MSG Presents : "Characters From Corporate" From Bully to Broken - A Wake-Up Call in the Workplace

In this emotional installment of “Characters From Corporate.” A Man from Houston shares a confession that unpack the darker sides of Black masculinity and ambition in corporate America.

The first story comes from a 38-year-old engineer who admits to bullying his team, only to face a heartbreaking wake-up call when one of his direct reports attempts suicide. He reflects on how his trauma, fear, and need to survive shaped his toxic behavior—and wonders if it’s too late to change.

Eric and Stu don’t hold back in their responses. They offer tough love, practical ideas for accountability, and a few sharp laughs along the way (including a nudge to "cut the check").

🎧 This episode is a gut check on power, guilt, and redemption—and a reminder that success means nothing if you lose your soul getting there.

Transcript

Characters From Corporate Bully

 [00:00:00] All right, so here's our characters from corporate submission and if we got any new MSG family today. Characters from corporate is, is really just a outlet for us to talk about situations that we've all experienced in corporate.

Sometimes it focuses on a specific person that you consider a character. That person might be yourself, it might be your boss, it could be anybody. But we want you to all to keep sending us these stories. So today. Our story is this man says I'm a 38-year-old black male. I live in Houston, Texas. Okay.

All right. Shout out to Houston. Houston. I'm an engineer. I graduated from HBCU. I don't want to say which one. That's fine. Currently work for Fortune 500. Don't wanna say which one. That's fine. Mm-hmm. And he says, I have gotten into a habit of bullying my coworkers. Oh. Especially my direct reports. And recently one of the people that [00:01:00] I had been bullying tried to commit.

Suicide. Oh, come on brother. Come on now. He says, I don't know if it directly had anything to do with me, but I'm sure I didn't help. I realized I want to change after this situation, but wonder how I got to this point. I think it was originally me being on the offensive, trying to be trying to avoid being a victim myself when I originally came into.

Corporate. I am definitely a character from corporate. Wow. Wow. That's tough. Sorry. Sorry to hear that. Houston. Houston, we have a problem, but I'm glad you self-identified brother. Man, I'm H town. That's rough, man. Yeah. Sorry man, that you bullying people on the job and this person committed Sue. I would really hope it wasn't directly related to you.

You hope not, but he, [00:02:00] he feel it. He know what he feeling. He know he has something to do with it. He might not have been the thing, but he. He didn't stop it. You know, he wasn't, he added on. So that's, sorry. Sorry to hear that brother. I hope you, I hope you find your peace and a tone, man. But I'm, you know, this is a, this was a first start and sharing your story and admitting it, man.

I hope you don't. Yeah. Thank you for sharing. But you know, you guys are better, brother. I will ask you, Stu, quickly, have you bullied or been bullied in corporate? No, no, not in corporate. Probably have been bullied by the establishment a few times. I know I have. Okay. Pushed around like a pinball in a pinball machine.

I've, I've been there but I've never bullied anybody in corporate or workplace environment at all. No. Okay. That's good to hear. How about you? I, I've been very arrogant in corporate environ. I don't think I've bullied anybody. [00:03:00] Mm-hmm. I'm, you know, pretty humble guy at this point in life, but I've been.

An a-hole, but yeah, I don't, I don't, that's just not my style to bully people, so, nah. Yeah. I don't even, like, I used to think that we had to, I had to be an a-hole to be successful. Yeah. I don't even believe that anymore. So I'm not even interested in being an asshole man. I prefer to be a little bit more humble man to these.

Yeah. Same. Same here. I think we were all scared, you know, trying to cover up. Fears and insecurities that we had. So, yeah. Okay. Well H Town, I hope you get some help for that. And thank you for sharing though. I like the rawness of the story. Hmm. I think that's a little deeper than we probably would've expected, this type of a segment.

But we want you all to keep sending in those stories so we can get some perspective on corporate characters and corporate. Alright. I think we've taken care of all of our responsibilities. My co-captain Let me know though. Yeah, [00:04:00] well we normally would do a song, we would feature a song from Oh, yeah, yeah.

Music's pool. But, but what we're going to do, you know the song that I wanted to feature is by not them, K-N-O-T-T-H-M, the husband wife duo that that are on pro highlighted on pool. I'm going to save that to the to the postproduction of the audio version. Okay. That you can, you can catch at buzz sprout.com/money.

Sex GenX. So that'll be ready in a, in a few days. Okay. Cool. We're gonna highlight 'em. We're still gonna highlight 'em. And that's what's up, man. You know, man, what a great show. What a what? A what a really great show, man. What a great show. You got any closing thoughts on this season, this season two that we just wrapped?

You know, we'll reflect. I mean, I think overall I'm glad we got through it. I mean, I'm glad we keep pushing and you know, I guess the, the, it's not really a closing thought for me, but it may be a closing thought [00:05:00] for everybody who will watch this. If you get to this part and listening. Pursue your dreams, like go after it.

Don't let anybody get in the way. It's gonna get tough. It's not always easy, it's not always sweet, but don't let that stop you. Do not let it. Even when you wanna give up, don't give up. Absolutely. Absolutely man. Keep going. Just no doubt. Stop stopping. That's right. Quit quitting. Keep. That's right. Keep going, man.

Just keep going. That's my takeaway from season two. All right. Well, my, my last comment is this, you know, doing a podcast is a lot of work as, as one could imagine, and I don't know, hopefully you won't mind me sharing this, Stu, but you know, Stu and I, we, our energy really. Hasn't been that great this season.

It, I, I wouldn't say we put on a good show, but like when we're talking in the pregame, we're like, man, this week was crazy. And all that. So two big stew's [00:06:00] point. It's like even though we had a lot of adversities in our personal lives, this, this season, we still showed up each week and tried to put out a really dope show for you, for you all.

So hopefully, you know, you all appreciate that, but it, we had a rough. Seven weeks, you know what I mean? So we're gonna get through it, but season three is going to be, hopefully we get to a better energy as far as our personal situations. But thank you all for showing up and we, we will see you in season three.

See you in season three. Peace. Peace.