Speaker
Sam Kiefer
Appearances over time
1 episodes
Episodes
1
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Producer Sam Kiefer, on a sobriety journey, stepped into a room of strangers roughly once a week for an entire year to build new sober friendships.
Sam Kiefer said he had been working on the Office Ladies podcast for five years, and that the team had systematically helped dismantle the painful parts of his thinking during that time.
Sam Kiefer described making new friends over the age of 40 as unexpectedly difficult, saying he 'way overestimated how simple it would be.'
Angela Kinsey met her first best friend Corinza as a toddler in Indonesia, where their mothers played tennis together. There is not a single childhood memory from that era that doesn't include Corinza. Today, Corinza is a middle school librarian in Austin and they still text and check in regularly.
Jenna and Angela trace the root of their two-decade friendship to a single fact: their desks backed up to each other on The Office set. Proximity created opportunity; shared day-to-day moments built the bridge. A journal entry Angela reads from those early days captures it perfectly — lunch in a trailer, arm weights, and hydrangeas.
A listener named Allison from Edmonton met her best friend Lauren when Lauren was hired as a dance teacher and given the classes Allison wanted. The friendship clicked when they box-dyed each other's hair badly in a bathtub and had splotchy color for weeks — proof that shared vulnerability is the fastest route to real friendship.
Online consensus places Jim and Dwight as the number one friendship on The Office, above Michael and Dwight. Angela and Jenna push back and argue the list leaves out Pam and Michael, Andy and Darryl, and the true Angela/Oscar bond.
Jenna Fischer candidly shares that after her chemotherapy port was removed, she's developed an unexpected emotional reaction to the scar — unlike her surgical scars from cancer treatment that don't bother her at all. She's trying to reframe it as a battle scar but hasn't fully gotten there yet.
Jenna Fischer had two childhood best friends — Beth and Lauren — both of whom moved away suddenly, leaving her without a close friend for years. She describes getting 'a best friend for each season of her life' until Angela came along as the one who stuck. The pattern of loss likely shaped how hard she invests in adult friendships.
Angela Kinsey revealed that the movie she and Jenna went to see together on a BFF date — Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, directed by their Office colleague Ken Kwapis — is celebrating its 20th anniversary. The date was 20 years ago, making it a perfect mirror for their own friendship's span.
Research shows that after meeting strangers, people consistently underestimate how much the other person liked them. The solution? Simply assume you'll be liked — people who enter social situations with that assumption share more, disagree less, and are more positive. Carry that into every room.
Snapchat's Friendship Report offered three concrete suggestions for making adult friends: assume people already like you, don't wait for friendships to happen organically but take direct initiative (including online), and pursue a group hobby like yoga, pickleball, or improv. All three beat waiting.
Producer Sam Kiefer describes the unexpected difficulty of building new sober friendships over 40 — taking fencing, cello, sign language, kickball, and bowling classes, walking into a room of strangers roughly once a week for a year. It worked. But the emotional hangover afterward — spiraling on the way home — never fully went away.
Jenna Fischer spotted a cheesy 'Best Friends' split necklace at Claire's and almost didn't buy it — she and Angela had never called each other best friends, and she feared it was 'too much too soon.' She bought it anyway. Angela loved it instantly. It was, Jenna says, like saying 'I love you' for the first time.
When Jenna's husband was filming in Oklahoma and she needed her chemo port removed, she was prepared to delay the procedure for two months. Angela said absolutely not, organized the hospital trip, and coordinated other moms to take Jenna's kids overnight so she could recover. That is what best friendship looks like in practice.
The U.S. Congress established National Best Friends Day in 1935 specifically to honor friendship and encourage Americans to get outside with their friends in the pleasant June weather. The United Nations separately declared July 30th International Friendship Day in 2011 — so there are actually two of them.
Jenna Fischer dug into Snapchat's 2011 Friendship Report and found that the top five stressors that end friendships in your 30s and 40s are: new love, parenthood, employment changes, losing a loved one, and relocation. The uncomfortable truth is that every major life milestone is also a friendship risk factor.
Producer Sam Kiefer reads an on-air letter to Jenna, Angela, and Cassie revealing he got sober after being let go from SiriusXM and that five years with the Office Ladies team dismantled the pain he had been numbing with drugs and alcohol. He credits each of them with specific life lessons and calls the podcast a genuine family — not the cynical HR version.
Analysis
What they talk about
- Health & Fitness 75%
- Society & Culture 25%
Connections
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