Work Besties Who Podcast
Building a bold community of work besties 💼👯♀️ to bond 🤝💞, banter 😂🎉, and bloom 🌸✨
🎙️ Listen to the Work Besties Who Podcast: where workplace friendships get real! From tea spills to relatable laughs, we’re unpacking everything about work life's ups, downs, and unforgettable moments.
✨ Join us for candid chats, relatable stories, and a sprinkle of chaos—because what’s work without a little drama and a lot of fun?
💼😄 Hit play, and let’s dive into the messy magic of workplace connections together!
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Work Besties Who Podcast
How to Survive Daily Office Struggles with Corporate Gen X Mom
Episode Summary:
In this week’s episode, we sit down with the one and only Tatyana—the Corporate Gen X Mom—for a real, raw, and refreshingly honest conversation about life in the corporate world. As a seasoned professional and mother, Tatyana brings insight, humor, and truth to the table. We dive into what it means to show up authentically at work, the importance of workplace besties, and how to navigate the (often unspoken) challenges of corporate culture, all while juggling the demands of family life. If you’ve ever questioned your place in the corporate machine, this one’s for you.
💡 Key Takeaways:
- There’s often a gap between corporate messaging and real employee experiences.
- Humor isn’t just a coping mechanism—it’s a survival tool.
- Work besties are more than friends—they’re your lifeline.
- Surrounding yourself with respectful, trustworthy colleagues is key.
- Toxic environments require strategic exits or boundaries.
- Balancing motherhood and work is tough—and universal.
- Authentic relationships at work lead to deeper job satisfaction.
- Your company is renting your skills—not your soul.
- Culture change starts with individual mindset shifts.
- Gen Z’s boundaries are influencing a much-needed workplace reset.
🎧 Sound Bites:
🗣️ "I want people to not feel like they're alone."
🗣️ "It's never about the actual job."
👯♀️ Brought to you by Work Besties Who Podcast
Hosted by Jess & Claude—two corporate survivors and champions of all things work, wellness, and friendship.
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Work Besties! Theme Song Written by Ralph Lentini @therallyband
Hello everybody, welcome to Work Besties who Podcast. All right, guys, we have got one of my favorite guests that I think we've had on. Get ready for a dose of that corporate realness. It's a mom who comes with a lot of wisdom and some seriously relatable content. Today we're going to be chatting with Tatiana, the corporate Gen X mom. As you probably all know her and yes, that is the one and only social media sensation who says everything we're all thinking about work, career and life, especially as respective Gen X professionals. I feel like she's in my head, from hilarious takes on office culture to the realities of juggling a career with motherhood. She's built a thriving online community by keeping it refreshingly real. We are going to chat with her about what really drives her and what role does she think work besties play in her success. So stay to the bitter end, because she will be sharing with us what she feels. Is that one thing that can make a workplace a more positive environment?
Claude:Hi, I'm Claude and I'm Jess. We are corporate employees by day, entrepreneurs by night and work besties for life.
Jess:Join us as we explore how work besties lift each other up, laugh through the chaos and thrive together in every industry. Work besties With that. Welcome, Tatiana, we're so excited to have you on.
Corporate Gen X Mom:Such a kind introduction. Oh my God, thank you, thank you, ladies.
Jess:A true one, a true one. We're so excited to have you on. Do you mind telling us a little bit about who you are?
Corporate Gen X Mom:I will not get into too much detail because you know I still have a corporate job and I don't really want anybody following me from work. I block as many people as I can from my workplace. It's getting harder to do that because obviously I have like over 90,000 people now following me. So it's it's a lot. But you know I'm trying not to break any corporate social media policies and everything so that I don't get this account.
Corporate Gen X Mom:Really happened is it's become very difficult to balance the moral stance on how things should be and corporate greed. Corporate greed has always been there, always. I mean it's always been there, but it just seems like it was kind of a little bit more under control before. But after the pandemic and when everybody realized, oh my gosh, we can all do our jobs at home for the budget and bonuses well, we didn't really do that well when their stock soared like 40% or they're posting record profits. And it's a complete disconnect between how the regular, actual workers are treated, as opposed to what they're saying and what they're doing. There is a disconnect between what they're saying and what they're doing. You know employees are our best asset. Yet here is $2 salary increase for you. Don't spend it all in one place.
Corporate Gen X Mom:So that's what really drove me, and I've been in the corporate world for like 22 years at this point, in different industries, in different companies. My current company I've been at for 17 of these years in multiple roles and I've seen it all. Really, I've seen it all. I've had wonderful managers. I've had not so wonderful managers. I've had amazing co workers and team members and members of my own team because I manage a team of 30 people and I've had not so good people that I worked with, that were difficult to deal with, that that were toxic, that were creating toxicity around them, and so that's all that corporate trauma. That's the product of my account, is the product of all of that.
Claude:Yeah, no, it's true, there's a lot to take away and I totally understand there has been a shift in, you know, the corporate world. But how did you start it then with your handle right? Where was it for you? A release, Was it or something that I need to laugh? Otherwise I'm going to cry because I have to say your content makes me laugh. You know what I mean. So why did you start this handle?
Corporate Gen X Mom:The handle really is who I am. I am a career woman, I am a mom, I am a Gen X generation and I'm Tatiana and unfortunately, tatiana really is not in that picture in a lot of cases, and I think my 2025 goal is to change that and put Tatiana a little bit more forth than I am today. And I know that a lot of moms really can relate that everybody is ahead of them on the to-do list, on the priority list, and as moms, we really need to change that as well. And as a Gen X, I mean we grew up before we grew up, if you know what I mean, and there are so many relatable things amongst Generation X. I think that we probably relate to more things than any other generation can relate to.
Corporate Gen X Mom:We grew up without internet. We grew up with books. We grew up with libraries. We grew up without computers. We figured out how to get what we needed to get in terms of information on our own. So I can't say that we're the smartest generation. Obviously, that's not the case, but in terms of resourcefulness, I feel like Generation X is the most resourceful generation.
Jess:We were street smart because we had to yes, and I think what you're trying to say is we had to be resourceful. But then we also had to adapt to all these changes and pick up. Now I'm working full time through a computer, through your phone. I mean before, even when we first started working, if you were sick, you were sick, you didn't work. But now you're working, no matter what.
Claude:Oh yes, snow days, right, we used to have snow days.
Corporate Gen X Mom:We're probably the last generation of real snow days and we walked to school uphill both ways. Remember.
Jess:Both ways Carrying like 100 pounds of drugs.
Claude:I did it Sorry, my father was bringing me your friends, they were nicer to you.
Corporate Gen X Mom:I took public transportation to school.
Jess:Yeah, I took a school bus. So, tatiana, thank you for that background. You shared a lot and we appreciate that you commented. You're all the way up to almost 90,000 followers, or slightly older. Did you ever expect your content to really resonate with that many?
Corporate Gen X Mom:people. I hoped it would, because really my page is for people to laugh To laugh, not to cry. I don't get paid for any of that.
Corporate Gen X Mom:It's really for fun and it's to create a community of people who can relate, to understand that they're not alone and what they're experiencing at work, because it's really difficult to think okay, well, I have this toxic boss and I don't know how to deal with this toxic boss. I can't believe I'm the only one who's experiencing that. And then you open up Instagram or whatever other TikTok, whatever other platform. There's so many humorous pages out there. There is an old Russian joke that there is always part of the joke in every joke, but the other part is not really a joke, it's reality. It's funny to some extent that it's funny, but it's not because it's true, and so I want people to not feel like they're alone. We're all going through this. I get so many comments and DMs saying feels like we work for the same company. Yes, it's one big global corporation. That's what it is, because it's the same everywhere.
Jess:To me that's why it resonates with so many people is because you're bringing to light the fact that a lot of what we're going through, or you're going through, we all are going through, or we want at some point.
Claude:If not now, we will at some point, or we will even. Right, it's cyclic, cyclical, cyclical.
Jess:I like to clodsplain. That's what I like to do Sometimes when she says a word that I'm like that's not it. I like to translate it for her. So my next question for you is do you have a workplace bestie, or a few? It doesn't have to be just one, absolutely.
Corporate Gen X Mom:My manager is actually my workplace bestie and one of my coworkers who we share a wall in the office. We both have offices but we share a wall and the slightest inconvenience at least I run to her office. She doesn't run to my office, but I run to my office but I run to her office and and we vent and we feel really better after it and we save on therapy too.
Jess:you know it's, it's free therapy and I have the mug. That's like work bestie equals your therapist. Yeah, it is true, it's definitely one of the one of the many benefits of having a work bestie is having that person to bounce stuff off of.
Claude:Yeah, this built-in system right, and how long have you been friends and you know when? Was it something that came like suddenly, like you knew, right away or slowly?
Corporate Gen X Mom:We just have been working in the same department for so long, been sharing a manager for a long time, been in the same division for a long time, so we know a lot of people. We started when the business really started and so it's a lot of things to relate to. We know a lot of people who are no longer with the company and so there are a lot of things that we have in common and it's easy. That's why it's easy to relate and it's easy. That's why it's easy to relate and it's easy to vent and it's easy to compare to the good old days or whatever, whatever else because this is not how it used to be type of conversation.
Corporate Gen X Mom:Oh yes, I feel like that gets brought up a lot yeah yeah we used to do it that way but yeah, and it's really, really important and I also want to try to convey that through my content is that it's so important to surround yourself with people you respect, who respect you. It doesn't have to be this toxic positivity all the time it doesn't but but you have to surround yourself with people you can trust. And it's difficult to know, especially with new people. It's difficult to know who you can trust in the corporate environment, especially today. It has been dog-eat-dog before.
Corporate Gen X Mom:It still is, so I wouldn't recommend trusting just anybody. That's why it's like if you've known a person for 20 years or 15 years or 10 years, they've been with you through thin and thick and you know you can trust them, because until you are in trouble together or until you need help and that person helps you or you help that person, you can't really know for sure who you can trust. And I think I have one of the posts where what's one thing that corporate life taught you is that you can't really share a lot of things you want to share just with anybody beyond like pleasantries, like you can't just go into a break room and tell your life story to just anyone, even if you want to, even if you just need to let it out.
Corporate Gen X Mom:You just shouldn't, because people will use that against you. You never know, especially today. It's just such a weird, weird work environment today. A lot of layoffs are happening. People really don't know what the future holds at this point, especially today.
Jess:Yeah, it's definitely a more tenuous time right now, and being cautious is smart, but that's why work besties are so critical, because during this time, you're going to need to lean on them even more than you probably would have before. We do need to be thinking, especially in a corporate environment, to show up your best self each day and not reveal too much and or be more buttoned up and what does your?
Claude:because I'm sure your work besties aware of your page. Yes, she's one of the very, very few people who is she's a work best and I'm sure a lot of them is. Some example came to your content, some history with her, I'm sure. What does she say about it?
Corporate Gen X Mom:She says she laughs, and that's really all I need from people. I don't need any other reaction. If you find it funny, tell me. If you don't want to tell me and you find it funny, that's still great. Yeah, at least like it oh, that that I don't really care about either, so it's, it's just out there. It's an outlet for me, as it is for people who consume it.
Jess:Yeah it's a reciprocal relationship I mean, based on just scrolling through again last night, I feel like you've got a lot of people that definitely do still like it and think of it, your content, that kind of as you just commented on the mixing of the humor and the truth I think it's just so relatable and hits home to so many people. How do you decide what to share?
Corporate Gen X Mom:You know what it's. Usually I prepare content, usually on weekends, okay, and I just schedule. I just schedule it, you know, during during the time that I want it posted, but it's it's. It's never a dull moment in corporate world, never Every day is something new or weird that's happening that I'm sure would be relatable to people and in a lot of cases it's cyclical, like performance review time, bonus time Usually it's at the same time for a lot of companies time Usually it's at the same time for a lot of companies, and so then there is a series of content about that. And then mid-year reviews there is a series of content about that, employee surveys, I mean all of that stuff. And then in the interim it's just basically whatever pains me the most Pet peeves, office pet peeves, and you know communications with various groups within my corporation, like HR or accounting. There are these cliches and in most cases they're true.
Claude:Unfortunately, it's true, though it is totally true, otherwise they would not be cliche, you know Right.
Jess:True, though it is totally true, otherwise they would not be cliche, you know, right? Yeah, so it sounds like, then, touching a lot of your posts are actually from true inspirations, like true stories, true stories absolutely. I feel like that makes this more authentic. Well, real, the home now, because I'm like, oh my god, this must be what she's going through right now. So, based off of the post that you have had, has there been any kind of unexpected or wild reactions that you've gotten that you were kind of shocked?
Corporate Gen X Mom:by. You know what?
Corporate Gen X Mom:I'm not shocked at anything anymore, and the corporate life for you hilarious reactions which I'm sure commenters of those comments don't find hilarious but I do is when men try to mansplain things to me and you know like or I don't want to call them like corporate boot boot lickers or anything like that, you know, that's how I see them like oh, nobody wants to work. Or just shut up and do the job. You're getting paid for it. Or why are you complaining? Start your own business. It's like what? Why are you?
Jess:on my page.
Corporate Gen X Mom:Yes, exactly, I think you're on the wrong page. First of all and second of all, I love my job, but I will still complain. I'll continue complaining and most of my posts are not about the job. I'm sorry. I have you completely missing the point? They're not about the job, it's about how corporations operate. It's the culture.
Corporate Gen X Mom:It's the people who work there, it's the personality hires. It's the people who work there, it's the personality hires, it's the pay inequality. It's or I should well pay inequality. It's the lack of pay transparency it's. You know, I say one thing but do another thing. It's all about that. It's never about the actual job, and I don't even know why they spend time commenting and take this it's silly, because obviously they're not following me. They're not, they're not understanding the message. Obviously because they're saying stuff like that and you know I just find it funny and I like to mess with them. I would be responding to their comments and then you know it creates engagement, so that's great.
Jess:It gets the rest of your people to like double down on it and respond. So you commented on the beginning. Your handle is true to who you are. You're a corporate woman who is a mom and Gen X. So how are you able to balance working in a corporate environment, being a mom and then kind of also doing a side, a whole nother side job of manning the social content? How are you able to balance all of that?
Corporate Gen X Mom:It's difficult. I'm not going to lie. I have an absolutely amazing husband. My daughter goes to school and my husband takes her to school, I pick her up, so we have that balance in the family which a lot of women I feel lack. I'm also following a lot of moms and I love mom content and the biggest issue I see is that there isn't this partnership that the family should be. You know how a man comes home from work and says, oh, I'm so tired, but then a mom comes home from work and she still has another job to do at home. In my family that is not the case 50-50, or my husband does more than 50 most days and he's retired, so he is a man of leisure, so he can do it.
Claude:I work, I work you said that, mama um.
Corporate Gen X Mom:I use the word mama Exactly Trophy wife.
Jess:I think you hit on a point that I loved here, especially amongst, I think, gen x is probably the first time you really openly hear it too how a partnership in a family needs to be 50 50 across almost everything. It can't just be the working, because we pick up and do a corporate job every day too, or have jobs not to say it has to be in a corporation but and then to come home and still have a full-time job technically so, so does your spouse yeah, what I like.
Claude:also, I think it was Michelle Obama that was saying it's not 50 50 all the time, right, yeah, at some point it's going to be the man 70, the woman 30, and then later on it's going to be the man 70, the woman 30, and then later on it's going to be 40, 60, and then 50, 50. That at some point, depending what's happening in your life, you know it's, but at least there's that support that is so much needed. Yeah, I mean, that's what.
Corporate Gen X Mom:Absolutely Without, without the partner, partner support. It's just, it just becomes madness and it just becomes animosity. It just becomes madness and it just becomes animosity. And for most I'm sure that's, you know, source of good content on social media. But other than that in real life in real life that must be really, really difficult to deal with. Yeah and balance, because again, a woman can't handle all of it and the burnout is real.
Claude:Exactly, and then you become frustrated. Right, you're starting that frustration and I think what kills the most is the resentment you know, resentment is like that. What kills it all?
Corporate Gen X Mom:So please tell me and the audience how have you become besties and why are you in the same room?
Jess:Thank you, Tatiana for asking us a question. I love this. I know, I love this Do you want to come on and be on all of our podcasts?
Corporate Gen X Mom:Where are you guys located?
Jess:So we're located in New York, and we, too also work in a corporate environment and have been working for years For years together, oh yeah, years in general, but together we've been working for a few years.
Claude:Two and a half, I think three, I don't know three feels.
Jess:It feels like 20, but it's. It's only been a few years um and we kind of instantly bonded at work. We just had similar, well, similar, but very also complementary personality.
Claude:So the first time was um I, you are a boomerang, she was a boomerang. I worked at this company before and then she left, and then I came and then at the time our boss say oh you know, claude, why don't you speak to? Jess just wants to know what's going on in the company, etc.
Claude:And from there away we kind of bonded from there Before I came back, exactly, and then she came and I think we also trauma bonded, I have to say, which a lot of times that's what happens right, and also about projects, and that's where really we saw where we were complimentary, we were supporting each other. For me, it was incredible to have this support, and I keep on saying all the time that everybody always laughs, but the yin and the yang right and it worked very well and we were laughing all the time. We have our little quirk of sometimes dressing the same.
Jess:Well, I mean so for for like events, like we had like at work sometimes it'd be like theme days or something and then Halloween we would dress up the same. For that it's not like we walk into work dressed up the same all the time yeah, I was thinking that's TMI all in the morning.
Jess:Yeah, I think you, I, some of the things, themes that you share is kind of some of the realities that bonded us. We were in a stressful work environment. It could go one of two ways right. We were peers that we could have taken that time to take the other one down. We could have, or we could have, like doubled down and figure out a way to work with each other, which is what we did, yeah, to get through it. And instead of both coming up to the table, showing up differently where some some areas was my strength and some was your strength, and we probably would have that would have been really obvious to the person we reported into. Instead, we just like let's just do it together for each thing and then both of our outputs are not the person at the time was like trying to separate us.
Claude:Yeah, I don't think they appreciated it, but it we actually made it us even closer and then you had you could see afterwards, you know the organization actually were laughing about our relationship, our work bestie, and also the people that reported to us, you know started to have a good ambience in the department.
Jess:And it was happening, right as it sounds similar to what you were talking about. During COVID, everybody obviously was 100% remote and then after COVID, we were 50-50, right Like 50% coming back and you could tell the dread of people being in the office. But a bunch of them would comment like what days are you guys going to be there? Because at least if we were there they would get some kind of a comic relief and they felt like the ambiance, as you commented, was a little bit more energizing and fun. And, jokingly, one of them said something along the lines of it was I, in my mind, have reinterpreted their conversation to say that she said we should do a podcast, but I think she said reality show right.
Claude:Yeah, I think at one point we thought because we thought that we were so funny. You know, it's just us like I'm sure with your work best, yeah, right.
Jess:I mean that's very funny.
Claude:Look at your content and then someone yeah, about the podcast and just Literally the next day I was like, oh, so this is the name we should have for our podcast.
Jess:I got his email address. Here's what I think we should do for the season one. And she was like oh, this is a real thing.
Claude:Yeah, yeah, it's a real thing, and since then we're not working together in the same department, still in the same company.
Claude:But different departments.
Claude:But we are still work besties.
Jess:If you want to use any of this content, we are okay with it, but yeah. I think a lot of what you heard is what you write about right, that's great.
Corporate Gen X Mom:It's always good to have someone you can talk to, because if you don't, it's very isolating and just like at home if you don't have that kind of a relationship with your partner, and here it's the work bestie. Yeah, it's very isolating and it's hard and it builds resentment and you know you may not necessarily hate your job, but you just hate being there.
Claude:Exactly you dread going.
Corporate Gen X Mom:The work bestie absolutely makes it worth commuting to the office. Okay, let's put it that way.
Claude:No, definitely. I know that. I mean we are not working together anymore. I mean next to each other. No no, but next to each other. No, no, but next to each other anymore. But I know that I was going to the office much more, wanted even more going to the office that now I'm still going, but it's a bit different, it's an adjustment yeah, one of the things we do still, too, is like what days are you going in?
Jess:yeah, even though we don't sit next to each other just because, as you comment on you get, get more energy. You're mad. Even just being live in meetings together, we give the looks yes, or we live together.
Claude:Take the subway home. Yeah, we take the subway home.
Corporate Gen X Mom:No, that's cool. Yeah, I think best friends and it doesn't necessarily need to be work best friends, but I feel like best friends stem out of these long-term relationships like school, work, college, whatever and they stay with you for life. If you have enough trauma to relate to that, you've been through enough things that you know this is your person.
Claude:Yes, exactly, these are like lifelong friendships, for sure yeah, and and the person that trust you have no problem to say something, knowing that the day after, oh, I should not have said that, but you know you don't have to think that because she's your person or he's your person.
Corporate Gen X Mom:Absolutely.
Claude:Or they're your person.
Jess:I was just thinking this is one of the things that I think people loved and hated about us. You have, like, certain phrases and sayings that you say all the time, I feel like in every podcast. I should like write them down, get them through a law Like a bingo. Yeah, yeah, let's do that, let's do it.
Claude:Because you're like Kayla you literally hit on all your typical phrases already.
Jess:You've done them all, the yin and the yang. You've done them all, the support. You forgot one. You already said authenticity. Which one did I forget?
Jess:I love it we have a lot of free time because I'm sure, the same as you, on your weekends, you're doing this whenever we are meeting to strategize on stuff. One of the things I keep saying is I'm going to splice the things that we say consistently. And she says I love it. It's better I love it than I hate it. And mine is very odd. Mine is like I'm curious. I say it all the time. I'm like I love it, yours is like a nice positive and mine's like she's curious yeah, when I say I'm curious at work, it's usually because I'm talking to a man.
Corporate Gen X Mom:I'm curious. Help me understand.
Claude:But you know the answer Exactly. But you already know the answer.
Corporate Gen X Mom:Yeah, well, my answer was in the email that I sent per my last email.
Jess:It was in the email recapping the meeting that we had about my previous email Exactly. I can explain this to you. Exactly, exactly yep, yes, I will say that if I say it at work, it usually has a different context, but I don't mean it that way. On the podcast, please, no, I usually am actually just generally interested to know do you have any new things coming up that you might want to share, or any? What's the?
Corporate Gen X Mom:next for you nothing, nothing new, just gonna go with the flow. Okay, make fun of the same people, make fun of the same processes, make fun of the same dysfunction, people in different ways. You know there are so many different ways to make fun of the same thing.
Claude:It's quite impressive because we do some, also some content. It's not that easy to always come up. It takes a lot of creativity. So I mean I'm quite impressed by your handle because it's like so natural and it doesn't feel repetitive at all. So that is quite impressive because it's not that easy.
Corporate Gen X Mom:A lot of inspiration, I should tell you, comes from watching cat videos, because when I see those funny animal videos, it's not necessarily cats, it can be all other animals.
Corporate Gen X Mom:You see an expression on their face or the way they do something and you're like, wait a second, that's Chad from accounting and you immediately come up with a meme. Yeah, so I highly recommend Five Star. For me, a lot of the inspiration comes from just this funny content that's already out there and I try to make sure that I, you know, tag the original poster In a lot of cases. In a lot of cases, these are just like compilations. They count there. That's not their original content either. Yeah, the accounts there. That's not their original content either. They're collecting their themed content.
Corporate Gen X Mom:If it's like a cat page or a dog page, that's a lot of videos there. Or like monkey content, whatever, and it's not theirs. But in several cases I've seen it's theirs. It's theirs. It's either their cat, or then I have to ask permission to redo. So the content creation it's a process, but it just comes naturally when you're watching things and sometimes yeah, sometimes you know, come up with original content and sometimes you saw something completely unrelated to corporate world and you're like, oh, wow, this could reenact this with a corporate world theme. So there is just so much stuff out there and people are going through so much stuff out there. And people are going through so much stuff out there and they're sharing it with the world and it's like right, that's wonderful, that's just like I don't even have to, you know, and the algorithm helps as well, you know because you know once, once you're once you like a cat video, once that's it.
Corporate Gen X Mom:That's, that's all you get.
Jess:That's it, You're done. You are now a cat video woman. So, Tatiana, we wanted to ask you, as I kicked off with what's one small thing people listening, so all the work-festy community out there what's one small thing that they can do today to create a more positive environment in their work or their corporation?
Corporate Gen X Mom:I feel like people should stop taking a lot of things personally and dismiss the idiots Like don't engage. Don't engage with negativity. Come to work, do your work. If you have toxic co-workers, toxic boss and you can't do anything about it, just ignore them. You are there to do your work and then you go, and then you go home and you continue loving your life outside of the workplace Because, at the end of the day, all we need to understand someone said it that the companies are basically renting you. They're paying you for your skills and you have to understand that it's not your purpose to make them money. You are there for your skills. They're paying you. If they can't pay you more, they can't afford you.
Corporate Gen X Mom:You need to find someone who will. You shouldn't settle and you shouldn't treat that workplace as one and all place. You go there and you earn the money to actually fund the things that you love doing outside of work and once you switch that to this kind of mindset, it helps. It helps a lot. I know a lot of people maybe can't do it or they want to do their best. They want to go above and beyond. They're thinking that they will get rewarded for it. In some cases they will. In most cases they won't. But someone else also said nobody at work will remember that you were working 80-hour weeks, but your family will, your family will remember.
Corporate Gen X Mom:Your body will remember that your burnout was caused by that and that's your own fault. Basically, that's what I'm trying to also convey and tell people.
Claude:Yeah, which is so true. And so it makes us step back a little bit and realize, yes, like you say, it's not our purpose in life. You know, this is not it, it's not our whole identity.
Claude:It's not our whole identity.
Corporate Gen X Mom:It's just part of it, and especially if you don't like it, especially then and you like doing something completely different, you just go there, you earn your paycheck and you go home and you love and you do the things that you love yeah, yeah, sure, that's really good advice.
Corporate Gen X Mom:Not easy for everyone, as this comment, not easy for me not easy for me also, and I should say that as say that as Gen X, we've been brought up by boomers and we've been trained in the corporate world by boomers and basically we are the people with that work ethic that until it's done I'm not going home or I'm giving my all or I'm going above and beyond.
Corporate Gen X Mom:And what I love about Gen Z today is that, well, I'm not giving my all today because the vibe's off type of thing, and I love it. And I couldn't, for the longest time, accept it. I was like what the Like? You have got to be kidding me. How dare you? And then it dawned on me shouldn't we all be like that? Yeah, we should. If you have done your job, if you have completed your tasks, but then at five o'clock somebody comes in and asks you something. It can wait until tomorrow, nobody's gonna die. I want to go home, I think, because outside of working in an ER.
Claude:I feel like no one has a reason to say you have to stay in business and meanwhile, like you say, us Gen X will take it at 5 o'clock and say okay, let me finish it Exactly.
Corporate Gen X Mom:And I've been like that for a very, very long time and I still am sometimes because I'm at that level where I kind of need to log in and respond to like a CFO's question or something like that. But you know people five levels below me, they shouldn't be expected to be that, especially at the level that they're paid.
Claude:Yeah, no no, you can't.
Corporate Gen X Mom:You can't pay a minimum wage and expect someone you know to work 80 hour work weeks. You can't.
Jess:Yeah, I think that's probably one of the best bits of advice we've gotten in a long time. You know, to work 80-hour work weeks, you can, oh, so true, yeah, I think that's probably one of the best bits of advice we've gotten in a long time.
Claude:So thank you for that. But we really love what you created, gen X, to really make us corporate people seen and make us laugh, and moms and moms also make us laugh and reflect. So thank you again so much. And can you tell our audience what are your handles where they can follow?
Corporate Gen X Mom:you Sure, it's just a corporate Gen X mom, that's it Perfect.
Jess:So simple and easy and amazing. All right work besties. Well, if today's episode doesn't make you want to go text your work bestie with a meme of your own, definitely go find Tatiana Because, believe me, you will find a lot of content to send right away. So a huge thank you to Corporate Gen X, mom Tatiana for being on here and for keeping it real.
Jess:I think your content, your examples today on this podcast were just as authentic and down to earth and even funny as much as your memes are. So if you don't already follow her, please go follow her now, because your feed needs that level of honesty and humor, and your work bestie will love it too. For those that liked this episode, please give us that thumbs up, subscribe, share this episode with your work besties, and don't forget to keep your work besties close. Remember whether you're swapping snacks in the break room, rescuing each other from endless meetings or just sending that perfectly timed meme.
Claude:having a work bestie is like having your own personal hype squad, so keep lifting each other is like having your own personal hype squad, so keep lifting each other, laughing through the chaos and, of course, thriving. Until next time, stay positive, stay productive and don't forget to keep supporting each other. Work besties.
