My Worst Memory
My Worst Memory
Podcast Description
My Worst Memory: a workplace safe space is a podcast hosted by Robin Cohen, CEO of Happier Office and operations expert. Each week, Robin sits down with industry leaders to unpack the professional moments they’ll never forget—from chaotic reorgs to culture clashes and everything in between. It’s honest, a little messy, and full of lessons they don't teach in b-school. Come for the drama, stay for the takeaways. My Worst Memory is your crash course in leadership, resilience, and the chaos of being a human at work.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast focuses on themes of leadership, workplace culture, and resilience, with episodes discussing topics such as the challenges of performance reviews, diversity, equity, inclusion, and the impact of effective communication on employee experience. Specific episodes include 'The Unexpected Review', which explores the significance of honesty and transparency in DEIB initiatives, and 'The Competitive CEO', where the dynamics of competition and support in leadership are analyzed.
My Worst Memory: a workplace safe space is a podcast hosted by Robin Cohen, CEO of Happier Office and operations expert. Each week, Robin sits down with industry leaders to unpack the professional moments they’ll never forget—from chaotic reorgs to culture clashes and everything in between. It’s honest, a little messy, and full of lessons they don’t teach in b-school. Come for the drama, stay for the takeaways. My Worst Memory is your crash course in leadership, resilience, and the chaos of being a human at work.
What do you do when your job prevents you from doing what feels right? In this episode Robin sits down with Tess Gittleman, MA, LMFT and corporate therapist to explore systemic dysfunction, burnout, values and their worst memory that they never saw coming.
Together, they discuss the often invisible emotional infrastructure of organizations: how unchecked emotional labor impacts performance, why misalignment between personal and organizational values fuels burnout, and what leaders get wrong about conflict, communication, and “work-life balance.”
Tess shares a deeply unsettling worst professional memory involving an ethical double bind early in her career—one that still surfaces years later—and unpacks why some professional experiences are supposed to feel unresolved. The conversation expands beyond therapy into leadership, corporate culture, neurodiversity, and the emotional economics of work.
Key topics discussed:
Emotional economics: the real cost of disengagement, burnout, and unresolved conflict
Why rupture isn’t the problem—failure to repair is
The myth of “work-life balance” and what to aim for instead
Values conflicts at work and how they quietly erode well-being
Navigating ethical gray areas, shame, and radical acceptance
Neurodiversity, generational differences, and building inclusive emotional systems
Why “radical candor” often fails without trust and skill
How leaders can build communication agreements and emotional infrastructure without a big budget
Key takeaways:
You can’t avoid conflict—but you can learn how to repair it
Values misalignment doesn’t mean failure, but it does require honest reflection
Sustainable work isn’t about perfection or balance—it’s about continual recalibration
Feeling discomfort or shame can be a signal, not a flaw
Every day at work is a data point for what you can tolerate, change, or leave
This episode is for leaders, managers, and professionals who want to do meaningful work without sacrificing their mental health—and who are grappling with the uncomfortable truth that sometimes there is no perfect answer, only the most livable one.
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