Mary Ellen Slayter turned 40, last week. I’ve loved this woman for years. Almost a decade-ish. Look at this dated-as-hell video of the two of us. Jesus. That’s painful to watch. When I’m nervous, I adopt a Chicago accent. I planned on writing a tribute to Mary Ellen and telling her about what it’s like…
Hi, everybody. My name is Laurie Ruettimann. I am forty-two years old, five feet tall, and I weigh 130 pounds. My BMI is 25.4, which makes me “overweight.” Thankfully, BMI has always been bullshit. I’m sexy AF, climb skyscrapers that tower over America’s largest cities, and get drunk at business events and still wake up…
I’m in New Orleans for two birthdays and a meeting on Wednesday. This trip overlaps with an HR conference that I’m not attending My career is messy, my personal life is all over the map, and I’m massively hungover from drinking too much. Dammit. Drank too damn much and had a crazy night. Just like…
There are two types of people in this world: project managers and task managers. • • • I’m a project manager. Everything I do — from making coffee to launching a company to fixing my marriage — is a giant endeavor of some sort. I have a plan, I understand the steps, and I get…
This month is ten years since I quit my job at Pfizer. Technically, I didn’t quit. My position was eliminated as part of a broader HR restructuring. My husband’s job was eliminated, too. I signed a release and waiver, and I was given a severance package that provided some coverage while I transitioned to a…
I hate giving and receiving professional feedback. It’s the worst. • • • That’s why I agreed to write a six-part series on the Saba Halogen blog about giving and receiving feedback. If I’m ever going to get better, I need to learn how to communicate with other people effectively. The first two posts are…
I’m in the middle of pretty big changes in my life. I’m no longer working as an HR blogger. I’m not doing HR consulting. I’m trying to launch my nascent software company. And there’s always something going on with one of my cats. Right now, Emma has a hernia. You know, of course, my cat…
Hey, guys. I’m getting ready for my Facebook Live experience in San Diego, next week. So it’s important to calm down and communicate from a place of strength and power instead of going on stage and being a nervous idiot. My friend, Ita Olsen, is my coach. And she let me record our relaxation exercises.…
When I was a kid, I wanted to do TV weather. I would’ve been really good at it, too, except I don’t know science. Or how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit. Or how to spell Fahrenheit without a spellchecker even though I ought to know better because Ray Bradbury is the man. I never did…
I’ve been attending a class at Duke to learn about mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques, and today is the last day. It’s bittersweet. I’m grateful for the experience. My personal and professional relationships have improved over the past ten weeks, and I’m making better decisions. But being mindful is exhausting. Part of me feels like there’s…