Episode 25: "Office Politics for People Who Hate Office Politics”

Everyone says they hate office politics… but somehow they still shape every workplace. 

In this episode, we’re breaking down the game no one admits they’re playing — office politics. Not the backstabbing, gossip-filled version you see on TV, but the real dynamics that influence careers: visibility, relationships, power structures, and knowing how decisions actually get made. 

We share the political mistakes we made early in our careers, the moments we realized that hard work doesn’t always equal recognition, and how to navigate workplace dynamics without becoming someone you don’t like. 

If you’ve ever wondered why some people get promoted, why certain voices carry more weight in meetings, or how to protect yourself in complicated workplace environments, this episode is for you. 

Because the truth is:
You don’t have to love office politics — but understanding them can protect your career. 

Along the way, we also cover everything from chaotic weekend recaps to dramatic email receipts and our latest TV deep dives. 

⏱️ Episode Timeline 

0:00–0:31 – Intro 

0:31–39:00 – Weekend recap, TMI dog updates, and the traumatic shaming of burritos 

39:00–54:11 – Dramatic email reading: the moral of the story… always come prepared with receipts 

54:11–1:32:00 – Main topic: Office Politics for People Who Hate Office Politics
• What office politics actually are
• Career mistakes we made early on
• Visibility vs. effort in the workplace
• Building real professional relationships
• How to navigate politics without losing your integrity 

1:32:00–1:52:39 – Show recap: Tell Me Lies and Love Story: JFK Jr. & Carolyn Bessette 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome to the Work Wives and Real Lives Podcast. I'm Katie. And I'm Ava. We're two best friends and coworkers spilling the tea on business, boundaries, and all the beautiful chaos in between. From workday wins to real life messes, we're talking through it all. Unfiltered, unpolished, and always putting friendship first. Think of it as your weekly catch up with your favorite coworker, Turn Soul Sister. So grab your coffee or your wine and let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Stunning.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

Stunning.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

What is up, work wife fam? It's your favorite wives, Katie and Ava. Hey-o. Heyo. What up? What up? We are here. We were great. We didn't take another unplanned hiatus this week, so we're two for two in a row.

SPEAKER_04 0:48

Two for two. Crushing it.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Knocking it out of the park. Knocking it out of the park. Here we are. Doing the bare fucking minimum, but we're here.

SPEAKER_04 0:58

No, yeah. We're we're doing things.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Last week's episode was pretty much two hours long, so we're fucking doing things. I don't know how we talk that long. Every time I tell Ava, I'm like, I cannot do another two-hour episode. Like I she's on the East Coast and we film at night after I go home from work. So like I don't know how she keeps talking. But me, I'm just like, we can't do another two-hour episode. Like, I have things I need to do, and we just don't stop talking.

SPEAKER_04 1:21

Just put us two together, and it's funny though, because when we're in person and it's just us two, we are like so silent.

unknown 1:29

We don't speak.

SPEAKER_05 1:30

We all speak.

SPEAKER_04 1:32

I come home from the workday, home as in Katie's home. That is my second home. And so I come home from my workday. She's getting home too. We sit on the couch and we're just like dead quiet. I think Garrett does all the talking.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Yeah, because like we're together.

unknown 1:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

Obviously, we go and do our own thing during the workday, but then like we're living together. So when we have these moments, that's why we don't like to like film when we're actually together because this is like our legit moment to like catch up. Whereas otherwise we're just always together. So, you know, it works out. It was really funny though, one time Eva had flew into town and I had picked up my kids from school, and then we were picking her up, and she was at one of my studios, and we pull into the parking lot, and my son goes, Oh, we're at Eva's house.

SPEAKER_04 2:26

And like I basically I think he made the connection because there was one time I had my luggage with me. Maybe it was that time.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

It was that time. We were picking you up with your luggage. Yeah. And so gone straight from the airport to there. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

Honestly. What is he doing? He's just like.

SPEAKER_04 2:47

You know how when dogs they're like about to circle and lay down, they like start scratching their bed. Like a cat? Yeah. Yeah. He started doing that, but to the carpet right now. I'm like, really, dude. Like it's like.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Are you ever gonna tell people about his you know issues or uh is that a protected clo, well, I don't want Hans to get Hans is a dog if you didn't know. Um Hans is my my firstborn. You should give us an update. Well, first we need to hear about it. The viewers need to hear. I don't need to hear about it ever again.

SPEAKER_04 3:23

Yes, this will go into part of the reason why we did well, so many reasons why the last few weeks we did not film. There was just so much going on in our lives, and one of the reasons was my dog's asshole was leaking. It's not funny, but it is it's funny now. But he had like dried, if this is TMI, fast forward, uh I'll try to make it as PG as possible or G PG, but no, I'll be cussing. Rated R. So it's actually rated R, I think that includes nudity. We're talking about his asshole. So, you know, there we are.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Anywho, I think you can show dog assholes in non-rated R films.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

I mean, they don't wear up pants, so you typically see their butt.

SPEAKER_03 4:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:17

Oh my god, he's looking at me right now. He knows you're talking about him. I'm sorry. It's like this is a traumatic experience for me, Mom. I'm about to expose you. So my child, he is a German Shepherd, Husky, Australian Shepherd. What else is he? I think that's it. Anywho, he's a big he's a big dog. He's furry. And so I looked at his tail one day, like around his butt, and there was dried blood, just like a ring around his booty. I was like, oh, that's weird. And so I was looking at it, doing some investigation, and based upon what I investigated, I came to the conclusion that he scooted his butt too hard on grass and got a cut at the base of his tail because that's where majority of the dried blood was like clumped into. I was like, okay, let me clean it, let me wash it. Another week goes by. Boy is stanky as hell. And um, he's sitting next to me on the couch and he's like fully relaxed. He's with his mama on his back, legs up, spread eagle, and I just get a whiff of the nastiest smell I've ever smelt in my entire life. I look over at him, I'm like, ew, dog. And as I look over at him, his butt is like fully open, blood coming out of his asshole. Of course, I start screaming and freaking out like he's dying. And it's a natural response. Yes, call the vet the next morning, and they get us in right away. Of course, when you get there, they scare you with all the possibilities, all possibilities leading to cancer. And so I'm sitting in the vet office with my husband, just like holding on to Hans, just like crying. I'm like, I cannot make any decision right now. So thank God my husband was there, made the decisions of like he needs to be sedated because they need to do a full check because they were trying to do an exam. And boy, clinched right away. I mean, yeah, you gotta have that prison ass ready. So he needed to be sedated.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

He need, you know, we all need to practice it. You never know. And so that's it's like a natural bodily, I don't know. I'm not gonna say I feel like that just everyone's here to tell.

SPEAKER_04 6:52

I don't I've no, I've unfortunately had to deal with a butthole before in my previous dermatology job. And let me tell you, a natural reaction is just to okay. Closed it right up. Yep, he that shit closed up real fast. So they had to sedate him, they had to do like a full exam, they did radiology exams on him because there's a few masses that we found that I came to the conclusion because I'm a doctor, they were freely mobile. And I'm like, okay, it's movable. He's not in pain. When I touch it, he's okay. Um, but they did like a full body exam on him. And like, while he's out, just like do the whole thing. He's getting older. Luckily, he did not have cancer. But while that time period of him being sedated and checked, I took my ass to the breakfast joint next door, ordered a fat stack of pancakes, hot chocolate. I was crying to the waitress, telling her that my dog is dying. I'm like preparing myself for the absolute worst. But homeboy just blew out an anal gland. Just pushed too hard one day. So I'll give you a full, it's getting better. Um, he does have a follow-up tomorrow morning, so that's where we'll be. But things seem to be okay for a while as of last week. It was still a little smelly, not as stanky. There's like a little blood coming out, but not to the extent of what I had previously previously seen. I did a check yesterday, wiped around, and you know, the things we do for our children.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Yeah, there was this one time I had my sweet dog Chubbs, who passed two years ago now. I think it was yeah, like a year and a half ago. Maybe. Um she when she was three, I had just graduated from college. Garrett and I were living together um with my like my in an apartment with my brother, and like I was I I don't know if I was employed yet. I was like trying to find a job or something, or maybe I had a job, but um moral story, I had no money. So I take Chubbs out. No, I did have because I came home on my lunch break to take her for a walk. And I lived right down the street from where I worked. So I was walking her and she started peeing blood. And so, and she was only three, and so I make an appointment, take her to the vet. First thing they hit me with bladder cancer. And I'm like so I they like do an ultrasound, they do t like urine testing or whatever. I leave the vet while I'm waiting for the results, calling Garrett, calling Bobby, my parents, like hysterically crying, like this dog is my entire life. Yeah. And that bitch had a UTI. Okay. So maybe don't tell people the first thing it's cancer, because right it was a UTI. She needed some antibiotics, and she was fine.

SPEAKER_04 10:02

God bless.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

God bless. And she lived to 15, so such a beautiful life.

SPEAKER_04 10:09

That's what I'm hoping for with my little boy. He's oh gosh, nine. He'll be nine this year. Um, and then at the same time, Opal got her first heat. We were convinced for a while. So she turned one in November, and she had not gotten her first heat. And the vet told us with her specific breed to wait until she has her first heat. That way she's like fully developed. That way, I don't know, something with the hips, something down that area. I still don't understand any of this logic. Do not understand because I've heard so many different like opinions. And so we're like, okay, let's just wait till her first heat. And it usually happens like before the age of one. She's just like her mother, a late bloom, late bloomer. So she got her first heat at uh I scheduled her uh appointment today, and they're like, How old is she?

SPEAKER_03 11:11

I was like, 16 months. You know how people like go by months when you have like a newborn.

SPEAKER_04 11:21

If they're under two, yeah. Yeah, if they're under two, I'm like, oh, she's 16 months. She is. She's just a baby. She's just a baby. And yeah, so she got her first heat while Hans's ass was bleeding. Her pussy was bleeding, and so we were just a beautiful household during that time. I hope you don't have light-colored carpet. It's like a tannish, you know, situation-ish. Yeah. But our bedding is white, and the amount of times in the last week I've had to clean it because her heat nobody told me it lasts freaking like two months. Homegirl's been bleeding since like the end of February. No, like before that, middle of February.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

I mean, I think it makes sense in the animal kingdom because there's typically seasons where babies are born in the animal kingdom. Yeah. And like, I'm highly invested in Jackie and Shadow, the big bear bald eagles. And her their mating season lasts like for like a couple months too. Yeah. So if you didn't, if you're not up to speed with Jackie and Shadow, their first clutch of eggs was attacked by ravens and they lost them. And then a month later, she laid a second clutch. They have two eggs right now. So we're holding out hope. Um send in prayers. Send in prayers. But yeah, no, I mean I feel like that makes sense. I have I'm actually surprised your dog was a rescue because all of my rescues, like, they won't give them to you until the dog is fixed. So Right. Well, uh, it was like, so she was yours wasn't from a real rescue, right?

SPEAKER_04 13:05

It was like No, it was just people. So people found her and her siblings and mom tied to a fence in the middle of nowhere. And so they took them in, found a foster family, and then the foster family are the ones that did her first set of vaccines, and then an elderly woman adopted her from there and had her for maybe a month and a half, and then realized that they were she was afraid of what she was going to grow up to be because of her breed. I'm sad for Opal that she's gone through so many homes. Cause then after that, she went to the farm where we were taking Hans. And so she lived there for maybe like a month. And then at this point, she was four and a half, almost five months old when she came to our home. Um, but I'm happy that that elderly woman thought she was going to be an aggressive dog. She is far from it. She's afraid of everything. She's a little baby, she's afraid of her own shadow. She's yeah. Her new thing now is she's afraid of the kitchen. Specifically when I whole kitchen.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Oh, because you talked about the oven before. Now it's the whole kitchen.

SPEAKER_04 14:28

The whole kitchen. God forbid I go in there to get a snack. Like what happens? She starts like pacing around. She'll like pace around the couch, staring at me and like panting really heavily, and then she'll hide.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Do you guys like scold her if she tries to take food?

SPEAKER_04 14:47

No. I the fire alarm went off once while I was cooking. And so I think she should be a fault. It is my fault. And this is why I should not be in the kitchen. And yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Truly, men should be in the kitchen, where they both men should be in the kitchen.

SPEAKER_04 15:02

Um, screw you, whoever wrote someone wrote us a review or a comment on YouTube recently saying, get back into the kitchen. I'm like, sir, you don't want me in the kitchen. You don't want us in the kitchen, okay? You don't want us in the kitchen. Burn the fucking house down. Okay. I'll burn this whole place down. We don't want that. I'm traumatizing my dog by just standing in there. So I cannot be there, okay?

SPEAKER_00 15:26

I don't read the comments anymore, so.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

But thank you for your engagement. Thank you for the engagement. We'll take it. Take it.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

But no, you don't want us in the kitchen. It's a very dangerous place to put us in. It is a dangerous place. Um you can put me in the Gucci store, Louis Vuitton store. You can put me at a pure bar. You can put me, ooh, in a nice bubble bath. I'll take. Kitchen? Not really my bad. I'm great on a phone though, and I love hitting the order on DoorDash. So love that free membership from my Chase card. Thank you. If you have specific Chase cards, you get a free DoorDash. Like you don't have to have a DoorDash membership, but you get like the free delivery and I don't know, free other things. If you have one, um, and then if you have like a certain Chase cards and you tie that card to your account, you get a free membership.

SPEAKER_03 16:25

So more, you know. Shout out, Chase. Shout out Chase. I mean I'm very excited because I just got the Disney credit card.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

I've been thinking about it for a while, and then Amy sent me a link. Uh because like, you know, if you send people a link to your card, they get the referral points or whatever. And I was looking at the benefits and like for how much Disney vacation we do, it just makes a ton of sense.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

I love that. Congrats. Thanks. I increased my credit rating or something. Score score.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Yeah, I don't really know how that works, but I have more credit. There you go. There we go. Um, okay. What are we talking about today, guys? Uh we are talking about a lot, so we let me just pull out my notes.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

Um we are talking about ooh, yes, office politics and for people who hate them. I can't wait.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Because it it it's not just like corporate office, like there's politics in any workplace. So for sure. Buckle up. We are going to get into that in a little bit. Um we're gonna get into our weekend recaps. We've got another spicy email reading, this time courtesy of Ava. I'll read the I'll read the customer today since you're the one that wrote the responses. And then um and then we'll get into our main topic. We have lots to talk about in reality, slash entertainment. I finally watched Tell Me Lies. Oh, yes, thank you. We're gonna talk about that. Praise.

SPEAKER_04 18:17

I've been 10 years late, but yeah. I've been dying and not talking about it with you. So I'm happy you finally caught up.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Yeah. Um, and that's about it.

SPEAKER_04 18:30

Cute. What'd you do this weekend? Um, you know, I was trying to think of what I did, and we spent a lot of time outside, actually. It was beautiful in Tennessee, the sun's out, people were out, so we were out walking the dogs, doing the things, being a family. Um, husband was in the kitchen, I was on the couch. Where you where you belong. I'm great on a couch. I love a couch. Exactly. I love couch. Yeah, I love couch. Um, so yeah, we spent a lot of time outside, and I almost about died. So after we went on a very long walk around the lake, we went to this grocery store to get, they have such a beautiful um vegan pizza that I just love. And so no, it's called Fresh Market shout out. I think they're only in Knoxville, but went to Fresh Market, got myself, and my husband got himself a pizza. It was like almost 80 degrees out, and it was four or five p.m. So it was a hot day. Yeah. We get back to his car, it's not turning on. We have our children in there.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

The car that you're in a road trip across America with.

SPEAKER_04 19:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 19:58

Can't wait.

SPEAKER_04 19:59

It would not start. And so anytime he put the key in the ignition, the alarm would go off. And I'm like, what the heck? Something, some wire came loose because this idiot thought he'd be cool and go super fast over a speed bump. And he, as we were in the parking lot next to the supermarket, it's totally empty. He's like, watch this, and just like went full speed over a speed bump, which ended up knocking something loose within the front of the car. And so I was not happy, but I I played it cool. I was about one and a half minutes away from losing my shit and just getting Uber for me and the fur babes to go home while he figured it out. That was our weekend. There was something else that happened because it had to do with the dogs in Opal. She was just like bleeding like no other, and so I had to get her diapers. And so, poor thing. Just trying to get the diaper on her was traumatizing on its own. So I'm just creating more trauma in this little girl's life.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Truly. And then you're gonna get her snipped, and she's gonna have to wear the cone, and it's gonna be a whole thing.

SPEAKER_04 21:28

I have to figure that out because I'm hoping my husband can drop her off and then I will pick her up to save her.

SPEAKER_03 21:35

And then she will love me again. Yeah. I think it's a solid plan. Yeah. That was my weekend.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

My weekend was not eventful in like an exciting way. Unfortunately for your brother, I have no interesting customer service stories to I feel like you will because you just did an or.

SPEAKER_04 22:00

of some dresses. So we'll see.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Yeah. I ordered three one dress from so I my kids' school has a Bridgerton themed gala, like their annual gala is coming up. And it's Bridgerton themed. We're not watching Bridgerton all weekend. Oh, okay. I haven't watched it in like one or two seasons. Anyway. Um but I cannot wear color or florals. So I'm going for kind of like this edgy Bridgerton look where obviously I'm wearing black. I'm wearing a short dress because my legs are my only appealing quality. And I think the men of TikTok agree.

SPEAKER_03 22:43

And I not sure but I will say your legs are hot. Hot dogs.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

They're dogs alright. So Selkie, shout out Selkie, they have really fun designs that are like kind of costume y but like still like not like you can still wear them places. They're really well known for the puff dresses. If you've seen those uh whatever that's like their most popular style. Anyway so I ordered one and I need to check first of all it ships stuff ships in like you get it in like two days which is great. Maybe I don't know if they're in LA or something but it comes in like two days to me. They're reasonably priced and I got one that was really cute. It was like corset um fitting spaghetti straps with like a little ruffle detail up here and then it kind of like poofs out at the waist and it's got like a lace up corset back. I just have like a severe fear of armpit bulge so I really don't like wearing sleeveless things. So it was cute and I haven't returned it yet because I'm if nothing else works out I'm going to wear it. And then I ordered two more dresses from them both still black but with sleeves and I got the shipping confirmation or like the delivery notification today because it got delivered. I haven't opened it yet and I scrolled down and the two dresses I ordered one says extra extra small which as you can tell she is not an extra extra small and then the other who is like truly who out there is an extra extra small good for me. Like they were just happy to ship that one dress because you know so and then the other one I ordered was a medium which is my normal size. And so um I did go back and I checked I'm like they sent me the wrong dress. My order confirmation said extra extra small I'm sure I just hit the wrong button. So but they I think they have a good return policy but we'll see. You were feeling good you know I was feeling spicy. You're feeling spicy not enough to order both dresses in an extra extra small I just ordered one of the two in an extra extra small but you know yeah anyway. Love that um so yeah this weekend was full of like children's activities. So my daughter is super into flag football right now. So we have to be all the craze it's all the craze she everywhere won um her team's really good so she's like one of like the like more beginner players on our team but it's great because last season which was just a four week winter season um they lost every game um so that was oh yikes so the this team they had their first game last when the weekend we were in Utah so we didn't go obviously and there was a lot of people out of town that weekend I guess so they only had enough girls to like field the team so the whole like those girls had to play the entire game. Yikes um so they lost and then we won by a lot this game and that's good the team's actually really good. But drama during the first quarter I don't know what happened. I'm just sitting on the sidelines with my wine and the other moms and we're just gabbing and all of a sudden the rat one of the refs just starts yelling at our coach and like the one coach on each team is allowed on the field like during the game to like kind of help the girls and the our coach is filming the ref and then the ref's yelling at him like you want to keep filming me you're just aggravating me. You want me to get aggravated like just it I'm like what the fuck just happened yeah so who knows what happened there. I don't know what started it. And then during halftime the other ref just randomly starts doing pushups in the middle of the field I don't know if there's like flexing on the coaches or something like he did like 30 plus pushups like good for you but like what this is like a kid's game for too much testosterone going third and fourth graders like it wild too much testosterone at the little girls football game too much testes in the ether um so that was good and then Saturday I just love that that guy just started doing pushups like it was the most random thing I like again no one was really paying attention because it was halftime and I like poked the other parents next to me and was like do you check see this guy right now?

SPEAKER_04 27:15

He's just like just doing push-ups whoever form if whoever is that man's wife girlfriend partner whatever yikes if my husband were to just like out in public start doing pushups I would the most cringe thing yeah I would be so embarrassed like no this is not hot this is cringe goodbye cringe you gotta find your own way home okay Mr.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Surflex a lot no wild absolutely let's see Saturday I dragged my daughter to the studios to sell cookies because Lincoln Girl was insistent that she sell 325 boxes so that she could get the sweatshirt and I'm like can I just pay$30 for the sweatshirt so I don't have to buy anything 325 times well I know how much it is because I had to send a bill in to the Girl Scouts uh$1800 worth of cookies for the sweatshirt. So I'm like you're selling is she close to it we've sold uh I think we have maybe like 40 boxes left but um so we did that we went to my son's baseball game I did a lot of like house reorganizing this weekend which was really lovely um on Saturday afternoon we had like a Girl Scout patch party thing and then we went to dinner with some families from the school and then Sunday we had my daughter was singing in church and I had intended to go back to the studio to sell cookies before but I didn't realize it was daylight savings time and there was just not enough time because the terrible the child wouldn't get out of bed. So I texted the girls at the studio I was like hey I'm not gonna make it back in our cookies were still all set up in the lobby and I was like there's a Venmo QR code just like if someone wants to buy cookies they can just scan the code. It's like an honor system. Has anyone bought cookies since then? Oh yeah really we've probably sold like 20 plus boxes in the last couple days I'll just get random Venmos. I got like I sold three boxes during 5 30 a.m today and I wasn't even there. We have found what we need to sell instead of retail cookies I if the Girls of America heard about this like I'm sure we would be banned which please ban me I do not want to do these cookie sales anymore take their way but I'm like what are you gonna do? I I have the cookies I don't want them I had to pay for them you won't take them back so I'm gonna do whatever I'm gonna sell them. They're gonna sit in my studio it's an honor I'm not the only parent doing shit like that. No. So um highly recommend setting up a residency somewhere and just leaving your bedmail QR code out if you want to sell some cookies. There you go. So yeah we did that and then all of Sunday afternoon um I went to the studio for a little bit in the afternoon and then I did a massive clean out reorg of my son's room which was vastly needed and then this weekend is my daughter's turn boy but yeah it was it was busy. One thing I was um about to tell Ava before we started filming I was like I need to save it for the pod. So it relays into office politics but I was feeling hungry yesterday and I didn't have time to bring my lunch so I was on DoorDash as one is and Baja fish tacos popped on my recommendations and was like you brought fish into the office. No I ordered a wet bean and cheese burrito with green sauce and it was fantastic. It was massive so I ate half of it yesterday and I put it in the fridge and then I went to reheat it today. And so I whatever there's four microwaves we have a pretty big office so it's there's four microwaves and it was like peak lunch hour. So I had to use one like kind of down below they're like stacked and I put it in whatever I go to pull it out and it's like a little bit it's not a little bit it's a lot hot and there's like the steam and the condensation like kind of from the lid. Yeah and the guy above me who's grabbing his food he was like oh that looks hot hot like do you want me to get you a napkin and I was like oh no I'm fine I'm just like need to grab it in the right place. And then this group of men walk into the office and they're like laughing or into the break room and they're like laughing and I was like what? And they're like you're just really excited about that burrito or you're just really excited about your lunch. What is it? And I was like what? I was like it's a burrito I think they thought I was the one who was like hot hot or something and I was like what I was like I was like it's a burrito that was left over for me. I'm like what why are you first of all can we just normalize not asking people about what they're eating first of all don't talk to me while I'm eating please you don't comment on it don't ask about it. No let me eat my burrito in peace and like I wasn't even the one I literally said no words. I was just grabbing my burrito and the guy above me like grabbing his who was like oh that looks hot hot hot I'm like what the fuck and they're like so I like told him I was getting a burrito and they're like oh you just seemed really excited about it. Who wouldn't be okay? Sorry I literally said that I was like who wouldn't be excited about a burrito like don't tempt me with a good time and then I just walked out of the kitchen like mic drop what alternate reality have we walked into that it's acceptable in the workplace or any place for you to comment on me being excited about my lunch when first of all it wasn't even me who was doing the talking but you know what I am excited about this burrito and it was good and I don't care if it was 5,000 calories or 500 calories I ate it and that's all that's on that.

SPEAKER_04 33:37

And how about we stop talking about what women are eating please please please do not talk to me about what I'm eating never you no never never never never well that was exciting I'm sorry you had to go through that but you know I certainly gave it back to them sis right like I'm not just gonna take it lying down no never we don't like if you've never been excited about a burrito before like have you experienced true happiness in life have you been happy ever like I don't think so it is one of the core food groups okay that's it I encourage you best burrito I've ever had and I dream about it every time I'm in California but I haven't had it in a while because I never down that way um bear flag oh interesting I've never eaten love that's a disgrace so the bungalow in Huntington used to do like a collab with bear flag and they would you could order food but I never did because we we just drink alcohol that's the problem that's the problem the best burrito I've ever had I think it was at it was in downtown LA at this like food hall maybe by Union station station anyway they have like food pop-ups and there one was called egg sled I remember but I don't think the burrito was from there I think it was from another one I couldn't even tell you the name but I just remember I still think about that burrito and Kelsey will know what I'm talking about because she was there with me. Um yeah it was good cute yeah burritos they provide true happiness in life and that's what I live off of when I'm in California is as you should we have the best burritos in the world besides probably Mexico yeah yeah can't compare three of the best burritos in the United States at least so I'm into that maybe New Mexico there okay I did have the best breakfast burrito in Albuquerque it I don't even know the name of the place my husband took me there and it was the best thing I've ever had so I've never had New Mexico Mexican food I have been to Texas a lot.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

I do appreciate Tex Mex but it's a different type of it's not the same as California Mexican food. No and California Mexican food will always be superior.

SPEAKER_04 36:31

Yeah New Mexico's more southwestern um which is okay I do like their green chili uh have I spoken about on the pod my Uber driver in Albuquerque you talked about the one that picked you up from um the airport in Tennessee but oh no well in Albuquerque I was just bopping around and um as that one bops around you take Ubers and I asked my Uber driver hey what are some great restaurants in the area that you recommend this man. He goes honestly McDonald's I was like oh no I was thinking more like a sit down he's like oh no you can sit there I was like not quite what I was thinking he's like no you have to go it's the only place in the world where you can get a green chili Big Mac I was like I was thinking more like Southwestern food he's like yeah green chili Big Mac is southwestern.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

I was like okay thank you for your recommendation sir so did you go okay but this is what I will say about regional McDonald's mo mostly in other countries you gotta try them because Japan the best hamburger I've ever had from a fast food chain has been at a McDonald's in Japan. The meat is like no other they just have different standards for food I remember the one in Rome I didn't order it but I thought it was interesting had like fried shrimp the one in Milan had pizza pockets we ordered those we literally door dashed it at three in the morning after the Taylor Swift concert um I don't think we went to one in Paris I need to add that to the list but I would be down to have one in Paris only because Mary Kate and Ashley did. Yeah that was honestly a missed opportunity but I'm allegedly going back if the world doesn't implode in June so I'll um fingers crossed I'll get some McDonald's then and report back.

SPEAKER_04 38:44

But shout out to the international McDonald's because you guys are you guys are doing the work way to go hold on I need to text my husband to bring me wine because I'm out um anything else from your weekend I don't think we can jump into our dramatic email reading which I'm so proud of myself for because you should be proud I took control you didn't even ask me for help no I think when was this yesterday two days I feel like I haven't spoken to you in the last year I don't know but I'm trying to find it because I need to read for the person I found it. Okay there's like multiple emails you started the email train right because she had called or something yes so background on this now previous member um she had emailed I think in yeah there's here's the email November 30th putting membership on hold uh with our membership freezes there's$15 a month freeze fees so let's just put that out there to ComTex for the email but this month yeah it was Monday night we got a message from one of our staff members saying hi so and so is calling upset about uh the fact that she was told she was getting a refund of an account credit that was going to go towards her next month's membership payment or her next like fee at the studio and it wasn't applied and that was her final payment and she's requesting for a refund like immediately and when I got that message I'm assuming like this was a recent like request of a refund. And so I'm going through just 2026 because we are now in March 2026 I'm going through her invoices I'm like no I'm going through um text messages and even emails I didn't look further in the email chains but um I sent her an email am I playing myself you're playing yourself okay cool this is your moment this is my moment to shoot it so good. Thank you and so I email her I say hi blank our staff let us know that you called regarding a no-show charge after reviewing your account we see that your last class visit was in November 2025 and your final membership payment processed on February and then I said the date which is the most recent charge on your account we also do not see a recent email or note on your account regarding a no-show or late cancellation being converted into a retail or membership credit. Additionally we see that you canceled your classes on two times in the last week um I said the dates ahead of time outside of the four hour cancellation window so no charge was applied to your account please let us know if you have any questions. At this time we are not seeing any no-show or late cancellation fees on your account that need to be addressed.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

So she responds back with a screenshot of an email from November 5th 2025 that apparently she called or texted or something and asked us to refund a no-show fee for whatever reason. Hi Blink I wanted to let you know that we've well this is technically Ava who sent it um that we've refunded the$20 no-show fee from your class and it has been refunded to your account as a studio credit in bold you can use this$20 credit towards retail purchases this month or or it will automatically apply to your next membership billing. Please let us know if you have any questions. We're happy to help and then in the body of the email she sent this email is from November 5th 2025 when you guys told me I that you would give me back the$20 as a credit in my account and I could use it towards the next month membership. And since this was my last month because she had been on a freeze I was wanting it to be applied to this last payment which isn't which it wasn't so I'm asking this as long as we're not on sentence I've ever this whole thing is one sentence. Oh my god I was wanting it to be applied to this last payment which it wasn't so I'm asking if I could please get a reb for that back to my account since I'm not coming back to use it as merch and then Ava respond yes I respond she dies I respond take notes everyone buckle up screenshots proof recordings timelines everything right here so I respond back because I went into her account went back into twenty twenty five went back into emails in twenty twenty five you know the fact

SPEAKER_04 44:00

That to go into 2025. We're in a new year, honey. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

So when people ask why that like we make them email for any sort of like request regarding their membership, this is why. Reasons like this. It's it's this reason.

SPEAKER_04 44:14

Yeah, I can't rely on having a phone call. Verbal conversation. That's why if you see me in person, do not tell me or ask me any membership questions. Email me. Just email me. I won't remember.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

Or you won't remember, you know?

SPEAKER_04 44:32

Yeah, exactly. Um, okay, so I respond. The refund issued as an account credit in early November 2025 was already has already been automatically applied to previous fees on your account. On November 13th, 2025, a class scheduled for 5.30 p.m. was canceled at 2.31 p.m., which falls within the late cancellation window. As a result, a$15 late cancellation fee was applied.$15 from the$20 account credit was automatically used towards this charge. A second fee occurred on November 28th, 2025, when the class was marked as a no-show, which carries a$20 fee. The remaining$5 from the account credit was automatically applied towards this no-show charge. Because the full$20 account credit was already applied to these penalties, there is no remaining credit available and no additional refund will be issued for your recent final payment. For your reference, I have attached screenshots below showing the original account credit along with the timestamps for the late cancellation and no-show fees where the credit was applied. So I took a screenshot of the verification that the$20 was processed on November 3rd, 2026 as a 2025. Oh, 2025. I got that wrong. Oh my god! Type out time traveling. I am time traveling was refunded as an account credit. Screenshotted the refund that it was done as an account credit. Next screenshot is verification of the late cancellation for class on November 13th, 2025. That screenshot shows the class, the time it was canceled, and who it was canceled by. Her. Next, verification of the no-show fee to class on November 28, 2025. Another screenshot of the class and the time that she did not show up. Verification next is the verification that the refund as an account credit was set into place and of the late cancellation plus no-show fees that populated as your next payments on your member account. I took a screenshot of the two payments after her refund of an account credit was put into effect. Now here's a verification of$15 out of the$20 account credit was applied towards the late cancellation fee that was processed next day on November 14th. And the$5 remaining of the account credit was used towards the$20 no-show fee on November 29th. And it's a screenshot of the account credit,$15 applied towards the late cancellation fee, and then the$5 applied to her$20 no-show fee. Mic drop. Mic drop. And my friends, we did not get a response back.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

I know. It's tragic.

SPEAKER_04 47:32

Round of applause. Round of applause. Good job. It was a lot of work. It was really hard. You know. But I was determined. It was like 10 o'clock Eastern time. I'm sitting on my couch. And I said, no, I'm No, not today, Satan. Not today. This is going to be answered. She sent me a screenshot, so I thought it'd be, you know, only fair to send her screenshots back.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Hey, you don't want to be greedy and just take the screenshot. You want to give her some screenshots too. Like we're sharing.

SPEAKER_03 48:13

Something about me, I'm a giver.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

You're a giver. You really are. She gave you one screenshot, you gave her like four.

SPEAKER_04 48:20

So I gave her a lot. Yeah, you gave her everything, and when everything left no room for air except for the embarrassment of my time travel, dating something November 2026.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

Who knows? Maybe she'll be back in November of this year, and then we'll have another correspondence.

SPEAKER_03 48:42

Yikes. Yikes. That is your reading. Your takeaway. Save everything. Emails.

SPEAKER_04 48:58

Do not do not handle business by word of mouth or face to face or over the phone. Yeah. If I do have a phone conversation with someone, I follow up with an email saying, per our conversation over the phone.

SPEAKER_03 49:15

Here is what is going on and the solution and how we move forward. Because you know they're they're always gonna come back.

SPEAKER_04 49:27

We've learned from from just over the years, mainly because of chargebacks. That will that will put you into a state of mind of everything needs to be done by email. Every agreement needs to be signed via docusign if you do it over the phone. Sending them like a little code to just like do via text message.

SPEAKER_00 49:57

No, no, no, signatures, IP addresses, everything. Um, I learned this very early on in my career. I remember it was like my first year, maybe at my sec my first original company. I was at my last company. And there was this man, it was the same guy who ate the chicken wings over the floor at the classic queue. Um he uh had told my um manager at the time that I I don't remember the full context of what happened, but it had to do something with pillows. Like I was supposed to order these pillows, and I did order the pillows or something, or there was communication about where the pillows were, who the fuck knows? For some reason I'm convinced it was about pillows, but we were trying to close out a project and there was pillows missing. And so I had sent him an email, and he is claiming that I never sent this email. And so we, I mean, this is back in 2012, and at the time we had Lotus Notes, with which, if any, if you know what Lotus Notes is, good for you. I didn't. I showed up to my first day at this job, and I sat down, and then my mom called me after my first day and was like, Oh, how was your first day? And I was like, it was great, but we used some like weird system called Lotus Notes. Like, like in school, I used like the Microsoft Suite and everything. Like I had never heard of Lotus Notes, and my mom's like, oh my god, people still use that. We use that in like the 80s. This company was very behind technology-wise, they caught up in like recent, you know, not just recent, but they caught up quickly. But yeah, we started with Lotus Notes, and it was it literally looked like an old Nintendo like operating system, like it, like the original Nintendo's like it was so whatever. But our we had like the data servers, or I don't really know how technology works, but like basically, depending on your level in the company, you had limits to how much email storage you were given. And mine was like zero. Like weekly, I had to go through and clear out my emails because it kept saying it was at my max storage. And so I had to delete my emails the whole time. And so I was like, I sent him this email, but I had to delete, like, I have to clear up my email every week because of the storage restrictions in that we have. Anyway, so save everything, document everything because people will come for you. And you know what? If you can screenshot my kids' school, so love the place, but I all the parents or all the families have to do 20 pip hours a year, which is the parent involvement program or something. Um basically have to volunteer for like approved things 20 hours of your time, or they bill you whatever you have left at the end of the year,$20 an hour for however many hours you didn't do. Dang. Opal does not agree with that. Opal does not like it. No. So I signed up. One of the hot items that get signed up for at the start of the school year is to be the gala basket organizer for your kids' classroom. So every classroom has like a basket that they do for the gala. You get your full 20 hours of pip just for doing that. So literally, I here's a customer service story, Joe Bodo. I screenshot today because I log into my pip account because I was donating to the mother-son event tomorrow night. Um, and I was gonna gift my pip hours to someone else. Because I was like, oh no, I did I did the gala basket. I already have my full 20. I don't need these other four hours. And I log into my account and they gave me 15. And so I email with a screenshot from the gala coordinator who emailed all the parents asking for volunteers and saying you get 20 hours if you organize the basket. I was like, um, hi, I only got 15 hours for this. Like, here's the email where it says I was gonna get 20. And I will say that the preschool and the elementary school are like technically two separate things. And one of the ladies at the preschool was like emailing the school to like confirm that I did the basket or whatever, and which is a lot of work. Like, I obviously donated stuff from the studio, but I got donations from lots of other businesses too. Like, it wasn't just a pure bar basket. I got stuff from a variety of other businesses. It it takes time and work. I have to go pick up all the things, like whatever. It's no less work than the elementary school parents have to do for their baskets. It's the same thing. She did say she was like, I don't know if they give out pip hours the same way for elementary school as they do for preschool, but like I'll let them know that you did it. And I was like, Well, the email I got said I was gonna get 20 hours, and then of course now I got 15. I'm like, there was no less effort given for and we pay more to go to the preschool. The preschool is more expensive than elementary school. So it's like wild.

SPEAKER_03 54:55

Give me my pip hours. Give it back to her. Give it back to me. Anyhow. Well, screenshots. Screenshots, I had them timeline, everything.

SPEAKER_04 55:11

Well, let us transition into our main topic, and I'm gonna have you just kind of like take it away and see what I can like build off of.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

All right, so our main topic today is office politics for people who hate office politics and how to survive the game without being someone that you hate.

SPEAKER_03 55:34

And if you don't realize you're not in a game, you're probably losing the game. Because office politics exists anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 55:46

Like this is work, everyone's trying to probably not at our studios because they're all just gems of humans that yeah, and it's not their primary job for the most of them. So um probably not. But you might have experienced it perhaps at the dermatology clinic or um other places where you would have worked. But really, what we're gonna talk about, you have a stinky breath dog. Um what people think office politics are, what they really are, and um, you know, some experiences that at least I've had potentially Ava, maybe they'll come to her. Yeah. So um a lot of times I think office politics people think are about like gossiping or backstabbing or manipulating people, and that's that's the obvious signs of it. And yeah, I don't even know that I would call that office politics. I think office politics, that's just bullying. That's just straight rude. That's just straight rude. Straight rude. One thing, it's posturing, it's who gets what office and why. It's or like who sits where and why. Um it's sending an email and copying your manager when you didn't need to be copying that person's manager, like that person's manager, not yours. Um, or it could be copying your manager because you want to like bring in the big dogs like out the gate, right? Like all of those things are office politics. It's like calling out someone for eating a burrito on a Wednesday, you know, like whatever. Let me eat my burrito. Um, but it's really about gaining influence, power dynamics, and relationship building or relationship maneuvering. Um, and that's what we're gonna dive into today. Talk to me, goose. I don't like talking. I like when you talk.

SPEAKER_04 57:55

I already have like a few things flowing, but I don't know if it would be um politics, but you know, experiences of items.

SPEAKER_00 58:05

Yeah, and I think that this can a lot of times like it relates to human behavior. And so even if it's not directly in the workplace, it's how you engage in relationships with people. Like, how are you trying, like, what are you trying to get out of people to get what you want, and how are you going about doing that? Like, what is your end goal and what are you gonna do to get there? And a lot of times that involves politicking around different scenarios or occurrences or people or like whatever that may be. Um one thing I like absolutely can't stand is posturing. So I'm gonna talk a lot about posturing because it is so irritating. And 99% of the time people can tell when you're doing it. So you just make yourself look ridiculous. So don't do it. But posturing is like making sure people you you're like announcing to people like your position or like what you have, or you know, whether that's being flashy, like not in a workplace with like your lifestyle or whatever. Like that's absolutely like whether it's on social media, like if you see people like flashing certain things, like that's posturing. They're they want to make sure people know that like they have it, right? Like they made it. Um, in the workplace, it can look as like inserting your title after something in like an email, or you know, well, you at the if you're explaining to someone who doesn't know you who you are, that's different. But like it's more like with co-workers, like, well, as this as the vice president or as director, like, right, like this is my take on things. Like, that's absolutely posturing. Or like fighting for this happened at my last company. Like, someone was like really fighting for this one office because it was slightly bigger than the other standard size offices because he thought he deserved it, and he he was a trash human and absolutely did not deserve it, and he didn't get it at the end of the day. But I'm like, you have Napoleon syndrome, and you are trying to like dick measure and get the bigger office. I'm like, I first won't give fuck who gets this office. Like, let's be real. But you I'm a higher title than you, you actually don't deserve the office. I didn't even end up getting it either. Um, I didn't fight for it, but in my the back of my brain, I was like, I I knew he wasn't gonna get it, so I just didn't say anything. But like, I'm like, you just look like so ridiculous right now. Like, you let me try to get it because you're trying to make yourself look more important by getting a slightly bigger office. Like, who the fuck cares? Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:51

Who cares?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:53

So that's any initial thoughts come to mind while I regroup on my next round of TED Talks? You know, a few.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:06

Do you have besides that, do you have any other like examples of times it's happened to you in the workplace?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:17

I think like one thing that comes to mind is like when I was a manager of people and them always wanting to feel like I acknowledged publicly their achievements, which I do think is important. Yeah, but at the same time, it's like every time you do something good, I'm not like I don't need to send out an email about it, right? Like you're trying to posture and make yourself look like because you want other people to see how great you're doing, sweetie. And like maybe you are, but like, does it need to be stated all the time? Probably not, and that's them trying to, especially if it's people that like had underperformed. I feel like when they do perform, they go the extra mile of like really wanting that public affirmation of like you did good on this, and like this person was responsible for this thing, which yeah, uh I get to a level, but also it's like you just want to change the narrative about you. And like, I think there's a really respectable way about doing that that's not public. I think a lot of those wins are driven in personal connections you make with people in the workplace and gaining like cheerleaders and supporters for yourself without your manager having to like put you on this platform saying, like, look how amazing this person is. If that's the only way you're getting it, it's because you haven't made those connections and those personal relationships with people to build that rapport naturally. And so I think those connections are way more important than anything that your manager can be saying about you or public email announcements or like any of that. I think that that's a lot of BS and like is like a nice to have, but also like a lot of people probably don't even read it. I really value like genuine connections and relationships I build with people. And then you don't need to be manipulative about it because you have that foundation with people where you can really rely, like they know you can do the work, they know you're a good person, they know what you can help bring to like their work as well, like how you can help benefit them. It's a two-way street, right? Like you have to be able, if you want people to support you, they have to know how you're gonna support them. Like that's just how people are, right? It's never gonna be like take, take, take. You have to give stuff back to. And if you're not willing or able to do that, then you are gonna have to default into these like posture and manipulative relationships because that's all you have, because you haven't built it naturally.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:56

Yeah. No, I agree too. And I'm all about personal connection over here.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:05

You are, and for me, it's work, and that's what that's what's challenging for me is that those that is effort and that is work. But that's where I put in, like, I had made um kind of kind of a mistake. Like it was just uh, I think it was a bit of a misunderstanding. But regardless of what it was at my work recently, even though it wasn't a decision I made personally, I like reached out to the the person who kind of it impacted and I was like, I'm so sorry this happened, like that wasn't my intention. Like, and he wasn't even expecting like any, you know, I don't think he was an apology, but I was just like serving up humble pie. I was like, you know what? I made you like this happened and you might have felt a certain way about it. And like I I I'm sorry about that. And like sometimes you just have to do that. You can't just like hold your ground and be like, I'm right all the time. Like, I'm happy to admit when I'm wrong. And I want people to see that like, even though I can be cold and I don't want to share my personal life at work, and I don't want to like, you know, go to lunch with you every day, um, that I actually do care about like people that I work with. It's just it might come across in a different way, but but like it will always be about the work and like making sure that they feel valued and respected. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:25

And truthfully, there's only room for one work wife. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:30

No, there's not room for any more. We don't have any more time. Uh my inbox is full and it's with Ava. So sorry. Sorry. I'm flooding it over there.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:42

Yeah. It's great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:48

But I kind of feel like you were without like talking out of turn. We've talked a little bit about like when we first started working together, a little bit of like enough different. Is the right word, but just kind of like a g or a a wallop you had with me. Oh yeah. It it was almost, and I think you've said it, so I don't feel like I'm misquoting you, but if I am, yell at me. Uh will do. Where you were like, I've been here since the beginning, and this is like like you don't know anything. Like you didn't say it in that way, but you know what I'm getting at.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:19

For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And yeah, that's a great example of politics within the studio, and just like within our relationship, our working relationship. And um yeah, I was beyond prideful because I I have been there since day one. I was like, well, I've seen this, I've seen that. But you have to know when, like to take a step back and take the pride out of the work and allow for feedback, allow for different suggestions within the business because you don't know it all. No one knows it all.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:04

Does anyone know what they're doing? No. No. But yeah, agreed.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:12

I think one thing that was really hard for me in the corporate world of being a people manager is that like performance evaluations and raises are kind of artificial. And I think like once I realize that it's like there's a number that departments in the company has to hit. Like there's a total number that like amount, which makes like as a business owner, like I get it. Like I can only give out so much money a year and raises or bonuses or whatever. Like, so I I understand it. But I felt like there was a before I completely understand it, I put so much effort into like fighting for certain people to get like a raise or a certain rating on their performance evaluation. And then to be told, like, oh, you actually have to give them this rating on their evaluation, even though they deserve a higher rating. That means that ties directly into a percentage we have to give them as a raise, and we we don't have that in the budget, so you have to actually rate them lower than they actually were. Like that shit, like fucking kills me. I'd rather just be honest, like, yeah, you exceeded this year, like you crushed it. This was your rating, but this is all I can actually give you pay wise. Like, I I and eventually that was made clear to me. Um, and I get like some there there has to be some level of maturity in the role in the company to kind of be able to take that and understand it. But I was like, well, thank you. Like, at least I know how it works now, right? Like, at least I don't have to like fight for something I know is unattainable. Um whether it's for myself or for people on my team. So now I'm very much in like the era of like, you know, I'm just gonna do my best work. I'm not gonna fucking kill myself. And whatever I get, I get. I'm just gonna be like bopping along.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:01

It takes happy as a little peach. Yeah, it takes, like you said, maturity to get to that point. But it's also hard. It depends on what season you're in to what you're where you're at personally, within like family, whatever it is, your surroundings, and it's hard because I feel like you've said it before, especially in the corporate world, you're just a number.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:28

So the late nights at the late hours you do. I mean, I was guilty of this the other day of working until the wee hours. But it's like no one's giving you an award, you're not gonna get a raise because you uh worked until 11 or 12 o'clock at night, you know?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:51

No. So but man, at what point were you made aware of that when you were managing people?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:00

Probably my last two years at the company. Okay. Yeah. So it was like well over 10 years before I like really realized how that worked. Dang.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:12

Yeah. That would have been so frustrating of like, hey, even though they exceeded here, you need to rate them this because this is all that we have in the budget.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:22

And that's essentially where I learned it. The first time is I I thought this person on my team had done really good work that year. And there was like a five, it was like a five rating system. So it was like greatly exceeded, exceeded, met, partially met or did not meet expectations. And I wanted to rate this person exceeded. And they were like, well, this translates into this raise, and we don't have that budget, so we need to rate them as partially met. I'm like, but that just feels fucking shitty. Like, right? Take out, just give people whatever raise your budget can afford, but still allow them to feel like they're doing good work. Like it, I uh it sucks to have to like it, because then I have to deliver it like verbally and on paper. I have to write it. And it's something that I don't like believe to my core, and that is a really hard like thing to get past is like telling this person they only partially met expectations when I actually think that they exceeded them. And like it just I felt like morally compromised in that position where it was just like I'm so glad in my current role. Like, I do enjoy like working with people and training people and have people like look to me. So I do enjoy that man aspect of people management. But I am I remember when I was applying for this role and her interviewing for it, and they were telling me, like, well, you manage a large team now, just so you know you're not gonna have any direct reports in this role. And I was like, I think I'm good with that for a little bit. And I I've told my manager recently, like, one day I'd like, you know, maybe like to have a direct report. Like, again, like I do enjoy that relationship. I do not miss the political aspects of managing people, like at all. At all. Having to get involved in like conflict or dispute between someone who worked for me and someone else, or yeah, like the pay, the ratings, performance evaluations. I hated doing like um if they weren't like amazing. And then if they were amazing, but I had to tell them that they weren't amazing, like they were just okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:26

It was like that's hard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:31

I I enjoy doing evaluations, but I think like it the hard ones are very hard to have that conversation.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:43

Because typically they don't see the areas of opportunity that we do.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:52

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:53

Yeah. So that's what makes it hard sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:57

Um have you ever had someone cry?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:01

When I was giving them a uh maybe. I you know, it was more in training, like training new teachers.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:15

Everyone cries. Everyone cries. If I haven't gone through uh peer bar teacher training, be uh it's amazing, and we hope you all become teachers and we love it. But it the training process is entirely. So it's hard. I cried and I didn't, I'm not crying.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:31

I cried. I cried during the um initial training when it was in person for four days in Denver. I cried every single day. I like cried myself to sleep because I felt so stupid. But um it made me feel better that other people were having a hard time too.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:50

You know what's like so annoying about me is I was just like the pinnacle of teacher training because I am very good at like I sound so annoying right now. I think I'm very good at like reading people and situations and like inferring things. And when we got to the end of teacher training for the round robins, um I was assigned warm-up, which in my brain I was deducing like who all the stronger trainees were. Yeah. And they were all assigned to warmup. And so I got assigned to warm up and I was like, that's it. I made it. I'm a great teacher. Wow. And I just have confidence from there on out. Dang. And then my reform test out video came around, and I accidentally hit a button on the mic or on the remote to change the song, and I yelled out fuck on the mic, and Ava just just stared me, and she got so a stare at the time. Do you remember that? She was so mad. I and then I also like during one, like halfway through the class, during like a one of the sections, I don't remember which one, I totally blanked on my that was just a bad day for me. I totally blanked on my choreo and I lit just like looked at Ava and thank God she was there because she just started like doing it. And so then it like reclicked in my mind what I was supposed to say. Yeah. But you know, we're not we're all human, we're not perfect.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:17

No, we are not. Um, yeah, that's a stare you don't want to see from me. No, it was I wasn't give it often, but when I do, I don't even know if I can do it just like on cue, but well then we had to start the class over.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:35

And in today's day and age, we probably could have just edited it out. And because there was a couple where like the music stopped working or like something happened, and we were like, oh, the lights like turned off. I don't know, like something like there was a little blip in the video, and it was fine. Right. But we weren't that savvy with video editor at the time. No, this was 2021. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:01

You had one take and one take only.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:04

And then like some people had to leave because like I remember like I think Amy had to leave because she couldn't stay, and like, so then like the people in the class, like it was a smaller group.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:12

Slowly dwindled down.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:14

It's fine, it got done. Look at you now. I think we went to Zav's after, didn't we? Me, you and Emily. Yes, Emily. Yeah, we had Emily Rod.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:25

What up, girl? She's pregnant. I know, super exciting.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:30

Again, number two, wild. Number two. What is time? But I'm trying to think of some office politics and like situations I've been in. Um, I know it was hard to do for my boss at the dermatology office, but this was where I even know if I was a medical assistant yet or if I was at the front desk, but there was an individual that worked there that was pretty scary. She was like very screwy. She um just kind of had erratic behaviors. And I would like pick up on some things, not only me, like everyone in the office would pick up on things that she would do, that she would say, and it just wasn't comfortable. And she was very paranoid of like everything. And so there was one time, oh, it's when I was at the front desk, me and the other front desk gal, we were just chit-chatting and we started laughing. I don't even remember what we were talking about. It had nothing to do with her, but she walks up during the moment we start laughing, and she goes off and starts getting upset at us, saying that we were talking about her, that we were laughing at her, making fun of her. I was like, we weren't even talking about you. We don't care. Like, we don't care enough. We don't care enough. Like, you're creepy, go away. We didn't say that, but I um the girl I worked with, she was very vocal about it. I was like, agreed, like we were not talking about you at all. Like, roll the tapes. Like roll the tapes. She then I like get up. I was like, I don't want to be part of this. Like, we're at work. There's patients about to walk in. Like, I do not want to be part of this. I walked away from the desk. And I'm like, I'm just gonna go to the bathroom. Like, you guys, like, I don't want to be seen with you. Yeah, like I don't want to get in trouble. And so I walk away and I'm sort of walking towards the bathroom. She's behind me. She pulls me into one of the patient rooms, closes the door, and starts threatening me. God. And so I was scared for my life. I'm just like praying and hoping that the girl that I worked the front desk with saw that interaction and saw her pull me in because there was no one in the hallway. I think everyone was like in different patient rooms with other people. And then within like maybe a few seconds, our office manager walks in and like, it's like, what the hell is going on? and pulls her out. And I was just like so shook and startled. I had no words. I think I just started crying. I was like, I was afraid this girl's scary. And so I was afraid to come to work the next day. I had texted all the girls. I'm like, we need to walk up together. I need a posse with me just in case I get beat up. I was afraid. And like other people were afraid of her in the office too. She was just spooky. And so I um come into the office. She's not there, and we're like, but we were just like anticipating her being there. And then our main doctor who owns the practice walks in. She's like, so she's going over the situation that happened yesterday. She wasn't there, but she was made aware. She has cameras in the office, and so she reviewed the cameras of like everything that was said the moment that she like pulled me into the patient room, and her knowing that there's no cameras in the patient room either. Yeah. And so she was fired immediately.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:23

Yeah, she should be.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:24

I was yeah. But that's hard too, as like a business owner, I'm sure, of like, okay, my staff member felt threatened, and like, what do I do? Yeah. But girl was spooky. Anywho, I don't know if that falls into politics of the office.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:48

I do think it does. It was like she was in the like the bullying territory of like trying to manipulate things in her favor by like yeah, literally locking you in a room and yeah, like going in on you and trying to like put fear into you to like not talk about her or even that you weren't even talking for.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:09

For sure. And part of my job at working the desk was keeping um note of inventory because we had products that we would sell. And then also my job was counting the cash at the end of the day. And I was special. Only I and the office manager and the owner of the practice knew the code to the lock or to the safe. And so I would put X amount of cash into that safe. And then um as I was doing inventory, I started noticing like things not adding up. I'm like, there's no way I had miscounted that last week. Because I would do it weekly Friday, every Friday, I count inventory, and then I'd go through all the purchases from the week, all the cash that we received, and things started not adding up. I was like, that's so weird. So I like redo it, and then I get the same number. I was like, How? And so I brought to my studio, the office manager. I was like, I don't know what's going on here, but I'm afraid someone's stealing from the office. And she's like, okay, just keep note of this. Let's look at it again next week. And then I did the inventory the next week later. And again, things weren't adding up from like what I have notated that we sold the credit card, the cash, all the totals. I was like, it does not add up to what we have in stock. And so um, that's when again, tapes were pulled, and that same person was seen coming to the office like an hour early before everyone else. And we would just hang out and then go into one of the patient rooms for like a very long period of time, and then not be seen until she heard someone come into the office.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:05

So we think some funny business was happening there.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:10

We had an employee like that that we ended up firing at the studios.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:19

And I think we talked about this before, but like she uh we kept getting complaints about her. She would talk negatively about us to other staff and clients, and like it would get back to us, like they would tell us this was happening. She was in a semi-manager role. And there was this one class where she basically asked a teacher to demo for her, and this was all reported to us. Like, yeah, we have so many better things to do than sit there and watch cameras all day. Like, we literally only watch them if something gets reported. And so some multiple clients plus another staff member complained about this one particular incident where she was just like walking in the middle of the room with her coffee mug, like her shit don't stink, and made another person who was there to take class who was a teacher, like demo for her. And shh then, so whatever we called her out on it, we like wrote her up for it. We're like, This is not how you should be teaching a class, or you were training at your studio and your role in this way. Right. Like you're supposed to be a manager, you're setting an example for other people. Like, this is not part of our like standards and code of conduct, or like whatever.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:43

It was a big weekend, too. We were launching a brand new format that nobody had experienced yet, and this is their first experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:52

It was a wild. So we went back and watched the tapes to validate what had been reported to us by multiple people. And then, like, the next week, she's complaining about it to someone in the studio. Like, and it got back reported back to us. Like, they're just watching me all the time on cameras. No one would complain about me. I'm like, you're delusional if you think people like you. Like, first of all, the only reason we knew that this happened is because multiple people filed complaints about you. And that's the only reason we went to validate what they were saying, because we like to make sure before we just assume what people are saying is true, that it's factual. Which brings me back to the what you can take away from this conversation as um how to protect yourself when there is a political environment at play. And one of them, we've talked about it a few different times, is to document things. So document important conversations. So that's why we only let people do anything related to their membership or transactions be done via email because we want the receipts. Like we're not obviously if someone brings a retail item back to return it or exchange it, they process it immediately, right? But if it's something that's not physical, it's contractual, yeah, it's going to be on email a hundred percent. Or if it's something that we need to investigate, it's something that we have on video that we can go back and reference. So protect yourself with documentation, first of all.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:32

Um sorry, one thing that yeah, oh poor girl.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:39

Um one thing that this person who I referenced at my last company, he was very into like posturing. He ended up getting um fired mainly because he was terrible at his job, but um he was spreading a lot of gossip about me. And I would say avoid participating in that. Like don't feel and like same thing with the girl at the studio, like it was all gossip with her all the time, and like avoid getting into that because when when you do, people find you less credible. I'm just gonna say that right now, whether it's for sure in a corporate environment, in a small business environment, in a friend group environment, like the more you gossip about people and like come across that way, it makes what you say less genuine.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:26

So take for example what I just shared. I walked away from the conversation that was being had as like, I'm not gonna be part of this, like we need to be doing our job. We're like the face of this office.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:42

And you were believed whether, like rather, if you would have stayed and like participated in whatever that conversation was, it could have been like a she said, she said thing, like, oh, you're mean to me, I was mean to her, like whatever. But because you chose to walk away and exit the con the situation, it makes you more believable now. Not that you even, I think, were maybe even reported it, but like it got back that, like, no, she was trying to like walk away from it and not take part in it. And this person literally like followed her and locked her in the room. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:11

And that's where I fall short of just being nice to everyone because this girl thought she was my friend too. I'm like, uh no, I was just nice, I was just being nice to her. And I think that's what triggered her was sh her thinking I was gossiping when I was not. I was just laughing at what my fellow friend had said that had nothing to do with her. But I think because we laughed and then we saw her walking up, we just like I don't know, the conversation stopped.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:46

It was not her. But she assumed it was great.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:54

It was great. Um, another thing is choosing like neutral or um like intentional language when things get heated. So like not and again, I think you did a really good example of that. I'm just like, I'm just gonna walk away. And like knowing when to leave a toxic situation, whether that's temporary or permanent, like for you, that was a temporary situation where you like needed to leave a situation temporarily, where like me realizing like I was in a position that like wasn't serving me and it was toxic, was creating a toxic environment in my for myself, I needed to leave that permanently, right? Like knowing when to make those choices is really important. Um and then also I think knowing when to like escalate something or step back, and this was something that happened recently to me, is like you don't if you immediately copy someone's manager or like ask to speak to the manager or the owner or whatever, or like copy in someone's boss on something that could have been resolved in like a two-second conversation, like that's immediately putting up the defenses in the guard of like the other person, and it's not gonna result in like a conducive working relationship. Like you immediately copying in someone's boss is saying, like, this person did something wrong, and I want them to know about it. And like the situation I had, I actually hadn't done anything wrong and I was validated in like everything that transpired after that. Um, and I called that person and was like, next time you have a question about something you think I might have done, just call me. Like, I'm happy to explain it to you. But like immediately copying in my manager on something is like not gonna get you anywhere with me. It's actually gonna make me like respect you less and trust you less. And like that's not a working relationship I want to have with you. So let's call a spade a spade and say, like, whatever your intention was wasn't received in the way that perhaps you intended it, or it was received in the way you intended it. I'm not gonna assume anything, but going forward, like give me an opportunity first. And if you still like at some point, yes, if you're not getting what you need out of someone, at some point you might need to escalate it. That should never be your first response is to escalate something to someone's boss.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:07

No, communication, it's it's huge, it's key. It's key. We need more of it in the world. That's why I'm trying to train our little sales associates pick up the phone. Pick up the phone.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:26

Do you remember the days when we didn't call anyone? And I had that conversation.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:33

Yeah. I had that conversation with someone this week. Like, yeah, there's a time where we did absolutely nothing. You just sat there. I just thought, you know, if we build it, they will come. They did not come. They did not come.

unknown 1:31:48

No.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:49

Lies. Deception. Lies. Well, thank you for that amazing topic, my friend.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:55

You are a true star. Shine bright. Shine bright shine far. Be a star wherever you are, be it where you are.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:06

Where you live, where you are.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:09

Be a star.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:10

Did you see um Lindsay Lemon escaped uh Dubai?

SPEAKER_04 1:32:14

I saw her arrive in LA with child and crew. Iconic. Happy for her. She's amazing. Speaking of iconic, we're going to go into our reality recap. And an iconic season, an iconic show ended, and Katie finally caught up. I'm so excited to talk to you about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:41

Tell me lies. Just overall thoughts. I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:50

I I don't I'm not one that like needs to watch softcore porn all the time. Like every episode. Some of and this is what I feel like about sex scenes in some shows. I think if it ha if it serves a character development or plot purpose, sure. Right. I think that some parts of the show was just gratuitous, and I just was like, I don't need to see these people having sex all the time. Correct. I understand it served to appoint character development and like understanding who they are as people. Yes. Some of it was like, okay, I just come on.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:29

Specific characters I understood it needed to be shown. It was Steven and Lucy, obviously. Yeah. Wrigley and his character development.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:42

Um first, perhaps. Yes. He developed and what I do appreciate is the character development we saw with him, like later on when he was having less sex scenes and like more of like who he is as a person. I think the thing with Steven and Lucy is they are like nothing beyond their like terrible physical selves. Yeah. Um, where I think like the characters that naturally had more depth when they were allowed to show that I think that was more important than showing them having sex.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:13

Agreed. Fully agree.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:16

So Rigley, you're my king. And we love it.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:18

Rigley is king. He could do no wrong other than the hair on his head. Whatever terrible wig they put on that poor man's head for the final episode. Like, we could have done better wardrobe department, hair department. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:38

Speaking of hair, I was like live chatting as I was watching the final season or like text chatting, whatever. Uh, Ava and Kelsey are in group chat, my reactions as I was watching it. And I was like so irritated with Bree's haircut. If you follow me on social media, you'll know the third season. I'm like, they literally butchered her hair. She was so pretty and like they made her look like a little man. And then I got to the last episode and I actually probably second to last. Was it second to last? No spoilers here. Whenever I realized it was before the wedding scene, whenever I realized that she was the one that it was before she went back to her dorm room and smashed the flash drive thing. Um, I texted Kelsey Nebo's like, oh fuck, she released the tape, didn't she? That got Lucy expelled. Not that Lucy was a good person, but like I did the she didn't deserve to be kicked out of school. And um No, she did. She needed to get out of that place and she couldn't do it. Well, she did. She did, but like the way that it happened and like the reason that Brie like distributed it sucks. Brie did her that was a whole that was a very toxic workplace for Lucy.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:57

That was all their friendships toxic. Toxic, toxic, toxic.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:04

A hundred percent. I do appreciate at the end Diana and Pippa. I think they're like super cute, and I'm glad they like found the ground. Wrigley needs to get the fuck away from Bree. She's also trash and deserves her haircut. No, I didn't double the last two episodes. You still like her? I still love her. That's my girl. She threw her best friend under the bus and got her expelled from school. Yeah. Ruined her life, in the words of the other people on the show. She was cheating on her fiance for months with his best friend before the wedding. Well, when you put it like that, but I just like it. She's a terrible human.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:46

When I see her and Wrigley, all I see is just like happiness.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:52

But if you appreciate Wrigley, you would appreciate that she could do him for money because hit her, because Evan's family had money. Like she's a trash human.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:03

She needed stability in her life. But um, yeah, it was a great show. Loved it.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:13

I was going into the last episode and I was like, there's which I assume most of America thought, there's no way they're wrapping this show up. And then the last like 10-15 minutes when everything hits the fan at the wedding, I'm like, okay, they did it. The biggest bomb drop.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:29

What were your thoughts of Lucy and Steven in that final scene?

SPEAKER_00 1:37:36

Like where he leaves her at the gas station. Yes. I think it was the perfect ending for them. I think it's what she deserved, and I think it proved that he's never gonna change and he is who he is. And maybe now she finally gets it.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:49

Probably not, but there's so many theories online. I've seen that theory, and then I've seen the other theory of her finally listening to Diana of saying you need to find a way to make him feel like he won at the end, and that's the only way you can have full peace and be like gone with him, is that he needs to make the decision that he won. There's nothing left that you can give to him, and he can fully leave you alone.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:22

I really like that, and I think that that's very valid.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:25

So she made him believe that he still had control over her, so she went in the car with him. But knowing my girl Lucy, that's not the case. She ain't that smart.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:37

She full on I think she wanted him back. Uh we're almost done. Can I have a little bit more wine? Talking about tiny lies. Pepper is retrying to stink, so can you take her outside? Yeah. Yeah. She needs to go to the bed. Yeah, anal glands.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:11

I mean, I guess we all have anal glands, but she needs to get them. Do we have anal glands or is that just dogs?

SPEAKER_04 1:39:18

We have um intestines, but so do dogs. We have an anal canal.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:26

So do dogs. Yeah. Um we all have do we have glands? Did you spend a gland?

SPEAKER_00 1:39:37

Oh no, I saved it. I set my kindles on my desk and I like went to go set it down and it like went on the edge.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:48

I feel as though, yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:50

Hammonds do have anal glands, but they are very different from the anal glands in animals like dogs or cats. Yeah. Inside the anal canal, they open into tiny pockets called anal crypts.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:09

Their purpose is to secrete mucus and help lubricant stool.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:13

That's very exciting. We'll be editing this out.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:18

I mean, usually but in okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:22

It's on par. Yeah, full circle. We gotta bring it all the way back around. Yeah. Well, yeah, tell me lies. 10 out of 10 endings.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:32

10 out of 10. Yeah. Everyone's stupid.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:36

They all deserve to die, besides regular.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:39

Yeah. And I kept thinking like every episode, what would happen if they just told each other the truth? I mean, we would have no show. And that's how it ended is Steven just dropped the truth bomb of everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:40:51

Besides that, he was the reason that Macy died. My God.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:54

Yes. And I've seen theories on that as to why the author director did not um put that as part of the final. Do we know?

SPEAKER_00 1:41:06

Was it in the book? Because it I don't know. Was it one book or two books that was it ever revealed that? So if if you're listening and you read the books, let us know if it was ever revealed if Steven actually was the one who killed Macy, not that she was the driver that resulted in the car crash.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:27

Let us know. He is the reason.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:30

No, I know we know, but like, does do the people in his fake world know? Because that was never like we know that the people yeah, because the people think that some of the people know that he was in the car, but not that he was the driver.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:46

Right. Unfortunate. So let us know. Let us know. Um yeah. Some episodes were tough to watch, but I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:03

It was good. I'm almost done with the beast in me. You need to watch it. It's only six episodes on Netflix.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:09

Okay. I'm currently watching the love story of JFK Jr. and Caroline Bassett, and it's interesting, interesting part of history, but kind of like snooze fest. But the last episode was about their wedding. And Homegirl made everyone wait in this hot ass church in Georgia in the middle of summer. Wait for two hours because she had her hair and makeup done first, not realizing that her dress didn't have like a zipper that she could like step into or anything. It had to go over her head. And so she made the designer go back. How did she not know? Did she not do a fitting? It was also quick, I think. I don't know the exact time frame of them actually getting engaged to the wedding. It seemed as though it was something quick and fast. But um yeah, everyone waited in that hot ass, probably smelly church for two hours for her to come.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:15

I will say this about my wedding. My friend AJ missed my entire ceremony because she was coming straight from work and I was having a full-on panic attack. Like, yeah, you're about to be a Renault bride. She was gonna run. And so my wedding planner, who I love, she was amazing. Shout out Alicia from Details Details, um saw it and she was like, We need to get her out now. And so all the boys were like drinking in their suite. They like pulled them out. They're like, get out now, we're going. Yeah. It was like DEF CON 5. Time is now rushing people down the aisle. And so we started 15 minutes early because of like I think she was the only one that actually missed the ceremony. Um, because she was coming from work and like she was already gonna be cutting it close. Yeah, it was like she's a runaway bride, we gotta get her in and out. We gotta get her dick. We gotta get her down the aisle. She's gotta get down that aisle or she's gonna be in the parking lot. Yeah, yeah. So um, but not because I don't love my husband, it's because I don't like talking about feelings in public and the whole spectacle of a million people slash 120 people looking at you while you talk about your feelings gave me the most like utmost form of anxiety.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:32

So yeah.

unknown 1:44:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:38

But yeah, KFK Jr. What a hottie. I mean, all eternities, quite frankly. It's a great great bloodline. Yeah, they're they're kind of cursed though.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:55

They're they're cursed, but at least they're good looking. Yeah, they're good looking. Um, the woman that played uh Jackio, stunning, great job, accent on par, love, no notes. Um man playing JFK, you got the looks, but you don't got the acting. I'm sorry, sir. Don't know who he is, but um love Calvin Klein in there. Everyone that was like shocked that he was gay. I'm like, are you serious? Oh, I was thinking of Ralph Warren. Yeah. No, yeah. Um she worked for Calvin Klein, Caroline Bassett. That's very um he's got a large role in it. And it's beautiful. It was kind of snooze fest majority of it, but sadly it ends in a tragic way, so that is to come in probably the next two episodes now that the wedding is.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:54

I don't think it's a spoiler alert that they die. Yeah. Spoiler if you didn't know history. They die in a plane crash. They die in a plane crash.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:04

I haven't watched the show and I know this. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:07

Sad. Sad. Um, I never realized or put it all together that his sister was Caroline.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:16

And she's Carolyn.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:19

I didn't even realize her name was pronounced Carolyn. I always I always say Caroline.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:25

I don't know. I get them always confused. Sorry for all the Carolins. I've called Caroline and all the Carol.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:33

Is it a Y-N versus an I-N-E? Yeah. Is it a spell anything? Okay. It's a Y-N versus an I-N. That I mean that makes sense. Yeah, but I always get it wrong. Well, I just don't look at how people spell their names. So Yeah. So one thing about Ava and her name is nobody can get it right. Anytime she goes to a Starbucks or any coffee shop and they announce her name, it's Ava. Yeah. And I I'm sorry, but I have met a million Ava, not a million. 2026 people.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:06

Like we shouldn't be. In America, it's Ava.

SPEAKER_00 1:47:18

We need to be called. It was so funny because the other day I was at work and I had my headphones in and I was listening to music while I was working, and she called me and it like announces who's calling when you have your headphones in. And it was like ABBA bitum. Like it was just like a very like harsh O. And then obviously ABBA. And I'm like, even AI doesn't get you. You're just No. Every Uber driver I've had, it's Eva.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:46

Like it's yeah, it's E H is how they're pronouncing. Like Eva or ABBA. Yeah. Yeah. Eva. Eva. Eva Eva. It's just E. Eva.

unknown 1:48:02

Eva or O.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:04

Well, at least Joe Bodo's got an easy name to remember.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:06

Joe Bodo.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:07

Shout out. No one's getting his name wrong.

SPEAKER_02 1:48:12

That's kind of off.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:14

Alright.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:14

Well, any closing thoughts for today?

SPEAKER_04 1:48:17

Um You know, I did watch Bridgerton. It was great. However, like they had nothing else to give, apparently, the writers. Because it was just a ripoff of Cinderella. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:31

It's just okay. I'm sorry, but that's every Bridgerton series. It's the same storyline with different people.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:37

Yes, which I enjoy, but now that we know who um what's the um Lady Whistledown?

SPEAKER_04 1:48:48

Yeah. We know who Lady Whistledown is, know who she is. Everyone in the town knows who she is. And so this last season was The Town knows who she is?

SPEAKER_00 1:48:57

Yeah. I don't know if I've watched beyond the first season. Maybe I I think I started watching the second season, maybe.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:03

And the last season, the last episode, um, one of the last episodes, she exposed herself of who she is. So that was.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:11

I only watched the first two seasons then.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:13

Yeah. Things just got spicy, things just became too much. Friendships were being tested. So she needed to just expose herself in order to find peace. And she did. And so this season it was kind of like whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:31

But, you know, good looking people. I'll have to watch for inspiration for the gala.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:40

The gala. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They do have like a little masquerade that was fun. Yeah, I do enjoy the outfits. I love the music. I love I do love the music.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:50

I remember that.

SPEAKER_04 1:49:50

Yes. I love that they do modern day orchestra. It's it's beautiful. So 10 on that end. Um Yeah, wardrobe department, another fabulous plot line. Like we've seen it a thousand times. Okay. But no one will do it better than Hillary Duff. I waiting for you is like waiting for rain in this drum.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:20

What did she say? Disappointing. Something in disappointing. Yeah. Useless and disappointing or something. Probably. Something like that. Um, honestly, now that I'm you're saying all this, it's I love I love her, so don't come from the internet. But if you think about like Gray's Anatomy and Shonda Rhimes, who's also the creator of Bridgerton, a lot of the storylines.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:45

Yeah, no, it's the same thing. Nothing's original anymore. There's only so many ideas you can have in this world and in this lifetime. So and that's what we see in today's music. Like terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Unless you're Taylor Swift.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:02

Um, well, we're gonna wrap this.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:06

Okay. Um he hasn't really been delivering that much lately. I need to check up on him. We need to be like putting in some work.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:14

I don't know what he's doing. Um, all right, well, we're gonna wrap this up because Pepper is banging down my door. And breaking in. Thank you all for coming. Next week we've got a juicy topic for you. We're gonna talk about meetings, micromanagers, and mental health and how those three intercinds.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:40

Love. I feel like you're gonna really like this. So I'm gonna have a lot to say next week, I promise. You are. And I think we're gonna have a big announcement next week.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:51

Big, huge, big, huge, major.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:56

Hopefully, Up was off her period by then. You know, one can only hope. I'll keep you updated. Hopefully, Hans's appointment goes well tomorrow.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:07

Yeah, well, I'll let you know how everyone's ass pussy is throughout the week.

unknown 1:52:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:15

Well, thank you all for coming. Like, comment, subscribe. Follow us on Instagram, Champagne Deadlines, Ava Flavor, Work Wives and Real Lives. We'll see you next week. Toodles. Toodaloo.