I Hate It Here

I’ve been thinking a lot about how aggressively we were sold the idea of career growth, and how nobody ever explained what happens when you get there and it still doesn’t feel good! This episode is a big, honest reset on what careers even mean these days, because the whole traditional career ladder thing hasn’t been the same since the early 2020’s. Cassandra Babilya and I talk about why stability...

This week I’m feeling extremely pop-culture-brained because my fav show Industry is back, and if you think it’s just a show about finance…I’m here to inform you it’s actually a horror story about work.  We’re talking: ambition with zero guardrails, power with zero accountability, jobs becoming entire identities way too early, and the whole nine yards. From an HR lens, it’s equal parts fascinating...

Welcome to a new season of your favorite podcast!!! It’s the new year, which means the internet is yelling about new goals, new strategies, and new tools, while HR is still over here duct-taping broken systems and being told (once again) to do more with less.  So this season, I picked a very simple theme: NEW.  New ideas. New rules. New levels of honesty about what’s actually working and what need...

Okay, we made it! WHEW. Welcome to the final episode of I Hate It Here for 2025, which feels both celebratory and mildly unhinged.  This episode is me doing what I do best: yappin with people I deeply admire and respect, asking them about their wishes for HR in 2026…while also openly admitting that I’m lowkey a little scared of what’s coming next.  The market is weird AF, recruiters are exhausted,...

Raise your hand if you’ve worked in a toxic environment before! That’s probably 99.9% of you, so today we’re talking about those negative environments that get inside your nervous system and refuse to leave quietly.  The kind that turn you into a hyper-vigilant, over-prepared shell of yourself who flinches at a sporadic calendar invite titled “Quick Sync.” I brought back one of my favorite humans,...

Listen, I tried so hard not to cry recording this episode. Today George Boone and I are talking about grief, the thing that HR loves to pretend can be solved with a three-day bereavement policy and a sad little “OOO.”  But grief is messy and human and shows up everywhere: in how you work, lead, love, set boundaries, and literally get out of bed.  George and I both carry losses that changed us fore...

Workplace culture rewires us in ways that could take a whole lifetime to understand. It shapes our identity, confidence, authority issues, communication style, and even how we show up outside of work without realizing it!  And Jessie Stettin and I go there: your real life shows up at work too, influencing how you lead, handle conflict, and how you interpret every “quick chat” from your boss.  Who...

Belonging at work is one of those things everyone claims to care about… right up until someone shows up as their full self and suddenly it’s “not professional!”  I hate the idea that someone has to assimilate to belong, so Erica Lydell and I pull the curtain all the way back on masking, identity, neurodiversity, and why belonging is less warm fuzzy feeling and more daily emotional CrossFit.  If yo...

Okay, friends…this episode is pure fun (okay, a little usual chaos too) in the best way, because I sat down with my actual direct report, Madison Montgomery, who confessed ON AIR that she has never listened to my podcast.  And honestly? Fair.  We talk generational gaps (including the infamous “generational shits” typo I will never emotionally recover from) and the magical Venn diagram that forms w...

This episode might be my most unhinged and enlightening one yet.  The first half is a live coaching session where I fully spiral about my impatience and need for constant clarity (yes, I’m aware of the irony).  In the second half, we go deep on how your leadership style isn’t just who you are, but it’s who work and past experiences have trained you to be.  My guest, leadership coach Mary Pat Jacob...

Look, I know sometimes we like to pretend work exists in its own little bubble, but in reality, the world outside your office door affects…A LOT at work.  This week, I’m joined by my friend and returning guest Dave Garcia to talk about how immigration, inflation, and global chaos are all shaping company culture in real time. We’re unpacking what it means to lead when people are scared, burned out,...

It’s that time of year again: spooky season! Which means Jessica Winder is back, I’ve got my pumpkin cold brew, and we’re diving headfirst into the terrifying (and somehow hilarious) world of HR horror stories.  From mysterious “sick leaves” to love spells gone wrong, these are the tales that make you question how any of us still have jobs.  Fair warning: if you thought your HR nightmares were bad...

Motherhood at work.  Just saying that out loud makes my blood pressure spike a little, not gonna lie! Because being a mom already feels like the challenge of a lifetime, and then you add performance reviews, “flexibility” that’s anything but, and coworkers who suddenly forget how calendars work when daycare pickup time hits? It’s all mess!  But motherhood also changes how folks lead, empathize, an...

Look, I love a good policy binder as much as the next HR nerd (okay, maybe sometimes even more).  But here’s the thing no one wants to say out loud:  Sometimes the “right” answer on paper is actually the wrong move in real life. 🙃  In this episode, I sat down with Stephanie Schuler to talk about the messy, gray, can’t-Google-it moments where consistency, fairness, and actual human judgment all co...

Being the only at work isn’t just lonely, it’s heavy.  It’s the unspoken pressure of carrying an entire group on your back while still trying to do your actual job, all while dodging microaggressions and pretending you don’t notice the side-eyes in meetings. Been there too many times! In this episode, I sat down with Amina Gass to name the emotional labor that underrepresented folks shoulder every...

If you’re still debating whether HR deserves a seat at the table, let me save you the suspense:  Your seat is already cemented there.  Hell, depending on the day, it might even be a throne! And today, I’ve got Ana King, CPO at SAPI, joining me to dig into this hard truth.  With experience at Twilio, Trainline, and Google, Ana knows firsthand that no leadership meeting should ever happen without th...

Hard truth: work wasn’t built for all of us to thrive.  Neurodivergent folks seem to deal with a lot of norms when they aren’t the problem—the systems are.  I’m joined by Tameka Allen, founder of ModCulture and all-around brilliance-unlocker, to talk about how workplace “norms” actually exclude, alienate, and erase so many people.  From the myth of “professionalism” to the way orgs treat neurodive...

When people say “the future of work,” I usually want to roll my eyes so hard they get stuck.  But let’s be honest: It’s chaos out there!  We’ve been sold the dream of four-day work weeks, AI saving us from boring tasks, and companies suddenly caring about wellbeing. Funny, RIGHT?  Instead, we’ve got AI gutting industries, a labor market so messy the president literally fired the stats guy, and cli...

Remember when getting the top job was THE dream?  Corner office, big paycheck, fancy title, and all the LinkedIn glory shots you could handle! Yeah…now for a lot of folks, it feels more like winning a free trip to a haunted house.  In this episode, I had a fun but important chat with Ciara Lakhani to unpack why so many people are quietly saying, “Hard pass” to climbing the ladder.  We’re talking b...

You ready for a nice reality check? I hope so, because today’s episode is built around three hard truths about your career that no one talks about enough: Working hard isn’t a promotion strategy.  Getting fired might be the thing that finally sets you free.  If no one with decision-making power knows what you do…you’re invisible.  I brought on April Little, executive coach, Time 100 Creator, and s...

Have you ever seen a CEO post online and thought, “Who approved this…and why was it them?” I think we all have at this rate! In this episode, I’m joined by the iconic Sarah Reynolds, marketing exec, pay equity champion, and all-around ethical disruptor, to unpack what happens when CEOs throw ethics out the window. From public tantrums to private chaos, we talk about the ripple effects of bad behav...

So if you didn’t know,I love a good career pivot story!  Today’s guest is basically the poster child for burning it all down and starting over, in the best possible way.  I first found Ash Hynie on TikTok like any good millennial does, instantly became obsessed, and then fully fangirled when we met IRL at a conference!  In this episode, we talk about why your job isn’t your identity (even if capit...

Burnout is basically an epidemic. And HR? We’re patient zero!  In this episode, I sat down with my brilliant friend Eva Bak to talk about what burnout actually looks like in our world—the mental load, the emotional labor, and the whole exhausting mess of trying to help people while drowning ourselves.  We get into the duality of being HR (hello therapist and policy enforcer), the unspoken trauma o...

Operating without trust in HR is almost IMPOSSIBLE. The even crazier part is that trust can be destroyed instantly if you say or do the wrong thing! I mean, I’ve never met a human being who says they love micromanagement. In this season finale, Minda Harts and I are dragging trust issues into the light!  We’re dissecting her Seven Trust Languages, why “transparent” leadership feels like a bad magi...

Look, we’ve all been there at this point: Your company claims it's “all about accessibility,” but somehow, employees still struggle to find answers to basic questions.  Leadership preaches an open-door policy, but good luck getting a response anytime soon. And don’t even get me started on the “We’re ADA compliant!” flex like it’s some kind of gold medal when it’s actually the bare minimum! That’s...