Related note... constant layoffs lead to awful employees. Everyone knows someone (or *is* someone) whose productivity was decimated for weeks, months, or longer after surviving layoffs. Hard to emotionally recover from it

It has been over a year since I was laid off and I have given career doomsday prep advice by request to at least a dozen still employed people.

I would love HR or payroll or tech support that wasn't me 🥺 Talking to some friends who have never been self-employed sometimes frustrates me because they seem to think that anyone who's not a "worker" is some fat cat CEO "capitalist." It's like: my dude, I would just like paid sick leave.

“do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” man i did not know when i fell in love with Creative Work that i would also have to take in their stepchildren, Social Media and Accounting, those little shits should be in boarding school

Sorta my dilemma as well, that I’ve written out and rewritten and not published but maybe should publish. I am grateful for an independent platform that I can still publish on. That being said, it was not my first choice—I dreamt of a stable newsroom job with good editors and a team to belong to

I cover one of the biggest stories in the country so when I got laid off in November 2023, I naively thought I'd land a full-time job. That quickly turned into "hm ok I can cobble together writing for a bunch of places" to "if I want to devote myself to this beat, I need people to pay me directly"

Is “thriving” the right word though? They more seem to be proliferating in step with the scale of industry layoffs. The more sunk ships, the more lifeboats in the water

Twice a year I text @lebassett.bsky.social with some version of "is any of this viable?"

This is my favorite thing I've read in the past week. We typically discuss the job market as it relates to those searching to land a job. But even those *with* jobs feel unsettled and disillusioned, and are planning a raft for when our ship sinks

Hi did you move your newsletter away from substack? drop it in the replies so people can find you and subscribe! I am big on rewarding good choices

The wrong way was seeing it at all lmao

In 2022, I wrote so much about TV/movies/games/comics that I burnt out. The pace and workload of a book, newsletter, and job sucked the fun out of it, and needing a unique and insightful take on everything became a chore. So I took a break 3 years later, I think I'm ready to come back

Everyone is caught up in the performance jakesteinberg.substack.com/p/a-normal-n...

New mural, bringing the total to three. I love my apartment, I love my friends, I love art made by humans

I’m always startled when I see how many push notifications people get. Easily my biggest productivity “hack” is to ban push notifications from everything except texts and maybe 1-2 apps (I allow it for Twitch streams) Choose when to give apps your attention, don’t help companies choose for you

At this point anyone still using X as a primary social network should just be shunned. You either a Nazi or not a serious person.

Please wish me luck

Latest video from @carolynmichelle.bsky.social covers Microsoft layoffs and her feelings about Death Stranding’s Sam and The Witcher’s Geralt, but most importantly, how much she hated The Super Mario Bros. Movie and liked F1: The Movie, which are both the right opinions youtu.be/zoxz-B7TfOQ

Last night I watched Higher Learning for its 30-year anniversary, and storytelling from the 90s is so different in some really interesting ways Also Michael Rapaport was there and I still remember him being a jerk and a woman telling him “you look like you wake up and die every day”

My cartoon in this weeks @newyorker.com

I’m one away from having seen every movie at my theater and three movies away from reaching their top rewards status halfway through the year

F1 is so much fun.

I just listened to @carolynmichelle.bsky.social talk about video games for one hour fifteen minutes and three seconds, and I’d do it again

Oh, this looks FUN. youtu.be/AzCAwdp1uIQ?...

Favor request! My biggest loss leaving Twitter is all the relationships I built there. As we rebuild here, I'd love an old-Twitter assist: I have a pitch for an animated sci-fi drama (think Severance, but animated adventure) and need a TV agent. Put me in touch if you know anyone?

Favor request! My biggest loss leaving Twitter is all the relationships I built there. As we rebuild here, I'd love an old-Twitter assist: I have a pitch for an animated sci-fi drama (think Severance, but animated adventure) and need a TV agent. Put me in touch if you know anyone?

My favorite but not-real category of skeets is people who left the city for the country and talk about the unexpected ways it changed their lives for the better

Turns out it links back to my profile on @jordanmcalhoun.com's Piccolo Is Black Memoir. The video is 47 minutes long. Godspeed. kotaku.com/piccolo-is-b...

A friend of mine sent me this video saying, "One of ur articles made it into a YouTube video I'm watching lol" and I can only ask how. youtu.be/Dl2vf04UCAM?...

I’m all for folks doing the blackout day! Let’s try every kind of activism! Everything is worth doing! I just don’t think you should give this dude that’s “organizing” it any of your money cause he’s absolutely a grifter.

Went Platinum in Shibuya

PLAYOFFS, BABY, LET’S GOOOOO!

TL;DR summary: I’ll be with some great people at the New York Public Library on Monday to talk about writing, publishing, and building a career. It’s free(!), but it might be at capacity, so DM or text me if you’re interested and I’ll smuggle you in

Happy Birthday @jordanmcalhoun.com still one of the most impressive people I've had the pleasure of knowing. Maybe @lindsaybaer.bsky.social will give you a birthday pie instead of cake.

It’s my birthday! My birthday wish is for you to take a moment to share a warm thought or wish me a happy birthday. You can also just do it in your head, I trust you. Here’s me in an astronaut suit.

It’s not a long-term solution, but here’s how to keep using TikTok even when it’s banned

Engaging in discourse?

Please, consider ignoring these Meta AI profiles rather than trolling them. The tech bros are not listening to our lamentations as much as our engagement

I'm great at productivity, organization, and all their related hacks, but turning a hobby into something to be optimized ruins the joy of a hobby It's something I struggle with along with my peers/generation. Turning everything into content or a side hustle ruined much of what we love

As someone with an awful backlog, one of my favorite pieces of advice on the topic is this article, even though I don't follow my own site's good advice

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars

Two days left in the year, I need to see @fenikkuro.bsky.social’s Platinum trophy count

The thing about AI is that it’s that episode of the office where Michael listens to every step his GPS tells him even as he sees that he’s driving into a lake except the gps is AI bros and Michael is every ceo of every industry for some reason

For now, my project for 2025 is to let Twitter wither away like a vestigial limb, mostly for work updates, while Bluesky becomes my new online home. My newest column for @pcmagofficial.bsky.social www.pcmag.com/opinions/my-...

Once a month I log into LinkedIn to see the most unreal things I'll read on the internet

Great news for my game budget: Both The Witcher and Mass Effect trilogies are on sale right now... I spent $11 for The Witcher Trilogy and $5 for Mass Effect Legendary Edition

I’m having a lot of fun with this game

“There is no such thing as a perfect place on the internet. But it’s possible to avoid the ones that aren’t even pretending to try to be better. The best time to leave Substack was a long time ago. The second best time is now.” My latest:

I've written about this elsewhere, but the longer you're on Substack the harder it is to move. I've been on Beehiiv for a year now and I'm really happy I made the switch. The "growth" Substack is showing you is absolutely not real and you will find that out very quick when you leave the network!