If a sufficient number of management layers are superimposed on

Host: The office floor stretches out beneath a ceiling of humming fluorescent lights, their glow flat and merciless. The windows look out on a city shrouded in gray — rain falling in thin, slanted lines that seem to pierce the glass rather than slide down it. Desks stretch endlessly, each one crowned with computer screens, paperwork, and coffee cups branded with a thousand different logos — tokens of people who come, work, and disappear.

In the far corner, Jack leans against a filing cabinet, his sleeves rolled up, his tie loosened. His gray eyes have that hard, analytical glint — the kind of gaze sharpened by disillusionment. Across from him, Jeeny sits cross-legged on a desk, her dark hair falling loosely, her hands wrapped around a mug gone cold. She watches him with a look halfway between amusement and sadness — as if she’s seen this conversation happen a thousand times before in a thousand different cubicles.

Pinned to the whiteboard behind them, written in clean, precise black ink, are the words that started their argument:

“If a sufficient number of management layers are superimposed on top of each other, it can be assured that disaster is not left to chance.” — Norman Ralph Augustine

The office hums like a machine trying to forget that it’s dying.

Jack: [grimly smirking] “There it is, Jeeny. The perfect eulogy for the modern workplace. Augustine nailed it — bureaucracy doesn’t prevent disaster; it manufactures it. The more layers you add, the less anyone knows what’s actually happening.”

Jeeny: [softly] “You talk like you’ve never trusted structure. Maybe it’s not the layers that destroy — maybe it’s the people hiding behind them.”

Jack: [shakes his head] “No. It’s the layers themselves. Layers create distance, and distance kills responsibility. Every decision travels upward, gets diluted, approved, stamped, and forgotten. By the time it reaches the top, it’s unrecognizable — like a whisper passed through a crowd of terrified adults.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the flaw in how you see it. Layers were meant to protect — to distribute weight so no single person bears the full collapse.”

Jack: [with a dark laugh] “Protect? No, Jeeny. They were built to avoid blame. You think a collapsing building gets lighter because its weight is spread out? No — it just takes longer to notice the cracks.”

Host: The lights buzz louder for a moment, as if echoing Jack’s bitterness. A printer whirs in the background, spitting out meaningless reports, the mechanical heartbeat of a dying order. Jeeny glances at the whiteboard — the quote staring back like a quiet prophecy.

Jeeny: “You’re cynical because you’ve seen it from the inside. But structure isn’t the enemy, Jack. Blind structure is. A well-built hierarchy is like an orchestra — everyone knows their part, and when they play together, it’s music.”

Jack: [dryly] “And when they don’t, it’s politics. You ever notice that the louder the orchestra, the more the conductor gets the applause — even when the violinists are bleeding?”

Jeeny: [with a sigh] “So what, you’d rather burn the orchestra down?”

Jack: “If the symphony only plays to drown out silence — yes.”

Host: He moves closer to the window, his reflection colliding with the skyline — a ghost made of fluorescent light. Outside, the city glows in monochrome: towers stacked upon towers, a living metaphor for Augustine’s warning.

Jack: [quietly] “This isn’t about management, Jeeny. It’s about fear. The more layers we build, the less we have to face risk. So we drown the human in systems. It’s the same everywhere — in corporations, in governments, even in relationships. Layers of excuses, procedures, niceties — until there’s no truth left, only protocol.”

Jeeny: [leaning forward] “You make it sound like the only truth is chaos.”

Jack: [turns, voice low but fierce] “Maybe it is. Look at nature — no hierarchy, no board meetings. Just raw cause and effect. You act, you face the consequence. No middleman to hide behind.”

Jeeny: [steadily] “But nature also has order — balance, rhythm, ecosystems. Every tree feeds another, every predator limits the prey. That’s structure too, Jack. Just one that remembers why it exists.”

Host: The air feels charged now — the hum of electricity merging with something older, something human. The rain outside thickens, striking the glass like a thousand unfiled reports.

Jack: [half-smiling, half-tired] “You talk like structure can be redeemed.”

Jeeny: [smiles back] “Everything can be redeemed — even systems. The problem isn’t in the layers; it’s in forgetting who they’re supposed to serve.”

Jack: [sits, rubbing his temples] “You think there’s still a heart buried under this paperwork?”

Jeeny: “There has to be. Otherwise, why bother organizing anything at all?”

Host: A pause — long enough for the sound of the rain to replace words. The computer screens blink in silent rhythm, illuminating their faces in pulses of blue and white.

Jack: “You ever wonder what happens when people stop questioning the layers? When they start believing the system itself is moral?”

Jeeny: “That’s when it collapses. Augustine wasn’t mocking structure — he was warning us: that order without humanity becomes chaos disguised as control.”

Jack: [nods slowly] “So disaster isn’t an accident. It’s engineered.”

Jeeny: “Yes. By people who forget they’re still people.”

Host: Her voice lands like the sound of paper being torn — quiet but irreversible. Jack stares at her, then looks again at the quote on the wall, reading it aloud this time, as though testing its truth against his own exhaustion.

Jack: “If a sufficient number of management layers are superimposed on top of each other, it can be assured that disaster is not left to chance.”

Jeeny: [softly] “Because every wall we build to keep disaster out also keeps empathy in.”

Host: The office clock ticks, its sound unnervingly loud in the emptiness. Jack sets down his cigarette. The rain outside slows, the last drops trailing down the glass like the remnants of a thought that refuses to end.

Jack: [quietly] “Do you think it’s possible to lead without losing humanity?”

Jeeny: “Only if you remember that people aren’t assets. They’re consequences.”

Jack: [smirks faintly] “That’s dark, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “No, that’s honest.”

Host: The lights begin to dim — an automatic timer signaling the day’s official end. But neither moves. The glow from the streetlights outside spills across the floor in long, diagonal bands — like the bars of a cage made of light.

Jack finally stands, glances back at the quote one last time, and mutters — not to her, but to himself:

Jack: “Maybe the only thing worse than chaos is organized chaos.”

Jeeny: [looking up at him] “Then maybe the answer isn’t fewer layers, Jack. Maybe it’s more transparency between them.”

Host: He looks at her, and for a moment, something shifts — the cynic in him meeting the idealist in her halfway, like two opposing architects agreeing on the same fragile foundation.

The rain has stopped. The air smells of ozone — clean, renewed. The office, stripped of noise, feels almost human again.

Host: And in that fragile calm, Augustine’s warning lingers — a mirror turned toward every system humanity has ever built:

When we stack too many walls between intention and impact, we mistake order for wisdom.
And sometimes, in trying too hard to avoid failure,
we design it perfectly.

Host: The scene fades with the sound of distant thunder,
and two voices still echoing softly beneath the sterile hum of the lights —
not fighting the system, but remembering why it was built at all.