Not as some ridiculous janitor-turned-king fantasy people in headlines would have preferred, but in a role that made sense for who I had become: strategic operations, workforce retention, facilities modernization, apprenticeship programs, and internal culture audits. I spent a lot of time walking floors with people whose names executives had never bothered learning. Cleaners. Maintenance teams. Night security. Warehouse coordinators. Folks who knew where morale actually leaked and which managers treated human beings like badly stacked inventory.
You learn quickly, once you’ve been invisible long enough, that the people closest to the mess are usually the ones holding the sharpest version of truth.
I made it policy that they would be heard.