Introduction: Surprise, Work Is Broken


You are not human if you haven’t, sometimes, hated your job.

I worked in human resources for Pfizer, a major pharmaceutical company. It makes three drugs almost all Americans take at one time or another: Lipitor for your heart, Viagra for your other heart, and Xanax for just about everything else. Before I started at Pfizer, my career in HR was on fire—if you can be on fire in the sedate world of human resources. I pursued just about every credential and was certified to teach executive leadership courses, communication skills, and advanced methods of sourcing and recruiting.

But once I got the job at Pfizer, things changed. Often I felt my biggest accomplishment was just making it through the day. Within weeks, I knew it was a bad fit. The job I had been promised on paper—one with strategic challenges, big goals, and a lot of autonomy—turned out to be a crummy position surrounded by narrow-minded people with petty grievances and a fear of upsetting the chain of command. Probably a lot like yours.

At most companies, the culture may be messy or borderline toxic. Often, conflict isn’t addressed, communication sucks or consists of an endless stream of Slack messages, and nobody ever responds to emails. Actually, sometimes they do—but only to the first question and not the other four, or they all respond at once, late in the day, right when you clock out and want to cook dinner.

Perhaps your office is ultrapolitical. The senior-level leaders all went to the same university or attend church together. Everybody on the leadership team carries the same handbag or wears the same brand of shoes. Your coworker invited your boss to his wedding, and now, in a strange coincidence, that person keeps getting all the best assignments.

Or maybe your office is okay, the people are fine, but there’s a nagging voice in your head that keeps asking, “Is this as good as it gets?” Well, I am here to tell you that your career, and your life, can get a hell of a lot better—even if you are someone like me, who loves working but hates the workplace.

You picked up this book because you need help—regardless of your education, your background, or your chosen industry. I have a corporate background, and the examples in this book are pulled from my experience, but all work in the twenty-first century has the potential to be demoralizing—white- and blue-collar alike.

After all, what’s the difference between someone who has a job in a factory and someone who writes code when your boss is a jerk, your career has stalled, and your paycheck doesn’t cover your bills? I’m going to show you how to prioritize your physical, emotional, and financial well-being so you’ll be a better colleague, supervisor, parent, partner, and friend.

The world of work has changed since I started writing this book. My initial goal was to critique leaders and HR departments without being too cynical. My challenge was to be candid but offer a ray of hope. Now, I have to restrain myself from saying, “I told you so.”

We live in an era of uncertainty, but we are lying to ourselves if we believe that systems, processes, and programs were ever designed to make workers feel secure. From the dot-com bubble to the Great Recession, work has been restructured by consultants and leadership teams so that people in power will always end up doing just fine. It’s employees, and particularly those in the BIPOC community, who shoulder the disproportionate amount of risk.

In that way, pandemics, civil unrest, and financial meltdowns make the book’s tenets all the more applicable. This book will help you create your own culture within your company, one that values you as a person ahead of being a worker. You’ll get advice and guidance to help you form better relationships and guard against unfair labor practices, both individually and systemically. In short, I’m here to teach you how to be your own HR department—a skill that’s needed so you can advocate for yourself and good work, anticipate bad news, and plan for your future on your own terms.

Maybe you dream of taking a risk, becoming an entrepreneur, and doing your own thing—but you’re afraid of financial ruin. Perhaps you have a partner and kids or other family members who depend on you for a paycheck. Let’s start planning the next phase of your life now, whether you’re in your current position or navigating the world of unemployment and redundancy. Because if you want to improve your career—and your life—it’s time to plan for a better future and bet on yourself first.

Betting on You is a twenty-first-century employee handbook that teaches you how to prioritize your well-being, take thoughtful risks with your career, build community, become a person who is always learning and being challenged—and be your own agent of change in the process. In short, I will use my years of HR experience to show you exactly what you need to do to make your current situation not just tolerable but remarkably better. And I’ll also show you how to blow it all up and start fresh.

Along the way, you will read stories about actual people who have actual jobs, illustrating how to put your house in order, clean up your life, and organize your health and money so you have real alternatives. Some of these stories are embarrassing and ridiculous. They reflect the totally absurd world of modern life. Rest assured that some names and time lines have been changed, identifying details have been altered and, in a few cases, combined to protect the innocent and to get to the point: it’s time to put yourself first and finally take control of your career.

When you’re done with this book, you will feel empowered to demand more from your life and workplace, and you will know how you can act as your own one-person HR department to change things—even if the folks in the real HR department do nothing and the world seems hard to predict.

And if none of that works, this book will help you leave your current role and find someplace better.

I know it all firsthand because I took my own medicine and evolved my dead-end job into a career that improves people’s lives. And I’ve done it without totally compromising my values. If there’s anything I’ve learned along the way, it’s this: you fix your world by fixing yourself first.


Copyright © 2021 by Albany Park Partners, Inc.