The Three Questions Everyone's Secretly Asking About You at Work

Remember your first day at a new job? That mix of excitement and terror as you walked through those doors, wondering if you'd worn the right thing, if you should eat lunch at your desk or in the break room, whether saying "hey" was too casual or "good morning" too formal?

Yeah, me too. And here's the thing—that feeling never really goes away because every workplace runs on rules nobody bothers to write down.

The Invisible Playbook

I used to think I was overthinking everything. Turns out, I wasn't thinking enough about the right things.

Last year, I watched two people start the same role at my company. Same qualifications, same job description, same training. Six months later, one was leading projects while the other was still asking permission to order office supplies. The difference? One understood the game beneath the game.

These aren't the rules in your employee handbook. They're the invisible expectations floating in the air like humidity—you can't see them, but you definitely feel when they're there. And just like humidity, ignoring them doesn't make them disappear. It just makes you sweat more.

The In-Laws Test

Here's how I explain it to people who insist their workplace doesn't have unspoken rules: Remember meeting your partner's family for the first time?

That mental gymnastics routine—Do I call them by their first names? Help with dishes or would that be overstepping? Laugh at that borderline inappropriate joke or pretend I didn't hear it? Those split-second calculations you're making? That's exactly what you're doing at work every single day. You're just so used to it, you've stopped noticing.

The difference is, at work, getting it wrong doesn't just mean an awkward Thanksgiving. It means watching opportunities slide past you like trains you didn't know you were supposed to catch.

The Truth About "Not Getting It"

I've sat in those meetings. The ones where managers discuss who's ready for promotion. And I've heard that phrase—"They just don't get it"—kill more careers than any performance issue ever could.

What's maddening is that "it" is never defined. It's this mystical quality that some people have and others don't, and nobody can quite explain what it is. Except they can. They just don't realize they're explaining it.

Because every time someone walks into a room—virtual or physical—every email they send, every project they touch, people are unconsciously running them through a filter. And that filter is asking three questions that determine everything about your career trajectory.

The Three Questions That Actually Matter

Forget your KPIs and quarterly reviews. Here's what people are really evaluating:

Question 1: Can you actually do this job?

This seems obvious, right? It's about competence. But here's where it gets tricky—competence isn't just about technical skills. I've seen brilliant people fail this test because they couldn't translate their expertise into language their team understood. Your competence only counts if other people can see it, understand it, and trust it.

I learned this the hard way when I spent weeks on a perfect analysis that nobody read because I buried the important stuff on slide 47. Being right doesn't matter if you can't make people believe you're right.

Question 2: Do you actually want to be here?

This is the commitment question, and it's not about working late or skipping vacations. It's about whether people believe you're building something with them or just passing through.

I once had a colleague who did excellent work but talked constantly about her side business. Guess who didn't get invited to the strategic planning sessions? Your manager isn't just evaluating today's work; they're investing in tomorrow's team. If they think you've got one foot out the door, even if you don't, you're already gone in their mind.

Question 3: Can we actually stand working with you?

The compatibility question. The one nobody wants to admit matters but absolutely does.

This isn't about being everyone's best friend or conforming to some corporate mold. I'm introverted as hell, and I've made this work. It's about whether people feel energized or drained after interacting with you. Whether you make the hard days bearable or harder.

A former boss once told me, "I hire for skills, but I promote for fit." It felt unfair at the time. Now I realize he was just being honest about what everyone else pretends isn't true.

The Constant Performance

Here's the exhausting truth: you're auditioning for your own job every single day. Every interaction is a micro-test of these three questions. That casual Monday morning check-in? Test. The way you respond to critical feedback? Test. How you act when the project goes sideways? Big test.

It sounds paranoid, but it's not about them being out to get you. It's about how human brains work. We're constantly evaluating, categorizing, deciding who we trust, who we want on our team, who we believe in. We can't help it.

The CEO, your intern, everyone in between—we're all playing this game, trying to prove we're competent, committed, and compatible. The only difference is some people know they're playing.

Making Peace with the Game

Do I love that this is how things work? Not really. There's something deeply unfair about success depending on rules nobody explains. It advantages people who grew up around these environments, who had mentors, who got lucky enough to figure it out early.

But here's what I've learned: you can hate the game and still choose to play it well. You can recognize these unspoken rules without letting them change who you are. You can answer those three questions authentically, in your own way.

I started paying attention to how I showed up. Not in a fake, calculated way, but intentionally. I made sure my work was visible without being obnoxious about it. I found ways to show commitment that aligned with my values. I learned to be myself while also being someone people wanted to work with.

The Rules Behind the Rules

The wild thing? Once you start seeing these patterns, you can't unsee them. You realize that every workplace—every human group, really—runs on these invisible agreements. And maybe that's okay. Maybe the problem isn't that unspoken rules exist, but that we pretend they don't.

So here's my advice: Stop waiting for someone to hand you the real rulebook. It doesn't exist. Instead, watch the patterns. Notice who gets heard in meetings and why. Pay attention to the people who seem to effortlessly navigate your workplace. They're not lucky—they're literate in a language you're still learning.

And remember, everyone—including that intimidatingly confident executive—is constantly trying to answer those same three questions. We're all just trying to prove we belong, that we matter, that we're worth investing in.

The difference between those who rise and those who stall isn't talent or hard work alone. It's understanding that beneath every org chart, every process document, every official policy, there's a human system running on human rules. And humans, it turns out, are pretty predictable once you know what they're really looking for.

Master those three questions, and you've cracked the code that most people don't even know exists.