# "We got the best"

## This week's cartoon

![Cartoon: a cheerful manager with a lanyard points at a gold STAR HIRE display case where a slumped employee sits under cobwebs with an unused keyboard, while empty desks with unplugged monitors stand around the case. Manager says, "We got the best."](../../img/cartoons/star-hire.png)

> _They bought the star. The support never arrived._

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### Field note

A famous hire can still atrophy. Companies buy a name, put a plaque on it, and forget that most of the work lives in the people who hand work in, take work out, and keep decisions moving around that seat. When those roles stay empty, the star sits on display while the weeks pile up unused. The story becomes that the person did not work out.

For the individual, the tell is the chain around you. Who hands you work, who depends on your output, who can name your part without a slide. If that is thin in week one, you are not joining a role. You are joining a cabinet. Score that before the offer glow fades, and again ninety days in.

> **The move is to rebuild the handoffs fast, or leave before the plaque becomes your story.**

Ask what sits between you and a shipped outcome. Name the roles that must stay filled for your impact to compound. If leadership cannot answer, treat the star label as decoration and protect your next move while the dust is still light.