More Workplace Stories
- I brought homemade cookies to the office potluck, genuinely proud of them. A coworker asked what brand I bought them from. I said I'd made them myself. She apologized, then asked again which brand, more slowly.
- Our team's quarterly offsite was supposed to be about strategic planning. We spent most of it debating what to order for lunch, and somehow that discussion was more productive than the actual meeting.
- Our office switched to a new project tracking tool, promising it would simplify everything. Three months later, we've added two extra spreadsheets just to track what the tool itself is supposed to be tracking.
- Our office holiday party had a white elephant gift exchange. I brought a nice bottle of wine. Someone stole it from me twice before the game even ended, and I never saw it again.
- My coworker and I started a friendly step-count competition using our phones. I was winning comfortably until I found out she'd been shaking her phone on the couch every evening to boost her numbers.
- Our team decided to do a Secret Santa this year with a strict ten-dollar limit. Someone showed up with a gift clearly worth fifty dollars, and now everyone else feels vaguely, silently guilty.