The room had changed.

Some of the same employees who had laughed when I hit the floor could no longer meet my eyes, and I understood exactly what that was, because I had spent eight years studying fear in that building.

Most of them had laughed the way people laugh near power — not from cruelty but from terror, because the man on the stage had all their livelihoods in his hand, and a person who won’t laugh at the boss’s joke is a person taking a risk they can’t afford.

“I want to say one thing to all of you,” I said, “and then we’ll let you go home.

I know why most of you laughed tonight.

You laughed because he had power over you, and laughing was safer than silence.

I’m not going to punish anyone for being afraid of a powerful man.

I have been afraid of powerful men.

It is not a character flaw.

It is a survival skill.”