You find your succor where you can these days.
Whatever or whoever gets you through, you're grateful.
I've relied on various friends, authors, and wine varietals. The good fortune to have lunch with my wife on a regular basis, too.
But I'd like to thank Microsoft[1] for making a tiny contribution to my mental wellbeing, likely without ever knowing it.
A lone person among the company's cadre -- or perhaps there are several of them -- has taken it upon themselves to create tiny glimpses of pandemic work life that drift somewhere between haiku and high drama.
Should you not yet have encountered them, Microsoft's Twitter account[2] is peppered with small pictures of Zoom life -- I mean, Microsoft Teams life -- during COVID times.
Amid all the serious tweets about how truly wonderful Microsoft is on a daily basis, these tiny gems lurk with wink and leave you smilingly disarmed.
A sample from Thursday:
*Waves but doesn't unmute.*
Yes, that's it. That's the tweet.
Another Thursday offering:
Brad: "Hey everyone, I need to jump to another call."
You: "Wow, Brad."
To the lay Twitter rubbernecker, these cameos often bring a smile or merely a positive snort. They're not Voltaire or Montaigne, but they're a touching recognition of what many working lives currently are.
From Tuesday:
You: "Does anyone have any questions before we move on?"
Us: "Yeah, what day is it?"
There's never an explanation. There's only the thought. It's like Scenes From A Marriage[3], with Ingmar Bergman in a good mood.
For all I know, these could all be the precise recountings of Microsoft meetings that day. But who