HR oddity – You couldn’t make it up!

Lucie Štáfová

Lucie Štáfová is a career advisor and the founder of the Tips4work project. She has been working in HR and recruitment since 2013. She gained professional experience in both corporate environments and smaller companies, including at IBM. Over time, she began to notice that many situations people considered normal at work were not normal at all, and she decided to start speaking out about them. It was this need that gave rise to the Tips4work project. Since 2023, she has dedicated herself to it full-time, helping people better navigate the world of work, succeed in interviews, and write better CVs. At the same time, she shows companies how to create an environment where people enjoy working.
When she started openly talking about workplace absurdities, bad interviews, toxic bosses, and situations that employees often keep to themselves on social media, people began to follow her in large numbers. Today, her humorous and educational videos on serious work-related topics are watched by tens of thousands. Her videos gradually evolved into the 'HR Bizarre' series and stories labelled "this really happened." People started sending her their own work experiences—some funny, others absurd, painful, or hard to believe. Often, these weren't just short anecdotes but long, unfolding stories filled with emotion and detailing how the whole situation turned out. It is from these that this book was born.
Some of her videos have become part of university courses. She has been a guest on the Seznam.cz podcast, participated in a round table discussion in the Parliament of the Czech Republic on the topic of young people in the job market, and has been invited by the European Union to conferences focused on employment, social rights, and the future of work, such as the European Employment and Social Rights Forum in Brussels. In addition to individual consultations, she leads workshops and training sessions for individuals, companies, and universities. In the book HR Bizarre, you will find laughter, tears, workplace absurdity, and practical tips and tricks on how to not go mad at work. Some stories will amuse you, others will surprise you, and some might even anger you. But they all remind you of one important thing: if you ever find yourself thinking, "This can't be normal," you are probably not alone.