The Mode/Switch

What is going on with pettiness in the workplace? Where’s all the hypersensitivity coming from?

This week on the Mode/Switch Pod, we confess our own pettiness and passive aggression. But we also talk about why pettiness is, a little paradoxically, important. Petty behavior is no small thing. It’s big data.

So get in, haters, we’re going to figure this petty thing out!

There you are at work being amazing like you do. Doing the thing. Every metric says you rock. But you feel sad.

Question: when there’s a gap between how work feels and how you feel, should you get rid of the gap? Should integrate or compartmentalize?

This week, the Mode/Switchers tell stories about times when work feels one way and your soul feels another.

We’re talking about the strange loneliness that comes when sadness and success happen at the same time.

This has to be the frankest episode of the Mode Switch Pod so far. We’re a pretty hopeful bunch. But, as David warns us in this episode, not everything has a redemptive arc. Sometimes things just suck.

So this week, Emily, LaShone, David, Craig, and our Gen Z guest, Alex D’Agostino cuss and discuss experiences of professional failure.

But then, because we can’t help ourselves, we also look for small but significant shifts you can make when you “lose.” We thought about putting a mic at our table for the voice in our heads that’s always prosecuting our failures.

But we pulled the plug on that one.

What happens when you don’t love your work any more?

What happens when you love your work too much?

There’s no quick answer to those questions. Different generations have different histories, so Emily, LaShone, Kendrick, David, and Ken—each speaking from a different age group—talk about the line between caring and not-caring at work.

Every week, this podcast runs

the numbers on workplace life. We tell stories. We offer ways to switch your mode at work. This week, our stories center on honest confusions and painful disillusionments and profound motivations.

Somewhere in the mix, you’ll hear your own experience, too.

In any case, we’d love to hear from you! Send us a note about the role that passion has played in your work ([email protected]).

Please note that the Mode/Switch Pod and Newsletter will be off next week for Thanksgiving.

Everyday life and work require a lot of emotional labor, especially when it comes to the contagiousness of feelings on the job.

How do you cope under layers of burnout—yours and others’ as well?

This week on the Mode/Switch Pod, Emily, Ken, Andrea, Craig, and our Gen Z guest, Kendrick Satterfield, tell our own burnout stories. You’ll notice that our intergenerational bunch copes in very different ways. But, hey, we also sneak in some Frasier-styled therapy around the Mode/Switch table.

I’ve worked most of my life in communities where anger’s unacceptable. But sometimes anger is indispensable at work—especially when it’s settled opposition to inequity in the late modern American workplace.

Regular Mode/Switchers Emily, Ken, and I are joined by millennial guest Shaq Anthony and Gen Z guest Olivia Winkowitsch to address questions like, Is the exhaustion you’re feeling actually anger? How can anger make you inquisitive? How can anger empower resistance?

But what do you do when you realize that your anger is not enough to change your industry?

That question troubles this week’s intergenerational conversation at the Mode/Switch table. You’ll hear painful stories. You’ll revisit labor history. And you’ll learn moves you can make to catalyze anger for the sake of change.

Strange as it sounds, this podcast is here for your anger and for your workplace’s good.

-craig

The bridge is out in the workplace today. Communication that’s supposed to cross the chasms between genders, between races, and between generations often feels incompetent for the job.

What do you say when you feel deeply, deeply misunderstood?

This week’s team of intergenerational Mode/Switchers—Emily, Andrea, LaShone, David, and Craig joined by Gen Z guest Alex D'Agostino—offer practical suggestions for what to say when saying doesn’t seem to make things better.

As LaShone says, we recommend a mode/switch from competence to humility, and we share statistics and stories for how that shift works in-person and remotely.

If you’ve had all you can take this week, try listening to this half-hour convo. For me, the Mode/Switch Pod sends me back to workplace interactions with more wisdom and grace and—breath.

Let us know what you’ve experienced in the comment section. We’d love to learn from you about challenging conversations at work. What do you think about this week’s mode/switch from competence to humility?

-craig

You’ve heard, maybe, about the Babble Hypothesis, that explains why extroverts get assigned leadership roles in social groups. But this week’s Mode/Switch Pod explores how power and babble make a hot mess in the workplace. 

If you’ve been wondering how to draw boundaries and assert the value of what you have to say, this podcast conversation is for you.

Our usual Mode/Switchers are joined by Ken Heffner, who as a Boomer joins us Millennial-Xers to talk about race and gender with our guest Lexi Delk.

Welcome to an intergenerational conversation focused on tending the talk in modern American work culture.

How to Respond to Red Flag Moments at Work

That was weird, you think to yourself. Did that just happen? You’re not crazy. You’re having a red flag moment. But the harder question is, what do you do now? Maybe you need to find another job. Or maybe there’s a mode/switch worth making. That’s what this pod’s for.

Because red flag experiences vary by generation, Gen Z rising professional Hannah Sherbrooke joins the conversation as David runs the numbers, Emily spills the tea, and we discuss oh sh*t moments at work. You’ll hear research. You’ll hear personal stories. And you’ll learn about good work even when the red flag flies.

It’s pricey being a person these days, so nobody’s got just one job. You, your coworkers, your Boomer grandparents, and your friggin’ golden retriever—everybody’s doing gigs, driving Uber, and crafting earrings. How do extra jobs reshape the workplace? How do they reshape YOU? This week, Andrea, David, LaShone, and Craig, along with Gen Z guest Kayla Harkema, talk about how to cope with the (unsustainable?) culture of side hustling.This Mode/Switch Pod responds to last week’s newsletter.