You are an engineer at Big Tech Co.

You send a commit to Humayun for review. He says you need to wait until the IK4 migration is complete. You do not know what IK4 is, or how it relates to your service.

It has been a year and you still don’t know the difference between a PM and a PgM. Someone claims to be a tPgM.

You see the same guy in the microkitchen at 10:07 AM every day. You do not know his name. One day, he is gone. You miss him.

You attend the All Hands meeting. The CEO is confident and visionary. After you leave, you’re not sure what any of it actually means.

You meet another engineer. “What do you work on?” he asks. “Content quality,” you respond. “Cool,” he says.

You ask Jesse about IK4. He gives a very hand-wavy explanation. You nod. You do not understand.­

Another commit is causing tests to fail. You spend three days debugging. You quietly disable the tests.

There is one woman on your team. You wonder if she feels strange or lonely. You are too nervous to ask.

It is 6:00 PM on a Friday. Everyone is still at their desks working furiously, but you do not know why.

The cafeteria is serving your favorite thing today. You wait in line patiently. When you reach the end, they are out of your favorite thing. You have to take the vegetarian option instead.

You have a 1:1 with your manager. “What can I do to improve?” you ask. “Keep doing what you’re doing,” he says.

You compile the project. It is broken. You are perplexed because you haven’t made any changes. You press “build” again. Build successful.

It is 11:58am. The cafeteria is empty. You use the bathroom. When you return at 12:01, the cafeteria is completely full.­

You restart your computer.

Steve reports that IK4 migration is blocked by RH. There are too many people in the meeting so you don’t have a chance to ask more.

It is 2:00 PM on a Friday. Everyone is missing, but you do not know why.

You meet another engineer. “What do you work on?” you ask. “Project Zebra,” she responds. “Cool,” you say, even though you’ve never heard of Project Zebra.

You meet this year’s interns. You like them. They do a good job. Then they are gone. You miss them.

Your manager asks why your commit has been stuck in review for two weeks. “RH is blocking the IK4 migration,” you say. He nods.

You are an engineer at Big Tech Co.