Boy do we have a rant for you

It's rant season. Or is it? When is it *not* rant season? In this week's episode of Endless Thread, Ben and Amory discuss two very different, very viral, rants from Reddit. One is about how the current design trends in our public and private spaces are hard on the ears. Another discusses how escape room adventures can bring out the worst in people https://www.reddit.com/r/offmychest/comments/1k38k5f/working_at_an_escape_room_has_made_me_a_more/. Perhaps there's some humor and some lessons to glean from rants, too?

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Support for WBUR comes from the Quiet Tension Podcast. When Joe Missoula got the Celtics job, Steve Paliuka sat up until 1:00 in the morning, typing him 25 things about leadership. Dr. Sharon Turbin asks what came first on the list. Listen closely wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Support for Endless Thread comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at mathworks.com.

• 0:34Speaker 02

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• 1:05Speaker 03

  WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

• 1:14Ben Brock Johnson?

  Good morrow.

• 1:20Amory Sivertson?

  What does good morrow mean?

• 1:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  I'm not sure.

• 1:22Amory Sivertson?

  Does that mean like good day? Or does it mean good tomorrow? Does it mean?

• 1:27Ben Brock Johnson?

  It's like I do a circle thing with my hand and I bow deeply to you.

• 1:31Amory Sivertson?

  Good tomorrow.

• 1:32Ben Brock Johnson?

  Good tomorrow to you, sir. Or madam. Person.

• 1:36Amory Sivertson?

  Good tomorrow to you.

• 1:39Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes.

• 1:39Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, here we are. I have a story for you.

• 1:42Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yep.

• 1:43Amory Sivertson?

  You got a story for me.

• 1:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yep.

• 1:45Amory Sivertson?

  I don't know what you have for me. You don't know what I have for you.

• 1:48Ben Brock Johnson?

  It's a mystery.

• 1:50Amory Sivertson?

  But it's about to be revealed.

• 1:53Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right, let's do it.

• 2:00Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, so I don't know about you, but my social media feeds are filled with rants at the moment.

• 2:08Ben Brock Johnson?

  Just joy. They're filled with joy and happiness and everything's perfect and great?

• 2:12Amory Sivertson?

  Nope. They're filled with rants and specifically political rants about, you know, human rights, immigration, the economy. But I found a rant on Reddit the other day that was so refreshing because it was about none of that.

• 2:32Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 2:33Amory Sivertson?

  And I found it in the home improvement subreddit.

• 2:37Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay. Is this about the TV show or just a general home improvement? Tim Allen is not involved. You're telling me Tim Allen's not involved?

• 2:46Amory Sivertson?

  No. Do you, do you dabble in that subreddit at all?

• 2:49Ben Brock Johnson?

  Not really. I'm more of a YouTube guy when it comes to home improvement, but.

• 2:54Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, so a little, a little table setting here.

• 2:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 2:57Amory Sivertson?

  How would you describe your, your home decor, home design aesthetic?

• 3:05Amory Sivertson?

  Are you a mid-century modern man? Are you a Scandinavian minimalist?

• 3:10Ben Brock Johnson?

  Uh, God. Um, you know, I would say eclectic, mid-century modern with a little Bauhaus. No, I'm just kidding. I would say eclectic, mid-century modern, parents of seven-year-olds is what I would say.

• 3:26Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, understandable.

• 3:27Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 3:27Amory Sivertson?

  I'm like, I think, I'm a cottage core girl.

• 3:30Ben Brock Johnson?

  No.

• 3:32Amory Sivertson?

  All the way.

• 3:33Ben Brock Johnson?

  Really?

• 3:33Amory Sivertson?

  Farmhouse, rustic.

• 3:36Ben Brock Johnson?

  But you don't have the frilly dresses to match.

• 3:38Amory Sivertson?

  No, no, no. We're talking the home.

• 3:40Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, alright.

• 3:40Amory Sivertson?

  No, I don't have the frilly dresses, but like, like would an elf live there? Perfect. That's me.

• 3:46Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, that is kind of, you do kind of have an elf situation going on. Yeah, okay.

• 3:51Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah. Um, so this particular rant, this starts with a post to home improvement from a user who goes by ReadMyThoughts.

• 4:02Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 4:03Amory Sivertson?

  And the post just says, "Are you happy with replacing carpet stairs with wood?"

• 4:11Amory Sivertson?

  Any immediate thoughts? Are you a carpet man?

• 4:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  Well, so again, going back to my parents of seven year olds decor style, what I would say is, I'm generally anti-carpet. I'm like rugs, yes, sure, but no, I'm not a carpet person. But the thing is, is on stairs, when you have little kids, those stairs, when you're wearing your socks can be slippery. And so a couple of years ago, we put those little like, single stair carpet patches on all the stairs, if that makes sense.

• 4:48Amory Sivertson?

  Little carplets?

• 4:49Ben Brock Johnson?

  Carplets. Yeah, little carplets. Just to make sure that nobody fell down the stairs. Although I do love a get in the sleeping bag and slide down the stairs move, but that's a different story. Anyway.

• 5:02Amory Sivertson?

  That's bumpy.

• 5:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  Go on.

• 5:05Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, I remember my niece being at my parents' house, which is, I think, fully carpeted, other than the kitchen, that would be weird. And she was just like, she was young at the time, and she was just going nuts on that carpet. She was so excited because she doesn't have carpet in her own house, and carpet is a kid's dream.

• 5:24Ben Brock Johnson?

  Carpet when you're a kid is great. Yeah.

• 5:26Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah. So someone on this post, the post oddly enough was removed by the moderators. This, this replacing carpet stairs with wood question.

• 5:34Ben Brock Johnson?

  For violating a rule of some kind.

• 5:37Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, which, not sure which one. But, but someone did comment and say, like, just so you know, Reddit tends to hate carpet. So just, you're gonna get some responses that are pretty anti-carpet.

• 5:52Amory Sivertson?

  And the rant is actually not anti-carpet. Here's the rant. This is from someone, they posted, at the time that we're recording this, this was like a few weeks ago.

• 6:02Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 6:03Amory Sivertson?

  This user is Nathan B. 131.

• 6:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 6:06Amory Sivertson?

  And they point out, you know, great comment about the carpet hate on Reddit, and then they say, oh, God. Oh, no. I feel a rant incoming. It's building up. Can't contain it. Go. All caps. They write, removing carpet makes a big difference in sound. How a home sounds makes a big difference in how a home feels. Every design trend is hostile to our ears these days. Same thing for popcorn ceiling.

• 6:40Amory Sivertson?

  You got that's my popcorn ceiling.

• 6:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  So I'm so in, I'm so in.

• 6:44Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, here we go.

• 6:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  You take me to a restaurant, I'll start yelling

• 6:48Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 6:48Ben Brock Johnson?

  about how people be yelling because they're not really yelling. But there's nothing, there's no fabric in this space.

• 6:56Amory Sivertson?

  Okay, I'm gonna

• 6:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Please go on.

• 6:57Amory Sivertson?

  fully unleash Nathan on you.

• 6:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay.

• 6:59Amory Sivertson?

  I think you're gonna love this.

• 7:00Ben Brock Johnson?

  Me and Nathan are already besties.

• 7:03Amory Sivertson?

  Same thing for popcorn ceiling. It's now seen as dated, so all the trend chasers are aggressively removing it. Everyone forgot why popcorn ceiling was a thing.

• 7:13Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes.

• 7:13Amory Sivertson?

  Sure, hiding imperfections in drywall joints is one reason. But the main reason is it diffuses light and sound.

• 7:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes.

• 7:20Amory Sivertson?

  All caps. It makes a space feel softer, like a home is supposed to feel. People are paying real money to relentlessly eliminate every sound absorbing thing in their life, unless it's in their home theater and they tell each other it's great. Of all the harmful echo chambers of today, this one is the most ironically literal.

• 7:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  Ugh.

• 7:42Amory Sivertson?

  They go on to talk about drop ceiling and how,

• 7:46Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes.

• 7:46Amory Sivertson?

  you know, people hate drop ceiling tiles. And he's like, they're called acoustic tiles, you noise fetishists. He talks about restaurants, that fancy restaurants used to surround guests in fabric.

• 7:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, no longer.

• 7:59Amory Sivertson?

  Tablecloths absorb sound. People could talk quietly over dinner.

• 8:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  Now, now it's like brushed, now it's like brushed concrete and like vaulted ceilings and just reverberation madness.

• 8:15Amory Sivertson?

  Yes. He says, now look at the ear assaulting hell we've created in every public and private space.

• 8:20Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yep.

• 8:21Amory Sivertson?

  You trend chasers keep doubling down on hard floors, shiny ceilings, exposed ductwork, metal furniture, et cetera, and you can all take a long walk off a short pier. My ears hate all of you. Your ears hate you too, but you're too obsessed about what your trend chasing friends think to realize what you've all done to world peace. We used to be a society, all caps.

• 8:44Amory Sivertson?

  And he goes on, as for me and my house, I love my carpet and my popcorn ceilings because it sounds sublime. My home is a fortress of peace. Judge my home for being dated and snicker all you want. In your home, every footstep echoes through your entire house and into your soul. Every time someone sets a cup or plate down, every ear gets a little stab. A child dropping a toy down the stairs is now a heavy metal concert nobody asked for.

• 9:15Amory Sivertson?

  I have to include this other part because I just, he really goes deep here. You hang a gather sign in your dining room after your chic remodel. You invite your snobby wine mom friends over to show off your shiny, echoey shrine to fabricated authenticity.

• 9:31Ben Brock Johnson?

  Wow.

• 9:32Amory Sivertson?

  Your fancy gather space sounds like a sports bar. Everyone is shouting. Everyone thinks everyone else is enjoying themselves. You sneak off to the bathroom to pop another Xanax, thinking your stress is due to shame of your inferior DIY ship lap wall at home. Nah, all your friends are popping Xanax too, thinking they're also the only ones feeling anxiety today. You all voluntarily turned your homes into torture chambers. I'm not.

• 9:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  I love this. I love it.

• 10:01Amory Sivertson?

  In conclusion, I'm not even gonna call you sheep because sheep absorb sound.

• 10:12Ben Brock Johnson?

  It's good. It's good. Sold. No disagreement here. We've really screwed this up. I mean, there was like, there was a think piece, I think, about this. What have we done to our public spaces? We've made them impossible to navigate for anyone, like, anyone, let alone, like, people with any kind of, like, hearing issue. And we've done that to our private spaces, too. So I'm in. I buy it. This is a platform I would vote for.

• 10:42Amory Sivertson?

  And if you're listening out there and you're ever a guest on an episode of Endless Thread, we will ask you before we start recording, are you in a room with, do you have curtains you can close? Is there a carpet?

• 10:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  I literally ask people all the time. I'm like, is there any fabric where you are?

• 10:58Amory Sivertson?

  Can we get more fabric?

• 10:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  Is there a room that you're in with more fabric? Because you sound like you're in an empty wooden box.

• 11:05Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah. So get your curtains, install your drop ceilings, get your plushy rugs, and then.

• 11:12Ben Brock Johnson?

  Bring tapestries back, you know? Like, we used to have cool tapestries that told the stories of great feats of strength and, you know, bring some tapestries back.

• 11:24Amory Sivertson?

  Is there a, is there a, like, a hot take you have on home design or decor that if you were, what's the, like, the first thing that you would remove or deal breakers?

• 11:35Ben Brock Johnson?

  Overhead lighting is whack.

• 11:37Amory Sivertson?

  Really?

• 11:38Ben Brock Johnson?

  Get rid of overhead lighting. It's not.

• 11:40Amory Sivertson?

  Lamps? You're a lamp man.

• 11:41Ben Brock Johnson?

  I mean, I think there are certain, certain areas where overhead lighting can be helpful, like a kitchen, sometimes overhead lighting is good. But generally speaking, I'm a lamp, I'm a lamp guy. Overhead lighting, track lighting, don't need it.

• 11:57Amory Sivertson?

  Well, I'm glad we have this out in the open now.

• 11:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  Same.

• 12:00Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah.

• 12:00Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right, I got a story for you. You ready?

• 12:03Amory Sivertson?

  No, I think we should take a quick break first.

• 12:05Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, fine, we'll take a break. Everybody take a break and put some frickin' curtains up, or start work, start sewing a tapestry.

• 12:12Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, we'll be here when you get back.

• 12:14Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right. Go get some popcorn ceiling.

• 12:33Speaker 00

  Support for WBUR comes from the Quiet Tension Podcast. There's a part of high performance that drives you, shapes you, and pulls at you too. Rarely spoken, almost never examined. That's the quiet tension. Coming up, psychologist and executive coach Dr. Sharon Turbin with Steve Paliuka on what separates the leaders people follow from the ones they don't. Stay with us for a preview. Listen closely wherever you get your podcasts. Support for WBUR comes from Heading Home. Homelessness isn't always visible. Many families continue working, sending their children to school, and participating in their communities while quietly experiencing housing instability.

• 13:17Speaker 00

  Heading Home, the largest family shelter provider in Massachusetts, has been working to prevent and end homelessness for more than 50 years. Join their mission and see how you can help at headinghomeinc.org.

• 13:32Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, we're back. And on the topic of rants, Amory, I am bringing you a post from Off My Chest, the subreddit Off My Chest. "Working at an escape room has made me a more cynical person."

• 13:52Ben Brock Johnson?

  This is by user TwinnersOfGiliad, I believe is how you probably pronounce that.

• 13:58Amory Sivertson?

  Okay.

• 13:59Ben Brock Johnson?

  It starts off great. "To be clear, it's not because people are dumb." That's the first sentence. "Escape rooms are horrible gauges of a person's intelligence, and I wish more people understood that. They're little portals into moon logic escapes, where you decode ciphers and spot clues. It's not normal. It's not supposed to be." Have you ever done an escape room, Amory?

• 14:25Amory Sivertson?

  I honestly don't know. You know what's weird is I'm one of those people.

• 14:30Ben Brock Johnson?

  You're still trying to escape the room. You've been in the room the whole time.

• 14:34Amory Sivertson?

  I'm one of those people that has vivid enough dreams that sometimes I don't know if I've dreamt something or if I've actually done it. And so I think I've had a dream in which I've been in an escape room. I don't know if I did it or not.

• 14:47Ben Brock Johnson?

  Wow, okay.

• 14:48Amory Sivertson?

  I know. A little weird.

• 14:51Ben Brock Johnson?

  So maybe is the answer? Okay, probably not.

• 14:53Amory Sivertson?

  Maybe, maybe, sure.

• 14:54Ben Brock Johnson?

  All right. So you know what an escape room is, though? It's like live-action gaming. You go into the room with a group of people. You have a list of, you know, a bunch of different puzzles, and you have to like, escape the room. That's the experience that people are going and getting these days in certain places, right? Okay, so this person...

• 15:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  This person works at an escape room and they're basically like, escape rooms can bring out the worst in people. This person talks about, they say, it's horribly remarkable how often we see families come into this inherently stressful timed group activity who just hate each other. Parents who never should have been married, getting into shouting matches over locks, berating their children because they read something incorrectly or read something incorrectly. Kids who just despise their parents, families who fundamentally do not understand each other, or who don't want to be there over and over and over. This sounds pretty terrible. If you have to work at a place like this, I get this, right?

• 15:58Amory Sivertson?

  Yes, and yet, isn't that why people go to an escape room, maybe?

• 16:02Ben Brock Johnson?

  Go on.

• 16:03Amory Sivertson?

  Like, like, did you ever have to go to an orientation of any kind?

• 16:08Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 16:09Amory Sivertson?

  Where it's like, we're gonna figure out how to work together and we're gonna get to know each other better. We're gonna break down walls and overcome, you know, communication barriers. We're gonna break it all down.

• 16:22Ben Brock Johnson?

  So it's like a prescription for a problem more than a, hey, let's all have fun together doing this thing?

• 16:30Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah, maybe.

• 16:32Ben Brock Johnson?

  I think that's fair. I think that's fair. And, and, and I mean, that's not why I would go to an escape room, but I get that, like, I can see a scenario where the family with the teenagers or whatever, they're like, you know what we need? We need an escape room. We need to like, get in there.

• 16:46Amory Sivertson?

  Team building.

• 16:48Ben Brock Johnson?

  This person says, this person says they really go off on the parents. You know, fathers who cannot muster a modicum of a shit to give about their family. They hardly interact, resent other people for having fun, don't grasp their kids wouldn't be as into it as they are. Mothers who say the most insane degrading things to their daughters so casually.

• 17:17Amory Sivertson?

  It sounds like the White Lotus.

• 17:18Ben Brock Johnson?

  It really does, kind of. Yeah, kids who cry meltdown, feel so isolated.

• 17:25Ben Brock Johnson?

  This person says, "The kids are fine, though. Yes, they can be assholes and have bewildering logic and are messy and noisy and hardly listened, but they're kids, right? This person understands the kids are kids, right? How rapidly a person's enjoyment can be perforated and diminished by the mere inclusion of the written word, this person writes quite eloquently, I would say. So, you know, I think this person is really, you start to read through this post and you're like, wow, this is a really cynical post. And this person is really, this person is really depressed with the state of the American family, we might say. One thing I want to say before we go to the end of this person's post that I experience

• 18:08Ben Brock Johnson?

  all the time, or I think about often as a parent, is that you always have to remember that you're getting a glimpse and it's just a glimpse, right? Like, this family could be like very happy, they could be, you know, very good at working together, very kind to each other all the time, but they might be having a bad moment or a bad day.

• 18:32Amory Sivertson?

  I think about that with kids on the plane all the time. It's like, I'm unhappy on a plane and I'm seeing a kid on a plane. And like, kids are not usually on planes. We're seeing them at their worst and we're seeing the parents at their worst because they're on a plane and they're like, super uncomfortable and conscious of everyone else and everything else around them.

• 18:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yep.

• 18:51Amory Sivertson?

  So, yeah. And then people see that and they're like, oh, God, I'm never being a parent. And I'm like, no, it's just being a parent on a plane is hard.

• 18:58Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes.

• 18:59Amory Sivertson?

  And being a parent is hard, but you know what I mean? Yes, I feel you.

• 19:02Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah, I think that's right. And I think, you know, it's always important to remember when you're in public and you see somebody having a bad time, if you can, to give them grace, right? Because they, you know, you just don't know what's going on in their lives. And even if they chose to come to this escape room and they're having a terrible time, it's important to remember that. And ultimately, I thought this post was just going to be a full-on, just, eh, rant of bile from this person, but they actually like turned this corner about two-thirds of the way through their post. And they say, "All this to say, the negatives constitute about 10% of the total experience." So they like, kind of like turned this corner.

• 19:43Ben Brock Johnson?

  So often I get to clock in to a pretend job where I play God over random people and hit switches if they'll enter codes correctly. I get to see families come together and find a new hobby. Parents get just as jazzed as the children. They're chaperoning when the "you got it right" sound plays. Couples scream and jump and laugh. Kids play and get bewildered by the stagecraft of it all. I see so much emotion in hour-long intervals with other strangers that I feel it has broadened my empathy immeasurably. It is a joyous job. But the negatives really stick.

• 20:21Ben Brock Johnson?

  And I just needed to get those off my chest. But ultimately, it sounds like this is a pretty good job.

• 20:28Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah.

• 20:30Ben Brock Johnson?

  Running an escape room.

• 20:32Amory Sivertson?

  Depends on how much carpeting and popcorn ceilings are in the escape room.

• 20:37Ben Brock Johnson?

  How loud the room is.

• 20:38Amory Sivertson?

  Otherwise, it's an echoey hell of riddles and traps.

• 20:45Ben Brock Johnson?

  Would you be an escape room person? Like, would you be an escape room, you know? I think you'd be pretty good at it. Like, you're theatrical.

• 20:54Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah. I mean, are there riddles involved? I really hate riddles.

• 20:57Ben Brock Johnson?

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. There's riddles and codes and puzzles, and that's the whole thing.

• 21:03Amory Sivertson?

  I mean, I like puzzles. I like word games. I do not like a riddle.

• 21:08Ben Brock Johnson?

  Huh.

• 21:10Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah. People are like, "Riddle me this," and I'm like, "Nope."

• 21:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  I will not riddle you that.

• 21:16Amory Sivertson?

  I will not.

• 21:17Ben Brock Johnson?

  I will not.

• 21:19Amory Sivertson?

  No one has ever said, "Riddle me this" in earnest to me. But I don't know. I would try one. I'll try anything, you know?

• 21:27Ben Brock Johnson?

  You'll try anything except ripping out the popcorn ceiling.

• 21:32Amory Sivertson?

  Right.

• 21:33Ben Brock Johnson?

  And the acoustic paneling in your house.

• 21:35Amory Sivertson?

  I actually, we do have some popcorn ceiling upstairs.

• 21:38Ben Brock Johnson?

  Uh huh.

• 21:39Amory Sivertson?

  And I have, you know, not smiled upon it. But after this, I gave it a little, I gave it a little wink this morning. I was like, "You know what? You're okay."

• 21:50Ben Brock Johnson?

  What part of your life would you put into tapestry?

• 21:54Amory Sivertson?

  Oh, God.

• 21:58Amory Sivertson?

  Maybe like one of our episodes that we've made, like one of our adventure episodes.

• 22:03Ben Brock Johnson?

  The plates.

• 22:04Amory Sivertson?

  Plates. We could turn plates into a tapestry.

• 22:06Ben Brock Johnson?

  Plates would be good.

• 22:07Amory Sivertson?

  Or like, I'd love to see-

• 22:08Ben Brock Johnson?

  Glitter would be good.

• 22:09Amory Sivertson?

  I'd love to see Geddes sewn into, you know, glorious permanence.

• 22:15Ben Brock Johnson?

  I mean, Geddes is ready to be a tapestry already, like just as an image or a set of images.

• 22:21Amory Sivertson?

  I think so.

• 22:22Ben Brock Johnson?

  All those could go on a tapestry. Okay. Well, listeners, if you would like to make a tapestry of one of our episodes, please do get in touch.

• 22:31Amory Sivertson?

  Or to design an escape room for us to escape, as long as you promise to let us out and no riddles.

• 22:36Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yeah.

• 22:39Ben Brock Johnson?

  No riddles. If you want to see me and Amory at each other's throats for approximately 45 minutes, I think we'd be pretty good in an escape room, you and me. What do you think?

• 22:48Amory Sivertson?

  Yeah. I would happily do an escape room with you.

• 22:52Ben Brock Johnson?

  Okay, all right. This episode is its own escape room. Can we make it out?

• 22:57Amory Sivertson?

  Can we ever get out?

• 23:02Amory Sivertson?

  Endless Thread is a production of WBUR in Boston. Boston's NPR escape room.

• 23:08Ben Brock Johnson?

  Yes. This episode was co-hosted by myself, Ben Brock Johnson, and?

• 23:15Amory Sivertson?

  Amory Sivertson. Mix and sound design by Paul Vikes, our production manager.

• 23:19Ben Brock Johnson?

  The rest of our team is managing producer Sumit Joshi, Emily Jankowski, Dean Russell, Franny Monahan, and Grace Tatter. Our show is edited by Meg Kramer.

• 23:30Amory Sivertson?

  If you have an untold history, an unsolved mystery, a rant, a popcorn ceiling, a tapestry, an escape room, all of the above, none of the above, send us an email, [email protected].

• 23:42Ben Brock Johnson?

  See ya next week.

• 23:54Speaker 00

  Support for WBUR comes from the Quiet Tension Podcast with Dr. Sharon Churbin, psychologist, executive coach, and a close listener to what lives beneath high performance. Here she is with Steve Paliuka, who built Bain Capital and helped bring a championship back to Boston, on the thing the best leaders do that most don't.

• 24:15Speaker 06

  The best leaders kind of give credit and take blame. When something goes wrong, they're the first ones to take responsibility for it. And they see the good in the other people on the team. They don't immediately try to deflect whatever problem there was, what went wrong. You miss the sales target on the salesperson, they reflect on themselves and what they could do better. Same thing, you know, what Joe Mazzulla does in basketball. If you see his press conferences and the Celtics don't play well, the first thing he says is, you know, "I need to coach better. I made a mistake here. I made a mistake there." Not many coaches do that. But that's why the players, you know, love Joe, and that's why, another reason, he's a great coach. So there are things like that that you learn.

• 24:56Speaker 06

  There are many, many more things like that I learned from people like Red Auerbach and my classmates from business school and sports and all the rest.

• 25:03Speaker 07

  And really, what an array of leaders, because leadership is both the same and different depending on the environment that you're in.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  Listen for more of the Quiet Tension wherever you get your podcasts.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  Get this. When you're with Xfinity, you're already a member. No sign up, no cost. Score epic experiences from our family at NBC Universal. Plus movie tickets, discounts on streaming, mobile, and more. Check the Xfinity app every Thursday for exclusive perks and experiences, only with Xfinity. Now that's the way to start a weekend. Let the magic begin. Restrictions apply. Visit Xfinity.com/membership to learn more.