S5 E6 | CXR Podcast: The Beards of Recruiting

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Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:21
Gerry, how are you?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 0:23
Pleasant Good morning to you.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:26
So there’s two greetings I’ve got for you today. But I’ve got to make a disclaimer before I do that. So if you just dialed in, if you’re listening to us on a treadmill or Stairmaster, whatever the your choice of torture might be at the gym, or if you happen to be with us live. There’s a disclaimer, we may actually not talk about anything recruiting on this call. This is a quick catch up for Gerry and I and for our beards to say hello to one another.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 0:49
Exactly, exactly. It’s been. It’s been more than a week, actually, since we’ve actually chatted before that, and both of us have been engaged in a number of things. So that’s kind of cool.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 1:00
That’s true. So, so beard, Gerry’s beard how’s Gerry’s beard?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 1:04
It’s good. I have a so I intend to grow my beard out over the next several months. And hopefully, when we go to Burning Man, I can be the full Santa that that I would like to be.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 1:20
I love that. Love it. So Gerry is there actually, and forgive the pun. Is there a cut off date for this beard?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 1:27
No, I mean, this beard has been on my face. 1969. So. So from that perspective, you know, my children and my wife don’t even know who I am under there. Yeah, no. So. So I’ve just decided though, the only other time that I grew this thing out, was when I was in graduate school. And working on my master’s degree I got I went away for the summer, and just lived on a on a farm, spoke to no one and just let it grow. So wait, this is the only other time that I’m doing that.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 2:09
Wait a minute. How do I not know this story? You went? You went as a clean shaven young man to a farm?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 2:15
No, I was not clean shaven. I had already grown my beard. But it was it was relatively non ragged. And I decided that I wasn’t seeing anybody. I wasn’t talking anybody the only person I was talking to was myself for two months. And, and writing every day in a small farmhouse on a on a hill in northern New Hampshire.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 2:40
Okay, I need more information Gerry. You can’t just say you are you were alone on a farm, this is Misery level what what were you writing? Oh,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 2:51
it was a beautiful place. It was you know, a little a frame. And, you know, people there were cows, you know, on top of the hill, I would get up at dawn and go sit with the cows and contemplate my navel and I met might have had some interesting product with me that would help me get my head into the right frame of mind.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 3:17
Understood and so this is a like a farm farm like farm and full on farm functioning farm that used to work there. We this was the year before I got married

Gerry Crispin, CXR 3:30
Yeah, it was there was a functioning farm on the other side of the hill, actually.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 3:34
Gotcha. Okay,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 3:36
We don’t have to go there. And this is the you know, we get into long stories we’re gonna use that 15 minutes.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 3:41
Alright, and so this is this is the where the Gerry beard was born though. The the more fuller road the fuller beard.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 3:48
Yeah, I when I came back, I shaved a little bit or you know, cut it down a little bit. But now I thought you know, I’ve never really been a full Santa. So I’m going to I’m going to work on that. And how about you? You You have been creating a persona I think that’s a little bit different in keeping the sides a little bit thin, if you will, and or you know, shaved a little bit from that. You know, and and how long is that going to get?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 4:20
You know that I don’t have a cut off date. I did my my partner she mentioned the other day for the first time she was starting to sort of miss my face was hidden under here. So this might be the start of it’s a little too long from her perspective, but she does like it. I think she’s doing a good job lying to me about it. I figured you know what I am? I am 50 this year. I’ll be 50 have never done the full I’ve always had a little bit of scruff. I’ve never had the full beard and I was like yeah, why not? We’ll see where it goes.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 4:54
I get 75 this year

Chris Hoyt, CXR 4:57
Oh, that’s right. We have we each have milestone birthdays.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 5:00
Exactly.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 5:01
That will make for an interesting burn.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 5:03
It will, it will because I’ve had just had mine and you will just be before you have yours. I think

Chris Hoyt, CXR 5:11
Yeah, my birthday is usually right after the burn

Gerry Crispin, CXR 5:13
Right after so mine’s just before.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 5:15
So I have some fun. I have some fun beard stats. Okay, I thought were kind of interesting. Did you know that only 33% of Americans have facial hair at all?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 5:30
No, and what percentage are women?

Chris Hoyt, CXR 5:33
American males? Oh, okay. Yeah, it’s fair question. Mostly men grow beards.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 5:42
Okay.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 5:43
And that night I read last night. Strangely enough that popped up. So I’m sure Google and Amazon are listening everywhere but popped up in my feed 98% of Forbes 100 richest men are clean shaven. So I don’t know if we’re ever gonna make that list.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 6:02
No, no, it is.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 6:06
I will tell you one thing I have I have figured out and you can back me up on this or you can call bullshit. There is a you know, you see guys riding motorcycles. And they kind of do that that low, that low wave to one another. Yeah, I have a jeep. There is in fact a Jeep wave. I have noticed, I have I have been told there is a bald man nod. So when men are walking around clean shaven heads and they see each other, there’s a little bit of a nod. I haven’t I haven’t had to pay attention to that. I’m sure someday I will. Someday,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 6:41
Maybe.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 6:42
But what I have seen in the last four or five months. There’s a beard nod for ya. Did well okay. How did you know tell me about this.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 6:53
Well, first of all, the bald not I called I called you know bullshit on it’s, it’s you you embrace that with, you know, a plum. But you know, you see someone with a quality beard that they’ve taken you that you know that they’ve taken some care with that. And and, you know, you typically do you know, tip your hat or you know, make note that you’re you’re noticing that cool beard.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 7:23
That is a thing. Like I actually is a fan. I get more compliments on the beard and I comment more. But I get more comments and compliments from dudes than the ladies on the beard is kind of interesting.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 7:39
Yes. I would think so.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 7:43
Don’t turn that into something that’s not

Gerry Crispin, CXR 7:45
I’m not going down that path.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 7:51
Oh my gosh. Alright, so I did also I’ll give you another stat. Where was it? Here we go. Shavers. That’s we’re gonna call him from now on Gerry. The Shavers the non beard growers.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 8:01
Yes.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 8:01
How many hours do you think they spend in the bathroom? in their lifetime?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 8:09
Dude, I have no idea. But I know it’s significant. I would say that for me every few days. I might spend a few minutes other the other than, you know, combing it out or whatever. But but, you know, in terms of shaving the degree to which one shaves to cut your beard properly and your your your neck or whatever. That’s that’s a few seconds every so often.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 8:39
And once it’s out the maintenance is kind of I mean, there’s ritual right then we have to wash it and condition it and you oil in it in the you know, but apparently if you shave your beard completely that that’s an additional 3300 hours of your life in the bathroom. Wow.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 8:56
Wow. So we’ve got that back. We can have adventures.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 8:59
Exactly we can do other things with that. I did just get speaking of adventures. I did just get back return at this early from Alaska. We went with some dear friends for five days. We did dog mushing. We did hot springs. We did the northern lights there were Aurora Borealis a number of things and I will have to tell you a few things that I did learn your beard will freeze solid in seconds at minus 25 degrees. Solid It is fun for everybody to then you know do their they want to touch it because it gets hard.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 9:35
Yes, it gets a little hard there.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 9:37
Yeah. I also learned also learned if you were to put small, really thin metal shavings in your beard. It actually acts as a natural compass.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 9:51
I did not know that. And I find that a little weird.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 10:01
That might not be true.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 10:02
If, well, you know, it’s also something you’d be doing in the middle of frickin nowhere. And and that would suggest that your mental acuity has has deteriorated to some degree. That could be it could be but it does actually as your beard starts pulling you to the north.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 10:19
Yeah, for sure. It does. It doesn’t necessarily act as a compass, but you do have a natural inclination to be able to see the closest mountain you didn’t know which direction to look in because of the beer never lost.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 10:32
Well, I’m really pleased it’s you into Alaska. I think it’s great. I had I had an opportunity to do that 20 years ago and, and I was so blown away by the the, you know, Alaskan range and all of that sort of thing. I think it’s one of the most beautiful sights to be able to see the entire Alaskan range with Denali right in the middle of

Chris Hoyt, CXR 10:54
It was fun. It’s one of the most beautiful things I think I’ve ever seen. We brought a one of us had a GoPro, really nice GoPro. And then I also had a GoPro I got one of the the max, which is the 360 view. Because I’m playing with all this VR, you know, you get the Quest goggles and all the VR stuff. So we took it up in a plane, little nine seater, and did the Denali flight and kind of kind of held it up into the seat in front of us. So if we do it, right, I can send a link to you and you’ll be able to you’ll be sitting in the passenger seat there on the flight.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 11:29
I saw I saw one thing that you had that you know you can you can go a little bit back and forth on but but I would love to be able to see that from that perspective.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 11:39
Yeah, actually keep panning that you can click and drag that image that I posted it will go it goes 360 It’s anywhere.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 11:44
Oh, it does. Oh, okay. Yeah, great.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 11:48
Pretty cool. Actually, we had a good time. We did. Have you did you do dog mushing when you were there?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 11:54
I did not. Uh, my sister in law, though, has done a lot of that. She spent, that’s who we went to see. And she had spent 25 years in Alaska, working on the Alaskan railroad in a car that that tamped the permafrost below the below the you know, the railroad tracks and she lived in that car six months out of the year. She called her 20 ton vibrator. Just saying,

Chris Hoyt, CXR 12:29
Well, we speaking of that, we did have an earthquake while we were there. Yeah, 5.1 earthquake while we were there, which was kind of interesting. But we also saw the, the Alaska pipeline, we went to a viewing point to see that cool. Very interesting engineering feat. I mean, I knew it was a big deal. Yeah, like 75-77, something like that. I think it was finished. But did you know that it’s done in a zigzag pattern probably already knew the engineer guy, you know this already. But then it slides. It sounds like these skid plates, and it will slide across the platforms that had said in the event of you know, not only an earthquake, but just you know, stuff.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 13:12
It’s it’s supposed to be helpful for the permafrost below it, which is a big concern and consideration. But if the permafrost really does, does unfreeze that should may sink and it’s going to be interesting.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 13:29
There are there are rods on the side of the pipes all the way down hundreds of 1000s of 127,000 or some weird number all the way down that keep that pull Earth up I guess or heat up out of the ground to keep the pipe pump normalize I guess the temperature regulate the temperature of the pipe.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 13:48
Interesting I did not know that

Chris Hoyt, CXR 13:50
And the oil in it now I think it’s over 100 degrees that flows through there. Yep. Yeah. Just fascinating.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 13:57
Yeah. Yeah. You know, it’s it’s, it’s very vulnerable in some respects. But you know, obviously, it’s, it’s a very big big deal and, and the income from that means that if you do live in Alaska on a permanent basis, instead of paying taxes to the state, the state pays you

Chris Hoyt, CXR 14:17
I didn’t know that.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 14:19
Yep several $1,000 per person. So so if you have a family of three kids and a wife and or the spouse etc. You are likely making about 10 grand from from Alaska each year.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 14:36
Wow, that’s crazy. And you’re your family member is sort of still there and not there anymore.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 14:41
No, she’s now in she came back to Montana because she found it a little bit too sparsely populated in and where she was she was in a town called Talkeetna, which is 90 miles from Denali.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 15:00
My gosh. Well, it’s I mean, again, it’s probably one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen it was we did a two and a half hour, sort of out and back route, which was pretty great.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 15:10
I think that’s fabulous. I think it’s really a bucket list and I would recommend it to anyone. I think the I think going up on those cruise ships is fine. It’s a great way to do it if you if you have no other choices, but but going inland, I think is the most extraordinary way to see Alaska.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 15:29
So I’ve now done both. It’s funny you say that. So I did a cruise ship and it was into Anchorage. And it was fun and very touristy, but very, very different experience in Fairbanks

Gerry Crispin, CXR 15:41
Agree.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 15:42
And I will I will also say a hat tip or a beard beard nod to the people who live they might be the nicest people that I have ever visited when I go through city like Fairbanks might just be full of just the nicest. We walked by a shop that was closed. And four of us were kind of looking in the window. And so it’s a shame and I opened they should be open and some woman comes over. She says well, they’re normally they put a sign up and they really should tell you he’s usually backed by this time if you just wait for a little while and then she was like, Do you want me to call? Just the nicest people across the board.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 16:18
I’m sure and they can be because if you have a problem with any of them the where are you going to go? You can’t get out without them.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 16:28
Fair point, and we did learn you have to you have to run the car for 30 minutes, typically before you can get in it. So there were an awful lot of cars sitting outside restaurants with no one in them that were just running. Just a very odd feeling odd I feel like we learned why very quickly.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 16:48
Yes, I’m sure I was very cool. I love it. You had a great time and you just got back so it’s it

Chris Hoyt, CXR 16:55
literally just got back Yeah. Yeah, no frostbite that I’m aware of. So but you have a trip you’re so you know you get a trip that you’re planning more

Gerry Crispin, CXR 17:05
I you know, and I keep on saying weather permitting. Because because two weeks ago we had two feet of snow where my my where my Airstream is docked and as of last night there was the snow is all gone. So at this moment on Saturday, coming up I will go and get my Airstream bring it back to my house, prep it for about a 10 day trip. And I’m basically going to go from New Jersey down to Chesapeake to Charlotte to Atlanta to Moultrie, Georgia to Bonita Springs to Port St. Lucie and then come back home along the way. I’m meeting up with someone who might buy my Airstream. Which you know, which is part of the reason my wife is not not really excited about doing this she’s she’s not coming with me on this trip. She will come with me to Montana to see her sister in May. But on this trip I’m taking one of my cousin’s my 140 cousins and a former hippie who’s now a little bit younger than me not much her brother lives in Moultrie, Georgia so so we’re going to see a couple of our cousins on the way and and hopefully have a couple dinners with just a couple folks. Good wine good good conversation, etc. But yeah, it’s a it’s a road trip. It’s definitely a road trip.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 18:44
Yeah, how many days you’re gonna be on the road?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 18:47
We’re gonna do two to 300 miles a day every day for about 10 days.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 18:54
All right, we need to make sure we get you some sort of satellite connection that goes

Gerry Crispin, CXR 18:58
I have I have a I have a hot spot. The only place Moultrie Georgia may be the only place where no cell may not be as good as it should. But other than that we are we’re near cities so we I should be able to communicate Yeah, you know, take a few pictures and you know enjoy life.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 19:20
So your head you’re headed down with the truck and the airstream and you may end up coming back without the airstream just the truck?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 19:27
No, no, no, I will come back. I will clean up the airstream and then he’ll come up and take it. And then I’m buying a new truck and a new Airstream and

Chris Hoyt, CXR 19:37
an upgrade

Gerry Crispin, CXR 19:38
I’m upgrading so that as we move into May and as we move into the future of how I want to work. We can you know I can do a little few more of these kinds of trips.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 19:55
If it works so far, I’d say you just Airstream that thing to the burn.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 19:58
Listen, I’ve been inspired by Young people who, you know, work from anywhere. And that’s exactly what we should be doing. We should be thinking about that periodically in our life.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 20:10
Yeah, you’re taking it to you know, our friend Deb McGrath from HR.com. They literally works anywhere at some of the most magnificent places.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 20:18
I was going to say she also has the resources to

Chris Hoyt, CXR 20:21
Yeah, yeah, you’re doing the roadshow version back? Yes. Right. Yeah,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 20:27
Exactly. Without the skiing.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 20:32
I’ll have to work that out. If it weren’t for the driving part. I’m sure you’d knock the skiing out.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 20:36
Yeah, sure.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 20:38
All right. Well, look, it’s good to catch up this morning. Thank you. And thank you, beard for joining.

And you

Alright, for those of you I’m just gonna go through the schedule really quick. coming up February 15. We have a another live podcast. Our beards may or may not make an appearance. But we certainly have Russ Jipsson, who’s the management, excuse me, manager of TA over at Quantum he’s gonna join us. We’ve got a DE&I meeting coming up on February 16. And then another podcast on February 22. With as wisdom coach, we’re bringing the wisdom coach in I’m gonna let you guess what that means. But we hope to see you there and until then we’ll see everybody online at CXR.works Take care everybody.

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