Cubicle Confidential

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...

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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

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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].

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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.

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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!