One of our least performing, least-in-the-office colleagues seemingly has been forced to resign. After not showing up at work for months, slacking on all his accounts, endangering one of our most loyal customer relationships, constantly online shopping, and even watching porn at work, he’s officially no longer here as of tomorrow.

I lament all the time that life is not fair… because it isn’t. Mass shootings happen where innocent bystanders get wounded or killed. They never asked for that. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s chilling because that could literally be any of us here in the U.S. People are born into poverty and get blamed for being “lazy” when they never really were presented with the right opportunities or role models to help them succeed. And this scumbag happened to be here the last eight months and get paid a comfortable salary to do nothing… Why? Probably because he was a white male who had favoritism with certain people higher up in our organization, and somehow, that’s all you really need sometimes – that white male privilege.

But it’s nice to know that he’s no longer here, and so maybe there really is some justice in the world.. occasionally.

I have a pretty visceral response when I hear people, usually millennial women who are young, ill-informed, and eager to dive into a trend, discuss how bad gluten is for you and your health. Because you could probably assume that they all got educated and have their BAs in nutrition science, they must know what they are talking about, right?

So someone in one of my college alumnae groups posted a pretty straightforward question that… because I am cynical, I was not expecting the responses she got. She asked what the benefit of a gluten-free diet is if you do not actually have a gluten intolerance. I was terrified of reading the comments until I realized that pretty much every single person responding was saying there was little to none.

In general, gluten-free alternatives have been shown to be worse for people from a cardiovascular perspective because they are generally less whole grain and have more sugar to make up for what we perceive to be a stranger texture or taste. It’s kind of like the same rationale that vegan food has: if you take away the goodness of the animal product, just make up for it by adding more of something else deemed “bad” for you, whether that is sugar or salt! Whole grains and whole wheat are actually really good for you, and it’s hard for me to read publications that say otherwise. It’s almost as painful as reading when all these stupid paleo diet websites talk about how evil beans are. Anyone who believes that should go to Italy or Japan and ask them what their opinion of that is.

I think for me, the biggest issue I’ve had with the gluten-free trend is that I feel the worst for people who actually do have autoimmune disorders where their bodies truly cannot process gluten; these individuals end up getting taken far less seriously because of the current trend, and they end up getting judged for just being one of the dumb millennials I referred to earlier. I also do not really believe in “good” vs. “bad” foods; I prefer to think about all foods in moderation, though the “healthiest” diet is definitely heavy on the fruits, vegetables, and legumes side. I don’t think anyone has really argued against that as of yet.

Shortly after reading this post, I was also craving bread this morning. And because our office manager is amazing, she always make sure all the bread here is whole grain or whole wheat. Even she has our health in mind.

In the 11 years I’ve been working full time, I’ve been pretty lucky. I’ve never really felt bullied (okay, maybe by my second boss to a degree, but that’s another story for another time). But then, for the first time, I actually heard what could be perceived as bullying right in front of me.

My colleague was eating 4% Siggi’s low-sugar yogurt. Now, I understand most people don’t understand how these percentages work with dairy fat, but in general, 1% is like water, 2% is considered like half the fat, and 4% is considered nearly full-fat yogurt. 0% – don’t even get me started. It sticks to your throat, is super dry, and makes you feel like you are gagging for air once you are done eating it. If you eat that, we just can’t be friends. If I am eating yogurt, I try to eat full fat or low fat. Milk was never meant to be defatted, so why are thinking we are eating natural foods when happily consuming 0% fat yogurt or milk? Gone are the days when fat was demonized (hello, 90’s). Today, everyone is still stupid and wrong, demonizing carbs, whole wheat and grain, and ignorantly and blindly favoring gluten-free diets to the detriment of their well-being whether they are aware of it or not.

Anyway, so my colleague had a mean girl approach her in the office, who went on and on and on about how she had no idea how anyone could eat 4%. “Four percent fat? That’s so gross!” she squealed in her mean girl tone. “That’s like, so much fat. That’s like eating half and half in a cup. It’s not healthy.”

I just couldn’t handle it anymore and had to step in. Once people start demonizing food, I have to stand up for… well, food. “Well, actually if you really think about it, ‘healthy’ is subject to change,” I interjected. “Fat is not necessarily evil in itself. And if you think about it, 0% milk is just not… natural? Shouldn’t we be eating whole food in their whole form to reap all the nutritional value?”

My colleague eating the yogurt was quiet, but finally also made another good point: oftentimes food that is lower fat or low fat makes up for that lesser flavor by adding more sugar and salt. That isn’t good all around. So regardless, you’re not really doing your body any favors by eating a low- or no-fat anything.

I’m not a fan of people food-shaming or body-shaming. Someone needs to stand up for those who are too nice to speak up for themselves.

Yesterday, I met a colleague from my last company for a tea break. We hadn’t seen each other since I left the company, which by now, was over two years ago. I think we had made several attempts, but she had to cancel on me last minute a number of times. And when that happens after a certain number of times, I kind of stop trying. But then, she’s been really kind and generous and has donated to my AFSP fundraising drive for all these years, even with nearly zero communication with me, so I figured I would try to make it finally work. And we finally did.

She’s still at that company, despite how dysfunctional it is. She’s in a smooth-sailing mode, and I certainly know what that is like. Two rounds of predictable layoffs have happened since I left the company, and they’ve gone through a lot of rebranding/re-visioning work. Many of the delusional people I knew while there are still working there, still believing that they work for a real tech company, which is really amazing to me. When I look back on how much I learned about software as a service since coming to my current company, I realized, slowly but surely, exactly how terrible it was at the last place.

It was an awful place to work, but at the end of the day, it was a stepping stone to get where I am now. I don’t really have any regrets about them. Where I am now is in no way perfect, but it’s closer to being “normal” than the other place ever could have even attempted to be. There are so many horrendous places to work out there that are far behind the times, even in 2019 today, that after we parted ways yesterday afternoon, I felt incredibly lucky to be so far away from that place and where I am today.

I was shocked yesterday when I read an Eater article that revealed the beloved pizza joint DiFara’s in Brooklyn had forcibly closed due to tax evasion. They owed New York State in excess of $160,000 in unpaid tax bills, and as such, could no longer operate until they would pay off their debts. I guess this doesn’t surprise me given that the business is cash-only (the biggest red flag that they likely under report taxes for obvious reasons), but it was shocking nonetheless given how popular they’ve been for longer than I’ve even been living here.

But what actually disgusted me was that someone actually started a Go Fund Me account to HELP them pay their tax bill. I just couldn’t believe how stupid people could be. So, let’s get this straight: we all have to pay taxes assuming we are American, live in the U.S. and work, and/or earn over what is considered the poverty line. Why should regular everyday people volunteer to pay the tax bill of what is obviously an extremely successful (and clearly shady) pizza business, just because it is so revered? Is that pizza that important to you that you would help them pay their taxes? You are effectively supporting them in their tax evasion effort and saying that just because their pizza is good, that you will be okay with paying them even more money that they should actually be paying themselves given what they have earned. And if you have money to spare, why don’t you actually give it to nonprofits who support individuals genuinely in need?!

Well, I would love it if someone offered to pay my tax bill…

As of yesterday, they have reopened after negotiating a payment schedule to the state of New York. Well, then. I guess their pizza will not be gone forever after all.

Two people from our customer success team have announced their departure from the organization this month. In addition, three others have changed teams. Another had departed a few months ago. So all these departures, whether from the team or the organization, leave our executive team wondering why our attrition, specific to this team, is so high. Many changes have come about in the last 8+ months that have angered or disappointed a number of us, so it’s not surprising to me that this has happened.

What is always sad is when we bring up challenges that we alone cannot resolve and suggest solutions that get rejected. When I say “rejected,” I mean that not only are the challenges we bring up being called “complaining,” but the solutions are also told that they will not even be considered or work. Nothing is done to resolve problems. And then, leadership wonders why employees leave and are puzzled?

There are a lot of perks to being in an individual contributor role once again. I don’t have to deal head-on with these problems, and in many ways, it’s kind of a relief to me.

I was thinking about my car rides back home in San Francisco last month and how depressing it was listening to whatever AM radio station my parents always have on. It’s a local AM radio station in San Francisco that basically reports everything depressing and local: the latest car jacking, the innocent college student who got held at gun point in the middle of the Inner Sunset, a girl who got kidnapped and was found murdered in a random ditch. It’s no wonder my parents go through life always assuming the worst is going to happen and fearing everything and everyone they meet; the limited amount of media they consume makes them anxious to live their lives fully because they are just crippled by fear and hate.

I read a decent amount of news nearly every day. On the weekdays, I start my morning commute with theSkimm and the Morning Brew, and anything I want to learn more about, I dig into later in the day. It’s a bit exhausting to read the news every day, especially since yes, a lot of it can be extremely depressing and blood-pressure spiking. I don’t read all of it because I enjoy it (ahem to the current moron in the White House), but rather because I want to make sure I can at least slightly stay informed. Then I started finding out about ways to listen to the news, kind of like my parents, except actually informative and useful news, via daily news podcasts that give you a brief but well rounded summary of current events, such as theSkimm’s own podcast and NPR’s Up First. I don’t completely love how theSkimm is written because their daily email summaries sometimes can dumb down the news and seem like it’s targeted towards airheads, but I do like the random pop culture news articles and the interesting quotes that they provide at the beginning of each email.

And this morning, when I was listening to Up First, I realized… I wish this was the way my parents consumed their news. It would be great if they heard about the good, bad, and neutral news. It would be better if they heard more about other cities and countries and continents. The world does not revolve around San Francisco. They wouldn’t have to constantly be listening to latest kidnapping or murder and thinking that events like that happen every second on every corner of every street in the world. How does it benefit any of us to be informed of every event like that? What exactly would we be learning from any of that?

The U.S. is so family unfriendly. I never really thought that much of this… outside of the fact that American employers are obligated to provide a total of zero weeks of paid leave to their employees after the birth or adoption of a child, that new mothers are constantly discriminated against when they return to work, that visibly pregnant women cannot feasibly look for new employment, that new fathers are discouraged from taking their full paternity leave (if their employers even provide it). So you know, not too many things, but enough to get my blood boiling. Then, I started noticing it even more when I began traveling more internationally. I noticed things like… completely separate bathrooms for families and actual baby changing rooms that were separated from the main restrooms. I noticed a baby carrying seat in the women’s room stalls so that a mother can properly pee without needing to hold her infant or toddler down. I saw women openly breastfeeding without any cover-up, without people staring at them like they were offensive to God. I heard announcements at airport gates for pre-boarding for families with children. These things never happen here. The latest thing I’ve noticed here in the U.S. is breastfeeding rooms popping up in airports; I was truly amazed by this. Truly.

So I got even more infuriated when I accompanied my five-months pregnant colleague to Old Navy today just a few blocks from our office to find out that they had no maternity section period. We asked a worker when we walked in, and she embarrassingly told us that there was no maternity section at any Old Navy in all of Manhattan, and if we wanted to find a maternity section, we either need to go to Queens or Brooklyn locations for Old Navy, or order online and do in-store pickup. The other option was that on the second floor, they had all their maternity returns for the pieces that didn’t work out.

Ummm, what?

“So basically, pregnant women aren’t allowed in Manhattan?” I asked the worker. She laughed and said she had brought up this issue multiple times to the manager of the store, and he would respond, saying they didn’t have enough space “for that.” The store worker eventually agreed with me. “We’re really just not friendly towards expectant mothers. It’s sad.”

When we went upstairs to view the returned maternity pieces, it was very clear to us that a lot of women were shopping online for maternity wear and doing in-store pickup; the store manager was just completely short-sighted and literally being a dick towards pregnant women. This is just another form of discrimination, another form of being anti-family and ultimately, anti-woman.

“So, I basically have two options,” my colleague said to me, sighing. “I can go to the really expensive maternity wear stores and pay $100-200 for a dress, or I can shop at Old Navy for reasonable prices, but only online!”

Why do we live in such an anti-family, anti-woman society?

The office was like a ghost town today. I was one of a total of six people who decided to show up at the office today, one of whom left shortly after lunch time. Here, people tend to come and go as they wish. We’re generally flexible with working remotely, and everyone seems to mind their own business. Summer time is also a popular time to take vacations, so there’s that to consider, too. But as I waltzed into the office at around 9:45 this morning, I started thinking about the office days of my mom and how this would never, ever fly.

Usually, I call her as I am leaving work, so sometime between 5:30 to 6pm. If I ever call earlier than that, she just assumes that something catastrophic has happened… like I got fired/laid off/something like death has happened. The concept of coming in “late,” or “leaving early” are kind of a big deal to her — “is your boss okay with that? Did you ask your boss’s permission?” She doesn’t realize that here, no one really wants or cares to keep tabs on anyone like that. That’s not how this office works, and selfishly, I hope I never, ever work at a place like that. I’ve told her all of these things probably over a hundred times by now, but she still worries and is concerned… because she’s my mom, and to her, that’s what moms do — worry about their kids even when the kids have reassured the parents a million times.

It’s a privilege, though. I recognize that. So when I complain and get angry about anything at work, whether it’s some isolated moronic incident or general politics that seem to happen every single day, I remind myself that of all the office crap I have to deal with, it’s not even a tenth of what my mom had to endure in her working days.