This morning’s show hit like a therapy session for the overworked, under-slept, and existentially employed. Dana DuBois joined me live from “war-torn” Portland, Oregon—a city, as she quickly confirmed, not actually on fire, despite the fever dreams of right-wing media. She was bleary but brilliant, balancing mom duties, hotel Wi-Fi, and the kind of dry humor that makes even late-capitalist despair feel oddly comforting.
We started light, riffing on Portland’s alleged chaos (spoiler: the barista hasn’t noticed), before diving into what turned into one of the most grounded, resonant conversations we’ve had on The Daily Whatever Show: corporate burnout and the quiet trauma of modern work. I had just published a new piece about how the American workplace has become toxic—how Gen X middle managers are being chewed up by the same machine they helped build—and Dana and I unpacked it in real time.
The Emperor Has No Chill: How Corporate America Lost Its Humanity
IN THE CORPORATE halls of America, the emperors in corner offices are running a toxic empire—and their workers are the ones getting burned. From tech startups to creative agencies to Wall Street firms, a culture of relentless work and “hustle” has taken root.
Dana, who’s still in a high-stakes corporate job, described the suffocating “return to office” myth—this nostalgic fantasy of whiteboards and water coolers that no longer exists in a globalized workforce. She talked about how the pandemic briefly loosened the tourniquet, letting parents breathe, be human, and work in ways that actually made sense. But the old hierarchies came roaring back, and with them, the same hollow productivity cult that’s been draining people dry for decades. She named what so many of us feel but rarely say out loud: that this low-grade corporate PTSD never really leaves.
Together, we traced the trauma line from constant layoffs to the death of pensions, to our own creeping ageism. We laughed through the pain—counting our “corporate body counts,” remembering the doomed startup Jobster, and swapping stories about open-plan offices and 7 a.m. meetings. By the end, it wasn’t just a show; it was a collective reckoning. We’re the first generation to see stability vanish in real time, the ones who did everything “right” and still wound up wondering how to retire—or if retirement even exists anymore.
What makes Dana extraordinary is that she brings heart and clarity to all of it. She’s raw, reflective, and wickedly funny, able to pivot from national-guard politics to Taylor Swift lyrics without missing a beat. Together we tried to answer the unanswerable: what does “work” even mean when every pillar—career, healthcare, housing, security—has cracked beneath us?
By the end, we circled back to hope—or at least defiance. Maybe the way forward isn’t back into the cubicle, but toward something more intentional: community, creation, and, yes, a little rebellion. Tomorrow we’ll bring that energy into Fucked Up Friday with Rich Kagan, who left his Seattle corporate life for rural France. Until then, solidarity, my friends. We may be burnt out, but we’re still here—awake, alive, and calling bullshit together.
Love you! Mean it!
~Lawrence & Dana!
Thank you
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