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Wankernomics

Launching Wednesday 16th September 2026.

The Wankernomics podcast is a deep dive into workplace bullsh*ttery.

Each week, co-hosts James Schloeffel and Charles Firth drill down, deep dive and unpack examples of corporate bullsh*ttery from the real world, deconstructing the way people use to bullshit their way to success (or failure).

Wankernomics answers the questions you always wanted to know but were too busy stuck on an all-hands company-wide Teams call to ask: What does it mean when someone talks about ‘operational cadence’ in a weekly all-hands staff meeting? What is the most horrific employee recognition scheme ever conceived? Why does it feel like waiting times for call centres are getting longer and longer?

The Financial Times has called Wankernomics the “workplace comedy phenomenon”. Since 2023, Wankernomics has run mock corporate workshops to sold out audiences across the globe. Mixing real-world stories with personal anecdotes from James and Charles’s 20+ years in the working world, the podcast is informative, funny and totally relatable.

Follow now so that you can find it in your podcast feed, every Wednesday morning.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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11 episodes
weekly
Avg 36 min
English

Episodes 11

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S1 · E10
Tuesday · 41 min
The 69 Words Banned By General Motors
In 2008 General Motors circulated an internal presentation listing 69 words that employees were banned from using. It’s not the typical sort of list that you might see in a company’s brand voice guidelines or corporate communications playbook. This thing reads like the glossary for a horror novel. Graphic words like ‘apocalyptic’, ‘mangling’, ‘grenadlike’ and ‘disembowling’ make the list. So too ‘Hindenberg’ and – bizzarly – ‘Cobain’. But seemingly benign words like ‘safety’ and ‘critical’ are off limits too. In this episode James and Charles explain why the list was circulated in the first place, and try to make sense of the words on it. They also have a broader discussion about how companies use language as a form of control, and attempt to describe one of the worst examples of graphic design on a PowerPoint presentation ever seen. View the PowerPoint slide from hell here: https://wankernomics.com/shownotes Sign up to our the free Wankernomics thought leadership program (our free email newsletter) at Wankernomics.com Full tour schedule: Wankernomics.com/live Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S1 · E9
October 27 · 26 min
Meta's Organisational Values Are Hilarious
At Wankernomics, we love corporate values – the four or five words that are chosen at an off-site meeting run by an overpaid facilitator, placed on a poster in the office kitchen and then never spoken about again. In this episode, James and Charles unpack the organisational values of social media giant Meta. Do Meta’s values match with reality? Were they written by a toddler? And what on earth does the word Metamate even mean? Sign up to our the free Wankernomics thought leadership program (our free email newsletter) at Wankernomics.com Full tour schedule: Wankernomics.com/live Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S1 · E8
October 20 · 34 min
The original working titles for some of the world's best-known brands
Coming up with a brand name is difficult. Just ask James. When he was a branding consultant he named two television channels. Both have since been scrapped. In this episode, Charles and James reveal the original working titles for some of the world’s most well-known brands. Some are brilliant, some are incredibly weird. One could have totally changed the way we think about using search engines. James also shares his war stories about naming brands, and how senior people with no skills or experience always want to get involved. Plus, James and Charles start the process of renaming Wankernomics. Sign up to our the free Wankernomics thought leadership program (our free email newsletter) at Wankernomics.com Full tour schedule: Wankernomics.com/live Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S1 · E7
October 13 · 34 min
Why The Beatles never used Trello or Jira
Workplace productivity apps like Trello, Asana, Jira and Miro are everywhere now. But do they actually increase productivity, or are they just another thing to add to your workload, that actually ends up slowing everything down? In this episode James and Charles try to get to the bottom of what these collaboration tools actually are, and debate whether there is anything more boring that someone talking about Jira. More importantly, they explore how the world might have been different if Lennon and McCartney had access to workplace productivity apps. Would ‘Let it Be’ have benefited from more stakeholder input and alignment? Would the process of writing ‘Hey Jude’ have been simpler if it allowed for the tracking against key milestones. It would certainly have been more measurable. Sign up to our the free Wankernomics thought leadership program (our free email newsletter) at Wankernomics.com Full tour schedule: Wankernomics.com/live Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S1 · E6
October 6 · 27 min
The onboarding episode: new starters, please listen to this first
Our People & Culture team advised us that we rushed ahead and launched this podcast without first doing an onboarding episode. What a disaster. How will people know how to listen to the podcast? Have they done the safety induction? Where is the kitchen? And are they even aware of the Wankernomics Mission and Vision Statements? Or Purpose Statement for that matter? In this episode, James and Charles answer all of those questions and more, so that new starters can confidentially settle into the Wankernomics podcast and feel right at home. Welcome aboard. Sign up to our the free Wankernomics thought leadership program (our free email newsletter) at Wankernomics.com Full tour schedule: Wankernomics.com/live Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S1 · E5
September 29 · 42 min
How many buzzwords can you fit into a single job advertisement?
"When I grow up I want to manage the delivery of complex cross-functional initiatives and shape scope across business cases" said no-one, ever. Job advertisements have a language all of their own. Meaningless phrases like “Dynamic, fast paced environment”, “self starter”, “unlocking incremental value”, “key stakeholders”, “driving insights” and “our people are at the heart of everything we do” are used so liberally that it’s often impossible to tell what the job is actually for. So what do these phrases really mean? And why do companies use them? In this episode Charles and James deep dive into the meaningless language of job ads and the psychology behind them, unpacking an actual job advertisement line by line. Plus, Charles reveals how in his wedding vows he promised to unlock incremental value and nurture relationships within key ecosystems. Sign up to our the free Wankernomics thought leadership program (our free email newsletter) at Wankernomics.com Full tour schedule: Wankernomics.com/live Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S1 · E4
September 22 · 41 min
Government bureaucracy: There’s a form to fill out before you can listen to this episode
Most workplaces have at least some ridiculous processes that seem to serve no purpose. But when it comes to pointless bureaucracy, Government departments are best-in-class. Charles and James tell two stories – one from Australia and one from the UK – where bureaucracy got completely out of hand. You’ll hear about stationery budgets, re-used envelopes, wayward traffic cones, and a very different definition of ‘mogging’. Please note, before listening to this podcast you must fill out a mandatory form, undertake a safety briefing and attend a subcommittee meeting. Sign up to our the free Wankernomics thought leadership program (our free email newsletter) at Wankernomics.com Full tour schedule: Wankernomics.com/live Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S1 · E3
September 15 · 51 min
Your Call Is Not Important To Us
In 2023 the entire network of Optus – one of Australia’s largest telecommunications providers – went down for 12 hours. The outage caused major disruptions across Australia as 11 million people went without internet and phone access. So how did the outage align with the company’s purpose statement of “Powering Optimism With Options”. And what the hell does “Powering Optimism With Options” even mean? Charles and James unpack Optus’s response to the crisis, and in the process uncover some of the most ridiculous corporate jargon ever seen. You’ll hear about “Possibilities yet to be imagined”, the obsession modern brands have with being loved and a very weird story about an internet-enabled cat feeder. It’s a best-practice tale of corporate bullsh*ttery with lessons for anyone wanting to understand how modern organisations work. Sign up to our the free Wankernomics thought leadership program (our free email newsletter) at Wankernomics.com Full tour schedule: Wankernomics.com/live Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S1 · E2
September 15 · 45 min
“Free donuts in the foyer”: The Enron scandal retold
You probably know the story. In 2001 Enron – then one of the largest companies in the world – collapsed after it was found to be using illegal accounting tricks to hide massive debts and fake huge profits. But what was it actually like to work there? James and Charles apply a Wankernomics lens to one of the world’s biggest ever corporate scandals, unpacking the company values, analysing the office culture and reading the actual emails that were sent around the office at the time of the collapse. What they ultimately discover is a corporation that, on the surface, is much like any other, with all-staff emails about free donuts in the foyer, over-enthusiastic interns trying to impress the boss, and a set of ‘organisational values’ that are farcically detached from the actual conduct of the company. Warning: this episode contains buzzwords and other corporate bullsh*ttery that could be offensive to some listeners. Sign up to our the free Wankernomics thought leadership program (our free email newsletter) at Wankernomics.com Full tour schedule: Wankernomics.com/live Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
S1 · E1
September 15 · 52 min
Is this the worst employee recognition scheme ever created?
In 2025 a worker was sent an email from their employer to recognise their three years of service. Inside the email was a button that read, ‘view recognition’, which when clicked on, revealed the reward. We don’t want to spoil how absurdly bad this reward was – you’ll have to listen to the episode to find out. In this episode James and Charles reveal some of the worst employee recognition schemes imaginable, and how some organisations are even outsourcing their employee recognition to third parties. Then they deep-dive into an infamous incentive scheme at one of America’s biggest banks that was so morally horrifying it led to a multi-million dollar fine and a minor change to the company’s logo. Along the way, James and Charles unpack how large organisations outsource responsibility and how jargon is used to paper over morally questionable, or even illegal corporate behaviour. Warning: this episode contains buzzwords and other corporate bullsh*ttery that could be offensive to some listeners. Sign up to our the free Wankernomics thought leadership program (our free email newsletter) at Wankernomics.com Full tour schedule: Wankernomics.com/live Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
September 7 · 2 min
Trailer
Launching 16th September

Showing 1–11 of 11 episodes