313: The Hidden Ways We Survive, Stand Out, and Stay Sane at Work

Modern work is getting weird.

In this episode, Erin and Nicole talk about career envy, AI “bot sitting,” Gen Z’s job search chaos, parents overstepping in the hiring process, airport drama, bathroom hideouts, and the deeply human ways people are trying to stand out, stay sane, and survive work right now.

They also unpack one of Erin’s favorite new questions for killing comparison: “Would I actually want their life?” Because chasing someone else’s version of success only works if you’re willing to take the whole life that comes with it.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• Why career envy gets a lot less powerful when you zoom out
• How AI slop is changing resumes, hiring, and the way we try to stand out
• What “bot sitting” says about the strange new reality of work
• Why parents need to step away from the hiring manager
• The hilarious and slightly unhinged ways people cope at work

This one is part workplace commentary, part group therapy, part “what the hell is happening out there?” And honestly? We need all three.

 

<p><strong>Anya Roodnitsky Video:</strong> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DU6VPHhEgGn/">https://www.instagram.com/p/DU6VPHhEgGn/</a></p>

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DISCLAIMER: This episode is not explicit, though contains mild swearing that may be unsuitable for younger audiences.

Tweetable Comments

• “You cannot compare yourself to somebody else without first asking: would I actually want their life?”
• “We do make shit up all the time. It’s just usually bad shit about us and good shit about other people. You have the right to flip that.”
• “You’re creating an entire life you don’t have to escape from.”
• “If you want to be heard, stand out, picked, chosen, or done business with, AI slop is going to kill you.”

Editor’s note: This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity, readability, and flow while preserving the core conversation and strongest takeaways.

In this episode, Erin Hatzikostas and Nicole Licata unpack the weird, wild, and deeply human ways people are surviving modern work. From career envy and AI “bot sitting” to Gen Z’s job search chaos, parents overstepping in hiring, airport drama, bathroom hideouts, and the pressure to stand out in a world full of sameness, this conversation is part workplace commentary, part group therapy, and part “what the hell is happening out there?”

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Women, Work, and the Underground Network

Erin: I have some updates. The first one is related to something you just said. I have to laugh at how freaking amazing working women are at multitasking.

This morning, I drove 45 minutes to Southington for an 8:30 coffee meeting with a former client who is now a current client because they’re bringing me back again. But before that, I had placed a BJ’s Warehouse order at the Southington location because we have a graduation party coming up.

So I had the coffee meeting, got gas under $4, picked up a ridiculous amount of party supplies, came home, sweated my ass off putting it all away, and thought, this is how women work.

People underestimate not only how efficient we are, but also how connected we are.

That reminded me of something else. A few weeks ago, our financial advisors decided to move to another bank for the second time in six years. The first time, we followed them. The second time, we paused.

I happen to use the same financial advisor as my woman work crush, Jean LaTour, who is a former chief investment officer for CBS and Aetna. She is a big deal, authentic as hell, and I’m proud to call her a friend.

When we both got the news, we immediately started texting. I told her the deal Morgan Stanley offered us to incentivize us to stay, which was different from hers. We were sent to different people. We’ve had lunch. We’ve compared notes on how the transition has gone.

So story number one is this: do not underestimate women and our ability to get all the things done, whether it’s picking up BJ’s after a business meeting or quietly sharing information behind the scenes to make sure we get the best deal possible.

Nicole: That reminds me of one of our early episodes about the things women don’t talk about. One of the big ones was finances.

It’s a mistake I still make sometimes. When things are changing, it can feel overwhelming. You want to trust what’s happening. You get comfortable. But these are businesses. These are deal makers. You’re their client, and you’re paying them.

The more information you have, the better. I applaud you for asking, “Who else is in this with me? Let’s have some conversations,” instead of blindly going along with a deal that sounded good enough.

Erin: Exactly. And I know we have a lot of male listeners, so I’m not saying women are better. But get women into leadership positions because we are doing this at work too. We’re multitasking, sharing information, and doing business differently.

Sometimes that women’s network is working under the covers more than people think. And I mean that in the least weird way possible.

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The Question That Kills Career Envy

Erin: My second thought is something that has been helping me a lot lately.

I’ve been feeling really good about a mindset shift I’ve made around jealousy, comparison, and chasing things I don’t actually want.

The speaking business can be ego-driven. I’m not selling widgets. I’m selling myself. So it’s easy to get caught up in the idea that more bookings equal more validation.

But I don’t want to be a speaker who does 40, 60, or 80 gigs a year. I used to think that was mostly because I didn’t want to be on the road that much or because it was too much to balance with family. But it’s also because I can’t give fully to clients if I’m doing that much.

I have eight gigs between June and September, and I’m at capacity in terms of my ability to customize, understand each client, and not come in with a cookie-cutter talk.

So here’s the question that has helped me when I see another speaker’s amazing new reel or big event announcement:

Would I want their life?

And I don’t mean, “That probably sucks because they’re on the road so much.” I mean literally: would I want their whole life?

Sometimes I know these people and their backgrounds, and sometimes I don’t. But I ask myself, would I want the entire life that comes with that thing I’m jealous of?

The answer is almost always no.

I want my life. I want time with my husband. I want time with my kids. I want breathing room on a Friday. I don’t want to take one thing and give up everything else.

You cannot compare yourself to somebody else without first asking, “Would I actually want their life?”

Maybe once in a while the answer will be yes. But even with celebrities, ask yourself: would I want their life?

You don’t get to have the thing you’re jealous of and keep everything you already have. You can’t say, “I want that event with 3,000 people on a stage in Hawaii,” without also taking the number of gigs, sacrifices, relationships, lifestyle, location, and everything else that comes with it.

You cannot pick and choose.

That has put me in this place of gratitude for the holistic picture of my life.

When speaker friends ask, “How’s it going?” there is often this undertone of, “How many bookings are you doing?” And I’ve started answering differently. I say, “I really fucking love my life.”

Yes, this is the busiest summer I’ve had speaking. But when you ask how I’m doing, I’m thinking about my daughter having the time of her life in her senior year, my husband and I getting along great, the weather being beautiful, visiting family, and building a life I actually want.

Nicole: What you’re saying is interesting because you’re not saying don’t change or don’t evolve. You’re saying look at the landscape, the tools, the opportunities, and the framework you actually have.

Don’t look at someone else’s life with no context about who they are, how they got there, or what sacrifices they made, and assume you can just import one piece of it.

Erin: Yes. And I’m also giving people permission to make shit up.

Let’s say someone’s title comes across your feed and you think, “I always thought I wanted that role.” You don’t know that person. So you have the right to create a different narrative.

We make shit up all the time. It’s just usually bad shit about us and good shit about other people.

You have the right to flip that.

If you’re going to tell stories in your head, tell great stories about yourself too.

Nicole: As long as the narrative gives you balance and helps you dig into where you are instead of making you feel terrible about yourself, it can create growth.

Erin: Exactly. Because when you stop spending so much energy being depressed about where you are, you can actually grow.

And this is where the 50% Rule helps too. Once you do things half-normal, half-you, it becomes almost impossible to compare because you’re not trying to do it the same way anyway.

I’ve told the universe something different. I’ve said I want around 25 gigs a year. I want balance. I want this life. And the universe has started to deliver exactly what is perfect for me.

Nicole: It goes back to what you said. You’re creating an entire life you don’t have to escape from.

Erin: Yes. This is not the time in my 50s to create something that looks good on paper but feels terrible in reality. I’m creating a lifestyle.

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Authenticity as a Business Differentiator

Erin: My third thought is something I’m still processing.

I had a repeat client who brought me in specifically for their sales organization, which I love because authenticity can sometimes sound like an HR thing. But where I get really excited is when it becomes about differentiation, growing your business, and doing things differently in a tangible way.

This client brought me in for a leadership keynote, and then we worked together for six months doing real-time group coaching with their sales team. We took actual scenarios and worked on making their responses, proposals, and communication more authentic.

Recently, I learned they had their best sales year ever by far.

And they are going through DOJ approval for an acquisition at a 20X EBITDA, which is hard to come by these days. They’re not an AI company. The investment community is very focused on AI right now, so this was a big deal.

I am not taking full credit. There are always many factors. But I also don’t believe in coincidences.

They invested in differentiating and doubling down on authenticity as their advantage. Then they had a huge sales year, which contributed to the valuation and the sale.

That was pretty freaking cool.

Nicole: They found their mantra, put it into action, and got results. Weird how that works.

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Airport Drama

Nicole: I want to share the latest reason I got stopped at the airport, because there is always something.

I was coming back into the United States, and my luggage got flagged. I’ve been traveling only with carry-on luggage because I’m constantly booking multiple flights with different airlines to maximize scheduling and pricing. The travel market is crazy, and I am not a bazillionaire.

So first, my known traveler ID and redress number disappeared off my ticket. I get sent through multiple lines at JetBlue. They finally put the information back in, and I go to the TSA PreCheck line.

Then they tell me I have to go to the special TSA PreCheck line.

Erin: Who knew those even existed?

Nicole: Exactly. I had already given myself a lot of time, and I had already passed USDA inspection, so no fruit and vegetable jail this time.

Then they immediately flag my bags. They pull them aside. There are officers, dogs, everything.

An agent comes up to me and says, “Ma’am, we’ve seen some unknown powders in here. Do you have coffee?”

I said, “I do have coffee, but it’s in this bag,” meaning the backpack he had already handed back to me.

Then he starts going through my suitcase and pulls out a packing cube. He says, “Ma’am, the issue is that your luggage is too well packed. It is too dense.”

I was like, “My bathing suit and underwear?”

Then he finds some lady products because I’m a woman in menopause. He asks, “What is this syringe?”

I told him to read the label. He opens it, pushes it out, and realizes it’s Lady Lube.

He starts calling over officers and saying it’s illegal. Then a woman walks up out of nowhere, slams the suitcase shut, and says, “You’re free to go.”

Erin: Women to the rescue.

Nicole: Pink underwear, coffee, unknown powders, densely packed luggage, Lady Lube. I was done.

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Bot Sitting and the Strange New Reality of Work

Erin: Let’s dive into some of the craziest recent workplace stories. Will there be lessons that inspire you and make you a better person? Probably not. Possibly. But mostly, we’re here to laugh.

The first one I came across was the concept of bot sitting. Have you heard this term?

Nicole: I have, but explain it.

Erin: It’s basically babysitting AI.

I’ve seen it with my 15-year-old, Mick, who has become really talented with AI, especially coding and building things. But he’ll set something up, and then I’ll walk into his room and see his laptop out while he’s on his phone scrolling videos because he’s bot sitting.

He’s waiting for AI to crank something out or process.

This article was talking about how AI is supposed to make everyone more efficient, but in companies, people are using AI and then waiting two hours for it to process. So they’re basically being paid to scroll their phones and bot sit.

Nicole: I know someone from the art world who just lost his job. He’s a young medical researcher, and the only jobs he’s being offered are essentially bot sitting jobs.

These are entry-level roles where he helps internal AI systems learn inside research companies. His job is to feed data into the bot, help it spit things out more efficiently, check the results, and fix errors.

That’s what he’s being offered as a PhD researcher.

Erin: Wow. Bot sitting.

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Gen Z, Job Search Chaos, and the Resume That Actually Worked

Erin: That’s a good segue into one of my favorite articles: Anya Roodnitsky and her resume.

Anya is a recent Dartmouth grad with a mathematical physics degree. Not a slouch. But the job market is tough, especially for new grads.

She sent out hundreds of resumes, and she didn’t just phone it in. She customized them. She did all the things HR people tell you to do. And she got nothing.

So out of frustration and fun, she made a simple, authentic PowerPoint-style resume and posted it on social media.

She did exactly what I talk about all the time: she exposed who she was and her flaws right away. She didn’t pretend. She said, basically, “I’ve been doing hundreds of these, and it’s rough out there, so here’s what I’m going to do.”

She talked about working with nuclear reactors and joked that she was basically Oppenheimer. She included competence, personality, and humor. She even promised to bring in baked goods.

The video got hundreds of thousands of views. She got 52 introductions or coffee chats, 20 referrals, 10 interviews, and landed a job.

Yes. Different is better than better.

If you’re going through the same thing every day, whether it’s resumes, sales presentations, town halls, or HR emails nobody reads, it is your fault if people aren’t paying attention.

You’re not pattern interrupting. You’re not being authentic. You’re not giving people a reason to stop and notice.

In this day and age, especially if you’re trying to get hired, AI slop is going to kill you if you want to be heard, stand out, picked, chosen, or done business with.

Nicole: It’s also disheartening that we can’t trust these giant systems we’ve created. It feels like you have to be a disruptor just to access society and get a job.

I love her, but it’s also fully disheartening for someone like me who would never do that.

Erin: Right. Her example was outlandish, but the broader point is that Gen Z is taking to content and social media because that’s what they know. They’re frustrated and saying, “Fuck it.”

And honestly, this is what I’m saying. This is the future.

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Parents, Please Step Away From the Hiring Manager

Nicole: One thing I’m finding as a hiring manager is that students are getting more tools, encouragement, and guidance around networking and mentoring than we had.

That part is good. But with that, I’m having a total Step Brothers moment because I’m getting emails from parents.

Erin: Oh no. When we say work networks, we are not talking about your parents.

Nicole: Do not call me and say, “What does my kid need to do?”

Erin: Are you kidding me?

Nicole: I’m not. Parents are engaged in their kids’ lives and professional development in a way our families weren’t because the world has changed. But I cannot take that seriously.

It’s unfair to the student too. Maybe they’re lazy, or maybe they have an overbearing parent. Either way, it makes them look bad.

Erin: It’s a red flag. A disqualifying red flag.

And if a parent did contact me, I’d be tempted to ask, “Is this how you’ve operated throughout their schooling? Have you been stepping in like this?” Because if the answer is yes, there’s your reason.

You are the problem. Not just because you picked up the phone now, but because you’ve probably spent years enabling them instead of slowly stepping back and letting them figure things out.

Nicole: We all understand networks. We all understand nepotism exists. But cold-calling nepotism is a whole different world.

If you’re engaging with a hiring manager, make sure it’s for a job you want. And ask yourself: if your child were dating someone, would you call that person and ask 27 questions?

Professional and personal relationships are not in totally different universes. They’re on the same spectrum.

So from the hiring desk of Nicole: if you’re a parent, don’t call me.

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Workplace Weirdness, Government Voicemails, and HR Stories

Nicole: One of my favorite stories you sent was about the Washington State DMV.

The story was that when people called the DMV and chose Spanish language support, instead of getting Spanish, they got heavily accented English.

I don’t know if it’s real, but because I work for a government agency, I can absolutely see how this could happen.

Government tech systems are constantly evolving, and agencies don’t always have access to all of their own systems. Voicemails are not always recorded by voice actors or vendors. Sometimes it’s just someone in IT with a nice voice.

Erin: And maybe they were trying to save money and decided Rosario down the hall would do it.

Nicole: Exactly. Someone says, “She speaks clearly.” And suddenly that’s the voicemail.

Erin: I think it’s real. I tried to look it up, and it didn’t immediately flag as fake.

I did have another article on the list about a woman supposedly working three full-time remote jobs, but that one appears to be fake.

Listeners, you’ll have to tell us: do you know if the DMV story is real?

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The Bathroom Popsicle Bandit and Where People Hide at Work

Nicole: The random HR stories also had me dying. My favorite was the Bathroom Popsicle Bandit.

Apparently, an employee would sit in the bathroom all day eating freeze pops and reading a book on her phone. She was in there so long that someone found her and thought she was dead.

There were freeze pop wrappers all over the floor.

Erin: You can picture it.

Nicole: I can picture it because our bathroom situation at work is not great. We have one stall for a lot of people. The light goes out. The toilet doesn’t flush well. And if you sit there too long, it keeps flushing, so people know you’re in there.

But sometimes when people are constantly walking into my office, I hide in there. Or I hide in the old lactation room/mail room/storage room. I push the chairs aside just enough to slip in and sit there for 20 minutes with my phone flashlight.

There’s no air. No ventilation. But sometimes you need a moment.

Erin: It’s mental health. It’s better than putting in a mental health claim.

Nicole: I want to know where people hide at work. What are your work hide-and-seek spots?

Mine is the mail room/lactation room/storage room, sometimes the bathroom, near the emergency exit no one uses.

Erin: That reminds me of when my kids were young and wanted to play hide-and-seek. I would grab a glass of wine and go to the hardest place for them to find me.

They would eventually say, “Mom, we give up,” and I would just sit there drinking wine. Best game ever.

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Substance Coping and Surviving Modern Work

Nicole: A lot of those HR stories involved substance use too. People coming into the office drunk or medicated.

And I’ll be honest: people seem much more medicated or open about their medication at work now than I’m used to.

I’m not always sure what counts as substance abuse versus substance coping these days.

Sometimes I like people better on their coping substances than off them. I’m not saying I condone it, but sometimes I’m like, please come to this meeting chilled out.

Erin: Can you blame them with the current workplace?

Nicole: I cannot.

Erin: That’s why we share these stories. That’s why we share this podcast. It’s all part of your medication.

Nicole: We are all living this dream together and showing up every damn day because we’ve chosen it.

And sometimes you just have to call your squad and ask, “Am I getting the best deal where I am?” Have that conversation.

Erin: Work the underground tunnel.

Nicole: Exactly.

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Final Thought

Erin: Modern work is weird. AI is changing the way people apply for jobs, companies are asking people to bot sit, parents are emailing hiring managers, employees are hiding in bathrooms, and everyone is trying to stand out without losing their minds.

But underneath all of it is something deeply human. We’re trying to build lives we don’t have to escape from. We’re trying to stop comparing ourselves to people whose lives we don’t actually want. We’re trying to be seen, chosen, trusted, and remembered in a world full of AI slop and workplace noise.

And honestly? Sometimes the best thing we can do is laugh, call our people, and ask better questions about what we actually want.