Episode Details

After being called a 'deskie' by a bartender friend, we explore why office workers have developed such unhinged communication patterns. From 'let's take this offline' to the workplace threat disguised as 'per my last email,' we decode the elaborate collective performance of corporate speak—and why we all pretend to believe it. We examine the performative language of office culture, compare it to political communication, and ask: why can't we just say what we mean? 00:00 - Intro and the deskie revelation 01:30 - Service industry's vocabulary for desk workers 05:00 - Translation dictionary of corporate phrases 10:00 - The collective hallucination of office speak 13:00 - Three metaphors explaining why this exists This podcast episode was fully generated by AI — research, script, voices, and production. Built with Claude, Piper TTS, and automated pipeline tooling.