Out Of Office

And an update for Q3

6 months ago, we announced a big change.

After 8+ years of making a deeply meaningful, labor-intensive narrative podcast called Terrible, Thanks for Asking, we needed a change. We needed several changes, actually. A change of pace, a change of topic, a change of pretty much everything.

We closed down our Patreon and Apple+ channels and moved the entire podcast archives over here.

We changed the format of the show, the name, the production schedule. We stopped making a show we loved¹ because there was no way to make it viable without a presenting sponsor.

The workload got smaller, the revenue got smaller, the team got smaller. The choice to do less in a market that demands more was frightening, but we made it anyway. It was the right thing to do, and it was long overdue.

My hustling was not healthy.

And to work with me, you had to hustle. We had a machine to feed, and that machine was hungry. I had ideas, and I needed them executed right now. I was always stressed, and always passing that stress on to other people².

But I was so tired. The team was so tired.

Doing less felt unnatural.

And honestly, I didn’t know how to do it. When your homeostasis is constant turbulence, it’s hard to trust a smooth ride.

But this year’s theme was LESS, and I am living, loving and laughing that theme as though I were a faux hand-painted sign from TJ Maxx.

If this were a corporate email, I would be updating you on 1H 2025, and I would have charts and graphs for you, my key stakeholders. But I do not have charts nor graphs, just a few general updates on how this year has been going for the team here:

• Grace left us in January to get a corporate job, and we wished her the best. But a few months later, she was…miserable?

  

  And now she’s back, and sprinkling her magic on everything we make. She’s also writing her little heart out, and I’m so glad she has the time and space to pursue her own creativity.

• Marcel got “let go” from his corporate job, picked up a couple other producing jobs, and also went through a pretty tumultuous year personally. He and his wife were caregiving for his mother while raising two toddlers, and his mother died in April. So yeah, he wins Worst Year Ever and it’s not even half over just yet!

• Me?? You already know about me! I write about myself every week!

The point of being independent, of not having a corporate overlord tell us how many episodes we have to publish and when, is to make our lives as peaceful and humane as possible³.

The point is to be able to tell Marcel that work doesn’t matter and to take whatever time he needs. The point is for Grace to have time to write her own stuff. The point is to have a job and a life, to not be grinding out content hoping to lure in advertisers and who want bigger and bigger numbers and want to pay less and less and less.

Transparently, we lost about 50% of our subscriber revenue when we left Patreon and Apple+ for Substack. And yet I still feel 100% less stressed. I have to believe that less is more even if it doesn’t make more.

The team is taking a 30-day break starting…today.

For the first time since I started this newsletter, The Sunday Dreads will be paused during July. Grace is going to work on her novel. Marcel is going to hang out with his beautiful family and attend to house projects he’s been putting off. And I’m leaving my laptop at home⁴ and going on a four-week adventure that I’ve been saving for for three years and planning for one⁵.

Paid subscribers will still be getting all of the podcasts you’re expecting (and more), and a reminder that we have been on YouTube for a year and there’s lots there, too!

Here’s what’s on tap for the next month:

📖 6/29 - The June Reading List (free for everyone)

🎧 7/1 - I was the other woman (and he died)

🎧 7/15 - Everyone Is Lying To You: Influencer Culture and A Juicy Murder with

Jo Piazza

🎧 7/22 - Health Insurance Horror Stories

🎧 7/29 - Corporate Horror Stories (Part 2) with Becca Platzky of the

Corporate Gossip Podcast

Do I think I can get through an entire month without working? Not really! I’m already feeling itchy about it! But I try to remind myself of this simple truth:

We are not on this earth to work frantically until we die.

We are supposed to work frantically, have intermittent bouts of fun and silliness, and then die.

Yours in earnestness and imperfection,

Nora

❤️ You aren’t the only one living (or having lived) a Corporate Horror Story.

📖 May Reading List is here!

❤️ Ralph and I love having a Recess to take the edge of our anxiety. Code NORABOREALIS = 15% off.

❤️ I keep a running list of Tall Girl Pants because tall girls stick together. And so do flat girls, so if you need a bra for small boobs, I rounded up my favorites.

❤️ Simplified my makeup routine with the essentials from Merit, which means traveling much lighter than usual!

❤️ I got a travel-size rollerball of this perfume oil and I love how it smells warm and fresh? Code NORA = 15% off!

❤️ I get 8+ hours of sleep a night because of these THC gummies. The DREAM ones conk me out for 8-9 hours, and the UPLIFT ones make me chill and fun. Code NORA gets you 15% off! My other sleepy girl things are here.

❤️ Trying to break your phone addiction? I’m still Bricking my phone for most days and this link gets you 10% off. If the link doesn’t auto-apply 10% off, use code NORA.

1. It’s Going To Be OK is still on all major podcast platforms! 400+ episodes for you whenever you need them!

2. stress is a communicable disease! Wash your hands and go to therapy!

3. there is no way for me to write this that doesn’t make me feel like a loser dork. Like, Why was I working myself and everyone else into oblivion? Oh! Because if you snooze you lose! You gotta make hay while the sun shines, and a monsoon is brewing in the distance!

4. I’m taking a vacation without a laptop, but Matthew is bringing his in case I am struck by a bolt of inspiration and truly need to write. My dentist and psychiatrist do not think I am capable of not writing for four weeks, and I would love to prove these men wrong!!

5. I have not planned a single part of this trip. I owe it all to our travel advisor, Sam.