Before you say “yes” to returning, learn what you’re walking into. Nothing stood still while you were gone. Your role evolved. Your team shifted. Informal alliances formed and hardened. You’re not stepping back into your old seat; you’re entering a moving system with new dynamics. Don’t expect things to feel like they used to. It’s a brand-new set of relationships.
Continue reading Boomerang Employee? Read This Before You Return
She’s not using AI as a productivity aid. She’s leaning on it as a cognitive prosthetic. AI speeds the drafting of reports, emails, and presentations. It cannot replace judgment or the ability to think through a messy problem from scratch. Those muscles matter even more in roles where employees need to decide what the work should say, not just polish how it’s said.
Continue reading AI is Our New Employee
If you’re a manager flirting with AI’s seductive promise: faster drafts, smoother prose, less emotional strain, you might be tempted. But pause first. Yes, AI can help. It also creates risks that many managers haven’t thought through. Continue reading Should Managers Use AI to Write Performance Reviews?
“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 fury. Continue reading Rage Quitting
When managers don’t handle problems but complain about one employee to another, our trust erodes. We don’t want our managers to talk to us about our coworkers. We expect our managers to have difficult conversations with those who need them. To set and uphold standards. To name what isn’t working. To offer support and correction.
That’s leadership.
Continue reading Hey Boss, It’s You
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.
Continue reading I’m Done: When the Employees Who Keep Things From Falling Apart Call It Quits
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. Continue reading Skipping Out on Fridays
No one should be asked to work in an environment that requires swallowing hate in order to belong. Nazi imagery and praise signal exclusion, intimidation and threat, especially to Jewish employees, people of color, LGBTQ+ coworkers, immigrants and anyone with a basic grasp of history. It poisons the workplace and creates a hostile work environment. Continue reading When Extremism Walks into the Workplace: 3 steps
Number six: drown in a vat of burnt office coffee, slow, bitter, company blend.
Number seven: death by paperclips, swallowed one by one.
Number eight: Lock Willy and Ken in the conference room with a malfunctioning speakerphone; feedback shrieking, brains scrambled, meeting finally useful.
Office fridge salmonella surprise. HR report: “unfortunate potluck accident.”
Continue reading 16 Ways to Kill Your Managers (Metaphorically, Mostly)
Employee roomba: everyone performs work & looks slammed: syncing, circling back, touching base, aligning priorities, and actioning next steps. The problem? None of these verbs produced anything tangible. Meetings multiplied like rabbits while projects stayed in limbo. Like bouncing in place for your smartwatch. Continue reading The Roomba School of Management: When Everyone Looks Slammed but Nothing Gets Done