A burning platform describes a situation where maintaining the status quo has become so untenable that staying put is more dangerous than making a risky change.
The metaphor stems from a real-life event where a fiery explosion on an offshore oil-rig forced workers to leap into open ocean to avoid certain death.
INCITING EVENTS
Receiving the nod for promotion at the end of my second year in consulting should have been cause for celebration, but the average performance rating accompanying it was a tacit signal that I could not ignore. At best, the firm was ambivalent about my continued employment; at worst, the slow wheels of bureaucracy were already turning to counsel me out. The possibility of looming betrayal unnerved me. Deciphering the underhanded machinations of the corporate world was still relatively new to me, but my intuition outpaced my experience: manipulation trips all sorts of alarms in my nervous system, and the lot of them were blaring.
Despite mounting resentment toward the white collar gaslighting taking place, what ultimately emboldened me to action was accumulating sufficient “fuck you” money, i.e. a robust emergency fund. I wasn’t some kind of financial wizard, but managing my money felt like a matter of life and death, so I got smart on the basics fast. In two years, I paid off my student loans and built up enough liquid savings to cover housing and basic needs for six months, perhaps more, without having to work. It required a perfect storm of high income, low cost of living, and a savings rate driven by pure terror for me to improve my financial position in so short a time, but I could see no better way to take control of my life. The ability to maneuver without fear of immediately ending up on the street is a position of massive strength that cannot be overstated, but I had my eyes on an even bigger prize.
I chose to reimagine my job not as a career or a calling but as a machine that spit out little freedom tickets on a bi-weekly basis. Hoarding the tickets became my purpose. When I had enough, I would redeem the lot for the Big Prize: a quiet room to rest for as long as I wanted. I had no desire for fancy cars, gadgets, or vacations (not that I could take the time off anyway). Consumer goods and paid experiences paled in comparison to the prospect of rest, recovery, and what might come after. The fact that my goal actually seemed attainable was intoxicating. I had already saved enough to claim six months of freedom, so why couldn’t I save enough to claim more? Why not a year? Why not two? Why not ten? The concept set my mind on fire.
As much as the dream of buying periods of my own freedom excited me, I circled back to the same dilemma over and over: what happens when the money run out? I didn’t want to kill the golden goose of salaried employment even though it was a mean bastard that liked to bite. I still needed more much more capital to claim the freedom I desired and see that bird plucked and plated. It was my own bizarre version of Stockholm syndrome: hesitant to forsake the jailor that fed me lest I starve. I was stuck in analysis paralysis, but at least I had the problem solved part way: for the moment, an employer was necessary to pursue the possibility of freedom, but it didn’t have to be this particular one, and, with the right plan and conviction, it didn’t have to be for the next forty years either.
With six months of cash reserves backing my play, I assumed an upright posture in the workplace that would have been unthinkable otherwise. I could afford to have a spine. Prevailing conditions made it clear that continued commitment to the firm did not make sense. Loyalty is not an appropriate response to exploitation. I could no longer expend the tremendous energy required to maintain my half of the mutual illusion, play-acting my integrity away one piece of office theater at a time. Fuck the optics. Of course, I suspected anything less than full adherence to the corporate persona would be the death knell of my career, but why chase their carrot off a cliff? Instead, I resolved to go out on my own terms, tactically, as to maximize earnings and line up an exit opportunity. I was a dead man walking, but accepting the truth is prerequisite to finding a path forward.
RESPONDING IN KIND
In end-of-life care, there is a phenomenon known as terminal lucidity or “the surge” during which a dying person experiences an unexpected episode of lucidity and energy before passing on. The imminent demise of my consulting career provided a similar breath of divine animation. I needed courage, and a piece of me, smothered and smoldering beneath the tumulus of corporate kowtowing, awoke to provide it: the same invisible partner that lifted my hand to the front door knob of her house as a child again and again and again to face the whirlwind waiting just beyond. The part of me that is fire itself. An employer was nothing in comparison to what I had endured, but it did compare, and I could no longer tolerate the similarity.
My first act of rebellion was simple but incendiary: I moved cities. Everything flowed from that decision. I badly needed a change that could shift my current paradigm of perpetual weariness, and a move seemed like just the thing. Establishing a new social circle outside of work colleagues had proven difficult with my travel schedule, but I already had an abundance of friends and professional connections clustered just a few hours away. Roughly 80% of my network resided in the neighboring Rust Belt city that fed students to my alma mater. It made so much more sense to be there. Given the choice, I would have moved in an instant.
“You have the choice” the fire crackled.
This will sound strange for those outside of traveling professions, but, after a certain point in your career, you don’t technically need to live in any particular place to do your job. In my case, I only needed the ability to get to clients, i.e. access to a legitimate airport. Sure, we were all supposed to be present in our home office every Friday, but this directive was widely ignored. Making it in once or twice per month and attending quarterly All Hands Meetings was sufficient to remain in the good graces of leadership who themselves were rarely seen in person.
Living in the same city as your home office simply maintained the proper illusion. It was not uncommon to be based in office “x” and live in city “y,” but it was frowned upon to do so without a reason more defensible than pursuing your own happiness. I felt differently. Pursuing your own happiness is amongst the most defensible reason to make a decision, but the entire dialogue was irrelevant. I would not be summoned to trial, only presented a verdict. Avoiding disapproval at all costs was no longer a concern; against the desire for a path back to life, what difference is a frown? It was time to act in my own best interest even at the expense of career.
To get what I wanted and still maintain my current employment, I got creative with my commute. Normally, consultants consider three main things when selecting a project: team, role, and location, in that order. I considered only one, and, eventually, found what I needed: a project located close enough for me to drive to the client rather than fly and that routed me directly through the city I wanted to live in. It was a logistics miracle, but every other aspect was a huge risk. I didn’t know the team or the manager and the role looked dubious, but I didn’t care. I needed an immediate injection of life at any price.
APPROACHING THE PRECIPICE
After taking the project, events unfolded rapidly. My chosen city pulled me in, and I let it. When an opportunity to move-in with two good friends presented itself, I didn’t hesitate. Relocating to an environment replete with friends, fun, and romantic prospects was like bringing a desert to rain; what I needed would not come to me, so I went to it. With the first drops my social life blossomed. I felt nourished again, at least in part. It is overwhelming to feel happiness burst forth from within after a period of drought: to be at once old enough to have truly forgotten it and young enough to believe this time it might not leave again.
My weekends in the city unfolded in full color, but everything reverted to black and white come Monday. As reinvigorating as the decision to move had proven to be, it did not solve my work problem. My prognosis at the firm remained terminal, and the project I had hitched my wagon to was growing intolerable. There are very, very good reasons why consultants look for the right team and the right role when selecting a project, and I had sacrificed both for an oasis.
The project I volunteered for was a tragicomic clusterfuck of incompetence. I found myself working alongside some of the dumbest, cowardly, uninspiring people I had met in my life, particularly at the middle-management level. Somehow, I had never reported directly to an idiot in my career. Even on horrible projects and even if they could care less about me or my career, the managers I had previously encountered were highly capable and extremely intelligent. I respected them even if I didn’t like them. Now, I was surrounded by can-kicking, ineffectual, finger-pointers, the worst of which was my new boss. Finally, I had found the perfect storm of incompetence, illogic, and artificial urgency capable of forcing me to the edge.
Displaying capability amongst the incapable was my first mistake. Workflow management took a rather Marxist approach: from each according to their ability. Perhaps the fact that the client was a government entity should have been sufficient warning of what was to come, but it is hard to fathom the pervasive sort of idiocy that festers and breeds in such places without witnessing it first hard. Amongst the rabble of ineffectuals, my responsibilities rapidly expanded as did my workload.
After three months, my manager had no alternative but to hand over a sparkling performance evaluation, though it hardly mattered. Another empty “attaboy” meant nothing. My mind no longer whispered its dissent; it shouted. Meetings put my spirit on the rack. I could no longer endure the mental torture of listening to the same circular arguments hashed out over and over and over with everyone adding their two cents just to prove they could produce a fact whether it advanced the discussion or not. This pointless, self-satisfied chatter became repulsive. How could no one else see the absurdity of the situation? How could this possibly be an appropriate way to spend even a minute of your life let alone years upon years of it?
I began to fear for my spirit and my sanity. A ceaseless, fiery refrain harried my thoughts: “This is no way to spend your life! This is insane. Does no one else see that this is insane? Wake up! Damn it! You are dying! Wake up!” It was a matter of accepting the reality of my situation, but I refused. I still lacked the courage to break the spell and shatter the grand illusion. My conscious mind, rigid and risk-averse, would not let me stop. Though I had no room left to retreat, I still would not jump. I clung to the identity I had built with impossible strength, fingers clamped to the edge of a platform, burning, unable and unwilling to let go.
It took two good stomps to break my grip. The first came five months into the project. There was a change in leadership within the state government, and the entire scope of our project was scrapped and set to be reversed. This didn’t matter to firm leadership; in fact, the partners were pleased. The firm would be hired to tear down what it had us build then we would build it all back again in a different color (the expense and inefficiency is staggering to consider as a tax-payer).
To the gaping maw of the firm, it was all just billable hours; but, to me, a human being with finite time on earth, it was deeply personal. I had operated on constant deadline for half a year and for what? The only method I possessed to measure the value of six months of my youth was an uptick in a brokerage account, and, with that realization, came a feeling of physical illness. Money was and is such a glaringly insufficient substitute for meaning it made me sick to think that it was all I had.
The second stomp followed a few weeks later. The tenor of my mid-year review conversation took me by surprise even though the firm had already shown me the knife: despite glowing performance evaluations and strong utilization, I was marked “off-track” and presented with a performance improvement plan (PIP). This was finally it. The kiss of death. I was done. My cordial tone slipped as my replacement counselor relayed the message in double talk. Expecting a chipper attitude in response to the back-stabbing, she was thrown by my lack of acquiescence. In truth, it was a miracle of workplace diplomacy that I didn’t tell her to go fuck herself then and there, but deliberation is my default setting. Instead of implosion and expletives, I embraced a long, tense silence.
The intensity of my own outrage shocked me. Not only was I required to sign off on a catalogue of false deficiencies, the firm had tasked me with authoring the document itself. This was a humiliation ritual. Anger rose white hot, and I welcomed it. It counteracted the fear flooding a crucible of dark emotions. The fire purged my mind of half measures and notions of supplication. Draft a document declaring myself stupid amongst a sea of fools? Serve in misery at the price of pissing in my own temple? Dismantle my most sacred definitions of self? Summa says no.
The conversation ended in stalemate. If I relented and agreed to follow the terms of the PIP, my career would be allowed to linger on life support for another half-year cycle before the firm pulled the plug for good. If not, I would be fired with all the swiftness human resources could muster. I had been given one week to comply, but I knew I could not swallow their false premise: this was not about the quality of my work; it was about my inability to fully commit to a persona. Defiance was the only palatable option, and I was grateful that having my honor impinged upon by so scurrilous a demand provided an immediate infusion of clarity and resolve like accelerants delivered directly to open flame.
When my project manager met with me the following afternoon to discuss the PIP, he did not encounter the docile underling he passed on his way in and out of the office for the last six months. Opposite him sat a burning man. I watched his shiny, weasels face form smug statements. How I could work to improve my performance. My performance? My fucking performance!? Was this perfidious goblin referring to the performance currently underpinning his career? My blood was up. The urge to rip him up by the collar gripped me. To shout in his face. To see him afraid.
The strength of the bloody impulse frightened me, and I responded to his patronizing ramble in clipped phrases with words emerging sharp and hard. My eyes, however, tipped my hand, and my manager took great interest in the pattern of the carpet after meeting them. After ending the meeting, I returned to my desk and found my hands balled white and trembling. Not good. I realized then that the time to leap had come and gone. I was already falling.
SIGNAL FLARES
Events unfolded rapidly in the wake of the PIP. I would not complete the firm’s sadistic homework assignment, which put me on a one-week clock. I was falling, but it was still a way to the water, and a properly motivated person can make some serious moves in seven days. Thankfully, my justified distrust of the firm provided a massive head start. After the shot across my bow at the end of year two, I began establishing contingencies. I signaled to my professional network that I was open to exploring other opportunities and made an ongoing effort to maintain warm leads.
I believed a soft landing was probable, still, it’s unwise to fire off emails with blood returning to your fingertips. I sent out feelers the following afternoon after touching grass and talking to my chief advisor (read: dad) and waited to see who would respond. Things were moving fast. After receiving the PIP news from my counselor on Monday, nearly throttling my manager on Tuesday, and subsequently reaching out to my network on Wednesday, I managed to line up two legitimate calls with potential employers before leaving the client site. I was exercising options I had cultivated for years on the fly under the influence of a heady cocktail of fear, exhilaration, and necessity. I must caution you, dear reader, the glorious window of time that exists between leaving a bad situation and having to reconcile the shape of a new reality is short-lived, exultant, and addicting. Proceed with caution.
Holding a conversation with anyone that weekend proved impossible; I was miles away in my mind running game-theory scenarios. I drifted off Sunday evening believing I would go in for another week to keep up appearances and make it to the holidays. It made logical sense, I could officially lock down another job before I left, but I encountered a major problem Monday morning. I could not get out of bed. My body was like lead. This had never happened to me before. If I was meant to be somewhere, barring an act of god, that’s where I would be, but, somehow, this was beyond argument. This was an intervention. My mind, my body, and my soul had convened without me and the ruling was clear: I would not, could not, work another day on that project or for that company.
If you fancy yourself a hard-working, go-getter type who never quits, you might not believe what I have described could happen to you. That’s okay. I didn’t believe it either, but, as it turned out, it didn’t matter what I believed. A force much stronger than me demanded my surrender in that moment, and my will to do what was was not in my heart crumbled. That morning I accepted hard truths. The transition ahead would not be dictated. I was not in control. I was in the water.