It is the year 2024, one week before Christmas, and Pobochi is pretending to work.

Not to say that Pobochi is lazy, or procrastinating, but his new boss has given him nothing to do. Pobochi even asked, multiple times, and now he is at his desk, writing these words, slowly losing his mind.

Pobochi was happier in the lab. For a brief magical period, they sent him to support the lab people, who were all delightfully floating in outer space. Pobochi would be given little vials to test, and he would spend the day organizing and labeling more little vials, so that he mix everything just so and run the instrument over night. He had gotten good at that, and was looking forward to figuring out how to use the robot with all the little syringes.

And then Pobochi received a meeting invite for that very day, and his heart sank. Pobochi had been there for 10 years, and not only were all his friends gone, but he had learned that same day meetings meant two things. If it was first thing in the morning, someone had died. If it was right before lunch, there was a re-org.

This one was right before lunch.

Pobochi had a theory about the Re-orgs, and the people who designed them. It was not lost on him that the higher one rose in the company, the less actual work they did. It all became meetings, and emails, and “decisions” (and some of them outsourced the emails). So inevitably, the only thing the higher ups could do to justify their existence was to reorganize the workforce and shuffle people to different managers. Then the following quarter they could point to some numbers and pie charts and beam with pride of a job well done.

Pobochi had been there 10 years. He had seen 8 Re-orgs. And that day where they plucked him from the labs and the interesting people and work he enjoyed and dropped him in the “struggling group” so that he could “help provide stability” for the new manager of that department.

This morning, Pobochi stood at the Tier 2 meeting alongside his soul-withered colleagues and listened for 15 minutes as people complained about a new rule forbidding anyone below a certain paygrade from attending the Tier 3 meetings, where Pobochi was certain they were already planning the next re-org.

He didn’t know when he lost the fear of being fired. It was probably sometime after being told to return to work and that masks were optional. It was definitely before the election.

Pobochi dreamed of working from home and writing. Of drawing the characters he daydreamed about. Of making silly things with bone and resin and glitter and wire. He dreamed of hanging out with Chai, his velvet House Hippo, who would stare and rumble impatiently anytime Pobochi did not pet him.

Pobochi dreamed of going out and being comfortable around strangers until they were no longer strangers. He dreamed of setting up that brunch so that he could meet some nice gremlins and talk to them about their hyperfocus’s. He dreamed of meeting someone who he could lean against on his scruffy couch and they could read books or watch lighthearted cartoons.

Pobochi dreamed of being free.

It is the year 2024, one week before Christmas. It is 10:32 am. Pobochi thought of his Resume that he has half-heartedly updated. He thought of his LinkedIn profile that has been left to gather cobwebs. He thought of the horror stories of AI resumes being read by AI screeners and companies capitulating in advance to shut-down anything that even looks like diversity. Pobochi thought of the professional people who got to make decisions about his future and the horrible language of anti-accountability, where things happened and decisions were made and strategies were aligned to and no one was ever responsible for whatever happened and therefore never had to explain themselves.

Pobochi thought of the crushing weight of possibility. He thought of the countless people who would throw their shoes at his head if they could hear his entitled, privileged, whining.

Pobochi imagined the person he could be, buried under the rubble of who he was.

Pobochi wondered if it was too late to start digging.

Pobochi wondered if he would be relieved if it was too late.

It is the year 2024, one week before Christmas. It is 10:41 am.

People are having conversations right next to him, oblivious to his existence. He is wearing his headphones, because his brain can only hear one conversation at a time, including the voice in his head. No one bothers him when he has his headphones on. And so Pobochi is typing this and listening to Sleep Token. The song is called DYWTYLM, which apparently refers to the chorus.

“Do you wish that you loved me?”

It is the year 2024, one week before Christmas. It is 10:49 am. Every year, Pobochi bakes cookies for his friends and family. He takes pride in this. When he gets home, he will finish browning the butter, and start mixing the doubled batches of dough, before putting them in the refrigerator, or a cooler outside, so that the flavors can deepen. This weekend he will bake the cookies and put them in little tins with wax paper. He will give them to his new neighbors, the ones that don’t hate his dog like the last one did. He will give them to his Mother and Father, his Sister and Brother in law, his most favorite Aunts. He will set some aside for his friends of 19 years. 

Pobochi will save some cookies for himself, and before the year is out, he will try to answer that question.

Did he wish that he loved Pobochi? But here and now it is the year 2024, one week before Christmas.

It is 10:53 am.

Six hours to go.