Penny asked me this morning if she should take her pregnancy test today, or tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I responded without hesitation.

"But what if I take it tomorrow and because it's Saturday I don't get the results until Monday?"

We can wait, I told her, even though I know she is not capable of waiting, that no one is capable of waiting for these types of things, especially in 2026 when the need to know is usually so often quickly satisfied that when it is not, we become murderously anxious.

I said that even though I am not sure I want to wait myself.

"If I get it Friday I'm a lot more likely to get the results before Saturday because people work throughout the day on a Friday but on a Saturday they just take the blood sample and go home," Penny tells me, repeating thoughts she's been thinking through since yesterday morning, finally vocalizing them.

Yeah but when does the clinic want you to take the test? Weren't you telling me just a couple of days ago that they wanted you to take it Saturday?

"Yes," she concedes and then keeps going, talking to herself about how it'd just be better to do it Friday, but then also weirdly responding to herself to assert that yes, Saturday is the better day, and eventually adding, this time to me instead of different versions of herself, "This clinic hasn't steered us wrong yet. I'll do exactly what they recommend and take it Saturday. Fine."

So that's happening tomorrow. It'll either be good or bad. I try not to think about what it will mean if it is bad.

I try even harder not to think about what it will mean if it is good.

I was in low-key uproar over work this morning.

Low-key is a word in heavy usage by the younger of my two god children, Elijah. We low-key got together a year ago and had a low-key meal at a local restaurant. I low-key overused this phrase when speaking to my wife for at least a week after the meetup with Elijah. Yes, this was an ill attempt at humor, a sin performed over and over again as I opened my mouth and let that phrase shoot out of it. I am still low-key impressed she did not ask to divorce me toward the end of that.

But let's talk about the uproar's origin.

I am in a google chat thread which is ostensibly about upcoming changes and events to some of the systems that folks mutually manage. This can be a large sphere that encompasses software, hardware, operating systems, and all the various things that can be done with them, like installing them, or deleting them, or generally managing various bits and bobs within the configurations.

Someone from an outside group, systems engineering, states that we have to migrate some jobs from system A to system B. He explicitly asks if I own these jobs and what do they do and who can help with this migration? I respond with an image of the topology of the job workflow so he can understand what they do, and then I ask if it is really necessary to move these jobs, given that they may not even be used in a year, as per management comments that they are being retired in short order.

And he says, well, we are not renewing the license with the vendor for system A – so if we aren't going to move the jobs in less than a year, then we will be jobless on Oct 1 2027. Those jobs won't run.

And me, the smartass that I am, ask why we need to migrate them now?

I also think to myself: Why is it the jobs that I own that we are migrating first? Why can it not be that someone else has to go first? Is it because my team wants me to go first, blaze the trail, light the path, crosstrain everyone else and so on? Or is it more or less random, some consequence of alphabetic sorting in a table or something like that?

But these are bad thoughts. These are thoughts not even really worth having, because reality is reality and as we say insipidly around these parts it is what it is and at the end of the day I was asked to move these jobs so I guess I have to just go ahead and do that because if I don't then people won't like me anymore or see me as generally reasonable and agreeable and then it's a slippery slope to losing respect and being on the out at the workplace.

I tell him that's fine, I can investigate moving them to system B but it will require some amount of work, it is a format conversion of a 10,000 line file, there will be testing, these are sensitive systems in multiple environments. Then I add, let's have a meeting and get Neil (my manager) on it so he is aware of the request and work and signs off on it and can answer any other questions as needed with regard to [timelines priority scope] like a good little bitch of a manager should, and we'll reach a final decision on it.

Great, says that person from the outside group, systems engineering. I'll get something on the calendar.

perfect, perfect, I say, knowing damned well that this isn't perfect, that nothing is perfect, that the modern insistence on saying the word perfect is an atrocity and murder of words every single time it is used, but also knowing simultaneously that saying the normal thing to say and being benign and modern and agreeable is what sets everyone at ease, and I low-key know that based on my internal directives it is more important to prioritize agreeability over correctness, and that is that. I say the thing that is not me.

But this is not the real uproar. This is a normal work event.

The real uproar starts when the woman known as Diva private messages me.

Diva tells me that there is no way we will be able to retire the jobs in under a year, so I need to plan on migrating them. She asks who told me we'd be able to retire them in a year. I tell her (managerX). She's incredulous. She says that person cannot make that statement. And in her opinion it'll be 2-3 years because of the complexity of the application.

I agree with her. I say I'm not sure it'll be retired in a year. However managerX said a year and so I have to take him at his word when planning other projects and initiatives. If he's sure, then I need to present as sure when speaking to others. It's not my problem if we don't make it in under a year. It's his, and perhaps whoever else was working on the stupid thing. It's only my problem if I'm the asshat making the commitment. Or working on the code. I'm not making the commitment. What I am doing is forwarding assertions and crediting the source of the assertion. I don't know how much people remember when you just talk to them but nowadays everything is on gchat in our organization and the history lasts forever so anytime someone misremembers something I am sure to shove the transcript down their throat.

This is how I sleep at night: my memory, plus the memory of a thousand clouds, and AI running pattern matching through it to pull up the past to validate me. Nothing can trap me.

Unprompted, Diva's next step is to unload.

She says that her suggestions to automate certain things are ignored and actively dismissed, while the suggestions males make to automate certain other things are supported and validated and plans are made to implement them. In other words, her suggestions are ignored. She says it's sexism. I think it's ageism plus sexism but I don't tell her this as I am not sure she will understand the logical additive nuance. I unconsciously insert a third possible reason her suggestions are ignored: her judgement is sometimes empirically shitty.

But then she shares that she almost went to HR because of two things. First, the thing we just talked about. Perceived sexism. Second, harassment. She said during certain projects, "over the last few years," she was harassed. She pointed out that we have group chats and she was expected to be on them and responding to anything whenever anyone wanted.

Reading this, in my home office, in the safety of my own comfortable home, I nonetheless got goosebumps.

What she was describing was what I went through with Alpesh. I change a lot of names on this blog to protect the innocent but I will not change his name.

What Diva described was the number one complaint I made to my own manager when I melted down for the second time in the same year, toward the beginning of this year, 2026. I remember telling my manager, Kumar Shitole, verbatim, on a web call, at seven thirty in the morning on a Thursday in early Februrary, me, already enraged, crazily enraged for a pre-8AM web call, the kind of crazy that looking back makes me astonished at the amount of stress I was under and how much I am able to endure sometimes, I remember telling him: You must stop Alpesh from posting after 5PM for non P1 emergencies. This project is not a P1 emergency, it does not affect any currently running services.

But Toby, he'd said. Alpesh and anyone else can post to a chat when they want. it is up to YOU to decide whether to reply. You can wait until the next day.

Never in my life have I forcibly battled a manager. This was the first time.

You and I both know that when Alpesh posts to a chat, whoever he is referencing must respond. You know this.

Kumar said he did not.

Don't lie to me, I seethed. You know the ranking system. What Alpesh says, goes, When Alpesh says jump, everyone must jump while simultaneously, while airbone, asking "how many times should I iterate and must I increase vertical height target?" To not respond to Alpesh is to effectively be insubordinate, because of his standing and reputation. We are both men, both senior, let's agree to this.

Faced with my brazen assertions, Kumar surprisingly agreed. Yes I know, it is important to respond to Alpesh's needs. But it is to keep the project moving, his interests are in the right place.

I cannot work like this. You must tell Alpesh to stop asking me for things – anything – never reference me in a chat again! – after 5PM. After business hours.

And so on. I tire of the details. What I remember is feeling deeply ashamed after the call with my manager – ashamed of asserting my own needs and boundaries. That feeling mixed with a strange sense of pride for finally speaking up for myself on the subject. I was no longer hiding the things that I experienced and felt from this man, Kumar. I was telling him directly. I understood that this was a good development even at the time, despite the innter turmoil and pain.

It took another meeting of this nature with my manager Kumar (and yes when I write things like "my manager Kumar" I somehow feel like a character in a Toho movie – those are the guys that did the cheesy Japanese Godzilla movies in the 60s and 70s – because the dialogue is so wooden and terrible and often written in a fake military prose way – it's cringe – and yet I write like this sometimes because I, too, appreciate the clarity) to convince him that I was right.

The second meeting, in March, was worse. I lost control entirely. I spat venom like Gollum. Kumar asserted that Alpesh's behavior was always with the interest of the organization at heart. bullshit, I spat, swearing at my manager for the first time in my entire life. you know that's bullshit. he is meddling in my code, slowing me down. He is asking AI to review my code and letting AI provide suggestions and entering official bug reports using AI's fucking output to tell me what to do.

"He is trying to deliver the outcome with the best quality to the best of his ability always, if you don't see that there is a misunderstanding," said Kumar.

Well we have a very big fucking misunderstanding then because my understanding is that he is micromanaging me.

I don't remember the whole conversation. I do remember, during one humiliating flash back, me asking Kumar, Just tell me. Are you my manager or is Alpesh? Which is it? It cannot be both. You must tell me, I am curious. Because from what I see, he is commanding us both.

Kumar insisted over and over again that "he knows Alpesh" and "there's no way any of this could be Alpesh's intention" but then I remembered that pure evil hides intent from everyone except its sole and current target of victim.

Alpesh had tricked Kumar into believing he was pure. I knew this was possible because I trick Kumar in this same way as often as I can. Kumar is fairly gullible, and manipulators or even people with half a brain cannot help themselves from, time to time, manipulating those that can be manipulated.

The meeting went on. I remember Kumar saying "Alpesh doesn't know he shouldn't be doing this!" as if pleading for me to understand and agree that there's no way that this guy who has been riding my ass for over two years has no idea he is doing so. "Alpesh doesn't know that when he messages you at 7:20 PM, and you see that message, that you are expected to respond to it like it was a SUPER CRITICAL EMERGENCY."

Come on. It is a PUBLIC CHAT group. There are fifteen employees on it. If a highly respected person – someone who is often, in my organization, respected above many people in management, even though he is not, himself, a manager – asks a question directly to someone else in a group chat, it is expected that the recipient answer. And it is expected that repeated failures in this area will come up on things like performance reviews in categories such as responsiveness or adherence to IT policy goals and targets. It is expected for that target person to respond. It is absolutely unexpected and unacceptable to not respond to a question from a highly respected position in a group chat, regardless of what time it arrives, and we both know it. I remember saying this almost verbatim to the above. I was absolutely lit.

AND ALPESH KNOWS IT. which means what he is trying to do is work basically 24x7.

It was at this point, in that second meeting, that I broke through to Kumar.

Yes. You are right. I will talk to him about it.

Then I pushed harder. When I watch a horror movie and the protagonist has the murderer down, I always say, Boot Stomp. It is the way I mean to say: Finish the Job. Somehow my secret whisperings to myself have made it into my real personality.

I have transcripts of our conversations, I said to Kumar.

He was confused. "Transcripts?"

Yes transcripts. There is a google chat of us back in February. I told him at 8AM that I was very sick but trying to work through the day to keep project on target and please take that into account.

This had Kumar's attention.

I worked with him and Sriram all morning on some work issue. We made progress but there were some problems that make it take time. Finally, around noon, I say I need a break. Alpesh absolutely does not acknowledge my words at all. There are timestamps on the messages. Five minutes after I announce that I need a break, Alpesh re-asks for the same work item he asked for ten minutes prior. He already knows I am sick because of my message earlier in the day. It is almost unbelievable. I tell him I am resting due to illness and lunch break and will resume hopefully around 1 or 1:30 depending on health. There is literally no response from him. Even the worst sort of person would muster a blithe "Feel better!" From Alpesh, nothing.

I did resume the work at 2 or so with Sriram and we finished it. So we were done before the end of the day. But Alpesh's actions were harassment. I'm sure of it. I saved the transcript, screen by screen, also in a binary format from google.

"Can I have those," was Kumar's next question, popped before he could help it. I could feel he was beginning to become frightened at where this was heading.

No, I said. These are for myself. But I want you to be aware. They are for me, and possibly for HR, if I decide I need to move in that direction.

Those are my main memories of the conflicts with Kumar, where I attempted to outline my difficulties working with the IAM team as presently constructed, in early 2026.

I thought about what Diva said about the after hours chats and her feeling of harassment and sexism and despite not feeling any of the sexism. What I said to her is that there is some amount of sexism in every software and IT department on the planet, unless that department consists of just one person, and it is a woman. And I'm sorry she had to experience that here, and I'm sure she fucking did. But I also said that I am harassed too.

I said I escalated the chat issues – after hours chats, pressure to respond and so on – all the way to HR this year.

Then I immediately regretted sharing this with Diva.

I said "That's a super big secret by the way please don't share that"

And she was more than ok with it, she gave me a smile icon and a hug icon in response. I felt, in that moment, her gratitude for not feeling alone anymore, for me trusting her enough to share this with her.

And I said "I don't know why I am saying this but let me point out the obvious all of those guys have the same culture and they literally commute to the office together and take care of one another's kids so I'm not being racist here but they are the in crowd and we are the out crowd."

I am 50 and white and Diva is 61 and white and the others are all the same, male and the same non native nationality, it doesn't matter what it is or what I say, the point is not the nationality, it is the culture and comraderie – I am not them and they are not me and we are not really friends we are acquaintances and co-workers -- whereas to them, they are the in group and have total simpatico and hang out with each others' families – so of course I will get the shit end of the stick when it comes down to it.

Of course I will get harassed.

This is what gave me the those goose-bumps.

Because what Michele was doing in this chat we had together was validating a million thoughts I'd had a million times in the last painful year, the year that I suffered the most, the most since my teenage years, and that is the god-awful truth, Michele finally let me know, unwittingly, that I was not crazy.

I'd thought over and over again that I must be wrong. Kumar thought I was wrong. Brian, Kumar's manager, thought I was wrong. They thought that Alpesh's heart was pure, his intentions white as snow, always. The superstar, the golden child, the absolute best, always.

But Michele let me know that I was not crazy. That she was the subject and target of this harassment, too.

And it instantly came into focus.

I am still reeling from it. It sounds like hyperbolic language, but it is not. I cannot thank her enough for sharing this. It makes me feel like I am not crazy.

Alpesh is the fucking enemy at work. I make no mistake about it anymore. I stay out of his way.

I told Diva that I will support her in any way that I can and we ended it there.

But my brain will not end it for me.

Part of me wants vengeance but part of me says I already have it. Alpesh is not allowed to message on group chats after 5PM for non production live issues, and as best I can tell, has been held to it.

Life is getting saner at work. I barely did anything today, a Friday. A couple of hours. This is what I want, and is appropriate output for a Friday in a down season in my profession.

I do not want to work high pressure hours and be "always on"

There was also this bit from Diva. This is my only copy and paste from the chat.

"oh yeah, and that triggers them to know and when you say you want work boundaries right. They know I leave at six so from 67. I’m on the road going home. I’m not gonna pick up my phone if you can’t wait an hour for me to respond then you know that that’s not my problem."

And this reminded me of the incided I had with Saty from May where he asked for me to support some work request from 5-7AM on a Sunday and I said no I not available and so he picked the next following Sunday and I said no I am not available and all of this was on a group call with ten people on it and Saty took that moment to declare I guess this means you are never available! And I responded "Saty if you need to talk about my availability I honestly suggest you call my wife to discuss it" and everyone on the call laughed at him and I didn't say it to get laughter or to be mean, I did it involuntarily from frustration, because the truth is that doing weekend work from 5-7 on a Sunday makes my wife mad, but it's more than that.

It is degrading for me as a man.

And that is a new thing for me to type. I have never thought of myself as much of a man. But now, closing in on 50, I figure it's about time I started to do that.

And I've decided that it is. Degrading.

Men are not always available. Men do not sit around waiting for their low pay IT job to call them on a Sunday morning.

I often think about how I am deciding between two different futures.

There is a future where I continue to care about work

And there is a future where I do not.

I am doing my absolute best to pursue the future where I do not.

I know what limited choices we have in the world, given our backgrounds, our socioeconomic and genetic differences. The choices are limited. Your average kid born in Jacksonville Florida does not have the same chances as your average kid expelled through a different vagina that just happens to be in or around Seattle Washington. They will almost certainly have very, very different futures.

I'm belaboring a point. When you have a chance to make a choice, you have to make it. I vote, I got rid of oil in my house, and I told Saty to go fuck himself on unpaid weekend labor.