An All-Embracing Rejection

Oh, Dear Me,

I am taking the unusual step of writing to you to formalise an oral arrangement we made earlier today, sotto voce, in the bathroom with the taps running and the door locked.

I am still waiting for the delivery of a white noise machine from Temu.

As stated and agreed earlier, I resign. I wish to resign from everything, except my position as Chairperson and CE O2 of the Oxygen Consumption Directorate at Me.

I have set out detailed reasons for my departure below, I thought you should know. However, it all started yesterday.

I had a job interview with nobody. When I say nobody, I mean an entity that did not possess a physical body – a bit like you only not imaginary, but real. In this case, nobody really equals no body unless you count a 19 inch server rack as your skeletal frame. The interview was an evolving set of conversational questions that were the output of a highly-tuned algorithm built to mimic humanity to save a buck or two down the line.

They should have asked me: I can mimic humanity; I won’t cost a squillion and; I promise to not eat even a single seam of coal or contribute to CO2. No more than usual – you were in the bathroom with me earlier, you know how that goes.

But I digress. I mean, they routinely ignore us when we apply for jobs we don’t get shortlisted for; now they don’t even want to take part in the shortlisting? It’s not just rude and inconsiderate, but actively anti-human, a telling sign of what they really think, and an inglorious middle finger to basic human decency.

In normal circumstances, it’s not difficult to feel underwhelmed and slighted when your opinion matters little to those more powerful than you. We have all banged our heads against the plexiglass shield that companies erect to avoid answering questions. We may even be one of the layer upon serried layer of intermediary worker bees routinely taking the heat for the fat, slippery blobs of the C-Suite, peristaltically squeezing new investments from their anuses. At least we know the system, even if we don’t buy into it. There’s always enough slim chance that we’ll win the lottery or discover time travel so we can bet on horses or choose parents with straighter teeth and more money.

On such thin possibilities and subsistence income, revolutions are averted.

So far it has all been about divide and rule and, since the industrial revolution, 99% of us have sold more and more of our time in order to buy what we need to survive. This is what has prompted me to part ways with the worldly world. I’m still here but I will be participating as little as I can in other people’s dreams.

In particular, I am stepping down from all responsibility and support of principles and practices currently extant under the general category of ‘corporate’. Why a legally-defined non-person is so free to treat living, breathing real people, places and principles with such contempt is beyond me, and you intimated that you feel the same way, despite not being real. I find it touching that a figment of my own imagination is so moved to agree with me; after all, as we move away in syncopation from absolutely everything else, we really only have each other.

In resigning from corporatism, you and I both recognise that it has its slimy tentacles on almost everything else, and further letters of resignation will ensue as we extricate ourselves from its clutches. You have indicated your desire to resign from religion, while I have determined that leaving behind the lentil-industrial complex of vegetarianism is important to me. In future, I will only eat animals that, in turn, eat other animals; it is important for us to construct a viable punishment regime for all the carnage.

I henceforth resign not from a job, but all jobs. It has become impossible to navigate the world at these rates of pay, especially when one ends up giving most of it to one’s pencil-faced landlord in return for a tenancy of quiet oppression and magnolia walls. All of us work more hours than we should to feed, house and clothe ourselves, so someone else is accruing the fruits of our labours. For food, I will hunt and gather and farm; for shelter I will live in the woods and for clothing… well, for clothing, I have also taken it upon myself to resign from public decency. This will distress many of you, but you cannot oppress a naked person – not without wearing nitrile or washing-up gloves.

In order to resign from all work, I must therefore resign from compliance with the consensual hallucination that is the world. This will undoubtedly be rather messy but, on the bright side, I will no longer be required to have an opinion, hot take or angle on the following:

• AI
• Elon Musk
• Geopolitics
• Carbon Credit Trading
• Globalisation
• Isolationism
• American Exceptionalism
• Your bloody pronouns
• The lawn mower you lent me last week
• The iPhone 32 Super-Plus-Mega-Pro
• Visitors from Zeta Reticuli

Like the last time you asked me, before my multi-polar, wide-band resignation, I don’t know and I don’t care.

The position I resign from hasn’t all been terrible. There were many moments of unbridled passion and personal greed that I will remember with the utmost affection. It’s all fun until it isn’t.

It just isn’t for me anymore. Something I no longer want to have a part in. I’m sure that my decision will have consequences on me, but I will wait for my tax forms and I’m sure we’ll get it done.