I was halfway through a budget presentation when my phone started buzzing against the conference table. Vibrate only, of course—I was trying to look professional, trying to be the version of myself who had everything under control, the one my coworkers saw and thought, Linda’s really got it together. The conference room was too cold the way offices always are, fluorescent lights humming overhead, and the projector cast blue-white numbers on the screen behind me as I talked about quarterly projections and vendor costs and all the other dry, safe things I knew how to handle.

My manager was nodding along encouragingly. A couple of people were typing on their laptops, probably answering emails instead of listening. Normal day. Normal noise. Normal me.

And under all of it, my phone just kept buzzing insistently against the faux wood surface.

At first I ignored it, pushing through. I wrapped up the current slide. “So if we can cut logistics spending by just five percent, that gives us significantly more room to—”