Frequently Wrong, Rarely in Doubt

I love to watch corporate people in the wild. It’s like birdwatching, but instead of plumage, it’s PowerPoints. My favorite species is the Manager Who Has a Team™. You know the type: slides into a meeting, nods at your stupid idea, then says the sexiest phrase in the entire corporate lexicon—“I’ll take that back to the team.”

Reader, I too wield this power. Except… sometimes my “team” is just me. A single soul carrying this entire tragicomic circus on their back. But when a stakeholder drops an idea so catastrophically bad that even ChatGPT would refuse to engage, I don’t waste time explaining. I don’t debate. I simply smile and say, “I’ll take it back to the team.” Boom. Instant credibility. Instant gravitas. Suddenly, it’s not just me rejecting your nonsense—it’s a mysterious, omnipotent tribunal.

Do I technically lie? No. I strategically rebrand my solitude.

Here’s the beauty: this phrase buys me time. Not to actually deliberate, obviously—I’ve already decided your idea belongs in the corporate dumpster fire. No, the time is for crafting the perfect, beige-sounding rejection. Something sterile and professional like, “The team feels a different direction may be more synergistic.” Translation: I hated it. But I didn’t say that. The team did. And you can’t be mad at the team.

By the time I “circle back” (god, I love saying that), I get to appear as the neutral spokesperson for a fake committee. My opinion has gone through a corporate car wash—stripped of personality, rinsed in synergy, dried on the gentle cycle. Pristine. Unassailable.

So yeah, maybe I don’t have a team. But I have something better: plausible deniability wrapped in a four-word phrase. Next time someone asks you to do something soul-crushing, don’t just say “no.” Don’t even say “I’ll get back to you.” Say, “I’ll take it back to the team.” Suddenly you’re not one exhausted human being—you’re an entire imaginary department.It’s delusion, sure. But it’s efficient delusion. And that, my friends, is synergy.