I let him talk. He explained, with the wine sitting unopened on my kitchen counter, that this was a misunderstanding. That the restructuring was real. That nobody had meant for things to go sideways. He asked if I would be willing to walk him through my findings — “for old times’ sake” — so he could answer the client’s questions.
And that’s when I told him about my father.
My father wasn’t an analyst or a manager or anyone with a title. He was a man who kept every receipt, every letter, every piece of paper that crossed his desk for thirty years — because he’d learned the hard way that when powerful people rewrite a story, the only defense is a record they can’t rewrite.
He taught me to document everything. Not out of paranoia. Out of respect for the truth.