old dog, new tricks?

How many apps does it take to kill a career?

My occupation may soon be a Walmart greeter, if I’m lucky. Which, as of late – or ever – I most certainly am not.

Maybe a restaurant hostess – I could do that. But probably not; late nights are definitely not my jam any longer. I do see women my age or thereabouts behind the cash register at TJ Maxx or Home Goods and wonder if maybe that’s what’s next.

Or bagging groceries at Big Y – but that one smaller-than-most woman is just so annoying (IYKYK), and I’m pretty sure I can’t say smaller-than-most any more but there’s a lot of little-ish people working at Big Y but only one “little person” who’s annoying as fuck and tells me far too much about her sex life (IYKYK) but who knows, maybe she’s just out here trying to survive and never imaged herself bagging celery and Kraft slices at Big Y and yet here she is.

I’m currently holding on to this big-girl job, version 2025, a part-time gig that has me scheduling and booking guests on a pretty popular niche podcast. I’m good at it, I suppose, inviting top-tier sciencey bigwigs to appear on my boss’s show, blowing smoke up others, in the most congenial manner, to book my expert boss on other people’s YouTube channels.

I’m a good writer; a good schmoozer, a good negotiator.

What I’m not good at is learning all the tools necessary to be remotely employed. By anyone.

some but not all of the apps that will get me fired

Currently, I log my hours via Bamboo, send invoices through bill.com. I schedule interviews through Calendly, follow tasks through Asana — or is it AirTable? – speak to the big boss through WhatsApp, and the rest of the team through Slack. When I need a tutorial, and ask IT for assistance, they send me a Loom video explaining, again, whatever I’m asking.

“Didn’t we already onboard this to you, Kate?” But I can’t find the Loom video that taught me, and even if I could, I don’t know how to access.

I store documents in Drive, build spreadsheets in Google Docs, follow handbooks in Dropbox. The big boss leaves me hours worth of voice memos, in 3-minute increments, and encourages me with seven pleases in a row, to please-please-please please-please-please-please use Boomerang in Google Mail as helpful reminder.

“And if you’re not using AI you really, really, really (only three) should be.” Translation: consider yourself warned.

All of these vast improvements to make work more efficient have their own itty-bitty username and logins. So you can imagine how that’s going, but not to worry, there’s an app for that too: Keeper. Which holds all the secrets if only I can figure out which browser and which email lets me in, or find the Loom that tells me.

When I was in college and couldn’t balance a checkbook, I would just close the account and open a new one. Union Savings, Pawling Savings Bank, Peoples, Citibank, Chase – I could very well have a few dollars left in each of them.

Now, at an age when I *sometimes* forget to turn the engine off in my Jeep, and search endlessly for glasses propped on my head, I’m expected to know Adobe. Or is it Canva?

Me — I microwave the same cup of coffee five or six times, and still find it in the microwave the next day, but I am supposed to switch time zones effortlessly.

i can almost guarantee there’s a cup in the microwave right the eff now

I forget the fucking grocery bags in the car, leave my credit card at the bar, read the same book again and not realize it until 100 pages in, or worse, 100 pages from the end, and yet my job wants me to Boomerang the Google Drive template into Calendly and update the big boss’s calendar in Central Time then WhatsApp him when completed.

My brain is full, like a gas tank when you wanna squeeze in a few more cents to round up, and just end up spilling the excess all over the ground.

I’m done. Old. Finished.

Paper or plastic? Even that is obsolete. “How heavy can I make your bags?” the little woman at Big Y won’t let me help. “It’s my job,” territorial little fuck isn’t she. “Okay to put the cold items here? Just trying to be helpful, ma’am. Sorry, didn’t mean to offend, just thought cold items made sense here. Sor-reeee,” she mumbles, like a miserable teenager, while my eyes roll into the back of my head, like a more miserable teenager.

Maybe Big Y isn’t for me, so welcome to Walmart, here I am.

first timer AI image — cudda wudda shudda helped out w the crows feet