October 20, 2025 • 26 mins
We trade two true stories about toxic leadership: a public shutdown that delayed a release and a “smile less” mandate that drained talent. We break down what went wrong, how healthy leaders respond, and simple habits that turn conflict into momentum.
• crunch-time bug and a proposed shim to hold the date
• public rejection of cross-team work and power signaling
• costs of social debt versus technical debt
• curiosity-led review of risk and alternatives
• how to coach tone without policing personality
• talent loss, brand damage and culture decay
• leaders make the weather and set norms
• practical tools for safe shortcuts and dissent
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Yeah, you are.
You're recording, Craig.
Get to it.
Do your job.
He already is.
You're so bad at everything youdo.
SPEAKER_01 (00:07):
Just do your job.
He's great.
What are you talking about?
You're being a terrible boss.
You're gonna demotivate him.
You're gonna make him look for ajob elsewhere that pays a
salary.
Don't defend the slacker.
I need you to get to work.
The the s the slacker, withoutwithout little Cregerson,
nothing we do would ever getrecorded in any way, shape, or
(00:29):
form.
I would do a lot more work.
SPEAKER_00 (00:31):
That's for dang sure.
I'm not asking for excuses.
I'm asking you to get Craig inline.
This is just toxic the wayyou're being right now.
SPEAKER_01 (00:41):
Just toxic.
Welcome back to Toxic Strategy.
It it we knew it could have beenan email.
F that.
We don't care.
We made it a podcast.
SPEAKER_00 (00:52):
Screw you.
I'm Bruce.
And I'm Clark.
And you better listen to this onnormal speed or slower.
I want you to really ingest whatwe're saying.
Ingest it.
Listen to it slow.
Take it in.
SPEAKER_01 (01:06):
Take it right in.
You know, you're micromanagingthe listener.
You're being mean to Craig.
You're just being a real toxicperson right now.
Is there a reason why you'rebeing so toxic, Clark?
SPEAKER_00 (01:21):
This is a nice lead-in.
Thank you, Bruce.
It's such a cringy lead.
It's a great lead-in to ourtopic today.
Your toxicity is out of control.
It is bringing back toxicity inthe city.
SPEAKER_02 (01:38):
Why do they always reasonable levels?
SPEAKER_00 (01:40):
Why do they always send the poor?
You know what I'm saying?
Toxicity.
Why do they always send the sendthe poor aerials?
SPEAKER_01 (01:49):
Is it the same song?
SPEAKER_00 (01:50):
No, it's all three different songs.
Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_01 (01:53):
I was gonna say I don't think those are the same
song.
I'm glad I asked.
I'm glad I asked.
BYOB, you know what I'm saying?
BYOB, such a good song.
But yeah, leads to the B-Y O B LO L L M F A O, even B Y O B.
SPEAKER_00 (02:06):
Yeah.
unknown (02:06):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (02:07):
What better, what better to lead into our top
today of toxicity than to leadin with the Armenian suffering
put into song by a metal band?
SOAD LMF.
Yes.
It's hitting you.
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (02:22):
Maybe different at the end there, but close.
Close.
I'm I'm picking up what you'replacing down, you toxic son of a
gun.
SPEAKER_00 (02:30):
So we thought, since we're limited on time this week,
let's talk about toxicity.
Maybe a little story time of areally toxic situation that
we've been around, because youguys will probably enjoy that.
But it will allow us tocommiserate more importantly
together on the toxicity.
And hopefully at the end, we canshare a good outcome from that
(02:52):
toxicity that eventually wascorrected or fixed, or maybe
you're still doomed and thetoxicity actually made it much
worse in your corporateenvironment and you happen to
hate it all.
But fingers crossed, there's ahappy ending.
Because I don't know what storyyou're gonna tell, and you don't
know what story I'm gonna tell.
Yes, correct.
Correct.
So it's gonna be fun.
Well, who should start?
SPEAKER_01 (03:12):
Uh to quote the uh system of a down.
You're toxic, I'm slippingunder.
You should start.
Is that actually a lyric?
SPEAKER_02 (03:23):
It's not from a system of a down song.
SPEAKER_01 (03:27):
I think is that Katy Perry?
I don't know who that is.
That is the the real goat,Brittany.
SPEAKER_00 (03:34):
Oh, Brittany.
I was I was getting there.
Would have gotten there.
SPEAKER_01 (03:38):
You're close.
I mean, not really.
Katy Perry's terrible andBritney's great, but you know.
SPEAKER_00 (03:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right, well, kick us off.
Tell us your toxic story.
I'm gonna take you back.
And I'm not gonna incriminatemyself.
I'm not going to give a lot ofspecificity.
Not that any of our listenersknow anything about me except
for a core few, but I want youto get into my setting here,
okay?
I want you to get into mysetting.
All right.
So quit quit telling me what todo with my life.
Uh you listen to me and you shutyour yap when I'm talking.
(04:12):
All right.
So tall.
So tall.
All right.
It was a sunny Wednesdayafternoon.
It was in the summer.
And you know, project deadlineswere all over the place.
Projects were late, issues werearising.
We were getting closer andcloser to launch.
(04:33):
You know the feel.
You've been there.
You know how it goes in thesecrush times.
You've got a launch plan for thenext week, and an issue comes
up, and you're like, oh shoot,this could derail our whole
release.
So what do you do?
You start trying to getcreative.
You start, you really go throughlike kind of stages of grief and
(04:53):
rationalizing things.
You're like, eh, it's not thatbad.
It can't be that bad, right?
So you like deny it, you denyit, you rationalize it, you say,
okay, how bad would it really beif we launch with this issue?
Is it going to cause a majordisruption to the company, to
our customer base?
It can't be that bad, right?
So those are all things as theproduct manager that are going
(05:14):
through my head.
And naturally, I also start tothink about, since I have an
engineering background, what ifthere's a way to solve this
problem?
Like, what if we could do like ashort little, I know it's not
the permanent solution, butlet's do a shim.
Let's figure out how to getthis, get this out next week,
maybe hard code a value.
I said it.
Hard code a value in, and justwe'll fast follow up, we'll fix
(05:35):
it after, but it'll be fine.
It'll be fine.
We'll hard code the value.
Make a comment.
Exactly.
So I start solutioning thesethings with my my engineering
teams.
I say, okay, you know, let's geta couple really smart folks
together.
Let's start planning out whatcould be happening.
I reach out to a few folks.
It's very last minute.
So like everybody's calendar,they just have to start shifting
(05:55):
things.
The engineering leader isn'table to make the meeting.
So I said, okay, well, sincethis is so high priority, I'll
just meet with this team andwe'll talk things out.
Like we'll meet with thisperson's team, we'll work things
out together and just come upwith some possible solutions.
So I get into the the meeting.
I have a person from my team, acouple people from their team.
We come up with a solution.
(06:15):
We're like, okay, this is ugly.
No one likes this, but the riskis low and we think it's gonna
keep everything on track.
Okay, great.
Awesome.
Sounds good.
Let's do a little more research,let's verify some of our
assumptions, let's just makesure that this is actually gonna
be okay, and then we'll bring itto a team meeting this afternoon
just to make sure the wholeentire group is on board.
(06:36):
So we do that work, step intothe next meeting in the
afternoon.
I think everything's gonna befine.
I'm like, the team was there, wetalked about it, we verify the
assumptions, everything's good.
So we get in this meeting, andthe engineering leader walks in,
and they start listening to ouroptions.
And immediately they go, No,we're not doing that.
(06:56):
I don't need product managementtelling me how to do things in
engineering.
This is how it started.
In front of like 30 people,their team, my team, and I'm
just sitting there, like, inthose moments, you you know how
it gets.
You start getting a littleheated, you feel the sides of
your head burning.
SPEAKER_02 (07:14):
Adrenaline starts to go.
SPEAKER_00 (07:15):
And then because you're you're just like
breathing heavy, you're like,I'm about to fight.
Like, this is gonna be a fight.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, it's so jarring when thatnever happens for it to happen
in a meeting.
And you've been there, I've beenthere many times.
But as a leader, like you haveto set an example for your team.
So, like, okay, let's stay calmand collected for a minute.
(07:37):
So I try to compose myself andI'm like, okay, well, your team
was involved in this.
Like, do you mind if we justlike hear out what their input
is?
Of course, that's their leader.
They say, uh, you know, I thinkthis could be a viable option.
I I think I think we could dothis, but at this point, they're
like, This is my leader.
Like, if I say something thatthey're against, this puts me in
(07:57):
a real hard position.
And so, of course, yeah, toxic.
Exactly.
It tastes bad, it's soiled, it'stoxic.
Nobody wants to touch thepickle.
SPEAKER_01 (08:07):
Soiled pickle, yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:10):
So they get very hesitant.
I'm like, oh no, no, please,like, talk about what we talked
about.
Like, we're gonna hard code thevalue, it's gonna be ugly, but
it's okay because we're gonna doa fast fall release, we're gonna
fix it.
And they're like, we're notdoing that.
Like, I don't need you tellingme how to do this.
Like, my team was barelyinvolved.
I'm like, okay, hold on asecond.
Your team was involved.
Mind of raising hands, andsheepishly, I get like a raise
(08:31):
of hands.
Yeah, I was there, and they'relike, he didn't ask them, or
were you okay with this?
He just looks back at me and hegoes, I'm not okay with this,
and you can't tell engineeringwhat to do.
I get to guide this team on whatto do next.
And I'm like, Okay.
Take a deep breath.
I can feel the gray hair growingon the side of my head and the
anger, the bubbling angerhappening because I'm like, we
(08:53):
need this release to go livenext week.
And so I'm like, okay, let's tryto lead a horse to water here.
Say, okay, fine.
If you don't want to do it thatway, come up with a solution of
how we keep everything on trackfor next week, and I'm happy to
support however I can.
And that's kind of where we leftit.
It's like, okay, he's gonna gooff, they're gonna work the
(09:15):
team, they're gonna figure thisout without product management,
and they're gonna figure out howto keep this release on track.
And did they?
Yeah.
No, no, we met the next day, andthey're like, that's not what
we're doing.
We have to do a whole fix.
We've got to push the release bytwo weeks.
And I'm like, but we have a butwe we found a solution.
We tested it, we verified thatthe assumptions.
It works.
(09:35):
We're gonna be just fine.
Like, really?
We have to delay two weeksbecause of this?
And yeah, that's where we leftit.
We ended up doing that becausethat is not my jurisdiction to
make a call there.
But it did have implications,unfortunately.
SPEAKER_01 (09:49):
I'm I'm trying to put myself in their shoes.
And you know I hate productmanagement, so like pretty easy
for me.
I just I hate those people somuch.
They're the worst.
They're always, you know,butting their heads in, getting
involved in things theyshouldn't be, telling people
what to do that that, you know,not your job, stay in your lane,
right?
But in this case, putting myselfin their shoes, if I get called
(10:12):
into a meeting and someone'slike, Bruce, hey, FYI, uh, on
your paper that you wrote, youhave this written.
That's not entirely true.
I would suggest you change it tothis.
Like that would be a real, hey,you know, thanks for telling me
that.
So I don't look bad andembarrass myself.
(10:35):
Is there anything I could do inthe future to catch this before
it happens?
But like, thank you.
I you know, I appreciate this.
Uh, you know, is it a meproblem?
Like, how how did this br likeget to a root cause, be
thankful, you know?
Yeah, not their job.
They're how they're you know,they're helping me.
And I wouldn't that in in in anycase, and I mean I get it
marketing's a little bitdifferent than like development,
(10:57):
but in any case, if someone wastrying to stop me from looking
bad by giving me a quick fix forsomething, I'd take it.
I take it every time.
I I don't care what lane you'recoming from, stay out of, get
out of your lane, help me out,right?
If it's gonna stop me from if meor my team or my department from
looking bad, please by all meanstake me aside and tell me.
(11:20):
Or tell me in the room.
I don't care.
If it's like, hey, real quick,just caught this.
Like, let's talk about this.
Like, that's fine.
I don't think that reaction waswarranted.
Um, I do, I understand thereaction because, like I said,
product management sucks.
Those people are the worst.
And like, I just when I'm in theroom with them, my stomach
starts gurgling a little bitbecause I just want to punch
(11:42):
them.
Just want to punch them, justget punchy, punchy with PMs.
But in this case, completelyunreasonable response.
Now, if you had just showed upand you're like, hey, here's the
roadmap, then I think you hadevery reason to raise fists and
come after you.
But uh, you were just trying tohelp, you know?
SPEAKER_00 (11:56):
So you just did the best you could.
You you answered it the rightway.
It's like the first thing youdid was put yourself in like the
other person's shoe.
Okay, they're they're comingfrom a place of trying to help.
unknown (12:09):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (12:09):
Like that that's the first thing you did, isn't it?
Literally trying to help youwere thinking.
Yeah.
And like, even though this isnot their jurisdiction, this is
not their lane, I appreciatethem attempting.
But you, as the owner, and Iplayed this scenario many, many
times in my head at this point,so I can I can kind of
retroactively look at it andthink about it.
It's like come from a place ofcuriosity that, okay, show me
(12:33):
the issue.
Like, I want to know more.
Okay, show me the solve.
Okay, that's interesting.
And like then, you're respectingthe other person's effort and
the people in the room, you'reshowing a good culture of being
like, we appreciate when peopletry to help.
We then vet the ideas together,and then we understand, like,
from an engineering'sperspective, it's like, what
(12:54):
level of risk, what level oftechnical debt is this
introducing that I may have tobe on calls to support?
And like then, like if we didall that, and then at the end he
was like, Listen, I love thecreativity.
It was great.
Like, I love that you guys cameup with something, but this
imposes a couple levels of risk.
You know, here's risk one, risktwo, risk three.
(13:15):
I can't have my team supportingon a weekend if this risk
happens.
And we need to go through theright solution.
I know it's two weeks, but thiswill ensure that we don't accept
that type of risk and will keepme and my team protected.
And like that would have been, Iwould have been like, okay,
yeah, absolutely.
Like, you're the expert.
You know, I appreciate that youtried, you understood, and then
(13:36):
you gave me a reasonableexplanation as to what went on
here.
And like that was very good.
And I under I I learnedsomething, which is even better.
SPEAKER_01 (13:46):
I recently published uh a paper, and I had uh a sales
engineer reach out to me andsay, Hey, Bruce, you got a
mistake on your paper.
This should be this, and thatshould be that.
I'm like, oh.
Maybe you're right.
Like, I didn't catch that.
I you know, I usually get myinformation from this team.
(14:06):
Let me go double check withthem.
Thank you.
So I go and double check, and itturns out, no, I was right.
It's just a little bitconfusing.
Um, a decision that was made.
It it would make sense if it wasthe other way, and it would also
make sense if it was this way,right?
So, like, you can kind of see itworking either way, but I think
people would logically expect itto be the opposite of what it
(14:27):
was.
So I told him, I was like, hey,thank you for reaching out.
It turns out this is correct,but I really appreciate your
attention to detail and reachingout to me to make sure that, you
know, if there was an incidentlike this, we could catch it and
turn around real quick.
So don't feel bad.
This is just one of those weirdum kind of one-offs where it's a
little bit backwards from how itshould be, but really great eye,
(14:50):
right?
And like I did that because one,I did appreciate them reaching
out and trying to help me.
It caught me off guard, right?
I was like, oh yeah, that doesmake sense.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Let me go investigate and findout.
And turns out I was right, whichis totally fine.
But like my response was not,please stay in your lane.
Uh, I know what I'm doing.
You don't need to do my job forme.
No, it was like, I do makemistakes, these things do
(15:13):
happen.
Thank you.
Uh, please reach out in thefuture if you find anything like
this again.
I think it's always worth usdoing a double click and
investigating.
Like, it took me five minutes,right?
Like, big deal.
Um, just an example of, youknow, I'm not Jesus, but at the
same time, uh, I would never dowhat that individual did.
Uh just wild.
Wow, what a wild reaction.
SPEAKER_00 (15:33):
Yeah, and like immediately pointing fingers,
like these are all the thingsthat you gotta watch out for in
a toxic culture.
Immediately pointing fingers,making it an us versus them
conversation, shutting down theidea at all instead of
acknowledging that peoplethought about this.
They work together, come up witha solution, respect what they're
putting together, but then ownyour domain and understand it
(15:55):
and tell them why that's not theapproach and give a reasonable
response.
Help everyone, like you said.
You help that person learn, butyou encourage the behavior
because the behavior is right.
They care, they obviously wantto put passion into it, and just
immediately sh shutting someonedown will basically turn them
off from ever doing that again.
They're like, I'm not gonna beproactive again.
(16:15):
Why would I be proactive?
SPEAKER_01 (16:16):
I'll give you I'll give you one more thing and one
more reason to not do this.
Um, do you know where thatperson is now?
SPEAKER_02 (16:24):
I don't.
I do.
I know where they are.
Where are they, Bruce?
No wonder with the company.
Ask me the question.
I know where they are.
They're dead.
Oh.
Died a cringe.
Died a just hardcore cringe.
(16:48):
Got him.
SPEAKER_01 (16:49):
Don't do that.
Don't do that.
Yeah, don't be that person.
Don't be that person.
So, you know, in the interest ofmaking this a quickie, mine,
mine's pretty short anyway.
I don't have the the illustriousdetails you have for yours.
Uh, you I've talked about thisbefore, but I figured I'd I'd
give it more color and given aresult of an outcome more
important than the incidentitself.
So obviously I'm a little bit ofa character.
(17:09):
Uh, at Big Corp, I would getcalled in.
Just a little bit of acharacter, a little bit of a
guy.
Just a little bit.
I would get called in to helppresent at events and do sales
kickoffs and things like thatbecause of my gestures about
wildly-ishness, right?
So they wanted some personality,they wanted a little bit of the
(17:30):
the weird and wacky that Brucebrings.
So I would do sales kickoffs andthings like that.
Well, when Big Corp, rest inpeace, no longer exists, got
their their new chief marketingofficer, um, she was just a
menace to everybody andeverything at all times.
I I think I think I think shecame in with an idea of what
(17:52):
could be done to make marketingbetter without ever considering
what actually worked well in theculture.
And every single thing she triedto do ended up backfiring in
some way against her, right?
Like it's like, oh, you youruined everything you touch
because you refuse to spend anytime actually learning about the
(18:12):
people, the processes, thetechnology.
And all of this really came to ahead when I was doing uh a sales
kickoff.
I I've talked about this before,but like here now you have all
the detail.
She literally reached out to myboss and told my boss, hey, you
need to talk to Bruce.
He's always smiling on calls, onpresentations.
(18:36):
It looks like he's verydisingenuous.
And it looks like, you know,he's he's just joking around not
being serious here.
And I like when my my boss, he'slike, I don't want to tell you
this.
He's like, I don't want to tellyou this, but I have to because
I've been asked to by my boss togive you this feedback.
And he's like, I don't even knowwhat you can do with this
information because your smileis the reason you get invited to
(18:58):
do these kind of things.
But like she doesn't like thatyou're smiling on on camera at
all.
And I have to tell you that.
And I I truly can't imagine amore toxic thing to tell an
employee than please smile less.
Uh it it's it's funny because Idon't want to make this about
(19:23):
politics or gender politics oranything like that, but like,
you know, it's a it is a is awell-known misogynistic phrase
when men tell women, oh, comeon, honey, smile.
Right?
Like, yeah, you know, it's it'sthat's a no-no, you never say
that.
That is a very old school,inappropriate thing to say.
But for her to say that to myboss to tell me, not even be
(19:45):
able to tell me myself, but forher to tell my boss tell me, I'm
just like, what the heck ishappening here?
Like, this this bucks every normand trend and thing that I've
ever known.
It's like, if you're happy andyou look happy, people are more
interested in what you have tosay, and they're, you know, you
just come across as easier totalk to.
Now, what this caused, and itnot just this, but that incident
(20:09):
in particular really made mestart looking for a new job.
And eventually I did, I didleave that company and that
company died.
Rest in peace, big corp.
But it it it's it was what amassive catalyst event for me.
So many other people, includingprevious guests on this pod,
left that department because ofthat individual.
That's how toxic they were.
(20:30):
And all the talent got drained.
Uh, the the department was neverthe same after me and many
others left.
It never recovered.
The company did die.
I don't, I'm not gonna say, oh,it's because she was in
marketing that died.
I think there were lots ofreasons that it happened.
But she certainly escalated thedeath of that company and
catalyzed it by losing someonelike me.
And that just goes to show youhow toxic behavior in general
(20:54):
can actually hurt a company at abusiness level.
So, you know, you know, you'rein your instance, it was
specifically a release.
You took longer to get it out.
You know, you might have lostgoodwill with customers who were
expecting it early.
In my case, it ended up causingpeople to leave, talented people
to leave the company to seekemployment at competitors and
(21:16):
elsewhere.
And I think the long or theshort of it is it's just like if
you're gonna be toxic, don'tjust it's a really bad idea.
Yeah, think about what you'regonna say to someone before you
say it.
And if it has any whiff oftoxicity, you can you can not
only damage the relationship,but you're gonna end up damaging
the culture.
It is 100%.
(21:36):
I I love the word, right?
Because like if something istoxic and it gets in the water,
right?
Now the body of water is toxic.
It's not just that littlesegment, it spreads, right?
So it like it's such a good wordfrom you know, just a linguistic
perspective to define how bad itis for an organization and
(21:58):
culture.
A hundred percent.
SPEAKER_00 (22:00):
Yeah, somebody I I either read the somewhere or
heard this somewhere, but likeleaders make the weather.
Yeah, and so if you set theweather if it's toxic rain, if
it's toxic rain, that willinseminate down into everyone on
the team and people will startacting that same way, which is
so unfortunate.
Because to your point, that'show you build a failing culture,
(22:24):
you lose the good, talentedpeople, and usually those
companies don't succeed withthat level of leadership, which
is so unfortunate.
Like the only thing I could sayfor that situation, it'd be like
if you during one of thesepresentations, in a really
serious moment, like you weretalking about something and you
were just smiling and you'relike, Man, that Holocaust,
(22:45):
right, guys?
Like, like if you were to dosomething like that, I could see
them coming to you and beinglike, Hey, during this topic,
it's a serious topic.
Like, I need you to kind of showthe sincerity, you know, in your
mannerisms and the way thatyou're talking about the
subject, because I think thatwill be better received by our
customers and viewers of thiscontent.
(23:06):
But in your case, it's just likeyou're just talking about the
product, and she's justbasically said, you're not being
serious enough.
unknown (23:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:13):
And that's like that doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_01 (23:15):
It really came down to like, you know, we we've
talked about this, we've hadcapitalist course Bonnet Al
Shrep on the pod before, youknow, he was part of this
department, he experienced this.
Like, this individual wasthreatened by us, which is such
a weird thing.
Like, to be threatened by peoplelike two levels lower than you
because you're not willing totake the time to get to know
(23:35):
people and like get to know theculture and the product and the
company.
Like, it just that is not aleader.
That does not make a leader.
You know what it makes?
SPEAKER_00 (23:44):
What does it make?
SPEAKER_01 (23:45):
Toxic rain.
Some stay dry and others feelthe pain.
Toxic rain.
SPEAKER_00 (23:52):
I don't know how we turned this into a great like
musical synergy that's happeningwith the words we have and the
topic of the day, but I love it.
We should do this more often.
Toxic rain.
We should close them out andsay, Arials in the sky.
SPEAKER_01 (24:11):
No, not that one.
No, you don't like that.
I'm I'm I'm immediatelyuncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00 (24:17):
I'm scared.
SPEAKER_01 (24:18):
That was funny.
I'm as a colleague.
SPEAKER_00 (24:20):
Yeah, it was a fun topic.
It's always good to rememberwhere we came from and to remind
people if you get into aterrible situation, everyone's
been there, everyone's felt howyou're feeling in the moment.
And it is your duty, if you wantto create a good culture, to do
something about it.
To let them know this is notokay behavior.
SPEAKER_01 (24:42):
Yes.
And I would love uh for ourlisteners, if you're not in the
Discord, get in there, go to thelink tree, join the Discord.
Um, we have a channel called IsIt Me or Is It Corporate?
And you can go into that channeland type forward slash confess,
and your whatever you type willbe anonymized.
Not even the admins of theserver know what is said.
It's it's that good at likeremoving any trace of data.
(25:03):
If you have a toxic story you'dlike for us to share on the pod,
go in there and leave it.
Toxic Tuesdays, you know, likeforget tacos.
Let's get let's get toxicTuesdays up in here.
Uh, go leave your toxicworkplace environment story in
the hashtag is it me or is acorporate.
You don't have to do the forwardslash confess.
If you would want to leave it inthere, if you're comfortable.
I don't know who you are, youDiscord user, do it.
(25:24):
Uh, but you have we have thatway to anonymize the data if
you'd like.
I would love for y'all to sharethat in there.
Other than that, you can you canuse that link tree to uh go to
our website, get a baby onesie,uh, support the show with buy us
a coffee.
This is a completely self-fundeduh endeavor, except for the ads,
which suck, but they're therebecause I want to make a little
(25:46):
bit of money.
I'm losing so much, might aswell make a quarter, pay 20,
make 25 cents back.
Uh, and that I think that wrapsit up for another episode of the
show.
It's a it's a shorty, but it's agoodie.
We appreciate your listenership.
Please share the pod witheveryone you know.
Leave us a nice review if youcan, and until next time, stay
toxic.
(26:06):
I'm Bruce.
SPEAKER_02 (26:08):
And I'm Clark.
What do they always send theboard?
I don't think you trust.
Yeah, you are.
You're recording, Craig.
Get to it.
Do your job.
He already is.
You're so bad at everything youdo.
SPEAKER_01 (00:07):
Just do your job.
He's great.
What are you talking about?
You're being a terrible boss.
You're gonna demotivate him.
You're gonna make him look for ajob elsewhere that pays a
salary.
Don't defend the slacker.
I need you to get to work.
The the s the slacker, withoutwithout little Cregerson,
nothing we do would ever getrecorded in any way, shape, or
(00:29):
form.
I would do a lot more work.
SPEAKER_00 (00:31):
That's for dang sure.
I'm not asking for excuses.
I'm asking you to get Craig inline.
This is just toxic the wayyou're being right now.
SPEAKER_01 (00:41):
Just toxic.
Welcome back to Toxic Strategy.
It it we knew it could have beenan email.
F that.
We don't care.
We made it a podcast.
SPEAKER_00 (00:52):
Screw you.
I'm Bruce.
And I'm Clark.
And you better listen to this onnormal speed or slower.
I want you to really ingest whatwe're saying.
Ingest it.
Listen to it slow.
Take it in.
SPEAKER_01 (01:06):
Take it right in.
You know, you're micromanagingthe listener.
You're being mean to Craig.
You're just being a real toxicperson right now.
Is there a reason why you'rebeing so toxic, Clark?
SPEAKER_00 (01:21):
This is a nice lead-in.
Thank you, Bruce.
It's such a cringy lead.
It's a great lead-in to ourtopic today.
Your toxicity is out of control.
It is bringing back toxicity inthe city.
SPEAKER_02 (01:38):
Why do they always reasonable levels?
SPEAKER_00 (01:40):
Why do they always send the poor?
You know what I'm saying?
Toxicity.
Why do they always send the sendthe poor aerials?
SPEAKER_01 (01:49):
Is it the same song?
SPEAKER_00 (01:50):
No, it's all three different songs.
Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_01 (01:53):
I was gonna say I don't think those are the same
song.
I'm glad I asked.
I'm glad I asked.
BYOB, you know what I'm saying?
BYOB, such a good song.
But yeah, leads to the B-Y O B LO L L M F A O, even B Y O B.
SPEAKER_00 (02:06):
Yeah.
unknown (02:06):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (02:07):
What better, what better to lead into our top
today of toxicity than to leadin with the Armenian suffering
put into song by a metal band?
SOAD LMF.
Yes.
It's hitting you.
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (02:22):
Maybe different at the end there, but close.
Close.
I'm I'm picking up what you'replacing down, you toxic son of a
gun.
SPEAKER_00 (02:30):
So we thought, since we're limited on time this week,
let's talk about toxicity.
Maybe a little story time of areally toxic situation that
we've been around, because youguys will probably enjoy that.
But it will allow us tocommiserate more importantly
together on the toxicity.
And hopefully at the end, we canshare a good outcome from that
(02:52):
toxicity that eventually wascorrected or fixed, or maybe
you're still doomed and thetoxicity actually made it much
worse in your corporateenvironment and you happen to
hate it all.
But fingers crossed, there's ahappy ending.
Because I don't know what storyyou're gonna tell, and you don't
know what story I'm gonna tell.
Yes, correct.
Correct.
So it's gonna be fun.
Well, who should start?
SPEAKER_01 (03:12):
Uh to quote the uh system of a down.
You're toxic, I'm slippingunder.
You should start.
Is that actually a lyric?
SPEAKER_02 (03:23):
It's not from a system of a down song.
SPEAKER_01 (03:27):
I think is that Katy Perry?
I don't know who that is.
That is the the real goat,Brittany.
SPEAKER_00 (03:34):
Oh, Brittany.
I was I was getting there.
Would have gotten there.
SPEAKER_01 (03:38):
You're close.
I mean, not really.
Katy Perry's terrible andBritney's great, but you know.
SPEAKER_00 (03:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right, well, kick us off.
Tell us your toxic story.
I'm gonna take you back.
And I'm not gonna incriminatemyself.
I'm not going to give a lot ofspecificity.
Not that any of our listenersknow anything about me except
for a core few, but I want youto get into my setting here,
okay?
I want you to get into mysetting.
All right.
So quit quit telling me what todo with my life.
Uh you listen to me and you shutyour yap when I'm talking.
(04:12):
All right.
So tall.
So tall.
All right.
It was a sunny Wednesdayafternoon.
It was in the summer.
And you know, project deadlineswere all over the place.
Projects were late, issues werearising.
We were getting closer andcloser to launch.
(04:33):
You know the feel.
You've been there.
You know how it goes in thesecrush times.
You've got a launch plan for thenext week, and an issue comes
up, and you're like, oh shoot,this could derail our whole
release.
So what do you do?
You start trying to getcreative.
You start, you really go throughlike kind of stages of grief and
(04:53):
rationalizing things.
You're like, eh, it's not thatbad.
It can't be that bad, right?
So you like deny it, you denyit, you rationalize it, you say,
okay, how bad would it really beif we launch with this issue?
Is it going to cause a majordisruption to the company, to
our customer base?
It can't be that bad, right?
So those are all things as theproduct manager that are going
(05:14):
through my head.
And naturally, I also start tothink about, since I have an
engineering background, what ifthere's a way to solve this
problem?
Like, what if we could do like ashort little, I know it's not
the permanent solution, butlet's do a shim.
Let's figure out how to getthis, get this out next week,
maybe hard code a value.
I said it.
Hard code a value in, and justwe'll fast follow up, we'll fix
(05:35):
it after, but it'll be fine.
It'll be fine.
We'll hard code the value.
Make a comment.
Exactly.
So I start solutioning thesethings with my my engineering
teams.
I say, okay, you know, let's geta couple really smart folks
together.
Let's start planning out whatcould be happening.
I reach out to a few folks.
It's very last minute.
So like everybody's calendar,they just have to start shifting
(05:55):
things.
The engineering leader isn'table to make the meeting.
So I said, okay, well, sincethis is so high priority, I'll
just meet with this team andwe'll talk things out.
Like we'll meet with thisperson's team, we'll work things
out together and just come upwith some possible solutions.
So I get into the the meeting.
I have a person from my team, acouple people from their team.
We come up with a solution.
(06:15):
We're like, okay, this is ugly.
No one likes this, but the riskis low and we think it's gonna
keep everything on track.
Okay, great.
Awesome.
Sounds good.
Let's do a little more research,let's verify some of our
assumptions, let's just makesure that this is actually gonna
be okay, and then we'll bring itto a team meeting this afternoon
just to make sure the wholeentire group is on board.
(06:36):
So we do that work, step intothe next meeting in the
afternoon.
I think everything's gonna befine.
I'm like, the team was there, wetalked about it, we verify the
assumptions, everything's good.
So we get in this meeting, andthe engineering leader walks in,
and they start listening to ouroptions.
And immediately they go, No,we're not doing that.
(06:56):
I don't need product managementtelling me how to do things in
engineering.
This is how it started.
In front of like 30 people,their team, my team, and I'm
just sitting there, like, inthose moments, you you know how
it gets.
You start getting a littleheated, you feel the sides of
your head burning.
SPEAKER_02 (07:14):
Adrenaline starts to go.
SPEAKER_00 (07:15):
And then because you're you're just like
breathing heavy, you're like,I'm about to fight.
Like, this is gonna be a fight.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, it's so jarring when thatnever happens for it to happen
in a meeting.
And you've been there, I've beenthere many times.
But as a leader, like you haveto set an example for your team.
So, like, okay, let's stay calmand collected for a minute.
(07:37):
So I try to compose myself andI'm like, okay, well, your team
was involved in this.
Like, do you mind if we justlike hear out what their input
is?
Of course, that's their leader.
They say, uh, you know, I thinkthis could be a viable option.
I I think I think we could dothis, but at this point, they're
like, This is my leader.
Like, if I say something thatthey're against, this puts me in
(07:57):
a real hard position.
And so, of course, yeah, toxic.
Exactly.
It tastes bad, it's soiled, it'stoxic.
Nobody wants to touch thepickle.
SPEAKER_01 (08:07):
Soiled pickle, yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:10):
So they get very hesitant.
I'm like, oh no, no, please,like, talk about what we talked
about.
Like, we're gonna hard code thevalue, it's gonna be ugly, but
it's okay because we're gonna doa fast fall release, we're gonna
fix it.
And they're like, we're notdoing that.
Like, I don't need you tellingme how to do this.
Like, my team was barelyinvolved.
I'm like, okay, hold on asecond.
Your team was involved.
Mind of raising hands, andsheepishly, I get like a raise
(08:31):
of hands.
Yeah, I was there, and they'relike, he didn't ask them, or
were you okay with this?
He just looks back at me and hegoes, I'm not okay with this,
and you can't tell engineeringwhat to do.
I get to guide this team on whatto do next.
And I'm like, Okay.
Take a deep breath.
I can feel the gray hair growingon the side of my head and the
anger, the bubbling angerhappening because I'm like, we
(08:53):
need this release to go livenext week.
And so I'm like, okay, let's tryto lead a horse to water here.
Say, okay, fine.
If you don't want to do it thatway, come up with a solution of
how we keep everything on trackfor next week, and I'm happy to
support however I can.
And that's kind of where we leftit.
It's like, okay, he's gonna gooff, they're gonna work the
(09:15):
team, they're gonna figure thisout without product management,
and they're gonna figure out howto keep this release on track.
And did they?
Yeah.
No, no, we met the next day, andthey're like, that's not what
we're doing.
We have to do a whole fix.
We've got to push the release bytwo weeks.
And I'm like, but we have a butwe we found a solution.
We tested it, we verified thatthe assumptions.
It works.
(09:35):
We're gonna be just fine.
Like, really?
We have to delay two weeksbecause of this?
And yeah, that's where we leftit.
We ended up doing that becausethat is not my jurisdiction to
make a call there.
But it did have implications,unfortunately.
SPEAKER_01 (09:49):
I'm I'm trying to put myself in their shoes.
And you know I hate productmanagement, so like pretty easy
for me.
I just I hate those people somuch.
They're the worst.
They're always, you know,butting their heads in, getting
involved in things theyshouldn't be, telling people
what to do that that, you know,not your job, stay in your lane,
right?
But in this case, putting myselfin their shoes, if I get called
(10:12):
into a meeting and someone'slike, Bruce, hey, FYI, uh, on
your paper that you wrote, youhave this written.
That's not entirely true.
I would suggest you change it tothis.
Like that would be a real, hey,you know, thanks for telling me
that.
So I don't look bad andembarrass myself.
(10:35):
Is there anything I could do inthe future to catch this before
it happens?
But like, thank you.
I you know, I appreciate this.
Uh, you know, is it a meproblem?
Like, how how did this br likeget to a root cause, be
thankful, you know?
Yeah, not their job.
They're how they're you know,they're helping me.
And I wouldn't that in in in anycase, and I mean I get it
marketing's a little bitdifferent than like development,
(10:57):
but in any case, if someone wastrying to stop me from looking
bad by giving me a quick fix forsomething, I'd take it.
I take it every time.
I I don't care what lane you'recoming from, stay out of, get
out of your lane, help me out,right?
If it's gonna stop me from if meor my team or my department from
looking bad, please by all meanstake me aside and tell me.
(11:20):
Or tell me in the room.
I don't care.
If it's like, hey, real quick,just caught this.
Like, let's talk about this.
Like, that's fine.
I don't think that reaction waswarranted.
Um, I do, I understand thereaction because, like I said,
product management sucks.
Those people are the worst.
And like, I just when I'm in theroom with them, my stomach
starts gurgling a little bitbecause I just want to punch
(11:42):
them.
Just want to punch them, justget punchy, punchy with PMs.
But in this case, completelyunreasonable response.
Now, if you had just showed upand you're like, hey, here's the
roadmap, then I think you hadevery reason to raise fists and
come after you.
But uh, you were just trying tohelp, you know?
SPEAKER_00 (11:56):
So you just did the best you could.
You you answered it the rightway.
It's like the first thing youdid was put yourself in like the
other person's shoe.
Okay, they're they're comingfrom a place of trying to help.
unknown (12:09):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (12:09):
Like that that's the first thing you did, isn't it?
Literally trying to help youwere thinking.
Yeah.
And like, even though this isnot their jurisdiction, this is
not their lane, I appreciatethem attempting.
But you, as the owner, and Iplayed this scenario many, many
times in my head at this point,so I can I can kind of
retroactively look at it andthink about it.
It's like come from a place ofcuriosity that, okay, show me
(12:33):
the issue.
Like, I want to know more.
Okay, show me the solve.
Okay, that's interesting.
And like then, you're respectingthe other person's effort and
the people in the room, you'reshowing a good culture of being
like, we appreciate when peopletry to help.
We then vet the ideas together,and then we understand, like,
from an engineering'sperspective, it's like, what
(12:54):
level of risk, what level oftechnical debt is this
introducing that I may have tobe on calls to support?
And like then, like if we didall that, and then at the end he
was like, Listen, I love thecreativity.
It was great.
Like, I love that you guys cameup with something, but this
imposes a couple levels of risk.
You know, here's risk one, risktwo, risk three.
(13:15):
I can't have my team supportingon a weekend if this risk
happens.
And we need to go through theright solution.
I know it's two weeks, but thiswill ensure that we don't accept
that type of risk and will keepme and my team protected.
And like that would have been, Iwould have been like, okay,
yeah, absolutely.
Like, you're the expert.
You know, I appreciate that youtried, you understood, and then
(13:36):
you gave me a reasonableexplanation as to what went on
here.
And like that was very good.
And I under I I learnedsomething, which is even better.
SPEAKER_01 (13:46):
I recently published uh a paper, and I had uh a sales
engineer reach out to me andsay, Hey, Bruce, you got a
mistake on your paper.
This should be this, and thatshould be that.
I'm like, oh.
Maybe you're right.
Like, I didn't catch that.
I you know, I usually get myinformation from this team.
(14:06):
Let me go double check withthem.
Thank you.
So I go and double check, and itturns out, no, I was right.
It's just a little bitconfusing.
Um, a decision that was made.
It it would make sense if it wasthe other way, and it would also
make sense if it was this way,right?
So, like, you can kind of see itworking either way, but I think
people would logically expect itto be the opposite of what it
(14:27):
was.
So I told him, I was like, hey,thank you for reaching out.
It turns out this is correct,but I really appreciate your
attention to detail and reachingout to me to make sure that, you
know, if there was an incidentlike this, we could catch it and
turn around real quick.
So don't feel bad.
This is just one of those weirdum kind of one-offs where it's a
little bit backwards from how itshould be, but really great eye,
(14:50):
right?
And like I did that because one,I did appreciate them reaching
out and trying to help me.
It caught me off guard, right?
I was like, oh yeah, that doesmake sense.
Maybe I'm wrong.
Let me go investigate and findout.
And turns out I was right, whichis totally fine.
But like my response was not,please stay in your lane.
Uh, I know what I'm doing.
You don't need to do my job forme.
No, it was like, I do makemistakes, these things do
(15:13):
happen.
Thank you.
Uh, please reach out in thefuture if you find anything like
this again.
I think it's always worth usdoing a double click and
investigating.
Like, it took me five minutes,right?
Like, big deal.
Um, just an example of, youknow, I'm not Jesus, but at the
same time, uh, I would never dowhat that individual did.
Uh just wild.
Wow, what a wild reaction.
SPEAKER_00 (15:33):
Yeah, and like immediately pointing fingers,
like these are all the thingsthat you gotta watch out for in
a toxic culture.
Immediately pointing fingers,making it an us versus them
conversation, shutting down theidea at all instead of
acknowledging that peoplethought about this.
They work together, come up witha solution, respect what they're
putting together, but then ownyour domain and understand it
(15:55):
and tell them why that's not theapproach and give a reasonable
response.
Help everyone, like you said.
You help that person learn, butyou encourage the behavior
because the behavior is right.
They care, they obviously wantto put passion into it, and just
immediately sh shutting someonedown will basically turn them
off from ever doing that again.
They're like, I'm not gonna beproactive again.
(16:15):
Why would I be proactive?
SPEAKER_01 (16:16):
I'll give you I'll give you one more thing and one
more reason to not do this.
Um, do you know where thatperson is now?
SPEAKER_02 (16:24):
I don't.
I do.
I know where they are.
Where are they, Bruce?
No wonder with the company.
Ask me the question.
I know where they are.
They're dead.
Oh.
Died a cringe.
Died a just hardcore cringe.
(16:48):
Got him.
SPEAKER_01 (16:49):
Don't do that.
Don't do that.
Yeah, don't be that person.
Don't be that person.
So, you know, in the interest ofmaking this a quickie, mine,
mine's pretty short anyway.
I don't have the the illustriousdetails you have for yours.
Uh, you I've talked about thisbefore, but I figured I'd I'd
give it more color and given aresult of an outcome more
important than the incidentitself.
So obviously I'm a little bit ofa character.
(17:09):
Uh, at Big Corp, I would getcalled in.
Just a little bit of acharacter, a little bit of a
guy.
Just a little bit.
I would get called in to helppresent at events and do sales
kickoffs and things like thatbecause of my gestures about
wildly-ishness, right?
So they wanted some personality,they wanted a little bit of the
(17:30):
the weird and wacky that Brucebrings.
So I would do sales kickoffs andthings like that.
Well, when Big Corp, rest inpeace, no longer exists, got
their their new chief marketingofficer, um, she was just a
menace to everybody andeverything at all times.
I I think I think I think shecame in with an idea of what
(17:52):
could be done to make marketingbetter without ever considering
what actually worked well in theculture.
And every single thing she triedto do ended up backfiring in
some way against her, right?
Like it's like, oh, you youruined everything you touch
because you refuse to spend anytime actually learning about the
(18:12):
people, the processes, thetechnology.
And all of this really came to ahead when I was doing uh a sales
kickoff.
I I've talked about this before,but like here now you have all
the detail.
She literally reached out to myboss and told my boss, hey, you
need to talk to Bruce.
He's always smiling on calls, onpresentations.
(18:36):
It looks like he's verydisingenuous.
And it looks like, you know,he's he's just joking around not
being serious here.
And I like when my my boss, he'slike, I don't want to tell you
this.
He's like, I don't want to tellyou this, but I have to because
I've been asked to by my boss togive you this feedback.
And he's like, I don't even knowwhat you can do with this
information because your smileis the reason you get invited to
(18:58):
do these kind of things.
But like she doesn't like thatyou're smiling on on camera at
all.
And I have to tell you that.
And I I truly can't imagine amore toxic thing to tell an
employee than please smile less.
Uh it it's it's funny because Idon't want to make this about
(19:23):
politics or gender politics oranything like that, but like,
you know, it's a it is a is awell-known misogynistic phrase
when men tell women, oh, comeon, honey, smile.
Right?
Like, yeah, you know, it's it'sthat's a no-no, you never say
that.
That is a very old school,inappropriate thing to say.
But for her to say that to myboss to tell me, not even be
(19:45):
able to tell me myself, but forher to tell my boss tell me, I'm
just like, what the heck ishappening here?
Like, this this bucks every normand trend and thing that I've
ever known.
It's like, if you're happy andyou look happy, people are more
interested in what you have tosay, and they're, you know, you
just come across as easier totalk to.
Now, what this caused, and itnot just this, but that incident
(20:09):
in particular really made mestart looking for a new job.
And eventually I did, I didleave that company and that
company died.
Rest in peace, big corp.
But it it it's it was what amassive catalyst event for me.
So many other people, includingprevious guests on this pod,
left that department because ofthat individual.
That's how toxic they were.
(20:30):
And all the talent got drained.
Uh, the the department was neverthe same after me and many
others left.
It never recovered.
The company did die.
I don't, I'm not gonna say, oh,it's because she was in
marketing that died.
I think there were lots ofreasons that it happened.
But she certainly escalated thedeath of that company and
catalyzed it by losing someonelike me.
And that just goes to show youhow toxic behavior in general
(20:54):
can actually hurt a company at abusiness level.
So, you know, you know, you'rein your instance, it was
specifically a release.
You took longer to get it out.
You know, you might have lostgoodwill with customers who were
expecting it early.
In my case, it ended up causingpeople to leave, talented people
to leave the company to seekemployment at competitors and
(21:16):
elsewhere.
And I think the long or theshort of it is it's just like if
you're gonna be toxic, don'tjust it's a really bad idea.
Yeah, think about what you'regonna say to someone before you
say it.
And if it has any whiff oftoxicity, you can you can not
only damage the relationship,but you're gonna end up damaging
the culture.
It is 100%.
(21:36):
I I love the word, right?
Because like if something istoxic and it gets in the water,
right?
Now the body of water is toxic.
It's not just that littlesegment, it spreads, right?
So it like it's such a good wordfrom you know, just a linguistic
perspective to define how bad itis for an organization and
(21:58):
culture.
A hundred percent.
SPEAKER_00 (22:00):
Yeah, somebody I I either read the somewhere or
heard this somewhere, but likeleaders make the weather.
Yeah, and so if you set theweather if it's toxic rain, if
it's toxic rain, that willinseminate down into everyone on
the team and people will startacting that same way, which is
so unfortunate.
Because to your point, that'show you build a failing culture,
(22:24):
you lose the good, talentedpeople, and usually those
companies don't succeed withthat level of leadership, which
is so unfortunate.
Like the only thing I could sayfor that situation, it'd be like
if you during one of thesepresentations, in a really
serious moment, like you weretalking about something and you
were just smiling and you'relike, Man, that Holocaust,
(22:45):
right, guys?
Like, like if you were to dosomething like that, I could see
them coming to you and beinglike, Hey, during this topic,
it's a serious topic.
Like, I need you to kind of showthe sincerity, you know, in your
mannerisms and the way thatyou're talking about the
subject, because I think thatwill be better received by our
customers and viewers of thiscontent.
(23:06):
But in your case, it's just likeyou're just talking about the
product, and she's justbasically said, you're not being
serious enough.
unknown (23:12):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (23:13):
And that's like that doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_01 (23:15):
It really came down to like, you know, we we've
talked about this, we've hadcapitalist course Bonnet Al
Shrep on the pod before, youknow, he was part of this
department, he experienced this.
Like, this individual wasthreatened by us, which is such
a weird thing.
Like, to be threatened by peoplelike two levels lower than you
because you're not willing totake the time to get to know
(23:35):
people and like get to know theculture and the product and the
company.
Like, it just that is not aleader.
That does not make a leader.
You know what it makes?
SPEAKER_00 (23:44):
What does it make?
SPEAKER_01 (23:45):
Toxic rain.
Some stay dry and others feelthe pain.
Toxic rain.
SPEAKER_00 (23:52):
I don't know how we turned this into a great like
musical synergy that's happeningwith the words we have and the
topic of the day, but I love it.
We should do this more often.
Toxic rain.
We should close them out andsay, Arials in the sky.
SPEAKER_01 (24:11):
No, not that one.
No, you don't like that.
I'm I'm I'm immediatelyuncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00 (24:17):
I'm scared.
SPEAKER_01 (24:18):
That was funny.
I'm as a colleague.
SPEAKER_00 (24:20):
Yeah, it was a fun topic.
It's always good to rememberwhere we came from and to remind
people if you get into aterrible situation, everyone's
been there, everyone's felt howyou're feeling in the moment.
And it is your duty, if you wantto create a good culture, to do
something about it.
To let them know this is notokay behavior.
SPEAKER_01 (24:42):
Yes.
And I would love uh for ourlisteners, if you're not in the
Discord, get in there, go to thelink tree, join the Discord.
Um, we have a channel called IsIt Me or Is It Corporate?
And you can go into that channeland type forward slash confess,
and your whatever you type willbe anonymized.
Not even the admins of theserver know what is said.
It's it's that good at likeremoving any trace of data.
(25:03):
If you have a toxic story you'dlike for us to share on the pod,
go in there and leave it.
Toxic Tuesdays, you know, likeforget tacos.
Let's get let's get toxicTuesdays up in here.
Uh, go leave your toxicworkplace environment story in
the hashtag is it me or is acorporate.
You don't have to do the forwardslash confess.
If you would want to leave it inthere, if you're comfortable.
I don't know who you are, youDiscord user, do it.
(25:24):
Uh, but you have we have thatway to anonymize the data if
you'd like.
I would love for y'all to sharethat in there.
Other than that, you can you canuse that link tree to uh go to
our website, get a baby onesie,uh, support the show with buy us
a coffee.
This is a completely self-fundeduh endeavor, except for the ads,
which suck, but they're therebecause I want to make a little
(25:46):
bit of money.
I'm losing so much, might aswell make a quarter, pay 20,
make 25 cents back.
Uh, and that I think that wrapsit up for another episode of the
show.
It's a it's a shorty, but it's agoodie.
We appreciate your listenership.
Please share the pod witheveryone you know.
Leave us a nice review if youcan, and until next time, stay
toxic.
(26:06):
I'm Bruce.
SPEAKER_02 (26:08):
And I'm Clark.
What do they always send theboard?
I don't think you trust.
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