Dumping Chocolates & Have It Your Way

We're Here to Help

In this episode of We're Here to Help, hosts Jake Johnson and Gareth Reynolds navigate a series of bizarre listener dilemmas involving workplace surveillance and strange

Key takeaways

• Hanna from Portugal seeks ways to disrupt bosses who use security cameras to monitor dental office staff.
• Jake suggests dropping a Baby Ruth bar on the floor to trick surveillance into thinking someone defecated.
• Damien from Connecticut is frequently called food names like 'Tater Tot' and 'Cinnabon' by a coworker named Paul.
• The hosts pitch calling the coworker 'Whopper' or 'Whopper extra pickles' to turn the nickname game against him.
• Brian Jr., a beta fish that was once a desk prank, has passed away due to water temperature issues during a trip.

Main topics

• Workplace surveillance pranks
• Food-based nicknames at a car dealership
• The eulogy of Brian Jr. the fish

Notable quotes

Whopper to the floor!

Conclusion

The episode provides a mix of absurd comedic advice and genuine sentim

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:01) This is a HeadGum Podcast. This is a HeadGum Podcast. Speaker 2 (0:35) We are back. Let me tell you a quick story, Speaker 3 (0:40) Jake. Go. So Speaker 2 (0:42) I basically have my van packed up because I got to go. I'm going. I'm taking the movie out. Great. It's a whole long story. But anyway, so I was going to go to Santa Fe tomorrow night. Tomorrow. And I was going to start my drive today to drive there before going to Colorado. And I'm like, got the van packed up. I'm like, get ready to go. I just left the studio. And I'm like, eh. I take it like into a mechanic before I leave all the time. I got tired, all this stuff. And I look at the engine lights on. I'm like, well, maybe I didn't notice that on the drive here, but whatever. It's fine. And as I'm driving a little further, I'm like, just. And then all of a sudden a system check, system check, system check light starts blinking. Oh, Speaker 4 (1:24) no. Speaker 2 (1:25) So I have a mechanic in L.A. So I go and I. I'm like, hey, can I drop it off? And he's like, yeah, that's not good. And right before, I have the van fully packed. I have food in my little van fridge. And then I had to take it in. And then so everything gets delayed. So then I just, like I said, I just was, you know when you have, I'm sure you do, when you have like a big pocket of stress, a burst of stress, you navigate it. Then I become a baby. And I just want to go to bed. I've like literally like sleep on concrete. I Speaker 1 (1:59) got so tired. But so what happened with the car? Speaker 2 (2:02) Well, it's going to be, I'm going to just leave tomorrow, but he had to hustle to get it done. It's like an alternator, but it was, it just crashed me out. But also it's great because I don't have to go today. But man, I mean, I just adrenaline crashed. Speaker 1 (2:22) Well, we're going to be airing this at different times. Where can people check? What website can they look at to see where you're going to be? Speaker 2 (2:29) Giveitupfilm.com. And then if you want to see me on tour in September, I'm all over the East Coast at garethreynolds.com. You can go get all that stuff. Speaker 1 (2:37) I got something quick for you that really weirded me out when I was filming in Vancouver. Speaker 2 (2:42) You've been going hard. Speaker 1 (2:44) Yeah. Speaker 2 (2:45) Okay. True Speaker 1 (2:46) story. Okay. Speaker 2 (2:47) No Speaker 1 (2:47) exaggeration. I want your real thoughts. Okay. Speaker 1 (2:51) Two in the morning last night, me and Damon are shooting outside of a literal bar called Celebrities, which was the name of the bar. Okay. Shooting until about 2, 3 in the morning. Speaker 2 (3:00) Okay. Speaker 1 (3:01) Drunks everywhere. Drunks on line bikes just zipping around. Wild. One guy goes by our set. He's doing a full swerve in, swerve out. Goes close to the set. Somebody goes like, easy. He goes, fuck you. Bang. Hits a PA. Flies. Hits the ground. Bang. Head hits. Speaker 1 (3:23) A couple people rush over, myself included. He's like, oh, man, I banged my head pretty good. But I'm okay. Don't worry about it. I just banged my head pretty good. Everyone's like, sit down, blood, chin. He's like, oh, fuck, I'm all right. I just banged my chin a little bit. Sits down, holy shit. Get in the PA. Call the medic. Speaker 1 (3:45) medic comes over. Speaker 4 (3:46) He's like, all Speaker 1 (3:47) right, let me get a look at you. Speaker 4 (3:49) I go, Speaker 1 (3:49) that's not the medic. That's craft service. That's the food guy. It's not a joke. Speaker 2 (3:56) Wait, it's not, you know, that's the person in charge of snacks. That's the snacks and Speaker 1 (4:02) like meals, like walks around with sandwiches. Very, Speaker 2 (4:04) very good role, but not medical. And Speaker 1 (4:06) a very specific guy. He had a big personality. So I was, I knew who I was talking about. I go, that's not the medic. Speaker 2 (4:13) Give me some Cheetos. That's craft service. Give me some Cheez-Its. Speaker 1 (4:17) Gareth, he takes off his craft service gloves, puts on black gloves. He now starts doing tests. Please sit over here. Could you look like this? I go, what in God's gray earth is going on? That's the craft service guy pretending to be the medic. The AD goes, in this province, you can have two jobs. Speaker 1 (4:42) I go, not those two, Jack. Oh, my God. Gareth, the medic in Canada is also craft service. Speaker 2 (4:53) You know where I stand. Speaker 1 (4:55) Gareth. Speaker 2 (4:56) No. Speaker 1 (4:57) 30 minutes after patching this guy up and putting him in an ambulance, and this is true, he and his female partner were walking around offering people chicken salad. Speaker 1 (5:10) Dude, there was literal blood. And he's going like this. Chicken salad, anyone? Anyone chicken salad? And then he looked at me. He's like, I got a veggie option if you want that. I was like, you have Speaker 2 (5:21) literal. Speaker 1 (5:21) So let me get your blood pressure. I go, my man, you have blood on your hands. He's like, no, man, I changed my gloves. Get out of here. Speaker 2 (5:29) Oh, my God. I couldn't believe it was Speaker 1 (5:32) not real life to me. It was not real life. I Speaker 2 (5:35) don't care Speaker 1 (5:36) for Speaker 2 (5:36) it, Speaker 1 (5:36) but wow. Rob Rizal, one of my favorite guys. He is a writer from New Girl. He does Sonny to Dave. He's done a million things. He's the showrunner on this. He's a big reason why Damon and I are doing the show. He and I were watching it happen. And at one point, a police officer... walked up and wanted to do a test. And our medic goes like this, I got it. And the police officer stepped back. Speaker 2 (6:01) Come on. And Speaker 1 (6:02) Rob said. Speaker 2 (6:02) Crafty can't pull rank on a sheriff. Speaker 1 (6:04) Yeah, he can. In Canada, he can. And Rob said, not to be mean, he just said under his breath, this is not a serious place. Speaker 3 (6:13) This Speaker 2 (6:15) is not a serious place. Speaker 1 (6:19) Garrett, I died laughing. Then when the guy's walking around going, yeah, chicken salad, chicken salad. I was like, this is just not as serious. This isn't the kind of, I don't understand. You know what? I don't understand production here. Look, life in Canada is beautiful. I don't understand production there. Speaker 2 (6:36) Well, Kat Reitman shot her show in Canada. Vancouver or Speaker 1 (6:41) Toronto? Speaker 2 (6:41) I think Toronto. Okay. But what happened to you there, here's what the good news is. It was your last night that you found that out. Agreed. Because if that was Speaker 1 (6:53) day two. Gareth, I would have lost my mind. You, in Speaker 2 (6:56) particular, would have had a, that would have been a tough one for you to get over. Speaker 1 (7:00) You're a germ guy. Speaker 2 (7:01) Oh, I don't. How about if Speaker 1 (7:03) someone's feeling sick? Who's going to, someone's got a fever? Who deals with it? Hold on, let me stop making this Chex mix. You Speaker 2 (7:10) know what you just described? What? Is Steve Berg's dream scenario. Someone to just be like. God damn it, Crafty had to deal with a medical situation. Is anyone here good at preparing weird snacks? As a matter of fact, I am. And Speaker 1 (7:27) then his weird snacks would be, I open up the Doritos. That's not preparing snacks. Speaker 2 (7:33) Here we are. I call it Chex Mix. What's the secret? It's from a company called Chex Mix. Speaker 1 (7:39) But what I do is I do cheddar Jack's Mix mixed with original. Speaker 2 (7:44) Exactly. I take the rye chips out and I put them on a separate plate. Speaker 1 (7:48) Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy some ads. Speaker 1 (7:54) This episode of the podcast is brought to you by quench. You know, those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat. Lord knows I do watch the video of this podcast. You'll see me in the same clothes all the time. I'll tell you what you're going to see. You can see me in some quench black jeans. Speaker 1 (8:16) Because they're stretchy and they're comfortable. But they're form-fitting enough that I don't look like a 90s clown. Speaker 2 (8:22) They focus on high-quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100 % Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, or merino wool. The styles are timeless, versatile, and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for day after day. Speaker 1 (8:38) It's... The best. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash here to help get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. It is available in Canada and the UK, too. Check it out. You want to look good in your Canadian? Go to Quince. That's quince, Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash here to help. And we Speaker 2 (9:02) are brought to you by Squarespace. You know what? I don't even need ad copy when it comes to Squarespace because let me tell you, first of all, they're hanging in there with the promo code. They're still doing the Gil sent me and we love them for it. But Squarespace is a place where you can go and design your own website. Could not be more user-friendly, looks so professional, all-in-one website platform. You're going to stand out and succeed online with Squarespace. My website is Squarespace. We've made tons of websites on the show with Squarespace. It's just different ways to scale up your business. You look professional. If you even want to be considered in the game, you have to have a Squarespace site. We've got SEO tools. They're going to make you go higher, make sure your search engine features are optimized. There's videos. There's contributions. There's merch. all these things. You're just going to be like, well, I actually have one of those websites. So if you're in the game, you have a small business, you're trying to promote yourself, or let's say you want to do a, like a wigs and swords party or something like that, like we did on the show and you want to make it look real, use Squarespace. So go to squarespace.com slash Gil sent me for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code Gil sent me to save 10 % off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's it. Get involved. Hello. Speaker 5 (10:18) Hello. Speaker 2 (10:18) Hi. Can we get your name, please? Speaker 5 (10:22) My name is Hanna. Speaker 2 (10:24) Hanna. Hi, Hanna. How are you? Speaker 5 (10:27) I'm good. How are you? Speaker 2 (10:28) Good, thank you. Where are you calling from, Hanna? Speaker 5 (10:31) Portugal. Speaker 2 (10:32) Portugal. Maybe our first Portuguese. I don't know. Speaker 1 (10:36) Can you speak a little Portuguese for us so we can hear it? I just had people, I heard them talking about it, and they said it sounds like a mix between Spanish and Russian. Speaker 1 (10:46) Can we hear a little bit of you just talking about the show in Portuguese, what you like and don't like about it? Speaker 5 (10:52) Okay. Speaker 1 (10:59) That's a fair description. That Speaker 2 (11:01) is Spanish-Russian. Speaker 1 (11:02) Yeah. Okay. Speaker 2 (11:04) A little bit. Speaker 1 (11:06) Please continue. I'm shocked how that sounded. Speaker 2 (11:08) Yep. Same. How old are you, Paige? Or Hannah? Jesus. How old are you? Speaker 5 (11:15) I'm 39. Speaker 2 (11:16) 39. Okay. Hannah? Speaker 5 (11:18) 20, 20, 20. Speaker 2 (11:20) 29, sorry. Much more life ahead of you. What's going on, Hanna? What can we do for you? Speaker 5 (11:26) So I work at a dentist's office. Speaker 2 (11:30) Who knows that? What? And Speaker 5 (11:33) I've learned that... Sorry. No, Speaker 2 (11:36) go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, you're good. Go ahead. Speaker 5 (11:40) Okay, so I found out my bosses, they are obsessed with checking the cameras all day, minute by minute. Speaker 5 (11:49) I'll give you an example. When a patient comes in and they want me to go greet them, maybe they call me immediately and they say, patient X just arrived. Go greet them. Speaker 5 (12:08) Recently, we discovered that they're also hearing through the cameras as well. So a colleague of mine tried to set them a prank and she went into a room with cameras and she said to another colleague with a straight face, I'm pregnant. The next day, all the dentists were talking about pregnancy. And one of them actually told her, I had a dream last night that you were pregnant. So the funny part is whenever they want to talk about something like gossip or the bosses want to talk about gossip or secrets of them, I don't know, they'll go to the break room where there's no cameras. Speaker 5 (13:00) Okay. So my question is, what's a non-fireable cheat code I can use to make them log off? Speaker 1 (13:10) Okay. Recap this one for me. Speaker 2 (13:12) Well, I'm going to need you to fill in some gaps for me here, Hannah, a little bit. So essentially the problem is you feel like the bosses at the dental office, are they dentists? Speaker 1 (13:24) Yes, dentist. Speaker 2 (13:25) Okay, so do you feel like... Hey, Speaker 1 (13:26) Gareth, what would have your guests been there? Accountants? I don't know if it's like... I Speaker 2 (13:30) don't know. Architects? No. The Speaker 5 (13:32) big boss is like... Fireman? He's not a dentist, but his wife is. Speaker 2 (13:36) That's what I mean. The big boss... I was picturing like a bigger boss who... I don't know. But you feel like there's heavy surveillance of everything that goes on in the office. And they are kind of up your ass about. And Speaker 1 (13:51) they Speaker 2 (13:51) do Speaker 1 (13:51) pranks. Speaker 2 (13:52) Hey, get out of there. Well, then the people who work in the office are doing some pranks on the people watching. That's right, right, Hannah? Speaker 5 (14:02) Yes, so I'm pretty sure. I think everyone knows they are checking it at all times. Imagine they come in the afternoon to the office, and in the morning we feel like they're watching it on TV at home, like eating breakfast. Speaker 2 (14:18) Right. It's Speaker 5 (14:19) that ridiculous. Speaker 2 (14:20) So you want to kind of, through some action, make them feel like they are... KGB stuff. Yeah, they're overdoing it. Big Speaker 1 (14:30) brother. Speaker 2 (14:30) Like give them a little bit of a... Yes, Speaker 1 (14:32) obsessing. Right. Speaker 2 (14:33) A scare or a laugh or something that makes them feel like, oh, the people who work here are now fucking around with us because we watch them so much. Speaker 5 (14:45) Yes, just maybe making them realize it's enough. Speaker 1 (14:49) Right. I have an idea. Okay, go. Okay. This is weird, but I think it would be effective. Speaker 1 (14:59) I want you to find an area that is being filmed, but it's a little out of the way. Then I want you to go there, look around. I want you to be wearing a dress, then squat down and drop a baby Speaker 2 (15:16) Ruth. A what? A chocolate bar. So it Speaker 1 (15:23) looks like you took a shit on the floor. Speaker 2 (15:26) Jake's pitching a... Speaker 1 (15:28) Then leave. Later, I want somebody to walk by, pick it up, and eat it. You're doing the Caddy Shack. Yes. Speaker 2 (15:40) So, Hannah, Jake's pitching a fake poop, the poop's a candy bar, and later someone eats the fake poop. Speaker 1 (15:47) I want you to do that every day. Speaker 5 (15:53) In the same room? Same spot. Speaker 1 (15:59) So that one of them goes like this. I think that woman took a shit on the floor. And they go, oh, then it sits there