Living Understaffed

🎙️ Episode 36 – Red Flags, Rants & Rizz That Should Be Revoked 🚩💅 Fresh off our Lit & Libations high (where our egos were shamelessly inflated — thank you, Vanessa), we’re back to reality... and reality is full of migraines, mediocre men, and unhinged Tinder bios we didn’t ask for. 🙃💀 ✨ In this episode: 🛑 Red flags so blinding you’ll need shades (including one man’s bio that casually...

🎙️ Episode 35 – Sleep-Deprived Smut, Refried Bean Trauma, & the Grand Canyon of Daddy Issues 🐇🧠 Welcome to Living Understaffed , where the sarcasm flows like boxed wine at a book fair and the emotional trauma is only slightly overshadowed by our love of spicy indie romance. In this live-from-Kansas-City episode, Sarah and Erika roll into Lit & Libations with 2 hours of sleep, a questiona...

Dating while healing? Yeah, it’s a minefield. 🧨 In this episode, Erika and Sarah open up about the exhausting balance between protecting your peace and staying open to intimacy. From non-negotiables like buying the damn flowers 💐 to the emotional weight of spaghetti 🍝 (yes, really), they dive into the deep end of post-divorce reflection, attachment trauma, and learning how to not settle for bre...

🎙 Episode 33 – Saints, Spite & Side Quests We Didn’t Ask For We’re back with more chaos, caffeine, and unsolicited life detours. This week, we kick off our new series Badass Women in History with none other than Saint Olga of Kyiv —a woman who turned grief into full-scale vengeance and basically redefined “petty but make it legendary.” Fire? Birds? Entire villages wiped out? Yeah, she understo...

🎙️ Guess who’s back from the dead? Sarah—barely. After getting bodied by walking pneumonia, an ear infection, and just a casual full-system life meltdown, she’s somehow upright and podcasting again. (Please clap 👏.) Meanwhile, Erika’s been busy doing her therapist-assigned homework (aka emotional waterboarding) and is now being forced to say nice things about herself. Disgusting. 🚫 Together, we...

Truest Era Unlocked 🔓 (We’re Hot, We’re Healing, and We’ve Had It) In this week’s chaos therapy session— ahem , we mean episode—Sarah and Erika arrive in their Truest Eras : black chokers, emo prom hangovers, and allergic reactions to both nickel and nonsense. 🖤✨ We’re talking flatback earrings, unsolicited pegging requests (yes, again), and the ✨delusion✨ of men who say they “want a strong w...

🎙️ Episode 30: Budgeting, Burnout, and the Big 3-0 In this episode of Living Understaffed , Erika & Sarah try (and fail?) to have a serious chat about budgets without spiraling into financial chaos, emotional check-ins, and a mini roast of overpriced oat milk. 💸🥲 They dive into: Mental health and money triggers 💰🧠 How “self-care” somehow ends up costing $300 Why turning 30 isn’t a crisis—i...

We're So Sorry, Again – A Bye Week Update Hey everyone, we hate to do this to you again, but unfortunately, this is another bye week for Living Understaffed . Life has a way of throwing unexpected challenges, and right now, Sarah is at home grieving with her family after the passing of her mother. We appreciate your patience, your kindness, and the space you've given us during this time. W...

Episode 29 – Dating Apps Are Trash, Feminism is RAGE, and Living Understaffed coming to KCMO in May! 🎭 Another week, another round of Why Are Men Like This? Erika dives into the disaster that is Hinge, where one man’s idea of a “weird fact” is just another reason to delete the app. Meanwhile, Sarah’s week has been a masterclass in government anxiety and car trouble because, of course, nothing can...

🎙️ Episode 28 – Emotional Energy, Editing Nightmares & Expired Dating Standards 🎙️ ______________________________________________ 📸✨ Shoutout time! ✨📸 Huge thanks to @freckle_face_photography for capturing the absolute chaos of our latest Living Understaffed episode! 🎙️ From tech disasters to life meltdowns (and a surprise dog fart attack 🐶💨), this episode is peak unhinged energy —and so...

Hey, understaffed crew! We hate to leave you hanging, but this week, Sarah is taking a much-needed break to spend time at home with her family. We fully intended to drop an episode about our amazing trip to North Carolina to visit Erika, but life (and a little bit of chaos) had other plans. We promise it’s worth the wait! In the meantime, we’ve picked out a little treat for you—our second most dow...

🚨 Dating, Downloads & Delulu Decisions: A Sarah & Erika Special 🚨 Your favorite chronically understaffed duo is back, and this week’s episode is a rollercoaster. From analyzing the fine art of being a bigger person (literally and metaphorically) in the dating world to Sarah manifesting her next big career move , we’ve got a lot to unpack. 🎙️ What’s on today’s agenda? 🍕 Erika’s well-bala...

🚨 Apologies in Advance 🚨 Being understaffed right now is the understatement of the year. Between job applications, existential crises, and preparing for the ultimate road trip to North Carolina to see Erika, editing this episode was... let’s just say not the priority. So, enjoy the unfiltered chaos in all its glory. 🎙️😅 BIG NEWS ALERT! In this episode, Sarah and Erika dive into the chaotic whir...

💀✨ We Said Yes to Emo Prom (And Other Unhinged Decisions) ✨💀 Sarah & Erika are back with another episode filled with sarcasm, tangents, and chaos—per usual. This week, we discuss: 🎨 Sarah’s deep (and slightly bankrupting) love for Thomas Kinkade’s Disney collection. 💅 Erika getting got by TikTok Shop (again). 💃 A wild night out, featuring a muscular man with offensive breath. 🐶 Daisy t...

🎙️Living Understaffed x Trash Panda Podcast Collab (Round 2!) Happy Chinese New Year! 🎉 It’s the Year of the Wood Snake—aka, our year! 🐍 Time to shed the old, embrace transformation, and slither into our most unhinged era yet. Welcome to the crossover event nobody asked for but everyone needed! Sarah and Erika team up with Kollin from the Trash Panda Podcast for an unforgettable episode. Prepare...

🎙️ Welcome to Thought Spirals, Therapy Wins & Traditions We Love ! This week, Sarah and Erika dive into: 🧠 Therapy revelations: why it’s not just for “trauma” but a toolbox for navigating life’s chaos. 🐾 Daisy’s smooth-brained antics and why Erika’s dog is the queen of comforters. 🎆 New Year’s traditions from smashing plates in Denmark to rocking polka dots in the Philippines. 🎯 The art (a...

👩‍🔧👩‍🎓👩‍🚀 What’s it like being a woman in a workplace where you’re outnumbered, overlooked, and often underestimated? This week, Sarah and Erika dive into the challenges and triumphs of navigating male-dominated industries. From real-world stats 📊 (did you know only 6.5% of U.S. women work in such fields?) to personal stories of persistence 💪, they expose the systemic barriers holding wome...

🎙️ Episode 21: One Year, Two Hosts & Thirty-Seven Countries Later Welcome to 2025, friends! Erika and Sarah are kicking off the year with peak understaffed energy. From moving across town like a full-blown circus 🎪 to adopting a "smooth-brain" dog named Daisy 🐶, Erika's life has been... well, a vibe . Meanwhile, Sarah shares her adventures in family drama, emotional meltdowns ove...

🎄🎙️ Christmas Chaos Alert: We’re Understaffed, Festive, and Fabulous! 🎙️🎄 Ho, ho, hold on to your jingle bells, folks! Sarah and Erika are back with a Christmas Day special that’s more "Bye Week" than "Silent Night." 🎅 Exhausted? Absolutely. Prepared? Absolutely not. This episode is basically a stocking stuffed with our most downloaded episode ever: Hear Me Out. 🎁✨ 💡 What’s i...

This week, Sarah and Erika 😘 welcome a fabulous special guest: Trisha Otis! She’s the owner of Sun Fox Books 📚 and the new VP of KC Book Beat (we’re so excited for her!), where she’s shaking up the indie author scene. Oh, and did we mention she’s managing all this while juggling her husband’s recovery from brain surgery and raising a six-year-old? 😱 Supermom energy, anyone? 👀 Expect sarcastic...

🚨 Guess Who’s Late Again? Us. It’s Us. 🚨 This episode is coming at you fashionably late—by 4 days. 🫠 That’s what happens when you’re Living Understaffed . But hey, chaos is kind of our brand, right? Thanks for hanging in there, you legends. We’d promise to do better, but we all know how this goes. 😂🍷☕ Now for the star of the show: we’re welcoming Erika’s incredible sister, Emma! 🎉 She’s bri...

Welcome back to chaos central, aka Living Understaffed ! This week, Sarah and Erika (yes, with a "k"—keep up) dive headfirst into the rollercoaster that is Pretty Privilege. 😒 From unsolicited "advice" to perks that feel more backhanded than helpful, they're spilling tea hotter than Erika’s 7 PM Monster. ☕ Here’s what you missed: 💼 Office drama? Check. Sarah is reimagining &...

🧺 Laundry pile existentialism? Check. 💔 Man-hating era? Oh, you bet. 🧹 Messy life, clean mind vibes? We’re working on it. This week, Sarah and Erika tackle How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis, LPC—a guidebook for the overwhelmed, the overworked, and the unapologetically imperfect. Spoiler alert: we were triggered. From redefining chores as acts of kindness to reframing the dreaded laun...

In this week’s episode of Living Understaffed, Sarah and Erika wade through the murky waters of receiving compliments 🥴. Do they say “thank you”? Blurt out sarcastic deflections? Go into a full existential crisis? Maybe a bit of all three. Expect plenty of laughs as Erika recounts Rocky the dog’s latest escapades—spoiler: he ate a whole crockpot of chicken and graciously left junk mail in the toi...

In this week’s episode of Living Understaffed , Sarah and Erika dive into their favorite book boyfriends 📚 and explore the fine line between fantasy and real-life relationships. Expect hilarious anecdotes about what makes a fictional male character swoon-worthy versus what would be a dealbreaker in reality. From “Golden Retriever in the streets, Dom in the sheets” 🐕‍🦺 to the timeless charm of M...