All Stories

Once upon a time in a workplace, a high achiever found themselves in a repulsive situation with their manager. It evolved slowly. She thought at first well that behavior is odd. Or did that just happen? It’s not something you typically see in the workplace. Decades in the workforce. Many conversations with other employees on conduct at work and awareness. It happened, right up to the day of departure. As a professional, you would think that I should be able to address it. I

Once upon a time at a workplace, lived a domineering, palm slamming on the desk harpy. As we live our life’s path, it’s impossible not to pick up life wounds. Most of us take the lesson from the encounter, learn from it, and move on. Not Cathy. To sustain her level of rancor, bitterness, and on a good day, indignation required a lot of work. A simple little fruit fly that dared to buzz by, could have Cathy go ballistic. Using a thick binder to smash it, instead of a hand swat

Once upon a time in a workplace, lived a relatively normal professional manager at first sight. Although relatively new to the company herself, about three years, it was filled with drama. Lots of drama. Lots of whispers. Lots of stories that didn’t make sense. Then lots of very odd behaviors. In a family-owned company; where the siblings didn’t get along, it was an interesting place to work. The face of the business literally had almost no say in the business. Which was inte

Once upon a time at a workplace, someone hired an exceptionally bizarre manager and then promoted her. It was that promotion. That moment of bad judgement on her hiring manager’s side. Foundational information presented by various departments from legal, audit, a questionable personnel file, and security all against it – Kathy was hired in the corporate office. She didn’t have quirks; those sound positive and happy. Kathy was bitter, conniving, and entitled. Her hobby was eat

Once upon a time at a workplace, this story deserves popcorn and an adult beverage of choice. Oh, Quasi – will any story ever be real? Some fabricators somewhere along their life path choose to take the invention of small lies into great stories and facts that don’t exist, to become pathological fibbers. Every employee wants to make to a level where they are known as a subject matter expert or jack of all trades or the It person. Many not choose petty and lying – not here to

Once upon a time at a workplace, a man who delusionally thought he walked on top of water was hired. An ego so large, it was amazing how it could navigate door frames. Waves of misogyny at a pungent level to gag a human five feet away. Unsurprisingly stuck to male dominating industries. Best way to get testosterone boosters is osmosis. Cognitive challenges and an ability to be wrong about any subject matter he wore proudly. When one elects to be the most arrogant and repulsiv

Once upon a time at a workplace, lived an exhausting mess. The kind of mess that can raise your heartbeat to fat burning mode just watching frantic behavior like a fruit fly. A fruit fly on the last day of living, desperately trying to get their ‘to do list’ accomplished. Millie was that, with volcanic eruptions causing others to deal with the lava flow, because nothing stops a workflow faster than a fire. Easily made the main character in Clueless look like a top MIT Thinkta

Once upon a time at a workplace, lived a legend. According to Scandinavian folklore, Kevin was afraid of sun light, fluorescent light, light bulb illuminations, energy efficient lighting, and Edison’s first light bulb. Under troll protocol, he needed to be the first one in the workplace before any lights impeded his journey from his home under a dank and dark bridge. Once in, no lights were a requirement. As employees came in, flipping on light switches – the negative comment

Once upon a time at the workplace, Pam was hired and quickly developed into Completely Incompetent Genius. She traveled all over the organization. Like most workers who can’t do, their resumes are padded with fluffy stuff and words about duties and experiences (taken from other’s resumes or swipe them right off the internet) to get the job. In the interview, the hiring manager ‘loved’ her, so was hired. So smart and great personality! Pam’s story answers the burning question

Once upon a time at a workplace, a snowstorm hit and the county placed a limited travel warning up. On this day, three (3) highly qualified candidates were scheduled for interviews and one (1) barely met the qualifications needed, but recruiting scheduled that individual in anyway. The senior vice president had a quirky personality – intelligent, forward thinking artist mindset, odd social skills, and always busy. Her priorities were simply removing responsibilities and givin

Once upon a time at a workplace, Christine chose fraud in a crafty and conniving way. This challenging fraudster was hired for a role that given her experience should have been easy. There were signs. An odd inquiry, a validation that the company was ‘real’. Claimed a victim of scams. Resume not ideal with a short-term employment roller coaster. Did good in the interview and asked appropriate questions. Was hired. First day, late and sent a message after starting time. Claim

Once upon a time in a workplace, of a medium-size financial institution, a newly recruited department manager inherited the three employees literally no one wanted. Literally, no one in the entire organization wanted them. Whispers had it that the multi-department reorganization that happened, by the existing managers, to get rid of the trio. Speaks to how infamous they were - decades at the organization. This is a Survivor's Story. The Manager Survived. The Trio of Monsters

Once upon a time at the workplace in Colorado, a New York State transplant, had a new experience. When you move from a ‘known’ to a new ‘unknown’ there are things that don’t come up in research. In the 90s, Denver and surrounding area was in a building boom. Lots of talent from California and New York and tons of new business. As an HR Manager, I’m responsible for the human population at my organization. I was working in Golden, at the base of the Rocky Mountains. It was summ

Once upon an time at the workplace in Colorado. At a large company I was working for with a lot of new employees to Colorado, some from other states and other countries. I would set up lunch-n-learns with experts. One of those sessions was with group of Forest Rangers. I think this is one of those careers that is overlooked because a lot of people don’t know what they do. To be fair, unless you are an avid outdoors person, you generally would think about the critical role the

Once upon a time at the workplace, at staffing agency. Manufacturing was a major client base and had regular needs and high turnover. A kid walks in dressed up for the interview. Dress shirt and slacks. Articulate. Comfortable. Asked great questions. No work experience, fully understood the role, hours, and pay rate. Hired and gave him his assignment for the next morning. He no-showed. I called in the afternoon to discuss what had happened. Given this was his first job, trave

Once upon a time at the workplace, a large credit union. On a project that had some big walls to climb, money and firm deadline constraints and a technology problem. It was assigned to be lead by specific manager because - well a SVP and stakeholder wanted them to fail and be on record for failing. It's corporate BS at it's finest. The project team members where hand selected; with the lowest and long time technical engineer being Mark. He was known for not knowing and can't

Once upon a time at the workplace, at a satellite office for a staffing agency in one of the worst areas of the city. Very industrial section of the city. High crime area. For perspective, every morning I was greeted by a prostitute’s last customer on the side of the building and a drunk c-shift worker from the factory next door that made a famous pasta sauce who would urinate on my large picture window. His form of saying good morning. My office in was in the same building a