Everything Counts

Advice: A grain of salt and a pair of soft pants.

• Kristin • Season 1 • Episode 10

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A grain of salt and a pair of soft pants.

In this episode, Kristin and Loren break the fourth wall on career conversations and swap the usual interview format for a casual, candid advice session.

From figuring out what you actually want (versus what you’ve been conditioned to want), to recognizing the difference between burnout and boredom, they talk through the questions so many of us are quietly asking at work and in life. Along the way, they unpack urgency culture, eldest-child energy, pointless meetings, LinkedIn performance art, and the freedom of choosing soft pants over hard rules.

This is an advice episode to take with a grain of salt: thoughtful, nosy, occasionally petty, and rooted in autonomy, self-trust, and the belief that your job doesn’t have to be your passion to be good enough.

No professionals here, just two eldest children in their 40s, doing their best.

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Kristin:

Welcome to Everything Counts When Nothing Is Real, a podcast about careers, detours, and the absurdity of work. Here we explore the twists, the pivots, and the tiny choices that shape our work lives with humor, feminism, and honesty. I'm your host, Kristen. Let's get into it. Hello, and welcome to Everything Counts When Nothing Is Real. Today I am joined by Lauren, and we're gonna do something a little different this time. We're going to dip our toes into giving you advice.

Loren:

I love advice. I love giving advice. I love when people need advice.

Kristin:

Ooh, you do love giving it, yeah. Yeah. I love advice. I love advice columns. I love listening to like advice podcasts. That was sort of my entree into podcasts listening back in the 2010s. And I just want a special shout out to Tiny Beautiful Things and ask Polly. They re-raised me in my 20s. And I think I can give both of those publications a lot of credit for who I am today.

Loren:

I love that. That's beautiful.

Kristin:

Yeah, thanks. You're welcome. You're welcome that I became a better person. I also think that like advice is interesting to me because I it's a little voyeuristic. Like, I want to know what's going on in people's lives. I mean, absolutely. That's definitely the best part. But first, I want to say happy holidays. We are recording this at the end of December, right at the deadline of when we normally release an episode, because we wanted to make a special holiday episode for you. You are busy. You are with family. You're the meme of the person staying calm in the fire in the background, right? That's you right now. And you deserve to kick back and let us just shoot the shit with you. So welcome.

Loren:

Real quick, let's let's talk about the concert we went to. My God, last night. Holy Luan Delisphs. What a hero. A diva, a goddess.

Kristin:

A diva, an icon.

Loren:

An absolute icon.

Kristin:

She touched my arm and I will never forget it. Oh yeah. I can't. Oh, also, can you give me that girl's phone number so I can text her? Oh, yeah.

Loren:

It's in my wallet.

Kristin:

Because I picked up a friend last night too. Yeah.

Loren:

They were also great.

Kristin:

I mean, you really picked them out. Like they liked you.

Loren:

Yeah.

Kristin:

They did.

Loren:

I had to turn my most masky charismatic self on in order to be able to meet Luann without completely crumpling into a pile under one of the tables. Sure. Um, and then once I saw how the seating, how close the seating was and all of that, I was like, okay, this is gonna be handy. So I just didn't shut it off. But you were like And I'm very friendly whenever I am in high mask mode.

Kristin:

Yeah, okay, but you were in high mask mode, but you were also fabulous. Oh, thank you. I think that that was like my friend sitting at Whitney, our friend Whitney, really liked you because you were kind of giving like fabulous.

Loren:

Oh, okay. Thank you.

Kristin:

I mean, that's what because we were both across from you, and that's what I was seeing. Like you had your eyeliner on and your sparkly shirt, and you were being like really you were being very on, but I I feel like she saw something capital F fabulous in you.

Loren:

Oh my gosh, I'm touched.

Kristin:

And then but the boyfriend, he was doing man thing, like man talk.

Loren:

He was, yeah.

Kristin:

So you were really doing you were doing it.

Loren:

I was. I was proud of me. You were doing the It felt like a successful evening all the way around because I managed to be on and made new friends and it felt empowering.

Kristin:

Yeah, it was like the final boss of um non-binary life. You did it. You made it.

Loren:

Thank you.

Kristin:

Congratulations. Yeah.

Loren:

It was quite a night.

Kristin:

We have some caveats before we jump into this advice. So, this advice is gonna, you know, range from big to small, existential to everyday. But Lauren and I, we're not professionals. I mean, we're professional humans. Like we have jobs. Yeah. We're not professional advisorers. And we are not therapists. And we are two eldest children who are Capricorns, who are in our 40s.

Loren:

And we have seen some things.

Kristin:

We have. So we hopefully can give advice and maybe don't take us too literally. Yeah. Like grain of salt. Wow. Okay. Lauren. We're gonna start with sort of like the biggest, most existential question that we have on our plate. Um, Lauren, will you read that question to us?

Loren:

Dear everything counts. How do I figure out what I actually want versus what I've been conditioned to want? L-O-L. Yeah, that is a big one.

Kristin:

And honestly, when I read this question, I was like, I don't know. Why are you looking at me? Um, and that's not helpful at all. So um I think it obviously it depends on a on several factors like, you know, your age and the the kinds of responsibilities that you hold. But I think that part of the everything counts ethos is like try it and see what happens. Because if we're truly sticking to everything counts, no effort is wasted. But Lauren, I wonder um what your take is on that because you have done kind of a nice balance of like, you know, you are an artist, you studied art and you love art. You also like went and did some practical shit. So, like, do you have any reflections on that?

Loren:

Well, you know, I actually think that if you're asking the question of whether this is something that you want actually, or something that you're conditioned to want, I'm inclined to say that it's something you're conditioned to want.

Kristin:

It's interesting because also we have to parse out like what is the want. So like I'm trust me, I'm I want fancy things. I love money so I can buy nice things. Part of that is very much conditioning, and then part of that is like that's just who I am. It's like etched in at this point. I am, you know, I'm fully set in stone at this point. So it is a little hard to parse out.

Loren:

Yeah, if I reflect on my career specifically, obviously this can apply to literally anything, but if we're looking at careers specifically, I've always wanted to be doing the work that I'm doing. I love doing it. It's fun. I do it even if I don't have to, I do it for free. Uh it's great. What I thought I wanted and did realize I was just conditioned to want was the idea of stability that being in a regular, you know, uh 40-hour-a-week job for for a company. I thought I wanted the stability that that brings you, and that that was also super important. But I have learned that that's not what I want. I don't want anything else that comes along with that. I don't want to be beholden to people. I don't want to have to show up at a place on time, I don't want to have to wear hard pants to work. I want to be able to smoke at my desk. So, while so I did determine that thinking that the structure that comes with a full-time, quote-unquote real job was something that I wanted, but it wasn't. It was something I was conditioned to think that I wanted because I had been told that while everything else is really wishy-washy, this is the real, the solid thing. You'll know you've made it and that you're secure if you're working for someone else.

Kristin:

I mean, wow. Yes. Everything you just said, yes. You took the perfect framing of it. Because it's not always like, how do I know what my passion is? That's not even the question. Like, what are we conditioned to want could mean a lot of things. It's about the structure of our life. It's not about, is this my passion? Is this the right company? It's a little bit bigger than that. And it's a little bit more about thinking, how do you want to feel every day? How do you want to move through the world in hard pants or soft pants? Yeah.

Loren:

So there's like a part in there that you are conditioned to believe that you want because you want this other thing. Right. And kind of boiling it down, peeling away the onion, finding what in there is worth keeping and what is worth discarding is the challenge.

Kristin:

Aaron Powell And then, you know, feeling confident in the decision you made. Like I, you know, someone else is signing my paycheck and I don't have to hustle, and that is how I want to live my life. Or do you want to feel like you have like a little bit more wiggle room and you can wear soft pants to work and you can decide the flexibility of your schedule? Those are those are just different ways that we can feel inside of ourselves and then move through the world.

Loren:

Absolutely.

Kristin:

Okay, that was rambly, but that's fine. Okay, one more existential question that comes up a lot is how do I know when I'm outgrowing the life I built? And that's I God, it's so it's so related, I think, to the one before because it's so hard to put your finger on it. It's like it takes so much self-awareness to even be aware of the fact that you're growing. So I'm growing, I have to know that I'm growing and changing before I can even know that I might outgrow something. But, and I'm gonna take this like from big to to very little, very small picture. Um, one of the ways in which throughout my career, when I knew it was time to leave a job, was when I was starting to get bad habits. So, like maybe, you know, I was caring less and I was being a little careless with the ways in which I was like doing my job or tracking my job, or maybe like other people around me had bad habits that I was picking up and I would feel that that like incongruence, and that's when I would know to leave. And so I wonder if there's something in there. What do you think, Lauren?

Loren:

Yeah, I mean, I think knowing that you've outgrown something is tricky because just like with actual physical growing, this kind of growing also happens, you know, one millimeter at a time. You're not going to, you know, look at it and feel every day that you're slowly growing out of something. It's actually more that you'll wake up one day, be like, why am I unhappy? And then figure out that it's because you're boxed in a bit and you need, you know, you need to grow, you need to expand.

Kristin:

Have you ever felt, I don't know, physically kind of itchy? Like when you know you're outgrowing something and you've can you can feel it in your body.

Loren:

Yeah. For me, it comes in as um feel yeah, feeling like a physical feeling trapped, claustrophobic, even if emotional claustrophobia is a thing.

Kristin:

I think it is. And we have clearly provided no advice, but we've given some more about how to identify the feeling. Some food for thought. Um, that is similar to our next question, which um the question is dear everything counts. Is this burnout, or am I just bored and ready for a plot twist? And my god, did I write this question? Because I'm bored a lot.

Loren:

Yeah, same. Teeter on the edge of boredom constantly.

Kristin:

And like maybe that's something to just like make peace with.

Loren:

Perhaps. That said, I'm also very prone to suffering from burnout because I tend to put on blinders in life and run through it like a bowl in a china shop, which is exhausting.

Kristin:

So what? I don't know if you knew that left me speechless. Um, yeah. I mean, there's so much, there's also just so much like thought and advice on the internet right now about burnout and what causes it and what it feels like. And one of the things that comes to mind is, you know, you feel you're burnt out if even after resting, you still feel burnt, you still feel tired, you still feel burnt out, or you still feel uninspired. And that might be a nice, a nice way to measure. Um, I don't know if it's always, if it's always correct. Other things could be burning us out. Doesn't mean we like need to pick a new job. And then I also have to say, I am so very guilty of switching jobs because I am bored and ready for a plot twist. And so I'm not even sure I can say, like, don't do it. Because sometimes maybe, maybe sure. You just need a new challenge. And again, I think that depends on where you're at in your career and life when you have like, when you're younger and have like the time, energy, and flexibility to like pick up new things quickly and move, move along and increase your salary, increase your titles. Uh, it's allowed to like be bored, move on. And then later, later, at some point, you're gonna know when it's burnout. Burnout's gonna tell you. And you're gonna know deep inside that even a new job isn't gonna fix this.

Loren:

Yeah, that's exactly right. You kind of picture yourself doing the thing that usually fixed this for you in the past, because probably in the past it was boredom and you just needed a change up. But then whenever you picture it or even actually do it, you still just feel dead inside. Real talk.

Kristin:

Uh-huh.

Loren:

Been there, my friend. Uh, been there, done that. And it was burnout.

Kristin:

Surprise. Surprise, it's burnout. Um, Lauren, do you want to ask the next question?

Loren:

Ooh, yeah. Okay. I like this one. I would love to listen to the advice that you give on this, Kristen. Um Dear, everything counts. What's the polite way to tell someone their meeting could have been a 20-second voice memo?

Kristin:

That's a great question. Well, I don't know that I recommend going ahead and telling someone that about a meeting that's already happened. Sometimes you just gotta move on. However, if someone's super guilty of that on the reg, they need to be the kind of person that you ask for an agenda ahead of time. You see that meeting pop up, you see that person's name or that department's name, and you say, Can you give me an agenda before we hop on a call?

Loren:

Love it.

Kristin:

That's how I navigate that. As a remote worker slash leader, I value FaceTime. Like I think even a pointless meeting is fine for the most part, depending on factors. But still, so I'm not like I'm not trying to be like mean to people about meetings. But there are many, many occasions where let's just have a couple bullet points to make sure we're on the same page and to make sure I can't just answer this question via email.

Loren:

I like it. It's subtle but effective.

Kristin:

Thanks. That's that's my middle name.

Loren:

Dear everything counts. How do you deal with coworkers who treat urgency like a personality trait? This is a good one.

Kristin:

Do you have advice for this? Do you actu actually, actually, I know you have advice for this.

Loren:

You know, I'm I'm not sure I've ever really like been able to bundle how I handle this into something tangible that I could actually teach somebody else, but I do know that I do handle this.

Kristin:

Well, no, I can tell you, I've witnessed you.

Loren:

Okay, great. How do I handle this? Because I know that I do.

Kristin:

Lauren's advice is No, Lauren, and from what I hear web developers in general, but Lauren, I've watched Lauren set these kinds of boundaries where an er a new and exciting, urgent thing has come up, and Lauren will say, Cool, great, love it. This is gonna set back this other thing that I'm doing. Can you speak to how you manage that?

Loren:

Oh, yeah, that is true. That is how I handle this. Um, the way to handle this, in my experience, is to generally get people back in touch with the concept of time and how there is a limited quantity of it and that it is linear. That is what people who are constantly coming to you with urgent requests never remember. They do not remember that two hours ago they had a different urgent request that they needed you to do right this second.

Kristin:

Yeah, I mean, I have watched you do that. I mean, working in the same small space in the pandemic, we watching you work was so eye-opening because you know, we never got to do that before. But it's a master class.

Loren:

Thank you.

Kristin:

And it you always do it politely and you always are just like, hey, reminder, we have these five other things that you have said are a priority. Can you help me reprioritize my work and bless? Like that is like that is not only a way to handle it, it's not a strategy, it's actually it's real and honest. And managers appreciate that and love to be asked to like come in and help prioritize things. Case close, that's the answer. Um, here's one that I think will speak to both of us. Dear Everything Counts. How do I stop being the eldest daughter in every room I enter?

Loren:

You tell me.

Kristin:

I mean, true, you tell me. But also, okay, when I was in my 20s and 30s, um, as a young woman, I got asked to do a lot of extracurricular things at work, which was like beyond the event planning committee, help set up for that event, send some emails to some people, do this thing that like is totally not your job, but you can do it. And I did say yes to everything. And on the one hand, I encourage it. I actually encourage to say yes to most things because I think I think that that's when we're gathering experience and we get to meet new people. You know, if you're like on a committee with someone from a different department. Anyway, it's all very helpful and good. But there is a certain point at which you are allowed to say, wait, wait, wait, wait, am I like, am I big sistering the shit out of this? Or am I being like pulled in because I'm a young woman? Like you can look more critically at those moments and make some decisions for yourself. Another example: taking notes. And like, and again, like an eldest daughter is going to say, Yes, I'm the one who should be taking all the notes. I will also be the one who tells you what the next steps are, and I will also be the one who follows up and emails you and tells you when to do the next steps. That's all great. We need that. Or talking to your boss about how you can take notes or facilitate, but you can't do both because it's doesn't bring out your best self. Just figuring out where you really where your skills can really shine. Because let me tell you, I can facilitate the shit out of a meeting, but I my notes are actually embarrassing and I don't want to hand them over to anyone. Even though I have the desire as an eldest daughter to be like, oh no, I'll take the notes. So maybe just baby steps advice is like. Think about what you actually are bringing to the table and are good at and like doing and then eldest daughter that thing and let the other stuff fall to someone else.

Loren:

That's a good advice, actually. Can't turn it off. Feel free to go overboard on things that you enjoy. Yeah. Don't kill yourself over things that you don't. Someone else will step in and fill that void. Maybe not as quickly as you would like. You might have to have a few breaths of uncertainty, but someone eventually will step in.

Kristin:

Okay. Let's finish up this advice episode by taking it down a notch. And by down a notch, I mean let's get petty. Amazing. And silly and not so existential.

Loren:

Yeah.

Kristin:

Okay. So this next round, we're gonna do kind of rapid fire yes or no questions, both of us. So we'll say, I'll read the question and then we'll say yes or no. Okay, good. Yeah. Ready? Let's do it. Is it rude to be mad when someone sends a quick question that is in fact five questions?

Loren:

Yes, it's rude to be mad at that.

Kristin:

I agree. I think it's rude to be mad.

Loren:

I think you can be like a little bit like, oh, I'm busy, but mad like they're trying to do their job by asking you questions. Congratulations. You're welcome.

Kristin:

Someone has five questions for you, answer them. Okay. Is it okay to quietly judge people who reply all unnecessarily, or is it just part of adulthood? I love when people reply all because it is good. It's just it's like good TV.

Loren:

Oh yeah. I mean, I think on a on a large email thread, it's rude not to reply all. Like Exactly.

Kristin:

I think don't you think that like maybe our culture, or maybe it's just my weird nonprofit culture that I've been in forever. Um, it's like part of it. It's like if someone has been CC'd, they were CC'd on purpose.

Loren:

Exactly right. It's not up to you to take them offline. And if you need to have an offline conversation, then have an actual offline conversation, not part of the CML thread, because now all you've done is fucked up that person's inbox.

Kristin:

Yeah, the thread is off. And now, next thing I know, I'm gonna get a call that's like, wait, I don't know what's going on with that. And I'm like, oh wait, I see that you were uh you were removed. No, keep everyone on reply all.

Loren:

Absolutely. I never I mean, I never I don't even know where the regular reply button is anymore. I just always hit reply all because under what circumstances would I not?

Kristin:

I think it's the polite thing to do in this year of 2025 slash almost 2026.

Loren:

Agreed.

Kristin:

And like a when someone replies all on like an all company thread, bless. It's so good.

Loren:

Oh yeah. That's how you know it's about to be good television. I can't look away. Yeah.

Kristin:

Is it a red flag when a job describes itself as fast paced more than once? Yes.

Loren:

Yes, I 100% run.

Kristin:

Okay, we did that one right. We actually said yes or no. Is it acceptable to react with a thumbs up and never respond again?

Loren:

Depends. What are we asking?

Kristin:

I know. So a little nuanced, but like I would never.

Loren:

No, I would never either. I I reserve the thumbs up for me acknowledging that I received your message that did not require a response.

Kristin:

Yeah, like at the end of a conversation. But I also I've we've said this before, I don't use thumbs up a lot because it feels a little like a fuck you. And as someone with like power, I don't want to like I don't want anyone to ever think like, oh my my boss just thumbs ups this, thumbs up this, wow. And I can just go fuck myself now.

Loren:

Yeah, I could see how in your line of work it would be very different than mine. I am, on the other hand, extend exchanging many messages that are simply statements of fact, to which the best response is just a thumbs up. That's like the polite, I see it.

Kristin:

Yeah. No, I I get that. I get that. I do a lot of hearts because I just want I just want everyone to know like, good job. I'm not mad at you.

Loren:

I do hearts too if the if the uh statement of fact is that someone, you know, performed a task and you know, whatever, like they I could I finished fixing this bug. That's a heart. But I've done this work on this feature branch, is like that's a thumbs up, you know?

Kristin:

Yeah. I mean I think your way is applicable more broadly than mine. Is LinkedIn actually helpful or are we all just performance art posting? I'm gonna say it's a little of both. It is. I don't know that it's helpful.

Loren:

Like it has its useful features, but certainly the social aspect is not one of them. But it's a great job board and they're, you know, it's easy to find what you're looking for job-wise because the companies have profiles and pages that makes it valuable to me. But otherwise, no, it's garbage.

Kristin:

I want to hear, so I agree. Like, obviously, the job posts, uh, we all use that. But I want to hear from anyone if you've had success, like kind of cold networking on LinkedIn and using it to get a job or to get connections that are helpful to your work. I don't know that that's a thing these days, but it might be. I'm curious.

Loren:

Maybe it is. It's a it is a good platform to like display your your own thought leadership in a in a in an industry. So depending on your job situation, like I do know several people who like have their own little companies or are self-employed, and they use it very robustly and I would imagine to a certain amount of success based on the content that they've been consistently putting out for years now, that that must be a useful platform in that regard. But as an individual contributor, not so much.

Kristin:

Yeah. I mean, just from my own experience, but I would love to hear a success story, LinkedIn success stories or or horror stories. Um, is it unreasonable to be deeply annoyed when someone schedules a meeting during lunch but says it's optional?

Loren:

No, it's not unreasonable to be deeply annoyed by any meeting that is scheduled over lunch, even if you are optional, because even optional meetings, the implication is we want you to be here.

Kristin:

Yeah.

Loren:

And now you have now you're eating your lunch feeling guilt because you're not. Or you're not eating your lunch because you're at the fucking meeting. So no, don't fucking schedule meetings between the hours of noon and one. Like, don't do it.

Kristin:

I agree. And the optional function is hard because you're right. It would be different if it was like, I'm skipping this meeting because I have another meeting. But if I'm just like sitting around eating my lunch, not at this uh yeah, now I'm gonna feel bad.

Loren:

It's setting people up for failure.

Kristin:

Is it lying to say happy to help when in fact you are not happy to help? I don't think it's lying.

Loren:

No, that's a it's a courtesy.

Kristin:

It's called politeness.

Loren:

Exactly right. It's you know, saying you look amazing when someone doesn't. Of course, you like it's the polite thing to do.

Kristin:

I mean, I am actually always happy to help, even when I'm not in the mood. Like I'm ha, you know, whatever it is you need, I'm happy to help.

Loren:

Happy to help is right up there with it's so good to see you. It may or may not be, but I can assure you, I'm telling you that it is.

Kristin:

Ooh, people are not gonna trust you.

Loren:

That's true. We'll cut that out.

Kristin:

Next question. Do I actually need a passion, or can I just be good at my job and go home? A hundred percent you can be good at your job and go home.

Loren:

Absolutely. Job does not have to equal your passion. Job is, by definition, simply the way that you get money. And whether or not it is a passion, that's neither here nor there.

Kristin:

And sometimes there's real freedom in just like take that paycheck and go.

Loren:

That's exactly right. Having passions elsewhere is perfectly acceptable, even though you spend so much of your day on work.

Kristin:

We do love money. Capitalism. Okay. This is the last question. Is it okay to quietly stop volunteering for things no one else will do? Of course it's okay.

Loren:

Absolutely.

Kristin:

Yes. In fact, it's fun to see who's going to step into that silence void because people get really used to the the one person or two people that raise their hands all the time.

Loren:

And sitting back and watching the void open up whenever you stop doing it is very amusing. And I highly recommend it to anyone else who always finds themselves volunteering.

Kristin:

Okay, we're gonna do some corporate catchphrases, and we're gonna rate them on a scale of one to three. Okay. One is totally fine. Two is iTwitch. Three is straight to corporate jail. So the phrases are quit question. That is an iTwitch because I'm hoping that they'll follow it up with more words. What about you?

Loren:

Agreed. As long yeah. Uh if the uh quit question comes with the actual question already included, then nothing. I'm fine.

Kristin:

Okay, just circling back.

Loren:

Oh. What's two?

Kristin:

iTwitch.

Loren:

Two is iTwitch, okay. Um probably two, but yeah, iTwitch.

Kristin:

Yeah, I think it's a two for me too. Let's take this offline.

Loren:

Also iTwitch.

Kristin:

I feel like iTwitch too because but I'm also guilty of it, but I know that it causes eye twitches. So we're just gonna call it iTwitch. Yeah. Um we're all wearing a lot of hats.

Loren:

Oh, three.

Kristin:

Straight to corporate jail.

Loren:

Straight to corporate jail.

Kristin:

Get out. Um Yeah. Except I love wearing lots of hats. I am oh, I'm just on full display as the problem right now.

Loren:

I mean, I love I love wearing a lot of hats too. It's it's not that, it's the act of saying it like we're all wearing a lot of hats. Generally, people only say that whenever they're trying to tell you that what you are pushing back on as being too much, you need to eat it.

Kristin:

Okay, you're right. Okay, straight to corporate jail. You're right.

Loren:

Straight to corporate jail. Yeah.

Kristin:

How about this is a good one for you? Can you add some color?

Loren:

Fuck off. Yeah.

Kristin:

Straight to corporate jail?

Loren:

Straight to corporate jail.

Kristin:

Okay. Let's align.

Loren:

Also straight to corporate jail because probably I am aligned. You get aligned.

Kristin:

No, you get aligned. How about? This should be a quick win.

Loren:

Oh, it never is. Never.

Kristin:

Is it an iTwitch or a straight to corporate jail? Oh, it's an iTwitch, so this one's this one's one of my favorites. We're moving at the speed of trust.

Loren:

I have thankfully never heard of that before. Straight to jail. I don't even know what I agree.

Kristin:

Straight to jail.

Loren:

Use real words. That's not it's not an acceptable form of communication.

Kristin:

Happy to connect.

Loren:

I say that.

Kristin:

I say it too. It's like such a gentle way of being like, yeah, let's do it. So I'm gonna go totally fine.

Loren:

Yeah, totally fine. I twitch. I twitch, yeah.

Kristin:

Cause like, you know, what regardless of the circumstances, it's like probably sad and frustrating to have budget for what you want to do.

Loren:

It's also always a lie.

Kristin:

Well, in my case, it is not.

Loren:

No, not nonprofit land in the internet. In nonprofit land, it's not a lie, but in the corporate world, it is a lie because you would have enough money if you just shaved that $10,000 off of the $2.5 million compensation package that you're giving the CEO. Amen.

Kristin:

What about we are a family?

Loren:

No. Straight to corporate jail. Straight to corporate jail. Whatever you're about to ask me to do is going to offend me, probably. So no.

Kristin:

Yeah. Per my last email.

Loren:

Oh, I use that a lot. So Do you? Yeah. Because people do not be reading things and then they be complaining about what they did not read. You know?

Kristin:

Yeah. See, it's an eye twitch for me because even you talking about it, I'm like, my eye is twitching. I'm like deep breaths over here. Okay. This is the last one. I'll let you take the first pass.

Loren:

I mean Yeah, no, I think that's that's that's appropriate, right? Usually.

Kristin:

Yeah.

Loren:

Sometimes it's not. It's either actually, you know, there's really no in-between on that one. It's either fine or it's straight to corporate jail. And it's very dependent upon the situation.

Kristin:

I accept that answer. Yeah. Okay, Lauren, I have one last super fun surprise question to ask you. Okay. Are you ready?

Loren:

I'm ready.

Kristin:

What do you do when someone at work keeps taking something of yours? You've labeled it, you've been polite, you've tried to let it go. And then one day you absolutely lose your mind and suddenly HR wants to check in.

Loren:

So that's a friend's reference, isn't it? Yes! My sandwich!

Kristin:

I just I think I'm gonna sneak in a pop culture reference into every one of these weird episodes. I love it. I'm so glad you got it.

Loren:

Yeah, I know what not to do. Do not scream at that person. Yeah, I mean you'll get put on leave and then Well, and you might get some good medication. So actually, you know what? Follow your heart.

Kristin:

Maybe you needed a rest in a hospital bed.

Loren:

Maybe you do.

Kristin:

Okay, Lauren, this was so fun. Thank you for doing this with me and having such a fun sense of humor. Cause, you know, again, we are not qualified to give advice, but we do love to shoot the shit. And so it was like fun to dip our toes into this. I get to live my dreams of reading people's questions and then answering them. And actually, in real time, this is a lot harder. So shout out to the advice givers of the world who do this so well.

Loren:

Yeah. I don't know how Polly does it. Oh, Heather, I know. Just love her.

Kristin:

She's my hero. But we're not gonna stop. We're not gonna stop giving advice because can't stop, won't stop. We love it. And I think we want to incorporate this once a season. So we had our questions this time, but we really encourage you to reach out to us any time of the year and tell us the things that are on your mind and the things that are stumping you. And we just want to hear all your stories, honestly. We're nosy, and we would love to give advice if that's what you want. So you can write in with your questions about anything from work to life to leadership, any of it. Um, write in on LinkedIn or Instagram at everything countspod, or you can email me directly, Kristen at everythingcountspod.com. Nothing is too small or big or existential because, you know, like I said, voyeurism and we love to give advice. I am so grateful that we got to do this. We'll be back next week with a normal episode. Um, and in the meantime, bye. Thanks for listening to everything counts, but nothing is real. Remember, even when nothing feels real, everything you do counts. Capitalism may be absurd, but so are we. And on that note, well, it's been real. Don't forget to subscribe. I'm Kristen. See you next time.