# "I've got you"

## This week's cartoon

![Cartoon: a cheerful manager with a lanyard holds a flimsy cardboard umbrella over an anxious employee while ink-like BLAME rain falls; the umbrella is already folding. Manager says, "I've got you."](../../img/cartoons/paper-umbrella.png)

> _It worked until there was weather._

---

### Glossary · *cover*

**Cover** is protection that shows up when heat is in the room, not only in the hallway. Private reassurance is cheap. Real cover means your manager absorbs blame with you, puts your name on the good work in public, and does not fold the second politics arrives.

People week lives or dies on this score. Strong Work can still fail if the person above you will not spend political capital when credit and blame move. The tell is weather. If support only exists in calm 1:1s and disappears in the room where decisions land, you do not have cover. You have a paper umbrella.

Score it on the last two storms, not on the nicest private praise. If cover stays weak with no dated path to a different manager or team, treat People as a veto. Strong Work makes the exit cleaner. It does not repair a manager who cannot hold rain.