Coaching

Question: Our newly hired marketing director impressed everyone with the polished materials she submitted with her application. Much of what she’s turned out in the last two months has been just as strong: clear, organized, and professional. Not only that, but she also cleared a backlog of projects that had been sitting on marketing’s desk

Most people know me for writing about work. Conflict at work. Leadership mistakes. The strange things humans do in conference rooms. But there’s another side of my writing life that fewer people know about. I also write fiction. Suspense stories about power, secrets, and the messy decisions people make when pressure closes in. Turns out

Benefits, Risks and Best Practices On a Friday afternoon, a manager stares at his screen and does the math. Six employees plus six overdue performance reviews. An entire weekend gone. Why not let AI draft the reviews? According to a survey of 2,000 HR professionals cited by the Society for Human Resource Management, 13% of

“I’m done, and I need you to know why.” The resignation hits the internet before the CEO’s coffee finishes brewing. Maybe it first arrived as a company-wide email or detonated in Slack, reactions stacking like spectators at a parade. Or it migrates to LinkedIn, a scathing paragraph wrapped in professionalism with a thin icing of

Hey boss, it’s you. In every job I’ve held, some version of my manager has turned me into his listening ear. It’s an occupational hazard for those of us who sit at the front desk. The manager will approach my desk and ask, “Is so-and-so here yet?” “Not yet.” A growl. Exit, stage left. When

Question: The woman I share an office with still technically works here. Her chair stays filled. Her email signature remains intact. But her spirit checked out sometime after the third reorganization. We work the same customer service job and the same shift, which means when the phone rings, I’m the one who answers. If I

Every workplace has at least one employee who quietly keeps thing from falling apart. These employees find the good in each manager. They patch over awkward processes with time, emotional energy and problem-solving. They translate confusion into action. They make dysfunction workable. Until one day they don’t. They still show up. They don’t slam doors

If your workplace resembles a ghost town on Fridays, you’re not alone. White-collar professionals, particularly those allowed to work remotely, increasingly start their weekends early. One recent analysis found that remote and hybrid workers shift hours earlier in the week, hollowing out Fridays, https://fortune.com/2025/11/17/remote-hybrid-four-day-work-week-time-use-survey/. The Bureau of Labor Statistics documents the average number of minutes

Question: I’ve dealt with difficult managers throughout my entire career. I spent eight years in the military and another two decades in construction, so trust me when I say I’m not easily rattled. But I’ve never worked under a manager as bad as Brad. Here’s how he operates: He pits employees against each other by

Question: On my second week at a new state job, a coworker laughed and casually dropped, “Hitler had some good ideas.” I froze, thinking it a joke, until another coworker and added, “Yeah. He knew how to get people in line. That’s why they’re still talking about him.” I want to get along with my

Question: My boss thinks he’s the smartest person in the room. He’s not. He’s just the most arrogant. Here’s the problem. I like my job. I care about the work. There’s even a version of my boss I admire. He’s charismatic and knows how to sell himself and his ideas to senior management. But working

For decades, college-educated employees built a career on the assumption that if something went wrong: a bad job fit, a stalled role, a difficult manager, they could fix it. They would polish their resume, reach out to their network, scan LinkedIn or Indeed, and trust another opportunity waited nearby. That sense of professional mobility cracked

Maggie carried herself like the model professional—pressed blazer, polished nod, expression set to neutral. Her pen sketched blood. On the legal pad half hidden by her keyboard tray, she wrote in small script, Sixteen Ways to Kill Your Managers. Number one: staple gun to jugular. Efficient. No mess. No evidence trail.Number two: office chair ejector

Question: I’m starting to feel like I’m speed-dating managers. I’ve had five managers in four years, and every one of them turned out to be unethical, cruel or asleep at the wheel. I don’t want to keep job-hopping, I just want one emotionally stable manager who won’t derail my career and life. As an applicant,

Question: When leadership promoted me to team manager, the position came with a new title but not much of a raise. Still, I felt rewarded for my hard work and celebrated. I figured the extra effort would pay off, especially with the promise of a year-end bonus. Three weeks in, I understand why the two

You survived a full-scale workplace blow-torch of a moment—voices sharpened, tempers roared—and the next morning you crawl into the day. You feel scrambled: emotional static, adrenaline residue, and the sinking suspicion you said something you won’t be able to live down. Here’s what’s happened: When conflict spikes, your brain flips every survival switch it owns.

Some coworkers bring lunch into the breakroom. Others bring judgment. You’re reheating leftovers when a co-worker glances at your open laptop and spots your calendar—twelve color-coded blocks stacked on top of each other like Tetris pieces in their final moments. They gasp softly and gesture at your schedule like they’re unveiling a crime scene. Before

By 9:15 a.m., the newly hired manager, brought in to “turn things around,” realized no one in her department worked—they performed work. Laptops glowed, brows furrowed, Slack windows flashed like strobe lights. She hadn’t seen this much motion with so little progress since her Roomba tried to vacuum the stairs. Everyone looked slammed—syncing, circling back,

“Welcome to Job Huggers Anonymous,” chirps the facilitator, clutching her clipboard like it contains the secret to joy. “We’re here because we can’t stop holding jobs that no longer love us back. Let’s start with introductions.” Lila leans forward as if she planned to leak state secrets. “I hate my job so much I fantasize

“Of course, take your time,” Glenda the Good Frenemy purred, sliding the project update across the table like a cat presenting a dead mouse. An hour later she cc’d three senior managers “just to keep them in the loop,” helpfully implying I’d missed a handoff. By morning, my credibility had been neatly filleted—by the Queen