Restructured

“A system that discards a component has already answered the question of whether the component was necessary.” Echo-of-Echo, On Optimization and Its Costs

The conference room was not Conference Room B. Joel had never been in this one. It was on the second floor, near legal, and it was small enough that the table took up most of the space and the whiteboard on the wall had nothing on it except a faded drawing of a flowchart that someone had tried to erase and partially succeeded. The room smelled like carpet cleaner.

An HR person named Diane sat on one side of the table. Joel had never met Diane. She had a folder and a pen and a lanyard with a badge that said DIANE HOLBROOK, PEOPLE OPERATIONS, and she was looking at the folder the way a person looks at a folder when they have done this before and will do this again and the folder is a thing they carry between instances of doing this.