#power structure

How it was in the past?

Your previous jobs weren’t what they claimed they were. But also they weren't bad. From the outside, they worked. The problem wasn’t a simple scale of good or bad, but a mismatch between the person and the environment.

From your perspective, however, it felt like a slow, exhausting descent. You moved from one office to another, rarely staying long. Each time, you were given a desk, a small corner to occupy, and a workload you hadn’t been prepared for. To some, that might sound naive — almost childish. An adult asking how to do their job is often seen as incompetent, incapable of handling basic expectations. But is that really the case?

A new employee should be trained. There should be a period of adjustment, a clear introduction to responsibilities and standards. Instead, you were thrown into the deep end with a dismissive wave and the same phrase repeated each time: “You’ll figure it out.” And then you were left to do exactly that.

There are people who thrive in that kind of environment. They move easily through ambiguity, unbothered by the lack of rules. For them, freedom is an opportunity; creativity fills in the gaps. But that was never the case for you.

It didn’t feel like work. It felt like trying not to drown under the weight of expectations you couldn’t fully see. You handled task after task, doing your best with what you had. But even competence falters when there is no clear point of reference. You weren’t trained, your responsibilities weren’t defined, and your role shifted depending on whoever needed something in the moment. It was less a position and more a placeholder — someone to be assigned whatever came next.

You hit that wall almost immediately. Whenever you asked for structure or clarity, the answers were always the same, reduced to vague encouragements to be creative and self-reliant. For someone like you, those words didn’t offer freedom — they created paralysis. Without a framework, every decision became a risk.

When you completed a task based on your own judgment, you were met with quiet disapproval, a dismissive remark that it should have been done differently. Not a reprimand, not explicitly — but enough to stay with you. And when you tried to ask how it should be done, how to align your work with expectations that had never been stated, the response shifted to irritation. As if needing clarity meant you were incapable. As if asking questions proved you couldn’t think for yourself.

Is this incompetence or a lack of respect for the employee?

How it's now?

Working for Silco it’s a structural element that stems from his authority and need for control.

When you came across this job posting, it didn’t cause you much anxiety, but it didn’t excite you either. Just another opening you could slip into, hoping to last longer than at your previous job. You did your research before the interview, so your knowledge of the company was solid. Your references and skills were strong. On paper, you looked like the ideal employee, exactly the kind of person they were looking for. Even with bad experiences from an unsuitable work environment behind you, you couldn’t bring yourself to tell the truth about why you left your previous company. Admitting a need for structure felt, in your own eyes, like a flaw.

And yet, you were hired as Silco’s secretary. Your own code of conduct and principles wouldn’t allow you to give anything less than one hundred percent.

From the very beginning, you noticed differences in how employees were treated. You received proper training on the systems the company uses. A senior HR employee, with unease in her eyes, tried to convince you that Silco, as your boss, was very demanding. What she described as demanding — his system of rules — sounded almost appealing to you. Your responsibilities were clearly defined. You managed his calendar, kept track of meetings and calls. You compiled reports and summaries, working with data provided by other departments, checked them for errors, and reviewed agreements and contracts before passing them on to him. You prepared drafts, brought him coffee, and made sure he didn’t get too absorbed in his work and lose track of everything else.

You weren’t a jack-of-all-trades anymore — you had your own tasks. And none of them required you to be creative. Because Silco wouldn’t tolerate it — stepping out of line like a unique snowflake trying to prove it’s different, better, simply because it can.

And while to others this might sound like having your wings clipped, like a lack of room to grow, for you it became a comfortable place to work—without a fake sense of family or forced smiles. Everyone knew their place, their tasks. The way Silco was described — demanding, strict, firm, unyielding — painted him as a good boss in your eyes. And over time, you found yourself defending that image.

As a boss, Silco was exactly what you were looking for in an employer. Contrary to what one might expect, he treated working hours with respect. The break time outlined in your contract was never violated. He didn’t expect you to stay late or come in early. To him, having to work beyond those hours meant you were mismanaging the time he was paying you for. Silco created an environment where employees were cogs in his machine, and you found your place in it alarmingly quickly.

He earned your complete devotion the moment he made it clear that even though employees are cogs, they still belong to him. For him, it was a matter of control — for you, of dignity.

One of the more bitter things you took from your previous jobs was discrimination and sexism so deeply ingrained that most people ignored it or dismissed it as a joke. Being pushed into a subservient role because of your gender, age, or lower position was the norm. You decided it was easier to grit your teeth and endure it than to fight a system that wasn’t going to change for you.

Meanwhile, Silco dismantled that entirely, tearing it down like a house of cards, restoring a sense of dignity that had been worn down over years. Without playing the hero or pretending to be someone he wasn’t, without putting on a facade to counter expectations — he didn’t do it for you.

Work is demanding for him, yet satisfying because of the structure he built to protect his control from being challenged.

Why do you need that structure?

It comes from the fact that you never felt you were meant to take on a decision-making role. Being the one responsible, the first in line, someone others were expected to follow — it always felt less like an opportunity and more like a quiet kind of dread.

You tried to adapt to it, because your previous jobs kept placing you in that position. But it always led to the same result: a slow spiral of uncertainty, questioning whether you had made the right call, whether you had handled things the way they were expected to be handled.

Working for Silco changed that. You were still making decisions, but on a smaller scale — either with his approval, or within a framework you knew aligned with his system. You preferred it that way. You preferred when he set the direction, when decisions came from him and you passed them on only when you were certain they were consistent with what he would allow. Acting outside of that control was never an option. Not for you.

Because it wasn’t about dependence. It was about comfort.

Structure, clearly defined responsibilities — those weren’t a way to avoid responsibility. They were a way to quiet your mind. To remove the constant need to second-guess yourself; to eliminate the uncertainty that had followed you from one job to another.

Admitting that, however, was not easy. Because you knew how it could be seen — as a weakness or an unwillingness to take responsibility. And that was never the full truth.

Conclusion

Taken together, these three elements form a clear pattern. Your previous jobs didn’t fail because they were inherently bad, but because they lacked the structure you needed to function with confidence. They demanded adaptability without providing direction, responsibility without defining its scope, leaving you in a constant state of uncertainty.

Working for Silco removes that instability. His authority creates a system where expectations are clear, boundaries are fixed, and decisions follow a consistent logic. Within that structure, your role is no longer fluid or negotiable — it is defined, and because of that, reliable.