“My feedback would be best discussed in person,” the email read.

So we gathered.

The four of us sat in a conference room no bigger than a linen closet, and I sat silently while two men I’d never talked to picked apart my project limb by limb. I’d asked reviewers to send their notes in writing—to mitigate the risk of something falling into the cracks—but being the VIPs they are, they couldn’t be bothered.

They rattled off a laundry list of comments, mostly vague and unactionable, without so much as plugging in a device to show a visual. Like a bad scene out of Mad Men, they expected me—the young lady with a keyboard—to transcribe their requests word for word. Both seemed to sadistically enjoy speeding up and talking over each other as I struggled to capture their asks.

• “I couldn’t my finger on it, but this course just didn’t feel inviting.” (Peaceful blue and green gradients and happy-looking imagery evidently come across to 40-year-old VIPs as alarming.)
• “It felt too much like I had to learn something—like I was back in school.” (It’s an online course. That’s its job.)
• “It’s too long, and we should trim it substantially. But I think we need more on this section, so please add a few slides.” (Mental note: Refill Xanax prescription.)
• “The tone is very corporate. We aren’t corporate.” (We have 3,000 employees across 8 offices. At what point do we stop lying to ourselves?)
• “These stock photos don’t feel like us.” (Yes, you’re right—the photos of men and women spanning across generations and ethnicities do not accurately reflect our lily-white, tech bro work force, but I was going for D&I points. No good? I can take them out…)
• “I don’t think people will take the time to take this. Can’t we just create a one-pager?” (Ah, yes, the delightful game of condensing four months of research, analysis, writing, design, and development work into a single 8.5×11. Every learning professional’s dream.)

They left in a hurry, mumbling something about being eager to see V2, and shuffled off to their next meeting.

When they exited, I got up and closed the door to the conference room, and cried.

I should quickly note that I’m not thin-skinned at work. In fact, my personality profile says I can show up “distant, cold, and aloof—often more concerned with details than people” at the office. (Fuzzy stuff, right?)

So yeah. I don’t cry often. I don’t cry ever at work. But something about having an unknown someone in a short-sleeved button up stare me in the eye while brutally dismembering my work with words was just too damn much.

I’m no stranger to feedback. That’s the name of the game in my world—it’s all Track Changes and hundreds of comment bubbles with remarks that begin with “Suggest to….”

Feedback makes work better, because the first draft is always shit. You’re usually still flicking small pieces of feces off Draft 2. But this wasn’t the first draft. Or the second draft.

But this was the final draft, reviewed over five times by 20+ people. It was supposed to be a nod-and-shake kinda deal; check-the-box routine so we could launch the project next week. A formality.

Not a bloodbath.

You know what’s really corporate?

It’s looping in 8 extra reviewers in the 11th hour who have literally no knowledge about the project initiatives and giving them free rein to go buck wild with feedback.

It’s giving merit to their comments, telling the “doer” to implement them, and asking if we can still stay on-target for our launch date.

It’s not getting executive buy-in from the get-go, rolling out something with zero change management strategy, and calling something a win before ever evaluating the effectiveness of a program.

In the world of corporate learning, a launch is not a win. Behavior change is a win. But in a world run by old dogs adverse to new tricks, real wins seem out of the question.

(Jesus—are you getting a load of this? I’ve really gone full Cog. I wonder how much more of this I’ll actually be able to take.)