You're training new hires, flying out to meet clients, handling escalations, and you just finished a three-month certification on your own time. Your title hasn't changed. Your pay hasn't changed. And your manager keeps giving you vague answers about what growth even looks like.

That's the Reddit post at the center of this Between the Seasons episode. And every single person at the table has lived a version of it.

In this Reacting to Reddit at Work episode of Why Does It Feel So Wrong to Be Human at Work?, hosts Pinaki Kathiari and Chris Lee are joined by producer Bree Bartos and Senior Account Manager Jen Samuel, who's back for round two with another round of stories that hit uncomfortably close to home.

The conversation covers scope creep, why managers avoid hard conversations, what it actually takes to advocate for yourself, rejection therapy, and the phantom laptop problem — the deeply relatable experience of going on vacation and not knowing what to do with your hands because you didn't bring your work computer for the first time in years.

In this episode, they discuss:

• Why managers avoid giving straight answers about raises and career growth

• The difference between complaining about workload and making a direct business case for yourself

• Pinaki's advice: ask for the no — and why rejection therapy is actually a skill worth building

• Jen on writing talking points for herself like she'd write them for someone else

• Chris on Never Split the Difference and what FBI hostage negotiation tactics have to do with your next performance review

• Why organizations are always caught by surprise when great people leave — and who that's really on

• Bree applied to 200+ jobs after her layoff. Local Wisdom was the only company where a human reached out.

• Jen's phantom laptop problem, and the boss who told her to leave it at home

If you've ever been asked to do more without being offered more in return, this one's going to feel very familiar.

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Connect with Us

Pinaki Kathiari – LinkedIn | Local Wisdom

Chris Lee – LinkedIn | Gallagher Communication

Bree Bartos – LinkedIn | Local Wisdom

Special thanks to digital communication agency Local Wisdom (www.localwisdom.com) for really believing in our mission and making this podcast possible.

If this episode made you think differently, laugh, or even yell out loud, we want to hear about it! Connect with us on LinkedIn, and don’t forget to rate, review, and share – maybe with your work bestie… or even your boss if you're feeling bold.

We also bring these important conversations to conferences and private workshops, creating space for real, meaningful change. Take the first step at www.whydoesitfeelsowrong.com.

What does it actually cost to be a team of one — not just in productivity, but in your mental health, your sense of self, and your ability to do the work you were hired to do?

Jen Samuel knows that cost intimately. With over 20 years in internal communications — starting at a young, people-centric airline and spending most of that time as the only person in the room doing her job — she's lived through the burnout, the scope creep, the "be strategic but also update the website" contradiction, and the quiet weight of feeling like no one really understands what you do or what it takes.

In this episode, Pinaki and Chris welcome Jen to Between the Seasons (and to the Local Wisdom team) for a conversation about what it's really like to work alone in a field that exists to connect everyone else. They talk about how being a team of one shapes your identity over time, why the busyness-as-virtue culture makes it so hard to step back, and what it means to finally land somewhere that lets you just be human.

Bree joins in too — and her perspective as a fellow recent Local Wisdom addition brings the conversation home.

In this episode, they discuss:

• What 20+ years as a team of one in internal comms actually looks like
• How burnout builds when there's no one to hand things off to — even at a funeral
• Chris on The Tyranny of Work and the idea that busyness has become morally virtuous
• Why internal comms teams of one are being asked to be strategic advisors and postmasters at the same time — and why that math doesn't work
• The moment Jen realized other communicators felt exactly the same way (and the community that changed everything)
• Bree on what it felt like to go from isolation to a team that actually checks in
• What good looks like — at Local Wisdom, at Gallagher, and everywhere in between
• Pinaki's call to action: if you're a team of one, find your people

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Connect with Us

Pinaki Kathiari – LinkedIn | Local Wisdom

Chris Lee – LinkedIn | Gallagher Communication

Bree Bartos – LinkedIn | Local Wisdom

Special thanks to digital communication agency Local Wisdom (www.localwisdom.com) for really believing in our mission and making this podcast possible.

If this episode made you think differently, laugh, or even yell out loud, we want to hear about it! Connect with us on LinkedIn, and don’t forget to rate, review, and share – maybe with your work bestie… or even your boss if you're feeling bold.

We also bring these important conversations to conferences and private workshops, creating space for real, meaningful change. Take the first step at www.whydoesitfeelsowrong.com.

Last week, Bree read a Reddit story about a young creative whose best friend went to their manager and used her private insecurities against her to try to take her job. Chris and Pinaki reacted in real time. Then Bree told them: that was my story.

This week, we pick up right where we left off. Now that Chris and Pinaki know it’s Bree’s own experience, the conversation shifts — from advice to something more honest. Bree fills in what the post left out: how close she and Amy really were, how the comparison and competition showed up in their friendship long before it showed up at work, and how the whole thing ended (spoiler: COVID and a merger did some heavy lifting).

But the real reason Bree wanted to share this story isn’t the betrayal. It’s what it left behind: a deep, persistent imposter syndrome that still surfaces even after a great annual review. If someone your best friend thought you weren’t good enough, how do you fully trust yourself again?

In this episode, they discuss:

• What the post left out — how close Bree and Amy actually were
• When a friendship starts draining more energy than it gives
• Why confrontation without curiosity often makes things worse
• The difference between someone doing something to you vs. for themselves
• How imposter syndrome takes root — and why it’s so hard to pull out
• What organizations miss when they only seek competence without passion
• Competition vs. collaboration: why pitting teammates against each other backfires
• Pinaki on love, creativity, and a quote from Fist of the North Star

It’s one of the most personal conversations we’ve had on Between the Seasons. And it’s a reminder that the messiest, most human experiences at work are often the ones that shape us the most.

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Connect with Us

Pinaki Kathiari – LinkedIn | Local Wisdom

Chris Lee – LinkedIn | Gallagher Communication

Bree Bartos – LinkedIn | Local Wisdom

Special thanks to digital communication agency Local Wisdom (www.localwisdom.com) for really believing in our mission and making this podcast possible.

If this episode made you think differently, laugh, or even yell out loud, we want to hear about it! Connect with us on LinkedIn, and don’t forget to rate, review, and share – maybe with your work bestie… or even your boss if you're feeling bold.

We also bring these important conversations to conferences and private workshops, creating space for real, meaningful change. Take the first step at www.whydoesitfeelsowrong.com.