Identifying Pre-Collapse Signals in the Workplace Cont’d

Hello again, ledge walkers and rebuilders from the rubble. I’m back.

This is an add-on to my last post, “Identifying Pre-Collapse Signals in the Workplace.” Because sometimes I hit submit… and then my brain hands me the missing pieces five minutes later.

So here’s one of the biggest pre-collapse signals I didn’t name clearly enough:

The “Check-In Loop” Signal

If you find yourself repeatedly checking in —

• “Is everything okay?”
• “Am I good?”
• “Did I miss something?”
• “Are we all right here?”

…chances are, part of you already knows there’s a problem. You’re not asking because you’re calm. You’re asking because you can feel the temperature changing — and you’re looking for reassurance that the temperature isn’t changing.

And in my case, the answer I kept getting was: “You’re good. Everything’s fine. No worries.”

At one point I even got what I took as praise — something like: “Every time I ask you to do something, you rise to the occasion.” That gave me hope.

But looking back, I have to admit a harder possibility: sometimes “praise” isn’t safety. Sometimes it’s a pressure test. A way to see how much extra you’ll absorb before you finally break — and whether the break can be used as justification.

I can’t prove intent. I don’t need to. The pattern was the data.

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The Scope Drift Signal (Work Increases, Budget Doesn’t)

Another pre-collapse signal is when the workload expands, but the budget stays frozen — like the contract lives in a time capsule while the real world keeps moving.

In my situation, physical changes to the store increased work and increased costs:

• More square footage that required VCT scrubbing and waxing.
• More departments, more edges, more wear, more upkeep.
• Higher labor costs (wages went up).
• Higher materials and maintenance costs.

And if you add 10,000–15,000 square feet of VCT without increasing the budget, the math doesn’t just get tighter. It starts cannibalizing the rest of the store. You don’t magically gain hours. You just steal them from somewhere else.

So when an employer adds work without adding resources, they’re not “challenging you to grow.” They’re creating role overload and then acting surprised when performance drops.

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The Negotiation Refusal Signal

Here’s where I went off on a rant — and I’m going to say it cleanly this time.

When an employer refuses to renegotiate in the face of real cost changes — inflation, wage increases, expanded scope — that isn’t “being firm.” That’s pushing risk downhill and pretending it isn’t happening.

If the response to “Costs have increased and scope has expanded” is:

• “That’s your problem.”
• “This is your contract — deal with it.”
• “We’re not adjusting anything.”

…then you’re being squeezed. And if the squeeze continues long enough, you’re being positioned to fail.

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Protocol: The Pre-Collapse Drift Protocol (PCDP)

Purpose: Catch the drift early — before it becomes a termination narrative.

Rule: This is not a shame tool. This is a signal tool. Signals are information, not identity verdicts.

Step 1 — Name the signal (out loud, in writing)

• Check-In Loop: “I keep asking if things are okay.”
• Scope Drift: “Work is increasing without formal scope change.”
• Resource Compression: “Time/budget stayed fixed while demands rose.”
• Process Shift: “Rules or expectations keep changing.”
• Politics/Triangulation: “Different parties are hearing different stories.”

Step 2 — Replace reassurance questions with metric questions

Stop asking: “Am I good?”

Start asking:

• “What does ‘good’ mean this month — specifically?”
• “What standard are we measuring against?”
• “What’s changed since last month?”
• “Can we put that expectation in writing?”

Step 3 — Do the math (scope-to-cost conversion)

In one note (your evidence ledger), capture:

• What changed (new area, new tasks, new frequency, new standards).
• How much changed (square footage, departments, labor hours).
• What it costs (labor + materials + equipment time).
• What drops if nothing changes (what must be deprioritized to absorb the new work).

Step 4 — Send the “Clarify or De-scope” message

Template language (keep it calm):

As of [date], the following changes have increased the workload: [list]. Based on current staffing and materials, this adds approximately [hours/cost] per [week/month].

Please confirm one of the following by [date]: (1) approve a budget adjustment of [amount], or (2) confirm which tasks/frequencies will be reduced to keep the work within the existing budget and scope.

Step 5 — Set a boundary that protects you from “silent scope creep”

• No new recurring work without written approval (or written de-scope elsewhere).
• No “emergency becomes permanent” without a change order.
• No invisible extra labor “just to keep the peace.”

Step 6 — Track justice and psychological-contract breaches

Ask yourself:

• “Is the process fair?”
• “Are expectations consistent?”
• “Are we honoring the deal — written and unwritten?”

If the pattern becomes: shifting expectations + frozen budget + blame… that’s drift toward collapse.

Step 7 — Build an off-ramp before you need one

• Update your documentation weekly.
• Start contingency planning (clients, cash buffer, staffing options).
• Decide your exit criteria (e.g., 2–3 unresolved scope changes, repeated refusal to clarify standards, repeated triangulation).

Step 8 — Close the loop (one receipt, one next step)

• Receipt: “This is what changed.”
• Next step: “This is what I’m asking for, by when.”
• Boundary: “No approval = no permanent expansion.”

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For employers (since I said it, I’ll stand by it)

If you increase scope, you increase cost. If wages rise, costs rise. If you freeze budget and expand workload, you create failure conditions — and then you act like the failure is personal.

Pay fair for fair work. And if you want a contractor to succeed, don’t punish them for telling you the math.

Godspeed, my ledge walkers — and my rebuilders from the rubble. That’s it for tonight.

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Footnotes

1. Melody Wilding, “Overcoming Your Need for Constant Validation at Work,” Harvard Business Review (Dec 8, 2023). ↩
2. Project Management Institute (PMI), PMBOK framing of scope creep as adding scope without addressing impacts on time/cost/resources or without approval. ↩
3. W.G. Tang et al. (2021) summarizing role overload as demands exceeding personal resources (building on established role-stress research). ↩
4. Denise M. Rousseau, “Psychological and implied contracts in organizations” (1989). ↩
5. Jerald Greenberg, “A Taxonomy of Organizational Justice Theories” (1987). ↩
6. Oliver Hart, Prize Lecture on incomplete contracts and the “hold-up” problem (Nobel Prize lecture, 2016), describing how incomplete agreements and power shifts can produce squeeze dynamics during renegotiation. ↩