Hi, [coworker],

I hope this email finds you well.
Wait, no that’s not quite true;
I hope this email never finds you.
I hope you sleep the deepest sleep of your life,
A sleep earned through labor and fresh air. That you smile in the slight fog as you rise to dew
on the increasingly-reclaimed markers of our once-great society.
Once-“great” society.

I hope you look back on the things we built
And find them quaint in how they misjudged what was important,
And entirely misguided in how they defined “value”.
I hope you feel the Earth and the plants in your lungs,
that you see your breath in the springtime sun.

I hope you can reflect and reject the techno-industrial, the educational-industrial,
the capital-industrial complex to which we dedicated so many years,
And I hope you see smiles and dirt on the faces of your children.
Hope you smile too, knowing our mistakes won’t be theirs.

I hope you find satisfaction in the routine,
reaching into stores to make breakfast for you and yours.
Tending to others, to plants, to animals. I hope you take less than you give
And that you teach others do the same.
I hope you know your worth, our worth
Is not defined in EBITDA or MAU.
It’s defined in what we instill, how we inspire, and how we reflect the things we claim to hold dear.
I think you said that to me.

I hope that between when I hit send and when this gets delivered to you.
We, the greater we, face a redefining event.
That we are forced to reckon with our past prioritization.
But, I guess, if all that doesn’t happen.
Maybe, if you could get me the latest quarterly summary?
We’re supposed to update it with the new KPIs that the Leadership team defined last week.
Yeah, no the new new KPIs. I know. I told them.

But, really, I hope this email never finds you.

I wrote this a little over a year ago, thinking of a friend who I was frustrated on behalf of. It’s been a while, I need to check in on him.