The Mode/Switch

There you are at work being amazing like you do. Doing the thing. Every metric says you rock. But you feel sad. Question: when there’s a gap between how work feels and how you feel, should you get rid of the gap? Should integrate or compartmentalize? This week, the Mode/Switchers tell stories about times when work feels one way and your soul feels another. We’re talking about the strange lonelines...

This has to be the frankest episode of the Mode Switch Pod so far. We’re a pretty hopeful bunch. But, as David warns us in this episode, not everything has a redemptive arc. Sometimes things just suck. So this week, Emily, LaShone, David, Craig, and our Gen Z guest, Alex D’Agostino cuss and discuss experiences of professional failure. But then, because we can’t help ourselves, we also look for sma...

What happens when you don’t love your work any more? What happens when you love your work too much? There’s no quick answer to those questions. Different generations have different histories, so Emily, LaShone, Kendrick, David, and Ken—each speaking from a different age group—talk about the line between caring and not-caring at work. Every week, this podcast runs the numbers on workplace life. We...

Everyday life and work require a lot of emotional labor, especially when it comes to the contagiousness of feelings on the job. How do you cope under layers of burnout—yours and others’ as well? This week on the Mode/Switch Pod, Emily, Ken, Andrea, Craig, and our Gen Z guest, Kendrick Satterfield, tell our own burnout stories. You’ll notice that our intergenerational bunch copes in  very  differen...

I’ve worked most of my life in communities where anger’s unacceptable. But sometimes anger is indispensable at work—especially when it’s settled opposition to inequity in the late modern American workplace. Regular Mode/Switchers Emily, Ken, and I are joined by millennial guest Shaq Anthony and Gen Z guest Olivia Winkowitsch to address questions like, Is the exhaustion you’re feeling actually ange...

The bridge is out in the workplace today. Communication that’s  supposed  to cross the chasms between genders, between races, and between generations often feels incompetent for the job. What do you say when you feel deeply, deeply misunderstood? This week’s team of intergenerational Mode/Switchers—Emily, Andrea, LaShone, David, and Craig joined by Gen Z guest Alex D'Agostino—offer practical s...

You’ve heard, maybe, about the Babble Hypothesis, that explains why extroverts get assigned leadership roles in social groups. But this week’s Mode/Switch Pod explores how power and babble make a hot mess in the workplace.  If you’ve been wondering how to draw boundaries and assert the value of what you have to say, this podcast conversation is for you. Our usual Mode/Switchers are joined by Ken H...

How to Respond to Red Flag Moments at Work That was weird , you think to yourself.  Did that just happen? You’re not crazy. You’re having a red flag moment. But the harder question is,  what do you do now? Maybe you need to find another job. Or maybe there’s a mode/switch worth making. That’s what this pod’s for. Because red flag experiences vary by generation, Gen Z rising professional Hannah She...

It’s pricey being a person these days, so nobody’s got just one job. You, your coworkers, your Boomer grandparents, and your friggin’ golden retriever—everybody’s doing gigs, driving Uber, and crafting earrings. How do extra jobs reshape the workplace? How do they reshape YOU? This week, Andrea, David, LaShone, and Craig, along with Gen Z guest Kayla Harkema, talk about how to cope with the (unsus...

This week’s Mode/Switch Pod highlights disagreement on the team: how should managers address mental health troubles. Some of us think direct intervention is the most important approach; others are hoping for indirect intervention. But we all agree that managers can change conditions in the workplace for the better mental health of their team. Emily, LaShone, Craig, and David are joined by Gen Z ri...

Are you a millennial manager? Then, you probably deal with a confusingly moveable boundary. At one and the same time, your Gen Z employees tend to sharpen the line between work and personal life while at the same time blurring the line between work and politics. Each week, the Mode/Switch Team gathers around a table of mics to talk in deeply personal terms about work and culture. This week, Emily,...

Hey, managers! What do your workers want more—thanks or a raise? Probably a raise, right? Right. But even so, that question’s more complicated than it sounds. This week’s  Mode/Switch Pod  takes that question in multiple directions with deeply personal stories and researched insights. Emily, Annee, Andrea, and Craig discuss how money and power, as well as thanks and respect, make managing a team a...

For good and ill—but mostly for good—salary transparency is a rising trend in corporate culture across the U.S. But is it possible that “making things transparent” is actually obscuring elements of your work that make your work worth doing? What do you do when your work remains hidden even in the midst of corporate transparency? LaShone Manuel, David Wilstermann, and I discuss.

What's it cost you to try to match the gender expectations for your body in professional spaces? This week's Mode/Switch Pod involves a small nation-state of participants. I mean, there's the usuals: Emily, David, Craig. But then, there's also Bethany Keeley-Jonker, Jennifer VanAntwerp, and Nicole St. Victor, each bring researched and lived experience to bear on the questions of th...

This week’s pod takes on hustle culture and “ the lazy girl job ” phenomenon. This trend traces to social media influencer Gabrielle Judge, the designer of the Anti Work GirlBoss brand. The trend encourages Gen Zs to seek a job that makes $60k-80k and makes space for nice things like, you know, personal sanity. Ms. Judges has achieved a kind of omnipresence on the internet; and everywhere she arri...

Last Saturday morning, a newsletter flitted into your mailbox about the Great Resignation . Here’s a quarter-hour podcast about being Gen Zs and quitting work.

A follow-up podcast, in which LaShone, Emily, David, and Craig all converse with Ben about the insight behind his last two pieces for the Mode/Switch: " How Long Do I Have to Pay My Dues? " and " No One Is Coming to Save Us "

It turns out  not  obsessing on your flaws can also be—a flaw. Or that’s one conclusion we come to about the mode switch recommended in the newsletter . Re-describing your flaws as capabilities  can  be a valuable corrective. But org culture needs other correctives, too! So, LaShone, Emily, and Craig untangle some of the issues in how to  do the work  our flaws present us with in the workplace.

Rising professionals need digital presence. But connecting that virtual presence with in-person interaction can be tricky. This week, the Mode/Switch podcasters—Emily, LaShone, David, & Craig—engage  Min Ki Kim’s story about digital overwhelm  from the November 12, 2022 issue.

A 14-minute podcast on what your history gives you (besides trauma!) to survive your work and life. Need some resilience today ? Press play soon.

Our pod team picks up what Emily’s putting down in the latest issue of the M/S, discussing the ‘ theatre of productivity ,’ in which your every movement is surveilled as a measure of your workplace usefulness.

Humans are notoriously bad at predicting their own happiness. But is there such a thing as finding your One True Love in a job ? Is there a way to find The One when it comes to your occupation?

Emily Bosscher’s guest post this week calls Gen Z and millennial professionals to “push past the awkwardness” to seek the mentoring they need and to learn the weirdness of a workplace’s culture .

In this episode, LaShone Manuel, Emily Bosscher, and Craig Mattson talk about when playing a role makes you fake at work—and when it makes you exactly what your coworkers need .

This episode responds to an argument in  the Mode/Switch newsletter issue , discussing the rich and complex stories of four early-to-mid-career professionals: Andrea Munday, Bre Rodgriguez, Eric Freeman, and Julia Belcher.