Work Appropriate

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For the maiden voyage of the Culture Study podcast, we’re taking a hard look at a problem that plagues us all: terrible clothes. Why are shirts falling apart or pilling after just a few wears? Why does Gucci charge $3200 for a polyester sweater? What happened to ironing and will we ever dry clean en masse again?

Amanda Mull, staff writer at The Atlantic, joins me for a deep dive into the past twenty years of fashion production (and consumption) trends.

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Show notes:

This week, we’re looking for your questions for future episodes about:

You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here.

Everything is interesting. That idea has guided the tremendously popular Culture Study newsletter, and it’s at the heart of the Culture Study Podcast, where host Anne Helen Petersen and the smartest people she knows answer listeners’ questions about the nooks and crannies of contemporary culture, from “why are clothes like this now” to “what’s the deal with F1?”

Subscribe to the Culture Study Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Listeners can submit their own questions here, and find weekly discussion threads, extensive show notes, transcripts and a lot more on Substack.

It's Work Appropriate's 50th episode, one-year anniversary episode, and last episode, all rolled into one. Producer Melody Rowell joins host Anne Helen Petersen to talk about their favorite moments from the show and share updates from listeners who have written in.

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From terse Slack messages to Zoom happy hours, the culture of remote workplaces can be frustrating to navigate. But it can also be an opportunity to experiment, to build friendships... and to have an annual retreat in an exotic location! Chase Warrington, head of remote for Doist, joins host Anne Helen Petersen to answer listeners' questions about how to create a healthy and enjoyable work culture when there's no water cooler to gather around.

If all my coworkers are younger than me, am I still relevant? How can I stay motivated and engaged until retirement, when I've been working so long and it still feels so far away? Should I tell my boss I'm struggling at work because of menopause? Debbie Millman, educator, artist, and host of the podcast Design Matters, joins host Anne Helen Petersen to answer all these questions from listeners in the later phases of their careers.

We wanted to tackle some of the most complicated management questions that listeners sent in, so host Anne Helen Petersen turned to our favorite management experts, Melissa & Johnathan Nightingale of the Raw Signal Group. Whether you’re suffering from micromanaging, a boss who loves to hear himself talk, or way too much work in too few hours-- we’ve got some suggestions.

We've done episodes on pivoting careers, on starting over, on starting a new job-- and now it's time to talk about the absolute slog that is searching, applying, and interviewing for a new job. Phoebe Gavin, career coach and founder of Better with Phoebe, joins host Anne Helen Petersen to give listeners advice on getting through the slog and landing the job you want.

Are hiring managers checking out your Instagram stories? Is it okay to tweet about the NSFW writing you do on the side? Should you expose the idiots who send vitriol to your company's inboxes? The intersection of work and social media can be a messy place. Rachel Karten, social media strategist and writer of the Link in Bio newsletter, joins host Anne Helen Petersen to answer listeners' questions about when online problems become IRL.

We usually create Work Appropriate episodes around a theme, grouping similar questions together. But over time, we've amassed a collection of questions that are, shall we say, unique. Greta Johnsen, host of WBEZ's Nerdette, joins host Anne Helen Petersen to answer this cornucopia of singular submissions.

So your company put out a statement about its commitment to DEI (or DEIB, or IDEA, or whatever your workplace calls it)-- now what? Efforts to make workplaces more diverse, equitable, and inclusive can often get bogged down by the processes and culture that made the efforts so necessary in the first place. Sameera Kapila, product designer and author of Inclusive Design Communities, joins host Anne Helen Petersen to answer listeners' questions about how to keep doing the work, and make it effective.