Jeez I can already hear you complaining about getting this email three days early, on a SUNDAY no less. I’m not one to blame the younger generation, but let’s just say a certain scrappy kid who manages newsletters left this one in the drafts over the week. Kids these days! I’m running a show over here!

Anyway, In broadcasting we’d call this a "Best Of." or a “highlight reel”. What a Best Of actually means — and every soul who has ever worked in a station knows it — is that the host is on vacation and some poor kid in master control is running old tape.

As much as I’d love to trap an intern in my apartment and force him to send out emails, I'm right here and went digging through the archive on purpose. Two reasons, actually:

Not a bad haul for a man who once forgot his own call letters live on the air and had to read them off his coffee mug. And we’re only just getting started!

It’s showtime!

I have never worked in Human Resources, however I have been escorted out by Human Resources, which I'd argue is a related field. One of those exits landed me at a Kmart in Bakersfield as the PA announcer, and I'll be honest with you — It was a wonderful time.

I Hate it Here is written by Hebba Youssef, a Chief People Officer who is still in the building. If you work in HR, it's a rare thing written by somebody on your side. If you don't, it explains an awful lot about your last performance review (jokes, jokes, but if the shoe fits…)

Clicking this ad costs you nothing, takes one second, and funds my Boomer antics with 1/5 of a coffee in ad revenue, so go ahead and check off a good deed and support the elderly this Sunday!

Take it away, Hebba!

The best HR advice comes from those in the trenches. That’s what this is: real-world HR insights delivered in a newsletter from Hebba Youssef, a Chief People Officer who’s been there. Practical, real strategies with a dash of humor. Because HR shouldn’t be thankless—and you shouldn’t be alone in it.

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Let us return to the "Good ole Days" when we were young. Let's grab the Rolodex, calendar, flip the leaves randomly until we come to… Last week?

But, but, this is a calendar from 1977…what the hell …?

Nevermind. Last week I was producing OK Boomer with Logan Elmore, where he commented on my BRAND NEW anchor desk (which I assembled myself). He said it was messy, so I cleared it with a wipe of an arm. Effective but noisy.

Then we reminisced about the time Logan knocked on my door and caught me meditating, thinking deep thoughts….under a blanket. That started the OK Boomer segment where I interviewed me. It didn't go very well, because I didn't cooperate with myself.

When Logan isn't knocking on doors, he writes Chattynooga, a newsletter featuring local businesses, with not a clickbait trap in the entire publication. Logan and his fiancée Amy write as if they are two Southern children, Bubby (Logan) and Clementine (Amy). I have repeatedly recommended that Logan appear on OK Boomer with an upside-down tea kettle on his head like Bubby, but he refuses. The two kid reporters spotlight small businesses, you know, the kind where the owner lives next door to you. Oh yes, Bubby and Clementine are to wed this November.

The next encore presentation arose from my Covid. I only felt some malaise one day three years ago, got tested, was diagnosed with Covid, and forgot about it until…

I was broadcasting a radio version of OK Boomer live when I keyed in my mic during the opening and intoned, "This is Robert Rickman with OK Boomer on…on…Folks I forgot the call letters…oh here they are on my mug….from WWWWWWWW…GEEEEEE…..ENNNNN…..ESSSS, Carbondale, Illinois."

Diana Womack-Walters, who is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker from Ava Illinois, helped me through the brain fog and other problems caused by long Covid. But recently, Diana had her own set of problems when scammers ripped her off on both sides of Medicare. Money was diverted from her personal Medicare account AND from her counseling service account. She closed her private practice because she didn't want her Medicare patients to pay for her services, and is now working at a local hospital. And for her personal health, she was also issued a new Medicare card.

During the interview Diana accused me of being OLD! (I am a youthful 74) So I was going to show her my youthful looking teeth, but I didn't have time to pull them out!

Who watches OK Boomer?

Endah watches. Endah Wayuni from Indonesia. I met Endah online several years ago when she translated into Indonesian a novel I had written about my alma mater. Endah helps with promoting OK Boomer and we're working together on an English conversation podcast aimed at Indonesians. More about my college and John Belushi in another paragraph.

I spoke with Amy Walls (Logan's Main Squeeze) about her leaving 10-years of teaching with a Masters Degree to work odd jobs. Amy enjoyed Ubering and working at Chick-fil-A because she didn't have to think…or rather OUT think the system and some of her students. Now she's thinking again…about education at Public Television Station WTCI. Many of the programs she is involved with are aimed at children. During the interview I had a Boomer Moment and Amy underwent a Millennial Second.

Finally back to my alma mater, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. In 1969 someone set the oldest building on campus aflame. Old Main burned to the ground. In 1970 the university was closed in the spring due to rioting. That summer a 17-year-old Robert Rickman stepped off the train, spotted the 17-story student dorm in the distance and fell in love with the campus. SIU was PERFECT for me, because I had ADHD before it was even identified by doctors. My major, radio and tv, was one of the top programs in the nation, and it seemed like most of the R&T students at SIU were ADHD too.

Another SIU major that was nationally recognized was Cinema and Photography. Flint Chaney, who lives in Chattanooga, was a C and P major from the 90's and we talked about how wild SIU was in the 70's compared to the 90's. In the 90's Halloween was WILD in Carbondale, but in the 70's Halloween was ALL YEAR ROUND! And Saturday Night Live's John Belushi visited his brother Jim, who was an SIU theater major, in 1975. That "College" sweatshirt John wore in Animal House was made in Carbondale!

Flint attempted to hand me an SIU cap from Chattanooga through the internet to Carbondale, but it was a failure.

I know now why it didn't work, because I should have handed Flint the SIU cap from Carbondale to Chattanooga.

Oh well.

No guest this week, just me and five previous conversations I'd hand a stranger if they walked up and asked what the hell this show is about.

We’ve got a culmination of stories from:

Five people, and not one of them let me get away with my wisecracks!

I spent a career talking at people. That's what broadcasting is, if you're really honest about it. You sit alone in a room, the light comes on, and talk into a piece of foam so folks you'll never meet are half-listening in a car to you.

My life was decades of that, then as soon as I plopped a microphone on a half-assembled anchor desk in my apartment, people have finally started talking back!

I’ve learned in life that you gotta throw in victory laps, otherwise you won’t know when one race is over and the next one begins. This is one of those, and I appreciate everyone of you whippersnappers who have continued to show up and support this production.

Well I’ll be damned!