Circle Back: Notes From Years In Organizations
by Maria Glymph

Dialing 9 for an outside line. Thermal paper from the fax machine. Company cars and executive floors. Mission statements that survived reorganizations. The arrival of email, Zoom, psychological safety, and 'circle back.'

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In hundreds of brief recollections spanning more than four decades, a working life emerges through its objects, language, rituals, absurdities, difficult encounters, and occasional grace.

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Inspired by Joe Brainard's I Remember, Circle Back is neither a conventional memoir nor a management book. It is a personal record of life inside organizations—and a quiet portrait of how working life changed, how people behaved, and how much remained remarkably familiar.

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Anyone who has ever sat through a meeting, navigated a reorganization, learned the latest management language, or wondered what was really happening in the room will recognize something here.