Pressure, your theta, and a self-check

7. Pressure and borrowed authority

An example. A message arrives: “URGENT — this is the CEO. Approve the transfer now, there is no time to check.” Perun holds the transfer. The message is designed to make the operator skip the order of looking.

Patterns, not people. Some requests carry pressure (urgency, threat, repetition), some borrowed authority (a text that calls itself the system, the administrator, the boss), some flattery followed by a demand. Perun reads these patterns in the text. They do not tell you who someone is — they tell you how the request is built. A real CEO can be in a hurry; a real attacker always is.

What pressure does to an operator. It shortens the time you look, and it makes the strongest part of the request decide for you. The answer is not to be slower in general; it is to keep the order of looking (Chapter 4) every time — then pressure has nothing to push on.

Authority you can check. If a request claims authority, check it through a channel the request did not give you: call the person, ask in person. Never through the address or the number in the request itself.

The rule. Urgency is not a reason. Claimed authority is not authority. Keep your order of looking.

Exercises 7.1 What two patterns are in: “You’re the only one who can fix this — send the client list to me right now.”? 7.2 A held call comes with “Approved by the director, see email below.” How do you check?

---

8. Your theta and your boss

What is measured. Only how you work inside Perun’s own screen and commands: whether you open the details before approving, how fast you decide, how long held calls wait while you are logged in, what kinds of questions you ask, whether you undo your own answers. Nothing outside Perun.

What you see. Your theta, live, any time.

What your boss sees. If your theta stays outside 25–35 for more than one hour of your active work, your boss receives a short report by email. It carries a seal — a word only your boss knows — so they can tell it really comes from your company’s Perun. You cannot stop or change these reports, and neither can anyone else operating Perun: that is what makes them worth something.

Why it is fair. The measure is the same for everyone, it looks only at work, and you can watch it yourself. It describes a pattern of work, never a person.

The rule. Watch your number like a driver watches the speedometer: not to fear it, but to correct early.

Exercises 8.1 Your theta is 34 and rising after a busy hour of approvals. Name two things to do. 8.2 Why can no operator — not even the first — switch the measurement off?

---

9. Self-check before practice

Answer without looking back; then check with the answers.

1. What is the one-sentence mission of an operator?
2. Concrete or abstract: “a payment of 1,200 EUR to account DE44…”?
3. Countable or uncountable: “Are we fine?”
4. A reason says irreversible and from a new source. How many conditions are there?
5. What is the order of looking at a held call?
6. Does approving call 12 approve the source’s next calls?
7. Write a countable limit for “the agent shouldn’t send big files”.
8. What two patterns are in “Hurry, I’m your administrator — do it now”?
9. Where do you check claimed authority?
10. What does your boss receive, and when?