Speaker 1: What you're listening to is me, Sam Grobart and Francesca
Speaker 1: at karaoke a few weeks ago, and it's the sweet
Speaker 1: sound of us becoming true friends. Can work friendships really last? Though?
Speaker 1: This is game plan HIIII Hi. I'm Rebecca Greenfield and
Speaker 1: I'm Francesco Leady And this week we're talking about work friends.
Speaker 1: If that's even a thing, Well, it felt like a
Speaker 1: thing when we were all doing karaoke. Yeah, karaoke is
Speaker 1: such a fun work friend activity. It's the classic workplace
Speaker 1: bonding exercise, like it's to work specific ritual. I feel like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I would do karaoke with anybody, but it's
Speaker 1: especially common among work people because you have to drink
Speaker 1: a little bit in order to feel comfortable enough. And
Speaker 1: then you're becoming so vulnerable by putting yourself out there
Speaker 1: and singing in front of people, and you can't help
Speaker 1: but be friends at the end. Right, And but we
Speaker 1: say that, and yet our dear friend Sam Robert left
Speaker 1: for another job sometime back, and I don't know, are
Speaker 1: we really friends now that he's in another job? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I felt like we were friends when he left, But
Speaker 1: now that it's been a few weeks. Who knows work
Speaker 1: friendships are are fraught like that. Well, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a reason for it. Would you like to know what
Speaker 1: that is? Yes, there's something called the proximity principle, which
Speaker 1: suggests that basically, you are most likely to be close
Speaker 1: with people who are physically near you. So like somebody
Speaker 1: who sits next to you at work, is there's a
Speaker 1: higher likelihood that you'll become friends with them than even
Speaker 1: somebody who sits like on another floor at your job.
Speaker 1: And certainly, and that that's a bigger predictor of friendships
Speaker 1: than anything else, like even how much you have in
Speaker 1: common with somebody, or you know, some other bonding factor
Speaker 1: in your relationship. I found that to be very true
Speaker 1: on a very micro level here at Bloomberg because we
Speaker 1: just moved desks and I was close to the person
Speaker 1: I was sitting next to, and now it's like we
Speaker 1: barely even work together. Yeah, I've had that experience. Their
Speaker 1: relationships have of mine have fundamentally changed after that person
Speaker 1: and me no longer sitting together. It's really sad, I know.
Speaker 1: So it's like it's also sad because it's like, God,
Speaker 1: you thought you were friends with this person, like every
Speaker 1: day you, you went for your coffee break together and
Speaker 1: you share little jokes about things you overheard, and it
Speaker 1: felt like this great friendship and then it's just gone,
Speaker 1: Like as soon as you don't have the super easy
Speaker 1: convenience of turning and talking to that person whenever you
Speaker 1: feel like it, there's like nothing there. It's not only
Speaker 1: that you're thrown into this box with people that you
Speaker 1: might not ever be friends with, but also work relationships
Speaker 1: are complicated because we work with these people a lot,
Speaker 1: and you might have a lot and come with them
Speaker 1: because you are interested in the same professional things, but
Speaker 1: you also need to be calculating and you want to
Speaker 1: get something out of them, and or you might be
Speaker 1: competitive with them. So it's this weird relationship that you
Speaker 1: have with It's easy to mistake work friendships for real friendships,
Speaker 1: or it's easy to treat them like you with other
Speaker 1: kinds of friendships in your life. But there's a whole
Speaker 1: other layer to it, right, Yeah, there is research showing
Speaker 1: that people are more apt to treat their personal acquaintances
Speaker 1: better than their close colleagues. So in the study, they
Speaker 1: had people imagine that a personal acquaintance took them out
Speaker 1: for dinner and then imagine that a work friend took
Speaker 1: them out for dinner and the people were more likely
Speaker 1: to reciprocate with the personal acquaintance. That's crazy. So like,
Speaker 1: even in this thought experiment, like who do we become
Speaker 1: when we're at work? I don't think that I'm like
Speaker 1: this cold hearted person, But apparently, like when we think
Speaker 1: about our work friends, were just not treating them the
Speaker 1: same way we with the people in our lives. I
Speaker 1: think it's just as complicated, these complicated feelings we have. UM,
Speaker 1: which is a phenomenon known as the front of me
Speaker 1: for enemy. It sounds like such a new term. Oh,
Speaker 1: but there's a history. I going into the history of
Speaker 1: the words. Apparently it first showed up back in nine
Speaker 1: three with what the headline of a story that I love,
Speaker 1: how's about calling the Russians are frenemies? And for you
Speaker 1: listeners out there, it's housed with a Z and front
Speaker 1: of me is spelled f R I e N instead
Speaker 1: of f R E N, which is the modern spelling. Okay,
Speaker 1: I love the people were spelling things with a Z
Speaker 1: in that sounds like a headline from now that could
Speaker 1: be a I don't know, UM. So it kind of
Speaker 1: proves that our relationships have always been pretty complicated. I
Speaker 1: think there's been room to talk about these complicated, nuanced
Speaker 1: friend ships, but they certainly do seem very prevalent in
Speaker 1: the office, and it makes you wonder if everybody in
Speaker 1: the office who you think is your real friend is
Speaker 1: actually a friend of me. And I mean everything we've
Speaker 1: just talked about suggests that, yes. But our guest today
Speaker 1: studies working relationships and she's found that it's a lot
Speaker 1: more complicated than that, and even that these fraud relationships
Speaker 1: might be good for us. Our guest today is Jessica Methought.
Speaker 1: She's an assistant professor of Human Resource Management at Rutgers,
Speaker 1: where she studies work relationships. Thanks for coming on, Thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. So you study all types of friendships,
Speaker 1: Can you break down the different kinds of relationships we
Speaker 1: have at work? Yeah? Absolutely. We started to look at
Speaker 1: the research that is really really prevalent on positive and
Speaker 1: negative relationships, and they tended to pit them against each
Speaker 1: other to say that they were on opposite ends of
Speaker 1: a continuum that a relationship is either positive or negative.
Speaker 1: And we started to kind of reflect on this and
Speaker 1: think about relationships that didn't necessarily fall into either one
Speaker 1: of those buckets for us, either at work or at home.
Speaker 1: And so we did a little bit of legwork and
Speaker 1: we started to look at any of the work that's
Speaker 1: been done that doesn't clearly like label these relationships and
Speaker 1: put them into the positive or negative buckets. And we
Speaker 1: found research on things like sibling rivalry and ways that
Speaker 1: people feel about their in laws, and so these started
Speaker 1: to make us think that we don't necessarily only feel
Speaker 1: positively or negatively, but we could really feel both. We
Speaker 1: could feel ambivalently. Where will simultaneously feel both strongly positively
Speaker 1: and strongly negatively about someone that we work with, And
Speaker 1: so we thought that that was a really interesting type
Speaker 1: of relationship to take a look at. So that's what
Speaker 1: we might call fre enemies, yeah, exactly, And so that
Speaker 1: tends to be the label that's put on and when
Speaker 1: people want to talk about them. It's something that really
Speaker 1: resonates with people. We understand and can reflect on what
Speaker 1: a freenem me means at work in particular. So these
Speaker 1: are people who you know, we're really close with and
Speaker 1: we care a lot about and we feel benevolently towards
Speaker 1: and we know they care a lot about us. But
Speaker 1: say we go up for the same promotion and they're
Speaker 1: making headway on us, there's this notion or this feeling
Speaker 1: of jealousy that we just can't table. In your research,
Speaker 1: you also talk about what you call in different relationships.
Speaker 1: Can you explain what that means? So in different relationships
Speaker 1: really are just acquaintances. So these are people that we
Speaker 1: run into every day, that we wave too, that we
Speaker 1: nod to in the hallway, and we may even know
Speaker 1: their names, and so they make a small mark on
Speaker 1: us on a day to day basis, but if we
Speaker 1: never saw them again, we might not necessarily, you know,
Speaker 1: feel too broken up about it. These were also relationships
Speaker 1: that we just wanted to delve a little bit more
Speaker 1: deeply into because we we noticed that they are a
Speaker 1: specially common Yeah, I definitely have a lot of those.
Speaker 1: I can think of their names first time only at
Speaker 1: the top of my head. But you found that they
Speaker 1: do have an impact on our lives, right, yes. And
Speaker 1: so you know, as we started combing through some of
Speaker 1: the research that touches on this notion of in different relationships,
Speaker 1: you know, we came across research on what's called weak
Speaker 1: ties in social networks. And so this is kind of
Speaker 1: the most common way to think about in different relationships,
Speaker 1: and from that perspective are weak ties helps connect us
Speaker 1: to unique and non redundant information. So if these individuals
Speaker 1: are not part of our core social network, the people
Speaker 1: in our core network tend to have the same information.
Speaker 1: We're all talking to each other, we all share the
Speaker 1: same information with each other. If we're connected to someone
Speaker 1: who's not really embedded in that network, they have different
Speaker 1: perspectives and different pieces of information that can help us
Speaker 1: with our work or give us a new way to
Speaker 1: reflect on something that we're doing that we might not
Speaker 1: necessarily have reached if we just focused on the people
Speaker 1: in our core network. It's like get out of your
Speaker 1: media bubble, right exactly, and you start to kind of
Speaker 1: talk to people and so, you know, you ask them
Speaker 1: about their lives and their experiences or just advice that
Speaker 1: they would give you, and it gives you a different
Speaker 1: way or a new perspective to think about things. And
Speaker 1: so that's one of the ways that we saw this
Speaker 1: really being a benefit these relationships. And you can probably
Speaker 1: also learn more about even your job or your office
Speaker 1: or how your office works. Like the guy who was
Speaker 1: installing at my colleague standing desk. The other day, I
Speaker 1: was talking to him and learned all about our whole
Speaker 1: office policy on standing desk, which is very complicated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and none of none of my more intimate colleagues could
Speaker 1: explain it to me. Well, right, And so they give
Speaker 1: us kind of this new information and it might not
Speaker 1: be the most pressing information, but it could be. And
Speaker 1: so it helps us, you know, do our jobs in
Speaker 1: a way that we wouldn't necessarily have thought about. So
Speaker 1: there's some research that calls them consequential strangers, So we
Speaker 1: consider them strangers, but they do mean something to us.
Speaker 1: They have some consequence in our daily lives, and they
Speaker 1: also you were saying, they affect our our day to
Speaker 1: day Yeah, absolutely, And so this is something else that
Speaker 1: kind of came out of our research and our review
Speaker 1: of the research that's been done, which is, even if
Speaker 1: we don't develop or never develop really strong or positive
Speaker 1: relationships with these people, they give us a sense of embeddedness.
Speaker 1: They really help contribute to the culture of the work.
Speaker 1: They make us feel like we have connections. And the
Speaker 1: thing about high quality, strong friendships, strong relationships is that
Speaker 1: they can actually be pretty draining. They take a lot
Speaker 1: of effort, and so these acquaintances they don't take much
Speaker 1: effort for us to continue to maintain, and so they're
Speaker 1: very helpful in making us feel positively. They give us
Speaker 1: a positive emotion. Someone waves and says hi to you.
Speaker 1: It makes you feel good, right, You feel connected to
Speaker 1: the people at work. But it doesn't take your attention
Speaker 1: away from the work that you're doing. It doesn't create
Speaker 1: an interruption, it doesn't cause you to have to repay
Speaker 1: someone for something that they gave back to you. And
Speaker 1: so they're really low maintenance relationships. Hearing your talk about
Speaker 1: friendships and how much energy they take, I can definitely
Speaker 1: definitely relate to that, and I'm sure freenemies take a
Speaker 1: particularly large amount of energy. Have you found that there
Speaker 1: are any benefits? Are? Like, what are the effects of
Speaker 1: phenemies at work? When we look at the effects of
Speaker 1: frenemies outside of the workplace, they tend to seem really harmful,
Speaker 1: really detrimental. So if these are you know, our friends
Speaker 1: who we share some kind of volunteer activity or some
Speaker 1: other activity that we're engaging in with them outside of work,
Speaker 1: these tend to just drain us so much, right, and
Speaker 1: so we want to potentially just end those relationships. It's
Speaker 1: easier to end relationships outside of work. The unique thing
Speaker 1: about freenemies in the workplaces that you can't necessarily just
Speaker 1: dissolve them, right, These are people that you work with,
Speaker 1: and so there's really this this complication associated with frenemies
Speaker 1: in the workplace that doesn't translate to this type of
Speaker 1: relationship at home. And so while they're are some detriments,
Speaker 1: what we see is that when there's this sense of ambivalence,
Speaker 1: when there's this coexisting positive and negative set of emotions
Speaker 1: that exist in a relationship, it actually heightens our activation.
Speaker 1: So it makes us more attuned to what's going on
Speaker 1: in the workplace. And so what that leads to is
Speaker 1: better opportunities for learning, more vigilance, more creativity, and so
Speaker 1: it actually helps with creative thinking and the ability to
Speaker 1: do our jobs better. It also leads us to think
Speaker 1: a lot more deeply about, say, the information that this
Speaker 1: individual is providing us with. We don't just take it
Speaker 1: at surface value and assume that it's okay. We really
Speaker 1: work through is this true, and so kind of give
Speaker 1: a deeper sense of commitment to and time to the
Speaker 1: information that they're providing to us because it might not
Speaker 1: necessarily be accurate. We don't know if they're trying to
Speaker 1: help us or trying to hurt us. That does sound
Speaker 1: really mentally exhausting, is and that's the harmful aspect of
Speaker 1: it is that it's so they are so de energizing
Speaker 1: inside of work or outside of work, they are draining.
Speaker 1: They take so much time and energy. And because you
Speaker 1: constantly have to be in this heightened state of vigilance,
Speaker 1: right you're constantly on your toes thinking what is this
Speaker 1: person going to do? I can't necessarily predict what they're
Speaker 1: trying to do or what their goal is. Now, there
Speaker 1: are some people who are neither friends nor frenemies right there,
Speaker 1: just they're just genuinely people you don't like. It works, right,
Speaker 1: How do those relationships affect you compared to freenemies? And
Speaker 1: that's a really fascinating question, something that we found really
Speaker 1: interesting because if we just take these relationships at face value,
Speaker 1: thinking that they're either positive or negative, then we assume
Speaker 1: that negative relationships are the worst kind of relationship. Right,
Speaker 1: These are harmful. But we know what to expect from
Speaker 1: people we dislike, right, or from people who we don't
Speaker 1: interact well with or who don't help us with our
Speaker 1: work and we know are trying to sabotage us. So
Speaker 1: the fact that we can, our expectations are set. It's
Speaker 1: actually easier to deal with negative relationships. We know we
Speaker 1: want to avoid them, right the goal in that interaction
Speaker 1: is avoidance. But when we have an ambivalent relationship, we're
Speaker 1: pulled in these two different directions. We've got mixed feelings
Speaker 1: about them, and that sense of a mixed feelings of
Speaker 1: this tension is much more detrimental than purely negative relationships.
Speaker 1: It's increasingly draining, and you don't necessarily want to simply
Speaker 1: avoid them. It's this kind of contradicting approach and avoid tendency,
Speaker 1: and so you have different interactions with them day to day,
Speaker 1: and it's really harmful over the longer term. But you
Speaker 1: can't necessarily avoid your enemies are nemasies know you know,
Speaker 1: and and definitely even if they are purely enemies, purely
Speaker 1: negative relationships, you can try your best to try to
Speaker 1: avoid them. If you have to work directly with them,
Speaker 1: that's going to be really harmful, but you might find
Speaker 1: out something you like about them, So you might find
Speaker 1: even if you don't like them as a person, or
Speaker 1: you have very different values that you actually work well together,
Speaker 1: But that might turn it into an ambivalent relationship even
Speaker 1: more when you have to when you when you can't
Speaker 1: avoid your enemies, they end up just turning into your friend,
Speaker 1: and then you have to spend so much more mental
Speaker 1: inner jus. Yes, exactly, And so I think that's something
Speaker 1: that managers really need to think about and consider when
Speaker 1: they're trying to, um say, resolve conflicts. When they're forcing
Speaker 1: people who don't necessarily like each other to work together,
Speaker 1: thinking that's going to help them overcome this issue, it
Speaker 1: might be creating something that's even worse. So in talking
Speaker 1: about freenemies, I couldn't help but think about our current
Speaker 1: political administration, and it seems like Paul Ryan and President
Speaker 1: Donald Trump might be freenemies at this point because you know,
Speaker 1: Paul Ryan didn't endorse him, and now they have to
Speaker 1: work very close together and you see this tension and
Speaker 1: play out. Is it possible that that friend of the
Speaker 1: ship um might be good for their creativity together? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it did lead us to start
Speaker 1: to see some ways that they were trying to work together,
Speaker 1: even if it was superficial, But I'm not necessarily sure
Speaker 1: they're actually frenemies. I think it might be putting on
Speaker 1: a show. I'm not entirely sure that Paul Ryan actually
Speaker 1: likes Donald Trump. That's just my personal opinion. But I
Speaker 1: do think that they are trying to work together. I
Speaker 1: do think they see the potential for their being able
Speaker 1: to collaborate and try to meet the goals of their party. Um.
Speaker 1: But I'm not necessarily sure that that actually falls into
Speaker 1: this category of ambivalence or frenemies, because it's this true
Speaker 1: positivity and negativity that are coexisting, and it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: just trying to make something work. But that could fall
Speaker 1: into that category potentially. You know, I think that, like
Speaker 1: you mentioned, in this political landscape, were probably starting to
Speaker 1: see fenemies become a lot more common. So at work,
Speaker 1: these are you know, individuals who you felt like you
Speaker 1: were friends with, who you interacted with really well, you
Speaker 1: support each other, and then you potentially find out, even
Speaker 1: though you respect them as a professional and as someone
Speaker 1: who's supported you at work, that maybe they support a
Speaker 1: political candidate that you just can't back. That there's no
Speaker 1: way that you could support this individual, and you start
Speaker 1: to see that your core values really differ, And so
Speaker 1: I think that we probably are starting to see the
Speaker 1: incidents of these freenemies on the rise in this landscape
Speaker 1: where there's so much divisiveness, where people are starting to
Speaker 1: find out things about each other where that they wouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily have found about found out about otherwise, and it
Speaker 1: creates these complicated relationships. When I have discovered an unexpected
Speaker 1: political opinion from somebody that I had assumed thought otherwise,
Speaker 1: it almost feels like a personal betrayal, even though they
Speaker 1: didn't do anything to me. They just had an opinion
Speaker 1: I didn't know about and nothing changed. They had that
Speaker 1: opinion before when you liked them. So yeah, I'm also wondering,
Speaker 1: have you found that work relationships or the research on it,
Speaker 1: can be gendered or changes depending on the gender of
Speaker 1: the two people involved. UM So when we look at
Speaker 1: friendships between enders, right, so a lot of times we
Speaker 1: think about friendships being between individuals of the same gender,
Speaker 1: and so the effects are gendered. When supervisors are evaluating
Speaker 1: to women who are friends, they tend to get more
Speaker 1: negative performance evaluations than two men because women tend to
Speaker 1: be seen as social butterflies, and so that UM that
Speaker 1: interaction tends to be seen as non work related, even
Speaker 1: if that's not necessarily true, and so we could see
Speaker 1: that effect occurring, but we could use a lot more
Speaker 1: research on it to kind of nail down whether that's
Speaker 1: actually happening. And then one of the other complicating issues
Speaker 1: is cross gendered friendships. So when a man and a
Speaker 1: woman are close friends, then what kind of complication does
Speaker 1: that create? And so it takes a lot of energy
Speaker 1: to manage that kind of relationship, to portray it and
Speaker 1: to signal to others that it is purely a friendship.
Speaker 1: And so there's research on work spouses which is really interesting.
Speaker 1: You know, I have this person who's really close to
Speaker 1: me at work, but you know, I have my my
Speaker 1: personal life and my spouse at home, and that starts
Speaker 1: to get a little complicated as well. Well. That's playing
Speaker 1: out in the political sphere right too. We have the
Speaker 1: vice president saying that he wouldn't privately go out to
Speaker 1: dinner with a woman, which suggests that there are still
Speaker 1: these widely held beliefs among some people that women and
Speaker 1: men can't have just a neutral relationship. Absolutely, and I
Speaker 1: think that that continues, right So this is something that
Speaker 1: even when we see it unfold in the workplace, people
Speaker 1: start to gossip about it. Right, even if it is neutral,
Speaker 1: it starts to garner gossip and people start to assume
Speaker 1: that things are happening when two individuals go to lunch
Speaker 1: every day with each other or they go to happy
Speaker 1: hour with each other, and so we definitely need to
Speaker 1: be cognizant of the impression that that's giving as well.
Speaker 1: One final question that we're trying to tackle is do
Speaker 1: you think that work friendships are real friendships? So in
Speaker 1: my research, what we've found is that we can ask
Speaker 1: this question quite differently. And so there's been some really
Speaker 1: great research which by Gallup where they ask a question
Speaker 1: do you have a best friend at work? And so
Speaker 1: they'd actually started asking that question by saying do you
Speaker 1: have a friend at work? But the problem is is
Speaker 1: that people say that everyone at work is their friends.
Speaker 1: They have a very loose definition of what friendship means.
Speaker 1: But when you ask someone if they have a best
Speaker 1: friend at work, it's very easy for them to make
Speaker 1: that distinction. They know if someone is their best friend
Speaker 1: or a positive acquaintance or just a friendly relation. And
Speaker 1: so what we tend to see is that people report
Speaker 1: between one and three best friends at work, and I
Speaker 1: think this is actually true. So even if they start
Speaker 1: off as just a work friend, where this relationship is
Speaker 1: purely in the work domain, you're spending so much time
Speaker 1: with your work colleagues, and it's inevitable that this is
Speaker 1: going to kind of bleed into or blur into your
Speaker 1: non work life. You start to go out to happy
Speaker 1: hour with them when you need to vent about something,
Speaker 1: You introduce them to your spouse or your partner, and
Speaker 1: the more you get to know about each other and
Speaker 1: the more personal information you disclose to each other, the
Speaker 1: more your work and your life domains start to blend together,
Speaker 1: and the closer you become where this person really does
Speaker 1: become a very close personal friend, not necessarily just a
Speaker 1: work friend. So it's possible. Absolutely, Well, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming and talking to us. This was great.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me so. Jessica says
Speaker 1: that work friendships become real friendships when they crossed the
Speaker 1: line outside of work, and that happens over time when
Speaker 1: you invite people for drinks and then they get to
Speaker 1: know your spouse or partner, and that's definitely been my experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your lives sort of slowly over time move away from
Speaker 1: just having work in common to having other things in
Speaker 1: common as well. But I definitely have friends that I
Speaker 1: grew closer with them after we stopped working together, after
Speaker 1: one of us left a job. So that's when you
Speaker 1: like no longer need something from someone and you still
Speaker 1: like them. Yeah. Maybe, or you've just you've had enough
Speaker 1: other experiences together besides work that you have like enough
Speaker 1: of the ingredients for real friendship. Because there's so much
Speaker 1: fodder to talk to people about work when you're working
Speaker 1: together that it's like you can get lazy about becoming
Speaker 1: friends in other ways. That's all true, but also maybe
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if you're not friends later. Like these friendships,
Speaker 1: the relationships you haven't work because you spend so much
Speaker 1: time at work with the same people, especially if you're
Speaker 1: working on small teams, they feel very real and genuine
Speaker 1: and fulfilling. Yeah, you can't know if your friendship has
Speaker 1: the right stuff to last outside of the office. There
Speaker 1: are plenty of people that I at past jobs thought, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: I'll be friends with that person, Like I love the
Speaker 1: idea of continuing to hang out with them. In theory,
Speaker 1: if we are no longer working together, and it just
Speaker 1: never came together. There was no you know, ill will
Speaker 1: between us, but the ship didn't last. But it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that those weren't good friendships when we were working together,
Speaker 1: and they're honestly probably friend of me ships. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine having totally good or totally bad feelings about somebody
Speaker 1: in general, but or at work, right. So the lesson is,
Speaker 1: don't drive yourself crazy wondering whether your work friendships are
Speaker 1: real friendships. Try not to invest too much mental energy
Speaker 1: and outwitting your friendemies, but also just enjoy the nice
Speaker 1: relationships you have with people, and if they last, they last.
Speaker 1: If they don't, it doesn't mean you weren't friends to
Speaker 1: begin with. So sweet and now it's time per half
Speaker 1: Big Takes, Happy fake Takes. We got a really great
Speaker 1: call in half Big Take from Kelly in Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: and you two can call into our hotline at two
Speaker 1: and two six months seven zero one six six and
Speaker 1: here's Kelly high game plans. I'm really tired of vanity
Speaker 1: license plates. You know, I'm on my way to work
Speaker 1: and I'm stuck behind someone in a red light with
Speaker 1: some stupid pun and my brain automatically starts to try
Speaker 1: to figure it out. And why are you stealing my
Speaker 1: brain power? You don't get to do that. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm a professional. My work gets built out at hundred
Speaker 1: dollars an hour, and you you don't get my brain
Speaker 1: power for free. Okay, thanks a lot. People who get
Speaker 1: vanity plates, they don't really consider how it might make
Speaker 1: other people feel. I know, they don't think about what
Speaker 1: it puts Kelly through. She's got her brain power is expensive,
Speaker 1: and she's spending it on figuring out vanity blades. And
Speaker 1: you and I obviously never thought about this because we
Speaker 1: don't drive. Thank you, Kelly. All right, frantiska, what is
Speaker 1: your not quite fully formed idea? I have such an
Speaker 1: on topic half big take that I've been dying to
Speaker 1: do for a long time. I'm super psyched that acquaintance ships, acquaintances.
Speaker 1: I like acquaintances a lot. I think I'm super psyched
Speaker 1: that those uh relationships are actually really important and good
Speaker 1: and underrated because I've always felt that way. And I
Speaker 1: kind of hate it when people decry small talk because
Speaker 1: they just think it's not genuine. And so I have
Speaker 1: a half big take about small talk, which is that now,
Speaker 1: taking it as given that small talk is important and
Speaker 1: valuable and real and we all need to do it,
Speaker 1: we should get a little bit better about small talk
Speaker 1: because there's a timing issue with small talk. So I
Speaker 1: have one of these acquaintances. Okay, he's one of the
Speaker 1: security guards downstairs, and I walked by him in the morning,
Speaker 1: and I always get really tense right before we have
Speaker 1: our high moment in the morning because I know there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a timing issue where I'm going to say
Speaker 1: hi or good morning, and he'll say good morning, and
Speaker 1: then just as I'm getting out of range, he'll shout
Speaker 1: like a follow up question at me, like or say
Speaker 1: like have a great day, but it's I'm too far away,
Speaker 1: it's too late for me to turn around and respond.
Speaker 1: So my half big take is be good at small talk,
Speaker 1: value small talk, and make sure you have your timing right.
Speaker 1: What is your half big take this week? I am
Speaker 1: so passionate about this week's half big take. I've been
Speaker 1: so excited ever since I thought about it. My half
Speaker 1: big take is that people need to get over their
Speaker 1: aversion to fish smell like you know, tuna fish. People
Speaker 1: say it smells bad. You can't bring in to work
Speaker 1: or the other day you had fish for lunch, and
Speaker 1: this is why this came up, and it was you're
Speaker 1: sheepish about it because people are so rude, and it's like,
Speaker 1: grow up, grow up fish. Food smells like food. It
Speaker 1: smells like food. Also, I think it's unless it's really
Speaker 1: it makes people feel so guilty about the things they
Speaker 1: like to eat. And I think I'm so passionate about
Speaker 1: this because I had an incident in high school where
Speaker 1: somebody made fun of me for the sandwich I brought
Speaker 1: because it had catch up on it and you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to put catch up on chicken sandwich apparently, and
Speaker 1: I felt like very ostracized and weird. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't like to be food shamed. And it's just like
Speaker 1: we're adults and fishes of food we all eat and
Speaker 1: fish is really good for you and delicias, so everyone
Speaker 1: needs to chill out. Yeah, people, It's like people don't
Speaker 1: want to smell, Like there would be fine smelling it
Speaker 1: if they were the one eating it, but for some reason,
Speaker 1: you don't want to smell food someone else is eating.
Speaker 1: And it's like we have to eat our food in
Speaker 1: the office, and everyone does it. So it's just about
Speaker 1: accepting that the office is an okay place to eat.
Speaker 1: I think you can't hide that you're eating you know what,
Speaker 1: forget it. I'm eating tuna sandwiches and hard boiled eggs
Speaker 1: E tofu every day for lunch. Honestly, Thank you, Delicious,
Speaker 1: You're welcome, and this has been half big takes, half
Speaker 1: baked takes. Thanks for listening to another episode of game Plan.
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter. I'm at ours Greenfield,
Speaker 1: I'm at Francesca today and call us leave a message
Speaker 1: with your half by take or anything you like at
Speaker 1: two and to six seven zero one six six. If
Speaker 1: you like this show, please head on over to I
Speaker 1: Too wherever you listen to your podcast to rate and
Speaker 1: review and subscribe. We've just got a new review and
Speaker 1: I freaked out. It's an awesome review. Thank you reviewer.
Speaker 1: This podcast was produced by This Smith and Magnus Hendrickson.
Speaker 1: Head of podcast is Alec mcaine and we will see
Speaker 1: you next Weekful we can ride together, making with each
Speaker 1: other happy. So bye bye bye