I Shouldn’t Be Your Boss! (But here we are, aren’t we?)

Becoming a manager is exactly like falling down an escalator in slow motion: technically, you’re rising, but also you’re getting your ass handed to you one step at a time. There’s blood. There’s confusion. People are watching. Some are laughing. One guy is filming. You get it.

I am, somehow, in charge of other human beings now.

Which is unfortunate for them, because I’m still trying to figure out how not to cry when I have to do a PowerPoint presentation which erases all traces of my will to live. I’m supposed to “lead.” I’m supposed to “own my mistakes.” I’m supposed to do that thing where if my team screws up, it’s my fault, but when they succeed, it’s the “company culture” and an executive I’ve never met gets a pat on the back.

I absorb the blame but rarely share in the credit.

But the wildest thing I’ve discovered on this cursed journey?

I am at least ten times lazier than anyone I manage on my team.

And that’s what makes me good at it.

No, seriously, my laziness has evolved over time into a kind of strategic management style. Don’t get me wrong, I would never ask someone on my team to do something I wouldn’t do myself. But let’s be real: a huge part of getting into management is unlocking the power to tell someone else to go clean the thing you just stared at and silently walked away from.

It started like this:

I was a hostess with absolutely zero qualifications beyond being able to operate a smile and not burst into flames under fluorescent lighting. I had big eyes, the kind that made you look either innocent or recently concussed. For reasons unknown to both science and God, a manager looked at me and went, “Yup. Throw her in the deep end. Let’s see if she floats or if it’ll be funny to watch her flail.”

Spoiler: I did both.

I started small: I’m going to be the best damn dish polisher in the world.

My goal was to polish glasses so aggressively you could see my tired expression burned into the reflection. I got faster, better.

Then I thought: Okay, this isn’t cutting it anymore, let’s zoom in.

So I became the best at setting the guest room. Glasses, plates, menus, positioned with military precision and the haunted gaze of someone who knows what chaos awaits if even one fork is misaligned. I came in half an hour early every day. For free. Because I was that desperate to not be the weakest link in a setting that I clearly was.

Why was I like this?

Because I had no business being there. This place was elite. People came from everywhere to drink things more valuable than their bloodline. And who greeted them at the door?

Me.

An underqualified chaos muppet with a crush on her boss and a working knowledge of how to hold a wine bottle wrong.

(Yes, I fell in love with my boss. No, I won’t elaborate. That’s a story with its own horror genre.)

The point is: I didn’t belong. I knew I didn’t belong. I didn’t even pretend to belong. But I also couldn’t let it go. So I did what any imposter does, I overcompensated like my life depended on it. And the worst part? It worked.

People noticed.

You could tell when I’d set the room. When I’d polished the glasses. The energy was different. The air tasted different. The other staff would walk in and be like, “Oh, it’s one of her shifts,” and either breathe a sigh of relief or immediately hate me depending on whether they were hungover.

I had accidentally set the bar higher. Like an idiot.

Because when you’re the fastest, the most obsessive, the most terrified of being mediocre, suddenly everyone else has to step it up. And they hate you for it. But also, they start rising. And now you’ve made a culture by accident.

Eventually, someone offered me a supervisor role. I thought it was a prank. I looked around the room for hidden cameras.

But no, they were serious. And suddenly, it wasn’t my hands melting from the endless parade of scorching-hot glasses. It was me teaching others how to polish them better than I did. So they also didn’t have to burn.

And that’s when I realized the terrible truth: I had become a leader.

Not because I wanted to. Not because I was ready.

But because no one else was dumb or desperate enough to care that much.

Now I walk around like an imposter ghost, waiting for someone to notice I don’t know what I’m doing and politely ask me to hand over my access badge. But until then, I’m here. Still faking it. Still terrified. Still polishing glasses in my dreams.

Because leadership?

It doesn’t always come from confidence. Sometimes it comes from raw, uncut anxiety. From being so scared of failing that you become incapable of doing things halfway. From being lazy, but also too ashamed to let anyone see you being lazy. From showing up over and over and over again, until somehow, people start believing in you more than you believe in yourself.

So yeah. I shouldn’t be your boss.

But I am.

And every day, I try to be the kind of boss I needed when I was new: scared, dumb, wildly in over my head, and still fighting like hell to be worth something anyway.

And if that’s not management, I don’t know what is.