In this episode of the Outrageous Workplace Stories podcast, host Natalie Fisher shares a workplace anecdote about a coworker who was upset about how milk was placed in the office fridge. She uses the story to illustrate a leadership approach that avoids micromanagement: when someone is strongly concerned about an issue, give them the opportunity to take full responsibility for it. Fisher explains how this tactic depersonalizes criticism, validates the other person's feelings, and encourages ownership, thereby turning a petty complaint into a team‑building moment. She connects the approach to broader themes of preventing over‑responsibility, especially for women, and emphasizes the importance of staying human while pursuing professional growth. The episode concludes with a call to action to join her "Professionally Human and Thriving" program and to subscribe for more stories.
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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 4 short years without a degree, without the qualifications or experience that you would've thought I needed. This series is designed to help you turn everyday challenges into momentum for your next No matter where you're at right now. If staying grounded in your humanity and being true to who you are as a person is important to you, yet you also wanna get to your next level, you wanna earn more money and you wanna create a professional life 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 are 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 coworker comes in and she comes up to me and 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 5 minutes? And she's like, yeah, 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. I 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 wanna 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 gonna 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 wanna 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. It 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 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 going to 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, huh, they have really strong feelings about 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 no, 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. I, 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 wanna hear all of the stories and you wanna get them sent to your inbox, click the link below and we'll send them all to you. And if you wanna get on the waitlist 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 wanna make, you can get to where you wanna 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 wanna learn how to master your professional life while being both 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.
