Circling Back

The correct way to handle a critical challenge

There’s a new guy at work and he’s been here maybe two weeks and we’re in a meeting and my boss is talking about quarterly goals or whatever and she goes “we really need to circle back to customer retention” and this guy raises his hand and goes “I have a question” and my boss is like yes and he goes “why do you always say circle back?” and the whole room goes quiet and my boss is like what and he goes “you say it like every meeting, is there a reason we’re going in circles? Why don’t we just go forward?” and someone coughs and he’s still going “like, I’ve been keeping track, you’ve said it eighteen times in two weeks” and my boss just stares at him and goes “have you never worked in an office before” and he goes “I have but nobody said circle back this much it feels aggressive” and I swear my boss aged five years and she goes “it’s just a phrase” and he goes “okay but like why circles” and she just moved on with the meeting.

He got let go during his probation period today and I heard him ask HR if it was because of the circle thing.

Needless to say, this is a sterling-plated, card-carrying example of a Gamma let loose in an office environment, or as we now know to describe it in corporatese to the SSH-allergic, a Critical Challenger.

The astonishing thing about the Gamma is his total inability to accept his position in the hierarchy or understand that his opinion is completely irrelevant, regardless of whether it is correct or not. One of the primary factors distinguishing the Sigma and the Gamma is that the Sigma knows the hierarchy can choose to ignore his opinion, which is why the Sigma rarely explains himself, defends himself, or attempts to justify himself. He either generally either accepts the situation or exits it.

The Gamma finds it difficult not to resist the situation, because he believes in a nonexistent higher authority that isn’t quite God, isn’t quite the truth, and isn’t quite himself, but could perhaps be understood as the platonic ideal of his objectively supported opinion. The Gamma always feels that he has an intrinsic veto over any authority, no matter how high it might be, if he believes the authority falls short of that platonic ideal in a particular matter.

In this particular episode, there is also a distinctive hint of Gen Z sensitivity, but that merely affected how the Gamma’s critical challenge played out. And, of course, the boss did the right thing by taking advantage of the fact that he was there on probation to eject him as soon as possible. This little corporate interlude highlights the importance of understanding and applying the SSH in your organization.

We also see, once more, the absolute imperative of learning how to shut the fuck up. For most people, most of the time, there is literally nothing they can say in a group context that will not cause them more harm than good.