You don’t need headlines to know there’s a crisis. You just need to scroll.
Look at the banners. Just look.
“Open to Work.” “Seeking New Opportunities.”
It’s not just job loss. It’s not just careers. It’s not just employment.
It’s entire lifetimes. Entire identities.
Entire belief systems… quietly suspended beneath a profile picture, whispering:
“I’m still here. I still matter. See me.”
This isn’t just a wave of layoffs. This isn’t just organizational change.
This is the quiet collapse of a system — a system that was never built to carry the weight we placed on it.
And behind every “Open to Work” banner, there is someone who held it all together — until it broke.
A Grants Officer who stretched impossible funds just to keep hope alive.
A Finance Coordinator who balanced budgets across time zones and currencies — just to keep the lights on.
A Program Director negotiating with armed groups by day… and texting home by night: “Don’t worry, I’m fine.”
A Logistics Manager rerouting trucks through minefields, whispering prayers that the medicine makes it.
A Protection Advisor absorbing stories most humans couldn’t survive hearing — and writing them into reports the world barely read.
A MEAL Specialist fighting to make sure the data told the truth — when narratives bent it.
A Regional Lead — and someone in HQ — making impossible decisions from a distance, knowing that behind every approval was someone’s safety… and someone’s risk.
A Field Officer walking hours to check if water still flowed — because no one else would.
A Safeguarding Lead fighting invisible battles to make the sector a little less harmful.
A Country Director opening doors, closing others, and quietly carrying the unbearable weight of everyone’s safety.
These are not job titles. These are the quiet architects of survival.
The invisible hands holding broken worlds together.
Maybe that’s you.
Or maybe — if you’re honest — it’s someone you never quite noticed… until now.
Or maybe — just maybe — it’s the system itself. An elegant machine of organized complexity, expertly built to look like it’s working… while quietly ensuring it only works for itself.
And now — in this cruel moment — the helpers are forced to do what they never imagined: Publicly declare, “I need help.”
It takes breathtaking courage to click that button.
To wear your vulnerability like a banner — for the whole world to see.
To go from the one with the answers… to the one asking.
Hoping.
Waiting.
And yes, we tell each other: “Let’s build better systems. Let’s create hyper-models. Let’s pursue real partnerships. Let’s make innovation not just part of our work — but the foundation of it.”
But beneath all that, here’s a truth some of us barely whisper — even to ourselves:
We trusted the system. Organizations. The leadership. The mission.
And it failed us.
It failed the people who were never meant to carry this much — but did anyway.
It failed the ones who signed the contracts, answered the duty phone at midnight, carried the risk, absorbed the trauma… so someone else could call it “impact.”
And the messages come now. Quietly. From inboxes across the globe:
A voice from Afghanistan: “We tried so hard. But we couldn’t hold it together.”
A colleague from Nigeria: “I don’t know who I am anymore… without the job, without the mission, without the role that held me together.”
A whisper from South Sudan: “I’m ashamed to tell my family I’ve failed… because this job was my identity. My everything.”
A leader from Syria: “I was the one telling others, ‘We have to make tough decisions.’ Until one day… the tough decision was me.”
Someone from London: “I fear the same will happen here.” Said while refreshing job alerts… watching the worry quietly turn real.
And someone from Washington: “I’m sorry… I wish it wasn’t like this.” But we both knew — it’s not them. It never was. It’s the machine. A system that grinds down the very people who kept it standing.
And then… a message from Geneva — from someone who still holds hope, saying: “It will be fixed. The UN reform will happen.”
And I replied:
“The UN Reform is a broken machine — trying to fix itself with its own broken tools. And the engineers? Geared for maintenance, not change.”
Whether I’m right or wrong… hope was never meant to be placed in the machine. Hope lives in us. In the hands that still choose to build.
And then… there are those who don’t write about reform anymore. Who don’t argue. Who don’t debate….A friend simply writes: “I have no words left. Only silence. Only memories.”
And maybe… this is you, too.
Or maybe… you’ve been pretending it’s not.
Some try to reinvent the sector.
Some become consultants — adapting to a world they once hoped to change.
Some accept anything, any role, just to feel useful again. Just to feel seen.
And some… just left. Walked away. Quietly. Loudly. With grief. With relief. With both.
And when they ask me, “What now?” — my answer is always the same:
“With every contract that ends… there is a new contract with the future. You lost a title — not your purpose. This grief we carry now… will water the ground for something else. Something better.”
And so — no. I will not raise a green banner.
Not because I don’t need help. But because my banner would say something else.
Something heavier. Rawer. Uncomfortably honest.
“I’m not open to returning to what was. I’m open to creating what must be. I’m tired. I’m hurting. But I still carry seeds of possibility. Don’t hire me to repeat history. Hire me to rewrite it.”
If this collapse has taught me anything, it’s this: The greatest strength isn’t pretending you’re fine. It’s admitting you’re broken — and choosing to rebuild anyway.
But let’s not rush to silver linings. Let’s not skip the grief.
Sit.
Sit with what’s broken.
Name it. Feel it. Honor it.
Because these banners — these quiet, heartbreaking, defiant banners — are more than job searches.
They are the living archive of a system unraveling — one person, one profile, one life at a time.
And maybe — just maybe — the rebuild begins exactly there.
In the quiet bravery of vulnerability. In the raw honesty of admitting: “This cannot continue.”
And so it won’t.
Because jobs are never just jobs.
For some, it’s the rent, the visa, the food.
For some, it’s dignity.
For some, it’s identity.
Sometimes — it’s all of it at once.
I know what it means to lose that.
To lose the paycheck… and the purpose.
The stability… and the meaning.
The title… and the feeling that you mattered.
And still — the banners wave.
And beneath them — hearts still beat.
The fight remains. The rebuild begins.
— Ali Al Mokdad
