Within this article, the author presents a personal story, "Leaving," which highlights the problematic experience of opposing established practice. The tale tells of the difficulty faced by creative agency when confronted by a constraining structural hegemony. Specifically, it draws attention to the professionalization of academic life through a cult of managerialism. Although the narrative is presented without extensive framing theory allowing multiple readings, the task is sociological as opposed to literary. Consequently, following the story, a discussion of its purpose, and a rationale for engaging in creative writing as a form of academic representation, two possible, though connected, theoretical sense-making lenses are offered: Foucault's concept of the "discourse of right" through which power is both created and exercised, and Habermas's cautionary note related to the power of systematic rationality to usurp the human "lifeworld." (Contains 3 notes.)