“Douglas Gantenbein has worked as a journalist, writing coach, and marketing writer. He lives in Port Townsend with his wife Jane – that is, when he is not hiking in the Grand Canyon.”
By this point — after the layoffs, the ghosted interviews, the algorithmic purgatory, the open-office utopianism, and the influencer prophets promising transformation through “mindset” — the truth becomes painfully clear: The system is exhausted, and so are the people in it.
Open offices flatten difference. They force everyone into the same overstimulated mold. And they kill the two things modern work depends on: focus and psychological safety.
I’ve spent my adult life making money at writing. Not always a lot, but usually enough. That’s been especially true since around 2008, when I left a longtime career...