The smell of citrus hangs in the air of my home office, a sharp, acidic ghost of the orange I just finished peeling in a single, unbroken spiral. It is a small victory of precision, a tactile contrast to the conversation I had 43 minutes ago. I was sitting in a chair that costs more than my first car, facing a woman who has ‘Director’ in her title but ‘Avoidance’ in her marrow. We were discussing my annual performance. She looked at me, her eyes tracking something just to the left of my ear, and said, ‘You’re doing great work, but we really need you to show more leadership.’ I asked for a specific instance where my leadership had been lacking, or perhaps a moment where I could have stepped up but remained seated. She paused, tapped a pen against a notebook that contained exactly 3 lines of text, and whispered, ‘It’s more of a general feeling, really. Just… find ways to be more strategic.’

To be ‘strategic’ or ‘proactive’ or to ‘take ownership’ are phrases that function as linguistic smoke bombs. They allow a manager to exit a room without having done the hard, sweating work of actually watching how their employees function. It is a mechanism of safety for the supervisor, a way to signal dissatisfaction while remaining entirely unpinnable should that dissatisfaction be challenged.

The Observational Rigor of Felix J.P.

Felix J.P. understands the danger of the unpinnable better than anyone I know. Felix has spent 13 years as a retail theft prevention specialist, a job that requires a level of observational rigor that would make the average HR representative break out in hives. Felix does not deal in feelings. If he suspects a customer is preparing to walk out with a $533 leather jacket, he cannot act on a ‘general vibe.’ He waits for the three pillars of theft: the approach, the concealment, and the passing of the last point of sale. He has told me 33 times that the worst part of his job is not the confrontation; it is the watching. It is the exhaustion of keeping your eyes fixed on a single person for 43 minutes to ensure you have the facts. Corporate managers, however, are often too tired or too frightened to watch that closely.

This ambiguity is not a byproduct of the system; it is a feature. It keeps the power balance firmly in the hands of the person holding the pen. If the goalposts are made of fog, you can never truly prove you have kicked the ball through them. You are kept in a state of permanent, low-grade franticness, trying to solve a puzzle where the pieces change shape the moment you touch them.

The Antidote: Structural Integrity

I think of the world of architecture and physical construction as the necessary antidote to this rot. There is a terrifying beauty in the precision of glass and steel. Consider the engineering required by Sola Spaces. When you are building a structure that must invite the light in while keeping the chaos of the elements out, you cannot afford a ‘general feeling’ about the load-bearing capacity of a frame. If a beam is off by 3 millimeters, the glass will not fit. The glass does not ask you to be more ‘visionary’; it asks you to be correct.

In the corporate world, we have traded that structural integrity for a culture of ‘niceness’ that is actually quite cruel. I have seen 73 talented people burn out not because the work was too hard, but because the feedback was too soft. They spent years trying to ‘increase their impact’ without anyone ever defining what an ‘impact’ looked like in their specific role.

The Camera Footage We Deserve

Felix J.P. once caught a man trying to steal 13 rolls of high-end copper wire. The man argued that he was just ‘testing the weight’ of the product. Felix didn’t argue back with metaphors about weights or measures. He simply replayed the video from camera number 43. He showed the man the exact moment his hand crossed the threshold. That is the kind of feedback we deserve in our professional lives.

2. The Action: Requesting the Footage

If I am failing to lead, show me the meeting where I stayed silent. If I am not being strategic, show me the decision-making process where I chose the short-term win over the long-term goal.

Most managers are spread across 33 different projects, their attention fractured like a dropped mirror. They rely on the vague feedback because it is a shortcut. They are managing shadows, not people.

3. The Foundation: Clarity is the Highest Form of Respect

We must begin to demand the ‘why’ behind the ‘what.’ When the fog of vague feedback rolls in, we must be the ones to shine the high-beams. Force the precision. We are not ghosts; we are workers, creators, and thinkers. We deserve to be measured by the standards of the carpenter, not the whims of the psychic.

4. The Ledger: No Feelings, Only Facts

Felix J.P. recently moved into a new role in logistics, where everything is tracked by 103 different data points. He told me he has never been happier. There is no ‘feeling’ about his performance. There is only the ledger. While not every job can be reduced to a spreadsheet, every job can be reduced to an action.

We must build our careers like those glass sunrooms-transparent, sturdy, and capable of withstanding the pressure because every single joint was measured twice and cut once.