Office worker ices out his coworker Dana when she tries to force her true crime podcast onto everyone in the workplace: 'I'm not interested!'

Author image for Jesse Kessenheimer
Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Jun 3, 2026 2:30 PM EDT

The podcast bubble burst long ago, yet there are still colleagues who try to force their voice on everyone else. 

A 31-year-old office employee recently ran to Reddit to lament over his coworker's podcast. While there's nothing wrong with sharing your hobby with your friends at work, forcibly handing out business cards with your podcast's QR code on it isn't the way to cultivate a devoted listening audience; that's a good way to get iced out. 

After putting up with her insistent demands to listen to her podcast and enduring the ridicule over his failure to follow up, this man decided he wouldn't fall victim to her pressure anymore, deciding instead to ignore her completely, not just her podcast. 

Funnily enough, this seems like the only way to handle podcasters these days. If they don't shut up on their own volition, it's time the audience members turn down the volume on their end, muting their overtly pushy opinions and thwarting any attempts to redirect their attentions. Because at the end of the day, we only have so much bandwidth for our hobbies, why absorb the fallout for someone else's audio failures on your free time? 

Advertisement
  • Cheezburger Image 10635670528
    via Pexels (Karola G)

    Female podcaster sitting at her desk portrayed by a model.

  • WIBTA for telling my coworker I don't want to hear about her podcast anymore?
    via Woven_Echo-
  • I (31M) work in a mid- size office, open floor plan, about 20 people. My coworker I'll call her Dana started a true crime podcast about a year ago. At first it was fine, she mentioned it
    via Woven_Echo-
  • once or twice, I said "oh cool" and that was that. But over the last maybe four months it's become a daily thing. Every
    via Woven_Echo-
  • Monday she gives the whole nearby section of the office a summary of the new episode. If something true crime related comes up in any conversation, she redirects it to her
    via Woven_Echo-
  • podcast. Last week someone mentioned they watched a Netflix documentary and Dana spent 15 minutes explaining how her podcast covered a
    via Woven_Echo-
  • similar case "way more in depth." She's started printing little business cards and leaving them on peoples desks.
    via Woven_Echo-
  • Here's where I might be the ah le: I've started hole: just putting my headphones in the moment I see her walking over. I haven't said anything directly.
    via Woven_Echo-
  • Cheezburger Image 10635670272
    via Pexels (Karola G)

    Models dressed as coworkers in a workplace environment sharing ideas. 

  • This guy just wanted to do his own thing once he got home from work. He didn’t want to hear his colleague’s voice in his ears from the comfort of his home; he wanted to relax, unwind, and enjoy his own form of entertainment. Perhaps it would have been nice of him to tune in every now and again to support her channel, but once she started getting pushy with her insistence, he lost interest in being “nice.”

    It seems like, these days, podcasters really just want to hear themselves talk. 

  • My other coworker Jamie thinks I should just tell Dana honestly that I'm not interested in the podcast because "she deserves to know." But I
    via Woven_Echo-
  • genuinely don't want that conversation. We have to sit near each other every day and I don't want it to be weird.
    via Woven_Echo-
  • I asked my girlfriend about it and she said I was being avoidant and that the headphone thing is "a little passive aggressive." Maybe she
    via Woven_Echo-
  • has a point. But also I feel like "I don't want to hear about your hobby every single day" is kind of a hard thing to say to someone you see 40 hours a week without it becoming a whole thing.
    via Woven_Echo-

  • Although there may be like-minded fish out there in the sea who want to hear you chatter on about true crime (ie: your supportive parents, that one weird college roommate, or an overly interested semi-stalker online), most people don’t want to hear what you have to say. It may be curt of me to remark, given the fact that sharing my own opinion online is how I put bread on the table, but podcasters are different, and somehow worse than the written word. 

    If you want to ignore my opinion, just keep scrolling. But if you want to ignore a podcaster, you have to click away or turn the volume down; that’s far more involved. So I understand why this coworker refused to give in to her podcast listening demands, no matter how petty his reasoning.

  • So would I be the ah le if I just keep doing the headphone thing and never say anything? Or do I need to actually talk to her?
    via Woven_Echo-
  • Spiritual_Street_767 "Sorry, Dana, I have a work to do" as soon as it goes beyond a small talk.
    via Spiritual_Street_767
  • Spiritual_Ad6547. Just keep doing the headphones thing. I don't see what the big deal is.
    via Spiritual_Ad6547
  • BellaTheMighty ⚫ If you're not a fan of confrontation- esp with a colleague -- the headphone approach is an easy way to handle it.
    via BellaTheMighty
  • You get to send the message wo actually having to say anything. And if your podcast- loving coworker has any awareness of what's going on around her, she
    via BellaTheMighty
  • should take the hint and realize you're not looking to chat or listen along. I think it's a good option. If she doesn't pick up on the hint, having a direct
    via BellaTheMighty
  • conversation may just create unnecessary awkwardness. Sometimes a subtle cue is enough, and if it isn't, that probably tells you something about how receptive she'd be to the conversation in the first place.
    via BellaTheMighty

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

coworkers podcast workplace
Scroll Down For The Next Article