Welcome to Hacking Your Leadership. I'm Chris and Lorenzo, and welcome to this week's Thoughtful Thursday. Don't forget to follow us on YouTube at Hacking Your Leadership and leave us a review on iTunes. On this Thoughtful Thursday, I'm want to do something a little different. UM, I came across something on LinkedIn that I thought was was pretty funny and and I wanted to go over it with you because I think that, if I want to be honest, it's
possible that maybe it applied to me at some point in my career. And I want to make sure that if anybody who's listening to this show right now, if it, you know, possibly applies to them, that they, you know, kind of have it called out a little bit and maybe take steps to change that. I want to go over something that I saw that
is a list of nicknames for co workers. And there's been a couple of these that have you know, kind of circled around over the years, but the one that I saw was a little bit more PG and so I thought it was it was more appropriate to you know, talk about on the podcast.
Um, these are some nicknames for co workers that I thought you know, I have worked with every single one of these people at some point you know, hopefully not all at the same time, for if you're listening out there, but um, at some point in time, each one of these people and again, if I have to be honest, it's possible that one of them has been me at some point in time. Um, Lorenzo, have you ever worked with a kitcat, a kit cat like the candy bar?
Yeah? Yeah, someone someone who's always taken a break, I plead the fifth. Yes, I definitely over the years have worked with those that that seem to always either be going on or break or coming from a break. For sure. Yeah, it's tough because, on the one hand, you know, if you only happen to be seeing them when that is the case, sometimes the timeline just lines up where you can be thinking that that
is someone when they're not. But over a long enough period of time, and if a lot of people are leaving the same thing, chances are if if someone has a you know, kind of garnered the hush hush nickname of kit Cat, uh, that it's probably true. Here's what I would tell you. I think I think it's not even so much about like taking breaks but like the like the amount of times I've walking to a break room and I always see the same people, right, like hanging around doing nothing,
chit chatting whatever. Like like people take breaks. It's all good, Like take a break whatever, who cares. But like, but when when you're it's like you're always on a break, yes, and and then not only are you always on a break, but like what you're doing during the break
is like just hanging out. That's definitely what I would say, Like, that's a kit cat, right, totally, totally one of the frustrating ones that I see on this list here that when I saw it, a person immediately came to mind and and this this can be This is gonna be kind of frustrating because you know the kit cat. It's like, you know what, hey, if if no one's holding that person accountable, then that's between them, and that would be a leadership issue, you know, if someone
is if someone's a kit cat and no one's on them accountable. Um this uh, this next one, Lorenzo, if you ever worked with the motion light emotion light, let me someone who only works when someone walks past. This was a bit more frustrating because you can see some intentionality to it, you know. Okay, look, yeah, yeah, this this is the first one where I have to raise my hand. I don't think that I
ever got the label, but I definitely did that. I learned in my old retail career that if you if you stood around and you had like a swiffer or a duster in your back pocket, and when a leader would come on by the department, you would just start cleaning. They would just leave you alone because like, you alone, you're cleaning, right. But I was like, but that one karaoke machine on that one end cap was the cleanest one in the entire company because that was about all the clean out.
It's got to be an end cap because it has to be visible, right when you can't clean in private otherwise that's real. Yeah, I am guilty of beat emotion light. Yeah. The next one is the one that, uh that you know, it's possible that this has been me at some point um in my career. Uh, have you ever worked with a seaweed? A seaweed? No, somebody just floats around and sometimes bumps India. All right, yeah, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, like a like
a kind of like a social butterfly. We'd say, yeah, social butterfly some doing anything. They're not doing anything, but they're just kind of always there, like they're always there. I don't know. I think maybe maybe it was driven by fomo, Like if it was a conversation that was going on, it looked kind of fun. I kind of meander over to it, just kind of like, oh, what's what's going over here? Guys? You know that kind of thing. But yeah, just kind of just
kind of floats around and sometimes bumps India like um. And and then the last one I'll ask you about is uh, have you ever worked with a deck chair? A deck chair? Yeah, someone someone always holds under pressure. There are definitely people that will will jump up and rise to the occasion and take on a responsibility or challenge very very quickly. And then there are those that would just rather see themselves out to the patio deck and enjoy some
sunshine. I guess yes, I'm out of five thousand, as we would call it exactly here. So what I want to ask you, Lorenzo, is is there anything that you haven't heard on this list that you might have worked with in the past, or you know, is there anybody who any coworker you've had who is affectionately garnered a nickname throughout your career. So I want to ask you that, but first I want to give up towards one of our sponsors. All Right, Lorenzo, tell me about a time when
you worked with someone who garnered a nickname that. And this occurred long before there were nicknames for coworker lists on the internet. Right away, there's somebody and I'm picturing right now, and I'm not going to give any time frame because that might be a dead give way for people that know me. But we used to reference them as et et like the extraterrestrial yes, because they always wanted to go home no matter what, like not just phone home,
but actually go home. Like every like if they opened by eleven thirty in the morning, they had a stomach ache, if they were going to close, there was traffic on the way to work, like there was anything at all that that had them be at home and go home. Was was what it was. And again, we all have to go home at some point, we all get sick, we have things we have to deal with.
I'm not I'm saying like, look I've been there, but but like to the point of like if I was a closing manager and I knew this person was opening, I would just get there and I'd be like, hey, can you give me thirty minutes just to check in with everybody and then you can leave, Like it's all I need. And they're like, really, because you know, I appreciate that I haven't been feeling. I said, yeah, yeah, I know, I know, ET go home. Um, but yeah, that was that was That was one of the ones that
for sure guiltiest charge around having nicknames. Yeah, I've worked with an et before. Um, where where I've seen this happen is it's less about you know, finding another ailment you know always has a headache or you know there's some tree, you know whatever. Sometimes they run out of reasons and it's just they want to go home. They're they're the ones walking up and going hey it seems kind of slow. Can I just kind of leave? Like,
am I do you do you need me here? Yes? Yes, Like like when there's a group of like two or three leaders in a circle and that person kind of comes over and it's like, well it looks like we've got enough coverage today. Yeah, yep, Well it's like crap, I had four grandparents, but they've all died over the course of the last three years. In air quotes, I've I've already used those. I've had
three headaches this month. What's left, Well, there's nothing left. Well, how about maybe I just want to go home anyway, So let's just talk about how maybe I'm not needed here. You know, you know what if if you want to put forth the idea that you're not needed here often enough, eventually people will start to believe you're actually not needed here, which which might be what you want. Yeah, exactly, No, I think
it's uh, yeah, I think it's a real thing. I think, like, look, and I know, you know the I guess there's really no leadership lesson here besides it if you've been one of these things, like think about it. But I do appreciate that it's a little bit of fun, it's a little bit of reality. It's human nature, obviously, it's uh, you know, being conscious of not what I here to hurt people's
feelings, but we're here to deal with the reality of the situation. And there are people that, you know, maybe show up in different ways. And if we're being honest with ourselves and you're listening to this right now, I guarantee you that you've probably chuckled a little bit or laughed, or you know of somebody who maybe fits this mold that you've worked with over the years, because I think that these things are applicable across all industries and all teams.
If you don't know of anybody with a nickname in your work, you've never had this. You can't relate to any of these far as you know, knowing somebody who works um you know, works with you, who's done
any of these things. You know, you know, maybe take a glance in the mirror, just for a moment, uh, listen to these things again and make sure that there's no reason why your co workers may think any of these things about you, because again, you know, the when I was going through them, there was that one that jumped out at me and I thought, oh, that might have been me at some point in time.
Believe me, your your inner monologue will tell you if one of these things is possibly you, you should at the very least be taking steps to try to figure out is this something that you do enough of your day where you know you won't kind of be able to put down that nickname because none of them are great. I mean, they're funny. We we talked, we can we can laugh about it, and that's great and I love that
they're funny, but none of them are positive. From a standpoint of if your co workers actually believe this about you, it's not doing wonders for your career. If this is who you are in the minds of your co workers, absolutely, and with that it brings us to the end of this episode. This is hack your leadership. I'm Lorenzo and I'm Chris. So home from work early and have a great day.