“I Am the System” → Overfunctioning as a substitute for infrastructure
aka: HR as the duct tape, the glue, and also the air
⚠️ Note: This series pulls from dozens of convos with HR leaders, founders, and the ghost of startups past. Any resemblance to real companies—living or flailing—is purely systemic.
🧵 TL;DR
This one’s about a very specific kind of burnout: when you accidentally become the company’s operating system—because no one ever got around to building one.
It usually starts with being helpful. Filling in gaps. Doing “just this one thing.” But suddenly, the whole people operation is running on your memory, your calendar, and your Slack/ Teams messages.
It’s happening because:
💸 You don’t have a budget or tooling—or the support to go get it
⏳ You don’t have the time to automate (even if you knew how)
🏃♀️ The org is moving too fast to pause and build
🎯 You’re great at holding it together, so no one sees the cost
What you can do:
🧭 Start with what’s breaking or draining you the most
🛠️ Build one clear, usable system at a time
📢 Speak in tradeoffs when asked to “just do it” again
🧍♀️ Design for absence—someone else should be able to run it
You don’t have to fix everything right now. But you also don’t have to keep duct-taping your way through the quarter. One clear system is a win. One less thing in your brain is a win.
Start there.
It starts innocently enough.
🟢 “Hey, quick question—do we have a process for…?”
You think, Not yet, but I’ll just handle it this time.
This time becomes every time.
Suddenly, you’re:
Fixing someone’s job offer in Google Docs because the comp tool hasn’t been set up 💸
Coaching a new manager through their first feedback convo—while rewriting the guide they should’ve had 🧠
Talking an exec down after a disastrous offsite that they planned themselves 🔥
Updating the onboarding checklist for the sixth time this quarter 📋
Off-boarding someone across five systems because nothing is integrated 🪪
Oh, and ordering the snacks 🍿
🧩 You are now the process.
There’s no central hub where people can self-serve answers.
There’s no automation quietly routing tasks or tracking workflows.
There’s no delegation, backup, or process that runs without you.
It all lives in your head, your calendar, and your Slack DMs.
The Google Doc? You.
The Slackbot? You.
The backchannel escalation path that somehow loops through you every time?
Also you.
✅ At first, it feels like competence — you’re proud of being the go-to person.
🔋 Then it feels like power — you know everything and everyone relies on you.
🚨 Then it feels like panic — you realize nothing works unless you do.
🧠 Why This Keeps Happening
Most companies don’t build systems proactively. They wait until something breaks—usually publicly, messily, and right before a board meeting—before they realize they need structure. Until then, the default system is just... you.
But why does it fall to you in the first place?
Here are a few root causes that keep this pattern alive:
💸 No real budget for tools or systems. You’d love to automate onboarding or set up self-serve workflows, but there’s no headcount, no tech support, and no line item for anything beyond the bare minimum.
🧑💻 You don’t have the time—or technical support—to build systems yourself. Even if you could figure out how to automate something in Zapier or write your own Notion database, you’re too busy putting out fires to stop and learn. It’s not a skills issue. It’s a bandwidth issue.
🏃♂️ The org is moving too fast to think deeply. Leadership is optimizing for speed, and your bandwidth is consumed by reactive tasks. No one’s stopping to ask, “Should this be a process?”—they’re asking, “Can you just handle this for now?”
🎯 You’re good at this. Too good. You anticipate what people need before they ask. You remember what matters. You make the mess look invisible. So no one realizes how much you’re personally carrying…
…Until you can’t.
Early on, it’s all:
“We don’t need process—we’re agile!”
“We hire adults!”
“Let’s just keep it human!”
Cool. Until the humans start forgetting who’s on a PIP, why the onboarding checklist is broken, and who promised equity vesting in 18 months instead of 12.
And when they forget, who do they come to?
You.
You remember everything.
So no one else has to.
Over time, your competence becomes a liability.
You’ve overfunctioned so well, so consistently, that no one notices you’re standing in for actual infrastructure.
You don’t have systems.
You are the system.
✋ How to Survive This Feeling
Let’s stop holding the org together with vibes.
1️⃣ Start with What’s Hurting You the Most
You don’t need to automate everything. You need to stop bleeding time.
Ask:
If I got the flu tomorrow, what would fall apart?
That’s not just your systems backlog. That’s your red zone. Start there.
2️⃣ Build 1 Source of Truth Per Month (That People Actually Use)
Don’t just write it down—make sure someone besides you can use it. That means:
Choosing the highest-impact, most-repeated process
Writing it in plain language, not HR-speak
Sharing it more than once, in more than one channel
Top of the doc: “This exists so I don’t have to.”
3️⃣ Push Back with a Tradeoff, Not a Wall
If you’re being asked to do it manually (again), try:
“Right now I’m doing this by hand, and it works—for now. But it’s not scalable. Should we make this a real system, or treat it as a temporary fix?”
Most teams don’t realize they’re creating drag. Until you say it.
4️⃣ Build Systems That Survive Without You
Every time you build something, ask:
Could someone else run this next time without needing to ask me 5 questions?
If the answer’s no, the system still depends on you. And that’s not a system—it’s a memory trick.
⚠️ A Word of Caution Before You Start Systemizing Everything
It’s tempting to try and systematize everything once you realize how much you’re holding together manually. But here’s the thing: not all processes are ready to become systems—and not every system is ready to scale.
Before you jump in:
🧭 Prioritize ruthlessly. Not everything deserves a system right now. Ask: What’s creating the most confusion, wasted time, or inconsistency? Start there.
🛠️ Treat systems like products. They need rollout plans, onboarding, and adoption.
📢 Communicate early and often. A Notion doc no one reads is not a system.
👥 Design with users in mind. If a manager or employee can’t use it without pinging you, it’s not done.
🔄 Expect iteration. No system is final on launch day. Watch what breaks, then tweak.
Systems only work if other people use them. Otherwise, you’ve just created more documentation for yourself to manage.
💬 Laughed? Nodded? Felt seen? Share this with the one other person on your team who also knows where all the bodies (and onboarding docs) are buried.
