You are listening to My Freedom Grove podcast with Gretchen Hernandez, episode 180.

Welcome to My Freedom Grove Podcast, your calm space for practical help to get your dream business up and running while being authentically you and taking care of your mental health. I'm your host, Gretchen Hernandez. I'm so glad you're here!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gretchen Hernandez  

Hi, everyone. Oh my gosh, we’re going to  have so much fun today, I came up with this crazy idea of let's do a Halloween themed episode. And let's record it on Friday the Thirteenth. Today is Friday the Thirteenth.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

I've brought three of my favorite people together so that we can share some Halloween business horror stories with you. So this episode is going to be all about fun and sharing stuff and laughing a lot and having a good time. First, let me start introducing all of my favorite people. All right, Mollie.

 

MEET MOLLIE ISAACS 

 

Mollie Isaacs  

So Mollie Isaacs, I am based out in the San Francisco Bay Area. And I am a coach helping people recover from burnout while learning tools and techniques to help them thrive and be part of a supportive and knowledgeable community.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

All right, Mollie, I'm so glad to have you here.

 

Mollie Isaacs  

Thank you, Gretchen.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Donna, would you like to introduce yourself?

 

MEET DONNA JENNINGS 

 

Donna Jennings  

Sure. Hey, thanks for having me. It's so fun to be here. And I'm very excited about this topic, because we've already had fun and it's just gonna be a blast. So yeah, I am a coach and a hypnotist. And I work with women who identify as fatherless daughters to help heal the wound of parental abandonment in self sabotage. So they can enjoy a life of self love and freedom and safety. When they do they show up as the person, the partner, the professional and the parent that they longed to be.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

So good. So good. Donna, I'm so glad that you're here. We're gonna have fun. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

And Martina, tell us all about you.

 

MEET MARTINA DOLESHAL

 

Martina Doleshal  

Yes, hi, my name is Martina Doleshal. I'm so stoked to be here. This is gonna be amazing. I'm a growth strategist. I'm a coach. I'm a professor of business strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship and an MBA and MBA program. I have over 19 years of experience in a variety of organizations, and I support my clients to optimize businesses for greater impact and profitability.

 

Martina Doleshal 

I'm an expert in strategy design and implementation. And I really love adapting innovation frameworks to make them easily usable and embedding sustainability, regenerative design, ESG across all organizations. 

 

Martina Doleshal 

And I am super excited to share some horror and freak and treat stories on Friday the Thirteenth

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

We're gonna have some fun. And for anyone that hasn't met Martina yet, she likes to also inject fun into her business, she's got something special coming up soon, she'll tell you about it towards the end of the podcast. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

But let's get this kicked off. So I'm gonna start with a first little warm up because it kind of puts us in that Halloween mood. And so we're going to talk about any kind of business stories from any time in our life from when we started working all the way up to now. So include anything. 

 

SPOOKY STORIES

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

I'm going to tell a couple from when I worked in a movie theater. I worked in two different movie theaters when I was a teenager. And we'd show all of the different ones. I worked at one that was like one of your more mainstream where everything would come out new. But I also worked at the dollar movie theater, where people could come and pay like a buck and see a double feature. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

So we had all of the Halloween movies, all the things come, including when the original pet cemetery movie came out. And so we had all sorts of stuff going on. But that night, partway through the movie, all of a sudden, the movie broke the thing that moved the platter that would have the film advancing, it broke. But we already had a whole theater full of people that wanted to see Pet Cemetery. It's the middle of the night. They're all excited. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

So I was asked by my manager, could I go up there and spin the platter manually for the rest of the movie so that they could watch it. Now I was like Sure, sure. I'm a team player. I'm gonna go up there and help. All right, so I was like sixteen. I go up. And the projection room I had never been in it before. It's dark, which I hadn't really considered because it's a movie theater. You have to have a dark up there. You don't want bright light shining through. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

But all of the movies, I could see the shadows of all of the movies while I was in there. So as I'm spinning this little platter, I can look through and I'm watching the movie, and if anyone ever watched the original Pet Cemetery, it's pretty freaky. So I was getting freaked out. And I have all of these shadows. So many times I just wanted to run, but I was like, nope, so I sat there. Oh my gosh, yeah, carpal tunnel can be a real thing. Hang when you're spinning a big heavy platter for almost two hours. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

So anyway, that was my warm up story. All right, who's got the next one?

 

Martina Doleshal  

I actually have a Friday the Thirteenth story. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Oh, all right. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

So we are all I think all four of us are in some way, shape or form adjacent to healthcare in some way. Way back when I used to work with a lot of laboratories, and some of the very large laboratories that do testing on an ongoing basis. And I actually was working with a company that was providing tools into the laboratories and there was a software update failure that was kind of putting the robotics and the analyzers at risk. So I was part of what was called the tiger team I was, I was the glorified sweeper, pretty much where something was going wrong, I will send with a team to fix it. So we arrived in in October.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Perfect timing.

 

Martina Doleshal  

Avery large, very large laboratory site after being on a call that the head of the site who has already shared their displeasure in a very loud voice over the phone. So we arrived. Then, I'm there as the kind of facilitator and I have two engineers with me. And the door opens. And Jason appears, from Friday the Thirteenth, movie shows up. 

 

Donna Jennings

No, no, no, no. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

You're talking full mask, bloody lab coat, an actual knife, like the kitchen, an actual knife. And it was, of course, the head of the site, and they are walking towards me. I've never seen two large dudes backing out so quickly as I am like standing there and be like, Oh, this is gonna be fun. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

We are here to do X, Y, and Z. And the knife was like, You better get this fixed. So apparently, they had the site Halloween party that day. We didn't know. Nobody gave us the memo. I could have showed up in costume. But that was like, a very big pause on Oh, hi. Really tell us how you feel about products and what we can do for you in the next forty eight hours before Halloween strikes. Somebody's gonna be punished.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Man. That's one way to motivate employees. Right?

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

All right, who's next? Donna, you got one?

 

BAD BOSSES

 

Donna Jennings  

Yeah, I have a horrible, horrible boss situation. That was like a nightmare. And I was in college at the time. So I was older. But again, like any college student, I'm looking to kind of, when can I work or get some money, just pay my car payment, pay my bills, I'm just looking to get through to graduate. 

 

Donna Jennings

And so there was a restaurant, it's actually still a chain. Now they do bakery items, and coffee. And then they serve meals, food, regular food throughout the day. This was something I could do early in the morning. So I could work from like four-thirty or five, to like seven and or seven-thirty. And then get home, get my stuff and go to class or lay that out and take that with me and then scoot on to eight o'clock class on certain days. 

 

Donna Jennings

But there was a position available because of a very heavy handed micro-manager, who was the baker who was brought in by corporate so the local manager had no authority really over him. And she had gone through numerous assistant bakers, that's what I would be called to find somebody that could work with him, because you need two people. And so I came and literally, I wrote things down. I'm doing exactly what he asked. He was beyond like military, although he's former military. And it's like it's never right. I didn't say that. You're not washing these pans right. Nothing was ever right. 

 

Donna Jennings

So it's like you need me. I can't leave you alone. It felt like he was just trying to prove his own position and think people are trying to get rid of him. And I'm like, Dude, I don't want your job. I just want to do mine. Eventually, I came in. After a number of weeks of doing this, maybe a couple of months. I put most of it out of my memory. And I just sat down with a manager And I said, I'm sorry, I'm not your girl, I feel for you. And I would really like for to be able to help you. But I am not your girl. I understand your situation. 

 

Donna Jennings

So fortunately at this point in my life, I had grown to a point where I knew limits and boundaries, more respect for my own, and could walk away like this is going to be somebody else's problem. Yeah, I can't, I can't live like this.

 

Gretchen Hernandez

Yeah, good choice, good choice.

 

Donna Jennings  

A great example of how not to be

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Yeah, no kidding. With that, I'm going to jump in, I'm going to share one thing just because that made me remember something. I used to work at a large corporation, and that had multiple different groups. And I was coached there. And I got wind of one of the big head honchos of one of the big groups that–– I was not officially a coach of that group––but he was an ex-military guy, too. And he was trying to come up with some motivation for how to get people to go. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

And so Martina, kinda like, you know, the whole knife thing. And Donna how, like micromanaging this guy, he starts trying to tell them psychology. And he's like, yeah, there's this thing of fright, fight and fawn. And he goes, You know what I do with those fawns? I pull out my machine gun. And this is to his employees, to motivate them. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

Oh, my gosh, so knowing the mental health aspect of this, I was like, oh, no, this coach has got to intervene. And I grabbed this guy, not I mean, it was like, days later, I found out about it, but I was like, oh, no, we have got to have a talk. You are not going to talk to people this way. And so eventually, he started to like, see me as his unofficial coach, but it was like, Oh, no. is awful.

 

Donna Jennings  

Wow. Because honestly, if he says that to me, I'm not gonna fight him. I'm either gonna flee or my, probably as an employee, want to fawn? Yeah, except he just told me what he does to fawns. I’m terrified to move, and yet I can't stay. Right, I'm like, Gretchen, please fix it.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Mollie, have you ever had any bad bosses like that?

 

Mollie Isaacs  

I have had so many bad bosses. I'm like, How do I pick one? There was one boss I worked for who was just an absolute bully, she did not stop with the bullying. And she did that to senior people to junior people. She did it to every single person on the team. She was an equal opportunity bully. It was awesome. She thought it was awesome, I guess I don't know. 

 

Mollie Isaacs  

And at one point, I lost it. I was like, you don't get to treat all of these people on this team in this way. And she became the one who was bullied because she turned me into a bully. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Oh, wow. 

 

Mollie Isaacs  

And that felt kind of awful, that we had a big makeup session afterwards, where, you know, I'm sitting there explaining to her about situational leadership and how different people need different guidance, and you need to be open to these things. And she's going Oh, ha, ha, oh, I totally see your point, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I've taken so much management training, and I don't understand it, you know, and, and I'm like, starting to put two and two together. 

 

Mollie Isaacs  

Two weeks later, all of this is out the window. She's back to bullying. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Oh no. 

 

Mollie Isaacs  

Yeah, it's a complete mess. But, you know, what came of it was how much self awareness she was lacking. She had no self awareness, like, like your machine gun guy. even know what the heck was happening, because of the things that she was doing to the team. And as far as I know, she's still there bullying people. I don't know, I left. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

Good. Good for you.

 

Donna Jennings  

Good for you

 

Mollie Isaacs  

Everybody I know got laid off. But everybody's gone for the most part. You know, and so it's just like, having that little bit of self awareness and boundaries. I had to do some of my own self awareness at that point, because I didn't want to be the bully. But being in that situation, yeah. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

So I had another work situation where similar, it was a boss, a high up. He was a VP. And he didn't realize that, again, the way that he was treating his employees and trying to motivate them was actually backfiring. There was a big software development rollout for Y-two-K. When we thought, it 1999, we think the whole world is going to shut down, right, especially with computer systems and stuff. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

And so they had this project where they're trying to get everything onto this new software that's Y-two-K compliant, and it's running really, really far behind. And I wasn't on that project at first, as off doing some other projects. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

So the VP of research and development comes to me and he's like, Hey, can you come and jump on this project? Because it's two months behind, we really need this on time. And he goes, Everybody's getting burnt out. And nobody wants to do this anymore. But we have to do it. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

I was like, okay, so I go in, I'm meeting with the team. There's like fifteen people, and yeah, they're burnt, they're mad, they don't want to be there anymore. I do all the work, I get them all motivated, come up with a new project plan, like things are starting to go, we're all happy. And then all of a sudden, I see him walking around coming back to motivate people. Okay, I already have them motivated. They're already going in there working. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

And he comes in, he's telling them, I am so disappointed in you. I can't believe how far behind this project is. And he's going to every single one of them saying this, how disappointed he is in them. And all of a sudden, everything comes to a screeching halt. And everybody's standing around. And they're complaining about him. No work’s getting done. It was like, Oh, my gosh, I had everything going. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

And then he tells me Oh, and you need to inform them all, these exempt employees, that they have to come in and work every Saturday from now on. And they're not getting paid any overtime or anything because they're all exempt. I'll provide pizza and sodas. Oh, no, no, no, no. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

He kept coming back and having those Oh, and so disappointed things. Until finally, I just had to talk to him and say, If you want your project done on time, stop coming back here and talking to my people. He was so mad. He's there, like, shaking and stuff. But he was like, You can't talk to me that way. I'm like, Well, do you want your project done on time or not? 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

And so right naturally stayed away, got everybody motivated and got the project done on time. But I was like, this dude had no clue. And now that I've been in the coaching industry for a long time and also cultural awareness. Now, I also see this was a cultural thing. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

He has a different culture than I do. And his culture, that's one of the ways that parents talk to their kids to motivate them is by always saying how much you're disappointing. And so that motivates in that culture. Like, oh, not not in this culture, though. 

 

Mollie Isaacs 

Not in this culture.

 

Donna Jennings  

And you’re not his children. He’s not their parents.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

That’s right

 

Donna Jennings  

Wow. 

 

Mollie Isaacs

Right? 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

But that workplace was actually great from a culture perspective, because we did a lot of pranks on each other. 

 

TRICKS THAT MAKE WORKPLACE CULTURE MORE FUN!

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

So we're thinking about, like, tricks for Halloween. So we did this thing, where we would glitter each other. So we all had our different cubicles. And you'd never know who is about to get glittered. But they'd walk in and all of a sudden, everything their whole cubic les glittered in their file cabinets, in you know, like everything. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

So the best one by far, this one guy, he gets glittered. He's like, Ah ha, real funny, grumble grumble.  You know, clean up everything. Six months later, it's raining. And he's leaving for the day. And so, yeah, you see where this is going.

 

Martina Doleshal 

I see. I see it happening in the real time.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

He walks out the back door. The rains already started to come down on him. He opens up the umbrella, phfft, glitter. 

 

Donna Jennings  

And now it's going to be in his vehicle. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

Oh, yeah. 

 

Donna Jennings 

He’ll be pulling that out of cracks for a long time. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Oh, yeah. I mean, talk about like, tarred and feathered. like, 

 

Mollie Isaacs 

Oh, yes. Yeah.

 

Donna Jennings  

Oh my god. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

The one that I had with them, they didn't glitter me. I kept waiting for it. It was my birthday. And that was usually one of those times. But I go out, and again, it's raining which is weird, because, end of May it rarely ever rains then. But I'm going out. I'm being taken out for dinner by my family members and stuff. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

So I go and I get in my car. And I'm driving away and I hear this thump, thump. And I'm like, what is that and then I hear thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump , thump look like really? Like what is going on. And so I pull over. I had barely gotten out of the parking lot. So I pull over on the street. I get out and I look, they've tied cans to my bumper.

 

Mollie Isaacs  

Oh my gosh.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Bright neon pink rope. And so I'm like, Okay. I'm like getting down trying to figure out how do I untie this? It's pouring down rain. It's my birthday. I'm supposed to be going right out to dinner now. I'm like a drowned rat. And I can't get this thing untied. I'm getting down on my knees on the wet grounds. And now my pants are destroyed. I can't get it untied. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

So then I pull out my keys and like, Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to saw it. I'm going to cut this off, and I'm there forever, I can't figure it out. And so then I was like, Oh, wait, I can open up my trunk and flip these in, then I was able to do it. And then I went off. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

And then I come into work. The next day, everybody is laughing their heads up. Turns out, they were all standing at the door watching the whole time. We don't understand what was this motion you were making? I was trying to cut it with my keys.

 

Donna Jennings  

Would you rather of had glitter? 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

Uhhh I don’t know.  Anybody else work in places that did pranks?

 

Martina Doleshal  

Yeah, so it's an I actually like, this is something that I really appreciate. And every client I work with, it's the importance of culture and importance of everyone in the organization not taking themselves too seriously and not like being upset, and everyone being able to laugh about themselves and on themselves. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

So I'm going to actually share a prank that I did, like many moons ago, on a CEO of a company. And again, for those in healthcare industry, you know, in marketing, you have to have a very deep approval of all marketing campaigns, for different reasons, and so on. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

So every company that I have worked with, and all of my clients have some a little bit of a different process. But this particular client, it was called the blue folder process, where the marketing department which I was supporting at the time would create the campaign and then it would go through legal and it would go through the regulatory people and so on. And then the last signature was the leader of the division or the or the CEO in this case. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

So I created a completely fake marketing campaign. The general counsel, totally fake and I will explain this, but I got this was for April Fool's. So first of April, and I got the general counsel of the company on board with that I get the head of regulatory on board with that. So this was going for the final approval of the CEO with like, multiple page like fully SPECT advertisement, like fully rendered, blah, blah, blah. And assays in medical devices or in healthcare are spelled A-S-S-A-Y. So the campaign was.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Oh, no.

 

Martina Doleshal  

All focused on squirrels. And taglines was a squirrel that was like in the tree burying and nut. And the tagline was, get your head out of your ass-dash-As (ASS-AYS) It should be kind of created as prank ads. Right? So it had the full cover sheet, the legal side on this, the regulatory signed on this.

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

Wow

 

Martina Doleshal  

Everyone was on it, right. So I waited for the CEO to be out of his office and I put said blue folder on his desk in his office, okay. And then everyone, the legal people, the whole team was in the cubicle next to me just hiding, because we knew but his meeting was ending. And I'm just dum, dum, de, dum, typing on my computer. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

And we heard this smack door and the running through the hallway. And here he comes with the blue folder running to my cube. He's like, I need an explanation. What is this? Are we running this? Is this for real? 

 

Martina Doleshal  

Everybody jumped up from around him like the April Fool's Day. And that's why culture is so amazing. Using this example for the next two years at old town hall meetings for employees is like, Yes, bring your fun self to work. And it was like such a great experience. Of course, we didn't run that campaign. But I'm pretty sure he has it somewhere because he was like, I'm not throwing this away. This is great.

 

Donna Jennings  

Good. Oh, wow. Wow, that's amazing. Just a simple thing. It wasn't an intended prank. But then I saw the opportunity and I thought, Oh, I'll just make a funny. I'd been out paintballing with friends. This was after I graduated college and had been working in education. My boss in this office, you come to the front desk, and his office is off to the right. So he could just see through everything. 

 

Donna Jennings 

And I walked in, and I had been paintballing the day before, and I got hit in the jaw. So I had this big bruise on the side of my face. And then on my leg. He said, you know, what hit you. And I called out my boyfriend's name. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

Oh, no.

 

Donna Jennings 

I said he did. This man shot up out of his chair, his chair just went back to the wall. And he was around to the front of his desk before I finished my boyfriend's name. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's paintball. It's paintball. I'm sorry. Like, anyway. 

 

Donna Jennings 

You know, I don't mean to be mocking. I never even thought about it. How serious that came across to him. And I understood that at the time. I mean, later, after his response, I'm not trying to make light of that type of situation. Okay, be more self-aware. Oh, that one backfired badly. That backfired badly. So anyway.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Oh, man. Mollie, you gotta trick?

 

Mollie Isaacs  

I was thinking about the glitter. And at one of the places I used to work, we didn't always do glitter. Sometimes it was just confetti. But we would wrap people's desks. So in the cubicle, you know, wrap everything with paper, either newsprint or wrapping paper often for people's birthdays. 

 

Mollie Isaacs 

So their chair would be wrapped, their desk would be wrapped, their computer would be wrapped. Whatever we could put paper on. We would wrap it and there was often confetti involved. We didn't go to glitter that was cruel.

 

Mollie Isaacs  

But there was often confetti. And so as they're unwrapping the confetti flies. We absolutely had fun with that. Because when people still had cubicles, you could do so much good stuff. They're wrapping their stapler and their pins. So everything had to be unwrapped before they could use it again.

 

Gretchen Hernandez   

That's like Christmas. 

 

Donna Jennings

Yeah. What a job. Wow, every single thing.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Oh my gosh, I remember a prank I thought about doing but then I decided no, that would just be too awful. I had heard the concept of putting saran wrap underneath a toilet seat. 

 

Mollie Isaacs 

Oh, yeah? 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

But I was like, oh, I want to but no, I just I just can't but I want to. But, no. Oh. 

 

Donna Jennings

Did it in high school. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

Oh, you did? Oh my god. 

 

Donna Jennings  

Oh, yeah. In high School. Right? When you're through immature things like that. 

 

Mollie Isaacs  

Yeah. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Yeah, I was in my mid forties.

 

Donna Jennings  

Oh yeah, I probably would not do this at work. No, no, yeah, no, no, yeah. 

 

Mollie Isaacs  

No, no. 

 

Donna Jennings  

I think that's a good move. Gretchen. 

 

TREATS COME IN ALL SHAPES AND SIZES

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Alright, so we did tricks. How about treats? Anybody have some treats where you just you didn't see it coming? In fact, maybe you even thought there was a trick to it. Or it was just every day, you know, kind of work stuff. And then you got a treat?

 

Mollie Isaacs  

I used to, long time ago, work in the touristy towns in retail. And this was around Christmas time. And the store I worked in was a clothing store from the outside because you know, Old West old tiny town looking thing. It looked like a fairly conservative, you know, blue jeans and button down shirts kind of shop and not really hip. 

 

Mollie Isaacs  

And if anyone remembers the band, Whitesnake, they apparently were in town and someone in the group had said, Oh, I dare you to go find something in that store. And the trick  actually wound up being on them. We had lots of great stuff in the store, it just wasn’t in the shop windows. So they come in they start looking around. They’ like we're with Whitesnake. And it’s like oh this is cool, this is cool, this is cool. I need this and I need that. I need this and I need that. And the next thing you know they’re spending thousands of dollars, getting things gift wrapped.They left completely blown away. And we were like.

 

Gretchen Hernandez

We just sold thousands of dollars to Whitesnake.

 

Mollie Isaacs  

Everybody was chittering about it for the next week. But yeah, that was like one of those treats where, you know, someone had just dared them to go find something that they would like. Turns out they did.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

That's so cool. And not everybody can say they sold thousands of dollars to Whitesnake that is very cool.

 

Donna Jennings  

Yeah. Wow. Very cool.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Who else had an unexpected treat?

 

Martina Doleshal  

Yeah, so I can jump in. Like unexpected trades. It's interesting, and I'll share the one for me but it's interesting. As part of regenerative business practices, that is something that we always talk about with vendors, right? Because employees and humans that work in your business or with you, in your business are not on the expenses or liabilities part of the balance sheet, they're the biggest asset they make your company. 

 

Martina Doleshal 

What is always so fun for me is to work with founders on planning, like unexpected delights for their employees. Better, it's different, whether it's like different gifts based on and that goes back to the culture and back on like, the whole purpose driven of the entire organization. But whether it's like, a box shows up on your doorstep, and it's delivered by FedEx, and there's a water bottle, and a book to read, and some sort of like fun items. And it's not announced, it's not expected. But it's more like, Hey, thank you, really great job. 

 

Martina Doleshal 

So all of those are kind of just little things. Because I'm a big believer that like, money is not everything, like giving people the opportunity to learn what they want to learn, giving them a certain number of hours in a week, even if it's just one to two hours to learn something new that they want to learn, right, like allowing them to expand themselves, because as humans, that would be all want. 

 

Martina Doleshal 

Yeah, for me, it wasn't this is also like, while back was that the company I work at that time it was. So that's like, wow, it's like fifteen years ago. At this time, I was actually. But the company subscribed to a learning platform, and the employees could learn whatever they wanted. And I am a perpetual learner, and they had like courses from it was not like, this is your job. And these are the courses you have to take, right? 

 

Martina Doleshal 

Like it was not rule-based training. This is just like, you're gonna learn painting, you're gonna learn how to write songs. Here's this huge learning platform like go pick a course, something, and now they paid for it. It was like they got like a corporate subscription. And they were like short courses. But it was like, so fun to just be gifted this here's a login for you. Yeah. So that was a delight. For me. It was a treat for me.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Yeah, that's a great treat.

 

Donna Jennings  

Martina, you reminded me of a company I worked for that had hands down the absolute best staff meetings, oh, this is working in medicine. And once a month, then they clear the morning. And we'd have a staff meeting as a group. And then you go back to doing the kind of stuff you're doing. And then they'd meet with individual segments of the employee population, whatever area like front office, right, or providers or political staff. 

 

Donna Jennings  

And so when we would all get together, the owners always had food there. I mean, it can be simple cheese and fruit and yogurt or whatever. And then there was always whether it was a little card, or it could be a balloon, there was always going to be money. Oh, we knew that. And even during COVID, when things were lean, then it might be a twenty dollar bill. And then other times when it was a little better, it might be a fifty dollar bill. 

 

Donna Jennings  

But the thing was, everybody would pull the, whatever they're going to the money is going to be in. And it was also often seasonal, right? So if it was Easter or spring, they might put it in Easter eggs and Christmas, it might be a stocking, right? 

 

Donna Jennings  

Wow. And you would pull yours and then everybody waits and then you pop it open. And then you unfold the money and see what you got. And then somebody somewhere got the fifty or somebody someone's got a hundred. And so everybody is always going to walk away with cash. You had a fabulous experience, because they also check in.Tell me how things are going for you too. Tell us how things, you go around the table and everybody's got to share. And then we get down to business. 

 

Donna Jennings  

But it was a place where you really felt like you also mattered. And you also got to contribute because we all then when we got down to the nitty gritty, he also talked about, you know what's working, what's not working, what do we need? What are issues you see, we don't see, kind of thing. So hands down the best staff meeting ever. And there was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun.

 

Mollie Isaacs  

Oh, fantastic

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

I love that idea.

 

Donna Jennings  

I became a manager then, I could not at the same level and I of course wasn't representing something of business. I was doing this out of my own pocket. But we had fun staff meetings after that too. We would play games and there would be money and there would be treats. A much lower scale than what I had experienced. But people look forward to staff meetings and we had fun. So it's a great example to model.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

I love that. I love that. I've got two treats that I'm going to share. So one, not a whole lot of people know that I worked at Denny's at one point in my life. Could you see me? Like the green skirt and like the striped shirt. And I definitely had an apron because that's part of this treat. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

When I was in college, I was trying to figure out what's the least amount of hours that I can work to make enough money to cover my minimum bills, so that I could focus on school. And so I realized that I could go and work at Denny's and I worked Fridays and Saturday nights from eleven pm to three in the morning. So the drunk crowd. And I think minimum wage back then was like five-fifty an hour. Okay, so you kind of needed your tips, too, right? Because like I work eight days out of the month, my rent was one hundred sixty dollars.

 

Mollie Isaacs 

What. Pretty much you were saying it's been a minute,

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

Kind of dating myself.

 

Mollie Isaacs 

Way back when.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

So tips were really important. So I wore this apron. And I kept all of my cash tips in my apron pocket. I learned that maybe that's not the best place to keep it. I had this one group come in. And they were like middle aged, they looked like they were business people. The guys were in suits. The women were dressed up, but they looked like maybe couples or something. They didn't speak any English. They were drinking because we could serve beer and stuff. But they already came in drunk. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

And so they're hooting and hollering, having a great old time. I don't understand anything. They're saying, you know, they can point to what they want on the menu. I could get that. So then I'm coming in, I'm asking, do they need anything, else as much as I can, for them to understand before I give them the bill. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

And they start saying thank you using the words in their language, and all of a sudden one of the guys goes, puts his fist down into my apron pocket. And I start panicking because I'm like, Oh my God, he's gonna steal my tips. And I'm freaking out. And they didn't seem like they were mean people. But it was like, I just wasn't expecting that. So I kind of like, get my nerves all back together, like, okay, and I'm looking at like, okay, it doesn't seem like anything was missing. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

So it was later on, I get back to my home. And I'm emptying out my tips to count for the night because I do it at home, not at work. And so as I'm pulling out all of the ones and the ones and the occasional five, which I was like, oh, all of a sudden I realized he gave me a twenty dollar bill. And so twenty dollars. You know, like, minimum wage is five-fifty. 

 

Mollie Isaacs

Yeah. 

Gretchen Hernandez 

A twenty dollar tip, oh my gosh. So I was just like, I couldn't believe it. Like, I thought he was trying to steal my tips. And instead, he gave me a twenty dollar tip, the biggest that I had ever received. 

 

Mollie Isaacs

Wow.

 

Gretchen Hernandez

And then that kind of goes into the next one, where I didn't realize how big a tip could get. To start working in the healthcare industry, especially like biotech companies that are pretty big. They've got some money set aside for bonuses. And so I worked for a company that was very generous in their bonuses every March. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

But there was also something known as the unicorn bonus. And that's when they thought that someone had just gone above and beyond and had created so much value, that they would be given a separate bonus. And it was a wow, like these rarely were given out. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

I was asked to help the director of our quality assurance department and I worked in quality control at the time. So she used to be the director in quality control. So she knew me. But now she was in quality assurance. And each of those organizations are like a hundred fifty people. That she was leading this huge global project. And she needed a whole lot of the organization and also getting a lot of information from the directors at like seventeen different sites. She said I needed to call in my A-team.

 

Gretchen Hernandez

She picked me and one other person and she's like, I want to have you help me on this project. It was about becoming world class provider in health care. My boss was like, really upset because he didn't really like her. And he didn't want to give me up from my regular job. But somehow she had a little bit more clout. Other than you know, she's a few levels above him. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

So I started working on the project and everything. And I'm doing things and talking with people I had never thought I would be talking with you know, because there's several levels above me but I'm doing all of the things and they're so happy. And then the project kind of gets all wrapped up. She went MIA for a little bit because she got pulled on something else so I helped him finish up all of this stuff. And I go out on maternity leave. 

Gretchen Hernandez

And not thinking anything of it. I was just like, this is really cool that someone thought this highly of me to do this and look at all these people’s experience. So I already felt like I had been rewarded, right? Because something from that experience. I come back from maternity leave and find out that I had been given a unicorn bonus of twenty thousand dollars.

 

Donna Jennings  

Wow, 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

I was like, What?

 

Mollie Isaacs

That’s amazing.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Yeah, because when you go out on maternity leave, you might not get your full salary. And then I think I took some unpaid. So all of a sudden, I come back to twenty grand. It's like, wow, oh my gosh. Yeah. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

So, kind of contributes to why I over over overdo it when I work with people. It's like, well, because I've been rewarded in it. Yeah, I ended up going on and getting another unicorn bonus a few years after that. And then like, something else, like I was there for, you know, a very, very long time. But to get singled out three times with like these extra bonuses. It's like, okay, doing all the extra? 

 

Donna Jennings  

Well, that's no surprise, given how hard you work and what you do for us and other people have a work product you put out and how you help. And that is not a surprise and congratulations. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Ah, thank you. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

This is amazing. And it also shows the organizational care for the employees. And I also want to encourage all people, and especially women, who are my primary audience, because we don't ask, you don't advocate for ourselves enough. Right? And, yes, sometimes we are waiting for too long to be recognized. And you are so lucky that that organization was set up and had an internal structure for that. But most organizations aren't. Right? 

 

Martina Doleshal  

Just to do very well, not very, but a couple years back an example where my current company and the we came, and me and my team, we were doing a project for a client. And we were working with the company of the organization very deeply. And we killed it, like the over-achieved. And that's building that muscle of asking, because that client was going to pay us the money that we've quoted them and that they owe us for the services rendered. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

And I went and had the conversation with the CEO of the company. I was like, Look, they did it under timeline, they achieved it under budget, we are saving you this much money. I would like a bonus for me and my team. And you didn't even blink he was like, give me a number. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

So just the fact of asking, right? Because we how quite often and again, especially as women are waiting for their external recognition. But like the recognition, the internal recognition, like I knew we killed that project, like we slayed. Like they could not have a single complaint, like it was like the team was like humming and it was going like that, right? 

 

Martina Doleshal  

I had a much longer conversation with myself. As I was preparing to ask, yes. Then the actual phone call with the CEO. Like it took me like forty-five minutes to get my head straight. I was like, This is what I'm gonna say, this is blah, blah, blah. He didn't even blink. He was like, Yeah, you killed it. How much? And like, I spent an hour taming the demons in my brain, forty-five minutes on my speech.

 

Donna Jennings  

And he didn't even need convincing. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

He didn't need convincing, he saw it. But if we didn't ask, then we would have just gotten the fee that we quoted.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Oh my gosh. I want to grow up and be like you.

 

Donna Jennings  

If I may piggyback off that Martina, you reminded me that's so true. And when I was asked to become a project manager on a project, so I'd been, you know, serving the project and then asked to take that leadership position. We've had some attrition, and we had a handful of people who were still there, hanging in there, and wanted to see this thing through. 

 

Donna Jennings  

And one of my asks to the people who were now my supervisors was, Look, I get that there may not be money. But there are so many other ways to acknowledge individuals. If you think about the term compensation, versus just money, which, of course will all take the money? I'm not gonna say no. 

 

Donna Jennings  

However, if you consider large, more generally the concept of compensation, what could you offer your employees, your people? And I ask for a title change. And thats specific to some of the stuff that we were doing. But that poised them for the next project, wherever they would go, that now they had, essentially a promotion. And each one of those reflected more responsibility. 

 

Donna Jennings  

And one of the individuals was the nurse, and I asked she become the lead clinical nurse. Just like you said, Martina. And this kind of surprised me. And I thought, man, so much more conversation needs to happen. She didn't even know that was a thing, right? 

 

Donna Jennings  

So a step even further back was she didn't know it was a thing. So she didn't know it could be asked for. And I would encourage all of us, particularly women, to not just say, I didn't know that was possible. But what if you did a little bit of research to consider? Where could you go from where you are, even with just what you have to offer? And start asking those questions. So that you can, yeah, get more for you?

 

Martina Doleshal  

Absolutely. And what is interesting is that, so I'll play it from both sides, if we have a couple more minutes on that. Right, like, from the employee, or from the person who is doing the work within an organization, a foreign organization, also knowing and understanding what every word means to you? And what do you value, right, and from the organization. And that's, again, like a lot of culture, change, team building, and all that, that I do is understanding that different people need different rewards, right? 

 

Martina Doleshal

For some people being recognized on a stage in front of a whole company, is the reward, is a pleasure. For some people, that's like the biggest punishment you can do to them, right? They would much rather have a week of vacation that they can go do something with. Or be allowed to work on a side project that just sparks their joy in their work, right. 

 

Martina Doleshal

So it is this conversation and not having the conversation and not knowing how to negotiate between those things. And thinking, even as an employee, I do a lot of like negotiations on both sides and like facilitating negotiations on on different deals and different different things is like, knowing what is it that you want, knowing where your boundaries are knowing what you want to ask for. Right? 

 

Martina Doleshal

And understanding that standard processes, or policies are something that somebody made up? And you can ask, if there is an exception to that. And what is the exception to a standard process? I remember one of my clients, she kind of joked, because we were going back and forth on a project. And I was like, so we're gonna like, implement this as a standard process for checking in the mid-project point on a certain milestone. 

 

Martina Doleshal

And her response to me, I have the text message somewhere. It was like, Huh, I didn't know you can do that. You just made up a standard process. I was like, All standard processes are made up by somebody. Her response to that was Oh my god, I love how you think. And I'm like, oh, somebody made this up and said, This is the standard process. 

 

Martina Doleshal

Think about, and I'm not saying that all of those can be broken and bent. But without asking. We never know where the boundary or where the flexibility of the process is. And that gives us the power. Right?

 

Martina Doleshal

Yeah, I one hundred percent agree with you, Donna, that money may not be the most important thing. Maybe a title change or maybe ability to publish or maybe an extra week of vacation which usually costs nothing to the company really from like a monetary perspective. Right? It can make somebody sing and make them be extremely motivated in their work. 

 

Martina Doleshal

So, yeah. Know what you want and ask for what you want. The worst thing that can happen is they say no,

 

Mollie Isaacs  

I was just going to add one of the teams I used to work on. We did, it was like an external survey on how you'd like to be appreciated.

 

Gretchen Hernandez

Hmmmm.

 

Donna Jennings

Nice. 

 

Mollie Isaacs  

And then the manager took that. And, you know, whatever project we worked on, he would use that as a way to recognize us in the way that we want it to be recognized.

 

Martina Doleshal  

There's a bunch of tests. Yeah, I love that. There's a bunch of tests, there's like, a bunch of questionnaires you can fill out. It's awesome.

 

Mollie Isaacs  

That was recent. And it was the first time any boss had anyone had ever done that, asking, how do you want to be appreciated? Because not everybody, like you said, wants to stand up on stage.

 

Donna Jennings  

That's fascinating, Mollie, that nobody had ever thought to ask people how they like to be appreciated. But I'm curious, what is the assumption that's being made? That, uh, that prevents us from asking that question that causes us to not ask that question. And now, you know, we know what they say about assumptions, right. And now we're back to ASS-AYs, right, but we brought this around full circle. but

 

Martina Doleshal  

Full circle to the squirrel, you know, that's digging up the nut.

 

Donna Jennings  

Very cool. Thanks for sharing it, Mollie.

 

HORRORS TO MAKE YOU CRINGE

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Okay, so let's talk about horror stories. What kind of horror things have happened, it could be anywhere throughout your work history, anything where you're like, Oh, my God, I can't believe that happened. Mollie?

 

Mollie Isaacs  

Oh, well, let's see, I already told you about my bully. There's one where I was pulled in with two weeks to turn an entire project around. Yeah, ah, like the horror was the person who had originally developed the entire program, how to pilot and it failed so badly, that it had negative scores. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

That's not good. So, yeah.

 

Mollie Isaacs  

It had negative scores on the eyelet surveys. And they called me in and they said, We need someone to redo this. You have two weeks because we have another pilot in two weeks. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

Oh man. 

 

Mollie Isaacs 

Yeah. So it was, everything else got dropped. I worked with a completely different team of people for two weeks straight. The good part of that horror story is we turned the whole program around. We had a great pilot. We made additional edits. And we launched the whole thing two months later. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

Wow. 

 

Mollie Isaacs 

Yeah, that was all bunch of teamwork and collaboration, listening to the feedback that had come from that incredibly awesome pilot. Wow, I felt so bad for the people who had to sit in pilot, because when I looked at the content, I went, Oh,

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

There was horror in the content even.

 

Mollie Isaacs  

Yes, it was so bad. And this person had done so much work, and had so much good content, and put it together in such a bad way that it wasn’t even saveable.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

All right, who has another horror story from any time in their work life.

 

Donna Jennings  

So I'd like to share. Clearly, I have a hard time, even just like, thinking about it. Because I'm good. I'm good. Now I laugh at it now. But man, to confess this, it was such an awkward situation. So this was back before I had boundaries, and back before I learned how to speak up and stand up for myself and what I wanted, and was not so preoccupied with people-pleasing and making other people happy. So which is redundant, but anyway. 

 

Donna Jennings

I had some friends who joined an MLM. And then they came and did a presentation and recruited me to join the MLM. I had really no interest in doing it. Like I don't, I don't really care for sales. That's just I'll even say like, that's just not who I am. I don't enjoy that. But I also didn't want to say no to them. And I wanted them to be successful and I wanted to support them. So I took, you know, money that really wasn't in my budget I didn't plan on and I and I bought a kit and I joined this MLM. A

 

Donna Jennings

nd then the natural part of that is they come and do presentations for people that you get together, right? Until you get comfortable with things. And then you do presentations. So my friend was new at it. So he had his upline supporting him and coming and doing presentations. So they're like, hey, so get some friends together, we'll come, we'll do a presentation, we'll do all the work for you. We'll talk and do all the talking. And I'm like, Okay, sounds good. Because, clearly, I didn't want to do it. 

 

Donna Jennings

And so with this, they were then wanting me to get friends together and people I knew to have groups together, they could talk to. About the same time, a friend of mine was having a birthday. And my friends were talking about, hey, let's throw her a party. And I go, Oh, this could work. It's a group of people. There you go, we could have the party at my house. Why don't you come over and have the birthday party at my place? That'd be great. 

 

Donna Jennings

And so I tell my friend who is effectively my upline, hey, I've got a group of people coming over and you can present to them, oh, this is just horrible. And then my friends were coming over. So these guys didn't know it was a birthday party. My friends didn't know that it was a presentation for this MLM company to either buy products or join the company. 

 

Donna Jennings

And so everybody comes in, these guys are here in their suits with their easel and their flip chart. My friends are here in shorts and hanging out and chatting. And they're eating snacks. And they're like, Hey, let's have birthday cake and ice cream. And I'm like, Hey, let's do that in a minute. And then I look at my friend, I'm like you're on. And I sit down on the floor with all my friends behind me. 

 

As these guys come in giving a presentation for the company, to people who had no idea they were coming to a presentation for this MLM company. And these guys had no idea that the people they're speaking to, didn't know they were. And I'm really wanting the floor to open up and let me drop in. And this was my first foray into being a business owner. And I was a reluctant business owner at the time. And so you can probably imagine how well that whole thing went. 

 

Donna Jennings

Fortunately, you know, we've moved past that. We're friends, we've moved on. The guy has finished their presentation, people are like, Hey, can we have cake now? And I'm like, earth, just swallow. And we moved on. But that was I would call that being a reluctant business owner and probably, like, it's such a horrid experience.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Imagine Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

 

Donna Jennings  

I'm good now. But still, just thinking about it. Let's start, you know? Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's horrible. So anyway,

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Martina, you got a horror story?

 

Martina Doleshal  

Yeah. So I have a couple. But one is very similar to what Mollie was sharing about, I was called into a project with twenty-seven days to fix something that somebody else worked on. More like, I don't know, twelve months. So when we were taking on the project, I was like, I will pick my own team, though, if we're gonna do this. And we actually turn it around, made it up to compliance in twenty-one days. And then oh, when that was when, like you were talking about the awards, that's when the team got an award for that.

 

Martina Doleshal 

But another horror story is when somebody on your team sent something to the wrong person. And that happened to me, right before I was. I was leading a project and one of the people on the team were supposed to just send meeting minutes to one of the clients, to like a follow up. 

 

Martina Doleshal

And I'm about to board a fourteen hour flight from China where I was giving a presentation, like a national conference back to the United States. And I see this email and the person copied, Paul. But the wrong Paul. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

Oh, no.

 

Martina Doleshal

They copy to Paul from, not directly competing company, but company that had no business knowing no meeting minutes with the client. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

Oh, no. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

Whose representative was also Paul. So as I'm at the airport with, and it's been a minute too, with a Blackberry. If anybody remembers those, totally. And I am fearlessly typing emails and like recall messages and trying to get in front of it. Because I knew that this is gonna go up so fast, as like a forest fire but in the organization. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

So we came up with a plan, there was an immediate contact, that was actually the first time and the only time I raised the voice at a person who was working for me. And the reason for that was not because they did what they did, but because they didn't see it as an issue. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

Oh, no. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

Surprise. 

 

Donna Jennings

Oh, wow. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

Wow. 

 

Martina Doleshal

And they're kind of like, why are you so upset about that? Well, I was just tell them, I was like, there was proprietary information. And oh, not only you copied the client, but our superiors are copied on the email. So here's the plan. Here's what we have to do. 

 

Martina Doleshal

And not my proudest moment, that I actually had to do a lot of reflection of just like, just breathe and don't. emotions come in fourteen hour flights kind of help with that.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

But still like that, that was a big uh oh.

 

Martina Doleshal  

Four or five planes. So you're pretty much in a fourteen hour cocoon of silence.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Just sit there and ruminate on the whole thing and steam and all of Oh, yeah. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

So you have a lot of time to process. So we managed it, like we mitigated it. It ended up being okay, there was a lot of apologies that have to be released and so on. Yes, I landed with voicemails from everybody in the company food chain up to the head of the organization. But like nothing major happened. 

 

Martina Doleshal   

But that's one of those things where I have learned from that experience of having a plan on how to deal with some major shit hitting a fan. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Oh, yeah. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

And like, I want to show up for myself, how do I want to show up for the teams that I'm leading? How do I want to show up for the clients? So we had to change some strategy, because what was disclosed in that email would have jeopardized part of the project. So we had to redo something for the client. Most things are fixable. If you're transparent, and just own up to the mistake.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

That's a good point that

 

Martina Doleshal  

Like, yes, that was the fuckup. Sorry, this is how we are planning on fixing them. This is what additional things we are putting into place to mitigate or minimize this happening ever in the future. Like trusting yourself in having a plan as a leader is Oh, yeah, I that's one of the things. That's a very uncomfortable flight.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Yeah, I bet. I bet that I had to do a lot of root cause analysis, training, and then also with the business processes, like looking at it to try to see where all the errors happening. And so that big error, and then how do you put things in place, so that never happens again? And so I affectionately call it idiot-proofing. We all have those idiot moments, you know, we're human, we make mistakes, but how do we prevent them?

 

Martina Doleshal  

And particularly your point, like, it's not just idiot-proofing, but details matter, right? 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Yes.

 

Martina Doleshal 

Like another, like major kind of an eff up was that there was a part of a manufacturing team that was in Europe and part of a manufacturing team that was in the United States. And they were creating components for a final product. Right? Well, and now. So Gretchen you and I have got, we’re like this,  like tight on that right? Like dictation and processes, and SOPs, and requirements, and documents. 

 

Martina Doleshal 

And the major eff up and it was a huge nightmare was that the European team executed fantastically in the metric system. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

Oh.

 

Martina Doleshal 

The US Team executed fantastically in ounces and inches and great. Then you are on the space shuttle and the square filter is not fitting into the round hole.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

That's the importance of standardization. I wish that we could do standardization on measurements across the world so that we didn't have all that. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

Yes, exactly. Details matter over communication matters, right? Like, yes. And nobody did anything wrong, there was just the missing component, right? They all did a really good job with an assumption that nobody discussed.

 

Donna Jennings  

They didn’t know what they didn't know.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Okay, so I was going to share my horror story. And so I've got two and so mine was more around horror on behavior. And so one is somebody else's. One was where I was horrified with my own. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

So, back to that movie theater, the dollar movie theater. And so maybe that was part of it, is that I should have never decided to work at a dollar movie theater, right? The manager of this dollar movie theater was just a really gross guy. And I mean, usually I like big, cushy guys, you know, this guy, he was a big cushy kind of guy, but sweaty and just gross. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

And so I was making popcorn one day. And if you've seen a popcorn maker at a movie theater, you can tell that they've got this metal thing where they put the kernels into it. And then that gets really, really hot, and it makes all of the stuff you know, pop. Okay, so you have to move this lever to dump out the contents of that at some point. And then to refill it with more of the coconut oil or whatever you're using, plus all of the seeds. That sucker is hot. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

So I was doing it and it landed on my forearm and burned me really bad. So I put it back up. And I'm like, Oh, and you know, I'm sixteen I'm just I'm trying to like manage it. So here comes sweaty Prince Charming thinking, Oh, I'm gonna help the damsel in distress. And he comes up and he grabs my arm. And he licks the burn.

 

Donna Jennings  

Oh, that's just really disgusting.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

It was disgusting. 

 

Martina Doleshal

Is that your horror or disgusting, because I think that just like meets both. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Oh, yeah. 

 

Donna Jennings  

It's disgusting that he licked your arm wound. Oh, my God, on so many levels. Oh, yeah.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Oh, yeah. I had a nightmare about that guy for years. Because he was always like, chasing after me and stuff. And I was like, Oh, no. Gotta go. Gotta go. Gross. No. So yeah, so now there's all those sexual harassment trainings that you know, different companies have to have? And I think something like that would qualify. Oh, yeah. 

 

My horrified thing that I did wasn't quite like that. Because you know, I know where to keep my tongue. So but so we're just.

 

Donna Jennings  

Going to trust you on that. There you go.

 

Martina Doleshal

I’m not going to test that hypothesis at all.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

So I was a co-teacher for software. And so I had a business partner. And so the two of us, we were in charge of this whole computer system. And we had to train a thousand people at our site, all the different levels, all the different functions on how to use this thing. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

It just so happened that it was his turn to teach the class. So he's up at the front. Everybody's there at their computer terminals, learning all this stuff. And I'm in the back just to support, make sure we're getting everybody signatures, like all of the things. He asked the question to them. And it's crickets, like nobody is answering. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

And all of a sudden, I'm like, going back to the Welcome Back, Carter. I don't know if you ever watched that TV show. Okay, so it's set in a school setting. And there was one know-it-at all student who would always be like, Oh.

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

I did that. Right. He's asking the students the question, they don't know it. And so all of a sudden, I get super excited because I know the answer. Well, of course, because I'm one of the instructors and also one of the software designers and all the things so I'm back there. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

His face was just horrified. I like years later, he had told me how there was a time he couldn't stand me and I'm like, I could see why. I can't believe that, like those urges came over me in that moment. To be such a know-it-all and be all Oh Oh Oh. So  awful. 

 

Donna Jennings  

Pick Me. Pick Me. Pick me. I know.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Of course. You're the teacher. I know, you have all the answers. I have all the answers. 

 

WE SAVED THE BEST GROSS FOR LAST

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

Okay, so let's end with the gross stuff because you know, gross stuff is always funny. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

So Mollie, do you have any stories of something that happened that was gross while you were working?

 

Mollie Isaacs  

I have a year worth of stories. Because that was the year, I worked at a medical microbiology lab. So this was an external testing lab. We did all the fancy microbiology medical tests that like in house laboratories that hospitals or doctors offices wouldn't touch. We had anaerobic cultures. Which I'm going to tell you, that is a smell’ you never ever want to smell. 

 

Mollie Isaacs 

We would test for tuberculosis. We would test for Clostridium that stool samples in cases. That is not not a fun thing. We did, we did every test that nobody else wanted to do and the things that we would get as specimens. You're just like. The least worst were the fungal toenails. Yeah, you want to grow? 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Mollie Isaacs  

We would have fungal cultures. And we would get these, literally people would have their toenails removed. Oh,

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

I'm imagining that you would have to put that like embedded into a Petri plate with the special agar 

 

Mollie Isaacs  

Yeah, you had to cut it up, you know, as much as you could, because they're awful. And yes, some of it would go into a broth. Some of it would go into the special augers. It was just an awful setup. The only thing that was worse than stuff like that was the stool sample. Yeah.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Oh, yeah. I can relate. Yeah, unfortunately.

 

Mollie Isaacs

Yeah. 

 

Donna Jennings  

I just want to share that while you're running those samples. I worked in the environment that collected. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

Oh, ew. 

 

Mollie Isaacs  

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't feel any. Yeah, it was like somebody had to somebody had to do that first part, to put it in the container and send it to man, it was awful.

 

Donna Jennings  

And I went to school to do that. I paid good money to be able to do that. It's great for them, but that's tough, man. That's some stuff. Yeah. Yeah. There's things you never, you don't get that smell out of your olfactory now, right now.

 

Mollie Isaacs  

You never want to smell it again. Yep, that's it. That's, that's my gross that is. It could get worse, but I'm not. I'm gonna stop there. I think that's enough.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

So Mollie, I can totally relate to your poop story. So I also worked in a microbiology lab. This was the last couple of years of being in college. So I was working graveyard, in a microbiology lab. And we were dealing with all of the veterinary samples. So it was all the samples from animals. And I had weird things to like, toenails, and like baby dead baby ostriches in eggs and lots of pee. And yes, the poo too. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

And so Oh, my gosh, I every night towards the end of the night, I always had to dig through the poop samples looking for worms or other things. And then like mixing it together with liquid and squishing it through a filter so that we could do this, this special test on it. So I had already known that sometimes when you put poop in a container and you put a lid on it, that there could be gasses that happen. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Yeah, usually this wasn't an issue. And I was working under this fume hood that, oh for this fume hood, because I didn't have to smell any of it, thank God. But I'm there luckily I have my lab coat on but I don't have anything else on you know, it's just I mean I have clothes on of course. But so I go to open up this one sample and it was so full of gas, the whole thing exploded all in front of me. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

I had dog poop all over my mouth and my mouth had been open at the top. It was everywhere. And so I was just like trying to calm myself down. Close the lid because I don't want to compromise what's left of the sample. Wash my hands in that seat, and then slowly make my way all the way through this long building through all of the other labs to get to the bathroom to go try to wash my face and walking down the hallway. With dog poop.

 

Martina Doleshal  

Oh, come on, you should have had an eyewash and all of those safety stations. Right there. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Well, I didn't get any in my eyes. But yeah, I don't. Yeah, I was just like that.

 

Donna Jennings  

I bet Oh, mortified. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

So all right, Donna, you had said that you've had to collect samples. I bet you've got some growth stories.

 

Donna Jennings  

I do. As a healthcare provider, I worked in urgent cares, family practice hospitals, and one that comes to mind is that so you're always like, abscesses. Like we're always breathing those we call them incision and drainage right. And just for most people, just that, is the solution they need. That's like if you just get it out of there rinse it well, then that's what they need. 

 

Donna Jennings  

But this was one, it was on the tuchus, and it was really, really kind of tight, kind of close to the backdoor. And it was quite large. And so I prepped everything I engraved, I have a shield like smart big, and these are generally under pressure. 

 

Donna Jennings  

So I stick, I mean, they're numbed up as best as you can get this numbed up in this particular situation. And then I stick a scalpel in Oh, and yeah, something that you just never, I'm never getting this out of my olfactory memory, that nasal smell the smell of things. And I'm like, it's embedded the entire building. Oh, oh, this, it was, it was that prevalent. And it was something kind of new. I mean, like, this was a weird color. And it was, and I was like, I could not have hit bowel. I knew I could not have hit bowel. But I was a little paranoid that I had. 

 

Donna Jennings  

So anyway, called my doctor, called my supervising doctor to say, Hey, this is what's going on. And they're like, oh, it's E. Coli. Just finish it up and close it. Let me finish it up. And you'll be fine. Like, wow, okay. Yeah, I mean, and they were, they did great. 

 

Donna Jennings  

That was kind of relatively early in the day. And that was you, you could not get away from that odor in that building. For the rest of that day. Oh, so anyway, I'm glad to be able to relieve them of that. But yeah, somebody processing. Yes, that smells. There has to be somebody up front here who is actually collecting it. And it can be some stuff and sometimes they shoot at you sometimes. So I've had, I've had things land in my hair. And you're standing there providing care. And all you can do is just keep going. Just keep going. And think, oh, maybe a shield will do next time. But you know, it's gonna land. Oh, yeah.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

We're in the coaching space now where we don't necessarily have to deal with samples or collection or oh oh ew. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

So I still deal with collection, but not personally. I just design, I just helped design some products. Yeah, I am not gonna top that I have a very similar story. And because one of my first in graduate school, one of my first projects like big independent projects was on a newborn jaundice where we were trying to isolate the molecule that can help newborn babies with jaundice to process the bilirubin in their bodies. So they kind of are cured. So we would get a lot of diapers with proof of healthy babies. Okay. Extracts said molecules blah, blah, blah. So I did that if I have to open another diaper. There's a lot of things. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

And it's similar to don't some projects that I've done in the past are on sepsis, right? So yeah, I'm just gonna leave it at that in like, the department settings and stuff like that. So yes, I would say our bodies are a wonderland and when they get sick, they produce very special things. And we should be grateful that our TVs, in all the horror movies we love to watch, have no smell-e-vision. Because smell-e-vision, because for those who actually are in the trenches, and my heart goes to frontline health care workers and all of the people on in those service areas that do this day in and day out because hats hats off for y'all and Big Love for you. Thank you. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Yes. Oh, I have one final story just for full circle. Remember we started with Pet Cemetery, right? I talked about Yeah, hitting that platter. Okay, so going back to when I worked at that laboratory. It’s  graveyard because that's how I could go to school during the day. They also had a necropsy department, which is basically autopsies for animals. So in order to get a lot of my testing supplies, they were in a special refrigerator in this storage area.

 

Gretchen Hernandez

I'd have to leave my lab to go to the central storage area, and there was a walk-in refrigerator back there. And so I go in and why they felt they couldn't have the lights on in this storage room at night. I didn't know it's like they'd have the lights on. It's like, okay, I know, it's two or three o'clock in the morning, but really can't I have a little bit of light I'd walk through so it's already creepy as all get out because it's just dark. And it's like nobody else is in there. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

But I go back into this walk in fridge, I walk in, I'm trying to get this stuff. And all of a sudden, I just felt this presence and I was like, what? And I looked down, there was a dog sitting up, it was dead wrapped in black plastic, but it was right there. And it was like a Doberman or like something else kind of big. Because I could see it on the tag saying what it was. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

And I was just like, ah, Pet Cemetery, Pet Cemetery, Pet Cemetery. It's gonna come back alive. It's gonna eat Oh my god. I did not want to go in that walk-in freezer anymore. There were always dead birds, cats, but that huge dog. It was just, too.

 

Donna Jennings  

The live ones are much cuter.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Oh, yes. They are much cuter. Much, much cuter. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Oh, ladies, this has been so much fun, a special Halloween episode with you. I want to make sure that everybody gets to find out how they can follow you. 

 

CONNECT WITH DONNA, MOLLIE, & DONNA

 

Gretchen Hernandez

So Donna, how can people follow you find out what you do work with you all the good stuff.

 

Donna Jennings  

So well. Thank you so much. And thank you for having me. This has been a real treat to get to hang out with you ladies. Well, they can find me at donnajenningscoaching.com, very simple there. And I'm also on Facebook is Donna Denton Jennings and Instagram @donnajenningscoaching. 

 

Donna Jennings

And I have a twelve week program to walk women through moving from self sabotage to I would call it being outrageously courageous. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

I love it 

 

Donna Jennings

And creating a life of their dreams. And that may seem like it's like what? It's amazing how wonderful it is to see the transformation that happens when they get to stand it because the world is better when you're you and I help women show up as them genuinely then. Thank you Gretchen.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

Oh, good. Like that warms my chest just hearing all that. Oh, thank you, Donna. 

 

Mollie Isaacs  

Mollie, how can people work with you? How can they find out all about you?

 

Mollie Isaacs  

So I am on LinkedIn, probably the easiest way to find me. It's just Mollie Isaacs. You search my name there I am. And I'm also in the process of building out something special for people. So it'll be a little bit of a community. I haven't, I haven't, it's not live yet. So it's still there the community is for people who have been through burnout and are back at work and they're trying to survive and they want to thrive. And how do they get from that surviving? It's thriving.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

I love that.

 

Mollie Isaacs  

That's what we do in the communities. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

So good. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez

And Martina, you've got something special coming up really soon that has more to the holiday flair. Can you tell us all about it.

 

Martina Doleshal  

So I have, people can can find me on different places depending what they're looking for. But instead of giving all of the websites and all that I'm going to talk about the holiday special. And as Gretchen mentioned, I love some fun. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

So I am creating and it's going to be going live on November sixth to November tenth. And it's a challenge for all super women who just thought about the Thanksgiving to New Year, business and family marathon makes them feel less HoHoHo and more. Oh, no, no, no no. 

 

Martina Doleshal  

And we are going to be jamming on untangling your to-do list that is longer than a tepee wrap around the North Pole is a whole bunch of themed content and fun. And the challenge is called Overwhelmed to Zen. And the website for that is overwhelmedtozen.com.

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

And I hear that you're going to be showing up in some reindeer antlers.

 

Martina Doleshal  

I can confirm or deny that. Yes, it is free, it is to be light, it is to be fun. It is to take the overwhelm out of holiday especially if you're busy in your career and or your business. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez  

So, so good, so good. So I'm going to include everybody's links on the website so that you have full access to be able to contact Donna, Martina, or Mollie. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

Alright ladies, thank you so much, Donna. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

Thank you, Martina. 

 

Gretchen Hernandez 

Thank you, Mollie. Thank you. This has been fabulous.

 

Donna Jennings  

Yes, it has. Thank you so much.

 

Martina Doleshal  

It was amazing.

 

Mollie Isaacs  

Thank you so much Gretchen.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for listening to My Freedom Grove Podcast. When you are ready to make your dream business a reality and take care of your mental health, I invite you to join the Unshakable Business Co-Lab. This is the mastermind membership you've been waiting for. There's no limits on your imagination, nor your timeline. We're with you every step of the way. To learn more, please visit www.myfreedomgrove.com/join. I'll see you there!