The Myth of “We Are a Family”: Neeta's Learning

Series I | Narrated by Corporate Baba Samadhi

“Sit closer,” Samadhi said, looking at the small group as if distance itself was a management problem. “Not because I whisper. Because people hear selectively, and what I say tends to slip away if you listen casually.”

A few smiled, unsure whether they had been welcomed or diagnosed.

“This is the first story I tell those who come here searching for clarity in their working lives,” he continued. “Not the most dramatic. But the one that prevents unnecessary suffering.”

He bent, picked up a shard of sandstone, and wrote on the wide face of the rock.

In the corporate world, there is a sentence spoken with great love and confidence: “We are a family.”

“Beautiful sentence,” he said. “High utility. Excellent for morale. Reduces early anxiety, increases cooperation, makes late-night tasks sound noble.”

He turned toward them.

“Also, the birthplace of many future confusions.”

A hand rose.

“So it’s fake?”

Samadhi shook his head.

“If it were fake, it would be easy. It is sincere, but incomplete.”

“Warmth can be real. Care can be real. Support can be real,” he said. “But families protect people. Organizations protect futures.”

He tapped the stone.

“When people hear family, they imagine protection. The organization is thinking of cooperation and direction.”

A murmur moved through the group.

“I will tell you about Neeta,” he said. “Because she once sat where you sit now—bright, committed, and dangerously literal.”

Neeta had entered corporate life the way many good people do. She listened carefully, trusted tone, equated inclusion with safety.

If someone said, “We’re counting on you,” she heard belonging. If someone said, “We’re in this together,” she heard loyalty.

She got optimized for dedication. And dedication did reward her, at least at first. She became the one people called when something broke. The one who stayed late without negotiation. The one who said yes before the request had fully landed. Her managers appreciated her. Her peers leaned on her.

She felt chosen.

Samadhi paused and looked at the students.

“She was,” he said.

Then he added, “For the present.”

While Neeta was rescuing today, the organization was designing tomorrow. Decks spoke of automation, scalability and new markets. Leaders repeated words like transformation, ROI, and future capability.

She applauded sincerely.

And returned to operational loyalty.

One evening, a colleague asked, “Can you take this? We’re stretched.”

“Of course,” she replied.

What she did not ask was: if I take this, what becomes visible? What moves? Who will know?

Another night, she rebuilt a presentation that saved a pitch. The next morning, her senior said, “Glad we could turn that around.”

Neeta smiled at we.

Back in the gurukul, Samadhi interrupted the memory.

“What else might have been said?”

Neeta, older now, answered easily.

“I could have added that I reworked sections three and four overnight to protect the risk narrative.”

“Not pride,” Samadhi said.

“Traceability.”

In a planning meeting, her manager once asked, “Can we commit to this timeline?”

Neeta had nodded.

What she might have said was, “Yes, if we deprioritize the automation task. Which outcome should we protect first?”

Same commitment. Different signal.

She believed humility guaranteed recognition. She avoided naming her contribution. Visibility felt unseemly, almost dangerous. Meanwhile, others were learning to translate effort into direction.

Months later, change arrived wearing the calm face of restructuring. Roles were reviewed. Futures were debated in rooms Neeta would never enter.

Her name surfaced with affection and not inevitability.

Neeta did not collapse in the office. Of course, professionals rarely do so. She expressed understanding, wrote gratitude, packed the memory into cartons and left.

The fracture, however, waited for home.

Sleep became tactical. She woke at 3 a.m., not because she had somewhere to be, but because her mind had started conducting audits nobody had assigned.

Which email had she missed two months ago? Which meeting had she declined? Did silence read as humility or as a lack of ambition? Should she have networked more? Spoken more? Stayed quieter?

Morning arrived without rest. At breakfast, her father spoke of finances and timelines. He meant stability. She heard liability.

Her partner said, “You’re talented. Something better will come.”

She nodded, grateful, and wondered why ‘better’ required ‘collapse’ first.

She started to shrink in isolation. She typed replies and deleted them. ‘Will call soon’ became a draft she never sent.

One night, she whispered, “I did everything they needed.”

When she told this in the forest, Samadhi did not interrupt. Some lessons require air...

Finally, she added, “I thought I was being strong.”

“You were,” he said gently. “Just not informed.”

She repeated, “I did everything they needed.” This time more to herself than to others.

Samadhi nodded. “Yes. You did.”

Then softly, “But let us examine what they needed.”

That sentence rearranged her.

“What did I misunderstand?” she asked.

Samadhi almost smiled.

“You misunderstood hierarchy,” he told her. “Professionalism first. Sentiment second.”

It was not brutal. It was liberating.

“The company had given you opportunity, exposure, learning, networks, respect,..,” he continued. “It had given many real things.”

“What it had not promised was permanent shelter.”

“That clause,” he said, “you wrote yourself.”

“You believed effort speaks for itself.”

“It does,” he continued. “But not always in the language leadership is listening to.”

He picked up a pebble.

“You signaled commitment, but not its trajectory.”

“Not speaking,” he said quietly, “is also a form of response.”

Now she saw the deeper truth.

She had mistaken appreciation for insurance and exhaustion for investment.

“One more thing happened,” he said at last, drawing a small arc on the rock with the sandstone shard. “And this is where the pain deepened.”

They leaned in.

“When support faded,” he continued, “she did not experience it as reorganization. She experienced it as abandonment.”

A student spoke carefully. “Isn’t that natural?”

“Completely,” Samadhi replied. “And also dangerous.”

“When work becomes identity, change feels like erasure.”

“What would have reduced the hurt?” she asked.

“Earlier literacy,” Samadhi replied.

“Awareness may not prevent movement. But it prevents shock.”

A student asked, “So should she have worked less?”

“No,” Samadhi said immediately. “She should have worked with design.”

Neeta returned to corporate life differently.

When she delivered, she summarized the impact. When work expanded, she clarified trade-offs. When the direction appeared, she moved toward it. When appreciation came, she converted it into a mandate: “Glad it helped. Should I scale this?”

She remained kind, yet legible.

At home, relief came quietly. Not because promises existed, but because preparedness did. Her family saw direction replacing helplessness. Confidence returned, built on participation, and not just hope.

Years later, movement came again, as it always does.

This time, in a room she would never see, someone said, “She understands where we are headed. Pull her in.”

No poetry this time. Just alignment.

Back in the forest, a young student finally asked what had been trembling in many throats.

“When leaders sit together,” he said, “what are they really saying?”

Samadhi looked at him with approval.

“They are not asking who tried hardest,” he replied. “They are asking who protects the future.”

He drew two lines in the mud.

“Effort,” he said, tapping one. “Interpretation,” he said, tapping the other.

“Careers move on the second. Connection, though present, does not have voting rights.”

“Did Neeta become hard?” someone asked.

“No,” he said. “She lost her invisibility.”

He began to walk toward the trees, then paused.

So when seekers ask me for the first lesson of corporate life, I tell them this without drama or slogans:

Follow your heart. But never abandon your brain.

“Today you learned about the connection quotient,” he said. “Next, you must learn something more unsettling.”

The students waited.

“What happens,” Samadhi continued, “when the business formally tells you that you are no longer aligned.”

The wind moved.

“Come tomorrow,” he said, “and we will talk about the day life places you on a PIP.”

And this time, no one smiled.

*********

The Lexicon of Work : Code - 1