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1 min read
Org Chart
Read more . . . →The org chart drawn to scale. Woodcut-style pyramid, three tiers, one truth. At the bottom, dozens of figures with their backs bent, literally holding the whole structure on their shoulders. Middle tier: desks, laptops, whatever fills the middle of a slide deck. At the top, one man in a deckchair, legs crossed, staring at the sky like he earned it. Smokestacks on one side, city skyline on the other, and everyone below knows who carries the weight. He gave up pretending to work three promotions ago. The pyramid has always looked like this. It just never had the decency to...
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Upward Mobility
Read more . . . →He took the rungs home and called it a leadership seminar. Illustrated like a Rockwell that Norman wouldn’t have painted. A man in jeans climbs a wooden ladder up the side of a concrete wall, and the top of the ladder is sawn off. Inside, through the window, the executive holds the cut rungs in both hands, leaning back in a leather chair with that exact face from the quarterly town hall about “investing in our people.” He removed the top of the ladder while the guy was still on it. The sky is blue above the wall. The path...
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Core Values
Read more . . . →The word is INTEGRITY. The machine underneath it eats paper. Marble lobby, gold lettering, recessed lighting. Very serious building. The kind of building where the font costs more than your rent. And bolted to the wall beneath the word INTEGRITY, flush-mounted like it was always part of the plan, is a document shredder with a full belly. The strips are still hanging. Whatever went in there is never coming back, and neither is the irony. Somebody approved this layout.
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Soft Landing
Read more . . . →One of them got a parachute. The other got a box. He floats in a pressed suit under a gold canopy. The cardboard box next to him is doing terminal velocity toward whatever’s left down there. It held a desk lamp and fifteen years of tenure. The landing was decided long before either one jumped.
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Open Door Policy
Read more . . . →The box is anonymous. The camera has other plans. Two objects on one wall. One invites honesty. The other one films you being honest. The padlock on the box is a nice detail, given that the camera above it makes the lock purely decorative. Management will call this an “open feedback culture” in the same all-hands where they remind everyone that badge swipes are logged. The guy walking away down the corridor installed both, and he already knows what you wrote.
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Q3 Results
Read more . . . →Growth was strong this quarter. The chart just needed somewhere to stand. The board is delighted. The numbers go up and to the right, and they are drawn in chalk on the one guy who actually made them. The shareholder letter will not mention him. In this picture he is furniture.
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Golden Years
Read more . . . →The retirement plan was a vest. He is 78, he is smiling, and he is the first face you see at the door because the pension was the first thing to leave. The poster behind him sells a beach. His shift ends at six.
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Hiring Process
Read more . . . →Two hundred applied. One had the right last name. The conveyor never stops and the furnace never cools. Everyone in the line did the courses, the unpaid internship and the four rounds of interviews, and their résumés go in face down. The one that gets pulled out has the same signet ring as the hand holding it.
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Per My Last Email
Read more . . . →He followed up. Twice. Then he rested.
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