Every decision looks different in the abstract vs. when you have a real person sitting in front of you. If fairness requires that someone makes a decision that feels shitty, give your decision-makers the context that they need to follow the policy (and still sleep at night).

One does not simply fire someone in a position of leadership. Loose lips sink ships.

I get that it’s expensive to pay someone not to work for several months, but there are strong business reasons why you should do it anyway. 

If you’ve been trapped in your workplace unable to leave, eating Doritos from the vending machine for dinner and sleeping under your desk, should you be paid for that time?

Some challenges light you up inside. Others make you say, “Nope. Not for me. No thank you. Nope, nope, nopenopenope...” as you run in the other direction. 

And speaking of equal opportunity, pirates welcomed escaped sailors from marginalized identities, giving them opportunities for advancement that they never would have had in the navy or merchant marines. Lady-pirates could even become captains, like Ching Shih, who led a fleet of 1,200 ships and a workforce the size of Morgan Stanley. You could call it D-E-Aye-aye-matey.

So your boss sucks. They play favorites. They make arbitrary decisions and everyone knows they have no idea what they’re doing. They change rules on a whim. You’re right. Your boss sucks. But they’re probably not doing anything illegal. They're just bad at their job.

Three people saw someone who was alienated and struggling. They accommodated. They didn’t have to be fluent in another language. They just had to remember enough high school Spanish to recall the word that this woman was blanking on. That's all it took to welcome her back into the conversation. 

In most cases, your boss wasn’t evil. You just didn’t get along. Good thing you don’t have to anymore. Even if your boss did do something super illegal, you don’t always get justice. Even if you did get justice, it doesn’t undo the awful thing that happened to you. It’s better to get out of the situation. Keep the awful thing from happening in the first place. 

Maybe you’ve had this experience: You’re in crisis. You can’t work, so you call in. A well-meaning person you hardly know sends you information about the Employee Assistance Program (EAP). You look into what it covers and wonder how this could possibly help. The minimum CYA measure to guard against the wild things that people in crisis do.

A hundred years ago, in the heyday of unions, non-unionized businesses needed a way to make their low wages, long shifts, and poor working conditions look a little more attractive. So they did what lazy corporate wonks have done to increase morale since the beginning of time: They threw a pizza party. 

Open-floor-plan offices may not compare to the shipyards, manufacturing plants, and airports that first brought over-ear headphones to the workplace. But noise pollution is still a serious issue in knowledge work. 

You remember the legend of John Henry, right? The guy who raced a steam engine through a mountain and then died of exhaustion? It’s a story of human triumph and the futility of resisting progress and a reminder that skill ≠ security and the physical cost of toil and the disposability of the common worker and hubris.

Your handbook should help people make decisions. Not just disciplinary decisions. The handbook should draw bright lines where possible, and give guidance for situations that are unclear. Your handbook should give guidance on the unspoken habits your organization runs on.

There are two types of power in this world: Power that sits behind two monitors, and power that has no monitor at all. 

The same tendency that makes it difficult to structure Google Drive folders also leads to creativity. Neuro-atypical brains make connections between things that other people wouldn't see. 

Going into your DMs with someone who’s left the company feels like walking into the perfectly-preserved bedroom of someone who passed away before their time. Eerie, reverent, forbidden.

For me, my chair-jacket is an asset. It ensures I won’t freeze in that one conference room with the overactive air conditioning. It gives me the freedom to wear lighter clothing to the office without worrying that I’ll be stuck in an uncomfortable situation.

It may seem complicated at first, but if we can coordinate something as complicated and illogical as Daylight Savings happening across 6 US timezones, at a different time from the rest of the world, on random Sundays in November and April, I think we can handle this.

Maybe you made a mistake. Maybe you weren't quite ready. Maybe you had a lot going on. I know it feels awful, but I promise, no one thinks you’re a failure. Believe it or not, someone probably took great care in what happened to you. Because they know it wasn't all your fault. They wanted this to be as easy for you as possible.