Friday. Yeeei!

We made it.

And if you've been with us all week, thank you.

Keep voting. Keep replying. Keep sending Still Monday to people who would appreciate it.

Especially today's issue.

Because apparently your coworker may already be sending something about you.

Let's get to work.

There is a fascinating mathematical problem happening inside American offices.

In a survey of 1,010 U.S. workers, 61% said a coworker had thrown them under the bus.

Thirty-two percent said it had happened multiple times.

Sixty-three percent had witnessed it.

Twenty-nine percent said they saw it happen at least once a week.

And yet:

73% said they had never done it to anyone else.

Interesting.

Apparently every office contains victims.

But surprisingly few suspects.

The most common behavior reported was blaming somebody else for a mistake.

Next came sharing negative information about a coworker with leadership.

Some workers reported colleagues withholding information that could help them succeed.

Others said they'd seen people deliberately set someone up to fail.

Why?

Self-preservation is a powerful corporate benefit.

Among the reported motivations:

47% said protecting reputation.

45% avoiding consequences.

40% advancing a career.

40% gaining favor with leadership.

This is office politics without the nice stationery.

And there's an uncomfortable reason it survives.

Blame can work.

At least temporarily.

If something fails and nobody knows exactly who owned what, the person who explains the story first has an advantage.

Suddenly:

I missed the deadline

becomes:

We had some communication challenges.

A bad decision becomes:

There may have been some misalignment.

Nobody made the mistake.

The organization experienced it naturally.

Like weather.

There is a useful career lesson hiding in all this.

You don't need to become paranoid.

You don't need to copy your CEO on every email.

You don't need to secretly record meetings while wearing a trench coat.

You do need clarity.

Who decided?

Who owns what?

When is it due?

What changed?

A good paper trail isn't about preparing for war.

It's about making reality harder to rewrite later.

Because Friday afternoon is a terrible time to discover that your team's collective memory has become unusually creative.

Among respondents who had experienced sabotage, peers were the most commonly cited offenders.

Direct managers were named by 26%.

Your manager may support your development.

Your manager may also have quarterly targets.

Both facts can coexist.

Twenty-nine percent of surveyed workers said they witnessed blame-shifting or sabotage at least weekly.

Friday's team retrospective should be fun.

The contradiction is the best part.

61% have experienced being thrown under the bus.

73% insist they have never done it themselves.

Possible explanations include repeat offenders.

Or an ambitious national shortage of self-awareness.

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After a meeting where an important decision was made, send:

Decision: What did we agree?

Owner: Who is doing it?

Deadline: When?

That's enough.

No nine-paragraph meeting summary.

No transcript.

No “per my last email” energy.

Just clarity.

Six weeks later, when someone asks:

Why did we do this?

You won't have to rely on the oral history of the department.

You don't need to brag about everything you do.

But assuming your manager remembers all of it is generous.

When you finish something meaningful, document:

What changed?

What result did it create?

Who benefited?

Keep it somewhere.

When compensation season arrives, you should not be reconstructing twelve months of your career from your Sent folder.

Visibility matters.

Especially when other people are very comfortable describing their contribution.

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BOSS: What went wrong?

TEAM: There was a communication issue.

BOSS: Who owned the decision?

TEAM: We did.

BOSS: Who is “we”?

TEAM: Great question.

Mistakes were made.

Expectations were missed.

Communication broke down.

The deadline slipped.

Objects apparently do a lot of independent work in offices.

Sometimes the useful question is simply:

Who did what?

Suddenly the grammar improves.

That's the week.

Thanks for reading, voting and replying.

And if Still Monday made you laugh, taught you something or simply gave you four minutes away from Excel, send it to somebody.

Forward this issue.

Drop www.still-monday.com into the group chat.

Bring a coworker.

We'd like the office to get more crowded.

Technically Friday. Emotionally...

No.

We're not giving Monday this one.

Have a good weekend.

— The Still Monday Desk