The fluorescent light in the boardroom is humming at a frequency that makes the back of my teeth ache. I’m sitting here, watching the steam rise from a cup of tea I didn’t actually want, counting the minutes until I can reasonably leave. It’s 5:07 PM. I started this diet at exactly 4:07 PM today, and already, the lack of a mid-afternoon biscuit is making the world look sharper, meaner, and far more transparent than I’m comfortable with. My stomach is a hollow cavern, echoing with the sound of a corporate strategy that was decided three days ago in a bar I wasn’t invited to.

There are 17 of us in this room. We’ve been talking about the ‘New Directives’ for 37 minutes, but the conversation is a ghost. It’s a choreographed dance where everyone knows the steps but pretends they are improvising. The VP of Operations, a man who wears his tie so tight it seems to be holding his soul in, asks for ‘genuine feedback.’ I speak up. I offer a critique about the logistical bottleneck in the eastern corridor. I use data-real, hard numbers like the 87 hours of downtime we suffered last month. I think I’m contributing. I think I’m being the ‘team player’ the orientation video promised.

Then comes the silence. It’s not a thoughtful silence. It’s the silence you hear when you walk into a room where people have been talking about you. Then, a manager named Sarah clears her throat. ‘Well, Mark and I discussed this over coffee yesterday, and we feel confident that the current path forward accounts for those variables.’

And there it is. The trap door opens, and I fall through. I hate this. I hate it almost as much as I hate this celery stick I’m mentally preparing to eat when I get home.

“The public hearing is just a play-act for the taxpayers. They ask for opinions, but they’ve already bought the shovels.”

Logan C. understands this better than anyone I know. Logan is a cemetery groundskeeper, a man who has spent 27 years tending to the silent residents of the municipal plots. He’s a large man, with hands that look like they were carved out of oak, and he has a way of leaning on his spade that makes you feel like he’s waiting for the earth itself to speak. I visited him last week, near a row of headstones from 1907, and we talked about the way the town council operates. He told me that if you want to know what’s going to happen to the town budget, you don’t go to the town hall on Tuesday nights. You come to the cemetery at 7:07 AM on Saturday.

Logan’s observation hit me like a physical blow. He sees it in the dirt, and I see it in the glass-walled conference rooms of the city. It’s a shadow governance that makes a mockery of transparency. We pretend we live in a world of open doors and meritocratic ideas, but the reality is that the real work happens in the 7 minutes of conversation before the doors are even unlocked. It creates a culture of exclusion that is poison to anyone who actually gives a damn about the work.

I’ve spent 17 years in various corporate structures, and I’ve seen this play out in 77 different ways. It’s a coward’s way of leading. By deciding everything in private, you avoid the messiness of dissent. You avoid the possibility that someone might actually have a better idea than you. But you also kill the spirit of the people you’re supposed to be leading. When you realize your voice is just background noise for a pre-determined outcome, you stop using it. You become a 57-year-old version of yourself who just stares at the clock, waiting for the 6:07 PM train home.

This lack of transparency is a disease. It starts with small things, like the ‘meeting before the meeting,’ and it ends with a total collapse of trust. In industries where things actually get built, this kind of behavior is even more dangerous. Think about construction. You can’t ‘pre-negotiate’ the physics of a load-bearing wall. You can’t have a secret meeting to decide that gravity doesn’t apply this week. In the physical world, you need absolute clarity. You need to know exactly what materials are being used, what the costs are, and who is making the calls. There’s a specific kind of integrity required when you’re dealing with structures that people have to live in.

In the world of professional renovations and technical installations, this is where companies like DOMICAL find their value. They operate on the radical idea that you shouldn’t have to guess what’s happening behind the scenes.

I’m thinking about this because my own house needs work. I have 7 leaks in the basement that I’ve been ignoring because I’m afraid of the ‘shadow costs’ that contractors usually hide in the fine print. I’m tired of the backroom deals. I want the truth, even if it’s expensive. Especially if it’s expensive.

Back in the boardroom, the VP is nodding at Sarah. He’s smiling that practiced smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. I can tell he’s thinking about his dinner. I’m thinking about my diet.

“The most honest thing in the world is a grave. It doesn’t pretend to be anything else. It’s just a hole and a memory. No meetings required.”

I look around the table at the 17 faces. Most of them have checked out. One guy is doodling a 7-pointed star on his notepad. Another woman is staring at her phone under the table, probably checking her 107 unread emails. We are all participants in a lie. We are all complicit in this shadow governance because it’s easier than actually fighting for a seat at the real table. We accept the crumbs of ‘participation’ because we are too tired to demand the whole loaf of bread.

And I am really, really tired. And hungry. The 6:07 PM bell (well, my phone alarm) finally rings. The meeting is adjourned. We all stand up, smoothing our clothes and offering fake smiles. Mark and Sarah walk out together, already whispering about the next ‘private’ session they’ll have to decide the fate of the Q3 projections.

I walk out into the cool evening air. The sun is setting at a sharp angle, casting 7-foot shadows across the parking lot. I realize that the only way to beat the ‘meeting before the meeting’ is to stop going to the meeting entirely. Or at least, to stop believing it’s real. If the decision is already made, then my time is better spent elsewhere-maybe visiting Logan at the cemetery, where the only thing buried is the past, not the truth.

I get into my car. It’s 6:17 PM. I have survived the first 130 minutes of my diet. I feel like a failure, not because I want to eat, but because I spent another day of my life being a prop in someone else’s play. Tomorrow will be different.