I am currently vibrating at a frequency usually reserved for industrial machinery, and it has nothing to do with the double espresso I just finished. My lower back is perfectly supported by a mesh-backed throne that cost the company exactly $1201, a masterpiece of engineering designed to keep my spine in a state of perpetual, idealized grace while my brain slowly turns into a lukewarm puddle of gray sludge. I’m staring at a screen, waiting. I have been waiting for exactly 11 days. The wait isn’t for a creative breakthrough or a life-changing epiphany. I am waiting for Greg, a Senior Vice President whose primary job function seems to be existing as a bottleneck, to click a single ‘Approve’ button on a $51 software subscription that would automate the 41 hours of manual data entry I have to do every single month.
I accidentally sent a text to Greg three minutes ago that was meant for my sister. It was a photo of my cat, Barnaby, who was currently shredding the curtains, with the caption: ‘This absolute prick won’t stop until everything I love is destroyed.’ Greg hasn’t responded. He probably thinks I’m talking about the quarterly reporting structure, which, to be fair, is an easy mistake to make. The cat is a menace, sure, but at least his destruction is honest. He isn’t pretending that shredding the curtains is part of a ‘holistic wellness initiative’ designed to improve my living room’s ‘engagement metrics.’
The Illusion of Optimization
We are living in the golden age of corporate optimization, yet the actual work remains a festering wound of inefficiency. We have replaced functional systems with high-end snacks and expensive lumbar support. The logic is as transparent as it is insulting: it is significantly cheaper to optimize the human being-to make the worker more resilient, more caffeinated, more ‘mindful’-than it is to fix the broken machinery of the organization. If I can just meditate for 11 minutes a day using the corporate-sponsored app, maybe I won’t notice that my entire workweek is consumed by 21 different meetings that could have been summarized in a single, coherent sentence.
A Revelation
My friend Maya F., a therapy animal trainer who deals with creatures far more rational than corporate VPs, once told me about a dog she worked with in early 2021. The dog was neurotic, pacing in circles until its paws bled. The owners had tried everything: weighted vests, calming pheromone diffusers, and $511 worth of specialized organic kibble. Maya walked into the house, looked around for exactly 1 minute, and pointed at the ultrasonic pest repeller plugged into the wall. It was emitting a high-pitched scream that only the dog could hear. They were trying to ‘optimize’ the dog’s internal state while leaving the external torture device running at full blast. This is modern work. We are the dog. The ergonomic chair is the weighted vest. The approval process for a $51 piece of software is the high-pitched scream.
I see this everywhere. The company spends $71,000 on a consultant to tell us we need ‘better synergy,’ but they won’t give us the admin rights to install a basic plugin. We are treated like high-performance athletes who are expected to run a marathon while wearing lead boots. The ‘optimization’ is always superficial. It targets the symptoms of burnout rather than the systemic causes.
Environment Dictates Capacity
This obsession with the ‘worker-as-unit-to-be-tweaked’ ignores the reality that our environment dictates our capacity. If you put a genius in a room with no windows and a broken computer, you don’t get genius results; you get a very frustrated person with a headache. We talk about ‘psychological safety’ in workshops led by people who have never had to fear for their jobs, yet we refuse to fix the power structures that make people feel unsafe in the first place. It’s easier to buy a fleet of standing desks than it is to dismantle a hierarchy that requires 11 signatures to change a lightbulb.
Maya F. often says that most ‘behavioral issues’ in animals are actually just environmental mismatches. If you put a border collie in a studio apartment for 21 hours a day, he’s going to eat your sofa. That’s not a ‘bad dog’; that’s a bad environment.
In the corporate world, we call the sofa-eating ‘burnout’ and offer the dog a subscription to a meditation app. We need to stop trying to fix the dog and start opening the damn door.
There is a fundamental difference between superficial ‘wellness’ and genuine environmental integrity. When we think about productivity, we often focus on the digital tools or the personal habits, but we overlook the physical and structural reality of where we are. True optimization isn’t about adding a new perk; it’s about removing the friction that makes the work impossible. Sometimes, the most radical thing a company can do is stop providing free kombucha and start providing a workspace that actually respects the human need for light, air, and autonomy. This is why I appreciate the philosophy behind
Sola Spaces, where the focus is on creating an environment that breathes, rather than just a box where you sit and wait for approvals. When the physical space is designed to support the person rather than just contain the worker, the high-pitched scream of the ‘system’ becomes much harder to ignore.
The Metrics of Stagnation
The system ensures that we are perpetually focused on the reporting of work over the work itself.
Reporting on Work (Performative)
91%
Actual Deep Work (Result)
9%
The Cognitive Dissonance
We claim to value this.
What we built.
I’m going to go get another juice. It’s free, after all. It’s part of the ‘Total Rewards Package’ that compensates me for the fact that I’m currently losing my mind. As I walk past the row of ergonomic chairs, I see 21 other people all staring at their screens, all waiting for their own versions of Greg to click their own versions of ‘Approve.’ We are the most well-supported, most optimized, most comfortable group of stagnant people in history.
Chair: $1201
Perfect Support
Wait Time: 11 Days
Absolute Paralysis
Juice: Free
Costly Compensation
Maybe I’ll send Greg another text. This time, I’ll tell him the truth: that the system is the prick, and the cat is just a symptom. But I won’t. I’ll just sit back down in my $1201 chair, adjust the lumbar support to exactly the right tension, and wait for the notification that will never come. The chair is comfortable. The juice is cold. The process is broken. And yet, somehow, we are expected to believe that as long as our spines are straight, the fire in the building doesn’t matter.
Optimization is often just another word for endurance.
– The True Cost of a Straight Spine
If we actually wanted to fix the work, we’d stop looking at the worker and start looking at the friction. We’d realize that 11 hours of deep work is worth more than 41 hours of performative ‘busyness.’ We’d value the result more than the reporting of the result. But that would require a shift in power, and power is the one thing no one wants to ‘optimize’ away. So, we’ll stay in our chairs. We’ll sip our juice. We’ll keep the curtains shredded and pretend the high-pitched scream is just the sound of a thriving corporate culture. I just hope Greg likes the cat picture. It’s the most honest thing I’ve produced all week.