The world goes on
At the end of the conversation, everything still works.
The lights are on. Messages keep coming in. There’s already something else in the calendar. Somewhere, someone is waiting for an answer that has nothing to do with what was just said here.
For one person, the future has changed. The rest of the day carries on.
Maybe I imagine dystopia on too grand a scale. I think of ruined cities, sirens and people fleeing. But there’s another version where everything keeps running as it should. The heating works. The coffee is hot. A decision is calmly explained and carefully documented afterwards. Nobody raises their voice.
Still, something falls apart.
Today I let an employee go. The decision followed guidance, conversations, time and effort from an entire team. You start because you believe it will work out. You explain, help and offer direction. Even when things are difficult, there’s still a next step. Something else to practise. Another conversation about how to move forward.
Until you’re the one who says there will be no next step.
You can wish someone all the best in the world and still close the door on the future they had imagined.
That’s an uncomfortable kind of power. It comes with the job, alongside responsibilities that sound far less serious. You make arrangements, assign work and maintain standards. And sometimes you make a decision that stays within your working day but follows someone else home, finding its way into everything.
At the dinner table. In bed. In the calculation of whether there will be enough money next month.
You don’t know exactly what your decision touches.
A job can be just a job. It can also be the reason someone finally felt able to sign a lease. Or book a holiday. Perhaps there’s someone at home who will ask how their day went, and they haven’t worked out how to answer yet.
I don’t know whether any of that is true for the person I spoke to. They have a life I know only a small part of, people who matter to them, plans we’ve never discussed. What happens in this room enters that life. It doesn’t define all of it.
We talk about performance. Someone else may have already built a future around that job.
And then we put a full stop at the end of it.
On paper, that full stop barely takes up any space. The rent is still due on the same date.
I’m tempted to think good intentions count for something. That it makes a difference that you tried to help, gave someone opportunities and sincerely hoped for a different outcome. And it does matter. But the other person can’t live on those intentions. My wish for someone to succeed won’t pay their bills after the conversation. It won’t open the door again.
Meanwhile, the reasons for the decision still stand. There’s a team. There are people who need to be able to rely on the work being done well. Delaying the decision has consequences too, though they may fall on others and be spread over more days. You can’t simply choose to hurt no one. Sometimes, what you’re really choosing is who bears the consequences.
That’s where I see something dystopian. Nobody has to mean any harm. Everyone can take responsibility, follow the right steps and choose their words carefully. And someone can still walk out with plans they can no longer count on.
I need to be able to explain my decision and look honestly at my own part in it. The other person is free to understand every word and still think I’m wrong. I want to leave room for that, without turning their response into another chance to defend myself.
After a conversation like that, the world goes on.
That says little about how much of someone’s world is left.