Corporate Strategy
Corporate Strategy
139. Are We Friends?
Ever wondered why transitioning from Halloween to Thanksgiving feels like a comedic relay race? Join us as we unpack this festive conundrum with a sprinkle of humor and a trip down memory lane, filled with personal stories of awkward costumes and candy debates. One of us has a theater background that’s given our podcast intros a thespian flair, while the other—well, let's just say monotone is an art in itself. We share how these quirks shape our communication style and even ponder the joys of adult trick-or-treating, if only society would get on board.
Friendships at work can be both a boon and a bane, and we explore this delicate balance through our own experiences. What started as a shared passion for the Legend of Zelda outside the office blossomed into a tight-knit team that revolutionized a tedious product testing process. Our camaraderie fueled creativity and productivity, yet we also reflect on how these bonds are tested as career demands grow. Through personal anecdotes, we highlight the importance of these rare connections and their profound impact on workplace dynamics and personal well-being.
Finally, we stir the pot with our engaging segment, "Is It Me or Is It Corporate?" A listener's confession about navigating the corporate world sparks a lively debate on whether workplace woes stem from personal actions or systemic issues. Spoiler alert: the corporate world might just be the culprit. We invite you to join the conversation through our Discord community, where you can share your own stories, get involved, and maybe pick up some exclusive podcast merch along the way.
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holy cowabunga happy halloween they're gonna be hearing this on monday awkward monday, the 4th of november I mean, let's be honest, that's actually the scariest thing is a monday merry thanksgiving americans don't you, merry, thanksgiving them? They don't deserve that. They do not deserve that. Merry Thanksgiving Americans, don't you? Don't you, merry, thanksgiving them? They don't deserve that. They do not deserve that.
Speaker 1:What do they deserve?
Speaker 2:Welcome to Corporate Strategy, the podcast. That could be an email I'm Clark and I'm Bruce. It just doesn't sound right. It doesn't. It's Bruce and Clark, Otherwise it just sounds all wrong.
Speaker 1:And then the intro should be off. It sounds really funky. I think you know we've got to work on your windup. It's the windup. You got to be like, ease into it. Low tone Welcome back to Corporate Strategy. You're on an upward slope. The podcast that could have been an email. So it's like high, then back to low. Did you know? Fun fact for all of the none of you listeners out there, that's the way the Twin Peaks theme song works. It actually goes up and then down, and then up and then down, and that is Twin Peaks. How about that?
Speaker 2:That's really good. I love how you're. Do you actually? So I know you do this naturally. You're just a great speaker in general, oh thank you, do you actually? Think about these tips.
Speaker 1:No Like. Do you have?
Speaker 2:to worry about that at all, or this just comes naturally to you.
Speaker 1:No, I think my time as a theater kid was just enough to ingrain it into me. I've been yelled at enough to just do things. Now I just do them. It's also kind of weird. This is a skill of mine. It's a skill Not everyone has this. I was born this way. I pick up a lot on other people's behaviors and mannerisms and how they speak and just steal them for myself. If I like the way someone talks, then I'll pick up that way of talking and mimic it.
Speaker 2:Are you good at accents? I know the answer, but tell the people.
Speaker 1:Very.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's funny because I find people that do exactly what you're doing right now, or you said that you can do well, are very good at enunciating Like, if you can do accents well, you generally are just good at enunciating and communication orally. You do a great job. I'm not good at that. I'm like very flat kind of monotone. That's the way I live my life.
Speaker 1:I definitely think there's a part you can learn and teach yourself how to do. And then I think there's a part you can learn and teach yourself how to do, and then I think there's a part that's just some people do it and some don't. I would say my strongest natural genetic ability is my ears. I'm good at hearing things, which is a weird skill to have, but that's why it's like I pick up on the way people talk, the rhythm of their voices. I used to be able to play music by ear, just by hearing it, and I don't do anything with the skill whatsoever. It's great, great. I've made really good use of the gifts genetics gave me. Meanwhile, I let the other gifts they gave me burden me down.
Speaker 2:Don't we all?
Speaker 1:Sure, we do.
Speaker 2:There's probably more gifts that you're just going to stumble upon in your life, oh, yeah, I'm gonna unlock some later on.
Speaker 1:Yes, when I'm like a level 44 human being, I'll be like, oh snap, this is.
Speaker 2:My sneezes are, uh, radioactive great well, some you probably had all along. Some skills you pick up along the way, right. Some happen to you whether you want them or not arthritis, dementia what a positive start we've got going here yeah, what? It's halloween, baby, and we're not doing vibration inquiry today because I'm taking control.
Speaker 1:Screw that well, that's the scariest thing I've ever heard I've got a lightning round for you. You ready, okay, okay, favorite candy uh gummies, gummy bears like any particular, just regular haribo like haribo haribos are, oh, any kind of Haribo Snake, bear, frog, ring Coca-Cola bottle. Yeah, just give me a gummy.
Speaker 2:What are you dressing up as this year?
Speaker 1:Already did. You've seen it? It was 1960s. Gomez, my wife was Morticia.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:Favorite costume of all time ghostbuster yeah like an actual ghostbuster yeah, I had a really cool costume as a kid. I wore it like five halloweens in a row and I think I mentioned the previous episode. I wanted to be a ghostbuster growing up, so ghostbusters was a big part of my childhood I love it.
Speaker 2:Do you dress up at work? I know the answer. I'm looking at you. I do have like yeah, I have.
Speaker 1:I have a Halloween shirt on.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:I wore a shirt yesterday that was covered with horror icon faces and I think it wigs people out because it's kind of it's kind of not PG. So you know, I like to live on the edge.
Speaker 2:Just a little edgy. Do you turn the lights off for trick-or-treaters or do you leave them on?
Speaker 1:We have colored lights in our house so we make them all spooky looking, but we do leave the porch light on, for you know you don't want to get sued because some kid trips and smashes their face into your double-pane glass door. True, yeah? So you help the children, you give them candy. We get no children at our house. No, fair enough. I wish that we did. I think it'd be really I've talked about this before Favorite holiday love trick-or-treating. I would trick-or-treat as an adult if it was not looked down upon and they wouldn't call the cops on me. I wish we had trick-or-treaters. It'd be so much fun. I would get way more into it. I would totally dress up as like Michael Myers and scare the crap out of him in the yard. But there's no kids, so there's no point.
Speaker 2:Fair enough. Are you prepared? What if a kid comes? What are you going to give him? Oh, I have candy. Okay, good.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. You have to buy a bag of candy even if you have no kids in your neighborhood, because they will. The second you don't have candy, they will manifest and show up at your door.
Speaker 2:Exactly I agree. Have you ever been a bad trick-or-treater? Have you ever egged a house? Hell, no, that's cruel.
Speaker 1:It is cruel, I agree, I would never. No, I've only ever been the best trick-or-treater. I say trick-or-treat, which is rule number one. If you ring someone's doorbell or knock on it, you have to say trick-or-treat. The people that don't, or the children that don't, say trick-or-treat, lame, lame, it's three words. Grow a pair and say it. I'm nervous. I can't ask for ketchup packets Trick-or-treat. Oh, I can't do it. Yes, you can.
Speaker 2:Yes, you can. How are those words? No candy for you, Johnny.
Speaker 1:Lighting round Favorite scary movie.
Speaker 2:I never said I would sign up for this Too late. Favorite scary movie. That's a good question. See the problem is. I don't really watch scary movies because my wife hates scary movies, but you have to have seen one. I have. I've seen a few Texas.
Speaker 1:Chainsaw Massacre. Hell yeah, perfect answer, no complaints. However.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's a thriller or a scary movie oh, Texas Chainsaw is definitely.
Speaker 1:No no, I mean like the shining or like yeah something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay, I get on board with that.
Speaker 1:It's horror movie though shiny's got ghosts man. You just named two of my all-time favorite movies, so I'm proud of you for at least being like aligned. Good job, good. The great thing, short aside, the great thing about texas chainsaw massacre is despite the title, if you've never seen the movie, I recommend everyone go watch it, because it's not gory the way you expect it to be. It's gross. It's filthy. The house itself is so filthy that it is way creepier than if it was like dismembering body parts on the screen. It's some of the best set design of movies all time. Tobey Hooper.
Speaker 2:Mastercraft See I some of the best set design of movies all time. Toby hooper, who mastercraft see I don't know that much, but I did like the movie.
Speaker 1:Great movie, great movie, okay. Question number two if you were in a jigsaw scenario, do you know who jigsaw is? Yes, so okay. You would like to play a game. So you're in one of these scenarios. Which body part are you most willing to lop off?
Speaker 2:oh man, how extreme doesn't have to be, I mean I'll cut off a pinky right now.
Speaker 1:Wow, pinky, what are you? Some kind of uh, japanese yakuza, that's, that's, that's, that's not. That's table stakes.
Speaker 2:Come on you gotta sever a limb, you gotta go bigger. I I just assumed it was small. I mean, until I get told no'm going to go the easy way out. Hmm, I think arm yeah, yeah, I'd keep my legs, yeah, I mean let's. Let's be honest. I'm a right-handed guy. I do everything pretty much only with my right hand I can hold things.
Speaker 2:My shoulder, my arm, I can figure it out. You chuck the left arm, yeah, the lefty Interesting, it's kind of useless anyways, like there's some stuff that I can't do with my left hand, I just feel like an idiot.
Speaker 1:Lower legs for me, lower legs, so you know, below the knee I'd want those. Yeah, yeah, I'll give up both of the lower legs, but then I get those Blade Runner prosthetics. You know, those things are cool. You didn't mention upgrades, direct improvement on the original model, I think.
Speaker 2:If I get a robotic arm, I think that would be a huge improvement.
Speaker 1:Did you say something or did the mic die?
Speaker 2:I think it just died. Can you hear me now? I said robotic arm.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I mean absolutely. Last question died. Can you hear me now? Okay, good, I said robotic arm, oh yeah. I mean absolutely Last question.
Speaker 2:Okay, you know what, go ahead. I'm not even going to stall Ghosts or aliens.
Speaker 2:As in, scared. As in. I didn't specify Aliens, aliens for sure. Yeah, I didn't specify aliens. Aliens, nice, yeah, yeah, aliens for sure. I feel like ghosts. Why Ghosts? You? Just they're creepy. Okay, one, they're creepy. They obviously can go through things. They show up in unexpected places. They hide in your corner. Everyone looked to your corner of your ceiling. Make sure there's nothing there. They hide up there and they're going to get you Aliens. On the other hand, we don't know. Aliens might look like us. They might look like the actual movie Alien. They might look like Predator, don't know, could be ET, could be, I mean, I guess it could be a friendly ghost. We have Casper, but either way, no, I'm still in for aliens, because we have no idea what that is and I feel like they're gonna make us better somehow.
Speaker 1:I'm ready we have friendly ghosts. We have Casper, as if like, yeah, casper's on the table, casper's optional, he's invited to the meeting it's just Casper.
Speaker 2:I'm in Perfect, is that it you? Good, that's it Lightning round over. Happy Halloween, folks. Hope everybody enjoyed it and hope your Monday is as creepy as your Halloween. What I mean? You said they're listening to this on Monday, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, do we want them to have the Monday scaries too? They already have the Sunday scaries.
Speaker 2:Fair enough? No, I have the.
Speaker 1:Monday scaries. Fair enough, no, I have the Monday scaries.
Speaker 2:I'm not too worried about Sunday scaries. Monday scaries are worse. I just get the scaries.
Speaker 1:I have the daily scaries.
Speaker 2:Every day, when I wake up, I'm like oh shit, here we go again.
Speaker 1:They make a medication for that Go to your doctor. Doctor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just have a bad taste of the scaries.
Speaker 1:I have a severe anxiety anytime I think about having to work, which is all the time. Can you help me?
Speaker 2:help. Can you prescribe me a retirement plan?
Speaker 1:thanks, oh, I need it. I need it so bad. I love it. My brain is mush today, so you better have a topic, clark.
Speaker 2:I do. I've got something for you and it is from our old friend Squidboy. Nice Love Squidboy. I feel like it was timely. It was timely. It was from Squidboy, who's just getting active again because he's been busy, but he says, hey, I'm backing it. So I figured we should reward him with talking about a sweet topic, and this topic in particular, I think is more interesting on holidays.
Speaker 2:Let me read to you. I'm ready. All right, I'm jumping back in. I think you guys might've done this already. But friends in corporate it seems like things are always cutthroat. People don't really care about the relationship past, just co-workers, which is fine. But it sort of irks me, being an extrovert, and I thought this one might be interesting because we've always touched on this one. We talked about relationships, we talked about friends in the workplace. We were friends in the workplace and why I say it's important on holidays. I feel like it just gets a little more fun because you see people dress up. We probably had four or five people in the office today that dressed up and I was like I'm kind of seeing you as a human and not just like a coworker, like, oh, you've got a personality, jim, that's great. I thought you were just a really annoying corporate drain, but guess what? You dressed up as Shrek today and I appreciate you for that, jim. You have some character. I loved it. So I thought this one might be an interesting topic for a day like today.
Speaker 1:I love it. You know what's funny is actually one of my coworkers. I'd call her a friend we were talking about this earlier and specifically just like how do you care about people in the workplace and how do they care about you? Back, Right, Because there's always that question of should I care about them, Do they care about me? And like, what does that mean for the working relationship. So I think it's the perfect time to revisit this, given we're hearing it from all sides. So, off the cuff, Clark, do you have friends? I mean, you count as a friend.
Speaker 2:I mean, do I, though? As I've gotten older, my friend circle has shrunk dramatically to these digits on my hands, and I actually prefer that, because life is a lot, there's a lot to manage. Keeping up with people is hard. You really got to be selective with who you spend the time with, who you care about, who you check in with, and you can't have everybody. It's too hard, at least for me. I don't know how people have hundreds of friends. I would not be able to even understand how to comprehend speaking to those people. Keeping up with those people, my brain would explode, yep. Keeping up with those people? My brain would explode, yep.
Speaker 1:So I really thought of a hundred friends makes me want to jump into a dumpster.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely Like. Imagine trying to check in with those people I barely even can talk to you and keep up with what's going on in your life. Yeah, true, you're like my only friend, so but I would say it's. It is interesting, like when it comes to work, yeah, and I'm going gonna go back to our past, because we well, we met outside of work technically, but we started working together and that's where the friendship blossomed, that's where we blossomed into this beautiful thing that it is today that we do a podcast together and see each other every few months, even though we're not far away from each other at all, can we before?
Speaker 1:before you move on, I just want to say this is a personal tidbit about Clark and I's magical history. The reason I even considered saying hey, you should come work with us is because Clark liked Legend of Zelda and I'm like hell, yeah, you're the kind of person I want to work with. So just putting that out in the ether.
Speaker 2:These are Bruce's hiring tactics. Have you played Legend of Zelda? You're hired. Get on in here.
Speaker 1:What do you think about Link and his mini-adventures with the Master Sword and Triforce?
Speaker 2:And Clark was just like.
Speaker 1:I love the Legend of Zelda, that's my favorite. So I was like, oh, I gotta bring this guy on. Have you heard of?
Speaker 2:the Ocarina of Time.
Speaker 1:All right, you're in. And then I made him play the Song of Storms. So you know he's like do-do-do, do-do-do. And then I knew I was like, okay, this guy's got talent, this guy's going to make it in a quality assurance development environment.
Speaker 2:This guy's gonna make it in a quality assurance development environment. This guy's got chutzpah man.
Speaker 1:He could play song of storms in the oak arena.
Speaker 2:Damn man that is. That is a skill untold. But yeah, no, we it. It kind of blossomed from there but truly, like when I interviewed I I literally had no idea what I was doing. One when I interviewed for that role, I was just on the phone. I was like they were asking, I think, like technical questions and some like high level programming questions. I felt like I did okay, but I was like I am not really qualified for this role whatsoever. I don't even think I asked any questions about like what this role is or you know what's expected of me. I just was like like, yeah, I just want a job. Is that cool? Yeah.
Speaker 1:I was like he plays Zelda. Don't worry, he's cool yeah.
Speaker 2:He's going to fit in here.
Speaker 1:But going back to like when we worked together.
Speaker 2:It's I felt like we had a really core group of like I would consider those people friends. It's like we hung out outside of work. We worked together together every single day, sometimes on the same teams, but sometimes not. But we tried to get lunch every day, try to go out for like an afternoon walk every day and like get a snack or something like that. Like we did make intentional efforts outside of just working together to hang out and I'll be honest, since that environment and it's probably a little bit of like just growing in your role or maybe just prioritizing things in your life I never had that same feeling at other places.
Speaker 2:Not even close, yeah, not even close to that, especially with a group of like well, four or five of us at one time.
Speaker 1:So shout outs to Donnie and Shenya-san just absolute gems of human beings.
Speaker 2:Maybe a rip out there. We don't know about Shenya-san. He could be out there somewhere. Maybe a rip out there, we don't know about shanghai sun, he could be out there somewhere we're thinking about you. We miss you, buddy, uh, but no, that was like the first time where and honestly I think so many things happened.
Speaker 2:Because of that, it's sure we goofed off like we had fun, took way longer breaks, we go hard yeah, we were productive, like I think back to the work we got done and yeah, we kind of had a lot of free reign in the work. There were not a lot of tight deadlines. Generally, we could decide what we wanted to work for each other outside of just work, and I felt like that made us a stronger unit. I think there were a lot of benefits to being like that and at that level even though it might've been like clicky to some people might've made people feel separate.
Speaker 2:But I'm curious on your thoughts like back to that. Did you think it was like really positive in some senses, negative in others?
Speaker 1:Well, so we talked about this in a previous episode after I found an article that basically said friendship in the workplace actually increases productivity. Yeah, and I can't remember if we talked about this specific aspect. But quick like anecdote on what the four or five of us did when we were kind of a collective unit Before us, the testing of this company's product was completely done by hand, manually. You had to install an EXE on a fresh virtual machine, run through a gamut of 40-something tests, uninstall it, decommission the virtual machine and that was all done by hand. It took all day and they'd get new builds daily. So this was just like mindless. Every day you'd go through this and you'd go through these tasks Between Clark, me, the Shoutout Boys and a few others. We automated this entire system.
Speaker 1:So what used to take like a team of five to 10 people, days of work, we could click a button and have completely done in a matter of hours and we just let it run. And then we added to it and made it better and like the tests that we built were better than in tests that they had. So yeah, we goofed hard but we also improved productivity for that entire department by like a thousand percent. Like it's immeasurable what we did versus what they did before us, and I think that proves that whole article is correct, Like when you have a group of friends that care because it was interesting, right. Like we kind of started with, hey, I think we can do this, and then we started including more people in the project and blowing it up and I love to name at the time all of our products, projects, weird animal names. Do you remember what it was called?
Speaker 2:It was like it was like metal seagull or or something. Yeah, there was like nighthawk metal seagull, like penguin, octopus or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah octopus had all the arms that did everything, like all these pet projects, started getting names and it just everyone started working on it. It became super productive and we got so good at what we did that they decided, hey, we're going to break up the band and send them all the different projects and make them miserable, and that was the end of friendship.
Speaker 2:It was actually, yeah, once we separated teams, it made it hard because we all just had different priorities and even though we could occasionally get lunch together, it was like, well, now I got this whole new group of people. We still went beyond like just working, like we'd try and play ping pong every day, we'd get lunch, we'd go to like SeaWorld or whatever in Central Florida. We'd be like, yeah, let's go to SeaWorld one day. I'm like we just did that as a team and so maybe it was just a cultural thing as part of it. But there were certainly a lot of teams around us and people that just didn't want any of it. They were like, yeah, I'm not interested in spending time. I'll help you out when you need it. You know I'll be totally civil with you. I'll be great, but I'm not going to like go out to lunch with you Appreciate the offer.
Speaker 1:So I think that was kind of the thing too is because I went to a team. I actually I still keep contact with the people on the team I went to. So I'm in, I'm in three different discords with, I guess, technically, in addition to the corporate strategy. I'm in two different discords of friend groups, of projects, post, my time at this, this corporate place. Technically three, no, I'm in three discords, uh, and I think the interesting thing is I did make friends there but the the experience it was more brothers in arms than it was. Hey, let's go hang out and have fun. You know, like we almost became sort of war buddies, just scarred by the experience, and we still commiserate about how terrible that place was versus friends, the way that you and I became friends and have fostered this kind of friendship.
Speaker 1:I do want to shift the conversation a little bit because I think what happens is as you grow, as you move up in your organization structure, you start to get buddied up with other people who are growers and I think people with growth mentality are often a little stricter, a little more eye on the prize, focused, self-centered, self-motivated.
Speaker 1:They're not the kind of people that you're going to want to play Legend of Zelda with or talk about it with, because they're kind of just I don't know corporate oriented. And that's how I find a lot of people today are not everybody. I know people I work with listen to this but, like, I think there's a lot of focus on the work and how you get the work done and there's commiserating in the work, but I don't see the kind of like friend culture that we have, even even remotely. And I will say there are some people I work with that I absolutely love and adore and they are my friends and I'll take care of them forever. But it's not the number and it's not the kind of friendship that we used to have and I think that just that is a result of of becoming higher up in the management structure and the expectations of you in the business. You can't let your guard down anymore, you know. Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you, you gotta look, kind of look over your shoulder and, to be honest, you're exactly what you were saying. It's you got to be selfish when you're playing. And it's more about how you manage your time and energy and it all goes into like just do your work, do it well, figure out how to make yourself and your team look good so that way you all can benefit and grow. It's less about yeah, let's have some fun. Maybe we don't really hit our goals, but we're still kind of moving things in the right direction. It's more like no, no, no, I've got a clear goal. It's like I want to be done with all my crap at five. Get my team to get all their stuff done for the deadline and the thing I under committed to and we're going to over deliver on we're going to be three weeks early and that's going to make us look really good and line me up for the bonus next year, and that's kind of what it turns into.
Speaker 1:You just said it perfectly the introduction of, like the idea of a reward structure and goals killed my friendships the way that they used to be, because I didn't care back in the early days because we were so low, we were so low on the rung, we didn't get bonuses. You know, we were lucky if we got like a 3% raise just for existing, because you only give that to senior employees. We're two years in, it doesn't matter, we're the freshers. Freshers have all the ability to slack and make friends and build relationships because there's very little impact on them structurally or monetarily or development wise. But the second they put you on that growth track and they say you have expectations now that you have to hit as an individual. You can't have friends Now. You have to have puzzle pieces that help you hit what you need to do, otherwise you're going to take hit on your paycheck or could potentially lose your job. It sucks.
Speaker 2:It does. It sucks, but that's the game.
Speaker 2:And you got to look at your priorities and it's like, yeah, I want to make this money, I want to have these goals, I want to do these things, be on these projects, high profile projects, whatever they are. It's like all those things are just motivations that go against creating friendships with no strict deadlines, know, just willy nilly. Oh yeah, let's hang out, let's head out early on a Friday. It's like when you have those pressures, it changes how you look at those relationships. And something you said earlier Is so key there's been people I've worked with Like really closely for years that I do look at as like friends, like I'd go get a drink with them, I'd go to dinner with them, we'd hang out, but like it wouldn't like go beyond that.
Speaker 2:I would probably invite them to my house, but I I don't think I'd ask like and hey, do you want to just like hang out on the weekend? And like we can play basketball or, like you know, play video games together, like I would never do that, because they're just like that person that was there for that period of time and you know they're successful people too and I'm gonna lean on those people in the future to be like yeah, you remember that time we worked together and we were really great partners. Whatever you're doing now super cool, like let's do that together, and I hope that that will help with my career trajectory. But it's less about friendship, it's more about how can we help each other in the future and who.
Speaker 2:I like working with working with the network.
Speaker 1:the network, that's the word, the network. You know, you're just making me realize. You go through these like two to three phases in life. When you're a kid, when you're, when you're still trick or treating age, you have, like your friends and, and you know, elementary, middle and high school. But towards you know, as as you get to high school, there's, there's two paths for you, right, like there's, you either go to college and get a scholarship or you don't.
Speaker 1:And you know, I think there are those that choose to enjoy the high school experience and the friendship experience. I mean, my last year of high school, like I kind of quit doing theater things and I actually chose to just kind of spend time with my friends, because I was like this is kind of the end of this, this is the end of this path, because next year I'm going to college, I'm never going to talk to these people again and I held true to that. I have no friends. So then it happens again when you go to college, right, your first year at college, you're like, wow, all these new people, these are all my friends. And college starts to crank up on you and you're like, well, if I want to graduate. If I want to actually get this degree, I kind of have to push relationships to the side and actually do these coding projects, otherwise I'm going to fail and I'm going to lose. You know the money they give me to go here. So you push them to the side and I have no friends from college, none, zero. They're all dead to me. I don't talk to them, screw them.
Speaker 1:And then it happens again at work. You, you start off and you're like, hey, this is great, I finally have friends again. I went from zero to a lot to zero to a lot to zero. And now I've got, I'm gonna have a lot of friends again. And then you get to the point where you're like you know what, I am gonna be a director of friends again. And then you get to the point where you're like you know what, I am going to be a director of marketing. And suddenly you have zero friends again and they're all dead to you. Even you, clark, Dead to me, dead. I can't wait until I get to the retirement home. I think that's going to be a great experience. Let me predict how it's going to work out A whole bunch of new friends, six months dead to me they're actually physically dead dead to me and in the ground.
Speaker 2:When I realized how to get their jello too, they're done for they're done, and then I'm dead.
Speaker 1:And then, when the real question is after you're dead, does the friendship circle start over again? Do you get friends and the other world? Uh, only time will tell it is a great question.
Speaker 2:Well then, how did we make it? How do we?
Speaker 1:make the yeah well we weird.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's the thing, right. So, like I don't want to be all I don't want to be all sad and dour about this because, you know, I I feel like anytime someone asks squid boy, my friend from work, work they're asking because there's almost a question of like is it normal to have friends, right? Like is this okay in the workplace? And I would say abso-frickin-lutely yes, treasure it. You have a confidant or a friend or someone like you're actually cool playing video games with outside of the job, that you want to spend time with, that you want to hang with, not just like go get a boba tea, but like actually hang in the same physical space. Treasure that, take care of it, foster it. Don't do what I did and kill them all. You have to keep them safe. You have to preserve them because they otherwise will disappear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'd say it's pretty rare. It's pretty rare when you meet somebody and, like you're able to carry that through everything you just said. I mean, we did get separated on different teams. Still, we're friends. Granted, we lived in the same, you know, rough area, so we were able to kind of stay connected. But even when going to different companies, like we stayed friends, we stayed connected.
Speaker 2:We found ways to do that, and there are some core people in your life you're going to want to make the intention to do so and not only is that just great for you and life and your mentality and your mental health, but it also can be really beneficial to you in other ways. I mean, we started this super semi-successful podcast. We've been doing it for years and it's been my therapy. I haven't gone to my therapist once, and one of these days I'm going to snap and it's going to get really ugly. But this podcast has really helped, you know, and being able to like hang out still and like get to do something we enjoy, while also providing that intrinsic value we both have of like sharing our experiences and talking about topics we think will help others.
Speaker 2:So I would say, like our mission and values are very aligned and you're great about bringing on good people. Wherever you find something good, like if you go to a new company, you're like, hey, this place is actually super cool, you should come work over here. And you're great on like advocating for people and bring people in. So I know that you know you've got my back, I've got yours. If we ever run into something good, we're like, yeah, I'd love to work with this person again. Like those are the type of people you want to keep around.
Speaker 1:And those are the type of people like if you're going to jump out of corporate and do something on your own, you're like I want to do it with this person. Yeah, I think that's the big thing is like they're a great worker, you know, like I would love to work with them again because I can trust them to do the job. But like a friend is something so much more than that, and I think there are friends that I have that I wouldn't like to work with again too. So I think it does slice both ways. But friends are good for you psychologically and, I think, socially right. Like and that's the big difference is they're going to make the workplace more tolerable. If you have them there, it's the person you can confide in, you can vent to, you can feel safe around and not have to worry about judgment for what you say. So I think I think that's the big thing is get it, because you need it. Everyone does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, and be selective. Look out for those people that are truly in it just for their selfish intentions Not that it's anything bad. I mean respect. It's like if you're in it just to be efficient at work and do your thing, like respect that boundary. I'm like dude, we're all just trying to work here, get paid. You know, essentially, live life and be able to enjoy the life we want with the hitting the goals that we want.
Speaker 2:But some people are not going to be necessarily good friends for you, like you might think you have more of a relationship with them than they do you. So you got to be, you know, careful on that balance. As you're making friends, make sure you truly understand is this like a work friendship or is this a beyond work friendship? And I think it does extend to not just grabbing a drink, not just going out for dinner, but like doing activities together that you both enjoy and then realizing like, yeah, we're really aligned on how we see the world, how we want to do things in the future. Like this is actually just a friendship. We like hanging out with each other. It's not about like what, how can I get Bruce to get to my goals for next year at work? How can I get Bruce to get to my goals for next year at work? So just keep that in mind. Not everybody's there to be your friend, and that's okay.
Speaker 1:You can play the game and get friends, or you can do neither. You know. It's very much, not a one or the other. I think there is a full spectrum that you can lean into and dance around. You don't have to choose one or the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how do you dodge friends? How do you dodge people that you know are trying to be your friend?
Speaker 1:Right? Well, there's that there's people who want to be your friend, that you don't want to be their friend, and then there's also the idea that people might actually act like your friend and not be your friend and they want to take advantage of you. So there's a lot of different aspects of that, and I think be aware, right, like on the negative side, do be aware of people that might look to take advantage of you because you are their friend. It can happen, right, it absolutely can. You're trying to help someone out because you consider them close. They're just looking to use your skills and abuse you. It's one of those things you got to evaluate and it's and that's one of the risks of working with quote unquote friends too.
Speaker 2:Right, I try to send soft signals, not that I don't want to be friends with people around me, but like I got enough friends. Like I'm here to do work, I'm here to grow my career, I'm here to get paid, I'm here to get to reach my goals. Basically that's not a selfish thing, that's just where I'm at and I want to build cool things. So I always have like the team asking me like hey, you want to go grab dinner or hang out? And I'm always like I'm good.
Speaker 2:You know you guys go on ahead without me and like I always send those soft signals and some people like reach out a lot and then over time they realize it's like he's not, he's not going to go to these things, maybe once in a while you know we'll invite him, but he's not going to be there every single week at the same place. Like that's just not something Clark does. And so I always send those soft signals to people so they know I'm like hey, I'm I'm good, like I'm not doing extra stuff out of work. I want to get home and do my thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that. I just want to like make sure that's clear, cause I I don't send soft signals, I send hard signals like, hey, do you want to hang out with us? Like I'd rather die in a fire, it's okay, it's okay to say no. Not everyone needs to be your friend and not everyone needs to hang out all the time, so you know it's good, you got to prioritize your time, and no is the best word.
Speaker 2:It's like hey, no, I'm good and you can say it, it is actually really nice. But if you don't prioritize your word, your whole entire world and those requests that come in and learn how to say no in ways that are nice and respectful, and so on, you're going to be at the beck and call everyone else rather than looking out for yourself yep, you do you you do, you folks, yeah all right, nice, good, great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm evaluating all my friendships as we speak right now, the ones that aren't dead. Uh, just thinking about them. Yeah, might be the last one. I'm evaluating all my friendships as we speak right now, the ones that aren't dead.
Speaker 2:Uh, just thinking about them yeah, might be the last one. I'm like, I mean, you're looking at me all kind of scary right now, you do look tasty.
Speaker 1:He has the craziest look in his eyes I mean, you look like a snack clark, just uh, I might, I might swing by later. I think we did it. I think we did another episode. I think we did we're here.
Speaker 2:It was fun, it was a good job it was, I think we did another episode.
Speaker 1:I think we did we're here. It was fun. It was a good Halloween episode. It was.
Speaker 2:I think one of the biggest takeaways and I hinted at the beginning, but I want to say it out loud Look at people like people, not work objects, but also be respectful, nice in the workplace and understand. You know you are looking out for your goals.
Speaker 1:If you help others, it will likely help you, but you don't have to be everyone's friend and do everything they ask of you. Well, I think we could do a whole separate episode on just being the nice person at work, the altruist, because that's a whole different bag of worms.
Speaker 2:You waste way too much time and energy. There you go, podcast.
Speaker 1:There you go. You got a twofer topic episode. Congratulations, that's the corporate strategy promise. Two topics, one episode. That's not a promise.
Speaker 2:We can't do that again. That's too much. Do we have anything good?
Speaker 1:We got to check the inboxes, let's see let's see Okay, okay it's time it's time, okay, okay, it's time. It's time to do drum roll, please. Is it me or is it corporate? Right, we have a submission.
Speaker 1:If you want to play is it me or is it corporate, you can go to the discord which is in our link tree in the show notes. Join the Discord. I don't know why you haven't. You're a listener. We have more listeners than we have discorders, so what's your excuse? Get in there, join the Is it Me or Is it Corporate? Channel and do forward slash.
Speaker 1:Confess to type in your confession and we'll read it and decide this anonymous confession number five. We are up to number five, right? Yeah, okay, for a while, I worked for a vendor handling customer outreach for the marketing solutions of an internal social media company. When the client offered a role to work for them directly, I accepted in order to escape an utterly toxic workplace. However, the only thing I truly did there was write about 10,000 words on how I would game the KPI. I were a vendor handling customer outreach for the marketing solutions of an international social media company. All the while, I got into the good graces of one of the customers I was in contact with and jumped ship as soon as humanly possible. Is it me or is it corporate? This one's good.
Speaker 2:Doozy. I mean, don't hate the play, hate the game. I know.
Speaker 1:Is it them or is it corporate, though, like I don't in this case, it might be them Corporate. So, and this is the thing, is corporate makes us act like the worst versions of ourselves, because you have to, you have to look out for numero uno.
Speaker 2:And maybe that is corporate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know what's your pick. Yeah, I don't know what's. What's your pick?
Speaker 2:yeah, because in one in some way you could say the game is rigged against us, so therefore it's the game's problem, correct? But also this is driven by the individual that submitted this, like they knew what they were doing. It was intentional, intentional. So do you hate the player? Do you hate the game?
Speaker 1:They took this role to escape an utterly toxic workplace.
Speaker 2:And then they gamed their new position to say like, how do we? How do you game the specific KPIs? Then you got into one of your clients it sounds like a client, right. Then you game the specific KPIs. Then you got into one of your clients it sounds like a client, right. Then you join the client that would need to understand how those KPIs worked, or would love to, because that's like the secret sauce of whatever vendor agency they were a part of. And then the customer just gamed the system because of the insights that were brought by this person.
Speaker 2:This is, this is a corporate corporates rigged this stupid game. Where they have the middle, they're middlemen. Whoever this vendor agency is a middleman who's figured out how to derive value, and it's something that the whatever type of customers or companies that are using this vendor agency don't understand how to do so because the companies can't figure out how to do it themselves. This agency exists and I don't see anything wrong with. Hey, we've got a vendor, I'm going to go jump ship and work with them because we built a good relationship. Then you really understand what they're doing and then you just hop back to a different company that's a client of theirs and then you know exactly how to do it. So you just kind of skip the middleman Corporate. It's got to be corporate.
Speaker 1:You've convinced me it's corporate and I would hate to blame the individual. So it's definitely corporate. Hell yeah, Good job Clark.
Speaker 2:I think I'm always going to side on. Hate the game, don't hate the player.
Speaker 1:Until we get one. It's like, hey, I burned down my office because I didn't want to go to work on a saturday. It's like, oh yoink, these are. These are truly anonymous. I just want to make sure everyone knows, even the admins of the discord. When you do slash, confess and type it in, we cannot see it. We have at all. I even posted an example of what we see as mods at the top of this chat, so join that channel and make sure to submit your own. Is it me or is it corporate? So we can continue to play this game because this is fun. I enjoy these.
Speaker 2:This is good I'm only gonna blame you if you are the person who got fired and then you went and took a dump in their hallway the next day and then they caught you and you, like, went to jail. Yeah, it's a you problem, then it's you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, then you've you failed at, at discretional dumping, which is a skill that everyone must become good at in corporate. Yeah, I agree, yeah, good, good, well, that's is. It mirrors a corporate. We don't have a meme this week so we can't play. What do you mean? But I mean another game you can get in on. Yeah, I agree, I think that wraps up another episode of Corporate Strategy. Once again, anything that you'd like to do with this podcast you can do in the link tree, in the show notes. You can join the Discord, you can check out our website. You can go to our merch station where you can buy a Corporate Strategy baby onesie. I know I'm still waiting for I have to censor it. I'm a censor beep. That that's my name.
Speaker 2:I got to censor it. Oh no.
Speaker 1:I just created so much work for you in this last month, Clark. It's my fault, so I get punished. Clark is very excited for the first purchase of the baby onesie and we get none of this profit, so please make sure you do that. And also, if you want to donate, keep the podcast ad-free. It's going to be ad-free for the next few months because of a generous donation. Donations will keep it that way, so do that as well. You can do that in the Buy Me a Coffee link. Anything else, Clark?
Speaker 1:I've got a shout-out, our last episode we had one from the Discord.
Speaker 2:She told her story from military to management. It is so good. Go back. If you're listening right now, go to that one next. Cue it up If you got time. Listen to it right now. It provided so much value. It was a banger of an episode and I just wanted to shout it out to say it's worth the listen, it's worth sharing with your friends no-transcript, because it's not us.
Speaker 1:We have actual skilled, talented people on the pod, so that's just my recommendation.
Speaker 2:Fair enough, don't tell them our secret, come on.
Speaker 1:I want the download numbers on those to be higher. That's the only thing. I think that wraps it up. So thank you again, listeners. Happy Halloween, thank you. Happy Monday, the 4th of November, halloweenthgiving, thanksgiving weens Congratulations, enjoy it. Enjoy your turkey filled with candy corn.
Speaker 2:No, no, please Don't mishmash them.
Speaker 1:I don't want the mishmash I want a turkey that is filled to the brim Like leaking out the anus with candy corn.
Speaker 2:Please no. End the podcast now. If you're listening, just end it. Close the app.
Speaker 1:Instead of the little feets, the little chef hat feets. No, it's the peanut butter cups, don't do it. Instead of putting a nice buttery topping on that turkey, you just slather it with melted Haribo gummy bears.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, it's diabetes.
Speaker 1:Thanksgiving ween oh my gosh Mmm.
Speaker 2:It's diabetes Thanksgiving ween. I hate it.
Speaker 1:I hate everything you just did. Oh, I love you, clark, so that'll do it. That'll do it for another episode. Thanks, as always, for listening. Make sure to get your Thanksgiving ween turkeys ready, because they are going quickly, and until then, I'm Bruce, and I'm Bruce and I'm Clark and you're on mute. We'll see you next week.
