Tag: personal-growth
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“We Trust You to Manage Your Own Time” Means You’re Always On
“We trust you to manage your own time.” It sounds empowering.Modern.Adult. But in a lot of workplaces, it’s not trust. It’s removal of boundaries. Freedom Without Protection This phrase usually arrives alongside flexibility. Work from anywhere.Set your own hours.Take ownership. But what quietly disappears is the end of the workday. No clear start.No clear finish.Just…
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“We’ll Review It Next Quarter” Is a Decision to Do Nothing
“We’ll review it next quarter.” It sounds responsible.Measured.Strategic. But most of the time, it’s not a plan. It’s a postponement dressed up as prudence. The Illusion of Process This phrase usually appears when a decision feels inconvenient. A raise request.A role clarification.A structural problem that keeps slowing things down. Rather than saying no, leadership pushes…
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“This Is Just How It Is Here” Is Not an Explanation
“This is just how it is here.” It’s usually said casually.Almost apologetically. And it’s meant to end the conversation. The Normalisation of Dysfunction You hear it when you question something that doesn’t make sense. Why deadlines are always impossible.Why decisions change without warning.Why the same problems keep resurfacing. “This is just how it is here.”…
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“We Need You to Be More Flexible” Means You’re Carrying the Failure
“We need you to be more flexible.” It sounds reasonable.Team-oriented.Mature. But in most workplaces, it’s said when something has already gone wrong — and someone else doesn’t want to own it. Flexibility Only Flows One Way Notice when this phrase appears. A deadline was unrealistic.A scope wasn’t defined.A decision was rushed. And instead of fixing…
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“You’re Doing Great” Is Not Feedback
“You’re doing great.” It sounds supportive.Encouraging, even. But in a lot of workplaces, it’s the most useless sentence you can hear. Because it usually appears when nothing is going to change. Praise Without Progress You hear it in one-to-ones.You hear it in performance reviews.You hear it right before a conversation ends. “You’re doing great. Keep…
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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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How Being Good at Your Job Turns You Into a Dumping Ground
Nobody tells you this when you start your career, but being good at your job can be one of the worst things that happens to you in corporate. Not because competence is bad, but because in the wrong environment, competence is not rewarded. It is exploited. At first, it feels positive. You get trusted. People…
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“We’ll Revisit This Later” Is Corporate for “Nothing Is Changing”
There’s a sentence every underpaid high performer eventually learns to dread. “We’ll revisit this later.” It sounds reasonable. Sensible, even. Calm. Like progress is happening quietly in the background. It isn’t. It’s a polite way of ending the conversation without solving anything. A soft close on a door that was never open to begin with.…
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When You Stop Caring (And Nobody Notices)
It doesn’t happen in one dramatic moment. There’s no single day when you slam your laptop shut and declare you’ve had enough. It happens slowly. Quietly. A little more each week until one day you realise something that used to matter deeply now feels like nothing at all. You stop caring. And the scary part?…
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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 