My manager's manager came to talk to me in my office about my increasingly-evident job stress. Generally, these can be difficult and awkward discussions, as they come down to answering the unspoken question "Why aren't you up to this job?"

He may not have meant this, but that's what these sort of "one-on-one post-mortem" meetings usually end up be. More often than not, it ends with the manager (or manager's manager in this case) imparting a pre-envisioned list of "you shoulds," and the subordinate (that would be me) nodding and agreeing to more work.

This time was slightly different. My skip (short for skip-level manager, which is our work slang for place on his org chart) was talking about how Mike, the 9-year veteran I'm replacing, had his faults (a good start for these sorts of meetings), about how he kept everything in his head, etc.

Somewhere, I saw the perfect analogy.

By my desk was a styrofoam cup of coffee.

I quickly drank the coffee.

I placed the cup upside-down in the middle of the floor.

I placed a huge computer text on it.

I balanced a second one.

By this time, he stopped talking and asked me what I was doing.

I put a third one on the stack. "This is Mike," I said.

I added a fourth. I now have nearly a foot of books on top of the cup. "These are his years of experience."

I pick up the stack of books and lift them a foot. "Now, we change cups. Pretend that's a new cup. Pretend that's me."

I drop the stack of books, flattening the cup.

"That's how I feel."

He got the point.