______________
Hyper ToDo 3.73
(  ) Walk Cinzinha

Spinal Hub flips over from Zhang Yong to me. We wake up, see the notice, grab our phone, scan our full to-do list. Great. But first things first. Coffee. It isn’t on the list, but it’s always what opens our days. It’s 5:30 AM. We overslept 10 minutes, so we need to be precise. Hurry to the kitchen, coffeemaker beeps—pre-programmed stuff never fails—fill a cup of black, bring it carefully to our office-bedroom. Slowest part of our days, the coffee march. No time nor money to treat coffee burns after all.

Cinzinha, in a bit, we say to our cute little poodle gazing at us, knowing it’s almost his time for a happy walk.

Sip.

Open the laptop lid.

Sip.

Check e-mails.

Sip.

Inbox (1,760). If we keep the current rhythm, at the end of the year it’s empty. We can do it. Together, we have four jobs. Engineer, developer, designer, product manager. Not cheap to rent a half-flat in Copacabana and a sleeping capsule in Changping, plus medical expenditures, therapy, assisted meditation, electricity, high-end devices, paywalls to stay informed about the current state of democracies, and the Coworker Spinal Hub’s monthly fee with the occasional fix on our rigged backs to support the device.

But, most importantly, we’re on the path of converting hard, honest work into dreams.
Yey! :-)

Sip.

No email from CodInfinito. Relief. Maybe they approved our code.

Sip. Tongue burns. Damn.

Scroll down, mark as read, mark as unread, move to Priority Inbox, remove from Priority Inbox, move to Personal Stuff Worth Checking One Day, select all from HasteShop, archive, sip, tongue hurts a bit, wait, wait, wait, ouch, wait. Ok, sip.

Check DMs. Cousins chatting and sharing memes in the family group.

[whenYouFlipYourSpinalHubTooLate.xpng]

Haha. Share with another group. And with Bete.

Woof-Woof.

Almost ready, Cinzinha. We walk to the laundry area, grab his leash, tie it to his neck, he licks our nose, we grin at him. Time for our walk. A medium-paced run around the quarter.

Scroll down Zweeter feed as the elevator goes down. Comments about the logo we did for (Cre)Activity. Lots of likes, bits of hate, still too early to be sure. We’re a bit tired but shouldn’t be. Still not used to sleeping for three hours. Getting used to Coworking isn’t as seamless as it seems. We peek at our wristband and check our status. All fine, synced, and ready to go.

I—Angelica Matos—am in Rio de Janeiro, you—Zhang Yong—are in Beijing. For my western cycle, I’m wide awake, you’re sleeping. I’m tapping your energy, your REM cycles, as you catch up on some sleep and fill it up for me. For your eastern cycle, we alternate. It is said that it allows people to remain awake for extended periods without suffering the cognitive and emotional consequences of sleep deprivation. Science keeps bothering the SpinalHub entrepreneurs saying there are no conclusive studies about it, but we think they don't understand people's needs pretty well.

Today, I promised to stretch until 3 AM. You promised me you’d wake up at 3:20 AM (my time), so we’ll have an unproductive spot of 20 minutes. Bad, of course. Hyperachievers can manage zero unprotime (unprofessional, unproductive, unprofitable, unprosperous time), but we’re not there yet. We’re working on crunching it down, though. If we want to fulfill our dreams, we’ll have to.

Whaaaaaat? Poo?

Slip the dissolver out of our pocket and drip it into Cinzinha’s smelly poo on the sidewalk. It vanishes as quickly as Zweeter’s feed updates.

Running around the quarter takes 30 minutes. Hot today. Hot every day. We wipe out the sweat of our brow with a NoSweat towel and get back home/office. Cinzinha sips from the water bowl for pets in the building’s entrance. A woman passes, heading to the garage. Good morning. Have a nice day. We can’t remember her name. We don’t care.

Go sleep, Cinzinha. Mommy has work to do. (But we’re not disgusting, right? So, first: ultrafast ninja shower).

Done. Open the lid.

Check e-mails.

Inbox (1,770).

Read one or two emails now, and…

Time for the report.

______________
Hyper ToDo 3.73
(  ) Send auto-report to CodInfinito
(  ) Meeting with folks at CodInfinito

We compose an email about the code upload to the other coworkers in our pool: Hi, the code is in our version control server. Uploaded yesterday. Auto-report attached. See you in the meeting! Best, AMZY

The meeting is in 5. We stuff in our earbuds, straighten up in our chair.

Alberto Coutinho enters the room.

Luara Santos enters the room.

Kate Chumachenko enters the room.

The code has a bug, Alberto says.

We grit our teeth. Four monitors FTW. Open up DevLines and start debugging. We’ll get you, little sucker. We’ll rip you out of our clean, efficient code.

The release has to be today, Luara says. Keep pushing through those extra hours, she insists. Yes, we will. We always do.

If everyone aims for zero unpro time, Alberto says, profits will be greater.

Found you, little bug! Ha! Time to rip you out.

A bit of pruning here and there… Some background noise from our workmates talking about other stuff. Yeah, yeah… We all know the customer’s on a tight schedule. They always are. We all agree we can push more.

Did you see the plane crash? Kate says. What a tragedy. Add a reminder to donate some money to the families.

Done. Leave a comment for Yong in the code about a particular line, in case he doesn’t remember workspace memories or they don’t fully sync (but, hey, it’s 98% guaranteed):

# Corrected because the loop was broken before its time. Kisses from your Rio self. Have a great morning!

Release version 7.3.1. Upload. Deploying. Finished.

It’s done, we say. Everyone smiles. Meeting is over.

—8:30 AM—

Time to message Bete. We might be in love. Well, I might be. I think you might know her already, Zhang Yong: Bete’s a black woman with the most radiant smile. Volunteers on Sundays (how does she find the time?). Loves Yoga. Watches soccer. #IntoBeaches. #SambaOnWeekends.  And her hair—running my fingers through it… well, that always flutters my heart. Does that get through to you? Hard to know what makes it into the dream file and what doesn’t. She kisses like no else I remember, but I know you don’t want to know about that part.

You know that I know about Li Wei, your crush. I know he’s born in Tinjiang, and I can tell he’s quite intense in the bed, though I only feel it through yours emotions dribbling on me when it casually slips into the dream buffer (syncing only works for workspace memories for privacy and bandwidth, but needless to say, I think we both know how things slip through sometimes and make it into each other’s dreams). I guess I just want you to know—I’m not bothered by it. 

At first, Coworking was really odd, but after adapting our synapses and aligning our sleep cycles it felt almost normal. I can taste a bit of Li Wei, you can taste a bit of Bete, and we can taste a bit of each other, though I guess it’s kind of cringey to call it “taste”, right? We’re workmates. Besides, we rarely have the time.

Oh, damn. 9:15 AM. Forty-five minutes daydreaming? That is BAD. To-do lists won’t do our tasks for us (but they might auto-check our items to annoy us and remind us how lazy we are).

______________
Hyper ToDo 3.73
(  ) Message Bete
(  ) Lunch
(  ) Dishes

Yep. On it. I open a new message, and click away the warning that Bete is Coworked, and that her Coworker can also read the message.

< Angelica: Hi linda. Can we call you later?
< Angelica: *Can I

< Bete (Crush): oh yeah, i think so. you told me youd call me yesterday

< Angelica: Forgot to tell u yesterday was my day in slubmerland.
< Angelica: *sulmberladn
< Angelica:* Zhang was working, I mean. Sry

< Bete (Crush): Fine. Waiting for ur call later.

A bit cold, isn’t she? Well, she might be busy too.

Open Zweeter. Oh, no. 87% of followers like the new logo, but 10% hate it. Not enough. (Cre)Activity tolerates 5% hate at a max. Here we go. Open Rabiscos and—WAIT! Swallow a FocuSolution pill first. Nice. Now… Open Rabiscos and work. And…Done!

—12:34 PM—

Set alarm for 10 minutes. We rush to the kitchen, open up the fridge and grab the chicken with fries left from yesterday. Two minutes microwaving. Microwave whirs in tune with the DogFeed Bot. We smile at Cinzinha. He doesn’t.

THERE WE GO! Almost 7 minutes to eat. That’s got to be a record. These fries need more salt. Add a reminder to rate the order and tell them that.

Now… Dishes. Definitely skip doing the dishes today. One day won’t hurt. Instead… Oh, no! Head is dizzy. We're sleepy. Treading dangerous grounds. But… ANTI-NAP! We rush to the bathroom and toss down a NoNapill. 

SLEEP BANNED! RISE AND SHINE!

—12:55 PM—

Inbox (1,785). Check e-mails. Reply a few using ultrafast predictive typing. Check messages. Authorize neural deductive replies.

______________
Hyper ToDo 3.73
(  ) 2nd meeting with CodInfinito
(  ) Call Bete
(  ) Break for a snack
(  ) Meeting with (Cre)Activity’s customer about the logo.
(  ) Dinner?
(  ) Meeting with Solugistics

Starting in 5… 4… 3… Now!

A benchmarking meeting. They’ll issue a report on our code’s efficiency. We can ensure it’s perfect, but bureaucracy is bureaucracy, right? They must have some spreadsheet to fill up.

Your code is defective, Alberto says.

Oh, why? No way. We check the logs, check the system, compare the production version with staging… Minutes go by, more than we want, but they go and go and go and go and go… THAT’S IT. A DAMNED EXTRA SEMICOLON WREAKING HAVOC IN OUR CODE AND OUR FAME AS PERFECT CODER (amongst other things).

Meeting is over. System is perfect. Yey! :-)

Now Bete. Our heart flicks a little. We remember her smile from the last time we caught the movies together. We can’t remember very well what she said when we arrived 2 minutes late. Our mind was whirling up around the first version of (Cre)Activity’s logo, of course, and Bete understood that pretty well. She knows work is work and sometimes a tiny sacrifice is needed (Bete is Coworked with a girl in Pakistan herself).

Dialing…

Hi, querida.

Yeah, I’m fine. And you?

Hmm. Yeah. Totally. Yeah, yeah.

I was thinking we can get a coffee on Sunday. What do you think? After 5 PM works for me. Before that, I’m working.

Wait, I have no time for you? What do you mean?

做噩夢了…

What? Our thoughts swirl. We… We—I grab the desk. Oh, no. Yong woke up in the middle of the night with a nightmare. I hate that. Always makes my skin crawl and my heart beat faster.

我在流汗…

Tap the back of my neck. Send the ping for him to go back to sleep before our 思想 shuffle and I (we?) can’t…

Yeah, I’m listening. I’m here, querida. Bete? Bete?

She hung up on me. On us. Yong’s sleeping again. (We’re we again). Sigh. Damn, Yong. You’re not supposed to wake up. Bete is mad at us.

Have to buy a reconciliation gift for Bete. Open up HasteShop. Scroll, scroll, scroll. No watches, no books, no fancy earbuds, no games… No… Wait. She doesn’t have an auto-programming coffeemaker. At least we can’t recall she does. Authenticate and… Bought. If she doesn’t want it… Well, we can think of a reconciliation gift to replace the reconciliation gift.

—6:03 PM—

!!!!!!

HATE DOING ITEMS NOT ON THE LIST. But it was for Li Wei… We mean, Bete. So, worth it.

Now! Time to go to (Cre)Activity’s office. A meeting with a Stone Age client that insists on meeting personally.

Bye, bye, Cinzinha. Wait—Poops!? Ugh. Ok, I will get to that when I get back soon.

Subway. Not packed on the way we go. We see a billboard on the platform at the other side (while we scroll Zweeter and authorize a few more neural replies). A fatigued man with a hand on his forehead, mouth open, and a disheveled desk. Educate yourself on the symptoms of burnout syndrome.

Hey, man on the billboard, lift up your whiny head and work. WE ARE BURNOUT. Yeah! Here comes the train! Pedal to the metal!

5 minutes to destination.

Walk to the building.

Elevator.

Slow…

*

*

*

*

*  (Caramba! Why don’t they make these things faster?)

*

*

*

*

Ninth floor. Finally.

Neat room. Never been here before. Two silly holo-prototypes (Aiden Gonzaga from Belfast and Therese Bisset from Brazzaville—aka the customers) and our coworkers (lowercase C, thank the gods, we’d hate to have them as an uppercase C): Natália Silveira from Recife, André Nascimento from Manaus, Ramona Gutierrez from Asunción.

Open the lid. Meeting starting.

They talk and talk and talk. We listen and fix the logo in real time, an eye flitting across Zweeter’s feed as (Cre)Activity’s followers dictate the way they want the logo to go. Change a bit of saturation, crop this excess, opacity from this element must be changed, hell, this color is too warm, more likes, yeah, keep going, adjust kerning, turn the screen, show to the customers, yeah, fine, no, not fine, do that, don’t do that, turn back the screen to us, aspect ratio needs to shift, do it, there we go, lots of likes, we rule.

Meeting is over.

—8:55 PM—

Open iLimento app. Scroll, scroll, scroll… Taking too long. Get a hamburger. It’s faster. Tomorrow we’ll eat better, perhaps even go vegan. We order an X-Tudo—cheese, egg, bacon, mayo, ham, lettuce, tomato. A bird-shaped drone brings it to us while we walk back home/office, check our e-mail (1,799) and update our apps. We eat on our way from the subway station to… Hey, hi, reclusive neighbor! …our door.

Barking behind the door. Open. Oh! Sorry Cinzinha! Clean floor. Clean bed. Clean paws.

—9:30 PM—

Meeting with (Cre)Activity and—wait. We just came from that meeting. This is Solugistics meeting… A quick one. I—as in Angelica—won’t need to do anything for them until next week. It’s your—as in Zhang Yong—job until then, but I need to keep up to date with what’s happening. There’s no I, actually. Coworking is always We. This is the beauty of it. Two minds working as one, accelerating us to our dreams. One day we’ll fulfill them, meaning we… Well, we still have to decide about our dreams, but there are always dreams. That’s what they say. And only hyperachievers ever get there.

We slowly slide the laptop from our backpack and open the lid. Exhausted. We blink. Exhaustion is for losers, but we have to admit it. Bete’s fault. If not for her, we’d be totally fine for yet another productive meeting.

We log in…

The voices drip from the speakers… Something about a spreadsheet, another thing about a piece of news that will leverage the business to the highest, most infinite levels possible… Someone says it’s—

We’d met Bete at a karaoke. No, that was how you, Yong, met Li Wei. I (beware the bold) met her in a pub. It was a Friday night and I had 50 minutes of fun before crashing back into sleep to swap with Yong. I sat alone at a table, glancing around the pub, and ordered a pale ale. Somewhen between drinking it and kissing her while listening to some new Payloaders song, we (Bete and I—I love you here, Yong, but it’d be better if you stayed out of this memory haha) talked a lot about our lives, sitting beside each other. I told Bete about my work with… Solugistics and… What a headache! I told her about Cinzinha and how the streets of Beijing… of Rio are being updated with anti-pollution pods. Bete told me how she studied pollution and health at college. Our thighs touched and our hands fell upon each other almost accidentally and…

Meeting’s over. We absorbed nothing from it. We cringe at the failure, closing the lid and our 两只眼睛… our eyes.

WARNING!!!! COWORKER MIGHT FAIL TO SYNC. RESTING WITHOUT SLEEPING IS RECOMMENDED. CONSIDER DISCONNECTING ALTOGETHER IF SLEEP IS NECESSARY.

Dismiss. Resting is kind of useless and disconnecting is outrageous. Anyway, Yong, you must be having an uneasy sleep. Your thoughts keep dripping…

—1:45 AM—

______________
Hyper ToDo 3.74
(  ) Leisure time

Cinzinha barks and jumps on our lap. We rest a hand on his back. We should consider getting another FocuSolution pill, even though only one per day is recommended. But it’s in the kitchen, and the kitchen seems so far away now…

Getting slower. We pick up our phone and call… Bete. An avatar of hergorgeous face pops up on the screen. We smile—or at least move our lips. Perhaps our dream involves her somehow. We wish we could better remember the time when we kissed her on the karaoke, singing together.Calling…

Calling…

Calling…

Calling…

No answer, but we get a message.

< Bete (Crush): i dont drink coffee

We—I should visit her and apologize, but we lack the energy to stand up.

In case of exhaustion, it’s recommended (or is it mandatory?) to disconnect from your Coworker and 睡觉… But sleep's for the weak. We … never needed to logout. Well be hyperachievers. Onyl ourselves can be the obstacles toward our dreams we’ll…

A 猫 meows somewhere.

We can reach 0 unprotime. And we can prove it rigth now!! Lest stretch a bit furhterr. We grab some pending codes from CodInfinito's control server—

Or Solugistics? Theres a haze over our eyes. We 能 do it. Together. As we always do. And we got another msg, which we read while adding new lines to the code.

< Bete (Crush): hey i think we shouldn’t meet anymore

< Angelica: wy
< Angelica: wyh*
Seen at 3:11AM.

Meow! Can someone just put this noisy cat to sleep? Anyway, did we bring him food? Wait, do we have a cat?

< Angelica: hey
< Angelica: Li Wei? Im here
< Angelica: plz talk to me

No reply. I knock on my forehead. It's not Li Wei. It's Bete. Bete. I have a dog. Zhang Yong has a cat. But it shouldnt matter. When we’re prosperous, love will find us. Thats what they say, isnt it? Who are they, anyway? A company that shoved down our throats that we need the SpinalHub to be successful or even retain our jobs. I really believe them, though. I want to give myself up to my max so when im old i can say i didnt waste my time. Zero unprotime is my aim. But the costs… there are costs, isnt there?

im doing it for us, right? and for us, i dont mean you and me, Zhang Yong. i mean Bete, Cizinha, myself. we're part of the dream, right, pieces of it.

i shouldnt be having these thoughts. theyre not productive. they wont add wealth to society. they wont imrpove my mnidset. but still—

wheres Cinzinha by the wya—

Cinzinha! Where did you—ugh!

—that must be the dizziness again. Mabye Ineedto—

______________
Hyper ToDo 3.74
(  ) Sleep

slep is for the weak. should be. we swipe and delet the task

we did it didnt we we reached zero—

*

*

*

WARNING!!!! COWORKER FAILED TO SYNC.

PLEASE, TURN OFF YOUR SPINAL HUB.

我们在凌晨3:20醒来，打开待办事项清单，才发现我们的脊柱枢纽已经崩溃了。