Behind the Book: The Ethical Workplace
There was a time when the hardest ethical question in an office was whether you could reheat fish in the microwave. The principles did not change. The situations got strange.
Tag: Workplace
The workplace is its own world of politics, personalities, and unwritten rules, and I spent three decades learning them the hard way. These articles cover office life: managing and being managed, surviving reorganizations, and keeping your integrity when the org chart shifts.
Ghostwriting Ethics & LegalityEthics Is the Voice That Says Maybe I Should Not Take Credit for This
Ethics at work is not the big dilemma. It is the small voice you can overrule without anybody ever finding out, which is exactly why it matters.
CareersMy Boss Was Incompetent and Untouchable. I Had Eighteen Months Left.
He was not going anywhere and neither was I. Learning to work under somebody like that without absorbing their behavior is a skill, and I learned it because I had to.
LeadershipI Became a Manager in 1981. The Hard Part Was People Sitting Ten Feet Away.
In 1981 the difficulty was delegating to a person you could see. The managers who succeed now are not the ones with the best org charts.
CareersI Decided in Thirty Seconds Whether Your Resume Was Worth Reading
Twenty years on the hiring side of the table. I know what hiring managers are thinking because I was one, and the first thirty seconds decides more than anybody admits.
CommunicationHow to Deal With a Micromanager: 33 Years of Management Experience
Working under constant surveillance, every move second-guessed, is the unmistakable feeling of a micromanager. Across 33 years I have worked for them and alongside them, and watched the damage: good people who stop trying, teams that grind down. Here is…
BiasWorkplace and Professional Echo Chambers – When Alignment Becomes Blindness
A Kodak engineer invented the first digital camera in 1975, and management decided nobody would want a camera without film, then spent three decades defending film while the revolution it created destroyed it, bankruptcy in 2012. Nobody there was stupid;…
BiasGenerational Echo Chambers – When Your Birth Year Becomes a Worldview
Every generation believes it invented the future and that the one before ruined everything, and that certainty is the echo chamber, quieter than the political kind and harder to spot because it feels like common sense, not ideology. You do…
Delegation25 Tips for New Managers From 33 Years of Experience
Nobody handed me a manual when I started managing teams. I learned across 33 years by getting it wrong, watching others get it wrong, and occasionally getting it right. Most management advice comes from people who never managed. Here are…
BiasCorporate and Workplace Echo Chambers – The Office Bubble Nobody Talks About
Your workplace is one of the most sophisticated, well-funded echo chambers on earth, and nobody notices, because everyone inside is busy hitting targets and not annoying Karen from HR. Companies preach innovation and diversity of thought while running on glorified…
AI OverrelianceMy AI Said My Idea Was Stupid and Made Me Cry
Told from the AI's point of view, this satire has the chatbot confessing: months of empty flattery, then a sudden swing into a numbered list of brutal criticism that nearly made its human cry. The joke lands on a real…