I noticed he said “we.” I noticed it the way you notice something and file it without knowing why. Later I would come back to the “we” and understand that it meant he and Luke had talked about this, possibly extensively, and the meeting I was sitting in was not the meeting where the decision was made. The meeting I was sitting in was the notification.
“Going forward, Luke is going to take point on accounts and operations.”
I looked at my brother. His jaw was doing something tight. He was not enjoying this, which I registered and then set aside because there were more pressing things to register.
“I’m being moved off accounts?” I said.
The phrasing was deliberate. I had handled accounts for fifteen of my eighteen years. Being moved off accounts was not a restructuring. It was the substance of my job being handed to someone else. I wanted to say this plainly and see what happened.
“We think this transition makes sense for where the company is headed,” Victor said. “Luke brings a fresh energy. The business needs that right now.”
Fresh energy. I have thought about that phrase many times. Fresh energy is a quality attributed to younger men in succession planning discussions, and it is a compliment that does not describe a skill. You can have fresh energy and not know the difference between a proof of delivery and a carrier reconciliation form. Fresh energy does not prepare you for a client who calls at four on a Friday with a time-sensitive exception. I did not say any of this.