Speaker 1: From office crushes to dating your boss to secret affairs.
Speaker 1: Is it ever okay to mix love and work? This week,
Speaker 1: we're talking about all kinds of office romance. This is
Speaker 1: game Plan. Hi. I'm Francesco Leavie. Rebecca Greenfield is on
Speaker 1: vacation this week, but I'm very pleased that we have
Speaker 1: with us as a guest host, Jenny Kaplan, who is
Speaker 1: also co host of Bloomberg's Material World podcast. Jenny, thank
Speaker 1: you for coming in and helping out. I'm very excited
Speaker 1: to be here, especially to talk about this hot topic.
Speaker 1: Oh it's so hot office romance. Let's get right into it.
Speaker 1: My first question is why why do they even happen?
Speaker 1: Isn't work a place that you go to get work done.
Speaker 1: What are people doing getting all sexy with each other?
Speaker 1: It's true, and especially because everyone sort of agrees that
Speaker 1: this is a bad idea, but you know, I think
Speaker 1: it really starts with the fact that we just spend
Speaker 1: so much of our lives at work. I mean, when
Speaker 1: you're not sleeping most of the time you're at the office. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm playing dumb, but I actually think that it's reasonably
Speaker 1: obvious why these things do happen. When they happen. Work
Speaker 1: is kind of a breeding ground, I think for for
Speaker 1: a romance. You're around these people all the time that
Speaker 1: you work with. It's a it's sort of a safe
Speaker 1: place to experiment with whether you're compatible with somebody. Like
Speaker 1: in normal life, if you like somebody, you have to
Speaker 1: contrive a bunch of reasons to be around them to
Speaker 1: see if you actually really get along and are attracted
Speaker 1: to each other and want a date. The office is
Speaker 1: a structure that's all set up for you to do that.
Speaker 1: Every day. You can, you can chat, you can have
Speaker 1: your little office inside jokes, and you can kind of
Speaker 1: cultivate a crush on somebody over a long period of
Speaker 1: time without anything being inappropriate about it. It's also sort
Speaker 1: of a filter. You know that these people likely aren't
Speaker 1: serial killers. You see them at the office, you probably
Speaker 1: know something about their background, and you're not just you know,
Speaker 1: flipping through pictures on an app. Yes, they're not just
Speaker 1: some rando that you swept right on or left. And
Speaker 1: also they're likely to have something in common with you.
Speaker 1: You know, you at least work in the same field.
Speaker 1: Um maybe you have similar job functions, and so that
Speaker 1: that is kind of like a preset baseline level of
Speaker 1: compatibility that you know you have. So that's all the
Speaker 1: reasons why it can happen, um, and why it does
Speaker 1: seem to happen so often. In fact, the stats on
Speaker 1: this are pretty clear. Um. There was a survey from
Speaker 1: the Society of Human Resource Management that said one in
Speaker 1: four people have had an office romance just about So
Speaker 1: it happens, but there's a lot of ways it can
Speaker 1: go wrong, right, I Mean, the conventional wisdom is, though
Speaker 1: it happens, it shouldn't. Yeah, and then I think we
Speaker 1: should just like break down all the reasons, um, even
Speaker 1: if it seems kind of obvious. So just to start with,
Speaker 1: in the best case scenario, when the relationship is two
Speaker 1: sided and everyone's happy, it can make it hard for
Speaker 1: the people working around you. I mean, you have created
Speaker 1: this sort of very different relationship, and maybe you're on
Speaker 1: a team with other people who have to work and
Speaker 1: sort of understand those boundaries and how they've shifted. It's
Speaker 1: it's sort of unfair to them, and people are going
Speaker 1: to question whether any of the achievements that you've made
Speaker 1: are things that you've really gotten on your own merit.
Speaker 1: If you get a promotion or if you get some
Speaker 1: kind of special treatment or favoritism. And in fact, in
Speaker 1: that same s h RM survey, companies who said that
Speaker 1: they had a policy that forbids office romance cited that
Speaker 1: as one of the main reasons that it could cause favoritism.
Speaker 1: The other reasons were the potential for sexual harassment claims
Speaker 1: UM and then retaliation bowl when relationships don't work out,
Speaker 1: using the workplace as a place to take it out
Speaker 1: on their ex partner. And even if there isn't, you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of formal retaliation because of a power dynamic.
Speaker 1: There's definitely emotional risk here. I mean, you're working with
Speaker 1: these people all the time, assuming you want to keep
Speaker 1: your job. If the relationship goes south, you're going to
Speaker 1: be stuck working with someone who you probably have pretty
Speaker 1: mixed and potentially sad feelings about. Yeah, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it sounds awful. It's just like high school. You have
Speaker 1: to show up every day and see the person that
Speaker 1: you broke up with. Doesn't matter if you unfollow them
Speaker 1: on Facebook and Twitter. There they are every day and
Speaker 1: you have to figure out a way to contain your
Speaker 1: feelings and keep working. So from the company perspective, how
Speaker 1: do they handle this. Yeah, So I talked to Edward
Speaker 1: Yost from the Society Human Resource Management, the authority on
Speaker 1: all things HR, and I asked him why so few
Speaker 1: companies have a policy on this, because according to that survey,
Speaker 1: youer than half actually even have a policy. And here's
Speaker 1: what he said. It's always a safer place to go
Speaker 1: to have no policy than to have one in place
Speaker 1: that you don't adhere to. Uh. And that I mean
Speaker 1: that means that if you have the policy in place,
Speaker 1: you must be willing to part with your very best
Speaker 1: employee if they violate that policy. If that's what the
Speaker 1: policy says, that it's a zero tolerance you will not
Speaker 1: date one of your subordinates and you find out that
Speaker 1: they are, you must be willing to do that. The
Speaker 1: other really interesting thing we talked about was in some
Speaker 1: cases where companies do have a policy around office romance,
Speaker 1: they require these things called love contracts, which I'll let
Speaker 1: him explain. Essentially, it's a it's a contract or or
Speaker 1: a document that acknowledges from both parties that there is
Speaker 1: a consensual relationship, that there's there are no undo pressures
Speaker 1: being put on one employee or the other to become
Speaker 1: involved this relationship, and that if something weren't to go
Speaker 1: wrong with the relationship, that is essentially their personal business,
Speaker 1: and that they're going to keep the personal relationship out
Speaker 1: of the office as much as possible, or the fights
Speaker 1: aren't going to happen in the office. They're going to
Speaker 1: remain professional. And another thing that he really hit on
Speaker 1: in our conversation was how badly it can go when
Speaker 1: the people in a relationship are in a supervisor supervisor
Speaker 1: or a manager employee relationship, when there's that imbalance of power,
Speaker 1: there's so much other stuff going on. It's really no
Speaker 1: matter how genuine you're feelings for somebody might be, it's
Speaker 1: really hard to have to do your job appropriately as
Speaker 1: a boss if you've brought that element in. And even
Speaker 1: if you start off a relationship where you have sort
Speaker 1: of parallel positions, it can switch and someone can become
Speaker 1: the boss. Someone can become responsible for doing things like
Speaker 1: annual reviews and things like that for a partner, which
Speaker 1: just sounds like a whole crazy god yeah or deal,
Speaker 1: or you weren't working on the same project and now
Speaker 1: you are, and suddenly you have all these new questions
Speaker 1: to answer. But instead of just sitting around and scolding
Speaker 1: people for having office romances. I think we should accept
Speaker 1: that they happen, and there's got to be a way
Speaker 1: to deal with it when it does, and to get
Speaker 1: some help with that. I'm very excited about our guest
Speaker 1: today who is an expert on all things relationships. Cheryl
Speaker 1: Strait is a best selling author. Her books include Wild
Speaker 1: and Tiny Beautiful Things. For years she wrote an advice
Speaker 1: column called Deer Sugar, and now she co hosts the
Speaker 1: Deer Sugars podcast with Steve Almond. Cheryl, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. So
Speaker 1: you must get a fair number of questions in your
Speaker 1: long career answering relationship questions that have to do with
Speaker 1: love at the office. Absolutely, I mean there's no We
Speaker 1: spend so much time at work, whether it be an
Speaker 1: office or other kind of job, that it's inevitable that
Speaker 1: people are going to become attracted to each other. And
Speaker 1: the sorts of letters that I get, and now in
Speaker 1: my work with Steve on the podcast that we get,
Speaker 1: they sort of fall into three categories. The letters from
Speaker 1: people who are saying, look, I am feeling really attracted
Speaker 1: to a coworker. And you know, sometimes that attraction is
Speaker 1: between two single people. UM. Sometimes it's somebody who's married,
Speaker 1: And so there's that other layer of saying, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm attracted to my coworker and he or she is married,
Speaker 1: and so am I? And what should we do? And
Speaker 1: really somebody who's trying, I think, to resist that attraction
Speaker 1: for a number of reasons. Um. And then there are
Speaker 1: people who are saying, Okay, we made the leap. I
Speaker 1: fell for somebody I work with and we had an
Speaker 1: affair or we had a fling, or we had a
Speaker 1: relationship and now it's ended or and now it's gone
Speaker 1: in this direction that feels kind of ikey and negative
Speaker 1: and what how do we How do I work with
Speaker 1: somebody who is essentially a former lover? And then that
Speaker 1: third category are the people who just really fell in
Speaker 1: love and they happen to work together, sometimes in different,
Speaker 1: very different roles where there's a power difference, which is
Speaker 1: always complicated, And the big question there is, you know,
Speaker 1: how do we manage this at work? Do we keep
Speaker 1: it a secret? Do we do we tell everyone? And
Speaker 1: what do we do? You know, what do we do here?
Speaker 1: It is we are in love? And the fact as
Speaker 1: we work together, so when you're facing I mean, these
Speaker 1: are very different kinds of questions and dilemmas. Do you
Speaker 1: have particular rules or guidelines that you sort of think
Speaker 1: apply to office romances? I mean, how do you look
Speaker 1: at those three different categories and try to advise people
Speaker 1: on what they should do? I think it's always complicated
Speaker 1: when we are talking about love and lust. I mean,
Speaker 1: most of us realized that that area of sort of
Speaker 1: human sexuality and desire and emotion, those emotional connections we
Speaker 1: have um sometimes with people we spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time with. We most of us know what we should do.
Speaker 1: We most of us know that the general rule is
Speaker 1: don't bring romance or sex into the office or into
Speaker 1: your job, your work life. Keep those things separate. And
Speaker 1: the reason for that very clear line is that it
Speaker 1: gets really complicated when you don't. Most of us would
Speaker 1: say our most important areas of our lives are our careers,
Speaker 1: in our in our family or home, or romantic relationships.
Speaker 1: And when you put the two together, it could be
Speaker 1: really great or it could be really terrible. And in
Speaker 1: some ways it has the potential if that relationship should
Speaker 1: go bad to you ruin your your work life, at
Speaker 1: least temporarily. And so the first advice I have with
Speaker 1: anyone who's asking questions about this is, you know, really
Speaker 1: try to avoid it. Try to keep those realms separate,
Speaker 1: to avoid those complications. But the fact, as we are
Speaker 1: human and you know, we don't live by guidelines, most
Speaker 1: of us will cross many clear lines in the course
Speaker 1: of our lives, especially our love lives. And so the
Speaker 1: biggest piece of advice I give to people is really, um,
Speaker 1: be very mindful with each step and and to think,
Speaker 1: try to think as clearly as possible about how to
Speaker 1: keep those realms separate even when you have mixed them up.
Speaker 1: As you said, most people know better what what do you?
Speaker 1: And yet it happens like office romance has happened. So
Speaker 1: what do you think is so enticing about getting into
Speaker 1: relationships with the people that we work with. I think
Speaker 1: I think it's just a great venue frankly to meet people,
Speaker 1: which is really unfortunate. Some of it is really just
Speaker 1: sheer numbers. I mean, you're spending several hours a day
Speaker 1: with these other people. I think that most of us,
Speaker 1: you know, I work alone. I'm a writer and in
Speaker 1: a little podcasters. So you know, I don't really go
Speaker 1: to the office and work with other people that when
Speaker 1: I used to have jobs, I you know, fell in
Speaker 1: love with those people. I mean, you grow to know
Speaker 1: and care for people you spend time with as a
Speaker 1: general rule, unless of course you loathe them and despise them.
Speaker 1: But you know, if they're generally good people and you're
Speaker 1: generally compatible, it's no surprise that what you know, when
Speaker 1: you share that time together and you start to share
Speaker 1: those friendships and intimacies, that sex and love and romance
Speaker 1: are going to come into play. I mean, one of
Speaker 1: the first pieces of advice I would give to people
Speaker 1: really who who aren't yet in any kind of tangle
Speaker 1: when it comes to love or romance or lust at
Speaker 1: the office, is you know, to try to keep it
Speaker 1: from happening from the outset to really embrace a very
Speaker 1: firm boundary when it comes to the kinds of feelings
Speaker 1: you're gonna allow yourself to have. I mean, to the
Speaker 1: extent that we can allow ourselves selves to have feelings,
Speaker 1: to really set that boundary and say I am only
Speaker 1: going to be friends with with people with coworkers. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to um allow myself to have those feelings,
Speaker 1: and if I do start to have them, I'm going
Speaker 1: to do everything in my power to to shut them
Speaker 1: down turn away from them. That's almost always easier said
Speaker 1: than done. But I do think that there is something
Speaker 1: to be said for intention. I know a lot of
Speaker 1: the advice I give people about other situations, when you
Speaker 1: go in with the intention, with the consciousness, if you will,
Speaker 1: of not doing something or making sure that you don't
Speaker 1: go down a certain path, I think you're a lot
Speaker 1: more successful in preventing it. Are there certain hard and
Speaker 1: fast rules that you think about when it comes to
Speaker 1: you know, like this is a firm boundary you absolutely
Speaker 1: should not get in any sort of relationship with a
Speaker 1: boss or you know, if you're doing if you're working
Speaker 1: on a project together or something like that. Do you
Speaker 1: think that there are harder rules that are like really
Speaker 1: really knows. I think honesty really is the best policy
Speaker 1: and in almost to every regard. And I know that
Speaker 1: a lot of people out there, maybe people listening, and
Speaker 1: certainly people have written to me. You know, We'll get
Speaker 1: into a relationship and with somebody at the office and think, okay,
Speaker 1: as long as we keep it a secret, we're doing
Speaker 1: due diligence in terms of keeping that out of the
Speaker 1: workplace and not letting that relationship interfere with work. But
Speaker 1: I think that that's actually wrong because of course the
Speaker 1: relationship exists, and so what you're doing is not only
Speaker 1: bringing that relationship into the office, you're also bringing a
Speaker 1: lie into the office, a secret. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think that it's much more fair, um, not only to
Speaker 1: one's co workers, but really to the two people in
Speaker 1: the relationship themselves to be honest about it, to be
Speaker 1: out with the relationship so that so that you know,
Speaker 1: everything is on the table, everything's seen, that everything, every
Speaker 1: possibility where a power dynamic might go the wrong way
Speaker 1: or might be um you know, called into question when
Speaker 1: it comes to two ethics or so forth, that that
Speaker 1: everything that all of the people who are involved UM
Speaker 1: with that situation are aware of the different dynamics that
Speaker 1: go on. You know, my husband and I don't work
Speaker 1: at an office, but we sometimes work together. And I
Speaker 1: can't imagine UH doing a project with him and also
Speaker 1: trying to pretend that there isn't this other layer of
Speaker 1: our relationship that's really about something that's not about work
Speaker 1: at all. And you know, I think that. Of course,
Speaker 1: sometimes that kind of truth telling can cause a lot
Speaker 1: of strife at the at the outset, a lot of
Speaker 1: people will be upset or have a lot of questions
Speaker 1: about what dynamics might be going on with these you know,
Speaker 1: we've got especially a supervisor um and in in somebody
Speaker 1: who's really uh a boss a boss employee sort of relationship.
Speaker 1: But I do think that that that kind of transparency
Speaker 1: is almost always the best way. Secrecy never leads to
Speaker 1: good things. And when something is right out there, you
Speaker 1: can discuss it, you can make decisions, you can put
Speaker 1: people in different departments, give them different responsibilities if that
Speaker 1: is of any concern. And you also just don't have
Speaker 1: to have the burden of a secret to keep. And also,
Speaker 1: even if you think you're keeping something a secret, there's
Speaker 1: a pretty good chance that at least some of your
Speaker 1: coworkers know about it. Right, Well, that's it. And I
Speaker 1: think that when we do withhold information from other people,
Speaker 1: even if we have good intentions, people who get involved
Speaker 1: relationships who say let's keep this separate, you know, let's
Speaker 1: just keep us out of the office, and and you know,
Speaker 1: one of the arguments I think a lot of those
Speaker 1: people make you know, it's like, you know this saying
Speaker 1: that we're in a relationship would only cause trouble essentially
Speaker 1: for for our our employment, our employers and our coworkers.
Speaker 1: But you know the fact is that the secrets, as
Speaker 1: you say, are almost always revealed. The and withholding information
Speaker 1: is a kind of lie of omission, and people feel
Speaker 1: betrayed by that. So in your work, what are some
Speaker 1: of examples of letters along these lines that have really
Speaker 1: made you think or that you think are really tough
Speaker 1: issues when it comes to love in the work? Is
Speaker 1: there anywhere you've really struggled to sort of figure out
Speaker 1: what exactly is the right thing to do? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think really the most complicated scenario is a situation where
Speaker 1: you know, a boss has you know, fallen in love
Speaker 1: with and started a relationship with somebody who reports to
Speaker 1: him or her. That's a really complicated dynamic. And and
Speaker 1: and then on top of that, they they work in
Speaker 1: in a situation where they can't be transferred to a
Speaker 1: different department or that you know that that dynamic can't
Speaker 1: be obliterated except if one or the other of them
Speaker 1: quits the job. And that that's also the scenario where
Speaker 1: people are most likely to keep secrets because the boss,
Speaker 1: if you will, doesn't want the other employees to think
Speaker 1: that here she is favoring his or her lover. But
Speaker 1: of course, you know, there there's that undeniable loyalty that
Speaker 1: comes from, you know, the people we are sleeping with.
Speaker 1: You know that that we feel towards people we are
Speaker 1: sleeping with and in love with. And so you know,
Speaker 1: even if you go out your way for that for
Speaker 1: that relationship to not to interfere with that boss employee relationship,
Speaker 1: it almost always does. And so you know, that is
Speaker 1: a really I think difficult situation to navigate and and
Speaker 1: sometimes really the only ethical answer, the only practical answers
Speaker 1: to say, yeah, that that somebody needs to find a
Speaker 1: new job, and usually it's the person with the least
Speaker 1: amount of power network situation, um, and those are those
Speaker 1: are hard things to do, now, you know, I do
Speaker 1: want to say that I'm sure there are people listening
Speaker 1: out there who are are sort of shaking their heads
Speaker 1: at us because they work with their partners very happily
Speaker 1: and very peaceably and without conflict, and they work with
Speaker 1: many co workers and there are no problems. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's true too, I think as much as
Speaker 1: we're saying, like try to avoid a real romantic relationship
Speaker 1: in the workplace, the fact of the matter is as
Speaker 1: they exist, they always have existed, and they probably always
Speaker 1: will and they don't always go badly. I think if
Speaker 1: you have a really functional work environment that is all
Speaker 1: about communication and transparency and mutual respect um, and that
Speaker 1: that that the two people in the relationship are not
Speaker 1: who they really do, go out of their ways to
Speaker 1: not you know, make work decisions based on that romantic alliance.
Speaker 1: I think it can be done with some grace and
Speaker 1: and to me, the solution to this, you know, this
Speaker 1: problem that we're going to have throughout time is not
Speaker 1: to say never ever ever do it, and if you
Speaker 1: do do it, you're going to be punished, but rather
Speaker 1: to say it's not a good idea because it's complicated,
Speaker 1: but we're capable of dealing with complexity, that we that
Speaker 1: we do have the capacity um when we rely on
Speaker 1: that open communication and that ethic those ethical um sort
Speaker 1: of decision making processes, that romance and the workplace can
Speaker 1: coexist on occasion. I think that kind of sums up
Speaker 1: the whole issue. So it's a good place to end
Speaker 1: thank you, Cheryl Straits so much for for taking the
Speaker 1: time if to us. Oh, thank you. It was great
Speaker 1: to talk to you. So, as Cheryl said, I think
Speaker 1: the easiest way to get around all this is just
Speaker 1: by not getting into office relationships to begin with. But
Speaker 1: since it's going to happen, sometimes the second best way
Speaker 1: to deal with it is just by being honest, even
Speaker 1: if that's awkward for you and potentially your coworkers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just be aware that if you're not honest, people
Speaker 1: are going to figure it out eventually. I once worked
Speaker 1: somewhere not here, and I'm not just saying that. It
Speaker 1: definitely wasn't here, but a coworker was like trying to
Speaker 1: tip me off to some office gossip, and so she
Speaker 1: asked me to look at um, somebody who is pretty senior,
Speaker 1: to look at their public outlook calendar. And I like
Speaker 1: looked at it, and there was some vacation days blocked off,
Speaker 1: you know, some needings, nothing out of the ordinary. And
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, what am I looking at here?
Speaker 1: And then she's like, now, look at so and so's calendar,
Speaker 1: his female colleague, And I looked at her calendar and
Speaker 1: she had exactly the same vacation days blocked off, and
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, oh my god, wait, I know
Speaker 1: them people just dine out on this kind of gossip.
Speaker 1: Like you, you cannot be too You can't be careful
Speaker 1: enough to keep this from your coworkers, so you may
Speaker 1: as well be open and honest about it. And I think,
Speaker 1: by the way, those two people, they dated for a
Speaker 1: long time and they ended up getting married, and I
Speaker 1: don't think they still work together, although I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: which is another thing that I think that you have
Speaker 1: to consider, like both in the case of office romances
Speaker 1: that go well and everybody everything works out happily and
Speaker 1: people get married, which Cheryl did say, like these things
Speaker 1: can work out both in those cases and in the
Speaker 1: cases where they go really badly, your best bet is
Speaker 1: to not work with that person anymore. So you might
Speaker 1: have to find a way. No matter which way the
Speaker 1: relationship goes, you are probably going to have to find
Speaker 1: a new job or a new position in within your company.
Speaker 1: And that really means waging whether the relationship is important
Speaker 1: enough to you to make such a significant shift in
Speaker 1: your career. And now it's time for half bake takes,
Speaker 1: halfy fake takes. You can call us and leave us
Speaker 1: a voicemail if you have a half big take you'd
Speaker 1: like to share, and we might play it on the podcast.
Speaker 1: It's two and two six s zero one six six.
Speaker 1: This week we have a listener happy take from Jeff.
Speaker 1: This is Jeff from New York, and my half bake
Speaker 1: take is that if you commute on public transit, it's
Speaker 1: completely appropriate and acceptable to ignore people from work to
Speaker 1: take the same route. The most interactions should have as
Speaker 1: a smile and a nod my community, my podcast to
Speaker 1: be compressed time, and the last thing I want to
Speaker 1: do is make yet more small talk and remind myself
Speaker 1: of work relatedly. It's completely unacceptable and should probably be
Speaker 1: a human resource of offense to corner someone on the
Speaker 1: commune to discuss work issues. I know people can be
Speaker 1: hard to pin down, but there are some lines you
Speaker 1: just don't cross, and we need to respect the commute bubble.
Speaker 1: There is like nothing worse than getting stuck with talking
Speaker 1: about work things or with work people on the subway.
Speaker 1: And I say that even about people that I like.
Speaker 1: The first thing in the morning, you count on that
Speaker 1: time between being at home and being at work, and
Speaker 1: if you don't get it because somebody has burdened you
Speaker 1: with work relationships on your commute, it just throws your
Speaker 1: whole day off. I agree, I totally respect Jeff's dedication
Speaker 1: to the commute hour. I do think that it's a
Speaker 1: little bit better in the afternoon, like in the evening
Speaker 1: if someone wants to chat briefly on the way home,
Speaker 1: But early in the morning it's lately I feel like
Speaker 1: I have timed my exit at times when I've seen
Speaker 1: somebody like a few feet ahead of me on the
Speaker 1: escalator to make sure that I don't get stuck on
Speaker 1: the same train as them, just because like there's not
Speaker 1: enough to fill the whole train ride home. So like,
Speaker 1: let's say you start talking with somebody on the way out,
Speaker 1: and it's like fine, because it's like, Okay, you had
Speaker 1: a few things to catch up on that you didn't
Speaker 1: get too during the day. Is there that project? But
Speaker 1: then it's like ten minutes into the train ride and
Speaker 1: you're done talking about that, and it's like, oh, now
Speaker 1: what do we do? Yeah, I will say it's a
Speaker 1: good time. Very on theme for this episode, it's sometimes
Speaker 1: a good time to catch up with gossip. Though gossip
Speaker 1: I think is always welcome if it's good, Jenny, what
Speaker 1: is your not fully formed idea that is so important
Speaker 1: you have to say it on a podcast. When it
Speaker 1: comes to ice breakers, I think you should not be
Speaker 1: allowed to ask for very specific answers, like I'll give
Speaker 1: you an example. I don't think you should be able
Speaker 1: to say what's your favorite song, your favorite artist, your
Speaker 1: favorite TV show or movie or whatever, because I think
Speaker 1: it's too much pressure and people freak out and you're
Speaker 1: judged by this, like remembering a name in a moment
Speaker 1: of panic, and it's just too much. And who really
Speaker 1: has favorites? Like it's kind of psychotic to have a
Speaker 1: real if you're not a six year old who's like,
Speaker 1: favorite TV show is Arthur and favorite color is yellow,
Speaker 1: Like you should don't really have favorites. You should have
Speaker 1: like a few things that you like a lot that
Speaker 1: shift every six months or so, and a lot of
Speaker 1: times people just pick a go to favorite thing that
Speaker 1: they know sounds cool, issue yes, it's very performative, and
Speaker 1: like who knows if that if they even like that thing,
Speaker 1: or if you're like me, you get totally paralyzed. Like
Speaker 1: somebody asked me once what my hobbies were, and I
Speaker 1: literally I couldn't remember a single one. I was like,
Speaker 1: I think I do stuff, and then I had to
Speaker 1: text him like a day later and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I play the guitar, just so he knew. I promise
Speaker 1: I do something. I promise, I promise I have hobbies.
Speaker 1: But being asked of you have hobbies like it's it's
Speaker 1: along the same lines as what's your favorite movie. It's
Speaker 1: like you're signaling virtue, You're saying something about yourself, and
Speaker 1: so the implication is like, you must have hobbies, you
Speaker 1: must have ways that you cultivate yourself as a human being, right,
Speaker 1: and then you're like, I must what's your half bag
Speaker 1: take Francesca my half bige take, which is very half
Speaker 1: because I it's sort of a problem with that. A
Speaker 1: solution is I don't know what to do with that moment.
Speaker 1: After you've had lunch with a colleague, and usually at
Speaker 1: these lunches, you know you've gone over a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: You've talked careers, you've talked gossip, and then you kind
Speaker 1: of like one of you walks the other back to
Speaker 1: their desk or kind of drops somebody off and keeps walking,
Speaker 1: and there's like such an awkward moment where you kind
Speaker 1: of have usually have to cut your conversation off mid
Speaker 1: sentence or stand by somebody's desk and like try to
Speaker 1: let the conversation come to a natural end because you're
Speaker 1: you've been in this social mode for the last like
Speaker 1: five minutes to an hour, and then it's just like
Speaker 1: I never know what to say, so I always end
Speaker 1: up saying like Okay, good lunch, Like okay, bye, see
Speaker 1: you later. Thanks, What do you say? I don't know.
Speaker 1: There is the awkward thanks. It's like why why are
Speaker 1: you thanking them for having lunch with you? I think
Speaker 1: we need to come up with a special phrase that
Speaker 1: you can just like signal okay, we're done having social
Speaker 1: lunch talking time and we're going back to work now.
Speaker 1: But it's got to be something that's like just unique
Speaker 1: to that scenario that's that's weird, or like in h
Speaker 1: in sports when you end the huddle and you're like break,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that would be so good break, and
Speaker 1: then you just like disorient people and they kind of
Speaker 1: look at your funny and walk away. Yes it could
Speaker 1: be good. And this has been half bag Takes, half
Speaker 1: bake Takes. Thanks for listening to another episode of game Plan.
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter at Francesca Today, and
Speaker 1: you can find me at Jenny and Kaplan. You can
Speaker 1: tweet your half bake takes at us or anything else
Speaker 1: you like. You can also call us and leave us
Speaker 1: a voicemail at two and to six one seven zero
Speaker 1: one six six And if you'd like to hear from
Speaker 1: me Rebecca and sometimes Jenny maybe even throughout the week,
Speaker 1: you can subscribe to our newsletter. Just go to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com slash Newsletters and check the game Plan button.
Speaker 1: For more episodes of game Plan. You can find us
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, on the Bloomberg Turbinal, and wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to shows like this. This show was produced by
Speaker 1: Magnus Hendrickson and Liz Smith. Head of podcast is Alec McCabe.
Speaker 1: And we'll see you next week. Oh we can. Like
Speaker 1: we always talk about work life balance, but what about
Speaker 1: work love life balance. It's not bad to start writing
Speaker 1: this is in pain um