Up in the Air — and Back to Earth

On finding grace, courage, and heart in the hardest parts of work and life.

There are some things in a career that never get easier, no matter how many years you’ve been around.
For me, it’s having to fire someone.

Whether it’s because of performance issues, restructuring, or one of those mysterious “management decisions,” the act itself is brutal. Calling a colleague for a “short chat,” knowing you’re about to pull the floor out from under their feet — it’s a conversation that weighs heavily long after it’s over.

Most employees don’t take it in stride.
And honestly, why should they?
It’s not just a job they’re losing — it’s a sense of certainty, self-worth, and sometimes even identity. You can almost see the calculation flicker across their faces — the rent, the school fees, the EMIs. The silence between your sentences becomes louder than the words themselves.

For years, I thought this had to be the toughest responsibility anyone could shoulder in a career.
Until one day, I thought of doctors.

Imagine being the one who has to tell a family that their loved one’s time is running out. Or a surgeon who has to walk out of the operating room, remove his gloves, and quietly say, “We did all we could.”
It must take something deep inside to deliver that truth — over and over again.

And yet, they do it.
Just as some managers do, in boardrooms and HR cabins across the world.

Remember the movie Up in the Air?
George Clooney, flying from city to city, office to office, firing people for a living. He was elegant, polished, precise — even charming.
He had the perfect tone of voice, the right phrasing, the right pauses. But behind that professionalism was a strange emptiness — the kind that comes when you’ve done something so often, it stops feeling real.

Doctors face a similar risk. When you’ve seen too many endings, you begin to build walls to survive. You stop seeing the tears and start seeing statistics. A patient becomes a “case.” A tragedy becomes a “file.”
It’s not cruelty — it’s coping.
Because to feel every loss fully would be unbearable.

And perhaps that’s what happens to some managers as well.
You learn to detach — to deliver the bad news politely, efficiently, and move to the next meeting. Until one day, you realise you’ve started speaking in HR-safe phrases, not human ones.

But thankfully, life doesn’t stop at the tough parts.
For every moment of pain in our professions, there’s another side of joy that quietly balances it out.

Doctors get to see miracles too — the patient who walks again, the child who recovers, the family that thanks them through tears of relief. The joy of saving a life, of giving someone back their tomorrow — that must be pure magic.

And in our corporate world, we have our moments of happiness as well.
The day you promote someone who truly deserves it.
The joy of telling an employee, “You’ve earned your raise.”
The thrill of hiring a bright young candidate and watching them grow.

I still remember visiting my old company in Jebel Ali, years after I had moved on.
It was one of those bright desert mornings — the kind where the air shimmers like glass and the wind carries a faint mix of salt, sand, and diesel. As I walked through the familiar door, the rhythmic hum of forklifts, the beeping of trailers reversing, and the distant rumble of containers being loaded and unloaded seemed to wrap around me like a memory. Every sound, every movement brought it all rushing back — the long days, the small victories, and that quiet, almost bittersweet satisfaction of work done well.

And then, from across the yard, a few familiar faces spotted me.
They waved, shouted, and came over with that unmistakable grin of recognition.
“Sir, we miss you,” one of them said. “You were strict — but fair. You took care of us.”

It wasn’t a grand moment. No music, no applause. Just a few words under a harsh Dubai sun.
But standing there, hearing that, I realised something I had never quite paused to think about — that even the hardest jobs come with their share of grace. That somewhere between the layoffs, the decisions, and the sleepless nights, we had built something human.

And yet, as I thought more about doctors and their burden, another memory from long ago came back — one that had nothing to do with offices or meetings.

When I was eight, the doctors told my parents that my mother had breast cancer. I often wonder now — how did they break that news?
Did they speak gently, choosing their words with care? Or did they, like Clooney’s character, rely on practised professionalism to soften the blow?
And how did my mother take it — the first time, and later, when she learned that the cancer had spread to her brain?
How did my father manage to keep his voice steady, his face calm, when he must have been falling apart inside?

I was just a child then, protected from the details, shielded by their strength.
Looking back, I realise they did what good managers and good doctors both try to do — absorb the pain themselves so that others don’t have to.

Perhaps that’s the heart of it all — whether in hospitals or boardrooms or homes — the ones delivering the hard news often carry a quiet kind of courage that no one sees.

So yes, firing someone may feel like the worst job in the world.
But it’s also a reminder — that behind every tough decision, there’s a human heart doing its best to stay kind.

Maybe that’s what my parents did too — staying strong, staying gentle, protecting me from what they could, while carrying their own storms in silence.

Because even the hardest jobs — in work or in life — need a heartbeat.

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That thought stayed with me long after I wrote this story.
It finds its way again in my memoir You Told Me To Be Brave — where I revisit those early years, those moments of quiet strength and silent courage, and the people who taught me what resilience really looks like.

Some stories stay with you not because they hurt — but because they healed you in ways you didn’t understand at the time.