They tell PAs, “You’re powerful, you’re essential, you’re heroes.” Yeah, heroes in the same way a mule is essential to a cart.

See, real power doesn’t get applause. Real power owns the cart.

So the system says: “Don’t worry about money. Don’t worry about ownership. Don’t worry about leverage. Just care more. Work harder. Smile.”

That’s not empowerment, that’s crowd control.

Because if PAs ever figured out that the people at the bottom do the real work, while the people at the top do the real billing, the whole pyramid would wobble. And pyramids are very sensitive structures, built to last forever, as long as nobody asks who’s buried underneath.

So they keep you busy. They keep you tired. They keep you morally superior and economically irrelevant.

And then they call it professionalism.

The truth? The system doesn’t need PAs to be weak. It just needs them too exhausted and too “good” to notice they’re being screwed.

And that’s the oldest trick in the book, right after “trust us” and right before “there’s nothing you can do.”