Speaker 1: Welcome to game Plan, a show about our lives at work.
Speaker 1: I'm Francesca Leavie, editor of the game Plan section at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com, and I'm Rebecca Greenfield, a reporter at Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: where I cover workplace culture. This week, we're talking about
Speaker 1: being nice at work. Coming up, we'll talk to Paul Ford,
Speaker 1: a programmer and writer who wrote an essay on Medium
Speaker 1: about being a polite person and how bad has helped
Speaker 1: him in his work. But before that, let's talk about
Speaker 1: being nice. Becca. What's what's it like to be nice?
Speaker 1: I'm so nice? I can't. You're medium nice. Thank you.
Speaker 1: That's the right amount of nice. I think. I think
Speaker 1: that's good nice. Well, the world is getting meaner though,
Speaker 1: according to researchers, or at least the workplaces. There have
Speaker 1: been a lot of studies showing that workplaces are becoming morcalus.
Speaker 1: People are meeting to each other, people are stressed out,
Speaker 1: bole don't have any friends at work? What do we think? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you have some stats that you gave me
Speaker 1: five about half of Americans said they had a close
Speaker 1: friend at work. This is so sad. Then by two
Speaker 1: thousand four, this was true for only thirty percent of people.
Speaker 1: Do you think you have a close friend at work?
Speaker 1: You can't say me. I Oh, I usually take away
Speaker 1: close friendships from every like one or two close friendships
Speaker 1: from every job I've had. I mean, people come and go,
Speaker 1: so then you go through lulls where you know you
Speaker 1: don't have like a real homie at work. But that's
Speaker 1: a hard time. Yeah, So I think I'm in kind
Speaker 1: of like maybe one of those transitional periods now. But
Speaker 1: every job I've had, I've I have one token friend
Speaker 1: at least say that same. I feel that way too.
Speaker 1: When I read that stat I was surprised. But most
Speaker 1: people I know seem to have pretty good working relationships. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I wonder if this vibe of workplace is just
Speaker 1: being meaner in general. Like I wonder if there really
Speaker 1: is a shift over time that's real, or whether it's
Speaker 1: just the way we perceive work now that work is
Speaker 1: so different from what it used to be. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: some of the articles I've read about lamenting the demise
Speaker 1: of happiness at work, it seems the metrics they're using
Speaker 1: are kind of outdated or unrelatable to me. One of
Speaker 1: the statistics was that people don't go on vacation with
Speaker 1: their coworkers anymore. That seems like a really high bar.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, I don't know. I go on vacation like
Speaker 1: with my family. That's pretty much it. I don't know.
Speaker 1: You could see why you wouldn't want to spend your
Speaker 1: vacation with your coworkers. Are also logistically it's difficult, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're working in a smaller office, can't take off
Speaker 1: at the same time as everybody you work with. I
Speaker 1: have had really sad jobs where the sort of office
Speaker 1: environment was so negative or I hate to use this word,
Speaker 1: but toxic, that even though there were plenty of people
Speaker 1: I really liked at work, I would avoid any work
Speaker 1: related event outside of work, like I would avoid an
Speaker 1: after work happy hour or somebody's birthday party or something,
Speaker 1: because it was like traumatic for me to be around
Speaker 1: the people that reminded me of what it was like
Speaker 1: to be in the office. And also it often devolved
Speaker 1: into just a complaint session about work. So maybe that's
Speaker 1: the reality for more people, I think. I guess the
Speaker 1: other thing that we've talked about is how connected people
Speaker 1: are in the office now. I think that your office
Speaker 1: life and your real life used to be fairly different
Speaker 1: zones that were kept very separate and distinct. And now,
Speaker 1: as you've written about extensively, and you and I have
Speaker 1: talked about plenty, there are so many ways to stay
Speaker 1: connected to your colleagues, and we're expected to work longer
Speaker 1: hours and we're expected to be available to our colleagues
Speaker 1: for more of our waking hours that I think there
Speaker 1: are just more opportunities to piss people off. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it goes both ways. One woman who argued that
Speaker 1: workplaces are getting miners that used as an example people
Speaker 1: checking their phones during meetings as a mean thing to
Speaker 1: do at work, which it's so normal to me that
Speaker 1: doesn't seem mean, but share that could be rude, right.
Speaker 1: But on the other side of things, I have a
Speaker 1: lot of strong relationships that have been formed over a
Speaker 1: chat and messaging, and I've talked to many people who
Speaker 1: say that they've formed good friendships that way. So I
Speaker 1: totally disaccount those digital experiences. So I think it's important
Speaker 1: to point out, though, that being nice at work means
Speaker 1: something different for men and women. Women are often criticized
Speaker 1: for being too nice to ingratiating like tick saying sorry.
Speaker 1: For example, we're always hearing about women apologizing too much.
Speaker 1: We say sorry for things we're not even really sorry
Speaker 1: for things we didn't do wrong. It's gotten to the
Speaker 1: point where it's like the subject of a joke. This
Speaker 1: is a clip from the television show Inside Amy Schumer
Speaker 1: that shows the extreme example of what happens when you
Speaker 1: say sorry too much. Today's panelists are the top innovators
Speaker 1: in their respective fields. Dr Amy Schmer is one of
Speaker 1: the lead scientists behind prenatal neural peptides and their effects
Speaker 1: on memory and learning. Yes, that's correct. Sorry. Professor's Sasha
Speaker 1: Barron is a Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. Sasha, let's
Speaker 1: start with you. I invented a solar paneled water filtration system. Sorry. Um,
Speaker 1: that's portable and lightweights. Yeah. Sorry, thanks, that'd be great.
Speaker 1: But if you can't, no worries. Sorry, is this coffee
Speaker 1: a coffee? You can get some water and this is
Speaker 1: my pahlon. But any of you ladies like a coffee?
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I don't want to go to waste. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'll take it, Thank you? Nice? Sorry, Sorry, oh god,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I've ruined everything, all right, So
Speaker 1: obviously women are guilty of saying sorry. To the point
Speaker 1: of personal injury, yeah, to death. Yeah. And so this
Speaker 1: has been the upshot from this popular realization that women
Speaker 1: are more inclined to say sorry than men, that they
Speaker 1: should just do it less. So they should stop apologizing
Speaker 1: for being themselves or stop apologizing for things that they
Speaker 1: didn't do wrong, right, like in the clip, how they're
Speaker 1: apologizing for things that they have no need to apologize
Speaker 1: for us, So we shouldn't apologize at all, right, And
Speaker 1: so you're you're kind of disenfranchising yourself by doing that.
Speaker 1: And I love this clip, and I think it's funny
Speaker 1: and it highlights a lot of things about like the
Speaker 1: way women and men interact. But I I feel like
Speaker 1: we are also just perpetuating this idea that women are
Speaker 1: doing something wrong by saying sorry. You know. Lena Dunham
Speaker 1: wrote an essay in her Lenny Letter newsletter about how
Speaker 1: she was done saying sorry and she was going to
Speaker 1: do less of it. And my feeling is there are
Speaker 1: plenty of moments when it's actually appropriate to say sorry,
Speaker 1: and just because women say sorry perhaps more than men,
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean they're doing it too much. Maybe men
Speaker 1: aren't saying sorry enough, which I think maybe as another
Speaker 1: takeaway from that Amy Schumert clip is the man on
Speaker 1: stage just doing nothing and getting out of a lot.
Speaker 1: I've been looking great, which is kind of like in
Speaker 1: the workplace. There are plenty of moments in my professional
Speaker 1: life where men have not said sorry or have not
Speaker 1: kind of couched a request with an apology, and I've
Speaker 1: noticed it and kind of paganism polite. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, I understand the instinct as a woman to
Speaker 1: want to edit yourself so that you're not doing and
Speaker 1: saying right woman ish things that right to take away
Speaker 1: your power right. And and there's a popular chrome extension
Speaker 1: that does just that, that will edit your emails for
Speaker 1: phrasing like I'm sorry, and just so that your emails
Speaker 1: are more clear and frankly more masculine and so that
Speaker 1: you'll get ahead in the workplace. And doesn't it throw
Speaker 1: up like little pop ups that say, man, explain to
Speaker 1: you why you're why your language is hurting you, like
Speaker 1: people tend to. Yeah, I mean it was a woman
Speaker 1: to be care but I do think that, yeah, is
Speaker 1: this a solution to just tell women to act more
Speaker 1: like men, which is a popular way that women are
Speaker 1: told that they couldn't get ahead negotiate like a man.
Speaker 1: It's like a man, be like a man. But it's
Speaker 1: this sort of Cheryl Sandberg lean In philosophy of if
Speaker 1: you just strip away all these behaviors that are associated
Speaker 1: with women that are holding women back, then you won't
Speaker 1: have any more obstacles in your way to getting ahead
Speaker 1: in the workplace. And I think that it's clear that
Speaker 1: that's not the case because what tends to happen is
Speaker 1: any behavior that's associated with women, it's wrong because women
Speaker 1: do more of it. Right, So if you stop saying
Speaker 1: sorry and you're too aggressive, then you're perceived in a
Speaker 1: bad way. Also, I when I was first starting out
Speaker 1: in my first job, I had a male boss pulled
Speaker 1: me aside and tell me I was too sour and
Speaker 1: he told me that I should be, you know, more
Speaker 1: up and cheerful. And I did that, and I think
Speaker 1: he was right. It worked. But how infuriating is that?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard to imagine a man being told that.
Speaker 1: But also there's always some kernel of good advice in there,
Speaker 1: like it probably is valuable too. I think I was
Speaker 1: to take some of the edge off of your For
Speaker 1: anyone to take some of the edge off of their
Speaker 1: attitude if they have one, which is exactly what we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about with our guests today. Paul Ford
Speaker 1: is a writer essayist. He is the co founder of
Speaker 1: Postlight and co host of the podcast Track Changes, and
Speaker 1: a little while back, he wrote an essay for Medium
Speaker 1: on what it means to be a polite person. Welcome, Paul,
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. So let's jump right into
Speaker 1: your philosophy of niceness. What inspired you to write this
Speaker 1: essay and kind of explain to people how you get
Speaker 1: other people to warm to you. So I was, for
Speaker 1: a brief fall a paid writer for Medium, and I
Speaker 1: had turned forty the night before, and I woke up
Speaker 1: and I was just kind of like, what have I done?
Speaker 1: Not in any specific thing. I hadn't really done anything.
Speaker 1: I just felt really like exhausted about being forty. And
Speaker 1: I had this like sudden wave where I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I should write that politeness thing. And it
Speaker 1: was by far one of the most successful and and
Speaker 1: and like well read things I've ever written. But it
Speaker 1: sort of came out of me in about fifteen minutes,
Speaker 1: and the basic gest of the piece was that politeness
Speaker 1: is kind of a power tool in life, and you
Speaker 1: can get very very far by actually just sort of
Speaker 1: being very polite and respectful, and that if more people
Speaker 1: could just chill out and do that, it might be
Speaker 1: good for them and good for all of us together.
Speaker 1: I imagine it was so successful because we're used to
Speaker 1: hearing the opposite. Yeah, and the opposite is is really easy, right,
Speaker 1: Like you can tell people you have to be angrier
Speaker 1: and more assertive, and nobody is really into the idea
Speaker 1: of like starched collars and and a slight sense of reserve.
Speaker 1: So you opened the essay with a story from work
Speaker 1: in which a coworker of your as a woman, calls
Speaker 1: you a kiss us and I'm just wondering what you
Speaker 1: could have done? What you did that was so polite
Speaker 1: that she was turned off by it. Oh, I was
Speaker 1: in a lot of meetings at big publishing companies, and
Speaker 1: she was coming from the world of technology. She was
Speaker 1: very West Coast, very hard driving, and so I'd be
Speaker 1: in those means and I'd be sort of like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: then tell me what happened, and I was. I just
Speaker 1: had sort of infinite indulgence for what she saw as
Speaker 1: just the raw, incredible stupidity of the people across the table,
Speaker 1: And I didn't see it as stupidity. I just saw them.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been a technologist, but I've also worked
Speaker 1: in publishing for many, many years, and what I've come
Speaker 1: to learn is that the things that you often interpret
Speaker 1: as stupidity or bureaucracy or frustration have very good reasons.
Speaker 1: On the other side. There's actually a logic to them.
Speaker 1: And if you attack people, they get very defensive and
Speaker 1: they say, Okay, this person is a monster. Let's get
Speaker 1: them out of here as quickly as possible. But if
Speaker 1: you to sit there and you're like, okay, how you know,
Speaker 1: sort of like how did it feel to you when
Speaker 1: they put that website up and it started to disrupt
Speaker 1: your career? If you ask those questions, people are actually
Speaker 1: well bad, right. They're like, well, they didn't understand the
Speaker 1: whole deal with consumer services, and you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: no they didn't. And then you get them to to
Speaker 1: play that out. You actually you just acknowledge that their
Speaker 1: challenges are real. Even though the larger culture goes get
Speaker 1: with the program, get disrupted, learn new skills, acknowledge that
Speaker 1: that's really hard for people and often they'll just come
Speaker 1: right around to your side. And so she's read that
Speaker 1: as insincerity. Yeah, because she was like, this is taking forever.
Speaker 1: You know, culture is changing. We gotta get in there.
Speaker 1: But then she came around and said, but it actually
Speaker 1: helped you get things done. It was a strategy. And
Speaker 1: you write that is how an impolite person gives a compliment,
Speaker 1: which I gladly accepted. That's right now. I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's look, my method tends to be if you just
Speaker 1: let the water drip over the stone and then slowly,
Speaker 1: like a pattern emerges, you can see you can see
Speaker 1: the stone get worn away. A lot of people bring
Speaker 1: out a hammer. There's times when you do bring out
Speaker 1: the hammer, no matter what. That's life. But for the
Speaker 1: most part, I don't necessarily feel that I have to
Speaker 1: push people like off a cliff into the future in
Speaker 1: order to get my job done. You sound very tolerant.
Speaker 1: I think is a word that I might use. I
Speaker 1: hope other people would see me that way. I hope
Speaker 1: people would would think I was a pretty good listener. Well,
Speaker 1: one thing you say, you spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: on in the essays talking about your ability to sort
Speaker 1: of bring people out in any circumstance that you meet
Speaker 1: them by when they describe what they do, you say
Speaker 1: you have a phrase with the phrase right, so it's
Speaker 1: it's my party trick. And um, when people tell you
Speaker 1: what they do, you can just go that sounds hard
Speaker 1: and they go, oh, you have no idea, fantastic. And
Speaker 1: I were talking about this before you came about how
Speaker 1: if we said that it would sound so sarcastic and dismissive, like, oh,
Speaker 1: that sounds really hard. It seems like you could definitely
Speaker 1: say it wrong. It's true. Now you just I mean,
Speaker 1: we can, we can play it out. What do you
Speaker 1: what do you guys do where podcasts? Oh? You know,
Speaker 1: my god, that must be an unbelievable amount of work, right,
Speaker 1: do you have to like book all the guests yourself? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we do, and it's it's really hard. So you're doing
Speaker 1: all that, but you're also trying to put the show together.
Speaker 1: You're like on Google calendar. Yeah, well this does feel
Speaker 1: so good, Oh my god, but like, how do you
Speaker 1: even have to How do you have time to make
Speaker 1: such a great show? So these are always that you
Speaker 1: describe of kind of connecting with people. And one thing
Speaker 1: I thought was interesting about your essay is that it's
Speaker 1: you frame it as being about politeness, but it's a
Speaker 1: little bit more about being warm, because I think that
Speaker 1: you are, you know, being a kind of warm, giving person,
Speaker 1: because I think you can be perceived as polite and
Speaker 1: still not be somebody that other people are dying to
Speaker 1: keep talking to, or someone you talk about in the
Speaker 1: essay how the woman came around to you because you've
Speaker 1: got stuff done. M One thing I want to make
Speaker 1: sure we touch on is because you don't really mention
Speaker 1: the aspect of gender anywhere in your essay, but I
Speaker 1: do think that there is a difference between what it
Speaker 1: means for a man to be a good listener, which
Speaker 1: is kind of what you describe a lot of in
Speaker 1: the essay, is just being good at listening and being
Speaker 1: genuinely interested in what people are saying. I feel like
Speaker 1: there's a there's more of an expectation of women that
Speaker 1: they'll already be doing that. So it seems almost goes
Speaker 1: back to am I allowed to participate in this culture?
Speaker 1: And women are constantly doing that in the workplace right,
Speaker 1: And maybe that's why we are perceived as the people
Speaker 1: always saying sorry or the people being extra ingratiating and polite,
Speaker 1: because again, we're putting up this buffer to prove that
Speaker 1: we can be here, which I think is I think
Speaker 1: that's completely real. I think that's a system that women.
Speaker 1: Women have all these crazy like cultural technologies that they
Speaker 1: have to use in order to get through a day.
Speaker 1: This is like a little too foundational, but it's that
Speaker 1: was going to end up being a bad pun. But like,
Speaker 1: makeup is like a weapon, right, Like it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can actually modify my appearance so that I feel
Speaker 1: more comfortable and in control of the situation and I
Speaker 1: won't feel as vulnerable as I go through the day.
Speaker 1: Men the vast majority of men just don't have that
Speaker 1: consideration or don't don't tend to feel that way, and
Speaker 1: so right like that becomes part of the system. So look,
Speaker 1: I mean politeness is kind of that. It's like a system,
Speaker 1: it's a technology. It's a way for you to go
Speaker 1: in the room and just sort of be like, okay,
Speaker 1: even if this guy, And especially because I think in particular,
Speaker 1: women are thrown in positions where their safety is kind
Speaker 1: of blurry at the edges, right, So it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be sexually harassed. Well, if I am
Speaker 1: super polite with this complete asked, that is just like
Speaker 1: saying weird stuff about my body or or like trying
Speaker 1: to touch me or suggesting that I need to sleep
Speaker 1: with him in order to advance my career. Like the
Speaker 1: women who, especially like a couple of generations prior, were
Speaker 1: either really really bad ass or they just like went
Speaker 1: stone faced and we're like, Okay, I don't think that
Speaker 1: we've understood ourselves. You know, I don't think I understood
Speaker 1: you very clearly. I'm going to get back to you,
Speaker 1: like and then they would just get out of the room.
Speaker 1: Those are like weird, bad, dangerous situations, and politeness was
Speaker 1: a weapon because you didn't have recourse in other ways,
Speaker 1: So I see it as very It was empowering in
Speaker 1: places where people didn't have a lot of power. Do
Speaker 1: you feel like the same type of polite person now
Speaker 1: as the guy who co runs the company as you
Speaker 1: did as a person who was just sort of going
Speaker 1: through the world with a more regular job, Like, would
Speaker 1: everybody in your company perceive you as polite in the
Speaker 1: same way? Right, Because a lot of the thing about
Speaker 1: being mean is usually put on people who are leaders,
Speaker 1: and like leaders have to make the hard choices and
Speaker 1: be tough to get ahead. When you have people's careers
Speaker 1: under your direct control, you have to give more clear
Speaker 1: feedback than you need to give out a party. And
Speaker 1: when someone is leave in the company for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: there's all sorts of like, there's all sorts of stuff
Speaker 1: if that gets outside of this zone that is real,
Speaker 1: that relates to people's material well being, and I'm responsible
Speaker 1: for that, And so it shifts from polite, which I
Speaker 1: think actually remains the baseline. Politeness is one thing, like
Speaker 1: active respect is another. Uh, that to me is the
Speaker 1: because I can't actually always be polite. If I have
Speaker 1: to tell you what you're doing that I need you
Speaker 1: to change your fix. I mean, it sounds to me
Speaker 1: like you're still even in situations where you have to
Speaker 1: be direct and criticize people, you're still doing it in
Speaker 1: a polite way, Like you're not abandoning those principles. You're
Speaker 1: just maybe it's not as warm. It can't be right,
Speaker 1: like that kind of communication doesn't scale out that way.
Speaker 1: You just can't have I can't be a worm mentoring
Speaker 1: caretaker to forty plus people in a growing organization. But
Speaker 1: obviously you can still be played, so I can be
Speaker 1: respectful and I can try to make sure that the
Speaker 1: culture is set up so that they you know, part
Speaker 1: of it too is just like is this a good
Speaker 1: place where parents can work? Is this a good place
Speaker 1: where you know? Do people feel like their careers are
Speaker 1: safe here? And I feel if we kind of take
Speaker 1: care of that, that's that's a greater form of respect
Speaker 1: than just like making good, amiable chit chat in the elevator. Well,
Speaker 1: PAULA Ford, thank you so much for coming in and
Speaker 1: talking to us. Thank you as a real, real privilege.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Okay, Becca, So where do we stand on
Speaker 1: being mean versus being nice? Which is the better career strategy?
Speaker 1: I think Paul made a really good point that he
Speaker 1: even modifies his niceness as a boss. So I think
Speaker 1: it's all pretty situational, like kind of use your best judgment, right,
Speaker 1: and it depends on your audience or whom you know
Speaker 1: you're talking to. Like he even admits, as a se
Speaker 1: proclaimed polite person who is very kind to most people
Speaker 1: in his life, that there are moments where he just
Speaker 1: can't wear that hat right. And I think it's important
Speaker 1: to not be fake nice, which Paul is not. I
Speaker 1: think some people wouldn't even call him polite. He's empathetic
Speaker 1: and understanding and listening, which are all really important characteristic
Speaker 1: ristics in the workplace. Right, people can see right through
Speaker 1: fake politeness, and sometimes politeness is actually passive aggression, especially
Speaker 1: when you're you're using it just to put a nice
Speaker 1: bow on something crappy that you're saying to somebody. Nobody
Speaker 1: likes that. Nope, before we go, I'd like to introduce
Speaker 1: half bake takes. Half fake takes. Half bag takes are
Speaker 1: issues that we care about very deeply, but almost nobody
Speaker 1: else does. Therefore we would never write an article about them.
Speaker 1: But we're going to use this podcast for a platform.
Speaker 1: Here's my half bag take for the day. It's called
Speaker 1: pizza is a human right. Okay, Um, you can't get
Speaker 1: behind that already. It's customary and offices to order in
Speaker 1: pizza as a way to appease people who don't want
Speaker 1: to be sitting through a long lunch meeting, or to
Speaker 1: reward people for working late or working on the weekends
Speaker 1: or something like that. Pizza in the office is supposed
Speaker 1: to be this great treat, right, but what always happens
Speaker 1: is the pizza gets piled up in a conference room,
Speaker 1: and everybody who sees the people eating the pizza salivates,
Speaker 1: and there isn't enough pizza for everyone. My philosophy is,
Speaker 1: if you order pizza, pizza is cheap enough and easy
Speaker 1: enough to obtain in most cities, that you should order
Speaker 1: enough for everybody who might see or smell that pizza.
Speaker 1: I don't disagree with your half big take, but I
Speaker 1: think the calculation is a little hard, Like how many
Speaker 1: people do you know? This is where the problem arises,
Speaker 1: because if you have like fifteen people in your meeting
Speaker 1: and then you order, you know, a dozen large pies,
Speaker 1: you always end up with a little too much. So
Speaker 1: it's just enough for a few lucky, early desperate scavengers
Speaker 1: to jump in and get that cold pizza at the end.
Speaker 1: And by the way, wherever you put pizza after a meeting,
Speaker 1: it will all eventually get eaten. Yeah, because also, cold
Speaker 1: pizzas great, cold pizzas delicious. Do you have a half
Speaker 1: big take? Okay? So my cause, my office cause is
Speaker 1: the case for keeping my desk as messy as I want,
Speaker 1: and the cases that you're lazy and you don't want
Speaker 1: to clean it up. No, I'm busy doing my job.
Speaker 1: So I have a notoriously messy desk at the office.
Speaker 1: There are poh, it's been photographed. There's stacks of books
Speaker 1: like papers all over it. There's there tends to be well,
Speaker 1: there's sometimes perishables. I would say, there's like at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, a stack of cups and bowls
Speaker 1: and spins and forks and a salad thing there for
Speaker 1: the salad greens. So it gets very messy and people
Speaker 1: make fun of me, which is mean, But you know what,
Speaker 1: it doesn't bother me. I get my work done. Where
Speaker 1: am I supposed to put the books? Do you want
Speaker 1: me to throw things out and be wasteful? We have
Speaker 1: tables where you can put books you don't want. I
Speaker 1: don't know where those are. I know there's a lot
Speaker 1: of research out there, and I'm sure I could find
Speaker 1: it about how having a messy desk inspires creativity because
Speaker 1: I'm using my brain for something besides cleaning up my desk. Well,
Speaker 1: let me have my messy desk. You tell me to
Speaker 1: clean my room, Dad, you didn't hire me to be
Speaker 1: a cleaner. Okay, I'm taking it too far, but I
Speaker 1: really do. I just I don't care about the cleanoness
Speaker 1: of my desk and you can't make me. I'm an
Speaker 1: adult and I can have ice cream for breakfast. I
Speaker 1: think you may need to bake that take a little
Speaker 1: more wow. And this has been half big takes, half
Speaker 1: baked takes. Thanks for joining us this week on game Plan.
Speaker 1: For more workplace coverageat over to Bloomberg dot com. Find
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at at Francesca Today and I'm at
Speaker 1: Urz Greenfield and our guest this week, Paul Forward, is
Speaker 1: at f Train. See you next week, see you next week.
Speaker 1: Just want of you. You know who you are.