Introduction to the series "Oh Shit! Did that REALLY happen?"

Oh Shit! Did that REALLY just happen? (Blog 1 out of 50)

Have you ever asked yourself, “What am I doing here?” or “What the heck just happened and how should I have handled this situation?”

In this series of blogs, called “Oh Shit! Did that REALLY just happen?”, you will get to enjoy stories from many people who either witnessed or experienced in their careers something so bizarre, that it not only influenced their careers, it left them wondering for years how the situation could have been approached differently. We do mostly learn from our own experiences but analyzing the situations other people went through and extracting potential lessons is a great learning opportunity for our personal growth as well!

In my first book, “Life Worth Living: My Journey of Building Resilience”, I had shared a story of my boss who not only timed how long it took me to pump milk when I was nursing my 12-week baby but who also told me that if I was unable to figure out the situation of baby not taking the bottle (forcing me to leave work once at 4:45 pm instead of 5 pm), then I should stay home and raise my child. Since this book was about healing and forgiving, the fact that I had forgiven him and moved on is now in print and an audiobook. However, I had also shared how for years I wondered why I had not walked out and slammed the door in the dude’s face. I wondered what others would do in my place. After 16 years of wondering, I just concluded that it made me more resilient and I moved on (FUN FACT: Well, maybe not fun but just a fact, when I finally went to HR to report how this man was making my life miserable, they took his side. At first. Then, a couple of months later, he was let go. The specific reason is unknown, however, my work-life definitely improved after that).

While working on my second book, “How To FYAIL in Digital Transformation”, which was written in collaboration with eight contributing authors, I thought it would be fun to ask them a few personal questions and include their answers in their bio sections. One such answer gave me an idea for this blog! The story shared was how this woman walked into the cubicle of her coworker, to find him, along with someone else, browsing through the playboy magazine. This alone was not the bizarre part. The more disturbing part of the story was the fact that when she complained about it to her manager (also a man), she was told that she was overreacting, that it wasn’t a big deal and she was actually wrong to even bring it up. This happened in the 80s and most likely, hopefully, wouldn’t happen nowadays. With that said, it was still a bizarre scenario in my book! (FUN FACT: I actually looked up if they still released this magazine and it turns out that after 66 years in business, its Spring 2020 issue was the last one, but I digress).

Back to the WHY behind this project, what to expect next and how one may become a Contributing Author!

WHY BEHIND THIS BLOG SERIES

Even before the book How To FYAIL In Digital Transformation was published, I had a ton of ideas for the next book. I had even come up with the title, the tagline and the book cover for a book called How To Become a Change Architect! It sparked a ton of interest among my friends and colleagues. I also decided that although collaborating with eight contributing authors and publishing a book together was an unbelievably amazing experience, the process itself could be improved. Rather than working on this very large project of publishing a book for a year, it could be broken down into smaller valuable chunks of content (BLOGS!), which could go through the process of writing, editing, being illustrated and published on their own, eventually becoming a book. In addition, I thought it would be interesting to look at the topic of change management from different perspectives (executives, middle tier managers, team members), and make it scenario based, where the reader could easily recognize themselves and relate. This idea was well received by potential contributing authors but it was very narrow. I wanted to give an opportunity to people who work in different fields to share their stories and so the idea for this blog series was born. It is more inclusive and although there are contributing authors currently on the team who will focus on the corporate world and change management, there is an opportunity to become a contributing author or just share your story, regardless of the field.

WHAT TO EXPECT NEXT

In September 2022, there will be a new blog posted weekly! This will go on for 12 months, after which, there will be a book published based on the content from these blogs!

HOW TO BECOME A CONTRIBUTING AUTHOR

Watch this introduction video!

If you would like to proceed, send an email to luba@lubasakharuk.com with a subject line: Becoming a Contributing Author, describing your background, your field, and why you would like to become a contributing author.

We will schedule a 30 min zoom call to answer any additional questions you may have and if we agree this is the right match, you will be invited to a RALM3 slack channel for further collaboration.

GOT A STORY YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE?

If you would like to share a story/scenario with us, send it to luba@lubasakharuk with a Subject: Story to share. We will have it analyzed from different perspectives/angles and include it in the blog.

Make sure to indicate if you prefer to stay anonymous!