​The Work in Progmess Team​ May 6, 2025

💌 From the Editor’s Desk

Where productivity is a marketing campaign, burnout is a badge, and “career strategy” is just your coping mechanism with better fonts.

This week, we’re covering:

• 🧠 The science of emotional “walks” that are actually escape attempts
• 🤖 AI bosses who never blink but definitely judge
• 🐎 A Kentucky Derby filled with legacy hires and one horse who actually tried
• 🛠 Ten-day career experiments for anyone allergic to five-year plans
• 📩 And a reader question that asks: what happens when your ambition updates but your workplace doesn’t?

If you’ve ever opened your laptop, stared into the void, and thought, “Am I innovating or disassociating?” — you’re in the right inbox.

Let’s go make a beautiful, strategic mess.

— The Mess

📊Messy Metric of the Week

🎯 Emotional Evacuation Index

72% of employees say they’ve “just stepped out for a walk” during work hours.

Of those, 94% were actually walking to avoid crying on Zoom.
The other 6%? They were crying during the walk.

📝 Source: National Bureau of Deep Sighs and Unscheduled Breaks

But here’s the twist…
📈 Forbes, February 2025:​
66% of American employees are experiencing some form of burnout.

Among younger workers, it’s worse—81% of 18–24-year-olds and 83% of 25–34-year-olds report feeling burnt out.

Translation?​
Burnout isn’t a personal failure — it’s a workplace signal flare.
Are you in a leadership role and still measuring output over wellbeing? Then you're not leading… you're just lighting the match.

📰Headline Shocker

BREAKING: Your Manager Has Been Replaced by a Printer with Feelings

And other signs we’re living in a Black Mirror episode co-written by HR and IT.

By Work In ProgMess Staff Writer

May 6, 2025

SACRAMENTO, CA — In shocking-but-also-not-shocking news, California has introduced the No Robo Bosses Act — a proposed law to keep real humans in charge of hiring, firing, promoting, demoting, and all the other joyful workplace rituals we pretend don’t hurt.

The gist?

🤖 Robots = helpful tools.
💼 Robots = terrible bosses.

The bill would ban companies from using fully automated systems to make high-stakes decisions about your career without a human being saying something like:

State Senator Jerry McNerney basically said:

Side note:​
Imagine getting fired by a slightly condescending, auto-corrected email that says: “We're circling back to let you know your service was… appreciated.”

🚨 Why It Matters (to anyone still keeping their camera on in Zoom calls)

If you’ve ever:

• Been labeled “disengaged” because you don’t smile during status meetings
• Had your résumé rejected because you didn’t sprinkle it with trending buzzwords like “agile,” “synergy,” and “LinkedIn influencer”
• Been deemed a “culture mismatch” by software that thinks pastel avatars = team spirit

Then congratulations — you’ve already met your Robo Boss. And guess what? It’s just as empathetic as your office printer during a paper jam.

Automation without empathy isn’t efficiency. It’s negligence with better branding.

💡The Sports Page

🏇 Descendants of Secretariat Disappoint Grandly—Except One

By Staff Writer, Work In Progmess Sports Bureau

LOUISVILLE, KY — In a move described by some experts as “destiny fulfilled” and by others as “nepotism on hooves,” every one of the 19 horses in the 151st Kentucky Derby shared something in common: they were all descendants of Secretariat.

Naturally, 18 of them lost anyway.

Despite the storied bloodline, the majority of contenders appeared to suffer from what racing analysts are now calling “legacy-induced complacency.”

🧬 Everyone Had the Same Genetics. But Only One Had the Juice.

Most of the Derby field was stacked with horses who looked great on paper, gave strong interviews, and said all the right things in the pre-race pressers. But when the gates opened, it quickly became clear: pedigree is not performance.

Contenders like East Avenue, Coal Battle, and Sandman broke from the gate with the energy of a Monday all-hands Zoom. Publisher, widely expected to finish in the top five based on algorithmic predictions and a flurry of Medium posts, was ultimately buried in 14th—blaming “low visibility and a lack of engagement.”

👑 Sovereignty Wins by Mindset. Journalism Files a Strong Second.

While the pack was busy brand-building and checking Slack, Sovereignty stayed locked in and blew by rivals with a final burst of independence and self-assurance.

Close behind was Journalism, who appeared briefly tempted to fact-check the odds but ultimately committed to the race, finishing second and issuing a clean, unbiased post-race recap.

Third place? Baeza, who ran like they were one connection short of 500 LinkedIn connections, followed closely by Final Gambit, Owen Almighty, and Citizen Bull—each of whom claimed victory in internal retrospectives but were, in fact, not Sovereignty.

🧪 MicroDares & Career Flares

🎤 The Top 10 Ten-Day Experiments for Job Seekers

(Because life plans are exhausting and you’re out of highlighters)

🗣 Delivered in full David Letterman countdown style, complete with commentary you didn’t ask for but definitely need.

#10: Apply to Jobs Without Editing Your Personality Out

#9: Stop Starting Emails With “Just Following Up”

#8: Schedule One Awkward Conversation Per Day

#7: Document Your Job Search Like It’s a Reality Show

#6: Try Saying ‘No’ to a Job That Makes You Flinch

#5: Ask for Help Without Apologizing for Existing

#4: Pick One Skill. Actually Try It. For Real.

#3: Write Down Every Job You Think You Might Hate Slightly Less Than Your Last One

#2: Apply for a Job You Secretly Think You’re Underqualified For

And the #1 Ten-Day Experiment for Job Seekers…🥁

#1: Do One Brave Thing a Day, and Reward Yourself Like You’re Five Years Old

Tiny bets.

Low stakes.

Possibly Chipotle.

⚖️ Closing Argument:

Let’s be honest: the job search isn’t a journey — it’s a scavenger hunt with broken clues and way too many pop-up ads.

These ten-day experiments aren’t magic fixes. They’re tiny rebellions against the soul-sucking norm. They’re how you remind the world (and yourself) that you’re not a keyword-stuffed résumé or a networking event survivor.

You’re a human. With ideas. And potential. And possibly gummy worms.

So ditch the five-year plan.
Pick the weird challenge.
And remember: your next job might just be one experiment away.

📩Dear Progmess

💌 Dear Progmess

"What Do You Do When Workplaces Say They’re Evolving... but They Aren’t?"

Dear Progmess,

The mission statements all say “flexibility, wellness, innovation.”

The actual benefits still say “You can have PTO… if you file a formal request in triplicate and promise not to actually use it.”

I want to grow my career. I want to believe in the companies I work for.

But it feels like I’m being asked to run a modern marathon with a map from 1997.

How do you build your future when the systems you’re stuck in haven’t caught up yet?

Signed,

Ambitious but Annoyed

Dear Ambitious,

First of all, welcome to those of us paying attention.

(And probably allergic to 17-page employee handbooks that were last updated during the Blackberry era.)

Here’s the hard truth:

You can’t always wait for the system to evolve.

Sometimes you have to evolve yourself—and your strategy—first.

Here’s your Work In Progmess career advice playbook:

🛠 1. Treat your career like a product, not a loyalty pledge.

You are allowed (encouraged, even) to upgrade your career goals faster than your company’s benefits department can schedule a committee meeting about it.

Stay grateful. Stay growing. Stay mobile.

🛠 2. Get clear about what “support” actually means to you.

Is it financial coaching? Mental health benefits? Real flexibility?

Know your non-negotiables now—before the next shiny offer tries to distract you with ping pong tables.

🛠 3. Invest in skills, not just titles.

When companies are slow to evolve, the most valuable thing you can stockpile isn’t promotions—it’s portable skills.

Build the résumé you’d want to take to a better offer, even if you’re not looking (yet).

🛠 4. Ask better questions. (And don’t be afraid to walk.)

When interviewing, don’t just ask “What’s your culture like?”

Ask:

• “How have your benefits evolved in the last three years?”
• “How do you support employees navigating real life changes?”
• “What’s one way your leadership has changed in the past year?”

If the answers are all about casual Fridays and free snacks… you already know.

🛠 5. Remember: Loyalty isn’t about staying. It’s about growing together.

If your company’s idea of “support” still looks like a faded poster in the break room, you owe it to yourself to find (or build) something better.

You’re not selfish for wanting that.

You’re smart for planning for it.

Bottom line:

Don’t wait for the system to catch up to you.

Move at the speed of your own growth—and invite leadership to keep up.

(If they don’t? That’s not your failure. That’s their lagging software.)

Stay stubbornly hopeful,

— Work In Progmess

📩Until Next Time…

Before You Pretend That Walk Was "Restorative"...

Just a few reminders to carry into your next "quick sync":

🚷 Being busy isn’t a personality trait. It’s just a socially accepted form of hiding.
🧠 If your “AI-enhanced” workflow feels like a group project with a robot who hates you—you’re not imagining it.
🏇 Legacy doesn’t guarantee leadership. Sometimes it just means you were born into the Google Drive folder.

And if this issue made you laugh, nod silently, or reconsider giving your résumé a wellness section, forward it to:

• A teammate who’s lapping the virtual watercooler for the third time today
• A boss who insists burnout is a mindset
• Or that friend who applied to 47 jobs and now identifies as a productivity blog

Help them laugh. Help them cope. Help them unsubscribe from hustle culture, one exclamation point at a time.

Be the reason someone else has a mini career epiphany 👇 Your personal magic link: [RH_REFLINK GOES HERE] Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Linkedin PS: You have referred [RH_TOTREF GOES HERE] people so far ⚡️ by SparkLoop

Until next week,​
—The Progmess Editorial Team

P.S. We are embarrassed to even ask this... but how do you make a tissue laugh? (You put a little boogie in it... so since you suffered through that bitter end - here's a little boogie woogie.)

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