work appropriate

From terse Slack messages to Zoom happy hours, the culture of remote workplaces can be frustrating to navigate. But it can also be an opportunity to experiment, to build friendships... and to have an annual retreat in an exotic location! Chase Warrington, head of remote for Doist, joins host Anne Helen Petersen to answer listeners' questions about how to create a healthy and enjoyable work culture when there's no water cooler to gather around.

• Read Chase's recent blog post, "How to build human connections in an async workplace"
• Check out our other episodes on remote work: "Onboard Me" with Adrian Hon and "Remote Work Done Right" with Marissa Goldberg

As the saying goes, death is a part of life. So why are workplaces so ill-equipped to provide employees with compassionate and expansive bereavement leave? Dina Gachman, author of So Sorry For Your Loss: How I Learned to Live with Grief, and Other Grave Concerns, joins host Anne Helen Petersen to answer listeners' questions about dealing with grief at work.

• Need advice about a sticky situation at work? Head to www.workappropriate.com and tell us about it.
• Order So Sorry For Your Loss from Bookshop.org. Code WORK10 gets you 10% off!
• Follow @CrookedMedia on Instagram and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers and other community events.

We've received so many questions about awkward/mean/offensive/weird things your coworkers have said and done... that we had to make a whole episode about just that. Virginia Sole-Smith, author of Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture, joins host Anne Helen Petersen to help listeners figure out what to say, how to say it, and when to just go straight to HR.

• Need advice about a sticky situation at work? Let us know at www.workappropriate.com.
• Order Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture at Bookshop.org. Use promo code WORK to get 10% off!
• Follow @CrookedMedia on Instagram and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers and other community events.

If your boss is making your life hard, you've probably heard the advice to "manage up." Should everyone be spending more time cultivating their managing up skills? Or should managers just be spending more time figuring out what’s actually going on in their department? Alaina Fuld, Sr. Manager for Communications & Community Impact at Brooks Running (and one of AHP's BFFs), joins host Anne Helen Petersen for tips on work with your boss to get what you need.

• Need advice about a sticky situation at work? Head to www.workappropriate.com and ask away!
• Follow @CrookedMedia on Instagram and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers and other community events.

Learning how to work or manage or collaborate remotely is a very real skill-- but for many workers and organizations, it had to happen overnight, with no training or preparation. Three years after the start of the pandemic, companies want to go back to "normal," and workers aren't so into the idea. Marissa Goldberg, founder of Remote Work Prep, joins host Anne Helen Petersen to answer listeners' questions about why hybrid meetings are so awful, how to manage a remote team who seems to be slacking, and how to find a mentor when you've never met your colleagues in person.

Got a workplace quandary you need help figuring out? Head to www.workappropriate.com and tell us about it.

Follow @CrookedMedia on Instagram and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers and other community events.

The state of paid parental leave in the U.S. is abysmal. And advocating for it, coordinating it, and scraping it together more often than not falls to mothers. Raena Boston, co-founder of Chamber of Mothers, joins host Anne Helen Petersen to answer questions from listeners about advocating for paid leave, how to plan for your leave, and whether you can start-- or quit-- a job while you're pregnant.

Got a workplace quandary you need help figuring out? Head to www.workappropriate.com and tell us about it!

Follow @CrookedMedia on Instagram and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers and other community events.

Every decade or so, the entire writing-for-money paradigm shifts yet again. To write for money is to get very comfortable with constantly changing your expectations, your strategy, your skillset. It's a lot, particularly when all you really probably want to do is... write. So to talk about how to navigate this ever-changing and increasingly unsustainable business, host Anne Helen Petersen is joined by Jennifer Romolini. Jennifer's been in the writing biz for a long time, and she's now the host of Crooked Media's new podcast, Stiffed, about the rise and fall of Viva Magazine in the 1970s.

Got a workplace quandary you need help figuring out? Head to www.workappropriate.com and let us know.

Follow @CrookedMedia on Instagram and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers and other community events.

"Boundaries" has become a buzzword, especially in the conversation about work-life balance. But work is a part of life-- and why should you be the only one responsible for making sure work doesn't creep into every other part of your life? Shouldn't your workplace prevent the creep in the first place? To re-examine this idea of boundaries, and come up with alternatives, host Anne Helen Petersen teams up with Stephanie Nadi Olson, founder of We Are Rosie. How do you keep from taking on multiple jobs as people leave your company? Can you tell your boss "no" when they ask for your phone number? How much work is too much? And is it okay to trust management to look out for you?

• Got a workplace quandary you need help figuring out? Head to www.workappropriate.com and tell us about it!
• Follow @CrookedMedia on Instagram and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers and other community events.

In our episode "May I Speak to the Manager?" host Anne Helen Petersen talked with Melissa Nightingale about why and how formal management training has really gone by the wayside, resulting in a plethora of managers without the skills they need to thrive. In today's episode, Melissa returns to answer questions from listeners about really specific problems they're having as managers. Whether it's figuring out your management style, keeping your cool when your trainee just isn't getting it, or designing an effective performance review system-- Melissa and Anne have advice for bosses in any industry.

Follow @CrookedMedia on Instagram and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers and other community events.

Workplaces are often very, very skilled at making us feel very, very bad about ourselves. Sometimes you need structural reform of the whole workplace, and sometimes you just need a good, old-fashioned pep talk. Whether the crisis in confidence comes from imposter syndrome, or from feeling like you're the only one who thinks it's weird to give a CEO a holiday gift-- we've got some advice. Comedian and writer Josh Gondelman joins host Anne Helen Petersen to answer questions from listeners who are struggling to feel confident at work. 

If you've got a workplace quandary you need help figuring out, get in touch! Check out submission guidelines at www.workappropriate.com, or send a voice memo with your question to workappropriate@crooked.com.

Not everyone can easily and/or necessarily need to make drastic career changes immediately to get more fulfilment. You can start a side hustle or passion project  while keeping your day job.
 
This episode is about side hustles and hustling. Bethia Wee is the Sales Development Lead for small and medium businesses at Aspire. It is self-described as the all-in-one finance operating system for businesses in Southeast Asia. Aspire was founded in 2018 and so far it has raised nearly $200M from venture capital firms including the famous Y-Combinator.

Before Aspire, our guest was at Fave Group, where she spent collectively 5.5 years at. Her roles included leading business development and partner operations.

If that doesn’t sound like a lot on her plate, Bethia has also been busy starting her own fashion brand Whakamana, which blends work-appropriate attire with activewear elements and materials.

Bethia is also the co-founder of ‘Ello, a mobile pop-up bar service for events. She has also been a freelance personal trainer. She is a wine drinker, a passionate fan of dancing and fitness and is at the grand age of just 26.

This podcast episode was recorded in Sep 2022.

Use special promo code ONMYOWNTERMS on Whakamana (click on the link) to receive 15% off till end of Feb 2023, 10% thereafter. Limited time offer.

Timestamps:
(11:24) Joining a startup
(19:24) How to gain confidence
(28:37) Starting work appropriate activewear fashion brand Whakamana
(33:02) Investing in property in early 20s
(38:51) How to think about money
(41:38) Failures and lessons
(45:02) Should you get a degree?
(50:14) How to start a side hustle

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About the host John Lim:

John Lim has had an unconventional career by Singapore / Asian standards - with several career switches. He started his career in banking before co-founding a laser tag events company. After building the business from ground-up, growing the team to 20+ and running Singapore's largest indoor laser tag center, he joined an early-stage tech startup to lead business development across Southeast Asia. In 2019, he took a leap of faith to join the e-commerce industry, seemingly unknown sector, until a few months later when Covid-19 pandemic brought the world to its knees.

While John finds himself lucky to have 'survived' the career switches relatively unscathed, he has never forgotten how it feels like to be at the crossroads of your career and life. Now, he has started this podcast - to provide the resources and perspectives he wished he had - and to help you make the most of your career to live your best life.

Join him as he speaks with unconventional career changers and risk-takers, taps into their experiences and perspectives and discusses all things career. Together, they will provide you nuggets of wisdom, inspiration and actionable insights to start living life on your own terms.

Our society's understanding of ambition is that it never stops burning, that it rules your life and every decision you make, and that it somehow lands people in some mystical land of perfect contentment. But how much ambition is too much? Or what if, after decades of striving, your ambition is just... gone? Rainesford Stauffer, author of the forthcoming All the Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and the Ways We Strive, joins host Anne Helen Petersen to hear from listeners about the vagaries of ambition when it comes to work — and how to conceive of ambition as a potentially positive force outside of work.

Questions from listeners are how we plan future episodes-- so if you've got a workplace quandary you want help figuring out, let us know! Head to www.workappropriate.com and fill out the form, or send a voice memo to workappropriate@crooked.com. 

"Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life" sounds like sage advice, but it doesn't account for the burn-out, demoralization, constant churn, and low pay of so many passion jobs. Lisa Sánchez, city council member for Boise, Idaho, joins host Anne Helen Petersen to answer listeners' questions on how to manage when a passion job is wearing you out.

Got a workplace quandary you need help addressing? Head to www.workappropriate.com and let us know.

There are plenty of reasons people choose to freelance-- better hours, more money, freedom from all-staff emails. But then... there's often a moment when you look around and realize that you've created a toxic work environment for yourself. In this episode, freelancer extraordinaire Wudan Yan joins host Anne Helen Petersen to help freelancers everywhere become better bosses to themselves.

Got a workplace quandary you need help figuring out? Head to www.workappropriate.com and let us know!

At work, we deal with people, and people inevitably bring up feelings. Host Anne Helen Petersen teams up with comedian and TV writer Josh Gondelman to answer questions that range from petty (what if I hate the company holiday gift?) to systemic (is it okay to give up on advocating for my voice to be heard?).

Thanks for listening to the first episode of Work Appropriate! Please rate and review us so other people can find the show. And if you've got a workplace quandary you want help figuring out, head to workappropriate.com to tell us about it.