Jerry’s Marginalia — “The Professional Distance Clause.”
A strange thing happens after enough years around chaos.
You stop looking for “work family.”
You start looking for consistency.
Not because you hate people. Not because you’re cold.
But because exhaustion teaches you the difference between kindness and emotional entanglement.
Professionalism lasts longer than forced closeness.
You can be kind without absorbing everybody’s storms. You can be dependable without becoming the building’s unpaid therapist. You can care about doing the job right without turning the workplace into your identity.
Some people go to work searching for belonging.
Others go to work searching for peace.
Clock in. Do it right. Go home. Keep your soul separate from the noise.
That’s not bitterness.
That’s survival with the edges sanded down.
— Jerry “The Ankle-Biter” Silverhand
Tribunal Chair · Dept. of Petty Affairs