Discovering the Flow of Trust: Episode 1

Discovering the Flow of Trust: Episode 1

The Invisible Wall

“How many times do I have to say this…?”

The words slipped out before I could stop them. The frustration boiling inside me found its way into my fingers, making the sound of my typing on the keyboard harsher with every keystroke.

“Please confirm once again at your earliest convenience.”

There it was, the same canned phrase I’d written countless times before. I’d lost count of how many times I’d sent it. They must be as tired of reading it as I was of typing it.

This project had started just last month.

When the account manager approached me with it, I was confident. “This is within my wheelhouse. Nothing to worry about,” I thought. It was a slightly larger project than usual, but with my experience, I figured everything would proceed smoothly.

But my expectations were quickly dashed. The instructions from the account manager were vague and lacked clarity.

“How am I supposed to interpret this…?”

Muttering under my breath, I glared at the email displayed on my monitor. It looked as if the client’s requests had simply been forwarded without any effort to decipher them. The wording was practically gibberish.

And the problems didn’t stop there.

After fulfilling a revision request, I’d receive another message saying, “Actually, we’d like to revert to the original version.” This back-and-forth wasted an incredible amount of time.

On top of that, unreasonable demands kept flooding in from the end client. Sudden changes in specifications, unrealistic deadlines—”Please prioritize this immediately!” These demands, relayed through the account manager, landed squarely on our team’s shoulders, fueling my growing frustration.

“There’s no way the account manager isn’t overwhelmed too,” I thought at times, but that didn’t change the fact that my team was nearing its breaking point.

My hands hovered over the keyboard as I closed my eyes.

A sense of urgency swelled in my chest. At this rate, not only would we miss the deadline, but the morale of the team would crumble. In fact, complaints from the team members had already started to surface in the past few days.

“We’ve got tight schedules too. It’s tough to keep redoing everything.”

Their words echoed in my mind. They weren’t wrong. Who wouldn’t feel frustrated in this situation?

“It’s the Year of the Rabbit!”

I remembered when the account manager had said this with a lighthearted laugh about a month ago.

“So, there’s a 12-year gap between us,” I had thought, finding the moment oddly endearing. Back then, I’d resolved to leverage my experience to guide the project to success. “I’ll support them and teach them along the way,” I’d thought optimistically.

At that time, I saw the account manager as an angel, a lifesaver who had brought this project to us during a tough period. But now, they looked more like a devil in disguise.

“It’s not fair for my team to keep getting dragged into this mess!”

I wanted to shout those words, but I held them back. The account manager was still young and inexperienced. Even so, the current situation had gone beyond what a little support could fix. With the deadline fast approaching, the endless back-and-forth was becoming unbearable.

As I organized the documents scattered on my desk, a thought crossed my mind.

“Maybe I’m expecting too much from them. But if I don’t, this project won’t move forward.”

This contradictory feeling tightened in my chest.

“I have more experience, so I must be right.”

That belief coexisted with another thought: “They can’t understand everything; it’s not their fault.”

The weight of my past successes hung heavily over me, morphing into a pressure that I couldn’t shake. “I should be handling this better,” I kept telling myself.

Taking a deep breath, I got up from my chair. I brewed some coffee in the kitchen and gazed out the living room window. The night sky was calm, with the moon glowing softly.

As I stared at the moon, a strange sensation crept over me.

“It feels like I’m being watched…”

The thought calmed me, offering a moment of clarity. I reached for my phone on the table.

There was a message from her.

“How’s work going? Don’t push yourself too hard!”

Her short message filled my chest with warmth.

“I’ve been venting to her so much lately…”

Even so, I couldn’t help but lean on her kindness. She had a way of grounding me, even when everything felt chaotic.

I opened the messaging app and pressed the call button.

The ringtone echoed softly through the quiet room.

To be continued in Episode 2: “A Question to Myself.”