Please Mute Your Trauma: Workplace Trauma & the Human Side of Work

Tiffany Collins
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Welcome to Please Mute Your Trauma, a podcast about workplace trauma, dignity at work, toxic workplace culture, and what happens when organizations forget that employees are human. Hosted by Tiffany Collins—a Navy veteran, HR professional, doctoral researcher, and recovering overthinker—this show explores the messy intersection of trauma, leadership, organizational culture, burnout, meaningful work, employee well-being, and the experiences people carry into the workplace. Through humor, research, personal storytelling, and real-life workplace experiences, Tiffany examines the issues many organizations would rather rebrand than confront: organizational betrayal, emotional suppression, unhealthy leadership, workplace identity, belonging, retaliation, trust, and the pressure to remain productive while quietly falling apart. Each episode asks difficult questions about the way people experience work: What happens when professionalism requires employees to become smaller? Why do people spend more energy surviving work than finding meaning in it? What does dignity look like when someone is struggling, questioning authority, setting a boundary, or making a mistake? And what would change if organizations stopped treating humanity as an inconvenience? This podcast is for employees who have survived unhealthy workplaces, leaders who want to create more human-centered organizations, HR professionals questioning traditional workplace practices, and anyone who has ever replayed a meeting, questioned their worth after a performance review, or received a pizza party instead of meaningful support. Because organizations do not have a people problem. They have a humanity problem. And work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected.

  1. 3d ago

    The HR Paradox: Who Does HR Turn to When They Need Help?

    What happens when one of the most influential organizations in human resources becomes an HR case study itself? In December 2025, a federal jury found the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) liable for race discrimination and retaliation, awarding former employee Rehab Mohamed $11.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. SHRM disputes the verdict, unsuccessfully sought a new trial at the district court level, and is now pursuing an appeal. Meanwhile, SHRM’s employment-practices insurer has filed a separate lawsuit involving coverage of the $10 million punitive-damages award. But this episode of Please Mute Your Trauma isn’t simply about a lawsuit. It’s about credibility, power, professional standards, employee voice, workplace dignity, and what happens when there is a gap between what an organization teaches and what people experience inside it. SHRM helps shape the HR profession. Its certifications appear in job descriptions, its resources influence workplace practices, and organizations look to it for guidance on everything from employee relations and investigations to discrimination and retaliation. So Tiffany asks the uncomfortable question: If we treat an institution as a standard for the profession, what does that institution have to do to keep deserving our trust? In this episode, Tiffany breaks down what happened in Mohamed v. Society for Human Resource Management, why the timing and handling of the employee’s complaints became so important, what the jury actually decided, what SHRM argues went wrong at trial, and where the case stands now. Then the conversation gets bigger. What does an HR certification actually certify? Why do employers require SHRM credentials in the first place? Should professional authority ever be accepted without scrutiny? Can an organization be technically compliant and still leave people feeling fundamentally undignified? And is employee voice really meaningful if speaking up makes the employee less safe? Because knowing the policy is not the same as living it. Having the certification is not the same as having the courage to challenge power. And certification can demonstrate knowledge. It cannot certify humanity. This episode explores: The SHRM discrimination and retaliation verdictThe $11.5 million jury award and SHRM’s ongoing appealWorkplace retaliation and employee voiceInternal investigations and organizational trustSHRM certification and professional credibilityThe difference between compliance and dignityInstitutional accountability and organizational legitimacyWhy workplace culture is measured by what happens when someone actually uses the policyWhat HR leaders and employers can learn from the case regardless of its ultimate appellate outcomeThis isn’t an argument to abandon SHRM, burn your certification, or assume one lawsuit defines an entire organization. It’s an invitation to question something much bigger: Who HRs HR? Who certifies the certifier? And who holds the standard accountable? Because work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected—and dignity requires more from us than knowing the right answer on the test. It requires us to live the answer, especially when nobody is grading us. Please Mute Your Trauma: Emotionally Unavailable During Working Hours Workplace trauma. Workplace dignity. Meaningful work. Organizational culture. Leadership. And the very human mess underneath all of it. We want to hear from you! Support the show If you have ever sat through a meeting wondering whether anyone was listening, received a pizza party instead of meaningful support, or been told to “bring your whole self to work” only to discover there were terms and conditions attached, you belong in this conversation. Please Mute Your Trauma explores workplace trauma, psychological safety, dignity at work, meaningful work, and employee well-being through humor, research, and honest workplace stories. Explore more episodes and resources at: PleaseMuteYourTrauma.com Have a workplace story, question, or random Wednesday thought? Leave Tiffany a message at: 888-629-5081 Because work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected.

  2. Aug 11

    Corporate Gaslighting at Work: The Starter Pack Nobody Asked For

    Ever leave a workplace meeting and immediately call your best friend just to confirm that you did, in fact, hear what you think you heard? Welcome to the Corporate Gaslighting Starter Pack. In this episode of Please Mute Your Trauma, Tiffany Collins takes on workplace gaslighting, broken promises, corporate buzzwords, psychological contracts, organizational justice, workplace trauma, and the strange systems that somehow keep underperformers protected while the person actually improving everything gets labeled “difficult.” With plenty of humor, Tiffany explores what happens when an organization says it values transparency, innovation, and employee voice—but employees learn that honesty can come with consequences. We also look at the leadership side of the equation, including a real example from Alan Mulally’s leadership at Ford and what happens when leaders make it safer to tell the truth instead of perform success. Because sometimes disengagement is not laziness. Sometimes resistance is memory. And sometimes cynicism is grief wearing business casual. If you have ever documented a conversation “just to confirm your understanding,” panicked over a calendar invite titled “Quick Sync,” or wondered why the person holding the entire department together was somehow the one who got cut, this episode is for you. Work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected. We want to hear from you! Support the show If you have ever sat through a meeting wondering whether anyone was listening, received a pizza party instead of meaningful support, or been told to “bring your whole self to work” only to discover there were terms and conditions attached, you belong in this conversation. Please Mute Your Trauma explores workplace trauma, psychological safety, dignity at work, meaningful work, and employee well-being through humor, research, and honest workplace stories. Explore more episodes and resources at: PleaseMuteYourTrauma.com Have a workplace story, question, or random Wednesday thought? Leave Tiffany a message at: 888-629-5081 Because work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected.

  3. Aug 4

    Workplace Betrayal: Broken Promises and the Moving Carrot

    Broken promises at work do more than disappoint us. They create burnout, erode trust, and can turn hope into a management strategy. In this episode, Tiffany Collins examines “the moving carrot”: the promotion, staffing support, job security, recognition, or relief that always seems almost within reach. Drawing from her experience accepting a 50 percent pay cut during COVID while managing three children’s remote schooling, attending graduate school, experiencing a significant medical emergency, and ultimately being laid off, Tiffany explores what employees can lose while trying to prove their loyalty. She also examines how chronic understaffing turns competence into evidence that a broken system is supposedly working, why appreciation is not the same as reciprocity, and how repeatedly moving the finish line can lead to burnout, disengagement, and workplace betrayal. SHOW NOTES How many times can an organization tell an employee to “just hang in there” before hope stops being motivation and starts becoming a management strategy? The moving carrot is the thing employees are encouraged to keep sacrificing for: The promotion that is supposedly coming. The additional employee who will be hired after the next budget. The workload that will calm down after one more project. The recognition that never becomes compensation, authority, or meaningful support. The promise that loyalty will eventually be returned. The carrot remains close enough to keep the employee moving, but every time they approach it, the conditions change. In this episode of Please Mute Your Trauma, Tiffany shares the deeply personal cost of chasing that promise. During COVID, while working at an architecture firm experiencing significant financial losses, Tiffany agreed to a 50 percent reduction in pay. As a single mother facing an unprecedented economic crisis, she believed that helping the firm survive until its PPP funding arrived would help protect her employment. At the same time, she was supporting three children enrolled in different schools through remote learning, completing graduate school, and continuing to perform her job at an unsustainable pace. Then she experienced a significant medical emergency and needed FMLA leave. Approximately one month after returning, she was laid off. The loss was not only the job or the money. It was the time, energy, health, and presence she had sacrificed while believing she was protecting her family. Her children received less of her while she was trying to prove her value to an organization that ultimately could not protect her. Tiffany also explores another familiar workplace carrot: the promise of additional staffing. When leaders repeatedly acknowledge that the workload is unreasonable but continue postponing help until the next budget, quarter, or planning cycle, the employee’s ability to keep everything functioning can become the organization’s justification for doing nothing. The staffing model did not work. The employee worked. There is a difference. IN THIS EPISODE Tiffany explores: • What separates ordinary disappointment from workplace betrayal • How broken workplace promises damage trust • Why employees continue sacrificing for uncertain rewards • The unwritten psychological contract between employees and organizations • How job insecurity can be used to extract additional labor • The personal cost of chronic understaffing and overwork • Why exceptional effort becomes the new minimum expectation • How organizations transfer operating costs onto employees and their families • Why burned-out employees may become guarded, quieter, or disengaged • How leaders can distinguish honest possibilities from promises they cannot guarantee • What genuine reciprocity looks like at work • How to recognize when the finish line is continually moving FIVE THINGS TO TAKE WITH YOU 1. Name the carrot Identify exactly what you believe you are working toward. Is it a promotion, additional staffing, recognition, job security, compensation, flexibility, or relief? Once you name the carrot, you can ask whether it is real, approved, measurable, and genuinely within reach. 2. Calculate the complete cost Do not measure the sacrifice only in hours or money. Consider what it is costing your health, family, sleep, attention, emotional capacity, and ability to be present outside of work. The cost does not disappear simply because it is absent from the organization’s budget. Someone is still paying it. 3. Stop confusing appreciation with reciprocity “We could not do this without you” may sound like praise, but it can also reveal a dangerously fragile system. Appreciation says thank you. Reciprocity changes something tangible: staffing, compensation, workload, authority, resources, or expectations. 4. Pay attention when the conditions change Plans and budgets legitimately change. But when every fulfilled requirement produces a new requirement, every timeline becomes another conversation, and every sacrifice is expected to continue indefinitely, the employee may no longer be moving through a development process. They may be participating in an endurance test without a finish line. 5. Trust evidence more than reassurance “Hang in there” is not a plan. “We are working on it” is not a timeline. “Your time is coming” is not a decision. Employees are allowed to ask what has been approved, who has decision-making authority, what the criteria are, and what will happen if nothing changes. Clarity is not disloyalty. We want to hear from you! Support the show If you have ever sat through a meeting wondering whether anyone was listening, received a pizza party instead of meaningful support, or been told to “bring your whole self to work” only to discover there were terms and conditions attached, you belong in this conversation. Please Mute Your Trauma explores workplace trauma, psychological safety, dignity at work, meaningful work, and employee well-being through humor, research, and honest workplace stories. Explore more episodes and resources at: PleaseMuteYourTrauma.com Have a workplace story, question, or random Wednesday thought? Leave Tiffany a message at: 888-629-5081 Because work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected.

  4. Jul 28

    Why do toxic workplaces protect difficult people while expecting everyone else to adapt around them?

    Why do toxic workplaces protect difficult people while expecting everyone else to adapt around them? In this episode of Please Mute Your Trauma, Tiffany Collins explores the familiar workplace phrase, “That’s just how they are,” and how it allows toxic leadership, harmful behavior, intimidation, and disrespect to become normalized within organizational culture. Every workplace seems to have someone employees are quietly warned about. Meetings are scheduled around their moods. Coworkers carefully manage their language. Teams learn when it is safe to ask questions, disagree, or speak up. Yet instead of holding the person accountable, leaders often excuse the behavior because the employee is experienced, powerful, well-connected, or considered too valuable to lose. Using workplace stories, research-informed insight, and humor, Tiffany examines the hidden cost of protecting difficult leaders and high performers. She discusses how employees become unofficial emotional support humans, how harmful behavior gets renamed as a “strong communication style,” and why organizations often focus on an employee’s resilience rather than addressing the conditions causing the harm. This episode explores toxic workplace culture, employee dignity, psychological safety, workplace trauma, leadership accountability, organizational betrayal, retaliation, burnout, power dynamics, and the emotional labor required to survive an unpredictable work environment. You will also hear why: “That’s just how they are” is a decision, not an explanationHigh performance should not provide immunity from accountabilityEmployees should not be responsible for managing a leader’s emotionsTrauma may explain behavior without excusing its impactWorkplace culture is defined by what leaders tolerate, reward, and protectRepair requires more than asking employees to simply move forwardA healthy workplace is not one without conflict. It is one where people can make mistakes, receive honest feedback, repair harm, and change without requiring others to sacrifice their dignity. Because when an organization repeatedly protects one person’s behavior, that behavior no longer belongs to only one person. It becomes part of the culture. Have a workplace story you want to share? Call 888-629-5081 and leave Tiffany a voicemail. Work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected. We want to hear from you! Support the show If you have ever sat through a meeting wondering whether anyone was listening, received a pizza party instead of meaningful support, or been told to “bring your whole self to work” only to discover there were terms and conditions attached, you belong in this conversation. Please Mute Your Trauma explores workplace trauma, psychological safety, dignity at work, meaningful work, and employee well-being through humor, research, and honest workplace stories. Explore more episodes and resources at: PleaseMuteYourTrauma.com Have a workplace story, question, or random Wednesday thought? Leave Tiffany a message at: 888-629-5081 Because work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected.

  5. Jul 21

    Your Body Knows Before You Do: When Work Doesn’t Feel Safe

    Your Body Knows Before You Do: When Work Doesn’t Feel Safe What happens when seeing your leader’s name in an email makes your palms sweat, your heart race, and your entire body prepare for something bad to happen? In this episode of Please Mute Your Trauma, Tiffany Collins explores how the body detects danger at work—and how repeated workplace experiences shape our ability to trust, speak honestly, make mistakes, and feel safe enough to fully engage. Through humor, workplace research, and a deeply personal story, Tiffany reflects on working for a leader who initially appeared friendly, supportive, and invested in her success. Over time, the relationship changed. Communication became less direct. Coworkers seemed to be gathering information. Deadlines became increasingly unreasonable. Assignments began to feel like opportunities to fail rather than opportunities to succeed. Before Tiffany could fully explain what was happening, her body was already responding. Every chat message caused her palms to sweat. Every email made her heart race. Every meeting invitation sent her into preparation mode—reviewing documentation, rehearsing explanations, and entering conversations ready to defend herself instead of collaborate. This episode examines why those reactions are not always signs that someone is too sensitive, overly emotional, or incapable of handling pressure. Sometimes the nervous system is responding to a pattern the mind has been trying to rationalize. Tiffany also explores the other side of the experience: how the body begins to recognize safety. Safety is not created through mission statements, leadership slogans, wellness webinars, or promises to put people first. It is built through repeated evidence—clear communication, consistent expectations, respected boundaries, honest feedback, meaningful repair, and accountability that does not require humiliation. In This Episode How workplace trauma and toxic leadership affect the nervous systemWhy certain emails, meetings, and leaders trigger physical stress responsesHow unpredictable leadership creates hypervigilance at workWhy employees begin documenting, rehearsing, and overexplainingThe difference between high expectations and creating opportunities to failHow chronic workplace stress affects focus, memory, and decision-makingWhy productivity and compliance are not proof that an employee feels safeHow workplace trust is built through patterns rather than promisesWhat dignity-centered accountability looks likeWhy safety can feel suspicious after working in an unhealthy environmentHow the body slowly learns that it no longer has to prepare for impactThis conversation is for anyone who has felt their stomach drop after receiving a meeting invitation, rehearsed a simple workplace question, documented every interaction for protection, or realized that they were spending more energy monitoring their environment than doing their work. Your body does not read the company values statement. It reads patterns. And sometimes it recognizes an unsafe workplace before your mind is ready to admit it. Reflection Question Where do you notice yourself becoming guarded, overly prepared, or physically tense? And what has that person or environment repeatedly taught your body to expect? If you have ever sat through a meeting wondering whether anyone was listening, received a pizza party instead of meaningful support, or been told to “bring your whole self to work” only to discover there were terms and conditions attached, you belong in this conversation. Please Mute Your Trauma explores workplace trauma, toxic workplace culture, dignity at work, meaningful work, leadership, burnout, and employee well-being through humor, research, and honest workplace stories. Explore more episodes and resources at: PleaseMuteYourTrauma.com Have a workplace story, question, or random Wednesday thought? Leave Tiffany a message at: 888-629-5081 Because work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected. We want to hear from you! Support the show If you have ever sat through a meeting wondering whether anyone was listening, received a pizza party instead of meaningful support, or been told to “bring your whole self to work” only to discover there were terms and conditions attached, you belong in this conversation. Please Mute Your Trauma explores workplace trauma, psychological safety, dignity at work, meaningful work, and employee well-being through humor, research, and honest workplace stories. Explore more episodes and resources at: PleaseMuteYourTrauma.com Have a workplace story, question, or random Wednesday thought? Leave Tiffany a message at: 888-629-5081 Because work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected.

  6. Jul 14

    Psychological Safety at Work: Are You Safe or Just in Survival?

    You can look safe and not be safe. You can look calm and be bracing. You can look professional and be disappearing. In this episode of Please Mute Your Trauma, Tiffany Collins continues the conversation from Episode 4 on professionalism and asks the next question: if professionalism taught us how to disappear, how do we know where it is safe to reappear? This episode explores the difference between performing professionalism and experiencing real psychological safety at work. Because a workplace can look safe. A team can sound safe. A leader can talk about safety. There can be plants, snacks, an open-door policy, a wellness committee, a meditation app, and yes — muffins. But muffins are not metrics. Tiffany breaks down why looking professional is not the same as being protected, why “nice” is not the same as safe, and why psychological safety is not just a corporate buzzword. Drawing from Amy Edmondson’s foundational research on psychological safety, this episode explains why true safety is about whether people can take interpersonal risks: asking questions, admitting mistakes, naming concerns, setting boundaries, and telling the truth without being punished later. This episode also explores dignity at work, using Randy Hodson’s work to frame dignity as more than politeness or approval. Dignity means your humanity remains intact while something hard is happening. You can receive feedback with dignity. You can be corrected with dignity. You can be held accountable with dignity. The question is not always, “Did I feel good?” The question is, “Was I still treated as fully human?” If you have ever sat in the chair where you were told to be professional, held your face still, made your voice even, nodded when something inside you knew the situation was not okay, this episode is for you. In This EpisodeTiffany explores: Why professionalism can become a performance of safetyThe difference between looking calm and actually being safeWhy psychological safety at work is not the same as everyone being niceHow “we’re like family here” and “we have an open-door policy” can hide unsafe patternsWhy familiar dysfunction can feel like safetyHow employees learn to disappear politelyWhy dignity at work means being treated as fully human, even during conflictHow leaders can confuse compliance with safetyWhy “muffins are not metrics”What it means to ask: “But is it safe?”Key TakeawaysProfessionalism is not always about respect. Sometimes it is about containment. Psychological safety is not whether the room feels pleasant. It is whether the room can handle truth. A workplace can be nice and still be unsafe. Familiar is not the same as safe. Sometimes you are not safe — you are just fluent in the dysfunction. Dignity means your humanity remains intact while something hard is happening. If your humanity has to disappear for the system to function, that is not safety. That is compliance with better lighting. We want to hear from you! Support the show If you have ever sat through a meeting wondering whether anyone was listening, received a pizza party instead of meaningful support, or been told to “bring your whole self to work” only to discover there were terms and conditions attached, you belong in this conversation. Please Mute Your Trauma explores workplace trauma, psychological safety, dignity at work, meaningful work, and employee well-being through humor, research, and honest workplace stories. Explore more episodes and resources at: PleaseMuteYourTrauma.com Have a workplace story, question, or random Wednesday thought? Leave Tiffany a message at: 888-629-5081 Because work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected.

  7. Jul 7

    Workplace Professionalism: Who Taught Us These Rules?

    Who Told You That Was Professional? The Hidden Rules of Workplace Culture What does workplace professionalism actually mean—and who taught us the rules? In this episode of Please Mute Your Trauma, Tiffany Collins examines the unspoken rules of professionalism at work: where they come from, how employees learn them, and why many of those rules are less about respect or competence and more about compliance, emotional suppression, and survival. From “leave your emotions at the door” and “be a team player” to “watch your tone,” workplace culture constantly teaches employees what will be rewarded, what will be punished, and which parts of themselves they must edit to appear credible, committed, professional, or worthy of leadership. But professionalism is not always neutral. At its best, professionalism can mean accountability, preparation, respect, ethical behavior, and care for others. At its worst, it becomes a tool for protecting power, silencing discomfort, discouraging honest feedback, and labeling employees as difficult when they challenge an unhealthy system. This episode explores why the same behavior can be interpreted differently depending on who holds power. Asking questions may be praised as initiative in one employee and criticized as insubordination in another. Direct communication may be viewed as confidence from one person and an attitude problem from someone else. When professionalism is applied inconsistently, employees learn that success is not only about doing good work. It is also about correctly reading the room, managing other people’s reactions, and knowing when it is safer to remain silent. In This Episode What professionalism at work is supposed to meanHow employees learn the unwritten rules of workplace cultureWhy professionalism can become a form of emotional suppressionHow “watch your tone” can be used to avoid addressing the actual messageThe difference between accountability and controlWhy psychological safety requires people to question authorityHow power influences who is viewed as confident, credible, or difficultThe connection between workplace professionalism and employee dignityWhat healthier, more human-centered professionalism could look likeThis conversation is for employees who have ever felt pressured to become smaller in order to be taken seriously, leaders who want to examine the standards they reinforce, and anyone who has wondered why authenticity is encouraged until it becomes inconvenient. Because maybe professionalism was never the lesson. Maybe survival was. Reflection Question Which workplace rule have you followed without ever asking who created it, whom it protects, or whether it helps people do better work? If you have ever sat through a meeting wondering whether anyone was listening, received a pizza party instead of meaningful support, or been told to “bring your whole self to work” only to discover there were terms and conditions attached, you belong in this conversation. Please Mute Your Trauma explores workplace trauma, psychological safety, dignity at work, meaningful work, and employee well-being through humor, research, and honest workplace stories. Explore more episodes and resources at: PleaseMuteYourTrauma.com Have a workplace story, question, or random Wednesday thought? Leave Tiffany a message at: 888-629-5081 Because work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected. We want to hear from you! Support the show If you have ever sat through a meeting wondering whether anyone was listening, received a pizza party instead of meaningful support, or been told to “bring your whole self to work” only to discover there were terms and conditions attached, you belong in this conversation. Please Mute Your Trauma explores workplace trauma, psychological safety, dignity at work, meaningful work, and employee well-being through humor, research, and honest workplace stories. Explore more episodes and resources at: PleaseMuteYourTrauma.com Have a workplace story, question, or random Wednesday thought? Leave Tiffany a message at: 888-629-5081 Because work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected.

  8. Jul 1

    Yes, Workplace Trauma Counts: Stop Dismissing What Happens at Work

    Workplace Trauma Counts: When Work Leaves a Lasting Mark How many times have you minimized your own experience? “It wasn’t that bad.” “Other people have been through worse.” “I should be over it by now.” “It doesn’t really count.” In this episode of Please Mute Your Trauma, Tiffany Collins explores why so many people instinctively dismiss the experiences that have shaped them—and why workplace trauma is not always defined by the size or drama of a single event. Sometimes what stays with us is not only what happened. It is what the experience taught our nervous system to expect. Through personal stories from the military, human resources, leadership, and her own life, Tiffany examines how seemingly small interactions can create lasting lessons about safety, authority, trust, belonging, and self-worth. From a question involving a service dog to finding herself hiding from an unpredictable leader years later, Tiffany reflects on how past experiences can continue shaping the way we think, communicate, lead, connect, and respond at work. This is not an episode about remaining trapped in the past. It is about recognizing the invisible lessons we may still be carrying—and asking whether those lessons are still true. In This Episode Why people minimize their own trauma and workplace experiencesWhat workplace trauma can look like beyond a single catastrophic eventHow the nervous system learns from repeated experiencesWhy certain leaders, conversations, or workplace situations trigger strong reactionsHow past experiences shape trust, communication, and psychological safetyThe connection between trauma, dignity, leadership, and employee well-beingWhy understanding a response is different from allowing it to control youHow to begin questioning the lessons an unsafe environment taught youThis episode is for anyone who has questioned their own reactions, felt themselves becoming smaller around certain people, or wondered why a workplace experience stayed with them long after the moment ended. Your experience does not have to look dramatic from the outside to leave a lasting mark. And the goal is not simply to decide whether it “counts.” The more useful question may be: What did it teach you—and is that lesson still protecting you now? Reflection Question What experience have you minimized because someone else appeared to have it worse? And what did that experience teach you about yourself, other people, or what you should expect at work? If you have ever sat through a meeting wondering whether anyone was listening, received a pizza party instead of meaningful support, or been told to “bring your whole self to work” only to discover there were terms and conditions attached, you belong in this conversation. Please Mute Your Trauma explores workplace trauma, psychological safety, dignity at work, meaningful work, and employee well-being through humor, research, and honest workplace stories. Explore more episodes and resources at: PleaseMuteYourTrauma.com Have a workplace story, question, or random Wednesday thought? Leave Tiffany a message at: 888-629-5081 Because work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected. We want to hear from you! Support the show If you have ever sat through a meeting wondering whether anyone was listening, received a pizza party instead of meaningful support, or been told to “bring your whole self to work” only to discover there were terms and conditions attached, you belong in this conversation. Please Mute Your Trauma explores workplace trauma, psychological safety, dignity at work, meaningful work, and employee well-being through humor, research, and honest workplace stories. Explore more episodes and resources at: PleaseMuteYourTrauma.com Have a workplace story, question, or random Wednesday thought? Leave Tiffany a message at: 888-629-5081 Because work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected.

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Welcome to Please Mute Your Trauma, a podcast about workplace trauma, dignity at work, toxic workplace culture, and what happens when organizations forget that employees are human. Hosted by Tiffany Collins—a Navy veteran, HR professional, doctoral researcher, and recovering overthinker—this show explores the messy intersection of trauma, leadership, organizational culture, burnout, meaningful work, employee well-being, and the experiences people carry into the workplace. Through humor, research, personal storytelling, and real-life workplace experiences, Tiffany examines the issues many organizations would rather rebrand than confront: organizational betrayal, emotional suppression, unhealthy leadership, workplace identity, belonging, retaliation, trust, and the pressure to remain productive while quietly falling apart. Each episode asks difficult questions about the way people experience work: What happens when professionalism requires employees to become smaller? Why do people spend more energy surviving work than finding meaning in it? What does dignity look like when someone is struggling, questioning authority, setting a boundary, or making a mistake? And what would change if organizations stopped treating humanity as an inconvenience? This podcast is for employees who have survived unhealthy workplaces, leaders who want to create more human-centered organizations, HR professionals questioning traditional workplace practices, and anyone who has ever replayed a meeting, questioned their worth after a performance review, or received a pizza party instead of meaningful support. Because organizations do not have a people problem. They have a humanity problem. And work becomes meaningful when dignity is protected.

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