Welcome to the Outrageous Workplace Stories series of the podcast. In these episodes, you’ll see ways to handle even the toughest of workplace situations with power and impact  while making humanity a priority.  These stories shaped how I went from receptionist to HR manager in four short years  without a degree, without the qualifications or experience that you would have thought I needed.  This series is designed  to help you turn everyday challenges into momentum for your next level,  no matter where you’re at right now. of staying grounded in your humanity  and being true to who you are as a person is important to you.  Yet,  also want to get to your next level. You want to earn more money and you want to create a profession like you’re proud of  that is also at the top of your list.  I’m here to tell you that you can do both and this is where you start.  Ever had someone have an opinion about something that you’re doing that really had nothing to do with them and it felt like they were butting their nose in where it didn’t belong?  I was sitting at my desk  and this co-worker comes in and she comes up to me she’s like, I need to talk to you about something. It’s really important.  I’m like, okay, what is it? I need to show you. It’d be better if I show you. Okay, can it be quick though? Like five minutes? And she’s like, yeah, yeah, let’s go.  So we go.  And the thing she wants to talk to me about is how the milk… has been positioned in the fridge.  I was doing the order for the groceries for the office and I just had it delivered and the delivery people  would just come in, put it in the fridge. So apparently they had placed the milk face down. She was concerned that there was a higher likelihood that the milk could spill in the fridge.  She was very concerned. To her, this was such a big deal.  To her, it was super, super important.  So. In the moment, this is how I responded. said, okay,  this is really very important to you. And she’s like, yeah, this is really important. I said to her, okay, would it help if I give you the delivery schedule and you can manage the delivery and you can make sure that it’s put in the right way?  And she was like, well, I just think that you should tell the delivery people to do that. And I was just like, okay, but if they don’t do it, there’s not really much I can do about that. If you really want to make sure of it, would you be willing to take responsibility for that?  And she’s like, I guess so. She didn’t want to, she wanted to have an opinion about it. Basically what I did was I said, look, I’m not willing to micromanage this. This isn’t important enough to me. But if you want to, I’m going to give you the opportunity to. So you can spend your time and energy there if you really want to. That’s basically what I was saying.  And I wasn’t being mean to her.  I wasn’t being  disrespectful. I was just saying, you know what? If this is really, really that important to you, you want to spend your time and energy on that. I will give you the schedule and you can be the one who waits by the door and makes sure the milk’s placed in the right place.  And while she didn’t love that, she didn’t have a way out. was either,  either you’re gonna take responsibility for it completely or you’re gonna stop caring about it so much.  So  this is a silly, petty example, but I want you to take it, say you’re working on a big project and someone might come in and they might feel very, very deeply  that something needs to change. My tactic is to give them the opportunity to take full responsibility over that. I would say things like, Would you like to take the lead on that? Would you like to take responsibility for that? It obviously seems really important to you. That’s totally fine. Sometimes I would be like, you can take care of that.  Oftentimes they would be like, yeah, okay, sure. They did feel really strongly about it.  And then we’ve got somebody who’s now bought in. We’re working together as a team. It’s good.  And I’m not taking offense because… The reaction that I often see my clients take is they’ll say things like, she thought I was doing a bad job. Like she thought that I should have been on top of that and I wasn’t on top of that.  And my mindset is, yeah, some people are gonna think some things are really important and I’m gonna disagree. And the thing I’m really good at is depersonalizing these issues. If someone comes in and they’re like, why aren’t we doing this? And why hasn’t this been done like this? And what’s going on with this?  My response will be.  They have really strong feelings about this. This is really important to them  and then I’ll be like, okay Do they have a valid point and a lot of the times they do even the milk thing? She did have a valid point even though I thought it was petty I could acknowledge her point. Yeah, she’s right if the milk is down  and the spout is Backwards it is more likely to spill.  It’s true. Do I care still know  But she can care if she wants to so when I was leading a project or when I was leading something  for people to really feel like they were heard and seen and understood and even giving them over that responsibility because they felt so strongly about it.  And then depersonalizing it and never having it have anything to do with me. Like I never thought, oh,  I should be taking that. I should make sure that’s done.  And I feel like with women, we can be very over-responsible and we can feel like we need to take responsibility for everything.  When that happens, instead of thinking, oh, she thinks I’m doing a bad job of this. I should have made sure the milk was placed in the right spot or I should be taking care of that or okay, I will get on that. Instead just be like, oh, I can see you feel strongly about this. That’s cool. You do have a valid point.  And  what do you think about taking the lead on that? What do you think about  taking that and running with that?  And quite often they will say yes.  If they do not want to, then at least they know that they either have to release the reins and stop caring about it so much,  or they can take some ownership of it.  And this. is one way that we involve everybody as a team and we work with them without taking on everything ourselves. If you want to hear all of the stories and you want to get them sent to your inbox,  click the link below and we’ll send them all to you.  And if you want to get on the wait list for my program, Professionally Human and Thriving,  which is a program where we are human, playful, and that lightens the whole thing. It makes it feel so much better for you and you can get a lot more shit done  and you can move up. You can make the money you want to make. You can get to where you want to go  and it doesn’t have to feel so pressuring. I will see you in the next video. If you enjoyed that story  and you gleaned something from it,  if you want to learn how to master your professional life  while being told impactful yet deeply human, join the waitlist for professionally human.  The link is in the show notes. I can’t wait for you to see what I have in store.