It’s a fact that this volcano in Washington State erupted in May 1980. It’s also a fact that as I grew up, that volcano quickly became my official childhood alias. Whenever a temper tantrum threatened to blow, my parents would shake their heads and warn each other, "Watch out, Mount St. Helens is erupting again." Famous family eruptions include Super Cluedo (yes, I am a bit of a Monica about games!) and who sits where at the dining table.
by Helen Crumley
If you work with me today, you’d probably find that nickname hilarious, or at least hard to believe. In my professional life, I’m the one people describe as calm, level-headed, and unflappable under pressure. But here’s the secret: the volcano didn’t disappear just because I entered the workplace. I haven’t lost my temper; I’ve simply learned to master the pressure gauge.
So why am I telling you this? Well Darren recently asked people what were the things that make you want to vent, and I realised I still hold a lot of this in so he’s given me carte blanche to blow my top!
Top of the list
Without a doubt it’s the age old classic "anyone can do comms" syndrome.
Because almost everyone has a social media account, writes an email, or reads the news, there’s that widespread assumption that strategic communication is just a bit of common sense and a quick post.
You don’t head over to the director of finance and tell him how to balance the budget, or pop over to a lawyer to tell them how to draft a contract. Yet comms professionals regularly find themselves on the receiving end of, "Well, if I were doing this, I’d just..." (and we all know that ends with pop it on social and make it go viral!)
Why does it irk me and make that magma bubble? Because what people miss is the invisible machinery beneath the surface. They see the final output, not the endless angles we've weighed up to get there:
multi-layered risk analysis and audience segmentation
delicate political realities and internal stakeholder navigation
accessibility standards, brand alignment, and ethical boundary lines
and, perhaps most importantly, the strategic decision of when not to say anything at all.
When non-experts treat decades of hard-won expertise, training, and strategic nuance as something they could whip up over lunch, Mount St. Helens starts to rumble.
Next on the list is comms by committee
We’ve all been there. You craft a tight, clear, human-centred piece of copy designed to resonate with real people, with your agreed audiences. Then it enters the corporate approval pipeline. It gets passed around half a dozen senior managers, each inserting their favourite buzzwords or flattening the tone to sound more "formal and/or professional."
By the time it returns to your inbox, every drop of authenticity has been scrubbed out. Plain English has been replaced by eye-watering jargon, and the core message is buried under a mountain of corporate caveats, sacrificing a thoughtful, sustainable narrative for a "splashy" quick win that pleases internal egos rather than serving the audience.
Watching a clear narrative get flattened by committee fear is enough to test anyone's professional restraint.
Adjunct to this is also why does everyone feel they have to make a change, you know the ones I mean – when you get a comma added, or a random word suddenly has a capital letter. I really wish people would just leave it alone if that’s all they want to say!
And finally
But my no means least on the pyroclastic list is being brought into a project right at the very end. If you’re lucky a week before, but usually a day or the night before an event. You know the score, an email drops in your inbox or someone says a casual, "Oh, can comms just wrap this up and push it out?"
It is the ultimate operational trap. You are handed a fully baked project, complete with unexamined risks, contradictory messaging, or unclear objectives, and expected to weave magic in an afternoon (oh yes, that old comms magic). It feels like being called in to put out a fire after expert advice was ignored weeks earlier, only to be asked why the smoke alarm didn't ring sooner.
We aren't the glitter you sprinkle on at the end to make a bad decision look pretty; we are the structural architects. When comms is brought in from the start, we spot the friction points, talk to the stakeholders, and prevent the crises that otherwise take weeks to clean up. Expecting us to parachute in as an afterthought is a fast track to a volcanic eruption.
My calm temperament is not about lacking passion or being a corporate robot. The passion is precisely why the temper exists. But mistaking quiet professionalism for an absence of feeling is a monumental error.
Where I go for support, or where I let off steam safely
Decades of professional restraint, strategic distance, and emotional intelligence mean that when frustration strikes, the exterior stays cool.
But the steam must go somewhere.
For me, the true safety valve isn't blowing up in a meeting or firing off a reactive email; it's the trusted WhatsApp groups and private peer circles.
Having those safe spaces with fellow professionals who get it is the only reason the level head stays on. Because every now and then, when the sheer absurdity of workplace dynamics threatens to push the pressure off the top of this Mount St Helen, I need a place where I can erupt safely, off the record, and with a sense of humour intact.
Helen Crumley is a strategic communications and marketing leader.
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