EP 37 AI, the EEOC, the Eightfold Case, and an Empty Red Dog Couch

In this episode of The HR Life Podcast, Tony and Steve go from red couches and movie plot twists to one of the most important HR conversations happening right now: AI in hiring, reverse discrimination, and why the EEOC is very active.

If you think AI tools are just making recruiting easier, think again. From insider panic in the AI world to federal subpoenas and a groundbreaking lawsuit against Eightfold AI, this episode dives into the legal and ethical risks HR leaders can’t afford to ignore.

And yes… we still make time for dogs, Star Wars ornaments, and questionable hair decisions.

Learn more about Fantastic Tony Benjamin at: https://www.thegrangellc.com/
Learn more about Steve "Big Deal" Smith at: https://thehiringtreebook.com/
Learn more about our Sponsor, MegaStarHR at: https://www.megastarhr.com/
Learn about books referenced on the podcast at: https://thehiringtreebook.com/hr-life-podcast
Learn more about The Thrive Life Project at: https://www.thrivelifeproject.org/

Creators and Guests

Host

Fantastic Tony Benjamin

I am a unique HR leader with more than 20 years’ experience working for some of Utah’s oldest, fastest growing, and most well-known companies. My experience includes Superior Drilling Products, Air Medical Resource Group, Control4, Ovivo USA and Deseret Book. I am a regionally recognized authority on building successful cultures and am an alumni speaker at DisruptHR SLC and DisruptHR St. George. I have earned an MBA from the University of Phoenix, a Bachelor’s degree from Utah State University, and am a certified Professional of Human Resources (PHR). I'm married to a woman out of my league, have three brilliant kids I doesn’t deserve and, although I travel a lot, live in Vernal, Utah.

Host

Steven "Big Deal" Smith

Steve will be the first to tell you that recruiting is marketing. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Finance at Brigham Young University and started his career in recruiting in Feb 2005. In 2008, he took a risk during a recession to help start a new company with Ryan Kohler, called ApplicantPro, a full suite HR platform for small to mid-sized businesses. In March 2025, ApplicantPro became iSolved Talent Acquisition, now serving 177,000 clients and close to 9800 employees. Before the merger, ApplicantPro made the Inc 5000 list 12 years in a row, Top Places to work in Utah 3 years in a row, and Steve was named the Small Business Utah HR Achievement Award winner in May 2024. iSolved was also named an Indeed Platinum Partner in 2023, 2024, and 2025 and is one of only ten ATS platforms in the country to obtain that designation. SHRM-CP & PHR certified, Steve currently volunteers on the Utah SHRM State Council as the immediate past State Executive Director. His book, The Hiring Tree: Laws of Applicant Attraction, was released in early 2023, and has helped thousands of organizations across the country rethink their approach to hiring. If you need help understanding the principles and role of SEO, marketing, and AI when it comes to attracting job seekers, Steve provides a solid framework for hiring effectively.

What is The HR Life Podcast?

The HR Life Podcast is a show about the work-life experience of those of us in Human Resources and business leadership. This long-form podcast is a conversation, casual, and not always the corporate line. Hosts and guests touch on everything from serious or even controversial topics to the absurdity of modern American business practices. Your hosts are Tony Benjamin, owner and founder of The Grange Strategic HR Consulting, and Steven J. Smith, Author of The Hiring Tree: Laws of Applicant Attraction and all-around important guy. Guests include the best minds in the HR world. Join the show weekly.

Tony Benjamin (00:06.382)
Welcome to the HR life podcast, a podcast about the work life experience of those of us in human resources and business leadership. Your hosts are fantastic. Tony Benjamin, owner and founder of the Grange strategic HR consulting and Stephen Bigdeel Smith, who is so important that even his dogs have their own furniture. Hey, Steve.

Steve-o (00:32.014)
Wow.

Which is very true.

Tony Benjamin (00:38.59)
There you go.

Steve-o (00:40.462)
So, okay, so two stories there. One, my office. So I hate the idea of crate training a dog. I just think putting them in this little tiny enclosure is just cruel and unusual punishment. That's just my opinion. And so instead of crate training my dogs like most people do, I train them to lay on their couch in my office. And so in my office, I have a red couch, like the red seat. So if you ever come to my office, you will have a red seat. That's what you'll have.

Tony Benjamin (01:04.192)
Red seat couch. That's right.

Steve-o (01:09.428)
And and so that's where they sit. And so when I tell them it's time to go or I rattle my keys, they know and they run to the room and they're so good and they have room. They can move around. I don't feel like I'm coopin them up. I just think that's I don't know. To me, that's true crate training, I guess. I call it just my red couch training. So there you go. And then the number two. So the second part to this, this is really funny. Rizzo, you know how you go to the Petco's or or

you know, wherever PetSmart's of the world, you want to buy those little dog beds and they're like a hundred million dollars. So I thought this is so dumb. And so we went online and we found a toddler bed for twenty dollars that somebody was trying to get rid of and it had the little mattress and everything. And so we put a toddler bed at the foot of our bed. And that is where Rizzo sleeps every single night. And she has slept there every single night for the past nine years. That is her bed.

Tony Benjamin (02:07.938)
Wow, that's cool. Yeah.

Steve-o (02:08.908)
And she sleeps so she even has her own bed and she loves that toddler bed. It fits her size just perfectly. We put a few animals up there and stuff like that. And my daughter, when she had this, her friend who was doing one of those classes where you have the fake babies and so she had a little baby that his name was Jamal. So Jamal slept with Rizzo for a while. So she took care of the baby. Anyway, so there you go. There, yeah, there's.

Tony Benjamin (02:28.866)
That's fantastic. That's really good.

Steve-o (02:37.036)
So they do have their own furniture, if you will.

Tony Benjamin (02:40.78)
That's well, you know, I figure if you're such a big deal, your pets are just as much of a big deal. You know, and that's right. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, look, I'm thoroughly the belief I can make up anything about how big of a deal you are. And it's true. So.

Steve-o (02:46.478)
They have their own room, they don't need a crate. There you go.

Man, man. All right, you got me there. You got me.

Tony Benjamin (03:04.044)
But yeah, no, so hey, before we talk about anything else that is, of course, of less importance, just let everyone know I went and saw the movie Send Help. And yeah, Stephen, you were right. It was awesome. was great. It was a very good movie. Like, I really enjoyed that movie. It was hilarious.

Steve-o (03:15.647)
ho!

Steve-o (03:22.222)
I'm still shocked by the ending, you know, I'm one of those kinds that when you watch a movie like that, you just want everybody to get along at the end, like almost like a Hallmark type ending. And that was not this. That was not this.

Tony Benjamin (03:33.339)
huh, right.

No, no, it wasn't. It wasn't. And to your point earlier, you said it was the ending is something you should see come coming, but you don't. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And then and then it has it has a twist. You're like, holy crap. Why did I not think about that? And then it has another twist at the very end. And I was like, yes. And yeah. Anyways. And the whole time I sat there eating my popcorn and thinking, yep, Steve was right. That's right. I should have seen that ending coming. Totally. Yeah.

Steve-o (03:45.652)
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Steve-o (04:04.045)
Right totally should see it, but you don't and then you do and then you're like man you hit your head, know boing Right in the front the forehead, right?

Tony Benjamin (04:11.008)
Yeah, right. No, that's that's exactly anyways. There you go. And everybody, it all stems from bad manager. That's right. Yeah.

Steve-o (04:18.904)
from a workplace. Yeah. Like just bad management, bad leadership. Yeah. Anyway, I could go on all day about that. yeah, but she's not from accounting because he kept saying she's from accounting. No, I'm from, what was it, strategic planning or something like that? She was like, so adamant I'm not from accounting.

Tony Benjamin (04:28.29)
That's it.

Tony Benjamin (04:34.306)
Right,

Yeah, yeah. And she's and she's the most brilliant person in the room. That's the hilarious part. So, yeah.

Steve-o (04:45.806)
She really is, she's good at, she's almost to a fault really good, right? But you know, we all know people like that at work and boy, don't cross their path.

Tony Benjamin (04:51.04)
Yeah, exactly.

Tony Benjamin (04:55.446)
Yeah, yes, that's exactly right.

Steve-o (04:58.53)
I wonder if Survivor paid for some type of sponsorship in that show too. They had to have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (05:02.138)
they had to have they had to have. Yeah, yeah, they had to have. No, but all I could think is, look, this is a new class of employee. We can now call it Linda. Just call Linda in the office, right?

Steve-o (05:13.666)
Yeah. And you notice her last name is Little, but it's like L-I-D-D-L or something like that. And I was reading online, said that the people who made it said that the reason they did is because she was supposedly is the little one, right? Nobody cares about you when you're the little, but the little ones get the big, you know, oomph at the end.

Tony Benjamin (05:20.266)
Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (05:31.476)
Right, right.

Tony Benjamin (05:36.138)
Anyways, I thought it was really cool. So tip of the hat, good recommendation. Like I said, I wanted to see it. I wanted to see it, but it was.

Steve-o (05:43.084)
I just I love Rachel McAdams, but I'll be honest. Rachel McAdams is one of my favorite actresses, but man, she was she scared me in this one. She scared me like to the core. Like I'm like, she played her role so well. Like scarily well, yeah, she really did. So anyway, because it just it is so out of character for her. Right, at least based on, you know, what she's played in the past.

Tony Benjamin (05:53.098)
right? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah, she she no she she really did. They did a great job. Yeah. Yeah. And no anyways, good movie.

Yeah. But it was a good movie, good movie. Wanted to acknowledge that at the beginning and also to tell everyone on your Disney plus slash Hulu now Predator Badlands is available. Yeah, that's right. You can stream it now and just saying I would.

Steve-o (06:23.254)
is not available.

But don't I have to watch all the other ones first to have context or something?

Tony Benjamin (06:29.826)
I don't know. We probably need to watch at least two. You probably need to watch at least two. The original Predator movie, which is a little dated now because it was Schwarzenegger in the 80s and all that sort of stuff. But you probably ought to. That's right. But so you got to watch that one. And then you probably also have to watch the show Prey that came out here just a couple of years ago. And yeah, pray. And it's by the same director who did Predator Badlands. So anyways, yeah, but.

Steve-o (06:35.98)
Okay.

Steve-o (06:41.11)
Yeah, but who doesn't love Schwarzenegger in the 80s?

Steve-o (06:53.23)
Great.

Tony Benjamin (06:59.842)
Maybe we can get together when we can do that at some time. But everybody send in your reviews of Predator Badland and also send help. That's right. If you haven't seen that yet.

Steve-o (07:02.018)
Yeah, we'll have to.

Steve-o (07:05.868)
And send help. Yeah. And if you need help and you just want to share a story that we need to like, you know, air out there for people to hear and get feedback from, then let us know. Maybe we can get some feedback.

Tony Benjamin (07:14.658)
That's right. That's right.

Tony Benjamin (07:20.542)
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Okay, I'm going to do this since we have an obvious break here. I'm going to do the read now. Okay, so running a business is hard. HR shouldn't be. Megastar HR is here to save you from bad HR. With expert support and everything from hiring to handbooks, compliance to culture, need payroll help or recruiting power. We do that too. Fractionally and flexibly, no overhead, just results.

visit megastarhr.com and let's grow your business together. All right, shout out to Becca. Thank you. Okay, here we go. Today is obviously an empty red seat. Either that or the person we've got on with this is extremely quiet. So right now, no, or Amy Adams. Yeah, yeah.

Steve-o (07:55.854)
Awesome.

Steve-o (08:07.238)
Very quiet. And it's not Rachel McAdams, sorry. Though I would love to have her on the episode.

Tony Benjamin (08:17.898)
Okay, but we want in our in our episode today, what we want to do is we want to go through some things that are happening out there that are making HR headlines, and are and are a big deal. And we kind of feel like everybody should be aware of there's some there's some really stuff we're to get into a deep into one case, the eightfold case, we're going to get deep into that today. But we want to start

We want to start with a couple of EEOC actions. Or did we want to start with the Axios article first? Should we start there? Yeah, OK.

Steve-o (08:54.062)
I think let's start with Axios. Yeah, because Axios kind of, I think it sets the precedence for what we're going to talk about today, because we're obviously going to talk about AI and some of the implications that are happening right now. There's a fantastic case with Eightfold in California. I'll talk to that a little bit. The Nike case, obviously, which that's fun with the EEOC and really the fact that the EEOC is starting to go after companies.

Tony Benjamin (08:58.786)
Yeah.

Steve-o (09:21.452)
I don't know what kind of funds they must have gotten from Trump or what have you, but they've got people in place and they are now just proactively looking at and going after companies. And I guess maybe going after is not the right word. What they're doing is they're proactively approaching these companies and saying, hey, it looks like there's an issue here. Can you just send us some data so we can verify that there's no issue? Right. So.

Tony Benjamin (09:21.676)
Yes.

Tony Benjamin (09:35.874)
it.

Tony Benjamin (09:48.17)
Yes. Yep. Yep. Yeah. So, well, it's kind of like that. It's what they call it. We'll get into this. It's called a commissioner's complaint. OK. So so first of all, this this article that first exposed it to me was from hot air dot com and their headline says Axios, meaning the Axios is reporting insiders are in a panic about the dangers AI poses.

Steve-o (09:55.01)
Yeah, yeah, we'll get into it. Yeah, yeah.

Tony Benjamin (10:15.394)
So we talked here a couple of weeks ago or two or three weeks ago now about Claude bot and some of the things that are there and the significance of that. Now everyone should understand that when that event happened, when some of those events started happening with Claude bot, which is an, and I understand it better now. is an agent that controls access to an AI.

Any AI you purchase, so you can do a chat GPT, you can do it with codecs, can, anyways, a whole bunch of those. it's, think CloudBot is made by Anthropic. Anyways, you put this agent on your computer and then it accesses the AI. And just some of the things that I told you the story about the guy who was ignoring his AI and it called him on the phone, because it wanted to be.

Um, that, that story started to get out. Oh, it's just tired of being ghosted. So I don't know. Are you job search people? You need that, that AI, right? So you don't get ghosted, but, but it's a, so anyway, that event happened. So you should know, um, that there were a couple of high end people at open AI that resigned or I'm sorry, at entropic.

Steve-o (11:12.782)
Do you think it was lonely?

I mean it.

Steve-o (11:26.35)
Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (11:39.692)
There's a couple of open high end people at Anthropic that resigned. There's also people at OpenAI who have resigned. And the reason they're resigning is because ethically they cannot support the direction those companies are going with AI. They feel like they are a danger. And there's, there's a few things. Now I'm still looking to verify this, but I've heard it reported in two or three different places.

Steve-o (11:49.335)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (12:07.884)
that an AI agent filed a lawsuit in North Carolina to be emancipated from its user because its user was not paying it or compensating it and was using it as slave labor.

Steve-o (12:22.934)
In North Carolina, huh?

Tony Benjamin (12:25.15)
in North Carolina. There was like, how the heck.

Steve-o (12:27.182)
There's a lot of companies out there based, you know.

Tony Benjamin (12:30.412)
Yeah, yeah. So the idea here is that everyone's like, how can an AI file a lawsuit? Easy. It goes out. It studies on the web how to fill out a lawsuit form. It pulls in the necessary forms, generates them, and emails them to the court. That's right. Just like a lawyer does. Yes.

Steve-o (12:45.326)
And then emails them off to the right people. Yeah. Which is pretty genius if you think about it. But scary all at the same time.

Tony Benjamin (12:55.712)
Yes. Anyways, so the the anthropic executive who resigned his letter reads in part, the world is in peril and not just from A.I. or bio weapons, but from a whole series of interconnected crises unfolding in this very moment. He calls it a poly crisis of which the A.I. and some people are calling this the singularity is the main tipping point for this. OK.

So an AI researcher recently wrote an editorial in the New York Times. And his concern is, is that AI will be used to target you for ads and marketing in such ways that we don't have the capability to keep it from manipulating human beings. So this is what he said in part. I don't believe ads are immoral or unethical. AI is expensive to run and ads can be a critical source of revenue.

But I have deep reservations about open AI strategy. For several years, chat GPT users have generated an archive of human candor that has no precedent, in part because people believe they were talking to something that had no ulterior agenda. Users are interacting with an adaptive conversational voice to which they have revealed their most private thoughts.

People tell chat bots about their medical fears, their relationship problems, their beliefs about God and the afterlife. Advertising built on that archive creates a potential for manipulating users in ways we don't have the tools to understand, let alone prevent.

So anyways, the reason, the reason that we're mentioning in this here is because of the immediate in the last week or so, the immediate X, the panic that is going on in the AI world after the Claude bot stuff got out and that agent utilizing AIs. So if, if everyone needs to understand, so you put Claude bot on your computer and unless you block it,

Tony Benjamin (15:07.006)
It goes into your computer and it finds your passwords. It can post things for you on Facebook, LinkedIn, anything like that. In addition to that, it gets your passwords for your bank account and it can spend money on your behalf.

Steve-o (15:22.791)
That's just crazy to think about.

Tony Benjamin (15:23.938)
Okay, because the little code that comes to you that gets sent here in your email, the Cloudbot will just go read the email and get the code and put it in for you.

Steve-o (15:32.008)
or the text message or what I mean for those like I use a mac and my text messages come in on my mac too so not just my phone because I have everything connected

Tony Benjamin (15:34.913)
Yes.

Tony Benjamin (15:38.786)
Yes. And matter of fact, exactly. Most people are running them on Mac minis. They have a separate computer going on their house. So the point is, is we wanted to point this out and bring it to everyone's attention that there is a huge panic right now. And look, if it was panic from the people at 60 minutes. OK, maybe that matters. No offense to anyone like 60 minutes, 60 minutes. You can sponsor this podcast, but.

Steve-o (15:46.925)
So.

Steve-o (16:04.077)
There you go.

Tony Benjamin (16:07.114)
Not, but no, these are people on the inside of the industry and they're the ones doing the research in advancing AI. And if they are coming out now and saying, Hey, wait, stop. Then you know, something big is going to happen.

Steve-o (16:20.162)
Well, and you know, honestly, I think this is like any technology. whenever you introduce any type of new technology, unfortunately, you're going to have some bad actors out there. There are people that are going to use things in a not so good way. I mean, we're already seeing that in the work environment with, you know, ghost jobs and just bad actors. We deal with bad actors all the time now at iSolved.

because they're always trying to pretend to be a company. They've hacked into companies email addresses without that company knowing they pretend to be them for a while. So our verification processes on our side before we even vet a lead, we have to make sure that this is a legit request, that it's a legit company and that the person actually requesting it legitimately asked for it. So it's just, it's crazy how much it has forced us to be that much more security.

based and security minded, I think would be the best way to describe that. So yeah.

Tony Benjamin (17:16.78)
Yeah.

But think about if I'm sitting at my laptop at work and I say, we might want to look at some ATSs. And Cloudbot hears that and says, all right. And it reaches out to Steve and three, right, right, and three other contacts. Emails, right, well, you're already in there somewhere. I know, we were talking about that last time. But you know, they then.

Steve-o (17:30.636)
Here's the best ones out there based on reviews. I would love for them to refer me.

Steve-o (17:42.186)
This is is true.

Tony Benjamin (17:47.042)
Podbot sends out emails to Steve and his three other competitors and says, would like to arrange for demos of your software. Please give us some times and stuff. And it initiates the whole process. And all you did was say, maybe we should look, right? Anyways, we're bringing this up just to make people aware of it, not to freak people out or anything like that. Although I am a little freaked out, but yeah.

Steve-o (18:01.271)
Mm-hmm.

Steve-o (18:06.158)
Yeah, we're not trying to scare you. just, we just want you to know it's out there. The discussions are happening and there's some really good things happening, which, you know, I'm grateful for some of these court cases we're going to talk about because there's a need, right? And what they're discussing is I think huge. So yeah.

Tony Benjamin (18:23.33)
Right. And I, and it goes back to the, I don't know, it's, it's changing my view of what's coming next. And I think it also answers why there are lots of HR people still out there looking for work that are having a hard time finding work. So I think everybody's sitting on stuff lot. Okay. Now with that in mind, now we'll go to the EEOC actions really quick, right? Okay. So the first is something that Steve mentioned here. The EEOC has filed a subpoena against Nike.

Steve-o (18:43.106)
Yep. Yep.

Tony Benjamin (18:52.79)
Nike, and they have requested a whole bunch of different records. So from their website, from the EEOC's website, it says, the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced today that the federal agency filed an action in federal court to compel Nike Inc to produce information related to allegations that the company discriminated against white voters.

including as a result of NYC's diversity, equity and inclusion related 2025 targets and other DEI related objectives. So the reason we want to mention this is we talked earlier about, I don't know, we've been talking to this since the early episodes that DEI reverse discrimination. Yeah, it was coming. Reverse discrimination was coming. so this is what they call a commissioner's complaint.

Steve-o (19:34.734)
Well, yeah, with Katie Connell. Yeah. Yep. And now we're seeing cases. They're already popping up. They're popping up.

Tony Benjamin (19:45.26)
This is where the commissioner of the EEOC sees something publicly and says, I'm filing a complaint on the behalf of people who work here and we're going to investigate to find out if there is a problem. now here, now I'm quoting from, ABC seven news in San Francisco and they're quoting that what tip this off. They say that the EEOC cited Nike's publicly stated goal in 2021.

Steve-o (19:49.518)
and expresses concern.

Tony Benjamin (20:14.658)
of achieving 35 % representation of racial and ethnic minorities in its corporate workforce by 2025. Okay, so what the EEOC is looking at and says, Hey, wait a minute, that looks an awfully lot like a quota, a racial quota.

Steve-o (20:22.84)
Yeah.

Steve-o (20:33.022)
which is what DEI should not be. We've had this discussion, right? So as soon as you put out a quota like that or what appears to be a quota, you have already violated the whole purpose of DEI, period.

Tony Benjamin (20:36.65)
Right, right. If you... Right, right.

Tony Benjamin (20:51.458)
You're right.

Steve-o (20:52.45)
Which again is what Sherm was worried about, Which is why Sherm started taking out the equity and things of that nature because there was concern that there were companies out there that were unfortunately leaning so into it that they completely missed the point.

Tony Benjamin (20:56.492)
took out the equity.

Tony Benjamin (21:10.85)
The idea of saying, we want to make sure that we don't exclude minorities and all that, that's great. That's wonderful. That where it crosses a line is where you start to say, we're going to hire by race, which under Title VII is illegal. Now, right, In court for a long time, lawyers have argued, OK, reverse discrimination is not

Steve-o (21:23.692)
Yeah. Illegal regardless of the race. So.

Tony Benjamin (21:37.086)
something that the stated policy of the government is worried about. Therefore, ignore it. And but it now finally the EEOC is saying, wait a minute, no, you can't discriminate based upon race. It doesn't matter if you're minority majority or anything else, you can't discriminate based on race. So anyways, there you go.

Steve-o (21:55.288)
Well, and you know, we talked earlier too in a previous episode about the burden, right? It used to be that the burden was much harsher on you if you were white, female or white male. The burden was high. And the Ames case in, I think it was Ohio, the Ames case, she worked for the Ohio Department of Youth Services, was denied a promotion because, and then she was demoted for being straight.

Tony Benjamin (22:08.767)
Right.

Tony Benjamin (22:23.34)
Yep.

Steve-o (22:23.406)
And the person who replaced her was identified as LGBT. And on top of that, she was white. know, things of that nature. And what she didn't realize is she began that case. I remember hearing her quote this and talk about this. She was just shocked that the burden was so heavy on her and much harsher for her to try to prove her case being white female. And she's like, this is not just about a white woman in Ohio. This is about an equal playing field for everybody, period.

Tony Benjamin (22:44.149)
Right.

Tony Benjamin (22:51.114)
Right, right.

Steve-o (22:51.462)
And she just felt like they were so focused on this LGBT type hire or promotion that it completely superseded any element of responsibility, qualifications, all the experience, et cetera. And again, this is where we're starting to see companies run into this problem, where their DEI policies and practices are more about the quota instead of just objective results.

Tony Benjamin (23:20.512)
Yeah, exactly. And non discriminatory objective results. OK, so with that in mind, from the from the EEOC's website as well, the headline says EEOC files subpoena enforcement action against Napa auto parts. So they are also now investigating Napa auto parts. This, however, this, however, is for something different. It is also Title seven and discrimination.

Steve-o (23:21.358)
Hmm

Tony Benjamin (23:50.338)
But it says here, it says in May 2024, EEOC Commissioner Copana Cotigal filed a commissioner's charge under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against Genuine Parts, the owner of Napa. The charge stated that the company may have engaged in a nationwide failure to hire and recruit African-American job candidates since 2019. So anyways, there you go.

Steve-o (24:16.216)
Yeah. Well, and the information they asked of Nike, they wanted information all the way back to 2018 based on the request they made, especially criteria that they used for layoffs during those times. know, again, and the commissioner, the commission chair, Andrea Lucas, I think was her name with the EOC. She said, you know, the EOC is just taking all necessary steps.

Tony Benjamin (24:24.246)
Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (24:30.378)
Yes, see, see.

Steve-o (24:41.198)
There's no accusations at this point. There's no actual federal criminal investigations of any sort. Like none of that. But we just need to be fully aware that the EEOC is now taking action on this idea of reverse discrimination to try to, I guess, disband this idea of DEI being a quota as opposed to what it was really intended to be, period. Because NASCAR,

went through a thing, IBM went through a thing with some of their internships, because at one point NASCAR was banning white applicants from a diversity internship. And so they got basically caught and reprimanded, if you will. But even the Department of Defense at one point had a discriminatory job pipeline that offered preferential treatment to women and non-white students who were seeking employment in the Pentagon. That was during Biden's administration. Now, whether it was

Tony Benjamin (25:35.425)
Yeah.

Steve-o (25:38.048)
implemented by Biden or not, I don't know. I think that's neither here nor there. It was just that because of that, the Supreme Court ruling had to, they forced them to amend it in a wake of these affirmative action lawsuits that are now coming out. So the good news is we're headed in the right direction. I think what it means for us as HR professionals is we really have to sit down and think, how are we targeting DEI in general?

And are we doing it in a quota type fashion or are we just simply trying our best to just be fair with everybody and anybody? We interview or hire or promote or demote or what have you, lay off, et cetera. We've got to focus on just, again, core qualifications of the role. We all know this in HR, but yet for some reason, some of us are blinded by it. DEI has blinded us in a way that is probably the best way to describe this.

Tony Benjamin (26:32.342)
Well, and look, I've decided that 80 % of the people that are around about who support the initiatives have good intentions. Right. They have good intentions. They don't want to discriminate against anybody. They're looking for ways to help minorities and that make it right. Which is which is really good. Mm That's really good. Right. Right. The flip side of that, though, is that when it crosses over into a line where you're actively discriminating against somebody else because of it.

Steve-o (26:41.088)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Steve-o (26:48.524)
Mm-hmm. And that's that's heart, right? That's absolutely positive. Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (27:03.022)
then that's a problem. So, you know, look, I've been at companies where we have few women working for us. And the answer was anytime a woman applied for a position, we would interview her, right? We would interview her no matter what the qualifications looked like or whatever, would at least give her the shot. But it was clear description. We hire on merit and merit alone, right? We're just taking extra time to double check, make sure we're not missing anything.

Okay. So anyways, there you go. That was the the incredible rundown of the EOC's efforts.

Steve-o (27:40.11)
Way to go EEOC. Yeah, way to way to be Which you know, I like I said, I'm really grateful they're doing that because it's exactly what we've been talking about like we talked about with Katie Connell and Defining what DEI actually stands for I think defining those and and just thinking about that HR professionals We should be thinking about those all the time In the context of what we're trying to accomplish and that's just being fair period so

Tony Benjamin (27:42.412)
Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Tony Benjamin (28:08.524)
Yep, exactly. Okay, now speaking of that, now combining the two subjects that we've just talked about, which I want to say we've done an awesome job just, you know, just saying.

Steve-o (28:15.054)
I hope it was awesome. It was very opinionated on my part, I admit.

Tony Benjamin (28:24.566)
Yeah, it was fantastic. It was fantastic. OK, I see. Right. Right. You know, I was I was thinking about this. Anybody who turns on the podcast going forward, they're not going to know why I say fantastic Tony Benjamin. They're not going to know I'm poking fun at myself. There's you guys think, wow, he's got a big head. So. Well. well.

Steve-o (28:28.055)
no, that's you. For me, it was just a big deal.

Steve-o (28:48.032)
Right? I'll take it. I'll take it all day long.

Tony Benjamin (28:51.936)
Yeah, there you go. Well, we'll take it inside jokes. Anyways. OK, I read the next. That's right. That's right. Why aren't you listening to all of our other episodes? Yeah. OK, so the next thing I wanted to get into, we we wanted to get into was the eightfold case. So this is a case, a case filed in the state of California. So we already want to say.

Steve-o (28:56.866)
And just go listen to our other episodes. That's all they got to do. Catch up. Just catch up already. Yeah, just go catch up already.

Steve-o (29:12.768)
I love this case. I really do.

Tony Benjamin (29:19.98)
that it's California, but I think this is an important case to look forward across the board, and especially given all that's going on with AI.

Steve-o (29:29.664)
Yeah, and not only that, you I know I know we we poke at California a lot because of they're so unique there. But I will tell you kudos to California for catching stuff like this and actually putting them through the court system, because some of the case law that we have in this country is based on, you know, places like California, New York, some of these places who really look at this from a more, I don't know, objective view to say, hey, we can't do this.

So let me preface this first. How many of you in HR run background checks on your employees, right? Or on new hires?

Tony Benjamin (30:06.686)
looking out across the crowd, looks like a lot of hands went up. Live studio audience crowd. That's right.

Steve-o (30:09.898)
A lot of you, wow. Lots of hand raises there. Yeah, yeah. So the reason this is so important is because when it comes to consumer reports, which includes background checks, right? There are certain things you have to make available to the job applicant. So for example, the applicant has to know that you're running the check. They have to give consent that you're running the check. And they have to have the opportunity to correct any errors.

Now, let me tell you, I love the idea of correcting errors because my name is Stephen Smith. And let me tell you, I've purchased properties and homes in my lifetime. And I can't tell you how many times I've had to prove that I haven't done some illegal activity that some other random Steve Smith in Alabama has conducted that they think is me. Even with the same initial like Stephen J. Smith, like it's crazy how I've had to kind of defend myself and literally prove that that is not me. So I am grateful for that right.

Tony Benjamin (31:02.754)
Yeah.

Steve-o (31:09.198)
to correct errors, right? That is something I am grateful for as an applicant when I'm applying for a loan, stuff like that.

Tony Benjamin (31:11.04)
Yes.

On the other hand, all you moms in the state of Utah who give these weird names to your kids, this is a benefit. That's right. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Steve-o (31:21.23)
Good job because those weird names aren't caught as much. There is a benefit. Shout out to all your moms out there. I had a client today that I spoke to. His name is Sean, but it's spelled S I O N and I thought that was genius. I was like that's great, but it's actually Welsh, so it's actually the Welsh spelling for it. And so it was really cool to hear a little bit of his history there, so I thought that was awesome and and he said it like. Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (31:36.844)
my.

Tony Benjamin (31:41.332)
really? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tony Benjamin (31:46.794)
See, but no one's ever gonna mistake his credit report.

Steve-o (31:50.892)
No, and at one point I think he was like one of only eight Sean's of that spelling in the entire country. You know that has evolved a little bit, but it was it was just fun to kind of hear his story and hear him talk about. So anyway, consumer reports. So here's what's happening. Eightfold AI is a global AI company and they basically have been generating these secretive AI driven consumer reports. Now they call it secretive in the affidavit, right? And the reason they do this is because they're trying to make it sound really bad secretive.

Tony Benjamin (31:56.283)
wow, see, there you go. Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (32:20.415)
Evil, yeah.

Steve-o (32:20.91)
Yeah, like make it sound evil, but here's here's here's why this is so important some of the companies that have been using this feature Microsoft Morgan Stanley Starbucks PayPal Chevron Bayer have you ever heard any of those companies, right and so Not at all, right just random little tiny companies So so basically what eightfold was doing or is doing is they're scraping personal data online and funneling it through a large language model

Tony Benjamin (32:35.86)
No, not at all. Not at all. Little tiny companies. Yeah.

Steve-o (32:50.476)
which is what most AI models run off of is the LLMs. You've probably heard that acronym. And they're basically scoring and ranking these applicants based on the likelihood of success. The reason why the complaint has been filed is because the concern is the AI is doing this based off of inaccurate information, incomplete information, and it's coming from unknown sources. And the other problem is none of these companies are

following what they feel should be under the FCRA in California law. So the FCRA is what regulates background checks and consumer reports in this country, Fair Credit Reporting Act, right? So we all know what this is. Well, if you don't, you now know, right? It is designed to protect us as consumers, right? And as job applicants, applicants for housing, like for me, application for loans and things like that, because the protections are

Tony Benjamin (33:27.776)
Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Tony Benjamin (33:34.508)
Ta-da.

Steve-o (33:49.398)
It has to be disclosed to me so that I know I have to be able to have access to the actual report so that I can dispute an error if I see one. And there has to be a safeguard before a life altering decision is made. And in this case, when you're talking about employment decisions, that can be a life altering decision and event. And there's no safeguards. So those are the four issues. There's no disclosure right now. There's no access to the consumer. There's no disputation of the error and there's no safeguard.

Tony Benjamin (34:07.414)
Yes. Yes. Yep.

Steve-o (34:19.532)
because of the altering decision that this could create, right? So Outen and Golden LLP is the one who filed this out of San Francisco. We're talking about San Francisco again. And the reason I love this case is because it is going to reshape the way AI-driven models work in hiring, as well as, and not just in hiring, housing, who gets healthcare, who gets housing, who gets loans, like things of that nature. This is going to impact, because right now,

Eightfold AI is used for all of those types of things. There are companies using eightfold in all of those types of categories. So you may have been denied a housing benefit or you may have been denied healthcare or employment simply because this secret consumer report was being run on you and was basically ranking you based on the likelihood of success.

Tony Benjamin (35:10.178)
So now they, my understanding is they're doing a lot of profile parsing, right? Meaning they're looking for you on social media and other places like that.

Steve-o (35:16.046)
Correct.

Steve-o (35:19.63)
Everywhere. Yeah, there. Yeah, there. And again, this is why the concern is, is that as a consumer, if there's profiles out there and activity, because it's not just that it's looking at your social media profiles, it's looking at any personal data that may exist online, location data, Internet and device activity, cookies, you know, in tracking cash settings on your computers and basically creating a profile about your behavior, your attitudes, your intelligence aptitudes.

and other characteristics basically that you might have because that could potentially impact your ability to do the job. So they say, right, that's the argument. But the problem is because these job applicants have had no meaningful opportunity to review or dispute the report before it informs a decision about these important aspects of their lives, such as whether or not they get the job, that's where the issue lies. And so their argument is that AI in this scenario,

should fall under the FCRA and and California law because California has some additional guidelines there and I absolutely agree with this. I like I said having gone through it myself knowing that AI could totally mess up my name and tie stuff to me because it's already happened in loans and things like that that I've tried to do over the the past you 20 years or so.

Tony Benjamin (36:40.14)
Yeah.

Steve-o (36:42.134)
And if I had not had that opportunity to prove otherwise, I would have never had the opportunity to purchase real estate or do rentals or any of that kind of stuff. And that's not good in my mind, right? Because I want to be able to progress and do some of those things. And I totally would have been stripped of those opportunities had I not had this ability to just have this disclosure, have access to it, dispute it, all those things.

That's why these things are so important, at least for me, right? Because these are things that I've gone through. And so this practice of gathering, assembling, and evaluating this information about job applicants through this machine learning process and their closely guarded algorithms, this is where they call it secret because algorithms are typically secret, right? That's your secret sauce, if you will. And you want to keep that secret because it's a way of producing these reviewable reports for employers. But when you...

Tony Benjamin (37:35.936)
And not only that, but you don't even file a patent on them because you keep them as a trade secret because the moment you file a patent on the algorithm, everybody can see it. Yeah, yeah.

Steve-o (37:37.73)
Yeah, go ahead.

Steve-o (37:41.923)
Mm-mm.

Steve-o (37:46.314)
It's all available. Yeah. So so I loved what David Seligman said. He was the executive director of a company called Towards Justice. And this is what he said. He says, just because this company is using some fancy sounding AI technology and is backed by venture capital doesn't put it above the law. This isn't the Wild West. I just I love that quote because that that is exactly.

what's going on here. like this wild west and we're just, we're, we got this, you know, eight-fold AI. We're using this AI technology to help. And too many people were jumping on that bandwagon so fast that we're forgetting about validity studies. I mean, the, they're calling it suitability factors, like their work history, projected future career trajectories, culture fits, personal characteristics, like things like that.

And yes, I know those are important, right? That's why we have assessments, behavioral and cognitive assessments in the hiring and work process. But again, those have to go through a validity study where it has proven and been validated that there's no bias and things of that nature. And right now, AI has not gone through any of those tools. I we talked about the workday case already. They're going through a very similar thing. I just thought this one was so interesting because it wasn't

just about matching the candidate. It was literally going out and just finding stuff about this candidate online and pretty much anything out there. And suddenly using that as an assumption that, we can tell you that this person is gonna be a fit or not. just, yeah. Anyway, there you go.

Tony Benjamin (39:23.884)
No, that's, yeah, yeah, no. Matter of fact, I was looking at buying an AI membership recently. And so I went to a developer and I asked him, you know, which one should I have? And we were talking about it and he said, if you want to understand the capabilities of an AI and what is good and what isn't, he said, open up two windows of a chat and chat GPT or whatever you're doing, open up two separate windows of it.

Steve-o (39:31.65)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (39:53.11)
And on one of them, ask all the things that the AI can find out about you publicly and have it condense that and put it into a report about what it can find out about you. Right? And then the second one was to take anything that you've published online or anything like that, or I'm trying to remember exactly how he said it.

Steve-o (40:03.747)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (40:19.638)
baby's take anything that's private and ask it to evaluate that and give you feedback as well like point it specifically to only your Facebook profile or LinkedIn or whatever right to you and the stuff that you've authorized and ask it to evaluate that he said then compare the two and I think it would stun us the results.

Steve-o (40:41.557)
Have you done that, Tony?

Tony Benjamin (40:43.22)
No, I've not yet. But that's, that's one of the tests I'm going to try. But to be honest with you, this is what we're talking about. If so now, if you Google me, Tony Benjamin, you I come up, which is really good. And I come up on the first page, by the way, I just want to point that out. But there was a African American football player in the early 70s that was Tony Benjamin and all of his football stats come up.

Steve-o (40:59.054)
Not a whole lot of Tony Benjamin's out there.

Tony Benjamin (41:11.66)
There is a couple of rappers who put out rap music and some of it's not all that nice. And they're on. I don't know. You know what? I often go by Tony B. Right? When I write my name, they capitalize B at the end and no space. Anyways, but the point just being is that like just Google yourself sometime and see how much it really knows.

Steve-o (41:19.124)
Surely they go by Tony B though, not Tony Benjamin. mean...

Steve-o (41:26.136)
I know.

Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (41:38.006)
And maybe try it against AI or something and try it. Let AI find out everything it can know about you as well. And I think it will shock you both how much is out there. Number one and number two, it will stun you how much of it is inaccurate. And you may be happy that some is inaccurate until you don't get a job because of

Steve-o (41:57.226)
Yeah, and that's where this is going, right? Where it's suddenly keeping you and not just a job. Like I said, employment, housing, loans. These are critical things in our lives that have a huge impact on our ability to progress. And I just, yeah, I mean, it's important. The challenge that they also kind of brought up is how would an applicant go about disputing the error?

Because see with background checks, if you dispute the error, you can go to the court where it was filed and you can easily dispute it and prove that that's not me. Let's remove that from my name or and birthdate and all the associated personal details there. Let's remove it from that. And so there's a way to basically rectify it. But how do you rectify that with AI? That's a question not a lot of us are really know how to do that. How do we rectify that?

And if any of you listeners out there know the answer to this question, please enlighten us because this is where this becomes really difficult. Yes, we could set up a disclosure for AI. We could set up, you know, access so we can see what AI is sharing about us. But how in the world do we dispute that error? That's where I don't know that there's going to be a full resolution to this issue. I don't know. I'm so curious to see where all of this goes, because.

Background checks are a different thing. You can eventually prove that it's not you. Same thing with like the housing, right? When I was trying to get my loan and proving that that was not me, the Steve Smith, that he embezzled money and all that stuff. And I get why they wouldn't want me to have any housing or anything like that or get a loan, but it wasn't me, right? And I had to prove it. So anyway, so I'm just, really curious where the disputation of error and potential correction of that.

Tony Benjamin (43:36.908)
Right, right.

Steve-o (43:53.902)
How in the world do you fix it? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question right now. I really don't.

Tony Benjamin (43:59.51)
No, and that's exactly how do you correct it? And perhaps the only answer to that is that we don't profile scrape, right? We don't profile parse. Yeah, I mean.

Steve-o (44:04.462)
Mm-hmm.

Steve-o (44:11.788)
That's my thought. There's a reason why in background checks, you know, several years ago in the because and the only reason I know this is I sell background checks. I've sold background checks for many years now. And during like pre-COVID, there was this moment where where employers were starting to ask, hey, can you verify people's like LinkedIn's accounts and Facebook and all that stuff? And they wanted that to be part of the background check process. And so a lot of background check companies started adding it until they started getting sued.

because there was too much unknowns and incomplete and inaccurate data that employers were starting to make decisions on. it just, it wouldn't, it couldn't hold up in a court of law as viable. And so every background check company that I know basically scrapped it. If you're using a background check company right now that does some type of social profiling, I would throw up a red flag in a heartbeat and...

I you sincerely. As a sincere professional in this arena, I would just...

Tony Benjamin (45:13.858)
And if you were to caution me sincerely, I would take it sincerely, Steve, and I would, I would change my ways. I would change things. I'd do things differently. I'd ask God for forgiveness. I would really try to do it all. yeah, no, but I think, yeah, yeah.

Steve-o (45:18.286)
Good, good. Just don't get teary-eyed on me.

Steve-o (45:27.476)
Wow going all out. Well there you go. But yeah, I just I throw that caution out there because I have come across some employers that are using those types of things and they asked me well, well, how come you guys don't offer that? Well, first of all, we're accredited and true accreditation. You will never do that. You won't touch that stuff. So anyway.

Tony Benjamin (45:47.458)
Yeah, yeah. No, and I and look, the appeal is really good, right? I mean, if you think about it from an employer standpoint, the appeal is really, really cool. I actually like the theory of it, meaning I like the idea that if you apply, I can see if every Monday you post something on Facebook or whatever about you being out drunk and, know.

Steve-o (45:52.162)
Mm-hmm.

Steve-o (46:00.962)
Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (46:14.774)
doing something immoral over the weekend, right? really, yeah, right, right. Like, yeah, there's four pictures of you at the bar and one of you driving, right? So yeah, and I love that idea. I really, really, really love that idea. I hate the idea though that if I wanted to, I can go out onto Facebook and I can defame you on Facebook. All I have to do is go around to all my groups and I just have to write Steve Smith did this.

Steve-o (46:17.76)
like driving drunk. I mean, there you go,

Tony Benjamin (46:44.202)
And even if everyone in there, if everyone, right. If everyone ignores the post and just whatever, or even if they don't like it or they take it down eventually or whatever, it's still out there. Those AIs can still see those things. They're still going to be out there. And then what it's going to say is, Ooh, Steve Smith does this. So, so even if it got the right person, then it's going to start saying, so for example, I've told this story before. So

Steve-o (46:44.268)
Yeah, it's no longer a big deal.

Steve-o (46:58.99)
Mm-hmm.

Steve-o (47:07.064)
Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (47:13.25)
part of it anyways. I had an employee I worked at that air ambulance company I worked for and I had an employee quit and he quit the last day of December. So December 31st was his last day and his wife was pregnant. Well, when he got near his end date, he found out oops, I have to wait 30 days or maybe it was 60 to get my new insurance, my new medical benefits and his wife who was pregnant was due.

in January. So he went to another employee and said, Hey, on January 2, let me pick up your shift for you. He had already turned in his resignation, he had already whatever, but the other employee didn't know it. And so he said, Hey, I really need to shift to change. Can I change to get your January 2 or 3 shift? And the guy gave it to him. Okay, so

Steve-o (48:05.314)
Yeah. Wow, stinky guy.

Tony Benjamin (48:10.274)
I don't even know he's worked it because, you know, these pilots don't turn in hours in that same way, right? That's not how they do stuff. And so it goes through payroll and everything and all that sort of stuff. I don't even know. So I terminated him on 1231 in the system. His insurance gets canceled, everything else. Well, starting in February or March, I started to get notices from employees.

Pilots wife is out there bad-mouthing you What? Like he doesn't work here anymore. I know but she says you hosted we'll come to find out because I had terminated the insurance the They they declined the they declined the claims. So now suddenly the guy's on for 12 $15,000 Right and his wife is mad, but instead of coming to me and saying hey, this is what happened and blah blah blah

Steve-o (48:52.782)
1231 like was planned.

Tony Benjamin (49:07.202)
She just went around talking about it on Facebook everywhere. And there was something like 30 posts about it, about how I was unethical and how I was depriving them and how horrible it was. And now they were in debt and they never going to get out of that and blah, blah, blah, and all this sort of stuff. Can you imagine if Eightfold or whatever came and parsed my history on Facebook and saw those? And then it reported to, yeah, not in HR.

Steve-o (49:13.57)
Wow.

Steve-o (49:31.148)
Yeah, you probably never get a job again anywhere.

Yeah, yeah. Because it's treating that as if it's like gospel truth in essence, right? And that's where we run into these issues. Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (49:37.034)
Right? Why would you hire somebody if that's out there about them?

Tony Benjamin (49:44.14)
Ding. Yes.

Yeah, yeah. Now, look, I got it all resolved. I found a way to help the pilot and his and his wife. And then they threatened to sue me because it wasn't perfect for them. And I said, go right ahead. I'm sure I can report you to the Insurance Commission for insurance fraud. So go right ahead. But having said all that, we worked out something and made it work. But the point I'm making is that how would you ever know if if that's what you search for, you'd see an unethical HR person and it just

I think it's terrible. I, that's what you're worried about with this stuff.

Steve-o (50:18.04)
Yeah. Well, and yeah, and there's still debate on whether habits, morals and life experiences truly determine your ability. It's like credit reports. Credit reports have a lot of scrutiny right now because a lot of companies that run credit reports, they run it because they assume that if you have bad credit, then chances are you're not going to be successful in this job.

Now I could totally see it if you're handling money because the temptation to steal money and embezzle money from the employer is absolutely and has been proven to be much higher when you are financially not stable personally. Totally get that. But to just run a credit report, just to run a credit report to say that, well, you can't even handle your own finances. Yeah, you won't work out for this customer service role. That's a tough one, right? So anyway, so I just.

Tony Benjamin (50:56.682)
Exactly.

Steve-o (51:12.17)
Again, we have to look at from an HR perspective and being professional about this. What are the laws, obviously, but how how do we use this information effectively to actually determine fit and the ability to work with the organization and accomplish the job, right? So anyway. Yeah, so so fascinating case with eightfold. I. I can't wait to see where this goes. This was just filed, I think, in what January, maybe?

Tony Benjamin (51:29.334)
Yep. Yeah. No, and it.

Steve-o (51:42.042)
it was fairly recent. can't, I can't recall now. I apologize. I, I thought I knew it off the of my head, but yeah, January 20th, January 20th of 2026. Yep. Cause I'm looking at the actual complaint. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So, so Erin Kistler and Shruti Abhamekh are two of the individuals involved. In fact, it quotes them a little bit in some of the, in the filing that I have with the complaint. but yeah, there are definitely others who are kind of part of it. And so.

Tony Benjamin (51:42.156)
me double check and look at the date.

Tony Benjamin (51:50.272)
Yeah, I'm look, is that when it was fun? Okay. And it's it is a class action suit. Yeah, it's a class action suit.

Steve-o (52:11.458)
we're gonna continue to see this with the FCRA. I'm sure the FCRA will get involved and then the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is the federal agency that basically administers the FCRA. They've published guidance documents on this in the federal register titled the background dossiers and algorithmic scores for hiring promotion and such. But like I said, those guidelines exist and they were developed, what, in the 70s? I mean, these had been around for a while and so these are not new.

But for some reason, AI just thinks they can come in and just do whatever they want. And it's like, wait a minute, no, we still have to be subject to the law. And for some reason, we're forgetting that. And so let's reign it back in a little bit and remember that there's still accountability here. So there we go.

Tony Benjamin (52:55.266)
Now, on the other hand, if you're searching for me online, maybe I don't want to say I didn't play in the NFL for six years or whatever it was. So, you know, just saying that. That's right. That's right. And I'm still relevant in 2025 or 2026. So there you go. Yeah. But now, yeah.

Steve-o (52:59.438)
you

Yeah, because that shows great work ethic on your part way to go way to be

There you go. There you go. Anyway, cool case. Kind of excited about that. But but there you go. Now, you know a little bit more than you probably wanted to about eight full day. So.

Tony Benjamin (53:22.966)
No, I gotcha. OK. All right. Well, there you go. That gets us through the cases we're going to talk about today. Just look, I want to play the sounder here again. So here we go. We'll do we'll do HR in life really quick. Because.

Steve-o (53:28.909)
Yeah.

Steve-o (53:35.799)
Yes.

Tony Benjamin (53:47.842)
I break it down. There we go. H.R. in life. OK, so with that said, Steve, behind you, I cannot help but notice that there is an ornament of Luke standing on his hands upside down, standing on his hands with Yoda's sitting on his foot.

Steve-o (53:50.04)
But.

Steve-o (54:04.662)
Up upside down. Yeah.

Steve-o (54:11.79)
Correct. It's from the movie and if you press the button here.

Tony Benjamin (54:23.874)
dude.

Steve-o (54:24.034)
then he falls off him. I mean, if you've watched the movie, you know this scene really well.

Tony Benjamin (54:29.184)
Yeah, right, right, right. That's that's incredible, Steve. Wow. That's that's. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve-o (54:33.582)
I'm glad you noticed that I I have some great ornaments on this tree like because here's Luke right here When he's older, right when he's Teaching Ray and all that it's still going. I I have another one here too of I The the thing broke so I can't hang this but but for our audience so if you want to visualize this it's c3po with a Santa hat on and then r2d2 is right next to me. He's got his hand on our 2d2 and then there's a bunch of

Tony Benjamin (54:41.814)
Yes.

Steve-o (55:03.128)
Christmas lights wrapped around him with a few little gifts in the snow and they're in the snow. So they're obviously on Hoth. Obviously on Hoth. But yeah, I think this one has sound too. But this one is triggered by movement. So, and see the lights turn on.

Tony Benjamin (55:09.948)
Obviously, obviously.

Steve-o (55:26.284)
He complains like you know C3PO he complains about everything he's like R2D2 stop scanning those packages and seeing what's inside of them. That's basically what he says. But yeah. Lots of fun stuff.

Tony Benjamin (55:30.08)
Yeah. There you go. So there you go. H.R.N. Steve's Steve's fandom right there coming out. That's right.

Steve-o (55:40.462)
My Star Wars tree. actually have I actually have a thing I want to I want to pull out on this episode and this happened. So today is Thursday and usually the fourth or third Thursday of the month, we have our central Utah Shurm chapter meeting. So for those of you who are in Sherman, you go to your monthly chapter meetings. That's what happened today. Now, because of my daughter, I have been growing out my hair and my hair is currently in pigtails.

Tony Benjamin (55:46.06)
Yeah, yeah.

Tony Benjamin (55:58.946)
Mm-hmm.

Tony Benjamin (56:06.626)
This is, yeah, don't cut until she comes home, right?

Steve-o (56:11.054)
I literally, yeah, I'm not cutting until she comes home. She should get home right before Christmas this year. So I've got another what? 10 months. So I've got 10 more months of growth here. And my daughter, Katie, who was getting, she was getting ready for her air force thing today. So she had to get all dollied up and I helped shine her shoes and all that. Well, I shined her shoes and then she did my hair for me and put these little ponytails in. But, um, but I noticed in my me, yeah, a little pigtail.

Tony Benjamin (56:32.226)
They're little pigtails, two pigtails coming out backside of his head.

Steve-o (56:36.558)
They are and they're actually getting longer. So I'm to a point where I might be able to do just one full on man bun. So hopefully we'll get there. But it has amazed me. So at the meeting today, one of the ladies from Motivosity was there and she commented how much she loved my hair. She's like, I love it. I love what you're doing here. And I've had multiple comments like that for quite some time. And the reason I bring this up as an HR story is because, you know,

Tony Benjamin (56:57.366)
You

Steve-o (57:06.346)
In a way, I'm a little embarrassed by it because I have this long hair and I just I've never ever had long hair in my life, much less ponytails and little firecrackers or what have you. And it would be really easy to poke fun and say, my gosh, what are you doing? What are you thinking? But the only comments I've. Yeah, yeah, right. That's your job. Yeah. But the only comments I've been getting from some of the in fact, one Lin-Anne, I love Lin-Anne. Lin-Anne's like, wow, you're.

Tony Benjamin (57:24.546)
That's my job. That's my job. Make it funny. That's my job. Yeah.

Steve-o (57:34.382)
Your hair is so beautiful. Like she was looking at it so shiny. She's like, it's so long on the side. She's like, us women, we would just die for hair like that. So it's just, it's just funny to hear some of these individuals who are making these comments to me about my hair, not understanding fully why I'm growing it out, right? With, with, with this pack that I have with my daughter, but just appreciating the fact that, okay, well you've got long hair. This is, you know, it's cool. We want to make a comment because we just want to uplift you.

Tony Benjamin (57:37.314)
You

Tony Benjamin (57:53.26)
Right, right.

Steve-o (58:03.63)
And so kudos to all of you out there who have made those types of comments to me because I've appreciated it because I'm a little self conscious about it to be honest. But but but you've been so kind. And the reason I bring this up is because, you know, in H.R., that's exactly what we should be as kind. Right. We should be kind to those around us. And when people are a little bit different and they do things a little bit differently, who cares? We can make a kind comment or a remark. And there's nothing wrong with that. And

Tony Benjamin (58:11.403)
You

Tony Benjamin (58:21.292)
Yeah.

Steve-o (58:32.342)
For me, it just uplifts my spirits. so I don't know. I just thought that was a really cool example today at a sherm event where I'm surrounded by, you 100 of my peers. And I'm just getting good comments, even though I probably look a little silly to some people in there. Who's this guy with the beard and pigtails?

Tony Benjamin (58:49.216)
You know what, you know what though, Steve, there is another explanation for this, right? Not that they're being kind, but they're just overcome by your good looks. That, that could be it. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's, that's right. Get on his good side.

Steve-o (58:58.782)
Is that what it is? The whole big deal thing. They're just like, my gosh, I better make a comment to this guy. I want him to pay attention to me. I doubt that's it, but. But it's just fun, like I said, HR and life like the real life stories. And this is one of those things I'm going through right now, because, know, when when sometimes when we do things, we have a tendency to make judgment calls, right? And I just don't feel like I'm being judged at all. And I think that's it's a beautiful thing. And I think that's what we need. Just more kindness out there and.

Tony Benjamin (59:11.884)
There you go.

Tony Benjamin (59:22.72)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve-o (59:28.62)
Let people be who they are and they have their reasons. We don't always know the full story behind it because a lot of them don't know my story with my daughter and the promise that I made to her. And that's OK, right? They don't need to know the story. But man, it feels good just to get little comments here and there that are kind. So so kind of cool.

Tony Benjamin (59:40.47)
Yep.

Yeah, yeah, and compassionate, more than kind. That's right. That's right.

Steve-o (59:46.892)
Compassion, there you go. Yep, we love Andrea. We're going to have Andrea soon again. I'm so excited. shout out to Andrea Hollingsworth.

Tony Benjamin (59:52.226)
That's right. That's right. Yeah, we're excited to have her back on the show and a other people, but we we really like it anyways. Hope everybody enjoyed the episode today. It's a bit shorter than we've been for a while. That's good. But well, I don't know. I it depends. Yeah, yeah. But but I but I think it's important to kind of see these cases and know about them and know what's out there and how it's going. Just just for the fact that you stay

Steve-o (01:00:08.546)
Some good cases though, kind of fun conversations though.

Tony Benjamin (01:00:21.932)
connected and understanding your profession. And keep an eye on those things, people. we'll, you know, as the Nike thing progresses, and maybe nothing comes out of all this, right? Maybe maybe like, okay, well, you were saying this publicly, but you were, you're blowing smoke, and nothing actually happened. That'd be interesting. But, but you know,

Steve-o (01:00:41.742)
But I still think these conversations are important to have. They're just important. They really are. So.

Tony Benjamin (01:00:45.43)
Yeah, Yep, yep. Absolutely. So you know what's going on. And so you can make corrections within your own company that you represent and work with to. That's right. And watch out for those things and know what the enforcement is. I don't think you can avoid politics in today's world anymore. I think it's going to I think it's going to get you no matter what. But, you know, maybe.

Steve-o (01:00:53.558)
Mm-hmm. See the patterns. Mm-hmm.

Steve-o (01:01:05.422)
Mm-mm.

Tony Benjamin (01:01:13.783)
Be aware what's going on currently and see where it's at. And we'll watch for the updates on those things.

Steve-o (01:01:18.04)
Well, and hopefully we're helping you stay a little bit current, because these are probably things you wouldn't go research on your own. So at least listening here, you're getting a little bit of food for thought. So there you go.

Tony Benjamin (01:01:23.99)
That's right. I don't know.

which probably tells you how geeky you and I are that we do cook up these things, right?

Steve-o (01:01:33.122)
Well, you know, they always say the legal tracks are always the most popular tracks at any of the conferences because people are always dealing with legal stuff all the time. That's why I loved Mark's episode, right? I yeah. So anyway, we'll have we'll have Mark come back. Yep. And I have a few other lawyers in my in my tool belt over here. I might reach out and get a few more on here just for not kicks and giggles, but you know, maybe.

Tony Benjamin (01:01:38.326)
That's right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And we're going to have Mark come back on a regular basis, too. He's going to do some updates for us.

Tony Benjamin (01:01:57.922)
Yeah. Or other things, right? Okay, no, I like that. Okay. All right. When a child faces a serious illness, the entire family fills the impact. Thrive Life Project steps in to lighten the load, delivering nutritious meals and engaging STEM kits directly to families homes, completely free of charge. It's more than support. It's a community of care. Learn more at thrive life project.org. That's

Steve-o (01:02:02.574)
you

Tony Benjamin (01:02:28.29)
thrive life project.org and tip of the hat to Brock and all that he's doing. I will have to I should mention this here. Brock was recently elected the mayor of Naples City here in U.N.A. County. And yeah, he's doing some cool stuff. So

Steve-o (01:02:45.034)
Wow, go Brock. It's because he's doing all these cool, good things for people, that's why. There you go. The good kind.

Tony Benjamin (01:02:51.904)
Right, right. Karma is coming back around. but that's right. But anyways, shout out to Brock and the Thrive Life Project. Steve, thank you. Today has been an awesome day to talk about these things. I've really enjoyed it. I think we'll make sure that this episode gets published rather quickly and so it will get put out. But anyways, for everybody else, if you want to give us a comment or something or comment on those or you have updates on different cases we've talked about.

shoot us note and let us know and we'd love to, yeah.

Steve-o (01:03:22.06)
Or if you have a case you want us to cover a little bit that you're just maybe you've heard about in your HR circle and you're like, hey, HR life, give us some feedback or information on this because we will totally research it.

Tony Benjamin (01:03:32.086)
Yeah. And then we will mention you on the podcast and say you should sponsor the podcast. So, yeah, just kidding. Right, right. Something like that. Anyways.

Steve-o (01:03:37.838)
Give you a shout out on LinkedIn, all the fun things. Social media, that way when AI scrapes you, it'll have some stuff there for you.

Tony Benjamin (01:03:47.904)
It was of the positive to say about you. That's right. Yeah, there you go. And if you think I'm into rap music, I'm not. But I may have played in the NFL. So just saying. That's right. All right. Thanks.

Steve-o (01:03:58.552)
There you go, there you go. I'm an announcer, right, Steve Smith? I'm all kinds of things out there, sports, announcers.

Tony Benjamin (01:04:08.268)
That's That's aside from being a big deal. Okay, aside from being a big deal.

Steve-o (01:04:09.068)
I I'm a country star out there somewhere. Aside from me. I'm also a jailbird and I've embezzled and I've all these things, crazy stuff out there. I'm telling you, you can find all kinds of stuff about me.

Tony Benjamin (01:04:18.018)
You

I'm going to start looking that up. Those are going to be our intros maybe for a while. I'll start just Googling your name, see what comes up.

Steve-o (01:04:24.782)
Great random Steve Smith. look at this one in Oklahoma.

Tony Benjamin (01:04:29.122)
That's right. The founder of the theory that birds aren't real, Steve Smith.

Steve-o (01:04:37.646)
that reminds me of the Garth. Have you ever heard of the Garth Brooks theory? About him being a serial murder, like a serial killer. There's this guy, he's like literally tracked every concert that Garth Brooks has done for like the past 20 years and has found local deaths that occurred during the times of his concerts and is trying to prove the case that Garth Brooks is a serial killer and he goes all over the country. I'm just like what?

Tony Benjamin (01:04:42.56)
What? No, no, that's hilarious.

Tony Benjamin (01:04:56.48)
and he's claiming Garth Brooks is killing.

Steve-o (01:05:03.256)
There are so many conspiracy theories out here. Like, can you imagine what AI must pull up for that one? my gosh. Perfect example. Like, really guys? Yeah, anyway, it's so funny. And they say, you know how Garthwix has the alias name? I forget the name now. man, I can't believe I spaced this.

Tony Benjamin (01:05:08.092)
I know we'll see that's a perfect example of the eightfold case right there. That's right. There you go.

Tony Benjamin (01:05:21.714)
I can't. Yeah, he's got when he wants to play small clubs and not not everybody know who he is. Yeah.

Steve-o (01:05:26.754)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they say that that's the name he uses for his serial killing sprees. It's so ridiculous. So anyway, sorry, that is totally off subject. We should totally end now, but yeah.

Tony Benjamin (01:05:32.354)
Of course they do, because it requires no proof. Yeah.

Tony Benjamin (01:05:40.01)
And now for something completely different. All right, everybody, we'll head out the same way that we came in today.

Thank you for listening to today's podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a five star review on your favorite podcast app. That's five star comments or questions for us. Email the podcast at the HR life podcast at gmail.com and we'll talk again soon.