By Friday, I'd fixed forty-seven printers, reset two hundred passwords, and discovered that the employee satisfaction scores made perfect sense.
The culture at CrossTech Denver was toxic.
Not in an obvious way—nobody was screaming, nobody was crying, nobody was doing anything that would trigger an HR investigation. It was subtler than that. It was in the way people sighed before answering emails. It was in the gallows humor about "another restructuring." It was in the resignation that coated every interaction, like everyone had collectively decided that hoping for better wasn't worth the disappointment.
I learned more in five days as Evan Collins than I had in five years as Ethan Cross.
"The coffee machine's still broken," Nadia announced, sliding into the chair next to mine in the break room. She'd started eating lunch there on Wednesday, claiming it was "the only quiet space in this building," but I suspected she just liked having someone to talk to. "I've submitted four maintenance requests. Nobody responds."
"Have you tried hitting it?"
"Are you seriously suggesting violence against company property?"
"I'm suggesting percussive maintenance. It's a technical term."
She laughed—the full, unguarded laugh that I'd started looking forward to hearing. "Evan Collins, IT philosopher. Where have you been all my life?"
The question was rhetorical, but it landed strangely in my chest. Where had I been? In corner offices, in board meetings, in the curated reality of success. Somewhere far away from people like Nadia, who showed up every day to a job that didn't appreciate her and still found reasons to smile.
"Can I ask you something?" I said.
"Shoot."
"Why do you stay? At CrossTech, I mean. You're clearly talented. You could work anywhere."
Something flickered across her face—too quick to read. "I believe in what we're supposed to be building. The mission statement, the original vision. Making technology accessible, empowering people, all that stuff." She shrugged. "Or I used to, anyway. Before..."
"Before?"
"Before it became clear that nobody in charge actually cares about any of it." She picked at her salad, not meeting my eyes. "The company got big, the stockholders got important, and everything else just became marketing."
Her words hit with the force of a verdict. Because I was the one in charge. I was the one who'd let the mission become marketing while I focused on growth metrics and quarterly earnings.
"What would you change?" I asked. "If you could."
"Everything." She said it immediately, like she'd been waiting for someone to ask. "The review process that punishes risk-taking. The middle management layer that exists to gatekeep information. The culture that rewards ass-kissing over innovation." She caught herself, laughing ruefully. "Sorry. You asked a simple question and got a manifesto."
"No, I want to hear it. Really."
She studied me for a moment—really looked, the way nobody at headquarters ever did because they were too busy calculating how much I was worth.
"You're strange, you know that?"
"I've heard that before."
"Most IT temps don't ask about corporate culture. They do their tickets and count the days until their contract ends."
"Maybe I'm not most IT temps."
"Clearly." She stood, gathering her lunch trash. "You coming to happy hour tonight? Some of us go to this bar down the street on Fridays. It's the only place where complaining about work feels acceptable."
I should have said no. The longer I stayed undercover, the more complicated it would become. Every friendly interaction was another thread that would tangle when the truth came out.
But Nadia was looking at me with genuine invitation in her eyes—no agenda, no calculation, just a colleague who wanted company—and I couldn't remember the last time someone had wanted my company for its own sake.
"Sure," I said. "What time?"
"Six. The bar's called The Drafty Penguin. Don't ask why."
"Now I have to ask why."
"You'll see." She headed for the door, then paused. "And Evan? Thanks. For listening. Most people around here don't."
She was gone before I could respond. I sat alone in the break room, staring at the broken coffee machine, wondering how I'd built a company where people felt unheard.
The numbers made sense now. Forty-seven percent satisfaction. Fifty-three percent of my employees unhappy. And the CEO—me—had been so removed from their reality that I'd needed to go undercover just to understand why.
Tonight, I would go to happy hour. I would listen. I would learn.
And then, somehow, I would figure out how to fix what I'd broken.