S4 E95 | CXR Uncorked: John Gotham & Cabernet Navarro

Gerry Crispin, CXR 
John, how the hell are you?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 0:02
Hello, gentlemen. You guys doing all right,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:05
You know, it’s it’s wine all day. It’s fine.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 0:08
Exactly.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:09
I’m doing better now.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 0:10
So that’s my first sip as I popped it open

Gerry Crispin, CXR 0:13
The whole purpose of this so that I can continue to learn.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 0:16
Exactly.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:17
Let’s do this.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 0:18
Cheers.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:19
Alright, cheers

Gerry Crispin, CXR 0:19
Cheers to you.

Announcer 0:21
Welcome to CareerXroads Uncorked a series of member chats inspired by good drinks and current talent acquisition trends your hosts Chris Hoyt and Gerry Crispin break down today’s recruiting headlines while reviewing a select beverage of choice with industry leaders and influencers. Join us for a drink in conversation.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:42
Welcome, everybody to another episode of CareerXroads Uncorked, Already started a little bit. But we are excited to have John Gotham join us. And John we’ll give you a second to chime in here real quick and tell us who you are and what you do. But let’s talk first about the most important thing of the call, what wine did you pick for us, for Gerry and I to drink with you today?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 1:05
So yeah, it was a like I mentioned it was Wall Street Journal. Specifically. It’s a Cabernet Navarro. It came directly from a case that my wife had gotten from there at the advice from my father-in-law, so it’s a 4.1 2019. So yeah.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 1:26
Very cool.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 1:28
All right. And so now secondly, who are you John? What do you do?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 1:33
John Gotham. I work at Kimberly Clark. I’ve been here just over 10 years. And then Gery and Chris, my duration here at Kimberly Clark. It’s been a blast being a part of CareerXroads, but my role responsibilities oversee our talent acquisition, which is encompassing our North American delivery recruiting, our executive recruiting and then our global COE.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 1:52
So yeah, it’s a lot of fun. And so are you going to be singing any Spanish opera? That’s I think that’s the question.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 2:01
We need Franz Mayhew. Hopefully he’s watching this, do you remember when he got up? That was hilarious. Not today, that’s a Franz Mayhew is the one that’s gonna, actually…

Chris Hoyt, CXR 2:10
That is one of my top five colloquium meeting. Memories of all time were in was in Barcelona?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 2:19
It was in Madrid,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 2:20
Madrid

Chris Hoyt, CXR 2:21
We were in Madrid. We’re in this crazy restaurant that it took us forever to find great at the big hidden door, and we weren’t sure if it was even open when we got there. And the door creaks open, you know, big door opens up, and they let us in, and it’s this gorgeous restaurant. And halfway through the meal, I guess, these singers showed up.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 2:43
Well, opera singers. Yes. I mean, serious singers

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 2:49
Franz knew was going down or something. Because he got up there and started, remember that he got up there and started, like waving his napkin and

Chris Hoyt, CXR 2:56
Yeah, he was belting it out.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 2:58
That was a trip that too bad we should have just had Franz coming to all special appearance just to give us the give us the rundown again on opera.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 3:04
You think you think he would have belt it out with us into the four of us on the call? Oh, I feel bad.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 3:08
Hands down without a doubt. Without a doubt. So yeah, that was a lot of fun. That was a blast. That was when we hosted the event in Madrid. So

Chris Hoyt, CXR 3:18
Yeah, that guy’s, wonderful host. We were just Gerry and I were just talking. Well, last week, like we’re trying to plan next year. And where where do we go internationally? We’re like, you know, maybe we could get John back out to Spain. Maybe that would be good.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 3:33
Got to look that up on the calendar. That’d be a lot of fun.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 3:36
We’re bucking but maybe bucking for Asia. Asia might be a good one. We haven’t done that.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 3:41
That would be a lot of fun to do. It’s exciting to hear like yeah, yeah, travel, we’re gonna actually do that.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 3:48
Oh, my gosh,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 3:49
I can’t even imagine I will tell you, John. I the first trip I’ve made in 14 months was last week to go out and see Chris out in Carmel. And I had forgotten how to pack. So you know, I it was like, Where’s my stuff? Oh, it’s not organized the way I normally would have it so I can pack in five minutes. It took like an hour to figure out you know, packing for three frickin days. Where’s that pouch that I put my you know, stuff in and you know, all that kind of stuff. I had to read find everything.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 4:30
Well, but you know, power travelers like Gerry, if you’ve ever seen those spy movies and they have go bags.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 4:35
Yeah.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 4:36
If everything goes wrong, they punch through a wall. They pull it bag out and it’s got everything they need for a week.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 4:42
We all have that though. We all have that. We would go into conferences, we’re doing whatever. Every few weeks were on the road, you know? So when you go from 100,000 miles plus to zero for a year? No, it’s it’s getting back up on that bike. It’s getting a little bit of a, you know, trepidation, but I’m looking forward to it, John. I am good. a good place we can all go.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 5:10
I hadn’t done to a science John and Gerry, I had it down to a science where I could literally come home. Take the dirty clothes and drop them at the dry cleaners. Get to get to the home, pull three or four, you know, combos out, shove them back in the bag and leave in the morning. leave out the next morning and use my dopp kit in my my own bathroom like I would have on the road in the hotel for a full year just doing that.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 5:38
Oh my gosh, that’s crazy. Yeah, it’s been nice. staying at home a little bit too. I’m ready to get back out. Yeah, I’m just kind of slowing down the pace a little bit. It’s been nice. If you’ve grabbed the you grab the Airstream, Airstream during that right?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 5:53
I yes, I have actually had a smaller Airstream but I upgraded when the pandemic hit to a much bigger one. You know thinking oh my god, I may have to live in something for a while rather than this little sports thing. So yes, I now have a really nice Airstream that is just waiting for an opportunity to take a long trip south, you know, or across country or something else. And then ever my fantasy is in every city stopping and having a dinner maybe with a different sponsor

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 6:35
That is awesome.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 6:37
We’ve already had offers for this every time I tell somebody this fantasy. The vendor goes, Oh, I’ll do that city and that city and that’s it. I’m going right yeah, I

Chris Hoyt, CXR 6:47
can I can do it as long as you just paid for food. Maybe we should crowdsource your your your US tour Gerry and people vote up what city they want to see you in.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 6:57
I know that Madeline wants Boston and you know, a couple of the others I will tell you so the cool thing, and then I’ll give a shout out for for a while. I I just paid some money to belong to something called harvest host. Okay, the name of it. And essentially what it is is three, it may have 3000 volunteers across the United States to put you up here your you know, so you drive in with a rig, and they’ll put you up for one night, you have to let them know in advance and you have to show up during their on their hours so that you can you can say hi to them. The volunteers in some cases are people with room in their driveway. But in other I will talk 3000 but but 400 of them are golf courses. And many of the golf courses don’t require that you actually play on the golf course. But you could. There are about 500 breweries where you can you can park overnight in your in your Airstream and of course, it’s recommended that you go in you say hi, you you purchase something as a way of Thank you. And you don’t make a lot of noise and you don’t you know, mess up. The requirements are you have to have a toilet in your, in your thing that’s that goes into you know, that stays in there. And then you have to have a kitchen where you can cook your own stuff if you need to.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 9:00
Gerry I’m just curious. That sounds fascinating. But if if it’s a home with a driveway, what exactly do you have to go inside and buy?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 9:09
I have no idea. There’s there’s not that many of them. Most of these are attractions, golf courses, breweries, farms, and farms. A lot of

Chris Hoyt, CXR 9:23
We’re gonna need a tracker, we’re gonna need to put a tracker on you.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 9:28
But I love the idea because you’re not you’re not forced to go to a campground that may be full and maybe creating some other kinds of issues for you. But you have to be self contained. So obviously it makes sense to bring along a generator that you can plug in and all that kind of stuff.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 9:47
You know it’s interesting my in-laws. My father in law retired right before the pandemic and we plan on traveling all over the place. So we talked to me to get an RV so they end up getting an RV and then a month later, they upgrade Add it to a bigger RV. So one other trick that they taught us was vineyards do it too. Have you heard that? Well first of all Walmart’s if you ever get stranded and you can’t find your campsite, you can stay in a Walmart vineyard. Suppose most vineyards do that, too. I don’t know if you’ve heard that.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 10:13
I’m sorry. vineyards are one of the filters. I wanted. I didn’t say that. Did I said breweries? So there are breweries, there are farms, there are vineyards. And, and so my, cousin’s camp out is in Cape May. And I’ve already checked and I’m going to go down a day early, and stay at a vineyard about five miles from where the campground is that that I’ll be for the rest of the week.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 10:42
Very cool.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 10:43
That is awesome.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 10:44
It is, I find this absolutely fascinating.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 10:47
So Gerry, you pay for this service?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 10:51
I think it was 70 bucks for a year. And to be able to use their tools. So they have an app. And the app allows you to search a whole bunch of different ways, but one of the ways that you can search is to put in where you’re driving from and where you’re going to. And then along the way you can you can filter within 10 miles of this route. What are the breweries, vineyards, whatever, and where are they and you get a map showing exactly where they are when you click on any one of them. It gives you information about the name, the name of the person that you should contact you know that whole thing so you have literally everything in front of you to set up your route and never have to spend a dime at a campground but you know you’re gonna bond you’re gonna have dinner anyways, so why not stop at a grill?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 11:55
Or outstanding? Or vineyard or brewery?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 11:58
Right.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 12:00
I have a I have an elevated interest since the pandemic of those big Mercedes vans

Gerry Crispin, CXR 12:07
Oh yeah. So Airstream has has four variations on that built on a Mercedes van

Chris Hoyt, CXR 12:16
Yeah, and I don’t want that I want the wet you know the wet shower I guess that’s what it’s called. So you got that in there but but my thought like what I want to price those out for the pandemic knows just through the roof but the markets crazy because of what oh, it’s ridiculous but I have a theory that when everything opens back up we’re gonna see a lot of used vans hit the market and that and maybe I’ll pick one up then

Gerry Crispin, CXR 12:40
No, I will tell you no, you want it if you wanted to buy an Airstream today you would wait a year

Chris Hoyt, CXR 12:48
No I’m not talking about getting an Airstream I’m talking about one of those big doesn’t have to be Mercedes but those big tour vans, the big one.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 12:55
Oh, the big tour vans. Oh, those are

Chris Hoyt, CXR 12:57
You know what I’m talking about? John, knows what’s out there not a billion dollars Gerry. They’re like 70 grand.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 13:04
They’re 100 it’s not a big that’s not a big tour van. That’s not a word van. that’s a that’s a local Winnebago that’s, you know, two years old and yes, they’re, they’re 20 grand. 50 grand.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 13:17
No, no, not the same. It’s not as booshy as a Airstream. But but it’s not as bad as like your uncle’s van. It says free t shirts on it. It’s not this is not the same thing.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 13:30
Are you sure? Are you sure?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 13:32
Yes. I’ll have to look it up. But but the the my prediction is that we’re going to see a lot of those things go back on the market. And there’ll be an opening for like used stuff where people were suddenly living there is

Gerry Crispin, CXR 13:46
There really is a big market for all those but but they also you know, depending upon the who it is in the brand. After a couple years they start needing a lot of maintenance and Joshua Tree quickly.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 14:01
John, have you seen that movie? that just came out? No, no, ma’am. Nomadland.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 14:07
I am looking forward to it.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 14:09
I’ll write it down would tell me more about it.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 14:13
So it is it seems to be part documentary, part film because there are awful lot of people in there. I can’t believe we’re actors. I think they’re actual people that were that were found discovered during the film.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 14:26
I think the key actors the key players, yes. Are people who’ve won Oscars and

Chris Hoyt, CXR 14:32
Oh, yeah, yeah, there’s four or five people in there, you’ll recognize but then there’s just a shitload of people that that I mean, I just I think they’re a little bit more than extras. I think they’re actually people that are living this lifestyle. But this woman who is widowed, it suddenly becomes this Nomad. She lives a nomad nomadic lifestyle. She’s, it’s implied she lost her home. And she was a substitute teacher and she’s done all these kind of jobs and Then when her husband passes away from this, this small town that they were in the town basically shuts down, right? It loses its zip code and under a year, like it just it just implodes. And so suddenly, suddenly she’s without a home, not homeless, but without a home. And so she begins this nomadic journey in her van and and finds these communities out on the road, with that literally travel from region to region or area to area. And apparently, and I have to validate this, this was the impression I got Amazon has some sort of workforce. These these, yeah right.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 15:37
They do I can, I can validate that.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 15:41
It’s really fascinating. I don’t want to spoil anything, they do a really good job. But it’s, you would think it’s going to be too slow to watch, but you’re just so engaged in how she’s living and the challenges that she’s got and the people that she meets. And Gerry I don’t know if it’s because we’re burners that we love it. But there’s a really and they actually make a reference of, you know, pack in, pack out, right, we’ve Leave No Trace behind type of thing. And it’s, it’s highly recommended. It’s really facinating.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 16:11
There are hundreds of 1000s of people who who have no home and are living for in RVs in a variety of different ways. all over the country. I’m finding I found that fascinating. There are 50,000 Airstreams in which people are 100% living in the Airstream.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 16:33
Yeah, none of these people. Yeah. these are these are Scooby Doo vans. These are, you know, modified cars.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 16:40
Add all those other things into that.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 16:43
So, John, you have to be a nomad.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 16:46
I will

Chris Hoyt, CXR 16:47
And what vehicle do you pick as your nomadic…

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 16:52
Oh, yeah,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 16:53
palace?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 16:55
I’m gonna do it. You know. So a couple years ago, we took it’s already as part of my retirement plan.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 17:00
Really?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 17:01
Oh, hands down. Um, a couple years ago, more than a couple was probably five years ago. We went to we flew into Vegas, drove the RV down Vegas trip and then went to the Grand er that went to death valley with the Joshua Tree, and then we ended up kids. So then we stopped a bunch of places along the way. We fell in love with it. It was so much fun. So then we did it again. We did the whole state of Florida. Since I live in Atlanta, we went down down one side of Florida, stayed in the key state a couple spots stayed in the keys for a couple days to work the way back up the other side. And we absolutely love it. So my retirement plan is to get an RV of a large size. Depending on you know where we are in our life if we had grandkids or not. We’ll have it big enough so that family members could come see us where we are. But the ultimate goals when we were in, I can’t remember who we were I think we’re Death Valley bumped into a guy that had his goal was to hit all the national parks in one year. And I don’t know if I’m going to do it in one year. But the goal is the take of whatever make maybe one year and knock out a bunch of them and then another part of the year knock out the launch. But then I want to add baseball diamonds are just baseball stadiums. And I love sec football so I want to add that to it. So yeah, I will be a nomad.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 18:17
So truly get rid of the house.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 18:19
Oh, I will probably keep that keep a house or downgrade to an apartment or something of that nature. At least to keep her belongings in to come back for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Or maybe it’s just gonna be like, Hey, we’re gonna be in such and such if anybody wants to join us come fly to see us.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 18:33
There’s a guy new so when I joined the military, he’s a little he’s a family friend. So he was in the military. So he’s older than me generation older. He the last half of his life he retired from the military, sold everything. Absolutely everything and he and his partner, she and him bought an RV. And I think they they have a truck that they tow with them and that’s it. And they travel all over the United States and I guess their goal is to do that as long as they can like health willing and then they’ll find a retirement place to you know retirement community to get into but they just they just pull up park outside and spend the night you don’t have room inside they sleep out on the curb like not on the curb but you know in the RV and I find that fascinating.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 19:20
It I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it right now. It sounds so exciting because I love to travel but i i don’t know if my wife and I will get too claustrophobic you know like you want to get a really big one or end up getting two of them like hey.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 19:35
You know that that you and your, your spouse, your significant other your whatever is equally involved. Yeah. My wife is not interested in doing this thing on a regular basis. But, but I will tell you that I I would do this. I would do this in a minute. I would sell both my homes, I would sell everything I would be done. And, and I have cousins literally everywhere. So you know I can find people that I know or friends or whatever to go hang out with, you know, all literally all over the United States. So why not?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 20:21
I think I can do it. Now I don’t know that I can do it for the rest of my days.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 20:26
I think for a period of time, it’s like everything, you’re not going to be in the same job. I mean, we’ve all had different jobs, etc. The reality is to have to be kind of footloose. and fancy free for a year. Yeah, it’s a year I think is a bit of a fantasy that, you know, be kind of fun if it goes a little longer, a little shorter, whatever. But you know, I think that’s what’s you know, cool about all those folks. They show up in different places. They make friends there. So the fact is there, you go to these places, and there are the people just like you there so you know, it’s fun to share, share some of what you’re cooking or some of the conversation. So it’s an easy community to engage in and Airstream being such a weird icon has something like 60 or 70 places around the United States that are exclusively Airstream you can’t go in unless you have an Airstream

Chris Hoyt, CXR 21:34
I don’t know if I want to be part of that community Gerry.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 21:36
They’re they’re a little bit you know, they’re I don’t I have not gone to any of those places. But obviously they can afford an Airstream. That’s number one. There are some sketchy places out there. So there’s a little bit of that, but I don’t know, kind of fun.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 21:54
John were you in like a 30 footer or a 25.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 21:58
Usually it was I think it was a 20 footer if I if I can recall top my head, both of them in. One is um, what was a bit like a VRbo for RVs that we rented ours from I can’t remember the name of it. But then there was Cruise America was the one which is like a franchise large one that if you drive down the road, you’ll end up seeing them now. Next time you’re driving like wow cruise when they normally have a national park on the side of it with Cruise America. That’s kind of their brand. But it’s so much fun. It is awesome.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 22:26
Chris and I did an RV together. of our Burning Man.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 22:33
Yeah, both times. Yes.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 22:35
You know, I heard yesterday on the radio, I was thinking about both you guys with us connecting today on the radio they were talking about if they’re going to do it or not Bernie man, and I think that we’re talking it’s a flip of the coin if they do it or not.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 22:46
Yeah, I I think they’re close to deciding that they’re going to do it in some but I think there’s gonna be some restrictions. We’re not going this year. But next year, I will 75 in August of next year. And I think it’s the appropriate timing. It’s how I want to celebrate my 75th would be going to Burning Man.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 23:09
There’s an interesting, there’s an interesting discussion and some in some burner circles about if they do it this year, they’re going to require validation that you’ve had a vaccine. Well, vaccines aren’t required for people under like minors under the age. So this there is some discussion that this could if they do it, and I wouldn’t go this year, even if they did, but if they do it, this could be the first childless burn.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 23:36
Really

Chris Hoyt, CXR 23:37
Because there are kids at the burn. But if they can’t validate you’ve been vaccine player excuse me vaccinated? They won’t let you in.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 23:45
Oh, interesting.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 23:46
Yeah,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 23:48
That we think they might, they might make exceptions for but there’s, there’s only a small percentage under 10 and a small percentage over, I don’t know 65, something like that. So it’s, it’s like 5% of the burners are under 10 5% are over 65

Chris Hoyt, CXR 24:09
Well, 100% of child burners are way better than regular children, just sayin.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 24:19
You know, that was the last time I saw both you all was in Napa. When we Brad was in the conversation the four of us were talking.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 24:25
Oh yeah,

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 24:26
I guess he was the leader of the pack. Yeah, it was like I’m coming next time you guys do this. It just sounds like so much fun.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 24:32
You should think about it. It has it has a certain appeal. I will tell you that the the conversations I’ve had at Burning Man have been extraordinary. I mean, really extraordinary.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 24:47
They’ve changed how we do business.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 24:49
Many other things that are going on. But there is a there’s kind of a freedom to being in a place where there’s you need a satellite phone to get the hell I have a conversation outside of this area. So, and we did Chris and I had a satellite phone so that I could be able to call my wife at least once a day and say, Hi, I still love you. And I’m still here and not. I’m not crazy.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 25:17
I didn’t see anything at the burn that put our marriage in jeopardy.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 25:21
Exactly. So, you know, it’s it’s that kind of thing, but, but it is an experience that I think is certainly, once people should give us something unusual like that a shot.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 25:38
If they’ve got the grit. John, would your wife come with you?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 25:42
Oh, yeah.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 25:43
Yeah, that’s a great

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 25:44
Oh, yeah.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 25:44
We only met your wife in the elevator.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 25:46
Yeah. Um, no, we had dinner. Did it? Was it you? Um, she came to Madrid, didn’t she?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 25:53
Yeah, she but she was coming in.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 25:55
You’re right.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 25:55
I think we’re all going out quite literally at the hotel, I think and I met in the lobby and the we share the elevator ride.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 26:03
That is right. Yeah. Oh, yeah. She’s…

Gerry Crispin, CXR 26:05
Then then I think you really should seriously think about that.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 26:09
Yeah. Well, why she’s she’s actually introduced me more to this. She’s I call her Delta daughter. Her dad retired from Delta after 30 years. And so they used to get up and go, and she lived near the airport. They go up to DC in New York for the day and they fly back down that night. And so she loves traveling. And that’s one of the things that I just learned from her. I’m like, Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s make this happen. So yeah, well, sensibly no brainer.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 26:34
I’m sure Brad would be happy to have the two of you. You know, it’s a matter of getting an RV and at the right timing, which which is real…

Chris Hoyt, CXR 26:44
Or a yurt you can get a yurt

Gerry Crispin, CXR 26:48
You don’t want to get a yurt, you want an RV that has some air conditioning and a generator. That’s

Chris Hoyt, CXR 26:53
Yours have a swamp cooler, Gerry, you could get a swamp cooler.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 26:57
I like the air conditioner mark that check that on my list.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 27:00
I think we only used it probably three. We were there. 10 days, the first time we were there seven and a half the second time. I think we only use the AC like maybe three times four times each.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 27:11
Oh, it didn’t get that hotter. Okay, well, you’re

Chris Hoyt, CXR 27:14
To be honest, you’re kind of most of the day you’re mostly asleep.

Yeah. During the heat of the day,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 27:19
The day you’re under, you’re under, in the shade, if you will, there’s wind going through. And so for the most part, it’s not so bad. I will tell you that for me. probably maybe once every day or once every other day. I needed in the middle of the heat. If there was a lot of heat, I would go in and turn on the air conditioning for an hour or two at night. However, it’s freezing. You need a heavy coat.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 27:49
Yeah, at night you need a fur coat

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 27:53
Get out of here.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 27:53
Wow, no. So by you know, 10 o’clock in the morning, you’ve got till 10 o’clock in the morning before the heat starts becoming evident. And as soon as the you know, the sun goes down, it’s all over. You’re, you know, you’re freezing your ass off unless you’re you’re properly dressed. So, you know, the biggest problems are the, the, the alkalinity of the, of the desert itself, which can give you all kinds of problems and the wind. I mean, you know, you could you could get into a blinding windstorm where you don’t know where you are, you’re totally dislocated. So

Chris Hoyt, CXR 28:35
You just have to sit still for that. That just happens.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 28:38
That just happens. And so and so people are prepared for any of these weird things. And so you have you have these, these pouches of water that you’re carrying, where you can suck water at any point in time, put on a bandana and hunker down for literally hours if you need be.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 29:00
Wow.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 29:02
It’s not. And I had been in a couple different situations where at least for a few minutes, I had to stop whatever I was doing and put on a total bandana to prevent you know, all of this when it’s a wind, it looks like a windstorm you can’t see in front of you.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 29:22
Are there a lot of bands is that when they have bands set up or in art, it’s arts and bands, if I’m correct in the evening,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 29:29
In the evening, it goes crazy and there is a lot more activity around that. So Chris can talk to that issue a little bit more than I can. I went to I went to wine camps at night. And so I would bring a bottle to tell the head of the wind camp here I’m making a contribution and then they would they would give me a night of being able to drink wine

Chris Hoyt, CXR 30:01
So it’s a city of 80,000 people that typically a lot of the camps and areas have themes. And so there is an area for like New Orleans, there’s kind of a New Orleans vibe in a particular part of the grounds right in. So you might go through there. And then there’s another place that sort of there’s a couple of camps that have one of our favorites. Was it a bow? Oh, gosh. Bow Chicka Wow, wow. That’s what it was, where you can go in and it’s like they would they have their DJs in this giant tent, and you go in, and there’s a line that you’re waiting to get bout. Right. So I mean, there’s just any kind of food, you could think of anything, I wouldn’t say bands more than like DJs and, you know, artists, but the art phenomenal. My favorite, you know,

The art is unbelievable. So you see, what you see being behind me, is literally 70 to 80,000 people. That’s it in these in these spots, and we were in B or C. So you see up in the upper left hand corner, there’s a it looks like some roads going between different different sections. We were in the third section, C, two or three rows in, you know, kind of thing. So, so we’re up here. I mean, we’re up there in in, we’re up there, and it’s unbelievable. All of this middle area is is 100 different art installations, some of which probably took hundreds of 1000s of dollars in cost, as well as labor.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 31:51
Wow.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 31:52
Easily

Gerry Crispin, CXR 31:52
And, and and now are in various museums, including the Smithsonian. Yeah, that’s

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 32:01
sitting with behind you right now. I just thought it’d be like, you know, Bonnaroo or like, What’s that, you know, all over the place

Gerry Crispin, CXR 32:07
Not Bonnaroo, this is an organizational structure. So you see this, it’s a city with streets, and alleyways and a whole bunch of other kinds of things. But they have 200 300 doctors volunteering 24, seven to run hospitals to run hospitals and little stations, they have firefighters, they have

Chris Hoyt, CXR 32:36
John, there was a there was a bike camp. The chain got thrown off my bike, and I was able to walk in about a mile to a camp and their gift to the playa was that they were repairing bikes. So they put me in a chair, they gave me a beer. My bike went in and they fixed it was fantastic. Came out big hug. I rode away on my bike. We boot repair shoe repairs for like, everybody brings something right.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 33:06
We locked ourselves out of the RV. And and within an hour.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 33:13
“We”

Gerry Crispin, CXR 33:18
Somebody you know, somebody came in open the door. There was a woman in our in our group who had was appendicitis she had,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 33:29
Yeah, emergency appendicitis.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 33:33
She she had a pain that was you know, torturous in her belly. She went to the local whatever they sent her to the the expanded group. They they basically said, you know, her appendix burst. And they flew her to to wherever the nearest town. What was it? Where do we come from?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 34:00
Reno

Gerry Crispin, CXR 34:00
I think they do. So he flew her to Reno. She had her appendix taken out. She came back on Friday.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 34:07
No,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 34:08
Yeah. She didn’t stay long. But she did come. But she literally figured out how to get back. And it’s it’s like unbelievable.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 34:19
That’s a rock star.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 34:21
Its totally..

Chris Hoyt, CXR 34:23
I mean, John you got to have the conversation with your wife Is she okay, maybe not washing her hair for a week.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 34:28
Oh, yeah, we go. We love camping. That’s why when you go RV and it’s like glamping you got you. It’s phenomenal. And we love Oh,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 34:38
Two different things. But if she can camp she can probably do this.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 34:41
So John, I’m serious. You should. We would certainly let Brad know that you might be a you know a candidate but the fact is, you know we get there early. We try to get there early so that we can help set up the camp. The camp is unlike anything you’ve seen. seen camping in that they literally embed stakes into the ground in a significant portion and and build poles with a shade above your tent.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 35:20
Gerry says they it’s we said Gerry builds it I build a brand like the whole camp builds it. Nobody does it. Nobody does anything for you

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 35:28
All of it together. That’s super well, we might have it. So I have a elementary school child. So either we might have to wait for your 80th birthday. Or maybe we could sneak out so people will be there.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 35:40
How old will your your son daughter be next year?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 35:46
She’s not she’ll she’ll be nine. So,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 35:48
You know, John, we, we saw a mother son team. They’re playing naked Jenga together? I think he was no more than 11 So, it really just depends.

I will tell you that most kids 10 and under are have a ball in all of this because it’s it’s not engaged. The only I would not. I would not bring someone who is post puberty teenager. Because it just they I think that would confuse the shit out of them.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 36:22
You talking about all the boobs? Gerry, you’re talking about the boobs?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 36:26
Boobs, whatever it but the because there there’s an awful lot of stuff going on in their own bodies. So

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 36:33
Of course, yeah,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 36:34
But but young, young kids 9-10? I don’t know. I think I think this is this is like, Oh, my God, this is a wonderful place. It’s it’s fascinating, and people are so engaged. And we saw we I mean, we really did see an awful lot of kids 10 and under about 5% of the population is temporary as they are and it’s a great learning experience. There are special events for young kids. There are you know, and really there’s a number of camps that, that that appear to, to support interesting ideas for innovation for children. So I think from an innovation point of view, I really would say, you know, you should consider taking your kid before they’re into the real serious teenage years.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 37:34
Yep.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 37:35
Or, you know, or after. Obviously,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 37:39
John, I’ll tell you it, so, and I think you fit the mold, but they’re the demo. But like for a humble leader, in probably almost any industry, I would say you get a couple things from the burn. And one might be a suppression of the ego is if you’re all in, and you’re abiding by the spirit of everything that’s supposed to happen at Burning Man and the people. And everything it symbolizes there, there is a suppression of ego, that that stays suppressed for a period of time after at least for me afterward. But then there is also a level of innovation that Gerry was talking about that that stems from a lot of the fascinating conversations like some of the people that you’re standing next to and talking to for four or five hours, until you understand what they actually do for a living or until you figure out who they are. It would blow your mind. Or humble this shit out of you. Yeah. Because you’ve just been sitting around it like it’s a level set. There are no cliques. There are no any of this. So

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 38:42
I remember you talking about that. It’s almost everybody, you leave it at the door you come in, and it’s

Chris Hoyt, CXR 38:48
I think it’s development. Yeah, for humans, as well. As for you, I would tell any leader who can check their ego at the door. It’s a really great experience. You come in with a big, flat, we talk about going in an RV, but these were kind of clunkers that we went in, but if you go in with these big, flashy RVs, and you’re kind of doing the glamping thing, I think you’re gonna miss it. You’re gonna miss the whole spirit of Yeah, and there are those camps you do see those were, you know, nine, Jet Black RVs that are you know, 50 some odd feet 10 and windows are in a circle that nobody can get into and there’s somebody guard and like, there’s some of that, but you know, fuck those guys. The

Gerry Crispin, CXR 39:29
There’s not that there’s not that much of a we had partnered with a camp that had a bar. And we It was our favorite bar. What was the name of the bar? Chris?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 39:39
The petting zoo

Gerry Crispin, CXR 39:40
Petting zoo, yes. petting zoo. And there was this woman who was I she had to be six foot

Chris Hoyt, CXR 39:52
Red.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 39:53
Red. Yeah. And what a kick. I mean, she she was outrageous, but And she put in maybe 80 hours of the course of the week. bartending. Just giving us drinks. I mean, this is in free spirit. You know. And she’s she was the president of space camp,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 40:23
Well they train. Yeah, the idea. I think they were training people too

Gerry Crispin, CXR 40:28
She she was she was like, you know, a CEO of a company that did 10s of millions of dollars. Um, with hundreds of people working for her, not just a kick butt. She did this every year because she believes she learned more about what she needed to do as a leader.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 40:50
Interesting.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 40:51
By putting in 80 hours of volunteer work. is giving me a drink.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 40:58
Exactly, serving.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 40:59
No, I I just love that kind of shit. That’s not meet people like that. Often.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 41:08
I need a door to door volunteer like that, please.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 41:11
Yeah, no kidding. I love it. That is awesome.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 41:15
So that’s, that’s our that’s our pitch to you. Well give it give it some thought. Talk to your wife.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 41:22
So we’re skipping this year, they might do burn but.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 41:25
We are skipping this year. For this year.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 41:29
Yeah, that’s interesting. Okay, cool. I want to I it’s definitely on my bucket list. that’s a that’s a given. There’s so many things on the bucket list. And that’s one so yeah. Yeah. Cool.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 41:40
Yeah. So it’ll change your life.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 41:43
That’s excellent. So how far are you from Napa? Chris?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 41:48
Oh, gosh. Let’s see hour and a half, probably three hours, I guess. Roughly. I’m terrible at that. But I guess I’m about an hour and a half out of the Bay Area, San Jose. And from there maybe another hour and a half or two hours depending on traffic from the Sonoma Napa area.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 42:04
How’d you get here from when? before when you were a Texas?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 42:09
Well, so I was in Texas. Yeah. And I decided to come out to Silicon Valley for a little bit because I used to live out in the area loved it. There were some business stuff for us, Gerry and I that sort of explore out here. There was somebody out here I was kind of interested in sort of spending more time with so so just said fuck it, and came out here. everything going well and all fronts signed a lease did a short lease did long lease. The lease wrapped up this time the last lease and I was in I was in a high rise in downtown San Jose. Which which I loved.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 42:44
Yeah, remember that? Yeah.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 42:46
Yep. And then I was like, Well, I don’t want to sign a year lease. And so threw everything in storage, and picked the place down here, a little cottage by the beach in Carmel. And I’ve rented it for four months.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 43:04
Awesome.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 43:05
Yeah, I managed to talk that person into living with me. So we’re seeing how that goes. It seems to be going pretty well.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 43:10
Yeah, the last time I talked to you, dude, we it was virtual. And he said, Hey, check out my view. And I’m like, that’s pretty cool. That was.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 43:17
Yeah, that was San Jose. That was Donald San Jose. So So while I’ve been here. There’s an investment property that picked up in Austin. And so I will move from here. We will go to Austin, and maybe live in that for a little while and then maybe turn it into a rental or something like that. But that back in Texas, probably in about six weeks.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 43:39
Yeah. You were in Dallas Yeah. Right.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 43:41
Yeah, it wasn’t down. I was gonna ask you, it’s gonna pick your brain because I’m planning kind of a fun road trip. So over one week trip to get back. And I’m going to go through Palm Springs. Yeah, that’s my first stop for like four days, I get an Airbnb down there. So is there anything other than Joshua Tree I should check out?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 43:59
I loved? What’s it called? Joshua Tree. I love Death Valley. Have you because I think that will kind of be on the route. I would never expected it. It was spring break when we went and my wife because we want to hit as many national parks that we can. And during that it was during spring break. So if we went on a summer trip, it’d be way too hot. So if it’s go during the summer, I don’t recommend it. But it was absolutely gorgeous. So if you can work your way through Death Valley, it was it was definitely worth the trip. And then obviously, as you work your way, you’ll have to hit Vegas, you know, enjoy a little bit.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 44:34
I think the idea is, drive late evening, for maybe no more than four or five hours and then stay somewhere for a couple days work. You know, we were booking these little airbnbs along the way. And then if there’s anybody in those towns, we’re dialing them up and saying, hey, come, come see us. You know, we’d love to visit with you and catch up. We’re vaccinated like, Oh my gosh, let’s get some normalcy. You know, I missed some hugs. Let’s do that. All the way back. So yeah,

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 45:01
It is awesome. vaccinate, do both you guys get vaccinated?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 45:04
Yeah, I’m done.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 45:05
Yeah, I did too. And it’s just, it’s liberating. He’s like, wow, we can actually start to have fun again.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 45:11
Yeah, yeah, go to restaurants and, you know, start start doing stuff.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 45:16
Once you get your Fauci ouchy I think you start, you know, you start to be able to put the pieces back together. So it’s nice.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 45:24
Yeah. I got my second one a week ago today, so I’ve got one here. Yeah, but it’s still I mean, the first one gets whatever X percent so I felt really comfortable after the first So

Chris Hoyt, CXR 45:34
Which one did you which one did you get? I got baiser. How much you guys, I got Pfizer,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 45:41
And I’m Moderna.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 45:44
Madonna.

Did you have any side effects John?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 45:47
You know, the only side effect was the old man that pricked me. He was he I said, so Hey, where are you part of the fire department. So the fire department was given? And he goes, Nope, I’m volunteer. Oh, so it was kind of sore for 24 hours. That was really about it. The worst part was my wife at one of my kids sports events. Something happened in the event at the game and she goes on. She just didn’t headbutt me. She’s leaning against my shoulder. Because it’s a bad play. I’m like, Oh my gosh, don’t do that again. Yes. But that was really about it. She was worn out a little bit more than I was. We got it together. But other than that, it was knock on wood. It was pretty painless.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 46:23
It’s great. I had the funniest nurse, like that you have ever met. And it was done through a drive thru. So I’m driving the Jeep through, she comes up does a little dance. She’s got a world war two nurses hat on. And hanging from her from her ear lobes are these earrings she made out of the vials of the of the vaccine. So they’re just sort of dangling and she’s like, Oh, so she sticks my partner first. Right? And she’s like, why don’t I barely even felt that that was a wonderful. Great. And then she comes over to me and she goes, huh, is he a bleeder? He might be a bleeder get the big needle and then people are kind of like it was all theatrical. It’s done. Right my arm. And it was done.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 47:09
Yeah. The first one I didn’t feel at all cuz he just walked away. Which Hey, God bless him. The gentleman that did it. He was retired and he was just give it back to the community. So he was probably 80 years old, I would guess. So.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 47:25
Probably an art teacher. You have no history in anything. You just like to stab people. seventh grade art teacher. Yeah.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 47:36
Exactly. Yeah. I like your background. Now. Gerry. Yeah, that was

Chris Hoyt, CXR 47:42
Oh, so we saw John last at Gallo.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 47:43
That was the last time we saw each other. Yeah, that was a great, right. I learned a lot at that event of a lot of things from ta practices to the wine. So

Chris Hoyt, CXR 47:54
Yeah, that was fun.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 47:56
Yeah, I think that was unfortunate. I couldn’t stay for the was that Saturday. I had to leave on Friday. I couldn’t stay for Saturday. I had an event back in Atlanta for I can’t remember what it was. But it was something that I had to get back to. So

Chris Hoyt, CXR 48:09
Oh, it was great. It was really great. Are you you’re gonna be with us. It’s next week. I think you’re gonna be with us aren’t you for the leadership meeting next week? I sure am. Yeah. I’m excited about that little cocktail. And you get your cocktail box. I did. Yeah. It should be fun.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 48:25
See, when you got it did you know it was the cocktail box from CareerXroads?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 48:31
You know, I assumed I wasn’t for sure. But then like, I think I got back to my desk and looked at my computer and Barb had something that says you’re about to get this and this is what you’re setting aside. Don’t don’t know. Or don’t use.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 48:44
I suggested we needed to send a picture of that cocktail box and remind people that hey, if you got this, you’re good. You know, and registered because I forgot. Well,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 48:59
Here’s what I do. Here’s how I do you say it’s because people send Gerry shit all the time.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 49:04
I do I get a lot of stuff.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 49:06
I think it’s cocktail mixer. boxes. So when Jerry and I have a little one on one call, he’s like, is this box from us? Is this function was this little box? I’m like, that’s our box right there. I don’t know who those other two are. But that’s ours. You need to ever read it.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 49:20
Don’t open that one. Leave that one or don’t use it.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 49:22
Yeah, exactly. going on. No. Okay.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 49:29
It’s classic. I love it.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 49:31
Yeah, I’m looking forward to it be good.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 49:33
We, you know, you guys did a great job the last time too. I mean, we’re still it wasn’t the same. We weren’t able to all sit around and share as many best practices. But it’s it. I think it was so needed for us just to have a great conversation. And, you know, work through the stresses of them in the middle of the pandemic. So

Chris Hoyt, CXR 49:51
Well, to be fair, for some of us, that was a six hour call. Yeah,

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 49:58
It was oh, acquainted it that was the after so we were breakfast meetings and join breakfast and coffee, lunch sharing best practices. We continue to do that and then we worked our way into the night. Hey, my dog just came say hi um, work their way into the night and that was the around the campfire at the hotel, put her feet up and have the real conversation

Chris Hoyt, CXR 50:22
So we’re not going to name names we’re not going to say who was but somebody did end up in a unicorn outfit on the floor before the end of that and that’s the kind of meeting virtually I like to attend.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 50:33
Exactly, exactly. You’re right because it was everybody started grabbing different head you know? Yeah, yeah, I was one of them were in I can’t remember that wore but I were one of them. So it was fun. We had a good time here Lily this my dog Lily. She just came to say hi.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 50:48
Hi Lily

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 50:50
She’s my older dog so she’s the younger dogs probably beating up on her so she’s coming to probably get some love.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 50:57
Oh, that’s great.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 50:58
So you have two?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 50:59
We do both golden doodles one six months old and she’s about seven or eight now so

Chris Hoyt, CXR 51:06
They go with you on the road trip.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 51:08
Sometimes they travel with us so yeah, she she went she did she came to you the grandparents grabber. She did come with us to when we did the Florida one but not the not the one that we had to fly. So

Chris Hoyt, CXR 51:23
So John you have a you have lacrosse today.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 51:27
I do. Yeah.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 51:30
Are you play are picking up I need to know.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 51:33
I am watching my son My two sons play on the high school team. So one is a junior and the other is a freshman. So yeah, I will be a spectator so I’ll be enjoying the game even more. You know.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 51:46
I didn’t know if this was warm up. This is part of your warm up.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 51:50
Oh, without a doubt this is normally we go to just a local restaurant right prior and you know enjoy a cocktail party prior. So this will be my enjoy a couple cocktails prior so that’s awesome. Yeah, hopefully I won’t get off the refs too much kidding. I don’t do that.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 52:04
It’s fine, it’s fine.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 52:06
Yeah, it’s our last game of the year to before playoffs kick in so it’ll be fun. Yeah.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 52:11
Wow. And other kids go in the playoffs?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 52:13
Yeah, There go the playoffs. They won. Our team won that it’s a high school team. So they won the area. So we’ll be heading to the playoffs I guess next week. So

Chris Hoyt, CXR 52:22
I have to say like I enjoyed High School. Some of my kids were in school like going every Friday night and watching the game. Like it was a lot

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 52:32
It’s an absolute blast. It’s what I do on the weekends and during the week it’s what am I doing I’m either taken or bringing it or taken from a from a carpool or going in Washington so yeah, all my friends that have well both of you all you know my friends that have kids that are that have grown up and that there are young adults or or adults like just cherish the time because it goes too fast and yeah,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 52:54
I’m not mad it’s over but I do miss it.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 52:57
Yeah, yeah, exactly. That’s what I’ve continued to hear.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 53:01
You have the opportunity when you have grandchildren to do the same thing. My my grandchildren are really engaged in soccer so you know when I can I do make it to some of their soccer events. So you know, you got opportunity. It’ll be there.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 53:18
You just don’t have to do the the tedious tasks.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 53:23
No, carpool.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 53:25
Really cool grandpa. Give him a hug and say great job.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 53:30
John, can you see Gerry in an Odyssey minivan like pop people pile in any soccer girls jump in and you know they’re just sitting there singing Miley Cyrus songs and give me a great

Gerry Crispin, CXR 53:49
Shut up.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 53:52
You would be the cool grandfather. I’m sure you would be.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 53:55
I am I play cool grandfather’s.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 53:58
Your like Penny is this your house?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 54:05
Oh, yeah. Luckily, it’s one mile from door door. So you won’t be that big of a big of a drive?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 54:11
That’s easy.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 54:12
Yeah, exactly. So it should be fun. It’s a great group of people that I get to hang out with.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 54:18
What’s the biggest thing that’s keeping you up at night relative to recruiting these days?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 54:24
Keep relatively to recruiting and probably what we’re doing so we got and I think maybe the last time that we talked we’ve got a global restructure program that’s happening across the globe. And within HR, we’re we’re driving specifically some new things in HR and then you dive down to ta we’ve got a lot of work in ta so we’re putting together just a new structure a new agile recruiting structure with lingering so technology on top of it, so it’s a lot of stuff that’s keep me up at night. So it’s good though. It’s a lot of fun. We’re having a blast with it, so it’s good.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 54:56
Anyway, John are you seeing any Teams dedicated because we’re seeing a few. But I’m wondering if you’ve seen any teams dedicated to figuring out the new hybrid work from work remote work from home, you know, for the workforce as a whole. organization like Yeah, yeah, maybe we had an informal policy before. Yeah, yeah, everybody works from home during the pandemic. But have you seen anybody putting something together more formalized or more more really structured, to look at coming out of this?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 55:25
We are, we are here at KC right now, as we speak, we’re gonna have a hybrid model. And we do value the face to face interaction, because there’s a lot of great conversation that happens, you know, water cooler talk, you name it, you made meetings in person. So we’re going to start off if we describe is likely going to be an evolution, we’re going to create create flexibility that will allow people to work from home when they need to, but we still want people that will be close enough that could come into the office. So you think about where we have offices, locations will still we want to be have hubs around those areas. So Chicago, Nina talking North America, Chicago, Nina, Atlanta, but we also have an office in like Seattle. So if we’re close to Seattle, we’re working through some of the complexities with, like, taxes, and so forth. So if we don’t have an office in Florida, for example. So we’re not going to let people live in Florida, because it’s too far away for office one, but also deal with payroll issues and so forth. So, but yeah, it’s, we’ll see what happens, we’ll see how it evolves. But uh, you know, I like what we’re doing so far. There’s some people that say they want to go more, but you know, more flexible, but I see ourselves going there, as we start to test this out a little bit more, our executive leadership team, they’re worried that we’ll be too fragmented, and not bringing people together and our culture gets dispersed without bringing it together. So you know, it’s a culture that they’re concerned about that and I get it, I completely.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 56:54
Oh, and they’re not the only ones. I mean, you got it, you got a lot of teams that are worried about like, how do we afford the flexibility without, you know, diluting our culture?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 57:02
Yeah. I think it will be a shock if people will not have the flexibility where a couple weeks, a couple days a week from home, because it will it Now we all know how productive we are, and how flex we are, you know, I wake up in the morning, go for a run, I get back to my desk and jam out some work, I take a shower that I hit some calls, you know, it’s just kind of ebb and flow to work. And I think people were really missed that if they don’t have some of the flexibility. But I still want to go see my friends in the office too. So it’s, I think he did a win win.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 57:33
Yeah, but best shape of my life was when I went full time work from home. All controlling my schedule.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 57:39
Yeah, I lost 15 pounds, or 10 to 12 pounds during the pandemic because I was running more consistently. And you know, I enjoyed more wine so that counteract it, but

Chris Hoyt, CXR 57:49
Balance, there’s a balance.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 57:51
Exactly. That’s crazy. A lot of fun. Yeah. So yeah, we’ll see what happens. I, I’ve seen Obviously, we’ve all seen some of the technology companies that are, you know, that our indexing to wait 100%. And I’d love to see how that evolves. And see, like the studies and the feedback that happened.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 58:09
Yeah, I’m anxious to see what it does to the the different markets too. I mean, you’ve got organizations like Spotify, who say they’re gonna pay you the same no matter where you work for this particular job. And they’ve got that luxury, but we’ll see what, what tech giants sort of try to mirror that. And then what say, you know, screw it. We’re going back to normal a year after this, because let’s face it, Americans have really short memory. So so we’ll see. We’ll see what happens.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 58:37
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. short memory is definitely the case. Pandemic, what did we learn?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 58:46
Don’t take my liberties?

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 58:47
Exactly.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 58:50
Well, John, thanks for jumping on. I’m glad we got to catch up with you. It’s always good, whether it’s a podcast or just hanging out, but it’s nice to end up you have an exceptional choice in wines. So well done.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 59:01
Yeah, it worked out really well. Yeah,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 59:03
It did.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 59:04
Well. Thank you. It’s Thanks for having me, pleasure to see both of you as always a pleasure to enjoy a glass of wine and have a chat with you guys. I missed it. I missed the I missed the events to be able to go to together and really have the real deal conversation.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 59:18
We will be back with those eventually, for sure.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 59:23
We’re already we’re already planning the meetings for next year, the topics and the location, we’re already starting to work it out. So we’re really really excited every day. We’re closer.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 59:32
When people always ask, Is it worth the ROI? And my feedback is that you know the the conversation we need to talk about what keeps you up at night. That’s good. But it’s the lunches, it’s the dinners. It’s the after, when you really get into deep part of it. And that’s where the relations are built when you get to the core of like, what really keeps that person up at night. So

Gerry Crispin, CXR 59:51
You got it.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 59:51
Absolutely.

John Gotham, Kimberly-Clark 59:54
Yeah, so you guys enjoy your weekend.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 59:56
Alright, you too good luck at lacrosse.

Announcer 
Thanks for joining us for another episode of CareerXroads Uncorked. Chris Hoyt and Gerry Crispin look forward to sharing more drinks and conversation with you next time. Until then, cheers.