Are people ruder now, or have the norms just shifted under our feet? Speakerphone conversations in the airport lounge, QR code ordering when you've just paid close to a hundred dollars for a couple of burgers and beers, ghosting meetings and catchups - is this the new normal?

A researcher has been asking people about rudeness since the 90s and the number has climbed every time, with the biggest rise in customers behaving badly towards frontline staff. She also found nobody thinks they're the rude one (ha).

Plus our LinkedIn poll results and the noise violation ticket Kristen dodged at 14.

Got a pet peeve we missed? Tell us. powrsuit.com

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Your brain has a default time zone: Past, present or future. Kristen found out about it at a dinner party, went home and got AI to test her, and ran a shorter version on Nat. Someone more junior gets the promotion you wanted and it's 9pm, what are you doing?If you're past focused you work out how something happened, which is great for spotting patterns and for backing yourself based on your track record, though you can get stuck diagnosing when you should be deciding. Present focused means you go on how it feels right now, which is a lovely way to live but no help for a five year plan. Future focused means today is always a step towards something, and it comes with skipping your wins and comes with a worrying version.

We figure it’s useful to be able explain yours to the people you work with, which is why we did this out loud - so give it a go. 

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More from Powrsuit:

🔗 Podcast: https://powrsuit.com/podcast/

🌐 Website: https://powrsuit.com/

📩 Newsletter: https://powrsuit.com/newsletters/

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCORJdS-WlYOWA20mSOGG2ug

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/powrsuit

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/powrsuit/

Your calendar probably isn't a plan. It's a receipt for everything other people asked you to do.

We've heard a few common ways people run a calendar. As a receipt, where it's just a record of what you're delivering for everyone else. As a watch list, where you accept everything and then triage it on a Sunday night. Or as a Tetris board, where the blocks are constantly moving around because they have to fit the hours you've actually got.

Some of our do's and don'ts:

• Deliberately end meetings 5-10 mins early. 
• Stop defaulting to 60 minutes! Start at 15 and make yourself justify more.
• Put the agenda in the description field - most agendas are one question or one decision anyway.
• Block your travel time and be honest about how long it takes.
• Block the prep before a meeting, and a block for the work that comes out of it.
• Name your blocks, personal ones too, so people can see what's movable.
• Put a three month end date on recurring meetings, so you've got a natural excuse to kill them.

Plus an expensive Japanese pot, a helpful husband, and three op shops.If this was helpful, we've got mini masterclasses on calendar hacks, taking back your time, and the art of prioritisation inside Powrsuit. Reach out and we'll sort a discount for your first month.

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More from Powrsuit:

🔗 Podcast: https://powrsuit.com/podcast/

🌐 Website: https://powrsuit.com/

📩 Newsletter: https://powrsuit.com/newsletters/

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCORJdS-WlYOWA20mSOGG2ug

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/powrsuit

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/powrsuit/

Networking is the thing most of us dread, so here's how to actually work a room without wanting to hide in the women’s toilet. We start with the liking gap - the research showing people walk away thinking they tanked terribly while everyone else rated them an A. Then in Powrsuit fashion, Nat and Kristen get practical: the walk-in plan, why heading straight for the drinks table gives you a job to do, how to read which groups are safe to join, and graceful ways to exit a convo. In a male-dominated field? What to do when banter feels designed to exclude you, and why the fix is curiosity.

Loved it? Share it and leave us a 5-star review!

More from Powrsuit: 🔗 Podcast: https://powrsuit.com/podcast/ 🌐 Website: https://powrsuit.com/ 📩 Newsletter: https://powrsuit.com/newsletters/ 📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCORJdS-WlYOWA20mSOGG2ug 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/powrsuit 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/powrsuit/

Quiet quitting is back - and it makes no sense. Jobs are at an all time low, unemployment all time high, and yet work disengagement is off the charts? Nat and Kristen dig into why people are checking out when you'd most expect them to cling on. They cover what’s going on (poor management, burnout and broken promises), and why Gen Z are more likely to quiet quit than boomers.

Plus the difference between disengaged and actively disengaged and whether this is all about boundaries and why it’s all pretty bad for our mental health. Also - eclipse tourism, and how wedding-spend correlates to divorce rates.

Loved it? Share it and leave us a 5-star review!

More from Powrsuit:

🔗 Podcast: https://powrsuit.com/podcast/ 🌐 Website: https://powrsuit.com/

📩 Newsletter: https://powrsuit.com/newsletters/

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCORJdS-WlYOWA20mSOGG2ug

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/powrsuit

💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/powrsuit/

There's a difference between feedback and criticism, and often what we get is the latter dressed up as the former. So we pull the two apart: feedback is clear, actionable and comes from someone who wants you to win, while criticism can be someone venting and making it your problem. We also dig into why women often get judged on personality rather than work (abrasive, strident, 'too intense'), and why 'you're not ready' is the most useless thing you can be told after missing out on a role.

Then in Powrsuit style, we share how to be proactive and drive your own constructive feedback, check-ins and progress.

Loved it? Share it and leave us a 5-star review! Got a topic for us? Email [email protected]. Follow Powrsuit on LinkedIn and Instagram, or join us at www.powrsuit.com for bite-sized professional development that actually fits into your week. 'Til next time, Powrsuiters!

Nat and Kristen get into why dating apps have got so bad - and general swipe fatigue (the same friction-removing tech logic has leaked into job hunting), and why Gen Z are heading back to real-life 'third places' like run clubs and work for dating. Then the bit that actually matters for your career: why who you partner with makes or breaks it.

Loved it? Share it and leave us a 5-star review! Got a topic for us? Email [email protected]. Follow Powrsuit on LinkedIn and Instagram, or join us at www.powrsuit.com for bite-sized professional development that actually fits into your week. 'Til next time, Powrsuiters!

Nat and Kristen turned up in matching green tops to talk about the roles we all slip into when things go sideways - victim, villain and hero. Kristen owns up to being a chronic hero (that dopamine hit of solving everyone's problem, whether they asked or not), Nat cops to villain as her go-to, and they use a very unhinged Married At First Sight dinner party to show all three playing out in real time.

Where the drama triangle came from (a 1960s sports doodle, weirdly) and why these roles still run the show at work and at home.

Loved it? Share it and leave us a 5-star review! Got a topic for us? Email [email protected]. Follow Powrsuit on LinkedIn and Instagram, or join us at www.powrsuit.com for bite-sized professional development that actually fits into your week. 'Til next time, Powrsuiters!

A Powrsuiter put her hand up for a stretch role, got it, then froze - terrified that asking questions would make her look stupid. Nat and Kristen unpack why that's textbook imposter phenomenon, and why the first 90 days are for diagnosing before you prescribe, not hitting the ground running (a pretty damaging bit of advice, when you think about it). They cover the listening tour, why no one's paying you to know everything on day one, and the exact questions that build credibility instead of eroding it. Plus a slightly unhinged detour into where 'teach your grandmother to suck eggs' actually comes from.

Loved it? Share it and leave us a 5-star review! Got a topic for us? Email [email protected]. Follow Powrsuit on LinkedIn and Instagram, or join us at www.powrsuit.com for bite-sized professional development that actually fits into your week. 'Til next time, Powrsuiters!

Kristen got cornered at a party by a guy insisting women are outstripping men on every metric, and spent the weekend rarked up about it (now officially in the Oxford English Dictionary, by the way). So Nat and Kristen come armed with the stats they wished they'd had - like why 40 years of women dominating university hasn't dented the C-suite, and the broken rung that sees just 89 women promoted for every 100 men at the very first step up.

Then the practical bit: how to handle these conversations when they find you, from getting curious instead of combative (It's hard!).

Loved it? Share it and leave us a 5-star review! Got a topic for us? Email [email protected]. Follow Powrsuit on LinkedIn and Instagram, or join us at www.powrsuit.com for bite-sized professional development that actually fits into your week. 'Til next time, Powrsuiters!