The Unwritten Job Description
The pivot table for the Q3 budget is hemorrhaging red ink on my left monitor, while my right hand is currently holding a neon-pink Post-it note detailing Brenda’s severe allergy to walnuts. It is 2:16 in the afternoon. I am an operations manager, a title that suggests I oversee logistics, supply chains, and high-level strategic scaling. Yet, here I am, debating whether the ‘get well soon’ card for the accounting lead should be heartfelt or ‘professionally whimsical.’ This is the labor they don’t put in the job description. It is the silent, grinding work of the Office Mom-a role I never auditioned for, yet one I am apparently destined to play until the heat death of the universe or my eventual resignation, whichever comes first.
“You realize the most vital components were never included in the box. You’re expected to make it stand anyway.”
The Emotional Radiator
Last week, I spent 46 minutes-I timed it, because I am nothing if not a masochist for data-listening to a senior developer explain why the new coffee roast makes his stomach ‘feel anxious.’ He didn’t go to HR. He didn’t go to the facilities manager. He came to me, because I’m the one who remembers everyone’s birthday. I’m the one who noticed when he looked a bit pale after the sprint meeting. I have become the emotional radiator of the department, warming everyone else while I slowly burn out from the inside.
The Drain: This is uncompensated, invisible labor rooted in gendered workspace expectations.
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“Every fold has a memory… If you fold a sheet of washi paper 16 times, it will never truly be flat again. It carries the weight of those interventions.”
– Chen F.T. (Origami Instructor)
The same is true for the high-capacity women in modern offices. Every time we are asked to ‘just handle the cake’ or ‘smooth things over with the disgruntled intern,’ we are folded. We carry that structural memory. It makes us less pliable for the actual strategic work we were hired to do. You cannot expect a person to lead a 256-person department if they are also expected to be the person who checks if there are enough napkins in the breakroom.
The Unwinnable Trap
“Nurturer” Role
“Uncollaborative” Label
I’ve tried to fight it. I really have. I’ve tried the ‘I’m too busy’ defense, but in an office environment, a woman being ‘too busy’ for social glue work is often interpreted as her being ‘uncollaborative’ or ‘difficult.’ It’s a trap. I find myself looking at the $1286 we spent on ‘office culture’ last quarter-most of it on bagels and balloons-and wondering how much more productive we would be if that money was spent on actual support structures instead of band-aids applied by people who have better things to do.
We are losing high-level thinkers to the triviality of party planning. We are tearing.
Streamlining the Foundational Elements
This is where the logistics of the physical space come in. If the environment itself worked better-if the furniture didn’t arrive with missing pieces, if the procurement process wasn’t a labyrinth of 36 different forms-maybe I wouldn’t feel so much like a concierge for a building that doesn’t love me back. When you streamline the foundational elements of an office, you take the pressure off the human ‘glue.’
For instance, using a reliable service like
to handle the heavy lifting of workspace setup can actually save a manager from 56 hours of unnecessary coordination. It’s one less thing to ‘mom’ over.
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My performance review mentioned my ‘excellent team spirit’ and my ‘role in fostering a positive office environment’ but glossed over the fact that I increased operational efficiency by 26 percent.
– The Director vs. The Nurturer
The Decision to Unfix
I look at the bookshelf on my floor. I could call the company and wait 6 days for the replacement parts. Or I could go to the hardware store and buy them myself. Usually, I’d choose the latter. I’d ‘solve’ the problem. I’d bridge the gap. But today, I think I’m just going to leave it there, unfinished and messy. I’m going to let the missing pieces stay missing.
Maybe if we stop fixing everything for everyone else, they’ll finally notice that the structure was broken to begin with.
We need to stop treating empathy as a bottomless resource. It has a cap. It has a limit of 456 units of patience per day, and I am currently at 455. The solution is to recognize this work as a legitimate business function. If social hygiene is important to your company, hire someone whose actual job is to manage it. Don’t just assume the person who is ‘good with people’ will handle it for free on top of their 1296 other responsibilities.
Is it too much to ask for a world where we can just be managers, without also having to be mothers to grown adults who should know how to buy their own damn milk?
[The labor of care is still labor.]