“Living the Dream” – a mere reality of the life of a working professional. Do you ever find yourself giggling throughout your workday, reminding yourself that these daily challenges are almost comical at this point?

As the Greek philosopher Epictetus said,

“You become what you give your attention to.”

I might also laugh at my daily struggles rather than energize them with strong emotions.

So here are six (6) daily to-do list items I have to laugh about at the end of the day:

Last-Minute Tasks

They never end.

Are you wanting to blame the task giver for the last-minute request? Or did you really just forget (haha!)

Happens to me on a daily basis. An overwhelming to-do list is just a daily occurrence at this point.

I look at it and then wonder, can I delegate it further?

Can I make it someone else problem at the “last minute” and screw up their day?

Office Politics

Am I the only one confused LOL? Who’s who in the zoo is one of my most FAQs.

Unread Emails

Yes, some of them are about improving the physicality of my sexual organ, but most are about jamming my neocortex on what I “need” to be doing right now!

(See last-minute tasks).

Also, the habit of glancing at an email that looks spammy and assuming you’ll give it a read later ‘just in case,’ but then it lands you 1000s of unread emails later . . . yeah, been there. Currently there. 12000 there.

Cold Coffee. sad face

Probably the saddest part of my day. By 12 noon, I found that old friend again and warmed him up, just to find him cold 20 mins later because I, again, didn’t finish my coffee.

Zoom Calls

Is it just me, or does every Zoom call start off with “Sorry, it took forever to load” or “Zoom must be doing some updates? It’s slow today.” I guess. Zoom has been doing updates since March 2020.

Also, don’t forget that “You are on mute” didn’t become the most-used phrase of 2020 by accident.

Then there are the other platforms and their nuances – google meet, Microsoft teams, cisco webex. The debate over iPhone v Android is not the only one tearing offices apart.

Every Changing Protocol

Okay, things might be easing up (in the pandemic) now, but have you ever been to a place where you weren’t sure of the workplace protocols? So you just overcompensate? If I was too nervous to ask out of embarrassment that I missed something in the last office-wide email I didn’t read, sometimes I would just work from home to be safe.

The never-ending “new rules” which sometimes are all about being the “old rules” and then still respecting the old new rules.

Winston Churchill was right when he said “we are all worms”.

The nonsense that moves along my professional life is wonderful and I am grateful for every bit of it. It reminds me of the wonderful quote by Alan Watts: “Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the Gods made for fun.”

But still, I wish I had bought bitcoin.

-Manjit Gauba