The Toast Archetypes (And Why Your Project Fell Apart at the Bread Stage)
Projects fail at the bread stage. Here's a stickman field guide to eight people who turn toast into chaos — and how to stop becoming one of them
Read The Toast Series — 6 posts about systems, sabotage, and why your plan broke before lunch.
Explore the full series →
← Previous: Why Alignment Is a Lie
→ Next: How to Build a Shared Model
Eight ways people sabotage (or save) work — based entirely on how they approach toast.
Toast, But Make It Personal
Every team has one.
That person who walks into the kitchen, sees a loaf of bread, and immediately:
- Questions the concept of heat.
- Unplugs the toaster to "reset the project."
- Refuses to use sliced bread because it’s too "consumerist."
- Or stands in silence, waiting for someone else to operate the machine.
Whatever flavour of chaos they bring, they’re not wrong. But they are wildly unhelpful.
And here’s the kicker:
You are also that person.
Because we all are.
Every project is an emotional bread experiment — and we each bring our baggage, quirks, fears, and overcompensations to the toaster.
So let’s talk archetypes.
Not personality tests.
Not performance reviews.
Just eight dead-simple, half-true, half-horrifying Toast People you’ve definitely met (and been).
🥖 1. The Bread Snob
- Core Belief: “The quality of the bread defines the project.”
- Favourite Phrase: “Sorry, but that’s not sourdough.”
- Sabotage Style: Derails scope to obsess over inputs no one else cares about.
The Bread Snob means well. They want excellence. But they’ll happily burn the toast if it means rejecting supermarket sliced.
🔌 2. The Toaster Resetter
- Core Belief: “This process is broken — we need to start again.”
- Favourite Phrase: “Let’s wipe the board.”
- Sabotage Style: Pulls the plug just as progress starts.
Helpful at spotting broken systems. Not so helpful at respecting momentum.
🧼 3. The Process Purifier
- Core Belief: “The process is the product.”
- Favourite Phrase: “Let’s align on the framework first.”
- Sabotage Style: Overcomplicates the entire workflow until toast is impossible.
Everything becomes a workflow. Even workflow design.
