Hello!
I have been busy compiling your favourite workplace newsletter – a combination of things you need to know and things that will make you laugh out loud.
In this issue there’s a workplace trend, news snippets, cases, and sage advice in the “Dear Jen” column.
And of course, I share my recommendations for your viewing pleasure.
I hope this newsletter brings you some wisdom and joy!
Cheers,
Jen
What trend am I seeing across the workplace world?
The Tyranny of Urgency
I love tech. I really do. But the crazy deadlines we are all imposing on each other these days sometimes have me hankering for the good old days when we used the postal service and everyone understood that “urgent” still involved a stamp, a sorting facility, and at least three business days.
Buzzword of the Week: Hush-tripping
When you take your laptop on holiday but forget to tell your employer about the holiday part. You’re still working. You’re just doing it suspiciously close to a pool.
Meanwhile, at Work: The Future Still Needs Someone to Clean It
Robot baristas are now serving coffee around the world. Impressive – until you discover they still need a human nearby to restock ingredients, clean the machine and fix whatever they can’t handle.
The robot gets the title of barista. You get all the duties that didn’t make the promotional video.
Job of the Week: Professional Ice Cream Taste Tester
Snoop Dogg is hiring.
Think you have what it takes to be an International Ice Cream Taster (IICT)? Fill out the application below for a chance to work alongside Snoop as his IICT for $10,000 a month.
See: Apply like it’s hot: Snoop Dogg, Deel seek professional ice cream taster
and: Apply here!
Fair Work Commission Sets New Rules for AI Use
From 20 October 2026, new Fair Work Commission guidance will apply to the use of generative AI in Commission cases.
If AI helps prepare a document, you must disclose when and how it was used, check the document for accuracy and relevance, and confirm those checks have been done. For witness statements and declarations, the evidence must remain the witness’s own knowledge, words and truth.
Take-Out Point: If AI helped prepare your FWC document, disclose it, check it and stand behind it.
See: President’s statement – Use of AI in Fair Work Commission proceedings
See: Guidance note – Use of generative artificial intelligence in Commission cases
and Pivot Research Report – GenAI use research
CASES YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
AI Arguments Wrong. He Kept Arguing Anyway
A former Aldi worker has been ordered to pay $1,230 towards the company’s legal costs after using AI to pursue an unfair dismissal claim he was never eligible to bring. He was notified of his dismissal three days short of the six-month minimum employment period, but his AI-generated submissions kept focusing on the wrong date.
The Commission twice explained the problem to him before the hearing and warned him about costs. His AI-generated replies simply repeated the irrelevant argument.
Deputy President Easton described the submissions as “not complete AI slop” – the cases were real and some legal propositions correct. They were just irrelevant. The hearing, he said, “should never have taken place”.
Take-Out Point: Using AI to help draft submissions isn’t necessarily unreasonable. Failing to read what it produces – particularly after the Commission tells you it’s wrong – can be.
See: Sadnan Khan v Aldi Pty Ltd [2026] FWC 3144 (19 August 2026)
Teacher 3D Prints Replica Handgun and Brings It to School
An ACT high school teacher was dismissed after 3D printing a replica handgun and bringing it to school, intending to use it to engage students in 3D printing and technology.
Despite nearly 22 years of service, the Fair Work Commission upheld the dismissal, finding she had shown an “astonishing lack of judgement”. The risk of a replica firearm at a school outweighed her well-meaning motive.
Take-Out Point: Good intentions do not neutralise serious misconduct. Sometimes the risk created by the conduct is enough.
18 September – International Equal Pay Day. A UN reminder that the global gender pay gap still sits at around 20%. If that figure does not bother you, check whose round it is at Friday drinks and see how quickly fairness starts to matter.
22 September – World Car-Free Day. A global push to leave the car at home and walk, cycle or catch public transport. Also known as “every day” for anyone who has been working from home since 2020 and now considers the hallway a commute.
27 September – World Tourism Day. A celebration of travel and its contribution to the global economy. If your best performer just lodged leave for the school holidays, today is probably not the day to knock it back.
1 October – International Coffee Day. Honouring the substance that has kept the modern workplace functional since approximately forever. Without it, most Monday morning meetings would just be people staring at a screen in silence. Come to think of it, some still are.
1 October – International Day of Older Persons. A day to value experience. Some things simply cannot be learned in a webinar.
Have you recently promoted a high-performing employee and want to support them to step up and succeed in their new role?
Are you hiring for a critical role and know the cost of getting it wrong is far greater than the recruitment fee?
Do you have a complex workplace situation and need a calm, experienced professional to coach an employee who may not fully recognise the impact of their behaviour, support a team through tension, or address a sensitive issue before it escalates?
This is where Deborah adds real value.
With more than 30 years of HR leadership and executive coaching experience, Deborah combines strong commercial judgment with a practical, human approach to help leaders make better decisions, build stronger teams and deliver results.
Deborah is someone you can bring in when the stakes are high, and you want more than advice; you want clarity, traction and a better outcome.
Contact Deborah: deborah@jenniferbicknell.com.au | 0419 203 600
Or Jennifer Bicknell: jen@jenniferbicknell.com.au | 0411 275 920
Dear Jen,
Two team members who were once joined at the hip are now maintaining a level of frosty professionalism that makes the air-conditioning feel redundant.
They are not openly fighting, but they have stopped eating lunch together, stopped using their matching keep cups and now communicate only by email, even when one of them is standing beside the kettle.
The rest of the team has started tiptoeing around them.
Is this an HR issue, or just an awkward workplace friendship break-up?
Cheers,
Frost Bitten
Dear Frost Bitten
You do not need to mediate the end of a workplace friendship just because the matching keep cups have been retired. But if the chill starts affecting the team, clients or the work, manage the behaviour – not the friendship.
They do not have to like each other but they do have to work together professionally.
Cheers,
Jen
Biggest Fails from the 2026 World Humanoid Robot Games in China (Google it) is my new favourite stress-relief viewing. At the end of a long day, sometimes I just need to watch a robot athlete somersault mid-race, get carried off on a stretcher, or be attended to with a fire extinguisher.
Being a bomb disposer was never on my maybe-career list, but in Trigger Point (Stan), Vicky McClure is magnetic as a bomb disposal officer with nerves of steel. I inhaled all six episodes of season 4 of this brilliant British drama… between my fingers.
Sterling Point (Prime) follows Annie Jacobson, a 17-year-old New Yorker (with an uncanny resemblance to a young Julia Roberts), who discovers she has inherited a remote island in Canada from the grandfather she was never allowed to meet. Naturally, instead of simply enjoying her new island-owner era, she starts digging and uncovers family secrets, unexpected friendships and the sort of history nobody puts in the brochure.
The Airport Chaplain (SBS) stars Hugo Weaving as Tobias Wallace, an airport chaplain with a deeply unorthodox approach to daily crises and a fairly relaxed relationship with boundaries. His new manager, Shabana Azeez from The Pitt, wants him gone, but Tobias is not surrendering his beloved chaplaincy without a fight. Throw in Claudia Karvan and the whole thing has that wonderful “surely this cannot be how an airport works” energy.
