Finding My Way Through the Maze: Seventeen Years of Learning to Stay Human

Fifteen years ago, I stood in front of a crowd and opened my talk with a simple statement: "My job should not exist." I was two years into my career as a welfare benefits adviser, young enough to still believe systems could be fixed, naive enough to think I was helping people. Today, with forty-three active cases spread across two monitors, I understand something I couldn't see then: the maze isn't broken,it's working exactly as designed. My job shouldn't exist, but not for the reasons I thought.

The Unravelling

The arrival of desktop computers and the disappearance of administrative staff marked a quiet, yet profound, shift. Knowledge workers were suddenly doing their own admin, lacking the detail-oriented mindset needed for efficient processes. That second pair of eyes,the admin staff,had provided critical quality assurance that took a lot of weight off our shoulders. Without them, errors multiplied and things got missed, all while case loads increased. I watched colleagues stab at their screens like B.F. Skinner’s rats in a maze, as managers created endless new policies to "fix" the broken system.

The loop continues, growing ever more complex. Managers get rewarded not for making the system work better, but for having more staff under them. "In my last job as director of housing, I had 87 people working under me." That's the metric that makes you valuable in their world. The bureaucracy grows to fix what the bureaucracy breaks, and here’s the uncomfortable truth I’ve had to face: the very bureaucracies that trap people in destitution pay the middle-class wages of people like me. We have nice salaries specifically because the system is broken in a particular way. If Universal Credit worked smoothly, if processing were efficient—a lot of our jobs wouldn't exist. It’s like being a doctor whose income depends on people staying sick, but not dying.

For years, I played along without seeing it clearly. When I was obedient, I got validated publicly in team meetings and one-to-ones. I followed the perceived narratives, nodding along to what I now see was theatre. The more I started to challenge these narratives, the more I suffered burnout. The system pushes back against authenticity. It rewards compliance, not truth-telling.

The Barbecue and the Cowardice of Compliance

There was a moment, maybe seven years ago, at a friend's barbecue that shifted something fundamental for me. I was surrounded by cybersecurity people, architects, pharmacists, and doctors. When they asked what I did and I explained homelessness prevention services, they were fascinated. They lived in a world where they never saw that struggle. I told one small group what I did. Then I mingled with another group who asked the same question. By the time I reached the third group, I didn’t want to tell anyone anymore.

I realised I was virtue signalling about managing human suffering rather than actually solving problems. My story was, "I work with this struggle. I manage this struggle. I don't solve problems. I just help people manage them." That night, a noble narrative I’d been carrying about my work crumbled. I realised that my colleagues confused virtue and morality with what was actually obedient cowardice. Real virtue requires courage—the courage to think independently, to question your own side when they're wrong. What I saw around me were people who thought moral superiority came from holding the "correct" opinions and performing outrage at the "incorrect" ones.

Unmasking the Broken System

A few weeks ago, feeling incensed by the system's bureaucratic failures, my manager Tom, with genuine concern, asked if I wanted to chat. I told him how frustrated I was about systemic dysfunction, repeatedly asking: "What's the answer to this? That doesn't work. What's the answer to that?" I also asked if he could tell me what methods he and other managers use to be okay with knowing that we are getting paid well for managing problems, not solving them. He had no answer. He started to well up, and his first reaction was: "Oh, Karl, I've seen you like this when you've been close to burnout before. I'm really worried about your mental health."

I slowed down. Stopped. Looked him square in the eye and said: "I'm not depressed. The system's broken and I'm angry. I'm not ill. Don't put it on me."

This is how the system tries to save itself—by placing burnout and stress on the individual worker who "can't cope." The default response is to claim the worker is "unwell," offering medication, reflective practice, or a psychologist so we don't have to admit that what we’re dealing with is broken beyond repair. The conversation with Tom crystallised something I'd been feeling for months. I hear people talking about psychological informed approaches and reflective practice,buzzwords that pick up my ears,but I see it as theatre. It's not real. The whole premise says that the people we serve are broken and need fixing, rather than that they're trapped in a system designed to exhaust them into giving up.

Learning to Walk

Something has shifted in how I work with people. I've stopped telling clients I'm helping them. I tell them I'll walk with them, guide them, and navigate the system with them. But I'm not helping them. This gets powerful psychological results because I see clients standing up a bit straighter when I treat them like that. They’re not clients. They’re human beings like me.

A few weeks ago, I worked with a young mother whose daughter had been sucked into grooming gangs. She was living in a safe house and had to go to court for rent arrears on her main home . When I first called, she didn't want to speak to me at all. She was shut down. I called again and gave her space. I called again and gave her more space. Finally, I said: "Look, I really want to talk to you for an hour next week. Can you give me that? Because there's a lot I can help you with. Just hear me out." At the beginning of our call, she was still in a dark mood. By the end, she said: "Karl, I'm gonna do my best to get childcare for the other kids, and I will go to court. Thank you."

When I spoke to her yesterday, she was transformed. Her voice was higher, alive. She told me that of all the professionals she's had to speak to, I was the only one that stopped her from feeling alone. This is where professionalism grinds at me. It's used as a mask to keep the human condition at arm's length because it's safer. All those other professionals were probably following proper procedures, maintaining appropriate boundaries, doing their jobs "correctly." But I was the only one who actually saw her.

When I work with people this way, I don't feel alone in the dysfunction either. But when I sit in the office listening to everybody confused, nobody knowing answers to anything, and everybody scared of the public,even though that's our job,I feel completely isolated.

Where This Comes From

I can't do the professional distance and emotional detachment thing. I'm just too human. It's my nature, rooted in the therapy work I've done around caring for my mother when she was mentally ill . I gained validation from being a caretaker, got independence very young because I think my mum felt guilty for putting her struggles on me. It wasn't her fault. She loved me dearly in the best way she can. She was the one who taught me how to have conversations about psychology, feelings, and emotions. We used to do it all the time when I was a teenager. I would absorb it, listen, and try to understand. My mother inadvertently taught me the exact skills that authentic advice work requires. I learned to hold space for psychological pain, that’s what makes me effective with clients now, but it's also what makes it impossible for me to switch off.

The Paradox and the Path Forward

I don't know how to reconcile staying authentic in a system designed to crush authenticity. But I've learned to redirect my energy differently. When housing associations are being predatory and cruel, I don't argue with them anymore. I ask my team leader to deal with it. I'm not paid enough for that battle. Instead, I turn myself back to where I can be authentic,in direct connection with the people I'm walking alongside. When I see their psychological shift because they realise they're not alone in this dysfunction, that's when the work feels real.

My colleagues aren't bad people. They're trying to care about our society in the best way they know how. They’re not wrong, they're just a bit blind. But the system isn't there to serve. It's there to control, and that starts from the top down. Local authorities exist to manage populations, not liberate them. I don't want to run away from this job without recognising who I really am again. I want to run towards something where I can think: yes, I can serve that.

Staying Present

I find doing morning pages, journaling as soon as I wake up,clears a lot of the angst out of my head and helps me focus on the day with a better attitude. I have to find ways to stay in my presence because without my presence, I'm just a slave. Maybe authentic presence in small moments is how change actually happens, not through policy reform or system overhaul, but through refusing to let institutional dysfunction colonise our inner lives.

Seventeen years ago, I thought my job shouldn't exist because the system should work better. Now I think my job shouldn't exist because the system should stop pretending to be something it's not. Until then, I'll keep walking with people through the maze, helping them remember they're human beings, not case numbers. And I'll keep doing my morning pages, clearing the angst, staying present. Because that's the only way I know how to stay free inside a system designed to make slaves of us all.