Your Work Friends
🔥 #3: Gluttony - From Our Fishbowl LIVE "7 Deadly Work Sins" Summer Series
In this episode, we are talking about Gluttony
...you know gluttony, that feeling of entitlement - to time, resources, office supplies. Maybe you think it is ok to spend 20-minutes of a 30-minute meeting talking about your weekend to your co-workers. Maybe you steal the free snacks before you head home from training. Or, maybe you find yourself arguing with the same co-worker over resources for equally important projects at work.
At work, gluttony shows itself in a lot of different ways, and we want to talk about it. How you can recognize it, how you can manage it, and what to do if you're a victim of someone's appetite for overindulgence.
About the "7 Deadly Work Sins" Summer Series
You want to know what really messes employees up? Raw human emotions. Listen, we ALL experience them from time to time (we totally have), but if you don't handle them well, man can they be deal breakers. In this series, we break down
• The common spectrum of experiences with each 'sin',
• We talk about real-life (kinda salacious stories) scenarios (yeah, this stuff happens every day),
• How to not ‘commit’ the sin, and
• Most importantly, how to deal with a sinner
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.
Thanks for listening!
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.
Thanks for listening!
Hey! We love new friends! Connect with us!
In this episode, we are talking about Gluttony
...you know gluttony, that feeling of entitlement - to time, resources, office supplies. Maybe you think it is ok to spend 20-minutes of a 30-minute meeting talking about your weekend to your co-workers. Maybe you steal the free snacks before you head home from training. Or, maybe you find yourself arguing with the same co-worker over resources for equally important projects at work.
At work, gluttony shows itself in a lot of different ways, and we want to talk about it. How you can recognize it, how you can manage it, and what to do if you're a victim of someone's appetite for overindulgence.
About the "7 Deadly Work Sins" Summer Series
You want to know what really messes employees up? Raw human emotions. Listen, we ALL experience them from time to time (we totally have), but if you don't handle them well, man can they be deal breakers. In this series, we break down
• The common spectrum of experiences with each 'sin',
• We talk about real-life (kinda salacious stories) scenarios (yeah, this stuff happens every day),
• How to not ‘commit’ the sin, and
• Most importantly, how to deal with a sinner
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.
Thanks for listening!
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.
Thanks for listening!
Hey! We love new friends! Connect with us!
Hey friends, it is officially summer here in the United States and thank you for being here with us to take a fun midweek break with us where we're going to talk about all the shit about work that we never talk about. I am Francesca and I'm Mel and Mel. We've been in HR for a long ass time. Mel, how long have you been in HR?
Speaker 2:Since the early 2000s, coming back? Yeah, 20 plus years. How about you, francesca?
Speaker 1:Nice, nice. Yeah, about 20 years. About 20 years, you know, we've been doing it, working with people, and the thing is, friends, listen, if you want the good stories, ask someone in HR, because we've heard, heard it all and we've seen it all. And a few months ago, mel and I started this podcast called your Work Friends. It's on any platform of your choice. Listen, we're just two HR friends with no filter and we want to get you through all of the work shit because we know how all the work shit works.
Speaker 1:We have a ton of different episodes out there, like earning what you deserve and signs that you should quit, how to escape corporate, how to find your calm, and we have one coming up next week around working with jerks with Dr Tessa West, who actually wrote the book on how do you work with jerks. But the thing here, when we've gone through all of those episodes and we've gone through all of our work, is that one thing has really remained true that there are things that really trip people up and sometimes I mean totally destroy people's career. A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:You know, when I think about what really messes employees up at work, it's our raw human emotions that no one really talks about. So, like the series, the sins, if you will look, we all experience them from time to time. I totally have, Francesca, you totally have too right.
Speaker 1:A thousand percent Right. We're the most people.
Speaker 2:But if you don't handle them well, man, can they really be deal breakers with your career?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So in this series, the Seven Deadly S sins of work, we've already talked about lust. We talked about wrath. You can go back on fishbowl or on our podcast and listen to those. Those are super fun conversations. But today we're talking about the third sin, which is gluttony.
Speaker 1:And before you think you're immune, these three things happened in the last two weeks and these are actual stories that our podcast listeners have submitted or told us and we have anonymized those or anonymized them, excuse me. We have many, many stories we'll tell throughout this hour that are actual stories. But again, friends, we've anonymized everything, so you really probably can't trace it back to the actual person or company. But again, friends, we've anonymized everything, so you really probably can't trace it back to the actual person or company, but these are all real. So these three things have happened. An intern who was making next to nothing started to overindulge in the free Coke and Dr Pepper at their company, noting it was one of his few pleasures. Quote unquote Unfortunately, a coworker saw it, complained to HR, which is kind of like come on, man, but still complained to HR that they couldn't control themselves with the free pop. So now the company was forced to go from free to $1, which unfortunately was not in the intern's budget.
Speaker 2:First of all to that other person mind your business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like come on, mind your business, mind your business, Dr Pepper's delicious, it is so good, it's so good, okay, anyway, the second story that came in was in consulting. So, if you know, in consulting people have this thing called being on the bench, right, and so competing managers at a consulting firm would actually hoard people, sometimes even having them on the bench, so they were pulling them off projects, so they couldn't get their hours, so they could save them for their own projects, right, and that was really hurting people's career and the finances. And lastly this was my favorite one because it was a pretty biggie A C-level executive got fired when a company realized they had been given millions of dollars of contract work to a contract company. Right, the twist is this company was giving this C-level exec kickbacks for the work.
Speaker 2:Ooh, that's not good.
Speaker 1:Yeah and listen. We have our own stories, right, mel.
Speaker 2:You have a story about gluttony A hundred percent. I was thinking back throughout my career of when we were working through the spectrum here. I have totally been the center when it comes to gluttony, especially early on in my career when I was still figuring things out. Thankfully, I never reached the illegal level, but I definitely was borderline on overindulgence because I worked in the financial aid office of my university as part of a work study program and I truly thought it was no big deal if I showed up every day 10 minutes late. I totally strolled in with a coffee like it was nothing because I thought, oh, I'll just make up for the time.
Speaker 2:But someone who that was their full time job, like a serious adult, while I was still figuring out how to adults, she explained to me like hey, when you show up every day 10 minutes late, and not only that, you come in like with a coffee. So it's like rubbing it in everyone's face, like we were relying on your support because you showed up 10 minutes late. That took 10 minutes off, so and so's lunch break, etc. And her walking me through the impacts of that. Obviously I made the change turn around pretty quickly.
Speaker 2:But, that was me trying to figure out norms and totally just simple pleasure of getting a coffee before work and bartering that it's good to steal the 10 minutes every day, yeah, yeah, how about you?
Speaker 1:I mean, the meeting would be 30 minutes long and 20 minutes of it would be about their latest medical drama or adventure or their spouse. And it was so frustrating because, listen, you want to be a good human and you want to listen to someone and be conversant, but you also need to get work done and I really felt like they kind of overindulged in the personal talk at the detriment of the work and, quite honestly, my patients. And here's the thing with gluttony right. It can be a lot of different things and we'll talk about it, but you know, gluttony right? This is the feeling of entitlement to time, resources, office supplies, it could even be money, for example, and we'll talk about all of this. Maybe you think it's okay to spend 20 minutes on a 30 minute meeting talking about your weekend with coworkers, or to steal free snacks before you head home for a training, or maybe you find yourself arguing with the same coworker over resources for equally important projects At work. Gluttony shows itself in a lot of different ways and we want to talk about it. So buckle up today. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to cover how you can recognize gluttony, how you can manage it and what to do if you're the victim of someone else's appetite to overindulge in time, snacks, money, whatever it is. There's a whole spectrum. We'll talk about it. And listen, mel and I love to talk about this stuff. We do it for a living, we do it on the pod, we love jamming with you today, but we want to hear about your experiences as well. So we'll be pausing to ask your opinion, your thoughts. We can bring you up on stage, or you can also DM us as well. If you want to be anonymous, we will keep you anonymous. We'll keep you anonymous. That's proper grammar. We'll protect your anonymity. There you go, all right. Sound good, mel. Should we do it? Let's do it All right. So here's the deal with gluttony. Let's talk about it.
Speaker 1:99.9% of us have experienced gluttony at work. If you have taken an extra long lunch, you've experienced gluttony at work. If you fudged your expense report to give yourself a few extra dollars, you've experienced gluttony at work. If you fudged your expense report to give yourself you know, a few extra dollars, you've experienced gluttony at work. If you're talking your, your coworkers ear off way too long, again, you've experienced gluttony at work.
Speaker 1:In fact, even when it comes to the talking or the taking stuff like we've all taken pens, I got into a habit of taking a bunch of post-its. The other day I was cleaning out a box in my basement. You know how you have like the box of cords and then you have the box of like office crap. Yes, yeah, I found I kind of stole a lot of Post-its. Guys, I'm sorry about that. I love Post-its. 75% of employees have stolen at least once for their employer so 75% and that can range from office supplies to larger assets and it actually costs the workplace about $50 billion annually in the US because of all the theft that's going on.
Speaker 2:Just on stealing stuff, right, yeah, because you don't think it's a big deal. You're like nah, I got to print my concert tickets, whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's an interesting a thousand percent right. I mean, that's the thing. Why do we do this? Like, why do people do this? So what is it Right? It's an excessive indulgence or or greediness Right, and it stems from a couple different things. It could be psychological right From stress or burnout. It could be, you know, you have a high pressure culture or a lack of support, so you feel like I'm just gonna, I'm just need this, I'm going to take it. It could also be cultural acceptance, like hey, everybody fricking does it Right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, sure yeah.
Speaker 1:You know like, so I'm going to do it too. There's a multitude of different reasons why this happens, but what we want to talk about is what it looks like and how you can recognize it for yourself, right? What's interesting about gluttony and all of the sins that we've talked about, whether it's lust or wrath we're going to talk about envy in a following week but they all fall on a spectrum from low, low offenses right, this is where most of us fall into to medium to high, to straight up illegal. So we want to walk you through the spectrum. Here we go. You, ready At the low end of the spectrum, is enjoying simple pleasures. And you may say Francesca, come on, work stressful enough. You're telling me this is gluttonous to enjoy simple pleasures. Hear me out, hear me out. Listen.
Speaker 1:It's pretty common for everyone to have done this or witnessed someone else doing this in the workplace. It could be things like taking that extra long coffee break or snack break. It could be taking your personal calls during work hours, using work resources for personal tasks, ie printing. By the way, who the hell has a printer anymore? Where else are you going to print it? Where else are you going to print? Well, staples, a thousand percent, yeah, but who's driving to Staples? No one's driving to Staples, no, and you know, even even on those long lunches, right Again, friends, you're not alone If you've done any. Mel and I have done all of these things. All of them, right, like we're not alone in this. Again, according to Sherm, even on those long lunches, 29% of workers admit to taking long lunches once in a while. 12% of us do it regularly. So again, this is stuff we do. It's stuff we do, mel, have you ever done like kind of oh yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:I mean when I worked in Midtown in New York. A day like today where it's absolutely stunning, 100% that lunch was going to be going an extra 30 minutes. I'm not strolling back fast to my desk. How about anyone else? Anyone else Like does anyone want to come up on stage? Have you done this Anyone?
Speaker 1:Whatever. Okay, that's cool, yeah Well, anytime you want to come up and talk about it, let us know. But again, so this is low, it's a low end of the spectrum. We've all done, or most of us have done, it right. It's very common, very natural. The risk factor here is it's almost completely harmless, quite honestly, right has a very minor impact. It may cause a little bit of resentment if it's frequent, right, which, again, that makes sense and it could lead to like inequities if others notice it as a pattern like, oh, there's Mel taking her extra long lunch again, kind of thing. Yeah, like, oh, that happens every day, right, but if it doesn't, you know, relatively low risk.
Speaker 1:So there we go, enjoying simple pleasures at the low end of the spectrum as we're moving up into medium. Then we get into overindulgence. This is, this is when we're talking about overindulgence. At this stage In this spectrum. We mean an employee who regularly that's the key word here regularly indulges in activities to an excessive degree and it leads to noticeable decline in productivity or potential resource misuse. We've talked about already excessive socializing, overindulging in company events, ie excessive drinking I have stories about this, I'll talk about in a second Using excessive amounts of office supplies, frequently leaving early or late, you get the gist right, but this is regular and it's excessive and it has some impacts. Mel, you know this when you see it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I admitted to doing it, my coffee every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah. This is an interesting thing too, especially in HR. The excessive piece to me, I think, is something we really need to talk about and like. For example, I have two stories here that happened at various companies, but one is excessive use of snacks. I worked at a company that had free snack, or they free snacks, huge snack rooms with the kombucha and the green tea and whatever, and there was a woman. I would walk in and she had this massive bag and she would, at the end of the day I kid you not, would be taking bags like 20 bags of chips, 20 energy bars 20 drinks, hand to God and she's like, oh, I'm just packing my kids lunch.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, oh, you know, listen, I'm not going to do anything about it. But you're also like, is that cool? I'm not sure you know on the other hand too, like there have been. I have taken people excessive drinking. I have taken people to the hospital. I have found people in hallways passed out in their vomit because they have excessively drank at happy hours, and so this stuff absolutely happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I have a time one which kind of goes back to your example from earlier, with the person you worked with who took up you know, like 20 minutes of a 30 minute meeting talking about their personal life I think about, especially with return to office or when you're.
Speaker 2:You have that in-person time. I remember when I was working somewhere, um, I sat on a floor with 20 peers and there was a week where I was like why am I working until eight o'clock every single day? It's because in one almost every day, when I added up all the little 10, 10 minute stop buys to just get ask me a question about something or can I get your thoughts on this, or just to talk to me, like to catch up, I was spending like four hours a day and just random social time with folks Like well, some of it was work stuff, but it was like all the interruption started taking away from my ability to do my job and it's like just even but folks not really thinking about the impact of just stopping by, versus saying even just asking the question do you have time for this right now or can I grab time for this? Almost like that lack of self-awareness that that how that might impact another person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and four hours is excessive, right, I mean, this is what we're talking here in the overindulge is. I love relationship building, I love seeing my work, absolutely. But when it becomes to the detriment of your work, your patients, your health, right With over with overindulging and drinking and that sort of thing, the risk factor goes way up here. And here's why this risk factor goes up, especially for those of us that are in HR or anybody that sees it right. It's because we see it. It is plural. This is why it gets really risky to do overindulgence. Your colleagues can see it, your team, your peers, your stakeholders.
Speaker 1:Overindulgence, if not checked, can really have some pretty massive impacts on productivity. It can make people sometimes feel uncomfortable and it can even lead to cost control as well. Just on the drinking thing alone, for example right, and listen, I'm not I drink. I'm not someone who's. I'm not trying to be anti-drinking or anything like that, but there are stats out there that 41% of employees that drank at a happy hour experience reduced productivity the next day. 15% actually admitted to missing work as well. And so these things have some real productivity impacts, have some real health impacts and have some brand impacts for you as well, yeah, all right, we're going to move up the spectrum because we've talked about again, we're enjoying simple pleasures and now we're really overindulging.
Speaker 1:The next risky business we're moving up into high territory is obsession or addiction All right. As overindulgence and tests intensifies, it can turn into obsession or even addiction. This is when employee exhibits compulsive behaviors that significantly disrupt work performance or personal health. This is things like are you constantly checking your social media or you're on the internet all the time, hoarding office supply. Over-reliance on colleagues to complete work. Procrastination supply over reliance on colleagues to complete work. Procrastination. Excessive meetings. Work is work, work workaholicism, if you will. This is my favorite, because I think we all have this person. Excessive communications via teams, email and on work and non-work hours.
Speaker 2:Yes, the person who emails you and then sends you a team's note five seconds later to say did you see my email?
Speaker 1:Yeah, like someone I I've gotten team's messages from colleagues at 3am in the morning on a Saturday.
Speaker 2:Oh no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, saturday, that's. That's kind of obsessive y'all. That's a real. In this day and age where we know about wellbeing, we know about boundaries and all this good jazz, that's obsessive behavior. That is someone who has a compulsion to need to get something off their plate, a compulsion to want to know the answer. Now, right, that's what that is. That also can lead to heightened stress for people that are all around it, like their team. Work-life imbalance, decreased productivities. These habits undermine the individual, that is, the center that's doing it and everybody around them. And again, this is what this looks like in real life. Right, if you feel like you have to work all the time, to the point that when you're not even working, you feel like you should be working. I have been there. Oh yeah it sucks, it sucks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sucks. And sometimes we get ourselves into like, oh my God, why do I? It's like this, this compulsion to want to work, to want to check, or feel badly that we're not working. That can, that can be an element of obsession, right, it's like manufactured urgency.
Speaker 2:There's nothing that urgent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a thousand percent.
Speaker 1:We talked about this too, right? Again, if you have a boss, or if you or your boss or team member will ping you at any point in the day, even on weekends, just to get it off their plate, right, or, to your very good point, the person that emails and then pings you right after or texts you right after did you get it? Did you get it? Did you get it? These are compulsive behaviors, right? Yeah, and this is the thing we are living in a society where people are overloaded already, period, they are right, 45% of employees experience communication overload already. 65% of workers already feel pressure to respond outside of office hours already, and it really leads to bad, bad incomes for health and productivity. Risk factor here again goes way up, because on this side of the spectrum, whether you're the sinner or you're receiving end of the sin or you're just a bystander, it's bad news, it's not healthy if someone's reached this level of the spectrum because they're not really in a rational state and they're not really thinking about the risks or the impacts and the folks around them. Again, this really raises concerns for well-being, quite honestly, for people around them and for themselves, and at this stage too, you can become a liability for your company because you're right for someone reporting you to potentially reporting you to.
Speaker 1:HR or potentially having a discrepancy around the way that you're managing? Right? Again, the last one here on the spectrum, because we've talked about simple pleasures overindulgence Now we're getting compulsive about all the stuff we need. Right? This is theft and misuse of resources. This is full on what you think it is. Once someone has reached this stage, it's almost starting to become a liability and maybe even illegal here, right, because this is when an employee engages in unlawful activities within the workplace, such as full on stealing office supplies.
Speaker 1:I didn't work with this person. I knew this person. They just literally stole the printer at their office. This isn't even during COVID, when we can all take home office furniture. They literally just stole the printer. I'm like wow, how did they walk out with that? They went in on a Saturday, they took the printer and they walked away, wow, anyway, yeah, so stealing office supply. You hear about people embezzling funds, unauthorized use of company credit cards if you're making things like personal purchases and not getting not reimbursed for it, right. Falsifying expense reports, even things like IP and data theft right, that's also in this category. Clocking in for others and misappropriation of funds and this is way, way more common than you think. What percentage of employees do you think have actually stolen multiple times from their organization?
Speaker 2:I bet it's high, just based on the numbers you shared earlier.
Speaker 1:I want to say maybe I can come back with a good like 28%, 29%, 37.5% of employees have stolen multiple times.
Speaker 1:Wow, that seems incredibly high, yeah, and 30% of businesses have reported financial theft. So of that stealing right, Printer, snack, whatever but this is financial theft is 30% of businesses experience this right and the most common reason why they have found is entitlement, financial need and the perceived risk of not getting caught. Interesting. Very interesting, Listen, friends. This is one of those places where it's absolutely risky business because you're entering in the illegal territory If you steal something that is illegal. So now we're not even talking about loss of job and HR, we're talking about authorities here. So again, this is going to be risky business. Avoid this at all costs, but again it does happen quite a bit.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah Want to open it up here. We talked about the spectrum of gluttony right and understanding the spectrum of gluttony and realizing the different places and how it can manifest and how the risks happen. Have you all witnessed any of this at work? Anyone have a fun story they want to come up and share.
Speaker 2:I mean, while we're waiting, I have a time theft one. I remember a story from years ago, not my personal story, but somebody who I had worked with shared with me one of the most obnoxious time stealing stories for unused PTO which almost no company does that anymore and someone essentially they just never put in their PTO hours. So at the end of every year in December, before it rolled over, what they found that she was doing is cashing out for unused PTO. But she had used PTO. She just never submitted it and it took years for them to catch on to what was happening. So she was just kind of getting paid double time for that and she did get let go. But that to me was an interesting story of, like whoa, what would make you that's? I mean, it's a nice end of year bonus, of course it totally can.
Speaker 1:But here's yeah, here's the thing with every type of staff I've ever seen at work, right, I will tell you every, most, most people that I've seen. It takes it a minute, but they end up getting caught. They absolutely end up getting caught right. And if you're just joining us, friends, this is francesca and mel, where your work. Friends, we're talking about gluttony at work and we've just covered the spectrum of how gluttony shows up at work from low, which is enjoying simple pleasures, to medium, which is overindulging, we're moving up to high, which is obsessive, compulsive behaviors, and we're ending on everybody's favorite theft, which is super illegal.
Speaker 1:And if anyone, has any stories that they want to share, let us know. Mel, I'm going to turn it over to you because I have a few DMs I'm going to go into and then we'll come back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean. Well, here's the listener story that you know. We reached out to our podcast listeners in advance of this episode to share their own story. So names have been changed, companies changed, et cetera, just to protect those folks. But a friend of this person reached out to us to share this story and it really touches on the entire spectrum here. So, um, just to set up Lori, uh, she is the center in this situation. She was a dedicated employee. She worked at a midsize tech company, uh, known for software solution their innovative software solutions. When she had first joined the company, like anyone, right, Her work ethic was exemplary. She quickly became a value member, a valued member of the team, and after six years with the company, she felt pretty comfortable, right?
Speaker 2:You know how that goes when you're after five, six years you're like uh well, I'm just an old shoe here, so you know whatever, you're just super comfortable. She built really strong relationships with her peers, leadership and she just started to relax a little bit more in her environment and in how she was showing up. So over time Lori began to indulge in the small pleasures that we all do. They seem totally harmless. She started with taking slightly longer coffee breaks to chat with her colleague David and occasionally printing things for personal use, despite the company policy against it. After all, everyone did it Like if you had a concert to go to guess where you're printing your tickets In the office. So she wasn't doing things that others weren't doing.
Speaker 2:These minor indulgences really provided her with brief moments of convenience, relaxation, camaraderie with her work, friends. But it did start to become a slippery slope. Initially her manager, lisa, didn't really see the need to intervene because again they seem like harmless things. After all need to intervene. Because again they seem like harmless things. After all, lori was a solid member of the team. Their occasional behaviors it's not an everyday occurrence and she didn't really see the value in addressing Lori and making a mountain out of a molehill, which probably would have made Lori feel really badly and brought down team morale. But as a few months went by, lori's behavior gradually escalated and what was once occasional things started to become everyday things. That's how it always happens it always happens.
Speaker 2:It always happens. You start getting super relaxed, right, you're like, well, I mean these other things and this person that wrote in didn't share what might have been going on with Lori outside of work. That could have been playing into this. But what they said is like her social media usage during office hours really increased. They found she was like caught multiple times in meetings when sharing her screen, scrolling on social media and being caught. This habit obviously started to impact productivity, leading to missed deadlines, lower quality of work.
Speaker 2:She also started using company resources for personal tasks much more often, so she had a side gig. For example, she was caught multiple times printing things for her side gigs and making personal calls business calls every day for her side gig. Her overindulgence also started to morph a little bit into obsession. She was frequently seen online shopping, making personal purchases during work hours. She started getting deliveries sent to the office or Amazon deliveries being sent every day to her office as if it was her home. Um, you know she started to hoard a lot of the materials for her side business. Um, folks caught her multiple times like kind of similar to what you had witnessed, francesca, with the chip lady, uh, where she was just kind of like here's my tote, I'm going to fill it up with pens and sticky notes and all kinds of supplies for her business, and she would tell David it's no big deal, no one's going to miss this stuff, they'll just restock it later.
Speaker 2:Her colleagues started to grow really frustrated with her because they were feeling the strain of one, her reduced workload. She was clearly distracted and more often distracted so she was missing deadlines, pushing things off to her colleagues to get done, et cetera. And then there were more than a few times that folks actually couldn't use the printer for work because of her printing business, for her personal side gig. One day David ran into her in the copy room and they noticed she had been printing 500 flyers to support a side gig, her side gig, some kind of sale that she was doing.
Speaker 2:He noticed this change in her behavior for months and as a friend, he thought you know, can I thoughtfully address this without seeming like he didn't want to be a narc, like hey, what are you doing? Like he didn't want to be a narc, like, hey, what are you doing? But he, as her friend, he started to notice like if he was noticing other people were noticing, right. He told her he noticed that she was starting to take more personal time, the use of company resources for personal items, and that she could get in trouble for that, because others were starting to notice too, and he said they were coming to him because they knew he was her friend. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:I see this all the time because I think a lot of people think, oh, it's a big company.
Speaker 2:No, one's gonna miss it. Yeah, they can afford.
Speaker 1:It is excessive. Anything over 25.
Speaker 2:That's my, that's my, yeah 500 is a long time imagine if you're like yeah, like I worked in law firms, you can't be hogging the printer. Lisa, her boss, started to also get complaints and more formal complaints. So, like, initially it started where folks were going to David because that's her friend, but she started to get more formal complaints from other team members about Lori's conduct members about Lori's conduct and based on the complaints and her own observations of this increasing misuse of resources, she decided to finally step in and have a formal conversation about it. So she held a one-on-one with Lori to address the issue, just letting her know hey, I noticed some changes in your work habits. It's important to maintain a professional balance and use company resources appropriately. And she kept it really simple because she again didn't want to make a mountain out of a molehill. Lori was very valued. I don't think she wanted to believe this was a bigger issue because of Lori's work, her previous reputation, all of those good things. Lori assured Lisa that she would improve in this space, but no significant progress was made.
Speaker 2:After this conversation, David, once a close friend. He started to distance himself because he was unable to cover for her any longer and he was kind of getting annoyed that people kept interrupting his work day to complain about Lori's behavior because he's like, uh, I'm not responsible for her. About Lori's behavior because he's like I'm not responsible for her. As a result, team morale clearly dipped and resentment started to grow towards Lori because of the unchecked behavior. Others were starting to think like why isn't Lisa doing anything more about this? How this is impacting the team. Dynamics were being ignored and so people started to grow resentful towards Lisa, and Lisa began to receive more and more frequent complaints here from other team members about Lori's conduct.
Speaker 2:Well, here's where we're going to go with a cliffhanger illegal territory. She clearly had a sense of entitlement and a lack of oversight because she began manipulating her timesheets and expense reports. For example, she falsely claimed overtime hours and submitted fraudulent reimbursements for personal expenses that were disguised as business-related costs. She also would buy things on the weekend for her side business and thought no big deal, she would just pay that back when she got paid. And she also started using the company car for her personal side business trips Things like hauls from supply stores or day trips with her friends. So she put wear and tear on the company car and use their gas card versus using her own car and paying for gas, and as a result, she racked up unauthorized mileage and unauthorized costs and she essentially explained it away that she felt like the company can afford it, They'll never miss it, so what's the big deal? Who cares? Anyway, how do you, how do you feel about this? So far?
Speaker 1:See it all the time, right, see it all the time. Yeah and yeah. Even if someone like listen, I'm not saying if you're printing more than 25 pages, you're going to end up stealing.
Speaker 2:That's not what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Not say that, but it is a very it's very interesting when you think about, like, the risky business of gluttony right, of how it can escalate to this, and I think it honestly most of the cases I see it comes from this sense of like ah, no one's going to miss it, these are freebies. Who cares yeah?
Speaker 2:Or I'll pay it back. So who cares? Like using the credit card and then they'll just pay it back when they get paid. It's like, well, that's not your personal expense card, it's so interesting. Anyway, I'm going to pause here and we're going to share more about the outcome of this story, but first, you know, we'd love to hear from you, if one you're what do you think about this situation? You can DM us If you want to come on stage. You can raise your hand and we'll bring you up on stage.
Speaker 2:But it begs the question what do you do if you find yourself in this situation or really any other place on the gluttony spectrum? What do you do if you witness someone doing this? What do you do if you're the person doing this? We discussed upfront that this stuff happens on the spectrum. What defines it? What you should do next requires really on you taking a look at that spectrum, where you fall on that spectrum, if you're the center, or where the center falls on that spectrum, if you're viewing this from the sidelines. So let's talk about what you should do depending on where you're at. So if you find yourself on the low end of the spectrum enjoying small pleasures at this stage of the spectrum.
Speaker 2:Look, impact and risk is relatively low. It's harmless. It's okay to have the occasional late day. It's okay to have the occasional late lunch, the occasional meaning two to four times a year, and I think that's the key word, occasional here. If you're the center, this is the time to self-reflect, take a moment to reflect on your actions, how they may be impacting your productivity, your colleagues, setting boundaries with yourself right, establishing clear boundaries for yourself to ensure that you're kind of taking breaks or personal tasks and these things are not really interfering with your overall work responsibilities. And seek feedback from others, like if you, if you think you need to right, ask for feedback from your manager or your peers to really gauge if your behavior is affecting the team and how you can improve it. You know if you're doing, if you're starting to move up at this stage, like Francesca. You know if you're like yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm taking an extra 20 minutes every lunch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was a. There was a project I was on in my twenties where I was like I think I was taking long lunches like three times a week. I knew I, I knew what I was doing, I knew.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then you're like oh, I need to rein it in. I think we've all said that to ourselves. Oof, I need to rein it in. Rein it in. Yep, If you're on the sidelines, you can share a friendly reminder.
Speaker 2:You know, address what is directly impacting you with the other person. You can offer support if they're work friends, suggest ways they might balance personal time and work responsibilities effectively together. Especially like maybe your work friend is the center here and they're like trying to get you to do that extra lunch three times a week, Francesca, no problem, I'm calling you out for that, but you know what I mean. Like it feels good to be in good company and you don't want to be alone, so that pressure can happen. But maybe that's the time that you step in to tell your friend like, hey, man, that's not a good, that might not be a good look for us if we continue to do that. Report it if necessary, right. Like no one ever wants to be the person who goes and reports something, but if the behavior continues and it affects team productivity, consider bringing it up with a manager for guidance or your manager for guidance or a mentor or another work friend. But at this stage you're really. It's not too risky, but you just want to have things get. Start to get things in check a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, moving on to the medium space of overindulgence, if you find yourself here, this is really that gut check time. This stage seems innocent enough, but it's not without its impact. So, if you're the center here, the goal at this stage is to address the root cause of the behavior and to take action to prevent it from going further on the spectrum. Acknowledge the issue. Number one right, it's admitting you have a problem is the first step in everything Recognizing that your overindulgence is impacting your work and maybe it's impacting your team. Look around, notice those impacts, start to pay attention. Create your own plan. Look, I'm not talking about sitting down and writing a formal plan by any means, but think about like, how am I going to manage my time better? How can I reduce some of the excess that I have going on here? How am I going to reduce the misuse of resources that I've been taking advantage of? What? What can I be doing here?
Speaker 2:If you're really struggling to control your behavior at this stage, maybe you need to seek support from a professional coach, a trusted friend, a colleague, a mentor. Maybe you also need to seek professional help outside if there's a real underlying issue here that needs addressing because you can't ignore. You're bringing your whole self to work right. We are whole human beings and it's fair to say that if you have something going on outside of work, it's likely impacting you at work. So really, this is a time to reflect and get clear on why this behavior is happening.
Speaker 2:If you're on the sidelines here, have a candid conversation with your colleague and the impact of their behavior on the team. If you feel comfortable doing that, of course, set boundaries, encourage and establish real clear guidelines of what you will and won't accept of someone's behavior, especially if you're not in agreement with it or it's impacting you and others. It's fine here to set clear boundaries and establish that you're not okay with it and escalate if needed. Again, if the behavior persists, you can escalate the issue to HR or management just to ensure hey, like this is really affecting the team, make it less about a personal grievance and more about what is it doing to team morale? What is it doing for productivity? How is it impacting your work? Francesca, is there anything you would add to that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean honestly, I've, I've, uh, it's. There was a. There was a kid I remember this way back machine, but he was one of these kids that we had to take to the hospital during a training event because he had over imbibed in some drinking um, really stellar professional. But this experience was kind of his breaking point and came to find out that he had it was suffering with alcoholism. And it was one of those moments where it was like, okay, this is, this is a place where we need to kind of our make or break moment of what are we going to do about it, because, to your very good point, sometimes these things show up at work. Um, and what I loved about it the company I was with at the time too we really took a lot of um care around making sure that they got the help that they needed, which was great. They're still with that company, fantastic, yeah, um. But again, this is that place where we're having that checkpoint around, checking ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, this is like at the medium zone, cause once you get past zone two on the spectrum, it's it, it's it's the danger zone. Like, once you get past this zone, you are moving into danger. Um, speaking of moving on to the high zone here of obsession and addiction again, obsession and addiction is a space you do not want to be in. This is that like workaholism, this is like overindulgence on steroids, right? If you're the center you're going to, you want to recognize the problem, understand that your obsessive behavior is, or addiction is, really harming your work performance. It's potentially harming your health. You want to seek professional help. If you get to this stage, consider reaching out to a counselor support group. Look into your benefits, like there. If you're, for example, if you're stealing, if you're stealing things, that's pretty serious, like so you need to seek help. If that, if you've kind of reached this level of obsession and addiction over taking things whether that's time, money, resources and implement controls, use tools and strategies to limit access to some of these distractions. You know, take scheduled breaks, Try hands off on office snacks and supplies, avoid the break rooms, whatever you need to do, but you need to implement the controls that work for you. If you're on the sidelines, again, you can. If you're a supervisor with someone or you're their friend, you can share your concerns with that individual, emphasizing the negative impact on this and what's going to happen, and and you know your concern for them and for others. But at this stage you likely will need to escalate that behavior because it's become so disruptive that you do need to have someone else intervene, and someone that's more neutral, that doesn't put you in a compromising position, because it's always uncomfortable at this stage. So, first and foremost, always do what you're most comfortable with. But these are just some of the levers that you can pull if you're on the sidelines here.
Speaker 2:And then, lastly, is four, which we talked about, is the illegal zone here. If you don't check yourself at this stage, if nothing changes and you've tried everything to stop it or bring it down, if you're on the sidelines, I hope this person who is the sinner has money for an attorney because they've entered illegal. If you're the sinner here, you're going to need a lawyer and potentially money for unemployment. So if you find yourself at this stage, stop immediately. You're going to want to cease any illegal activities and seek to rectify any harm. That's been done Because, as Francesca mentioned earlier, the company will always find out that woman stealing PTO found out took years. Happened, francesca, if you've seen that happen before any of the companies you've worked for, yeah, I mean, I'll tell you too.
Speaker 1:Oh God, yeah, I have some stories. Yeah, yes, they, they, they, they eventually find out, because the thing is, is that's what a that? A office of a CFO? When they're doing their financials, it's like why do we have a discrepancy, where is this money going? And or sometimes, someone actually sees you do it Right and it's just no bueno, I mean, try finding a job when, like you've been, you know, accused and found out to be stealing millions of dollars or a printer, literally. Why are you stealing a printer? Anyway, yes, it happens, it happens.
Speaker 2:So again, if you're the center at this stage and if you're at this stage and on this call, you know what you're doing you're going to want to stop immediately. You're going to want to cooperate and admit if you, if they, if, if the company approaches you about this behavior, one you do want to get an attorney because it's likely that they're planning to press charges. But you just you're going to have to owe up to your actions to HR and management and cooperate fully with the investigation. If an investigation is happening, you have to cooperate fully and you want to seek legal advice because you should consider obtaining legal advice to understand the consequences and next steps of what may happen. If you're on the sidelines noticing illegal behavior, document it, keep detailed records of the suspicious activities or behaviors that you're observing. Report it immediately. Report that behavior to HR or management as soon as possible to prevent further harm. And if you have witnessed something, cooperate with any investigations and provide support to your colleagues that were affected by the behavior. So that's hopefully no one's ever in that position on this call. But if you do end up in that position, these are some of the things that you can consider here.
Speaker 2:I do want to come back to Lori's situation though, because what a story. She escalated pretty quickly from super harmless things to where we landed at the end of that is she really started to take advantage of things like printing 500 flyers for her business, using her company credit card for her business, using the car for her business just kind of being checked out at work too, like really impacting team productivity. Before we move into the results and the real story outcome from Lori's situation, where do you all think Lori landed on the spectrum ultimately? What would you recommend as next steps for Lori or even Lisa Francesca? What would you recommend as next steps for Lori or even Lisa Francesca? What would you recommend?
Speaker 1:Well, I want to see if someone else is going to answer this, because I'm curious what people think. Like was it? Yeah, I mean, clearly we're not in these small pleasures, but is it obsessive? Is it illegal? Is it? You know, I'm curious about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it also depends on company culture, right? Like, do they? They consider this illegal? I have no idea. Also, with Lisa, I mean there's a whole thing going on with her and her leadership style too, right, not addressing things. I think there's, like Lori's, this high performer, she's been there for a long time great relationships with leadership, so it seems like she Lisa's letting quite a bit slide.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's the thing, while we're going to see if someone wants to come up, and then I'll just say, fun fact, friends, look up what. Look up. If you're not familiar, look up forensic accountants. Okay, because what forensic accountants do, especially with theft right is they will find out the pay. These are the people that find out the paper trail, right Of like, for example, in this story of that C-level executive that spent millions of dollars with a firm that he was getting kickbacks for, forensic accountants go in there and they figure out wait, this company is owned by this person. Oh wait, there's an agreement here. Oh wait, this is is owned by this person. Oh wait, there's an agreement here. Oh wait, this is a million dollars going over to this XYZ person. That's why these people get caught. So again, just a fun like if you are not a forensic accountant and you're trying this kind of stuff, I wouldn't advise it, you're not going to know how to hide the money Are fascinating.
Speaker 2:If you've ever spoken to one like they have, they have a pretty cool job Actually.
Speaker 1:I know this is where I think accounting needs a massive rebrand and they need to lead with accounting. It's like CSI of accounting. Come on, it is. It's so cool, it's so interesting.
Speaker 2:All right, so I'm going to get to the real story here. What happened to Lori and as a result of Lori's actions, because she wasn't the only person impacted. The financial discrepancies were eventually discovered during a routine audit for the company and this triggered a full investigation of Lori Lisa, who now became really fully aware of the severity of the situation. She had no choice but to involve upper management and legal counsel. Lori was ultimately terminated and she faced legal action for embezzlement and fraud for using the company resources, the credit card, the car, et cetera. Lisa's reputation actually took a major hit because her leadership didn't understand how she let Lori's behavior go on for so long without addressing it or digging into it further, so it harmed her.
Speaker 2:Ultimately, she never moved up or on yeah, like it was like that destroyed her reputation, um, and the impact on the organization was also significant, because trust within the team shattered. The company had to invest heavily in tighter controls and audits to prevent future incidents like this happening, and they also started to peel back a lot of the perks that were previously provided due to the abuse of the benefits. And then, once this once really cohesive team was left feeling demoralized and distrustful and really struggling to recover from the betrayal not just from Lori but from Lisa they all felt like, hey, you let this go on forever. And now look at like your reputation is gone, our reputation is gone as a team. And almost like guilt by association that's how they felt. So it just really destroyed team morale. Guilt by association, that's how they felt. So it just really destroyed team morale.
Speaker 2:Lori's unchecked minor infractions had spiraled into serious legal and ethical violations. And I think when this story was shared with us, I'm like this is the perfect example, because it shows how quickly things can get out of control if they're not addressed early on, whether you're the center or you're on the sidelines, right like there's no winners in this situation, and it really just shows how quickly something can go from super low to super illegal on the spectrum yeah, well, I don't know what's to come up on stage, but we had some questions come in via dm and I tackle those in the last five minutes.
Speaker 1:All right, uh, I'll hear. Uh, listen. If they're offering, listen. If they're offering food at a meeting and nobody's eating it, I'm grabbing free lunch. Is that really that bad?
Speaker 2:no, I know, I guess I'm gonna say it depends. It depends, right, like if it's part of your. I've worked in orgs where all of the leftover catering moves to the break room, so it's like free for all. You know if it didn't get touched. But if it's still outside the meeting room you should not be grabbing stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, listen, I think if it's like that person, yeah, don't be that person, but like, if it looks like it's open, yeah, of course, take it. Yeah, yeah, hi, you mentioned occasional lateness isn't that bad, but two to four times per year seems low. I have an intense commute. Thanks, rto, I know I'll return to office. I know I have an intense commute, although I do come in 15 minutes late most days. I bring coffee when I can and I do make up for the time. Oh, that's freaking nice. That is nice. Is that really an issue? Oh, I have a thought on this. Okay, you go first. Okay, so, first of all, I think this all comes down to your own team norms.
Speaker 1:And so your team is fine with it and, by the way, kudos chef's kiss on bringing in the coffee going on the offensive there. Kudos chef's kiss on bringing in the coffee going on the offensive there. Um, I think, listen, check in with your team to see if they're kosher with it?
Speaker 2:and if they are, what's the problem? Mel you, I agree 100. This is where, like what's the culture at your company, like what's the culture of your team, if folks aren't talking to you about it and they seem generally okay and it, it's really nice, the coffee's a really nice ad, that's so sweet. I mean, I think, just monitor it and see what happens, but also pay attention, because even though people aren't speaking up, maybe it's bothering them. So it depends right, you gotta pay attention, yeah.
Speaker 1:We have a contractor on a project and I occasionally ask them to do work outside of the project. Nothing major, maybe a total of five hours max. They have over 250 hours for the other project and can spare five right? Is that considered?
Speaker 2:time theft? I would think so, cause they're not in contract for this other five hours of work. Yeah, like if they're not getting, you're other five hours of work, yeah, like, if they're not getting, you're stealing. Yeah, you're stealing this resource. Yeah, how are they billing their time?
Speaker 1:yeah, like that, that one's a really like honestly with any kind of contractor or team. I would keep that clean, clean, clean, clean, clean clean 100.
Speaker 2:Not only are you stealing their time cause how are they going to bill it but you're stealing the time away from the other client that they're tasked to. So that's, that's dicey, yeah, okay, um. Well, listen, we friends, we really appreciate all of you joining us today, especially the day before the U? S holiday, if you're in the U S. So thanks for being here, being here with us, and we want to keep the conversation going with you. So here's how you can do that. You can check out the your Work Friends pod on any platform of your choice. We post new episodes getting you through all this work shit every week and if you like what you hear, please share with a work friend or two. You could also join the your work friends group on LinkedIn or, if you prefer, find us over on Instagram, and if you have a topic or story that you'd like to shoot us, you can email us at friend at your work friendscom. And then, francesca, when can they hear us next?
Speaker 1:When will we be back here. We would love to see you all back here in two weeks with all 10 fingers. Don't blow anything off. Tomorrow we're going to be talking about envy. On July 17th, same time, same place, all 10 fingers, all 10 toes.
Speaker 2:So bring your fingers and your toes, bring your fingers and your toes, and your stories. Share with us if you like, and have a good holiday break, friends.
Speaker 1:All right, bye friends, thank you.