Let’s just say, (hypothetically) that I received an e-mail from someone who isn’t even in my chain of command, and it said, (hypothetically), “Please allow yourself to do cleaning duties toward the end of your shift. I found a long strand of hair on the inside of the toilet rim.” First of all… ALLOW myself? …
The other night we had a wind storm. At 3 a.m. it ripped open my screen door. Bang! This, naturally, caused my dog to go ballistic, and his hysterical tirade prevented me from going back to sleep right away. It also woke me up right in the middle of REM sleep, which caused me to …
I once attended a meeting in which a man said to me, “Did I say you could talk? I’ll tell you when you can talk.” Oh, where to begin. First of all, this is a guy who has been laterally passed from department to department like a flaming bag of dog poo. No one wants …
I have been working since I was 10 years old, and have experienced every type of manager conceivable. There is quite a bell curve on the spectrum of competence. I’ve seen many of the same mistakes made over and over and over again. These professional landmines should be easy to spot and avoid, but apparently …
The other day I walked into a pharmacy at the tail end of what sounded like a stormy customer service incident. The customer shouted “I’ll have your job!” to the clerk as she made her exit. The clerk looked down sadly and shook her head. It’s not the first time I’ve heard someone make a …
I once worked in middle management in a bureaucracy. I wrote a memo to inform people that there was going to be a huge increase in something or other. The next morning my memo was sitting on my desk. Written across it in bold red letters was, “Please don’t use the word ‘huge’ in memos. …
The View from a Drawbridge 