Welcome to The PMTales Dispatch (Vol. 1, Issue 1)
- Dec 29, 2025
- 2 min read
Excerpt:
A short letter from the trenches — what this Dispatch is, why it exists, and how it’ll make your week feel a little less lonely (and a little more survivable).
Full Issue:
Somewhere in Deliveria — the kingdom where all PMs secretly live — a project is “on track.”
Not because the work is going well.
But because nobody has updated the RAID log since Halloween, and everyone’s afraid to check.
If that sentence made your eyelid twitch, welcome to The PMTales Dispatch, your weekly letter from the trenches.
What This Dispatch Is
Every week, you’ll get a short note like this — part field report, part survival guide, part “are we all seeing this too?”
No corporate fluff.
No hustle talk.
No cheerleading for systems that visibly don’t work.
Just:
honesty,
humour,
a few creature sightings,
and practical wisdom from someone who has survived too many steering committees to count.
Think of this as the inbox equivalent of a campfire in the project trenches.
Why This Exists
Most PMs I know aren’t drowning in tasks.They’re drowning in the invisible expectations nobody names:
absorbing everyone else’s stress
carrying the entire plan in memory because no one reads the deck
smoothing conflict between teams who refuse to speak
being blamed for decisions made three levels above them
and performing status theatre so leadership can pretend everything is fine
The system quietly trains PMs to be buffers, shock absorbers, emotional sponges.
Let me be clear:
**You are not the malfunction.
You’re the person preventing the malfunction from becoming a fire.**
This Dispatch exists to say that out loud — once a week, in writing.
Survival Lesson #1: Name Your Invisible Work
Before Friday hits, ask yourself:
“What am I carrying that isn’t written anywhere?”
Whatever your answer is, you’re allowed to:
write it down,
say it aloud,
bring it into a meeting,
or simply acknowledge that it’s real.
Invisible work becomes heavier the longer it stays unnamed.
From the PMTales Armory
If you want a tiny rebellion against the madness, grab a Creature Card:
Scope Creep (fuzzy yet destructive)
Expectations Drift (floats silently until impact)
Goalpost Mover (the true villain of most timelines)
Sometimes metaphor is the only language chaotic stakeholders understand.
What to Explore Next
Read a Tale: The Requirement That Ruined Christmas
Skim a Field Guide: Stakeholder chaos, scope creep, requirements fog
Visit the Armory: Lighten your cognitive load by 3–5% instantly
Until Next Week
If today’s Dispatch made you breathe out, even a little, then it worked.
See you in the trenches,
D.B. Trench
PM, storyteller, reluctant keeper of all unlogged tasks
Comments