Speaker 1: What would you do if it was your first day
Speaker 1: at a new job as an engineer and your manager
Speaker 1: sent you a chat saying he's in an open relationship
Speaker 1: and would like to find new partners to have sex with.
Speaker 1: And then what would you do if you reported him
Speaker 1: immediately to HR and they did nothing about it? This
Speaker 1: week we are talking about toxic work environments. This is
Speaker 1: game plan. Hi. I'm Francesco Leady and I'm her back
Speaker 1: of Greenfield, And the scenario I just described is not
Speaker 1: actually a hypothetical. You might have heard a lot about
Speaker 1: Uber in the news last week. A former engineer there
Speaker 1: wrote a fairly explosive article alleging that she was pretty
Speaker 1: extensively sexually harassed and that so were other women working
Speaker 1: at Uber, and the company really didn't do anything about
Speaker 1: it and even sabotaged her and other female colleagues. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was what was striking about it, right, that it
Speaker 1: was pretty institutionalized. And there was this follow up New
Speaker 1: York Times article that dove into how that's the culture
Speaker 1: at Uber, how there's bullying and people are protected if
Speaker 1: they are quote unquote high performers, and how management is
Speaker 1: against some employees and it's not just women. According to
Speaker 1: this article, right, like, it isn't only women being sexually harassed.
Speaker 1: There men getting bullied as well. Yeah. One example was
Speaker 1: that a manager threatened to beat an underperforming employees in
Speaker 1: the head with a baseball bat. Um. That was one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really weird and scary kind of can you imagine
Speaker 1: that happening to No, I can't. And I think that's
Speaker 1: where you cross over into what we kind of call
Speaker 1: a toxic workplace. It's a little bit of a buzzword,
Speaker 1: but I do think that it's useful to think about
Speaker 1: what it means to work someplace that is toxic. What
Speaker 1: does it mean to you? So when we dine our
Speaker 1: sexual harassment episode, our guest said that had things will
Speaker 1: happen when you get a lot of people together. So
Speaker 1: the very fact that there is somebody sexually harassing someone
Speaker 1: at work doesn't necessarily make the workplace toxic. It's the
Speaker 1: fact that at uber it seems that they don't address
Speaker 1: it and they may even protect these people. So that thought,
Speaker 1: to me, is what really makes a place seem like
Speaker 1: somewhere I wouldn't want to work. What about you, Francesca, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's exactly that that it's not just one
Speaker 1: jerk or you know, one person you don't get along
Speaker 1: with it work. It's it's a bunch of systems that
Speaker 1: really make you feel powerless. I mean, I know I've
Speaker 1: worked in places, certainly not now or any time recently,
Speaker 1: but I have at least one job that comes to
Speaker 1: mind that I would I would call a pretty toxic
Speaker 1: work environment. And the reason it was that way was
Speaker 1: not just because I had a mean boss or I
Speaker 1: had a mean coworker. It was because there was a
Speaker 1: manager pretty high up who I would describe as a bully,
Speaker 1: and I think that his management style trickled down to
Speaker 1: the managers below him and the managers below them, and
Speaker 1: it really felt like there was nothing you could do.
Speaker 1: There was no way you could get justice, so to speak,
Speaker 1: for the way that you were being treated at the job,
Speaker 1: and if you were going to stick around, you had
Speaker 1: to kind of come up with coping strategies, Like it
Speaker 1: was all about just how to get out of bed
Speaker 1: every morning and go into work and know that something
Speaker 1: you felt really unfair was going to happen to you
Speaker 1: that day. That kind of brings me to my question
Speaker 1: about this, which is how people get stuck in these
Speaker 1: jobs and why they stay and then what finally gets
Speaker 1: them to leave? Yeah, the obvious answer would be money,
Speaker 1: Like it's hard to leave jobs and you can't really
Speaker 1: leave if you depend on the paycheck. But it's it's
Speaker 1: more nuanced than that, right. Yeah. I wrote a story
Speaker 1: about why people stay in jobs they hate, which wrote
Speaker 1: up some research that found often these people who didn't
Speaker 1: link our jobs for one reason or another, stayed because
Speaker 1: they were being overpaid basically at their current jobs. And
Speaker 1: why would you leave? But that cannot be the case
Speaker 1: for all these stories we're hearing. I mean Susan Fowler,
Speaker 1: for example, as an engineer and uber. She got a
Speaker 1: job me or weeks later, but it took her an
Speaker 1: entire year. Right You hear all about the talent shortage
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley. There's really it's not that hard for
Speaker 1: an engineer to find something new if they if they
Speaker 1: want to switch jobs. And there are toxic work environments
Speaker 1: and other high paying fields right here. These stories from
Speaker 1: all sorts of workers, not just people, are stuck in
Speaker 1: their positions. Right, So there's a lot of coping that
Speaker 1: happens in mental thought processes that I think get You
Speaker 1: may be stuck in these environments for longer than you
Speaker 1: would like to be, and it's a perfect time to
Speaker 1: introduce our guest, who herself worked in a toxic work
Speaker 1: environment many years ago. Our guest today is Maureen Sherry,
Speaker 1: whose book Opening Bell is a fictionalized account of her
Speaker 1: time as the youngest female managing director at Bear Stearns.
Speaker 1: Opening Bell is soon to be a movie starring Reese Witherspoon,
Speaker 1: and we're very happy to have Maureen with us. Welcome, Maria,
Speaker 1: thank you. I'm happy to be here. Maybe you can
Speaker 1: start by telling us a little bit about what the
Speaker 1: culture was like at Barristerns in the late nineties early two. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the culture of Bear and I think some other
Speaker 1: investment banks on Wall Street, particularly on the trading floor
Speaker 1: where I worked, was very much a meritocracy in the
Speaker 1: way that you could whatever you There's this terrible expression
Speaker 1: eat what you kill, but you were on commission and
Speaker 1: people were quite motivated to really be successful by bringing
Speaker 1: the most commissions or doing the most deal or that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. And so as an outlier that you
Speaker 1: had this incredibly competitive environment that was probably nine it
Speaker 1: was male professionals, and so women were far outnumbered, and
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, it was a very very loose
Speaker 1: from a behavior standpoint. And uh, if you remember, the
Speaker 1: economy at that time had gone through a a blip
Speaker 1: and had really recovered nicely. So there was a lot
Speaker 1: of energy, there's a lot of money being made, and
Speaker 1: it was a pretty wild time. Can you give us
Speaker 1: some specific examples of that wild time? So I think
Speaker 1: that as women were coming more into their own on
Speaker 1: Wall Street at that time, there was a feeling that
Speaker 1: almost a question of of place. Where they really hadn't
Speaker 1: been large breadwinners, they now were in some situations, and
Speaker 1: so I think for some, especially more senior men, it
Speaker 1: felt it was a little disconcerting. They felt a little bit,
Speaker 1: uh that there was a power play. There was a
Speaker 1: I think, a way that men asserted themselves in their
Speaker 1: role of being more powerful. And one of the ways
Speaker 1: they did that was through a lot of fraternal jokes,
Speaker 1: a lot of juvenile behavior stuff that we've yeah, you've
Speaker 1: talked about people moving at you. Yeah, that's right. So
Speaker 1: one of the more awful examples was I had at
Speaker 1: the time just had my first child, and I was
Speaker 1: expressing breast milk, and so it is as you know,
Speaker 1: a very familial environment, very much like a newsroom where
Speaker 1: people sit quite close to one another. Nobody really has
Speaker 1: office stores that they closed. So I did keep a
Speaker 1: pump under my desk. I would have to go to
Speaker 1: We had a barber shop at bear Stearns, and I
Speaker 1: would go in there to express breast milk. And when
Speaker 1: I would get up and pull the bag out, sometimes traders,
Speaker 1: seeing me leaving the desk would move and you know,
Speaker 1: you would blush and it was funny, and and yet
Speaker 1: part of you felt very sad about it. It seems
Speaker 1: like these incidents can add up like that wasn't the
Speaker 1: only thing that happened right, right, And you have to
Speaker 1: remember that part of it is acceptance. Like I don't
Speaker 1: think these were necessarily bad men who were trying to
Speaker 1: like objectify me in any way. I think it was
Speaker 1: we worked very closely together. They thought it was funny.
Speaker 1: Sometimes men performed for other men in a very fraternal
Speaker 1: and as I know, some people call it now the
Speaker 1: broke culture of Wall Street. And so that's the environment
Speaker 1: I worked in, and so I think this was part
Speaker 1: of it. Was the environment toxic for men in ways? Also,
Speaker 1: I would say not because they had been the establishment
Speaker 1: for for quite a while. I wouldn't say toxic. I
Speaker 1: do think that the women who were coming in and
Speaker 1: women that I recruited to join the firm, who were
Speaker 1: younger than me, had a much stronger sense of of
Speaker 1: right and wrong behavior. And so one thing that was
Speaker 1: of great frustration to me was so many of them
Speaker 1: would leave. They would last about two years, sometimes three,
Speaker 1: and then just say, you know, I I can make
Speaker 1: a living in a different way. I don't like the
Speaker 1: culture here. And so so one thing that myself and
Speaker 1: some of the other professional women did is we formed
Speaker 1: this group and we didn't want to, you know, make
Speaker 1: class action status or or or sue or do anything
Speaker 1: like that. What we wanted to do is change the
Speaker 1: culture of the place we worked. And so we called jokingly,
Speaker 1: we called ourselves the Glass Ceiling Club, and the Glass
Speaker 1: Ceiling Club just aimed to call men on behavior that
Speaker 1: we thought was unacceptable and that we thought other women
Speaker 1: that it was causing other women to leave. For ourselves,
Speaker 1: we felt like we had been there for so long
Speaker 1: that we almost had accepted it, or felt we had
Speaker 1: a thick skin. But I really felt like with younger
Speaker 1: women that was no longer going to to work anymore.
Speaker 1: Why did you decide to stay and spend some time
Speaker 1: trying to change the culture rather than just finding another opportunity.
Speaker 1: You know what I think it's interesting about that question
Speaker 1: is when you're in it, I didn't say to myself
Speaker 1: every day, Oh, I should really leave this is this
Speaker 1: is abusive. I felt a little beaten up sometimes by
Speaker 1: this constant drum of call it sexism if you will,
Speaker 1: But I stayed for so long because it starts to
Speaker 1: feel familiar. Like a lot of people who are in
Speaker 1: even a bad relationship, it feels familiar, it feels comfortable.
Speaker 1: Obviously there's financial security, and so I think that had
Speaker 1: a lot to do with it. To some of us,
Speaker 1: this can sound like a time a long time ago,
Speaker 1: and things have changed. And you even said younger workers
Speaker 1: have different reactions to this. But you've been interviewing traders
Speaker 1: working on floors now as part of research for your movie.
Speaker 1: Are these things still happening? So yeah, it's been very
Speaker 1: interesting to go around with the screenwriter and to go
Speaker 1: to a trading floor, and we really targeted women who
Speaker 1: are really on the professional track doing great, and to
Speaker 1: talk to them incredibly frankly, and they're mostly women who
Speaker 1: have been referred to us by other women because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of this, oh you should hear what happened
Speaker 1: to her, But they they share stories sometimes, but nobody
Speaker 1: really wants to be the one who is raising her
Speaker 1: hand and saying, you know, we need to do something
Speaker 1: about this. But for us, because it is sort of, um,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of this little safe environment to speak with,
Speaker 1: we've gotten a lot of really good feedback and so
Speaker 1: so things have changed as far as the overt, uh
Speaker 1: really overt awful stuff that would happen on a trading floor.
Speaker 1: We think partly that's because stuff is far more documentable now. Right,
Speaker 1: everybody has a camera phone, We have messages and emails
Speaker 1: and things like that that are evidence based. And so
Speaker 1: what's different now is that they would say it has
Speaker 1: gone to be a more covert sexism. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: one woman gave us the example where she had had
Speaker 1: she has a young child, she returned to work. Another
Speaker 1: woman had a child and decided to be home with
Speaker 1: her family, and so at her going away party, their
Speaker 1: mutual boss stood up and said, I'll call her Jane.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, let's all raise a toast to Jane,
Speaker 1: she's going home to be with her baby. She's doing
Speaker 1: the right thing, and everyone had to toast to that. Well,
Speaker 1: you can imagine how this makes this woman who's not
Speaker 1: home with her child all day feel. It's stuff like that.
Speaker 1: We had really countless examples, and so to keep this
Speaker 1: story current in the movie, we're trying to use examples
Speaker 1: more like that. Do you have advice or thoughts for
Speaker 1: how women can deal with that more more covert version.
Speaker 1: One thing that has struck me with the numerous cases
Speaker 1: not just on Wall Street, but we've seen this now
Speaker 1: in the news area. Obviously we're talking about it now
Speaker 1: and with uber women not speaking to one another, is
Speaker 1: that something that nobody has really explained to me very well.
Speaker 1: And so one very senior woman said to me that
Speaker 1: she felt she was so kind of honored to have
Speaker 1: been chosen to become a partner at an investment bank.
Speaker 1: There are so few seats at the table for women.
Speaker 1: She felt really grateful to be there for her to
Speaker 1: start raising her hand and and kind of like kivetzing
Speaker 1: with other women and sharing stories with other women didn't
Speaker 1: really seem like a good career move. And so that
Speaker 1: is one thing that I felt, if women can break
Speaker 1: that habit and and look out for each other more,
Speaker 1: but even more importantly to have men look out for
Speaker 1: women in that way. So, for instance, we talk a
Speaker 1: lot about mentorship, and often it's a senior women being
Speaker 1: assigned essentially a younger women who she's supposed to to
Speaker 1: bring in and to to help her with career advice
Speaker 1: and things like that. And the women I spoke to
Speaker 1: generally didn't like that relationship, only because sometimes it works
Speaker 1: out and it's terrific, sometimes it feels very artificial. I
Speaker 1: think that I would say to younger women, speaking to
Speaker 1: other women is great. Finding organic relationships is great. I
Speaker 1: also think when you do that, if there is some
Speaker 1: sexism or or I al would say non promotion from men,
Speaker 1: to have a male mentor or a good friend who
Speaker 1: can look out for you, I think that helps immeasurably too.
Speaker 1: So I talked a bit about why people's day and
Speaker 1: why you've stayed and partly, yeah, it's because you've built
Speaker 1: this great career and you've invested so much time and
Speaker 1: this thing. How did you eventually get out? Well? I
Speaker 1: didn't leave because there had been any one big event.
Speaker 1: I felt beaten down because I had I have a number,
Speaker 1: I have four children, and so after each maternity leave,
Speaker 1: I would return to a lesser job. I think partly
Speaker 1: that was because I worked with men who, in general
Speaker 1: they were large income earners, their wives didn't need to work,
Speaker 1: so it felt to them a little strange to work
Speaker 1: alongside a working mother. That wasn't that common back then,
Speaker 1: and I still think it's It's a much smaller percentage
Speaker 1: in the in the higher ends of Wall Street than
Speaker 1: than you can imagine. So when I did leave, it
Speaker 1: was a feeling. Yes, I felt beaten down a bit
Speaker 1: by my job. I had felt that when I came back,
Speaker 1: my accounts that I covered rare, always fewer of them,
Speaker 1: and I would often get them back, but it was
Speaker 1: through a lot of uphill work again, and so I
Speaker 1: felt worn out when I left. What was really interesting
Speaker 1: is I went to our human resource department because you
Speaker 1: have this mandatory exit interview, and I wanted to be
Speaker 1: really honest because I felt like despite many meetings and
Speaker 1: trying to defend some women who had signed you fours
Speaker 1: and had left in the kind of in the dark
Speaker 1: of night, and it had gotten uh, gotten nice checks
Speaker 1: for their for their silence. I didn't want to do
Speaker 1: anything like that. So when I sat down, there was
Speaker 1: this lovely offer for me to sign a piece of
Speaker 1: paper that was a nondisclosure agreement, and I had this
Speaker 1: very expensive statement that I said where I said, I
Speaker 1: said to her, well, how would my signing this help
Speaker 1: any women? Her coming behind me, and so it's sort
Speaker 1: of she sort of, you know, had her tongue for
Speaker 1: a little bit. And then I said, and what exactly
Speaker 1: is this money for? And again she really didn't have
Speaker 1: an answer for me, and so I left, and I
Speaker 1: didn't leave with this intention to go and write a
Speaker 1: book about it. But as years went by and I
Speaker 1: saw these occasional class action suits come to fruition, and
Speaker 1: we saw enormous settlements, you know, Morgan Stanley, a smaller
Speaker 1: one of Goldman Sachs City Group at JP Morgan. When
Speaker 1: you see these happening at so many places and you
Speaker 1: never hear the details because all the women are essentially
Speaker 1: handed checks for their silence, I kept saying to myself,
Speaker 1: whatever will make this change, And for me, the change
Speaker 1: was something I could I could do because I had
Speaker 1: not signed anything, and b I could novelize it. My
Speaker 1: intention was never to get certain people in trouble or
Speaker 1: name names. It was just to describe a culture that
Speaker 1: previous I felt to this book had never really been described.
Speaker 1: Just give us a little bit more detail about that system.
Speaker 1: You know, what is the you for and what is
Speaker 1: in nondisclosure agreement? And how do they keep us from
Speaker 1: learning more about how common these stories can be? So
Speaker 1: this isn't just a Wall Street phenomenous uh. And in
Speaker 1: several industries, on your first day of work, when you
Speaker 1: sit down and most people don't read the fine the
Speaker 1: fine print because they're so excited to have a job.
Speaker 1: It says that if you ever have an issue with
Speaker 1: this firm, you will settle it in house. You'll come
Speaker 1: to human resources, you'll describe what's bothering you. They will
Speaker 1: either verify it or not verify it. And that's the
Speaker 1: U for. That's right, that's the U four. And it's
Speaker 1: an arbitration agreement. You will arbitrate and have this settled
Speaker 1: in house. And so everybody signs it. And when you do,
Speaker 1: you've given up your essentially your your civil rights to
Speaker 1: a day in court. Some people get out of that
Speaker 1: by forming class action when they have so many people
Speaker 1: on board that they're able to present as a group.
Speaker 1: But even with that, we we have never seen that
Speaker 1: come to a court where people testified. I'm wondering, since
Speaker 1: we've been talking about uber, when you read that, what
Speaker 1: was your reaction? So I so my reaction was not
Speaker 1: one of great surprise. My reaction was here she has.
Speaker 1: I felt Susan Fowler had a tremendous amount of evidence,
Speaker 1: right she had. I guess I can't remember if their
Speaker 1: emails or text messages from her superior basically propositioning her
Speaker 1: very blatantly, and so to me to present that to
Speaker 1: a human resources department, that's a it's just a very
Speaker 1: open and shut case. But when I read how long
Speaker 1: it went on for because he was a large income
Speaker 1: earner and and a great employee as far as bringing money,
Speaker 1: did it surprise me? It didn't surprise me. No. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that it's just really interesting how
Speaker 1: you hear these stories yours and Susan Fowler's, and they
Speaker 1: sound really shocking, But the truth is that there may
Speaker 1: be many, many more of these stories out there. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to add, you know, I had written an
Speaker 1: op ed about it, and one thing that really shocked
Speaker 1: me were the amount of else I got, not from
Speaker 1: women in Wall Street or banking, from so many industries.
Speaker 1: It was women in research, women in education, women in science,
Speaker 1: and it went on and on, and so it made
Speaker 1: it made me feel emboldened to to talk about this more,
Speaker 1: because it is obviously not just isolated to industries where
Speaker 1: you do sign a you for, but many others where
Speaker 1: women feel I think sort of they just have somehow
Speaker 1: gotten themselves used to putting up with this coersive behavior
Speaker 1: that that to hang on to their jobs and of
Speaker 1: course financial stability, and maybe that's another reason why women
Speaker 1: and people get stuck in these work environments. Where else
Speaker 1: do you go if it's happening at so many places
Speaker 1: and in so many industries. Yeah, likes you feel that way,
Speaker 1: I've I felt that way, and the and the again,
Speaker 1: the feedback made us, myself and the screenwriter, we were
Speaker 1: sort of marveling about the broad brush of of industry
Speaker 1: in the US and and how prevalent it is, and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe women just feel that this is part
Speaker 1: of the cost of money. Well, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for talking to us, thank you, thanks for having me
Speaker 1: so Marian tried to change that culture from within, and
Speaker 1: clearly that did not work and sounded very exhausting. So
Speaker 1: then her other option was to leave the field completely
Speaker 1: and use the platform that she has now, which seems
Speaker 1: to be working a little better. Right. It seems like
Speaker 1: if you if you actually want to change a toxic
Speaker 1: workplace culture and not just leave it, those are your
Speaker 1: two options. You can stay there and try to make
Speaker 1: things better from within, or you can leave and make
Speaker 1: it really public what happened to you. But as Maureen described,
Speaker 1: that carries its own penalties, and if you want to
Speaker 1: stay in your industry, you might be really reluctant to
Speaker 1: do that and burn bridges. But it also seems like
Speaker 1: it's the more effective strategy. Like even at Uber, in
Speaker 1: the wake of these two, you know, really high profile articles,
Speaker 1: the company and now it was going to do an
Speaker 1: independent investigation and bring in former Attorney General Eric Holder
Speaker 1: and Arianna Huffington and all these other people to figure
Speaker 1: out what had happened there and take it really seriously.
Speaker 1: And I can't imagine that happening if all the stuff
Speaker 1: hadn't come to light. Oh, no way, no way. And
Speaker 1: it's a little unfair to make the victims do all
Speaker 1: the work if you're going to stay within the culture
Speaker 1: and try to change things, like that's just unfair that
Speaker 1: not only are you being bullied at work, but it's
Speaker 1: on you to fix it. It's kind of nice to
Speaker 1: see Uber getting aggressive and kind of on the defense
Speaker 1: about it. And even if it's under these unfortunate circumstances,
Speaker 1: that this is how things are going to change, right, Like,
Speaker 1: companies really aren't going to have that much pressure to
Speaker 1: change if every time somebody leaves a toxic workplace they
Speaker 1: do it kind of quietly and they have to sign
Speaker 1: an NBA or do the you for arbituation and she
Speaker 1: was talking about, right, or even if you don't have
Speaker 1: to do those things, and you just don't want to
Speaker 1: ruffle feathers, you don't want to leave on a bad
Speaker 1: note because you might have to work with somebody at
Speaker 1: that company sometime again in the future. Sure, I mean,
Speaker 1: I certainly know of plenty of people who have left
Speaker 1: jobs because they hated working there, but the reason they
Speaker 1: said they left was because they got a better job
Speaker 1: or they wanted to spend more time with their family. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you rescue reputation. And Susan tweeted that she thought people
Speaker 1: were trying to do oppositional research on her and smear her. Geez,
Speaker 1: So it's already it's already affecting her. I mean, she
Speaker 1: has another job. Hopefully her reputation won't be ruined because
Speaker 1: she decided to speak up. But it's a risk, right,
Speaker 1: and then anybody that hires you down the line may
Speaker 1: or may not take that into consideration, the fact that
Speaker 1: you were a troublemaker your last jobble rouser. I just
Speaker 1: really wanted to say, rabble rouser. Yeah, you got that
Speaker 1: in cossion. Well, let's hope that some of that rabble
Speaker 1: rousing actually forces companies to do better in the future.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, I think it's time for half
Speaker 1: fake takes, happy faith takes. Becca. What is your idea
Speaker 1: this week that you haven't fully thought through but you
Speaker 1: want to talk about anyway, I would like there to
Speaker 1: be more sizes of drinks available when I go out. Interesting.
Speaker 1: So the other day I was telling a story to
Speaker 1: one of our producers and saying that I had two
Speaker 1: and a half glasses of alcohol, and he was like,
Speaker 1: how could you have half a glass of alcohol? Well?
Speaker 1: I didn't want the full serving size, but in this society,
Speaker 1: we are forced to order one glass of wine. There's
Speaker 1: no like half glass or like I want more variation
Speaker 1: in the sizes of drinks I can have so that
Speaker 1: I don't have to waste them or like guzzle something
Speaker 1: I don't want. That's that does seem to be true
Speaker 1: for wine, there's a certain pore for what like for
Speaker 1: for hard liquor, you can get a shot or two shots. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you get like a double could and for that's
Speaker 1: the opposite of what I want. I want all our variations.
Speaker 1: I want like half a beer sometimes. And this isn't
Speaker 1: me being like, oh, I just don't drink that much. No,
Speaker 1: I just you know, I want to moderate in smaller doses.
Speaker 1: You know some places, and I think this is more
Speaker 1: common in Europe that so omoous. I do think it's
Speaker 1: work common in Europe, though that some places will do
Speaker 1: a half point and that is a great amount of beer.
Speaker 1: It's a perfect amount of beers point. But you can't
Speaker 1: most bars here in New York. You can't walk in
Speaker 1: and ask for a half point. No, so I'm forced
Speaker 1: to be someone who doesn't finish their drinks, and I
Speaker 1: get a lot of crap for it, or I have
Speaker 1: to be someone who wants to do something I don't
Speaker 1: want to do. I choose to be a waster. That
Speaker 1: sounds that sounds rough. Yeah, that's my happig. Take more
Speaker 1: variation and drink sizes. What is yours? Okay? My half
Speaker 1: big take is about how great cubicles are. So, cubicles
Speaker 1: are like this symbol, like they became. They became the
Speaker 1: symbol of workplace drudgery. You sit in your cubicle and
Speaker 1: you just like you don't even get a real office.
Speaker 1: You don't even have the dignity of being in a room.
Speaker 1: You're in like a fake play room. But honestly, it's
Speaker 1: been years since I've had a cubicle. We've were I
Speaker 1: work in an open plan office, as do you, and
Speaker 1: I have for years, and I would give anything to
Speaker 1: be back in that cubicle. There was so much more privacy.
Speaker 1: I miss it. I missed my cubicle. That's my happy take.
Speaker 1: That is really controversial. Um. The thing about cubicles, it's
Speaker 1: like you feel like an animal. I guess now you're
Speaker 1: at a trough where you're in a pen. Okay, you're
Speaker 1: at a trough. So I have to be clear about
Speaker 1: something because there are different kinds of cubicles. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the kind of cubicle that has high walls, so
Speaker 1: it's it's almost like an office. Like I worked at
Speaker 1: this place where I had a cubicle. It had a
Speaker 1: little opening that was almost like a door. You could
Speaker 1: pin little pictures up inside and personalize it. You. You
Speaker 1: kind of got some privacy. And I would be over
Speaker 1: the moon to work in a cubicle like that again,
Speaker 1: because right now we just basically work in a giant
Speaker 1: bullpen with open desks and there's not even really enough
Speaker 1: height on the walls that separate our desks or the
Speaker 1: divider's it's it's they're not well to put a picture of,
Speaker 1: you know, a loved one or your dog or whatever. Wow,
Speaker 1: standing up for cubicles. Cubicles, bring back the cubicle, I say.
Speaker 1: And this has been half big takes, half baked takes.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to game Plan. You can find me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at at Francesca today and I'm at rs Greenfield.
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Speaker 1: appreciate every single one. This show was produced by Liz
Speaker 1: Smith and Magnus Hendrickson. The Head of Podcasts is Alec
Speaker 1: McCabe and we'll see you next week. See you, and
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