I promised the future. Finance has approved batteries
Scott’s Tots turns a grand promise into laptop batteries. A comic reflection on managers who offer certainty before checking what they can deliver.
Leading Through Uncertainty · Clarity · Trust
Making a promise is one of the easiest parts of management, especially if you have arranged for somebody else to be there when it becomes due. The announcement is warm. People look relieved. For a few moments, everyone can enjoy a future that has not yet been discussed with Finance.
This article reflects on fictional events in the US version of The Office. The workplace examples outside the programme are imagined illustrations, not accounts of real people, companies or events.
“Scott’s Tots” takes that temptation to an excruciating conclusion. Years earlier, Michael Scott promised to pay a group of schoolchildren’s college tuition if they finished high school. When the time comes, he cannot afford it. He has to tell the students that the support they have been counting on will not arrive.
He offers laptop batteries as an attempted consolation. The distance between those two things is almost impossible to sit through. A college education and a battery are both useful, certainly, but you would want the substitution discussed before choosing a university.
The students are not the joke. Michael’s wish to be a generous benefactor, combined with his astonishing failure to fund the position, is the joke. He wants to be the person who made their futures possible. Unfortunately, he has treated becoming that person as an administrative detail to resolve later.
Announce now, establish feasibility afterwards
Imagine a team struggling with its workload. The manager knows people are tired and wants to give them something concrete. An extra person will make a real difference, so the manager tells the team that help is coming. There have been encouraging conversations. It seems likely. The announcement goes well.
The vacancy has not actually been approved. Neither has the budget. The manager has, however, selected an excellent tone of voice, and for the duration of the meeting this feels like progress.
Weeks pass. People make plans around the additional capacity. Work that might have been stopped is kept alive because the new person will eventually take it on. The manager keeps saying that discussions are moving forward, which could mean almost anything, including that the same email has been forwarded twice.
Eventually, the request is declined. There is an alternative proposal involving better prioritisation and a productivity app. The team has not watched anyone fail to recruit. From its perspective, somebody announced a colleague who has now been replaced by a login.
This is where Michael’s batteries become an uncomfortably useful comparison. The substitute may have value in its own right. That does not make it equivalent to the thing people organised their expectations around. Explaining the app’s features more enthusiastically will not give it the ability to attend the Tuesday meeting.
The applause arrives before the invoice
What interests me is the timing of the reward. The person making the promise receives appreciation immediately. The cost arrives later, often somewhere else. That separation makes it possible to feel helpful before any help has actually been delivered.
The same pattern can appear in a promotion conversation. Imagine telling someone that their progression will happen next quarter because you believe they deserve it and want them to stay. You may intend to argue strongly for them. You may also lack the authority to make the decision you have just presented as settled.
From your side, it was encouragement. From theirs, it was information about their career. They might decline another opportunity, take on additional responsibility or plan around a salary change. The uncertainty has not disappeared because you spoke confidently. It has moved into their decisions without being labelled.
I do not think the answer is to speak so cautiously that every sentence needs legal assistance. People need to hear what their manager believes, what they are advocating for and where there is a realistic possibility of change. But belief, advocacy and approval are different stages. Combining them into one reassuring announcement may make this conversation easier by making a later one much worse.
Something useful to say before certainty exists
In the imagined staffing conversation, the manager could say that they have requested another role, that it is not yet approved and when they expect a decision. They could also explain what happens to the workload while the answer is pending. That last part would matter more to me than another expression of confidence in the request.
If the team is overloaded now, possible future capacity is not a complete response. Some current commitment may need to move. Naming that trade-off would be less glamorous than promising reinforcements, but the team would have something it could actually use on Monday.
The promotion conversation needs similar care. I would want to distinguish my assessment of someone’s readiness from the decision other people still need to make. Then I would need to follow through on the part that is mine: making the case, clarifying the process and returning with an answer when I said I would.
If I had already promised too much, I would want to correct it before gathering another collection of optimistic updates. That would mean saying what I had represented too confidently, what was now known and what options remained. The disappointment would be real. Dressing a smaller offer as though it fulfilled the original commitment would ask the person to absorb both the loss and the pretence.
Michael’s error begins long before he arrives with the batteries. It begins when the satisfaction of making the promise becomes enough to proceed. Before giving someone certainty, I would want to check which parts I can actually stand behind. If the answer is that I can make the request, argue for it and give an honest update, those are commitments worth making. They just need to be the ones the other person hears.
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