Are we fucking serious right now?

The pandemic isn't a sabbatical, Karen

Hooboy. I kicked a hornet’s nest this week on LinkedIn.

I’d been hearing reports on Twitter and in my own personal circles about people actually asking candidates in job interviews what “skills or passion projects” they’ve been working on during a fucking global pandemic that has killed 3.75 million people.

My rage monster, she was awake and hungry.

As if we’ve all been floating on innertubes on the bucolic lake of life, taking our sweet-ass time to just better ourselves while a deadly virus rampages and we’re locked in our homes (if we’re lucky to not be in the fucking hospital, or you know, dead) trying somehow to not murder our partners while also pretending we’re fucking teachers and model parents and competent professionals who are not falling apart at the proverbial seams every time we get another fucking Zoom meeting invitation.

Some of us lost our fucking jobs. Some of us lost our fucking family members. And we’re supposed to have mined this time as if it was some extra gift from the gods to pursue our passions and write novels and, uh, I guess…get our excavator’s license like THIS FUCKING GUY

He doubled down in the replies, too, essentially reminding everyone that despite deaths in his own fucking family he had the grit or whatever to keep grinding and hustling and whatever else these meatsticks do to get over their Daddy issues. I mean, what are the rest of us even doing, friends?

And as much as I wish Daniel there was the exception (I’m not blocking out his name because he’s all owning that shit publicly so…you go, Daniel), I got a swift workout for my block finger for all the people who started lobbing personal attacks at people for having pronouns in their bio or being cucks (oh, is there a post coming on this) or snowflakes or what have you. Then we had people like this:

This champ deleted the comment after getting properly ratioed, but seriously. Sob stories. A half million people dead, and the collective fucking trauma we’ve all endured is nothing more than a sob story, and we don’t do emotion in business. I bet he’s fun at parties. And. AND. Just when you think it’s just white men, we add a sprinkle of the white women to the mix too:

Amanda’s not interested in your stresses and hurdles and “hall passes”. I guess we all just needed more will to win…over a fucking deadly virus.

If you needed more proof that the real fucking crisis we’re facing right behind this pandemic is a complete absence of any empathy, compassion or shared humanity wrapped up in privilege and tied up with a fundamental inability to put down the “I’m a Serious Fucking Business Person” uniform for thirty seconds…I dunno. My LinkedIn comments this week sure aimed a nice spotlight on that.

If you’re hiring, don’t fucking do this to people. And if you’re out there interviewing, I hope you hear something like this, take it as the red flag that it is, and walk the fuck away from that toxic dumpster fire of a company. Please. No one needs that shit in their lives.

Fuck Yes Friday

Are y’all on TikTok? If you’re not, I’m going to need you to go ahead and fix that.

But even so, you should watch this (turn the sound on and click the tweet below to watch the video):

Amber Naslund @AmberCadabra

African homicide chicken. He is one of the very best parts of TikTok, hands down.

This man, simply put, is a gift to the internet. You can find more of his amazing videos on animals here. You are going to hurt after laughing so hard, I promise. I aspire to this level of deadpan delivery and witticisms to describe things as “a recently divorced velociraptor” or “Jurassic Park in yoga pants”.

Just masterful.

Anyway, it’s been a week. I’ve had multiple days of all-day meetings, we’re going through a massive reorg at work that’s got my brain spinning pretty much constantly, I have “want to re-enter society but forgot how to person” anxiety and I’m trying to get back on the wagon of health after the cold, pandemic-flavored winter of Fuck This Shit.

So I’m off to strap some of my own yoga pants to this ample ass and hit the pavement. Stay sane this week, Fuckers. It’s a jungle out there. Don’t forget to study for that fucking excavator’s license exam. I hear it’s a doozy.

With love and angst,

Amber