Once Upon a Time in the Enterprise
The Nursery of Innovation. This image was 100% AI-generated to meet quarterly creativity targets in a Ghibli-“inspired” aesthetic that is preferable for LinkedIn engagement purposes for older users with budget-expenditure approval.
Once upon a time,
there was work without meaning.
Money exchanged
while leaders kept dreaming.
A workflow that looped,
a task that self-ran—
a kingdom of meetings
for thoughts of a plan.
They called it efficient,
a bright KPI.
It glittered in charts
and didn’t know why.
Budgets grew taller,
visions grew thin.
Performance increased,
but no one clocked in.
Managers beaming,
and profits were right.
Yet nobody questioned
the absence of sight.
They built the new systems
to kill the old fears.
Each one reduced
what they needed to hear.
Feedback was instant,
empathy canned.
A pulse-check of ghosts
in a graveyard of land.
HR sold culture,
Finance sold time.
Marketing branded
the culture of time.
Annual culture sale. This image was 100% AI-generated to meet user experience feedback targets.
The quiet grew perfect—
no friction, no fight.
The business was thriving
in the absence of light.
Then came a silence
too comfy to trust.
All profits, no purpose,
no measure of dust.
Executives whispered,
Stay calm and we’re fine.
They listened to guidance
they couldn’t align.
Then came a worker,
no name, unprepared,
turned off her laptop
and silently stared.
She saw her reflection,
and something withdrew:
the faint sense of purpose
those numbers outgrew.
Workplace drivel. This image was 100% AI-generated for continued LinkedIn engagement purposes so that younger generations can point out how they can “spot” that it was AI-generated based on numerous inconsistencies.
And just for a moment,
the system was still.
The line stopped ascending.
The graph lost its will.
That pause was a mirror—
no panic, no spin.
A glimpse of the motion
they’d hidden within.
Once upon a time,
the future had happened.
Now they remember
forgetting was action.