People and companies who never admit fault or ignorance don’t inspire confidence. In this situation, the right support response would have been, “I don’t know, but let’s figure it out together.”

What all of these point solutions are missing: Human Resources and People Operations are complex jobs that require a nuanced understanding of a variety of different subjects. The AI opportunities aren’t in replacing the humans in Human Resources. They’re enhancing human judgement. 

Truth: Working at a startup is different from working at a BigCo Inc. Myth: There’s some magical secret to it.

Letters from government agencies can be real scary sometimes. Especially when they contain words like "Warrant" and penalties with commas in them. By all means, take these letters seriously. But don't let them scare you.

If more people could see the data, maybe they’d want to renegotiate. But they might also have a better understanding of how their value is measured, and therefore find ways to bring more value to the company.

We each have our own voice. Not that bland, polished, HR voice that performs respect by never expressing an opinion. Strong opinions on how companies’ decisions shape our lives in meaningful ways.

Earlier this year, someone had an idea. "What if we brought more people into the conversation? What if we... started a podcast?"

That’s what it feels like when I get pulled in to clean things up when someone’s been sloppy. The damage has already been done. Nothing I can do about that. But someone’s got to manage the fallout.

But what passes for “security” in these agencies is a cruel joke. It is no more realistic for you to expect me to tap Mr. or Ms. Business Owner on the shoulder and hand them the phone than it is for me to demand that you tap the governor on the shoulder and get him/her on the phone.