We’re continuing to go through the LinkedIn answers (over 400 so far) and making interesting discoveries. Some of the irational workplace anecdotes are of the funny/tragic type: a company director who attended a sexual harassment workshop and decided to hit on the trainer, or a guy who was asked by a manger to spend eight hours moving boxes from one place to the next, only to come in the next day and have another manager tell him to please put the boxes back where they belong.

The answers offer an intriguing snapshot into workplace irrationality, and we’ve spotted the following themes among many of the answers:

- Unfair promotions: Not only does this practice hurt company morale, it creates serious doubts in the mind of employees about fairness and the overall leadership capacity. Promotion decisions can get especially dicey in family-owned businesses, where relatives can get preferential treatment. This often results in ingroup-outgroup dynamics, such that if you’re part of the family you’re seen as legit, and if you’re not, then your point of view doesn’t get valued as highly.

- Loss aversion and marketing: When a company hits tough times, it makes sense to cut down on costs, but often the first thing to go is marketing. Now, marketing can actually pull a company out of the mud, but mangers focus so much on avoiding losses that they cut costs rather than think about how to increase revenues.

- “That’s the way we’ve always done it”: Leaders refuse to entertain new ideas because of a commitment to a previous way of conducting business. This is especially frustrating to new recruits who wonder, If you liked us so much to hire us, why aren’t you listening to us?