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AsianBossGirl

Episode 207: The Bachelor or Football?! Water Cooler Conversation Topics to Break the Ice at Work

AsianBossGirl

Melody, Helen, and Janet

Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Careers, Business

4.81.5K Ratings

🗓️ 17 February 2023

⏱️ 47 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Working in an office setting means that there are often situations where small talk is required. Before meetings, in elevators, and what’s commonly referred to as “water cooler conversations” in the break room. But maybe you’re someone who hates small talk, or maybe you just don’t have any idea what conversation topics to bring up with your colleagues, managers, and bosses. Do you play it safe and stick to topics of sports, TV shows, and pop culture? Or do you show some vulnerability with coworkers to try and form deeper relationships with your coworkers? In this episode, we share some of our personal stories and the different topics we had to study up on to navigate these water cooler conversations. Between all our backgrounds in different industries, from finance, to UX design, to fashion and media, we found that our experiences and interactions with colleagues also differed from one another. __________________________________________ Hosts: Melody Cheng, Janet Wang, Helen Wu Contributing Editor: Haemee Kang Editor: Michelle Hsieh __________________________________________ P A R T N E R S • Love & Pies by Trailmix Games: Free to download in the Apple Store or Google Play __________________________________________ C O N N E C T W I T H U S • Subscribe and Follow us @asianbossgirl on Apple Podcasts/Spotify/Amazon Music/YouTube/Instagram/Twitter/Facebook • Listener Survey: Let us know your thoughts on the podcast here • Shoutouts: Give a shoutout on the podcast here • Email: [email protected] __________________________________________ S U P P O R T U S • Merch: asianbossgirl.myshopify.com • Donate: anchor.fm/asianbossgirl/support • More about us at asianbossgirl.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Oh, hi, it's Zach Peter, your new favorite pop culture guru, serving you the hottest

0:05.2

tea three times a week from the latest news on the Real Housewives, deep dives into

0:10.5

celebrity legal scandals, unfiltered combos with your favorite stars, and of course,

0:15.6

the latest from Vanderpumpland, I've got you covered, and new episodes of the podcast

0:20.2

are now available in video on Spotify, and they don't just let anybody do video.

0:25.2

But this platinum blood has won them over.

0:27.7

So if you want the latest news from the ultimate tea spilling professional tune in to

0:32.0

No Filter with Zach Peter.

0:34.0

That's No Filter with Zach Peter on your favorite podcast app now.

0:40.0

Welcome to ABG Asian Boss Girl, a podcast for the modern day Asian American woman.

0:44.7

I'm Janet.

0:45.7

I'm Helen, and I'm Mel.

0:58.4

Ladies, today's topic is going to be about small talk, specifically the water cooler conversations

1:04.1

we had at work, which I know we all had to deal with, whether you want to call it small

1:08.3

talk or water cooler conversation, these moments for short conversations can actually be a

1:13.8

really impactful way to build rapport with someone, especially at work.

1:18.3

Okay, but let's talk about the specific small talk conversations that we did have in our

1:22.8

respective corporate environments.

1:24.4

That's a topic we haven't discussed on this podcast yet.

1:27.3

And it's a big part of office culture.

1:30.2

When I think about small talk, especially in the context of work, to me, it feels like

1:35.0

forced conversation.

...

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