Let's Hear It For Petty Office Gripes

LI four. It has happened here and people are either actually on vacation or in our brains they're on vacation. Vacation mind has said in everyone's phoning it in, there's a kind of an acknowledged thing that no one wants to be here, or like no one minds being here, but just your mind is not better outside, you know. And every week we do a segment called half Bag Takes. Um, We've been doing it from the start and it's it's our favorite segment. Yeah, it is your baby, So I'll

let you explain exactly how that works. Half bag takes. That could be a complaint. They often are something office related, but it could also just be like an observation or a weird thing you notice at work, or a funny office tick you have. But the basic idea is that, like, that's all it is. It's just a thought that you, for some reason feel passionately about. But it really doesn't deserve as much air time as we give it. Yeah, there's not much to it. So like your tupperware halfy

take that I mentioned in the intro, what was that again? Yeah, so I really just think that your work lunch is so much better if you have nice tupperware. I have these last Tupperwars tuper To get into it, you can listen to an old episode but that we were for you to aquint essential half big take. So's an idea

I had and you should follow it because that's great. So, in the spirit of summer and being half here mentally, we decided to turn this episode over to our bloom Brick colleagues and ask some of our favorite people around the office for their half big takes. And here it is happy fake takes. Josh hit us with your half big take. I want to know why men aren't allowed to wear sandals in public? When you say aren't allowed, I think you mean there's some kind of taboo around it.

There's a taboo around exposing men's feet, specifically in a corporate environment, and I don't think it's totally fair more because I have to spend the entire summer sweating and dying in my little sock prison, and everyone else around me gets wear open to choose and sandals, And you say everyone by everyone everyone else, ladies, Ladies, are you ranking sandals right now because I am I am wearing

a sandal heel things that do reveal a toe. And I actually think ladies do make a calculation, which is like, like you should no one should ever wear flip flops in the office. That is really not okay, So like there is such a thing as too much toe for everyone. Um, but yes, I do make a judgment call. There must be some women who are so conservative about it that they don't even think the open toe choose are okay for anyone. That reminds me of a news article I

saw the other day on the internet. Maybe it might have not even been real because I only saw the headline, so really happy take of me. But I saw something that said a man showed up to the office in shorts someone sent home, so he came back wearing a dress, Which is a similar argument, which is women can wear things that are more cooling in the office. They can, which is completely fine. I just the sandal thing is what gets me. The shorts argument makes a little more

sense to me. Like I do think that men should be given permission to not have to wear pants in the summer. That's just awful. I think that's a personal choice. Like a lot of men don't feel entirely comfortable wearing shorts in an office environment, whereas I feel a lot of men would feel comfortable wearing sandals. Do you think a man wearing sandals is obligated to to sort of up his foot care game a little bit, maybe more

than they should. They should be presentable there, you know, grunge, gunk, whatever you want to call unpleasant to sites should be taken care of. What sandals would you wear if not flip flops? Like, what kind of sandals do men wear that aren't tvas, tvas, tacos, vomitous. If you're not on a rapping trip, if you're not on a rafting trip, tva should be bad. What mandals are you dying to wear? I think burgen stocks come in and out of fashion.

Those are probably acceptable at all different times, because I don't really care if they're in or out of fashion. I'm sure to pursue team would have a whole list of options for us if we were to ask them to investigate this issue. Honestly, that half big ticket is turning into a full story is getting a little baked, Danny, what is your half big take? All right, this is about fidget spinners. I guess they're they're cool and for

all the kids now in classrooms. But I keep hearing them in the newsroom, which I know is a little bit ridiculous because how much noise could they make? But when it's quiet I'm trying to write, I just hear this gentle like sound that they make, and I just know what they are, and it's very distracting. I didn't even know adults use them. Yeah, I didn't know that the adults use them. Is it like the modern day

stress ball? I think so. But the one I saw, who the owner of it will remain nameless, is like a neon color, So even the look of it is very distracting. I don't know. I feel like maybe do do some suducu if if your board do something that's a little doesn't have noise, and I like, I like the idea of a visual distraction, like you know, you know, somebody like tapping their foot endlessly is going to be really annoying or making some annoying mouth noise. But there's

also like you can do stuff. There's a new way to distract your coworkers with your idle habit also, as in fidget spinner supposed to be something that people use themselves to concentrate, is that they use it to like ground don't understand the fidget spinner at all. I feel like, you know, I feel like it is a stress ball kind of thing, but they don't realize how it's affecting

the people around them. Fidgets spinners have consequences. And then you know, you have to get an earful of where they bought the fidget spinner down at the bodega somewhere. Spinners their kids exactly exactly the colors, the ones that light up fidget spinner talk is definitely a thing. There's

a fidget. One of our colleagues wrote a fidget spinner story not too long ago, and then multiple editors for multiple days were like sampling fidget spinners, explaining to each other what fidget spinners were like, I don't need to, but I don't want your fidgets, you know. I'd also argue there's a health risk involved, because wasn't there some whole issue with counterfeit or knockoff fidget spinners that were coming into the US, that maybe we're made from flammable

products or something like that. I don't like, don't like it. Who do you have? Big takes? Could be a public service? Thank you, Danny, You're welcome. You're welcome, Polly, what is your half pick take? My half pig take is that you should be able to drink coffee all day, no matter the time, caffeinated coffee. So if you want to have coffee at three in the afternoon, it will not impact your ability to go to bed. I will not impact you, know, how you're gonna sleep or what you're

gonna do that evening. I have no scientific evidence. In fact, I think there's a lot of evidence that disagrees. But I personally drink coffee all day until five o'clock in the evening and I go to bed just fine. So therefore, this is right. Actually having no scientific evidence makes it a perfect hapic take. Yeah, this is my favorite kind of happy take where it's like that my anecdotal experience,

uh disagrees with the science on this. So I'm pretty sure the science is wrong and I'm totally the same way. I'll have an after dinner espresso and I just so European, what can I say, very cosm of Walton, But I don't see any effect on my sleep. I don't like drinking caffina the afternoon and upsets my stomach. But actually, yesterday I had a tie iced tea which I think has a ton of caffina like six pm, and I like could barely keep my eyes open at eleven pm.

So so we should all be drinking coffee at six pm. And there you mentioned this to me too. Decalf is kind of bs right, oh complexe. So I was a waitress in my pre journalism days for many years and we just totally had no regard for people's caffeine requests and they never knew the difference, sleeping like babies with their fake decalf. You cannot see my face, but I am freaking out. That's crazy. We didn't know the difference. The two coffee pots were the same. It wasn't totally

our fault. And we asked our general manager for like a new one, and they were like, it's all the same thing. It could have been making only decalf all day and nobody would live your life. Drink what you want to drink, enjoy that coffee, do what you've got to do to get through the day, love it. Thank you all right, Dina, what is your happic take? So it's really more of a question than to take, um,

where is the appropriate place to change your shoes? Because like, if I'm going in for an interview, I'll change my shoes like in the subway station. But if I'm just coming to work, I change my shoes like at my desk. But that means that I have in this office a lot of room to run into my bosses while I'm wearing like my rainbow flip flop. Okay, so you you're one of these people that commutes to work wearing comfortable shoes and then you put on your work appropriate shoes

at some point before you start your day. Yeah, but to be clear, I mean these are my work appropriate shoes. They're just not comfortable enough. We're looking at some elegant slides flat like flat shoes, but they're just not comfortable enough for a twenty minute walk to the subway. Yes, summer in the city, changer is a half bake take already. Yes, I'm not a shoe changer. And then yeah, where do

you change your shoes? Is another layer to this. Happened that I never even considered, and this causes a lot of angst. I used to be a shoe changer. I think I just converted to heels that are comfortable enough that I can wear them on the subway. But I would do it like halfway up the block from work, because I felt like the subway was too weird, Like if I did it in the subway car, people would be looking at me. But the office exactly the same thing you would walk through. You didn't want to walk

through the office and your flip flops. So I would like pause in some some loading dock halfway down the block up and be the weirdo that's standing there taking my shoes off. It's it's it's hard. I'm sorry, guys. I'm just gonna say it does kind of gross me out to think of you guys changing your shoes in the subway station. It's grossed down there. I guess the street is not. But you don't have to put your feet down on the ground. The floor is lava. I mean, one shoe at a time. If you have a seat,

even better. I have noticed you change your shoes at the dusk and I'm like, oh, Diana's a shoe changer. Yeah. Well, the walk between like entering the building and getting to my desk, I'm like, very much on the lookout for all of my superiors. I do do they notice our shoes the second shoe take. Yeah, shoes are a big deal. And the other problem with the subway changeup, which is why I think I changed my ways, is that you don't get to wear your nice, pretty shoes on the subway.

And that's honestly, like, that's when you want to look good is in front of a bunch of interesting strangers, not running your colleagues you see every day you don't even care about. I love that you think that's always full of interesting strangers potentially interesting anyway, thanks for your great take my pleasure, So, Jenny, but is your halpic tic? Okay? So I have two intern themed half bake takes, although

they applied everyone. Number one is I recently did a presentation for some interns and a lot of them sent me thank you notes. But one of them actually wrote me a handwritten thank you note and put it on my desk, which she also had to find in our system. And I think that handwritten notes are a little bit creepy. It's a little like stockery that she she also found out other information about me that I didn't talk about.

I think that's it's like the intern over kill. My second related intern thing that actually was part of this thank you note is she referred to me as ms Kaplan And while I appreciate the MSS rather than miss Yeah, she's like feminist, three years younger than me. Call me by my name. Yeah, it's in office as we call each other by our first names. Yeah, it's okay, we're not in or Draper Price. Yeah it's also right, yeah

Mr Draper and never even not about that. Also, she's a young woman in an office place, like she should. She's already gonna they're going to be assumptions working against her, so she should not make herself seem even younger. Don't infantilize yourself further, maybe there are some workplaces that still do them, Mr Draper ms Olsen, and maybe like you heard that, then you would pair it. That's the only way I can see this thing. That's conservative workplace. So

it's a hard balance to strike. So in terms we respect your struggle, Yes, that's true, because I also would have found it weird. I she was like, Sup, Jay Dog, thanks for the presentation. I think that big Ti hears that end are being ridiculously unfairly judged. That's part of the process we all did. You gotta pay your dues, just get judged for everything to do and say sorry in turns. Happy summer, enjoy the free snacks, Kim. What's

your half big take? My half bag take is that offices that put printers right next to people are just cruel. And every office does this. Every office does this, and it's if you if you sit next to a printer, you deal with that all day. It becomes background noise to your life. You're sitting there for ten hours a day and people are just printing crap right next to you, and what you what you gonna do? But you can't blame the people they have to print their stuff out.

I blame the printer being there in the first place. Do you sit near a printer now? Is that where this inkster is coming from. I do not sit near a printer now, but I used to, and I demanded a desk change because one of our colleagues happens to print a lot and again not her fault, but still terrible. I also have sat near printers and you didn't. There's something you didn't even bring up, which is like forced to be the printer guru. You have to answer printer questions.

You have to tell people whether or not there's paper in the printer, or why there isn't the paper in the printer, or where they can find paper to put in the printer, and people will need help fixing the printer, and they assume that you are the one who can do that. It also reminds me of when I sat on the end of the row in the aisle and that's where everyone walks by, and there's everyone just wants a small talk you all the time, and you're just like,

I'm just trying to do my job. Yeah, and they think you haven't heard the sentiment about the printer or the thing at the end of the row. A hundred times. Yeah, there's a reason, like the separate copy printer room exists. And if you if you have both the separate copy room and printers on like every row, it just it doesn't make any sense. Just let let the people walk all the way to the copy room for the different

times where they actually have to print something out. I do have one alternate suggestion for how to handle this problem. If the design gods have deemed it impossible not to put printers near people, that those desks be assigned to people who are like on some kind of office probation, or who are in trouble. You get, you know, but you are experiencing that misfortune for a reason. It's like the punishment seat. Yeah, it's like shape up your work product.

Every six months you can graduate out of the printer's seat to a nice becaushy window seat that's messed up. Yeah, I know, it's pretty evil. I'm kind of glad I thought of it, all right. Thank you, Kim pat tell us you are a half big take office curtains. Everybody hates the open office. You got somebody eating over here, sneezing over there, talking on the phone, laughing behind you, which is the worst of all those. Laughter, it's we

should discuss that. I think it might be the worst when people are having boisterous, happy conversations behind you and you're trying to be some serious kind of business. Yeah, so I think you should have office curtains um either dropping down from the ceiling, or if you have high ceilings like we do in our newsroom, then maybe they could kind of slide on a rack. So when you need to have a little bit of like hospital curtains,

that's exactly how I was thinking about on a track. Yeah, it's like nobody likes to be in the hospital sharing a room with someone else, but it makes it that much better if you have curtains separating. So I did a happy take once about how I wish we could have cubicles because that's better than an open office. But how, how, how how would office curtains be better than a cubicle

because we've already had cubicles and cubicles are terrible. Also, Pat is knowing Pat that is a real estate reporter, knows that we could never go back to cubicals because it's too expensive. But curtains cheap and easy solution. It could be a d I y solution. You could be the one office curtain reporter in Bloomberg. No, I think this is a startup. Yeah, curtain you. I'm trying to think of a downside to the office curtain, and I can't. I've thought of many. But when I was like, well,

what if someone wants to talk to you? Like the whole point of the open office is like knock on the curtain. There would also be a lot of people calling your name from the other side of the curtain, not knowing whether you were at your desk or not. They make Pat you in there, Pat, you need heavy curtains so you can't hear that. Yeah, this is a such a great half It's so creative. I really just love points for creativity. Yeah, well done, Pat. Those were

some seriously excellent half Bay takes. Yeah, thank you so much to our colleagues for bringing there really not fully formed ideas. Yeah, to us, it was just enlightening. There was not a single take two baked. No, they were all perfectly under done. Yeah, with the cooking time on those takes, And normally we would end the show with our half bag takes, hence the second that inspired this all. But I feel like we've been out done. There's no

need for us to do that now. But next week we'll resume our regulatively scheduled programming and you can call in as usual with your own half Bake Takes at two and two six one seven zero one six six, and we'll have some really great half bag takes just for you. And this has been all half they take it on half Baked Takes. Thank you for listening to game Plan. You can find me on Twitter at Francesca

Today and I'm at RZ Greenfield. That's where you can tweet us your half bake takes or anything else that you want to let us know. You can also hear from us at our newsletter that we sent out every week. You can find it at bloomberg dot com slash Newsletters. If you like our show, please go to Apple Podcasts or We're ever you listen, rate, review, and subscribe. It helps put our show in front of more people's eyeballs. Um, so if you like it, that's a great way to

help out. The show was produced by Liz Smith and Magnus Henrickson. The Head of Podcasts is Alec McCabe and we'll see you next week. Bye. You guys are here all day. No sad here all day. You can our hotline Dina if you have more, We'll be here all day. I thought it were gonna get five boysails from Dona