Launching Wednesday 16th September 2026. The Wankernomics podcast is a deep dive into workplace bullsh*ttery. Each week, co-hosts James Schloeffel and Charles Firth drill down, deep dive and unpack examples of corporate bullsh*ttery from the real world, deconstructing the way people use to bullshit their way to success (or failure). Wankernomics answers the questions you always wanted to know but were too busy stuck on an all-hands company-wide Teams call to ask: What does it mean when someone talks about ‘operational cadence’ in a weekly all-hands staff meeting? What is the most horrific employee recognition scheme ever conceived? Why does it feel like waiting times for call centres are getting longer and longer? The Financial Times has called Wankernomics the “workplace comedy phenomenon”. Since 2023, Wankernomics has run mock corporate workshops to sold out audiences across the globe. Mixing real-world stories with personal anecdotes from James and Charles’s 20+ years in the working world, the podcast is informative, funny and totally relatable. Follow now so that you can find it in your podcast feed, every Wednesday morning. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
What this show covers
corporate jargonworkplace cultureonboardingcomedyworkplace satirepodcast introrecruitmentjob adspsychologyAustraliagovernment bureaucracypublic sectorUKworkplace absurditybranding
What listeners will find here
A tongue-in-cheek onboarding for new Wankernomics listeners
This episode serves as a playful induction for new starters to the Wankernomics podcast. James and Charles walk through the essentials, from how to listen and where the kitchen is to the show's mission, vision, and purpose.
A funny, pointed teardown of the baffling language in job ads
Job advertisements are full of polished phrases that often say very little. Charles and James dig into the buzzwords, ask what they really mean, and unpack a real ad line by line to explore the psychology behind this strange corporate dialect.
When government process goes feral: stationery, traffic cones and absurd rules
Government bureaucracy is the target here, with Charles and James telling one Australian and one UK story about processes that spiral into nonsense. Expect tales of stationery budgets, re-used envelopes, traffic cones and a joke-filled look at how official systems can lose the plot.
Optus’s 12-hour collapse meets the absurd poetry of corporate purpose
The episode digs into the 2023 Optus outage that left 11 million Australians without phone and internet access for 12 hours. Charles and James use the crisis to examine Optus’s response, decode its purpose statement, and poke at the wider corporate obsession with jargon, brand love, and empty optimism.
A hilariously bleak tour of corporate rewards gone wrong
Employee recognition is the target here, from a jaw-droppingly bad three-year service reward to incentive schemes that crossed ethical and legal lines. James and Charles use absurd examples to show how companies hide responsibility behind outsourcing, jargon, and polished corporate language.
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