A Personal Project - Story 1

Over the last several months I’ve become fascinated with the power of story.

Here is an excerpt from a personal project I am working on. I'd be interested if it resonates with any of you.

Every morning, he'd walk into that building carrying a small glimmer of hope that today might be different. That maybe the toxic manager who seemed to view every interaction as a zero-sum game might actually listen. That perhaps the endless political maneuvering and backstabbing might give way to genuine teamwork. But day after day, he watched good people become cynical, their enthusiasm slowly strangled by an environment that rewarded self-preservation over doing what was right.

They lived with that constant anxiety of never knowing when the next arbitrary decision would upend weeks of work. He felt the frustration building as he witnessed talented colleagues throw each other under the bus, not because they were bad people, but because the system had trained them that survival meant stepping on others. Quality became a luxury they couldn't afford when every deadline was a crisis manufactured by poor planning and ego-driven leadership.

He began to understand, with painful clarity, that culture isn't something that happens to an organization. It's something that leaders either consciously create or carelessly allow to fester. And when they choose indifference, when they let the loudest, most selfish voices set the tone, the rest of us pay the price with our wellbeing, our integrity, and our faith in what work could be.