Jonathan Methven

Careers stall due to laziness, a lack of new job skills, or a refusal to remove that therapy mushroom farm you’ve been growing at your desk. Working harder or going back to school are fine for people with grit or wealthy parents. But this odd obsession with fungi has become a metaphor for your career. You’ve attached yourself to a host workspace. You’re growing out of this company. And at some point, we’ll need to extricate you so we can have that desk back.

McSWEENEY'S INTERNET TENDENCY'S PATREON Help support our writers and keep our site ad-free. Become a McSweeney’s Internet Tendency patron today. June 28, 2021 Scientists have discovered new data, which will surprise you but confirms what medical journals have been saying all along: your positive attitude is useless beneath what research shows is your ineffectual talent and nonexistent personality.

I first met Dean not long after my wife and I split up. By met, I mean I hacked into my ex’s Peloton account to get a look at this Dean, the chisel-chested, side-burned Peloton instructor who enchanted her into purchasing a middle-class exercise contraption that took up our entire East Harlem flat.