Out of Order
This week's essay practically wrote itself. Last November.
A fresh essay this week has eluded me as I haven’t been feeling well. Anyway, you could probably use another week to recover from last week’s numinous piece — I know it’s still haunting me! Today’s newsletter is lovingly crafted from at least 50% “post-subscriber” content, because it’s based on something I wrote it 2022. Enjoy!
Smoke continues to pour across the the border into New England, reportedly because the Canadian wildfires are jealous that they’re not quite as hot as countryman Ryan Gosling.
In an unrelated natural disaster, children are done with school for the summer, leading to further saturation of the already-unstable home networks of remote workers.
Record heat and other inclement weather are making it difficult for anyone to make anything more complicated than a popsicle.
As a result of these overlapping calamities, you may experience some disruptions to your computers and other electronic devices.
You may notice the following:
💬 Your laptop will no longer automatically display revolting text messages from your disgusting friends, or suddenly preview inappropriately affectionate emails from your romantic partner(s). Instead, these will be patiently queued until you’re in a meeting with 10 or more people, when they’ll be displayed in an unstoppable, humiliating parade as soon as you begin sharing your screen. This feature can easily be disabled by never loving anyone again.
🤫 The behavior of the "Mute” function in videochat has changed. Mute will now be activated automatically immediately before you say something really smart. Audio will resume as soon as you forget what you meant to say. This feature can be disabled by anyone else on the call rolling their eyes so far back in that it adjusts the part in their hair, then saying “Hey, I think you’re on mute.”
📎 Messages will now helpfully hit ‘send’ all by themselves. This will occur immediately before you’ve attached the thing you were supposed to attach, OR immediately after you’ve written an email saying something you should have not.
📧 The To: field of your email will now stare blankly back at you for a potentially indefinite period of time. Previously, it would sometimes helpfully auto-complete with the name of the person who you opened the window to write a message, which was forgotten at the precise moment you open the email composition window.
As these changes take effect…
You may notice exhaustion, confusion, irritation, and a general, difficult to localize “oh fuck, not again” kind of feeling.
To remedy this, simply remove your eyeglasses, place your forehead on your keyboard so that your nose touches the space bar, and fold your hands peacefully in your lap. It’s time for a nice, long nap.
See you next week!