Twelve Career Lessons They Don’t Put in Onboarding

A few hard-earned lessons about people, politics, consistency, and the parts of work we pretend aren’t part of the job. But really are.

Dec 8 • 

Dave Anderson

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Confidence: A Legal Performance-Enhancing Drug for the Office. 7 Manipulation Tips for Winners.

You don’t need permission to lead. You just need to look, sound, and act like a person others instinctively follow. Because, yes, we're all sheep.

Dec 1 • 

Dave Anderson

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November 2025

Please, for the Love of All That’s Holy in Corporate America, Stop Saying These 8 Things at Work

Doing your work absolutely matters. But you can easily sabotage yourself by saying the wrong thing. These are a few phrases that quietly sabotage your…

Nov 24 • 

Dave Anderson

36

6

Think Your Skip-Level Is for "Visibility"? That’s Cute. It’s Not.

Levels in an organization garble communication. A skip-level meeting is an opportunity to communicate clearly. Most importantly, it helps low-level…

Nov 17 • 

Dave Anderson

57

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3

5 School Habits That Make You Worse at Your Job

Being a good student might make you a poor worker. Here are a few habits and behaviors that might serve you well in the classroom but poorly in the…

Nov 10 • 

Dave Anderson

43

4

If Your System Never Fails, That’s the Real Failure

Investments in operations should be at a minimal level that maintains the systems in an acceptable state forever. Poor operations are clearly bad news…

Nov 3 • 

Dave Anderson

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6

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October 2025

The AWS Outage—Lessons on Worst-Case Scenarios

How bad is the worst-case scenario of your systems? I suspect it's not as bad as the DynamoDB system.

Oct 27 • 

Dave Anderson

30

8 Ways to Stop Being Crushed by Infinite Work

The better you get, the more work finds you. These skills help you survive success without losing your mind. Plus an early life lesson from my Dad.

Oct 20 • 

Dave Anderson

53

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The 4 Major Impacts of Amazon's Decentralization and Ownership Model

Amazon is decentralized and has a strong focus on ownership. This causes various positive and negative impacts. Let's walk through those impacts, and…

Oct 13 • 

Dave Anderson

28

1

4 Problems Managers Run Into - and Practical Solutions

The management job comes with interesting people challenges. Here are four I've run into more than a few times and what to do when they land in your…

Oct 6 • 

Dave Anderson

47

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September 2025

The 5 Whys in Action: How to Turn Human Mistakes Into Lasting Improvements

When humans inevitably slip, the 5 Whys uncover the real fixes hiding beneath the surface. The 5 Whys expose our weak systems, not our weak people.

Sep 29 • 

Dave Anderson

30

4

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My Reflections on Bret Taylor’s Podcast Conversation with Shane Parrish About AI and Software Development

From code generation to shifting developer roles to organizational decay, here’s what stood out to me in their discussion.

Sep 22 • 

Dave Anderson

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