Plus ça change

Plus c’est la même chose

🧹🧹🧹🧹First, some housekeeping. I took some time off from this newsletter to revamp it for 2025 – more on that soon. Thank you for reading, sharing and being so patient. We’re so back (to regular programming).

I’m writing this in a casino hotel near an airport. I didn’t choose this place; it was chosen for me. I wanted something brighter and in town, but that was rejected. “Why would she want to stay in a room with so many windows?” someone asked my boss. I’m not paying for any of this, so there’s that. The hotel room, compared to the casino, is drab. People languish in a place like this, even if they’re only here to sleep. If these walls could talk, they’d tell you to leave. I don’t gamble, so I try my luck at the bar in Gordon Ramsay STEAK. The martinis are not bad.

All three days of my stay are alike. I’m close to the office, making it easier for the company to shuttle me from the hotel to work and dinner. When I dine with coworkers, someone institutes a “no work talk” policy like one would say grace. It’s a pointless gesture when the meal is charged to a company card; we’re still on the clock and roleplaying. Despite the imposed boundary, the conversation is forced, only finding its flow when someone brings up corporate development strategies. Once someone brings up AI and scaling workflow, the conversation is in full flood. Another person shares “words of wisdom” from a trinity of what he calls thought leaders – Tim Ferriss, Gary Vee and Dee Hock. He quotes one of them while gesturing at his mind being blown. The workday never ends.

A quick Google search of these CEOs brings up webinars with titles like How to Lead with Intention, How to Build a Brand in 7 mins and How to Live with Urgency. Everything is shot, captioned and structured the same way. They highlight a problem, show how it impacts a business and then propose a change to convert a consumer. One of the videos suggests “connecting through listening and empathy” to reach more customers. The advice is all attention economics. Customers aren’t people but eyes that need grabbing and fingers to stop from scrolling.

Who is the audience for this? I’ve been breaking bread with them. They aren’t in the business of understanding others but maximizing output and value. To them, we are but a job description and a resume. And they are the ones who dangle the carrot. Human interactions are purely transactional in their hands: how do I get this person to spend more, work more and or help me succeed?

We rely on people who are disconnected from the means of production to tell us how to live because, without them, we wouldn’t be able to. CEOs, like our jobs, are embedded in our lives more than ever: not only have they set working hours, conditions and salaries, but they’ve told us how to save money, build a daily routine, lean in and girlboss. Remember that news outlets ask CEOs, not their employees, whether flexible working arrangements are effective.

In January, I heard about two particular CEOs: Bryan Johnson, the man who doesn’t want to die, and Babygirl’s Romy Mathis, the head of an Amazon-like retailer. Both leaders use their resources to exploit time: Johnson wants to buy more time while Romy wants to save it. Their schedules are optimized, their lives so routinized they’re on autopilot. Johnson describes this as “removing the authority of [his] mind” and allowing his “organs to speak for themselves” instead. His life is summed up as a “protocol,” a strict regimen that limits free time, food and sun intake. Romy is just as restrained. She mimics her warehouse robots by completing tasks efficiently and barely registering her surroundings. She drops the kids off at school, maintains an injectables regimen and walks into the office ready to deliver speeches already written for her. Life for both Johnson and Romy is lonely, and not quite lived in. Their clothes don’t wrinkle. Their hair barely moves. Their skin doesn’t sag.

Who wants to live in a world where everything is subdued? Where there are no distractions or delays? Where time is never wasted? A lot of people. Women look up to Romy and aspire to climb the corporate ladder – so much that they’ll blackmail her for a promotion instead of reporting her affair with an intern. Bryan Johnson isn’t donating his body to science or for the greater good, but using it to market and sell immortality.

Everyone wants an optimized life, and January is primetime for phoenixing through resets, fresh starts and new routines. Last month, my inbox was crammed with product launches, resolutions and countless job-hunting, investing, protein-maxxing and morning routine tips. Thanks to the demand and social media, motivational content is uploaded and shared year-round. The more this content proliferates, the more I realize no one wants to change; they want to be, as Naomi Fry pointed out, bossed around.

We’ve created a world increasingly tailored to our consumption patterns and detached from its surroundings. We want markets and corporations to pander to us even though our convenience kills the environment, communities and joy. We’re convinced that what we buy can open up a new world for us. But it never does. Instead, our patterns — what we click on, purchase or watch — are used to sell us more stuff. We are no longer loyal customers, but data sorted into statistical demographics, age groups and target audiences. There is nothing special or eccentric about what we like or do anymore. Everyone is buying the same things. Everyone is going to the same bars. Everyone is scared of trying and failing. What people want is a safe bet in an increasingly precarious world. Life has lost its grit.

“I have business hours. What are you doing, calling me after 3 pm?”

On my last night at the hotel, I ran into a coworker who had kept to herself most of the time. Every day after 5, she’d disappear and avoid everyone as much as possible. One manager noticed, telling us one evening that he felt she was “missing out on an opportunity for connection.” I wanted to learn how to make an Irish exit like her.

We grabbed a drink before she invited me to sit at the Blackjack table with her. I watched as she signalled to the dealer, high-fived another player and won $600. By the end of the night, the terms set by the casino seemed straightforward. For one thing, if it cheats you, it cheats you fair. You know where you stand and you know your odds. They’re usually stacked against you. (The house always wins). Gambling addictions aside, you can always get up and leave when the table is cold.

There’s hope in uncertainty here. I could see the thrill that came over someone’s face right before a card was flipped or the dice landed. It wasn’t an obvious tell, but I registered the difference. In that brief moment, there was a small chance that they could defy the odds and make something – anything! – happen. “Wouldn’t it be funny if I really won?” my coworker asked. I wanted to know what she would do but I knew the answer. I was thinking the same thing. She stared off, presumably fantasizing about it, while I did the same. I imagined everything that would be subtracted from my day-to-day once I quit: the ding of another email, the small talk at the start of every call, the corporate gibberish.

“I’d just leave and tell no one,” she said. At that point, I felt more connected to a coworker than I had this entire trip. And that commonality didn’t sit well with me. This entire time, I believed I was immune from the job’s demands — that they would never take over. But here I was, dreaming like everyone else. Of all the possibilities, of all the odds to defy, of all the things that could come to mind, I chose to fantasize about work.