Tag: blog
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The Day You Realise They Never Intended to Keep You
There’s a moment in some jobs where the illusion quietly collapses. Nothing dramatic happens.No argument.No HR meeting. Just a small, almost forgettable interaction that makes everything click. And once it does, you realise something uncomfortable: They never planned for you to stay. The Long-Term Talk That Never Happens Think back. How many times have you…
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You’re Not “Hard to Manage”… You’re Just Hard to Exploit
There’s a label managers love to use when an employee stops playing along. “Difficult.”“Challenging.”“Hard to manage.” It usually appears right after you do something unforgivable — like asking for clarity, questioning priorities, or noticing that expectations keep changing while rewards never do. Let’s be clear: you didn’t suddenly become difficult.You just stopped being convenient. When…
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“We’re Just Not There Yet”: The Corporate Phrase That Means Never
There’s a phrase that should instantly trigger your fight-or-flight response. You’ve heard it in one-to-ones.You’ve heard it in performance reviews.You’ve heard it just after you’ve gone above and beyond for the third quarter in a row. “We’re just not there yet.” Not there yet for the promotion.Not there yet for the raise.Not there yet for…
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The Day You Realise You Cannot Do Corporate Anymore
It does not happen all at once. At first, you convince yourself the frustration is normal. Every job has bad days. Every company has politics. Every boss has flaws. You tell yourself it will get better. You tell yourself to stick it out. But then one day, something shifts. A meeting, a comment, a decision…
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The Disaster Everyone Predicted (Except Leadership)
Every workplace has its disasters. The botched release. The broken migration. The shiny new “initiative” that burned months of effort only to collapse in silence. And every time, leadership acts shocked. “How could this happen?” “Nobody could have seen this coming!” Except everyone did see it coming. Everyone except them. The Warnings That Nobody Wanted…
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Interviewing for the Job You’ve Already Been Doing
Few things scream corporate dysfunction louder than being asked to interview for a job you have already been doing for years. You have carried the workload, you have solved the problems, you have trained the juniors, and now leadership wants you to “prove” you are capable. Capable of what, exactly? Surviving their incompetence? The Setup…
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Free Pizza Is Not Culture (Stop Pretending It Is)
Every toxic company has its version of the “perk.” Free pizza on Fridays. A ping pong table in the corner. A fridge stocked with energy drinks. They parade these things like trophies, as if melted cheese or a beanbag chair can make up for low pay, endless crunch, and managers who could not lead their…
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The Meeting That Could Have Been the Solution (But Never Was)
Some workplaces run on caffeine. Others run on fear. But toxic workplaces? They run on meetings. Endless, soul sucking, calendar filling meetings. Every problem, no matter how urgent, somehow gets delayed until the next scheduled call. Systems are crashing? “Let’s put time in the diary.” Customers are leaving in droves? “We’ll review that in next…
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The KPI Clown: When Numbers Replace Common Sense
Every toxic company has one. The manager who cannot see past the numbers. The boss who thinks performance is not about actual results, but about how well you can contort your work into a dashboard. Meet the KPI Clown. On paper, key performance indicators sound useful. A way to measure progress. A way to track…
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The Growth Opportunity That Was Just More Work
Every toxic company has its favorite phrase. For some it is “we’re like a family.” For others it is “we’re still figuring out the process.” But my personal least favorite is the one that appears right before they dump a mountain of extra work on your desk. “This is a great growth opportunity.” It sounds…
The Toxic Boss 