
Cubicle Confidential
Tim McClure & Chris DeSantis
Weekly Advice for the Working Stiff: Having problems with people at work? Does your boss suck? Do your co-workers drive you crazy? Tim McClure and Chris DeSantis are here to help. Each week Tim and Chris take on your most outrageous workplace questions and concerns. Their advice is sometimes spot-on, sometimes salty, and sometimes funny. (Funny, as in “haha” not as in “I’m funny how? I mean funny like I’m a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh?”) They’re good guys, not Goodfellas.
All episodes
Best episodes
Seasons
Top 10 Cubicle Confidential Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Cubicle Confidential episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Cubicle Confidential for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Cubicle Confidential episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Reissue: It’s Not Me, It’s You!
Cubicle Confidential
10/11/23 • 35 min
On this week’s re-release schedule, we have a fan favorite from Season Two – “It’s Not Me, It’s You.” This episode is all about dealing with annoying people because, unfortunately, they always have been and always will be a fact of life at work.
Let’s be honest—sometimes other people are just a pain in the a**. In this week’s show, Mary and Chris address a myriad of listeners’ challenges in navigating difficult colleagues and situations.
Feeling Like a Highschooler in Scottsdale is being iced out by her colleagues. They treat her like an outcast. Is there any way she can turn this situation around? Should she tell her supervisor? Confront the mean girls? Or just call it a day?
Happy to See You in Hoboken is trying to convince her colleagues that hiring for culture fit is just as important as hiring for skills. How does she make her case and change their minds?
Serenity Now in SantaAna has a business partner (who is also her husband) who barrages her all day long with texts. How can she get him to stop or at least organize them into a semblance of a to-do list?
Join us next week for an all new episode!
We’re here to help you succeed! Send us your workplace dilemmas or career questions. Email us: [email protected] or tweet us: @cubicleconfide1. All names will be changed to protect the guilty and innocent...
Thanks for listening! Connect with us on LinkedIn!

Living Out Loud: Social Media and Your Career
Cubicle Confidential
02/22/23 • 30 min
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn – oh my! For better or worse, social media plays a large role in the modern work world. Can what you post influence hiring decisions? Should you leverage social media as a marketing tool?
In this episode, Mary and Chris answer questions about showing up on social media (and the positive and negative implications of it...)
Having Second Thoughts in Secaucus just interviewed the most amazing job candidate for a top spot in a sales department. After doing some due diligence, he discovered some appalling social media posts that he doesn’t agree with. This candidate is a perfect fit for the job but he can’t unsee the content they’ve created. Is this a valid reason not to hire someone?
Make Me Famous in Memphis is a junior partner in a mid-sized law firm and hopes to make partner in the next two years. Their mentor recommended that they “pump up” their thought leadership to build a bigger book of work. They feel overwhelmed by this and have no idea where to even begin. Help!
Fight Club in Phoenix has seen a few of their employees having a knock-down-drag-out spat on social media. They are both popular and influential in the workplace. Is she wrong to be concerned about this? Does this warrant a conversation? How can she handle this without bringing what’s happening on the internet into the office?
We’re here to help you succeed! Send us your workplace dilemmas or career questions. Email us: [email protected] or tweet us: @cubicleconfide1. All names will be changed to protect the guilty and innocent...
#careeradvice #socialmedia #leadershipdevelopment
Thanks for listening! Connect with us on LinkedIn!

Crushes
Cubicle Confidential
05/01/24 • 33 min
Tim’s much-maligned reference shelf includes the American Heritage dictionary which defines a crush as: “a usually temporary infatuation.” This week we help listeners work through the twists and turns of office obsessions. Chris waxes poetic about the rotary phone and the dating scene at Illinois Bell. Plus: back by popular demand – the word of the day!
Segments in this episode
- 2Good 2Be 4Gotten in Tulsa- "My boss is hot. Can I? Should I? How do I?”
- Word of the day: A noun ... 10-letters ... defined as “the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous pattern” ... can you guess the word?
- Daddy Issues in Des Moines - "We are dealing with a perilous paternal paradox”
We want to hear about the drama, the dilemmas, and the conundrums that you face at work! All names will be changed to protect the guilty and innocent.
Email us: [email protected].
Thanks for listening! Connect with us on LinkedIn!

Fearless Feedback with Joe Hirsch
Cubicle Confidential
07/26/23 • 33 min
Are you afraid to give feedback? Does the idea of giving someone difficult feedback give you cold sweats?
Well, fear no more, because, in this special episode, Chris and Mary are joined by author and feedback expert Joe Hirsch! Joe shares his wisdom on how to give fearless feedback. If you want to have more caring, candid, and collaborative conversations, Joe shows us how.
Joe Hirsch, author of The Feedback Fix, helps organizations design and deliver feedback without fear. An internationally recognized expert on leadership and communication, Joe has earned accolades from Fortune 500 executives to NFL coaches for his forward-thinking approach to improving organizational culture and effectiveness. Described by Wharton professor Adam Grant as a “breath of fresh air,” Joe makes research-based practices more accessible to improve the way people work, learn, and lead. (Yes, he’s putting that shiny Ph.D. to good use.)
In The Feedback Fix, Joe presents a bold alternative to traditional feedback techniques and performance management practices. He’s shared that message as a TEDx and international keynote speaker with Fortune 500 leadership teams, members of the U.S. armed forces, and close to 10,000 others across three continents.
Joe’s work and research have been featured in Harvard Business Review, Inc., Forbes, CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, and other major outlets. When Joe isn’t on stage or hosting his popular podcast, I Wish They Knew, he’s probably doing something outdoors with his wife and four boys.
Thanks for listening! Connect with us on LinkedIn!

Evaluation Blues
Cubicle Confidential
03/29/23 • 33 min
How do you feel when you hear the phrase “performance feedback?” If that makes a chill run down your spine, you’re not alone.
This week, we hear from listeners who are grieving over giving or receiving performance evaluations at work. Tune in to hear Mary and Chris’s suggestions to take the pain out of feedback.
Round and Round in Galveston just received their first 360 performance review. The feedback report was mixed – with three people saying they were easy to work with while two others felt they were uncommunicative and distant. Based on this information, their boss said they need to do a better job of connecting with people. Without knowing the source of the feedback or why it was said, they feel like there isn’t much they can do about it. Could this be more of a popularity contest than a review? What should they do with this feedback?
Catch 22 in South Carolina works for a company with a stacked rating system where they must rank 10% of their direct reports as exceptional, 80% somewhere in the middle, and 10% assigned to the bottom. The problem is that their team doesn’t align with the mandated bell curve as they have more than 10% as exceptional no one falls close to being in the bottom 10%. Senior management takes note of managers who don’t follow the curve allotment, which means they would be risking their own raise and any chance of promotion if they don’t rate them as instructed. On the flip side, they may lose people if they follow the rating scale. Is there any way out of this strict system? Help!
Tomato, Tomato in Topeka is an HR professional responsible for compiling feedback and scrubbing the sources to keep it anonymous. An issue arises when several of the raters have very different views of the junior consultants. Raters can give wildly different ratings on the same traits being evaluated. Someone could get a “5” in “demonstrates good judgment” from one person and get a “1” from another. They suspect this is due to rater problems and not employee problems since they know some of these raters, and, well, they wouldn’t know good judgment if they were dating it. Is there a way to get better, more consistent ratings from the raters?
We’re here to help you succeed! Send us your workplace dilemmas or career questions. Email us: [email protected] or tweet us: @cubicleconfide1. All names will be changed to protect the guilty and innocent...
#performancemanagement #feedback #careeradvice
Thanks for listening! Connect with us on LinkedIn!

Power Dynamics: Man VS. Machine
Cubicle Confidential
05/10/23 • 32 min
Mary is shifting the power of this episode...
And she’s making Chris answer three questions he’s never seen before with an added twist!
Chris DeSantis is going up against ChatGPT in this Man vs. Machine duel.
Who do you think will give better advice? The man or the machine?! Does Artificial Intelligence have the power to run us out of business?
Tune in to hear Chris’ and ChatGPT’s answers to these questions:
New Guard in Northern Ireland recently landed her dream job in the childcare field. The organization used to only have a small group of older staff (average age around 60) until they hired three new younger staff members. An unspoken divide has emerged between the “old guard” and the “new guard.” How can they honor the decades of experiences brought in by those who are their senior while encouraging change to meet the needs of 21st-century workplaces?
Vigilant in Virginia serves as an Executive Assistant for the Vice President/Chief of Staff. They’re preparing for their annual performance review with their Advancer boss after their first full year at the organization. They’re feeling anxious since they’re a Harmonizer. How can the Advancer and Harmonizer meet in the middle – especially during a performance review?
Upset Apple Cart in Alexandria volunteers at a local non-profit that helps feed the food insecure. Most of the regular volunteers are retired women, but the non-profit has had a recent influx of retired older men join their ranks. The men constantly disparage the way they do things and have turned this well-oiled machine into an unpleasant clunker. She doesn’t want to quit volunteering but doesn’t know how to keep these old guys from upsetting the entire apple cart. What to do?!
We’re here to help you succeed! Send us your workplace dilemmas or career questions. Email us: [email protected] or tweet us: @cubicleconfide1. All names will be changed to protect the guilty and innocent...
Thanks for listening! Connect with us on LinkedIn!

Friends With Benefits?
Cubicle Confidential
08/17/22 • 34 min
Research repeatedly shows that having friends at work can boost employee engagement, productivity, and happiness. In a recent study, most people say having a best friend at work makes work more enjoyable.
We see coworkers nearly every day, collaborate with them on important projects, maybe even share inside jokes about our boss—but do we consider these people friends? Should we? In this episode, Mary & Chris answer listeners’ questions about navigating workplace friendships.
Alone But Not Lonely in Louisiana wonders why she needs to have work friends. She’d much rather stay in her remote cocoon rather than mingle with people in the office. Are there benefits to making friends at work?
What Would Chandler Do...has just been promoted. He is now the boss of his friends. The problem? He wants to keep his friendships intact and doesn’t know how to navigate being their manager and their friend.
Out of the Closet and into the Frying Pan has a crush on a same sex coworker. Should she make a move? She doesn’t know her coworker’s sexual orientation or if this coworker knows hers. How should she proceed? Or should she?
Show us your love. Please give us a review wherever you listen to your podcasts.
We’re here to help you succeed! Send us your workplace dilemmas or career questions. Email us: [email protected] or tweet us: @cubicleconfide1. All names will be changed to protect the guilty and innocent...
Thanks for listening! Connect with us on LinkedIn!

Re-Issue Lessons in Strategery Part Two
Cubicle Confidential
07/24/24 • 33 min
Tune in to hear Chris and Tim discuss “Lessons in Strategery Part One and Two.” You’ll understand the title when you hear the podcast.
We’re here to help you succeed! Send us your workplace dilemmas or career questions. Email us: [email protected] or tweet us: @cubicleconfide1. All names will be changed to protect the guilty and innocent...
Thanks for listening! Connect with us on LinkedIn!

For Arguments Sake
Cubicle Confidential
08/24/22 • 34 min
The ability to engage in “healthy” conflict at work is essential for promoting and encouraging diverse viewpoints. But how much conflict is too much? And what if your team doesn’t ever disagree with each other? Is that just as bad? In this episode, Chris De Santis and Mary Abbajay tackle listeners' questions about how to disagree without being disagreeable...
Put a Lid on It in New Hampshire has an employee who likes to argue about everything with everyone. His constant contentiousness and criticisms are driving his boss and his coworkers crazy. What can be done? How should his manager approach this situation?
Spine Free Zone in Manhattan has the opposite problem. She finds herself leading a team of “yes-men” and it is driving her crazy. She wants her team to engage in more healthy debate—so how does she get them to see the value of sharing different viewpoints?
Six to One Odds in KansasCity is one of six partners in a law firm. She has been tasked to lead the firm in its ESG efforts. The problem? She is the sole black woman in a sea of white male partners who are resisting all her ideas. How can she get them to stop arguing with her and start supporting her?
Show us your love. Please give us a review wherever you listen to your podcasts.
We’re here to help you succeed! Send us your workplace dilemmas or career questions. Email us: [email protected] or tweet us: @cubicleconfide1. All names will be changed to protect the guilty and innocent...
Thanks for listening! Connect with us on LinkedIn!

Trust Me
Cubicle Confidential
10/18/23 • 32 min
Do you know the number one aspect of creating high-performance organizations?
If you said trust, you nailed it!
This week, we hear from listeners who want to earn trust or learn to trust. Tune in to hear Mary and Chris’ advice on creating a culture of trust in the workplace.
Catering To My Needs in Portland is the first to admit they’re a micromanager. Paying attention to details has gotten them to where they are now. Their recent promotion means they’ll do more managing and less “doing”. Quite frankly, they don’t trust the people reporting to them to produce the same quality work that they did. How can they learn to let go and still maintain control from on high?
Fool Me Once in Fremont works in accounts payable and is tired of getting thrown under the bus by a senior manager in another department. Out of the blue, that same senior manager wants our listener to co-lead a corporate-level process improvement initiative to streamline invoicing. It’s an opportunity to be seen by the higher-ups but knowing this manager’s history, they fear they could end up just being the fall guy. Can they say yes and if so, how do they avoid the bus?
Faking It in Phoenix has been asked to go to college campuses to do recruiting. They have been paired with someone they find arrogant, loud, and inappropriate. The problem is that the other guy acts all charming around potential recruits, but when they’re not in front of recruits, he’s a total jerk. They’re supposed to look like teammates, but our listener has a hard time pretending to like this guy. Any advice on how to get past his obnoxiousness?
We’re here to help you succeed! Send us your workplace dilemmas or career questions. Email us: at [email protected] or tweet us: @cubicleconfide1. All names will be changed to protect the guilty and innocent...
Thanks for listening! Connect with us on LinkedIn!
Show more best episodes

Show more best episodes
FAQ
How many episodes does Cubicle Confidential have?
Cubicle Confidential currently has 156 episodes available.
What topics does Cubicle Confidential cover?
The podcast is about Career Advice, Podcasts, Business, Advice and Careers.
What is the most popular episode on Cubicle Confidential?
The episode title 'Authentic Authenticity' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Cubicle Confidential?
The average episode length on Cubicle Confidential is 33 minutes.
How often are episodes of Cubicle Confidential released?
Episodes of Cubicle Confidential are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of Cubicle Confidential?
The first episode of Cubicle Confidential was released on Jun 23, 2021.
Show more FAQ

Show more FAQ