You spend longer on the persona than you planned. It is comforting. A role has rules; a role gives you somewhere to stand. You build the details quietly: the phrasing this person would use, the caution they would show, the confidence they would allow themselves. You decide what sort of employee they are, capable, overlooked, more at ease with internal notes than with confrontation. By the time you finish, the voice feels less like fiction than a narrow hallway you can walk down without being seen. You wonder when you got this good at sounding harmless. The answer comes faster than you want: around the time you got good at surviving. You move on, hoping to cover more ground before daybreak. [[Study Blackridge Portfolio]]