At 9:07 a.m., a project lead in San Jose stared at a Slack thread that had turned sharp overnight. Two teammates were “just being direct,” but the words landed like sandpaper. By lunch, half the team had picked a side, deadlines started slipping, and the office felt like a room
A production team once described a workplace conflict like a tiny pebble in a shoe. At first, it was just irritating, easy to ignore. Then every step started to hurt. The work slowed down, people avoided each other, and a simple miscommunication turned into a daily dread. Coworker conflict is
A few years ago, I sat across from a small-business owner who looked exhausted in a way coffee could not fix. She had just had her first “real” workplace incident: a warehouse slip that led to a fractured wrist. Nobody set out to cut corners. The floor “usually stayed dry,”
The first time I saw workplace misconduct up close, it wasn’t loud. It was small, regular, and strangely easy to excuse. A supervisor who “joked” about a coworker’s accent. A manager who texted an employee late at night and got irritated when she didn’t respond. The room would go quiet
When I explain fair housing to teams, I start with a simple scene: a person standing outside a rental office, keys jingling in their pocket, hopeful like someone holding a warm loaf of bread on the way home. They’ve saved, planned, and pictured where the couch will go. Then a
A few years ago, a friend of mine moved into a small California apartment with sun-faded blinds and a fridge that hummed like a tired old engine. Two weeks later, the heater quit during a cold snap, and the landlord brushed it off with, “It’s California, you’ll be fine.” My
A few years ago, I sat at a kitchen table with a landlord who was proud of how “simple” their rental process was. No written criteria. No checklist. Just a gut feeling and a quick chat with applicants. Then they showed me a handwritten notebook: names, phone numbers, little comments,
A few years ago, a friend of mine toured an apartment that looked perfect on paper: clean hallway, bright windows, quiet street. The manager was friendly right up until my friend mentioned a housing voucher and asked whether a grab bar could be installed in the bathroom. The smile tightened.
I still remember the first time I watched someone “quietly” get pushed out of a housing opportunity. It wasn’t loud. No one used a slur. No one slammed a door. It was a polite phone call that ended with, “Oh, that unit was just taken,” followed by a casual comment
A few years ago, a facilities supervisor called me after a small breakroom fire. The microwave had arced, the cabinet above it started to smolder, and the smoke alarm did its job. What stuck with him wasn’t the damage. It was the moment someone ran for the extinguisher and found
