The invite said "quick chat." Lowercase, casual, no agenda, no attendees flagged. The kind of title you don't think twice about. I assumed a two-minute check-in, maybe a "how's things," grabbed my coffee, strolled in relaxed.
HR was already sitting there. With documents. Printed. Stacked. Clearly prepared well in advance of my breezy little coffee walk.
That was the moment the "quick chat" revealed itself. Not a chat. A formal performance improvement plan discussion — a whole structured process, signatures, timelines, the works. The most consequential meeting of my year, disguised as the most casual four words on my calendar.
And that's what stays with me. Not even the PIP itself as much as the packaging. They knew what this meeting was. They printed the documents for it. And they still labeled it "quick chat," which means someone made a deliberate choice to keep me relaxed and unprepared right up until I sat down across from HR and the paperwork. "Quick chat" — the most misleading four words anyone's ever put on an invite to me, and I don't think that's an accident.