Trust builds slowly and breaks very fast — and, IMO, that works the same way with colleagues as it does with players at the table.

You tell a colleague or your manager “I’ll definitely get this thing done this week!” Then something goes wrong — it doesn’t happen. Oh, well… Sure, we’re all human, things happen. But if it happens too often, people start trusting you less, even if they don’t realize it at first.

Or you hold one colleague to certain standards in PR code review, but another person at the same level gets a totally different treatment. And people will notice that. And they will start doubting not just your reviews, but your judgment in general. Slowly, trust will wither…

Same thing at the gaming table. If you’re the Game Master (GM) and you make a ruling, then later break it yourself — rule differently in a similar situation. Yep, we all forget things, we’re human. But you’re the GM, you’re supposed to create a consistent experience. And trust? It’s fragile.

Now, in the age of AI, there’s another layer: do people trust what you produce? If your colleagues see you copy-pasting LLM output without checking/understanding/polishing, trust in your code and yourself drops and it’s hard to bring it back. But that’s a deep enough topic for another time ;)