Category: In Which We Mock Our Employers

So, the new thing at work is to be vulnerable. Bosses, executives, co-workers, we must all be vulnerable so that we can trust each other. It feels very awkward to be in front of people and talk about my purpose in life and my greatest fears and what shaped who I am today. Jerry gets…

I start a new project Monday, and I wanted to finish up my old project before I get absorbed in the new one. I worked on it all day Friday, and then all evening Friday, and then from midnight to 5:30 a.m., when I got two hours of sleep. At about two a.m. I remembered…

I was in a department meeting when a visiting speaker said, “I mean, that’s what’s you expect. It’s table steaks.” Then she went on, but I was still hung up in this new phrase. Table steaks? Like … table wine? Kind of a lower-grade steak you get a restaurant, not a fine steak/wine, but a…

Okay, there’s a new buzzword at work. Or buzz phrase. Or buzz cultural reference. It’s the Oregon Trail computer game. It was designed in the seventies, but it didn’t become a popular technique for teaching the perils of the Oregon Trail until the Apple 2e version came out, just a few years after I graduated…

Last night it was 3:30 am and I hadn’t been able to sleep yet, so I just decided to get my work laptop and start working. I worked until oh, 11:30, when I needed to have an urgent video conference with my coworker Benjamin. Frankly I am astonished this hasn’t happened before today. Here I…

Most of the time I have very interesting work projects. I have a database that routinely runs into its own limitations, and I have to test my limits wrestling it to my will. I enjoy that. SadLy, I’m also I’m routinely asked to do things that require “Vision” and “Strategic Thinking” and other qualities I…

So, we’re using Zoom at work now, and everyone else is is being all creative with their backgrounds. I decided to choose the most boring, safe-for-work background I could, then I jazzed it up with a Hang In There Baby poster from my youth. I need other poster ideas, preferably ones like the above that…

The young people at work continue to communicate with me in their youthful way. There was one five-minute period recently during which they Skyped me, emailed me, and texted me, and while I was reading their texts the landline phone rang. (The landline phone was the hospital telling me that my brother was out of…

The company dress code says that woman shall wear tailored suits or separates or dresses. The company dress code is largely ignored in my area. I’ve watched it morph from a) blazer, blouse, and pants to b) sweater, blouse, and pants to c) scarf, blouse, and pants to d) blouse and pants and I have…

I was plugging away at TeddyJ, rolling the rock up the hill, when a company email came in offering a Special Company Event Opportunity. I registered for it the instant I read the first sentence, not because I wanted it so much, but because it’s the type of thing other people want, and you have…