The projector hums at a frequency that mimics the onset of a migraine, a persistent 199 hertz vibration that vibrates in the back of my molars. Marcus, the VP of something inevitably vague, is currently pointing a laser at the 29th slide of a deck that has no discernable end. My forehead is throbbing, partly from the sheer density of the jargon and partly because, at 9:09 this morning, I walked directly into the floor-to-ceiling glass door of the ‘Innovation Suite.’ The glass was too clean, too transparent, and far more rigid than my pride. There is a specific kind of clarity that comes from hitting a physical barrier at full speed; a sudden, jarring realization that what you thought was an open path is actually a reinforced wall. This meeting, the 9th gathering of the ‘Future of Work Task Force,’ is that glass door.

We are gathered here to debate the definition of ‘hybrid.’ Not the logistics, mind you, but the philosophical essence of the word. We have been at this for 19 weeks. The room contains 19 people, each of whom earns a salary that would make a neon sign technician like João T. weep with confusion. If you aggregate the hourly cost of this collective paralysis, we have spent approximately $9999 to decide absolutely nothing. This is not a failure of intelligence; it is a masterpiece of design. The committee was never intended to make a decision. It was formed to ensure that no single human being could ever be blamed for one.

The Wicker Furniture Precedent

I look across the table at Sarah from HR. She has a notebook filled with 49 pages of minutes from previous meetings. She is the keeper of the ‘Risk Mitigation Log.’ Every time someone suggests a concrete action-say, allowing employees to work from their porches on Fridays-Sarah raises a hand to remind us that we haven’t yet considered the ergonomic implications of wicker furniture. The suggestion is then tabled, sent to a sub-committee, and buried under 9 more layers of due diligence. This is organizational auto-immune disease. The body is attacking its own ability to move because movement implies the risk of a stumble.

João T. doesn’t have this problem. I met him 9 years ago when he was repairing a buzzing ‘Open’ sign for a diner downtown. João works with gas, glass, and 1999 volts of electricity. He doesn’t form a task force to decide if the neon tube should be bent at a 49-degree angle. He looks at the blueprint, feels the heat of the glass, and he makes the bend. If he messes up, the glass shatters. He cleans it up and starts again. There is an honesty in that failure that the corporate world has spent billions of dollars trying to erase. We have replaced the ‘shatter’ with the ‘stall.’ We would rather spend 9 months drifting in a sea of consensus than 9 minutes standing by a solitary choice that might be wrong.

The Cowardice of Collaboration

This addiction to the ‘Task Force’ model is a form of cowardice disguised as collaboration. When we say ‘we need to get everyone’s buy-in,’ what we often mean is ‘I don’t want to be the only one standing when the music stops.’ It is a diffusion of responsibility that spreads the potential for failure so thin that it becomes invisible. If 19 people agree to a mediocre plan that eventually fails, no one is fired. They simply form a new committee to investigate why the first committee’s recommendations didn’t yield the expected 9% growth.

I remember a time, perhaps 19 months ago, when a crisis actually demanded a leader. The server rack in the basement had literally begun to melt. The heat was 99 degrees and rising. There was no time for a charter. There was no time to debate the ‘Future of Cooling.’ One person grabbed a fire extinguisher, and another called the technician. Decisions were made in the span of 9 seconds because the alternative was a total loss. But in the air-conditioned safety of the Innovation Suite, we have forgotten what fire smells like. We have the luxury of slow-motion suicide by a thousand meetings.

The World Moves On

By the time this task force reaches a conclusion-which will likely be a 199-page document suggesting we ‘continue to monitor the situation’-the world will have moved on. The top talent we were trying to retain with our ‘hybrid strategy’ will have already left for companies that treat them like adults. The market opportunity we were targeting will have been seized by some agile startup run by three people in a garage who don’t even know what a ‘charter’ is. We are polishing the brass on a ship that is currently anchored in a dead calm, debating which direction we should point the bow if the wind ever decides to blow.

It is a strange irony that the more data we have, the less we seem to know what to do with it. We have 99 metrics for employee engagement, yet we can’t decide if people should be allowed to wear hoodies on Tuesdays. We have 19 different software platforms for ‘collaboration,’ yet we can’t have a direct conversation about why the project is failing. The glass door I walked into earlier was invisible because it was too clean. The bureaucracy we’ve built is invisible because it is too complex. We mistake the ‘process’ for the ‘product.’

The Straight Line Solution

In my bruised state, I find myself thinking about how a smaller, more focused entity would handle this. A family-run operation, for instance, doesn’t have the luxury of 19 weeks of indecision. They have bills to pay by the 29th of the month. They have customers who expect results, not ‘strategic frameworks.’ This is the ethos found at

Done your way services, where the distance between a problem and a solution is a straight line, not a series of concentric circles. They understand that a decision made today is 99 times more valuable than a perfect consensus reached 9 months from now.

João T. once told me that the secret to a good neon sign is the vacuum. You have to suck all the air out of the tube before you fill it with the gas that glows. If there is any air left-any impurities, any lingering ‘atmosphere’-the light will be flickery and weak. Most corporate decisions are full of ‘air.’ They are inflated with the egos, fears, and politicking of 19 different stakeholders. By the time the decision reaches the implementation stage, it is too weak to actually cast any light.

Finding the Handle

I’ve decided to stop participating in the ‘Future of Work’ debate. When Marcus asked for my input on the ‘Cultural Alignment Matrix,’ I told him I needed to go see a doctor about my concussion. It wasn’t entirely a lie. My head still feels like it’s being squeezed by a 9-pound vice. But the real reason is that I can no longer pretend that this room is anything other than a waiting room for the inevitable. We are waiting for someone else to go first. We are waiting for a memo from the CEO that will render our 9 months of work obsolete. We are waiting for the courage to say, ‘This is what we are doing, and if it fails, it’s on me.’

As I left the room, I made sure to put my hand out before reaching the glass door. I touched the surface, felt its cold, unyielding reality, and pushed. It opened easily. That’s the thing about barriers-once you acknowledge they exist, you can usually find the handle. The committee is not a natural phenomenon. It is a choice. We choose the task force because we are afraid of the vacuum. We are afraid of the silence that follows a decision, the moment where the talking stops and the work begins.

I walked past the breakroom where a digital clock showed it was 11:29 AM. Two hours of my life have been traded for 19 slides of nothingness. I think about João T. in his shop, probably 49 miles away from here, bending a new piece of glass. He’s not waiting for a vote. He’s not drafting a charter. He’s just making something glow. I want to find that 1999-volt energy again. I want to work in a place where a ‘Future of Work Task Force’ is an absurdity, not a weekly calendar invite.

Maybe the first step is to stop calling everything a ‘task force.’ A ‘task’ is something you do. A ‘force’ is something that causes change. What we have is a ‘Stalling Squad.’ A ‘Hesitation Horde.’ A ‘Delay Department.’ If we called things by their real names, we might be too embarrassed to continue. We might actually be forced to make a call, to pick a side, to bend the glass.

The Reckoning

As I sit at my desk, my forehead finally starting to stop its 9-count throb, I look at the 99 unread emails in my inbox. Half of them are invites to other committees. There is the ‘Sustainability Oversight Group,’ the ‘Digital Transformation Steering Committee,’ and my personal favorite, the ‘Committee for the Reduction of Administrative Burden.’ The irony is so thick you could use it as insulation.

I’m deleting them. All of them. If the building catches fire, they’ll find me. If the servers melt, I’ll hear the alarm. But for everything else, I’m going to act like João T. I’m going to look at the work, find the failure point, and apply the heat. I might shatter a few things. I might walk into another glass door or two. But at least I’ll be moving. At least I won’t be sitting in a room with 19 people, debating the definition of ‘hybrid’ while the world burns at a very efficient 999 degrees.