The exit interview. And sitting across from me, holding the questionnaire, was the manager whose behavior was the whole reason I was in an exit interview to begin with. He was the answer to his own question, asking me his own question, apparently without realizing he was doing both.
"What could we have done differently?"
You, specifically. That's the honest answer. The thing that could've been done differently was sitting right there with a pen. But you can't say that. Not on your way out, not to his face, not with a reference potentially on the line. So I gave the diplomatic version — half-honest, edges sanded down, the truth wearing a suit. Gestured vaguely at "communication" and "clarity of expectations" and let him fill in blanks he was never going to fill in.
He nodded. Wrote something down. Thanked me for my "valuable feedback."
And by that point the whole thing had emptied of meaning. He wasn't really asking, I wasn't really answering, the feedback wasn't really valuable and wouldn't really be used. It was a form being completed. Two people performing an exit ritual we both knew changed nothing, saying words neither of us believed, so I could leave and he could file the paperwork and nothing whatsoever would be different for the next person who sat in my chair.