Speaker 1: If you work in a corporate environment, the chances are
Speaker 1: pretty good that at some point you've had to take
Speaker 1: one of these workplace safety trainings where they teach you
Speaker 1: how to avoid getting hit in the head by open
Speaker 1: file cabinet drawers, or how not to slip and fall
Speaker 1: on a spill. But what they might not teach you
Speaker 1: is what to do if somebody publishes your personal information
Speaker 1: online or uses your work phone to make harassing phone calls.
Speaker 1: This is game plan. I'm Francesco lead and I'm right
Speaker 1: back at Greenfield, and today we are talking about workplace safety,
Speaker 1: which usually calls to mind something like this. Now as
Speaker 1: so far as we get down to business and talk
Speaker 1: about safety, you know, for something strange reason, people seem
Speaker 1: to consider office work as being free of any danger.
Speaker 1: What could happen to anyone working behind a nice safe disk?
Speaker 1: Uh typewriter, bites girl. Here's an industrious looking fellow with
Speaker 1: his mind on his work. Best trapsman. These like retro
Speaker 1: workplace safety advisories are kind of like, they don't ring
Speaker 1: very realistic to us, and they're an entire genre on YouTube. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've discovered they're also very gendered. Usually it's usually like
Speaker 1: the pretty but dumb secretary who you know, spills coffee
Speaker 1: on everyone else and usually the thing, the accidents they're
Speaker 1: getting themselves into are like outsized for what happened. You know,
Speaker 1: It's like I spelled coffee and somebody like slipped and
Speaker 1: fell and died. Right, So it all, it all seems
Speaker 1: really silly and over the top to us, But there
Speaker 1: was a reason that these videos kind of came about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the workplace originally, before we all worked in offices,
Speaker 1: are our biggest problem was back injuries and paper huts.
Speaker 1: The workplace originally was an unsafe place and it is
Speaker 1: still for some workers. I mean about factories, right, mining
Speaker 1: those type of workplaces, Like it's it's serious, you know,
Speaker 1: people can really get hurt in real ways. Um, but
Speaker 1: now we all work in offices, which people can still
Speaker 1: get hurt and sue their companies and file for disability.
Speaker 1: And so that's why we now have these workplace safety
Speaker 1: videos so that companies can basically cover their butts so
Speaker 1: they can say, we told you that this might happen, right,
Speaker 1: and then we covered every possibility. We had to watch
Speaker 1: one because I know it's like burned into my brain
Speaker 1: that I'm supposed to tell someone if I spilled something.
Speaker 1: I spilled something a whole bowl of cereal, and I
Speaker 1: did tell someone exactly, so it works. It works. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was totally indoctrinated. There's a funny Wall Street Journal
Speaker 1: article that I came across from We're like making fun
Speaker 1: of over the top safety measures um and it talks
Speaker 1: about all the ways that companies and their employees take
Speaker 1: these things really seriously. So at the headquarters of Chevron,
Speaker 1: everybody gets a small white card that says stop work,
Speaker 1: and if you see something dangerous, you're supposed to like
Speaker 1: whip out the card and tell people to stop working.
Speaker 1: I have never seen anything dangerous enough workplace environment that
Speaker 1: I would that I would whip out a card of
Speaker 1: any kind to stop it. If you saw a power
Speaker 1: cord on the ground and you're like, no, guys, stop work.
Speaker 1: But okay, I know we're making fun of us. But
Speaker 1: safety is an important topic. Some statistics say that injuries
Speaker 1: are down and have been down in the workplace for
Speaker 1: the last thirteen years minus one year, and that I
Speaker 1: think that might partly be because workplaces are just in
Speaker 1: general work is safer. I'm not sure, or or companies
Speaker 1: are putting in place, you know, more of these safeguards
Speaker 1: because they're that scared of getting sued. And now that
Speaker 1: we all kind of work in this more connected environment,
Speaker 1: there are more ways to be safe at work, and
Speaker 1: those ways aren't necessarily addressed in these helpful videos and trainings. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us work online or our
Speaker 1: lives are online, and there's this confusing blending between what's
Speaker 1: work and what is your private life, and that can
Speaker 1: lead you into situations where you might be having some
Speaker 1: sort of conflict or being harassed online and it's like
Speaker 1: am I at work? Am I not at work? Right?
Speaker 1: And people can find out more about you if they
Speaker 1: don't like something you're doing in your role at your job.
Speaker 1: It's easier for people to learn more about you based
Speaker 1: on your kind of online profile. And the interesting thing
Speaker 1: is that it's not yet really clear when these situations arise,
Speaker 1: what your company should or can do about it, if anything.
Speaker 1: Our guest today is going to talk about her experience
Speaker 1: as a journalist writing a story that got her harassed
Speaker 1: online and what that did to her as a professional.
Speaker 1: And before we get to the interview, a warning to
Speaker 1: our listeners that the topics we cover are sensitive and intense.
Speaker 1: Lauren Duca is a contributing editor for teen Vogue, where
Speaker 1: she writes about politics and culture. Lauren, can you start
Speaker 1: by telling us about some of the work you've done
Speaker 1: lately and how it's put you in the public eye. Sure?
Speaker 1: So it has been sort of a crazy month because
Speaker 1: there were kind of a couple of things that forced
Speaker 1: me into bad inbox climate. Uh So, And early in
Speaker 1: December or like the tent, I published a piece that
Speaker 1: went viral called Donald Trump is gas lighting America, and
Speaker 1: that sort of received its own set of controlling and support.
Speaker 1: And then two about two weeks later, it was the
Speaker 1: twenty three I was on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox
Speaker 1: to talk about actually something separate, but that came up,
Speaker 1: and then um Martin Scarley got involved with trolling me
Speaker 1: as well, and he was suspended from Twitter. So that
Speaker 1: was sort of the third thing. And I don't really
Speaker 1: remember what like normal life is like. It's been a
Speaker 1: sort of exchange time, and it's been interesting as well,
Speaker 1: because each thing brought its own specific version of response
Speaker 1: in general, but like the harassment and the tone of
Speaker 1: the harassment was specific to each event, so I almost
Speaker 1: feel like I could write like a taxonomy of trolling
Speaker 1: at this point, like different subgenres ftrolls. It's interesting to
Speaker 1: hear you say you don't know what normal like life
Speaker 1: is like anymore, because now that you're not in the
Speaker 1: immediate aftermath of any one of those things, what is
Speaker 1: your professional life like now? Like what happens when you
Speaker 1: open your inbox in the morning and you start your day.
Speaker 1: So it is really bad. Still, I can't believe these
Speaker 1: people still have so much time on their hands, because
Speaker 1: I would have thought it would have died down. And
Speaker 1: also just anything I put out into the world is
Speaker 1: now gardners, so such an intense response and so much
Speaker 1: bigger response, and that could just mean tweeting. But then
Speaker 1: at the same time there's people creating email addresses like
Speaker 1: Nazi pussy grabber and just bombarding me with messages about
Speaker 1: how I'm going to be. I guess like a sex
Speaker 1: toy in camp Trump, which is I don't know, a
Speaker 1: fictitious concentration camp um. So it's it's very it's a lot.
Speaker 1: It's a lot, and I don't actually know if I
Speaker 1: know how it's affecting me yet because I haven't really
Speaker 1: had any time to step fully back away from it,
Speaker 1: but I definitely feel like my chest has not really
Speaker 1: been released from this type feeling since early December. You
Speaker 1: mentioned the different flavors of trolling, and I just wanted
Speaker 1: to know if you could give us an idea of
Speaker 1: the type of stuff you're getting and the volume twitch
Speaker 1: you're getting, and how it interacts with your work life.
Speaker 1: On Christmas Day, I was getting like death, rape, and
Speaker 1: doxing threats and but even to more some of the
Speaker 1: subdued ones. I responded, and I said, not to a lot,
Speaker 1: just to a couple, but does it bring you joy
Speaker 1: to send a message like this to a stranger on
Speaker 1: Christmas Day? Just thinking that seeing that would have some
Speaker 1: kind of wake up call moment for these people? And
Speaker 1: their response was get raped. Um, I don't know what
Speaker 1: words were allowed to say, but runs with bunt and yeah.
Speaker 1: So this is not people just having a bad day
Speaker 1: and feeling angry and like being able to humanize me.
Speaker 1: It's it's like this concerted effort and like these, like
Speaker 1: a these a lot of emails that I think are
Speaker 1: all from the same person because they're all like a
Speaker 1: lot of the Nazi camp Trump stuff follows a similar
Speaker 1: format where it might just be one guy sitting and
Speaker 1: like doing a generator to create these emails. And then
Speaker 1: because they have the same tone and the syntax is
Speaker 1: really similar, so I almost think a lot of it
Speaker 1: it could just be a couple of people, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily change the way it feels. And the thing
Speaker 1: that's really hard is that I opened my computer and
Speaker 1: I can't not see it. So it's like I can
Speaker 1: do my best to ignore it, and I've gotten better
Speaker 1: at that. It was strange at first because or I
Speaker 1: a lot. I didn't know how it was making me
Speaker 1: feel at first because I was kind of performing a
Speaker 1: reverence and making fun of it and you know, be
Speaker 1: like you're a whole and it would be like why
Speaker 1: you are to be like you know, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's you are, like it's not that's not a correct grammar,
Speaker 1: and it's like that's still some of it. It's like
Speaker 1: I can write it off as lunatics and and I
Speaker 1: can make fun of it, and some of it is
Speaker 1: just like crazy. And then so sort of unleashing it
Speaker 1: to my followers, who are mostly people who are following
Speaker 1: me because they like my writing or support the work
Speaker 1: I'm doing. Then having that kind of influx of we
Speaker 1: have your back, don't you know, here's a picture of
Speaker 1: my dog. Here's like that kindness come through has helped,
Speaker 1: but it also was hard to be acting through it
Speaker 1: and acting tougher than it when and kind of admitting
Speaker 1: to myself that it's okay for it to hurt your feelings,
Speaker 1: to have people say I mean things to you. That's allowed,
Speaker 1: and like, I don't have to be tougher than that
Speaker 1: because I'm a human being. And um, yeah, so I
Speaker 1: I think now that it is more of an it's dulled,
Speaker 1: but it's still takes an impact, and it takes part
Speaker 1: of my time and energy every day, and that feels
Speaker 1: incredibly unfair. And it's a hindrance on my you know,
Speaker 1: distracting me, it's making me less product TV and it's
Speaker 1: just like a limitation on what I could be achieving
Speaker 1: in each individual day. And that adds up. Are you
Speaker 1: concerned for your safety at all through any of these messages?
Speaker 1: There are a few that were concerning I don't know
Speaker 1: how specifically should talk about that because I just don't
Speaker 1: want to give anyone ideas. But the thing is that
Speaker 1: it's like it only takes one. Like, I've had people
Speaker 1: reach out to me who have been docks or hacked
Speaker 1: or and had to move or should we just clarify
Speaker 1: what docksing is for anyone who doesn't. Sure, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: just when they put your information up to make you
Speaker 1: feel super unsafe, or for people to send you who
Speaker 1: your home address and your identifying information. People have sent
Speaker 1: me crazy tips for things that just make me feel
Speaker 1: even more out of control because it's the tips are
Speaker 1: things that are just like, oh my gosh. If people
Speaker 1: can get a burner phone to do two step verification,
Speaker 1: and because they can impersonate you and go into your
Speaker 1: cell phone carrier store and get a new SIM card
Speaker 1: and then be able to hijack your phone and then
Speaker 1: hackened everything through there, It's just oh, like what that's
Speaker 1: that's so that was not even I felt like, thank you,
Speaker 1: this is helpful, but in my had I'm just like, Jesus,
Speaker 1: this is so crazy. That was unsolicited advice. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: from somebody like experienced. Yeah, and he's like, if you
Speaker 1: see no service in the top of your phone, that
Speaker 1: means they got it. I'm just like great, Yeah. Everyway,
Speaker 1: every time we ran the subway, yeah, who knows the
Speaker 1: thing is. It's just like they all could be something,
Speaker 1: but they're all probably nothing. But it only takes one,
Speaker 1: so it's a it's all just like honestly it's a
Speaker 1: form of terrorism because they're aware of that and they
Speaker 1: know that their threat is it carries a weight of possibility.
Speaker 1: I mean, I had a female journalists reach out to
Speaker 1: me and say it only took one doxing threat for
Speaker 1: to get docked. So it's sort of just like I'm
Speaker 1: bracing for impact. And I mean I've done some preventative things,
Speaker 1: like my husband I got LifeLock, which is, um it's
Speaker 1: a service that it has an insurance policy and alerts
Speaker 1: you if your information is being used in any way online.
Speaker 1: Like even that annoys me, Like it's like, really we
Speaker 1: had to spend seven hundred dollars to get this, just
Speaker 1: you know, because but I mean it's sort of like
Speaker 1: what can you do for workplace? Done any or that.
Speaker 1: I know you're a freelancer, but have the places that
Speaker 1: you work for done anything, um put any resources behind it,
Speaker 1: giving you any anything? No, you know, they've been compassionate
Speaker 1: about it, and uh, I don't know that there's so
Speaker 1: much that they can do. And I know even when
Speaker 1: I was at hof Post, when dealing with this a
Speaker 1: little bit, there's just like it's like, we're sorry, and
Speaker 1: it's so it's incredibly unfair that they're sort of just
Speaker 1: this shrug of like that's the world, isn't it, Because
Speaker 1: that's the world, isn't it? For women? Specifically? I think
Speaker 1: that that thing that's what's so incredibly troubling about it
Speaker 1: is that it's on me as a freelancer. It's this
Speaker 1: theft of time and energy and then within in a
Speaker 1: workplace where it's just like another stepback that women have
Speaker 1: to take on, and as a freelancer, it's it's it
Speaker 1: adds to that sense of and I would imagine that
Speaker 1: sort of sense of insecurity you already have as a freelancer,
Speaker 1: which is kind of like the burden is on you
Speaker 1: to handle any kind of financial hardship that comes up
Speaker 1: or in position on your time. And you were saying,
Speaker 1: you know, this is both something that takes your time
Speaker 1: and money to kind of protect yourself from, but it
Speaker 1: and it rightfully distracts you from from doing your job,
Speaker 1: which is coming in and writing stories, Like have you
Speaker 1: communicated that to the outlets that you work with. Have
Speaker 1: you ever had to say, you know, I needed any
Speaker 1: extra time to work on the story, or I need
Speaker 1: or whatever you've needed, Like have you expressed needs to
Speaker 1: them and have they been understanding or have they reached
Speaker 1: out to you know, but that I haven't. I have
Speaker 1: a very strong, never missed an lend policy and I
Speaker 1: just try and take care of everything myself. Um. I
Speaker 1: mean that might depending on how it is or how
Speaker 1: it devolved, that might that would be something I would consider, um,
Speaker 1: But it's talking specifically to place some pitching. But the
Speaker 1: other thing too, is like in terms of if my
Speaker 1: Twitter account or my Gmail were to get hacked, that
Speaker 1: would be so sort of like if I was in
Speaker 1: an office setting and I was a staffer somewhere and
Speaker 1: then that happened, they would deal with my email and
Speaker 1: work that out for me and be able to re
Speaker 1: establish everything, or they might at least at least on
Speaker 1: email gets hacked, right, that would be something your employer
Speaker 1: would deal certainly. But it's sort of like now, especially
Speaker 1: like all of my networking, all of my connections, all
Speaker 1: my contacts are built out for those I mean and
Speaker 1: now I've taken there would be ways around it, and
Speaker 1: I could find you know, presumably the editors I work
Speaker 1: with wouldn't just be like, Wow, she's gone, but it
Speaker 1: still would be that would be a huge robber of
Speaker 1: resources in a way that it wouldn't maybe affect somebody
Speaker 1: who was on staff full time. So I'm definitely more
Speaker 1: vulnerable in terms of what can be taken from me. Um.
Speaker 1: You mentioned this article you wrote Routine Vogue about your
Speaker 1: Twitter harassment, and one thing in the piece you talk
Speaker 1: about is that you're not going to just opt out.
Speaker 1: I know that that is something that people can do.
Speaker 1: I I've also experienced some of this online harassment and
Speaker 1: it has pushed me away from wanting to be on
Speaker 1: these platforms because it's distracting from my work. UM, why
Speaker 1: have you decided to not opt out? I feel very
Speaker 1: strongly that the goal of the harassment is to silence me,
Speaker 1: so I have an sense of obligation of not proving
Speaker 1: that I have not been silenced. Uh, And I maybe
Speaker 1: that's stupid and stubborn because it is getting in the
Speaker 1: way of my work. So like, practically speaking, I could
Speaker 1: probably tone it down on Twitter and that wouldn't like
Speaker 1: affect my finances directly. But also I've gotten most of
Speaker 1: my work this year through connections that started on Twitter.
Speaker 1: And you know, I got hooked up with teen Vogue.
Speaker 1: The aditorial director reached out to me. He liked he
Speaker 1: knew about my writing and liked my presence because of
Speaker 1: my Twitter account and now working for teen Vogue and
Speaker 1: this art, like this has totally changed my career and
Speaker 1: it was all started with a connection formed on Twitter.
Speaker 1: I think that we think like Twitter is some silly,
Speaker 1: stupid waste of time, but it's it's been incremental for me,
Speaker 1: especially this year going freelance, which is hard, and you
Speaker 1: have to form a lot of different connections and maintain
Speaker 1: them and have this little garden of like in many ways,
Speaker 1: Twitter is your workplace. It's it's a virtual location where
Speaker 1: you do your work, and and so being attacked on
Speaker 1: that platform is like, you know, directly taking it like
Speaker 1: the place that you work. Yes, so I don't think
Speaker 1: that that would necessarily be helpful because it would feel
Speaker 1: like a failure to people who are watching me get
Speaker 1: harassed and who are arrested. And I part of the
Speaker 1: reason why I was sharing some of it. I don't
Speaker 1: want to I think I need to I'm going to
Speaker 1: take a break from engaging with it and even like
Speaker 1: making fun of it, because I you know, I think
Speaker 1: I've done as much of that it's gonna be productive.
Speaker 1: But my goal with that was just sort of revealed
Speaker 1: how it's happening and what it looks like, and because
Speaker 1: I'm I'm scared that there are young women who are
Speaker 1: starting writing and think that they're writing is so bad
Speaker 1: or so annoying or so horrifyingly awful to these people
Speaker 1: bombarding them, that they that they're being that they'll be
Speaker 1: shut up. Um And I so I'm refusing to be
Speaker 1: shut up because I want to weather this and work
Speaker 1: towards a world where it's just not common to get
Speaker 1: like a photoshop version of you in a gas chamber.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like, is that so much to have?
Speaker 1: I hope. Well, thank you so much for coming and
Speaker 1: talking to us. I know this is a really hard
Speaker 1: our topic to talk about, and it's unfortunate that part
Speaker 1: of your work life has to be this way and
Speaker 1: that we have to think about safety in a completely
Speaker 1: different way now. UM, So we really appreciate it. It's
Speaker 1: really great to hear from you. Well, that was a
Speaker 1: really eye opening interview. Yeah. I think when people hear
Speaker 1: stories of online trolling, they dismiss it a little bit,
Speaker 1: like they think it's like, oh, that's all talk or
Speaker 1: have a thicker skin. But hearing Lauren speak, you can
Speaker 1: tell it's really close to becoming not virtual. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: you never really know where the line is between a
Speaker 1: real threat and a an imagined one. And she kept
Speaker 1: saying like it only takes one. And I know that
Speaker 1: Megan Kelly, the former Fox News reporter, was being attacked
Speaker 1: by tolls because of Donald Trump in a very similar way,
Speaker 1: in an intense way, and that some of the threats
Speaker 1: led her to seek having bodyguards for her and her family.
Speaker 1: You know, she thought the threat was real enough, right,
Speaker 1: And in situations like those, it's still really unclear, like
Speaker 1: what the obligation is of your employer, either their legal
Speaker 1: obligation or their ethical obligation to help you out, to
Speaker 1: help you manage this stuff, And what do they even do? YEA,
Speaker 1: what can they do? And it's not just media people
Speaker 1: that this can happen to me. We've been talking about
Speaker 1: examples of people who are in very public facing jobs,
Speaker 1: but anybody could say something in or out of the
Speaker 1: context of their work that could lead to them being
Speaker 1: targeted online. Yeah, there are a lot of jobs that
Speaker 1: people see as political. I've talked to the Anti Defamation League,
Speaker 1: for example, for stories that I've worked on and that's
Speaker 1: not media, and the people who work there certainly get
Speaker 1: a lot of online harassment. And then if you think
Speaker 1: back to one of the tragic shootings of the last
Speaker 1: couple of years, it was at a planned parenthood clinic,
Speaker 1: and those people aren't public, but they're doing a type
Speaker 1: of work that people are ideologically opposed to. I think
Speaker 1: as time goes on, companies are really going to have
Speaker 1: to reckon with this more more and come up with
Speaker 1: ways of dealing with it that will feel just as
Speaker 1: obvious as the silly retro workplace safety video. And I
Speaker 1: don't really know how we transition from all of that
Speaker 1: serious stuff to have bake takes, but we're gonna try
Speaker 1: happy fake takes. Becca, what is your overly strong opinion
Speaker 1: about something that doesn't matter? My half bake take is
Speaker 1: titled you need to ask permission if you're going to
Speaker 1: eat during meetings. Goodness, it's kind of a bad headline,
Speaker 1: but often I will be so busy during the day,
Speaker 1: and then I'll have a meeting at like one, and
Speaker 1: I'll want to eat my lunch in that meeting, and
Speaker 1: I need to do it. I cannot do it. But
Speaker 1: I think it's rude to just straight up eat during
Speaker 1: a meeting. I think you need to say, like, isaid
Speaker 1: okay that I'm making this on my lunch meeting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you should acknowledge that you're doing something that's kind of rude.
Speaker 1: I guess some people's half baked take would be don't
Speaker 1: do that, And my half baked take is absolutely feeds yourself.
Speaker 1: But there's some like once I had an orange during
Speaker 1: a meeting with you, and I felt weird. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a really weird day. It was a weird thing
Speaker 1: to eat, and I mean, I'll never forget that time
Speaker 1: you're eating it. But I asked so that that's my
Speaker 1: half pick take. What is your not quite really a story,
Speaker 1: but still something you want to share with us today? Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the ulterior motive that people
Speaker 1: have for using standing disks. So standing desks get a
Speaker 1: lot of attention for being a fat or for causing
Speaker 1: standing disk envy or whatever, um, but everybody says the
Speaker 1: reason to use a standing desk is because it's healthier,
Speaker 1: because if you if you sit for too long, you'll
Speaker 1: die or something. Yeah, I have a standing desk which
Speaker 1: I have recently begun to use, and I understand now
Speaker 1: the psychology that makes people want to use standing desks.
Speaker 1: A standing desk makes you seem more important because you
Speaker 1: are just physically looming above other people. If you have
Speaker 1: the option to use a standing desk at work and
Speaker 1: you don't take it, you're just passing up a total
Speaker 1: office power play. Do you think that feeling more powerful
Speaker 1: also leads to greater productivity. I don't know, but it
Speaker 1: feels good to just look down on everybody from my
Speaker 1: my perch. So you are standing us superior? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel superior in two ways because I'm standing, so somehow
Speaker 1: that means I'm being fit and also I'm just yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the tops of people's heads. My standing
Speaker 1: desk is like eleven feet tall. Cool. This has been
Speaker 1: half bag takes, half fake takes. Thank you for listening
Speaker 1: to game Plan. I'm at Francesco today on Twitter and
Speaker 1: I'm at RZ Greenfield. You can tweet your half bag
Speaker 1: takes at us at game Plan, or you can call
Speaker 1: and leave us a message on our voicemail at two
Speaker 1: and two six one seven zero one six six. If
Speaker 1: you like Game Plan, please go on over to iTunes
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts, subscribe and leave us
Speaker 1: a review. We love reading reviews. We read every single one.
Speaker 1: We share them with other inkay. This show was produced
Speaker 1: by Liz Smith and Magnus Hendrickson. Head of podcast is
Speaker 1: Alec McCabe and we'll see you next week. Bye. Don't
Speaker 1: be a DEFL. Learn the rules of safe conduct and
Speaker 1: apply them. Yours is the safest job in the world.
Speaker 1: If you use your heads. It's up to you.