Yang Ruoqian knew walls.
Walls divided.
Walls blocked.
Walls created corridors where people could get lost on the way to meetings.
Good walls were expensive and inconvenient.
Bad walls were even better.
But Xplendi had a talent for building the wrong kind of wall.
Process walls.
Trust walls.
Fairness walls.
All invisible.
All cheap.
All somehow counted by the system.
Now gratitude threatened to become a wall too.
If thank-you notes gathered in one place, staff could look at them.
If staff looked at them, they might feel recognized.
If they felt recognized, they might work better without demanding enough bonuses.
Recognition without payroll was one of the most insulting forms of company efficiency.
At nine, Yang walked into the support office with the notebook closed in his hand.
"No shared appreciation wall," he said.
The creator support lead looked up.
"You mean no public display of creator thank-you notes?"
"Yes."
