You've been here before.

Your heart is racing. Your stomach turns. Your skin itches. Your left eye twitches. Sweat beads along your hairline and slides down your back. You can smell yourself—and it makes you nauseous.

Your body is running itself ragged repeating the same message you already know: _You’re a failure._

It’s 3:56 PM on a rainy Thursday, and you’re sitting in your gloomy office in downtown Atlanta, staring at a résumé glowing on your screen—the résumé of your colleague in the office next door. Greg. The recent hire.

You examine his credentials like you’re dissecting a threat. Page after page of accomplishments. Prestigious awards. High-profile clients. He graduated four years _after_ you—so how the hell did he get so far _ahead_?

You’re an interior designer. You specialize in luxury, high-end residential. On the company’s website, your bio proudly claims you “recognize clients’ unique needs for high-quality, upscale materials and custom features to satisfy their singular aesthetics.”

What a joke.

You don’t recognize anyone’s needs. Half the time, you can barely finish a project without rewriting the entire plan in a panic. You nod along in client meetings, pretending you have vision. You paste together trendboards like a child doing arts and crafts.

You are not a fraud per se. You’re just . . . mediocre. When did you become mediocre? 

You were an only child with no friends (no comment), but ambition was your ever-faithful companion. You can’t recall a single moment when you weren’t reaching, straining, striving for more. In high school, you once told a teacher—dead serious—that your greatest fear in life was becoming mediocre. She raised a single eyebrow in response, an expression suspended somewhere between admiration and concern. Where did you catch this cold? This quiet, relentless hunger? Of course, you know the answer—at least the answer everyone eventually lands on. The classic origin story: your parents. A cliché, yes. But also, annoyingly, not entirely wrong.

Your parents struggled to express affection without layering it in criticism, especially when your performance in any area of your young life fell short of perfection—whether it was school grades, poetry recitals, piano lessons, or reading competitions. You were a constant work-in-progress in their eyes—never finished, never enough.

Even when you reached the impossible milestones, the goalposts moved. Another benchmark appeared on the horizon, and the race resumed—again and again and again. By your early thirties, you’re exhausted. You still don’t know how to be your own person. You only know how to see yourself through others’ eyes, always measuring, always comparing. Everything is relative. And no accomplishment ever feels like enough to make you feel, truly, accomplished.

So it’s no surprise that your shiny new colleague—with his effortless talent and endless charm—feels like a personal threat. You know it’s pathetic, this insecurity, but that doesn’t make it easier to shake.

Stupid Greg.

How does it feel to collect all the gold stars, Greg?

You close the résumé and lean back. You feel like you’ve been holding your breath for days.

You rise from your worn-out chair, its cushion flattened and seams fraying. How does an interior designer end up with such a sad excuse for furniture in their own office?

You wonder about Greg’s chair.

Of course he probably got a deluxe model—some onboarding perk, a silent bribe to bless the company with his radiant presence.

You step just outside your office.

A glance left. A glance right.

You make your way down the hall, slow and casual, aiming for the community table with its ever-disappointing coffee setup. You position yourself at just the right angle—enough to fill your cup, and just enough to catch a glimpse into Greg’s office. His door is open. He’s on the phone, his back facing you, gesturing like a man born to delegate. And there it is:

His chair. _The_ chair.

Vitra Grand Executive.

You know that chair well—you’ve ordered it for clients. It’s marketed as “executive luxury that radiates discreet power and wealth.”

It sells for no less than $3,500. You don’t need to sit in it to know how the plush leather would feel under your hands. You can already feel it.

You’re angry. You can feel the heat rising in your face. You turn to head back to your office, tail metaphorically tucked, already bracing for the dull thud of resignation settling back into your chair. But then Greg swivels around in his sleek German-engineered throne—and you catch something you didn’t expect.

The chair is flawless, yes. But Greg clearly isn’t.

He’s still on the phone, but his expression is tight, pinched. He rubs his eyebrows like he’s trying to erase them, then covers his mouth with his hand—like the words are too hard to say, or he’s afraid to say them at all.

He looks tired. As tired as you feel.

Greg notices you looking. He hangs up the phone—or maybe the call simply drops—and tries to summon the face you know best: that confident smile, those steady eyes. But this time, the performance doesn’t quite land.

“All good?” you ask, surprising even yourself. You’ve never asked him about anything that wasn’t strictly work.

Greg pauses, just long enough to suggest that he’s surprised too.

“Yeah, thanks for asking. One of my clients has been… less than thrilled with the design choices I made for her walk-in closet. She said the LED strip lighting made her designer clothes look like something off a Goodwill rack.” He pauses again, a flicker of confusion crossing his face, as if only now realizing he’s said too much—or that he’s not sure why he’s telling you any of it at all.

“I’m sorry—I don’t even know what I’m saying. Things are going splendidly,” Greg says with a forced chuckle. “Just closed a deal on some Minotti Connery furniture…”

The Greg you know is back. Or trying to be.

The Greg who makes bragging sound like storytelling and self-promotion feel like charm. But the one you just got a glimpse of—the unsure, unguarded Greg—is pulling away. And for some reason, you find yourself trying to reel that Greg back in.

“You know, I had a client not too long ago who lost it over a brass doorknob on a coat closet.” You say it without performance, without sugarcoating or superiority. It’s not sympathy. It’s not a power play. It’s just… true. A story you offer him, because somehow it makes you feel better.

“We’ve all been there. Trust me.” You close your odd little confession with that line, surprised at yourself—for letting someone in, for revealing a misstep. For showing your soft underbelly. What are you doing?

Greg looks at you, surprised, then exhales a brittle laugh.

“Oh yeah? I doubt it. Ever had a client you just can’t land it for? I’ve thrown everything at her—five, six different versions—and still, nope. She’s threatened to fire me. Said she’d get me ‘cancelled,’ though I’m pretty sure she doesn’t even know what that means.”

He gives another short laugh, then shrugs like it’s no big deal.

“I don’t know. Maybe she’s got a point.”

You know exactly what he’s talking about. Not because you’ve had a client like that—but because you’ve been one. To yourself. Four, five, six attempts—nothing’s ever good enough. You finish something only to rip it apart in your mind, convinced it should have been better, cleaner, more impressive.

“Don’t worry too much. You’re clearly talented and accomplished.” you say, voice steady but a little too rehearsed. “This? It’s just a job. It doesn’t define who you are or what you’re worth.” You say it like you believe it, like you’ve internalized every word. But haven’t you needed to hear the same thing? Aren’t you really just talking to yourself? Maybe this is less about comforting him, and more about trying—desperately—to believe it for your own sake.

Greg smiles—not a defeated smile, but one that acknowledges the good intentions behind your words, while also registering their well-worn familiarity. You’re certain he’s heard them before—just as you have. Still, he thanks you for your kindness. Kindness? When was the last time you had time for that?

You return to your office, unsure what to do next. Something is shifting—unmistakably. Stirring inside you. You wait for the dust to settle, for clarity to break through, for some shard of insight to survive the wreckage of your decades-long allegiance to ruthless ambition.

The next morning, you don’t rush to be the first one in. No silent show of discipline. No performative punctuality to prove you belong.

You even stop for coffee on the way in—a small indulgence you usually reserve as an afternoon reward, something to be earned only after a day of proving yourself. Today, it’s just… coffee.

When you arrive, you see the Vitra Grand Executive chair sitting outside Greg’s office like a fallen monument. Through the glass, you spot Greg in a new chair—simpler, humbler. IKEA, maybe? You knock gently. He looks up. A quick smile flickers across his face. Is that… relief?

“Hey, what’s the Grand Executive doing outside your sacred office walls?” you ask, genuinely curious.

He chuckles, but there’s a hesitation in his voice. “This chair looks like a promotion, right? All sleek and serious. Like you’ve made it.“ He pauses, as if unsure whether he’s allowed to say it aloud.

“…But honestly? It’s pretty uncomfortable. My back is aching.” Then, after a beat: “Would you like to take it?”

You consider it. That’s not a chair—it’s a résumé with armrests.

You would be crazy not to take it. People envy it. You used to envy it.

“No, thank you,” you say, surprising yourself. “I don’t think I need it.”