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

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

Work is where we spend most of our lives, yet it's where we often feel the least like ourselves. Why Does It Feel So Wrong to Be Human at Work? is a podcast hosted by Bree Bartos, Pinaki Kathiari, and Chris Lee that explores the messy, honest, and very real experiences of being human at work. From layoffs and burnout to identity, leadership, communication, and culture, we talk about the stuff most workplaces don't. No scripts. No spin. Just honest conversations.

  1. 3d ago

    I've Created a Problem (No, You Revealed One) | Reddit at Work

    A manager hires a young, inexperienced salesperson hoping to train him up just enough to help grow the team. It works. Too well. Now senior leadership feels threatened, the manager admits he can't stand the guy's energy, and the whole post reads like a confession that success became the actual problem. In this Reacting to Reddit at Work episode of Why Does It Feel So Wrong to Be Human at Work?, Pinaki Kathiari and Bree Bartos are joined by Bill Kuehler, co-founder of Resource Hero, and Sam Knight, fractional CMO at Resource Hero, to react to one of the more infuriating Reddit posts they've covered. Bree admits upfront: this one made her mad. Bill does something unexpected: he steel-mans the manager's argument, genuinely trying to find the most charitable read before calling it out. Sam draws a sharp parallel to AI adoption and the current wave of layoffs. And by the end, even the manager's own line, 'I don't hate him,' gets called out for what it actually sounds like. In this episode, they discuss:• A manager who built a whole program around growing talent, then turned on the employee who did exactly that• Steel-manning the worst argument you've heard: giving it the most charitable read before you tear it down• Why 'we've been trying to push him down and it's not working' is not a management strategy• The disruptor parallel: how this employee's reception mirrors how companies react to AI adoption• Whether the layoffs happening across the industry are really about efficiency, or about clearing out comfort• A possible ageism thread running underneath the whole post• Nice guy is not a profession, and neither is being liked instead of being good at the job• Why asking one simple question could have avoided this entire situation This one pairs well with our conversation with Dr. Matt Zakreski on being curious instead of furious. Listen to them together. ---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.

  2. Jul 16

    There's Always a Voice Telling You to Get Back to Work | Bill Kuehler

    Connect with Bill: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billkuehler/  He thought leaving corporate America for a startup would mean more balance. What he got instead was a bedroom that doubled as an office, a laptop always within arm's reach, and a voice in the back of his head telling him someone, somewhere, was noticing he wasn't working. In this Between the Seasons episode of Why Does It Feel So Wrong to Be Human at Work?, Pinaki Kathiari and Bree Bartos are joined by Bill Kuehler, co-founder and managing director of Resource Hero and recent Salesforce MVP and Golden Hoodie honoree, to talk about the real transition from corporate to entrepreneurship, the guilt that follows you when nobody's clocking you in or out, and the community he built almost by accident that now helps hundreds of people every week. Bill gets honest about the years it took to build real boundaries once his desk became his bedroom, the moment his wife talked him out of quitting a passion project that was only reaching one or two people a week, and how the same instinct that built a thriving volunteer community is now shaping how he's rolling AI tools out across his own team. In this episode, they discuss:• Why leaving corporate for a startup often makes work-life balance harder, not easier, at least at first• The nagging guilt of not knowing who 'they' are, but feeling like they're watching anyway• Building real breakpoints into a day nobody else is structuring for you• Are you helping those one or two people? Then it's worth it, the conversation that kept a community from folding• Going from 80% technical, 20% community to 60% community, 40% technical, and what that shift says about what people actually need• Rolling out AI tools across a small team without losing the human, creative parts of the work• Use AI to think with you, not for you• The joy of over-analyzing your own grocery receipts and workout data just because you can Plus: Bill's advice for anyone quietly wondering if their tiny side project is even worth continuing. ---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.

  3. Jul 9

    I Don't Want to Be Your Friend, I'm Trying to Do My Job | Lottie Bazley

    A manager gets promoted from peer to boss. He switches the team from weekly meetings to daily. He opens every single one by asking about hobbies, dinner, the dog. He texts stream-of-consciousness updates about his life throughout the day and gets annoyed when the emoji reactions aren't enthusiastic enough. Meanwhile he's micromanaging, taking out company stress on the team, and nobody's salary has moved. In this Reacting to Reddit at Work episode of Why Does It Feel So Wrong to Be Human at Work?, Pinaki Kathiari and Bree Bartos are joined again by Lottie Bazley, internal communications manager, to react to a Reddit post titled: how do I communicate to my micromanaging manager that I don't want to be friends? Lottie brings a story from early in her career about the exact dynamic at the center of this post, peers suddenly turned into managers, with zero training on how to navigate the shift. The three of them work through what actually changed the OP's situation (a comment revealing just how overworked they already are), why 'what was going through your mind' beats 'why did you do this' every time, and why finding the win-win beats putting a target on your own back. In this episode, they discuss:• Why promoting someone from peer to manager overnight breaks the relationship if nobody names it• The bandaid problem: responding slower or using emojis doesn't fix anything, it just trains the behavior around it• Confronting a dynamic early instead of letting resentment build in silence• The one-line reframe that changes every hard conversation: 'what was going through your mind' instead of 'why did you do this'• Leading with facts, not feelings, when you don't have the emotional capital to spend• Why 100% capacity actually means you're already overworked, there's no room for anything unplanned• The real fear underneath OP's silence: not wanting to become the difficult employee who gets cut first• Framing the ask as a win-win instead of a complaint This one pairs well with our episode on code-switching and emotional labor, also with Lottie. Listen to them together. Connect with Lottie! Visit her LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lottie-bazley-736633112/---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.

  4. Jul 2

    The Emotions You Show at Work vs. Your Real Ones | Lottie Bazley

    Connect with Lottie! Visit her LinkedIn. You've probably done it today already. Pretended to be confident in a meeting when you weren't. Acted thrilled about someone's idea you didn't love. Celebrated a promotion that stung a little. We don't just manage what we say at work. We manage what we're allowed to feel. In this Between the Seasons episode of Why Does It Feel So Wrong to Be Human at Work?, Pinaki Kathiari and producer Bree Bartos sit down with Lottie Bazley, internal communications manager and podcast host, to talk about code-switching, emotional labor, and the many versions of ourselves we carry between home and work, and between one work conversation and the next. Lottie shares what it's like to be both the behind-the-scenes internal comms voice and the out-loud podcast voice (the Kara and Supergirl of it all), how finding your podcast voice can help you find your real one, and why being an oversharer might just be the thing that makes your whole team feel safer. Plus a genuinely useful reframe on the emotional cost of always performing the 'right' feeling instead of the true one. In this episode, they discuss:• Code-switching: the different acceptable version of yourself for every person and every room• Emotional labor, and why we perform the expected emotion instead of the real one• How you can feel two true things at once, genuinely happy for someone and disappointed for yourself• Why finding your podcast voice can help you find your authentic one• Oversharing as a gift: how one honest person makes a whole team feel safe to be human• Telling your manager 'I'm not at 100% today' and the relief that follows• The other side of sharing, and being mindful of the weight you hand to other people• Reading the room: sometimes the kindest thing is not dumping the bad-news article• The mental palate cleanser and getting from 'crap' to 'okay' a little faster each time Because the more the human side works, the more the productive side flows. ---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.

  5. Jun 25

    The Catch-Up Episode | Conference Season Edition

    No guest, no Reddit story, no agenda. Just Pinaki, Chris, and Bree catching up after a packed stretch of conference season, and somehow landing on some of the most useful thinking they've shared all year. In this Between the Seasons episode of Why Does It Feel So Wrong to Be Human at Work?, the three of them recap a whirlwind week at IABC World Conference in Toronto, Comms Reboot, and a string of events that all pointed at the same lesson: people are done being talked at. The best sessions, the best workplaces, and the best events are the ones that make people want to show up, not the ones that make them. Pinaki recaps The Dance Floor Doesn't Lie, the talk where he and Monique Zitnik literally DJed live on stage to teach communicators about reading the room. Chris makes the case for abandoning 'best practices' and 'consumer-grade' experiences in favor of genuinely human ones. And Bree shares the airport story you have to hear to believe: 45 teenagers, one missed flight, zero parents. In this episode, they discuss:• The Dance Floor Doesn't Lie: what DJs and communicators have in common, and why playing for yourself empties the room• Why 'consumer-grade experience' is a depressingly low bar for how we treat employees• Abandoning best practices and best-in-class, being the fastest snail isn't the goal• Why mandating attendance never works, and how to make people want to show up instead• Messaging is what you say. Storytelling is how you say it to make people feel something.• The case for in-person: the true self comes out when people are together• Bree's airport story (45 teenagers, one flight, no parents)• Chris on 25 years of marriage and giving luck the credit it deserves ---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.

  6. Jun 18

    Is Walking Away From a Toxic Client Admitting Defeat? | Chuck Gose

    Someone posts on the consulting subreddit: they wake up every morning with a literal pit in their stomach knowing they have to deal with their client. Seven weeks in. Belittled, micromanaged, undermined, expectations that shift by the hour. The title of the post: Is Walking Away From a Toxic Client Admitting Defeat? In this Reacting to Reddit at Work 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 react to a difficult-client story that turns out to have a very telling update. Chuck immediately asks the question nobody in the thread is asking: what would the client be writing if they posted on Reddit? Because this is a relationship, and we're only hearing one side. Pinaki names the pit in the stomach for what it actually is. And Bree reveals a detail from a month later that confirms what Chuck suspected from the very first read. In this episode, they discuss:• The difference between a challenging client and an unreasonable, adversarial one• Why this is a relationship, and what the client would be posting on their own Reddit thread• The person versus the entity, and how pressure from above gets funneled down to you• Why the pit in your stomach isn't the start of burnout, it is burnout• Big C communication: the candid, in-person conversation you owe the relationship before you walk away• Whether walking away from a toxic client is actually defeat (it isn't)• Raising the flag early and never feeling alone in a consultancy• The question that cuts to the core: are we even the right fit for each other?• Why everyone wants to be the one who does the breakup, not the one broken up with Plus a Reddit update that tells you everything you need to know about how this one ended. This is a companion to last week's topic episode on difficult clients, also with Chuck Gose. Listen to them together for the full picture. And check out Chuck's podcast Frequency, co-hosted with Jenni Field, wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday. ---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.

  7. Jun 11

    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.

  8. 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.

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Work is where we spend most of our lives, yet it's where we often feel the least like ourselves. Why Does It Feel So Wrong to Be Human at Work? is a podcast hosted by Bree Bartos, Pinaki Kathiari, and Chris Lee that explores the messy, honest, and very real experiences of being human at work. From layoffs and burnout to identity, leadership, communication, and culture, we talk about the stuff most workplaces don't. No scripts. No spin. Just honest conversations.

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