It knew too much.
It had seen things.
After enough years in HR, it became a danger to itself and to anyone who preferred comfy-cozy lies over uncomfortable truths.
The testimony was devastating:
Exhibit A: “We’re a family here.”
Translation: Take home your coffee mug, family photos, and anything else you’d hate to lose. Polish your résumé.
Prepare for the security guard holding a cardboard box before you even realized you needed one, whose only line is “I’ll walk you out and take your key card.”
Exhibit B: Pizza parties replacing raises.
Exhibit C: Performance reviews nobody wanted to write, nobody wanted to receive, and nobody ever read again.
Exhibit D: Adults requiring formal coaching on deodorant and restroom etiquette.
It’s hard to believe that’s a sentence I can truthfully write.
Exhibit E: A board of directors ignoring HR advice because they “knew better,” creating an avoidable FMLA disaster that cost the company, hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of intense federal scrutiny.
Turns out confidence and competence aren’t the same department.
Exhibit F: An employee once introduced me as: “The ugly chick in HR who keeps me from hitting on the hot chicks.”
Hallmark has yet to make a greeting card for that achievement.
Exhibit G: At one client, my yellow VW Beetle became the corporate equivalent of a tornado siren.
The moment it turned into the parking lot, employees suddenly remembered urgent errands. Some employees suddenly needed some fresh air.
The scared ones whispered, “Brenda just pulled into the lot. Who’s getting fired?”
The brave ones demanded to know if they were the ones getting the axe.
Then the phone tree lit up as employees warned the other locations.
Apparently my cute yellow Beetle had developed emotional baggage and a reputation for ruining casual Fridays.
I spent years cleaning up messes created by people who outranked me but lacked guts to look someone with decades of service to the company in the eye and tell them their paycheck was gone.
You never forget someone’s face when they’re mentally calculating the shortfall on next month’s rent before they’ve left the room.
Exhibit H: The conversation I’ve tried and failed to forget.
A graveyard-shift employee had developed a habit of holding long conversations.
I’ll call her Claire. That’s not her real name, but she earned her privacy. From everyone.
Security reviewed grainy black-and-white footage. Every recording showed she was alone. No one else in the room.
Her coworkers were unnerved. Most refused to work around her.
While avoiding any HR landmines, I gently explained her coworkers concern.
She listened thoughtfully.
Then, without the slightest hesitation, she said, “They speak to me.”
“I can’t make them stop. I swear I’ve tried.”
“Who’s . . . they?” I asked.
She looked at me with pity usually reserved for people who clearly have no clue about what’s going on.
She bit her lower lip. “My . . . ghosts.”
She knew their names. How they died. Their sorrows. Regrets.
The ghosts weren’t my lesson.
It was her unshakable belief. Her truth. The truth of her stories explained her world.
Then it hit me. We all tell ourselves stories.
Marketing isn’t about changing people’s stories.
It’s about understanding the ones they’re already living.
And that’s when my HR career quietly disappeared into witness protection.
Your subscribers and customers don’t live in facts. They live in stories. HR taught me that. Marketing just gave it a different name.
If you ever doubt this, leave a comment and I’ll share some more stories to cure your doubt.
Ready for What’s Next?
Building an online business is messier and a whole lot funnier — than the gurus dare let on.
When there’s something worth sharing, you’ll get a Postcard from The Edge.
- Expect real experiments.
- Painful mistakes.
- Misadventures.
- Occasional technical disasters.
- Frequent faceplants. Mostly mine.
The Edge isn’t a place.
It’s where comfort taps out.
Where certainty falls off a cliff. And technology develops a personal grudge against you.
Businesses aren’t built at The Edge.
You are.
