Underneath
What's going on underneath #
Three things that tend to sit under the words.
When someone else seems to be favoured, the question of where one stands in the group can rise quickly, even for a person who is secure in their work.
For some people it began at school, with a teacher who held the same standard for everyone, or a sports coach who used the same drill for all.
Underneath, a rule can sit: “A fair boss treats everyone alike,” or “If someone else gets more, I'm getting less.”
Reactions
What people often do #
- Keep a quiet list of who gets the good projects
- Compare your workload with a colleague's, in your head
- Go over each assignment again, looking for the reason
- Stay friendly with the colleague and privately keep score
- Say nothing and wonder how long things will stay this way
The deck
The story in 6 cards #
Six short cards, from the moment to letting go.
The easy client he got
Friday afternoon in Doha. Your manager laughs at a colleague's joke, approves his early finish, and gives him the easy client. When you asked for the same last week, the answer was 'let's see'. You say nothing. But all the way home in the taxi, you keep counting: who got what, who got a smile, who got a yes, and who didn't.
Everyone treated exactly the same
Underneath sits a rule: 'My boss should treat everyone in the team the same.' It sounds like basic fairness, and in many ways it is. But look at what it does: it sets up a running comparison in your head. Your calm at work now depends on watching how others are treated, and every small difference starts to feel like evidence about where you rank.
Why fairness feels like safety
We hold it because fairness feels like safety. Maybe at home a sibling seemed to get more, and you learned to watch closely. Maybe you were taught that fair means equal, and you've lived by it ever since. Either way, wanting fairness isn't jealousy. It comes from wanting to be valued the same as others. That deserves kindness, not blame.
The tally you keep at work
Every uneven moment adds to the tally. You start watching your colleague more than your own work. You notice every smile and every yes. You feel a little sour at team lunches. Slowly the job becomes a contest you never signed up for, and your energy goes into keeping score instead of into the work you came here to do.
Is keeping the tally worth it?
Ask yourself honestly: has keeping the tally ever made things fairer? Or has it mostly made you tired and resentful? Some of what you see may have reasons you can't see, and some may simply be unfair. Either way, how others are treated isn't the measure of your worth. Holding this rule so tightly costs you more than it gives you.
Your energy on your own work
Letting go doesn't mean pretending unfairness doesn't exist, or that it doesn't matter. It means your attention comes back to your own work and your own day, rather than the scoreboard. You can notice unfairness without carrying it home every night. That's where some peace comes back: your energy goes into what's yours, your work and your day, not into watching someone else.
Threats, shouting, harassment, humiliation, being singled out for who you are, pay or papers held back, or being frightened at work, are something else, and worth taking seriously; staying careful can be the safe choice.
The flip
The old rule, and a new one to try #
The old ruleMy boss should treat everyone in the team the same.
A new rule to tryFair still matters. My energy can stay on my own work.
Three small days
Try it for 3 days #
- Day 1
When you start comparing, look back at your own work
- Day 2
Name one thing that went well for you this week
- Day 3
Spend the journey home thinking about something you enjoy
Want to talk it through?
“Which team felt fair to you, and what was it that made it feel that way?”
Free and private. No sign-up to start. The chat opens with this question.
Everything this deck knows
Go deeper #
What it sounds like, where it comes from, what it costs, and other ways to see it. Every question opens a chat on it.
How it lands
What was said
The good project goes elsewhere #
“My boss should treat everyone in the team the same.” Thought when the interesting project is handed to a colleague, or when an easy pass is given to one person and a hard look to another, or when a favour seems to follow a pattern.
For some people the wish is about fairness at its plainest: the same rules, the same attention, the same chance, so that effort is what shapes how the team is treated.
Think of a team that felt fair to you.
What was it that made it feel that way, and what did you do there?Talk about this ›
The first few seconds
The small sting of a favour #
Some people notice a small sting when a colleague gets what they had hoped for, followed by a quick comparison that happens almost without a decision. The body registers unfairness a moment before the mind has explained it.
The first reaction is often physical: a stiff smile, a look at the screen, a lowering of the voice. The thoughts about what it means tend to arrive afterwards, once the room has emptied.
The last time a favour went to someone else, what did you notice first, before the comparison began?Talk about this ›
Why it lands
Fairness that you can see #
It makes sense to want this. A team works best when people believe the rules are the same for everyone, and uneven handling makes it hard to know what the rules even are.
Fairness also touches belonging. When someone else seems to be favoured, the question of where one stands in the group can rise quickly, even for a person who is secure in their work.
What would fairness look like in your team, in one concrete detail that you could picture?Talk about this ›
The voice inside
The voice that keeps the list #
“That one always gets the good ones.” “If I'd done that, it would have been a different story.” “I'm just supposed to take it.” The voice tends to speak in the afternoon after an assignment is announced.
Some people find the voice keeps a careful list and then doubts it. A list can hold a real pattern, and it can also grow heavier than the cases on it; both can be true.
When the voice keeps the list, what is it most hoping someone will see, and who would you want to see it?Talk about this ›
Where it comes from
Where it can come from
Where the sense of fair play began #
For some people it began at school, with a teacher who held the same standard for everyone, or a sports coach who used the same drill for all. A level field can set a strong picture of fairness.
For others it came from home, where the way things were shared out was watched closely and any unevenness was remembered. For some the source is clear, and for others there is none.
Who first showed you what a fair way of sharing things looks like, and what did they do or say?Talk about this ›
The belief under it
The rule about the same for all #
Underneath, a rule can sit: “A fair boss treats everyone alike,” or “If someone else gets more, I'm getting less.” The sentence on top is easy to hear; the rule decides how every assignment is read.
A rule like this often comes from places where equal handling was the habit, and it is a sensible rule to have learned. It can be set beside this boss and this team, where people's roles and histories differ in ways that are not always visible.
Where does the rule fit your team, and where does every team have differences in what people are given?Talk about this ›
What it costs
What it costs
What keeping a list can take #
It can mean a stiff smile at the announcement, a coolness towards a colleague who did nothing wrong, a weary habit of reading every assignment closely, or a tired feeling that fairness is a job in itself.
It can also affect how the work feels. When each assignment is read as a comparison, the pleasure of doing it can thin, and ordinary good days begin to look like days when someone else got more.
Thinking of the last six months, which assignment did you most enjoy, whoever else got what?Talk about this ›
If it stays as it is
Five more years of the quiet list #
Choose one ordinary Thursday when “my boss should treat everyone in the team the same” is loud. What is in it: the announcement of who gets the good project, the quiet list, the smile you managed?
Perhaps an assignment given to a colleague, a comparison made before lunch, a friendly word that costs a little, an evening spent turning it over.
There is nothing to solve here; the picture can be set aside whenever you like.
What gets done that day, and what is set aside?Talk about this ›
When you look at it, what do you notice?Talk about this ›
Another way to see it
Another way to see it
Same and fair are close, not equal #
Treating people the same and treating them fairly are close neighbours, but they are not twins. A boss can hand out work differently for reasons of skill, timing or history, and not all of it is visible to the team.
That does not make an uneven week less real to the person feeling it. It only means that from where one sits, it is hard to know the full list of reasons. And when a pattern follows who people are, it is not a guess.
If fairness had to show up as one visible thing in your team, which would you most want: a rule, a rotation or an explanation?Talk about this ›
What is already there
What is already there #
Alongside the even handling you hoped for, it may be worth looking for what the team already gives: a time the load was shared well, a colleague who made room for you, an assignment you were glad to get, a day without any comparison.
Remembering these does not make an uneven moment fine, and the wish for fairness stays fair. A fair day and an uneven day can sit in the same month, and neither cancels the other.
On an ordinary week, what has someone at work, or outside it, already given you that you would like to see more clearly?Talk about this ›
Making peace
Keeping fairness, setting down the tally #
Peace here does not mean deciding the wish was too much, or entirely right. It means the weighing-up stops running every evening; what is fair in the wish can stay, and the grip can ease. Some differences are fair ones: an adjustment for health, a disability, caring at home or faith is not a favour taken from you.
If your boss, or anyone at work, threatens, harasses or humiliates you, singles you out, demands unpaid work, holds back your pay or papers, gives you unsafe work, or leaves you frightened, that is something else, and worth taking seriously. Going along or staying careful can be the safe choice.
When uneven handling follows who people are (gender, caste, religion, colour, age, a disability or where you come from), it is not a matter of perception or of a hope to loosen. It is worth taking seriously, and any notes you keep for yourself can stay.
Basic respect and safety at work are never expecting too much, for you and for the people around you.
Picture an afternoon at peace with this wish: what would you do with the hour the weighing-up used to take?Talk about this ›
A truer sentence
A line for the announcement #
Instead of arguing with “My boss should treat everyone in the team the same”, some people try a line like: “I wanted an even field, and my own work has its own value.” It can stand beside the old line.
A line like this can feel borrowed at first, and then more familiar. For some it never fits, and a different one can be tried on another day.
What would a truer sentence be in your own words, one that holds the wish without needing the field to be level?Talk about this ›
What to let be
Some of it can stay on the shelf #
Not every assignment needs a verdict. Some of it can be noticed, felt for a minute and set down, like a list left on a desk when the lights go off.
The wish for fairness can be kept to yourself and still be real. If you are singled out for who you are, made to work unpaid, or frightened by anyone at work, that is something else, and worth taking seriously.
Laying it down until morning doesn't say it was fine, or that it is settled. It only means the working day does not have to come home in full.
If it loosened
And if the list weighed a little less #
Think of, purely as a picture, the wish a notch quieter. It is still there. You notice who got the project, and you put the list down for the afternoon. What is the first thing that feels different?
Small things count here: an announcement read without a clenched jaw, an afternoon that belongs to the task in front of you, a colleague's good news met with an easier face. What would your first small thing be?
Nothing here needs to be said to anyone. Whatever comes up is yours. Next, a look at what making peace with this wish could mean, and what is already there.
Small things to try
Something to try
A few small things people try #
- Notice who got the project, and then turn to your own task
- Name one thing in your week that is clearly yours, whatever anyone else has
- Notice which part you saw, and which part the evening added
- Picture the list closed on a desk for the afternoon, not thrown away
- Pick one thing you were given this year that you were glad of
Private, mental and optional. Try whichever feels doable.
Pick a question
Talk it through #
Tap one. A chat with Dr. Thoughts opens on that question: free, private, no sign-up to start.
- Which team felt fair to you, and what was it that made it feel that way?
- When were you given something good at work, and how did it feel?
- Who first showed you what fair sharing looks like?
- If the wish for even handling eased a little, what would you notice first?
- What small good thing in an ordinary working week would you like to notice more?