I got the “It’s not you, it’s me” speech. But not in the name of love because they ugly and they stay ugly to the core. I got the speech in the name of phoniness and platitudes and blood pressure. I’ve been here before, readying for the dance of self-doubt and distance from whiteness that I either long for or can’t fully survive. When you sacrifice this much of your humanity to a machine designed to automate your blood, track your finger taps and mouse drags, tally your ideas and steal them away, you get sick.

The lady stared me in my face and said, “This is not about your performance,” and I said, in my head, “No, this about yours. Give her the Academy Award for pretending I’m human.” Then, they had the other lady in there, the one who looks like me, to read me the terms of my social death.

“You’ll be alive until X date at X o’clock, after which you will be pronounced dead and doled out death payments. Once you’re no longer on our dole, you may register for the one you’ve paid into your whole life just to feel ashamed you pulled from it once or twice. Make yourself useful.”

And then, from the other lady: “Let’s discuss the timeline for this news. We wouldn’t want to create the accurate and real impression that the others are fucked. Just you. It has to just be you. And it definitely can’t be me. So let’s talk through the sensitivities once you sign the document.”

Then the CEO said, “Look, the people in my position, with my house and my car and my 2.3 kids, won’t say what I’m gonna say. I’m giving it to you straight. Truthfully, it’s the robots. The robots put me under so much pressure that I stopped seeing you as human (even though I never saw you that way).”

Anyhow, here’s a quick list of things I will not miss about signing up to be treated as less so I can go to the doctor, collect a wage, make someone feel rich and powerful and special, and repeat:

1. Action items - Everything I do in this little box on the screen is an action item, for the record. I act like I know better. I act like I won’t forget this in a day or two. I act like your daughter’s dance recital means the world to me. She seems like a sweet child, as far as strangers’ spawn goes, but if that girl falls, twists an ankle, scrapes a knee, cries, melts down and stomps off the stage, I will be none the wiser and you will say “It went great” when I ask about the dance recital. “But were you nervous? I couldn’t imagine being in the audience for such a big moment! Your [daughter whose name I don’t remember] got so big! Where does the time go?!”
2. Checking with Legal - They’re going to say no. Legal’s only job is to not get sued and to prevent the CEO from making an ass of himself so no, whatever you think is best practice is really not. You’re fooling yourself even going to legal when you could just do a lazier, lower-quality version that costs you and the company nothing. Legal is inside of a Jamba Juice, first name misprinted on a 16-ounce Berry Blast, typing this Slack reply from his iPhone — pardon any errors — wondering why you didn’t just ChatGPT this shit because it’s his turn to pick up Justin from track practice and the last time he was late, he lost second weekends for an entire summer. Legal’s going to be alone on Memorial Day, browsing OnlyFans for a virtual companion with a more sophisticated chatbot than he knew existed like, “This might be AI but it’s the best I’ve felt since ‘Hollaback Girl’ was charting and my Quiksilver board shorts still had the mall tag on em.”
3. One interesting thing about you - The intro meeting. One shot to impress everyone at your new company. Every/Single/Time, I blew it. I admit I’ve squandered the stage because I wasn’t daring enough to tell the boldest lie about my life that a person could still reasonably believe. That I was a child soldier. That the only thing between me and regime change was a CIA agent who eventually saved my life by carrying my child. That I parachuted from an Amnesty International helicopter into this job as a Marketing Manager Level III on my first day out. No. I have instead lied about plainer things, like making my own peanut brittle for the holidays, or wanting to finally visit Sweden next summer. The slow death of personality begins here until you are one with an organism whose cellular proteins feed on precipitous ego decay. But DM me if you want to nerd out on Vampire Romance novels and Pokémon.
4. What’s the status? - The status of that submission? Oh, I sent it in to Dante Alighieri. He’s processing it in the Inferno and has estimated an indefinite wait. I can CC you on that email if you’d like. No? But the status. The status is the insides of my skin feel like they’re in a countertop deep fryer at 500 degrees when you fix your mouth to speak. The status is that when you upload pictures of your puppy, Max, and your new fiancé, I wonder if they share my dead-eyed stare as you enter the room, knowing you’re a light thief, a succubus, a monitor spirit of the lowest order. A status-checker. If you really wanted to know the status, you’d do it yourself, but you live to annoy me and the status is devilry. It’s on sight when I see yo’ status-y ass; that’s the status.

This has been my brief list of complaints about concessions I’ve made to work while Black. I will be working while Black again and can be contacted via my website to negotiate a longer list of things I will gladly do to maintain the prettiest life. Regards.