# Responding to the Impossible By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2023-02-14 I got an email from my boss some time ago that asked everyone on the email for the impossible as if it were possible. Perhaps they meant it as a point of motivation. Ask for more, push hard, and see what great results occur. Sometimes this tactic works as when a drill sergeant or personal trainer demands you do one more pushup. Here it's about mind over matter or overcoming self-imposed limitations and doubts. However, sometimes it's just an impossible ask. In this case, I knew it was impossible because a few days earlier when my boss and I agreed it was impossible after I crunched the numbers. Yet, my boss sent the email anyways. Why did he send it? Perhaps I was communicating with my boss's true individual identity a few days earlier, but now their organizationally imposed "manager" identity deemed the task possible regardless of previously understood logic. After all, managers are paid to be something other than themselves. The dualistic nature of management in modern organizations is full of paradoxes that tear an individual apart. Another reasonable alternative is this email represents the beginning of the end, and my boss is simply covering their ass. Sending that email is the formal documentation of the ask and previous failures. As such, my boss has written documentation as "proof" that they did everything possible to remedy the situation. This sets up the organization and my boss to feel more legally comfortable to fire the people who received the email. It does not matter if the task is impossible or your fault as there is no judge or jury. The only thing required is checking the box that you didn't complete the request. Sure, you can go to court over it, but the organization you are fighting has a lot more money than you, and laws heavily skew in their favor. So, what should one do when everyone knows it's impossible, but you get told to do it anyways or else? You look for a new job and pretend to work hard. If you are lucky, they'll lay you off with a nice severance package. If you are unlucky, you'll be well on your way to finding a new job. They won't realize how little work you did until after you are gone. If this makes you feel bad, remember the impossible ask and that almost no one cares about you in the modern organization. Literally, everything and everyone is incentivized against caring about you as an individual, no matter what they say. Most managers will always put on their management hat the second any trouble comes around the corner. #### Related Items [[Organizational Analytics]] [[Work]] [[Management]] [[Layoffs]] [[Identity]]