Dearest Darling Friends,

 

Prapti Iyer was a great content writer and social media manager.

 

Irrespective of the chaotic workload, she had never complained in over 7 years.

 

Not once.

 

I thought — this person is gold. Unshakeable. Built different. Then she quit.

 

In her exit interview, she said something I haven’t been able to unhear:

 

“I kept thinking things would get better. I kept thinking YOU will understand and solve it.

 

Turns out, the waiting was futile. My work-life imbalance was given a badge of honour.

 

It made me suffer and you called it dedication”

 

That hit like cold water.

 

Over a breakfast meeting with friends, I shared about this experience and posed a question.

 

When a teammate consistently sacrifices work-life balance, takes a lot of load, puts in insane hours, do we see it as a burden on them and correct it or do we pat them of the back for their dedication?

 

The answers were on these lines.

 

– We give their example to others and expect more to follow the work-life imbalancing act.
– We grin and feel delighted at our fortune.
– We understand their imbalance yet conveniently ignore the responsibility to solve it.
– We keep pushing it through.
– We promise to ourselves we will soon figure it out and become busy in other things.
– The grind is glorified.
– ⁠Their silence is mistaken as their strength.

 

The last one hit hard.

 

A builder friend Kiran said, “I have been doing this as a builder. I can see processes clearly broken but thinking, “The team’s managing, so it can wait.”

 

One tough nut at the table, Govind remarked, “Prapti cracked because she was weak”.

 

Another friend, Kavita retorted, “Prapti did not crack because she was weak. A bridge doesn’t crack because it’s weak. It cracks because the load was never meant to be that heavy for that long”.

 

On my drive back home, I realised my mistake. That workload was never supposed to be permanent.

 

It was meant to buy us time to fix the cracks, not convince myself that cracks are normal.

 

I was guilty of watching someone stretch themselves thin and calling it dedication instead of asking what am I not fixing !!!

 

When we keep…

 

– tolerating broken systems,
– ⁠unclear ownership of responsibility,
– ⁠impossible expectations,
– ⁠or a culture of quiet suffering

 

…we are not building strong teams.

 

We are slowly burning the best ones.

 

And the worst part? The rubber band doesn’t warn you before it snaps.

 

The most resilient people breakdown in ways we never see coming.

 

There is a difference between asking people to be resilient through change — and asking them to be resilient instead of change.

 

– One builds momentum.
– The other builds resentment.

 

The question worth reflecting upon is not “Is my team committed enough?”

 

It’s — “What am I making them committed to?”

 

If the answer makes me a little uncomfortable, that’s the cue.

 

I need to fix the thing, not the person !!!

 

If this post made you pause, we have travelled the same path.

 

If there is someone out there who is making others live imbalanced in the name of commitment, share this post with them.

 

We all need a timely nudge, isn’t it?

 

And if you’ve been the one quietly absorbing what should have been fixed, I would love to hear your story of breaking through in the comments.

 

With love, prayers and best wishes,