Habitat for Conformity
👔 Tale from the W2
I walked into the monthly department meeting ten minutes late. Omar spotted me and gestured to the empty chair beside him. I slid in as an older gentleman was mid-speech, pitching Habitat for Humanity and asking about everyone’s volunteer experience.
I was already zoning out.
Then he hit us with the closer:
“It’s dirty, sweaty, and fun!”
Like I needed to cosplay a construction worker to feel noble. I kept my hand down when he asked for volunteers for Saturday. Eventually, he wrapped it up, we gave the obligatory round of applause, and he left.
Next up, the director called on my new manager, Natalie, to go over the anonymous survey results ranking management across a dozen dimensions. I’d heard it all before, so I stayed focused on my MacBook—quietly building my next Deadbeat Zaddy product while everyone else nodded along.
Then Lillian, my former manager, was summoned to review the production release approval process. When the director opened the floor to questions, I asked about the exact format of test results needed to appease some leadershit layer of the org chart.
After that came the rituals: birthdays, work anniversaries, and unpaid recognitions. Cake slices were passed around.
I found Omar and my old staff engineer—let’s call him Rami—gossiping, so I joined in. I joked about Kevin, a senior engineer I’m working with who’s on a mission to rewrite an entire app unnecessarily.
Kevin’s the kind of dev who’d rewrite Gmail if you gave him a weekend and a Red Bull.
Rami nodded in solidarity—apparently Kevin once submitted a pull request with 80 files changed. We all cracked up.
“This is why we come into the office,” I said.
Omar shot back, “I solved a blocker with another dev in 10 seconds today. Gonna use that to justify staying in the office longer—stay away from my wife.”
They don’t know I’m almost done escaping that trap.
Later, I joined the other staff engineers. My peers, technically. All recently promoted. All married. They used to be in shape, but now they’re rocking dad bods and dark circles under eyes—for what, an extra $10K to $20K a year? I felt a flicker of pity. They don’t even have kids yet.
As I packed up to leave, Lillian approached and asked if I wanted to join my old team for lunch. I lied and said I had to pick up my daughter from daycare.
It’s not even my day.
Just one of many perks of the Deadbeat Zaddy lifestyle.
Like this?
The Zaddy Codex is where the real blueprint lives.
Tactical essays for sovereign men rebuilding in the collapse.
🔒 Join the paid tier to get access.