{{first name | Reader}},
They put up a slide about the reconciliation process. My reconciliation process. I built it in 2019, after the thing in March that we do not talk about.
The slide had four boxes. Three of them were right.
The fourth said the second check was a legacy step that could be retired for efficiency. The second check is the reason March has not happened again.
I did not say anything.
I want to be honest about why. It was not deference and it was not sulking. I have raised it twice before, in rooms like that one, and both times it went into a follow-up that never happened. The third time is where you learn something about yourself.
Somebody will retire the second check. March will happen again. There will be a working group.
A RESIGNATION LETTER I WON’T BE SENDING
To: Slide 7
Re: Reconciliation Process (Current State)
Please accept this as my formal resignation from Slide 7, effective the moment it enters the shared deck.
I want to say first that whoever built it did good work. The boxes are in the right order, the colors are consistent, and they have been here eight months and were asked to document something nobody offered to explain to them. That is not their failure.
My resignation concerns box four.
Box four describes the second reconciliation check as a legacy step retained for historical reasons. It is not historical. It is the reason a thing that happened in March 2019 has not happened since. That reason is written down nowhere, because the person who would have written it down was me, and I was busy fixing it.
I understand box four will be actioned. I understand there will be an efficiency saving. I understand the saving will be reported some months before anybody finds out what it cost.
I remain available to explain the second check to whoever inherits it, in the follow-up meeting, which will not be scheduled.
Regards,
DEEPLY UNSETTLING MATH
Eleven years in this job. Say two meetings a week where I know something the room does not. Forty-seven working weeks a year.
That is 1,034 meetings.
Say I speak up in one out of five, which is generous.
827 times I did not.
ONE GENUINELY USEFUL THING: The one-line record.
When you know something in a deck is wrong, and saying so in the room will cost you more than it buys, there is a middle option between arguing and swallowing it.
Send one message afterward. To the person who owns the deck, not to the room.
"Quick note on box four. The second check isn't legacy, it prevents the 2019 issue. Happy to explain if useful. Either way, wanted it written down somewhere."
That is the whole thing. You do not follow up. You do not raise it again.
Three things it does. You are on record, which matters a great deal on the day it breaks and somebody asks who knew. You have spent no political capital, because a note is not an argument. And you have handed the other person a way to fix it quietly, which is the only way anyone ever actually changes anything.
If they ignore it, that becomes their decision rather than your silence.
The point is not to win. It is to stop carrying it.
PARKING LOT
Fifth one.
Write the letter you won't send, or tell me what happened when you left. I'll publish either one anonymously, and nobody will ever know it was you.
Go do something that isn't work.
R. Countdown
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
Box four has been actioned.
Enough, Already Club. Form EA-1. Distribution: internal.
Retention: until you leave.