Time & Ritual

She can get a reservation anywhere, but she can't get a Tuesday afternoon to herself

Every buzz, every "sorry to bother you but," every "you're the only one who can handle this" triggers a tiny neurological reward that whispers someone needs me, I matter. Dopamine in a business casual outfit.

, and Adrienne Berry

February 6, 2026

6 min read

Somewhere around 2016, "always on" became a compliment. A woman who responded to emails at 11pm wasn't burning out, she was winning. Taking calls during your daughter's recital didn't make you absent, it made you in demand. We built an entire mythology around the hyperavailable woman, gave her a corner office and a profile in the Financial Times, and never once stopped to ask the obvious question: if she's so powerful, why can't she eat dinner without checking her phone?

I'll go further: why is she proud of that?

Access got her into every room in the city and now every room has access to her

Let's name what actually happened. Access became the status symbol of choice for ambitious women, and the luxury economy was more than happy to oblige. Private lounges, members-only clubs, first-name relationships with the maître d', doors opening in every direction. And it all felt like progress, until nobody mentioned the other side of the physics: every door that opens for you also opens onto you. More access means more accessed, and greater connection means greater demand. The most reachable woman in any room is also, by definition, the most interruptible, and we've been calling that power for a full decade now. The coat is perfect, the bag is perfect, the table at the restaurant is secured, and what she doesn't have is silence.

Nobody agreed to this job description, but here we all are, performing it anyway.

She spent twenty years becoming unfireable and forgot to become free

Here's where it gets interesting, and a little uncomfortable, because this isn't something that happened to us. We built it deliberately, competently, over fifteen or twenty years of decisions that all pointed in one direction: toward ourselves as the hub. Routes through me, escalates to me, lives in my head, requires my sign-off. And there was a time when that was brilliant strategy, back when the rooms didn't take her seriously and the woman who made herself indispensable also made herself unfireable. If everything collapses without you, they can't afford to lose you, and that is a genuinely smart power move.