The Night My Forestry Management Team Went Feral
And What My Cat Taught Me About Leadership
The Night My Forestry Management Team Went Feral (And What My Cat Taught Me About Leadership)
#DruidWisdom #LeadershipLessons
Fellow nature-workers, after 300+ years in forestry management, I thought I'd seen every type of organizational chaos. Then came last Tuesday's "Midnight Deck Incident" at our druid consultancy, which led to both a nervous breakdown and unexpected wisdom from my tabby familiar.
Let me set the scene: Our senior Circle of Druids spent two weeks outlining a presentation for our biggest client meeting. Two weeks of careful planning, like tending a sacred grove. Then, at 11:47 PM the night before the presentation, they decided the entire thing needed to be completely rebuilt.
While the Circle retreated to their ivory towers (literal towers, we're druids), us junior practitioners worked through the night rearranging slides like we were sorting autumn leaves in a windstorm. By dawn, we'd essentially reordered the same content while surviving on nothing but coffee and spite.
Here's where it gets interesting: I facilitated the actual client meeting running on 3 hours of sleep and pure anxiety. And you know what happened? The presentation deck didn't matter AT ALL. We sat in a room with our clients, discussed their forestry software issues like actual beings having a real conversation, and solved more problems in 45 minutes than our perfectly crafted slides could have addressed in hours.
That evening, sharing some ale with my cat (don't judge), I started venting about the whole experience. Mid-rant, I realized something profound: I was talking to myself. Because that's what we do when we "talk" to cats. We process our own thoughts through the illusion of conversation with creatures who couldn't care less about our corporate drama.
My cat's response? A slow blink and a yawn. Peak feline wisdom.
What I learned from this midnight madness:
On Preparation: Build skeletons, not museums. Next time, I'm creating bare-bones frameworks and leaving the polish for later. One last-minute push is manageable. A last-minute push after two weeks of exhaustion? That's just organizational self-harm.
On Control: Our senior druids aren't bad people. They're overwhelmed leaders trying to manage more than any being reasonably can. The "control" they demanded at midnight wasn't malice—it was fear. Fear that something outside their direct influence might go wrong.
On Expectations: I love my colleagues. I enjoy our mission of sustainable forest management. But I've added "not worrying" to my list of professional practices, right next to "not complaining." Some battles aren't worth the spell slots.
On Perspective: Project management exists because leaders work at scales beyond personal control. It's kept a roof over my druid head for centuries. Who am I to complain about the career that feeds me?
The deeper lesson? Sometimes surviving is enough. In a world where ancient forests are burning and magical creatures are going extinct, maybe just "not hating your job" is actually a form of success.
My cat doesn't worry about quarterly targets or midnight presentations. She eats, sleeps, occasionally catches things, and accepts that some days are better than others. There's profound wisdom in that acceptance.
To my fellow knowledge workers across all realms: I hope you love what you do. But more than that, I hope you don't hate it. And if some days that's all you can manage, that's genuinely enough.
Sometimes the most radical act is refusing to let work anxiety consume your peace.
#DruidLife #WorkLifeBalance #LeadershipReflections #ForestryManagement #ProfessionalDevelopment #CatWisdom #SustainableCareer
Sir Howard Ironwhiskers
Senior Forest Project Analyst | Ancient Grove Consulting
"Learning from cats and trees for 300+ years"
Level 17 Druid | Professional Certified Cat Herder
P.S. My cat says this post is too long and I should have just written "Humans overthink everything. Be more cat."
She's probably right.
