Our Pettiest Office Complaints, Compiled

we are going to give the people what they want. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure you all want half bake takes because that is what we've heard of fan favorite part of the episode, and it's our favorite part of the episode. Yeah, this is always the easiest part of the show to record, the segment at the end where we air our on formed but very passionate ideas about the workplace and other things. So what about our way to say goodbye than to

just go through some half baked takes that we have stockpiled. Yep, we have on a half big take backlog to clear, so let's jump right in and start doing it. Half fake takes. All right, what is your first half bag take to share? So here's a little piece of meeting

etiquette I've been struggling with. In this highly connected world that we live in, it's very easy to contact people when they're not physically around, like say they're a couple of minutes late for a meeting, So you might get a little ping on your group chat app, or you might get an email that says like, hey, this meeting started, We're in the meeting room. Where are you. My question is one, what is the right number of minutes to

wait before you send that email? Because I've gotten that email as early as one or two minutes after the meeting started, and I think that that's a little uncool because our our building is enormous and massive, and some conference rooms are hidden in weird corners, and like it could take you ten to fifteen minutes just to find one. So like, two minutes late for meeting, okay, you don't want to be late for meetings, but like, calm down, people.

My instinct is always four minutes after I find myself looking at my watch and saying, this person's latens four minutes and I want to email them, but I forced myself to wait until after five minutes. Well, this brings up my second point, which is when is it too late? Because I feel like there's a there's an accurate window or an appropriate window. And like because I've emailed people like fifteen minutes after a meeting started, and I'm really

at that point. I'm just making the point like I came to the meeting room and waited, and I served my time here, knowing full well after like five or six minutes that you probably weren't going to come. Um. And so the point of that email is really just to say I sat in a meeting room for fifteen minutes alone because you're not gonna then keep sitting there after you send that email, right, so you kind of on the email and then leave the room. It's very

it's as I we often talk about performative, right. So I think the half big take then is depending on what time you send the email, you're sending a different message. Yes, right, it's either like hurry up and get to this meeting, or it's like did you forget about it? Yeah, you forgot about this meeting, and I just want to make you aware that I did not forget about it. Um.

So I I like your four minute more. I think the four to five minute mark is probably a good starting time that people and then well, but if it's a half hour meeting, like five minutes late is fairly late. So I'd say, yeah, like maybe the five to seven minute window. That's when you can send like a good faith email that or chat that's like, yeah, what do you hurry? Hey, we're in whatever conference room. I sometimes

say we're still doing this, which I think might be aggressive. No, No, I would receive that as as intended still on question mark and you're hoping the answer is no, right, or sometimes like when you have plans, yeah, you always want the meeting to be canceled. I'm here, Yeah, that's aggressive here, I am okay, Becca, what's your first half bag take

of this marathon? Mine is about self care at the office. Um. I'm not very good at self care in general, but the best self care hack I've ever done is just buying a bottle of really fancy hand lotion and sticking it on my desk. Amen improved my quality of life so much, especially in these dry winter months. How fancy are we talking? Are you? Are you comfortable discussing this brand called bar and Co. I think it maybe from St. Louis.

It's it's a Midwestern brand. I believe I got any and you know it's pretty comes in a glass bottle. Oh yeah, it's really nice and it's glass things at the office. That's another that's another way to up your desk game. I think there's a lot of small self care hacs one can do that I haven't quite done yet, like having a nice mug or a really nice glass or water bottle or I'm not there. I'm just at

the hand lotion. But it's great. But the hand lotion is it's like more than just a psychological thing because you're in you know this circulated air. Your skin does get really dry in the winter. Like this is a this is a non gender specific thing. Everybody should be lotioning it up. Should we talk about the one hand lotion liability issue? There are lots of potential downfalls and

that your hands get very greasy. Well, you just have to be careful how you time your bathroom visits and your lotion hand lotioning sessions, because if you wash your hands too soon after you lotion up, it's it's gross. It's also like falls off or washes off, and then it's a waste of highly fancy lotion. For some people. Also, if you use a biometric device, let's say, and you have to swipe your finger on something, you can mess it up with the hand lotion. I didn't even think

about at Yeah. And then there's another lotion liability. Well, there's rings. If you wear a ring or jewelry, it's you've got to kind of take them off and then wait a while before you put them back on. Otherwise you get them. Yeah. But okay, no, no more downsides of lotioning. I honestly get excited to get to work and put it on. How many times a day do you do it? Just once? Oh? Just get in. For me, it's a little bit of a compulsion. It's like, you know,

when my hands are idle, I put on the lotion. Yeah, so maybe I should cut it down. It's your habit. Okay, Francesca, do you have another half big take for us? Do I? Here's an office pet peeve of mine. Um, anytime I hear this phrase quote, well you're too young to remember this, but insert anything here. First of all, this is usually said I've noticed by men two women. Second of all,

it usually and often incorrectly assumes someone's age. Um, I'm not really, I don't have a lot of conversations with people about my age, and like, to be honest, I don't actually hear this as much as I used to. But you know, it tends to assume someone's age, and I think women tend to be a Women are often assumed to be younger than they are because people think we're dumb. But then also suppose you are too young

to remember whatever thing. First of all, you might be like chronologically younger than you know when that thing happened, It doesn't mean you don't know it happened. And it's just I feel like it's a way of undermining people, Like it's sort of like masked as a compliment, like oh you look young, but actually it's saying like I've experienced more, I've been around the world, I understand the way things work, and you wouldn't remember, you know, there

was somebody called Reagan who was president. Was My main problem with it is that, which is, if you weren't alive during this time period, how could you possibly know about X thing? But it's like we all know who the Beatles are, right, Like, yeah, just because you were waiting online for their album to come out, and yeah, now maybe now I understand why it bothers me so much.

It does suggest that, like, you're so stupid that you wouldn't know about anything that's culturally significant outside of the time period you're alive. Yeah, I'm with you. I really don't like it. It happens a lot, I think. Yeah, it's a way of people who I honestly think the people saying and are just insecure. Yeah, they feel like they're surrounded by a bunch of youngs and they're lashing out. They need to show that they're superior because they were

really into I don't know, Rah, I don't know. So you're not superior people, and you also might be wrong about someone's age. So stop guessing, Becca, what's up next? This is a pretty selfish half bake take. It might be specific to our office, but there is somebody here who hates Sunshine and I don't know what's wrong with you. But you're I don't know what's wrong with you. There's

something wrong with you. Basically, here at Bloomberg, we have blinds that we share because we're in a big, open office, and you have to request two facilities to raise the blinds if you want them raised, and you have to request to lower them if you want them lowered, and I've been told that having them lowered is preferenced over having them raised because you can live with dark horrible office, but you can't live with glare on your screen. I like them up. I want sunshine in my life. It's

dark out. Also can start at like four pm. Start at four pm. I've had people asked for the blinds to be down when it's raining outside. What is that? So there might be more You might have more than one secret enemy here. Yeah, get multiple people requesting to be shrouded in darkness all day, in the darkest hours of winter. Why would you want that? And then also there is no screen glare on our side. The sun does not. You can't actually see the sun the orbs

by building these people about the sun. Do you think they're vampires? Maybe maybe we work with vampires. I don't know. I've gotten into wars. It really upsets me, you know. I think that there are I don't understand why someone would actually prefer darkness over sunlight, but I definitely have noticed that there are those people who don't mind darkness

in the winter. And I feel like there's like widespread awareness of seasonal effective disorder now and most of us kind of understand we're generally sadder in the wintertime because there's less sun. And so I think now like the weird people are the people who don't suffer from sad Yeah, lucky you. I can literally feel the seratonin or whatever flow through my brain when those blinds go up, just

saying I'm with you, Becca, that's hard. Okay, Francisca. Before I ask you for more half big takes, we have a listener half big take this week. Let's hear it. Hi, this is Katie from Chicago. My hat take take tested along with you buy good shoes in the last episode, and it's that buy a decent purse or work bag and keep it looking nice. Too many people, well there's no rough too early and uh corla used that does that buy the correct bag for the environment you're in.

You should not be walking in with your gym backpack into a meeting with executives. So thank you guys so much. Yeah. I would layer another thing onto this, which is coats,

um and cold weather environments. It's very easy to like hang on to that, you know, comfy but ratty looking puffy coat that you've had for a few years and a certain point it's it's totally true for bags and shoes, but I think that yeah, bags and coats getting neglected to a point where it's like you could have a totally sharp outfit and it's undermined on those rare occasions when you you like walk into an environment like let's say you're visiting someone else at their office and you've

got like this sad coat and sad bag, because those are things you do you don't think about as part of your outfit because they go on the outside and you don't have them on all day, but someone's bound to see you in them at some point, and then you're going to feel sad. I think I agree, But I do like the trend of people wearing backpacks and even though it makes subway commuting help, we will not get into that, but it's more comfortable. But there's so

many nice backpacks. You're right, I think if you want a backpack strategy, as long as you're thoughtful about it, and you have a backpack that like you know, like the caller said, fits with the environment of your office. So if it's like a nice leather backpack, or whatever. I like it. Yeah, I think the overriding theme is like outerwear in general, it also matters. Okay, Frantasca back

to you more half bag takes. Well, I have a half big take that is kind of like the sum total of all my life's thoughts up to this point, and I've I've really been saving it for the right moment. It's, um, it's not work related, but it's it's pretty important. So I'm just going to get right into it. Um. I have a kid now, as you may know, and it

has exposed me to a very insidious lesson. Our children are being taught by the children's book industrial complex, and it is wrong and dangerous and that thing our children are being taught, and that we are we are arrived at adulthood. Believing is the lie that sheep are cute. Sheep are not cute. If you've ever seen a sheep in real life, you know that they are mean. They are pretty gross. They have crazy eyes, they make a noise like a human baby, which is weird and creepy,

and they're dumb, so they will attack unprovoked. Sheep not cute, not fluffy, Okay, dirty and gross. Mean, you can't tell me otherwise. Wow, there's a lot to unpack here. My main reaction to this is, are maybe most barnyard animals not cute, Like we've cutified this group of animals for our children's sake. Yes, and maybe, like I think that's

probably true. And the most egregious example is shee and sheep like pigs, we know, you know, like pigs, like it's like oink oink, they're pink and you know in cartoons. But also we kind of know pigs roll around in dirt, SOI pigs have like, you know, positive and negative stereotypes, but sheep it's just so far from the reality of

what they really are like. And I you know, I'm I don't want to brag, but I'm the founder of the Cute Animal chat room here at Bloomberg, and I forbade sheep from being included in uh in that room. Now a lot of people violate that and they know who they are. But um, you know, I set the rules for what animals are cute. Sheep are not allowed. Also, hairless cats not cute? Oh yeah those are not cute. Hi. Yeah, Okay, I don't want to accept this, but I see what

you're saying. I think even if you see a picture of a sheep like a real sheep in the wild, babies are those lambs lammies. See. I'm obviously not a farm person, but I've been around farm city girl over here, and I did have a bad experience where I heard of sheep came way too close to me on a very high cliff in the United Kingdom. That's where this is coming from. So I know what sheep are really like.

They have shown me their true face. Stop spreading this wide to your children, because if they get around a sheet, they're gonna try to pet them. They don't want to be petted. They'll probably bite your child. Okay, I'm really happy that I got that out there. Becca. What's your next half bag take? So my final partying half bake take is pretty simple. It's that movies are too long. Just all movies, not not hashtag not all movies, but yes,

a lot of movies. It seems like in the last five years maybe movies have become on average more than two hours, or lots of movies are more than two hours. It's very rarely that you'll have a good hour and a half hour movie that's not a children's movie. Basically, and it's too long. It's hard to go two and a half hours without a bathroom break. Yeah, it gets you shouldn't have to have a bathroom break during a movie. You need to get editor. Movie makers ever think about that.

I don't know, think about it, think about getting an editor. I'm sure they have editors, but they probably do. I don't have the time or the patients. There's always like a scene or two that could be cut. Movies too long. That's my happy take, and this has been our happy bag take Marathon happy bag takes. Well, since it's the last time you'll be hearing from us for a while, we really just want to thank our listeners so so much.

You guys have been so engaged and have made doing this even more fun and valuable than it already would have been. Um, we hope you had fun, enjoyed what you heard, and learned a couple of things along the way, and you can still be in touch with us. I'm still on Twitter at RSI Greenfield. I will continue you writing about all the issues we talked about on this

show every week. I'm still on Twitter at Francesca today and you'll probably be hearing some cool new stuff from one or both of us again down the line, So keep us in your feeds, and if you come up with a half big take, we still want to hear it. This is kind of our life's work. Half big takes are the thing we're probably proudest of um and we want to keep sharing them with you, so don't be shy.

And a super special thanks to our producers Liz Smith and Magnus Hendrickson and that A Podcasts you Francisca Levi Yeah whatever, but mostly Liz and Magnus who really made the show what it is. And that's all for now. Bye bye, happy baked takes, that do it, happyage takes, This is it? Nope, that sounded very convincing. Great, all right,