What does “Recovering MBA” actually mean?

Mostly that I’m trying to unlearn the instinct to optimize everything—including myself.

An MBA trains you to think in terms of efficiency, outcomes, performance metrics. That mindset is powerful. But it also nudges you to measure success through money, power, and status.

Optimization can be useful. But when applied thoughtlessly to human beings, it can produce unintended consequences.

And landing on the billionaire list is not the same thing as living a successful life.

Where do your stories come from?

They usually start with something real—and slightly absurd.

I’ll read a piece of narrative nonfiction or a headline and get stuck on a particular moment. A decision. A power structure. A dynamic that feels…off.

Then I build a fictional world around that moment—not to recreate it, but to experiment with it. To see what happens when you drop characters into a situation and let it play out.

It almost always starts with something strange.

And true.

Is it true you write entire stories on your phone while walking around your kitchen?

Quirkily, yes.

I write almost everything on my phone while pacing laps around my kitchen island. I’m far more creative when I’m moving than when I’m sitting still.

You spent years in the business world. Do you feel critical of that world—or connected to it?

Both.

I understand it. I’ve lived it. I’ve probably said some of the lines I now write about.

And I made real, lasting friendships there.

What interests me is how easily good, intelligent people adapt to systems that ask them to look away—and gradually drift away from themselves.

What are you trying to do with your short story collection A Good Boss Is Hard to Find and your Diary of a Recovering MBA newsletter?

I want people to pause and think.

Think about a meeting where something felt off.

Think about a decision they rationalized.

Think about mistreatment they witnessed and said nothing about.

Think about a version of themselves they no longer recognize.

My work is heavily influenced by Hannah Arendt, who wrote about the “banality of evil.” She argued that great harm is often carried out not by monsters, but by ordinary people who stop thinking critically—or stop imagining the consequences of their actions on other human beings.

That idea has never felt more contemporary to me.

What makes a good boss?

A good boss understands that the people around them are human beings, not inputs.

That sounds obvious.

But if you’ve spent enough time in organizations, you know it isn’t.

Why humour? Why not write this material as straightforward business commentary?

Ever since I was a child I’ve always gravitated toward humour. I’d draw cartoons, make up funny characters, perform in outlandish ways. My primary goal was to make people laugh.

I also grew up on a steady entertainment diet of Monty Python and stand-up comedy. George Carlin was a huge influence on me. He was hilarious, but underneath the humour, his material was dark and deeply observant.

Humour allows people to sit with ideas that might otherwise feel too uncomfortable, heavy, or confrontational.

And sometimes humour tells the truth more effectively than seriousness does.

In my experience, laughter makes people recognize something they already knew was true.

These stories are true.
The names are changed.
The absurdity is not.