The Story
Closing Bell Pizza has survived broken equipment, no‑show drivers, impossible rushes, and customers who order just before close. But when the cheese starts disappearing and a suspicious odor keeps returning, the crew develops four confident explanations — none of them complete.
Mara tightens control. Nico improvises. Doreen trusts what fourteen years of experience tells her. Mina tries to keep everyone working together. As the Friday rush deteriorates, each person's greatest strength begins making the shared problem worse.
Who Cut My Cheese? is a short, illustrated workplace parable about change, blame, measurement, tacit knowledge, leadership, and the difference between finding a culprit and understanding what actually happened.
The Four Responses to Disruption
When conditions change, people often protect something valuable: control, momentum, accumulated knowledge, belonging. Each instinct can help. Each can also become a liability when it operates alone.
| Character | Instinct | Strength | Risk Under Pressure |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mara | Measure | Standards, visibility, follow‑through. | Treating variance as proof of disobedience before testing the system. |
| Nico | Act | Speed, improvisation, practical action. | Solving the immediate problem privately and borrowing consequences from tomorrow. |
| Doreen | Notice | Pattern memory, tacit knowledge, product judgment. | Using experience as veto rather than evidence others can examine. |
| Mina | Integrate | Perspective, translation, shared awareness. | Mistaking understanding everyone for leading anyone. |
No response is the correct personality. The useful move is to make each strength available to the others.
Facilitator Guide
A preview edition is ready now: who it's for, what the full guide contains, and one complete, ready‑to‑run exercise straight from the book's own "facts before motives" reset. The full guide gets built once a real session is on the calendar.
Free Discussion & Leadership Guide
A companion for readers, teams, and leaders — pulled straight from the book's own back matter: the Four Responses framework, six discussion questions, a fact‑vs‑interpretation worksheet, and twelve questions built for a leadership table.
Look Under the Rack — a Free 10-Part Course
Not a course with assignments — ten short emails, a few minutes each, sequenced through the book's own scenes from the opening shift to the closing bell. Each issue is one moment, one theme, and a thought to carry with you until the next one arrives.
Ten issues, about a week apart. No spam — reply anytime to stop.
About the Author
Bring This to Your Team
Interested in bulk copies, a facilitated session, or a leadership briefing built around the book? Get in touch.
A Few Lines
The case for the book is above. If you're still here, this is why people who've read it keep quoting it. Free to share — right‑click / long‑press to save.
Bonus Cards — For Readers Only
Four more cards, held back for people who've actually read the book. Enter the word Doreen writes under INTENSITY in the Air Quality Incident Log (Chapter 2) to unlock them.
Not real security. Just a reason to have finished Chapter 2 first.
