The moment I knew everything was theater came during a Tuesday afternoon meeting.
I sat across from my manager, watching him perform the carefully choreographed routine of corporate concern — the furrowed brow, the strategic nodding, the pen poised above his notepad.
I had just finished describing how our team was crumbling under impossible deadlines and toxic leadership, my voice trembling with the weight of truth-telling.
He looked up from his notepad, completely empty save for the abstract circles he’d been drawing, and said with practiced sincerity, “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. My door is always open.”
That’s when it hit me: an open door means nothing if no one on the other side is actually listening.
Just as Bella in the movie Gaslight was led to doubt her own reality when the lights dimmed and footsteps vanished, I was made to believe that walking through that open door would matter — only to realize it was all a carefully constructed lie.
The illusion of voice
But let me back up. This story really begins three months earlier, during my interview for an IT consulting position, when I first bought into the illusion.
My future manager gestured at his office door, speaking passionately about transparency and open communication. I nodded eagerly, drinking it in.
After years of navigating workplaces where concerns vanished into the void — where silence was rewarded and questioning the status quo made you a liability — this felt different. Here, finally, was a company that encouraged dialogue.
A company that wanted to hear me.
Of course, that was the point of the performance. These policies are designed not to solve problems, but to neutralize them. They function as corporate pacifiers — a way to make employees feel momentarily soothed, convinced that their concerns matter, while ensuring nothing actually changes.
And like so many before me, I wanted to believe.
Welcome to the listening game
The first time I tested that open door policy, I was drowning. Micromanagement had become suffocating, deadlines impossible, and transparency nonexistent.
Walking into my manager’s office, my heart hammered against my ribs, but hope fluttered in my chest. This was exactly what the policy was designed for, wasn’t it?
I shared everything — the constant pressure, the lack of support, the way anxiety followed me home each night and greeted me each morning. He nodded along, performing what I’d later recognize as corporate theater’s opening act: The Listening Game.
It’s a simple formula:
- Nod sympathetically
- Say, “I hear you.”
- Make vague promises.
- Do absolutely nothing.
Weeks passed. Nothing changed. That door, in all its symbolic glory, was about as useful as a screen door on a submarine.
When speaking up backfires
What makes the open door policy so insidious is how it masquerades as empowerment while reinforcing powerlessness. The statistics tell us this matters — 74% of employees say they’re more effective when they feel heard.
But there’s a vast difference between being heard and being listened to, between speaking and having impact.
Each time I walked through that door, hope diminished. The performance became more obvious. The nodding. The empty promises. The way my words evaporated before they even landed.
It wasn’t just frustrating — it was soul-crushing. I began to doubt myself. Was I the problem? Was I asking for too much by expecting words to translate into action?
And then came the retaliation.
The price of honesty
The moment I realized speaking up had consequences, I should have stopped. But I was still clinging to the idea that things could change.
Our team was imploding — people retreating into silos, burnout spreading like wildfire, the collaborative spirit that once defined our department replaced by desperate self-preservation. I came armed with data, examples, and specific solutions.
The response? “We’ll address it.”
Three words that might as well have been “We don’t care.”
And I paid for it. The invitations to key meetings stopped. The informal mentoring I once received from senior leaders disappeared. My name was conveniently left off new projects.
What these policies never acknowledge is the profound power imbalance at play. Walking into a superior’s office to voice concerns isn’t just about opening a door — it’s about risking your career, your reputation, your sense of professional self.
The fear is real and rational: Will this mark me as difficult? Will subtle retaliation follow? Is speaking up worth the cost to my future?
Over 38% of employees say they want a better line of communication between executives and staff. But what happens when that communication is performative? When the open door leads to a brick wall? People stop trying. They stop believing.
And the result? A workforce trapped in silent resignation, going through the motions while knowing their voices don’t matter.
Burning the script
The transformation, when it came, wasn’t what I expected. It wasn’t a dramatic confrontation or a resignation letter. Instead, it was a quiet morning when I realized I no longer believed in the performance — and that’s when everything changed.
I stopped seeing the open door as an opportunity and started recognizing it as the prop it was. But rather than surrender to cynicism, I began building something new.
I created informal networks with colleagues who shared my frustrations. We found ways to support each other, to create change at the team level where we actually had some control.
I documented everything — not to build cases against anyone, but to maintain my own sense of reality in a culture built on gaslighting. I learned to choose my battles carefully, to distinguish between fights worth having and performances not worth attending.
Beyond the theater
If companies genuinely want to empower employees, they need to move beyond theatrical gestures. Real feedback systems must ensure anonymity and protection from retaliation.
Independent representatives, outside the corporate hierarchy, should handle concerns so leadership can’t selectively ignore them.
But more importantly, we need to acknowledge the cost of maintaining these illusions — both to individuals and to organizational health. The energy spent performing and pretending could be directed toward actual improvement and innovation.
Trust is built on transparency and results, not theater.
I learned this the hard way. After months of voicing concerns and hoping for change, the silence became unbearable. It felt like a betrayal — not just of my voice, but of the idea that speaking up would matter.
The reality was that speaking up only made me feel more isolated, more unheard. What’s the point of walking through an open door if no one on the other side is truly listening?
For me, the answer became clear: I stopped knocking. Until companies are willing to rebuild that trust, the open door will remain what it’s always been — a door left open, but with no one truly listening on the other side.