Rewritten by the System

Finding purpose in a system designed to fail you

You never thought it could happen to you. You didn’t fit the mold of someone easily cast aside. But now, here you are—the person whispered about in hushed tones, the one whose smallest mistakes are magnified, whose competence is questioned at every turn. It wasn’t immediate; it was gradual, deliberate—a system-engineered unraveling designed to erode your confidence piece by piece.

The one-on-one meetings came without warning. Your manager presented vague critiques, identifying flaws; some seemed plucked from thin air. The conversations felt rehearsed, as though they were reciting lines someone else had written. And every time you tried to explain or defend yourself, your words were twisted to fit a narrative you hadn’t agreed to. It became clear: your manager wasn’t the author of this story. They were just a figurehead, a puppet dangling on the strings of a system that cared more about control than fairness.

Your coworkers saw it but no one intervened. Some looked on with pity, others with quiet judgment. You overheard whispers: “Just let it happen,” they were told. “He doesn’t really want to be here.” Whether they believed it or simply chose to remain indifferent, their silence spoke louder than words. It wasn’t just the system isolating you; it was everyone complicit in letting it happen.

The walls closed in slowly but relentlessly. The whispered critiques, the unexpected confrontations, the unrelenting stares—they weren’t just coincidences. They were tools of the system, designed to make you second-guess yourself, to strip you of your confidence and autonomy. Eventually, under the weight of it all, you broke. You signed the papers and submitted your resignation. On the surface, it looked like your choice, but you knew better.

When they let you go, it wasn’t with regret or acknowledgment. It was cold, calculated—like erasing your presence was just another checkbox for them. The system had won, and the story they wanted to tell—the one where you didn’t belong—was complete.

You throw yourself into the next steps, trying to rebuild. You apply for unemployment and start the long, exhausting process of job hunting. Weeks turn into months. The unemployment agency tells you that you’re eligible for $362 a week—a modest lifeline, but something. You quickly realize it won’t come without a fight. They deny your claim, and you file an appeal, sending your hope into a limbo labeled “pending.”

Months pass. The word pending becomes a part of your life, a shadow that hangs over every attempt to move forward. Then, finally, something arrives in the mail: a notice for a hearing. Relief flickers until you read on. Your former employer has enlisted a lawyer. Not just any lawyer, but someone tasked with ensuring that you don’t see a cent of the unemployment you fought for. The message is clear: they’d rather crush you than admit fault, rather spend money on legal fees than let you move on.

Your stomach sinks. It isn’t just about denying you help—it’s about making sure they won’t be discredited.

Your former CEO made $4.4 million in 2022—it won’t trickle down.

Then your former employer brings you back. It’s strange, almost ironic, but now you’re in a different role, working at one of their addiction medicine clinics. The organization is sprawling, chaotic even—so big that one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing.

The patients you see every day are raw, real, carrying burdens that would crush anyone. They often feel undeserving of care, but of all people, they need it the most. And the staff? The doctors, the nurses—they’re as unpolished and authentic as the streets the clinic serves. There’s no corporate polish, no hidden agendas. Just people helping people.

It’s simple. It’s honest. And best of all, there’s no drama.

As you settle into your new role, conversations with coworkers reveal a disturbing pattern. They tell you stories that echo your own: people hazed, singled out, and pushed to their breaking point. People watched it happen, just as you did, and were told the same thing: “Just let it play out.”

What you went through wasn’t an isolated incident. It’s a system, a culture. The stories aren’t just similar—they’re the same, repeating like a bad script no one bothers to rewrite.

Across the state, nurses on the east side have had enough. They’ve formed a union, a line of defense against a system that so often grinds people down.

You reflect on the difficulties of leading a company the right way. To create an environment that lifts people up rather than tears them down. To be a competent CEO, one who values more than just the bottom line.

But what matters now is the choice you’ve made: to look after everyone around you. To make damn sure no one feels forgotten or left behind, because you know all too well what it feels like to be abandoned, to be seen as disposable.

If nothing else, that’s the strength you’ve carried from what happened—the ability to rise above it, to see through the cracks in the system that let people fall and be the person who steps in to catch them. You’ve learned that being left behind teaches you how to make sure others aren’t.

You’ve also learned something harder: that fulfillment doesn’t always come from the organization itself. You understand now that meaning and purpose can exist even in a place that has hurt you. Because the organization isn’t just policies, CEOs, or systemic flaws—it’s people. People like you, doing their best to keep their heads above water, to make a difference despite the dysfunction around them.

So you choose to focus on those people. The ones who stay late to care for patients. The ones who share their lunch with a struggling coworker. The ones who carry burdens that aren’t theirs because someone has to. They’re the ones who make the work worth it.

And now, you bring something else to the table: humility and humanity. You’ve seen how fragile people can be when they feel unsupported and how strong they become when someone shows them they matter. That’s who you want to be—for yourself, for your coworkers, and for anyone else caught in the same machinery that almost crushed you.

You’ve learned that you can detest an organization and still find joy in what you do because the work isn’t about them. It’s about the people who need you and the people you refuse to leave behind.

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