Like it's actually really hard for me to absorb information.

Mercedes Swan (25:27)
The whole birthday gun is so stressful. Yes.

Nope.

Tank (25:54)
So I was terrified of already doing this on my own. Then I decided to take the test the day before my birthday, which was not intelligent. Please don't do that. And I started kind of seeing, you know, as I've done webinars, I've done webinars in both. I've been to events in person and online. And I'm like, some of y'all with these SHRM certificates, y'all, y'all a lil' mean.

And that's all I could label it as at the time. It's like, y'all a little mean, y'all on a pedestal that I don't think you, I don't think someone put you on. I think you put yourself there. Then I learned about, again, more of the industry, more of these governing bodies. And I'm like, oh, so this governing body is the pedestal builder.

And there's a unique form of elitism happening here. And we'll get to the other stuff that I've, that the connections I've made within this. And then a few years ago, the first lawsuit against SHRM came out where someone was wrongfully terminated. And I was like, okay, but y'all supposed to know what y'all doing? Cause y'all telling us to pay y'all for these papers on the wall to tell us not to do that.

Mercedes Swan (27:19)
that and I'm a rag on the SHRM when you done, take your time. When you done, I'm a rag on that test.

Tank (27:25)
Like I thought we

was all supposed to know about it. I'm not asking for perfection. What I am asking for is this didn't need to become the PR stunt it became, right? Then election season happened and we was learning about who was going to be on whose board and running stuff in the government. And I seen that dude's name and I was like, ain't no fucking way. That's not a thing.

This can't be, I actually didn't believe it at first. Amongst all the other things I've made was really easy for me to believe. I was like, nah. And I went into the deep dive and I was like, this is for real. you definitely not getting this job, but I want to see what happens. Cause in the same conversation, it was talking about, they was talking about getting rid of the NLRB, the National Labor Relations Board. like, so what you running?

Mercedes Swan (28:08)
Tokens get, tokens get spent.

Which is, which is wild.

Tank (28:21)
What are you going to be in charge of? Congratulations on your glass cliff opportunity.

So I have been cooked for making videos about SHRM before and being outspoken about all the things that happened because the very first thing that I got made aware of was their response to George Floyd's murder. And that's when they really showed up on my radar.

And I was like, oh, so y'all just messy because you can get away with it. You're the Amazon of these things, right? You run shit. You can just do this.

Mercedes Swan (29:00)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Whenever anybody comes to me and they're like, hey, do I need the certification? I'm like, no. And I think that does feed into that elitism of like, what does, really what does the SHRM certification mean, right? And very like you, I was, I love my first supervisor. He went and got his SHRM certification. He was like, I'm doing this. You need to do this too. And I'm sitting here, I just graduated.

Tank (29:30)
You're right. I'm not doing no more.

Mercedes Swan (29:31)
I'm not studying. I am like a couple months

post master's degree, sir. I am not doing this. I am tired, okay? But he was like, well, we're doing it. I didn't pay for it. I didn't pay for it. I said great mentor, okay? Love him. Love him bad. That being said, I was like, it was the mental, emotional piece of getting certified in it. So very much like you, I made that decision very early into

Tank (29:39)
I'm not doing it, nah. You asked me to pay for something else?

love that.

Mercedes Swan (30:01)
my HR journey and that was, you know, right when that HRCI SHRM rift kind of just had happened. And so people were deciding, oh, do I stick with here? Do I transfer to SHRM? Whatever, right? Or I don't know. I think you could technically keep both. And so like you, right? You're like, oh, this is this body. this, and at the time it's like, oh, this is that girl in HR, right? You know what I'm saying? Like that's,

Tank (30:13)
Mmm.

Right, I was like, ⁓ shoot, like

y'all. Right.

Mercedes Swan (30:27)
go with the SHRM, right? Because they

are, HRCI used to be the partner for them, so I was like, I should just get a SHRM. That's who it is. ⁓ And I was taking it, and I was like, this is really like a strange certification test, and I say this all the time, I was like, it's a great credential on paper, right? Yes, it is respected, but at the end of the day, when you take that test, you are not taking an HR test.

to really say, hey, I'm showing up as this great HR professional, I'm always making the best people-centered decisions, you are answering the test how you think SHRM would answer this. And that, I think, is a key issue. I have no context for the HRCI one, but for the SHRM certification, I could tell you 50 million other ways that I would have answered that in my current context, in my current role. By the way, I was testing when all of the

Tank (31:01)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Swan (31:23)
Insane like executive orders were going through so when I signed up for the test and by the time I actually well Sorry signed up for the materials in between the time that I tested They had to send out like addendums Right to how to answer things because of the executive orders and that brings me back to this thing about like well SHRM is this? SHRM is like the litmus test of what's okay in society right now like it

Tank (31:35)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Swan (31:52)
they are going to align how they conduct HR with just whatever is acceptable. And that makes sense based on what we know about Mr. Taylor, okay? Because that is the truth, right? It shouldn't be that I'm taking a test and whatever the legislation of the sitting president has overturned, right? Which at the time it was about essentially ⁓ protections for sexual orientation, right? So I took the, I was studying, this is a protected class. I'm taking the test.

Tank (32:02)
Right, right.

Mercedes Swan (32:22)
This is no longer a protected class and that's insane, right? And that's what I think. Yes, we do want HR professionals to know the legalities, but what about talking about showing up as showing up to shift and change and create a workplace that people really want to be at and be included? And like that is my issue. Mercedes when she got this, this certification, I didn't even know what DEI was. I remember my first interaction with DEI.

Tank (32:38)
Mm-hmm.

Go ahead, because I'm ready. I'm ready.

Mercedes Swan (32:55)
words for it. ⁓ The individual who was looking, who was interested in this had received a portfolio from another organization. I'm not putting any names out there. Received a portfolio from another organization where they were tracking diversity metrics. This is well in advance of 2020. That organization is being my next employer. Okay? All right.

Tank (33:14)
Right.

Mercedes Swan (33:21)
Yeah. And they were doing this kind of, and I'm not saying it's ahead by any means, like we're far behind where we should be, but in terms of ahead of the curve of 2020 and the performative nature of things, and was like, we should start doing this. And it's like, we should start doing what? Well, hiring diversity. Don't you see me? I see you, you see me? Who do you think I've been hiring? Okay, who do you think is coming through the door?

Tank (33:30)
Right.

Right, like hello. the diversity

not in room with us right now?

Mercedes Swan (33:50)
Well, I was for sure at

the time, was the only, for a little bit, well, there was two, I think only two women of color. I was only a black person for a while. But in terms of who was hiring out, and I'm saying that in the office, but who was hired out there was definitely more diverse, because of where we were pulling in candidates from, right? And that's the whole thing of like,

Okay, so you can't recognize that you've already done this. You need some report from some other institution that you would rather be. That's weird.

Tank (34:23)
Right.

⁓ It's messy out here. It's real messy.

Mercedes Swan (34:28)
It's a lot. It's a lot. It's gross. Which takes me to the next

HR ick. HR ick. What is one thing that HR needs to stop doing like now, like right now?

Tank (35:49)
Stop being quiet because it's led to a lot of misunderstandings and misinterpretations of not just who we are, but what we do versus what we should be doing.

Mercedes Swan (35:51)
⁓

Tank (36:11)
That has snowballed into complacency, right? Now we understand those of us who wish to do so. We understand systemics and infrastructure, especially in business. There's only so much you can say or do before you become a liability to an organization or you become a liability for yourself and you lose your job. You get pushed out, however that takes place, right? And you get made to be uncomfortable and you're like, well, I'm just going to look somewhere else. And they're just doing it because they want to get rid of you now, right?

The HR is not your friend thing. The first time I saw that on TikTok, I had never heard that before in my life.

Never ever. Now, it's a great question. ⁓ Great question. Because I was funny is we can go there. What's funny is I had had a number of negative interactions with HR people before I even got into the field. And again, didn't really make the line like the alignment of like, this is like this person. This is what I would be doing if I ever got the chance.

Mercedes Swan (36:52)
Okay, that was fine. I'm just joking. I'm joking.

Tank (37:18)
More so operation, not so much the actual action. But getting online, seeing all those comments all the time, and I can see how that can easily drive someone away, right? It's being like, I'm not gonna make any more content because people are tripping. I come from 2009 Twitter. There's very little you can say to me that will scare me off the internet.

Right? Like first off, we calling him what his daddy, the name his daddy gave him is Twitter. Full stop. That's what his daddy named him. And we, we not changing nothing. ⁓ but I, I was seeing those comments and I was like, okay, cool. So of all the jobs, all of you have had in your life that you've applied to, especially because more often than not you're applying versus being sought out.

Mercedes Swan (37:46)
⁓ my gosh. It's Twitter, period. I'm not over there, but it's Twitter.

Tank (38:12)
Tell me a time you saw a bullet point that said, you gotta be cool with the people you work with. HR is not your friend neither. Sales, marketing, C-suite, engineering, customer service, product, like none of them. I don't have to actually like you. I'm gonna keep it 100. I don't actually have to like you. I have to deal with you. I have to engage with you. I have to respect you, right? We don't need to be friends. And I'm gonna put this out there too. A lot of y'all work besties is your biggest opp.

Mercedes Swan (38:26)
That's true.

Mmm.

period.

my gosh, yes. Yes.

Tank (38:45)
So, y'all wanna talk about T? We work in human resources. Your work, Bessie, some of y'all's big is op. And you need to dial up that before you end up.

Mercedes Swan (38:46)
Wait, wait, I think we need a moment. Let that, let that sit in.

Period.

Period.

Tank (39:02)
I have so many stories and I can't tell them without putting people on blast.

Mercedes Swan (39:07)
And by the way, I'm gonna put this out here

real quick. I'm saying this as somebody who has like legitimate work friends that I'm still friends with. And by the way, my fiance is from where I worked. It still remains true that a lot of times we do not practice discernment of who we decide to trust. And then we wanna turn around and say, you can't show up to work as your full self. You can't show up to work as...

Tank (39:15)
Right. Right.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Mercedes Swan (39:35)
This and that is like, okay, but who are you showing up with? Like the workplace is not safe with us. Are you in a safe workplace? Well, respectfully, and I'm not saying it's your fault. I'm just saying it is what it is. And so like just recognize and realize, but yeah, it's period.

Tank (39:42)
Right.

Yeah,

you strip it down to his bare bones. Like, yes, obviously, I want to get along with you. I want to have positive engagement engagements with you. I want to be able to exchange any kind of constructive criticism without the respect and the empathy disappearing from that interaction.

I also understand the sentiment behind HR is not your friend. I'm not here to be that. That's not what I applied for. That's not what you applied for. So let's, as just individuals, let's work on that. Cause I get it. You're not wrong. I get it. At the same time, human resources has, I think it's our biggest issue.

Mercedes Swan (40:13)
Mm-hmm.

Tank (40:33)
The confidentiality. It's like, okay, there are things you actually can talk about because it actually helps people. Sharing things about labor laws and anything inclusion related and do's and don'ts on your resume and do's and don'ts in an interview and interactions with your leaders and for y'all leaders, y'all come at your direct reports wrong a lot too.

Mercedes Swan (40:35)
Mmm.

Yes.

Tank (40:57)
That's why we always having conversations with y'all.

Mercedes Swan (41:00)
That's why we're here, unfortunately.

Tank (41:04)
Stop tripping, start sharing, sharing the experiences, helps you, helps other people who also work in HR alongside you, who do have the best intentions in mind, even if they don't know how to execute on them, but more so the people who don't see you every day, who don't get to talk to you every day. How many people you know just pull up to the HR people and like sit and have lunch with them, just cause?

Mercedes Swan (41:04)
You

Tank (41:33)
is a very isolating experience. So if you're not kicking it with other HR people, people take me out. I tell you right, people take me out. And that's because I'm knocking the front. Right, like I'm gonna keep it 100. I get taken out for dinner and beers all the time. Like it's been a thing, but it isn't to win me over.

Mercedes Swan (41:36)
I'm the HR person that people have lunch with.

Period. They like me. But y'all don't got me or Tank. I'm just putting that out there.

period.

Tank (41:57)
and I don't allow that to happen. It's because I come at people like they're fucking people. Like this shouldn't be a conversation. Also me getting to know my team because I've been open about the things I do and do not know and willing to seek information to get better at it. Whenever there is a not so great interaction, I want you to know to the best of my ability that this isn't specifically about you.

Mercedes Swan (42:00)
Yeah.

Period.

Tank (42:25)
This isn't because of ⁓ any kind of like, right, anything of the sort. If you've been tripping, I might have to include that, right? Because not all investigations in the same way, but it's not because, right, right. Because what I'm going keep it a million. Once I'm off the clock, don't ask me shit. I don't know what happened unless it's like real, real serious. And I got to kind of be a part of it, but like don't.

Mercedes Swan (42:32)
Mm.

you were tripping at work. Like you were tripping here. ⁓

like to have a good

time, okay? I'm not, HR Mercedes is not outside.

Tank (42:56)
I'm off five o'clock. We

off the clock. Yeah, we going, I'm gonna be the worst one. I'm acting up. I'm outside.

Mercedes Swan (43:04)
Period. And that's why

HR gets in trouble at the holiday parties, okay? Because we like to have a good time. Don't let no HR people get together at a Christmas party.

Tank (43:09)
my goodness.

One

of my employers had their Christmas party in Miami.

Man, I'm so happy. I'm so glad I got good knees. I'm so glad I got good knees. We was doing everything but standing still. Okay. Don't let this frame through you. I get upside down sideways and we float on the dance floor. We float.

Mercedes Swan (43:22)
Terrible decision, I think.

Good. That's good.

I'm crying. ⁓ Yeah. Whoo! Yeah. This is holiday part of the video.

Tank (43:44)
But yeah, like speak up, talk about the things like

we, people don't know what we do because we're not, we're like the least visible team in the workspace, which is why no one trusts us. They don't even, people don't even think we're a business function.

Mercedes Swan (43:57)
Mm.

That's true. Well, we want to talk about how people don't think DEI is a business function. was like, there was somebody, was like, you know, I'm not even gonna, I'm not even gonna, but there was a guy on LinkedIn. was like, you know what? Do I have time for this energy wise? I'm gonna spend time on this man. He's like, DEI isn't a business function. I was like.

There was another one that I saw that people were like, I'm tired of people talking about inclusion and calling me a Karen. Like my name's Karen. And I was like, ⁓ get my keyboard. And I was like, nope. Slowly back away girls, back away. All right. There's just a lot out there. This is like, hmm. But I love, I kind of love your dynamic of like helping people reframe like their relationship with human resources. And I also love, I always love like a good disagreement because I actually feel like if,

Tank (44:42)
Nope. That sounds personal.

Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Swan (45:01)
if HR was, decide to be, say, what would it look like to actually be an employee's friend? Like, we'd probably resolve some issues too. But I do hear what you're saying about, actually it's not personal in this situation, right? Especially when it's like, you know, something really is going wrong. It's not discrimination. It's not inequities. It's not a terrible supervisor or toxic environment. Like, you actually have an issue with performance or how you're showing up. Yeah, you decided to crash out at work today. Had nothing to with work. It was just you crashing out. Yeah, I totally get that.

Tank (45:09)
Sure, yeah.

Mercedes Swan (45:31)
I think one of the things that kind of prompted for me was to think about what would I actually say? If human resources is not your friend, what is it? And I was like, what if we actually said human resources is really a resource? So many of the issues I hear, and again, in all honesty, I was very much in most of, yeah, all of my HR roles in a.

in a visible place, right? That's very much me and how I decided to be the HR professional that I am. I want to be visible. I want people to call me. I want people to come into my office. I think that's how that trusting relationship is built. That being said, a lot of the issues that I hear, whether or not they're visible or not is another story, because that's another, you, but.

Tank (45:54)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah

Mercedes Swan (46:14)
People will be like, well, I didn't get this, or I was treated unfairly, or whatever. And it's like, OK, but did you have the conversations that you needed to discuss what was going on? And now you're in a situation where your supervisor has been documenting all of this for six months because they knew they wanted to get rid of you, but you haven't accessed the resources that you need. They said, my supervisor is discriminating against me.

And on the other end, I think, right, not visible HR teams do have a responsibility to say, hey, if this is happening, if you're experiencing this, da da da. We also have the history, right, of saying like, well, I went to HR on my last job and they just fired me, you know? But I think that's the thing of like, actually, don't think about HR as your friend or your not friend. Think about how HR can truly be a resource to you. And if you start thinking like, how can I leverage?

Tank (46:47)
Right.

Mercedes Swan (47:03)
human resources to support me with what I've got going on life, whether that's personal or what I need in terms of my workplace structure and my compensation, how can they help you? What system is in place to help you? And whether it's out there or not, unless you have to, I mean, there's some scary HR teams, there's scary orgs out there, I'm not saying that. But most of the time, there's going to be some type of process to support you as a resource. You just have to know where to tap in and why, and that's why I do a lot of the discussions that I have with black women about here's how to get what you want.

Tank (47:20)
Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Swan (47:33)
about whatever situation that you're dealing with, it's actually there. HR is there to facilitate that. But if you're using the wrong language or you're going at it the wrong way, then I can't help you, right? Like I can't.

Tank (47:42)
Right. I, yeah.

in spite of how this field has operated and however long it's been a thing, we've all had our experiences. I think the thing for me is the two, the name of the field itself is quite literally what the job is.

Yes, we have to learn laws and compliances and have well thought out structures for all the things that we want to, you know, have your managers and the senior leaders implement. But like, if you don't come to me about anything, I don't know what happened. Because another thing, again, reasons we need to speak up and be a little bit more visible in our places of work is you have no idea how often the ratio of HR people to the people they support.

Mercedes Swan (48:21)
period.

Tank (48:35)
is drastically off. I've won an HR team of one and has ranged anywhere between 50 to 130 people. That's too many motherfucking people.

Mercedes Swan (48:39)
off.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I need to have more conversations with HR people who are with it, okay? Because I had a client that was talking, and I also had an interview a while ago. I mean, this was early career, and I was like, what? I was like, when you're asking, when you're interviewing for an HR role, like a legit HR role where maybe you're a generalist, a business partner, you need to ask how many people you're supporting.

And they'd be like, why? It's like, they're gonna call you. You're gonna have to help people. Like the ratio has to be there. And it's gonna be terrible. And then because of that, you're gonna not be able to show up for people. Like you moved into HR to show up for people. Like you're not gonna be able to show up for people.

Tank (49:20)
You're gonna be booked and busy and you're not gonna like it.

Mercedes Swan (49:31)
But like when I was interviewing and I would be asking that people would be like, we were like, oh, how many HR people do you have? Oh, we're just one. Oh, how many employees do you have? 300, huh?

Come again? Did you say that with a straight face?

Tank (49:43)
solve that problem a lot sooner.

What do you mean 300?

Mercedes Swan (49:50)
The person that said that,

I legit ghosted that employer. And that, cause I was conflicted.

He just, no, no, no, he didn't say that. He's like.

Tank (50:00)
Cause that's why we have

all the issues right now with like the, you know, all the HR people talking about being burnt out and leaving the field or trying to find smaller places. And it's like, all right, well, I'm probably going to get laid off eventually anyway, cause that's the ecosystem we're currently in. So it's like, well, it sucks that I don't have a job and I got a severance package of anywhere. You know, if your organization likes you enough, you might get four to six weeks. If they liked you a lot, you might get a little bit more than that. But like, do I take that?

Mercedes Swan (50:07)
And they've laid so many off.

period.

Tank (50:30)
because I don't have to deal with 500 people on an HR team of two.

Mercedes Swan (50:34)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then...

Tank (50:36)
Or do I just

like try and suffer and find the next spot right away?

Mercedes Swan (50:40)
And that feeds into the issue of HR is not supporting, HR is not doing this. And I feel like that really feeds into this issue right now. And I'm not saying it's right, but if people saying, oh my gosh, this employer ghosted me, this recruiter never called you back. You know why? Because they have too many recs. And because they laid off all their recruitment teams after, well, there was a huge hire. I felt like everybody got hired as a recruiter post pandemic. And then all of a sudden it was like, oh, just kidding.

Tank (50:56)
Mm-hmm. See you, people.

Right. ⁓ huh.

Mercedes Swan (51:08)
We laid all of them off. Like it was like six months to a year. I was like, what's going on?

Tank (51:13)
we could go into that too, because I'm for sure one of those people, but the perspective I try to share is as someone who works in the field and seeing the way HR candidates have been treated, because when you're not on the inside, you don't have data. So for me, it's 50-50 as a job seeker. It's like, all right, cool.

Mercedes Swan (51:30)
Yeah.

Tank (51:38)
I know what we should be doing and I fully understand you lack the resources to do so. But the other half of this is like, there wasn't enough support potentially. There wasn't enough resources for the human resources. Like we're being told no for a lot of things. Your hiring managers are coming up with new ways to interview and they want to add 19 questions to our application. a one way interview and I'm like,

Mercedes Swan (51:52)
period.

in a ⁓

Tank (52:05)
The job market is trash. has been for years. It's this constant back and forth. gets popularity. The PR stunt becomes it's a it's a candidates market. It's the company market, whatever else. Right. And it makes the news. Then you get all these dumbass medium and Wall Street Journal opinion articles about it. Hey, by a new mama, tell younger people that they don't want to work. It's like, no, we do want to work. I just want to work for an asshole.

Mercedes Swan (52:23)
So bad.

⁓ I can't tell you how like really stressed out I was

Tank (52:32)
So like, yes, there's plenty of things candidates can do,

but like, the candidates only have so much responsibility in the process. So like what's going on on the inside where you're not, you know, if you're a hiring manager, you're not listening to your recruiters. If you're a recruiter, what kind of interview training you've gone through and implemented at your organization for the people who's on your interview panels where they're not going through 19 rounds of interviews. We don't even have to go that far. These applications with nine interview questions on them before you.

Mercedes Swan (52:41)
period.

Tank (53:01)
That's completely.

Mercedes Swan (53:02)
Who's, are you

reading them? If you don't have time, I know you're not reading them.

Tank (53:06)
I'm going to speak right in the camera. A lot of you have admitted that we all was doing the little fun series, actually a little work events and talking about how, you know, the average time to read a resume is six seconds. So you mean to tell me you read the resume, but you've got five open-ended questions on the application and you read all that too? Come on, son. Play with some, play with some IOs.

Mercedes Swan (53:15)
Make eye contact.

it for sure is.

You're not reading them!

respectfully I

know people get upset with me when I say this I was like I'm gonna tell as somebody who used to do high-volume recruitment and I that five seconds is real I know you don't believe me it's real like I can like a well-trained recruiter can do that like they're skimming the whole thing and really fast like you have five seconds to convince me to read more so no you're not reading all those questions

Tank (53:44)
It's real, you're flying.

you

I'm not reading the answers to all those questions. And then you turn around.

Mercedes Swan (54:01)
And everybody

submitting a video interview too. Y'all are not watching all of those. You're not watching it.

Tank (54:04)
Mm-hmm. You're not watching that whole video. You looking to see who's

producing this video like they're a high, high level TikTok content creator. This is an interview. I'm trying to get paid. I got bills to pay. I got kids. Like people have all these different circumstances and it's like, what are these added loopholes? You know what they are? These are people putting all these steps because it's illegal to not do it.

Mercedes Swan (54:15)
Which is insane.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Tank (54:32)
It's

not a rule, so like, it's not not inappropriate.

Mercedes Swan (54:35)
Yeah. I'm not considering

your protected classes, but you will do a video interview. Did your kid walk in the background? Was that your cat? I used to love, well, okay, well, we won't go on my rant about the video interview thing. I hated them. If anybody's watching, I didn't say this, okay? I was toeing the line. No, I'm just kidding. But I was like, I used to love it when a cat was on the video. Okay, I was like, look at the cat!

Tank (54:42)
You go and jump through some hoops.

Yeah.

I said it, think that every... Yeah!

This is your wife!

Mercedes Swan (55:04)
interview I've had all day. Hired. Hired. No, I'm just kidding.

Bring your cat to work. No, but yeah.

Tank (55:12)
Yeah, bring him, this is your life. I don't, you know, we, had to do

a a whole like bias training thing on that. Once we were all forced to sick in the house, you know, stay in the house during quarantine. Cause it was like, yeah, we don't know people's situations outside of this. And you're going to see some stuff that you've never seen before. You were going to end up not even just in an interview, but a work meeting where somebody got two babies in the background crying. They got to cut, they got to zip out the meeting.

tell you to hold on for 10 minutes while they change your diaper while they feed in the other one. These are real people we dealing with.

Mercedes Swan (55:42)
They'll be right back. Yeah.

And like, it's sad though that we had to get to that. I'm not saying like about you, but it's sad though, because that was already there. Like, let's do this in general, right? To just understand that people are people and like they have life. had it too. I'm not even gonna say that, right? It's like, it doesn't matter.

Tank (55:52)
Yeah

Mm-hmm.

got, we back there because everybody forced everybody

back in the damn office after they've relocated and all this other stuff. And look, I'm for hybrid work. I am. You can't call four days a week hybrid though.

Mercedes Swan (56:09)
period.

That's period.

Tank (56:19)
That's a, I might as well just sleep in office. Cause we back to what we was doing before COVID took over the world. Four days ain't hybrid. Whoever's listening or want to listen, it's not. So talk to whoever you need to talk to.

Mercedes Swan (56:25)
period. Yeah.

That's what's wrong with alternative work agreements.

One day doesn't count. our professionals doing the little forum. The little forum, if it's only one day.

Tank (56:37)
Doesn't count. Doesn't count. That's not real. we just, we get Fridays like.

I can just

not work on Fridays if that's the only day I'm not allowed to come, you know, we don't have to come to office. Just give me the day off. Make it a four day work week if that's what we really doing.

Mercedes Swan (56:47)
Just give me the day off just give me the day off fine Exactly.

That's the assumption. I'm just happy I'm at home doing nothing. ⁓ It's

Tank (56:57)
I just figured that

because guess what I'm doing? opening my, I'm turning on my switch. I'm turning off my PC and I'm not, HR is one of the easiest things I've ever done in my life. And to a lot of people, that's going to sound bad. It's going to sound really bad.

Mercedes Swan (57:02)
period.

I love that for you. I love that for you.

Cannot relate. I love that for you.

Tank (57:12)
And with all of the stuff that obviously make the job hard, at the end of the day for me, I, my brain gets going around what process can I create in the short and long term to help get to a solution for myself, for an individual, for a team and for the organization. I legit think about those steps, those solutions in those steps.

What's the short term versus the long term? Who's being impacted by this? Who am I leaving out of this?

Mercedes Swan (57:48)
Yeah.

Tank (57:50)
Most of my day, most of an HR person's day, other than obviously dealing with the mess that comes through on your Zendesk tickets and the managing people's benefits and all that stuff, shout out Zendesk, y'all be keeping my life in order. ⁓ I'm not getting paid for that, y'all cool. ⁓

Mercedes Swan (58:00)
Not this end test.

Period. Period.

Tank (58:11)
It's just R &D most of the time. You're trying to make sure that you put this thing together legally and ethically. You're Googling a lot of shit to make sure you do that. And you're on Slack and then your groups to do a lot of that. You're on your phone and on your computer all day anyway. There's nothing hard about this.

Mercedes Swan (58:19)
Yeah.

I always love, I'm sorry,

we're gonna go to the next hot take in just a minute, but I love that you said that because people are like, well I just don't know if I can do HR because you know all of this is like, you know how much I get on Google? I don't remember what the FMLA rules are. I don't remember them. I'm going to Google them. I mean I know generally what I'm looking for. I don't know the rule. I don't know how many people. I know the time.

Tank (58:42)
my god.

I be legit playing video games while listening

to an article. Like, let's be resourceful.

Mercedes Swan (58:55)
I'm just out here.

We're just kind of being adults. I mean they like to make it up. We're just all doing our best. We can't remember what the law said.

Tank (59:03)
I'm shiny hunting Pokemon

while I'm making sure I remember these three executive orders that showed up between 1964 and 1993.

Mercedes Swan (59:12)
and that may have changed between presidential elections. We don't know. Best of luck. Best of luck to you.

Tank (59:16)
We don't know. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes.

Mercedes Swan (59:23)
All right, hot take number three, which we are only on number three. We're gonna have to do a take two, ⁓ part two for sure. What is your craziest HR story?

We've thrown the one sentence out of the window. Have fun.

Tank (59:39)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah. ⁓ This might not seem crazy at the start of this, but once you go back a few minutes into the conversations we already had about inclusion, you're going to understand why this pissed me off immediately after I realized what happened. So was an organization I was working at, and we were trying to organize open enrollment.

Open enrollment is one of the more complex things to make happen for everyone because HR professionals and leaders have started that process long before you get the 42 emails letting you know you need to do your open.

Mercedes Swan (1:00:19)
Heavy on the 42. Sorry.

Tank (1:00:23)
Sidebar, I don't care if you have rolling enrollment or not, go check it anyway. Go in the portal, go to your account, make sure everything's cool, ain't nothing changed. Because once we submit that information and you're like, well, I want to change this, guess who you calling? You calling Blue Cross, you calling Aetna, you calling UHC. And we going to coordinate, we going to be in the middle. But we're not. I can't fix this for you directly. This is now your provider's problem.

Mercedes Swan (1:00:25)
⁓

might have been too nice, Tank. I was like, wait, I might have been too nice.

Tank (1:00:52)
Sometimes. Sometimes. I'm

gonna brag a little bit. The times that I have managed open enrollment, I have gotten 100 % completion rate before the end date. Yeah. Cause I'm gonna tell you right now what I tell these people. If you do this shit, you're gonna have the benefits. You got all the questions you want answered once this, once this closes. If you don't do this and you want health insurance to the company.

Mercedes Swan (1:01:05)
Okay, that is like the dream.

Tank (1:01:21)
You're gonna have to figure that out. This isn't new. This isn't your first job, most of you. This isn't the first time, I don't care who was doing it for you. I worked at a place where the HR person was doing a lot of this stuff for a lot of people, absolutely not. No, no. One, that's not supposed to be a thing anyway. This is your benefits. This is money that's coming out your pocket.

Mercedes Swan (1:01:34)
Oh no, no, no, no, no. Oh my gosh. No, no.

Tank (1:01:44)
Two, like, what do mean you did, I send email every day that one or two things is going on. You got me blocked or you don't read your emails, which makes me question your performance. Cause you're not reading the other emails you're supposed to be reading. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm for all y'all. ⁓ Read your emails. I don't care how boring or useless you think it is. There's a reason we sent it. ⁓ So we're planning to open enrollment and

Mercedes Swan (1:01:57)
get.

Read your emails from HR, that is the first rule. I promise it matters.

Tank (1:02:15)
I'm talking to my peers about this thing needing to happen because the, the, I was, using a PEO. I wasn't in charge of benefits directly, but I was responsible as an HR person for the U S attachment for this organization. And for about three weeks, I was just kind of picking at this team. Like, Hey, I'm not trying to take nobody still no spotlight, but like the year, the actual year is ending and I can't have.

how many people we had at the time not have health insurance, right? So like someone solved this problem before Christmas, because this isn't the time to be doing open.

I ended up in a meeting with my manager and two people from this benefits team. And one of those two people, one of those people quite frankly told me to stay in my place. So I said, cool. A few hours later, I'm having a conversation with one of my peers. He, we, sat across from each other. He was relatively new, but he had a lot of pool already. So.

He'd asked me about it. He was one of the many people who would ask me when open enrollment was. And I was like, here's what happened. And he was like, do you need my help? Because like, this is what I'm here for. I'm biz ops. I'm the communications guy. So like, if you're not getting pushed on something, use me. So I was like, I didn't even know that's what you did. And I'm glad you finally figured it out. So we had this conversation. He hits up this same team. The next morning, I woke up.

And they had this big old grandiose plan for rolling out open enrollment. And they're like, yeah, we actually were waiting to hire someone to like add to the team so they could do that for us. And I'm like, okay, but I know how to do.

Mercedes Swan (1:04:01)
What, without you?

Tank (1:04:05)
Here's where the DEI element of this came into play. Me and that same guy who helped me out and got the ball rolling, he showed me the email that he sent.

Mercedes Swan (1:04:08)
listening.

Tank (1:04:17)
Me and this guy do not look the same.

And we went out to dinner later that night and he was like, I don't know how to say this, but I think this is what happened to you. And I was like, yeah, you're absolutely right. You're more than welcome to say it because if I say it, it's not going to.

We're talking about something so simple yet routine.

that you had the audacity to tell me to stay in my place for when I know it the best because you all don't know how anything in this country works. You didn't know we didn't have mandatory vacation time. You had people asking how the other countries get more vacation days than we do. Fun fact, the United States is the only developed country that doesn't have any vacation laws.

on any level. We're not talking about sick leave and all the other stuff. Literal just like, I want to just not be at work and take care of my family and myself. There's no law with a minimum for that. And other countries, primarily Europe, there's like minimum 25 days that your employer has to offer you for whatever days off it is. Germany is like 27. Iran has the most in the world. It's like 50 something.

Mercedes Swan (1:05:38)
That's nice.

Tank (1:05:40)
And I'm like, I get why, but also that's ridiculous, right? So that story were one of many at this organization. had to get sideways with somebody who was a VP at this organization because they were used to talking crazy to people and I'm not that person. ⁓

which, you know, in the light of like code switching, because that's what I'm sure a lot of people are looking for, that's not a thing that I ever do. It's never been something I did. It's something that will get me in trouble and has.

Mercedes Swan (1:06:15)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Tank (1:06:22)
It's been worth it every single time, regardless of how hard things got after, because who would I be? Who do I think I am being in a position and in a field, position in a field that's supposed to represent people and I'm not showing up as myself and then, you know, putting on a face plastering, you know, with the values plastered all over the metaphorical or physical wall sometimes.

Mercedes Swan (1:06:26)
Yeah.

Cheers.

Tank (1:06:49)
and telling you you need to show up as your true self and I'm out here putting, I'm out here frontin'. That doesn't make sense to me.

So yeah, that's what happened. I found out what happened and why it happened. I got sideways with everybody after that. And I was like, cool. So when I tell y'all some shit needs to go down in the States, ask questions. There's a reason I'm telling you. More often than not, it's something that legally has to happen. And just because you don't know the rules doesn't mean you are exempt from them because you do not live here.

Mercedes Swan (1:07:11)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

that's interesting because you're working in this global context, but that's even true for the US. I remember having a lot of challenges when I was, and again, this is me fresh out of college where I'm like, hey, you need to be careful about what you're doing in California. Hey, you need to be careful about what you're doing in New York.

Tank (1:07:27)
Mm-hmm

Mercedes Swan (1:07:42)
I actually, know a lot of people have like the California beef about they have too many benefits, too many laws, too many protections. I'm actually not in that camp at all. It just means that you need to just be intentional about what you're doing, right? And I would keep having this conversation that's like, you guys are making sales here, there, there, there, there, there. I'm the one who has to hire the talent to fit your budget. You are not aware of the laws legally for compensation, benefits, all of the additional employer

Tank (1:08:01)
Right.

Mercedes Swan (1:08:12)
insurances for that state. So now you're because you don't value me as a business like as a business operation in relation to what you're doing as an asset. Now you've made a decision that has negatively impacted the organization legally and otherwise because you undervalued me and my skill set as an HR professional who at the time was like 21. But I was doing my thing. Okay. All right.

Tank (1:08:14)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

The whole thing, right?

Mercedes Swan (1:08:37)
I think honestly that's so much of what happens to black women. I loved hearing your experience because a lot of times we have the systems of oppression but we experience it so much differently based on the different stereotypes about black women and black men. But I think the consistent piece here is just the undervaluing of a resource and knowledge and expertise.

Tank (1:08:50)
right?

Mercedes Swan (1:09:02)
in probably our context, right? Probably some ageism too, right? Like for me, they were just like, Oh, this is just this little girl out of college. It was like, no, I have a master's degree. I have a certification. This is what I love doing. It's what I spend time learning about. And actually I really care. Like I want you to have a successful sales deal, but you can't have a successful sales deal unless you leverage the expertise and the resources. And that's very much like the same thing with open enrollment, right? Um, what am I?

Tank (1:09:05)
Yeah

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Mercedes Swan (1:09:31)
was going to say, one of my worst stories about open enrollment, it was not like anybody's fault. We went through a systems migration and then right after that we went through open enrollment.

Tank (1:09:32)
Hehehehehe

you

Nope.

Mercedes Swan (1:09:48)
woke up one more, I don't think it was the first one. I don't think it was the first set of paychecks. I think it was like the second paycheck where you're like, ⁓ I've got like the sense of security. We've already done one paycheck.

Tank (1:09:58)
Yeah

Mercedes Swan (1:10:03)
get to work and I have all these emails and it's because like every single benefit every single benefit had deducted twice from every employee's paycheck it was not like that in payroll it the system did it I was like I'm gonna quit

Tank (1:10:23)
Oh yeah, I would have went right back home. I would have like, oh my goodness. No, I don't work here no more. I don't work here anymore. What do you mean I didn't show up to work today? You're right, I don't work here no more. I would have just cried.

Mercedes Swan (1:10:33)
See you

Again, me,

well I mean I went to work and I called everybody and there is, I'm not trying to get no cease and desist letters, okay, but there is a payroll company out there. if I, listen, if I'm going to, if I ever stop being full time a business owner, I go back to HR, which I'd probably be more likely to go back to DEI, I'm not even gonna lie, even though we have all the issues that we do, I'd probably go back to DEI.

Tank (1:10:44)
You

Mercedes Swan (1:11:08)
If I were ever to go to HR and they said this is their payroll system, I don't care how much you're gonna pay me, I don't care what my title is, I don't care what I'm doing, declined offer. I will never touch that payroll system. That was the HR asses, not just payroll. I've never, ⁓ you can pay me.

Tank (1:11:13)
Not doing it.

doing it.

⁓ goodness.

I could I could rattle off three that you might be thinking of as I got to be for them to some of them are some of them have been publicized, but. ⁓

Mercedes Swan (1:11:29)
Anyway.

I might edit it out. I want to hear it though.

edited it out because I'm not trying to guess it. Go ahead and spill the tea thing.

Tank (1:11:44)
We're to let it fly. ⁓

Workday and I have not been friends for a long time. ⁓

Mercedes Swan (1:11:48)
Okay, work day. I hear a lot

of people hate work day, but like work day looks so good from the outside. It always does.

Tank (1:11:55)
Workday on the outside

is like, y'all got it. You really do. You got the market on point. You ain't never seen it. When was the last time you seen a commercial or a post to add on public transit, anything like that for workday? People just know what that shit is. I've seen it for the other ones. Yeah. It's just large. And I think a lot of my hate for systems,

Mercedes Swan (1:12:09)
Even job seekers, job seekers hate the work day, but yeah.

Tank (1:12:22)
Isn't all isn't even really like majority like the systems we get it out names. know but we can see it's HR people not understanding the importance of their HR tech stack like that's a thing like you can be great at all the other stuff if you don't understand.

Mercedes Swan (1:12:26)
I'm gonna probably keep it at this point.

Yeah.

Tank (1:12:47)
Or take the time to understand how these technologies get implemented, how they change, how you need to make it work for your organization, because they are going to be different everywhere you go. know, bamboo HR works different at every company, because every company is different, every person is different, all the needs are different, the benefits are different, their growth rates are different. So like, needing to understand your HR tech stack, how these things do and don't talk to each other and...

how people interact, it doesn't matter if you're in the platform the most out of everyone every single day. There are points in the day where someone is in there looking for something and they don't know what a thing is, even if they've been resourceful enough to find it. Especially when it comes to applicant tracking systems, those are the ones I know the best. The way I have seen some folks' ATS is set up internally,

Mercedes Swan (1:13:29)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Tank (1:13:41)
is honestly a lot of reasons why y'all don't hear back about opportunities, about interviews, things going to go spam, like all kinds of stuff. And it's because there's no effort put into the actual technology and we're buying the technology and convincing our leaders to give us the bread to buy this tech because we're like, this is going to solve the problem for us. And it's like, no, this is to help you organize the problem so you can find the solutions. It isn't just this like,

Mercedes Swan (1:13:46)
Mm-hmm.

SMS.

Tank (1:14:09)
We spent the 13, 14 grand, so whatever amount maximum is, depending on how big your company is, just to have a bunch of names and resumes and phone numbers in there. There's a whole stuff that your platform does and you need to get better at using it. And you can't use the excuse of, well, I just don't understand technology. You understood money enough to ask for the budget to buy it.

Mercedes Swan (1:14:15)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

You needed me to get the candidates, so you implemented this, but now you're not wanting the resources to help me actually manage it.

Tank (1:14:38)
And now you're not trying to use, that's crazy.

And then you got to, you know, two years in there's three other platforms you got to look at and you realize two of those three don't talk to each other and they absolutely need to talk to each other because you ain't do no research.

Mercedes Swan (1:14:42)
Which one? Pick one!

Yes.

Which is why I think a lot of times honestly work day seems better because it's like, I don't have to do any of the integrations or the talking of systems. And it's, and integrations are so frustrating. Like that is a huge issue. And one of the things that I can't say that I didn't know because early, when I was early in my career doing that high volume recruitment, was the recruiter. I was the recruiter. And then we added another person and was like, I didn't realize how much this was built towards my brain, right? Cause I was the only decision maker. I'm the person in here. And so,

Tank (1:14:57)
Everything's there.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Right.

Mercedes Swan (1:15:21)
So was that and then it wasn't until I was managing a team where it's like people don't realize that even in a system, well one across organizations, people are like I can't do that, I don't know how to do that. Every HR.

HR function is different. So it's always gonna be different. But even from one recruiter to another, like we manage tags, statuses, communications, all different unless we're, you unless you have very rigid program, right? But like for me, I was like, as a manager, I was like, I want you to do whatever's gonna help you be most effective. Like just let me know if I have to find something, what your process is so I can follow you in that and like support you and.

Tank (1:15:36)
Right.

You're right.

Mercedes Swan (1:15:58)
answer to the powers that be in a way that, not in the bow down powers that answer to, but like reporting, whatever, just status tracking and things like that. But yeah, people really underestimate how complex sometimes HR systems can be. And I think when we talk about all things wrong with HR, to bring back certain, that's definitely one of them. Our systems aren't always the most effective, or to know what do.

Tank (1:16:00)
Right, right.

Mercedes Swan (1:16:24)
I got one last question because I do have a call. I would love to. We're definitely going to do it. We're definitely going to schedule another one. But there was something that you said. I think that's a really good way to wrap this, honestly, with like your experiences in mind and that you mentioned at the beginning with this idea of like black excellence. Right. And be really honestly, I hope that all of you listening here, like you don't take this episode as like a reason to not join H.R. Like take this episode as a reason to be like really lean into what your passion about and

Tank (1:16:27)
Hehehehehe

Mercedes Swan (1:16:54)
Like you can hear me and take like we're passionate about what we did. Well, I did take dozen HR, right? And like it's because we need that change. We need those voices. I think in so many ways, you know, our path has been different and it shows that like there are multiple paths to having an impactful career in human resources. I think in this case, right, we have this duality and standards of like black excellence. Right. For me, when I came in and I started my HR career, I started off saying like,

I've come from a top ten, top ten, what is that? A top, top ten, it's top seven now, but like top ten public research institution, which is regarded as like a public IV, right? I came in, I interviewed, I was in my master's degree program, I was doing my bachelor's and my master's, I was that girl, doing my bachelor's and my master's at the same time. I walked in every day with my human resources textbook, right?

Tank (1:17:28)
You

Mercedes Swan (1:17:51)
My master's was in management, but I came in there with that. Right? And so this idea when we talk about black excellence, also the funny thing is like when I walked in people were like, we're not here who we thought we interviewed. Because I sound white on the phone. Because I sound white on the phone. I'm not code switching, OK? My mom is just proper. OK, she's from Bermuda, OK? They're still colonized. OK, actually still colonized. That's another story. that's what.

Tank (1:18:09)
Hahaha! ⁓

Ayy, clock it yo!

Mercedes Swan (1:18:20)
I couldn't use AAVE at home. I would've been in trouble. Okay, this is what it is, okay? But anyway, so all of that being said, yes, I sound white on the phone. Yes, I showed up to the interview. They were shocked that he hired me. Anyway, I came to work with my textbook. What do you wanna say? But that being said, I came into this conversation with like, you know.

Tank (1:18:26)
You

Mercedes Swan (1:18:41)
my first one of my first conversations with the CEO was like, well, what are you learning in that textbook? Like we have, you know, we're in this process of like, you know, redoing our employee handbook. Like we'd love to learn like what you're learning about in this space, right? In this great innovative organization, right? My master's program here, right? So I came with this like bundle of black excellence as soon as I showed up, like, and in that regard, like,

Tank (1:18:55)
Right.

Mercedes Swan (1:19:08)
It also set certain requirements and expectations of me showing up each day, which long term is not sustainable, right? Long term led me to anxiety and depression and that's a whole other thing, right? And we talked a little bit about that in some lives. But like all of that being said, like black excellence can be such a challenge.

Tank (1:19:12)
Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Swan (1:19:25)
So as we wrap up, want to that will kind of be my last question for you. Like what has this look like this dynamic of black excellence? What would you say to other people who have listened today that want to you know, join and be in human resources with that dynamic and like yeah your advice.

Tank (1:19:27)
Okay.

I will, I'll share this and it's something I heard ⁓ another creator say in the last couple of weeks. When you fake it to make it, when you make it, you gonna be fake.

And that sat with me since I've heard it because it's something that I've said before and more in the corporate context, but also in a larger scheme of being ⁓ not just a minority as a person of color in human resources, but the gender I identify as. are very, very, very, very few. There are very few black men in human resources. I didn't know this was a thing as a career path until I was almost 30.

That was only a few years ago. I am larger in stature. I have always been athletic. It was always, you're gonna do this, you're gonna be hooping, you're gonna be playing football, all these things. And whenever it's said like, you could be this very, what's seen as a niche thing in, you know, the career options. But there's the necessary things you have to do. Obviously, you gotta learn a couple of things. You gotta figure out.

how to convert your experience in a resume and an interview. There's a way you have to show up in terms of making sure you're prepared to have a conversation about what you are trying to do with this person's organization. Because at the end of the day, this is still a business and you can't, you have to prove that you are at least willing to work towards not being a liability. All of those, those are standard. We don't have to dig into that part of the conversation. But.

For me, it's dignity over dollars. I can't recommend enough how important it is to be yourself because as minorities, regardless of whatever category you fall into, LGBTQIA +, disability, veteran, any of that, it doesn't matter, right?

Would you rather double the stress on your life by pretending to fit a square peg in a round hole or your life's already stressful enough?

It's so much more fun being yourself, regardless of the difficulties that come with that.

of all the times I've gotten in trouble for showing up as myself, I knew even if I couldn't articulate it or dissect it or unpack it in those moments, sometimes years later, there's stuff that happened to me in retail that I haven't thought about until year, literally in the last couple of years.

you will be so much more successful and you will attract the people and places you should be attracting when you were not pretending. We can talk about the job market landscape. It's a shit show for every field and category. That's really easy to do. But in this context, if you are transitioning spaces within HR or if you are like, I don't know if I should do this, do it. Know that it's going to be hard.

know that you're gonna run into some bullshit. Know like that, that it's a, that's a thing. I will go back to what I said earlier. This is one of the easiest things that I've done in my life. And the fact that it has become such a complex venture, especially when we talk about things like DEI and the whole argument that was played taking place between 2020 and 2021 of like, well, who's responsible for it? People are, period. Humans. If you at work, if you in store.

Mercedes Swan (1:23:38)
Period.

Tank (1:23:39)
You at your people's crib, you at the club or bar. Every single person contributes to how others engage with each other in that situation. All it takes is one moment of being slightly not yourself to shift the vibe of any and everything that you're doing. So obviously come over here, if you're brand new to it, come over here ⁓ as an open book, right? Learn what you need to learn, but don't just learn the things that...

Mercedes Swan (1:23:58)
hearing.

you

Tank (1:24:09)
you need to be doing every single day. Learn the things that have happened that should not have happened. Learn the gray areas because humans change so quickly and you're responsible for a lot of them at once. You are never getting the same person or groups of people every day. So if you are in it and you're looking to get out of it, you have your reasons and I respect the hell out of them. I know so many and it's mostly black women, unfortunately.

Mercedes Swan (1:24:15)
Mm.

Tank (1:24:38)
who have been like, fuck this, I'm good. I get it. To an extent, as a black man in HR, get treated, as a black man in corporate, you get treated a little bit differently. It's the, you're cool until you're not, but you're not a black woman, so we not gonna kick you out just yet. But don't play yourself because of the barriers of entry. The reason this is really easy for me is because I love it.

I love the chaos that it comes with. And I love the fact that I finally found something that whether organizations and empires or whatever agree with the way I relay that information, I'll end this here. HR itself don't got enough crash outs and people saying what needs to be fucking said when things happen. And that is why we are where we are. And a lot of the negative spaces that, you know,

people are having in engagements in your work life. ⁓ Be yourself, continue to be yourself, unpack the things that keep you from doing that. And slide on over and find people like the two of us. I'll talk to whoever. There's been so many people who's hit me up on TikTok since I've been making videos. ⁓ And this isn't a credit to me, it's not. I just, I think...

Mercedes Swan (1:25:50)
Hahaha

period.

Tank (1:26:06)
people just, you need someone that looks like you, that's willing to talk to you, communicate to you in the way that you understand to help you make things make sense. And a lot of us don't have that. I was the first black man I ever met in HR. That says that's heavy for me. So to have the trust of black women, especially once we've been in it way longer than I have.

to come to me and be like, yo, Tank, what I'm doing wrong? And I'm like, I thought you had the answer. You know, you asking me for it. But also, like, it's a huge testament to the groundwork of, that's already been done long before I showed up. I just give an internet run in my mouth and hope somebody is like cool with it to some extent. ⁓ And that's what it will always be.

Mercedes Swan (1:26:39)
Maybe we should talk!

Tank (1:26:59)
I just show up as you are, show people you a little bit crazy and what will happen will happen.

Mercedes Swan (1:27:10)
I love all of this. ⁓ I think what I took from these pieces to really just sum it up, which I think are a lot of things that have been true about my career. So I think, hey, is Mercedes tank approved? Do not go out there upholding the BS, okay?

A sign that you're doing what you're supposed to do, whether that's because you love it or you're passionate or like maybe it is hard, but like it was hard to get there, but you're there now. Like ease is such a sign of like really being and doing what you want to do. That's a plaf. That's what I talk about on my platform all the time. Ease is a sign. Like follow that because it might be hard to get there, but once you're there, showing up and doing what you're meant to do will be, will feel like ease.

And the last thing which I've really been thinking about a lot is how when we're in a space where we're liberating ourselves and really walking in our calling or our purpose and what we're supposed to do no matter which, however way, whatever your worldview is, just doing what you feel like your person was designed to do.

It liberates others, right? And I think in this conversation, right, like we have this opportunity as HR professionals to shift things and to be in that space in the right space. And I think if you take nothing from this, ⁓ take that honestly, that you deserve to show up in this space. You deserve to be the representation that you are missing. Same. I didn't know any other black HR professionals either, but I found it and I was like in my master's program or excuse me, in my bachelor's program. And I was like, this is what I want.

Tank (1:28:39)
Mm-hmm.

Mercedes Swan (1:28:48)
that's what we gotta do. So all of that being said, thank you Tank for like spending all, literally all, all of this time like in a good way. This is so good. I could keep going. Like I'm telling you I have a call, there's always a call. I gotta get the phone. But we're gonna do this again. We're gonna ask the questions that we were actually supposed to ask.

Tank (1:28:49)
Yeah.

Hahaha!

Ugh.

I mean...

Mercedes Swan (1:29:08)
Maybe we'll get there, maybe we won't. Maybe it'll just be another rant, which is fine. I think this is good. But Tank, I know you've got some exciting things and I know even if you don't feel that way, you're just amazing, right? Like a breath of knowledge, I think, and more HR professionals work with you, talk with you, engage with you in whatever way, or just humans who want to be better humans in general, too. That's the thing. Y'all don't have to go into HR to be better humans, okay? ⁓ You should connect with Tank's.

Tank (1:29:15)
agreed.

Thank you.

Just be good

people. Just be good people. That's easy. Don't be as fucking easy.

Mercedes Swan (1:29:36)
Good people, that's most of the battle. Don't be an asshole, like you said. Just don't be an asshole. So take,

tell me, I know you probably don't wanna talk about, I know you're probably not gonna talk about, but tell me what you're doing with Patreon and how people can join you and TikTok and all of the things so people can really connect with you because I just, they should. They need to.

Tank (1:29:59)
Well,

I, I, this has been so much fun. ⁓ I'm so happy that you asked me to be a part of this. ⁓ I, I'm on TikTok, as we say at the beginning. ⁓ HR's aging the chaos all so much together. Don't forget the S after HRS. But I'm ordinary. ⁓ I post when I post when I post. Patreon is the same thing, same handle. And

I have a lot of writing that I'm gonna put on there and it's than HR, so just more about me, because I do think in the creator context, like we know who I am in regards to, ⁓ as how it relates to human resources, but the things that drew me to that and the influences and then just the life stories. So there's gonna be a mix of videos and writing. All the writing will be free. The video is gonna be a little bit longer format. Some of them are teaching, some of those just me sharing.

Um, but HR's Asian and chaos on Tik Tok and, uh, Patreon. Um, and then, yeah, I'm on LinkedIn, Francis Tank Rhodes. Um, that's easy. He's literally, you can type in Tank. I don't know nobody else on LinkedIn named Tank. Um, they're gonna show up as you're gonna see, you're gonna see me smiling with my anime stuff faded in the background. Um, and yes, pull up, ask whatever, whenever. Um,

I go live every Tuesday, Thursday and Fridays on TikTok. 6.30 PM Central Time. I still got to get my brain right because I moved from the East Coast recently. ⁓ But Tuesday, Thursdays and Fridays, 6.30 on TikTok Central Time. Come Through is me gaming, doing ⁓ Ask Me Anythings. It could be HR stuff. It could be some life stuff. As long as you behave, I'll answer the life stuff. ⁓ But yeah, pull up and support your boy and I will do my best to keep doing what I'm doing to... ⁓

reminds you that you're fucking people and you should be treated as such.

Mercedes Swan (1:32:01)
I love it because it's like it's not just you know, ask me anything. It's not just you know, get in the work It's like we're gonna have fun. We're gonna enjoy I'm showing up on the full self you get the whole thing Okay, and yes like tick showing up to take slides tick stock of live all the content is always great So thank you take so all the information for you to connect with tank will be in the show notes Y'all better make sure you subscribe because we will be doing this again. Okay, cuz this is fun This is actually therapeutic if we're being honest here a little bit a little therapeutic. I'm not even gonna lie

Tank (1:32:10)
Mm-hmm.

I'm glad. I'm glad.

Mercedes Swan (1:32:30)
⁓

So come back and learn more from Tank and what we're both doing I guess at that period of time too. But if you're listening to this, thank you so much for joining us for this podcast. I hope that this really inspired you. If you've been thinking about HR, maybe you are in HR and it's inspired you to do things a little bit different, I hope either way you're gonna go and use that information to just change the world. That is a whole point, right? And for my beautiful black women listening,

If HR is part of your Black Woman Bliss, go ahead and do it. It's part of mine, was part of mine, will always be a part of mine. And so I'm excited to, if you're here, to join you and yeah, to help welcome you into the HR fold, so to speak. Okay, not the elite one, this one.

It's different. Okay? So if you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you subscribe, make sure you share this with another professional sister in love, and of course leave a review. You can also support the podcast on Spotify. And until next time, we wish you all of the best in building a successful career, business, and lifestyle you love. See you later. Bye. Thank you, Tank. Bye.