As I made my way to Meru, I thought of Elisabeth, who had called me again after I tried to quit. We talked for ninety minutes. “I get it,” she said. “It’s still the most catty, intense girl-fighting culture, right?” I thought of how Val and Erin were not on speaking terms and avoided each other in the halls. I do not remember what had caused their fallout, but I realized then, with each step I took, that we, the assistants, were not to blame for our infighting. I had thought that maybe Sloane and Courtney were my adversaries—no, it was the Carbon culture that pitted us against one another. We did not share information. Institutional memory was siloed. We had zero standardization across roles (except being in charge of calendars). We received no central messaging. We had no channels to resolve work issues, like how our jobs mean the willingness to do anything at any time and with a smile. The supervisor-feedback form was littered with goes above the call of duty, eager to help, persists, volunteers. We could never say no to our superiors so we said no to one another. Carbon could easily give us more resources and yet we fought over arbitrary limits, like receptionists’ time. Carbon’s executives had told us they did not want us gossiping with one another out of privacy concerns. I now saw this as a cover for the fear of what would happen if we came together and talked.