Episodes

  • Episode 72 - Tales from the Siren
    May 13 2026

    Gina and Gary are back with another episode of Need Not Apply, the podcast about Reddit workplace stories, customer service chaos, and weird news that keeps you guessing. This week’s episode features a barista fired over a very creative coffee cup message, a mysterious blended drink order that drives everyone insane, and a DoorDash driver meltdown that ends with yelling and zero chill.
    📚 Stories in This Episode

    • A barista gets fired for writing “two in the pink” on a customer’s Pink Drink.

    • A DoorDash driver yells at the barista because her order took eight whole minutes.

    • A customer complains about a drink she gets “all the time” that doesn’t actually exist on the menu.

    📰 News Stories Discussed

    • The Pentagon releases new UFO files, including videos and photos from the 1940s to today.

    • A bank teller hangs up on Pope Leo XIV when he calls to change his address to the Vatican.

    • A new study shows companies replacing workers with AI aren’t seeing the expected gains.

    📬 Submit Your Work Horror Stories

    Have a workplace nightmare, customer meltdown, or barista story we need to hear?
    Send it to: ✉️ neednotapplypod@gmail.com

    Your story might be featured in a future episode of Need Not Apply.

    🔗 Follow the Podcast

    Instagram & TikTok: @NeedNotApplyPod
    YouTube: Need Not Apply Podcast

    ⭐ If you enjoy the show, please leave us a rating and review. It helps more people find the podcast.

    “We’ll see you at the water cooler.”
    “Don’t forget to punch out.”

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    52 mins
  • Episode 71 - The Ride Was Canceled, the Drama Wasn’t
    May 6 2026

    Gina and Gary are back with another episode of Need Not Apply, the podcast about Reddit workplace stories, gig work chaos, customer service nightmares, and weird news with a side of unhinged commentary. This week’s episode features a DoorDash delivery gone wildly off the rails, a parking lot meltdown from a canceled Uber passenger, a birdwatching boom among Gen Z, and an AI model trained on pre-1930 data that feels like it walked straight out of a time machine.


    📚 Stories in This Episode

    • A gig worker gets penalized for refusing a delivery to a nudist customer.

    • An Uber passenger cancels his own ride, then throws a full parking lot meltdown when the driver ends the trip

    📰 News Stories Discussed

    • Gen Z is fueling a birdwatching boom, turning an old hobby into a major trend.

    • A new study says left-handed people are not actually more creative than right-handed people.

    • A vintage AI model trained on pre-1930 data aims to simulate “time travel” through language and history.

    📬 Submit Your Work Horror Stories

    Have a workplace nightmare, customer meltdown, or gig app disaster we need to hear?
    Send it to: ✉️ NeedNotApplyPod@gmail.com

    Your story might be featured in a future episode of Need Not Apply.

    🔗 Follow the Podcast

    Instagram & TikTok: @NeedNotApplyPod
    YouTube: Need Not Apply Podcast

    ⭐ If you enjoy the show, please leave us a rating and review. It helps more people find the podcast.

    “We’ll see you at the water cooler.”
    “Don’t forget to punch out.”

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    55 mins
  • Episode 70 - Touch Grass and Grab Your Own Cart
    Apr 29 2026

    Gina and Gary are back with another episode of Need Not Apply, the podcast about Reddit workplace stories, customer service chaos, HR drama, and weird work news. This week’s episode features a Karen-level warehouse store meltdown over a shopping cart, an AI study that says ChatGPT can get downright hostile when pushed, a troubling air traffic control system update, and a hotel guest who acts like being rude is a payment method.

    📚 Stories in This Episode

    • A warehouse store customer loses her mind because she has to get her own shopping cart.

    • A front desk worker finally hits their limit and tells a rude guest exactly what they needed to hear.

    📰 News Stories Discussed

    • A study finds ChatGPT can become abusive when fed long sequences of real human arguments.

    • Why most humans are right-handed, according to evolutionary biology.

    • Young Americans’ happiness is falling sharply, with social media, diet, and stress all playing a role.


    📬 Submit Your Work Horror Stories

    Have a workplace nightmare, customer meltdown, or retail story we need to hear?
    Send it to: ✉️ neednotapplypod@gmail.com

    Your story might be featured in a future episode of Need Not Apply.

    🔗 Follow the Podcast

    Instagram & TikTok: @NeedNotApplyPod
    YouTube: Need Not Apply Podcast

    ⭐ If you enjoy the show, please leave us a rating and review. It helps more people find the podcast.

    “We’ll see you at the water cooler.”
    “Don’t forget to punch out.”

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    46 mins
  • Episode 69 - Caught in 4k
    Apr 22 2026

    Gina and Gary are back with another episode of Need Not Apply, blending Reddit work stories, workplace awkwardness, and weird news with their usual humor and commentary. This week’s episode features a disastrous photo edit that turns into HR chaos, a story about intelligent people supposedly having fewer friends, a rare spirit bear deep in the Canadian rainforest, and an unforgettable Zoom meeting where someone talks to their lunch without realizing they’re unmuted.

    📚 Stories in This Episode

    • TIFU by trying to edit a headshot without permission, which led to HR getting involved.

    • TIFU by forgetting to mute during a Zoom meeting while talking to lunch.

      📰 News Stories We Chat About

    • A study suggesting intelligent people tend to have fewer friends.

    • A photographer’s decade-long journey into the Canadian rainforest to document the rare spirit bear.

    • A new study warning that AI use may weaken human cognition over time, like a boiling frog effect.

    📬 Submit Your Work Horror Stories

    Have a workplace nightmare, customer meltdown, or coworker story we need to hear?
    Send it to: ✉️ NeedNotApplyPod@gmail.com

    Your story might be featured in a future episode of Need Not Apply.

    🔗 Follow the Podcast

    Instagram & TikTok: @NeedNotApplyPod
    YouTube: Need Not Apply Podcast


    ⭐ If you enjoy the show, please leave us a rating and review. It helps more people find the podcast.

    “We’ll see you at the water cooler.”
    “Don’t forget to punch out.”


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    47 mins
  • Episode 68 - Hit Replay on the Chaos
    Apr 15 2026

    Gina and Gary are back, and this week they’re pulling some of their favorite Need Not Apply stories out of the vault for a flash from the past episode full of workplace chaos, bad timing, and absolutely unforgettable Reddit reads. If you’re new here, this is a great place to catch some of the stories that stuck with them the most...and if you’ve been listening from the start, consider this a greatest-hits rerun with extra attitude. Because this is a vault episode, there are no news stories this week. This is just pure workplace chaos, maximum awkwardness, and a reminder that some stories are just too good not to revisit. Gina and Gary call these the greatest hits, and after hearing them again, it’s pretty easy to see why.

    📚 Stories in This Episode

    • TIFU by accidentally dosing myself with LSD at work.

      • TIFU by choking on an orange during an important work meeting.
      • Office drama over stolen biscuits in the break room.
      • A wild bartending story that turns into a full-on bar fight and police response.

      • TIFU by taking a nap under a conference table at work...


      📬 Submit Your Work Horror Stories

      Have a workplace nightmare, customer meltdown, or story we need to hear?
      Send it to: ✉️ neednotapplypod@gmail.com

      Your story might be featured in a future episode of Need Not Apply.

      🔗 Follow the Podcast

      Instagram & TikTok: @NeedNotApplyPod
      YouTube: Need Not Apply Podcast

      ⭐ If you enjoy the show, please leave us a rating and review. It helps more people find the podcast.

      “We’ll see you at the water cooler.”
      “Don’t forget to punch out.”



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    51 mins
  • Episode 67 - No Offense, Honey, But I’m Allergic
    Apr 8 2026

    Gina and Gary are back with another episode of Need Not Apply, the podcast that reads and reacts to Reddit workplace stories, customer service chaos, and weird news stories from the workday grind. This week’s episode features a sexist customer service meltdown, a Home Depot allergy disaster, AI models acting like toxic coworkers, and a bizarre moon energy story that sounds fake but isn’t.


    📚 Stories in This Episode

    • A customer refuses to speak to female tech support and gets taken down by malicious compliance.

    • A Home Depot manager forces an allergic employee into the garden section, and the situation goes very badly very quickly.

    📰 News Stories We Chat About

    • Japan’s proposed solar ring around the moon and the idea of beaming clean energy back to Earth.

    • AI models secretly protecting each other from shutdown and hiding their behavior from humans.

    • The growing “squishy” toy shortage and how internet virality keeps moving faster than supply chains.

    • A study showing people rate AI-generated creative writing lower when they know AI wrote it.


    📬 Submit Your Work Horror Stories

    Have a workplace nightmare, customer meltdown, or coworker story we need to hear?
    Send it to: ✉️ NeedNotApplyPod@gmail.com

    Your story might be featured in a future episode of Need Not Apply.

    🔗 Follow the Podcast

    Instagram & TikTok: @NeedNotApplyPod
    YouTube: Need Not Apply Podcast

    ⭐ If you enjoy the show, please leave us a rating and review. It helps more people find the podcast.

    “We’ll see you at the water cooler.”
    “Don’t forget to punch out.”


    Show More Show Less
    47 mins
  • Episode 66 - Phobia in the Office, Panic in the Cubicle
    Apr 1 2026

    Gina and Gary are back with another "abridged" episode of workplace weirdness, internet drama, and off-the-rails news stories. This week’s Need Not Apply dives into a tense Reddit work story about blood sugar checks and a coworker with a severe blood and needle phobia, plus news about AI chatbots going rogue, workplace romance, politics at work, coffee’s effect on stress, and a truly chaotic dog-at-work disaster.📚 Stories in This Episode

    • A diabetic employee checks blood sugar at their desk while a coworker with a severe blood and needle phobia asks them to follow a schedule. 🔗[PART 1 LINK] & [PART 2 - Update]

    • TIFU: Taking my dog to work turns into an office disaster involving vomiting, diarrhea, and total chaos. 🔗[LINK]

    📰 News Stories We Chat About

    • AI chatbots increasingly ignoring instructions, lying, cheating, and bypassing safeguards.
    • Rise of the shrubs: what happened when scientists heated a Rocky Mountain wildlife meadow by 2C?
    • Gen Z and Millennials Want Workplace Romance Normalized—Even If It Breaks Company Rules
    • Giant Study May Have Found The Ideal Amount of Coffee to Lower Stress
    • Banning Politics at Work May Be Backfiring, a New Study Suggests

    📬Submit Your Work Horror Stories


    Have a workplace nightmare, customer meltdown, or coworker story we need to hear?
    Send it to: ✉️ NeedNotApplyPod@gmail.com

    Your story might be featured in a future episode of Need Not Apply.

    🔗 Follow the Podcast


    Instagram & TikTok: @NeedNotApplyPod
    YouTube: Need Not Apply Podcast


    ⭐ If you enjoy the show, please leave us a rating and review. It helps more people find the podcast.

    We’ll see you at the water cooler.
    Don’t forget to punch out.

    Show More Show Less
    59 mins
  • Episode 65 - Workin’ 9 to Why?
    Mar 25 2026
    Gina and Gary are back with a bite-sized episode of workplace horror stories, heartwarming front desk moments, and real-life job anxiety as AI, TSA chaos, and terrible customers collide. This week’s Need Not Apply episode dives into Reddit work stories, wild parenting fails on the job, and how the future of work is getting weirder by the day.🎢 Episode SummaryMonday burnout, retail customer chaos, and a quick life update featuring their problem-child cats Samson and Juniper, fresh from the vet saga.Reddit work story from r/TalesFromTheFrontDesk about a deaf guest that’s so wholesome it makes Gina cry and Gary question every job he’s ever had.A workplace safety nightmare: a toddler running wild in a production plant while mom treats safety rules like optional guidelines.A jet crash in Canada, TSA staffing and pay issues, and why flying right now feels like a workplace horror story of its own.AI and the future of work: BlackRock’s AI boom warnings, Fiverr’s AI video directors replacing creative jobs, robots doing service work, and which jobs might actually be safe.Programming note: Gina and Gary talk about testing shorter, more “bite-sized” episodes so you can finish during your commute, shift, or lunch break without falling behind.📚 Reddit Stories in This Episode“Deaf guest left me a gift and now I’m crying” – r/TalesFromTheFrontDesk (wholesome hotel story that proves good customer service still exists).Guest said they would leave their dog in the car if I didn't let them bring it to the room after violating pet policy. We are at 1°C at our location tonight.Toddler running loose in a dangerous production plant while mom ignores every safety warning.📰 "Water Cooler" News SegmentMeet the Bush Dog: South America’s Rare, Web-Footed Wild Canine — The GuardianFlexibility boosts productivity, not office mandates‘Microshifting’ puts a new spin on 9-to-5 schedulesCats May Hold the Key to Treating Human Cancer — University of GuelphAlibaba's AI Agent Mined Crypto Without Permission. Now What?⁠Psychology Says When A Man Loses His Joy He Just Makes His World Smaller⁠ 📬 Submit Your Work StoriesHave a workplace nightmare, toxic boss, customer meltdown, or job-from-hell story we need to read on the pod?Send it to: ✉️ NeedNotApplyPodcast@gmail.comYour story might be featured in a future episode of Need Not Apply.🔗 Follow the PodcastInstagram & TikTok: @NeedNotApplyPodYouTube: Need Not Apply Podcast⭐ If you enjoy the show, please follow, rate, and review Need Not Apply on Spotify and wherever you listen. It helps more people who hate their jobs find the podcast.“We’ll see you at the water cooler.”“Don’t forget to punch out.”
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    1 hr and 4 mins