What’s the Work From Home equivalent of a fake family emergency?  (Asking for a friend. Obviously.)   Back in the office days, the fake family emergency was the gold standard of graceful exits. You’d grab your coat, mutter something about “a situation with my cousin” (you’re an only child), and vanish with the urgency of a spy extracting themselves from a compromised mission. Coworkers would nod solemnly, as you quickly gathered your things. But now? We work from home. There’s no office to flee, no parking garage to dramatically peel out of, no sympathetic witnesses to your performative distress. Just you, your couch, and the crushing weight of a 3 PM WIP call.   So what’s the remote worker’s version of I need to step out indefinitely?  I could just log off, but you know, rent. The Classics:   -Wi-Fi issues are The GOAT. Timeless. Unverifiable. Bonus points if you send a single frozen frame of yourself mid glitch before ghosting.   -My dog...

Sometimes the people you care about the ones you laughed with, worked with, maybe even cried with, stop walking beside us. Not because you sped ahead. But because they sat down.    And you? You kept going.   Please don’t feel guilty for that. Don’t twist yourself into knots trying to shrink your shine so someone else feels more comfortable in their shade. You didn’t leave them behind. You just chose growth, the hard, uncomfortable, soul stretching kind and they didn’t. That’s not abandonment. That’s alignment.   It’s easy to romanticize loyalty, to mistake longevity for connection. Loyalty without mutual growth is just stagnation. And no dream, no purpose, no version of your best self will thrive in that kind of stale air.   You offered the conversations. You tried to inspire, invite, include. You hoped they would evolve with you. That was love. But growth is a choice. And not everyone chooses it even when you hand them every opportunity to come along....

They say bounce back. I crash. Hard. Loud. Messy. No elegant arc back to my feet, no motivational soundtrack swelling behind me. I don’t fail well. There’s no effortless recovery, no poised resilience. When I fail, it’s messy. I don’t dust myself off and move on with newfound wisdom. I wallow. I obsess. I replay the misstep until it morphs into something bigger proof of my inadequacy, not just a human error. I don’t fail gracefully. I don’t pop back up with a smile and a lesson in hand. I sulk. I spiral. I scroll LinkedIn and convince myself everyone else is soaring while I’m face first in a metaphorical pothole. I get that failure is a teacher, a steppingstone, a character builder, blah, blah,blah. But in the thick of it, none of that matters. It feels like a verdict. The rational part of me knows better, but the louder voice insists this isn’t just a stumble, it’s who I am. Shame takes over, amplifying the mistake until it drowns out everything else. It dredges up past failures, co...

The monsters under your bed have nothing on the ones in your head.   You may need to read that again. Remember being a kid, executing that Olympic worthy long jump from the doorway to your bed, certain something was waiting to grab your ankles? The relief when you made it safely under the covers was real.   The funny thing is, adult monsters are so much worse. They don’t hide under furniture where you can spot them with a flashlight. They live inside your head, set up shop in your chest, and have a direct line to your nervous system. Your "strong work ethic" handed them the master key, Teams pings at midnight, the unread email counter that never zeros out, the dopamine hit of "quick questions" that are neither quick nor questions.   Let me introduce you to the real monsters we deal with every day:   The Fraud Goblin, who waits until you’re about to present something important to whisper, You're Not Good Enough    The Gravedigger Zombie, excavating your ...

I don’t mind giving 100%, I thrive on it.  I’m not afraid of showing up fully, fiercely, without apology. I don’t half ass. I don’t ghost responsibility. Never have. I show up, do the work properly, and take ownership. I’ve been the one who stays late, who fixes problems before they escalate, who sees things through. Not because anyone forces me, but because that’s who I am. Because I care. Because my name’s on it and that means something to me.  I refuse to let my standards crumble just because others left theirs at the door.   What exhausts me isn’t the effort, it’s watching that effort mean less in a system that rewards the bare minimum. Out here giving 100% in a system that rewards 10. Watching colleagues do the minimum required, coast, cut corners, clock out emotionally, disengage completely, yet still get treated the same as those carrying the team. Hearing “they’re just not as capable” used as justification for why the workload keeps shifting to those who won’t say...