In a town no one had heard of until the HR department held its first mindfulness seminar, there lived a group of highly professional professionals. Their job? Feeling sad about others' successes, and radiating subtle disappointment when things worked out just fine without them. It was a difficult job, but someone had to silently resent.
At the head of this melancholic movement stood Elias, who—despite being an expert in absolutely nothing—was frequently referred to as "the man who knows how to nod seriously at meetings." His specialty was casting emotional fog into otherwise clear discussions. No one really remembered when he started working there, but everyone agreed he must be important. After all, he frowned often.
Elias believed in hierarchy. Not because it worked, but because it provided a way to frown downward. His approach to management was part Kabuki theater, part whispered therapy session, and entirely devoid of measurable outcomes. If something went right, it was because the team had “aligned their emotional projections.” If something failed, well—it was a learning experience about boundaries and trust.
He had a signature move: the Disappointed Blink™—a long, slow eyelid descent followed by a sigh heavy enough to alter the weather forecast. This gesture was used when someone made the mistake of offering a clear solution to a clear problem. After all, clarity was threatening. It lacked the gentle fog of plausible deniability.
His colleagues revered him. Not for what he did, but for how little he allowed others to do. It was a beautiful dance of passive obstruction. When one employee dared to introduce a new ticketing system to speed up IT support, Elias responded with a memo: "Speed is the enemy of emotional calibration."
Soon, a culture formed—one of elegantly veiled disapproval. Success was treated as a form of betrayal. Those who excelled were pulled aside and asked, "Are you sure you're okay? This level of efficiency can be isolating."
It wasn’t that they didn’t want things to improve. They just wanted improvement to come with more meetings, more feelings, and most importantly, more opportunities to feel vaguely upset that someone else was doing it faster.
And so, the age of Professional Sadness began—not as a crisis, but as an aesthetic.
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