Why Does It Feel So Wrong To Be Human At Work?

Local Wisdom
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Relationships
  • Updated Biweekly

Pinaki Kathiari & Chris Lee challenge traditional best practices in the workplace

  1. 1d ago

    The Problem Is Never the Problem | Chuck Gose

    When a client relationship turns difficult, it almost never starts with the thing you're actually arguing about. There's a manager behind the scenes applying pressure. An organizational fire nobody told you about. A misalignment of expectations that was there from day one. The minutiae you're debating is just the surface. In this Between the Seasons episode of Why Does It Feel So Wrong to Be Human at Work?, Pinaki Kathiari and Chris Lee bring back Chuck Gose, founder of ICology and co-host of the Frequency podcast, to talk about working with difficult clients. Chuck, by his own correction, does not push people. He elevates them to greatness. They get into what actually makes a relationship 'difficult' (usually misaligned expectations or personalities, not bad people), why your instinct to defend yourself makes everything worse, how a Batman figurine in your background can build more connection than any pitch deck, and the difference between failure and being wrong, that Chuck argues most people get completely backwards. In this episode, they discuss:• Why a difficult client is usually a misalignment of expectations or personalities, not a bad person• Breaking the ice with levity when things get tense, and why almost nothing you do is brain surgery• The relationship as a third living thing in the room that you both shape• Why the issue at hand is rarely the actual issue• How defensiveness triggers defensiveness, and how to break the loop• Chuck on why failure and wrong are not the same thing, and what science gets right about it• Connection as the bedrock that gets you through the rough patches (yes, your Zoom background counts)• When to walk away from a client, and why the best exits happen together Plus: Chuck has a notebook of things he's been right about. Pinaki wants one too. Heads up: Pinaki and Chuck Gose are presenting together for the first time at IABC World Conference in Toronto. 'Communication in Motion: The Science Behind Messages That Move People' on June 15 at 1:30. Pinaki is also presenting 'The Dance Floor Doesn't Lie: What Communicators Can Learn From DJs' with Monique Zytnik on June 16 at 3:00. Plus Comms Reboot, the unconference hosted by Jenni Fields of Redefining Communications. Links in the episode description. Check out Comms Reboot here.Learn more about IABC World Conference here.  ---Connect with Us Pinaki Kathiari – LinkedIn  | Local Wisdom Chris Lee – LinkedIn | Gallagher Communication Bree Bartos – LinkedIn | Local Wisdom Special thanks to digital communication agency Local Wisdom (www.localwisdom.com) for really believing in our mission and making this podcast possible.  If this episode made you think differently, laugh, or even yell out loud, we want to hear about it! Connect with us on LinkedIn, and don’t forget to rate, review, and share – maybe with your work bestie… or even your boss if you're feeling bold.   We also bring these important conversations to conferences and private workshops, creating space for real, meaningful change. Take the first step at www.whydoesitfeelsowrong.com.

    22 min

  2. Jun 4

    The One With the Office Tickler | Reacting to Reddit at Work

    A coworker crawled under her desk to fix a power strip. She slipped her heels off, got down on the floor, and made herself vulnerable for two seconds. And that's when the coworker behind her reached over, wrapped an arm around her ankles, and started tickling her feet. Yes. At work. In 2026. We have questions too. In this Reacting to Reddit at Work episode of Why Does It Feel So Wrong to Be Human at Work?, Bree Bartos brings Pinaki Kathiari and Chris Lee a Best of Redditor Updates story so strange the original poster used Friends character names to tell it. Rachel got tickled. Monica did the tickling. Phoebe is the hands-off manager who walked Monica to HR and then never really resolved anything. And five months later, nobody got closure and everybody got punished. It's a story about workplace boundaries, about what makes a mistake termination-worthy versus a conversation, and about what happens when management avoids the hard conversation entirely and lets a situation rot. In this episode, they discuss:• Where the line actually is on workplace physical boundaries, and why "we're all human at work" doesn't mean there aren't any• The difference between a one-time lapse in judgment and a pattern of disrespect• Why the real failure here was management never bringing everyone together for a resolution• Whether the reaction would have been different if it were Joey instead of Monica• Pinaki on running toward conflict instead of away from it, and the Local Wisdom Nerf gun incident• Why Monica never actually apologized, and how much that one missing piece mattered• The mantra: companies come and go, but the relationship is what stays• An ending where everyone got what they wanted and nobody felt good about it How would you have handled this one? Because we're still not totally sure. ---Connect with Us Pinaki Kathiari – LinkedIn  | Local Wisdom Chris Lee – LinkedIn | Gallagher Communication Bree Bartos – LinkedIn | Local Wisdom Special thanks to digital communication agency Local Wisdom (www.localwisdom.com) for really believing in our mission and making this podcast possible.  If this episode made you think differently, laugh, or even yell out loud, we want to hear about it! Connect with us on LinkedIn, and don’t forget to rate, review, and share – maybe with your work bestie… or even your boss if you're feeling bold.   We also bring these important conversations to conferences and private workshops, creating space for real, meaningful change. Take the first step at www.whydoesitfeelsowrong.com.

    30 min

  3. May 28

    What It Actually Costs to Be Human at Work | Ellen Griley, Part 2

    Last week Ellen Griley gave us the framework. This week she gets personal. In this Between the Seasons episode of Why Does It Feel So Wrong to Be Human at Work?, Pinaki Kathiari and Chris Lee are joined again by Ellen Griley, founder of Equilibrious Communications and creator of Internal Calms, to dig deeper into what it actually looks like to be human at work when everything around you is already on edge. Ellen gets vulnerable — about the meeting where she cried advocating for thoughtful AI adoption, about the privilege that lets her show up that way, about learning to co-regulate in real time. Chris names the thing about corporate comms that nobody says out loud: the relentless pursuit of perfection is actually making everything less psychologically safe. And Pinaki closes with a story about sitting next to a professor who researches horrific things for a living and asking: how do you stay positive? The answer: we're just humans. We're just here. In this episode, they discuss: •       Why assuming employees open your email with 100% cognitive and emotional capacity is the root of most communication failures •       The New York Times tells you it's a daily paper — why doesn't your internal newsletter do the same? •       Ellen on being human at work when not everyone has the same permission to show up that way •       Code switching is exhausting — even for the best of us •       The power of awkward silence in a room that's about to derail •       How to give people agency when everything feels like a 'because I said so' world •       High school, kindergarten, and the corporate ecosystem — why they're all the same social experiment •       Pinaki on the base layer of relationships that has to exist before strategy can land •       Bree's advice: find one moment of joy each day. Just one. We're all just four-year-olds with tablets trying to figure it out. This one's the reminder you didn't know you needed. Check out Ellen's work:  https://www.equilibrious-comms.com/Read Shifting Ground: https://www.equilibrious-comms.com/sh...Connect with Ellen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/internal-calms/ ---Connect with Us Pinaki Kathiari – LinkedIn  | Local Wisdom Chris Lee – LinkedIn | Gallagher Communication Bree Bartos – LinkedIn | Local Wisdom Special thanks to digital communication agency Local Wisdom (www.localwisdom.com) for really believing in our mission and making this podcast possible.  If this episode made you think differently, laugh, or even yell out loud, we want to hear about it! Connect with us on LinkedIn, and don’t forget to rate, review, and share – maybe with your work bestie… or even your boss if you're feeling bold.   We also bring these important conversations to conferences and private workshops, creating space for real, meaningful change. Take the first step at www.whydoesitfeelsowrong.com.

    21 min

  4. May 21

    Your Employees Are Already Triggered Before They Open Their Laptops | Ellen Griley

    Your employees are arriving at work already on edge. Not because of anything you did. Because of everything else — the news, the economy, the climate, the layoffs, the AI uncertainty, the 6 a.m. email they checked before they even got out of bed. They walk in already in threat mode. And then you send an urgent Slack with an exclamation point. In this Between the Seasons episode of Why Does It Feel So Wrong to Be Human at Work?, Pinaki Kathiari and Chris Lee are joined by producer Bree Bartos and Ellen Griley, founder of Equilibrious Communications and creator of Internal Calms, for a conversation about mental health, polycrisis, and what it actually looks like to communicate with people who are carrying more than you know. Ellen just published Shifting Ground: Internal Communications in an Age of Polycrisis — her first research report under Equilibrious, released the morning this episode was recorded. And she brought the framework, the data, and a lot of hard-won wisdom from her own experience as both a communicator and a person. In this episode, they discuss: •       What polycrisis actually means — and why it's indistinguishable from the environment your employees walk into every day •       The amygdala, the prefrontal cortex, and why chronic stress works the same way trauma does on the brain •       Why the individual onus to "set better boundaries" isn't a solution — it's an abdication •       Ellen on how her own anxiety was showing up for her employees before she understood what was happening •       The schedule send as an act of respect •       Why work communication flows one way — into the home — but employees can't always bring what they're carrying back into the workplace •       The STEADY framework: Safety, Trust, Environment, Agency, Dialogue, and You •       What Ellen found when she surveyed 24 senior IC practitioners: 100% had managed through at least three crises in 18 months It's Mental Health Awareness Month. And this episode is a good place to start. Check out Ellen's Links: internal-calms.comRead Shifting GroundConnect with Ellen on LinkedIn---Connect with Us Pinaki Kathiari – LinkedIn  | Local Wisdom Chris Lee – LinkedIn | Gallagher Communication Bree Bartos – LinkedIn | Local Wisdom Special thanks to digital communication agency Local Wisdom (www.localwisdom.com) for really believing in our mission and making this podcast possible.  If this episode made you think differently, laugh, or even yell out loud, we want to hear about it! Connect with us on LinkedIn, and don’t forget to rate, review, and share – maybe with your work bestie… or even your boss if you're feeling bold.   We also bring these important conversations to conferences and private workshops, creating space for real, meaningful change. Take the first step at www.whydoesitfeelsowrong.com.

    30 min

  5. May 7

    Radical Acceptance Isn't About Giving Up | Dr. Matt Zakreski

    The Reddit post was titled: "Having a job and autistic ADHD burnout is killing me." And it read exactly like you'd expect — work is exhausting, home is falling apart, hobbies are gone, and a therapist suggested radically accepting the situation. Which OP heard as: just accept that this is your life forever. That's not what radical acceptance means. And that misunderstanding is exactly where this episode starts. In this Reacting to Reddit at Work episode of Why Does It Feel So Wrong to Be Human at Work?, hosts Pinaki Kathiari and Chris Lee are joined by producer Bree Bartos and Dr. Matt Zakreski, clinical psychologist and founder of the Neurodiversity Collective, for a conversation about burnout, the struggle switch, lizard brain versus wizard brain, and what it actually looks like for managers and organizations to show up for neurodivergent employees. Bree's sink falls apart during the episode. Pinaki references Nonviolent Communication. Dr. Matt describes the erectile dysfunction stages of grief. It goes places. In this episode, they discuss: •       What radical acceptance actually means — and why the therapy world's version got lost in translation •       The struggle switch: why it's not the emotion that gets you, it's the feeling about the feeling about the feeling •       Lizard brain vs. wizard brain, and what managers can do before a hard conversation to keep both parties in the right headspace •       Why the OP has been fired 20 times and what Pinaki thinks is actually going on •       What psychological safety has to do with body swaying, tattoos, and doing your job with full commitment •       Metacommunication: naming what you're doing so your employee's nervous system has a runway •       Pinaki's mental palate cleanser — the meeting opener that isn't 'how's your day?' •       What managers can actually do when they suspect someone on their team is neurodivergent •       Dr. Matt on the dance of relationships: when you need more, you get more — and how to stop keeping score If you've ever felt like the job was designed for someone else's brain — you're probably right. And this episode is for you. ---Connect with Us Pinaki Kathiari – LinkedIn  | Local Wisdom Chris Lee – LinkedIn | Gallagher Communication Bree Bartos – LinkedIn | Local Wisdom Special thanks to digital communication agency Local Wisdom (www.localwisdom.com) for really believing in our mission and making this podcast possible.  If this episode made you think differently, laugh, or even yell out loud, we want to hear about it! Connect with us on LinkedIn, and don’t forget to rate, review, and share – maybe with your work bestie… or even your boss if you're feeling bold.   We also bring these important conversations to conferences and private workshops, creating space for real, meaningful change. Take the first step at www.whydoesitfeelsowrong.com.

    40 min

  6. Apr 30

    Be Curious, Not Furious | Dr. Matt Zakreski

    One in five people are neurodivergent. Which means right now, roughly 20% of your organization's brains are working differently than the systems around them were designed for. And most of those people are just quietly struggling — wondering what's wrong with them — while the organization wonders what's wrong with them right back. In this Between the Seasons episode of Why Does It Feel So Wrong to Be Human at Work?, Pinaki Kathiari and Chris Lee sit down with Dr. Matt Zakreski, clinical psychologist at the Neurodiversity Collective and author of The Neurodiversity Playbook, for a conversation about what it actually looks like to build workplaces where different kinds of brains can do their best work. Dr. Matt brings the research, the analogies, and a lot of really good pizza metaphors. Bree admits she can't send emails without a dopamine boost. Chris shares his ADHD diagnosis. Pinaki wonders, out loud, if he's on a spectrum of something. And everyone agrees: the world was built by neurotypical people, and that's a problem worth fixing. In this episode, they discuss: •       What neurodivergence actually is — and why it is not a choice •       The pizza dinner party analogy: inclusion isn't about throwing away what works, it's about making sure there's something for everyone at the table •       Steve, the guy who holds the office together but isn't hitting his sales numbers — and what organizations get wrong about him •       Body doubling, expense report happy hour, and free solutions to executive functioning challenges •       Be curious, not furious: why asking why before assuming intent changes everything •       The difference between intention and impact, and why owning that gap matters •       What to do when someone is truly not a fit — and how to do the warmest possible handoff •       Dr. Matt's book, The Neurodiversity Playbook, and why he wrote it as a play-by-play guide, not a cover-to-cover read If you've ever felt like you were playing the game on hard mode without knowing why, this one's for you. Check out Dr. Matt and his work: LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4t4056aBuy his book, Neurodiversity Playbook: https://amzn.to/4n0sKrp The Neurodiversity Collective: https://bit.ly/4eS4vd1  https://www.drmattzakreski.com/---Connect with Us Pinaki Kathiari – LinkedIn  | Local Wisdom Chris Lee – LinkedIn | Gallagher Communication Bree Bartos – LinkedIn | Local Wisdom Special thanks to digital communication agency Local Wisdom (www.localwisdom.com) for really believing in our mission and making this podcast possible.  If this episode made you think differently, laugh, or even yell out loud, we want to hear about it! Connect with us on LinkedIn, and don’t forget to rate, review, and share – maybe with your work bestie… or even your boss if you're feeling bold.   We also bring these important conversations to conferences and private workshops, creating space for real, meaningful change. Take the first step at www.whydoesitfeelsowrong.com.

    39 min

  7. Apr 23

    My Job Is Depending on Me Too Much | Reddit at Work | Jen Samuel

    You're training new hires, flying out to meet clients, handling escalations, and you just finished a three-month certification on your own time. Your title hasn't changed. Your pay hasn't changed. And your manager keeps giving you vague answers about what growth even looks like. That's the Reddit post at the center of this Between the Seasons episode. And every single person at the table has lived a version of it. In this Reacting to Reddit at Work episode of Why Does It Feel So Wrong to Be Human at Work?, hosts Pinaki Kathiari and Chris Lee are joined by producer Bree Bartos and Senior Account Manager Jen Samuel, who's back for round two with another round of stories that hit uncomfortably close to home. The conversation covers scope creep, why managers avoid hard conversations, what it actually takes to advocate for yourself, rejection therapy, and the phantom laptop problem — the deeply relatable experience of going on vacation and not knowing what to do with your hands because you didn't bring your work computer for the first time in years. In this episode, they discuss: •       Why managers avoid giving straight answers about raises and career growth •       The difference between complaining about workload and making a direct business case for yourself •       Pinaki's advice: ask for the no — and why rejection therapy is actually a skill worth building •       Jen on writing talking points for herself like she'd write them for someone else •       Chris on Never Split the Difference and what FBI hostage negotiation tactics have to do with your next performance review •       Why organizations are always caught by surprise when great people leave — and who that's really on •       Bree applied to 200+ jobs after her layoff. Local Wisdom was the only company where a human reached out. •       Jen's phantom laptop problem, and the boss who told her to leave it at home If you've ever been asked to do more without being offered more in return, this one's going to feel very familiar. ---Connect with Us Pinaki Kathiari – LinkedIn  | Local Wisdom Chris Lee – LinkedIn | Gallagher Communication Bree Bartos – LinkedIn | Local Wisdom Special thanks to digital communication agency Local Wisdom (www.localwisdom.com) for really believing in our mission and making this podcast possible.  If this episode made you think differently, laugh, or even yell out loud, we want to hear about it! Connect with us on LinkedIn, and don’t forget to rate, review, and share – maybe with your work bestie… or even your boss if you're feeling bold.   We also bring these important conversations to conferences and private workshops, creating space for real, meaningful change. Take the first step at www.whydoesitfeelsowrong.com.

    34 min

  8. Apr 16

    A Team of One Is Not a Team | Jen Samuel

    What does it actually cost to be a team of one — not just in productivity, but in your mental health, your sense of self, and your ability to do the work you were hired to do? Jen Samuel knows that cost intimately. With over 20 years in internal communications — starting at a young, people-centric airline and spending most of that time as the only person in the room doing her job — she's lived through the burnout, the scope creep, the "be strategic but also update the website" contradiction, and the quiet weight of feeling like no one really understands what you do or what it takes. In this episode, Pinaki and Chris welcome Jen to Between the Seasons (and to the Local Wisdom team) for a conversation about what it's really like to work alone in a field that exists to connect everyone else. They talk about how being a team of one shapes your identity over time, why the busyness-as-virtue culture makes it so hard to step back, and what it means to finally land somewhere that lets you just be human. Bree joins in too — and her perspective as a fellow recent Local Wisdom addition brings the conversation home. In this episode, they discuss: What 20+ years as a team of one in internal comms actually looks likeHow burnout builds when there's no one to hand things off to — even at a funeralChris on The Tyranny of Work and the idea that busyness has become morally virtuousWhy internal comms teams of one are being asked to be strategic advisors and postmasters at the same time — and why that math doesn't workThe moment Jen realized other communicators felt exactly the same way (and the community that changed everything)Bree on what it felt like to go from isolation to a team that actually checks inWhat good looks like — at Local Wisdom, at Gallagher, and everywhere in betweenPinaki's call to action: if you're a team of one, find your people ---Connect with Us Pinaki Kathiari – LinkedIn  | Local Wisdom Chris Lee – LinkedIn | Gallagher Communication Bree Bartos – LinkedIn | Local Wisdom Special thanks to digital communication agency Local Wisdom (www.localwisdom.com) for really believing in our mission and making this podcast possible.  If this episode made you think differently, laugh, or even yell out loud, we want to hear about it! Connect with us on LinkedIn, and don’t forget to rate, review, and share – maybe with your work bestie… or even your boss if you're feeling bold.   We also bring these important conversations to conferences and private workshops, creating space for real, meaningful change. Take the first step at www.whydoesitfeelsowrong.com.

    28 min
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Pinaki Kathiari & Chris Lee challenge traditional best practices in the workplace

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