Joyce Mulman

Quick Facts

• Role: Product-quality team member in the division newly managed by Tom Callum
• First Appearance: First referenced as an unnamed “woman” who erased Tom’s whiteboard notes; later identified by Bud Jefferson
• Key Relationships: Tom Callum (new boss); Bud Jefferson (indirect catalyst who names her)
• Function in Story: Catalyst who exposes the human cost of Tom’s “in-the-box” leadership and triggers his first act of accountability

Who They Are

Though she has little page time, Joyce Mulman is the story’s clearest mirror reflecting the consequences of Tom’s leadership mindset. The narrative withholds physical description, presenting her first as a nameless “problem”—an object in Tom’s way. Only when she is named does she emerge as a person with a life, a voice, and vulnerabilities. Her cubicle—crowded with reports and children’s drawings—becomes the stage where Tom begins to shift from seeing obstacles to seeing people, embodying the book’s central theme of Seeing Others as People vs. Objects.

Personality & Traits

Joyce’s traits surface not through exposition but through a few telling gestures and disclosures. She is conscientious to a fault, quick to assume blame, and palpably anxious about workplace errors. Her gentleness and self-effacing posture contrast sharply with Tom’s early rigidity, underlining how power dynamics can silence those already inclined to take too much responsibility.

• Conscientious and sensitive: She confesses she has “hardly slept in a week” over the mistake—evidence of rigorous self-scrutiny and care for her work.
• Non-confrontational: When reprimanded, she offers no defense; even when Tom apologizes, her instinct is to absolve him and accept full blame.
• Family-oriented: Photos of “two little girls about three and five” and children’s drawings personalize her beyond Tom’s initial label of “nuisance.”
• Diligent: “Piles of charts and reports” in her cubicle suggest a heavy workload and steady effort within the product-quality team.
• Unseen until named: The absence of physical description and the delay in naming her highlight how easily workers become “faceless” under dehumanizing leadership.

Character Journey

Joyce herself is largely static—what changes is Tom’s vision. Initially, he reduces her to “the woman who erased my notes,” a nuisance to be managed. After his morning session with Bud, the simple act of learning her name turns an incident into a relationship. Visiting her cubicle, Tom sees not a problem but a person trembling with worry, apologizing profusely, and over-accepting blame. This encounter reframes his self-justifying narrative: his harshness has a human target, and his apology becomes his first credible step out of the box.

Key Relationships

• Tom Callum: Tom begins as Joyce’s intimidating new boss who refuses her handshake and threatens her job over a first-time offense. Their dynamic exposes how authority, when filtered through self-deception, converts people into objects. Tom’s apology doesn’t erase the harm but marks a turning point where he reclaims agency by acknowledging her personhood.

• Bud Jefferson (indirect): Bud never interacts with Joyce on the page, yet he humanizes her by naming her and urging Tom to see the person behind the “problem.” Bud’s intervention transforms Joyce from a plot device into the focal point of Tom’s first experiment in humane leadership.

Defining Moments

Small scenes carry big moral weight for Joyce, each one revealing how she is affected by Tom’s choices and how she, in turn, catalyzes his growth.

• The Whiteboard Incident

  • What happens: Joyce uses a conference room Tom informally claims and erases his notes—“pretty poor judgment,” not malice.
  • Why it matters: It exposes Tom’s territorial, objectifying stance and sets up the test of whether he’ll protect his ego or respect a person.

• The Reprimand

  • What happens: Tom “refused a handshake” and, without inviting her to sit, warned she’d be “looking for a new job” if it happened again.
  • Why it matters: A textbook display of hierarchical shaming and Blame and Self-Justification; Tom’s cruelty looks rational to him only because he’s reduced Joyce to an obstacle.

• The Apology

  • What happens: Prompted by Bud, Tom goes to Joyce’s cubicle to apologize; she trembles, expresses “utter shock,” and insists she “deserved it,” revealing the depth of her anxiety.
  • Why it matters: The apology is Tom’s first enactment of Personal Responsibility and Transformation. Joyce’s immediate self-blame starkly shows how power imbalances teach the vulnerable to carry burdens that aren’t theirs.

Essential Quotes

“By the way,” he added, “the woman’s name is Joyce Mulman.”
“Who … what woman?”
“The person whose hand you refused. Her name is Joyce Mulman.”

Naming collapses Tom’s distance. Bud reframes “the woman” as a person with a specific identity and a history Tom has ignored. The echo—“the person whose hand you refused”—forces Tom to see an action he justified as a personal slight he delivered.

“Oh, Mr. Callum,” she said in utter shock, stopping in her tracks, her hands to her face. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for the mess. It’s not usually like this, really.”

Joyce’s physical reaction—shock, hands to face—registers fear and surprise that a superior has approached her humanely. Her rush to apologize for her cubicle’s disorder shows how thoroughly she polices herself, even in the midst of receiving an apology.

“Oh, Mr. Callum, I … I deserved it, I really did. I should never have erased your things. I’ve felt so bad about it. I’ve hardly slept in a week.”

Her stammer and self-reproach reveal a perfectionist conscience weaponized against herself. The “hardly slept” detail quantifies the harm: what was, to Tom, a justified outburst has been, for Joyce, a week-long burden of anxiety—evidence that leadership posture becomes lived experience for those with less power.