Issue #2 April Fool’s? Not You, Smarty Pants

​The Work in Progmess Team​ April 1, 2025

💌 From the Editor’s Desk

Welcome to Issue #2 of Work In Progmess — the April Fool’s Day Edition, where the only trick is how we’re still getting better. In fact, this issue is approximately 26% better than our first one (don’t ask us how we measured that — just trust the vibes). At this pace, we’ll be the #1 newsletter in the world by… let’s say… mid-April. Bold? Maybe. Foolish? Definitely not.

Here’s what’s inside this (marginally more brilliant) edition:

• What actually happens when you “lead too well” and HR notices
• Why your résumé shouldn’t look like a vision board
• Networking moves that should be punishable by group chat
• The office March Madness bracket you actually care about
• A reader poll so you can spiral with strangers in a statistically valid way

Read to the bitter end to find out how to join a club if this advice doesn't work out. And remember: fools rush in… and sometimes, that’s exactly what sparks greatness.

— The Mess

📊Messy Metric of the Week

64% of professionals became leaders simply by responding to a group email faster than anyone else. (Source: The Water Cooler)

Rumor has it, this is highly disputed by Slack users. Regardless, here's a real stat that folks should be aware of:

82% of managers are “accidental leaders” who never received formal leadership training. (Source: CMI – Chartered Management Institute)

💬 “Oh, I just asked if the team needed help one time and now I run the department.”

📰Headline Shocker

📣"New Hire Introduces Self at Meeting, Immediately Regrets All Life Choices."

By The Progmess Newsroom

In what’s being described as “deeply human and also deeply horrifying,” 26-year-old new hire Dylan R. introduced himself during a Monday all-hands and instantly triggered a week-long spiral of self-analysis and regret.

“I said, ‘Hi everyone! Super thrilled to be here!’ and then immediately blacked out,” Dylan confessed. “By the time I came to, I had somehow mentioned my cat’s gluten allergy and the time I got food poisoning in Italy.”

Eyewitnesses confirmed Dylan used the phrases:

• “Just happy to be part of the team!”
• “Fun fact, I guess I… love puzzles?”
• “I don’t know why I said that.”

Veteran coworkers nodded in silent solidarity, remembering their own introductory disasters.

“You only get 30 seconds,” said IT lead Marcus Liu, “but somehow it’s enough time to reveal your deepest insecurities and childhood traumas. It’s science.”

Sources say Dylan is now considering rebranding entirely under a new name and LinkedIn photo.

HR declined to comment, citing emotional damage from a previous “two truths and a lie” incident.

🤝 The Unhinged List

🤝 Networking Mistakes

So You Wanna Be Known… For the Wrong Reasons

1. Opening with “Can I Pick Your Brain?”​
   🧠 Cool! Can I borrow your dental plan while we’re at it?
2. Connecting on LinkedIn with No Message Like It’s Tinder​
   We matched. Now what? Are you here for jobs or just emotionally unavailable endorsements?
3. Calling It “Networking” But You Really Mean “Please Get Me a Job”​
   You can smell the desperation from three scrolls away.
4. Pretending to Care About Their Work to Pitch Your Side Hustle​
   “Wow, tell me more about municipal zoning policy… anyway, here’s my coaching package.”
5. Sending a Calendar Invite Before You’ve Said Hello​
   This is not a hostage negotiation. You skipped foreplay and context.
6. Only Reaching Out When You Need Something​
   Oh hey! It’s been 7 years since college… and you need a referral? Charming.
7. Writing a DM Like a Cover Letter​
   “Dear [First Name], I am a passionate go-getter…” DELETE.
8. Saying “Let Me Know How I Can Help” When You Have No Intention of Helping​
   Congrats, you just outsourced emotional labor and sincerity.
9. Forgetting People Are People, Not LinkedIn Levels​
   She’s not “CEO of Strategic Ops Excellence.” She’s Harper. She likes muffins.
10. Following Up Every 3 Days Like a Collection Agency​
    This is a connection request, not a payment reminder. Calm down, Venmo.

💬 Mini Takeaway:​
Networking isn’t about asking. It’s about offering.
Lead with value. Leave with dignity.

💡The Sports Page

🏀 March Career Madness: The Bracket of Life

68 dreams enter. One limps away in a hoodie and mild existential dread.

It’s bracket season — where Cinderella stories are born, top seeds collapse under pressure, and your co-worker Chad suddenly becomes an expert in bracketology and blockchain.

But forget college hoops. Let’s talk about your career.

Welcome to March Career Madness, where your hopes, dreams, and HR-friendly aspirations go head-to-head in a single-elimination showdown for your soul.

🔥 Round 1: The Hopefuls

Cinderella stories and delusional upsets.

📓 Dream Job barely survives a late-game push from Pays Well, whose recruiter ghosted at the buzzer. Dream Job advances on passion and unpaid overtime.

💆 Work-Life Balance takes down 100% Hustle Culture, whose productivity playlist looped until it short-circuited mid-interview.

🥗 Make an Impact edges out Free Office Snacks in a moral victory. Snacks brought trail mix. Impact brought tears and a Canva deck.

🌀 “I Just Want to Feel Something” shocks 401(k) Match in an overtime thriller. The vibe shift was real. No one knows what happens next.

⚔️ Round 2: Reality Bites

Upset alerts across the board.

🔥 Burnout takes down Dream Job in a brutal upset. Dream Job didn’t stand a chance after skipping lunch for the fourth week in a row.

🔔 Urgent Slack at 10:04pm sneaks past Work-Life Balance with a surprise “ping.” No boundaries. No mercy.

📅 Meetings About Meetings overwhelm Make an Impact with sheer volume. Impact never touched the ball. Spent 46 minutes stuck on “quick syncs.”

😶 Existential Dread steamrolls Feel Something, who no-showed again, citing “a lot going on internally.”

🏆 The Final Four

After all the chaos, the universe course-corrects. The weird upsets are gone, and we’re left with four familiar powerhouses. It’s chalk city:

🔒Security — Safe. Predictable. Sturdy as a company parking garage.

🏅Status — Flashy. Networked. Has a passive-aggressive bio on LinkedIn.

😆Satisfaction — Introspective. Slightly unstable. Powered by oat milk and purpose.

🌴Sanity — Fan favorite. Went on a deep retreat last year and hasn’t taken a meeting since.

🥵 The Championship

Satisfaction vs. Sanity. The final showdown. The career equivalent of a double-shot espresso vs. a full night’s sleep.

Satisfaction opens strong — delivers a fulfilling workshop, gets tagged in a grateful intern’s post, briefly feels whole.

Sanity plays a quiet game — shuts off notifications, says “no” with a smile, takes a real lunch break. Crowd goes wild.

With 5 seconds left, Satisfaction overreaches: signs up for a mastermind, agrees to be on a panel called “More With Less.”​
Sanity steps in, exhales deeply, and logs off.

Final Score: Sanity 67, Satisfaction 66.​
Then Imposter Syndrome storms the court and reminds everyone this was all fake anyway.

🎙️ Postgame Wrap-Up

This bracket wasn’t about winning.
It was about surviving — one passive-aggressive calendar invite at a time.

See you next March. Or maybe just... next Tuesday.

📩Dear Progmess

“I Was Good at My Job… So They Gave Me a Totally Different One”

Dear Progmess,​
I used to be a really solid individual contributor. I crushed deadlines. I solved problems. I even color-coded the Google Sheet without being asked. And now? I manage a team of five people and have zero idea what I’m doing.

I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t even apply for it. I just… performed too well. Is this leadership? Or is this punishment?

— Promoted and Panicking

Dear Panicking,​
Congratulations! You’ve been Peter Principled™.

This happens constantly: someone excels at the job they were hired to do, so the system decides to reward them… by giving them an entirely different job that requires a completely different skill set.

You were winning at the game and now they’ve handed you a different sport.

Here’s the kicker:
You’re not failing. You’re just in transition from “expert” to “invisible plate spinner.” Managing humans isn’t a promotion—it’s a plot twist.

A few survival tips from the trenches:

• Stop trying to be the smartest person in the room. Your job isn’t to do everything—it’s to clear the path so other people can.
• Ask for leadership training. If they won’t offer it, Google it. Or better yet, subscribe to newsletters like this one that call out bad leadership in neon.
• Build trust before to-do lists. No one cares about your Asana board if you don’t know their dog’s name.

Oh, and one more thing: You’re not alone. A huge percentage of managers never get formal training. They get inboxes full of calendar invites and vibes.

You’re still excellent. Just… in a new role you didn’t audition for.

We got your back,
​Progmess

P.S. We recently asked new subscribers what advice they’d give their younger selves. Here’s one that stopped us mid-scroll:

Tbh, that might be better than anything we said above. But we’re not deleting it.

🔥 Bad Advice We Saw on TikTok This Week

“The Algorithm Made Me Do It” – Résumé Edition

🗣 Viral TikToker With an Aesthetic Résumé Template Says:

🔥 Progmess Counterpoint:

Okay, Picasso. 🖌️

Unless you’re applying to be a content creator, your résumé doesn’t need to look like a Pinterest board.

We’re all for creativity. But there’s a line between “visually distinct” and “graphic design fever dream.”

Here’s how to stand out for the right reasons:

✅ Keep it clean, not clownish. Recruiters are scanning, not scrapbooking.
✅ Use a QR code only if it leads to a portfolio of real work (not a TikTok where you lip-sync to your own work ethic).
✅ Don’t “match your vibe”—match the job.

Because if your résumé looks like a digital vision board and says “passionate self-starter,” you’re not standing out. You’re triggering HR’s migraine.

Good design enhances clarity. It doesn’t replace substance.

Reader Poll

💬 Vote your chaos. We don’t judge—we document.

​

📩Until Next Time…

If your career still feels like a Work In Progmess, don’t worry—everyone’s winging it. Some people are just better at formatting their panic.

💡 Got a story, a cringe résumé, or a TikTok tip that ruined your week? Send it our way. We roast with love.

Whether you read every word or just skimmed for the emojis, we appreciate you being on this progmessy journey with us. We promise to keep delivering a mix of insight, inspiration, and just the right amount of irreverence — no joke. And if you liked this issue 26% more than the last, maybe (pretty please) forward it to someone who could use a little progmess in their inbox too?

See you next time, unless we accidentally get promoted and have to manage people again.

🚀The Work in Progmess Team

PS. You made it to the bitter end…click here for The Procrastinators org (because what you really need is another browser tab of chaos and contradictory advice).

PPS. Curious how often you have to suffer with this newsletter? Tuesdays noon our time (yup - it is what it is). And you can always find all issues at Work In Progmess.

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