Episode 260 · 23 December 2025 · 54:42
This Year in Work 2025 (Part 1) - Featuring Bosses, Benders and Big Toddler Energy
Featuring Bosses, Benders, Big Toddler Energy
This Year in Work 2025 (Part 1) - Featuring Bosses, Benders and Big Toddler Energy
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Story of the Year: Big Toddler Energy
Story of the Year: Rule-Bending Leaders
Story of the Year: The Great Employment Heist
Hot Take of the Year: Gossip is Good
Truth or Lie of the Year: Maslow's Hierarchy
truth or lie#maslow#motivation#psychology
Workplace Surgery Question of the Year: My Ex is My New Boss
workplace surgery#relationships#workplace-romance#management
Show notes
This Year in Work 2025 (Part 1) — Featuring Bosses, Benders and Big Toddler Energy
Guest: Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) — and the moments, stories, and listener dilemmas that defined their Tuesday episodes across 2025.
It's Christmas Eve Eve, and Al and Leanne are wrapping up the year in style. For the first time ever, they've pulled together the standout moments from their Tuesday episodes across 2025 — the stories, segments, and listener questions that made This Week in Work what it is.
From their unanimous Word of the Year (duck shuffler — yes, it still makes sense in context) to CEOs behaving like overgrown toddlers, a single engineer secretly working for 22 startups, and the most awkward Workplace Surgery question they've ever received, this is a celebration of everything that made 2025 a gift of a year.
🦆 Word of the Year: Duck Shuffler
Their unanimous pick. A perfect term for those colleagues making a lot of noise on the surface while quietly shuffling chaos underneath. Straight from Episode 202 — and yes, the Bosnia-and-Herzegovina reference still makes sense in context.
Bonus vocabulary: the "honker" — the person who makes all the noise without doing any of the shuffling. Bill from accounts is apparently the biggest honker of them all.
🔥 Stories of the Year
1. Big Toddler Energy When they first discussed CEOs behaving like overgrown toddlers, they didn't expect the avalanche of DMs, confessions, and even a YouTube thumbnail featuring them as actual toddlers. From Episode 196 — including the toddler/CEO comparison chart that went viral, and Leanne's breakdown of why entrepreneurs score high on narcissism and low on agreeableness.
2. Rule-Bending Leaders From Episode 200, the unforgettable debate on rule-breaking founders — including Al's confession about his beer-delivery business days, a 5-litre bottle of Lambrini, and a very creative workaround for a missing wholesale license. Leanne's verdict: rule-bending is entrepreneurial, innovative, and... well, you'll have to listen.
3. The Great Employment Heist Episode 214 gifted them one of the wildest workplace stories of the year: a single engineer secretly working for 22 startups and earning over $1m a year without doing the work. Soham Parekh aced every interview, demanded top-of-market rates, and delivered work using AI tools — until Y Combinator founders started comparing notes. A genuine Catch Me If You Can moment.
🧠 Hot Take of the Year: Gossip is Good
Rebecca Taylor argued that workplace gossip isn't just normal — it's useful. From Episode 194, this was one of their most talked-about segments of the year. Rebecca's take: gossip is how we include people, share information, and build culture. It's only bad when it leads to othering people in a negative way. The juicy stuff? That's the stuff that really catches on.
⚖️ Truth or Lie of the Year: Maslow's Hierarchy
The triangle that never was. From Episode 240, the myth-busting moment that sent LinkedIn into meltdown. Abraham Maslow never drew a pyramid. The hierarchy of needs as we know it — with its neat five-step progression — was a simplified (and some say distorted) interpretation that took on a life of its own. Leanne breaks down the research that's been testing it since the '70s and the verdict: it's a lie, or at best a very dramatic oversimplification.
💬 Workplace Surgery Question of the Year: My Ex is My New Boss!!
From Episode 180 — still one of the most awkward, gripping dilemmas they've ever received. Three years after a serious relationship ended, a listener discovers their ex is now their boss. Colleagues know about the history. The gossip has started. And they're terrified it will affect their progression.
Al and Leanne's advice? It's a stomach-churner, but there are ways through it — including one very practical suggestion about how to handle the awkwardness head-on. And if all else fails, dust off that CV.
🎧 Episodes Featured
- Duck Shuffler – Ep 202: truthliesandwork.com/episodes/202
- Big Toddler Energy – Ep 196: truthliesandwork.com/episodes/196
- Rule Benders – Ep 200: truthliesandwork.com/episodes/200
- The Great Employment Heist – Ep 214: truthliesandwork.com/episodes/214
- Gossip at Work – Ep 194: truthliesandwork.com/episodes/194
- Maslow's Hierarchy – Ep 240: truthliesandwork.com/episodes/240
- My Ex Is Now My Boss – Ep 180: truthliesandwork.com/episodes/180
🎧 Coming Up Thursday
Part 2 of their highlights special: the best interview moments of 2025, including Steve Carse, Elaina Teboul, and their most downloaded guest of the entire year. Yes, they're recording on Christmas Day. No, it's not been prerecorded. This is how much they love you.
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
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AHappy Christmas Eve Eve!
BWelcome everyone. Hopefully you're wrapping up for some time off. Maybe you've already finished.
AMaybe you're actually wrapping presents.
BMaybe you're wrapping presents having finished work with a wine. Congratulations if you are. I think we're all gearing up for, for Christmas, um, so with that in mind, we thought we'd bring you something a little bit special.
AYeah, for the first time ever, we've pulled together our favourite parts of the podcast for the last 12 months, and over the next couple of episodes, we're inviting you to help us celebrate 2025.
CYay!
AAnd also, for some of us, kicking 2025 in its hairy ass and getting it out of the way, because it's not been great for everyone. Today we're sharing the best moments from our This Week in Work style episodes. Those are Tuesday episodes where we bring you the news roundup, you know, the workplace surgery and And latterly, Truth or Lie. In part 2, we're gonna be bringing you the best bits from our Thursday episodes, which is all our interviews. It's including also our most downloaded interview episode of the year.
BYeah, exciting. And if it's your first time here, what a good place to start.
AYeah, you're getting like 30 episodes in one.
BYeah, absolutely. And just so you know, this is Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne.
AI'm a Chartered Also the author of the smoothest link in the podcasting. I love that. My name is Al and I'm a business owner.
BAnd together we help organisations build amazing workplace cultures.
AWe'll be getting into part 1 of our highlights after this very quick word from our sponsors. The dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
BWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all. Every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
ANice. Check out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
BWelcome back. We are kicking off our 2025 highlights with our word of the year. You know I love a new word. So we, uh, we both had a look through, uh, our words of the week over this year and picked our favourite, expecting to have to battle it out over the actual winner. But as it turns out, we chose the same one.
AThe exact same one. Yeah, Leanne said your favourite, and I was like, this is mine. I said so. So here it is. Drum roll, please. The new Word of the Year for 2025 is duck shuffler.
BYay!
AYay!
BDuck shuffler. LinkedIn loved this one as well. It is quite rightly our Word of the Year. This is from episode 202, released in June, not long after we've been kicked out of Bosnia and Herzegovina. And I only mention that because it comes up.
ARight. Yeah, yeah. I'd imagine it would. That was quite a situation we found ourselves in in the summer. Yes, it was. Anyway.
BEnjoy.
ATell us what you've seen this week.
BDuck shuffler.
AI just, I was so close. See, now regular listeners will know that that is just essentially a ball, open net. Just, I just need to get my head on it and, and I've knocked it in. But we will, yeah, I'll not be rude. What is a duck shuffler, Leanne?
BIt's my, it's my new word. It's my word of the week. So you know how people like the saying, get your ducks in a row?
AYep.
BWhich means you're like, you're ready to, to kind of like go on like a task or a situation. Well, a duck shuffler is someone who will come in and mess them all up.
AOh.
BSo for example, you've got, you've got a team, they've spent ages perfecting a certain project plan or process, every detail's in place, everything looks great, and then someone comes in and goes, hang on, have you thought about this? And then points out the one thing that you haven't noticed. That, my friend, is a duck shuffler.
ASo essentially, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs were the duck shufflers of our ducks, because our ducks are in a row, We were like, great, we'll get residency any day soon. And they've come in and said, ah.
BYeah, very similar. I mean, we were in fact missing a duck, but—
AThat's true. They pointed out. So they were more of a, more of a duck observer than a duck shuffler.
BYeah, we probably didn't even have ducks, we had geese. Um, yeah, so I think, I think the thing is, this is being kind of talked about in a way that is quite negative. Like that person, that annoying person always comes in like, meh, um, a duck shuffler. I think in general, people don't come to work to just be disruptive for disruption's sake. I think people come to work because they're trying to do the very best that they can, or it's just a part of, part of who they are operating in the way that they do. I don't believe the intention is always necessarily bad.
AYeah, totally. I mean, I do agree. I think as I'm not, I'm definitely not Type A, but I definitely am someone who likes to go, oh yeah, it'll be fine, let's do it. And then someone comes along and goes, Well, have you thought about this? And that bit isn't— you haven't even thought about it. It's like, yeah, come on, dude. I'll work that out as I go along. So it can be very frustrating, I think. But you are right. If you are the duck shuffler of this organization, that is probably a good thing because you will say to me, Al, there's a bit you've not thought about here, I don't think. Just go and have a little think about it. Where it becomes, I think, really annoying is someone comes in a little bit like, oh, well, you haven't thought about that bit, have you? And then you go, come on, man. I'm trying to do something innovative here. Trying to do something cool. And you are going, that's never gonna work. So that's maybe a goose shuffler. Maybe that's your goose man or person or woman.
BHonker.
AHonker. So we've got duck shufflers, we've got honkers. Bill, Bill from accounts, he's the biggest honker of them all. He, yeah, he can honk right off, can't he?
BYeah. I think that's a big add-on as well, isn't it? That if you are a duck shuffler, you probably wanna be coming with some solutions or some helpful questions to Work around and find that solution. You don't just wanna be pointing at yourself going, haha, you didn't think of that, 'cause that is just annoying and unproductive.
AYeah, that's just Nelson from The Simpsons. So, duck shufflers are generally good. That's what we decided, wasn't it, Leanne?
BIt was, whereas honkers, not so much.
ADid we actually, have we actually put in that clip a bit about honking?
BYeah. Do you know what? What's been so funny about putting this together is that I listen back and I'm like, one, I don't remember this conversation.
ANope.
BAnd two, what are we talking about?
DI know.
AIf you, if you have listened to a significant number of our then the award for the most patient listener in the world goes to you because they're not very tightly edited. And, um, that, yeah, we can get a little bit silly.
BYeah.
AAnyway. Okay. So our next highlight comes from the news roundup, Leanne's favorite time of the week, and caused quite the stir. Um, I had entrepreneurs calling me in existential crisis. Uh, Leanne had people getting in touch confessing that they had definitely experienced it. And one listener even created a YouTube thumbnail featuring Leanne and a And I as chubby-faced 2-year-olds. If you haven't guessed it already, we're talking about Big Toddler Energy.
BI'm not sure I've ever had so many people get in touch with me after this and be like, my boss definitely has BTE. Yeah, I really loved it. We actually in the episode didn't call it Big Toddler Energy. That was a thumbnail, I think, title we came up later, came up with later. But yeah, it sums it up perfectly. Big Toddler Energy from episode 196, released in May this year.
AAl brought the idea of Big Toddler Energy I saw a great post on Twitter by Peter Steinberg. He's @StyPete is his handle. That's a cool name. Yeah. And he's actually quite a cool guy. If you go and look at his profile, you'll see what he's doing. He's doing some really cool stuff. He's really into vibe coding at the moment. Now, this was an image of toddler versus CEO. And basically what, if you might have seen this on LinkedIn, but basically he's got like things that toddlers say and CEOs say that are the same thing. Now, we don't have kids, but we've got plenty of nieces and nephews. Thanks to, uh, to, uh, my brother and my sister, uh, for producing those. Uh, so it kind of, kind of still resonates.
BNot together, you should add.
AOh God, yeah.
CNo, no, no, no.
BSeparately with different partners.
AWell, truth lies in work. Well, we keep it in the family. All right, so thank you for that. That very, very important, uh, clarification there. Uh, so this, it kind of still does resonate. But hopefully this isn't you if you are a CEO. So I'll try a few out on the, on you, Leanne. So the first one is a toddler and a CEO both blurt out random opinions that are treated as gold.
BYep.
AYep.
BTotally. And probably publish a book about it.
AYeah, that's so true. They use special made-up words.
BLike, like touching grass.
ATouching grass. Oh my God. So cringey. God, if you, if, If this resonates with you, then don't worry. We're gonna, I'm gonna ask Leanne shortly why CEOs tend to use, tend to have this behaviour. So then they ask you to drop something, to do something, then change their mind completely 5 minutes later. This one made me chuckle. Throws a tantrum if she doesn't get what she wants. So many CEOs.
BMaybe occasionally.
AI mean, Musk, Musk, excuse me. Anyway, replies with answers that make no sense. Now this is a big one. I think there's so many cartoons on Twitter or X or Twix or whatever we're calling these days. And then collects and quickly discards expensive toys. The last one here I thought, which I thought was really good, was interrupts every conversation to share his own tangentially related thoughts. That's what kids do, isn't it? You're talking about cheese and they'll go, I like cake. It's like, well, Dude, I know you, I know you're 18 months, 2 years, but I'm talking about you. I want to talk about cheese. Anyway, Lee, why do some CEOs act like this? Can they not— have they not got the, the prescience to understand that this is just not really a cool way to act?
BYeah.
DIs that it?
BNo, I think if we— I mean, I don't, I don't know. It's the first time that I've, I've kind of heard this, but what would my thoughts be on the psychology of it? Um, most Entrepreneurs are extroverts. They tend to say a lot of their thoughts out, out loud before they— introverts process first and then speak. Extroverts speak and they sometimes process if they've got time. Um, a lot of entrepreneurs are neurodiverse with ADHD, on the autism spectrum, communicate differently. Neurodiverse people, particularly with a sense of urgency and a need to To get things out because they process faster. They're lightning speed in terms of analysis and processing, depending on what type of neurodiversity they might have. So it's just, they need to move at that pace. We're just the slow ones who can't keep up. So yeah, that's probably the 2 obvious ones. And I think as well that typically these people are probably quite low on what we'd call agreeableness, which is one of the big 5 personality traits, and that's kind of like how compliant you are, basically. So I'm quite compliant. I quite like rules and a system. I like science. It's not really a shocker that I want to understand the rules of the game so I can play it. Whereas entrepreneurial mindsets and personalities tend to be lower on this. They want to break the rules, they want to make their own rules, they want to do it again with that sense of urgency and excitement Um, so yeah, there's a few different things that would feed into why I'm sure a lot of these things that are kind of ringing true.
AYeah. And I suppose there's also an element of ego, of, um, protecting your position of, you know, if someone, if someone's not particularly confident, but they're a CEO, they need to make sure that everyone knows that they're the smartest person in the room, which is, by the way, I think is the opposite you should be as a CEO. I think you should be the most stupid person in the room, but you're just very good at making a great room for intelligent people. Um, so maybe there's this element of them just looking to, looking to look intelligent. And so we've always said this and we teased this the other week and we still haven't, we still haven't talked about who I was talking about, but the person who uses long words when, when short words will, will do. Um, yes. And they, in my opinion, are not particularly intelligent and they're using those words to appear intelligent.
BNarcissism is another personalised trait that, um, entrepreneurs, this person incidentally, scored quite high on. So yes.
AOh, you do know who I'm talking about.
CI know.
BWell, you told me afterwards.
AOh, did I tell you? I forgot I told you.
BYeah, yeah, you told me.
AOh, I forgot I told you, but yeah.
BSo yeah, lots of reasons.
ASo there you go. And if you haven't listened to the pod before, even if you have, you'll know that Leanne always brings the science. And I'm loving that Leanne actually told us basically the science behind why CEOs might have big toddler energy.
BWell-educated guesses, really. I've not actually seen any hard research on that, but neither have I had any complaints from what I said.
ANo tantrums from CEOs.
BNo, no. So yeah, either way, I think self-awareness is very important. So CEOs, if you do one thing next year, hire a coach.
AYes, you might even have time to enter the prize giveaway from episode 257 and win a 6-week coaching programme with the incredible Rob Kalvarovsky. Just, just the nicest guy in the world and also brilliant speaker. You've got to listen to his TED Talk, even if you don't enter the competition. Go, go back and listen to the episode and go back and watch his TED Talk. So go and check it out. We'll be back with more of our 2025 highlights after this very short break.
BDid you know that the UK's number one management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
AWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.
BAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
CAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good looking.
AAnd you're not gonna say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—
Bthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
ASeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil.
CUh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioural science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff, and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
BIt is. It's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
CIt can.
BAnd are we all just status-seeking monkeys?
CI am.
AGo and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
BBut come back.
AYeah, come back.
CDefinitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back.
AI'll cut that out.
CKeep that in.
BLet's crack on with our next highlight from 2025. And Al, we are sticking with our entrepreneur energy. On the 27th of May this very year, we celebrated our 200th episode. Yes, I remember that. Yeah.
A2 days after my birthday.
BYeah, and about, I think it was 2 days before we got kicked out of Bosnia as well. Happy times. So, in the news roundup, we covered a groundbreaking story from the Sunday Times reporting that happy staff make for more productive businesses. Shocking, Al, I know.
AI am shocked, shooketh. Shooketh.
BI shooketh. And Al also shared the story of a Boston company boss who went viral after an employee asked him for a $40 loan.
AMm-hmm. Yeah. And Leanne had quite the heated discussion over that one, but it was like—
BWith you, not with myself.
AYeah. Sorry. Leanne and I. Yes.
CAnd yeah.
ADid I just say Leanne had quite a heated discussion?
BI think so.
AYou're just talking to yourself.
BI was shouting at myself.
AShe does do that in the bathroom. Anyway, it was Leanne's story on rule-bending CEOs that's made our highlights list. And for those listeners who've expressed interest in learning more about me, this clip includes a confession from my time owning a beer delivery business in the 2000s. And how I bent and perhaps broke the rules. I'm sure it was nothing illegal.
BDo we like rule keepers or rule breakers? That was the question of a new study by Astrid Hohman— Astrid, what a lovely name— and colleagues at the University of Amsterdam, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology Applied. They, um, suggest that the answer is neither. It isn't about breaking them, it isn't about keeping them, it's about bending the rules. And that's what we like in leaders. Leaders that bend the rules. So here's what they did. They created scenarios for people to judge. So one of these scenarios was an employee called James who was at a car company facing a cash flow crisis. He had 3 options. He could stick to the rules and raise money by crowdfunding. He could break the rules and sell cars illegally. Or he could bend the rules by selling memberships that included a free car, a legal gray area but not outright breaking the law. They then asked participants, who would you trust to lead? Who seemed most capable and most respected? And the results were fairly surprising. Rule followers were seen as solid, dependable, but they didn't really stand out as leaders. Rule breakers, seen as bold but a bit too aggressive and more dominant than genuine trust. And the rule benders, they came out on top. They were seen as the most respected, resourceful, and most likely to be admired by their team. So when the research team dug deeper In a second experiment, they used a similar setup but placed the employee in political roles with cooperative or competitive environments. So in cooperative settings, so things like building alliances or forming a government, rule abiders were still trusted, but rule benders were a very close second because people admired their ability to find workarounds without tearing up the rule books and basically still getting stuff done. In competitive settings, when it's about winning debates or outperforming rivals, rule benders were the top choice, even above rule followers. Um, and the rule breakers were on the bottom in both of those scenarios. So the difference the researchers found is all about dominance versus prestige. Rule breakers were dominant— they'll bulldoze through, but it doesn't always earn respect. Rule benders have that edge of resourcefulness They're clever enough to navigate the system, and people feel good about following them. Al's thoughts?
AWell, story time. Here's the time. Here's— let me tell you about the time that, that I, that I bent the rules. Way back about 23 years ago, I started a company. It was selling alcohol after hours in the UK to students. So they want 4 cans of lager, they'll get— we'll come around with 4 cans of lager. So I got a licence to sell it, which in the UK, And you need a license, a liquor license, they call it in America. And, but the law said I still couldn't do it because I could only sell during permitted hours, which is between sort of like 10:00 AM and 10:00 PM. That's when I could sell it individually. Otherwise I couldn't sell it or I'd sell it wholesale. Well, this is what I did. First of all, I created a wholesale, an order for every single possible person that could ring up. So if someone said, oh, this person's ordered something, I can say, oh, there's the order. That didn't really work. And in fact, it did work so badly that the court took, the police took my license off me. So I was there, I was selling alcohol with no license to do it, but I could still, anyone can sell alcohol. This is back in the day. Anyone could sell alcohol in wholesale quantities, which is basically 24 cans of lager, but nobody wants 24 cans of lager at, at 1 o'clock in the morning. So what I found was there's a bit in the law which says essentially if you, you can combine lager and also something called perry, which is pear wine, which is grim.
DYeah.
ABut really cheap. So what we did was we said, you can order whatever you want, but you have to also buy one bottle of this, what's called Lambrini. It was a 5-litre bottle of Lambrini. It was horrible. Cost about £4 to buy. You had to buy that because that fulfilled us and made us, made us wholesale again. But if you already had one of those in your house from a previous order, you could swap it over. So essentially we'd give you a refund for it.
BSo So basically people had a membership fee of a bottle of Lambrini.
AYes, exactly. And as long as they had it, we'd give you the money back on that, on that bottle and take it away and give you the new one. Of course we didn't. We just basically went, there's your bottle of Lambrini, there's your 4 quid back. All right, keep it for the next order. And that was it. So we played and, and we had a lot of fun with it. But ultimately there's a reason why I'm not running that business anymore is because I went bankrupt for about £103,000, which was partly due to the fact that the law changed and anyone could sell alcohol after hours. So like the, you know, the big supermarkets did and my, my, Market just dried up. But definitely that was my first dilly-dallying, dalliance. That's the word. First dalliance into rule bending and also rule breaking. And I think that, I think the people, I had about 20 people work for me at the time and they all thought it was really fun. And in fact, my solicitor, or at the time, who used to come with me to the courts, uh, he used to really enjoy when we came to the courts because he'd be like, oh, right, okay. There was a copper there who was, uh, who was, who was like dead against me. He's gonna wanna be shut down. Um, and he used to come along and we used to come up with different ways, creative ways of getting around it. And then the one time when they took my licence away, he came in and says, do you know what, Dave's really unhappy. This is the end. You're gonna have your licence taken away. But anyway, he enjoyed it too. So anyway, that was the end of my story, Leanne. Doesn't really help. It doesn't really support the sport.
BI think it does. I think it does. I think rule bending is exactly that, isn't it? It's entrepreneurial, it's innovative. It's, it's pushing back against maybe too rigid systems that don't need to be that rigid. And they didn't because fundamentally that business went out of business because they changed the licensing rules because they realised they were too rigid. So you were only fighting the rigidity that was then eradicated. Look at me with the words today. Frigidity eradicated. I haven't even had coffee today. What a story, Al. Honestly, you were just— it's such an interesting— it was such an interesting time. And if you haven't listened to Al's episode of kind of Who Is Al Elliott, which I think is like episode 10 or 12 or something, do go back and get the full story of that because it's Brilliant. You are so creative in the best of ways. You, my friend, are a bender.
AOh, hey.
BA rule bender.
AYeah, I'm hoping that's gonna be—
BA rule bender. It's what we've just been talking about.
AOf course, I understand. Moving on. Okay, our next highlight takes us back to the news roundup in episode 214, back in the summer. Oh, the summer.
BSummer good times. And this was a good episode. Al told us the story of one of the most outrageous employment heists in recent memory. recent tech history. Picture this: one engineer working for 22 startups and earning more than $1 million a year without actually doing any work.
ASo this is my favourite story I've seen for a very, very long time. Uh, basically it's Silicon Valley's great employment heist, is what, um, I'm gonna say I came up with, but actually Claude came up with that. So a software engineer in India named Soham— software engineer, sorry, did I say that too quickly? So this software engineer in India whose name is Soham Parekh— I hope I'm saying that right. I doubt he's listening, probably too busy, too busy working. He pulled off what might be one of the most audacious employment scams ever in Silicon Valley. He simultaneously worked for multiple AI startups earning around about million dollars over 3 years. No, annually. Sorry. Million dollars annually while barely doing any actual work. Kind of like if you've seen that movie Catch Me If You Can.
BI love that movie.
AMe too. I've seen it twice and I would, I would say I saw it about 6 months ago and I'd sit and watch it again.
CYeah, me too.
AI absolutely would. But this is basically like Code Me If You Can or something. I don't know. Probably Claude will come up with a quip, with a better quip than that. So let me just tell you the scale. The scale is actually quite staggering. 22 companies were involved. Me interviewed for some and hired by others. Most of them were Y Combinator AI startups. Just in case you don't know what Y Combinator is, it's like kind of like, it's the place to be for a startup in Silicon Valley. We've had PostHog, James Hawkins was our previous guest about 10 episodes ago. He's YC alumni.
BSo it's like a good gold standard of startups.
AYes, absolutely. The best of the best. So the likes of Coinbase came out of there. Stripe didn't come out, I don't think, but something else did. There's lots of like major companies you've heard of which are YC.
BSo you'd think they'd be a bit more vigilant in their hiring process.
ATo be fair, and just in case Gary Tan's listening, because he's a bit annoyed, he's the guy who runs it, he's a bit annoyed on X at the moment. So just in case you are listening, Gary, I'm not saying that you employed these guys. I'm saying that these were all YC combinator companies and they were targeted by this guy Soham. Uh, so those companies were paying him $10,000 a month each. It went on for 2 years between 2022 and 2024. He only got caught because Y Combinator founders started, started talking about him going, I've got this great guy, but he, I haven't seen him for a while.
BHow every cheat gets caught. Cast your net too wide, people start chatting.
AAbsolutely. So, so just give you a little bit of background on this. He's mid-20s, uh, based in India. Apparently he's genuinely brilliant. He describes the top 0.1% software engineers. So he's— it is very much catch me if you can because he's a genius. Um, he aced every single interview. Um, he had strong business acumen and he created an incredibly convincing personal persona. I've got written down here. So basically what he'd do is he would, he would go to interview, he'd interview really well, they'd be like, oh my God, we've got to have this guy. And he'd go, I'm sorry, well, it's 10 grand, 10 grand a month minimum. That's what I work for. And they went, all right, well, he's such a good guy. Yeah, we'll have him. Um, and then just started making creative excuses for why he wasn't delivering the work over that time. He also said that he got UK— sorry, US visa status, and he hadn't. Um, he once said, I didn't do the work because a military drone crashed into my house in India. And then when he was confronted, he denied everything until the evidence was undeniable. This, this is a movie. This is a Catch Me If You Can movie. This is absolutely brilliant.
CYeah, absolutely.
ANow, so why did this happen? Well, engineers are in massive demand, like top What, 0.1% of engineers? There's very, very few of them out there. AI isn't helping because, uh, people, everyone's now— I talked about vibe coding the other day. Everyone thinks they're an engineer because they can, they can write 2 prompts in Claude and, and create a to-do app. That's not the way. That, that does not make an engineer. The top ones are at £200,000 easy a year. Um, and so obviously, you know, you can multiply what he earned. That's how he worked out about a million a year.
BNice.
AI know. So, I mean, this is, What do you think? Do you think that he was a genius? Do you think he's criminal? Do you think this is just a— what's your thoughts?
BWell, if it's criminal, I dunno. I guess it depends on the contracts he signed, unless it specifically says you're not allowed to have another job. It could be, if you've got a good lawyer, and if you've got $1 million, you can probably get a good lawyer.
CTrue.
BProbably get you outta that one. Telling lies though, to get a job, like you don't have US visa status, that might be a bit more of a pickle. I mean, morally, ethically speaking, it's not super cool, is it? Particularly in an environment where there's lots of people from tech out of work. So I'm not sure that's cool. The fact that he's not doing the work is my beef. Like, if he'd, if he'd been holding down these 10 jobs and delivering all the outcomes, I'd kind of be like, well, what's, what's the problem?
AHe's hustling.
BYeah, hustle. Just because he can deliver that in a fraction of the time. Um, that allows him to do it for 10 different companies, then fair do. So I think it's a fact. I think this is more the fact that he didn't deliver the work. So therefore, yes, I think there's this— it's kind of fraud, isn't it? And yeah, it won't end well for him.
AI think it's such a shame because if you've got— if you're that level of an engineer and there's, um, there's AI agents— to be fair, there wasn't in 2022, but still, you can probably, you can probably create systems that are going to be able to do half the work for you. So yeah, I think the not delivering was a bit, was a bit odd. To be fair, this is, this is actually a trend. There's a subreddit on Reddit called Overemployed, and it's full of people who've got stories of working multiple jobs at the same time.
DYeah.
AMost of them, I think, deliver the work and therefore everything's okay.
BYeah.
AObviously, you know, if you wanna do that for like 4 or 5 years, trials are half a million dollars.
CMm-hmm.
AYou'd be burnt out and it's gonna be a tough thing, but you've got half a million dollars. It might take you 20 years to make that. Um, as a junior, junior engineer.
BI don't— and I've seen people on LinkedIn lose their shit about this as well. Yeah, like people are being, that's why we can't trust people to work remotely because they hold multiple jobs. And it's like, we're just focusing on the wrong thing. If somebody's doing the job to the standard that you want, it's not just indicating that maybe you don't need an employee, you need a freelancer or a contractor. You know, as a contractor, I have multiple contracts.
AYeah.
BI have multiple ways of earning money from different people. Like, it's no different. I don't get what the beef is. As long as you're getting delivered what it is, then it's just logistics. Oh, I love a good rant about remote work and management by outcomes, Al.
ATo be fair, I thought this was such a great, great story, and I'm a little frustrated that an engineer of this sort of like calibre or style isn't actually doing the work, but just having the whole multiple jobs thing. I'm okay with having multiple jobs. I just think that If they're clever enough to manufacture that, they should be clever enough to do the work, or at least find some AI or agents or something to do the work. We will leave a link to that episode and actually all of the episodes we mentioned today in the show notes, of course.
BSo we have covered our news roundup highlights from 2025. And honestly, it was really hard to choose because the media just is such a gift, isn't it, Al? It's such a gift.
AKeeps on giving.
BYeah. And some of the business owners out there. I mean, we didn't even mention Jamie Dimon's rant.
ANo, we didn't.
BWe didn't mention the Coldplay Jumbathon.
ANo, we didn't.
BHonestly, it's been such a— it's been a gift of a year.
ATouching Grass, was it?
BTouching Grass, yeah.
ASome people did not like that at all.
BNo, no. Kenny was particularly offended by that one.
AOur Kenny?
BYeah.
AAll right, okay. Yeah, so was Ken.
BUm, yeah, anyway, so continuing with our This Week in Work episodes, long-time listeners will know that this middle segment we like to have a little play with from time to time. And for more than a year, we have actually— or we did bring you a hot take From a workplace expert every single week.
AYeah. And, uh, some hot takes were a little more lukewarm than others, but we did have some awesome conversations with some genuinely, genuinely cool people, including a person who's quickly become one of my favourite people on the planet, Rebecca Taylor. I hope, do you know, I kind of hope she is listening and also I kind of hope she isn't because now it looks a little bit creepy because I've literally, I was messaging her just a few minutes ago. So now I—
BWell, so was I, if that makes you feel any better. Literally like—
COh.
BAn hour ago.
AWe're those people, aren't we?
BYeah, we're those weird people. I'm sorry, Rebecca, but we just really think you're cool. Um, Rebecca, if you haven't heard of her, you strange person, Rebecca is a content creator. She is host of HR Confessions and co-founder of SkillCycle, and her hot take was actually spicy.
DSo my hot take is that all work is just a collection of gossip. Yeah, so if you think about The actual definition of the word gossip, because I don't want to assume that everyone has the same definition. It's one of those words that can— it has an emotional reaction to some people, right? But if you think about it, the actual definition of gossip is 2 people talking about someone who's not in the room. So, if I'm going into a job interview and I interview for a job, and then someone comes in to talk to the person who interviewed me about me, they're literally gossiping about me to see if I'm a fit for that job. And that's the whole purpose of interviewing. So, it's literally just talking about this person when they're not in the room and then making decisions about whether or not this person's going to work there in that specific instance. Performance management, it's just gossip. It influences so many things in our lives. We have this big movement right now in the US for pay transparency. So, states are passing laws where it's mandatory for you to post a salary in a job description, and it has to be transparent that this is the pay range for this role. It has to be real. It has to be A realistic range. It can't be $1 to $1 million. It has to be actually there. And that came out because of workplace gossip. People started to talk about their salaries. They learned that there was this huge pay gap and that salaries were not necessarily paid in a reasonable way. They were based on whatever you were making before, how well you could negotiate. And so, there's been this push for leveling salaries and being transparent about what they are, because people are talking about it anyway. So, it's been this great movement for equity in the workplace, for transparency in the workplace, and it all started because people were gossiping about each other or about each other's salaries at work. People are inherently social creatures, and so the concept of gossip is about your community spreading word to other members of the community to either promote safety in the community or to inform the community about something.
AWhat I think a lot of people will be thinking is going, okay, cool, but in my head, gossip is bad. So when does your definition of gossip become bad?
DTo me, gossip is bad when it leads to people othering others in a negative way. So there's including people and then there's othering people. So including is kind of just like, be part of this community. Let's make this, let's be stronger together. Let's come together around this. And othering is like, go away. You don't belong here. You're different. And it's treating difference like it's a bad thing. So if someone is a sexual predator, for example, it's okay to other them. It's okay to say, stay away from this person, keep them away, don't give them opportunities. You know, there's, there's issues here that they, that people need to know about. But when gossip is about something that's about sharing important information that helps the community or helps other people rise above something, then it's great. Pay transparency's an example of gossip that I'm a big fan of because it does drive a lot of equity that we've never really had before, at least not in the States. And when we look at gossip in the form of how it can help other people, either help each other or help themselves, that's when it's good. Everybody talks about someone who's not there. The nature of the gossip all relies on whether or not you're inserting your opinion or if you're just sharing sort of facts and stories and letting the conversation unfold. So if I start a conversation that's just like, oh my God, my friend is such a jerk, let me tell you why. I'm immediately inserting my opinions and this gossip is meant to break, to bring this person down who's not even here and can't advocate for themselves. That would be toxic gossip, right? We're all guilty of it. We all do it, but that would be considered toxic gossip to me. But otherwise, you know, it's just a natural part of the human experience.
AThe best gossip is that juicy gossip.
CYeah.
AYou go, you're never gonna guess. And someone looks over around either way to see whether someone's there and goes, do you know who's just done this?
DJuicy stuff is the— juicy gossip is the stuff that really catches on. I mean, so right now, we were just talking about this. So, I'm reading a book called Careless People. It's a memoir, and it's about the— it's about— I can actually, I mean, I can hold it up, not to like promote it, but Careless People by Sarah Nguyen Williams. Um, it's about her time at Facebook, and it's one of those stories that is so juicy because it's about something that so many people know and understand. Facebook is sort of this universal company, right? At this point, Meta, whatever we're calling it now.
AMm-hmm.
DIt's something that is so much a part of our household. And this is a memoir about someone who worked there for 7 years, talking about what it was like to work with Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, these big household names that we all know about, and telling sort of the story of what it was really like on the inside. We love to know what happens on the inside of things, especially things that seemed at the time untouchable and have sort of changed its status in the world. Facebook, she worked there in 20—
B2004.
DI think it was like 2012 is when she started there, 2011. I don't remember my timeline as I'm reading it. But so that was the time, it was before they IPO'd. It was when they were sort of in this like heyday of, this is what our potential is, compared to now where it's sort of this like, it breeds a lot of toxicity because it enables a lot of the worst qualities of people, and that's what gets people to engage. But it became what it is because people love to engage in juicy things, and they love to insert their opinion on it. And so it gets out of hand when that's not regulated, or if that happens too publicly, or if it dehumanizes people, because that's where a lot of social media has kind of gone. It started as fun gossipy kind of stuff, and now it's just dehumanizing people to the point where we forget that there are humans on the other side of these accounts that we have. But I don't think there's anything wrong with the juicy gossip because A good story is still a good story. I mean, it's why we love— it's why we love novels. It's why we love movies. It's just— it's all about sort of framing the story. And the ones that are based on a true story are the ones that people really kind of sink their teeth into.
BThat was a brilliant Rebecca Taylor. She's so freaking cool, man.
AOh, effortlessly.
BEffortlessly. And she's from New York, and she grew up in Brooklyn. It's like, oh, I'm never gonna be like Ever even close.
ANo, no, you're not. No.
CNo.
BAlthough one listener did get in touch and told me that they thought I was cool. I was like, you might be the first person to ever tell me that.
AIs that your mum?
BNo, but it—
AMy mum commented on my, on my LinkedIn post the other day. I thought, I feel like I've made it because my mother's commented on my LinkedIn.
BYour mum's on LinkedIn?
AYes, she is.
BWell, she's not connected with me.
AWell, there you go. She's probably not cool enough.
BPatricia, I'm offended. Anyway, where were we? Rebecca, Brilliant. Absolutely amazing. Do go back to episode 194 and hear the full hot take. That's about half of it. And you'll be hearing from Rebecca again very soon, as she will be appearing in our predictions episodes at the end of the year.
AYeah. So moving on, as Leanne mentioned, this middle segment is something we've always liked to change up a little bit. And in September, Leanne's idea, when I believe we were a little bit drunk one night, Leanne's idea was to launch something called the Truth or Lie segment. This was where we basically every week bust some myths about a big psychological claim and ask, is it a true? Is it true? Is it a true? Is it a true or is it lie? Is it a true?
BIs it a true?
AIs it a truth or is it a lie? We've done birth order and leadership. Do older people or people who are the eldest of a family, are they better leaders?
BNope.
ALeft brain, left brain. You're ruining it because people, you want people to go back and listen. Left brain thinking. Do you really think logically with your left brain and creatively with your right, or the other way around? Can't remember. Uh, talked about lie detection, and we talked about that TV show that I love and Leanne hates. Um, and sleep. Can, can, uh, what is it? Can very successful people only survive on 4 hours of sleep a night? But it was by far this truth or lie segment that sent shockwaves through our list.
CShockwaves.
AWe had literally 2 emails about this, and on LinkedIn, I think 15 people got kind of upset about it. Yes, it is of course Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You'd think that people got over that by now, but no. So here we are. This week's truth or lie: does Maslow's famous pyramid of needs accurately explain what motivates us? And do we really need to satisfy our basic needs before we can pursue things like self-esteem and reaching our full potential? You can tell I'm reading from a piece of paper here. Basically, is Maslow correct? Is it a load of rubbish? What's your thoughts?
BMaslow's hierarchy of needs, it's that famous Pyramids. You've all seen it. You all know what I'm talking about. You've done one training session on leadership. You've opened a textbook. Um, yeah, you would have seen it. It's 5 levels stacked up into a pyramid. So at the bottom, you've got psychological needs like food— sorry, physiological needs like food and water. Then you've got safety and security, then love and belonging, then esteem and recognition, and finally self-actualization at the peak, which means basically becoming our best selves. It's simple. It's elegant, it's everywhere, and it's been taught in business schools and psychology departments since the 1950s. The core idea that goes with it, which is important to know as well, it's not just about the levels. The core idea is that you must satisfy each level before you can move up to the next. So you can't worry about making friends if you're hungry. You can't pursue your dreams if you don't feel safe. Fair enough.
DYeah, yeah.
BAll seems intuitive and makes sense.
DYes.
BHere is the first problem, Al. Abraham Maslow, Never drew a pyramid.
AOh.
BNot once.
COkay.
ASo where's the pyramid come from?
BWell, when, when Maslow proposed this theory, it was in the 1940s, 1943. He described it in writing. It was an article. The pyramid was created 17 years later in 1960 by a business consultant called Charles McDermott for an article about motivating workers. So he uses a pyramid to help managers Achieve maximum motivation at the lowest cost. It's a catchy visual, isn't it? It's memorable. It's perfect for training slides and it stuck. So this is a version everyone learns and it isn't even Maslow's original idea.
APoor Maslow.
BSo in terms of what Maslow actually said, so he proposed that humans have 5 basic needs that are hardwired into us through evolution. So the key idea is that these needs work in order. So when you lack something, it motivates you to get it. But once you have it, it stops motivating you. So, this means you focus on whatever need is currently unmet. So, if you're hungry, that dominates your attention. But once you're fed, you can move on to worrying about safety. Once you feel safe, you can focus on making friends, and so on up the ladder. So, yeah, basically, you can't focus on gaining respect and recognition if you're worried about where your next meal is coming from. That's the core logic of the theory.
ACan I, can I, I have not a question, but just, I wanna go back to that pursuit of happiness because If you watch that film, it actually goes through those levels. It's quite interesting. Yeah. Today's episode is brought to you by the Pursuit of Happiness movie.
BYeah, it's, I mean, it's inspired movies. It caught fire in the business world. It's been used in all sorts of ways. It's been used to design pay structures, recognition programmes, employee motivation strategies, and it is still taught as a foundational concept today. Second problem, Maslow himself knew this was an incomplete theory.
DOh.
BSo in the original paper, he mentioned other needs like the desire to learn and appreciate beauty, but he didn't know where to put them. So he recognised that his list wasn't finished. So after 1943, Maslow's work split into 2, into 2 paths. So one was very practical, working with businesses, and the other was much more philosophical. So he started studying people who seem to have reached their full potential and asked what motivates them once they've achieved success. So once they've got this self-actualisation, and he found that they weren't driven by personal success anymore, they were driven by bigger values. So trust, beauty, justice, making the world better. So this meant he could add a 6th level to the hierarchy, the pursuit of values that transcend self-interest. So self-actualisation isn't even the peak of the pyramid.
AThere's one more.
BThere's one more. There's nuance in there, as we just said, with this 6th level, which never really got famous because he only developed this about 2 years before he actually passed away. And it was published in a really obscure psychology journal that most people never read. So the 5-level pyramid became the standard version taught in schools, whilst only a handful of researchers knew about the 6th level. And I came across a really interesting story when I was looking into this from a psychologist named Hazel Skelsey Guest.
AWhat a name.
BI know. So she ran a weekend course on Maslow at Cambridge. She spent 90 minutes teaching about the 6th level, these transcendent values beyond self-interest. When she marked the essays, some students had still drawn the hierarchy with only 5 levels, right? And with self-actualization at the top.
DRight.
BAnd when she looked into it, it's basically that was all the students with a background in business and management. They just couldn't accept that there was a 6th level because they'd always known it as 5. Whereas the psychology students were a little bit more open to, as we tend to be, to things changing. So the problem is that one, there's no pyramid. Two, the pyramid wasn't complete. And three, Maslow himself said it wasn't a finished thing. It was a moving, living theory that was still developing. So problematic. So the next question is, has any of the research shown that Maslow's hierarchy of needs can be backed up?
ARight, okay.
BCan be true. So in the '70s, 2 researchers reviewed every study that had tried to test Maslow's hierarchy, and their conclusion was that there's very little evidence supporting the idea that needs work in a rigid order.
ARight.
BSo yes, we all have needs, but following it step by step in a progression doesn't really make sense. And it also, you know, you've gotta think that if I need to eat before I focus on being safe, if I've got a tiger running at me, I'm like, actually, I'm a bit hungry. I'll just finish my snack before.
AFinish your Frosties.
BYeah, exactly. It doesn't quite work. The other problem is that Maslow developed this theory on the top 1% of exceptional achievers. So he studied people like Albert Einstein. So how can you have an all-encompassing theory of everybody about the human experience when you've only based it on extraordinary individuals? Then there's a cultural problem. It's a very Western theory. It's a very individualistic theory. individualistic worldview, climbing towards that individual self-actualization, and then going to, to those transcendent values. But in a lot of cultures, they're more collectivist. People prioritize community harmony, family obligations over individual achievement, which we absolutely see in Bosnia, don't we?
DYeah.
BUm, so yeah, so it's all, it's all a bit difficult. And I think really what modern psychology is telling us is that human motivation is a lot messier. There are some things that Maslow got right in that we have 2 types of needs. So we have deficiency needs, things like hunger, safety, and belonging. So they're driven by lacking. And then we have growth needs, things like learning, creativity. And the more you satisfy your growth needs, the more you want them. Whereas the more you satisfy your deficiency needs, you don't want it anymore.
ARight.
CYeah.
BSo he got that right. Um, and there is some really interesting research that has been done with school children in poverty that have found that that yes, if their basic needs are, are met better, then they'll perform better in, in school. So there is some truth there, um, but there are better models I think now that kind of explain motivation. You've probably heard of some of them. Self-determination theory focuses on 3 basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and feeling connected to others. It's much more flexible as a model. So yeah, I think the problem is It's just not quite as robust as we want it to be. It's a theory and it's always been a theory and it was an incomplete theory. So truth or lie, the claim that Maslow's hierarchy of needs with self-actualization at the top of the pyramid, does that accurately describe human motivation?
ANo. Yeah.
BIt's a lie, or at best it's very dramatic oversimplification. And I think that's probably true of the majority of truth and lies we'll talk about. on here. Some will be absolutely bobbins, some will be surprisingly true, like tall people are genuinely more successful, and others are going to be somewhere in the middle where it's based on truth, but it's just been stretched to a point where it doesn't quite explain the complexity of, of humans and the gloriousness of, of all that messiness. Um, so yeah, I'm sorry, Maslow, it's not true.
AWell, on that bombshell, let's move on to my favourite time of the week, the world-famous Weekly Workplace Surgery, where I put your questions to Leanne. Now, we've had so many great questions from you guys over the months. And if you have a question you want me to put to Leanne, either drop me a message on LinkedIn or send an email to hello@truthliesandwork.com. All the links are in the show notes, the links, the links in every single one of the show notes. But when we're thinking back to our favourite questions, this one came top of the list again for both of us. This is why we're, why we're great as co-producers. Oh, co-hosts. Sorry.
BYou're the producer. I'm the talent.
AYou're the talent.
BVery much so. Yeah. I mean, I'm not even sure we considered any others, to be honest, because How could this not be the question of the year? I've never heard anything more awkward in my entire life, and I've been married to Al for 13 years. So let's go back to episode 180 from March this year and remind ourselves of our lovely listener who had the horror of finding out her new boss is her ex.
AOkay, so question number 1, my ex is now my boss. I'm in a situation I thought I'd never— sorry, I'm in a situation I never thought possible. 3 years ago, I had a serious relationship with someone who worked in another department. The breakup wasn't great, but we managed to stay professional at company events. Yesterday, our department head announced they were leaving, and guess who's been promoted to replace them? Yep, my ex. They start next week, and I'll be directly reporting to someone who once told me I was emotionally unavailable and career obsessed.
DOof.
AI'm good at my job, but I'm terrified this history will affect my progression. Some colleagues know about our past relationships. The gossip has already started. I've considered asking for a transfer, but I've built relationships with our clients and I love my team. HR knows nothing about our history, and I'm not sure if I should tell them. I need this job. Sounds like you love this job too, but I'm dreading every upcoming one-to-one meeting. How do I handle this without torching my career or having to leave?
DAwkward.
AAwkward. Very awkward.
BOh, good.
ACan you imagine having to work with your, with your ex or even your current spouse?
BNo.
ANo, it must be a nightmare.
BChrist, no.
ABack to, back to this listener.
BOh, I feel for you. I feel for you. I can, I can feel that stomach churn when you found this out. This is why you tell HR when you have a relationship in an organisation, because things like this can transpire if people don't know. They don't know what they don't know. I would— this is what I would do, and it's going to be super awkward. Everything about this situation from this point onwards is going to be massively awkward. There is no getting away from that, so just suck it in. Um, the thing that I would first do, probably kind of salvage this situation— HR need to know about this. They need to know, even just as an FYI, and everything works out really great, they know that this dynamic is in play. So someone can check in with you, can check in with your new Boss, make sure everything's happy. Um, I would do this if you can with your ex. So I would be inclined to contact your ex-partner and say, this is awkward, I think we probably should make HR aware that this dynamic exists. I'm sure that we'll be fine. I have every intention of dealing with it professionally. You are my manager. I'm sure you have every intention of dealing it dealing with it professionally, um, as you know, as, as my line manager. That said, I'm finding this situation really awkward and a bit weird, and I'd just like to put it on the radar of HR. I think we'd be better doing that together. What do you think? If this person says no, red flag number one. And if they do, go to HR, have this conversation, explain that, you know, at the time we didn't disclose it for various reasons. Bearing in mind that could be against company policy, so just do some research first and make sure you're not going to get yourself in trouble. Um, but have a conversation with an HR, um, rep that you trust and just kind of say, I don't want anything to be done about it, I just want to flag it, I just want to share it. So if anything happens in the future, you have this context in which to, to understand what's happening. And then I think you've just got to suck it in and see. Because it could be it's fine. It could be that everyone's moved on, you're going to stay professional, the gossips will stop when there's nothing to gossip about anymore. They see you and your ex are getting on well professionally and it's all fine. If it isn't fine, um, at least HR know and will understand the context.
AI think that's interesting advice because my thought immediately when I'm reading this was like, oh, maybe you should go and talk to your ex, go and have— go out for a coffee and talk to them. And I realize now that actually In the context of what you just said, that's probably not a good idea at all. Um, you need to make it a bit more formal. But also, I don't know. I mean, as, as Leanne said, things have changed. There's people, when you do split with someone, you do quite often say things that either you don't necessarily believe or you believed strongly at the time and you no longer believe. Everything could be absolutely fine. I think my only advice is, uh, is don't rekindle this. If you get the opportunity, if you've got a one-to-one, In the office and the blinds are shut and the door's locked. Yeah, leave that alone, I think.
BGood luck to you.
AGood luck and Godspeed.
BStill so awkward. Oh, it gives me— oh, it makes me all googly. But yes, but it's nice. This is a good reminder of where HR can play a really proactive and supportive role, I think.
AYep. And if all else fails, maybe, maybe dust off that old CV or resume and go looking for another job.
BYeah, maybe.
AOkay, so I think that's a wrap for part 1 of our highlights episodes. Coming up this Thursday, we've got part 2 of a highlights special, uh, featuring our favourite moments from our expert interview episode. Remember, that's the Thursday one. Choose dead easy. Tuesday, just nonsense. Thursday, a bit more, bit more, um, bit less nonsense.
BImportant stuff.
DYeah.
BNo, yes, we will be hearing from Steve Koss, co-founder of King of Pops, Elena Daboul on feminine intelligence, and we will be revealing which guest episode has topped our download charts.
AYeah, but I remember Top of the Pops. Look, if you enjoyed these highlights and you want to hear the full episodes, all the episode numbers are in the show notes. Thank you, Leanne, for doing that, because that must be a pain in the backside to write all those out, unless you actually asked a certain AI model to do it.
BI didn't actually. I did this all myself entirely by hand. I wrote it and then typed it up. No, I, you know what I mean by hand. But no, do you know what was really useful, Al, is the beautiful list of all the episodes on our website, truthliesandwork.com. If you click on the episodes, you can see all of them in a nice, lovely order. And that's where I pulled the links from. And it was very easy to use. You should go and check it out.
AYes. And I built that in one afternoon, didn't I? One weekend. Yeah. So go and join us over at LinkedIn as well. Uh, we're gonna see you on Thursday for part 2.
BOn Christmas Day. This is how dedicated we are to you people.
AHang on, I'm just checking my list. 25th. Yes, highlights part 2, Christmas Day. And we are getting up early. We're not drinking, we're not opening any of our presents until we've recorded this episode and press publish. 100%.
BBecause this is how much we love you.
AYeah, 100%. It's not been pre-recorded.
BNo, sir.
A100%.
BHow dare you?
AHow dare you, sir? Bye!
CBye!
ABye!