What We Preserve
On Sunday we were taught to make room for the neighbor. On Monday, the neighbor became a competitor. On what our institutions are built to preserve, and one priest who carried the Sunday teaching into the room where money is made.
The Return We Refuse to Count
An idea of mine once came back to me as someone else's presentation. On reciprocity, what our institutions count, and a library that lent seeds.
Nobody Gets Promoted for Maintenance
Institutions celebrate the people who begin things and quietly spend the people who keep them alive. This essay explores invisible work, the capability trap, who gets asked to carry low-promotability tasks, and what it would take to reward maintenance.
The Distance Between Us
As institutions grow, leadership moves farther from the work, and the people closest to it stop explaining what they see. This essay explores institutional distance, after-hours availability, algorithmic management, and what it takes to keep power close to responsibility.
When Vulnerability Becomes Self-Annihilation
Workplaces increasingly ask people to bring their whole selves. But vulnerability without trust can become a way of making people easier to manage. This essay explores the psychology of trust, institutional regression, and what a more humane future of work requires.
Integrity Is Not a Labor Strategy
After ten years of trying to build a humane workplace in mental health, I no longer believe good leadership guarantees reciprocity. This essay explores what integrity can — and cannot — do inside a culture that increasingly treats work as transaction.