Responsibility Drift

Somebody hands in their notice and the reaction in the room is mild. There is a card, a leaving lunch, a short conversation about backfilling the role. Everyone

Most people find this out from somewhere else, and usually on a day they were not working. You are on leave, or in a hospital waiting room, or

There is a sentence people say to dependable colleagues that is meant kindly and lands like an invoice: I knew I could count on you. It is true,

Somebody raises a problem that belongs to nobody. A recurring report needs running while a colleague is away, or a client is unhappy and no one can say

A few weeks into reversing over-ownership, there’s a moment almost nobody warns you about. It isn’t the moment your plate gets lighter. It’s the moment you stop being

You’ve set boundaries before. That’s not the problem. The problem is that they don’t hold — they get crossed, you restate them, they get crossed again, and somewhere

There’s a specific reason you’re still doing work that isn’t yours, and it isn’t that you can’t say no. You’ve said no to plenty of things. It’s that

Most of what gets sold as “taking back control” is a scene. A hard conversation rehearsed in the shower, a door closed, a stand finally taken. The trouble

You delegated it. The task left your plate and landed on someone else’s, exactly as the advice said it should. They’re competent. They’re handling it. And yet the

There is a particular kind of frustration that only competent people feel. You do your work well. You hit your deadlines. You’re the one who can be handed