Notes from the Organizational Underground

There’s a moment in many organizations when people stop speaking plainly—not all at once, and not by choice. It happens gradually, as priorities shift, pressures mount, and certain questions begin to feel unwelcome. What follows isn’t open rebellion, but something quieter: coded language, private jokes, small acts of resistance that never quite surface. This is a story from early in my career about living inside that moment.

Like many things that turn out badly, the job seemed spectacularly promising at first.

The role was a great fit for my experience and my interests. I’d be working with international teams. The pay was great. And the company was in the travel industry! I was thrilled to accept the offer.

During my first month on the job, they sent me to Australia to meet one of the teams I’d be working with. This couldn’t be better, I told myself.

That, as it turned out, was a prescient thought.

A few weeks later, as I was getting ready to head home, my British boss stopped by my desk and asked if I wanted to grab a beer next door.

We chatted about my trip to Australia, our family travels, and the day’s events. About halfway through the pint, he said, “I need to tell you something confidentially.” He peered over his round wire-framed glasses, looking rather like an older and more harried incarnation of Harry Potter.

I took a sip of my beer. “Oh?” I said, trying to appear nonchalant. 

“The London team will be made redundant next month.”

“Made redundant?”

“They’re being let go.  And your team will need to absorb their work.”

“Oh. Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Can I ask why all of this is happening?”

He stared into the bottom of his glass, swirling the foam around the sides. 

“Well,” he began, “in the U.K. and other civilized countries…” He glanced over at me, quickly adding, “No offense, of course!” 

“None taken.”

“—You can’t just fire someone with no notice and no pay. You have to give a proper notice—several months typically—and you have to pay them during the notice period.” 

“Sounds like a great system,” I said wistfully.

”Well, Our Great Leader, in his infinite American wisdom, disagrees. He doesn’t like that he can’t just get rid of people if they aren’t performing. So he wants to make the London team redundant and absorb the work here.”

“I see.”

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this. I know you just started and didn’t want you to be taken off guard.”

“Well, thank you for telling me. It is a bit of a shock.”

“Just remember—no one else knows about this. I need you to keep it to yourself.”

“Understood.”

A few weeks later, the London team was officially sacked. My U.S.-based team took the news as well as they could and did their best to shoulder the extra load. We’d just started to hit our stride again when my boss asked me if I’d like to grab another beer.

As we sat down at the bar, I half-jokingly asked, “So who’s getting fired this time?”

The look on his face wiped the smile from mine.

“Australia.”

“What? Why?”

“Same issue as before. Our Great Leader thinks tech talent is too expensive in London and Sydney. And after the leadership retreat he had last week with Bran and Tad in Napa, he’s utterly convinced he has to dispose of the whole lot.”

Ah, of course. Bran and Tad. Before they became acolytes of Our Great Leader, Bran and Tad had established themselves as self-styled entrepreneurial influencers, jetsetting between San Francisco and Nashville. “I’m just here helping out,” Bran had told me when we first met. His real job was “founding companies, plural,” but he’d volunteered to join the cause because he was “super stoked” about Our Great Leader’s vision to revitalize this iconic brand. 

Tad was slightly older, often taciturn and aloof. He had an elite design pedigree with unicorn bona fides, where he honed the spare perfection of his art. “I want it pixel-perfect,” he would frequently say to the team. “Strip away the chrome.” His LinkedIn profile featured Tad in a tuxedo, eyes cast downward and to the side coquettishly, a cream-colored cashmere scarf dangling from his shoulders. Was this a candid shot of Tad, descending a marble staircase on his way to a charity ball or other high society event? Or, stranger still, was this a portrait he had posed for? I never did find out.

My boss took a long drink of his beer.

“I’m not saying I agree with it,” he continued. “But we’re losing money. A lot of money.  And the owner expects Our Great Leader to deliver on the ROI he wants. The fastest way to make our books look better is to drop people.” 

“But they’re doing great work. And they’re an amazing team.”

“I wish that mattered.” 

A month went by, and the news about the Australian team still hadn’t been shared publicly. The cognitive dissonance of planning work for people I knew who wouldn’t have a job much longer took a toll. Meanwhile, the stress of absorbing the London team’s work and Our Great Leader’s increasingly impatient demands had begun to affect my team’s morale.

Then came the website redesign project.

We scoped out the work. “There’s a lot to do here, but it looks like we could get the highest priority items done by August,” I told Bran after meeting with the team. 

“Nope. All of it needs to be done. By June.”

I was dumbfounded.

“Tell the team to be scrappy. Just cut the estimates in half—they’re all padded anyway.” He smiled and walked away.

The team took the news like a punch to the gut. The fallout from the London departures was piling up, and the team’s goodwill was running out. 

Bran must have sensed something was amiss. He called us all into the kitchen the next day. 

“Check it out!” he beamed. “I got you guys a Vitamix!”

“Oh, cool.” Heads nodded, and a few polite “thank yous” were murmured.

“So now, when you get hungry while you’re crushing all that code on those late nights and early mornings, you can stay hydrated. Plus, I got some cereal. Everybody knows coders love cereal.” 

Strangely, the cereal and smoothies had little impact on the team’s code-crushing ability. It felt more like the code was crushing us.

I started to look for the exits.

As the weeks passed, I found myself growing increasingly cynical—and bold. It became clear that openly questioning the wisdom of  Our Great Leader’s plans would be met with extreme displeasure. Bran, who clearly relished his post as Our Great Leader’s enforcer, meted out verbal floggings with increasing regularity and zest.

Hoping to escape the worst blows while still venting steam, I devised a way to communicate in secret with my team. I printed nautical signal flags and decoder charts for each team member. We hung the flags on our chairs to signal our moods.

Among the most popular choices:

• Red and yellow diagonal stripes: I am dragging my anchor.

• A blue rectangle with yellow bands at the top and bottom: Steer clear of me; I am maneuvering with difficulty.

• Red and white checks: You are running into danger.

It was fun while it lasted, which was about three days. Bran could smell the subversion the second he walked into the lobby after his latest Silicon Valley sojourn. The signal flags went in the trash, and our spirits went with them.

Heads down and eyes lowered, we kept working. I sped up my job search. A fellow comrade-in-arms covertly presented me with a beret. “Vive la résistance!” he whispered.

As it turned out, Bran had been especially busy on his latest trip. He brought back several trophies to the glory of Our Great Leader: two Swedish rockstar developers and a very expensive consultant freshly imported from the shores of the Bay Area.

The Swedish rockstars were given desks conspicuously far from our team room, presumably so they wouldn’t be contaminated by our mediocrity. 

“What are they working on?” I asked.

“Oh, they’re just here helping out,” Bran said nonchalantly. A little digging later revealed they’d been tasked with developing the same features we were working on.

Bran paraded Adrian, the consultant, around the office under the auspices of making introductions. “Bro, I still can’t believe we were able to steal you away from Apple,” Bran gushed while Adrian adjusted his man bun and attempted to downplay his obvious greatness.

Adrian looked us over, making a quick appraisal of the team room. “Love what you guys are doing here—great stuff.” He flashed a movie-star grin and pressed his hands together. “Namaste,” he said before walking backwards out of the door. 

The next day, Adrian installed himself in the largest conference room and began his work. With Bran seated at his left and Tad at his right, the silhouette through the frosted glass suggested a secretive tribunal or perhaps a covert interrogation room. The implements of torture, one surmised, must have been strategically placed just out of view.

Then we were summoned, one at a time, to submit ourselves to the Silicon Inquisition.

My turn arrived just after I’d received a solid job offer from another company. I thought about donning my new beret for the occasion, but thought better of it at the last minute.

“Thanks so much for coming,” Adrian said as I sat down across from them. “We’re just trying to get to know everybody and have some questions for everyone.”

“Okay.”

He pushed up the sleeves of his cashmere hoodie. “Let’s start with your team. What do you think about the engineering manager?”

Really? “He’s a great guy.”

“Oh? Then how come the team can’t deliver on time? Do you really think he’s an effective leader if the team isn’t delivering?”

Wow. I’d expected him to spend some time admiring his knives and extolling the sharpness of the blades before demonstrating their utility.

“I think he and the rest of the team are doing an excellent job under the circumstances.”

“I see,” Adrian continued. “Who are the weakest developers on the team?” 

I took a deep breath. “Look, I’m not doing this.” 

“We’re just having a conversation.”

“No, we’re not just having a conversation. What do you plan to do with whatever I tell you? I’m not interested in selling out my team or helping anyone get fired.”

Tad chimed in, “These questions aren’t optional.” 

I slipped the proverbial ace from my sleeve. “Fine, but working here is. I quit.” 

“What?” Tad looked genuinely stunned. 

“I quit. Please consider this my two weeks’ notice.”

“You can’t be serious,” Bran argued.

“I’m very serious. And I think we’re done here.”

I walked out of the room and quickly closed the door behind me. 

I found a small conference room to catch my breath and regain my composure. A minute later, Bran burst through the door. 

“What the hell was that?” he yelled.

“I was wondering that myself.”

“Who do you think you are? You think you can just up and quit when things get tough around here?”

“Bran, that’s exactly what I am doing. And things did not just get tough around here—they have been bad almost since I started, and keep getting worse. It’s clear to me that you don’t value my work, so I honestly don’t understand why you would have any objection to me quitting.”

“We need you to make sure the team finishes the sprint.” 

“That’s interesting. Last week, you told me that sprints were dogshit and we needed to be scrappier and just get things done. Why is it important now that I stay until the end?”

“Maybe I said that, and maybe I didn’t! That part isn’t important—what’s important is keeping up the velocity, and we need you to do that.”

“Okay. Well, that’s unfortunate because my decision is still the same.” 

“I can’t believe you—“ 

“Bran, I don’t want to argue with you. In fact, one of the main reasons I’m quitting is that I don’t want to keep arguing with you. So I’m going to stop right now. Have a good evening.” I pushed my way through the doorway, gathered my things, and headed home.

The next two weeks crawled by. My compatriots whispered in low tones about their escape plans. On my last day, we held a final team retrospective. Bran arrived at the door with two six-packs of beer in hand. “Hey, I just thought I’d drop in for this one.”

“Well, thanks, Bran, but this meeting is private for the team. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave. Thanks for the beer, though.”

Bran set the beer on the table and sheepishly slunk out the door. That was probably the biggest victory I could claim in my brief tenure there.

We had our usual meeting and ended with a round of appreciations as we often did. One developer looked at me and said, “Thank you for always fighting for us, even until the end.”  

I’ve often wondered if it mattered.