Chapter 14
Let the sheet warn him
Gary doesn’t start by trying to control Hank.
He starts by trying to avoid friction.
Hank is doing good work.
He’s fast.
He’s valuable.
Gary doesn’t want to interrupt that
with constant reminders.
So he looks for something softer.
Turning judgment into signals
Gary adds a few simple checks.
Some fields shouldn’t be empty.
Some values should look reasonable.
Nothing complicated.
If something doesn’t match expectations,
the cell turns red.
No messages.
No explanations.
No blocking.
Just a visible signal.
The sheet points —
Gary doesn’t have to.
Why this feels like the right move
This solves a social problem.
Gary doesn’t have to:
- correct Hank directly
- slow him down
- sound like he’s nitpicking
The system does the pointing instead.
If Hank misses something,
the color changes.
If something looks odd,
it’s visible.
No confrontation.
No conversation needed.
Hank notices the red cells.
Sometimes he fixes them.
Sometimes he keeps going.
Either way, the work continues.
A quiet improvement
Gary feels lighter.
He’s not hovering.
He’s not correcting things later.
He’s not carrying rules in his head.
The system is helping
without demanding attention.
Mistakes — or potential ones —
are at least visible now.
That feels like progress.
What these “rules” really are
They don’t stop anything.
They don’t decide what’s allowed.
They don’t judge intent.
They simply comment.
A red cell doesn’t mean wrong.
It means notice this.
For now, Gary is okay with that.
He’s traded confrontation
for visibility.
Continue reading
After a while, Gary notices something unsettling.
The warnings are visible.
The problems are obvious.
And yet —
the records still go through.
Every time.
That’s when Gary realizes:
some mistakes shouldn’t be pointed at.
They should be stopped.