You can take a break for a while and rediscover yourself again. A short pause might be enough, or a few years if you need. Shift your costs to the public while getting free food, housing, and medical care. Small crimes will get you 60 or 90 days away from jobs. More significant crimes might…
Honor and Money
“Honor and money cannot fit in the same bag.” -Proverb So it is. When the goal is money, it is clear that you must renounce honor. This is the purpose of workplace culture displacing normal standards. In the office you are asked to remain silent about your values, preferences, or beliefs while complying with orders…
Cubicle Decor
The right thing to do after being assigned a cubicle is to abstain from any design on it. It is already a synergistic perfection of brutalist minimalism. Second best is to be jovial, putting up your favorite cartoons and other subversive decorations until you cross the line and receive a warning from management. The worst…
Reluctant Master’s Degree
Realizing an undergraduate degree led to a no man’s land of cubicle dwelling, we reluctantly turned to credential acquisition. All you have to do is pay for classes, show up, listen, and complete your work. Anyone can do it; some do. A year or two later, you have another degree. Never believers in having degrees,…
Honking the Horn
Trapped in your vehicle, made stuck by semi conscious droids. There’s nothing you can do to change the situation you are in. Honk! You lay on the horn to signal your impotent fury. Those around hear it but neither react nor change awareness. Your noises achieve nothing but you feel you have let others know…
Passive Tolerance of Whatever
Back when I identified as an anarchist, I would look for ways to get revenge upon my enemies. For example, if someone gave out inferior candy at Halloween, they were sure to get their mailbox smashed. Or if someone was so stupid as to announce they were voting against a politician offering us all free…
Death By Pleasure
Taylor was working in Colombia. Bogotá is a bright city upon a mountain. Combined with its equatorial setting, the weather is crisp, sunny, and identically moderate all year round. Those who like their women surgically enhanced enjoy their time in Colombia. Steve visited Taylor’s hotel room the night before the concert. “Taylor, check out what…
Technologically Facilitated National Divorce
Decades ago, Michael Jordan was not interested in ideology when selling shoes, declining an expected political endorsement by saying “Republicans buy shoes, too.” This was just pragmatic mercantilism, not laudatory upholding of civilization that tolerates public discussion of diverse ideas. The situation today is that popular voices offering alternatives to mainstream storytelling are subject to…
Money Left On The Table
Some people in IT obviously earned good money, but how they earned it was unclear. Top talent was often well paid, but not rich, while those who received millions in stock were often mediocre and seemed to be lucky to get free money because their company was acquired. An organized approach for using talent to…
Antiwork Censorship
I’m all for reforming jobs, offices, and workplace practices. It seemed r/antiwork would be the perfect place to discuss ideas about that and organize with similar minded people. It only took a few days to be banned from r/antiwork. Nothing I said was hostile or inflammatory. My thoughts slightly deviated from their narratives and that…
Corporate Anti-Majority Values
Every company wants more customers. Rather than make a superior product by understanding need and then delivering something of high quality, most opt to expand mediocre offerings to all demographics by appealing to the lowest common denominator. This strategy sabotages success by focusing on the trivial, signaling exodus to those seeking thoughtfully crafted tools. Google…
Living in Triplicate
Because of instability and chaotic reactivity throughout society, you have to operate in triplicate for resilience. In addition to your primary career, you need to keep a secondary career in case your specialty falls out of favor and is replaced. You’ll also need to develop a third career as a backup, one which is midrange…