How to Submit

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Behaving Badly Books™ is a publishing and inquiry imprint within Behaving Badly HQ. We collect true stories about human behavior at work to better understand how modern systems actually shape how people lead, decide, adapt, and stay human under pressure.

We are building a living field record of contemporary work life. Not how it’s supposed to function, but how it actually behaves in practice.

We invite contributors, sometimes called field agents, to share firsthand stories that surface contradictions, quiet absurdities, and moments that feel familiar in the body before they are ever named out loud.

Submitted stories are treated as raw field material.

Some stories inform the ongoing Worst Practices Investigation. Others may shape Field Notes, Briefs, Deep Dives, future Bureau Reports, or published collections through Behaving Badly Books™. Not every submission becomes published material. All submissions are reviewed as signals, not taken at face value as finished evidence.

When you share your story, you:

• Help surface the humor, tension, and humanity present in everyday work.
• Contribute to a broader sensemaking effort examining how modern work systems behave under pressure. 
• Add your voice to an ongoing inquiry, not just a single publication. See our Manifesto. 
• Receive full credit if your story is featured across BBHQ or Behaving Badly Books. 
• May receive a small thank-you from the Bureau for stories that particularly resonate with readers.
   

There is no payment for submissions at this time. If this work resonates with you and you want to contribute, we’d love to hear from you. You don’t need to make your story polished, clever, or funny. Start where it happened. Say what you noticed. Let it be real. The Bureau will handle the sensemaking and satirical interpretation.  

We’re looking for true, first-hand stories that reveal how sensible systems quietly produce absurd behavior at work. 

Stories where:

• The process made sense, but the outcome didn’t. 
• Everyone was doing their job, yet something felt off. 
• You followed the rules, and things still got weird. 
• The workaround became the work. 
• The language sounded reasonable while confusion spread underneath.
   

Specifically, we’re looking for stories that:

• Actually happened to you, or to someone you worked closely with. 
• Are written in the first person. We want your lived experience, not a corporate summary. 
• Start in the moment. Skip the context dump and drop us straight into the scene. 
• Make the reader laugh, wince, or quietly say, “oh no… that’s me.” 
• Are under 1,200 words. Tight stories surface patterns more clearly. 
• Are your own work, in your own voice. AI tools may help with clarity, but they shouldn’t replace your tone or perspective.
   

You don’t need to diagnose the problem. You don’t need to explain the lesson.
Just tell us what happened and what it felt like to be there.

• Fiction or composite stories. 
• Essays, speeches, sermons, or opinion pieces. 
• Academic papers, research summaries, or journalism. 
• Political rants or product testimonials. 
• Stories written to prove a point rather than describe an experience.
   

If the story starts with a conclusion instead of a moment, it’s probably not a fit.

Your story may involve any of the following lenses. These are not categories you need to analyze, just signals to help you recognize fit.

• Leaders and managers navigating impossible expectations. 
• Teams or departments stuck in loops, rituals, or decision bottlenecks. 
• Consultants (internal or external) caught between advice and reality. 
• Functions such as HR, Finance, Operations, or Strategy where process quietly overtook purpose. 
• Organizations or systems (public, private, or cross-industry) behaving in ways no one explicitly chose. 
• Self — moments where you noticed yourself adapting, performing, or complying in ways that surprised you. 
• Other — if it doesn’t fit neatly, that’s often a signal worth examining.
   

If you’re unsure where your story fits, submit it anyway.

• You may use a pen name if you prefer anonymity. 
• Submitting a story grants permission for light editing for clarity and tone. 
• If selected, we’ll contact you before any publication in a Behaving Badly Books volume, Bureau Report, Brief, or Field Note.