The laws of the office revisited

办公室法则再审视

Planet Money

2026-03-11

29 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

Live event info and tickets here. If something is going wrong in your workplace, there's probably a law that explains why. Meetings always seem long, and never end early? There’s Parkinson’s Law, which says work expands to the time allotted, or, restated: meetings will always take up all the time blocked on Outlook calendars. Is your boss bad at managing? Check the Peter Principle, which says people are promoted to their level of incompetence. A good worker does not a good manager make. And yet … here we are. Once you hear these laws, and a few others, you start to spot them everywhere.  Today on the show, we picked a few of the most famous and powerful ‘laws of the office’ and tested them out on each other.  Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. / Subscribe to Planet Money+ Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts. Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter. This episode was hosted by Kenny Malone, Sarah Gonzalez, and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. Bryant Urstadt edited this show. Planet Money’s executive producer is Alex Goldmark. To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below: See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
更多

单集文稿 ...

  • Sarah, Sarah Gonzalez, my longest colleague.

  • Do you remember a long time ago,

  • an episode that you and I did together where I confessed to a minor...

  • A crime, you confessed to a crime.

  • I would say malfeasance, I confessed to some malfeasance, whatever.

  • You broke a rule.

  • I definitely broke a rule.

  • Slash law.

  • You know, potato, potato.

  • I knew exactly where you were going.

  • Do you remember that episode?

  • Of course, you were like...

  • Not scanning groceries?

  • Well, we don't have to get into the specifics,

  • because we're about to run the episode that that is about, okay?

  • Yeah, I remember.

  • It's like the one and only time Kenny broke a rule, I think.

  • Certainly the only one I've confessed to on tape.

  • And then, do you remember what that episode was about overall?

  • No, what is it?