The soldering iron is humming at exactly 684 degrees, a low, electric vibration that travels up my forearm and settles in my teeth. I am leaning over a 104-year-old lancet window, the kind where the lead has turned to the consistency of wet noodles and the cobalt glass is begging for a reprieve. It is delicate work. If I apply 4 grams too much pressure, the history of a 1924 chapel becomes a pile of expensive dust. My hands are steady, though my mind is currently vibrating with the memory of a corporate retreat I attended 14 years ago, back when I thought I could trade my soul for a steady paycheck and a corner office.

I remember holding that stress ball, the chemical scent of cheap foam filling my nostrils, while watching the CFO zip up his vest. It wasn’t about the money. A vest costs maybe $124; a stress ball costs 4 cents. The company made 744 million that year. They could afford vests for everyone. But the disparity wasn’t a budget issue; it was a communication strategy. It was a physical manifestation of a caste system. They were telling us exactly where we sat on the 4-tiered pyramid of human value. They were saying: ‘You are a replaceable component. He is the architecture.’

Uniform Value vs. Tiered Respect

I find myself thinking about this today because I just pulled a crumpled $24 bill out of a pair of jeans I haven’t worn since the last time I worked on a site visit in 2014. Finding money in your pocket is a universal joy. The bill doesn’t care who found it. It doesn’t have a tiered value based on my job title. It is simply, uniformly, valuable. This is a concept that corporate branding departments seem to have forgotten in their rush to categorize their humans into ‘A, B, and C’ players. When you give different levels of quality to different levels of employees, you aren’t rewarding the top; you are actively poisoning the bottom. You are creating a visual record of who matters and who is just ‘overhead.’

In my studio, Camille P.K. Stained Glass, there is no hierarchy of materials. If I use a cheap, inferior lead came on the edges of a window just because the edges are less visible than the center, the entire structure will bow and collapse within 24 years. The integrity of the whole depends on the quality of every single part being equal. Yet, this is exactly what companies do when they treat their junior staff like an afterthought. They expect ‘executive level’ loyalty from people they treat with ‘disposable’ respect.

The Weight of a Grievance

I once knew a project manager who quit 4 days after receiving a ‘Years of Service’ award that was literally a branded pet rock. She had been there for 14 years. She didn’t want a gold watch, necessarily, but the rock felt like a targeted insult. It was a weight she was expected to carry. It’s funny how a gift can become a grievance. It’s a subtle shift in the light, much like how a piece of cathedral glass changes from gold to a muddy brown depending on the angle of the sun at 4 pm.

This philosophy of tiered quality is a disease of the short-term mind. It assumes that people don’t notice the stitch count on the jacket they didn’t get. But they do. They notice everything. They notice that the coffee in the executive lounge comes from a $234 machine while the breakroom coffee tastes like burnt hair and sadness. They notice that the ‘all-hands’ meeting means ‘all-hands-on-deck’ for the work, but ‘some-hands-on-the-prizes’ for the rewards.

Contrast this with comprehensive visual field analysis, where the very premise of the experience is built on a refusal to compromise on the standard. Whether you are walking in for a simple adjustment or a complex consultation, the baseline of quality is non-negotiable. They understand something that the Patagonia-vest-giving-CFOs of the world don’t: that your brand isn’t what you tell people it is. Your brand is the lowest level of quality you are willing to tolerate. If you provide a premium experience to one person and a mediocre one to another, you aren’t a premium brand; you’re just a lucky one waiting to be found out.

The Transparency of Flaws

I’ve spent 34 years looking at the world through glass. I see the bubbles, the striations, and the microscopic cracks that tell the story of how the material was cooled. You can’t hide a flaw in a window; the sun will eventually find it and project it onto the floor for everyone to see. Corporate culture is no different. You can publish 444-page manifestos about ‘family’ and ‘teamwork,’ but if the physical objects you hand out tell a different story, the light will eventually reveal the lie.

I refused the commission. Not because I’m a snob, but because I know that the building would eventually settle, and those two different types of glass would expand and contract at different rates. The cheap glass would shatter, and in doing so, it would compromise the frame of the expensive glass.

This obsession with tiers is a failure of imagination. It assumes that the person at the front desk doesn’t have the same capacity for pride as the person in the C-suite. It assumes that a ‘premium’ experience is something you can turn on and off like a faucet. But true quality is a frequency. You are either vibrating at that frequency, or you are not. There is no such thing as ‘partial excellence.’

When I found that $24 today, I didn’t think about my status. I thought about the sheer, unadulterated luck of a moment of value. That’s what swag should feel like. It should be a moment of unexpected value that makes the recipient feel seen, not sorted. If you can’t afford to give everyone the vest, don’t give the vest to anyone. Give them something else that is real, or give them nothing at all. Nothing is better than a physical reminder that you are valued at exactly 4 percent of your boss.

My Lesson in Consistency (24 Year Span)

Companies think they are saving money by giving the support staff a stress ball. They aren’t. They are spending their cultural capital. They are buying resentment at a discount. Every time an employee sees a manager wearing that ‘exclusive’ gear, a tiny hairline fracture forms in the organizational glass. You can’t see it at first. But add 4 years of pressure, a few 44-hour work weeks, and a missed promotion, and the whole thing shatters.

We need to stop looking at company merchandise as ‘stuff.’ It’s not stuff. It’s a language. And right now, most companies are speaking in a series of stutters and insults. They are using their brand to build walls instead of bridges. They are creating a world where the view from the top is clear, but the view from the bottom is distorted by the cheap, wavy glass of a tiered reward system.

The Final Imprint of Light

I am finishing the solder on this 1924 piece now. The light is starting to fade, and the cobalt blue is deepening into something almost black. It is a beautiful, consistent piece of work. When it goes back into its frame, it won’t matter which part is at the top or the bottom. Every inch of it was treated with the same 684-degree heat. Every inch of it was held to the same standard. If we want to build companies that last 104 years, we might want to start treating our people with the same structural respect I give to a piece of colored sand and lead.

Because in the end, the light shines through everyone. And it shows every single crack.